 | Paul Ardenheim, the monk of Wissahikon |  |
2. BOOK THE SECOND.
THE
SECRET
OF THE
SEALED CHAMBER.
1. CHAPTER FIRST.
AFTER TWO YEARS.
Under an arbor fresh with vines, and fragrant with flowers, sat Peter
Dorfner, his rotund form resting in a stout oaken chair. It was a very
pleasant thing to note the contrast between his red cheeks and white
beard, and the deep green of the leaves, the varied tints of the flowers.
Before him was placed a table of unpainted oak, on which sundry suspicious
bottles stood like the sentinels of the scene. And half-closing his
eyes, with his limbs resting on a bench, old Peter resigned himself to the
calm delights of rum and tobacco.
It was a pleasant arbor, standing at one end of the garden, near the
farm-house, whose closed doors and windows looked black and desolate
beneath the cheerful light of the summer sun.
It must be confessed, that old Peter was surrounded by all the delights
that can render a man peaceful with himself and the world. Lulled by
the unceasing murmur of the bees, who sung their songs among the
flowers, with the fragrance of new-mown hay stealing gently over the
fields, Peter Dorfner, with his red cheeks and snowy beard, his capacious
form spreading lazily in the oaken chair, looked altogether like a picture
of some corpulent satyr of Grecian story, clad in brown cloth, with a pipe
in its mouth, and a bottle of rum near its hand. Or, in case this comparison
should seem unjust, we might compare him to some Hermit of the
middle ages, who disgusted with the vanity of the world, had retired to
some secluded forest, and sworn a solemn oath, to devote himself forever
to fatness and sleep, those cardinal duties of the monks of old.
Beyond the garden, amid whose plants and flowers the arbor rose, a
green field smiled in the June sunbeams, and stretched to the south and
west in gentle undulations, until it was bounded by the summer woods.
Strong men, with arms bare and scythe in hand, toiled among the grass,
scattering swarths of fragrant hay as they hurried along. Tired cattle
were grouped in the shade, on the verge of the wood; aldermanic oxen
and matronly cows, snuffing the scent of the new-mown hay, from which
they were separated by that kind of rural architecture, known in grave annals
as “Worm Fence.” Now and then, the sound of the whetstone applied
to the scythe, came merrily over the field, mingled with the lowing
of cattle, and the subdued murmur of the hidden stream.
Summer was upon the scene, in all the freshness and beauty of June.
There was a serene sky, only varied by passing clouds, who turned their
white bosoms to the sun, and floated slowly over the woods. There
was a drowsy fragrance in the very air, a fulness of intoxicating odours;
and the bees among the flowers, the lowing cattle grouped in the shadows,
the clang of the scythe, and the indistinct sound of the wood-hidden Wissahikon,
formed the music of the scene, a very lulling music altogether,
full of summer and voluptuous as June.
But the old farm-house looked sad and deserted. There were green
vines trailing about its steep roof, and flinging their leaves, their flowers,
from the very point of the high gable; the chesnut tree was glorious with
verdure, but the doors of the farm-house, the closed shutters, gave it a
lonely and desolate appearance.
Secluded in the arbor, his only companions the pipe and the bottles,
Peter Dorfner took his ease, and winked sleepily at care, as though there
was never a thing like trouble in the world.
Two years have passed since we beheld him last, two years full of interest
and incident, and the face of Peter discloses more wrinkles about
the eyes, more fatness in the cheeks, a sublimer rotundity about the form.
Brown waistcoat loosened, hose ungartered, and cravat thrown aside,
Peter languidly smoked his pipe, and seemed hesitating for a moment, ere
he entered the domains of that ancient empire, known to philosophers and
poets as the Land of Nod.
Rousing himself for a moment, he exclaimed, in a sleepy tone, “Sam
I say! Where are you, you blind devil?”
In answer to this bland inquiry, a voice was heard—
“I'se here, Massa. I is,” and, starting from a nook of the arbor over-shadowed
by foliage, the blind Negro appeared in the light, his sightless
eyeballs rolling in their sockets.
“Fill my glass and fix my pipe, or—or—”
The good Peter Dorfner was fast asleep. With his head resting on
one shoulder, and his gouty hands placed on his paunch, he had dropped
into the land of dreams. Corpulent dreams, no doubt, blooming in fatness,
with pipes between their lips, and beakers of rum-punch in their
hands.
Black Sam, dressed in a suit of coarse gray homespun, stood behind
his master's chair, listening with great earnestness, while his forehead
became corrugated with innumerable wrinkles, his thick lips were
distorted in a grin, and his eyeballs rolled unceasingly in their sockets.
“Are yo' 'sleep, Massa?” he whispered—then listened for a moment—
“He am 'sleep, by gum,” he added, in a tone that was scarcely audible.
Then, raising his black hands, seamed with scars and knotted in the
joints, above the white hairs of the sleeping old man, Black Sam stood
for a moment with his sightless eyeballs lifted toward Heaven. An
black as soot, contrasted with the hair, which, frosted by age, resembled
white wool, was in truth most horrible to behold. Clenching his knotted
fingers, the negro uttered certain words, not in broken English, but in
some unknown tongue, perchance the language of his clime and race.
The good Peter Dorfner snored in his slumber; a substantial snore,
which, had it taken a form to itself, might certainly have appeared in the
shape of a full-blown poppy, overcome with liquor and tired for want of
sleep. In his corpulent slumber, lulled by obese dreams, with pipes in
their lips and mugs of rum in their hands, the convivial Peter did not for
a moment chance to think of the black visage which scowled above him,
while lips distorted by rage muttered vengeance upon his head.
“Punch—don't know how to make punch?” Peter murmured in his
sleep, with a chuckle that seemed choked to death, while on its way from
his chest to his lips. “Some first-rate whiskey—Irish, if you can get it
—a spice of lemon peel—a—a—”
Peter ended the injunction with a snore, while the negro cautiously
placed one hand upon the breast of the sleeping man, and with the other
brandished a common table-knife, sharpened to a point.
Again those words in the unknown tongue, accompanied by the
hideous cortortion, and then the Negro muttered in broken English—
“For sixteen—seventeen year, dis nigga watch his time. Sometime
he tink he put pisen in yo' drink. Sometime come to yo' bed an' choke
yo' in yo' dam sleep. Now he no fail!”
How lightly that brawny left hand touched the breast of the slumbering
man, as if to mark the point of the intended blow, while the knife,
clenched in the uplifted right hand, shone with its sharpened point over
the old man's head!
Certainly the negro was a maniac; a poor wretch, deprived of sight
and reason. Else wherefore should he wish to stab the good old man
who had fed him at his table, and given him to drink of his cup, for so
many years? Perchance some memory of a petty slight, received long
years before, nerved the negro's arm; it may have been that the blind
man had been stolen from Africa, and cherished a mad resentment against
every member of the white race.
The knife glittered faintly in the negro's grasp, as, hidden by the
foliage of the arbor, he silently prepared himself for his work of murder.
“Sam kin feel yo' heart, ole boy—dere's for de white woman and de
little chile—dere—”
The knife descended, urged by an arm that was nerved by madness—
perchance by revenge.
“Wait a minute, my dark friend, and you may kill him at your leisure,”
said a bland voice.
The negro could not see, but he felt that a third person was present at
his hand. He sank on the gravel which formed the floor of the arbor,
and, in a whispering tone, begged for mercy.
“By gum, dis nigga no 'tend to hurt Massa Dorfen one little hair!
Dat am trut, so it am—Massa! Massa! Don't hurt ole Sam—”
“Will you be still, my dear charcoal? Will you stop your cursed hullabaloo?
Or shall I just put a pistol to your head, and blow you into
several pieces?”
The poor wretch, cowering on the gravel, heard the bland voice, felt
the cold muzzle of the pistol pressing against his temple, and then muttered
faintly—“Kill de nigga, but don't wake de old boy!”
The voice of the unknown was heard again, rising into a jovial shout—
“Dorfner, I say! Hello, man, is this the way you treat your friends—
stir yourself, or I'll drink your liquor and stick the neck of an empty
bottle in your yawning jaws. Dorfner, I say!”
Started by the clamor, Peter unclosed his eyes, and looked around with
the peculiarly vacant glance of a corpulent gentleman aroused from a
pleasant slumber.
“Good morning, friend,” he slowly said—“Why, what in the d—l
have we here?”
Peter removed his feet from the table, started erect in his chair, and
looked in the face of the intruder with an expression of ludicrous surprise.
It was a very grave, sober-looking gentleman who stood before him,
with his back to the afternoon sun, and his head and shoulders relieved
by a glimpse of the blue sky, smiling beyond the distant woods. A very
grave, sedate personage, indeed, dressed in black cloth from head to foot,
with cravat and ruffles of inexpressible whiteness, and silver buckles about
the knees and feet.
It is true that this sombre costume gave a somewhat singular boldness
to the marked outline of his figure, which in the body resembled a barrel,
and in the lower limbs suggested the idea of bean-poles, or something
excessively lank and thin, supporting something particularly round
and fat.
Beneath the black hat which the stranger wore, appeared or rather
shone a very sober countenance, with eyes like minute points of glass,
sparkling in a flame, cheeks red as Etna, a little nose that could hardly
be called a nose, and a mouth which threatened every move to invade the
ears and take possession of the back part of the head.
It was a marked face, no doubt, and, notwithstanding its demure expression,
was well calculated to excite tears of—laughter.
“Peter,” said the stranger, quite blandly, as, with his large right hand,
half-concealed by an enormous ruffle, he described a circle in the air—
“Peter, my friend, allow me to subside into a little decorous emotion on
this interesting occasion. It is a long time since I have seen you, Peter
old, my boy—we grow old—it was the remark of an ancient sage, no less
renowned for the majesty of his head, than the strength of his heart,—it
was his remark, Peter—and it shows an expansive thought, my boy,—
that—that—shall I repeat the remark, my dear Peter?”
The old man passed his hands over his white beard, thrust his fingers
in the corners of his eyes, twitched at his gaiters, and shook his fat frame,
like a frolicsome dog, who has been indulging in a bath.
“Am I awake, or am I dreamin'? Sam! I say, Sam! come here, you
scoundrel, and let me pinch you, so that I may know whether I am asleep
or not. S-a-m!”
But Sam did not appear—crouching behind the oaken chair of his
master, he wished to seclude himself from public view, with a modesty
worthy of an ancient hermit.
“Shall I repeat the remark, Peter?” continued the stranger, bowing
profoundly.
“In the first place,—” grunted Dorfner—“You'll be so kind as to tell
us who you are, and what you want, and then take yourself off, as quick
as your legs will carry you. You have legs—eh?”
The old fellow smiled like a blustery March day, relenting all at once
into the First of April. By no means discomposed, the stranger placed his
hand upon his breast, lowered his head, and stood for a moment in an
attitude of profound meditation.
“To think of an event and a day like this!” he exclaimed, in a tone
whose shrillness reminded one of the voice of some demure spinster, who,
having refused fifty-one offers of marriage, has settled down at last, into
the Censor of a small neighborhood—“Here I am after a long absence,
and there is Peter! I have thought of the blessed meeting—dreamed of
it! I come at last; I see him—not encompassed by the cares of the world,
but sitting in an arbor, with a white beard and a bottle of rum, and five
strapping fellows mowin' hay in the distance. It is thus I see him—
—thus—regaled by the combined fragrance of new-mown hay and black
strap, and he does not know me!”
The poor fellow was lost in grief. Burying his face in his large hands,
he stood opposite the astonished Peter, a picture of despair.
“Sam, S-a-m, I say! You black rascal, come here and tell me, in the
name of Satan, who is this fellow?”
“He don't know me yet,” soliloquized the stranger, rubbing the tip of
his nose with the forefinger of his right hand—“Cast your eyes through
the dim vistas of memory, and call to mind that touching night, when we
all got drunk together—Will you, my dear?”
“Why, it is—Jacopo!” ejaculated Dorfner, with eyes like saucers.
“Jacopo? That was my name, my love. Your venerable exterior serves
to remind me of it—painfully. But now, since I have taken orders, and
the Reverend Jacob James.”
“You wear a gown! you preach! Ho, ho, ho—I should like to hear you.
Git up on that bench and give us a slice o' divinity, will you?”
Jacopo, or the Reverend Jacob James, as he now designates himself,
took a seat on the bench near the chair of the old man, and in affecting
silence proceeded to fill a glass with a great deal of rum and a very small
portion of water. After which he drank the mixture with a sigh of calm
delight.
“How is it with you, old boy?” He slapped Mr. Dorfner on the
shoulder.
“Purty well, I thank you,—how's yourself?”
“Poorly—poo-r-ly,” sighed Jacopo, filling a pipe, and striking a light
from a tinder-box, which stood among the bottles—“My labors for the
regeneration of my species, and so on, have struck into my pulmonaries.
Don't you see how thin I am?”
The old man struggled with a fit of laughter, which seemed determined
to choke him to death. The wide mouth, little nose, diminutive eyes and
red cheeks of Jacopo, all subdued by an expression of exemplary
sobriety, contrasted somewhat ludricrously with his rotund form and
spider legs.
“Droll as ever,” laughed old Peter—“You'll be the death o' me, you
dog. Where have you been these two years, and—” Peter glanced stealthily
around the arbor—“Where's your master—John—eh?”
“I have discharged him. He did not suit me,” replied Jacopo, elaborating
another glass of rum and water. “By-the-bye, how do things go
with you? It's now a matter of two years and six months since we
parted. What's the matter—hey? Your house shut up like a tomb?
Where's the little girl—Madeline—Hello! the old man's choking to
death, with a gallopin' consumption—”
The cheerful visage of the benevolent Peter grew pale and then deep
purple; his eyes were fixed, and indeed his changed countenance manifested
various indications of an apoplectic fit.
Jacopo revived him by a copious bath of rum and water, dashed
violently in his face. It was some moments, however, before the good
man revived.
“Sich a pain as I had—sich a stitch in my side—ugh! I feel quite cold.
Mix me a leetle rum and light me a pipe, will you?”
Jacopo obeyed. With a tenderness that was quite filial, he prepared the
draught and the pipe. The old man's white beard was presently obscured
by a veil of tobacco smoke.
“You asked after Madeline,” he said, quite calmly, with his eyes
twinkling from the half-closed lids—“We never heard of her since that
night. There was blood upon the floor, but that was all.”
“And the hunter—Tom, I think they called him?”
“Gilbert,—Gilbert—never heard o' him nayther,” mumbled Peter, without
removing the pipe from his lips.
“You don't say! A girl and a boy disappear on one night—it looks as
if they went off together—”
“Or as if he took her off and then made tracks himself—” suggested
Dorfner, with a singular twinkle in his half-shut eyes.
“How's matters about here just now, anyhow? Eh? King or Country?
Which way do you drink?”
“That is a ticklish question. There's a great deal to be said on both
sides, but I s'pose you won't object to fill a glass to His Majesty, God
bless him!”
The good old man lifted his hand as if to raise his hat from his head,
but finding nothing like a hat, he apologized by raising the glass to
his lips.
“King, God bless him,” cried Jacopo, “or, Continental Congress—I
don't care a tuppence which.”
“Hey? what kind of man are you, anyhow? A—”
—“Man just like yourself, fond of peace and plenty, quietness and
tobacco, sound principles and Jamaica rum. Tut—tut, Peter. Why
should you and I quarrel about these trifling things? What difference
does it make to us, whether we have a King George or a King Washington?”
Jacopo winked rather familiarly at the old man, and placing his spindle-shanks
upon the table, leaned against the frame-work of the arbor, while
each corner of his extensive mouth emitted a cloud of bluish smoke.
Dorfner regarded him with half-shut eyes, and yet with a look of searching
scrutiny. Two years had not indeed given more wrinkles to the bluff
countenance of the old man, or stolen a solitary tint from his blooming
cheeks, but his intellect seemed impaired, his memory confused and dim.
Even as he gazed sidelong into the complacent visage of Jacopo, he murmured—“Queer
fellow—queer! Where have I seen him? Odd—droll
—queer!”
“That was quite a touching incident,” exclaimed Jacopo, after a long
pause—“It melted me. I was all brandy and tears.”
“What are you drivin' at?” cried Peter, still eyeing his eccentric
companion.
“It was so very affecting. It worked upon me like peppered brandy.
It seemed to touch you a little—just a little—”
Jacopo uttered these words without the slightest change in the grotesque
complacency of his face; his feet were on the table, the pipe between his
lips, and the glass of rum in his hand.
Peter opened his eyes. He regarded his friend with a wild stare.
“You were saying something, but whether my head is thick, or
the same to you, speak it in English—”
“Why, Peter,” said Jacopo, eyeing with calm satisfaction a puff of
smoke which floated slowly upward toward the fragrant ceiling of the
arbor—“I was just thinking of the poor girl—Amelia Caroline, I think you
call her?”
“Madeline,” said the old man rather sharply.
“Madeline: that's it. (Do you observe that cloud of smoke? how much
it looks like his blessed Majesty—there's his nose)—Madeline. That's
the name. What a scene when she woke from her faintin' fit on that
night! I never could get her words out of my mind—could you, Peter?”
“What words?”
The old man laid his pipe on the table, and rested his cheeks between
his hands, his eyes growing brighter and larger as he gazed steadily into
the face of the immovable Jacopo.
“Just watch that puff, will you? Did ever you see sich a capital
Turk's head—the nose is perfect!—Oh, as to the girl's words, I can't of
course remember them, but you know, that she said something about her
mother being put out of the way, some eighteen years before—”
“The d—l she did!” Peter's lips parted, disclosing his white teeth
set firmly together.
“Can't you call to mind? Peter, you are dull. How her mother was
brought to the farm-house of Wissahikon, and `while in the pains of a
mother's anguish—' You remember, Peter?”
Jacopo did not cast his gaze toward the face of the old man; indeed he
seemed to avoid his glance. But, had he looked into that face, he would
have encountered an expression of ferocity, such as is not oftentime
coupled with venerable hair and white beard.
The old man did not speak a word in reply, but sank back into his
chair and closed his eyes.
After a moment, Jacopo ventured to turn his gaze—ventured, we say,
for he seemed conscious that he was provoking the rage of a man who
was neither to be trusted nor despised.
“There he sits, like a venerable Pope, fast asleep among seventeen
Cardinals. It is a glorious picture! O for the pencil of a Vandyke, a
Godfrey Kneller, or a Michael Angelo, to sketch that nose, and make that
beard eternal in white paint and canvass! What a dear old man he is,
after all—such traits of virtue amid his fatness, such streaks of worth
amid his ripeness!”
With ejaculations such as these, Jacopo watched the slumbering man,
murmuring now and then in an undertone—“What a perfect old devil—
shouldn't wonder if he had a hoof and two claws.”
“The dear old 'possum!” he resumed in a loud voice—“He thinks
he'll make believe to be fast asleep, so that I can drink his liquor at my
But no—he is asleep—ah, that snore—a snore that seems to sit in his
nose like a monk in a cloister, and sings hoarse anthems in praise of fatness—Peter,
I say! Wake up and drink, will you?”
The corpulent Peter unclosed his eyes.
“You there yet?” he said, in a gruff tone.
“Did you think I'd leave you? Why, I mean to stay all night with
you, and we'll have a good time together, and then to-morrow you may
over-persuade me to stay for a few days more. I am of an obliging disposition.
When I was in Italy, the Pope remarked in the most delicate
manner, `My dear Jack,' says he—we were taking a few bottles
together in a private chamber in the Vatican—`My dear Jack—' says he
—for he called me Jack for short—”
The remark uttered by the Pope to his friend Jack, while taking a few
bottles of wine together, was no doubt very beautiful, but it is lost in
hopeless oblivion. For as Jacepo, calmly puffing his pipe, was about to
repeat the said remark, for the gratification of his friend Peter, the good
old man, with an abrupt exclamation, bearing some resemblance to an oath,
broke his pipe, and wished Jacopo and the Pope to the—end of the
world. He did not say `end of the world,' it is true, for he named a dark
personage who commits all the sin in the universe, leaving poor mortality
scathless and innocent.
“I want to know what you mean by makin' fun o' me?” continued
Peter—“Tellin' me these cock-and-bull stories, and fillin' yourself with
the idea that I'm a-goin' to invite you to take up your abode in my house.
Why—Mister What's-your-name, I don't know you.”
This was to the point. Had you seen the old man's face flushing with
anger from his white beard to the roots of his hair, while his clenched
hand descended heavily upon the table, you would have realized the full
force of his words.
Jacopo smoked away, looking neither to the right nor left, nor down
his nose, but straight forward, his whole attention riveted by the fragrant
clouds which floated around the bowl of his pipe.
“Do you hear?” thundered the old man, “I say your room is better
than your company. Tramp!”
“Peter,” said Jacopo very mildly, without turning his head—“Your
insinuations are indelicate. A stranger listening to us, and ignorant of
our sworn friendship, might draw unfavorable inferences from your
sly hints.”
The good Peter Dorfner could not believe his eyes or trust his ears.
To be bearded at his own table, and in his own arbor, over his own
liquor, by a man whose body resembled a barrel supported by broom-sticks!
There were strange rumors among the country folks in regard to Peter
was ferocious; the source of his wealth mysterious; few of the neighbors
came any longer to his farm-house, and even the men who worked for
him, regarded the good old man with an indefinable fear. Had he not
turned law, divinity and physic into ridicule, by beguiling Lawyer Simmons,
Doctor Perkenpine and a grave Parson into a supper of barbecued
—cats? Every farm-house of the Wissahikon was full of the Legend,
and even the firesides of Germantown grew pale at the idea. Mingled
with this grave matter, there was a trifling suspicion of Murder hanging
around the history of the benevolent man.
Peter was somewhat proud of his reputation; even as some distinguished
literary gentleman of the modern day, is delighted at being compared
to a certain animal,—called pork! when it is dead—so the good
old man grew merry at the epithets—“Beast and Bear!”
You may therefore imagine the amazement, the indignation struggling
into life on Peter's face, when he beheld himself defied and insulted by
the sublime impertinence of Jacopo.
“Sly hints, indeed!” he exclaimed, panting for breath as his visage
grew purple with rage. “Shall I kick you all over my farm?”
Jacopo smoked in silence, glancing meanwhile at a piece of printed
paper which he had taken from his pocket. It looked like the fragment
of an old newspaper, and was somewhat triangular in form. A singular
grimace agitated Jacopo's face as he perused the irregular sentences and
broken words, which appeared upon this dingy relic:
was
cealed in a closet,
looks out upon a large
rfner, with the Corpse, also
rchments and papers, which
lead to some knowledge of the
the poor victim. This all occu
Twenty-third of November, 1756; and in ma
this confession, I ask forgiveness of mankind for
share in this detestable Crime, and Pray the L
Such was the fragment, on which Jacopo gazed with great satisfaction,
his eyes twinkling with an expression of quiet malice, while his enormous
mouth displayed its full magnitude in a hideous grin.
“Now that looks very much like nonsense, and it's but a dirty piece
of an old newspaper after all,” Jacopo murmured, without removing the
pipe from his mouth, “and yet there may exist, somewhere in the world,
another piece of paper,—newspaper too—which, attached to this, would
make it read quite sensibly. By-the-bye, friend Peter, did you ever hear
of a Philadelphia merchant named Hopkins?”
The last words addressed to Dorfner only elicited an oath, coupled
with the words—
“The scoundrel! He was here some time, years ago, prying into my
affairs, and wanting to know what had become of Madeline. The dog!
Will you travel, sirrah?”
Jacopo rose from his seat, and carefully placed his pipe upon the table.
Then looking into Peter's face, which, purpled by rage, glared in a ray of
sunshine, Jacopo placed his hand within the breast of his waistcoat.
“Do you see this little bit o' convenience? A pistol, nothing but a
pistol, mounted in silver and loaded with ball. I am a great coward,
Peter—you can see me tremble, if you look sharp. So I carry this trifle,
and another trifle like it, for I am told that you are afflicted with mad
dogs on the Wissahikon.
Jacopo spoke the truth. He was a coward—a pitiable coward, afraid
of the report of a pistol, frightened at the smell of burnt powder. Yet,
on the present occasion, nerved by an inexplicable influence into something
like courage, he dared to confront the irritable old man, and defy
him on his own ground.
“Sam, I say,—where's that nigger? Sam, go into the farm-house and
bring me my pistols.”
There was a deadly light in the old man's gray eye—his lips were
violently agitated. But the blind negro did not appear, and Dorfner,
purple with rage, and unable, from a delicate twinge of gout, to move with
his accustomed vigor, was left exposed to the round face, wide mouth and
impertinent eyes of the intruder.
“Your impertinence is only a cloak, by * * *!” thundered the old
man—“You have some deeper motive—”
As if conscious that he had said too much, old Peter suddenly halted,
took up his pipe and began to smoke again. The hand which held the
pipe trembled like a leaf.
Jacopo resumed his seat. Amid all his bravado, there was delicately
perceptible an inexhaustible endowment of cowardice. Once or twice
he shuddered as his eye rested upon the inflamed visage of Dorfner, but,
disguising all marked indications of emotion, he silently examined his
pistols.
“Ha, ha—” a hearty laugh almost frightened Jacopo from his seat—
“Ha, ha, my boy, did you think to make the old boy mad with you?
Capitally done, by * * *! But you did not succeed, ha, ha, ha! You
shall stay all the night with me, and we'll have a good time o't together.
You and me only, my good fellow, for I don't care about the company of
the neighbors. I'll brew you a punch, an old-fashioned punch, and you
will sing and fiddle, and we'll go reeling to our beds—ho, ho, my
boy! you don't know old Peter yet!”
Had the table taken wings and flown through the top of the arbor,
the sudden hilarity, the extemporaneous good-fellowship of the old man.
“We will, old boy, we will!” he shrilly shouted, as soon as he could
command the power of speech—“A night of it together—that's the word!
I'll drink to your white beard, and you will drink to my legs, and—” he
added in a tone inaudible to Peter—“I'll take good care that you don't
put medicine in my liquor, or steel to my throat.”
“Where have you been all this time;—these two years and six
months?” kindly inquired Dorfner.
“Engaged on business of state,” responded Jacopo—“Settling a little
difficulty between my friend the Pope and the Emperor of Germany.
But let me ask a question in return—how have you been all this while?
Any news stirring about the region? The old Wizard alive yet?”
“Gone these two years. His house is shut up—nobody at home.
Supposed by some—ha, ha—that he is gone to his Master—ho, ho!”
It was a lame jest, and yet the fat old fellow laughed heartily, until his
broad paunch and white beard shook in sympathy.
“Then there was a queer body, whom you all feared—how's this
they called him? Paul—Paul—Birmingham—was that the name?”
“Paul Ardenheim,” said the old man, with a sudden and marked change
of voice—“He has never been seen on the Wissahikon, since the last
night of Seventy-four.”
“Had he no family? Was not there an old house, castle or monastery,
somewhere up here, among the woods? The young man had a father;
a sister: do tell us all about him!”
“We never mention those people,” said Dorfner, glancing over his
shoulder with an uneasy gesture—“I don't believe much in devils, but
it's not safe to trifle with such matters. Nobody about Wissahikon
speaks of him—that is, you know, Paul—or of his people—”
“But the monastery, or castle, or what in the deuce do you call it?”
“I'll not call it any thing just now. Talk about something else.”
“You don't believe in devils? My dear old boy, don't you know that
it's impossible to doubt the existence of a Devil? You may not believe
in a God, but as to a Devil—human nature could not get along without
one. I believe in Devils. Pity the poor devil who don't.”
As he said this, Jacopo drew once more from his pocket the fragment
of printed paper, which we have given to the reader, and glanced over it
with a peculiar grimace, muttering with a chuckle—“Hopkins is a merchant,
but he is sharp, dev'lish sharp! Twenty-third of November, fifty-six—those
kind o' dates are like Devils. I believe in 'em.”
“What's that?” cried Dorfner—“Where did you get that slip of paper?
It is mine—I'll swear it!”
He started from his chair, reached over the table, and attempted to
grasp the fragment. His features were agitated by a mingled expression,
not rage, but seemed like fear and anger, struggling with a darker
emotion.
“I was going to light my pipe with it,” said Jacopo, very quietly—“I
picked it up near the garden-gate. Take it, my old boy. By-the-bye,
what does that Twenty-Third of November, `fifty-six,' mean? Day of
your birth, I suppose; and yet you look older than twenty-one.”
Peter took the paper, and pressed it against the table with his thumb,
at the same time drawing from a pocket another fragment, which fitted it
with great nicety, thus producing the appearance of one piece of paper,
square in form, and filled with the same printed characters.
Jacopo would have given the richest tint on his infinitesmal nose for the
privilege of perusing this second fragment, which was evidently a part of
the first. He beheld Dorfner gazing upon it, with his eyes downcast,
and his head bent upon his broad chest—he saw the fingers of the old
man shake with an irrepressible tremor. Rising from his seat, he glided
with a noiseless footstep to the side of his aged companion, and looked
stealthily over his shoulder.
His small eyes dilated as he beheld the printed characters, and he
could not repress an ejaculation which his surprise forced to his lips.
2. CHAPTER SECOND.
THE FACE AND THE SHADOW.
“Hah! The two pieces form one paragraph—it reads quite sensibly,
I vow!”
But the next moment he sank back, affrighted and trembling. The old
man, startled by his ejaculations, had raised his head; his face was turned
over his shoulder, and his eyes rested upon the visage of Jacopo. The
veins stood boldly out upon that forehead; the cheeks, at other times
flushed by the tints of good liquor, were now pale—almost livid. There
was mischief in the expression of the old man's lips, and a quiet ferocity
in his gaze.
“Who told you to look over my shoulder?”
The good Peter did not swear; his tone was very even and subdued,
and therefore Jacopo felt that there was danger in his eye. Confused,
the gaze of Peter Dorfner.
Jacopo was a coward, and now he knew that his life hung on a chance
as frail as the tie that binds the withered leaf to the bough. He changed
color, his knees shook together; he clasped his hands. Should he fall
on his knees and beg for mercy?
“Did you read—scoundrel?” was the question asked by Dorfner, in a
voice unnaturally low and calm.
There was something pitiable in the contrast—here, Dorfner, a man of
muscular frame, with his face—stamped with a sullen ferocity—his face
turned over his shoulder, thus presenting his forehead, nose and beard, in
profile to the light—there Jacopo, with his face distorted into an expression
of grotesque fear, while his slender limbs trembled under the weight
of his rotund body.
In his terror he had forgotten his pistols. It may have been that his
abject fear was caused as much by the words which he had hastily perused,
as by the determined ferocity of Dorfner's visage.
“Did you read, I say?”
Was it courage born of the consciousness of a fatal Truth, or
the frenzied energy of despair? Jacopo became suddenly calm; his
limbs trembled no longer; something like dignity was impressed upon
his face.
Gazing over Peter's shoulder, he beheld a face, through an interval of
the foliage—a face which seemed not the visage of a living thing—but an
Apparition from the Other World. At the sight of that face, whose eyes
were fixed upon him, a strange energy filled the soul of the coward;
calmly, his voice unbroken by a tremor, he uttered these words—
“I did read. And more than this, I only read what I knew before.
That you, Peter Dorfner, did, on the night of November Twenty-third,
fifty-six, in the room near yonder chesnut tree, commit a barbarous and
cowardly murder!”
As he uttered these words, he folded his arms, and stood prepared to
meet his death. The eyes were gazing upon him all the while. Through
the interval in the foliage he saw the face, and felt his coward soul filled
with a new life.
Peter Dorfner rose from his seat, his face livid with rage. He had no
weapon, but a desperate strength, the fury of a madman, fired his veins.
His chest swelling, the veins on his face standing black and protuberant
from the livid skin, he advanced a single step, while his glance announced
his deadly purpose.
Jacopo did not move; pale and motionless, he did not wish to avoid
the fury of the old man.
For a moment, Dorfner, roused into all the vigor of his early manhood
contemplated his victim.
“I will throttle you—I will crush you with one grasp—” said Peter, in
a tone whose measured emphasis indicated the relentless nature of his
vengeance, better than all the oaths, or boisterous language, that ever rose
to the lips of madness.
At this moment a shadow passed between Dorfner and the sun. As the
shadow passed, a footstep was heard.
He turned his face to the west, and sank back in his chair, like a man
who had received a bullet in his heart. His face expressed surprise—dismay—his
extended hand pointed toward the west.
Surprised beyond the power of language, Jacopo turned and gazed in
the direction indicated by the extended hand.
The garden walk, extending from the arbor to the western wicket,
stretched before him, a brown path leading among beds of foliage and
flowers.
There was a form in the path; the form of a young man dressed in
dark attire, with a black mantle floating from his shoulder. His face
could not be seen, but as he went down the path with measured steps, his
form thrown into distinct relief by the western sky, the sunbeams tinted
his dark attire, and fringed with a pale golden lustre the locks of his
black hair.
It was a muscular form, tempered by the grace and beauty of young
manhood; the step was firm and regular; though only the back of the
unknown was visible, it was evident that he was attired in a costume,
altogether different from the fashion of the day—a dark dress, which
fitted closely to his limbs, was only relieved by the graceful drapery of
the mantle, that floated from his shoulder. His locks were surmounted
by a cap, whose solitary plume rose in the sunlight, blackly defined
against the western sky.
It was this form which, passing before the arbor, had thrown a shadow
upon Peter's face, as his arm was nerved for a deadly blow; and now, as
the unknown, without once looking back, went toward the western gate,
the old man, stricken into his chair, as by a bullet, extended his hand,
while his features were blank with amazement and terror.
Jacopo could only gaze from the face of Peter to the retreating form;
the scene deprived him of the power of speech.
“It's him—I'd swear it!” gasped the old man, without moving his arm,
or changing his gaze. “I can't see his face, but I know it's him. Not in
flesh and blood—a rale livin' man, but his sperrit—”
“Who?” exclaimed Jacopo, as the memory of the unknown face, whose
eyes had nerved him for a desperate accusal, only a moment since, came
back to him with overwhelming force.
“Who? Don't ask me—” cried the old man, his features still violently
agitated, while his forehead was bathed in perspiration—“You know who
—we've all seen him afore, but since that night he has not been seen alive
him, I say; I'll swear to 't!”
With these incoherent words, old Peter still pointed towards the unknown,
his emotion growing more like madness every moment.
“It's living man,” cried Jacopo—“It is—”
“Don't speak that name,” the old man exclaimed with a shudder—“I
tell you he's no livin' man. He has not been seen on the Wissahikon
since the night when Madeline disappeared—There was a mangled body
found, some days afterwards—it was him! No! no! No livin' man, by
* * *! A sperrit—a sperrit!”
To Jacopo the violent emotion of Peter Dorfner was altogether incomprehensible.
Peter, who had grown gray under suspicion of various
crimes, who was said to fear “neither God nor Devil;” Peter Dorfner,
who, only a moment since, stood prepared for a work of murder, now a
pitiable and adject thing; stricken as by a supernatural hand—it was
all a mystery to the eyes of Jacopo.
True, he had himself beheld a face, brilliant with eyes of unutterable
power, looking upon him, through an interval of the foliage. A vague
memory came over him of having seen that face before, and a name rose
to his lips, and, as we have seen, was drowned by the ejaculation
of Dorfner.
“Look! He passes through the gate, but don't once look back! It's a
sperrit, I say! He goes down the hill-side into the meadow—hah! The
men workin' in the fields drop their scythes and look at him. Does a
livin' man start up from the ground, walk between you and the sun,
and steal away without once lookin' back? Look yonder! He is passin'
through the midst of them—he turns—no! Without lookin' back, he
hurries toward the woods—Ah, it's him, not in body, but in sperrit—it is
Paul Ardenheim!”
And this man, who believed in “neither God nor Devil,” was conquered
by the most improbable superstition. That superstition may have been
the last ember of a great religious principle, burning faintly amid the
ashes of a debased nature. With the word “Paul Ardenheim,” he fell
back insensible in the chair, his parting lips spotted with white foam.
Jacopo advanced to the table, eager to grasp the fragments of printed
paper, and read at his leisure the Revelation which was embodied in
their words. Only one fragment met his view; the other had disappeared.
“I can't make head nor tail on't,” he exclaimed, with an oath. “And
yet Hopkins must have some hint of the matter, or he would not have
directed me to search the room near the chesnut tree. `Sleep in that
room, Jacopo, and search every closet. Whatever you discover in the
way of paper or parchment, bring to me, and your fortune is made.' But
how did old Peter obtain this paragraph of a newspaper?—He must know
that he is suspected o' doin' somethin' not altogether pretty.”
While the light playing among the leaves and flowers of the arbor,
shone over the pallid face and snowy beard of the insensible man, Jacopo
anxiously perused the fragment.
After the deed was done, the child taken away.
The body was con near the
window which chesnut
tree. Do concealed
certain pa I suppose
may real name
of rred on the
king
my
ord
Jacopo examined the paper with a look of ludicrous dismay.
“If I had the other fragment, I might make something out o' this.
`After the deed was done, the child was taken away.' There was a child,
then? `The body was con'—there was a `body' also—Zounds! Where is
that fragment? Why could not Hopkins have told me all about the matter,
instead of sending me in the dark on such a fool's errand. Here I've stood
the chance of having my throat cut twice, and even now am not certain
that my lungs will not be perforated by some dirty piece of lead or other
—ah, that fragment, that oracular fragment!”
As Jacopo thus gave vent to his feelings in a crude soliloquy, he did
not cease to examine alternately, and with a searching glance, the piece
of paper which he held in one hand, and the white-bearded face, which
glowed in the sunlight at his side.
“The more I think of it, the more I am convinced that he knows something
of Madeline. And Madeline is no common peasant girl—a stray
slice cut off from the fruit-cake of aristocracy! Why should Hopkins take
such an interest in the matter? Let me think! Two years and six
months ago, Hopkins and my late master were thick as thieves. There
was some talk about a mysterious affair; in fact, the merchant and the
lord were never done muttering, whispering, and counselling with each
other.—Oh, my unpropitious stars, why did I thus incur your vengeance?”
As though some terrible memory had crossed his brain, Jacopo clasped
his hands piteously, and cast his eyes toward the top of the arbor.
“Why did I thus depart from the strict line of my duty, and betray a
sinful weakness? Yes, on the day when my lord left Philadelphia, he
sent me to Hopkins's house, to his own chamber, in fact, to get certain
important papers. I had them in my hand, and yet forgot to break the
seal! Pitiable frailty! Had I even moistened the seal with warm water,
effort. That seal once removed, the whole secret of the matter would have
been revealed—but as the case stands, I know dev'lish little about it, and
have no security for my throat or lungs!”
His eye rested upon the insensible man. The right hand was clenched
upon the breast; there was a fragment of paper between the finger and
thumb. Jacopo gave utterance to a cry of joy.
“Could I only get it—but he may recover—hah! He begins to breathe
again! Oh, for a stray apoplexy to touch old Peter on the neck, or even
a vagrant catalepsy to throw him into a trance!”
Advancing stealthily, he touched the hand of the insensible man, but
Peter did not move.
“I know you—you old dog! Makin' believe that you don't see or
hear; and in a minute you'll spring upon me like a she wild-cat!”
He touched the fragment; gently, very gently, but the old man's hand
was like a vice. Trembling from head to foot, Jacopo seized the hand,
and pressed the thumb and forefinger apart. The old man stirred, but
did not unclose his eyes. The paper fluttered to the ground, near
Jacopo's feet.
In a moment he had seized it; he had placed it within the other fragment;
and here is the result, which he beheld:
After the deed was done, the child was taken away.
The body was concealed in a closet, near the
window which looks out upon a large chesnut
tree. Dorfner, with the Corpse, also concealed
certain parchments and papers, which I suppose
may lead to some knowledge of the real name
of the poor victim. This all occurred on the
Twenty-third of November, 1756; and in making
this confession, I ask forgiveness of mankind for my
share in this detestable crime, and Pray the Lord
Jacopo shook like a withered leaf. If there was one word which he
feared above another, it was the monosyllable `Corpse.'
“I have no objection to `body,' used in a funeral sense, but—`Corpse!'
Augh! So unpleasantly suggestive! `Dorfner'—oh, ho, my dear old
boy! No wonder you start and swear, and go off in faintin' spells—no
wonder. `Poor victim'—`child'—my brains goes whirling like a cork in
an eddy!”
A black face rose slowly over the chair of the insensible Peter. Jacopo
shuddered as he saw the sightless eyeballs glowing redly in the sockets,
while the sun streamed over the dark visage. A knife gleamed over the
grey hairs of Dorfner; it was clenched in the right arm of the negro.
Jacopo left the arbor on tip-toe, passed around it, and strode with a
noiseless step toward the farm-house. He passed under the shadows of
the chesnut tree, and cast an anxious glance toward the window. Up
that fatal tree, you will remember, Gilbert climbed on the last night of
1775. Jacopo stood on the threshold stone—the farm-house door
was open.
He cast a searching glance around. All was still and desolate about
the farm-house. The sun shone gayly over the roof of the barn, and
there was a solitary bird chirping among the foliage of the chesnut tree.
To the west stretched the undulating field, with the laborers grouped
among the piles of new-mown hay. But they labored no longer; their
seythes rested upon the grass; every face was turned toward the western
woods.
Even as he stood upon the threshold stone, one foot resting upon the
sill of the door—while his hand still grasped the torn fragments of
printed paper—Jacopo turned his gaze far to the west, and gazed in the
direction indicated by the extended arms of the laborers.
A dark form was seen on the verge of the distant woods,—dimly seen,
for the shadows gathered thickly beneath the luxuriant foliage.
It was the form which, not long ago, had passed between the old man
and the sun, and with its shadow stricken him down in the very act of
murder.
“Paul Ardenheim,” cried Jacopo, as he crossed the threshold—“Or
his Ghost.” He closed the door and was lost to sight.
At the same moment, the dark figure disappeared among the shadows
of the distant woods, and a deep groan resounded from the arbor
3. CHAPTER THIRD.
THE DOVE.
The dark form which come between the old man and the sun, and with
its shadow struck him down, even in the act of Murder; was it indeed
Paul Ardenheim, or but an apparition gliding sadly and noiselessly through
the light and shadow of the summer day?
In the woods which bloom so fragrantly around the Wissahikon, we
may find an answer to our question.
There was a narrow path leading from the field of new-mown hay,
Where the oaks and chesnuts, the maples and the pines, were
grouped in one rich contrast of foliage: where the sunlight came lovingly,
scattering patches of gold upon the sod; where a tiny thread of
liquid silver trickled down a gray old rock, and made low music among
the shadows—such was the course of the wild-wood path, which led from
the field of new-mown hay, to the verge of the Wissahikon waters.
Along this path, the dark form hastened with a measured step, never
once looking to the right or left, or casting a backward glance through the
light and shadow of the woods.
Now in the sunshine, where every outline of the shape, every lock of
the waving hair, and point of the dark attire, was fully disclosed, and now
into the shade, where the thick leaves spread a tremulous canopy, and the
low voice of the tiny rill sung through the silence.
Now turning the breast of this gray rock, crowned by a clump of saplings,
now along this level slope, where the moss, softer than any carpet,
glowed in a passing ray, and now along this barren strip of earth, whose
brown leaves are darkened by the twilight of the withered pines.
Thus, without once looking back, or glancing to the right or left, the
dark form wandered on.
At last there came a narrow dell, open to the sunlight, and full of fresh
wild grass, whose vivid green was sprinkled with flowers. A narrow
dell, with walls of leaves on either side,—or rather with the foliage
spreading from the grass to the sky, like immense folds of tapestry,
rendered surpassingly beautiful by fairy hands. A narrow dell, through
whose wild grass the tiny thread of silver sparkled fitfully, and through
whose silence the low song was ever singing.
At the western extremity of this dell, where it widened into a slope of
carpet-like moss, sparkled a calm sheet of water, embosomed among
leaves. The shadow which rested there, making the water more calmly
beautiful, and wrapping the giant trees on the opposite shore in vague
twilight, was only broken by a flood of hazy light, which came rushing
like a golden rain through an opening in the trees.
Above the dell,—above the calm sheet of water, undimpled by a ripple
—shone a glimpse of Heaven, whose deep azure was blushing into gold,
at the kiss of the afternoon sun.
And the dark form which had passed between the old man and the sun,
striking him down with its shadow, hastened along the dell, without once
looking back.
As it came in sight of the calm sheet of water, a word arose upon the
silence, uttered by a voice of sad emphasis.
That word was “Wissahikon!”
At last the form drew near the water-side, and that calm sheet, spreading
without a ripple, in its frame of rocks and trees, reflected a face.
It was a bronzed face, shadowed by locks of dark brown hair. There
were large lustrous eyes beneath the boldly marked brows. There was
beard upon the firm lip—dark beard, which clothed the round chin, and
softly relieved the dark olive complexion. There was a broad forehead,
shadowed by a gloom beyond all power of language to describe.
Altogether, a face so bold, and yet beautiful in its young manhood, so
darkened in every lineament by some memory of the past, or prophecy
of the future, the Wissahikon waters never reflected before this hour.
The dark form stood by the water-side—centred in that scene so full
of romance and beauty. To the north and south spread the calm water,
resembling no impetuous torrent, but a slumbering lakelet embosomed
amid trees, rocks and flowers.
There were grotesque rocks on the opposite shore, mingled with the
colossal trunks of forest trees. Beyond those rocks, and through the intervals
of those trees, the ascent of a broad hill-side was dimly seen, with
a ray of light trembling through the distant shadows.
This shore was in strong contrast with that on which the dark form
stood. Leaves, blossoms, flowers, nothing but leaves, blossoms and
flowers, from the calm water to the glimpse of sky. No grand trunks
of giant trees were visible; it was a mass of foliage bathed in sunshine,
while the opposite shore brooded among its shadows.
The opening of the dell—a space of level moss—alone broke the uniformity
of the leafy prospect.
To the south and the north, the foliage, meeting from the opposite
shores, enclosed the waters in its embrace, and the calm waves mirrored
every tree, rock and flower, until there seemed another wood, another
world and sky beneath their surface.
Over the tree-tops of the south, a glimpse of a roof was seen, with a
line of smoke fading away from a chimney into the leaves and sky. It
was the roof of an ancient mill, standing near a waterfall, whose music
came in softened cadence over the woods.
As the dark form stood on the edge of the bank, as the bronzed face
was reflected in the waters, a sharp sound crashed on the silence of the
scene. It was the report of gun or pistol, or perchance only the echo of
a rock thundering from some distant height, but the sound passed unheeded.
That face still gazed in sadness into the clear waves.
Presently a sound as of fluttering wings was heard, and an object fell at
the feet of the motionless form.
It was a dying bird, with a drop of blood starting from the soft plumage
of its breast. There was a glassy film upon its eye—once it moved its
wings, beating the grass with faint blows—and then it was dead.
There was something like an omen, or a warning in this scene—it lay
upon the green moss, its white plumage tinted by gold, with a single
blood-drop starting from the breast.
And the form standing near the waters bent down, and a hand raised
the bird—it was a wild dove—and as the warmth of life still clung about
its plumage, it was pressed against a manly breast.
“A welcome home!” a sad voice was heard—“Is it an omen, or a
warning?”
At the same moment a glad laugh rang merrily in the air, as, from the
crashing bushes, sprang a manly form, while a handsome face, ruddy with
excitement, appeared amid its encircling locks of chesnut hair.
“Paul Ardenheim!” rang out the tones of that cheerful voice—“You
here!”
“Reginald!” exclaimed a deep voice, in an accent of unfeigned amazement.
4. CHAPTER FOURTH.
PAUL—REGINALD.
With his gun resting on his shoulder, and his small huntsman's cap
tossed aside from his forehead, the new-comer advanced, and in a moment
stood beside the sombre form.
His muscular form was attired in a blue hunting-shirt, gathered to his
waist by a belt, and reaching from the bared throat to the knees. He
wore boots of buckskin. There was a powder-horn at his side, and a
hunting-knife glimmered below his girdle.
His cheeks flushed by excitement, his dark blue eyes flashing with the
consciousness of youth and health, his proud lip darkened by a slight
mustache, he stood beside that sombre form, like an embodiment of animal
beauty, beside the incarnation of a Thought.
It was a strong contrast, between this face glowing with ruddy hues,
and relieved by luxuriant hair, and that bronzed visage, whose large earnest
eyes and pale forehead—thrown more distinctly into view by the
sombre attire—only suggested the idea of acute mental suffering.
They clasped hands together, and stood in silence, gazing into each
other's eyes,—Paul Ardenheim and Reginald of Lyndulfe.
“It seems to me, as though centuries had gone since last we met!” said
Paul, keeping the hand of his friend within his own, and resting upon that
glowing face his sad lustrous eyes.
“Egad, Paul, it does indeed!” cried Reginald, with a cheerful laugh—
“Deuce take the cap, I say,” and he rested his rifle against a rock, and
warm for violent exercise—sit there, Paul, and I'll sit here, and we'll talk
over old times together.”
“Old times,” echoed Paul, as he rested himself upon a rock, which
overhung the water—“We have known each other something more than
two years.”
A sad smile passed over his face.
“Two years and six months, my dear Paul—” Reginald threaded his
chesnut curls with a delicate hand sparkling with rings—“And yet we
have lived more, Paul, in that brief period, than in all the rest of our years
together. Lived, I say,—suffered, enjoyed—started up from boys into
men. Two years and six months ago, Paul, we met for the first time,
under peculiar circumstances. It was in the old farmer's house, at the
wedding of a young girl—you remember?”
Was it only the shadow of a passing cloud, or did the cool air of this
quiet dell chill his blood, fevered as it was by violent exercise?
As he uttered the words, `a young girl,' a cloud came over his face, an
icy tremor agitated his limbs.
“You saved my life, Paul. That bound me to you for ever; in life or
in death. The next morning, at daybreak, Paul, as I was about to leave
Philadelphia—having been called home to England by a letter—you
appeared suddenly before me, pronounced my name, and thus reminded
me of the pledge which I had made to you the night before. You
announced your intention of going to England. We clasped hands on it,
Paul, and went together. Do you remember our journey to Lyndulfe?
Those were delightful days we passed together, Paul, in the old castle,
among the Yorkshire hills—but, Paul—”
“Spare your reproaches, Reginald. I left you suddenly, and without
one farewell word. The hours that we spent together in Lyndulfe castle
are present with me now—I remember well, how well! our solemn pledge
of brotherhood. But one night I hurried from the castle; I did not clasp
your hand before I went; I did not tell you of the cause of my flight.”
“Flight?”
“Yes, it was a flight. I fled, Reginald—over England, over France,
Italy—over Europe, and never once escaped from my relentless pursuer.”
“Relentless pursuer?”
“It was not a physical enemy, Reginald,—it came not in bodily shape,
or I would have grappled with it, and died defying its vengeance.—It was
here—it was here—”
Paul laid his hand upon his forehead.
Reginald arose, and bending over his friend, took his hand within his
own, and gazed earnestly into his face.
“Paul,” he said, in a tone of unfeigned kindness, “it is one of your
Dark Hours!”
“My Dark Hours?”
“You have never told me the story of your life, Paul. For this I
do not upbraid you—I do not perchance deserve, and have no desire to
intrude upon, your confidence.”
“That confidence would blight you into madness.”
“On the last night of Seventy-Four, I saw you for the first time. The
moment I looked upon your face, Paul, and met the gaze of your eye—
while all around fell back from you, with an inexplicable fear—I felt that
you were my friend, my brother. I knew, as certainly as though the
voice of a spirit had whispered it, that we were linked together, by a hand
stronger than the hand of man—mightier even than Death. I saw you,
young, frank, thoughtful, but brave and true; and without asking one word
of your past life, I took you for what you were, and you became my
Brother. That you had lived all your life in these wilds, that your father
and your sister were living—this much, indeed, I knew. But all beside
was mystery. I seek not now to penetrate that mystery, but I have a
few rude words to say to you, Paul, and do not—do not, I beseech, slight
my friendship, yes, my brotherhood, with the reproach due only to a
heartless curiosity.—You have your dark hours, Paul, and it is this that
makes the blood chill in my veins, as, gazing upon your face, I see it
shadowed by a cloud, that looks to me like an unutterable despair.”
Reginald paused a moment, as if to gather strength; then, with his face
flushed and his eye brightening, he continued:
“I have seen you, Paul, gazing with rapture on the setting sun. It was
on shipboard, when the ocean, framed in the white clouds that lined the
horizon, trembled and blushed in the last flush of day. My arm was
round your neck—there was rapture in your face, a calm, deep joy, that
indicated a soul at peace with God and man. `How beautiful!' you exclaimed—`It
speaks to me of the other world!' That instant the joy
passed from your face; a cloud was on your forehead; your eyes glared
with an expression of agony, which I can never forget: and these words
passed from your lips, `My father, my father!' The accent of unutterable
anguish which accompanied these words, I have not for an instant
forgotten—”
“My father! My father!” groaned Paul, as he hid his face within his
hands. “Perjury — Sacrilege — Blasphemy! These are no trifling
crimes—”
“It was a Dark Hour, Paul; dark to me, because I could not comprehend,
and therefore could not relieve. Many a time, since that hour, have I seen
the smile pass from your face, and that strange gloom rush suddenly over
your brow, and words as strange—every accent steeped in unutterable
despair—fall from your lips. At Lyndulfe, one night, when all was mirth
and song, and a crowd gathered round you, listening in delight to your
eloquent words—when every eye was centred upon your impassioned
your eye grew vague and glassy, your brow was overspread by that fearful
gloom, and you rushed from the scene with a mad cry of anguish. Even
then, amid the clamor and dismay created by this sudden change in your
demeanor, these words were heard, echoing through the lighted hall—My
father! My father! Uttered again, with that accent of despair, too deep
for human comprehension, or human relief.”
Paul started to his feet—
“Spare me—spare me—there are incidents in every life that cannot be
too lightly touched—”
As he uttered these words, in an impetuous tone, Reginald became
suddenly pale.
“Does he speak of that dark night? Can he know Madeline?”
The thought flashed over his mind; it was his turn to shudder and grow
pale. The name of Madeline rose to his lips, her ghost to his soul. For
a moment not a word was spoken. Paul was gazing in the waters, at the
reflection of his agitated face; Reginald sat silent and shuddering.
“Paul, I do not wish to lift the veil which rests upon your heart. But
can I do any thing to relieve this misery which covers you with such gloom,
and stamps upon your brow the impress of an impenetrable despair?
Command me, Paul—I do not say command my gold, for that would be
an insult—but command my heart, my arm. They are yours. Even if
you have—but no! no! it is impossible. But I will speak it—even if
you have committed a crime—”
Reginald never forgot the look with which Paul turned to him—never,
until the hour of his death, forgot the accent in which he spoke.
“Crime, once committed, leaves its memory in the soul and on the brow.
But crime that is to be—does it not fill the soul with its horror, and stamp
itself in characters of Prophecy on the hour?”
“Paul! Paul!” cried Reginald, overwhelmed with agony, as the words
of Paul penetrated him with awe. “I would give my life to serve you.”
Paul looked upon him with a sad smile.
“Your life opens before you, Reginald, a track of light leading upward,
still upward—amid those beautiful clouds, which men call wealth and
power. Yourself a lord, your father one of the noblest names on the scroll
of British nobility, you have before you an enticing prospect. You will
carve for yourself a name on the faces of the battle dead. You will be
admired in the senate, welcomed wherever you turn, by the plaudits of the
multitude. When your father dies, you will become the Lord of Lyndulfe,
of Marionhurst, of Dernburg, of Camelford. Your title, His Grace
the Duke of Lyndulfe and Marionhurst! Is it not a glittering prospect,
Reginald?
“Then you will take to your bosom some beautiful girl, whose dower
will swell your wealth into an incredible revenue, while her beauty will
to serve me! Ha, ha! The Duke of Lyndulfe give his life to serve the
fortunes of a houseless and nameless man!”
“It is not well, Paul. It is indeed a Dark Hour, when you mock your
friend, your brother.”
“Pardon, Reginald, pardon. I only meant to say, that while your future
spreads before you all that is most desired by men,—a prospect of light
and glory—mine has in store for me nothing but a dishonored name and
a grave unblessed by tears.”
“Paul, I swear it—I would give my life to serve you!”
“Look yonder, Reginald. Beyond those woods, not one mile from this
spot, lies the home of my thought. Ere the setting of the sun, I will stand
beside the walls of that home, and see the vines waving about its roof-tree;
see the faces of father—of sister, smiling welcome from the old hall door,
or I will stand amid a pile of ruins, and fix my eyes upon two graves.”
“Father—he lives?”
“Take care, Reginald—it will bring on, once again, the Dark Hour. He
did live, on the first day of 1775, when I left this valley. Since that time
I have had no word from his pen; nor have I received any intelligence
of him or my sister. He may live—he may be dead. A little while and
all is over.”
“Confide in me. Tell me all. We are alone, Paul—the hour is very
still and solemn—I feel as though the spirit which flashes from your eyes,
had pervaded my own bosom. Awed by the stillness, the solemnity of
this hour, I swear—”
“Hold, my friend. Let us talk no longer of my life, but of yours.
Wherefore, on this day of my return to Wissahikon, do I meet you beside
these waves? Ah—you blush—there is then some fair lady in the case?”
5. CHAPTER FIFTH.
THE NEW LOVE OF REGINALD.
“Paul, I will tell you the history. You have guessed the truth. She
is indeed a beautiful girl—”
“She—” and Paul smiled that sad smile, which always filled Reginald
with involuntary awe.
“Do you remember the view from the high tower of Lyndulfe? Standing
on its summit, you behold the hills and valleys for at least thirty miles,
with farm-houses dotting the prospect, and grim castles frowning from the
distant woods. Do you remember the ruined castle—”
“It stood upon the west of your father's castle—not ten miles away.
A splendid pile of ruins, rising, with its tottering walls, against the dark
background, like some ghost of past ages.”
“It is a castle of ruins no longer. Soon after you left Lyndulfe, a
stranger came to Wyttonhurst—that is the name of the castle, you remember—and
soon the old pile of ruins became strong and beautiful again.
There were various rumors concerning this stranger. Some said that he
had heaped incredible hoards of gold in the East Indies, others spoke of
the American Continent. But that he was rich, very rich, no one could
deny, for he rebuilt the castle, and soon it was known, that he had been
knighted by the king. He was called Sir Ralph Wyttonhurst of Wyttonhurst.”
“And this stranger—”
“Was blessed with one of the most beautiful daughters that ever human
eye beheld. Not one of those blonde women, whose cheeks, like the
dawn, are swept by golden hair, and whose beauty is acknowledged as a
type of our English women, but a queenly girl, with an olive cheek, eyes
intensely black and brilliant, and a step full of majesty and pride. You
may be sure that her hair was dark, that her lip, with its warm vermilion,
contrasted vividly with the clear brown of her cheek—”
“At his words,” muttered Paul, as his eye grew vacant, “that memory
comes once more upon me!—And you loved her?” he said aloud.
“I need not tell you how we met, or describe to you the history of our
love, in all those minute details, which are interesting only to two persons,
the lover and the beloved. But we did meet—well I remember the night,
when, amid the dark woods of Wyttonhurst, we plighted our faith to each
other.”
“Did your father know of this?”
“He discovered our love, and on pain of his eternal displeasure, forbade
me ever to meet my betrothed wife. It was an improper alliance, he said,
and exclaimed in scorn—`The heir of Lyndulfe unite with the child of a
nameless wanderer!”'
“Did you obey?”
“I certainly did not. My father then forced upon me a commission in
his Majesty's dragoons—look—”
Reginald opened the breast of his hunting-shirt, and the light shone
upon a scarlet uniform.
“Take care! You may be seen—you are now on Continental ground.”
“Ha, ha, you need have no fear. Yesterday, I left his Majesty's army,
—they are encamped somewhere in that chaos of peach trees and sand,
“Your object? Ah, ha, Reginald, have you also your dark hour?”
“Madeline!” muttered Reginald, with a changed voice; and then conquering
his emotion, he continued in his usual tone—“It was in regard to
some matter of deep interest to my father that I came yesterday in disguise
to Philadelphia, when, to my surprise and joy, I heard that Sir
Ralph Wyttonhurst is now living on his country-seat, near the Wissahikon.
His daughter—”
“You have seen her?” interrupted Paul.
“Not yet. I am on my way to meet her at this moment. They tell
me that the mansion of her father stands among the pines, on the Wissahikon,
a mile or two from this spot, near the Schuylkill.”
“Strange!” murmured Paul, as he saw his own face, mirrored in the
waves, suddenly flush into something like rapture—“Dark-eyed, hair black
as midnight, a step like a queen, eyes beaming with the tender prophecies
of youth and hope! So like that beautiful dream, which flashed over the
slumber of my life, and woke me into suffering and manhood. Even now
I see her, as she stood before the door of that fatal chamber, the light
streaming over the beautiful face, as she suffered her dark hair to wander
wildly over her shoulders—”
“Of whom do you speak?” cried Reginald, in amazement—“Do you
also love?”
“Love?”—again that bitter smile—“Why should I devote beauty and
innocence to the terrible vengeance of my destiny? You said that the
mansion of Wyttonhurst stood in a grove of pines, near the Schuylkill?”
“So the country folks tell me.”
“It must be near her home—the Wizard's daughter! Does she yet
live? Shall I ever more hear the music of her voice, or be roused into
madness by her touch? After I have been home—home! Home! Yes,
after I have been home, I will ascend the hill, on whose summit stands
the house of Isaac the Wizard. Passing through the grove of pines, I
will look upon the window of that chamber where we met, and behold
her face—hers—bathed in the glory of sunset. Or perchance there is a
grave among the pines, a grave overspread with wild flowers, and sacred
with her ashes.”
“But tell me, Paul, the history of your life since you left Lyndulfe—”
“Let me compress ages of thought and suffering in a word. I left this
valley, where my life had been spent, an enthusiast, a dreamer. I knew
nothing of mankind save from my books,—the hour before I hurried from
Wissahikon, and met you in the street of Philadelphia, I had known for
the first time, how dark, how fathomless were the abysses of my own soul.
Now, Reginald, I have seen the world. I have seen the world. Does
not that sentence speak the entire history?”
“You have been in Italy?”
“In France—in Italy—in Germany—in Spain—in Russia. Everywhere
the same story is telling every hour, a story told in the groans of
those who are born to suffer and die, in the laughter of those who are born
to trample and to kill! Amid the majestic ruins of that dream-land called
Italy, amid the corn-fields of France, amid the vine-clad hills of Germany,
amid the dreary wastes of Russia, I have beheld in various forms, the
same terrible fact—a Peasant crushed to the earth, loaded with chains,
baptizing that earth with his blood and tears, and a Lord standing with his
foot upon the Peasant's neck, mocking his anguish with laughter, and
turning his blood, his tears, into gold. That is, after all, the picture which
the whole world offers to the eye of God—a Slave and a Lord. Both
brothers, born alike of the same dust, going alike to the same grave-worm,
redeemed alike by the anguish of Calvary, and yet, one tramples the
other, loads him with chains and scorn, and turns his blood and tears
into gold.”
“Yet there must be classes in the world, Paul. There must be lords
and peasants. There must be kings and subjects. There must be rich
and poor.”
“There was another sight which I saw, Reginald—a sight that affected
me deeply. Even as the Peasant, crushed to the earth by those chains—
called Custom, Power, and other fine-sounding names—felt the foot of the
Lord upon his neck, and shed upon the earth the baptism of the Poor—
blood and tears, only blood and tears—even then, Reginald, as the
laughter of the Lord mocked that chained Peasant's anguish, while the
alembics of Priestcraft and Kingcraft—fine names! transmuted the blood
and tears into gold—even then I saw the Peasant's dusky face lighted by
a sudden fire. I saw him spring from the dust, and trample his chains
under his bleeding feet. Then, Reginald, I witnessed a new baptism.
There was no longer a Peasant before me, but a Demon—a Demon raving
on his wrongs, and bathing his scarred limbs in blood, the blood of the
rich, the noble, the blood of the gifted and the beautiful.—I asked the
meaning of this sight, and a voice answered, `It is the new Baptism, which
God hath in store for the poor.”'—
Paul stood erect, his hands outstretched toward the western sky, his
features stamped with a sombre enthusiam.
“Do you not perceive, Paul, that sentiments like these will apply very
dangerously to the present contest between the Revolted Colonies and
the King?”
“The King!” echoed Paul, in a tone that echoed strangely through the
stillness of the forest—“Always the King! Speak to the man of titles
and wealth, of the poor dying by millions, dying in famine, in battle, in
plague, and you are answered by a word, `The King!' Let the poor die
a thousand deaths in one, let them suffer such slow anguish as would
very tender with the Rich. Let no rough wind blow too rudely upon the
round cheek of the Priest. Reginald, Reginald, it is enough to drive one
mad to see these Kings, hedged round by law, by custom; made holy by
Religion, defended by ranks of nobles, priests and rich men; while the
Poor are turned out by millions into the dark night of hopeless toil, and
left to blunder in wounds and in blindness to the grave. King! Did I
think that the earth, one hundred years from this hour, would be cursed
by one monster, who, calling himself King, Priest, or Rich Man, only
lives to trample his brothers into the grave, I would kneel here, and beseech
that God, who looks not unheedingly upon the fall of a sparrow, to
arouse at once the Demon in the breast of the slave, and let the New Baptism
at once begin.”
As if in witness of the sincerity of his thought, he raised his right hand
to heaven.
“There is force in your words; but have a care! Let the mob once
hear and believe sentiments like these, and there is an end of all order, all
government. In the place of Law, we will have anarchy, and for King
George at the head of the British Nation, we will only have Rebel Washington
at the head of a mob.”
“Washington!” echoed Paul—starting as though some memory found
a voice in the utterance of that word.
“One day, resting on a rock which yawned over an abyss amid the
Alps, I heard that name. It was from the lips of a wanderer, who, cast
like myself, a pilgrim on the face of the earth, had amid his journeyings
traversed this land of the New World. His face was haggard; his attire,
covered with dust, scarce concealed the sharp outlines of his withered
frame. That haggard face was suddenly flushed, that withered frame as
suddenly dilated, as with the throbbings of a new life, while he uttered a
name which, in his wanderings, he had gathered to his heart. He spoke
of battles, of dreary marches at dead of night, of a band of ragged peasants
pursued by the armed soldiers of a King. Of farm-houses fired at dead
of night by ruffian soldiery, and of old men butchered on the threshold
stone. Of virgins torn from their slumber by the hand of brutal outrage,
and dishonored—outraged—amid the shouts of armed spectators. Of a
band of mechanics and farmers, who, aroused into energy by these accumulated
wrongs, assembled one day, in a City of the New World, and in
the face of mankind, and by the name of God, solemnly declared against
the King and his hired murderers. Of one man, who kept a rebel band
together in the face of unimaginable perils—in face of starvation, nakedness
and treason—who, with a mob of half-naked and starving peasants,
confronted the splendid armies of a King, and drove them like frightened
sheep before the hounds, from a Christmas revel, at a town called
me deeply. I could not help but love that man!”
“Paul—Paul, can I indeed believe my ears? You preach treason and
sanctify revolt with words like these? I cannot hear any more of this—
I am an officer of the King!”
He laid his hand upon the scarlet uniform, which was visible through
the folds of his hunting-shirt.
“But you are something else, my dear Reginald. An officer of the
King—a Lord—heir to a Dukedom—something more even than these. A
Man! You have blood in your veins—does it bound more freely when
you reflect that, hired by a King, to do the work of murder, it is now your
duty, your solemn duty to—cut my throat?”
His face was convulsed with mocking laughter.
“Ah—Paul—it is not my friend that speaks. I do not know my brother's
voice. That tone, that smile do not belong to you—”
“Washington!” cried Paul, gazing into the waters with an absent glance.
“It is a new name in the history of the world. I do not remember it in
the blood-red volume of British heraldry.”
“It is the name of a Rebel,” exclaimed Reginald, with a frown; “there
is a price upon his head—”
“Shall he indeed prove worthy of his task, and shine forth from the
clouds of Revolution, the Father of his Country? Or, shall he sink into
the degraded herd of Kings, and gasp his last breath amid the curses of an
enslaved People, leaving only these words as a record of his life—
“`I founded a Dynasty and died.”'
“Tut—tut—Paul; we've had enough of this nonsense. Before December,
the British army will occupy Philadelphia, and—ha, ha, it may be—
the head of Mister Washington will adorn the gate of London!”
And the handsome Lord graced his words with a pleasant smile.
“There was a man, Reginald, who rose from the Mob, and made England
great; for, from the brute form of vassaldom, he struck into rugged
life, the image of a People. He was named Cromwell. He died, leaving
the greatness of England, achieved by his own hand, as his only monument.
His body was soon after rooted from its grave, his limbs torn into
fragments—nailed to gibbets—hurled into the offal of the streets. This
was some time ago. Can you tell me, Reginald, which name looks nobler
now in history, the King Charles the Second, or the Brewer Cromwell?
“He was a Traitor—a Regicide.”
This time Reginald frowned.
“Yes, it is true. He helped to kill a King, who had given, not long
before, his best friend to the scaffold.—Ah, it is enough to force a smile
upon lips of stone! To talk of treason against a King. There is no such
thing. There can be no treason committed against a King, for Kings are
only Kings because they have been traitors to God and man.
“Washington! Is he indeed the man for the age, or must the People
look for another? Ah—I remember—the name in the Urn—”
Paul was silent. The Last Night rushed upon his memory again.
“Paul, you surely do not imagine, that the idle Declaration, promulgated
by the—ha, ha—the Continental Congress, will ever influence the destinies
of Europe?”
“A Thought never dies, Reginald. The Thought of the Gospel was
uttered by certain Galilean fisherman, in the face of all the kings in the
world. This was seventeen hundred years ago. And now that Thought
is embodied once more—it is uttered once again in this Declaration. Do
you think that Thought has lived seventeen hundred years—lived in the
face of kings and their brutal laws—to die at last without an echo? A
thought that lives, is only a deed struggling into birth. Can you, or can
any man foretel the deeds which that Thought will create, within the next
hundred years?
“Even now, that Thought moves in the heart of Europe, like a living
heart in the breast of a corpse.”
“You talk, it seems—ha, ha—Paul, you must pardon the smile. But
you talk of a Revolution in Europe. Forgive me if I am dull of comprehension.”
6. CHAPTER SIXTH.
PAUL TELLS THE STORY OF THE LADY WHOM HE MET IN THE GARDENS
OF A ROYAL PALACE.
“One summer day, Reginald, I found myself lost amid the mazes of
one of those beautiful gardens, which wear royal homes upon their fragrant
hearts. It was in France; and I strayed along the walks of the Great
Trianon. There were deep shadows all around me, and a breathless
silence reigned on every side. Shadows that were broken by wandering
rays of light, silence that was roused into gentle music by the lull of a
distant fountain.
“As I wandered absently along, I suddenly beheld, standing in my path,
the image of a beautiful girl. Her loosened robe flowed freely around the
outlines of a voluptuous shape; and her pale golden hair streamed in
unbound tresses to her shoulders. There was no coronet upon her hair,
eyes upon me, while her brow grew dark as with wonder at my intrusion
upon her lonely walk, I felt that I stood in the presence of a lady of rank
and power. I stood hesitating—my eyes enchained by her beautiful face
—while I was conscious that my presence was an intrusion, yes, an insult.
Retreating with an involuntary bow, I cast my eyes to the ground, when
her voice arrested my footsteps.
“`Stay!' she cried, `I have waited for you!'
“There was a bewitching music in her voice. At the sound I turned,
and stood wondering and confused before her. I shall never forget the
look of dignity mingled with fear, which she cast upon me, as with a proud
gesture she beckoned me to approach.
“`I have waited for you,' she said once more with a haughty accent—
`I have been told that you can read the future.'
“Completely bewildered, I knew not what to say. It did not occur to
me that she had taken me for some other person; perchance one of those
astrologers, who, at that time, prevailed in the atmosphere of the French
Court. Indeed, it seemed to me, that this singular meeting was the especial
act of Providence—or Destiny.
“`I do not ask you to read my fate in the Heavens—' she said, while a
sad smile gave a new beauty to her countenance—`You need not consult
the stars, in order to tell me that which is to be. But for three nights my
slumbers have been visited by a dream—a dream, whether sent from God
or from the Evil One you can best determine.'
“`Dreams are but the prophecies of the soul,' I answered, as though the
words had been uttered in my ear by an invisible friend—`When awake,
the soul, trammelled by the flesh, can only retain the impressions of the
Past. But it is in sleep that the Future becomes to her a Memory. It is
in sleep that the soul rises into her immortal power, and forgets all consciousness
of time, and knows by name, neither Past nor Future. In
sleep the past and future are one—then the Soul, indeed starting from the
trammels of flesh, rises into the atmosphere of immortality.'
“Even now, I see that young countenance, so fair, so delicate in complexion,
with its mild blue eyes and pale golden hair! She was like
Catharine—ah! That word speaks to me of Home! Only there was
never a frown on Catharine's brow, never one gleam of pride in her calm,
deep eyes.
“`Listen, while I repeat my dream,' exclaimed the unknown lady; and
while I stood wondering and dumb, she spoke in a low silvery accent,
which now quivered with fear, and again grew faint, almost inaudible
with preternatural awe.
“I do not repeat this dream, because it is so wild and strange—no! no!
But I cannot banish it from my eyes—it is ever before me—even now it
is there, between me and the sunlight.”
“With an accent of terror that I can never forget, she turned away from
a flood of light, which came gushing through an interval in the foliage.
“`It is there—drawn distinctly upon the shadows—there! Do you
not see it—that hideous phantom?'
“She covered her face with her hands, and I could see her cheek grow
pale as death.
“`I was wandering along a lofty hall, hung with tapestry, beautiful as
the rainbow of the summer evening, and adorned with images of pure
marble, and pictures, which did not seem pictures, but living souls, imprisoned
in canvass. I was alone, and as I went straying through that
chamber—whose magnificence even now bewilders me—I heard voices
murmuring my name, with accents of idolatrous praise; and it seemed to
me that I was the Queen of a World, and that the very sunlight shone for
me. The tapestry bore my image in a thousand forms—my face was in
every statue—the very flowers seen through the casements, bloomed for
me—for me alone. Oh, it was a bewildering dream, and, grown mad with
the consciousness of beauty and power, fired by the accents of the flattering
voices, which called me “Goddess—Divine Queen,” I raised my
hand toward the lofty ceiling, and—it makes the blood freeze in my veins
—defied God—yes, I defied God—I dared Almighty power to crush my
power, or wither my beauty.'
“The beautiful girl once more hid her face with her hands. It
was not until some moments had elapsed that she gathered strength
to proceed.
“`Even then, as I stood in the act of blasphemy, with my hand
uplifted, and the words of defiance on my lips, my attention was attracted
by a window, which was veiled, not by rich folds of purple tapestry, but
by a black cloth, drooping without a fold from the ceiling to the floor.
An impulse that I could not comprehend, hurried me to the window, and
forced me with my own hands to draw aside the dismal curtain. I
beheld—'
“She shuddered.
“`I beheld, not a far-extending prospect of gardens and fountains, embosomed
in the shade of lofty trees, and adorned with palaces of marble.
No! It was a wide plain, in the heart of a great city,—a wide plain,
framed by huts and palaces, and crowded with one black mass of heads,
that met my eye. Thousands and tens of thousands were gathered there;
it was an awful sea of life, undulating to and fro with a ceaseless motion.
The air was steeped in a dead stillness, only broken by a hoarse murmur.
“`Gazing upon this countless multitude, I beheld, in the centre of that
sea of upturned faces, the object around which it undulated in unceasing
waves.
“`That object was very far away from where I stood, and yet I saw it
distinctly, and drank in every minute detail.
“`It was a platform, surmounted by two upright pieces of timber, connected
at the top by a horizontal beam. At the foot of one of these upright
pieces of timber was a block; near that block, a heap of sawdust,
and standing upon the sawdust, a half-naked figure, whose bared arm was
raised above his head, while his hand clutched a rope. That rope was
attached to an axe, which glimmered near the horizontal beam.
“`Even now I see it; that black structure rising over the sea of heads
against the cold blue sky!'
“The young woman pressed her hands upon her breast, as though to
still the mad pulsations of her heart, while her expanded eyes glared upon
the vacant air, and her lips murmured in a tone almost inaudible—`It is
there—there! The axe glitters in that passing ray!'
“After a moment, growing more composed, she continued:
“`Suddenly, a lane was made through this immense multitude; a lane
which reached from its very edge to the foot of the platform. There was
an unnatural stillness upon the scene; I could hear the rolling of wheels,
and presently saw the head of a horse rising above the crowd. That
horse was attached to a rude vehicle, in which stood a solitary figure, a
half-naked woman, whose dishevelled hair flowed over her bared bosom.
Whenever I attempted to gaze upon her face, a mist came over my eyes:
but I saw her form; it was very beautiful—the sun shone over a bosom
white as snow.
“`The rude vehicle, rolling slowly on with a grating sound, was bearing
this lovely woman toward the platform.
“`I could not turn my gaze away from her form; my heart bled for her
—she seemed so terribly alone, in the midst of that countless multitude.
And as she came on, the stillness deepened—now and then a sudden cry
was heard—a short, wild ejaculation—and all was still again.
“`Oh, how earnestly I endeavored to chase away that mist which
came between my sight and the face of this lovely woman! It was in
vain—I could not trace one line of her countenance—her hair waved over
her shoulders, and her bosom shone in the sun, but her face was
a shadow.
“`The vehicle reached the foot of the platform. They had taken her
from my view, but in a moment she appeared again. They were leading
her up the steps—I saw her stand upon the platform, near the half-naked
man, her white bosom gleaming in the sun.
“`The breathless stillness of the multitude grew deeper.
“`I was gazing at her fair round neck, when—O God! O God—the
hand of the half-naked man was laid upon it—he was forcing her upon
her knees. Hark! A cry of smothered agony—her neck rests upon the
block, and her long hair streams over the saw-dust.
“`The stillness becomes more intense.
“`There is a low brooding murmur—the axe is glimmering there over
pouring upon the saw-dust from a headless trunk—there is a head rolling
over the floor of the platform, the long hair cumbered with blood-stained
dust!
“`The silence of the crowd is broken at last. One horrible yell, swelled
by ten thousand voices, peals into the sky—it was as though the damned,
released from their torment for a while, had come to hold their infernal
jubilee in the light of day.
“`That half-naked man seized the severed head, and holding it by the
hair, exposed the face to the gaze of the crowd. The sun shone vividly
upon it—writhing with the last pang, I saw it,—with the glow of life and
the blue tinge of death struggling upon its cheeks—at last I saw and knew
that face.
“`Behold,' cried the half-naked man, tossing it in the light—`Behold
the head of the Traitress—the last of an accursed brood—Marie
Antoinette!'
“`It was my own face which I saw, held by the blood-stained hair in
the light of the sun.'
“She paused for a moment, and pressed her delicate right hand to her
forehead—her cheek was livid, her lips colorless.
“`Dumb with horror, I started from the window, and turned my gaze
once more upon the magnificence of the lofty hall. The statues looked
pure and beautiful, the pictures glowed with rosy warmth, the tapestry,
trembling gently, seemed like a thousand rainbows joined in one.
But I could not banish that terrible scene—I saw, wherever I turned, the
bleeding head, held by the dishevelled hair, with the last pang quivering
over the face.
“`Then a confused cry broke on the silence—a crowd of half-naked and
bloody forms came rushing into the lofty hall, staining the white statues
with their crimsoned hands, and reeling with demoniac gestures over the
marble floor.
“`Shuddering and cold, I shrunk within the folds of the tapestry, and
saw one form taller than the rest, dragging a headless body over the floor.
It was the body of a naked woman, with blood upon her breast, and the
print of brutal feet upon her beautiful limbs. While it was dragged along
the floor, the broken arm grasped by the ruffian's hand—there was a
head tossing to and fro, under the feet of the crowd—once I saw it, as it
whirled by me, the long hair streaming in the air. It was horribly disfigured,
clotted all over with drops of blood—but it was my own face
which I saw.'
“As these words fell from her colorless lips, her hands drooped by her
side, and her hair seemed to rise upon her forehead. Never have I beheld,
even in the wildest creation of the artist's pencil, a more impressive picture
of unnatural fear. For some moments she stood gazing fixedly into my
and colorless cheek.
“`For three times have I beheld this vision,' she said in a faltering
voice—`Three nights in succession it has visited my couch. * * * Thou
canst read the future—read for me this terrible dream * * * tell me—'
“She was silent. Amazed, confounded, I knew not how to answer her.
Was it indeed a woman of royal race that I beheld, or some frenzied
daughter of the poor?
“`You desire reward,' she exclaimed, `take this ring and tell me—'
“Scarce knowing where I stood, I took the ring and placed it on my
finger, while my eye was riveted by the surpassing whiteness of her
neck.
“Even as I gazed, that neck was encircled by a livid line—I felt the
words that I uttered before, rising again to my lips.
“Dreams are but the Prophecies of the Soul. When awake, the soul,
trammelled by flesh, can only retain the impressions of the Past. It is in
sleep that the Future becomes to her a Memory.”
Paul ceased, and wiped the moisture from his forehead.
Reginald, utterly absorbed by the singular narrative, sat with his elbows
placed upon his knees, his cheeks resting on his hands, and his eye fixed
upon the stream. Once or twice, as Paul went on in his history, Reginald
had looked up,and been startled by the unnatural excitement of that bronzed
visage. He shrank from the sight of those dazzling eyes.
Paul was silent, but some moments elapsed ere he could rouse himself
from the profound reverie into which he was plunged.
At last, raising his eyes, he beheld Paul standing near, his arms folded
and his eyes fixed upon the undimpled stream. The unnatural pallor
of his face only made his eyes seem more wildly lustrous. His forehead
was bare—it shone in the sun, and the wind agitated the locks of his dark
brown hair.
“He looks like a prophet or a madman!” thought Reginald.
“Why, you are pale, my brother,” cried Paul, turning suddenly round.
“There is no color in your face. Can it be that you give credence to an
idle legend such as I have told?”
“But the woman whom you saw in the gardens of the Great Trianon,”
exclaimed Reginald, in a voice that was faint and tremulous. “Was she
indeed the Queen? was she indeed Marie Antoinette? Do you think her
dream will ever become reality? That the people of France will lay the
head of their Queen upon the block?”
A smile darted over Paul's face.
“There was once a King called Charles the First, and a Brewer named
Cromwell—” he said.
Reginald was silent.
The incident related by Paul, whose dark eye shone as with inspiration,
sank deep in his heart. With an involuntary shudder, he gathered his
blue hunting-frock over his red uniform.
7. CHAPTER SEVENTH.
THE BROKEN BUT NOT DIVIDED COIN.
“But come, Reginald—the sun is declining toward the western horizon—
I must go home.”
Paul uttered the italicized words with an accent of profound sadness.
“My way lies in this direction:” he pointed to the north-west—“Beyond
those woods I shall soon learn the secret of my fate. Father—
Catharine—”
“And mine in this,”—Reginald pointed to the south-west—“within an
hour I hope to behold my lady-love.”
The color came to his cheek, and there was a joyous smile on the
face of the handsome soldier.
“Imagine the face of my dear father, when he hears that his dutiful son
and the Baronet's daughter, separated from each other in the woods of
Yorkshire, have met in the wilderness of Wissahikon. Ha! ha! his face
will present a picture in which indignation and laughter struggle for the
mastery.”
He raised his rifle, and placed the cap upon his chestnut curls.
“You will not marry this lady without your father's consent?”
“I'faith, you are altogether too sober, brother Paul! Wandering amid
these delicious solitudes together, we will leave `marriage'—`settlements,'
et cetera, to the old folks. It is an awkward word, that `marriage.' I never
yet could think of it while watching my own image in the eyes of a beautiful
girl.”
“But, Reginald, you would not think of committing a wrong—” There
was a profound sadness in the countenance of Paul.
“While sitting beside a lovely woman, I would not like to think of any
thing but her—even if I could. Do not talk of `thinking' in such a case,
friend Paul. What matters all our thoughts—are we not driven onward
by a power that we cannot see, and certainly do not comprehend? Observe
that flower, floating on the bosom of the stream—look how smoothly it
glides onward. Can you foretel the fate of that flower, Paul? Whether
below? Or whether it will be `fished out' of the stream by some truant
school-boy, armed with a stick, with a yard of thread and a pin-hook at the
end?”
The quiet dell echoed with the somewhat boisterous laughter of the
young soldier.
Paul turned upon him with a stare of wonder.
“Ha! ha!” laughed Reginald—“You with all your thought cannot
change the course of that flower. Nor can the flower itself alter its course
one tittle. Paul, our life is precisely like the flower—we drop from another
world, perchance from some branch of an immortal tree—the stream
that bears us is called Fate, Destiny, Providence. If it leaves us on the
right bank, we wither; if on the left, we die; or if it carries us over the
falls, we are lost. Even should we escape the right bank and the left,
and ride safely through the whirlpool, here comes some truant Chance, and
`fishes us up' with something full as ridiculous as a stick, a yard of thread
and a pin-hook.”
Paul looked upon the glowing face of Reginald—marked his athletic
form—his lip curling in a smile—his cheek flushed with vigorous physical
beauty—and uttered a sigh.
It was a moment ere he answered him.
“It is one thing, Reginald, to plunge madly into wrong, and call it Fate,
and it is another thing to feel ourselves every hour whirled by an invisible
hand toward some horrible crime—whirled onward, despite all your struggles,
your prayers, your tears. That indeed is Destiny—Fate—”
“But she is so very beautiful, Paul—lips that pout with passion; eyes
that fire your blood; wavy hair, that makes your fingers mad to clasp it; a
step that at once glides over and spurns the earth; cheeks whose clear
brown is ripened by a rose-bud flush.—Ah! Paul, Youth and Love mixed
in one cup make such a bewitching draught, that one cannot help but
drink it!”
“Reginald,” said a voice, that seemed wrung from the very heart—
“You could not, on any pretence, do wrong to this girl, who has trusted
in you?”
As he spoke, Paul stood with folded arms, his melancholy face invested
with a wild spiritual grandeur. Reginald, glowing before him, with flushed
cheeks, shadowed by chesnut curls, presented a striking ideal of physical
beauty.
“Do wrong to her—ha, ha! I don't think of it! You tell me that you
have seen the world, and yet talk so gravely about an affair of this kind?
I love her, Paul, would die for her, but—”
The sentence was broken by an ejaculation from the lips of Paul.
Had it been completed, the entire thread of this history would have been
changed.
“But”—I cannot wait for marriage, he would have said, when the
exclamation broke the sentence.
“She is beautiful?” cried Paul—“Her name?”
A strange name, Paul—altogether picturesque and romantic. `Leola!”'
“`Leola!'—It is like music heard at dead of night, over the waters of a
still lake. I never called her by name—” he added, with a sigh.
“When will we meet again?” exclaimed Reginald, as he stood with
rifle on his shoulder, ready to depart.
“In the depth of the woods, near the point where the Wissahikon
empties in the Schuylkill, there stood, some time ago, a colossal tree, its
trunk like a column of some pagan temple, its wide-branching limbs leafless
and withered. It stood desolate and alone, amid the glad summer trees,
a sad image of Aged Despair, glaring in the face of Youthful Hope. It
stood near a rock, imprinted with the mark of a human foot beside a cloven
hoof—and stood where the setting sun always shed its last and kindliest
glow. We will meet there at sunset, Reginald. You will tell me of
your love—”
“And you will tell me how you went home, and was welcomed by your
father's blessing and your sister's kiss.”
Paul turned his face away; Reginald saw his form agitated, but could
not look upon the expression of his countenance.
“Father—Sister—” these words were audible amid the muttered ejaculations
which came from the lips of Paul.
“At sunset, under the blasted pine,” he said, raising his face, and abruptly
turned away, his mantle floating from his shoulder, and his plume rising
between the eye of Reginald and the sun.
But as suddenly turning again, he placed his hand within his breast,
and drew forth a broken coin, attached to a chain of delicately worked steel.
“You remember this, Reginald?”
At once, Reginald dashed his rifle to the ground, and placing his hand
within his hunting-shirt and red uniform, drew forth a similar fragment,
attached also to a chain of fine steel.
“I have always worn it since that hour!”
These fragments were the separate halves of a silver shilling, stamped
with the image of George the Second, and bearing date 1732. The half
which Paul held in the light, bore the figures 17; while on Reginald's
fragment the figures 32 were distinctly seen.
“You remember the night, Reginald, when we broke this coin, in the
woods of Lyndulfe, and swore to be as brothers to each other, until
death?”
“I have never forgotten it, Paul—”
“In case one of us should, at any time, be placed in a position of extremity,
he should send to the other his fragment of coin—”
“And the one who received this coin, should hasten to his brother's aid,
it, Paul!”
“Join hands with me, Reginald, and let us in the sight of God renew
our pledge of Brotherhood.”
“`We will be true to each other, and on no extremity nor danger desert
each other, but cherish for ever the solemn symbol of the broken, but not
divided coin,—broken, but not divided, for its separate pieces are moved
by two hearts joined in one, by the holy tie of Brotherhood.”'
“Brother Paul!”
“Brother Reginald?”
Their hands were clasped; their eyes, centred on each other's faces,
were moistened with tears. In this dark world there are many horrible
realities, but it seems to me, that the friendship—the Brotherhood—of two
true-hearted men, is among those things which make the angels less sorrowful
for the crimes of earth, and even wake the cold malice of a devil's
soul into something akin to love.
“At sunset, under the blasted pine!” cried Paul, as he turned away.
Reginald gazed after him, as he threaded his way among the rocks on
the western bank of the stream. He saw him winding near the waterside,
his form half-hidden by the thickly clustered bushes, while the sunlight
shone only upon his hair, surmounted by the dark cap and the slender
plume.
“There goes as noble a heart as ever throbbed, and some sorrow that I
cannot comprehend, crushes him to the earth!”
At this moment Paul appeared in sight again, standing upon a rock,
some distance up the stream, which received the warm sunshine on its
breast. His face, thrown in strong profile, stood out from the shadows of
the distant woods, and glowed in vivid light. His arms were outspread;
he seemed absorbed in some thought of voiceless prayer.
`He is praying that he may behold his father's white hairs, and be
welcomed by a sister's kiss,” muttered Reginald—“Ah! He descends
from the rock,—he stands upon the fallen tree, which reaches from shore
to shore—with his eyes turned unceasingly to the north-west, he crosses
the stream. * * * He is lost in the shadows of the woods, and I am alone.”
The sun was sinking in the west, and the shadows came thicker over
the dell. There are nooks beside the Wissahikon, where noonday is as
twilight, and evening wears the darkness of midnight. This dell, opening
suddenly upon the stream, as from a cleft in the forest, with a wall of
leaves on either hand, was full of cheerful light at the midday hour, but
no sooner did the day begin to decline, than it was rendered sad and
gloomy by a twilight shadow. True, there was a joy in its very sadness,
a holy calm in its very gloom, but as Reginald glanced around him, he felt
the quiet, the shadow of the place, impress every sense with a feeling
of awe.
“I am alone,” he murmured, gazing now at a wandering burst of sun
shine, now upon the waveless stream, brooding under a veil of shadow—
“Alone!”
That word startled the silence with a strange echo. Alone with his
own soul, alone with the memory that pointed terribly to the Past, with
the hope that trembled amid its gladness, as it looked to the future.
There was a chaos of thoughts crowding over the brain of the gallant
soldier.
As if in the attempt to banish thought, he began to hum a merry air,
which he had heard at some boisterous festival of the camp; but it came
faintly from his lips, and suddenly died away without an echo.
He beheld the dove that had been killed by his shot; it lay near his
feet, with its head resting between the folded wings, and the red stain upon
its bosom. The young man raised it, pressed its plumage gently, and
murmured a single word—
“Madeline!”
Then the Last Night rushed upon his memory in vivid and distinct
details. He saw the white form kneeling in the lonely chamber, he heard
the voice pleading for mercy, in the name of God—he bared the young
breast, and fell back affrighted and cold before a fatal Revelation. Thus
all the scenes of that fearful night came crowding upon him at once, until
he was affrighted and cold again.
“Would to God I had never entered the confines of this valley! Well
do I remember the phantom that warned me back—it is before me now—
I cannot banish its words from my ears. How carelessly I came to the
farm-house on that night—the cup was drugged—the outrage planned—
but, like a madman chased by the frenzies of his own brain, I fled from the
house and from the Wissahikon in the daybreak hour. Madeline! Madeline!”
It was his Dark Hour.
His changing color and wandering eye, and brow damp with moisture,
all betrayed the force of his emotion.
“I have not seen the Merchant who was entrusted by my father with
this secret, since I left Philadelphia. Has he obtained any clue to the
mystery? Does Madeline live? I dare not question the people of the
valley—they might recognise me, and suspect me of the murder. Better
that suspicion, ay, much better the guilt of murder itself, than—”
His voice died away in a murmur; his face, so fascinating in its manly
beauty, was terribly agitated.
“Leola!” he exclaimed, and the cloud passed from his brow.
8. CHAPTER EIGHTH.
PAUL GOES TOWARD HIS HOME.
Paul crossed the Wissahikon by means of the fallen tree, and ascending
the opposite bank, plunged into the shadow of the woods. As he threaded
his way over the earth, strewn with withered pine leaves, while the huge
trunks were dimly seen on every side, his face was still turned to the
north-west.
He strode rapidly onward, until the sombre depths and unnatural stillness
of the pines was succeeded by a thicket full of flowers and sunshine,
with green boughs stretching across his path at every step. But the sunlight
that danced so merrily among the leaves and blossoms, did not chase
the settled gloom from his face, nor did the luxurious atmosphere of June,
steeped in fragrance and musical with the hum of bees, call one glow of
rapture to his cheek. Ever turning his eyes to the north-west, he threaded
the windings of the faintly defined pathway, while the gloom came darker
over his face.
It was a pathway rarely trodden; it led among the wildest recesses of
the woods, and led toward the Home of Paul. In a few moments he
would be there; he would behold the old Block-house smiling under its
garmenture of vines and flowers.
Paul felt his knees bend under him, and wiped the cold moisture from his
brow. Every moment brought him nearer to that Home; soon he would
know the worst.
His thoughts became vague and dream-like. He was again a wanderer
over the face of the earth. Again he stood in the streets of Paris, an unknown
and friendless man, alone in a desert of strange people. Again he
trod the soil of Germany, and paused for a while amid the chivalric student
people of Heidelberg, and heard their earnest songs, chorused by the
clash of swords, swelling deep and far over the bosom of the Rhine. Then
he was on the way that leads through a dark wood, to the summit of a
craggy hill, from whence you may drink in the valley of the Arno, with
Florence glittering on its breast. He was in Rome, at dead of night, in
the great Temple of St. Peter's, with only a single light burning through
its profound gloom—alone at dead of night in that great temple, whose
dome is itself a sky. He was in Rome, in the Catacombs—the city of the
dead sunken under the feet of the living millions—he knelt by the graves
of martyrs, and, oppressed by the memories of the place, felt his soul glide
away into the New World, where the father and the sister were waiting
for him.
And with these thoughts of his pilgrimage over Europe—a pilgrimage
accomplished on foot, with but little money and no friends, save those
whom his sad visage won by the way—there came other and wilder thoughts
of adventures too strange for belief.
He thought of the night when, belated among the Hartz mountains, whose
abrupt cliffs and pines and shadows reminded him of his own Wissahikon,
a voice spoke to him, and—
Paul dared not pursue the thought. He shuddered as it crossed his
mind.
And as he banished the memory of the Hartz mountains, the thought
of his Father, his Sister, his Home came back with overwhelming force.
“I cannot go on!” he cried, and flung himself at the foot of a wild poplar
tree—“How can I look upon my father's face, when there is Perjury
written upon mine?”
Again the cold moisture gathered on his brow—he raised his right hand
to dash it away—when his eye assumed an unnatural brightness, and he
gazed upon the half-raised hand with a look of singular interest.
“This hand—this hand—” he muttered, and springing from the seat at
the foot of the wild poplar, hurried on his way.
There was a strip of wood to be passed, a lane to be crossed, a gentle
hill to be ascended, and then his feet would press the wild grass of the
winding road which led to the gate of the Monastery.
Paul hurried through the strip of wood, and descended the steep bank
into the lane, which led from the Wissahikon to the Schuylkill. He was
hurrying toward the opposite bank, when his ear caught the sound of a
footstep. A man attired in the garb of a laborer was journeying slowly
along the road with a scythe on his shoulder.
Paul waited until he approached.
“Can you tell me, friend, whether the old man still lives in the Block-house
yonder?”
The laborer started at the sound of the voice—looked in Paul's face
with a vacant stare, while his rugged visage was stamped with an expression
of intense terror.
“The old man—sometimes called the Priest of Wissahikon—does he
still live yonder?”
Paul held his breath as he awaited an answer to this question. But the
laborer did not answer; he stood in the centre of the road like one stricken
dumb by the hand of Heaven; his eyes dilating and every line of his face
agitated by terror.
The suspense of Paul amounted to agony.
“Speak! Does the old man yet live? The old man who lived in the
Block-house, not two hundred yards from where you stand. Is he yet
alive?”
As he spoke, he advanced, his whole frame trembling with emotion.
up the bank and into the bushes as though he had been pursued by a wild
beast.
“What can it mean? Is the curse of Cain indeed written on my forehead?”
Paul remained standing in the centre of the road, absorbed in thought.
After a moment he raised his eyes; there was a noble poplar tree standing
on the verge of the opposite bank, its broad green leaves intermingled with
flowers that resembled cups of gold adorned with pearl. At sight of this
tree, which stood alone, reaching forth its magnificent branches on every
side, all the associations of his youth rushed upon the soul of the Wanderer.
Beneath that tree, on the night of his flight, he had hesitated for an instant—uncertain
whether to go back and fling himself at his father's feet,
or to rush forward into the unknown world, an outcast, stamped with the
brand of Cain.
Two hundred yards from that tree stood the Monastery of Wissahikon.
Maddened by this monument of the Past, this green memorial of his
crime, Paul ascended the bank, and darting over the irregular fence,
hurried blindly onward. It was not long before his feet pressed the
winding road which led to the Block-house gate.
Do not picture to yourself a smooth path, paved with brown pebbles,
and bordered by regularly planted flowers, with the limbs of carefully
clipped trees arching overhead. But picture a road whose traces are
almost lost in a growth of wild grass overspread with briers—a devious
road, wandering among trees of every shape and kind, with brushwood
starting in luxuriant vegetation, all about their massive trunks. A road
that now strikes to the east, now to the west, at this point comes out in
sunlight, and yonder hides itself beneath the branches that bend down
until their leaves are mingled with the rank grass.
Paul gazed upon the few paces of the road which were visible, and
felt that every thing announced decay and desolation. The deep hollows
dug by wheels in former days, were buried in the briers and grass; it was
evident that the path had not been used for many a day—perchance
years.
After standing for a moment, buried in thought, Paul commenced that
journey of two hundred yards, which to him was more terrible than a
journey around the entire globe.
As he went onward, tearing his way through the briers, his cheek became
paler, until his eyes, increasing in brightness, resembled the eyes of a
living man set in the face of a corse. He trembled with cold, although the
day was one of the most delicious in June, and gathered his mantle closely
over his breast.
He attained the solitary chesnut tree, around which the path turned
a moment, and remembered that from this tree to the gate of the Block-house,
the road was marked by five inclinations. At the first,—counting
from the chesnut tree—stood a tulip-poplar; at the second, an oak; at
the third, a pine; at the fourth, a beech; and at the fifth, a sycamore or
buttonwood tree. Around the trunk of each of these trees—distinguished
from the other trees by their remarkable size—the path made a sudden
turn.
From the foot of the old sycamore, it was but a few yards to the gate
of the Block-house. The dense foliage prevented the ancient edifice
from being seen, until this point was attained, when it suddenly, and in
all its interesting details, rushed upon the eye.
“I cannot go on—every tree, every flower brings some memory before
me—I will retrace my steps, and go forth into the world again!”
These words were not spoken in a tone remarkable for depth or power.
The accents of the speaker were tremulous and broken, while his chest
rose and fell with spasmodic throbbings.
The five trees, which he would have to pass, each tree venerable
with age, and clad in the glory of summer, seemed whirling before
his eyes.
With trembling footsteps, he left the chesnut tree. Faint and powerless
from the emotion, which only added brightness to his eyes, while
it paled his cheek, and loosened every fibre of his frame, Paul toiled
slowly onward, until he stood beneath the shade of the tulip-poplar.
Then it was, that the memory of the fatal night came upon him with
crushing force; he sank on his knees, and buried his face amid the grass.
“With this hand I struck him down—” he moaned—“I dashed him
beneath my feet, and lived. Perjured! Perjured! The burden of the
Unpardonable Sin is upon me. And yet, that which has been, even the
guilt of perjury, the crime of an unnatural blow, is innocence compared
to that which is to be.”
An unbroken silence prevailed through the forest, while Paul remained
prostrate, with his face buried in the grass. There was no human eye to
look upon his agony, and listen to his incoherent words. He was alone
with his Soul—with Memory. Memory of what?
A low humming sound came to his ears. He started up—it was the
sound of a human voice. It came gently through the wood, now rising
on the air, and again dying away in an indistinct murmur.
“It is the voice of Catharine,” he cried, springing to his feet, and turning
around the foot of the wild poplar. “There are two voices—I hear
them distinctly. The voice of Catherine and—”
“My father!” he would have said, but could not speak the word.
Trampling over the briers, and through the grass, he hurried onward
toward the oak. He was strong in his very despair. He was resolved
prostrate himself at the feet of his Father. He drew near the old tree, whose
branches might have sheltered an hundred men. Venerable with the
growth of five centuries, its immense trunk hollowed by decay, and its
gnarled limbs woven together with fragrant vines, it broke on the eye of
Paul as he hastened forward, just as he had seen it in the summers of his
boyhood.
Beneath its shade he paused, and gazed beyond—that sound of voices
breaking more distinctly on his ear. Before him, tangled no longer with
briers, the road stretched to the west again, with sunlight playing over
its grass and flowers, while the bright foliage quivered overhead.
Paul held his breath; the sight which he beheld, enchained every
faculty of his soul.
Where the sunshine came in wandering rays, there was a little child
tossing merrily on the grass, and crushing leaves and flowers in his tiny
hands. A boy with cheeks like the rose, and lips like twin-cherries, hair
of bright gold, mingling with the grass, and eyes of laughing blue, turned
towards the sky. His face and naked arms were embrowned by the sun,
and his coarse garb indicated that he was but a peasant's child. The air
rang with his merry laughter, as he tossed his flowers in the air—caught
them upon his face and hair, and then—while his cheeks were almost
hidden by violets and roses—reached forth his little hands to gather more.
A happy child, dressed in an humble garb, playing all alone in the
midst of the silent forest, making the air musical with his voice, and baptizing
his stainless cheeks with freshly gathered flowers!
Paul stood very still, afraid to move or breathe, lest he might scare the
beautiful vision away. Leaning against the trunk of the great oak, he
rested his pale cheek against the rough bark, and gazed in silence upon
the laughing child.
His eyes filled with tears.
That picture of laughing innocence stood up beside the image of his
own dark fate, in terrible contrast.
—The tears rolled slowly down his cheeks.
—Afraid to breathe, he soon became conscious that there was another
spectator of this scene. Amid the foliage, not far from the child, appeared
the face of a young woman, with a finger pressed upon the red lip, and
the Heaven of a Mother's love lighting up her eyes.
It was the face of an humble laborer's daughter—Paul remembered it
well. She was but a girl when he left the Wissahikon. One day, four
years ago, near this very spot, a girl of some fifteen years had knelt
before him, and joining her hands upon her breast, asked his blessing.
The blessing of Paul Ardenheim! Inspired by the superstitious awe
which then prevailed among the country folks of Wissahikon, in regard
his lips.
And the face now gazing upon the laughing child, with the finger on the
red lip, was the face of the young girl who, four years since, had knelt at
the feet of the Monk of Wissahikon.
“They at least are happy! The young mother, whose eyes are full of
Heaven, and the child freshly gathered from the blossoms of Paradise!”
It seemed to Paul that he could gaze for ever on this scene; it was to
him a picture which memory might wear for ever in her holiest shrine.
The child centred amid grass and flowers—the mother gazing from the
foliage, her sunburnt face glowing into beauty,—the profound forest all
around!
“She can tell me of my father,” thought Paul. “At last I can know
whether he lives. I long to hear her speak the name of Catharine.”
The mother started from the foliage, and stood disclosed in the centre
of the hidden road, her young form clad in the coarse attire of a poor
man's wife, while her brown hair fell loosely over the 'kerchief which
veiled her bosom.
Paul advanced; his footstep crashing down the wild grass as he left the
shadow of the oaken tree.
“It is a beautiful child,” he said, in that voice, which was wont to win
the ear with its rich intonation—“Let me take it in my arms, and learn
from its lips the song which the angels sing in Heaven.”
The mother looked up, startled by the unexpected footstep and the voice.
“Do you not remember me?” he said, with an attempt to smile—“Has
my face grown strange so soon. I have only been absent two years—”
The young woman gazed upon this form, clad in strange attire, with
the mantle floating down the shoulder, and the plume trembling above the
dark hair and livid face. She did not speak, but her eyes dilated; her
lips parted; she was motionless.
“Do you not know me?”—again that sad attempt at a smile.
The limbs of the young woman bent beneath her; she sank on the grass,
and with an involuntary gesture, gathered her child to her bosom. Never
for a moment did she turn her wild gaze from the countenance of Paul.
The color had vanished from her face; it was evident that she was
oppressed by some indefinable terror.
“Do you not remember the day when you knelt before me—near this
very spot—and asked my blessing?” cried Paul, as the undeniable fear of
the young mother cut him to the soul—“Have I become so changed, so
hideous, that you do not know me?”
“Do not harm me—” faltered the affrighted mother, gathering her child
closer to her heart—“The dead—the dead—”
“Tell me, does my father live? Catharine—my sister—you have seen
her—she is well?”
—“The dead should never return to earth, but to bless us! Do not—
do not harm me!”
“The dead—what mean you? I am living—”
But still the young mother clutched her child to her bosom, and with
her dilating eyes fixed upon the face of Paul, faltered, in a tone pitiful with
terror—
“Do not harm me! Do not harm me!”
—The agony of the damned rent the heart of the Wanderer, as he rushed
past the mother and her child. Never for an instant looking back, he fled
from their presence, he passed the pine, and ere he was aware, reached
the foot of the beechen tree.
From this point the road extended toward the north; had it not been
for the branches, which bent down until their leaves swept the grass, Paul
could have seen the Block-house.
“I am accursed in the sight of God and man. Yes, the meanest wretch
who digs to save himself from starvation, looks on me with loathing. The
young mother shrinks from me, as if there was death in my look; the
very babe upon her bosom lifts its little hands to curse me.”
Upon the smooth rind of the giant-beech, some unknown hand had
carved a name and date.
PAUL — JANUARY FIRST, 1775.
He gazed upon this inscription with a vacant wonder. He could not
trust his sight, but passing his hand over the smooth surface of the beechen
trunk, felt every letter, and counted them one by one.
“What hand has dared record that date, and stamp the memory of my
crime upon this tree?”
There was no answer to the question. Paul left the shadow of the
beech and staggered onward. His steps were wild and unsteady—he
tottered like a drunken man.
“It is only a moment longer,—only a moment! I will stand beneath
the sycamore and see my home. Home!”
9. CHAPTER NINTH.
HOME.
A branch bent over his path—he dashed it aside, and caught a gleam
of the white trunk of the sycamore.
His face like the face of a corpse, his eyes flashing with the glare of
madness from the compressed brows, his forehead damp with moisture,
he dashed onward, reaching forth his hands with an involuntary impulse,
as he saw the white bark of the well-remembered sycamore.
But ten paces intervened between him and the tree; only ten paces,
and yet every foot of the green sod seemed lengthened into a league.
Bounding forward with the last impulse of his strength, he fell prostrate
at the foot of the sycamore. He was afraid to raise his head—afraid to
look, lest he might see his father's face—afraid to listen, lest he might hear
his father's voice.
Lifting his face from his hands, he gazed down the path, hedged in by
trees, and beheld the sunlight shining warmly over a green space in which
it terminated.
From that green space arose a wall of logs, and beyond that wall, a
massive structure glowed brightly in the sun.
It was the Block-House—it was his Home.
Do not picture to yourself a Gothic mansion, with pointed windows and
roof broken into regular peaks, adorned with fantastic carvings along the
eaves, with chimneys starting into the air like minarets from the dome of
a Turkish mosque—a Gothic mansion, standing in the centre of a garden,
which, in its turn, is separated from the woods by a neat lattice fence.
No! The Block-House of the Wissahikon, which we have seen in
winter, capped with snow, was only a huge square of logs, rising darkly
in the centre of an open space, separated from the woods by a high wall,
pierced by a gateway on the west. Whether the Block-House was two
or three stories high, whether it comprised twenty or an hundred chambers
within its walls of oak and cedar, or whether it was built in imitation
of any known style of architecture, are questions that we cannot determine.
In winter time, it turned to the rays of the setting sun, a gloomy front,
broken by a lofty hall door, with a window on either side and two above.
From this hall door to the gateway was only twenty yards. And in the
winter time, this huge square of logs, standing within its wall, with its
gateway looking to the west, and its encircling trees stripped of their
leaves, rising giant and grim around it, presented an appearance full of
gloom and desolation.
But now the scene was changed.
It was surmounted by lofty trees, whose straight trunks rose for thirty
feet without a branch, and then their limbs, thick with foliage, met around
the roof.
The sun shone warmly over the gateway, over the wall, and upon the
fabric itself, but did not disclose the outline of a single rugged timber.
It looked not like a mass of dark logs, but was, in truth, a mass of leaves
and flowers. It was covered, from the roof to the sod, with vines, whose
foliage only permitted the hall door to be seen. A garment of leaves upon
the broken roof; a tapestry of leaves upon the western and southern walls;
leaves and flowers, woven together, around the posts of the gloomy door-way—thus
attired, the old Block-House looked cheerful in the rays of
the summer day.
Even the wall which encircled the space in which it stood, was covered
with vines and flowers. The gate posts of cedar were clad in green, in
crimson, in scarlet, in azure and gold.
Standing thus, amid its encircling trees, the Monastery no longer resembled
a gloomy mausoleum. It did indeed look like a monument built over
the ashes of the dead, but it was a monument clad in the leaves, the
flowers—the rainbow drapery of June.
Paul could not repress an ejaculation of joy.
“It looks so beautiful—more beautiful than in the olden time!”
Olden time! He had seen scarce twenty-one summers, and yet he talks
of the olden time! There are some minds, we must remember, which do
not measure years by the succession of winter and summer, but by their
Thoughts—by their Suffering—by their Hope and by their Despair.
The stillness which dwelt around the Monastery, was only disturbed by
the murmuring of the breeze among the foliage. The subdued light which
invested its walls, came through the canopy of woven branches, but no
glimpse of blue sky was to be seen.
Paul hurried forward. It was no time for thought. He was determined
to meet the pale face of his father—he was nerved to encounter the sad
welcome of his sister's eyes.
Leaving the sycamore, he hurried toward the gateway. The gate was
open, but wild grass and flowers started thickly between its vine-clad posts.
The doors, formed of solid oak, hung on their rusted hinges.
“It has not been closed for many a day,” thought Paul, as he hurried
through the tall grass.
He beheld the door of the Monastery—a dark mass of oaken panels, with
an iron knocker near the top—appearing in the midst of the tapestry of
vines, which fluttered over the front of the edifice.
To leave the gateway, to hurry over the space between it and the mansion—a
space overgrown with grass and briers—to place his feet upon the
flat stone in front of the door—was the work of a moment.
He nerved his arm as for a desperate effort—he seized the iron knocker
and beat the panel with repeated blows, and stood cold and shuddering, as
he listened for the echo of a footstep.
He heard the echoes of the knocker die away along the corridor, within
the mansion, and—was it a fancy?—he heard the sound of voices; voices
very faint and far away. Then a dead silence ensued.
Again—torn by emotions beyond the power of words to describe or
analyze—again he lifted the knocker, and again the gloomy echoes resounded
through the corridor. And once more that sound, which resembled
voices mingling in low whispers, followed by a dead silence.
Paul could endure this horrible suspense no longer.
“Another moment, and I am mad,” he cried, and dashed his clenched
hand against the door.
It opened before him—the wooden latch, crumbled by age, fell in fragments
at his feet—the light of day streamed in upon the corridor, while a
gust of damp chill air rushed in his face.
This corridor traversed the entire extent of the Block-House, from west
to east, dividing the rooms which stood upon the lower floor of the mansion.
Into that corridor opened the doors of various chambers—the room of
his father—of Catharine—his own cell—the room in which the Deliverer
had uttered his vow—and that apartment, which concealed in its bosom
the Urn enshrining the Deliverer's name.
There too was the fatal door traced with the figure of a Cross; the door
of the Sealed Chamber.
Paul stood on the threshold, gazing into the gloom of the corridor, listening
intently for a sound. From a nook near the door the old clock
glared in the sun, covered with cobwebs and dust. The hands stood still
on its face; one pointing to the hour of “Five,” the other to the figure
“Two.”
“Ten minutes past five!” exclaimed the Wanderer—“It struck five the
moment when I left that fatal room—and since that hour has ceased
to move!”
It seemed to him that every dumb object which he saw, was armed with
some fearful memory. The inscription on the beech—the hands of the
clock standing still, and pointing to the hour, the moment, when he dashed
his father from his path,—the silent records of the past, looked like the
work of no human hand.
“Father! Sister!” cried Paul, but he started at the sound of his own
voice.—
Advancing, he opened the first door to the right, crossed its threshold,
stumbled against some object in the darkness, and at last touched the bolt
of a shutter with his extended hands. He drew the bolt, pushed open the
shutter, as far as the vines without would admit, and by the faint light
which came through the aperture examined the details of the place.
It was a square room, neatly panelled with dark oak. Near the window
was a fire-place, and in the centre stood a large table of unpainted
pine, around which were ranged three chairs made of dark wood. Huge
rafters stretched along the ceiling, and there were two windows, one opening
to the north, the other to the west. As the light came through the
narrow aperture, the place looked naked and desolate.
Around this table, in the days bygone, the old man and his children had
gathered to their frugal meal; which was prepared upon the hearth, either
by the hands of Catharine, or the wife of some neighboring farmer. A
frugal meal, indeed, for it was composed of the produce of the garden, the
fruits of the field, with clear cold water from the well. Neither flesh nor
wine ever passed the lips of the old man or his children.
Paul could not turn his eyes away from the table; the chairs seemed
arranged for his father, himself, and Catherine, as in other days; but there
was dust upon the board, and cobwebs hung across the fireless hearth.
He could not banish the conviction, that the room had been untenanted
for many months.
“He is dead—my father,” he cried, in a tone of agony. “I return to
my home, and the old place is silent. No voice but mine awakes the
echoes. No foot but mine brushes the dust from the floor. Father—
sister—both dead—I am alone in the world—alone.”
Sinking on a chair, he rested his arms upon the table, and buried his
face in his hands.
When he raised his face into the light, every feature was resplendent
with joy.
“Thank God—my father is dead! The iron hand of Fate is lifted from
my breast!”
Uttering these words with a burst of unfeigned rapture, he sank on his
knees, near the table, and raised his glowing face toward heaven.
“The sod is on his breast, the grave-cloth on his limbs—thank God,
thank God! There is no stain upon this hand!”
It was his right hand which he lifted in the light.
Mad and incomprehensible triumph! Even amid the tears which fall
for the death of his father and his sister, he thanks God that the father is
indeed dead, that the sod is upon his breast and the grave-cloth on his
limbs.
His face, at all times remarkable for its thought, embodied in features of
bronze, and lighted by eyes of dazzling lustre, now shone in every line
with an extravagant joy.
“The Fiend who pursued me over the ocean—over Europe—never for
one moment pausing in his terrible chase—now hovering near me like a
shadow, now descending upon me like a cloud, now drinking my life-blood
drop by drop, from the fountains of my heart—this Fiend shall pursue me
no longer! God of mercy—I am free!”
Amid these wild words and incoherent figures, it was plainly to be seen,
some thought of appalling intensity was hidden.
“Free to begin my life, as I would have begun it, had I not entered the
Sealed Chamber—” he shuddered—“until my father was dead.”
His chest shook as he bowed his head and wept aloud.
“But he may live—live to blast me with the sight of his pale face and
mild blue eyes.”
He arose and advanced to the fireplace. There was a shelf above the
hearth, and on this shelf Paul discovered, with much astonishment, a box
filled with tinder, and near it flint, steel, and a package of matches; in fact,
the requisite materials for creating fire. Covered with dust and cobwebs,
they had not been used for many a day; it may be, not even since the last
night of 1774.
From the ashes of the fireless hearth, Paul drew forth a pine-knot slightly
charred at one end.
“It will serve me for a torch, while I traverse the unknown chambers
of my home,” he said; and in a few moments, with the red light of the
pine-knot flashing over his features, he stood in the corridor again, his back
to the sunlight and his face toward the shadow.
Then, as if nerving himself for a desperate deed, he passed along the
corridor, he drew near the door of his father's chamber.
How the memories of other days came crowding over his soul!
Not a board in the floor, nor a panel in the walls, but was remembered
by him, and remembered well. The very echo of his footsteps brought
back the sounds of other days.
Soon the pine-knot, burning and glaring over his head, flashed upon the
door of his father's room. The moisture started in big drops from the
forehead of the son; he felt his heart contract and dilate by turns.
“He may be there, waiting for me.” The thought chilled his blood, as
he stood in front of the door.
He listened—standing perfectly still, while the torch lighted up his face
with a gloomy ray, he listened for the sound of his father's voice, for the
first echo of his father's step.
All was still.
And yet, torn by a horrible doubt, Paul could not advance; he remained
gazing upon the panels of the door with an absent stare.
He had but to extend his hand, to touch the latch, and the door would
open before him. But he dared not do it.
“He is there—slumbering upon his bed, while the Sad Image scowls
upon his withered face and venerable hair. In his dreams he murmurs
the name of the outcast; in his dreams he writhes at the memory of the
sacrilegious blow; in his dreams he repeats the story of the broken oath,
and heaps a father's curse upon the head of the guilty son.”
Paul could gaze upon the door no longer. He advanced but a step,
which met his gaze.
“Catharine!” he whispered. There was no answer.
“My sister!” he bent his head against the panels. In that moment of
suspense, a gentle face, whose clear blue eyes revealed a guiltless soul,
rose vividly upon his memory, over the mists of the past. Still no answer
greeted him; there was no footstep tripping lightly over the floor; no
gentle hand touched the latch; no voice—full of melody, hallowed with the
tones of other days—murmured the brother's name, and bade the wanderer
welcome home.
The deep stillness was undisturbed even by the faintest sound.
“Sister!” cried a voice, whose accents were choked with agony—“It is
I—it is your brother, who, sick with wandering, maddened by remorse, now
stands trembling at the threshold of your chamber, afraid to look upon the
innocence of your face, afraid to speak your name. Catharine! Catharine!
You do not answer me. You avoid the sight of the blasphemer's face.
It is well. I have deserved this, and more.”
Again he bent his head and listened. No step, no voice, not the faintest
sound.
Paul passed on.
It was the door of the chamber which shrouded within its shadows the
name of the Deliverer. The name written by the Deliverer himself, and
by the old man deposited in the Urn.
“It was not to be opened until a year had passed. The year has gone,
—two years and more—but I dare not cross the threshold, for I am accursed
of God, disowned by the dead, abhorred by the living!”
He longed, earnestly longed to cross that threshold, and place his hand
within the Urn, and read the words which his Father had written beside
the Deliverer's name.
But his heart was too full of fearful memories, his brain was dizzy and
his sight was dim. He advanced with trembling steps, and as the pine-knot
flashed through the shadows, he beheld the Cross upon the dark
panels.
It was the door of the Sealed Chamber.
Paul saw it and rushed forward with a bound. That Cross traced on
the panels pierced his brain with an intolerable torture. For a moment
he stood before it, swaying to and fro, like a drunken man; he reached
forth his hand, and touched the key which was inserted in the lock.
He was about to enter the Sealed Chamber, and confront his Fate once
more.
“It was here that I came forth with the blight upon my soul, the mark
of Cain upon my forehead. From that hour I have never for a moment
known even the name of Peace. From that hour my soul has been given
damned.”
His hand was upon the key—he grasped the torch more firmly, and
placed his foot against the door.
“Shall I again stand face to face with Fate, and wrap myself in the
tempest of my Destiny once more! Again—again—”
His blood congealed as the memory of that incredible Revelation possessed
his soul. There was no hue of life upon his face; lip, brow and cheek
—all were colorless. His eyes no longer shone with unnatural brightness—they
were covered with a glassy film.
And then, as if the secret of that fatal Chamber had taken bodily form,
and glowed before him like a corse, invested with an unnatural light by
the touch of Satan, with the pale light of the grave glimmering from its
sunken eyes, and a low-toned voice speaking from its livid lips—Paul
groaned in agony, and muttered amid his incoherent cries—
“Spare me! Spare me! Mercy—mercy! Not with this hand—not
with this hand—”
Exhausted by the violence of his emotions,—appalled by the memory
of the Revelation—afraid to know that the old man his father was indeed
dead, but much more afraid to look upon his living face, Paul sank on his
knees, and lifted the torch above his face with his clasped hands.
“There is no pity for me on earth,—in Heaven nothing but Judgment.
My punishment is greater that I can bear!”
These words, uttered by Cain, when the burden of his remorse pressed
too heavily upon his soul, fell with touching emphasis from the lips of
Paul Ardenheim.
Many moments passed while he remained on his knees, with his face
turned to heaven.
Gathering strength at last, he rose, and turned his eyes toward the opposite
door. It led into his own room, the home of his thought, that dearly
remembered place, where the Hebrew volume had spoken its mysterious
words, and Shakspeare and Milton blessed the Dreamer's soul.
“Shall I enter?” exclaimed Paul, as the brighter memories for a
moment banished the gloom from his soul.
“Here the Prophet Shakspeare first spoke to me; here the voice of the
Prophet Milton first broke upon my solitude; it was here, within this narrow
cell, that I first beheld that World of other ages, which men call the
Bible.—I cannot enter now—I am afraid. I cannot pause for a moment,
until I know that my father lives, or that he is dead.”
He passed on toward the extremity of the corridor. Those doors on
either side, which had never been opened within his memory, were now
hung with cobwebs. Their dusky surface only spoke of silence and
desolation.
Presently the pine-knot flashed upon the last door, at the eastern end
of the passage. It was slightly open; Paul touched it, and beheld a
narrow stairway.
10. CHAPTER TENTH.
THE SECRET OF THE UPPER ROOMS.
“It leads to the upper rooms, of which my father spoke in his last
letter,” said Paul, and for an instant he stood hesitating, with his foot
upon the first step. The stillness which prevailed, sank upon his soul,
and filled him with an insurmountable awe. At the other end of the corridor,
the sunlight shone, but around him all was vague and shadowy.
The light of the blazing pine-knot revealed his colorless features, while
its smoke hung in a cloud above his dark hair.
A wild hope, mingled with a wilder fear, crossed his brain, that his
father stood waiting for him at the head of the stairway, with Catharine by
his side.
“Father!” he whispered, and bent forward, trembling in anticipation
of an answer—“Catharine!”
It seemed to him, that he heard a sound something like the faint echo
of a step, mingled with the accents of a whispering voice. Now it came
from the rooms above; he heard it plainly; and again it seemed to
murmur beneath his feet.
Was it indeed the sound of a human voice, the echo of a human step,
or only one of those peculiar murmurs, which break through the stillness
of a deserted mansion, on a calm summer day, reminding us of the low-toned
whispering voices—the half-heard footsteps—of the dead?
Paul dared not speak the fear which chilled his heart. Assured that
his father was waiting for him at the head of the stairway, that the gentle
face of his sister was there, beside the withered features of the old man,
he nerved himself for a last effort. His face became calm; not a lineament
stirred. It was very pale, but fixed as marble. His hand was firm;
he clutched the blazing pine-knot without a tremor.
“If he lives, I am once more an outcast upon the face of the earth. If
he is dead—then, there is a hope for me, a glorious hope.”
As this thought crossed his mind, he ascended the stairway—his light
over a demon fire, illumined the head of the stairway.
It was a narrow staircase, winding with a sudden turn, and almost perpendicular.
Pale and breathless, Paul attained the head; he stood on the
floor of a corridor, and holding the light above his head, endeavored to
pierce the shadows which darkened beyond him.
`My father is not here,” he murmured, and traversed the corridor.
It was only half the extent of the passage on the lower floor. Seven
doors appeared in its walls; three on the right, as many on the left, and
one at its western extremity.
Paul anxiously surveyed the doors on the left.
“They have not been opened for years,” he said, as he saw the dust
which had gathered in the crevices; the spider-webs which hung from
the top of each door-frame.
Then turning in his walk, he marked with an eager glance, the doors
on his left.
“An inscription—hah! It is dim with time, but the letters are perceptible,”
and he held the torch nearer to the dark panels.
A name was written there, not in the round Roman, but in the
picturesque Teutonic character:
“Anselm—”
“An—I remember. He was one of the three who, with my father,
kept the ancient faith in the woods of Wissahikon.”
The next door also bore a name—
“Joseph—”
Paul passed on, until he fronted the last door of the three, and beheld
traced in the same bold characters, obscured by age, the name—
“Immanuel.”
“Hah! There is a key in this lock. Shall I enter?”
He turned the key, which grated harshly in the lock, and the door
opened. He crossed the threshold, and by the torch-light beheld a small
apartment, which contained a table, a chair and a bench—all of unpainted
oak.
“Within this rude place, Immanuel passed his hours, meditating, in
silence and in night, the coming of the Deliverer. Bread and water
placed upon this table, formed his fare. This hard bench was his only
bed. Here he lived and died.”
The room looked bare and desolate; a strip of parchment affixed to the
wall by a nail, alone varied the sombre hue of the dark wainscot. These
words were written upon the parchment—
UNION.
Then shall the Lead become Gold, and the Sneer be changed
into a Smile.
“Was this inscription, traced upon the parchment, ever intended to
meet my eye? Ah—I remember! `Then shall the Lead become
Gold—' my father often told the Legend of the Leaden Image. Another
door! It leads into the cell of Joseph—”
There was a narrow doorway opening into the next room, but the door
had been removed from the hinges, and the threshold was free.
Paul passed into the room.
The same table, bench and chair, the same blank and desolate appearance,
and a parchment affixed to the walls by a rusted nail. Had it not
been for the inscription on the parchment, Paul would not have been able
to distinguish this cell from the other. This was the inscription—
FREEDOM.
The Heart reveals only when the Hand is boldly grasped.
“Does this also refer to the Leaden Image? What revelation lies
hidden in this cabalistic formula? `The Heart reveals only when the
Hand is boldly grasped!”'
There was another doorway leading into the next chamber, which
presented the same features as the others—the table, the bench, the chair,
and the parchment affixed to the walls. It was the cell of Anselm.
Thus read the inscription—
BROTHERHOOD.
At the FEET of the IMPRISONED thou wilt discover the D—.
“The last word is obscure—the D is plain, but the other letters I cannot
read. Doom? Is that the word? Or Danger?”
Paul sank into the chair of Anselm, and surrendered himself to the
train of thought, created by these words written on the parchment, which
were affixed to the walls of the three chambers.
“First, Union; then Freedom; and last and best, Brotherhood. First,
the assurance that the Lead shall become Gold, and the Sneer be turned
into a Smile. Then the dim enigma—the Heart reveals only when the
Hand is firmly grasped. Last of all, the mysterious sentence, with its
final word blotted by time.—At the feet of the Imprisoned, thou wilt discover
the D—. What mean these parchments, affixed to the panels
of the lonely chambers, whose very atmosphere is heavy and damp as with
the atmosphere of Death?”
Once more Paul traversed the cells, and read again the inscriptions of
each place, while his amazement deepened fast into awe.
“Was this designed as a part of my initiation into the higher mysteries
of the ancient faith? Ah, I remember—”
Standing on the threshold of Immanuel's cell, he repeated these words,
in a voice of indescribable melancholy—
“`No child shall ever call thee Father! Thy name, thy race must
end with thee, and be buried in thy grave.”'
As he uttered these words, he raised his eyes, and by the light of the
pine-knot, discovered the door which stood in the western extremity of
the passage. Where did this door lead? As Paul stood wondering whether
it led into a larger chamber than the others, or opened upon a stairway,
his eye encountered the keyhole, and at the same time he felt the key of
Immanuel's chamber press his hand.
“I will try it.” He placed the key in the lock; it turned; the door
slowly opened.
It was with a feeling of indescribable amazement that Paul started back
from the threshold, as the glare of the pine-knot dimly revealed to him the
outlines of that unknown chamber.
“A large room, with a ceiling like a dome,” he murmured, as he crossed
the threshold—“The windows are closed like the windows of the other
rooms; the atmosphere is damp and heavy. How the echoes swell around
me, like the voices of ghosts—the shadows flitting over the floor, seem
like the phantoms who watch me, as I draw near the moment of my Fate.
Presently standing in the centre of that spacious room, which occupied
at least one-half the extent of the upper floor of the Block-House, Paul
raised the light and observed the details of the place.
It was a wide and gloomy hall, with panelled walls and naked floor. There
were no chairs, no benches, no paintings on the walls, no decoration of
any kind. As Paul advanced, he beheld a circular table standing near the
western wall, and standing alone on the bare floor.
He held the light near it; there was a wooden bowl upon its surface
and near this bowl a book with the leaves spread open.
“It is the Bowl of the Sacrament, resting upon the altar of the ancient
faith, with the open Bible near it.”
He raised the pine-knot; from the gloomy wall above the altar smiled
a picture of surpassing beauty.
The design was very simple—a Globe surmounted by a Cross. The
sun was rising on the verge of the globe, and its first beams tinted the
lonely cross with rosy light.
“`The Rosy Cross!”' ejaculated Paul, in the tone of a man who repeats
the words of another. “Ah—I remember—”
11. CHAPTER ELEVENTH.
THE CHAMBER OF THE URN.
Paul was wrapt in a chaos of thought.
“I will hasten to the room which enshrouds the urn,—there, I will behold
the explanation of these mysteries. At last I will read the name of
the Deliverer.”
He hurried from the Chapel, passed along the corridor and descended
the stairs, while the uplifted pine-knot revealed his pale face, marked with
the indications of absorbing thought.
He thought no longer of the Sealed Chamber and its Revelation; the
memory of his father, his sister, passed from his soul for a moment. As
he hurried onward toward the Chamber of the Urn, his meditations, vague
and incoherent, became centred in one desire.
“I will read the Deliverer's name. Then the darkness will be day;
the mystery will be mystery no longer. It may be, that the terrible suffering
through which I have passed, is only an ordeal intended to prepare me
for a glorious future.”
He reached the door of the Chamber of the Urn. There was no key
in the lock, but Paul placed his foot against the panel, and gathering all
his strength for the effort, forced it open. The broken lock clanged on
the floor as he crossed the threshold.
Paul gazed upon the room; it looked just as it had looked on the last
night of 1774.
There was the altar standing in the centre of the place, with the White
Urn upon its surface.
“Even now I see him—my father—as he stood beside that altar, and
placed his hand within the Urn—”
Paul placed his hand within the urn, and drew forth a letter stamped
with his father's seal, and bearing, in the tremulous characters of his
father's handwriting, his own name—`Paul Ardenheim!'
Paul broke the seal. Within the letter was enclosed another letter, also
sealed and endorsed with the name of Paul Ardenheim. It fell back into
the Urn, as Paul held the open letter to the light, and read these words in
his father's hand—
Within an hour I will exact from you a Promise and an Oath. The
Promise—you are not to enter this chamber, nor place your hand within
this Urn, until a year has passed.
The Oath—you will not enter the chamber whose panel bears the sign
of the Cross, until I am dead, under peril of a father's curse and the guilt
of the Unpardonable Sin.
Before you look upon the name of the Deliverer, you will be made
acquainted with the Secret of the Sealed Chamber, which involves your
Destiny and mine.
Within a year I will be dead. At the hour of my death, you will enter
the Sealed Chamber; one year from to-day you will enter the Chamber
of the Urn. Thus you can obey your promise, your oath, and at the same
time learn within a year, the Secret of the Sealed Chamber and the Name
of the Deliverer.
That brief year rolls away—it is the appointed hour. * * * It is the
first of January, 1776. * * *
You have broken the seal—the letter which contains the narrow strip
of paper, on which the Deliverer wrote his name, is in your hand.
At this moment, my son, I charge thee—Remember the vow which thou
didst take upon thy soul, when thou wert initiated into the brotherhood
of the R. C., on the night of the first of January, 1775.
Remember the words written in the Chambers of the Brothers, Anselm,
Joseph, Immanuel.
Has the Lead indeed become Gold with thee, and hath the Sneer in truth
been changed into a Smile? Hast thou forced the Heart to reveal by boldly
grasping the Hand?
Hast thou discovered at the feet of the Imprisoned, the D—
Hast thou, in a word, learned the truth embodied in these enigmas, and
seen Union lead to Freedom, and Freedom end in Brotherhood?
Hast thou, in the Chapel of the R. C., beheld the Altar, the Bowl, and
the Book, and been nerved by their memories for the great task which
awaits thee?
Then thou art indeed prepared to read the name of the Deliverer; but
not until these mysteries are to thy soul as the sunlight is to thine eyes,
shalt thou break the seal which conceals that name.
It will be remembered, that the old man, on the Last Night of 1774,
bade Paul prepare for a solemn ceremony, which was to take place at
sunset on the next day.
This ceremony, it will be seen by the preceding letter, comprised not
only a Vow of Celibacy, but an initiation into a secret Order, designated
above as the Brotherhood of the R. C.
This letter, written after midnight, on the first of January, 1775, by the
Father of Paul, anticipates the initiation and the vow, and regards them as
having already taken place.
It will also be perceived, that the old man intended the letter to apply
to the first of January, 1776.
12. CHAPTER TWELFTH.
THE HEART REVEALS ONLY WHEN THE HAND IS BOLDLY GRASPED.
“I have no right to break the seal. For these mysteries are all wrapt
in impenetrable gloom. The Lead has not become Gold, nor has the
Sneer been changed into a Smile. I have not forced the Heart to reveal
by boldly grasping the Hand. At the feet of the Imprisoned I have not
discovered the Doom, or—is it Danger?”
Paul dwelt with a painful intensity upon these cabalistic sentences.
“Ah, fatal, fatal night, when I dared to violate my oath, and rush uncalled
into the presence of my fate!”
Strange it was that no word of reproach passed his lips in regard to the
beautiful woman who had urged him to his ruin, on that fatal night! Not
a word of reproach, nor yet of memory. Since he crossed the threshold
of the Block-House, an hour ago, he had not spoken her name.
Placing his hand within the Urn, he drew forth the sealed letter which
concealed the name of the Deliverer.
“One movement of my finger, and it is broken; but no—no! I am not
worthy—”
He gazed upon it with an earnest eye and dropped it back into the Urn
“Hah! a light breaks on me—” he murmured, and hastened from the
room without closing the door behind him.
He did not stay his footsteps until he stood in front of the door which
opened into his father's room. Not an instant did he hesitate. The door
opened at his touch, and by the torch-light he beheld that chamber, where,
on the last night of 1774, he had seen the leaden Image scowling over the
sleeping face of his father.
Paul advanced; he beheld the couch—it was vacant; he raised his eyes,
and with a shudder, saw that leaden face, smiling in the red rays, as with
a preternatural scorn.
Still, in the recess, at the head of the couch, stood the Image of the
“Imprisoned Soul,” with its form attired in the rude garments of a toiling
man, its hand extended, and that sublimity of sadness stamped upon its
sombre face.
“He is not here,” cried Paul, with an accent of unfeigned joy—“Ah!
The coverlet yet bears the impress of his form. 'Tis as he left it on the
fatal night.”
He did not pause to think. To pause at a moment like this, was to
become a raving maniac. He seized the extended hand of the Image, and
motionless eyes.
Had his hand touched some secret spring? A square space in the breast
of the Image opened like a door—a packet fell at the feet of Paul—and the
breast of the Image closed again.
Paul seized the packet; it was a scroll of manuscript, written in the
German tongue, with a few words in English on an outside leaf:
—“To be read by my Son, after he has entered the Sealed Chamber and
the Chamber of the Urn.”
These words were written in a bold round hand, and beneath appeared
other words, in a hand that was tremulous with age or disease.
“Paul, you have often heard me relate the Legend of the Leaden Image.
It is more intimately connected with your Destiny than you may imagine.
After you have entered the Sealed Chamber, and the Chamber of the Urn,
and before you have broken the seal which hides the name of the Deliverer,
read the history of the Leaden Image, written in the German tongue by
Brother Anselm. Do not wonder if this history is widely different from
that which you have often heard from me. You are now prepared for all
the truth; read. And even amid the sarcasm which sometimes mars the
narrative of Brother Anselm, learn the history of the Image, which now
gazes sadly upon your face. You have seen `that the HEART reveals only
when the HAND is boldly grasped.' It is now your destiny to learn, how
the Lead will become Gold, and the Sneer be changed into a Smile. At
the feet of the Imprisoned you will discover the D—.”
“Again that word is blotted and dim! Is it Doom or is it Danger?”
Paul seized the manuscript of Brother Anselm, and still holding the
torch in his hand, hurried from the room. He was afraid to read it there,
for his father's face seemed to start from the shadows, as he looked upon
the bed, yet bearing the impress of a venerable form, the memory of the
sacrilegious blow came terribly to his soul.
“In the free air, by the light of the summer sun, I will read these
pages—” he cried; and soon stood on the threshold of the Block-House,
with the sunshine upon his face.
He seated himself upon an old bench, half-concealed by the grass, which
started up thickly in the space before the Block-House door.
The hour was invested with a peculiar solemnity. The summer wind
rustling softly among the forest leaves, gave a lulling music to the scene.
Belts of golden sunshine, belts of tremulous shadow, flitted by turns over
the grass, the flowers, over the form of Paul and the Block-House clad
in vines.
“It is yet two hours until sunset,” exclaimed Paul, as he gazed upon
the manuscript and absently glanced over its pages. “I will have time to
read,—to know at last the reality of my fate—ere the moment of my meeting
Reginald arrives. Hah!” he cried, arrested by a word which seemed
his soul—“Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross!”
Let us look upon those mysterious pages, which seemed to open to his
eyes the secrets of the other world. Let us translate the bold German
into English as rude and bold.
This was the Manuscript which Paul Ardenheim read, on that summer
day in June, as he sat upon the bench, half-concealed by the grass, which
started up thickly around the Block-House door.
13. CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.
THE MANUSCRIPT OF BROTHER ANSELM.
I. THE SACRAMENT OF THE POOR.
“A wooden cup, filled with water, emblematic, not of blood, but of
tears—a loaf of coarse bread, such as is now the food of serf and slave,
such as was once the food of Jesus * * * Behold the Sacrament of the
Poor!”
These words were spoken many hundred years ago, in a wide and
lofty temple.
There was no sunlight there. Torches held aloft by the arms of stalwart
men, gave a red light to the place of prayer. It was a Cathedral;
but no human hand had raised its arch. Almighty God was the Architect.
The torchlight glared upon the roof of the cavern, and disclosed the
forms of four thousand kneeling worshippers. Beneath that gloomy arch,
while the deathly stillness of the cavern brooded all around, they knelt;
afar from the light of the summer sun, afar from the dismal battle-fields
which blackened the valleys of Bohemia, afar from the world, the church,
the stern faces of the monarch and the priest.
In the centre of the cavern, an old man, whose rude garment and snow-white
hair gave him an appearance at once venerable and apostolic, stood
erect, his feet placed upon a rock, which rose from the stone floor, like an
altar from the floor of a church.
Around this rock stood four men, whose foreheads bore the marks of
much toil—the scars of battle and the stolid apathy of sullen endurance—
and in their right hands they raised the blazing pine-knots above their
heads. They wore swords at their sides.
“My brothers—” said the old man, and he beheld the old men and the
he gazed upon the women, the daughters of the poor, who, coarsely attired,
yet with a rude, wild beauty in their sunburnt faces, had come to the recesses
of the earth, so that they might freely worship God. “My children—”
the gray eye of the aged man, glancing far through the cavern,
whose expansive roof glowed redly with the torch-light, beheld the bowed
heads of four thousand men and women. A death-like stillness reigned.
Only the tremulous voice of that old man, and the murmuring of an earth-hidden
stream were heard.
“My brothers, my sisters, my children: we have come here to spend
an hour with God. Many battles have been fought: our native land has
grown rich in graves. Still there is no peace for us on the face of the
earth. Banished from Church and Cathedral—hurled like savage beasts
from the light of the sun, this place at least is free. In this temple, not
made with hands, but shapen by Jehovah, we can commune for an hour
with our Father. Around this communion altar of our Lord, we can forget
all that is dark and evil in the world, and only remember that we all are
brothers and sisters, and that the good God is our Father.”
He paused for an instant, while his withered hand was laid upon his
coarse garment.
“Let us partake of the Sacrament of our Lord Jesus together, and with
one heart, my children!
“There is no golden goblet here, to scare the poor man from the table
of the Lord—no costly wine, to make him feel ashamed of his poverty.
* * * A wooden cup, filled with water, emblematic, not of blood, but of
the tears of Christ—a loaf of coarse bread, such as is now the food of serf
and slave, such as was once the food of Jesus * * * Behold the Sacrament
of the Poor.”
On a rock which rose before him, a huge wooden bowl was placed. It
was filled to the brim with clear cold water. Beside it lay a loaf of coarse
bread; such bread as the poor have watered with their tears, and crimsoned
with their blood, since the hour when “It is finished!” quivered
from the lips of a God like face, that smiled over the multitude of Calvary.
“It is not for us,” the aged man exclaimed—“not for us to drink the
blood of Christ. We can only tell him our anguish, and drink his tears.”
This wooden bowl, filled only with water, this loaf of coarse bread,—
the black bread of serfdom and manacled labor—was the Sacrament which
the four thousand hunted outcasts were about to share together.
The heads of the multitude were raised; kneeling on the cavern floor,
they saw the rock, the bowl and the bread; while, standing out from the
blackness, the figure of that solitary old man shone in the torchlight.
“One is absent from our feast—” the old man said. And from tongues
innumerable trembled the name of the absent one, and prayers were uttered
Brother.
“John Huss!”—the gloomy cavern echoed with the name.
“He has gone to Constance; gone to meet the vassals of Anti-Christ;
gone alone, to assert, in the faces of Kings, that Faith which the Lord
Jesus delivered many hundred years ago to his People, the Poor. And
all the chains, and scourges, and swords of the Priest and the King have
not been able to rend that faith from the hearts of the poor, through the
long night of ages. We hold it still, and to us it says—as it will say for
ever to our children—that great multitude who are born only to toil and
die!—`The Lord Jesus was a son of toil, and he is the only Redeemer
of the Poor.”'
The old man's voice was no longer weak and tremulous. It gathered
strength as his eye brightened into new life. His tones, strong with almost
preternatural vigor, awoke the echoes of the dismal cavern. Not an
ear but heard his words, not a heart but throbbed quicker at their sound.
“My brothers, my sisters, ere we share the Communion of our Lord,
let us pray for the absent one!”
All was still as the old man knelt upon the rock. Every murmur was
hushed, but the hands of the people were clasped with great earnestness,
and their faces were stamped with a silent anguish.
It was a solemn sight to see that outcast old man, whose hairs had
grown gray in damnable heresy, kneeling alone upon the rock, while four
thousand outcast men and women knelt around him, and his lips uttered
an earnest though blasphemous prayer for the absent outcast—for John
Huss, the wretched Heretic, who had gone to Constance, to tell consecrated
Priests that their golden garments were stained with the blood of
the Poor; to confront anointed Kings with the blasphemous assertion—
“Ye are guilty in the sight of God. Your thrones are built upon the
skulls of the human race; even amid the sunshine of your royal sway, I
see the darkening cloud of Almighty anger.”
After the prayer was said—every word echoed by the throb of four
thousand hearts—the old man rose, and the four men who held their
torches near him, placed a veiled figure by his side. They lifted it from
the cavern floor, and raised it with a sturdy impulse upon the rock. It
may have been a living being, or only a dumb thing of metal or of stone,
—perchance a skeleton, which once was a soul—but no eye might behold
its outlines, for a veil of sackcloth covered it from head to foot.
Much wonder was there in the earth-hidden vault, as, with uplifted
faces, the kneeling people beheld the sackcloth which enshrouded the unknown
figure. Murmurs echoed from lip to lip, until the broad arch
above flung back their accumulated emphasis, with a sound like thunder.
The old man placed his hands upon the veiled figure—every withered
line of his face was stirred by emotion.
“In a few moments your eyes shall behold it. Yet, ere we mingle
around the Altar of the Sacrament, let me repeat to you all a strange
history, which my fathers told to me when I was but a little child. After
the history is told, I will lift the veil, and you shall behold—”
He glanced toward the shrouded thing, and while every heart throbbed
with anxiety to hear his words, he uttered the history which old men had
told to him.
Shall we, for a little while, leave this gloomy cavern, and go back from
the age of John Huss into other and more distant ages?
Shall we dare to tell the incredible history of that shrouded thing,
which, covered with sackcloth, stood on the rock by the old man's side?
14. CHAPTER FOURTEENTH.
THE MANUSCRIPR OF BROTHER ANSELM.
II. THE LEGEND OF THE TENTH CENTURY.
A captive, rising from the straw which littered the floor of his cell, in
scribed on the dingy wall, these figures—
3651.
Through the only window of the cell—narrow and high, it opened to
the east, permitting a glimpse of earth and sky to be seen—came the soft
warmth of a declining summer day. That mild glow disclosed the bare
walls, the high arch, the miserable straw, which littered one corner of the
cell. It was in truth a desolate place, and the ray of sunlight only made
it seem more black and gloomy.
As the Captive rose, it might be seen that his form resembled a skeleton,
endued by a supernatural hand with something like life, and clad in coarse
attire, with thin flakes of gray hair falling about his bony forehead and
hollow cheeks. He walked very slowly along the floor, lifting his large
eyes—which all the while seemed like lighted coals placed in the orbits
of a skull—toward the light, and bared his fleshless arm.
Then, with a sharpened nail, he pierced a shrunken vein, and with his
blood, traced on the wall of the cell the figures—3651.—
But first, he effaced from the wall certain figures inscribed in dim red
characters—3650.—
And while, with the point of the rusted nail, moistened by his blood,
he performed this singular work, like a man influenced by a solemn vow,
the sunlight shone as if in mockery upon his skeleton form, and played
right cheerily with his bony forehead, and large brilliant eyes.
The Captive stood with folded arms, surveying in silence the figures
he had written with his blood. It was as though some harrowing memory
was associated with those red characters, for not for a single moment did
his gaze wander, or the expression of his features change.
The light began to fade, and the shadows, which had assumed various
fantastic forms, gathered in one vague mass around the solitary captive.
There came suddenly through the thick walls a low, deep sound, which
awoke the imprisoned wretch from his reverie. Now it seemed like distant
music, now like a chorus of dying groans, now like the accumulated
whispers of an affrighted, panic-stricken crowd. It was only the organ of
a chapel, thundering its deep tones through the arches, as the evening
hour brought on the darkness.
Not far from the Captive's cell, that Chapel disclosed its Image of the
Virgin to the last kiss of day; indeed, the Chapel and the cell were combined
in the same edifice, a Monastery, whose dark spires and turrets rose
against the fresh verdure of a beautiful valley.
The Captive heard the sound of the organ, mingled with the chaunting
of the evening hymn, and bent his head lower upon his breast, raising his
eyes all the while from beneath his compressed brows, to gaze upon the
red figures—3651.
In the Chapel of the Monastery, that organ spoke out with a deep voice
of music and religion, and the vesper hymn pealing from the lip of Monk
and Nun, awoke in every heart a living hope of immortal joy.
But, to the Captive shut out from all the world, withered by hopeless
imprisonment—blood, and heart, and brain stricken with the palsy of
despair—that evening mass, echoing through the thick walls, had a singular
message.
It did not say to his leaden ear—“Look up, child of God, the sun is
setting over hill and valley, but there is Hope for you in the night, and
glory in the cloud!”
To him it spoke with a far different voice. As he bent his head, and
by the fading light beheld the mysterious figures traced in his blood,
growing dim and dimmer every moment, the solemn Mass, chaunted by
Monk and Nun, deepened by the thunder-tone of the organ, uttered a sad
message:—It said—
“You were young. Your step was firm. Your eye bright. Your heart
full of life; and your brain as wide and free in its thought as the blue sky
of heaven. Now you are old, miserably old; you tremble on the floor of
your cell, an unburied corse. Once a father blessed you as you crossed
the cottage threshold—once a Mother pressed her hands upon your head,
a girl, beautiful even in her homely peasant garb, placed her hand in
yours, and promised to be your wife. Now look from yonder window,
and behold the blackened walls of your ruined home. Look beyond those
walls, and see the graves of the old man, your father, and the peasant
woman, your mother. Your betrothed? Seek for her in the living grave
—in the tomb, like unto that which encoffins yourself—in the Convent
cell, a pale, withered form, shrouded in the white robe of a nun!”
This was the message of the vesper hymn to the soul of the solitary
Captive. For ten years it had spoken to him in this cell, every day its
message pealing sadder, darker, and more like the accents of hopeless
despair.
To me, the image of that solitary Captive, shut out from the world, in
the Tenth Century, coffined while living in this hopeless imprisonment
of a Bohemian Monastery, his death-lighted eyes fixed upon the figures,
traced on the damp wall with his blood, presents an image of superhuman
despair.
He could see the blasted roof-tree of his home from the window, behold
the sunset smiling upon the graves of his peasant people—he felt that his
betrothed peasant wife, transformed into a nun—`a living corse,' as the
old books have it—was near him, only separated by a solitary wall. And
yet he did not gaze from the window, nor listen for the voice of his
peasant wife. Roused from his straw, by the impulse of a stern and sullen
duty, he had inscribed those mysterious figures on the wall, and stood
gazing upon them with his large sad eyes.
The Crime of this wretch? Wherefore swept away from humanity and
its hopes, into the life-in-death of this cell? Wherefore trace with his
blood upon the wall, the figures 3651, after first erasing 3650.
We dare not give his crime—have not the language to penetrate the
mystery of those crimson numerals.
Night deepened over the scene, and by the starlight his figure was dimly
revealed, still standing with his face to the wall, as though through the
darkness he sought to read the inexplicable inscription.
There was a sound of jarring bolts—the tread of footsteps in the passage
—and the door of the cell, rolling on its hinges, gave passage to a flood of
joyous light. Still the captive did not turn; the warm light, streaming
over his shoulders, revealed the inscription, and for the first time, in a low
voice, he spoke—
“Three thousand six hundred and fifty-one,” he said, and was silent.
And all the while, a brave company of monks clad in satin and velvet,
warriors glittering in steel and gold, came thronging through the doorway
of the cell, their fine attire flashing and glancing in the strong radiance.
And the gay band—for even the monks, with faces round and oily,
seemed joyous in the plenteousness of flesh and soft apparel—two figures
other a Knight, the Lord of the broad lands, extending from the domains
of the Monastery, to far-distant forests.
There was no care upon the Abbot's face. Corpulent and complacent,
he seemed defended from all thought by his soft, silken gown; and on his
rotund form, he bore a shining cross of gold, hanging to his apoplectic neck
by a golden chain. Above the vivid redness of his cheeks, above his
small eyes, almost hidden in laughing wrinkles, some scattered white hairs
gleamed, like scanty snow-flakes trembling on the verge of a red-hot furnace.
He was a corpulent man and a righteous withal—ah! had you but
seen his complacent smile ripple upward over his unctuous cheeks!
As he beheld the captive, a look of compassion seemed struggling into
life from the fulness of his face.
The Warrior by his side. A gaunt form, cased in armor of steel, with
a gold drop sparkling here and there, and a huge sword—it was two-handed
—hanging from his left shoulder to his feet. A bunch of white plumes
waved over his steel helmet, and beneath its raised vizor appeared his face.
The features coarse and bold, the eyebrows thick and gray, the eyes fierce
and penetrating, the wide mouth and large jaw full of the Iron Will of an
Iron Soul.
Even his face gleamed with something like pity as his sharp eyes rested
upon the solitary captive, who, with his back turned toward the brilliant
company, gazed steadily upon the wall.
As for the Monks and the Soldiers, who, treading at the heels of the
Abbot and the Lord, came thronging over the threshold,—the torches
smoking and flaring over their heads—they watched the faces of their
masters for a moment, and then took courage to gather something like pity
into their eyes.
The Abbot spoke. It would have done you good to hear him. So soft,
so bland his tone, gliding from his lips smooth as olive oil over a burnished
platter.
“Wretch!” he said.
It was kindly meant, no doubt, but the captive did not answer. It may
be that he did not hear the soft word. For ten years no human being had
spoken to him one word of kindness, and it was plainly to be seen, that his
ears were sealed to any thing like the sound of a human voice.
The Lord in the terrible armor, with the potent sword hanging at his
shoulder, now essayed his power. He was eloquent—
“Heretic!” he said, and laid his hand, gloved in steel, upon the living
skeleton.
The miserable criminal turned slowly, and looked with his large eyes
at the face of the stern Knight and the rotund Abbot.
“Three thousand six hundred and fifty-one—” this was all the captive
unnaturally bright at all times, were touched with a mocking glare.
“Michael—” the Abbot placed a hand glittering with rings upon the
criminal's tattered garment—“Do you repent of your hideous crime? Do
you renounce the power of Lucifer?”
The prisoner, folding his big hands over his sackcloth, looked vacantly
in the face of the Abbot. It was a pitiful contrast. That dumb Image of
Famine, with idiocy glaring from the large eyeballs, and this rotund embodiment
of corpulence, glowing all over with complacency and holiness.
Here a skeleton covered with sackcloth—There an Ideal of Flesh, enshrined
in satin, with such a gay golden cross, moving to the slow pulsations
of a little heart. Indeed, it was a miserable contrast.
“I will try him, reverend Father—” said the Knight, glancing grimly
over his servitors, all clad in armor, terrible with club of iron and sword
of steel—“Michael, would you like a little sunlight, a little free air? Dost
hear me? Would you like to feel your foot upon the mountain sod, and
draw a good long breath of freedom, ere you die?”
Something like intelligence began to beam in the big eyes of the wretched
man.
“Three thousand six hundred and fifty-one,” he said in a shrill voice,
slightly raising his joined hands.
We are afraid that this contrast is not one whit less pitiful than the
first. Here a living skeleton, slightly lifting his bony hands, while something
like reason begins to beam in the dumb anguish of his face—there a
splendid warrior, glowing in golden helmet and snowy plumes, terrible
with steel armor and two-handed sword.
“Noble Lord, let me speak to him—” and the good Abbot, wearing on
his breast a golden Cross, which was supposed to remind him of the Wooden
Cross on which a long-suffering Being died some hundred years ago, spoke
blandly to the Idiot—
“Mary!” he said.
At once the dawning intelligence brightened into day. The Idiot's
vacant eye burned with sudden fire. There came slowly over his death's-head
face a glow, that lighted up the sunken features, and made him look
like a living man.
“Mary!” he echoed, and then relapsing into his vacant mood again,
murmured with a sad smile—“Three thousand six hundred and fifty-one.”
It was remarkable; he ever laid a peculiar emphasis on the word, one.
“Wretch! There is no hope!” the Abbot benevolently said, and turned
away.
The Monks, as though answering to some solemn litany, chorused—
“Wretch! There is no hope!”
But the grim Knight, whose features bore the stern impress of fifty
like compassion.
“I will rouse him—” he roughly said, and then laying a hand upon the
arm of the captive, began in his abrupt, impetuous way—“Michael, I say,
Michael, dost thou remember me, my boy?”
The Idiot's face was vacant.
“Thou wert once a page in the hall of my castle, Michael. A braver
youth I never saw. Light in step, courtly in speech, thine eye bright and
thy form like a vigorous sapling. Dost remember the old castle, Michael?
Thou wert a peasant lad, the son of a serf, and yet my father took thee to
be his page. Took thee, when but a baby on thy peasant mother's knee.
And dressed thee in soft apparel, and taught thee knightly duty—God's
blood—” the knight swore a knightly oath—“Canst thou not call it to
mind?”
Still the big eyes of the Idiot glared vacantly upon him. No touch of
humanity there! A skeleton with fire-coals shining from the orbits of his
eyes—nothing but a skeleton, clad in sackcloth and placed on his feet by
supernatural power.
“Idiot! He cannot remember—no more sense than a rotten piece
of wood!”
Here the soldiers, true to their duty, repeated their lord's ejaculation,
looking into his stern face all the while.
“I will touch him gently—” whispered the excellent Abbot, advancing
from the throng—“Dost thon remember me? Thou wert wont to come
oftentime, from the Castle to the Monastery, dressed like a gay page,
Michael—many and many a time. And an aged Brother of our order
taught thee to read, to write, Michael, and permitted thee to read the books
of our library, my good child—”
His good child! So withered in his sackcloth, with the gray hairs
hanging over his skull-like face—a very strange kind of child, I trow.
“Dost thou remember me, Michael?”
But the Idiot's eyes were vacant still.
“And then, Michael, in thy journeys from the Castle to the Monastery,”
resumed the Abbot—“and from the Monastery to the Castle back again,
thou didst chance upon a peasant girl, wondrous fair, and pleasant to look
upon. Thou didst exchange vows of love with her, with Mary, Michael
—with Mary, I say—Mary—”
How the sudden reason looked out again from the Idiot's great glittering
eyeballs!
“Mary!” he echoed—“Mary!” and he raised his bony hand to his
forehead, and seemed wrapt in thought. He removed it in a moment; his
face was pitiful and vacant again; slowly down his hollow cheek rolled a
single tear.
The grim Lord bade the soldier by his side to turn his torch away, for
said he, with a lordly curse—“The light hurts mine eyes!”
But the corpulent Abbot, determined to restore the wretch to something
like reason, went on in his pleasant voice—
“But then, Michael, loved as thou wert by all within Castle and
Monastery, pledged in vows of betrothal to this peasant maid, thou didst
at once dash thy best hopes into dust, by a hideous crime. Thou didst
—blessed saints be merciful to me, for I can scarce gather strength to speak
it!—violate all laws, human and divine, and crimson thy soul with the
guilt of unpardonable sin. 'Tis ten years since we endeavored to preserve
thy soul from utter ruin, by a little needful and blessed severity. We
separated thee and thy peasant bride. We consigned thee to the silence
and seclusion of this cell; first foreing upon thee the solemn vow of our
order. And as thy father and mother, Michael, participated in thy guilt,
we made a blessed example from their ashes—”
“I remember the day when they were burned—” suggested the Knight.
“Mary, my page—” he looked into Michael's vacant face—“was
forced to take the veil in the convent after—”
He paused suddenly. At the word “after” the Idiot's eyes again flashed
with a sudden consciousness; his lips moved. His long knotted fingers
were clenched with a violent gesture.
“After?” What did it mean, that word which died half-uttered on the
tongue of the noble Lord? Perchance some allusion to an illustrious
custom of the ancient days, which gave to the Lord of broad lands unlimited
control over the life and person of any serj who might chance to be
born upon those lands.
“Thou didst, Michael, commit the unpardonable crime,” the good
Abbot continued, crossing his hands upon his robust body—“Dost thou
repent of it, now?”
The Idiot's eyes were blank as white parchment.
“Didst not, Michael,—I speak, my good child, for the good of thy soul
—go into the hot fields, where the serfs were at their toil, and tell them,
that the good God would one day give to them—the hewers and the diggers—the
land on which they spent their sweat and blood? Didst thou
not dare to take the Bible from our Monastery, and tell the serfs such
damnable falsehood as this, and also assert, that it was written on the
holy page?”
The Monks groaned in horror—the soldiers joined in chorus.
“Three thousand six hundred and fifty-one,” murmured the Idiot.
“Didst thou not stand by the wayside, and tell the gaping serfs, that
the Church was a Lie, built up in stone and plaster; and the Castle a
Blasphemy, cemented in blood; and that both Church and Castle stood
upon foundations of human skulls? That Monk and Lord were combined
in an unholy league, whose motto was evermore,—`Shame to the
makes my blood run cold to speak it!”
“Thou didst call the Lord Jesus a Carpenter's Son—” cried the awe-stricken
Knight. “Thou didst. With my own ears I heard thee!”
In answer to these terrible accusations, the Idiot-captive said never an
intelligent word; only unclosing his shrivelled lips to murmur, “Three
thousand six hundred and fifty-one!”
“And then, Michael—poor boy—grown bold in crime, as the serfs followed
thee in crowds to the mountain side, and listened to thy ravings all
day long, thou didst even spread the Bible before their unlearned eyes, and
utter a heresy too damnable for repetition. Yet I will repeat it, in order
to impress upon thy soul the full enormity of thy crime. `The day comes,'
thus thou didst speak—`when there shall be nor Priest, nor Lord, nor
Castle, nor Church. Then shall the earth become a garden, and all men
be brothers, in the name of the Lord Jesus, the Messiah of the Poor.”'
The Monks and the soldiers started back with one impulse of horror,
leaving the corpulent Abbot in his satin, and the Knight in his armor, alone
with the blasphemous wretch.
“But I came upon thy serfs and thee, with my good riders—” the
Knight said, benevolently. “It was at night, and ye were standing on the
mountain side. We came upon your band of Rebels and Heretics, with
club and sword. Only one was spared.—Michael, thou wert the only one
out of some fourscore. We spared thee—”
“In mercy!” smiled the Abbot, smoothing the creases in his robe with
his fat hands—“In compassion.”
The Idiot-Captive raised his arm, withered as a branch of dead pine, and
marked with innumerable minute scars.
“Three thousand six hundred and fifty-one,” he muttered, turning his
large eyes from face to face.
“What means he by those idle words, which he repeats so often?” and
the good Abbot turned his round face toward his dear children, the Monks.
A Monk with thin sharp features gave answer—
“It has been my office to bring bread and water to him,” he said, pointing
to the captive Blasphemer—“And I have noticed every day a different
number writ on the wall, in blood-red letters. Yesterday, 'twas—I marked
it well,—three, six, five and a nought. To-day, 'tis three, six, five
and one. 'Tis writ with a sharp nail, and a little blood from his arm.”
“Strange! passing strange—” ejaculated the good Abbot—“What can
the Idiot mean!”
“Days!” exclaimed the captive, in a shrill tone, whose maniac boldness
startled every spectator. “Days!”
And with his long bony fingers he pointed to the blood-red figures on
the dingy wall.
At once a light dawned on the Abbot's soul.
“Holy Apostles! The heretic means to say that he has been imprisoned
just three thousand six hundred and fifty-one days. Malignant even in
his madness! He has written it upon the wall, with his blood—”
Extending his hand, the reverend Abbot pointed to the wall, while his
round visage, glowing with a godly fervor, was turned toward the stern
countenance of the Land-Lord by his side.
There was a pause of breathless stillness.
“To write the number of days with his blood!” gasped the Abbot.
It seemed a thoroughly blasphemous thing, in the eyes of the reverend
man.
“But we must not forget our purpose,” suggested the Knight—“I have
the gold, and it may as well be turned to account for the good of my soul.”
“'Tis a holy impulse my son, which guides thy actions. In a battle
with a Lord whose estate is next thine own, thou didst sack his castle,
put his people to the sword, and take his daughter for thy leman. Thou
wouldst make friends with Heaven and St. Peter, by giving unto our
Monastery a goodly store of gold. Is it thus, brave Knight?”
“Even so. I would have the gold transformed into an Image of the
Blessed Saviour, which shall stand above the Chapel-Altar, as a token of
my pious thought—”
“And as Michael here was somewhat cunning in the arts of painting
and sculpture,—that is, before we imprisoned him—it was thy purpose to
offer him life and freedom, on condition that he moulded an Image of the
Lord from your gold?”
“It was,” said the Knight—“But there is no hope. His mind is utterly
gone. See! How he clutches at the light!”
Indeed the appearance of the wretch was very pitiful. Fixing his great
eyes upon the light, he seemed to behold phantoms, invisible to all other
eyes, for his extended hands clutched nervously at the vacant air.
“Michael,” said the Abbot—“Let me clasp thy hand. Turn thine eyes
upon me. Thou mayst be free. Thou shalt behold thy Mary once
more—”
The great eyes, glassy with a vacant stare, shone with soul.
“Mary!” and the miserable man clasped the fat hand of the Abbot, and
looked with intelligent earnestness into his face.
Again the Abbot uttered his words of mercy—
“Free, I say! Thou shalt be led forth into the open air and the warm
sunshine. Thou shalt behold thy plighted wife—Dost hear me, Michael?
Dost repent of thy heresy?”
“Heresy!” echoed the captive, in a mild tone—“I had a wild dream,
but it is over now. Do with me what you will, only let me feel my foot
upon the mountain side, and inhale one long breath of air—free air, and I
will come to my cell again, and die. I promise this, good sirs,—I swear
it—I—”
He knelt at their feet, joining his knotted fingers, as he rolled his eyes
from face to face.
“He consents,” said the Abbot, with a smile—“He will mould for us
the Golden Image of the Redeemer!”
Far through the blackness of night glared a vague mass of flame, now
looking like a luminous cloud, now like an immense ball of fire. It shone
half-way up the mountain side, and was regarded by the serfs of the Bohemian
valley with great wonder and awe. Even those who were in the
secret, and knew the cause of this light, could not see the glaring through
the darkness without a sensation akin to fear.
It was nothing more than the light of a furnace shining from the mouth
of a cavern.
Before that cavern, on the rocky ground, men-at-arms, cased in iron,
strode to and fro, and within its walls, the captive Michael toiled steadily
at his task. They had built him a furance, supplied him with wax, with
clay, with lead, with heaps of gold, and given him the aid of sinewy arms,
so that he might mould, even from the intense flame, a glittering Image of
the Redeemer.
For many weary days, for countless long and dreary nights, the men-at-arms
kept watch in front of the cavern, while the Heretic toiled within.
They could see him hurrying to and fro, in the glare of the intolerable
flame; his skeleton form and haggard face, touched by the intense light,
making him resemble the Demon of some monkish Legend. And the
stern soldiers, accustomed to battle, and familiar with blood, trembled at
the sight of this miserable wretch, who toiled near the furnace in the
mountain cavern.
Sometimes, at dead of night, while his work was in progress, he would
come to the mouth of the cavern, and standing thus, between the mountain
and the light, gaze silently on the slumbering valley. No one spoke to
him. Even the serfs, who aided him in the mere physical portion of his
task, shrank from his touch. They beheld him hover round the flame,
they saw him shape his model of wax and encase it in a rough coffin of
clay, and at his command, piled the fire-wood all about it, until the heat
blasted their eyesight. But no one dared to speak to him—He was accursed;
he had made a compact with the Fiend—“Heretic!” they whispered,
pointing with a stealthy gesture at the skeleton figure near the flame.
At last the statue was done. Word was sent to the Castle and Monastery
that the Image of Jesus, moulded of bright and beautiful gold, lay on
the cavern floor, amid the embers of the dead fire, enshrined in its shell
of baked clay.
It was a morning in the fall of the year, when the serfs and men-at-arms,
thronging over the rocks in front of the cavern, saw a gorgeous
cavalcade wind slowly up the mountain side. Around extended the woods,
arose; from afar, on the bank of a winding river, gleamed the turrets of
the Monastery, while the gloomy wall of the Castle rose in the east, over
the tops of the brown forest trees.
And the cavalcade of Monks and Soldiers wound slowly up the mountain
side, with the peal of trumpet alternating with the chaunted hymn,
and the glittering steel armor contrasting with the flowing robes of priestly
grandeur.
Conspicuous among the band, two forms were seen—the grave Knight
and the jocund Abbot. The white plumes of the Lord fluttered over his
golden helmet, and the glittering cross which the Abbot wore on his breast,
shone from the distance like a star.
And the music came merrily up the mountain side.
Now winding around a cliff, now lost in shadow, the cavalcade drew
near and nearer. At last they reached the mouth of the cavern, the Monks
in their white robes extending to the right, and the warriors in their burnished
armor spreading to the left.
In the centre of this brilliant crescent, stood the Abbot and the Lord,
the dark mouth of the cavern yawning before them. They awaited the
coming of Michael the Heretic. The fire was extinguished; all was dark
within. All was silent as the moment of his approach drew near. Not
an eye in all that throng but longed to look upon that beautiful statue.
Every heart beat quicker as the echo of footsteps ascended from the cavern.
On the threshold, just where the warm sunlight encountered the midnight
of the cavern, appeared a skeleton figure and a wan and withered
face. It was Michael, clad in his humble garb, and holding in his knotted
fingers a lighted pine-knot. The expression of his face, so hollow in the
cheeks, and skull-like in the brow, was mild and subdued; with his eyes
cast sadly to the sunlight, he stood on the threshold of the eavern, folding
one hand upon his shrunken chest.
“It is done?” exclaimed the Abbot. “You shall be free—you shall
behold your plighted wife—”
Michael the Heretic serf did not speak, but bowed his head in mute
assent. It was evident that the miserable man was scarce able to maintain
his feet. Ten years of imprisonment has withered him from strong and beautiful
youth into hopeless and premature old age; the thought and toil of
his cavern task, has almost extinguished the last spark of his wretched life.
“Come!” he said to the Abbot and the Lord, and turning his face from
the light, went slowly into the cavern, torch in hand.
With hasty steps the corpulent Abbot followed the ray of his torch:
the Knight, lean and muscular, advanced with measured strides.
“It will be a beautiful image, no doubt—” chattered the Abbot, as he
picked his way among the loose stones; “for the fellow, though a serf,
has some wit—and it will be a mass of gold, solid, heavy, shiny gold,—
Knight, when thou art dead—for the repose of thy soul—”
“Rather let them be said without delay, before I die, that I may live a
few years more—” growled the pious Lord.
“Behold the Image!” A hollow voice resounded through the cavern,
and the Heretic Michael stood motionless, holding the torch above his
head. That light, while it left the cavern wrapt in dismal gloom, shone
vividly over the features of the Heretic, and revealed the Image of the
Redeemer.
It was placed erect upon a rock. The form clad in the garments of a
Bohemian Peasant, the hand extended, the brow stamped with a peculiar
expression—all shone vividly in the light.
The Abbot and the Knight could not stir; the Image held them motionless,
with a sensation of involuntary awe. They did not utter a word, but
gazed upon it with fixed eyeballs.
They beheld, not a figure of bright and glittering gold, but an Image of
the Saviour moulded in lead, the form grimly arrayed in the costume of
serfdom, and the face stamped with a look of unutterable sadness. The
large motionless eyeballs, the lips moving in a smile that had more of
sorrow than joy for its meaning, the great forehead impressed with a sublime
despair—all moulded, not of bright and beautiful gold, but of dull,
sullen lead, thrilled the spectators with sensations such as they had never
felt before.
It may have been that the sad hue of the lead deepened the impression
which the Image produced, but as Michael held his torch near and nearer
to it, the thought rushed upon the spectators that they did not merely
behold a form of lifeless metal.
“I cannot banish the thought—” gasped the Abbot, as his rubicund
cheek assumed the color of a shroud—“No! No! There is a soul imprisoned
in that leaden mass! A Soul that watches me now—hears me
as I speak, and reads my soul with those fixed eyeballs—ah! Heretic!
What have you done? By what infernal sorcery have you imprisoned a
living Soul in that Image of lead?”
The Heretic sank on his knees, and a smile broke over his livid face.
But as he sank he raised the torch on high, and by the varying light,
his face seemed to smile, to frown, to sneer by turns.
The Knight uttered a fierce oath.
“I am afraid!” he cried, leaning upon the hilt of his two-handed sword
—“There is a Soul there,—thou'rt right, Sir Abbot—a Soul imprisoned
in those fixed eyeballs—”
“What hast done with our gold?” cried the Abbot, turning fiercely upon
the kneeling wretch—“Where—” The words died on his chilled lips.
For the eyes of the Leaden Image were upon him; they seemed to pierce
his heart; the sublime despair of that forehead congealed his blood.
Kneeling on the cavern floor, every nerve trembling with the last throb
of life, the Heretic lifted his face toward the light, and his voice was heard,
clear and distinct, through the silence of the cavern—
“You asked of me an `Image of the Saviour triumphant over Death
and Evil, as he appears in your Church.' I could not mould a Lie into
Gold, for I felt that my hour was near. So I moulded HIM of Lead, and
moulded HIM—not as he appears in the Bible, the friend of the oppressed,
the Redeemer of the Poor—but as He is in your Church, a Sullen Spectre,
scowling upon the agony and anguish of mankind. Behold him, not pure
and beautiful as he shines from the Bible, but as he is—imprisoned in the
hollow forms, the blasphemous ritual—of your Church—”
The voice of the dying wretch became faint and fainter; the hand which
grasped the torch, quivered over his distorted face—quivered for a moment,
ere it fell motionless in death.
“Behold him, not as he walked the sands of Palestine, a free, beautiful
Spirit, full of Godlike love for Man, but as he is, chained by the satanic
body of your Church—Behold—the Imprisoned Jesus!”
The Abbot and the Lord started back, awed and terror-stricken, from the
dying blasphemer.
“And yet the day comes—” he staggered to his feet again, and held the
light near the sad, sullen face of the Image,—“And yet the day comes, O
Lord, when thy Spirit, no longer imprisoned by creeds, shall walk freely
once more into the homes and hearts of Men. Then shall the Lead
become Gold, and the Sneer be changed into a Smile!”
As he uttered these incomprehensible words, the torch fell from his
stiffening fingers, and darkness possessed the cavern, gathering in its folds
that sullen Image, which seemed to bear within its leaden bosom a
Living Soul.
What had he done with the Gold? Neither the Abbot nor the Lord
could ever give answer to this question; for, stricken with terror, they
commanded that the cavern's mouth should be choked with a wall of impenetrable
stone, leaving the dead body of the Heretic alone with the
blasphemous Image. Here, shrouded by darkness, alone in night, they
remained for ages, until the day of Huss, when this cavern became the
temple of four thousand worshippers. But a wild tradition hinted, in obscure
terms, that within the leaden Image was concealed a bright and
beautiful statue of Gold. Was it ever discovered? Did the leaden shell
ever fall aside, revealing the face of the Loving Spirit.
15. CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.
THE MANUSCRIPT OF BROTHER ANSELM.
III. THE IMAGE.
Once more we turn our gaze to the scene which occurred in the days
of John Huss—to the aged man who, placing one hand upon a shrouded
Image, saw four thousand worshippers prostrate on the floor of a spacious
cavern.
“Ye have heard the history,” he exclaimed, glancing afar over the multitude,
who had listened to the Legend of the Statue in breathless stillness
—“Now behold the Image!”
He flung the sackcloth aside, and suddenly descended from the rock.
Sad and alone, the leaden Image towered there, with the torchlight quivering
over its motionless eyeballs and broad forehead. As the light, agitated
by the subterranean air, flitted in gusts of radiance over the dusk
countenance, it seeemed at once to sneer and smile, to frown with sullen
anger and brighten into a holy joy.
Every face was raised to look upon it; every tongue was sealed; but
the vast crowd moved with an unceasing undulation. At last, from a thousand
lips, confused murmurs pealed upon the silence of the vault—
“It is no statue, but a Living Soul. See! The eyes brighten and the
lips move! The Lead will become Gold at last, and the Sneer be changed
into a Smile!”
These words might be distinguished amid that wildly whispered chorus,
and the white-haired man, leaning against the base of the rock, looked up
into the leaden face, while something like a radiant hope began to burn in
his eyes—
“Lord! Lord! Shall thy pure Soul, no longer imprisoned in creeds,
walk freely once more into the homes and hearts of men? Shall all thy
people gather around one altar, sharing the bread which is thy body, and
the water from the wooden bowl, emblematic of thy tears? Or shall the
day come, when the Poor will dare to claim the cup filled with pure wine,
symbolical of thy Blood? Shall the Lead indeed become Gold, and the
Smile chase the anguish from thy face?”
The light flashed fitfully—the Image seemed to smile; it did smile upon
the crowd of Bohemian Poor.
But as their solemn cry of triumph rose to the vaulted roof, a way-worn
man rushed through the prostrate crowd, his garments torn, his face covered
with roadside dust.
Darting forward, he sprang upon the rock, and his face—marked by the
of the Image.
“Brothers, Sisters, People, I come from Prague—” he shouted, with
the faint gestures of an exhausted man—“I saw John Huss—expire—
amid—the flames—”
He sank exhausted on the rock, and a silence, more eloquent than
groans or tears, descended upon the kneeling worshippers.
Soon they arose, and trooping silently around the altar, shared the bread
of the Serf with each other, and drank the water from the bowl, in memory
of their Lord, who said, many centuries before, that his Mission was
to his Brothers and his sisters, the Poor.
And all the while, the leaden Image, glowing faintly in the torchlight,
looked upon their Rude Sacrament with eyes of unutterable sadness. Yet
even in the sadness—so it seemed as the light flitted to and fro—there
seemed mingled a mocking sneer. Was it for the Poor, or for the Oppressor
who trod them into dust?
The aged man lifted up his voice—
“It is not yet time!' he cried—“But at last, after the People of the
Lord, whose tears and blood have not ceased to flow for five thousand
years—at last, after they have suffered enough, and the cup of their anguish
is full—the Lead will become Gold, and the Sneer be changed into
a Smile!”
Has this Legend of the wild Boheman land no meaning for the people
of all ages?
Let us seek for the Image amid scenes and men of all ages, that have
died since the day of John Huss, and ask an answer to these earnest
questions—
Did the Lead ever become Gold? Did the Sneer ever change into a
Smile? Did the pure beautiful Spirit ever escape from the leaden form of
ereed and ritual, and walk freely into the homes and hearts of men, as in
the days of Gethsemane and Calvary?
These questions we cannot answer; but a singular tradition prevails—
we cannot prove its correctness—that the Leaden Image has appeared on
various occasions in the history of the world. It is a tradition, to be sure,
and yet there may be embodied, in its wild details, some rude Truth, or
perchance the gleam of a rude Truth.
One day a white-haired man was burned to cinders, in the open square
of a Protestant city. Ere he died, and while the flames were slowly de
vouring his flesh, he never ceased to cry, “Jesus, Saviour of sinners, have
mercy on me! Christ, pity me!” And all the while, from a window of
a neighboring house, a gaunt man, with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes,
watched the agonies of the burning wretch, and said, in a low voice, “The
Church hath power to put down all heresy by the sword.”
The watcher was called John Calvin, and the wretch whose slow agonies
he watched bore the name of Michael Servetus.
And as the cindered bones of Servetus crumbled amid the ashes of the
fire—while Calvin took up his Evangelical pen and wrote a Thesis in
defence of the Deed—there appeared to the other spectators of the scene,
a singular vision of a Leaden Image, standing very near the stake, with a
fathomless scorn upon its motionless lip and fixed eyeballs.
It seemed like an Image of Jesus, not the Jesus of the Bible—pure,
loving and serene—but the ferocious creation of John Calvin's vindictive
soul.
So we might trace the history of the Leaden Image through various
scenes and ages. There are persons who maintain, that such an Image
never existed, but that a Spectre, something like it, stamped with a sullen
grandeur on its dusk forehead, has appeared at certain intervals in the
history of the world; appeared as a Warning, an Omen, an Incarnate
Scorn.
16. CHAPTER SIXTEENTH.
THE MANUSCRIPT OF BROTHER ANSELM.
IV. THE PARLIAMENT OF THE WORLD.
There was a night, when a band of earnest men, who believed that
God might be adored and man be loved without the medium of church
or creed, assembled in the solitudes of a mountain cavern. They were
but few in number, and yet it seemed as if all the nations of the earth had
sent their representatives to this secret Congress of Brotherhood, this obscure
Parliament of Love.
History, or that fabric of falsehood, which is promulgated to the world
as history, does not record the names of these men, who formed the
little band; and yet, their deliberations went forth from that mountain
cavern over all the world, like the voice of a Regenerating Angel.
The fair-haired German was there; and by his side the Spaniard, with
his bronzed cheek, and eye of fire. There, the Italian, full of the ancient
glory of his land, and the Frenchman, with his story of Protestant and
Catholic wars. The Swede, the Dane, the Hungarian, and the Turk,—
all were mingled in that band. Even the far land of the New World was
murders of New England.
These men, grouping round a rock which started from the cavern floor,
talked with each other in low, earnest tones. A single torch, inserted in
the crevice of the rock, gave its faint light to the scene, and dimly revealed
their various costumes, and the passions as various, which flitted
over each face.
Near that rock, a solitary figure towered erect, his face and form concealed
by a dark robe.
While all the others conversed in agitated whispers, he alone was
silent.
Not a gesture betrayed his emotion, nor indicated that he was in truth
any thing but a dumb image of wood or stone.
There was but one in the little band who knew his name.
Wherefore this assemblage in the mountain cavern of Germany, at
dead of night, by the faint ray of a solitary torch?
Wherefore these signs, by which the various persons recognised each
other? and what meant that password in the ancient Hebrew tongue,
which echoed round the place until the gloomy arches seemed agitated
into voice by the sound?
It will be remembered, that this meeting took place when the first quarter
of the seventeenth century was near its close.
The German, with his fair hair and blue eyes, arose—
“Reformations are in vain for my fatherland. A new Luther must
arise and work out a broader and bolder Reformation. The last has but
substituted one creed for another—Germany festers with the unburied
corses of those who have been slain in the war of Creeds. The Reformation
only agitated the atmosphere in which Kings and Priests swelter
into bloated power. It left the Poor where it found them—there, under
the hoofs of Priest and King, doomed to dig and die, whether a Pope or
a Synod reigns. Earth calls to God for a new Reformation, which shall
overlook the world, as with the eye of God himself, and behold in God
but the common Father of all mankind; in nations and races, however
divided or styled, but a common family of Brothers.”
As the German took his seat upon a ledge of rock, near the central
rock, a murmur of deep emphasis filled the cavern.
Then, one by one, the members of the little band arose, and spoke the
thought of their souls freely, and with no fear upon their faces.
The Spaniard rose—
“In Spain exists the Inquisition—”
As if these words comprised all that man can know of degradation, all
that Priests can inflict, or Kings contrive, in the form of Murder, he said
no more.
Next the Frenchman—
“St. Bartholomew's corses have not yet mouldered into dust,” he said,
and was silent.
After he had ceased, an Irishman arose. He had no word to utter, or
perchance his heart was too full for words. He laid upon the rock, in
the rays of the light, some leaves of withered shamrock, and a broken
harp. The withered leaves and the broken harp were stained with blood.
Without a word, the Irishman glided into the shadows again.
Then the voice of the Englishman was heard—
“Some time ago there was a war in my native land. The People, that
vulgar race, whose life is comprised in three words—we are born, we
suffer, we die!—The People, I say, came up bravely to that war, and
spoke with an ominous murmur to an anointed King, telling him in their
rude way, that he was but a man. That, forgetting his Manhood in his
Kingship, he had committed murders enough to have hurled a thousand
men to the scaffold. Therefore, said the People, King as you are, with
the royal blood of twenty generations in your veins, with the anointing
oil of all the Priests in the land upon your brow, you must die.
“They put their King to death upon the scaffold, and said in the face of
God and Man—`We will have no more to do with Kings. They have had
the world long enough for their Murder ground—long enough have they
set men at one another's throats, and turned the Image of God into an
engine of carnage.' This was a brave thing, which the English People
said, but the time was not yet come; they had not yet learned the great
lesson of our order. First, Union; then Freedom; and last Brotherhood.
“They could not yet recognise in God, but a loving Father of all mankind,
nor in nations and races, but a family of Brothers.
“Therefore, after having put their King to death, and buried the word
`King,' with his headless body, they became the slaves of Faction. They
quarreled about creeds and forms, leaving the great fact of all Truth—
Brotherhood among men—a dumb and mangled thing beneath their
bloody feet.
“At this time, a bold Son of the People cast his eyes about him, and
saw the danger of his brethren. He saw the word `King' start into life
again from the headless body of Charles the First—he saw the People
once more kneeling in their blood, under the iron feet of Power.
“He determined to save his race, but, alas!—pity us, good Lord, for
we are weak!—he could think of no better way of saving his people
from the name of `King,' than by usurping the Power without the Name.
“Therefore, the Lord delivered him not into the hands of his enemies,
but to the remorse of his own soul. Delivered his great heart to the
terror of the Assassin's steel—delivered his giant intellect, blinded and
bound, like the Samson of old, to that terror which fears a shadow, and
trembles at a sound.
“At last he died, and England, forgetful of the blood which had been
Brewer, who had made the name of Protector nobler than the name of
Emperor—England, I say, forgetful of the brave men who had died,
by tens of thousands, to redeem her from the name of King—England
rushed to the grave of Charles the First, and took the crown from his
fleshless skull, and put it on the head of Charles the Second, and hailed
him—`King!'
“Yes, my brothers, Charles the Second is King in England now, and
while he reigns, there is a headless trunk amid the offal of the ditch, there
is a bleeding head nailed up to scorn, upon the gate of London. That
headless trunk, and that bleeding head, once embodied the Soul of Oliver
Cromwell.”
The Englishman could say no more. Charles the Second on the
Throne, and Oliver Cromwell's body cast forth to feed the hunger of
dogs, Oliver Cromwell's head nailed up to the gate of London—it was
enough.
The Representatives of the Nations uttered a groan for fallen England.
Then, one by one, these men gathered from the quarters of the globe,
—assembled at the mandate of some Invisible Chief, or by the watch
word of a universal brotherhood—arose and told, in various ways, in
every tongue, the same story.
Kings everywhere, Priests everywhere, and everywhere slaves.
It was a horrible catalogue of enormities, which fell from the lips of
these brethren.
Indeed, it seemed as if the World—its men and women, its little
children, and its babes unborn—had been given up by some ferocious
Destiny into the hands of Superstition and Murder.
The Turk, the Arab, the Hindoo, and the Swede, all told the same story
in various forms. In every land a King, and for the People nothing but
chains and graves.
There was a black man in the throng; from his voice and manner
it appeared that he had received the education of the white race.
The story that the black man told, was of petty Kings, on the soil of
Africa, selling the flesh and blood of Africa to eternal bondage in a New
World. A bondage that had no parallel in the history of crime, for
under the name of Servitude, it comprised Murder, Incest, Blasphemy.
As the word “New World” fell from the black man's lips, a shudder
agitated the throng.
“Slavery in the New World!” cried the German—“Alas! Alas! then
God has indeed given the earth into the power of Satan—”
“Do not blaspheme,” said the voice of an aged Swede—“The New
World is the last altar of Brotherhood left on the surface of a desolated
globe. We have looked to the East for light—it will come from the East;
human brotherhood.”
At this word the Representative from the New World arose. Every
one was silent; they all gazed upon his rugged features and backwoods-man
attire with an absorbing interest.
“The New world is the last altar of human Brotherhood!” he said,
echoing the words of the aged Swede—“There was a band of friendless
exiles, driven from the shores of England by the lash of persecution.
They sought a Home and an Altar in the forests of the New World.
They landed one day, on a Rock which they called Plymouth, and the
red men of the woods bade the wanderers welcome.—Brothers, this was
not many years ago, and yet I stand among you, an exile and an outcast
from the New World—”
“An exile and an outcast from the New World!” His words were
echoed on every side.
“He has committed some horrible crime—” and the aged Swede
shrunk from the side of the Colonist.
“Yes, I am guilty of crime—a horrible crime. I could not believe in
my neighbor's creed. I could not think that Murder was any the less
Murder, because it was done by grim Priests, in the name of God, and
the victims were old men and defenceless women. Yes, yes—I have
stood upon the soil of the New World, and seen men given up to the cord
and scaffold, because they could not believe in an Orthodox Protestant
creed—”
—“Even as I, a Spaniard, have seen them racked and burnt in the Act
of Faith of an Inquisition!”
“But I have seen that Image which we love in a Wife, reverence in a
Sister, adore in a Mother—I have seen the Image of Woman lashed naked
through the streets, amid the jeers and prayers of cadaverous Priests,
who saw the blood start from the quivering flesh, and shouted, `Scorn to
the Heretic, Praise to our God.' This on the soil of the New World—
this in the land which God hath set apart as the most sacred altar of
human Brotherhood!”
Bathed in tears and blushes, the American crouched into a seat. One
groan quivered from the hearts of the listeners.
“We all looked to the New World for light, and lo! we have it, but it
is the light from the flame of persecution, the red blaze which Bigotry
has stolen from the fires of hell.”
From the verge of the circle which the brothers formed, as they clustered
around the light, a tall form advanced. It was a man clad in a
blanket, with a wampum belt wound about his waist; a man of aquiline
nose and high cheek-bones, eyes like sparks of flame, and skin that
resembled the deep red of autumnal leaves.
“I am an Indian,” he said in a guttural tone—“But the language of
worship is also mine. I am an Indian. Twenty winters ago, I dwelt
among my people, beside the river which flows from the forest to the sea.
Our numbers were as the leaves in the forest, as the sands by the shore.
From the wood to the river, extended our wigwams, thick as the birds in
the sky, when the sun is low. The White Man came; he was attired in
black. There was a Cross upon his breast. He taught my People a
new Religion; he built his temple in our midst. The Great Spirit whom
we had seen in the sky, we now beheld in a Cross, and worshipped in
the form of a Silver Cup. And yet his Religion made the heart warm
within us, for it spoke of a Great Being, who had come from the sky, so
that he might suffer among men, and die despised and scorned upon a
tree, in order that all men might love one another. It was a beautiful
Religion, and we loved it. Our warriors knelt at the foot of the Cross—
our maidens placed that Cross upon their bosoms, and set it, bound with
flowers, amid the folds of their raven hair.—We loved the Religion, and
the man in the dark robe who taught us to love it, grew white-haired
among us.
“One morning in summer, as we were gathered in the temple near the
river shore—as the old man lifted the Cup on high, while our nation knelt
at his feet—a bullet pierced his brain. He fell at the foot of the Cross.
A red blaze streamed through every window—there was a sound like an
hundred thunder-claps in the air. There were an hundred dead bodies
on the floor of the temple.
“The grass without the temple was burdened with the dead—the river,
near us, grew red with blood on every wave.
“From the rocks on the opposite shore, streamed one incessant sheet
of flame.
“Evening came at last. The sun was setting. I was the only living
man, and I stood alone amid the harvest of death.”
A cry of horror pervaded the cavern.
“Who was it that did this deed? Who were the murderers—the savages
of other tribes, your foes among the red men?”
“They were white men who did this deed. They believed in the
same Being whom the man in the dark robe taught us to love.”
“Wherefore this murder?” asked the Swede.
These white men, who came upon us as we knelt in prayer, and shot
us down, and stabbed us, as we rose upon the river's wave, and pierced
our skulls as we crept into the bushes—these white men believed in the
same Cross in which the old man believed, but—” a sad smile stole over
the red features of the Indian—“they only believed in the Cross as it
was written in a Book—while the old man believed in it as it was carved
in wood or sculptured in stone. Therefore they murdered us.”
There was a pause of stillness, unbroken by a sound.
“Brothers,” cried the Indian, “I come to you in the name of the Red
Men. We melt away before the white race like snow before the flame.
They kill us with the sword, they poison us with fire-water, they sweep
us away with the plague. Help, or we are dead.”
The appeal of the Red Man touched every heart.
An Italian, with every line of his animated countenance stamped by
thought and endurance, next arose.
“Italy,” he exclaimed, “is palsied by a Nightmare, which crouches
upon her breast, and slowly drinks the blood from her heart. The Night-mare
changes its form every instant—now it is a Priest, now it is a King;
now the Priest and King, combined in one, realize the idea of an Incarnate
Devil. Help for Italy, ere the last drop of her blood is spent!”
Then by the side of the Italian appeared the dark figure of a Jesuit.
Every eye shuddered to behold him there—all wondered why he had dared
intrude upon this band of brothers—not a man but shrunk away from him,
afraid of the very folds of his dark robe.
“Help for the Catholic Church,” he exclaimed—“Help, Brothers of
Love, for that Church which once overspread the earth, and sheltered all
men under the wings of her Divine Unity! She now lies bleeding in the
hands of Princes who call themselves Priests, of Murderers who call
themselves Pastors!”
The smile that had agitated every face when he commenced, died away
in a look of sympathy as his last words fell on their ears. They extended
their hands; they encircled him.
“There is hope for man, when the Jesuit invokes the aid of Brotherhood
in behalf of the Church!”
And all the while, that solitary figure stood veiled,—speechless and
motionless—near the rock, alone amid the throng.
17. CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.
THE MANUSCRIPT OF BROTHER ANSELM.
THE ROSY CROSS.
Only one in the secret band knew his name and history. The time
now came for that man to speak.
He came from the shadows, and stood disclosed in the light, his tall form,
arrayed in the gray garb of a peasant, standing distinctly into view. His
projected over eyes which shonw steadily with an unchanging lustre.
Those eyes shone into every heart, and all the brethren in the cavern felt
that a Great Soul was embodied in their light.
This man, in the coarse peasant garb, leaned one hand—cramped and
knotted by toil—upon the shoulder of the veiled form. In a voice harsh
and abrupt, he began to speak.
He spoke of a Secret Order extending over all the earth, and dating its
origin back to that dim time, when history becomes a fable, and chronology
a shadow. Of the rites, symbols and customs of the Order—which
spoke to the heart through the eye, and formed a universal language, intelligible
to brothers of every race and clime. Of the most sacred sign of
the Order, which was written on the pyramids of Egypt, and the Monuments
of Mexico, and stamped upon the dumb stone and mortar of past
ages, in every quarter of the globe—the most sacred sign, a Cross placed
upon a globe, and lighted by the rays of a rising sun, and therefore called
the red or Rosy Cross.
This Cross, placed upon a dark globe, with the dawn breaking over its
darkness, was the emblem of the great purpose of the Order,—the regeneration
of the millions of mankind, by three great ideas, Union, Freedom,
Brotherhood.
The Globe was a symbol of Union; the Light, breaking upon it from
the darkness, an emblem of Freedom. The Cross, standing above upon
the globe, and blushing into radiance in the fast coming light, was a type
of Brotherhood.
This Order was known among men,—known only in vague supposition
and unaccredited tradition—as the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross.
As the brother in the peasant garb went on, his harsh voice became
melodious, his manner, no longer hesitating, grew firm and bold. He traced
the history of the Brotherhood from the far gone ages, down to the present
time. In language vivid and eloquent, he pictured the elaborate ceremonial,
the giant organization, the fascinating mystery, which characterized
the Order, and made its power felt over all the world, in all time, like the
hand of a God.
“And yet, with all this Power—these symbols, that form a common language
for Brothers of all nations, these rites, that elevate with their beauty
and bewilder with their mystery—with all this power, felt through all
ages, over all the world, like the hand of a God, behold the degradation
of mankind. In vain our labors, in vain the labors of our fathers. In vain
this tremendous organization, in vain the universal language, the rites, the
symbols—all in vain. Man still bleeds under the feet of Priest and King
—the world is still given up to Satan. Even that holiest name, which we
have written upon our banner, embalmed in our hearts, consecrated with
the baptism of our tears—even `Brotherhood' has fallen prostrate, afraid
feet of Evil.”
These words thrilled through the cavern, and a breathless stillness fell
upon every tongue. Faces, wet with tears, that glittered in the dim light,
attested the truth, the power of the speaker's words.
Still resting his knotted hand upon the shoulder of the unknown, the
peasant in the gray garb continued:
“But the contest is not yet over. `Brotherhood' is clouded by mists
of blood-red smoke, but it is Divine, it is Eternal, it will live when the
stars have faded from the sky. For it is of God, and therefore cannot die.
“But we must embody the idea of `Brotherhood' not only in rites and
symbols, but in such a form that the meanest of earth's trodden children
may behold it and love it.
“Do you hear me, my brethren?
“This idea of Brotherhood, nay, this Eternal Fact, this deathless manifestation
of God, must be embodied in a form, that will speak to the hearts
of men, and through their hearts regenerate the world.”
“Do this,” cried the Swede, “and Kings and Priests exist no longer.”
Every face was lifted in earnest hope to the visage of the speaker, and
a murmur filled the cavern, a murmur swelled by many tongues, but with
only one meaning.
“Let the Divine Truth of Brotherhood be embodied in a form that will
speak at once to the hearts of men, and our work is done. Man will
indeed be free; there will exist no longer on the face of the globe, either
a Lord or a Slave, to blaspheme, by their existence, the goodness of our
Father.”
“But how shall the idea be embodied? In what form shall we personify
the holy Truth?”
“Listen, my brothers, and I will tell you. We will embody this idea
in the history of some individual life, whose every word shall melt the
souls of men into tenderness and love. Shall we take the life of some
great Philosopher,—some of those weird sages of the ancient time, who
surveyed the world from the casement of their cell, and reasoned boldly
upon Man, but could not feel for him? Shall we summon Pythagoras,—
or Plato—or even that bravest and most manful of them all—Socrates? Ah,
I see the smile steal over your faces—I hear your murmurs, What have
Philosophers to do with the millions of mankind? Have they suffered,
any moment of their lives, that stern Martyrdom which is ever the lot of
the Poor Man, from his birth to his death—the martyrdom of Poverty,
that has no couch for its tired head, but in the grave; the martyrdom of
Toil that is without a Hope in this world or the next. Have these Philosophers
drunk of the poor man's cup; have they wept with him in his desolate
home; have they measured his anguish, or sounded the depths of his
immeasurable Despair?
“Away then with Philosophers. Cold reasoners, shrounding themselves
in the mountain cloud of sophistry; they never descend to the plain, and
feel with the millions who are only born to be trampled and to die.
“The world does not demand abstractions. It calls, even from the
kennel of its degradation, it calls for some great Heart, to feel for its
despair, and win it tenderly into light and love once more.
“Shall we embody this Idea of Brotherhood in the life of some Priest,
or tell the world how lovely it looks, how wonderful and sublime in the
life of some King? As well embody the Idea of Heaven in the image of
a Satyr, or personify the angel-tenderness of childhood in the dusk countenance
of Satan!
“No—away with Priests and Kings,—away with all like these, who do
not live in the same world with the millions of mankind.
“But we will give this idea shape, color, voice. We will embody the
principle of Brotherhood in the life of a Mechanic.”
His words were followed by a breathless stillness; and then the murmur
rose—“Where will you find a Mechanic, who has risen from the hut
of the poor man into the light of fame?”
“In the life of a worker, toiling with the workers of the human race, a
Son of the Poor, living and dying for the Poor. Listen, my brothers, and
do not treat with scorn my crude Legend of other days. But I will tell
to you the story of the Mechanic whom you seek, the son of the Poor
whom you desire.
“One day,—in the ages long ago—the Son of a Carpenter looked out
from the window of his father's workshop, and beheld his brothers and
sisters, the Poor, trodden down under the gathered infamies of four thousand
years. His garments were very rude; clad like a child of the People,
he wiped the laborer's sweat from his brow, and from that workshop
window, he cast his eyes over a world in darkness and in chains. A fire
that was of God suddenly lighted up his eyes; that forehead, damp with
the sweat of toil, became radiant with a Thought. His lips unclosed, and
he uttered the travail of his soul in these brief words—`Over all the earth,
one sound swells up to God. It is the groan of the Poor man, who has
no joy in this world, and no hope in the next.'
“Then, as if a voice from God had penetrated his soul, the Son of the
Carpenter laid aside the tools of his father's craft, and, clad as he was, in
the coarse garb of labor, yet with a Thought shining over his brow, went
forth into the world, and said to the Poor, as he met them on the highway,
or saw them bending under the hot sun, in the rich man's fields, or beheld
their wan faces from the windows of the prison, `Brother! There is a God
in heaven; he is our Father! He marks the sparrow's fall—think you,
then, that He looks unheedingly upon the anguish of his children, the
Poor, who bear his image, and have every one of them a ray of his Eternity
in their hearts?'
“Such words as these, thrilling from the lips of a Carpenter's Son,
stirred the hearts of the Poor. They followed the young man by thousands;
now by the lake shore, now on the slope of the mountain side,
now in the desert woods, he talked to them, as much with his radiant forehead
and calm deep eyes, as with his voice; and he always ended his
teachings with a word like this—`God is our Father, and all men are his
children.'
“I might spend the hours of this silent night, in telling you how this Son
of the Carpenter dwelt with the Poor—shared the crust of the Poor—wept
with the Poor—lived for the Poor, and died for the Poor. As for the Rich
Man, whether he appeared in the form of a Priest or as a King, the Son
of the Carpenter only spoke of him with pity, with reproach, with scorn.
His mission was to the Poor. And without arms, without Priests, clad
only in his humble garb, he spoke to the Poor of his native land, and his
voice moved the earth like the pulsations of the Heart of God.
“He died—at last, after a brief mission of three years—he died; I need
not tell you how!
“What death is reserved for those who endeavor with a single
heart to do good to Man? Not the death of the pampered Priest, who,
reclining on silken couches—embosomed in the chambers of a Palace
—looks, with sorrow too deep for tears, upon the rich viands and the genial
wines, which he cannot take with him to the grave. Not the death of the
Conqueror, who makes himself a couch of the bodies of the slain, and
expires most royally—a tiger clad in glossy fur, crouching upon his
victims and tearing them with his fangs, as he dies.
“No! But the death of the Felon, nailed to an abhorred tree, which
towered alone and hideous, upon the height of a craggy steep, with the
black sky above it, and the dark mass of countless spectators around and
beneath it.
“This was the death of the Son of the Carpenter, who had said to Man,
that Religion consisted not in palaces or jails, nor in Priests or Kings, nor
in churches, or costly ceremonial, but—mark the simplicity of the Carpenter's
Son—in LOVING ONE ANOTHER.
“O, that I could paint to you the radiant forehead and earnest eyes of
this Carpenter's Son, and show him to you as he lived among men, their
Brother: clad like themselves, their Friend: for he said to them, `God is
OUR Father.'
“But he has been dead many centuries.—Behold him, not as he walked
the sands of his native land, but as he is!”
He swept the cloak aside, which enveloped the limbs of the unknown.
The cavern echoed with a cry of amazement and terror.
For there, very near the light, towered the Leaden Image, whose forehead
stamped with despair, and motionless eyes full of unutterable anguish,
and form clad in the garments of toil, seemed to imprison a Living Soul.
It was the Image of the Imprisoned Jesus.
“This is what Priest and King have made of the pure and beautiful
spirit of the Carpenter's Son! They have robbed man of his Brother,
his friend; they have coffined the soul of the Mechanic in the creed and
ritual of their Church; they have taken to themselves that Man of Nazareth,
who never spoke of Priest or King, but with pity, reproach, or scorn.
“Brothers! Be it our task to take this Son of the Carpenter, to separate
his loving spirit from church and creed, and lift him, once more, before
the eyes of millions, not as the Incarnation of a Church, or the Imprisoned
Christ of a ferocious superstition, but as the Carpenter's Son,
who first embodied the truth of Brotherhood, and made it blossom in the
hearts of men.
“With these three words—The Carpenter's Son—we can regenerate the
world. We will go to the Poor. We will ask them—not to believe in the
Trinity, or in the Unity of God, nor in Catholic, nor in Protestant, nor in Buddhu,
nor in Mahommed—we will not waste time in comparing speculations,
or analyzing creeds. Armed with this Christ of the Poor, we will say to
the Poor, He was a Poor Man, such as you are. Like you he toiled. Like
you he hungered. At the graves of Poor Men like you he wept. He
lived for you—for you he died. Then listen to his voice, which utters
all truth, in simple words—Love one another.”
The Peasant, whose animated features contrasted with the motionless
lineaments of the Image by his side, now glanced around from face to face,
speaking by turns to every one of the brothers. As he spoke, his voice
became tremulous; his sunburnt features were wet with tears.
“And can we not accomplish the great work for man? Is there a
Brother here, who can say no! who has the heart to say it? Here we
are, men of all nations, colors and creeds. Can we not join our hands
around the rock, as though it were an altar, and sacrifice our prejudices,
our creeds at the feet of the Carpenter's Son?
“Mahommedan! I speak to you. In your traditions you have read of
Jesus the Prophet. Do you object to Jesus the Carpenter's Son?
“Hindoo! Your traditions speak of a mysterious incarnation—of a sublime
manifestation of God enshrined in the flesh—can you refuse to acknowledge
and love the Spirit of God, enshrined in the form of a Carpenter's
Son?
“Protestant, it is your boast to read the written word of God. Can you
refuse the Carpenter's Son?
“Catholic—your traditions speak of Church, of Authority, of Popes
invested with God-like power, and men sunk beneath the degradation
of the brute creation, and yet, amid this horrible mass of error, there is
here and there a word—a true word of the Carpenter's Son. Are you
willing to sacrifice Church—Authority—Pope and Council, at the alter
of Brotherhood, at the feet of the Carpenter's Son?
“Deist! It is to you I appeal. It is your delight to cherish the idea
of one supreme God, only revealed to man, by the forms of external nature.
Do you see God in the leaf and flower, and yet refuse to behold
him in the radiant forehead, the peasant garb, the deathless words of the
Carpenter's Son?
“Atheist! Yes, there is one in this band who cannot believe in the existence
of a God. Let me have a word with you, my brother—let us talk
with each other, in kindness. You are, perchance, so constituted that the
power to believe is not in your nature. All reason and no faith. And
yet your heart beats warmly for the good of man; it is your earnest desire
that all men may be indeed brothers. Can you find in the page of
any history,—in the record of any age or country—a Spirit at once so
loving and so actual, so like a God and yet full of sympathy for man, as
that of the Carpenter's Son? Point me to the page—produce the record—
and I will love you all the better!”
His eye gleaming, his forehead radiant, the impassioned Peasant glanced
around, and paused, as if to note the effect of his words. There was
stilness,—and then the air was full of sobs and groans.
They were not altogether sobs of anguish, groans of sorrow. They
rose from their seats, they gathered round the sunburnt Peasant, and rent
the air with incoherent cries.
Strange words were audible amid their cries—
“It is the Truth which our fathers sought for ages—it is the great Secret
which will regenerate the World! Not the Christ of Theology, not the
Catholic Christ, nor the Protestant Christ, but the Jesus of the Heart!
The Carpenter's Son, seperate from all creeds, and only known as the
Incarnation of Brotherhood!”
The Peasant took in his hand the veil which he had lifted from the
dumb Face of the Image—his form was raised to its full stature—his eye
burned as with fire from Heaven.
“Hold! Do I understand you, my brethren—are you willing to bury
your creeds at the feet of the Carpenter's Son, and believe only in the
Brotherhood which shines from his face? Is it so? Then let us look
for the day after the long night of hopeless Evil. And I too am willing
to offer up my creed at the feet of the Carpenter's Son!
“Listen, for I have a confession to make. I have been educated to believe
that Christ was in truth the very God. That the awful Being who
made the stars, and dwelt in Eternity, was present—living, throbbing—in
the breast of the Nazarene. Was enshrined in the Carpenter's Son, made
manifest in the flesh of that humble Son of the Poor. This I was taught
to believe, and it was to me a holy thought, that Omnipotence became a
suffering child of Toil, and dwelt, for a while, very humbly in the huts of
the Poor, and died—feeling every pang of mortal anguish—upon a Felon's
tree. Died for you—for me—for us all!
“And yet, my brothers, I am willing to sacrifice this belief—to consider
it merely a form of words—only so that we may all meet upon one
common ground, that we may all join our hands around one altar, and all
bind to our hearts the Spirit of the Carpenter's Son—the Incarnate form
of Brotherhood among men!”
As he paused, he dropped the veil over the sad Image.
“Thus,” he cried, “Thus let us hide the Imprisoned Jesus of the
Church. The Christ of the Heart moves in the bosom of the world—
Soon the nations will know his spirit, and Kings and Priests will tremble,
as the earth quivers at each throb from the Heart of the Carpenter's Son.”
18. CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.
THE MANUSCRIPT OF BROTHER ANSELM.
THE PROPHECY OF THE PEASANT.
“Embody the history of the Carpenter's Son, let the Spirit of his life
become the Soul of our Organization, and I—a rude Peasant man, born
of the humble People—can predict to you the Future of mankind!
“Not fifty years from this hour, the voice of our Brotherhood will
reach the heart of a young man, in the city of Paris. Even as he sits
amid a band of boon companions, the cup in his hand, and his ruddy English
face contrasted with the faces of the brown Frenchmen, the voice
will reach him, and he will dash the cup to the floor, and feel the impulses
of his great mission stir his soul.
“His great mission? Yes—this young Englishman, encircled by the gay
youth of Paris, is destined by Almighty God to conquer the New World,
armed with an olive branch instead of a sword. He will cross the Ocean, he
will rear a People in the Wilderness, he will send forth his voice to the
oppressed of all the earth, saying to them all—`Come! Here is a Home
for the down-trodden, here is an Altar for the exile and the wanderer. We
know neither Priest nor King, in our New World at home. We are
Brothers—our Father is God.'
“And the exile and the wanderer will come, and, with this Apostle to
the New World, rear the Altar of Brotherhood in the wilderness.
“Indian! The Apostle will be just to you, and to your race! Even
now, as the mists which cloud the Future roll aside, I behold him standing
the Covenant which they make with each other; a Covenant made without
oath, or priest, or sword, and yet it will live when oaths, and priests,
and swords are known no longer upon the face of the earth.
“After the Apostle has done his work, he will pass away. Years roll
on—the colonists, the emigrants, the exiles of the New World begin to
grow into a People. That New World, which the Almighty has reserved
for the down-trodden of all nations and races, strengthens rapidly into an
Empire, such as the world has never seen before—not of Kings, or of
Priests—but an Empire of Men.
“That New World, which the Almighty has destined to be the young
Heart and the young Brain of a decrepit Earth, thinking for all Peoples,
the bold thoughts of freedom; feeling for the wrongs of all races, and armed
with the power to right those wrongs—the New World is assailed by all
the infamies of the Old World, incarnate in the person of a King.
“He would enslave the young Empire with those customs and laws,
which have drained the sap and the blood from the veins of the old, and
turned an Eden into a Hell.
“But lo! The same God who sent an Apostle of Peace to plant the
Olive Branch of Brotherhood on the shores of the New World, now
sends a Deliverer to assert the sanctity of the New World from all
Kings, in the face of God and Man, and carve out a way for Brotherhood
with his battle-sword.
“Among his legions I behold him, armed for the fight, and with the
consciousness of a good cause flashing from his eyes, and investing his
bold forehead with a sublime resolve.
“The Deliverer will come in the year 1775. He will combine in his
own person, all those qualities which the world has never yet seen combined
in one man. He will be a man of vigorous passions, fiery blood,
temper as ardent as the southern sky. He will learn first to govern his
passions, and rule his own soul, and therefore be fitted for the government
of men, and the sway of an Empire. Years of danger and toil in
the untrodden forests, will harden him into iron manhood. He will serve,
he will suffer, so that he may always feel with those who are enslaved,
and know the anguish which falls to the lot of the poor man, who never
ceases to suffer and endure.
“This Deliverer will rise in the darkest hour of Despotism—he will
achieve the freedom of the New World, and then—
“But hold! There the cloud overcasts the Future; I cannot read
the Future of his life after the hour when he has won the battle for
freedom.
“He may repeat the story of Cromwell, who saved his country from
Kings, by usurping the power without the name.
“Yes, he may descend from his calm grandeur, as the Father of his
bartering immortal glory for the bauble of an hour.
“Then woe to America, and woe to Man!
“The New World will become the theatre of battles without an
object, bloodshed without an aim. It will become a land of robbers, and
of graves. The freedom, which the Deliverer might have achieved in all
its details, in the year 1783, will be postponed until 1890. A terrible
postponement, a fearful delay, only marked by murder in various forms—
by petty Kings, conflicting with each other under various names.
“Let it therefore be our care, my brethren, to leave to our children as
a holy trust, the Life of this Deliverer! Yes, his life! A Brother of our
Order will go to him, as he prepares for battle, and confront him with a
Dagger and a Sword. `This Sword is consecrated for thy defence, so
long as thou art true to thy country, and to man. This Dagger is consecrated
for thy Death, the moment thou art false!'
“Let us write it in our records, let us teach it in our solemn ceremonies,
that upon the Truth or Falsehood of this Deliverer, who will
come in the year 1775, hangs the destiny of mankind, for at least three
centuries.
“Does he prove true? Then the fire of Brotherhood lighted by the
Apostle, in the wilds of America, in 1682, and defended by the Deliverer
in 1775, will illuminate the world.
“The name of that Deliverer will become the universal word for
`Freedom.'
“Does he prove false to his great trust? Ah—the picture is too dark—
it spreads before me, but I dare not contemplate its incredible details—
“In case he faithfully fulfils the awful trust confided to his hands, then
behold the Future of America, and of the World!
“America, as I have said, will then in truth become the young Heart,
and the young Brain of a decrepit Earth. The pulsations of that Heart,
and the thoughts of that Brain, will shake the World.
“France, beautiful France—the land desecrated by religious wars
and saintly massacres,—will be the first to feel the throbbings of that
Heart, and echo the name of the New World Deliverer amid her songs
of Brotherhood.
“France will be chosen by God to fight the first battle on the soil of
Europe in the cause of Man.
The heart sickens and the eye grows dim, but to gaze upon the details
of that battle, fought by France in the name of Men, against the Priests
and Kings of an enslaved world.
“Even now I see it—it is there—that solitary glimpse—it is a river of
blood, swelling fast into an ocean, with a corse upon every billow. It is a
people, degraded by the slavery of centuries, suddenly transformed into a
horde of Demons, who not only sweep Priest and King into the bloody
O God! can it be! they blot the name of God from the sky, and write
upon the grave—`There is no Immortality. Death is but a sleep.'
“At this period there will arise in France a Prophet of Blood. He is
there—I behold him standing amid millions of slaves, drunken with their
first breath of freedom. His throne, a strange engine of murder, erected
on a platform, with an axe gleaming from its timbers. A slender man,
with a haggard complexion, eyes filled with injected blood, features compressed,
as with the impulse of an unrelenting will, he stands upon the
platform, and shouts to the freed slaves in a shrill voice, as the rich, the
noble, and the beautiful, fall headless at his feet. `More heads,' he
shrieks, `more heads for the altar of the Revolution! More blood—more
blood to wash the record of the poor man's wrongs from the history of
ages! The Rich have had the world long enough—it is now the day of
the poor.'
“It will be a terrible day for Kings, and for the rich men, who believe
in Kings, when this Messiah of Carnage comes up from the cloud of
Revolution; a lurid Meteor, shining with a pale, gloomy grandeur over a
world of blood!
“He will arise in France, I say, he will arise after the Deliverer of the
New World hath done his work, and he will prepare the way for the
coming of a Crowned Avenger.
“And even he will feel the divine beauty of the Carpenter's Son, and
hope for a calm time of Brotherhood, after the tempest of infernal passion
is over.
“At last he will fall beneath the gory wheels of Revolution,—beneath
those wheels, which were hurled onward by his own arm—but in the
moment of his fall, he will foresee the coming of the blessed day of Brotherhood.
“Nay—he will die upon that unknown engine of murder, which was
his throne, by the very axe which has drunk the blood of royalty and
beauty—he will die a wretched and accursed thing, his last groan
chorused by the demon yells of that Mob, who were yesterday his
Brethren—but in his last moment, a Hope will brighten over his glassy
eyes, and his clotted lips will tremble with the accents of Prophecy—
“`After me a Crowned Avenger comes! When my body is in the
ditch, and my name given out to all the world as a Proverb of loathing,
the Crowned Avenger will start from the People—he will build himself a
palace from the Thrones of fallen Kings—he will write his name upon
the Globe in characters of fire. He will avenge me!
“`Without me, this Crowned Avenger could never have appeared. I
have prepared the way for him—I go to darkness, and no one pities me.
And he, too, will be crushed beneath the weight of his greatness, he too,
will prepare the way for another, and a Nobler Man.
“`And, when the day of that Nobler man, that Universal Liberator,
comes—when nations and empires, and dynasties, and sects and creeds
have crumbled into dust before the light of Brotherhood, and the freed
earth shall glow with gladness under the eye of God,—then shall justice
be done to my memory, and men shall no longer couple my name with
curses, but speak of me as of one who sacrificed, not merely life, but
fame, for the sake of the Poor.”'
19. CHAPTER NINETEENTH.
THE MANUSCRIPT OF BROTHER ANSELM.
THE SUPREME CHIEF OF THE ROSY CROSS.
“And this—” faltered the speaker, wiping the moisture from his brow—
“this will occur before the Eighteenth Century is done—yes—I behold
even now a terrible date, written in black characters upon a lurid cloud—
the date is 1789!
“Yes, Priests and Kings will drink to the last dregs the cup which they
filled for the lips of their slaves. They will have to combat, not merely
a horde of Slaves, but a Mob of Demons.
“But in order that the freedom, so fearfully won by the People transformed
into Demons, may not be lost in endless massacre, a Man will
arise, who will place his foot upon the necks of Kings, and mock their
power to scorn, by assuming a power, unknown before in the annals of
the human race. That boundless power will be assumed and worn in
the name of the People.
“The New World demanded first an Apostle, then a Deliverer. Europe
demands a crowned peasant—an Avenger.
“Rising from the common herd, this man will become the Cromwell of
a World, believing not so much in the people as in armies; not so much
in God as in his own Destiny.
“His bold forehead, stamped with more than kingly grandeur, his eyes
lighted by a soul conscious of its own Destiny, his features shadowed into
the warm bronze of the south, and marked by the outlines of the oriental
races, appear before me now, like the face of a Demi-God.
“He traverses Europe, leaving his bloody foot-prints upon every shore.
surveys a world that is to be conquered by him. He girdles one-half the
world with a belt of cannon and musquet, bayonet and sword. Not a
land in the Old World but is peopled by his armies—already he stretches
forth his arm toward the New.
“And this man,—the Crowned Avenger of the People—with all his bloodshed,
is a holy thing in the eyes of Heaven, compared with the noblest
King on the face of the earth.
“He comes to begin for Europe that work which the Apostles and the
Deliverer accomplished for the New World.
“And after his work is done, and he has scourged the Kings as with the
lash of a God, and made them the humble ministers of his will, he will be
delivered into their hands; and, afraid of the Man, even when they have
possession of his body, the Kings will bury the Crowned Peasant in the
profound solitudes of an Island that stands alone in the centre of an ocean.
“There, isolated from mankind, and secluded with his own heart, the
Avenger will die, his last gasp embittered by the persecutions of petty men,
with brows of clay and hearts of stone.
“After the body is dead, and Kings have worked their will upon it, the
Soul of the Avenger will come back to France, and throb with terrible life
in new revolutions.
“That soul, redeemed from the stains which darkened its beauty, will
hover, like a good omen, over the destiny of mankind, and dwell in the
hearts of the French people, as the thunder dwells in the clouds of heaven.
“For that soul prepared the way for the coming of a Deliverer for Europe,
even as the thunder and the lightning precede the glorious calm of
the summer day.
“And he will come—yes, the Deliverer of Europe,—of the world, per
chance—he will come at last. There are various figures written on the
clouds of the Future, and I may not read them now.
“There—glorious date, that tells of a world enfranchised by the spirit
of Brotherhood embodied in the Carpenter's Son—it tosses before me,
amid clouds of rainbow beauty. Is it 1848—or is it 1884?—there is a mist
before my eyes—I cannot trace the figures plainly, but
“—The Deliverer of Europe—of the world—will come at last, and
come with the arm to avenge and the spirit to love!
“Kings will shrink from their thrones at his coming; the slaves of the
Old World will start into a people, and even the black slaves of the New
will dare to claim a portion for themselves in the Love of God, and grasp
for themselves a share in the Brotherhood of Man.
“Even the red man of the forest, smitten by the iron finger of White
Civilization, which poisons his heart and withers his brain, will look up
and see the face of the Carpenter's Son, smiling blessings upon him even
from the ruins of Despotism and Superstition.
“Thus, my brothers, you have before you the three great Epochs which
will mark the history of Man, within the next three hundred years.
“First, the Epoch of the Apostles, who, armed with the Love which dwelt
in the breast of the Carpenter's Son, will rear the altar of Brotherhood on
the shores of the New World, thus promulgating to all manking the Divine
Truth, that the New World is not for Priests nor Kings, nor for any form
of superstition or privilege, but for Man—sacred and set apart by God
for the millions who toil.
“Second, the Epoch of the Deliverer, who, called by God, will take up
the sword, and even as the Carpenter's Son scourged the money-changers
from the Temple of Jerusalem, so will he scourge the oppressors of body
and soul from that holiest Temple of Brotherhood, the land of the New
World.
“In case the Deliverer, after giving freedom to the New World, proves
false to his trust, and takes to himself a Crown and Throne, then the
history of the Future is beset by clouds that have no ray to lighten their
omnipotent gloom.
“But should he prove faithful to his great trust, and after accomplishing
the work of freedom, yield his sword into the hands of the people, and become,
for the sake of the Holy Cause, a Man among Men, a Brother among
Brothers, then will follow—
“The Third Epoch. The Epoch of the Crowned Avenger, whose tremendous
battles, supernatural glory, and Death sublime in its very isolation,
will prepare the world for the approach of the Holiest Epoch, for the
Coming of the Universal Liberator.
“The Epoch of Brotherhood among men—the Liberator of all classes,
nations, and races of the great family.
“In the year of the Carpenter's Son 1848, or in 1884, this Epoch and
this Liberator will be announced by convulsions over all the world.
“Monarchy, grown drunk with its habit of oppression and bloodshed, will
press the millions who toil, to the last extent of sufferance and endurance.
Rich Men will say, triumphantly, that there is no God but Gold, no
Heaven but in getting more wealth, no hell but in Poverty. They will
regard the Poor—that is, nine-tenths of the human family, as old fables tell
us, the Damned are regarded by the Fiends—as the objects of alternate
mockery and vengeance; as things of dumb wood and stone; as beasts; as
any thing but souls born of God and redeemed by his Spirit, incarnate in
the Son of the Carpenter.
“Rich Men will gather round the Throne in England, and urge
Monarchy—already bloated with crime—to new exactions, and place in its
grasp incredible improvements in the kingly art of murder.
“Rich Men in Ireland will pour into the cup of that People's woe,—
that cup which has been slowly filling for centuries—the last drop of
bitterness. The cup of Ireland's despair will be full at last, and the Rich
peasant, once a man.
“Rich Men in America will strengthen the chains by which millions of
the Black race are held in bondage. They will regard these millions of
the Black race as beasts of the field, and herd them together in profitable
Incest; selling the fruit of the mother's womb before it has seen the light,
and holding Property in Human Flesh, in Human Blood, in Immortal
Souls.”
A groan echoed from the assemblage.
“This in America? This in the New World?
“Yes! This in the land for which the Deliverer has consecrated his
sword! In order that Man may know the value of freedom, it is necessary
that he should first suffer the pains of hell, in the ditch of slavery.
And, of all the forms of slavery which the world ever saw, or ever will
see, that which will curse the American Continent, in the year 1848 or
1884—under the name of Black Slavery, stands arrayed before my vision
as the most appalling. It is—pardon the warmth of my utterance, for over
the mists of the future I see it, even now, in its garb of crimes—it is an
Infernal Trinity, composed of three Fiends, who are called Atheism, Incest,
Blasphemy.
“Atheism, but not the honest Atheism which denies a God in Nature,
and blunders upon a something called chance; but a ferocious Atheism,
which builds altars to God, worships him with the pomp of priest and
ritual, and at the same moment shows that it does not believe in his
existence, does not fear his vengeance, for it degrades his Image into
a brute.
“Incest, for in order to make Flesh and Blood more profitable, it encourages
“Blasphemy, for it not only makes the New World a reproach in the
lips of the Tyrants of the old world, but it turns all that is holy in religion
into a Lie. It cries, “Hail, Lord Jesus!” and with that cry, treads the
Black Brother of the Carpenter's Son deeper into bondage.
“When the blessed Epoch is very near,—when the footstep of the Universal
Liberator begins to move the earth—then the Black Slaves in America,
the White Slaves in Ireland—in fact, the Slaves over all the world—
will rise upon their masters, rise without an object or an aim, but urged to
ferocious action, by an impulse which cannot be resisted or controlled.
“Then will occur the Jubilee of brute force, the Saturnalia of Murder.
It will be a day of reckoning for the Rich Man over all the world. He
will learn at last, that it is better to give some light of education, some
gleam of immortality, even to a slave. He will, I say, learn that it is
better to combat an educated slave, whose nature retains some ray of its
Divine origin, much better, as God lives! than to combat a Brute in human
shape, who knows no limit in his vengeance, and sacrifices, in his hellish
and the little child who clings to his knees.
“It will be a terrible going out of Egypt—an Exodus of incredible
carnage, which the Poor will accomplish, ere the great day of their Redemption.
“The Israelites of old, chained in Egypt, went forth one day, and the
sea, parting on either side, left bare a safe pathway for the liberated slaves.
Their pursuers followed, and were lost in the waves. The freed slaves
beheld their livid faces, and heard their impotent cries of despair. This
was indeed a terrible sight for Egypt, but a glorious day for Israel.
“Remember, however, that the Israelites, enslaved by the Egyptians,
only symbolized the Poor Man all over the world, enslaved by the Rich.
“Therefore, I say, it will be a terrible going out of Egypt which the
Poor Man will accomplish, when all at once he escapes from thraldom,
through a Red Sea. That Red Sea nothing but the blood which flows
from the veins of the tyrants of the Poor.
“It will, I repeat, be an Exodus of incredible carnage, which the Angels
will behold on that day, when the Poor Man shall hear the voice of God,
calling upon him in his bondage—`Arise! The hour hath come. The
cup is full. Arise, ye millions of the human race,—Arise, ye races and
tribes of the Poor! Go out from this bondage, though the way of your
redemption is paved with the bodies of the Rich, though their blood rolls
before you like a sea. Go out from bondage! For it is the Exodus of
the Poor, for which ye have waited and endured, and wept your bloody
tears so long!'
“And the same God who gave a Moses to the chained Israelites, will
call forth, from the shadows of Poverty in the year 1848, or 1884—the
Liberator of a World.”
The man with sunburnt features and knotted hands, stood alone, near
the veiled figure, the centre of a group, agitated by emotion too deep for
words.
They looked upon him, as he arose in their midst, clad like an humble
peasant, and felt that he was a Prophet—despite his toil-hardened hands
and coarse attire—a Prophet called from the ranks of the Poor, to foretell
the future of a World in chains.
Overwhelmed by the intensity of his thoughts, the Peasant rested both
hands upon the shoulders of the veiled figure, while his chest shook as
with intense physical torture, and the cold damps stood in beads upon
his brow. His eyes grew brighter every moment, while the brown hue
of his bold countenance was marked by a death-like pallor.
“At last,” he murmured amid the writhings of his inexplicable agony.
“At last, Blessed Lord, the Lead will become Gold, and the Sneer be
changed into a Smile.”
It was a long time, ere the sensation created by the words of this rude
to their thoughts in speech.
The aged Swede arose.
His white hairs waved in the wind, which came in fitful gusts from the
mouth of the cavern, and the faint light imparted its gloomy radiance to
his withered features.
In a tremulous voice, he spoke of the great object which had called the
Chiefs of the Rosy Cross from all quarters of the globe.
They had been called, not so much by the command of a Supreme
Chief, as by the voice of a tradition, which had been treasured in the
innumerable branches, or Circles of the great Brotherhood, since the
earlier years of the Tenth Century.
That tradition pointed out a particular year in the seventeenth Century,
which would witness a new Era in the history of the Order.
On the appointed year, at a certain hour of a certain day, the Chiefs of
the Brotherhood, from all quarters of the globe, were to assemble—so the
tradition enjoined—in the cavern of a German mountain, long known in
the history of the Order.
They were to choose by lot a Supreme Chief, who would be known all
over the world, to all the Brothers of the Rosy Cross, and to all secret
orders, beneath the Brotherhood, by a certain symbol, engraven on a
golden medal.
That Symbol was a Globe, a Rising Sun and a Cross, encircled by the
Hebrew words, in the Hebrew character—
Vayomer eloheim yehee aur vayehee aur.
“These words,” continued the aged Swede, “indicate the light which,
shining from the councils of our Brotherhood, shall illuminate all the
world. A light spoken into existence by the voice of God, which shall
do the work of God in every human heart. Brothers, to me, as the oldest
of the Chiefs, has this Medal been entrusted. It was given into my hands,
by a Chief who had reached the venerable age of one hundred years. I
now surrender it into your hands—I place it upon this rock, which forms
the altar of our worship. Let no one touch it, nor gaze upon it, until the
Supreme Chief of the Brotherhood is elected.”
He placed the Medal on the altar, where it glimmered with a pale
golden light.
An inexplicable sensation pervaded the assemblage, as every eye was
centred upon this most sacred symbol of the Order. It was endeared to
their hearts by a thousand ceremonies; it was linked with the overwhelming
associations of the ancient renown and almost Godlike power of the
Brotherhood, in the days of old.
The Hebrew words rudely graved upon it, gave some color to the tradition
which taught that it had been coined by the hand of the High Priest
Aaron, in the days of the Wilderness.
True, the globe and the cross seemed to indicate a much more recent
origin. Yet the globe was known as an emblem in the secret Brotherhood,
long before it was discovered that the earth itself was a globe. The
Cross is found in the pyramids of Egypt, erected thousands of years before
the era of the Carpenter's Son.
In a word, this medal, glimmering dimly upon the surface of the rock,
overwhelmed the Brothers with the memories of three thousand years.
Now commenced the ceremonial of election.
Every chief wrote his name upon a tablet. Their tablets were given
into the hands of the Swede, who placed them in a hollow of the rock,
which supplied the place of an Urn.
“One by one, you will advance, my Brothers, and draw a single tablet
from this hollow in the rock. It is asserted by the traditions of our order,
that the great work of Supreme Chief will fall upon the Brother
who draws the tablet on which the sign of the Cross is traced. Advance,
my Brothers—but hold—let me first ask every Brother to raise his clasped
hands above his head, and swear by the Globe, by the Rising Sun and the
Cross, to be faithful to the Supreme Chief, whom we are about to elect
from our midst—to obey his commands without hesitation, scruple or
reserve, and to recognise his Power, whenever it is attested by the most
sacred symbol of our Order!”
There was a pause—and then from every lip arose the solemn chorus;
“We swear by the Globe, by the Rising Sun, and by the Cross!”
Perchance the outward history of the world, that history which only
pictures the appearances, not the realities of things, never described a
scene of sterner grandeur, than that which was now in progress within
the walls of the mountain cavern.
The Representatives of the various Destinies of Nations, were met in
awful Council, to decide the Destiny of all mankind, to elect, in fact, one
man, who should in his turn embody the destiny of a World.
One by one they came toward the hollow in the rock. The torchlight
shone upon their various costumes, and displayed the workings of those
contrasted faces, every one the representative of a People, the type of a
race. The blanket of the Indian, adorned with the many-colored wampum-belt,
contrasted with the turban and flowing robes of the Moslem.
The tawny Hindoo, the bronzed Spaniard, the florid German, mingled
together in that throng; and the hardy Colonist from New England stood
side by side with the stern soldier of Cromwell, and the down-trodden Son
of Ireland.
The Jesuit, too, folding his hands over his black robe, with a deep
thought upon his tonsured brow, stood near the worshipper of Con-fav-tse
from the far land of China
The Black Man was not alone. His jet-black features, scarred with
the traces of that incredible thraldom from which he was a fugitive, he
spoke of the races of Ancient Rome.
The gray-garbed Peasant stood alone, leaning upon the veiled figure
with his knotted hands. Few could guess his country or his race. His
bold features, darkened by the sun, spoke somewhat of an Oriental race.
The rumor ran from lip to lip, that he was from an island in the
Mediterranean.
His thoughts were absorbed by the overwhelming solemnity of the
moment.
They were about to elect a Man, who would control for good or evil,—
for good or evil in the present age, and through all future time—the immense
organization of the Brotherhood.
On whom would the great work fall?
The Turk, the Hindoo, the Arab—the eyes of the Peasant roved along
the throng—or perchance—the Black Man? By the chance or fatality
of that mysterious lottery, the destiny of the Order and the World might
be embodied in a Negro;—a Negro! One of that thrice degraded race,
who have been ever doomed to drain the bitterest dregs of slavery, and
wear its heaviest chain upon their lacerated souls.
Meanwhile the aged Swede sat apart, his white beard floating over
his breast. His days were numbered; he was not a Candidate for the
great office; and more than this, he had been the last keeper of the Sacred
Symbol of Brotherhood. He was therefore not a Candidate, but a Judge.
While the Peasant stood leaning against the veiled figure, the other
brethren advanced one by one to the hollow in the rock, and turning their
faces away, drew forth a single tablet from the darkness.
The Peasant was aroused from his reverie by the voice of the Swede—
“Brother, it is now your turn,” he said.
The Peasant looked around with a stare of vague amazement.
“Have all drawn but me?” he exclaimed.
Even as he spoke, he beheld the brethren standing against the walls of
the cavern, with their tablets in their hands.
“Is not the tablet with the Cross yet drawn?” he ejaculated, while a
tremor seized his limbs—“and have all the Brothers advanced to the rock
—all but me?”
“No,” answered the Swede—“There are three others besides you—”
The Peasant followed the extended hand of the Swede, and beheld
standing near him, the Indian, the Colonist from New England, and the
Black Man.
“On one of the four will fall the office of Supreme Chief!” exclaimed
the Swede.
Then it was that a wild suspense seized every breast, and all eyes
were turned upon the four. The Indian and the Black Man stood on
the right of the veiled figure—the New England Colonist on his left.
and veiled his face.
“Advance, Brother from the New World,” he cried in a husky voice
—“The tablet marked with the Cross is yours!”
The Colonist advanced with a firm step, but his hand trembled, his
face changed color, as he drew a single tablet from the hollow in the rock.
He dared not look upon it, but stood gazing with a vacant glance in the
face of the Swede.
“Is it the tablet marked with the Cross?” interrogated the Peasant, as
he raised his face—his voice, changed and hollow, resembled a prolonged
groan.
The interest of the Chiefs became intense and painful.
“The tablet! The tablet!” was heard in murmurs—and in various
tongues on every side.
The Colonist at last gathered courage; he gazed upon the tablet—
“My own name!” he said, and turned away.
The stillness which succeeded, was like the grave.
The contest was now between the Peasant, the Indian, and the Black
Man. The Indian next advanced. Stern and proudly erect, he wound
his blanket over his broad chest, and his aquiline profile was described in
bold shadow on the wall of the cavern, as he drew near the hollow in
the rock.
Extending his hand without a tremor, he also drew forth a solitary
tablet, and held it toward the light.
You could not hear the faintest echo of a sound. All was terribly
still.
“The name of my Hindoo Brother,” said the Indian, as he resumed
his place.
The office of Supreme Chief now lay between the Peasant and the
Black Man.
As for the Peasant, seized by an uncontrollable emotion, he bowed his
tall form once more against the Leaden Image, and concealed his face
from the light.
The Black Man advanced a step—hesitated—and returned to his place.
“Brother, it is your time,” and as he spoke, he turned his harsh features
toward the Peasant.
There was no reply. The Peasant, who but a moment ago had seemed
a Prophet, inspired for a great work, now rested his arms upon the Leaden
Image, and hid his face, while his strong frame shook with agony.
“Advance, brother,” exclaimed the Swede to the Negro—“The office
of Supreme Chief is within your grasp!”
The Peasant heard the words of the Swede, and a cold shudder pervaded
his limbs. So near, so very near that Power, which held in its hand
the Destiny of the human race, and yet it was about to glide from his
stillness that the Negro was standing near the hollow in the rock—he felt
as he heard the universal ejaculation, that the Negro had become the Supreme
Chief of the Order.
Yet hark! The voice of the Black Man is heard—
“I have drawn a tablet, on which my Red Brother's name is written,”
he said, and all was still again.
The heart of the Peasant bounded within his breast. Possessed in every
nerve by an intense ambition, he had writhed with all the agony of suspense,
and now his blood became fire, with the pulsations of a boundless
joy.
The Tablet on which the Cross was traced was his own—with his form
bowed and his face concealed, he awaited the salutations of his brethren.
But suddenly his blood grew cold again, as the voice of the Swede fell on
his ear:
“Brother, advance. You are the last. Two tablets alone remain in
the hollow of the rock. On one your name is written, for it has not been
drawn by any of the brethren. On the other the Cross is traced. In case
you do not draw the Tablet with the Cross, a new election will be held.”
The Peasant heard the last words, and raised his head. Every eye remarked
the pallor of his face.
“Two tablets!” he echoed, with a vacant stare—“I had forgotten—”
he paused, and turning his eyes upon the throng, exclaimed—“I am not
worthy of this awful trust. I will not place my hand in the hollow of the
rock. Let the tablets be cast into that hollow once more, and the great
office will doubtless fall to the lot of some more worthy brother.”
But they silenced him with their murmurs—every one, from the Swede
to the Black Man, bade him advance.
It was a terrible moment for that rude Peasant, with the gray garb and
sunburnt face, when, crossing the cavern floor, shading his agitated features
from the light, he placed his knotted hand in the hollow of the rock. He
felt the two tablets beneath his fingers. He knew not which to take. One
moment he desired the great office with all his soul, the next, he felt unworthy,
and hoped that he might draw the tablet inscribed with his own
name.
“It is an awful Power to be placed in the hands of one man,” he muttered,
as he raised his hand, and without daring to gaze upon the tablet,
held it behind his back toward the light.
The Swede arose.
“You suffer, my brother,” he whispered—“your face is like the face
of a dead man—I will read the tablet for you.”
The Peasant could not speak a word, but he listened to the footsteps of
the Swede. There was a moment's pause—he could feel the intense interest
breath.
“Brothers, behold!”—it was the voice of the Swede, and the Peasant,
with his face turned from the light, heard the cry which filled the cavern.
That cry echoed from the very hearts of the assembled brethren, as every
eye beheld the tablet which the old man held toward the light.
And yet the Peasant dared not turn and know his destiny. That murmur
was so confused, so vague, he could not divine its true meaning, but
he felt the hand of the Swede upon his own, and felt himself urged gently
to the light.
“Brothers! salute the Supreme Chief of our Brotherhood!” the voice
of the Swede swelled through the cavern.
For a moment the Peasant tottered to and fro, while his sight grew dim,
and the figures of the brethren flitted before him like the confused shapes
of a dream. But that moment over, his sight grew clear, his limbs were
firm—glancing around with unwavering eyes, he beheld himself encircled
by the Chiefs of the Brotherhood, he felt the Golden Medal in his hand.
“Now—” he said, while a deep rapture softened his bold features, and
his form, clad in humble peasant attire, towered in the centre of that throng
—“Now, indeed, my work is before me. It is for me to embody in the
ritual of our Brotherhood, the life of the Carpenter's Son!”
Joining hands, they encircled him, and pronounced with one accord, in
the unknown tongue, the ancient formula of the Order. The Swede laid
his withered hand upon his brown hairs and blessed him—Hindoo, Turk,
Jesuit, Indian, Englishman and Spaniard, Dane and German, gathered
around, a rampart of living hearts.
The Negro, as the most degraded and down-trodden of all earth's children,
pronounced the last word of the consecration—
“It is from a Child of Toil that the Children of Toil must look for their
redemption.”
The Supreme Chief of the Brotherhood raised the Golden Medal toward
the light, and examined its details with a careful scrutiny.
“On one side the Globe, the Cross and the Rising Sun, with the inscription,
`Vayomer Eloheim yehee aur, vayehee aur'—`Then spoke God, Let
there be light, and there was light.' The reverse of the Medal is blank.
It bears no inscription. One day it will have an inscription, a glorious inscription,
but not until earth is redeemed and all men are Brothers!
“Yes, long ages after we are dead, my brethren, some Chief of our
Order will write upon the blank side of the Medal—
“`Earth redeemed by the Spirit of the Carpenter's Son, embodied in the
Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross.”'
The speaker took a sharp-pointed dagger from his breast, and resting
the medal upon the rock, traced in rude characters, two dates, beneath the
symbol of the Order. These dates were “1777” and “1848-84.”
Then turning to the silent brotherhood, he exclaimed—
“In the year 1777, another general convocation of the Chiefs of the
Brotherhood will be held in the land of the New World. Then the Golden
Medal will again he placed in the hands of a Supreme Chief, elected in
accordance with the injunction of the most aged Chief. Until that time,—
in case I die before it arrives—the office of Supreme Chief will remain
vacant. And in the year 1848—or 84, a general convocation will be held,
at a point to be designated by the Supreme Chief elected in the year 1777.”
Glancing into the faces of the encircling Chiefs, the Peasant, now become
the Supreme Power of the Order, beckoned with his hand to seven brethren,
who separated themselves from the throng, and took their places at his
side.
“These are the Supreme Elders of the Brotherhood, appointed by me
to assist in the government of the Order, and to receive the sacred symbol
in case of my death. They are known in our traditions as the Seven.—
Brother,” he continued, turning to the first of the Seven—“Your name
and country?”
The First of the Seven was a man of commanding presence, with a face
traced with the indications of a serene soul.
“I was born in England,” he said, “but now that my native land is a
home no longer for freemen, I have no country. I am about to depart to
the New World. Not to New England, for it is accursed by the Demon
of Persecution, but to a more southern clime. My name is Lawrence
Washington.”
The Peasant wrote that name upon the Tablet marked with the Cross.
—“Washington!” he murmured, as though he had heard of it before.
The Supreme Chief turned to the Second of the Seven. A man of
slender frame, sharp features, stamped with an iron resolution, and eyes
full of enthusiasm.
“Your country, Brother, and your name?”
“I am of France,” responded a shrill, discordant voice—“My name is
Robenspierre.”
The Supreme Chief shuddered as he wrote that name underneath the
first.
“I have seen it,” he murmured, in a tone inaudible to the Brethren—
“I have seen it in my dreams, written in red characters, upon the timbers
of that unknown engine of Murder.”
To the Third he turned. The harsh features of the Black Man met
his gaze.
“I have no name,” cried the Negro—“I am called Isaac the Slave.”
After he had written the designation of the African beneath the other
names, he turned to the Fourth. The Indian, standing alone, with his
blanket falling over his broad chest.
“My country? Wherever the White Race leaves our people a wigwam
Talondoga, and my country the Land of the Setting Sun.”
“Thy children,” murmured the Peasant, “shall yet sweep the white
race with fire and sword.”
The Fifth answered proudly—“I am a German. A tiller of the soil.
Write John, the Serf; and as for country, say that I have no Fatherland
but the grave.”
It was now the turn of the Sixth. A dark-visaged Hindoo, clad in the
garb of the lowest order of Hindoo priesthood.
“Buldarh of the far Eastern land—a Pariah, who has no lower caste
beneath him.”
“Thy country shall be given up awhile to Moloch, incarnate in the
English Monarchy. But when the oppressor has trampled you for a
hundred years, you will learn his cunning, and crush him with his own
weapons.”
Thus speaking, this Peasant Ruler wrote the name of the Pariah beneath
that of the German Serf.
The Seventh: an Italian, whose face seemed oppressed with the Doom
of his country.
“Giovanni Ferreti!” murmured the Supreme Chief, as he wrote this
name beneath the others. “Fear not, Italian! Humble artizan as you
are, it is from your race that there will spring a high-souled Man, who
will strike astonishment into the hearts of all men, for he will embody in
his own person, the functions of Pope and Liberator!”
“There are the names of your Elders—of the Seven,” exclaimed the
Supreme, after a pause—“Let us behold them, and write them on our
hearts—”
And he held the tablet before the eyes of the Brethren. These names
were written underneath the Cross.
1. Lawrence Washington.
2. Robenspierre.
3. Isaac the Slave.
4. Talondoga the Indian.
5. The German Serf.
6. Buldarh the Hindoo and Pariah.
7. Giovanni Ferreti.
“It only remains for me to write my own name,” said the Supreme
Chief, with a sad smile. These words excited a universal interest. Every
Brother was anxious to know the name of this man, who had been called
by Destiny to the supreme sway of the Brotherhood.
“My father,” he said, “was an Arab, who, cast ashore upon an Island
in the Mediterranean, was enslaved by a Lord, whose castle is built among
the rocks. My mother was a native of the island. As I do not know the
name of my father in the Arab tongue, I will—after the manner of slaves
The race of that lord has become extinct; himself, his children, all his
people, were swept away by plague; but the Son of the Arab Slave will
perpetuate their name—”
And beneath the names of the Seven, he wrote the words—
“Leon Buonaparte of Corsica.'
His bronzed features grew radiant, his dark eyes gathered new light, as
he gazed upon that name.
“Perchance, at some future day,” he said, “that name of the extinct
Italian noble, who built his castle on the rocks of Corsica—that name, now
assumed by his Slave, may shake the world, and read, to the eyes of
Kings, like the handwriting on Belshazzar's wall!”
And raising his right hand, which grasped the Golden Medal, toward
heaven, he stood motionless as stone, while his eyes, shining with prophetic
light, seemed to behold already a world of slaves starting from their
chains, and building, upon the wrecks of Despotism and Superstition, the
sublime altar of human Brotherhood.
“The day is breaking, my brothers, and we must separate,” he said, as
he took the torch and drew near the veiled figure once more—“But before
you hasten to your stations, in the various regions of the globe, we will
meet again. Then,—at our next meeting, which shall not be many days
from the present hour—I will reveal to you the regenerated ceremonial of
our Brotherhood. Yes, I will reveal to you the new organization of the
Order, in which the Spirit of the Carpenter's Son shall throb and burn as
the life of all life. Armed with this spirit—embodied in ritual and constitution—you
will hasten to your various circles, scattered over the surface
of the Globe, and swell your divisions of the great Fraternity, by new converts,
and go on in your great work, until the masses begin to feel that the
Spirit of the Carpenter's Son, freed from the body of the leaden Church,
walks divinely over the earth again, speaking to the poor, words that are
mightier than armies.
“Yes—I anticipate the question which rises to your lips and shines in
your eyes. You ask me, what manner of scenes from the life of the
Carpenter's Son, I would embody in the ritual of our Order? The question
is not difficult to answer.
“Have you ever heard of the day, when that Carpenter's Son arose in
a Nazarene Synagogue, and proclaimed, clad, as he was, in the gaberdine
of toil, proclaimed in the face of the Rich Man and the Priest, that the
Spirit of God was upon him to preach good tidings to the Poor, liberty to
the bondman, the good time of Brotherhood to all men?
“Or, have you ever heard of the Rich Man, who came one day to the
Carpenter's Son, and, won by the divine beauty of that Spirit which shone
in his eyes, asked sorrowfully, `Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal
life?'
“The Carpenter's Son looked in the face of the Rich man, marked his
robes of fine linen and purple, and then said, in that voice which melted
the souls of all who listened to its music—
“`Sell all thou hast and give to the Poor!'
“Such scenes as these we will embody in our ritual, and make the life
of our life! Yes, to the Poor we will preach good tidings, liberty, light!
But to the Rich, armed with the Justice of the Carpenter's Son, we will
thunder the sentence which God has pronounced upon their heads—`Sell
all thou hast and give to the Poor! Restore to the mass of mankind the
lands which ye have stolen from them, and baptized with their blood!
Divide among the Poor your ill-gotten gold—give back, give back, in the
name of God, your usurped power, and let your tardy Repentance be
aided by a strict and universal Restitution!”
The words had not passed his lips, when he dashed the torch upon the
ground, and the cavern was enveloped in darkness. By the last ray, the
Brothers beheld his sunburnt features flashing as with a divine radiance,
and through the darkness, they heard him speak in a low, deep voice,
tremulous with unutterable joy—
“Then, indeed, shall the Lead become Gold, and the Sneer be changed
into a Smile.”
HERE ENDETH THE MANUSCRIPT OF BROTHER ANSELM.
20. CHAPTER TWENTIETH.
THE LILY.
Completely overwhelmed by the revelations of this Manuscript, which
he had taken from the breast of the Leaden Image, Paul remained like a
statue upon the oaken bench, for some moments after he had finished
those incredible pages, without the power to speak or stir. His eyes
were fixed, their brightness dimmed by a misty film. He looked upon
the trees, the grass, the flowers, but did not behold any thing save the
Phantoms of the Manuscript.
The sun was low in the heaven, and the thick shadows began to gather
round the Block-House.
But Paul did not mark the declining sun, nor call to mind his promise
by the Revelations of the Manuscript. The forms
of the Secret Brotherhood flitted between his eyes and the light; he saw
that Prophet-Peasant in his gray garb stand beside the veiled figure, while
words full of divine inspiration fell from his lips.
His thoughts in truth were crowded and tumultuous; a thousand
images whirled through his brain.
And yet, amid the very chaos of his musings, there came certain well-defined
ideas shooting through the gloom, like stars through the darkness
of night.
“The Golden Medal is in existence! I may possess it, and with it
grasp the power of the Brotherhood. A strange Prophecy, and yet it has
in part been fulfilled. The Apostle of the New World came long years
ago in the person of William Penn. The time of the Deliverer is at
hand. I saw him consecrated, and it is my destiny to guard him from
the hands of his foes.”
He turned the last page of the Manuscript, and started from the bench
as he recognised the handwriting of his father.
“You have read, my Son, and it is now your duty to obey.
“A great work, a sublime destiny is yours!
“It is your destiny to claim the Golden Medal; to unseal the Book of
the Rosy Cross, in which are revealed the signs, symbols, and all the
mysteries of the great Brotherhood—yours, to read the name of the
Deliverer, and confront him with the Sword and the Dagger.
“You will read this when I am dead, after the Revelation of the Sealed
Chamber, with its unrelenting Curse, has passed from your soul, and left
your heart serene, your arm nerved and free for the accomplishment of
your great destiny.
“When you are worthy, you will discover the Golden Medal, which
bears the Symbol of the Globe, the Cross, and the Rising Sun.
“When your soul is calm, you will learn the truth—then, at the feet of
the Imprisoned, you will discover the D—.
“I have often told you, my Son, that the cause of my departure from
Germany, was a vision which rushed upon my eyes, while bending over
the body of your mother, in the vault of the castle, which rises above the
Rhine. I heard the voice of God; it bade me go forth into the solitudes
of the New World, and await the coming of the Deliverer.
“This was the truth, Paul, but not all the truth.
“After you have read the Revelation of the Sealed Chamber, you will
be able to determine how far the Curse,—the Doom—or shall I say, the
Malady—of our house and race, shaped my purposes, and urged me to
become either a Wanderer upon the face of the earth, or a nameless Dweller
in the solitudes of a trackless wilderness.
“And yet, aided by the Revelation of the Sealed Chamber, you
will not be able to arrive at the whole truth, until you have read the
Manuscript of Brother Anselm.
“Even then, another word is needed. Listen, my Son.
“While absorbed in the mysteries of the Divine Prophecies, about the
year 1755, I first acquired the friendship of Brother Anselm. He was
then a very aged man. He had been present at the convocation of the
Brotherhood recorded in the Manuscript, and he was one of the seven.
“He was, indeed, the only one living in 1755. He was the last of the
Seven appointed by the Peasant, who was elected Supreme Chief at least
a century before he assumed the name of his dead Master, calling himself
Louis Bonaparte.
“The Supreme Chief had been dead many years, when I first met
Brother Anselm. That aged man, who had lived far beyond the common
term of human life, was the only remaining guardian of the Sacred
Symbol.—You will find his name written in the manuscript, as the
German Serf.—
“By him I was initiated into the Brotherhood; and at his feet I
learned the symbols, the ceremonies, and the universal language of the
Rosy Cross.
“At the time of the great calamity which befel our house—you have
read of it in the Revelations of the Sealed Chamber—Brother Anselm
pointed to the New World, as the place appointed for the next Convocation
of the Chiefs of the Rosy Cross. There the Deliverer would
appear, who was to re-create the New World, and thus prepare it for its
imposing share in the regeneration of the human race. This Deliverer
was foretold not only by the Prophecy of the Rosy Cross, but also by the
Revelations of St. John.
“Sick of the Old World,—horror-stricken by the calamity which befel
our house—wishing to save you from the Destiny, or the Malady of our
race—I listened to the persuasions of Brother Anselm. I came to the
Wilderness with you and Catharine; accompanied by the Venerable
Anselm, and two other brethren of the Rosy Cross, Joseph and
Immanuel.
“I vowed to Brother Anselm a solemn vow, as I have told you before,
that you should be educated in solitude, afar from the world, so that you
might take the Oath of Celibacy, and thus be prepared not only to become
a Brother of the Holy Cross, but its Supreme Chief. Not only the
Guardian of the Deliverer, but the Regenerator of our Order, and the embodied
Destiny of the human race.
“The solemn Convocation of the Chiefs will be held in June, 1777—on
the last night of the second week.
“It may be, that the hand of death, the canker of disorganization, have
been terribly at work to crush our Brotherhood. It may be, that those
over every land in the Globe, and yet connected with each other by
a mysterious bond of union, have suffered their ritual to decay, their ceremonies
to degenerate—the great bond of Union itself, which was once a
belt of iron, to fall to pieces like a rope of sand.
“It is even possible, that on the last night of the second week in June,
1777, while you await the coming of the Chiefs, in the appointed place,
not a single one will appear. Yes, the tradition which commanded them
to meet, may have been lost in the mists of time, and the clamors of battle,
and the changes of circumstances.
“Even in that case your Destiny is still glorious. For then the Golden
Medal will be yours, and by virtue of the last testament of Brother Anselm,
(contained in the Book of the Rosy Cross,) you will become the Supreme
Chief of the Brotherhood.
“This Medal, combined with the symbolic knowledge which you will
derive from the Book of the Holy Cross, will give you entrance into all
other secret organizations on the face of the globe, and with the right of
entrance will come the power to command.
“For the Brotherhood of the Holy Cross is not only superior in symbolic
knowledge to all other secret organizations, but, in truth, all these organizations,
however styled, are but illegitimate branches of our great order.
For example—that which is taught dimly among the Masonic Fraternities
is fully revealed in the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross.
“Behold your destiny, my son—weigh it well—ponder long on every
minute detail of your great work.
“In order that you may become the Supreme Chief and the Regenerator
of the Brotherhood, you must first sacrifice at its holy altar, every thing
like the ambition of the world, or the love of woman.
“As the Supreme Chief, your name will not be known in history. You
will be lost to the sight of the world. You will, in truth, stamp your
almost supernatural impress upon history, and sway like a Destiny the
fate of nations—of mankind. But as an individual, as a man, you will not be
known. Cut off from all ties of friendship or of love, sacred and set apart
from the ambitions or the fears of common men, you will fulfil your awful
task, glide away, and leave your work, but not your name or your
memory, to tell that you ever had an existence.
“This is one side of the picture, Paul. Look upon the reverse of
the medal.
“Reject the mission which is offered you. Go forth into the great
world, determined to war, to conquer, to love and to hate, to gather gold
and scatter it again, like common men.
“What will be the result of a course like this? I do not prophesy,
Paul, nor pronounce a Judgment; I simply address your reason. The
result then, is not very difficult to determine. Rejecting the great mission
rank and gold. You will be loved by many beautiful women, and feared
by many powerful men. Your wildest ambition may be gratified; you
may place your foot upon the highest step of that golden staircase, which,
the old fable tells us, leads ever upwards, before the eyes of the ambitious.
“And what will be the end of all?
“The men whom you trust will betray you. The woman whom you
love may prove false. Worse than all, and most to be dreaded of all judgments,
she may bear a child which will inherit the horrible Destiny,
the incurable Malady of our race! The gold which you win, may only
serve to poison your blood with the fever of luxury. The highest step
of the golden stairway—even if you attain it—may only reveal to you a
yawning chasm at the other side. A chasm that seems fathomless, and
yet not deep enough to bury your despair, when you reflect on what you
are, as a Man of the hour—on what you might have been, as the Regenerator
of the Brotherhood, the Destiny of a World.
“You will read this when I am dead.
“From the grave I speak to you. Choose, my son, and choose with
freedom, for my death removes from your head the Curse of our race.
“Your Father.”
Paul sank on his knees and clasped his hands. The manuscript fell
beside him, among the grass and flowers.
“Father!” he cried, raising to heaven a face which was softened in
every feature by a holy serenity—“My choice is made! Now, that thy
bones are dust, the fatal secret of the Sealed Chamber can no longer cloud
my soul, and urge my arm to that most terrible deed. I am indeed free!
Free! My choice, then, is made at once! I will sever from my heart
all ties of human ambition—I will sacrifice the love of woman, at the altar
of this holy work. No child shall ever be born, to struggle as I have
struggled, with the Curse—the Curse of our race.
“Father! By thy spirit I swear to accept the destiny which thou didst
design for me. I will become the Regenerator of the Brotherhood—I will
hover round the Deliverer, his safeguard if he is true, his executioner if he
is false. Thanks, Father! Thy words have removed the Curse from
my soul.”
It was an impressive sight to see him kneeling there, his eyes flashing
with the joy which flooded every avenue of his soul, his forehead radiant
with a holy energy, his voice breaking full and deep upon the breathless
stillness of the forest.
At last, after the agony of years, the cloud was lifted from his soul.
Neither the secret of the Sealed Chamber, nor the love of that beautiful
girl, who tempted him to break his oath, could now sway him aside from
his great work.
After the first outburst of joy, Paul fell into a profound reverie.
Where was the Golden Medal? Where the Book of the Rosy Cross?
What was that word which terminated the enigmatical sentence—“At the
feet of the Imprisoned you will discover the D—.” How should he
acquire the meaning of that word, the hidden truth of the whole sentence?
These queries agitated his mind; but amid all his uncertainties a profound
gladness nestled in the depths of his heart, when he reflected that—
his father dead—the Secret of the Sealed Chamber could threaten him no
longer, with its foreboding of thrice-infamous crime.
And yet these queries must be answered ere he had a right to read the
Deliverer's name.
While Paul was absorbed in this profound reverie, the shadows gathered
darker around the old Block-House, and the stillness of the forest grew
deeper.
It was a beautiful thing to see those masses of deep shadow and vivid
sunlight rest together upon the roof of the Block-House, like strange birds,
whose immense wings, of midnight blackness, were streaked with feathers
of shining gold.
And while the shadows deepened and the forest grew more breathlessly
still, Paul remained on his knees, his hands resting on the oaken bench,
while the manuscript lay near his side.
“To night is the seventh night of the second week of June, 1777—”
he murmured aloud.
Was it sleep that came over his senses—bewildered as they were by
the sudden joy—or did only his profound reverie deepen into a waking
dream?
For some time, he remained unconscious of all external sights or sounds
—his soul was wrapt within itself—the images of the secret Brotherhood,
the words of his father, possessed his brain.
After some time had elapsed, he started from this reverie, like a man
waking from a dream.
There was a lily in his right hand—a beautiful flower, with its snowy
cup still sparkling with the diamond dew. Paul gazed upon it with indescribable
wonder—inhaled its delicious fragrance, and pressed it to his lips.
Then glancing to the right and left, he sought to behold the giver of this
fragrant blessing. There was no one in sight—all was silent and shadowy
about the Block-House.
“It seems to have fallen from Heaven!” he cried, pressing it once more
to his lips.
Paul started to his feet; the sun was hidden behind the trees; his beams
flashed among the huge trunks like arrows of tremulous gold.
It was the hour of sunset.
At once Paul remembered his promise to Reginald, and his vow to sever
from his heart all ties of friendship or love.
“I will see him for the last time,—tell him the story of my life,—and
then, still brothers in heart, we part for ever!”
He hastened toward the gate,—but suddenly paused ere he advanced
five paces.
“It is my duty to remain. The Golden Medal—the Book of the Brotherhood—the
name of the Deliverer—these all demand my earnest thought.
And to-night is the seventh night of the second week in June! But Reginald—he
has been a brother to me—ah! I will see him, and return within
the hour!”
He turned his face from the door of the Block-House, and once more
hastened toward the gate. His step was buoyant, his manner joyous, his
face full of bloom, his eye lighted up with new fire.
Again the lily which he grasped met his eye.
“A good omen!” he cried, and hurried through the gate.
Near the sycamore tree, he paused for an instant, still holding the lily
in his hand.
“It is very near sunset, and I cannot reach the appointed place in time,
if I follow the windings of the Wissahikon. There was a path which led
directly to the south-west; I remember it well!”
To follow the windings of the Wissahikon, until he reached the Blasted
Pine, was to traverse a distance of at least two miles. The direct path,
leading through the woods and fields, was scarcely a mile in length; it
encountered the Wissahikon near the Schuylkill. After a moment's hesitation,
Paul determined to take this path.
Turning his face toward the west, he sought earnestly among the leaves
and shruberry for traces of the path, but his search was in vain.
“It is very near sunset, and I will be too late!” he cried, in despair, and
at once, with his face turned toward the south-west, plunged into the mazes
of the thickly grown brush-wood. His way was choked by branches of
trees, interwoven with the foliage of the laurel, which covered the ground,
between the trunks of the oaks and pines; plunging deeper into the gloom,
without a ray of light to break the depth of shadow, he still endeavored
to keep his face toward the south-west.
At last he came upon an open space, where there was a carpet of moss,
sprinkled with flowers, and framed in the trunks of huge beechen trees.
A gush of sunlight warmed the place, and Paul, at the same instant,
beheld the lily, which he had not ceased to grasp for a moment, and the
entrance of the path for which he was seeking.
The sunlight shone warmly over the pure white flower, and Paul could
not turn his eyes away from its beautiful cup, tinted as it was by golden
beams.
“Where did I obtain this flower?” he murmured, as he paused in the
centre of the glade, his dark attire and impressive countenance shown distinctly
in the sudden sunlight.
Had he gathered it in his slumber? There were no flowers like it in the
vicinity of the Block-House. Perchance it had been left upon the oaken
bench by some wayfarer. And yet its fragrance was still fresh; the dew
sparkled in diamond drops upon its petals.
Paul stood very still, in the rays of the sun, his countenance shadowed
by thought.
This incident of the lily, which he had found in his grasp, when awaking
from his reverie—or his slumber—excited a train of strange emotions.
“It has been placed in my hand by a living being; some unknown friend
has stolen to my side, as I was lost in thought, and dropped it gently upon
the oaken bench. Some unknown friend!”
Paul pressed his hand upon his forehead; a sudden ejaculation was
forced from his lips, by a vivid thought.
“Catharine!” he exclaimed—“she lives! Yes, even as I knelt by the
oaken bench, she has stolen to my side, pressed her kiss upon my forehead,
and left this flower in my hand, as a token of her love. It is indeed
a beautiful symbol of a sister's love.”
The thought filled him with a sudden joy, but the joy was linked with
an inexplicable horror.
“Catharine is living, and—my father—is he still living?”
He felt the cold moisture upon his forehead at the thought.
For with that thought all his madness came back again. His dread of
the Sealed Chamber and its Revelation, his Remorse at the memory of that
fatal night.
But the level rays of the sun, shooting over the sod, reminded him once
more of his promise to Reginald.
He hurried onward, entering the hidden path, as he dashed aside a
beechen branch whose foliage swept his face. But no sooner had he
entered the path, than his steps were arrested by a sight which at once
enchained his eyes.
On the right of the path there was an open space, but a few yards square,
encircled by a rudely constructed fence. That open space was surrounded
by the great trunks of chesnut, oak and poplar, but their branches,
parted above it, and suffered the sunlight to fall upon it, like a smile of
golden rays.
There was a gentle elevation of sod in the centre of the space, encircled
by the fence, surrounded by the great trees, and blessed by the golden rays.
A gentle elevation—a mound of moss, whose dark green surface was only
varied by a solitary wild rose, whose leaves were touched with perfect
bloom. Beside the rose, was the broken stalk of another flower.
Paul glanced upon the broken stalk, and then upon the flower which he
held in his hand; an irresistible conviction rushed upon his soul.
“It is the stalk of the lily which I hold in my grasp,” he cried, “and
I am looking upon the grave of Catharine!”
Won by the strange beauty of the place, he leaned against a tree, and
gave his soul to the influence of the golden atmosphere which invested
that lonely grave.
It was a very pleasant spot for the sleep of the dead; there, in the
bosom of the wild forest, among the giant trees, with a little sunshine to
bless the place, and a solitary rose blooming over the grave.
Paul could not turn his eyes from that lonely mound, framed in a rude
fence, and with a single flower upon its green bosom.
There was no stone to mark the spot, no elaborate inscription, to tell
whose ashes slumbered there.
In truth, it seemed as if the dead were left alone to the eyes of the
Angels—perchance—alone with the tenderness of God.
“It was no human hand that placed this flower in mine!” the thought
crossed the mind of Paul—“It is a good omen, sent to me from the Other
World!”
And he knelt there, and spoke the name of his Sister to the still air, and
in his dreamy way conversed with the dead.
As his clasped hands rested upon the rude fence, his yearning eyes
were fixed immovably upon the grave, and the sunlight touched his
forehead, his waving hair, as with a blessing, while his form was lost in
shadow.
O, beautiful, upon the cold bosom of a desolate world, blossoms that
holiest flower, living when all beside is dead, blooming on, when every hope
is cold and withered—that flower which angels plant, and the smile of
God nourishes into life—a Sister's Love!
Paul could not restrain his tears. He suffered them to flow freely.
There was no one to witness them but Heaven,—and perchance the Spirit
of his dead sister was hovering in that sunlight, near the solitary rose,
which trembled on the bosom of the grave!
And Paul forget every thing—the Past and the Future, his Remorse
and his Hope—as he gazed upon his sister's tomb. Forgot every thing,
and felt his soul filled with an unutterable yearning to sleep there, beside
her, and be at rest, with some sunshine and a stray wild flower over his
ashes.
At last, the Lily which he grasped—that flower which had been sent to
him by a supernatural hand—called him back to life.
“It is a good Omen,” he said, once more—“It tells me to bury the
Past, and look forward to the Future!”
He arose, and in a moment had passed from the quiet grave into the
shadows. Yet ere he went, he lingered for a moment on the verge of
the glade, turning his eloquent eyes over his shoulder, as he exclaimed:
“Catharine! Catharine! There may be women in the world, with
lovelier faces than thine, but never—never lived a truer spirit; never was
angel-like than thine.”
He turned away with a shudder. With the image of his sister, arose
another image of a far different nature. A woman's face, shaded by raven
hair, with the fire of a maddening passion shining in her large dark eyes!
It came with the memory of his sister's pale, golden hair and azure
eyes; it spoke to him of the “last night” when he trembled on the
threshold of the Sealed Chamber.
“She also is with the dead, that strangely beautiful woman, who with
a look urged me on to Ruin. Soon I will stand upon the sod which
guards her ashes. And all her mad hopes, all those desires, for which
the universe itself seemed but a narrow shrine, are now hidden in a little
space of grassy earth. Father—Sister—the beautiful Tempter—all dead!
I am indeed alone! The friendship of Reginald alone binds me to the
world. And that last tie I must sever, and say to all the common hopes
and ambitions of mankind, farewell. When I am indeed alone, I will be
prepared to enter upon my solemn Destiny.”
Paul plunged deeper into the shadows of the forest.
The path which he followed, wound into the wildest recesses of the
Wissahikon. Now its traces were almost lost amid rude forms of rock,
which, scattered among the trees, seemed like the fragments of some hill
of granite, and again it skirted a rill whose waters were concealed by wild
grass, while the willows bending over it, shut out the light of the sun.
Emerging from the wood, he beheld an undulating field, stretching far
to the west, and clad in vivid green. It was a field of clover, ripe for the
scythe. Not far from the wood, a bold elevation was marked against the
western sky. Paul pursued his way through the clover, and in a few
moments stood upon a rock, which crowned this elevation.
Looking to the east and south, he beheld the forest extending in the
form of a crescent.
That crescent marked the course of the Wissahikon.
Beyond the tops of the trees which formed this crescent, he beheld a
broad green hill, on whose summit frowned a grove of pines. Amid their
deep shadows, he beheld the walls of a mansion—it was the mansion of
Isaac Van Behme.
Paul trembled at the sight, and at once, the memory of the beautiful
woman bewildered his soul.
“It looks sad and desolate!” he said, gazing upon that distant grove
of pines—“I soon will discover her grave among those shadows.”
Turning his gaze farther to the west, he saw a white form, gleaming
dimly from a clump of magnificent trees, clad in the luxuriant foliage of
June.
“The Blasted Pine!”
And then, gazing over the clover field, he beheld, at its western extremity,
a farm-house embosomed among orchard trees.
Over its steep roof, the disc of the setting sun was only half-visible.
A cloudless sky, a field of clover, a farm-house embosomed among orchard
trees, and a forest extending in the form of a crescent,—all illumined by
the sun, whose broad disc was half-concealed by the horizon.
This was the view which Paul beheld, as he stood on the rock, with
his soul still awed by the shadow and the silence of the forest, which he
had only a moment left.
It was a beautiful sight—the Ideal of rural beauty,—ranged side by
side with the dark old forest, whose profound solitudes overwhelmed the
heart with thoughts of wild grandeur.
“I have but to descend into the valley of the Wissahikon, cross the
stream by means of the rocks, and in a few moments I will stand at the
foot of the Blasted Pine. But I must hasten my steps, for the sun is half-concealed
by the horizon.”
Paul stood upon the rock, and surveyed the scenes of his life.
We have, indeed, wasted pages without a purpose, and expended words
in vain, if we have not succeeded in impressing the mind of the reader
with the peculiar strength and genius of an organization like that of Paul
Ardenheim. He was one of those natures which, indeed, do not often
appear in the lower world—natures made up of Good and Evil in large
proportions, and swayed to either side by the hand of Fate, or perchance
the accident of the merest circumstance.
While engaged in the old records, which tell of his life, we have found
it difficult to avoid loving this strange man, and admiring his genius,
despite his wayward Destiny. Under other circumstances he might have
become a Poet, a General, or the Dictator of a Revolutionary age. As it
was, he only hovers over the page of history, a vague shadow, that may
appear an Apparition of Good, or the Ghost of Evil, according to the
vision of the spectator.
Had he been reared amid the scenes of every-day life, accustomed to
those vulgar realities which chafe enthusiasm into dull but practical
energy, he would doubtless have made his mark upon the age, a stern,
rugged, but powerful Man. Had he, from infancy, grown up amid scenes
of cold, unpoetical Want—habituated to all that the direst extreme of
poverty can inflict upon the child of the poor—with here and there a ray
of education gleaming in upon the squalor and nakedness of his existence
—he might, yes, he would have found a rugged joy in battling against his
fate, and in striking a way for his genius, even through the wilderness of
Hunger, Temptation and Wretchedness.
But his education was altogether different. He had been reared in the
profound solitudes of an almost untrodden forest. His mind had been
fashioned amid scenes of the wildest grandeur. The lessons of fanaticism,
seemed embodied again in the stillness of the awful forest, through whose
depths the stream of Wissahikon, like a spirit, sung its unceasing song—
in the glory of sunrise, when the tops of the trees were touched with
gold, and the last star trembled ere it faded into air—in the majesty of
sunset, when the green meadow and the dark woods lay side by side,
mellowed by the same ray—in the profound shadow which came down
at night upon the scene, wrapping the stream and the leaf, the cavern and
the flower, in its bosom, as the pall shuts in the dead.
He had been reared alone—set apart from mankind—and yet, every
moment of his life, in close and awful companionship with the Other
World.
It will be seen at a glance, that this kind of education rendered his
nature at once sensitive and fearless. He united—says the old MSS.—
the tenderness of the woman, with the single-heartedness of the child, and
the iron strength of one of those Demi-Gods of ancient story. His mind
was susceptible of the most delicate shades of impression; the ten thousand
voices of external nature were intelligible to his dreaming soul; he found
connecting links between this world and the other, in the innumerable
forms of creation; as well in the humblest plant or flower, as in the lone
majesty of the silent stars.
It will also be remembered, that the supernatural part of this work, or
that which appears supernatural, and which in some cases we have endeavored
to explain, does not, in the Original Records of Paul Ardenheim's
life, admit of doubt or speculation. The author of those Records believes
in all that partakes of the Supernatural. He sees nothing improbable in
a direct, continual and intelligible communication between this world and
the Spiritual World, between disembodied Spirits and actual men and
women.
He beholds in Paul Ardenheim, not so much a Man, born to eat, drink,
sleep, toil and die like the herd of mankind, as a Spirit from the Other
World, embodied in human form, and sent hither to work out a strangely
terrible Destiny.
Perchance—(this is the language of the Ancient MSS.)—the Spirit of
some great Man, who lived in far distant ages of the world, returned to
earth again in the body of Paul Ardenheim.
Even while we smile at what we esteem the Credulity of this Writer
of the Original Records, and treat all supernatural appearances, and the
long train of thoughts which they involve, as idle delusions—vainer,
indeed, than a Lawyer's honesty, or a Priest's sincerity—we must also
remember, the Punishment of Witchcraft forms a part of that which
Blackstone calls the perfection of human reason, the English Common
Law. That Lord Bacon believed in Witches, and in Wizard Craft;
that Sir Matthew Hale, arrayed in the pomp of his solemn office,
blood in a war, waged by its Priests against Witches, Wizards, and Devils
embodied in human form. That Cotton Mather, the author of the Magnolia,—a
Son of the School of Calvin, worthy of his Master—held the
belief in Witches, Spirits, and Apparitions, much dearer than he held the
“Love one another” of the Divine Redeemer.
Indeed, it will be hard for us to find a man at all distinguished, who is
not controlled in his greatest actions, by some form of belief, which
teaches the direct communication between this world and the next.
Even Napoleon believed in his Destiny embodied in a Star.
Paul after a pause of dreamy thought, hurried through the clover field
toward the wood, whose shadows embosomed the Wissahikon.
“Ah—I remember it well!” he cried, as some memory crossed his
mind—“That spring which, half-way down the hill, bubbles up from the
rocks at the foot of the chesnut tree. This path leads near it, and
without pausing for a moment, I may look upon it once again, and think
of other days.”
He had reached the verge of the clover field. Springing over the zigzag
fence, he hurried along the firm sod, and presently entered the shadow
of the woods again. The murmur of the Wissahikon was heard once
more, filling the air with a low-toned and indistinct melody.
“The clump of chesnut trees is yonder. Already I behold the foliage,
varied with pale golden blossoms. Beside that spring, at the foot of the
chesnut trees, I spent many a happy hour in those days that can never
come back again. Oh, it seems to me as if the Soul drank peace, while
the lips are moistened by that clear, cold water, fresh and virgin from the
caverns of Old Earth!”
Hurrying onward with renewed haste, Paul presently stood under the
branches of the chesnut trees. Four hardy trees they were, starting from
the sod together, their joined trunks looking like one great column, and
their foliage meeting overhead in one impenetrable canopy.
At the foot of these trees, from a hollow in the rock, bubbled forth a
limpid spring, with a wild flower or two bending over it, like maidens surveying
their faces in a mirror. A level space of green sod spread for
some paces around the spring, encircled by the thickly grown shrubbery
as by a wall. It was all the same as in other days—the rock in whose
hollow lay the clear water,—the flowers around—the level space carpeted
with moss—and the foliage which formed the walls and canopy of this
wild forest bower.
But Paul had no time to gaze upon the flowers, no time to drink from
the spring, for the sun was setting, and Reginald waiting for him beneath
the Blasted Pine.
With a glance, he turned away,—
“At last you have come!” said a voice.
21. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.
THE INDIAN SPRING OF WISSAHIKON.
Paul started at the sound, and turned once more toward the spring.
“I have waited for you. It is the appointed hour.” Again he heard the
voice.
And the figure of a man advanced from the shadows of the forest bower.
“Waited for me?” echoed Paul, gazing upon the figure of the speaker
in undisguised wonder.
Beside the spring stood a man of slender frame, and pale features lighted
by large gray eyes. He was clad in brown velvet, with ruffles on his
breast and about his colorless hands, diamond buckles on his knees and
shoes. Paul looked at his pale face, and thought him sixty years of age;
but when he caught the clear light of his eyes,—which now softened into
azure, and now deepened into dark gray—he could not imagine, for an
instant, that the unknown was more than forty years old. Around his
forehead floated waving locks of pale golden hair, which seemed golden
indeed, in the rays of the sun, but in the shadow, appeared touched with
the frosts of age.
The appearance of this man struck the mind of Paul, at once, with a
deep and peculiar interest. He was attired like a man of rank and station;
his form was slender, but unbent with years; there was a singular
sadness upon his features, a strange light in his eyes.
“Where have I seen that face before?” thought Paul.
“Yes, you are the one who was to come,” said that singularly mild
voice, which had arrested the steps of Paul. “Attired in black, a dress
such as is worn by the students of Heidelberg, a cap with a waving plume.
Every thing is just as it was described to me. Not only the dress, but the
face. A face of bronze, lighted by eyes that are full of inspiration and
prophecy!”
As he spoke, gazing into the face of Paul, he extended his hand. Paul
took that pale, thin hand, and, unable to speak or move, shuddered as though
he had encountered the hand of the dead.
“Where have I seen that face?” the question again crossed his mind—
“Was it among the solitudes of the Hartz mountains.—No! no! But
I have seen it before—I know not where!
“You have waited for me?” he said aloud, still pressing the stranger's
hand.
“I have waited for you,” calmly replied the unknown, smoothing his
waving hair aside from his forehead. “`At the Indian Spring of Wissahikon,
you will behold the man who is destined to aid you in the Good Work.'
These words were spoken to me in a distant land, far over the ocean, two
months ago. But I believed—and am here.”
It seemed to Paul that he could not have spoken, had the salvation of
his soul hung on a word.
“I have seen that face before!” again the thought flashed over his
bewildered soul.
“`He will be clad in black; he will wear the dress of a Heidelberg
student, and on his forehead a cap with a waving plume.”'
Paul dropped the hand of the unknown, and started back a single step.
“These were the words which I heard two months ago, in a far distant
land;” continued the unknown. “Your dress was described to me, and
more than this, your face. `A face of bronze, lighted by eyes that are full
of inspiration and prophecy.'—You are, in truth, the man whom I seek.
You are destined to aid me in the good work.”
“The good work!” echoed Paul, in a whisper.
And he looked first upon the face of the unknown, then upon the spring,
the trees, the flowers, as if to assure himself that he was not bewildered
in a dream.
“I have seen that face before,” again the thought came—“but it was
older when I saw it last. It was covered with wrinkles, the eyes were
dim, and the head bowed on the breast.”
“Ah, you doubt me,” said the unknown, with a smile, which played
over his features, cold and impassible as moonlight over snow—“Then
listen to another proof. `This man, whom you will meet by the Indian
Spring, has, like yourself, a great mission to fulfil—”'
Paul interrupted him with an incoherent ejaculation.
—“`But his great mission and your good work are one.”'
The spring, the trees and flowers, the pale face of the stranger, all
seemed whirling in mad confusion, before the eyes of Paul.
“`But in order to satisfy your mind, and know that he is indeed the
man whom you seek,' those were a part of the words uttered to me, two
months ago—`you will address him in the language of the ancient seers,
You will ask him—”'
He paused, and watched the changing face of Paul, which was pale and
red by turns, with a scrutinizing glance.
“You will ask him,” exclaimed Paul, unconsciously echoing the words.
“`You will ask him whether he looks forward with hope to the time
when the Lead shall become Gold, and the Sneer be changed into a
Smile.”'
“Ah—thou art of the Brotherhood!” exclaimed Paul, his face flushing
with overwhelming joy—“Thou art sent to me to reveal the deeper
mysteries of the good work—”
And he seized the small, bony hand of the unknown, and pressed it to
his heart.
“Said I not so? You have a great mission—I, a good work. But
your mission and my work are one. But why need we exchange signs
and watchwords with each other—”
“Signs and watchwords!” echoed Paul, his mind reverting to the Brotherhood
of the Rosy Cross.
“Are we not of one Brotherhood? Yea, in your eye I behold the prophetic
fire—your hand is destined for the holy deed!”
And then taking Paul by the hand, he led him to the spring, and said—
“Let us sit beside each other, and converse about the holy work.”
The memory of Reginald, and the meeting by the blasted pine, had
passed from the mind of Paul. He was wrapt in the unknown. He
could have listened for ever to his low, musical voice, and gazed for ever
upon his pale face, which, in the passing ray, seemed touched with fire
from Heaven.
“Who was it,” he asked, as they sat down together on a rock near the
spring, “that spoke to you, and bade you expect me at this hour?'
“Who?” echoed the unknown, his features suddenly clouded. “Are you
of the Brotherhood, and yet ask his name? Who,” he continued, in a tone
of singular emphasis, as he shaded his eyes with his hand—“Who but the
mightiest of the fallen?”
That pale face, with the light gleaming on the forehead, while the eyes
shone brightly beneath the thin hand, impressed Paul Ardenheim with
indefinable awe.
“The mightiest of the fallen?” he echoed.
“Yea, the first of the Seven who watched around the Throne before
they fell,” exclaimed the unknown, his voice sinking with every word—
“That Spirit, so powerful in his very desolation, so grand in his ruin, whom
men call by various names, Astaroth—Lucifer—”
“Satan!” whispered Paul, with a shudder, as he shrank from the touch
of the stranger.
As he spoke, the forest nook seemed to grow more breathlessly still—a
ray of sunshine lingered on the brow of the stranger.
“And do you shudder at that name? Are you also bewildered by the
fears of beldame Superstition? Have you not yet beheld that awful
Being, clad in the majesty of a Mind, that feared not to battle with Omnipotence,
and did not despair when all but Eternity was lost to him? Not
the vulgar image conjured up by Priests and Fatalists, embodied in the form
of an ancient satyr, with obscene body and grotesque hoof and horns.
No! But the awful Spirit himself, standing, with his immortal face and
eloquent eyes, before the vision of all mortals, who would grasp his immortality
even at the price of his despair.”
The features of the unknown were violently agitated; his eyes, changing
to deep gray, flashed like lighted coals.
“Ah—I have seen that look before!” half-muttered Paul, while the
blood congealed in his veins, as the vague memory rushed upon him.
“Yea—it was Satan, who, two months ago, in a foreign land, came to
me, as I stood at noon-day by the shore of a dreary lake. It was Satan
that bade me come to Wissahikon, and expect you beside this spring.
Nay, two years and more ago, on that well-remembered night—”
Paul echoed the words, he knew not why, and felt the moisture start
upon his forehead.
“On that well-remembered night, he came to me as I stood amid the ruins
of a Thought, which had been struggling into birth for twenty-one years;
he came, I say, and bade me take a drop of blood from the heart of a
tempted but sinless maiden.
“`Do this,' he said, `and you are immortal. The boon for which the
ancient sages sighed, the boon which the mass of mankind deem an idle
fancy, is in your grasp.' I obeyed. I sought the tempted but sinless
maiden, I placed her unconscious form before the altar, in which the liquid
of immortal life was struggling into maturity.”
“And you killed her?” cried Paul. “This tempted but sinless maiden?
Lured by the dream of immortal life on earth, you killed a defenceless
woman, killed in cold blood that which should have been sacred in the
eyes of a devil.”
The features of the unknown became horribly distorted.
“No! She disappeared, even from the light of the altar. I left that cell,
in which I had toiled for twenty-one years, for a moment only. When I
returned, she was gone. I searched each chamber of my mansion—in
vain, in vain! And then, as if to crush my despair into a despair still deeper
and more terrible, I discovered that the last wreck of my wealth, the fragment
of the millions which I had expended in this search, was gone. It
was but a thousand pieces of gold, and yet it was all—”
He paused an instant. Paul could not turn his eyes away from his face.
In a moment he seemed to grow older; his face became wrinkled, his eye
vacant and dim.
“Ah! It was here, in the woods of Wissahikon, that I saw you, in
other days!” he exclaimed.
But the unknown did not heed his words.
“Imagine my despair,” he said, in a whispering tone, which made the
blood run cold in the veins of Paul. “My gold was gone—gone the body
of that sinless maiden, whose heart contained the drop of blood, which
would have infused immortal life into my withered veins. Yet even in
this moment I heard a cry,—I rushed from my cell—I beheld the maiden
who, but a few moments before, lay a corpse beside my altar. She lived
—there was bloom on her cheek—life in her young eyes—”
“And thou didst murder—”
“As I sprang forward to grasp her form, I heard his voice. That sad,
terrible tone, which speaks words of deathless knowledge—”
“The voice of Satan?” cried Paul.
“The voice of Satan. He bade me leave the maiden. `Hasten to your
cell. Ere an hour is passed, thy desires will be gratified.' I obeyed. I
waited—waited, sinking my nails into my flesh, with the mad infatuation
which possessed me in that weary hour. At last it was over. The door
of my cell opened—I uttered a cry of disappointment, as I beheld in the
doorway the form of a poor Idiot, whom I sheltered in my house, in pity
for his weakness and deformity—”
An ejaculation burst from the lips of Paul.
“The Idiot approached. `Master,' he said—not in these words, it may
be, but this was their meaning—`A dark man bade me kill the girl. It is
done, and here is what thou dost desire.' He placed in my hands a phial;
it was filled with a red liquid—”
“The blood of the murdered girl—” exclaimed Paul.
“One drop, one only, I mingled with the liquid which was concealed
within the altar of my thought. The work was done. The Water of
Life was mine. Ere the day had broken upon that terrible night, I drank
—I become young again. Yes, I, the withered old man, with the weight
of years upon my brow, I felt my blood bound with new life. The
wrinkles vanished from my brow, the film of age from my eyes—”
“And the murdered maiden—” whispered Paul, as the last rays of sunlight
shot through the gloom of the place.
“The deformed Idiot buried her. I knew not, cared not where. What
was the sacrifice of one poor life to the accomplishment of my thought?”
And his thin lips curved with scorn, while a satanic rapture shone from
his eyes.
To say that Paul Ardenheim listened to the Revelation of this unknown
man with horror, with an awe too deep for words, would but imperfectly
convey the truth. He was without the power of motion; the eyes of the
stranger enchained him with an indescribable fascination. And the ray
of sunshine, stealing into the gloom of the nook, the profound solitude, undisturbed
by a sound, only served to deepen this fascination.
“A deformed Idiot!” murmured Paul, as that confused memory began
to struggle into shape.
“The secret of immortal life was mine, and with it the power of boundless
gold! Doth it not turn thy heart, young man? Thine eye shines
with the Prophecy of a great deed, thou art formed to conquer all difficulties.
With thee, in truth, `Will the Lead become Gold, and the Sneer be
changed into a Smile.' But what are all thy conquests, when death may
claim thee any moment, even in the glow of thy best hopes? What are
as the wish of the humblest born—at the grave?”
Paul was silent; a multitude of thoughts oppressed his soul, as the words
of the stranger penetrated his ears.
“Would immortal life aid thy plans? I know not what they are, care
not how sublime the mission which you cherish,—it may mount to Heaven,
but it is certain to be buried in your grave. Speak! have you ever
thought—not dreamed,—but thought in plain, palpable, every-day meditation,
of living for ever, even on this earth?”
“We may live upon the tongues of millions, when our bones are dust—”
cried Paul.
“A sound—emptier than air! What is the fame of Homer? Ha! ha!
There are learned men who can prove to you that Homer never lived
Or, even the English poet, Shakspeare. The millions praise him, but
what care they for his actual life? Little thought have they of his
hours of hunger, suffering, and despair; now writhing under the rich
man's contempt, now crouching at the door of that Lord, eager to gain a
crust, in exchange for his immortal thoughts. But could Shakspeare
live for ever on this earth, walking on through all ages, freed from the curse
of death, growing mightier in intellect with every year, and asserting his
own grandeur in the face of all time—what say you to this, my friend?
“One living Shakspeare were worth all the dead bones of Stratford or
Avon, multiplied by millions.”
“There is a destiny before me,” cried Paul, “which death itself cannot
wither or destroy. It is my fate, not to mingle with the mass of mankind,
and share in their feverish strife, but to guard the Deliverer of this land,
to defend him while he does right, to sacrifice him the moment he betrays
his trust.”
“Does your mission, then, assume that form?” exclaimed the unknown,
while a smile stole over his features, and he looked young again—“You look
for a Deliverer of this land, a benefactor of the human race. Is it so?
You will defend him while he does right, and sacrifice him when he betrays
his trust. It is well. But suppose the hand of Death cuts you off
ere your work is half-done!”
“Death,” exclaimed Paul, with the prophecy of a great destiny lighting
up his eyes, “Death cannot strike me, until my mission is fulfilled.”
“Let us imagine that your work is done. You behold the Deliverer
standing among the monuments of a liberated Nation. He has proved
faithful to his trust. Your work, I say, is done. You die. After your
bones are dust, this Deliverer becomes a tyrant, this land his property,
the people his slaves. How then, my young friend? Where is the end
of all your great thoughts?”
“But God is above all,” whispered Paul, as a shade of profound melancholy
came over his face.
The shadows grew darker. The last ray of sunlight was gone
Through the vague gloom, the cold water in the rock glowed with a
faint ray. It was the image of a star, which shone from the blue heaven,
through an interval of the leaves.
Paul, with his face buried in his hands, was absorbed in thought.
“But instead of Death, let us picture life,—” he heard the whispering
voice of the unknown through the gloom. “Let us admit that the New
World is destined to become the theatre of great deeds, the land of demigods,
the domain of regenerated millions. I will even confess that such
thoughts have visited my dreams! Well—you, the guardian of the Deliverer,
do not die; your work does not end with a brief score of years.
You live; you become the Guardian, not of one man, but of a People;
your life keeps pace with their glory, and your deathless arm turns aside
the evils which menace their freedom.
“Five hundred years from this hour, you may stand upon this spot,
and behold, not a wild desert of crag and forest, but a great temple, reared
without the aid of one enslaved arm, but reared by freemen, and dedicated
to the Brotherhood of Man!”
That word struck a hidden chord in the heart of Paul.
“You are, then,” he said, gazing upon that face, which was rendered
more impressive by the twilight gloom, “a Brother of the Rosy Cross?”
“A Brother of the Rosy Cross?” echoed the unknown.
“Yes—a Brother of that vast Brotherhood, whose history, stretches
back into the daybreak of the world, and whose girdle of union encircles
the globe.”
Still the unknown murmured, with a vacant accent.
“The Rosy Cross?”
“Did you not speak of the blessed day when the Lead should become
Gold, and the Sneer be changed into a Smile?”
“It was the language of the Ancient Seers, who, like me, pursued the
great secret of eternal youth,” said the unknown, and then added in a
whisper—“The Rosy Cross! Do you speak of that order so often spoken
of in history, but never described—the Rosicrucians?”
“Even so,” whispered Paul.
“Know then that the Founder of the Order, Rosencrux himself, who
gave it name, was a Seeker after the Great Secret. Nay—'tis said that
he died in possession of the secret, and embodied it in a book, known in
olden tradition as the Book of the Rosy Cross.”
Paul felt his heart swell, while his blood leaped in his veins. Still disguising
his joy, he glanced around the covert—looked into the face of
the unknown—and said calmly:
“You are mistaken, my friend. Rosencrux was born some three thousand
years after the foundation of the Order. Therefore it could not
taken his name from the great Church erected to his memory, at Rome.”
He paused: the unknown did not reply.
“Ah,” whispered Paul, “The Book of the Rosy Cross! Could I but
obtain it—the Manuscript of Brother Anselm spoke of a day when
man might become immortal!”
And, like a new world, unclosing its shores and meadows, its woods and
mountains to the eyes of a Discoverer, widening every moment, and
revealing new beauties as it expanded on the view, that Thought dilated
before the Soul of Paul Ardenheim.
Immortal life on earth! Youth that cannot wither—Hope that cannot
die!
He rose and paced the sod, while the unknown rested his cheeks between
his hands, and gazed upon the bronzed face, which every moment
revealed new emotions.
“You drank the draught of eternal youth—” said Paul, his mind still
dwelling upon the Prophecy embraced in the Manuscript of Anselm.
“I drank, and on the instant twenty years were lifted from my frame.
For you will remember that in my search after the great secret, I had
grown prematurely old. Though but sixty years of age, I looked and felt
at least seventy—had, in thought and care, lived an hundred. No sooner
had the liquid passed my lips than I felt like a man of forty-eight years;
in the very prime of mature manhood.”
“And now—” said Paul, still pacing to and fro.
“I went abroad. With renewed youth, came the secret of boundless
gold. I arranged magnificent plans for my new Destiny—and—two
months ago, HE appeared to me again. `The liquid which thou didst
drink was mingled, in some degree, with immortal essence, but not altogether
impregnated with its spirit. The drop from the maiden's heart
had lost a portion of its power, ere it came into thy possession. Wouldst
thou live an hundred years, before another trial of thine energy is demanded?
Then rebuild once more thy furnace, and mingle with the
liquid, not one drop merely, but three drops, each taken from the heart
of a human being, who is beloved to idolatry by a Child, a Father, a Lover
or a Woman!'
“I heard and shuddered before the Awful Spirit, who appeared to me at
noonday by the bank of a dreary lake.
“`And if I do not obey?”' I faltered.
“`Then,' said the Chief of the Seven, `thy life is near its close. Thou
didst number sixty years when the liquid became thine. Sixty-two years
was the term of thy natural life. The draught, imperfect as it was, lifted
the burden of many years from thy soul, clad thee with new manhood,
yet it could not increase the number of thy years.. Thou art still subject
the draught was thine) have expired.”'
The voice of the speaker faltered, and died away at last in a husky
murmur.
Startled by the sudden pause, Paul turned abruptly, and even through
the shadow, saw the face of the unknown, frightfully agitated and bathed
in tears.
He drew nearer, examining the distorted countenance with an earnest
gaze.
“And then—” he exclaimed, bending down, as if to hear the answer,
but in reality, to gaze more closely into the face of the unknown.
There was no answer.
Paul started back with a shudder.
“He has grown twenty years older in a moment,” the thought forced
itself upon his mind.
“And, then we conversed together, concerning the great secret, the
ways of life and death, until the shadows of night came darkly over that
lake, which was gloomy at noonday.”
“Thou didst converse with the Fiend?” cried Paul, starting back as
he felt his blood chill.
“The Fiend! You still nourish these idle superstitions! Fiend!
Does not the Religion of the Church make of him, a God; second only
to the Divine Source of Life himself? Not with the Fiend, young sir, but
with the Friend. Oh, had you but seen the dread mystery of his face, or
heard the bewildering music of his voice, as he spoke of past ages,
ranging all centuries and races before my face! At last he bade me
return—”
“Return?” said Paul, as the changed face of the unknown brought
back, in more distinct shape, the memory of other days.
“Bade me return, and meet you here,” continued the unknown in a
faltering voice. “`At the Indian Spring of Wissahikon, on the last day of
the second week in June, you will behold the man who is destined to aid
you in the Good Work. He will be clad in black; he will wear the dress
of a Heidelberg student, and on his forehead a cap with a waving plume.
A face of words, and an eye full of inspiration and prophecy.' These
were the words, and thou canst aid me—”
The unknown rose, and confronted Paul in his hurried walk to and fro.
“Thou,” he continued, fixing his eyes upon the face of the Dreamer—
“Thou, and thou only. Refuse—and I am lost. In a few days I will be
dead. My secret dies with me. That secret can aid thy plans,—can
change the mortal into the deathless, and give into thy hands the destiny
of ages—”
“How shall I aid thee?” cried Paul—“I am young. Have but one
own—”
“With thy brain,” said the unknown; “with thy arm!”
His tone was strangely elevated. He laid his hand upon the arm of
Paul, who shrunk unconsciously from the contact.
“My arm? My brain?”
“The fire is lighted in my altar. The liquid which is to impart deathless
youth, already hovers above the flame. To mature that liquid into
the immortal essence, I demand—” his voice fell, and the hand which
touched the arm of Paul, trembled violently—“three drops of blood, each
taken from the heart of a human being, beloved to idolatry by a Child, a
Father, a Lover, or a Woman—”
“You demand of me three human lives!” cried Paul, falling back,
cold and horror-stricken.
There was a pause.
The star sparkled in the spring, and through the stillness the Wissahikon's
murmur came gently up the hill.
“And in exchange for three lives, I will give you the power to confer
happiness on the whole human family.”
The voice of the unknown scarcely rose above a whisper.
“Three murders!” Paul spoke with an accent of unfeigned horror.
“Three Sacrifices offered at the altar of Destiny, in exchange for the
freedom of America,—the Brotherhood of universal man!”
“Three blows with the knife or sword upon the images of God,
enshrining immortal souls!” continued Paul, as he retreated a single step
from the unknown.
“Does not your religion teach that `without the shedding of blood there
is no remission of sins?' Does not all history confirm the sentiment,
and build it up into a Fact, immovable as the Universe itself? For these
three lives—say that they shall be the lives of the three best and purest
beings on the face of earth—you will receive the Power to sweep war,
pestilence, the inequalities of condition, the imperfections of physical
organization, and all attendant evils from the world, and thus bring on the
day of Human Brotherhood. You will acquire deathless vigor; and, with
your brain, to live, is to sway mankind, as with the voice of a God—”
Paul made no reply.
“This Deliverer whom you expect, may join hands with Washington,
the Rebel Leader, and thus continue for many years the war with the
British King.”
Still Paul did not answer.
Let me make a rude arithmetical calculation for you. War in every
age is the same. Count up the victims slain in all the wars, recorded by
history, from the days of the Patriarchs down to the present hour. Did
you ever make a computation like this? Let every man who has been
grain of sand, but in an atom of dust. Well—count up the living souls,
who have been butchered in battle, and you will discover that the surface
of the globe, to the depth of ten feet, might be covered with their dust,—
every atom of dust standing in place of a Man.”
Paul retreated another step—the words of the unknown wrung a groan
from his very heart.
“Take it to your heart, my friend. The surface of the world, the
crust of the globe, for the depth of ten feet, is made up of human souls
butchered in battle, and symbolized in atoms of dust.”
The unknown paused.
“This has been War. This will be War to the end of time.”
“You reason terribly,” groaned Paul,—“And in exchange for three
murders—”
“Do not use the word. Does the man who shoots a friend in a duel,
depriving a wife of her husband, and children of their father, call it a
murder? Does the peasant of one nation, who mounts a rampart, and
stabs the peasant of another nation, with whom he has had no quarrel, say
a word about Murder? Does the grave Judge, who to-day hangs a man
in cold blood for doing that which was a virtue yesterday, breathe a
whisper of Murder?”
“And where,” whispered Paul, his pale face agitated by a frightful
smile,—“and where shall I find the three victims?”
The unknown hesitated a moment ere he replied.
“The first may be found in the person of a Man, who is deeply beloved
by a Friend—”
Paul trembled in every limb.
“The second—” he gasped.
“The second? Imagine a woman,—a beautiful woman, for example,
who is idolized by a Lover, or Husband—”
Paul sank down, on one knee, near the brink of the spring, clasping his
hands in the very intensity of agony.
“And the third—” he asked, in a hollow voice.
“Take the most beloved object that the world ever saw,” cried the
unknown, as he drew near, and his face was faintly illumined by a star—
“Take the Father,—”
“Hold!” shrieked Paul, starting to his feet, his hands clenched, his
bosom swelling with the throbs of his heart.
“The Father,” said the unknown, in the same impassible tone, as Paul
trembled before him, “The Father whose existence is blessed by the love
of a Child—”
“No more—” and Paul, with flashing eyes, and set teeth, confronted
the unknown—“On peril of your life, no more—”
Without seeming to notice his sudden agitation, or the deadly light
tone:
“In a cause like this, I would regard as nothing, the life, of the Man
who is beloved by a true friend—or of the Woman who is idolized by the
Husband or Lover—or of the Father whose only joy is in the love of his
Child—”
Paul bent forward, and as his hot breath swept the cheek of the
unknown, he saw his face, and the vague memory of the Past was vague
no longer.
“It is Isaac Van Behme,” he cried—“Her Father—hers! Who has
made a compact with the Fiend, and who talks of murdering the Father,
beloved by an only child!”
And with that word he turned and fled.
Down the winding path, deep into the thickets, over the rocks where
there was most darkness, and the twilight flung its profoundest shadow,
he fled.
He did not pause as the frenzied cry of the old man came shricking
through the stillness of the wood.
He heard that cry, but the words which accompanied it, fell dull and
cold upon his ear.
He only wished to fly to hide himself from the sight of the Tempter's
face, to hide himself from the fever of his own soul; for the words of Isaac
Van Behme had summoned up again the Spectre of the Sealed Chamber,
and wrapt him once more in the flames of an unrelenting Remorse.
He fled.
And that cry came through the stillness, a cry deepened and prolonged
as by the agony of a broken heart.
“No! No! She is dead,” exclaimed Paul, as he plunged through the
thickly grown bushes. “A man who has stricken from his heart all human
ties, cannot own a Daughter's love. She sleeps in the grave.”
He sprang down the steep side of a dangerous rock. A single misplaced
step, and his limbs would have been crushed, his brains scattered
against the rocks below.
But, unconscious of any danger, save that which encircled him, as with
a girdle of flames—the Memory of the Sealed Chamber—he dashed madly
on his way.
Had a host of armed men confronted him with levelled rifles, and
warned him back, on peril of a bullet from every muzzle, he still would
have pursued his way, and rushed upon the certain death.
For he was, as we have said, unconscious of every thing in the world,
save the Remorse of his own soul.
The Remorse which had been evoked from its grave, by the words of
Isaac Van Behme, the father of the beautiful woman, who had tempted
him to cross the threshold of the Sealed Chamber.
Plunging through the thickets, dashing from rock to rock, now sinking
ankle deep in the marshy bed of some runlet, now thrusting, with a frenzied
arm, the bending limbs aside, he soon reached the shore of the stream.
It lay there, in the bosom of the mysterious shadow, beautiful as a Bride,
within the curtains of her marriage bed.
And this marriage couch was illumined only by a solitary light—the
first star that came smiling out upon the tremulous canopy of the heavens,
whose deep blue was softened into pale gold.
He did not heed the beautiful Wissahikon, trembling so softly there, at
the welcome of the first star, but, leaping from rock to rock, he gained the
opposite shore, and, turning his face to the west, hurried along a winding
path, which now led far up into the dark woods, and suddenly came down
again in sight of the wave and the solitary star.
Nor did he heed the thousand voices of the June twilight, which, perchance
harsh and incongruous in themselves, came softened by distance,
melting like heaven's own music on the ear.
The rude hymn of the laborer, gushing from the unclosed window of
a hut, fixed upon the hill-side,—the lowing of cattle, grouped by the
stream, where the willows bend their mournful heads—the voice of little
children, now bursting in laughter, now sinking in murmurs—the lullaby
of the mother, bending over the couch of her first-born,—the chirp of a
solitary bird, swinging so lonely on the topmast branch of a tall forest
tree, with nothing between its melody and heaven, but the light of the
solitary star—these sounds, mingled and mellowed into one, made the
music of the June twilight on the Wissahikon.
Believe me, it was a music that might have pleased your ear full as
well as the trumpet note of battle, whose pauses are filled by death-groans.
For that music said, as plainly as music ever could say, that the earth
was thankful to God for the glad June day, and the Wissahikon full of
peace, when she saw her own star shining into her soul again.
Paul did not hear this music of the June twilight; the words of the old
man were ringing in his ears. He did not see the Wissahikon, smiling
beneath the ray of the first star. The Indian Spring of Wissahikon, sparkling
so tranquilly in its bowl of rock, as it mirrored the face of the old
man, whose pale brow shone in a solitary ray—this was the only sight
which he saw, as he plunged blindly onward, now in the darkness, amid
the thickly-grown brushwood, now by the water-side, beneath the ray of
the evening star.
There came a dense thicket, without one gleam to light up, even for an
instant, its impenetrable shadow. Through its darkness, a sluggish rill,
which spread among tufts of marshy grass, and made the earth slippery
and difficult to tread, sighed slowly onward, with a low, mournful
murmur.
Paul entered this thicket, and fell on one knee; but, starting up again,
crossed the stream, and ascended a steep hill, overgrown with stunted
pines. As if guided by instinct, he never for a moment deviated from his
course. The hill ascended, there came a level space, overspread with lofty
trees, whose massy trunks were free from brushwood or foliage.
A white object glared between the intervals of these aged trees, with
the light of the evening star playing upon its ghostly outlines.
Paul beheld it, and murmured the name of Reginald, his Friend—his
Brother. Then hurrying through the trees, he beheld the white object
more distinctly; it resolved itself into distinct shape, even as it stood alone
amid the foliage and the twilight.
It was the Blasted Pine.
The bark had long ago been peeled from its huge trunk. Its rugged
limbs, stripped of every thing like life or verdure, stretched themselves
abruptly into the blue sky, above the tops of the living trees. Around its
trunk the grass was withered—it stood in a circle of dead leaves, whose
decay was contrasted with the moss and flowers beyond.
And at its foot, a bleak rock, stamped with the impress of a human foot
beside a cloven hoof, was dimly revealed in the ray of the first star.
It need not be written, that this desolate tree, standing so lonely amid
the verdure of June, was connected with many a dark tradition. The folk
of Wissahikon regarded it with superstitious awe. Brave indeed was the
man, who would dare to linger near its trunk after night-fall. A father
had been slain by his child at its foot, in the early days of the Colony—a
Pirate had been murdered there by his comrades, and his corse buried
beneath the leaves, with a portion of their ill-gotten gold—an Indian
maiden had been murdered by the hand of her white lover—these, and
other legends of similar character, gave a peculiar horror to the Blasted
Pine.
But these traditions of crime, which invested the tree with gloomy
interest, were nothing in comparison with the atmosphere of terror
which hovered over the bleak rock at its foot. The human foot and the
cloven hoof, stamped together on its surface, were the traces left by the
Enemy of Mankind, in ages long ago, when the rock itself was but a mass
of clay. Even now he was wont to haunt the spot, in bodily shape, with
the fire of eternal judgment lighting up his eyes, and the mark of unrelenting
vengeance stamped upon his blasted forehead.
Sometimes he came in the form of a beautiful woman, who, with brilliant
eyes and flowing hair, tempted the belated wanderer to barter his
immortal soul for wealth and worldly power.
These legends, various and incongruous, originated, without a doubt, in
some terrible tragedy of every-day life, which occurred near the tree, in
long distant years.
It was at the foot of this desolate tree, upon the rock stamped with the
Wissahikon gleaming from afar.
It glimmered through an opening of the forest, and over its depths, a
space of blue sky was seen, blushing with soft radiance, as the twilight
deepened into night.
“Reginald!” exclaimed Paul, as he stood with folded arms, and head
drooped on his breast—“Where art thou?—Ah, he has been here, he has
waited for me, but I have not kept my word.”
He was silent, for the memory of Reginald's friendship came to him,
in that hour of chaotic thought, beautiful as a solitary ray, shining through
the rift of a midnight cloud.
And then the silence of the spot, unbroken by the rustling of a leaf,—
the gloom, deepened by the contrast of the distant stream and the dark blue
sky—harmonized with his thoughts, and brought home to him the strange
legends of the Blasted Pine
A vague feeling—it was awe without terror—crept over him, as he
saw the human foot and the cloven hoof, impressed upon the rock on
which he stood.
“Here, a father fell by the hand of his son—”
These words, spoken in a low voice, were accompanied by a shudder.
“A father by the hand of his son—” he repeated, lingering on every
word, while his eye gleamed with a sombre fire.
“Here, the gold of the Pirate, every coin purpled with the blood of
women and children, was buried. And the miserable wretch who dug the
cavity for this gold, was murdered by his Chief, even as he stood before
this rock, with the spade in his hand. The cavity for the gold became the
grave of the still quivering corse. `Thy Ghost shall haunt the place, I
trow, and guard my earnings, until I return,' said the Pirate, as he
smoothed the earth and leaves over the warm corse and the chest of gold.
And here, an Indian maiden, who clung to her white lover's neck, and, as
she spoke of her unborn child, besought him to take her with him to his
English home, and let her dwell with him for ever,—here, the dark-haired
Indian girl was butchered by that lover's hand. It was before the days
of William Penn, when the land, now swarming with the white race, was
only trodden by a few hardy Colonists, when Philadelphia was a forest,
and the huts of Germantown first began to smile in the wilderness. And
the name of the Indian maid, who fell at the foot of this tree, with her
unborn babe throbbing in her mangled form, became the name of the
wood-hidden stream—Wissa-Hikone,—`The Lone Flower of the Spirit-Land.'
“And here, the Fallen Angel, when this rock was clay, and these hills
were peopled by the beings of the antediluvian world, stamped the impress
of his burning feet, as he was whirled onward by the impulse of an unrelenting
vengeance.
“'Tis said that he comes here now, at dead of night, filling the solitude
with the accents of his despair, and disclosing to the star-beam that livid
forehead, scarred by the thunderbolt. He comes, to tempt poor humanity
to its ruin—so the traditions of the rude peasants tell. As if the desolation
of his own awful soul could be cheered by the perdition of souls, inferior
to him in power and despair.
“And then he often comes in a beautiful form, armed with the glance
that maddens, and the tone that bewitches—encircled by all the fascinations
which invest a lovely woman.
“Ah—there is in truth a terrible fact embodied in this wild tradition.
Satan, clad in the gloom of his eternal anguish, can only strike terror into
the gazer's heart. But Satan, incarnate in the form of a lovely woman,
whose glance can plunge you into crime, whose low-whispering voice can
make your heart forget its God, and your hand commit the Unpardonable
Sin—”
He covered his face, for the memory of the beautiful woman, who had
tempted him to cross the threshold of the Sealed Chamber, flashed suddenly
upon his soul.
“I hear her voice again. Her dark hair, tossed by the winter breeze,
sweeps over my forehead. Her touch fills my veins with frenzy. Through
the gloom of that corridor I see her face, flushed with passion—her eyes,
radiant with the daring of a soul that believes not in God or in the Hereafter,
but in its own boundless Pride, dart their light into my soul.”
“She is before me again,” he cried, raising his agitated face, and spreading
forth his arms. “Before me now—between my sight and the blue sky
—beautiful as she was on the last night when she tempted me to despair.”
At this moment, his convulsed features were illumined by a faint and
lurid ray. Above the dark mass of the western woods, appeared a crescent
of pale gold, distinctly defined against the deep blue sky.
It was the new moon, trembling over the woods of Wissahikon, like a
coronet of light, shining above the dark hair of a beautiful woman.
Her beams invested the face of nature with a sad and sepulchral ray.
The countenance of Paul Ardenheim looked wan and ghostlike in that pale
azure radiance.
“But she is dead,” he faltered—“Her ashes rest beneath the sod—
there are wild flowers above her grave.”
Was it the rustling of a leaf that trembled gently on his ear?
That faint sound, heard for an instant and then dying without an echo,
riveted the attention of Paul Ardenheim, he knew not why.
He listened with fixed intensity, but the forest was still as a tomb.
And then once more there came a sound. It seemed like a distant voice
repeating his name. “Paul!” he heard—or imagined he heard—that
unknown voice speaking his name, in a low accent, vague and tremulous
as the murmur of a rill.
Have you ever started from a half-waking slumber, at the sound of your
name, pronounced by a voice at once hollow and melodious?
Have you felt your flesh creep, and your heart grow cold, as you discovered
that the word was not spoken by human lips, but either by some
fancy of your half-waking meditation,—not dream—or by an actual spirit
from the other world?
Thus it was with Paul Ardenheim, as he heard—or fancied he heard—
a voice, at once hollow and melodious, repeating his name.
“Paul!”
This time Paul heard it distinctly, although the sound was low, and
faint, and far away.
Again that rustling sound, like the noise produced by a serpent trailing
over withered leaves.
Then occurred an incident which realized the supernatural legends of
the place.
Upon the rock stood or rather trembled Paul, resting one hand for support
upon the trunk of the Blasted Pine, for he was faint and scarcely able
to stand, and the cold moisture started from his forehead.
The rustling sound grew louder; again the voice pronounced his name
—deeper in emphasis, more musical in cadence—and a white object, like
a mist hovering over a stream, began to glimmer through the trees.
“It is Satan!” The thought crossed the mind of Paul, but he could not
speak. His eyesight grew dim; that white mist was whirling before his
eyes; it seemed to wrap him in its folds.
He grew cold, he trembled, he fell on one knee, and in the act of falling
raised one hand toward heaven.
A hand glided from behind the withered trunk, and then an arm, fair
and beautiful; the hand pressed the hand of Paul, and the blood bounded
in his veins.
No more damps upon the brow, no more ice in the veins, no more chill
and shuddering awe.
For a beautiful face was gazing upon him; a moist hand was pressing
his own; waves of flowing hair swept over his forehead, and the voice,
very near, this time, and melodious as a sound from Eden, spoke his name,
and the breath which framed the word, fanned his cheek.
That which he had imagined a mist, was the white robe of a beautiful
form. The sound like the noise produced by a snake trailing over withered
leaves, was the gentle tread of a small foot, that beat the earth with an
impetuous motion.
Through the intervals of long flowing hair, which, in the gloom, and by
the sepulchral light of the moon, seemed of more than midnight blackness,
—through the locks of that streaming hair, he saw the voluptuous swell
of a white bosom, rising in quick pulsations over a loosened robe, and felt
the light of eyes supernaturally radiant, flashing, burning into his soul.
Was it a Vision—was it Reality? He knew not, he cared not, but the
vision of the white bosom, the pressure of the moist hand, the dazzling
eyes—the atmosphere of loveliness which invested the form, and intoxicated
his senses, as with a mingling of delicate perfumes—forced his blood
in impetuous currents, from his heart to his face, and fired his eyes with
more than mortal light.
“It is Satan!” he gasped, and pressed the hand to his heart, and sunk
against the pine, bewildered by a vague and inexplicable languor—“Satan,
the beautiful!”
His voice failed him: gathering the hand to his breast, he looked upward
in silent rapture.
“Paul!” the voice once more spoke his name, and pressed that name
upon his mouth, with the kiss of warm lips that burned his blood.
Before we gaze upon the sequel of this interview bewteen Paul Ardenheim
and the Principle of Evil, embodied in the form of a beautiful woman,
we must retrace our steps, and return to the other characters in our history.
And first, Jacopo.
23. CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD.
“PHILOSOPHY!”
Jacopo was a Philosopher.
In recording this important fact, we mean to do especial reverence to the
large class of which he was an eminent member
To be a Philosopher, it is necessary to look upon Good and Evil as
highly amusing names for different forms of the same thing. When you
behold the world deformed by Evil, crimsoned with war, polluted with
the deeds of a horde of tyrants, under various names, you must not complain
of the Evil, nor speak harshly of the war, nor breathe a whisper
against the tyrants.
You must merely say—“Such things always have been, and such things
always will be.”
This is Philosophy.
When you see an innocent girl, hallowed by the ray of virginity, struggling
for bread, and earning, by her sixteen hours of daily toil, a pittance
that would not keep a rich lady in rouge for an hour, you must not speak
honest maidenhood will be no longer poor—no longer subject to the cold
scorn of the rich—the vulgar avarice of the task-master—the lascivious
attempts of the wealthy profligate
No, sir. Gazing on the wan cheek of the Poor Girl, who works `the
nails from her finger's ends' for just enough `to keep body and soul together,'
you must gravely exclaim—
“Such things always have been, and such things always will be.”
For this is Philosophy.
Or in case the Poor Girl, tired of struggling for the bitter crust, and
sleeping in the damp, cold home, while the ten thousands of the rich have
their banquets, their operas, their dresses of velvet and satin, their diamonds
and gold—tired, I say of this hard, drear life, should listen to the offers of
the Rich Libertine, and sacrifice her priceless virtue for bread, clothing,
and something like a home, or perchance for the mere proposal of marriage,
which is never intended to be fulfilled—you must not in this case call
the Wealthy Profligate a scoundrel, worthier of the gallows than ever a
Pirate that trod a bloody deck, nor should you drop one tear for Poor Virginity,
suddenly wrecked into hopeless prostitution.
No, sir.
While the Rich Libertine goes to his gambling hell, and quenches the
fever of his idleness in dice or cards, or, maybe—for such things are done—
hurries to his Fashionable Church, and sits in his pew, with his name on
the door, in silver, and subscribes large sums to Missionary efforts, for
the benighted Pagans, while the Dishonored Girl, shut out from all pure,
all respectable society, because the Rich Libertine bought her virtue for a
Promise, has no resort but the house of infamy—you will compose yourself
into a sober attitude, and with unctuous utterance exclaim—
“Such things always have been, and such things always will be.”
This, as I said before, is Philosophy.
Maybe you live in a Free Land, which was colonized, some hundreds
of years ago, by a band of wandering exiles, who followed the hand of
God, and came out from the Old World, into the virgin wilderness, and
said, “Here we build an altar, sacred to the freedom of all races of men.”
A Free Land, which was admitted in the family of Nations, after a long
and bloody Revolution, after many and fearful battles, after a Declaration
which proclaimed to all the world, in the name of Almighty God, `That
all men are created free and equal!'
May be, this Free Land, only Seventy-one years after the Declaration,
is cursed by White Slavery, that hurls men and women and children in
the hot air of the factory, or coffins them in the foul courts of a Large
City, dooming them to coin their lives into a little bread, while the Rich
Man gets all the richer for their groans and tears. Or, maybe it is deformed,
—this Free Land, sanctified and set apart by God for the good of universal
womb, and pays a bounty for the violation of every instinct planted by
the Almighty in the heart of Father, Child, Brother and Sister. A Black
Slavery, that pays the expenses of chivalrous luxury, by selling wives
from their husbands, fathers from their children, the baby from its
mother's bosom; by trading in human flesh, as though it were meat for
the shambles; by—but there are facts so beautiful in this Black
Slavery, that the Devil himself would be ashamed to write them down,
upon the darkest page of Eternal Torment; truths so lovely, that the
Devil himself would blush to tell them to a group of listening friends.
Well; your Free Land is cursed by the White and the Black Slavery,
but you must not speak reproachfully of either. You must not say that
the White Slave, and the Black Slave, were made by the same God, and
redeemed by the same Christ, as the Rich Man and Slaveholder.
No, sir.
While the White Slave swelters in the factory, giving life and lungs,
breath and heart, to the rich man's coffers,—while the Black Slave (in
many cases whiter than his Master) is sold in sight of your Capitol, and
manacled and lashed, beneath the same Flag which floated over Washington
at Yorktown, you must compose yourself, and utter the calm
remark—
“Such things always have been, and such things always will be.”
Again; this is Philosophy.
As we gain some knowledge of the nature of Philosophy, we may also
form some idea of the character of the Philosopher.
He is one of the most estimable characters in the world. No wrong—
committed on others—can discompose his steady nerves, no outrage—
perpetrated on his neighbor—can shake the calm serenity of his soul. In
Turkey he is a great admirer of the Grand Turk; in Russia he loves the
Autocrat; in England he speaks with proper serenity of the starvation
of some millions of Irishmen; in Timbuctoo he greases his face, and
shouts hosanna to a God who, embodied in a reptile, is worshipped by rattling
pebbles in a calabash; in America, he speaks respectfully of Slavery,
either Black or White, and in Thibet he considers the Grand Llama a
very respectable personage indeed.
Some hundreds of years ago, the Philosopher spoke with great contempt
of certain vulgar Fishermen and Peasants, `who turned the world
upside down,' by a silly doctrine about the Brotherhood of Man, the
Gospel of the Poor, and other doctrines as vague and imaginary.
The sum and substance of the Philosopher's belief is comprised in a few
quaint maxims. `Such things always have been, such things always will
be.' `Tis the way of the world.' `Take the world as it comes.'
The last, `Take the world as it comes,' is a sovereign excuse in the
eyes of the Philosopher for every deed known in the calendar of Crime.
Poor Man, in the fetid atmosphere of the Factory, by the Capitalist—the
robbery of Widows and Orphans by the wealthy Bank Director—the selling
of the babe from its mother's bosom, by the chivalrous slaveholder—these
incidents, and all others of like calendar, are chaptered in the Philosopher's
mind under one head, to wit; “Take the world as it comes.”
So glorious a thing is Philosophy.
So magnanimous and so entirely great is the Philosopher.
Jacopo was a Philosopher.
We shall endeavor to maintain and illustrate this point in the present
chapter.
We left him on the threshold of the farm-house, while the Negro stood
over the head of his unconscious Master, knife in hand, and a deep groan
echoed from the arbor.
Jacopo pushed open the door, and entered the large room, or hall of the
old farm-house.
As the light streamed in upon the gloom, Jacopo recognised the familiar
features of the place. It was the scene of the New Year's festival on the
last night of 1774. But the broad hearth was fireless now; it yawned
black and cold, in the cheerful sunlight. The huge rafters no longer
echoed the shouts of the merry-makers, nor did the floor tremble under
the dancer's tread. The room was silent and gloomy; the shutters
were closed, and the only light which enlivened its details, came through
the open door.
That light shone over a broad oaken table, which stood in the centre of
the floor.
The sight of the table brought the tears to Jacopo's eyes—
“Touching but harrowing memory! There sat old Peter, with his red
nose beaming over his white beard, like a beacon over a snow-drift. Here,
the turkey was placed, done to a turn too, and there the cats, which Law,
Medicine, and Divinity, by a simple act of faith, transformed into rabbits.
Upon this very spot, old Peter mixed—nay, mixed is a vulgar word—constructed
the sublime vision of the Dorfner punch, which made us all see
stars, and lifted our hearts into the regions of the Milky Way.”
Jacopo was overwhelmed with tender regrets.
“Venerable table!” he cried, “I have made a Pilgrimage to thee, even
as the devout of the olden time journeyed to St. Jago of Compostella!
Thou shalt be dedicated to the name of St. Dorfner, of the White Beard;
thy symbol, a Jug of Foaming Punch. Thy Pilgrim, a frail child of mortality,
sometimes called Jacopo, who, amid all his frailties, cherishes still,
in the inmost core of his heart, the memory of the Dorfner Punch—
Zounds! Why did not my guardian, who had the care of my father's
estate, send me to school to a Poet. Decidedly I have a genius in that way.
And sorrows gather in—a bunch,
Then bring the balm for mortal woes,
And drown me in a Dorfner—Punch.”
After he had recited this extemporaneous snatch of lyric poetry, Jacopo
subsided from the regions of the ideal into sober matter of fact.
“It was on this very spot that I gave the soothin' potion to Madeline,”
he said, with a cool, business-like air; “although, at the time, I did not
dream of drugging the aristocracy, or even its humblest member.”
Through the gloom which hung over the place, Jacopo beheld the door
which opened upon the stairway, leading into the upper rooms of the farm-house.
“`Sleep in that room, Jacopo,' was the remark of the respectable Hopkins:
`search every closet. Whatever you find in the way of paper or
parchment, bring to me, and your fortune is made. Be particularly careful
of every thing that bears the date, November twenty-third, 'fifty-six.'
It was very kind in Hopkins to tell me all this; but he might have had the
decency to tell me, in plain terms, that a murder had been committed in
this house, on that particular day; or he might have insinuated, even in the
most delicate manner, that `after the deed was done, the child was taken
away,' or that `Dorfner, with the corpse, also concealed certain parchments
and papers,' et cetera!”
Jacopo glanced upon the fragments of printed paper which he grasped
in his right hand, and at the same instant his slender legs shook like reeds.
“If Dorfner awakes, I am lost!” he cried, and hurried to the door—
opened it—and ascended a dark stairway.
“At the head of the stairway,” thought Jacopo, “is the passage which
traverses the farm-house from north to south, and at its southern end the
room of Madeline.”
The darkness and silence struck the philosoper with awe. The echo
of his footsteps, the very creaking of the rheumatic stairs, frightened him.
Presently he stood in the passage at the head of the stairs, and in the
impenetrable gloom, turned his steps in the direction of Madeline's chamber.
“Over the hall of the farm-house, there are two rooms,” he muttered—
“one is Madeline's, and t'other, as I've been told, has not been opened
these eight years.”
His hand touched the door of the latter chamber as he murmured these
words. Jacopo was seized with a violent nervous attack.
“Madeline's door is but a step farther,” he said, and advanced with
unsteady steps through the thick darkness.
His hand—extended at arm's length, and shaking like a weathercock
on a stormy day—touched the panels of a door.
Then it was that Jacopo belied his philosophy, and shook from head
of blood, upon an oaken floor, at the foot of a bed, not only possessed his
fancy, but floated before his eye in the very darkness of the passage.
Gathering nerve, he placed his foot against the door; it opened suddenly,
and he fell upon his face, on the threshold of Madeline's chamber.
With a curse and a groan, he raised his face, and cast a hurried glance
over the room.
Through the dingy curtains of the southern window, streamed the warm
sunshine, while the western window was darkened by a cloak, or some
other garment, which, hung over the small leaden panes, gave passage to
but a few wandering rays.
In the corner, between these windows, stood a bed, whose coverlet,
soiled with dust, bore the impress of a human form.
There was a dressing-bureau of dark walnut, surmounted by a small
mirror, opposite the bed, and two chairs stood against the oak panels
which covered the walls. The white cover of the bureau was white no
longer, for it was discolored by a thick coating of dust—the mirror was
shrouded in a veil of cobwebs.
These details Jacopo comprehended at a glance, as, resting his hands
and knees upon the dusty floor, he gazed nervously about him.
He arose and closed the door, and cast his eyes towards the foot of the
bed. The floor was covered with dust, and yet he fancied that a dark
stain marred its surface, and gloomed ominously upon him.
“'Tis just the same as I saw it on that mornin', two years and six
months ago! There's the bureau—the chairs—the bed—all the same as
when I saw them last. I know it's peculiar. The only change that I
see, is that cloak hung over the window—the window which looks out
upon the chesnut tree. As for the bed—u-g-h! The print of her form
is stamped upon the dusty coverlet, and—”
Jacopo advanced to the foot of the bed, and with a quivering hand
brushed the dust away for the space of two or three feet.
As the thickly gathered dust was swept away, and a portion of the
white oaken floor brightened in the sunshine, in the centre of that white
space appeared a dark purple stain.
Jacopo sprang to his feet, as though a snake had bitten his heel.
“It's her blood!” he cried, and again he proved untrue to his philosophy;
for the sun, shining upon his small nose, wide mouth, and inflated
cheeks, revealed a visage ashy as the face of a dead man. “Hello! The
closet, as I'm an honest man!” and philosophy came to his aid, and his
face brightened into modest blushes.
In the corner next to the western window, appeared a solitary panel,
separated from the others by an oaken frame, and reaching from the ceiling
to the floor. On one side appeared some traces of a keyhole—Jacopo
a boundless grin.
It was indeed the closet, but where was the key?
Jacopo pondered anxiously for a moment, with his finger upon the tip
of his nose.
“I must force this door; but where's a crowbar? Considering all
circumstances—the exigencies of the case—the fact, that if Peter Dorfner
wakes up, I am a murdered man—at all events, a kicked man—the
scarcity of crowbars—with other reasons, which are doubtless very good,
but which do not now occur—I think that I am justified in using the
hatchet which I saw on the table down stairs.”
After he had come to this remarkable conclusion, Jacopo lost no time
in hurrying to the door, and presently his footsteps echoed from the
stairs. He was not absent longer than a minute; and when he returned,
the hatchet was in his hand, and his face was enlivened by a grimace,
which buried his eyes among laughing wrinkles, while it gave his mouth
the outline of a loosened shoe-string.
“Now for the closet, and the mysteries,” exclaimed Jacopo, as he
stood on the threshold—“and, above all things, for the Twenty-Third of
November, Fifty-Six!”
The hatchet fell from his hand, and clattered on the floor, while Jacopo
staggered backward against the door-frame.
“The Devil!” he ejaculated, with a profound sigh, his small eyes dilating
like the eyes of a cat in the dark, and his nether jaw separating from
the upper.
He was seized with a violent fit of trembling; he rubbed his eyes;
he pinched his thin legs; he pressed his hands upon his round paunch;
he shook himself like a water-spaniel, after a bath.
“I am not dreaming!” he ejaculated.
It was very much like a dream. A braver man than Jacopo might
have been frightened; a greater Philosopher than Jacopo might have been
driven from his stoical composure; for it was a very remarkable sight
which he saw, altogether shadowy and unreal in appearance.
In the centre of the room, near the foot of the bed, and in the light of
the southern window, appeared a small pine table, standing on four
rickety legs, and covered with papers and parchments. Among these
papers and parchments, which had a kind of sepulchral look, being imbued
with a musty odor, indicative of old chests, or suggestive of some withered
lawyer's den,—among these papers and parchments, I say, appeared
a pale white hand, which grasped a pen, and rested upon a broad sheet
of foolscap.
That pale white hand belonged to an elderly gentleman, clad in black,
as all elderly gentlemen ought to be, and seated—like a man at his ease
—in an oaken chair, with unpainted arms and capacious seat
It was this pine table, this pale white hand, this elderly gentleman,
which filled Jacopo with indefinable terror.
Had the pine table started from the floor, like the festival board of
some goblin story? Had the elderly gentleman been summoned, by a
spell, from some uneasy resting-place in some forgotten graveyard?
Jacopo could not answer these questions, but, cold with affright, leaned
against the door-post, his knees shaking together, like dry sticks on a
windy day.
It was a long time before he could muster courage to gaze into the face
of this indefinable personage. He was writing, very leisurely, like a good
merchant in his counting-house; his eyes were downcast, and he did not
seem to know that there was such an individual as Jacopo in the world.
You may imagine the feelings which agitated the heart of Jacopo, as
he examined, with a stealthy glance, the countenance and the attire of this
Incomprehensible.
It was the visage of a man of some sixty years. The nose was long,
the lips thin, the forehead broad and high, with short, stiff, gray hair, disclosing
the outline of a large head. A solitary mass of his gray hair—it
could not be called a curl—rested upon the centre of the brow, falling
half-way down to the well-defined eyebrows. The eyes were not visible;
Jacopo was every instant afraid that they would be raised, and that their
glance would penetrate his soul.
The form of the stranger was marked by a broad chest, wide shoulders,
and long arms. He was clad, as I have said, in sober black; a waistcoat
buttoned to the throat, with a white cravat about the neck, and spotless
ruffles around the wrists. His legs were crossed under the table; Jacopo
beheld a diamond buckle shining on his black shoe, like a glow-worm on
a piece of charcoal.
And the elderly gentleman continued writing, with the light playing
over his pale forehead, while Jacopo stood trembling against the door-post.
Not for a moment did he raise his eyes, nor did he manifest, by the slightest
gesture, that he was aware of Jacopo's presence.
This continued for five minutes or more; the cold dews began to start
from Jacopo's brow.
“It is the Devil!” he mentally ejaculated.
Still the stranger continued writing, only once removing his hand from
his paper, to brush a vagrant fly from his nose. A smile began to gather
about his thin lips, and widen slowly over his face, until it agitated the
small wrinkles near the corners of his eyes.
“Ehem!” coughed Jacopo,—and shuddered, for he was afraid of those
eyes, which he had not seen.
The unknown continued writing.
Grasping the door-post with one hand, Jacopo wiped the cold dew from
He was nerving himself in silence for a desperate effort.
“Where”—he gasped, frightened at the sound of his voice—“Where
did you come from?”
How his heart beat against his ribs, as he awaited the answer!
Yet the elderly gentleman did not raise his eyes, nor pause for an instant
in his task; with imperturbable gravity he continued writing, the noise
made by his pen, heard distinctly through the silence.
“Did he come in the winder?” faltered Jacopo, relapsing unconsciously
into a vulgarity of expression, rather unphilosophical,—“Or through the
floor? Did he bring the table in his pocket? Maybe he came through
the closet? No—no, sir! It can't be. The door is still locked, and
there's the cobwebs over the lock. Ugh! This goes ahead of Italy and
France and Spain—never saw any thing like it in my life, not even in the
great German Principality of Spitzenburschendingenflotzer, where the
Devil comes dressed in breeches and flannel, and the peasants believe in
Ghosts, who eat sour-krout.”
The voice of the unknown was heard for the first time; it was a voice
as low, as sweet, as melodious as the voice of a beautiful woman; and
yet Jacopo shuddered again as he heard it.
Without raising his eyes, the unknown exclaimed:
“There are two kinds of scoundrels in this world. There is the grave
scoundrel, who indulges himself with magnificent villanies, and becomes
glorious from the very magnitude of his crimes. The Borgia belonged to
this class; at this hour, he is admired for his elaborate depravity. Then
there is the petty scoundrel, who ministers to the basest appetites of the
grand scoundrel, and becomes the miserable hireling of splendid baseness,
selling his soul for a piece of money, and wearing his perjuries as a fop
wears paste jewels. It is the life of such a scoundrel that I hold in my
hand—”
“Eh!” ejaculated Jacopo.
“He is called by various names,” continued the elderly gentleman,
still keeping his eyes upon the paper; “and first we meet with him in
the south of France, as a lay brother of the Jesuits, and known as Brother
Joseph-Marie—”
Jacopo started—rubbed his eyes—picked his ears.
“Saint Beelzebub!” he groaned.
“As Joseph-Marie. The house of the Jesuits stood in a garden, half-way
up a hill, whose summit commanded a view of the Mediterranean.
In the valley beneath was a convent, whose white walls looked out from
among vines and olive trees. Among the nuns who peopled this convent,
was one, a fair and beautiful thing, who had been forced by wealthy relations
to take the vow against her will, and bury all the love and freshness
of her virgin heart in that living sepulchre. She was called Sister
Father, renowned as much for his piety and eloquence, as for his youth;
as much for the brilliancy of his eyes, the singular sweetness of his voice,
as for the remarkable grandeur of his intellect. He was altogether a man
to be loved; the very children knelt for his blessing, as he passed along
the valley, and the whole country by the sea shore resounded with the
praises of Father Ignatius. But he was a man, alas! with all his devotion
to the Church and to his Order, there lingered wit in his bosom a
spark of earthly passion, which only wanted a single breeze, to fan into
a flame. He became the spiritual Director of the convent; he met with
the young sister Antonia; through the dim lattice of the confessional, the
griefs, the hopes, the fears of that warm heart were poured into his soul.
“And they loved—loved with a love beyond madness in intensity—and
lingering together, in the shadows of the conventual chapel, the white
sleeve of the nun, resting on the dark robe of the Jesuit, they said to one
another, `We will cast aside these coffins which imprison our souls.
We will fly to a New World. A cabin under a hillside in the depth of
some untrodden forest, shall be our refuge and our bridal home.'
“These words may have been sealed with a kiss, for the nun was altogether
beautiful, and the young Jesuit felt the blood fire in every vein,
as by the many-colored casement, he drew her form to his heart, and saw
the light of the rising moon reflected in her eyes.—It is a long story, but
they planned their escape. The night was fixed; the shallop which was
to bear them out to sea, was hidden under the high crags by the shore.
The night came, I say, but father Ignatius passed it in the dungeon of his
Monastery, beating his forehead against the chains—and there was a lifeless
form stretched in a cell of the convent, the corse of a pale, beautiful
girl. For they had been betrayed, by a wretch who overheard their
plans,—who listened to their vows—who counted their kisses—as he concealed
his form behind a pillar of the chapel. And that wretch was the
lay Brother, Joseph Marie.”
Jacopo was white as a shroud. He grasped the door post with both
hands, and sank helplessly on his knees.
“Joseph-Marie, the Englishman,” continued the unknown without raising
his eyes, “the lay brother of the Order of Jesus, was the miserable
creature, who gave these young hearts to infamy and death! Let us turn
over another page of his history—”
“No! No! Do not!” gasped Jacopo on his knees, but the unknown
did not heed him. “I'd a great deal rather you would n't—”
“He has changed his name. He is called Bernard; he is the favorite
valet of a superannuated Profligate, the Count D'Arcy. Near the chatean
of the Count, is the hut of an humble peasant man, whose life of slavery,
is relieved by the presence of an only child—a daughter—a pure, beautiful
girl, for all her peasant garb, and course wooden shoes. And it is Bernard
sells her unpolluted form, into the arms of gray-haired sensualism. Oh,
my good Bernard, this is another crime, for which you will have to
answer some day—”
Thus speaking, while a smile agitated his thin lips, the unknown did
not once raise his eyes. Jacopo grovelling on the floor, pale as death,
and shivering as with an ague chill, clenched his hands, and exclaimed
“It is no man. It is n't a human being. It's the ve-r-y devil!”
And the unknown turned over another page, and resumed in his low
musical voice—
“In Florence we next behold him. The companion of a young English
lord, something between a Valet and a Tutor. And the young Lord loves
an Italian girl, the daughter of an aged nobleman, who is as proud as he
is poor. In the very earnestness of youth, in the very frankness of boyhood,
our young English lord would marry this girl, and set an English
coronet upon her white forehead. Who is it that poisons his heart? Who
is it, that tells the young lord of a father's anger, and the sneer of the
fashionable world? Who is it, that lulls the senses of the old man's
child, with a drugged potion, and yields her an insensible and helpless
victim, into the arms of infamy? Who but our old friend Joseph-Marie,
sometimes called Bernard, and now known by the name of —”
“Don't! Don't!” cried Jacopo, in grotesque dismay—“Upon my
word this is a very peculiar state of affairs. Indeed I'm not of sufficient
consequence to merit all this attention. I'd rather you would not speak
of it.”
“By the name of Jacopo,” calmly continued the elderly gentlem n,
“But the basest deed of all, compared to which all other infamies are
virtues,—ah! Wretch it is written here! Madeline! Madeline!”
At this word an overwhelming horror possessed the wretch who
grovelled near the door. His hands were clenched, but he could not
raise them from his knees; the cold dews were upon his forehead; for
the first time something like Remorse arose before his Philosophic Soul.
“She was only a Peasant Girl,” he cried, in broken tones—“And
Reginald was in love with her—I could n't help it. How could I?”
It was incredible! Jacopo saw and doubted; he heard and could not
believe!
This elderly gentleman, with the sombre attire and remarkable face,
continued his meditations, without seeming to be aware that there was a
certain round-pouched, red-nosed man, writhing on the floor, not ten paces
from his chair. Much less did he appear to know, that the name of this
man was Jacopo.
“Jacopo,—once called Bernard—sometime since known as Brother
Joseph-Marie!” continued the elderly gentleman. “The very sublimity
think of it, sir?”
For the first time he raised his eyes.
Yes, speaking in that calm, pleasant voice, with an elegant gesture of
his right hand, he lifted his gaze from the manuscript—he looked into
Jacopo's face.
Where his eyes dark, were they gray or blue?
Jacopo could not tell. Every thing about him was swimming in a
fiery haze; a sound like the murmur of a distant cataract was in his ears.
And yet, through that murmur, he heard the clear deep tones of the unknown—through
that fiery haze, there came the glare of two intensely
brilliant eyes, shining and turning into his very soul.
23. CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD.
“THREE LETTERS!”
“What do you think of it, sir?”—again that voice.
“I don't know,” cried Jacopo, as he grovelled on the floor, wiping the
streaming perspiration from his red face—“I hardly know—what—to
think—”
The unknown rested his elbow on the table,—the forefinger of his right
hand on his lip—and continued in a meditative tone:
“Were I to meet this Jacopo—this Bernard—this Joseph Marie—this
three fold traitor, on a dark night, I would be justified in putting him to
death as I would a noxious reptile. But should I meet him in broad day
—meet him in a quiet room, with the sunlight playing upon his coward
face—Eh? What then?”
“I don't know—” and Jacopo turned his frightened face from side to
side—“I can't tell. How should I? Never had the honor of bein' acquainted
with this Jac—Jac-o-po—”
And those large eyes, shining in the pallid face of the unknown, made
the poor wretch shiver with inexpressible terror.
“We will imagine a scene. I encounter him in a quiet room, on a
calm sun-shiny day. I have a pistol; he has none. He is the enemy of
the human race—a reptile when it is virtue to crush out of life. I am
justified in killing him, not only by every law of justice, every instinct
name of Guiellietta, and in the name of Madeline!”
“Do you think so? Indeed, it never struck me in that light,” faltered
Jacopo, completely frightened out of his wits.
“For every name a seperate death, for every crime a stab, a pistol shot,
and a Curse!” continued the unknown, centreing his gaze upon the face
of the grovelling wretch. “What do you think of it, sir?”
The elderly gentleman arose and paced up and down the chamber, with
his hands behind his back.
“He limps on one leg,” muttered Jacopo, “and yet I can't see the
cloven foot!”
He cringed nearer to the wall, for the unknown almost touched him as
he passed along. Stealthily raising his eyes, Jacopo cast a hurried glance
into that pale face, with its dazzling eyes, and bold broad forehead.
“I've seen it afore,—” he said, and wrung his hands—“I remember it
by * * *!”
Then, as if some memory had overwhelmed his soul—or that part of
him which passed for a soul—with a new fear, he rested his hot forehead
against the wall, and shook as with an ague chill.
“Rise!”—Jacopo heard the word, and started trembling to his feet.
The strange confronted him. Confronted him with that form clad in
black, with that massy forehead, and those eyes that seemed to turn into
his soul. He was very near Jacopo—he could have touched him with
his hand—but he shrunk away and cringed closer to the wall
“What would you give to save your life?”
Hope dawned in Jacopo's diminative eyeballs.
“Most anythin' ” gasped the Philosopher—“Only don't you come any
nearer. I'm a little nervous you know. Just rose out of a sick bed.”
“What would you do to save your life?” asked the elderly gentleman,
in a stern low voice.
“Anythin' you can mention,” said the Philosopher, shaking from head
to foot—“From burnin' a church to lamin' a cripple,—anythin'—anythin'—”
The unknown turned away, traversing the floor with a halting gait,
while the Philosopher cringed closer to the wall.
It was a fearful moment for Jacopo.
“He's gettin' his pistols—no! It's a knife—ah! Unlucky conjunction
of my planets—in a little while, say ten minutes or more, I'll be a
carcass—stiff—with all sorts of gashes about me—”
“You heard of the village of Germantown?” said the stranger, as with
his back turned toward Jacopo, he looked from the southern window.
“Germantown? What, that delightful Dutch paradise, where the
children of two years weigh a hundred pounds, and old folks—especially
old maids—can't die? The houses are built along one street, like a row
or a devil, or some such kind of thing. Did I ever hear of Germantown?
My goodness! I was kicked there once—”
“You will go to Germantown. You will deliver these letters. And
your life is spared.”
The elderly gentleman turned toward Jacopo, holding some letters or
papers in his extended hand.
“Obey my commands—deliver these letters—and your life is spared.”
—and he fixed his gaze upon the face of the Philosopher—“Do you consent?”
“Do I? Do I look as if I did n't?” whined Jacopo.
“Listen! You will hasten to Germantown, by a lane which skirts the
forest not half a mile from where I stand—”
“Y-e-s Y-e-s!”
“You have heard of the `township-line road'?”
Jacopo nodded as if he intended to shake his red nose from his face.
“You will deliver this letter at the corner of the lane and the `town
ship-line road.'—”
“There's no house there,” interrupted Jacopo—“It's as wild as a
basket of gray cats—”
“Near the forks of the road, stands a solitary cedar, and by this cedar
a huge granite rock.—Are you listening.—”
Again Jacopo nodded—nodded with frightful intensity.
“In a crevice of this rock, which stands near the solitary cedar, you
will place this letter. Mark it well, and note the superscription—`To the
King.' Do you understand me?”
“All over,” faltered Jacopo, with a convulsive grimace.
“After you have concealed this letter in the crevice, you will hurry on.
Traversing the lane, you will emerge upon the solitary street of German-town,
opposite the lawn of Chew's House. You have seen this lawn?”
“It is seperated from the road by a stone wall, nearly half a mile long”
—suggested Jacopo.
“At the setting of the sun, a man dressed in a gray surtout, and mounted
on a black horse, will await you near the southern end of this wall. He
will rein his horse in the road, and turn his face to the west. You will
give him this letter. You will remember the superscription—`To the
Duke?' In the peril of your soul, do not confound these letters!”
“If I do, may I be—”
“Do not swear,” said the elderly personage, with a smile quivering
about his thin lips—“For an oath, with you, Joseph Marie, with you
Bernard—do you comprehend—with you Jacopo,—is only a Herald
sent before, to announce the coming of a—Lie. Do not swear.'
“I wont swear. I'll be very particular on that point, I assure you.”
“You will remember? The first letter to the crevice in the rock, the
the third—”
“The third?”
“After you have delivered the second letter, you will enter the Haunted
House, and deliver this letter—it has no superscription—to the first person,
whom you may chance to meet.”
“The Haunted House!” ejaculated our Philosopher, “How shall I
know it? There's two or three dozen in Germantown.”
“Any of the villagers will tell you where it stands. Near the southern
end of Chew's wall,—a substantial fabric of gray stone—two storied—
with a cottage or cabin, on one side, and a garden surrounded by a high
wall on the other. You cannot avoid it.”
“And I am to enter this House?” said Jacopo, with a shudder.
“Yes,—and mark you,—without being seen by any person. You
must enter it in silence, in secresy, and once within its walls, deliver this
letter without superscription, as you see, to the first person whom you
may encounter.”
“Oh!” ejaculated Jacopo. “Excuse me—only a sudden pain—but—
but—if this blank should happen to be filled up with his name? His—
you understand—”
He pointed downwards with the forefinger of his right hand
“What mean you!”
“The Dev-il!” faltered the Philosopher.
“Do you jest with me, sirrah?” said the unknown, as a cold smile
played round his lips, while his eyes so strangely lustrous, flashed with
anger. “Jest with your—Judge? You are courageous! A word from
me, and you will become the Hangman's prey—a goodly acorn for the
gallow's tree! Jest on—I will be pleased to hear you.”
“Mercy! Mercy!” screamed Jacopo,—“I will obey.”
“Spare your cries. I can trust you. For you know that I hold your
life in my hands. Disobey me—fail in a single item of my commands—
and you are dead, before the rising of another sun.”
The Haunted House!” murmured Jacopo—“Yes—I will obey—”
There was a wild light in the eyes of the unknown, a mocking smile
about his lips, as he gazed upon the cringing Philosopher, and exclaimed—
“Yes, the Haunted House. The villagers avoid it—not a man in the
place would enter it for his weight in gold. They say a curse broods
over its walls—the curse of unnatural murder. It has been untenanted
for many years; the garden is choked with weeds, and the grass grows
about its threshold stone. Strange sounds are heard, echoing from its
deserted chambers at dead of night,—and lights as strange, as spectral,
flit from window to window, and shine dismally through the darkness—
it is indeed an accursed place, this Haunted House.”
The cold moisture started in beads from Jacopo's brow. He gazed
upon this singular personage, who stood motionless between his eyes and
the window, he heard his calm, silvery voice, he felt the dazzling lustre
of his full deep eyes, and a fear such as he had never experienced before
—something more intense than physical cowardice—possessed his brain,
and made his temples throb, while his heart grew cold—colder—almost
lifeless.
“I will go,” he faltered—“The first letter to the crevice in the rock;
the second to the horseman in gray; the third to the person in the
Haunted House. You see I remember—I will go—I will go—”
Grasping the letters, he retreated toward the door, his dilating eyes
fixed upon the unknown.
“It is well,” said the silvery voice, “and mark you—after the third
letter is delivered return to the Wissahikon. I will need your clerical
services, before the night is over. You will meet me—”
He drew near the trembling wretch and whispered a word in his ear.
“Yes—yes—I'll be there—I will,” cried Jacopo—“Good afternoon,
good afternoon—”
He disappeared through the doorway, but in an instant his face was
seen again, and his shrill voice resounded through the room—
“Pardon me—” he cried, as his visage projected into the chamber,
“But if it's not an impertinent question, how the devil did you get into
this room?
He did not pause for an answer for there was something in the eye of
the stranger, that made his heart contract and dilate by turns. He turned
wildly away.
Grasping the three letters with one hand, while the other crushed the
three-cornered hat over his face, he hurried down the dark stairway, into
the lower room, and, in an instant stood on the threshold stone, with the
light of the summer sun upon his terror stricken face.
He did not pause for a moment, to glance toward the arbor, nor did he
think of the white-haired old man, who but a little while ago, was
menaced by the knife, in the hand of the frenzied negro.
But passing around the farm house, he crossed the barn yard, sprung
over the fence, and with unsteady strides hurried through a cornfield
toward a wood, which appeared at the distance of some two hundred
yards. Once or twice he turned his affrighted face over his shoulder—
cast a stealthy glance at the old fabric resting so calmly in the sun—and
then urged onward with accelerated speed. It was not altogether a
solemn thing, to see him plunging in amid the rows of corn, his dark
skirts streaming behind him, while the shadow of his form was flung far
over the field—like the grotesque profile of an immense spider.
He soon attained the wood, and with a bound plunged into its shadows.
Through the thickly gathered brushwood, along the mossy spots of verdure,
old rock, Jacopo, otherwise known as the Philosopher, held on his way.
Had you seen him, you would have sworn it was for a wager—this night-mare
race—a match between his Legs and Time.
At last panting and blowing, his face covered with perspiration; his
dark attire strown with fragments of leaves and briars, he sank exhausted
at the foot of a rock, and with a profound sigh, gave himself up to his
Destiny.
“Let 'em take me,” he said, between his gasps—“I'm ready. They
can't do more than hang me. To think those legs should ever come to
the gallows!”
From some obscure recess of his capacious pockets, he drew forth an
immense handkerchief—silken in texture, and indigo in color—and
polished his streaming visage until it shone again.
Possessed by some fatal idea, he evidently expected to be seized,—
chained—and dragged away from this solitude by merciless hands.
“Ah! I know his face—have seen it afore. The devil himself is a
fool to him—HE might set up school, and all the imps of darkness would
take lessons in devilty from him!”
Completely exhausted, with his back against the rock, and his limbs
stretched out upon the sand, in the shape of the letter V—Jacopo the
Philosopher became the victim of various terrors. His mouth, never too
small, expanded in a chronic grimace; he polished his face with the
indigo handkerchief; fanned his heated brow with the three-cornered hat.
“To go over a fellow's life in that style, and after one has reformed
and turned from the error of his ways, to rub up old sins, and make one's
tender conscience bleed in a dozen places! It was ungentlemanly—ah!
Oh! How cursed hot it is!”
And while our Philosopher, agitated by the memory of these `old sins,'
and perchance by some indefinable idea of punishment, surrendered himself
to the cheering influences of the indigo handkerchief—used as a
towel—and the three-cornered hat—transformed into a fan—the letters
which had been consigned to him, lay scattered upon the sward.
The sight of these letters, gleaming on the sand in a wandering ray,
restored Jacopo to life and reason.
“I have a duty to perform. What human being has n't? If somebody
chooses to turn me into a post office, it is my duty—posterity expects it
—to see that I don't carry any thing that will do harm to even the humblest
member of the great family of man.”
And, Jacopo forgetting all his terrors, in the consciousness of duty
raised the letters, and began to examine them with a searching glance.
`To the King'—only wafered. `To the Duke'—ditto. To—Blank—
sealed, as I'm an honest man, and with a Coronet too, and the letters R. L.
What the mischief does R. L. mean? Can't be his name?”
For a moment Jacopo cogitated profoundly with the tip of his finger
applied to the tip of his nose.
“R. L.! Reginald Lyndulfe!” he cried, “And in the name of the
whole family of saints, what has this person to do with my young Lord
of Lyndulfe? Why the thing becomes mysterious!”
Satisfied that no time was to be lost, the Philosopher went to work in
a calm, business-like manner. There was method in his virtuous
curiosity. First he listened, turning his gaze from side to side. All was
still—the foliage of that forest cover shut him out from the world. Next,
moistening the wafers of the first and second letters, by applying them to
his lips, he very adroitly slipped the long nail of his forefinger underneath
each wafer, and ere a second had passed, his virtuous labor was rewarded
by the sight of certain lines written in a firm, round hand.
This is the first letter—
At twelve to-night. The place—the Block House of the Wissahikon.
You pursue this lane, cross the stream, and then turn to the right.
It is but little more than half a mile from the place where you will find
these words.
This epistle without date or signature, filled Jacopo with indescribable
wonderment.
“It appears to me,” the thought crossed the mind of the Philosopher,
“That those enigmatical words, constitute the dressing of some nice little
Plot, which known to me, might be honestly turned into coin.”
And, Jacopo sealed the letter again, and then with his nail removed the
wafer of the second epistle.
To the Duke—
The son of Gaspard Michael lives.
Jacopo read, and his small eyes projected from their sockets.
“`Gaspard-Michael!”' he echoed, turning the letter in his fingers, as
though he expected a nineteen-pounder to drop from its folds. “`To the
Duke!' Well, w-e-ll! Why is it always my fate to be mixed up in
the affairs of nations? Unhappy Jacopo! Sighing forever, for a nice
little cot under a hill, with a quiet little wife, three or four children, and
some pigs and chickens,—and always whirled away from this sweet
image of domesticity, into the great Maelstrom of circumstance!”
With this profound reflection, Jacopo resealed the second letter, and
turned his attention to the third.
“Sealed, and with coat of arms and cypher! Shall I break the seal?
Miserable position for a conscientious man! If I break the seal, I am
of the letter.”
The Philosopher was puzzled. Turning the epistle in various ways,
he endeavored to obtain a glimpse of its contents, but in vain.
“Shall I break the seal?”
Before him rose the vision of that pale visage, lighted by the intensely
brilliant eyes. Jacopo trembled, and the warm color vanished from his face.
Then he looked at the letter lovingly—with a sort of mingled desire
and fear—like an epicure surveying a delicious morsel, which his physician
tells him, it will be death to eat, or a vagrant cur observing a steak, which
is suspended just one inch beyond his reach.
`I will break it!” said Jacopo, and—
He sprang to his feet with a yell. Cold, trembling, seized once more
with abject fear, he grasped his hat and the letters, and, without looking
once behind him darted madly through the bushes.
For even as the words, `I will break it!' rose to his lips, he felt a cold,
hard hand laid upon his shoulder.
Afraid to look behind him, lest he might once more behold the pallid
face and burning eyes, he shrunk away from that hand, and was gone into
the thickest of the forest ere a second might be told.
He did not pause in his flight, until he stood at the forks of the road,
where the `township line' was crossed by the lane, leading from the Wissahikon
to the village of Germantown.
It was a silent and desolate spot, centred in the midst of thickets
backed by the forest.
The hot dust of the road was contrasted with the foliage of cedar and
the pine, scattered on either side. Toward the west, the lane descending,
a hill was lost in the mazes of the woods. But in the east it wound
among cultivated fields, now skirting some wood-crowded hill, now lingering
in the lap of some brook-watered valley, until it approached that
line of gardens and orchards, amid whose verdure and blossoms appeared
the dark gray tenements of Germantown.
Jacopo panting up the hill, beheld the cedar which stood alone at the
forks of the road, while in the shadow of its branches appeared the massy
granite rock.
“Dev'lish odd post office” he said, grinning through his terror, as he
inserted the letter, in a crevice of this rock, and secured it by placing a
small stone upon its superscription: “Should like to see the individual
who is destined to pay the postage.”
He started—the sound of horse's hoofs struck his ear.
“It was a hand—I'll swear it, a hand of iron,” he cried as the memory
of his last fright returned in full force, and without a moment's delay, he
concealed himself from sight, under a clump of small cedars, near the
roadside.
He could hear, although he could not see.
Protected from all observation, by the thickly grown bushes, he listened,
while his heart mounted to his throat.
The echo of horse's hoofs grew more distinct, Jacopo crouching on
hands and feet endeavored to catch a glimpse of the unknown rider, but
in vain.
“He is coming near—nearer! From the direction of Germantown,
too,—ha! Here he is, and I cannot see him. Hello! The horse stops—
near the cedar—hark! The rider dismounts—O, for a glimpse, only a
glimpse! As I'm a human being he's meddling with my post office—
hey!”
It was true. The unknown horseman whom he could hear, although
he could not see him, dismounted near the cedar tree, and for a moment
a breathless silence ensued.
Jacopo moved; he was determined to obtain a glimpse of the stranger.
“Who's there!” said a deep clear voice.
Jacopo was stone. Gathering himself in the smallest possible compass,
he held his breath, and awaited the termination of this incident, in a spasm
of mortal terror.
“There's a bullet through my ribs—I foresee it plainly,” he thought,
but dared not speak, as he crouched in the shadows.
“Who's there?”—again the voice was heard.
You may take my word for it, that our Philosopher did not reply.
Suddenly the tramp of horse's feet was heard again; Jacopo's heart
bounded with joy. Those sounds grew faint and more distant; he dared
to dash the branches aside, and steal a glimpse after the unknown.
Far down the lane, where it lay in full sunlight, just before it was lost
among the woods toward the Wissahikin, Jacopo saw a grey horse, whose
rider's tall form was wrapped in a long and drooping military cloak. That
rider's face was turned away, and even as Jacopo gazed, from his retreat,
the grey horse turning a point of the road, disappeared in the shadows of
the forest.
“Rather warm for a military cloak, my respected friend,” said the Philosopher,
as he gathered up his spider-like limbs and crawled from his
retreat. “Let me see whether the sanctity of our post office has been
violated.”
Looking stealthily over his shoulder,—listening for the faintest echo of
a footstep—Jacopo drew near the rock, and crouching on hands and knees
examined the crevice. The small stone which had secured the letter, lay
on the sod; the crevice was empty, and of course the letter had disappeared.
Jacopo had been simply puzzled and frightened before this discovery;
now he was utterly confounded.
He did not even utter an ejaculation. Seating himself by the wood-side,
the mysterious events of the last hour.
“First, I find out, the guilt of the good old Peter of the white beard.
Then the Devil appears to me, and converts me into a perepatelic post
office. Urged by a simple impulse of duty, I am engaged in opening the
Devil's correspondence, when a hand is laid on my shoulder. Last of all,
a mysterious horseman, violates the sanctity of the rock, and steels the
devil's letter.”
These thoughts stirred the Philosopher's soul into speech:
“Such is the case. I will submit it to a committee of any three intelligent
gentlemen, whether any thing like this, was ever heard of afore, or
can be again, within the compass of three thousand nine hundred and
ninety-nine solar years.”
How far the Philosopher's reveries would have led him, had he been
suffered to pursue the subject, we cannot tell. His meditations were suddenly
brought to an end by a new object of arrangement.
A fragment of paper, looking for all the world,like a stray relic of some
forgotten letter, appeared right before the eyes of Jacopo, nestling in the
roadside dust. This you will say, was not very wonderful, but there was
a name written upon the fragment, which at once held Jacopo—dumb and
without motion—like the victim of a magician's spell.
The name was very simple—“George Washington.”
“I have heard of it afore,” said Jacopo, as a singular thought began to
take shape in his active brain, “And now for Germantown.”
Placing the fragment in a side pocket, and carefully grasping the remaining
letters, he stood ready for his journey.
He brushed the dust and leaves from his attire, arranged his white cravat
with an exactness truly ministerial, and then surveyed his shadow, as
it lay upon the roadside dust, in all its native elegance.
“That graceful rotundity supported by those slender yet graceful
columns, reminds one of the terrestrial Globe, resting upon the Pillars of
Hercules. Quite a geographical figure, I vow!”
Turning toward the south-western wood, he remembered the unknown
hand, with a shudder.
And yet at that moment, by the very rock, where the Philosopher had
felt the hand, crouched the figure of a blind Negro, with a knife in his
tremulous grasp.
“It am de berry debbil and no mistake,” he soliloquized—“He pull
my hand, jist as I was a-gwain to stick de ole boy. Den I run into de
woods, and feel my way, and lay dis hand on de debbil's shoulder. Sorra
mighty gosh! Dese tings make an ole black colo'd man afeard!”
Little did Jacobo imagine,—as he stood wondering and trembling at the
forks of the road—that the unknown hand, laid upon his shoulder in the
called, Black Sam.
“Doubtless it was the Devil,” said Jacopo, and turned his steps toward
Germantown.
A pleasant walk it was, along the lane, which leading over hill and
valley,—among fields and pastures, dotted with cattle, or set off by massy
barns,—now down into this dell, where the brook was ever singing—now
up this hill, whose top covered with chesnut, oak and maple, was living
with the voices of the summer birds—made the heart dream of Eden, and
the lip murmur “Paradise!”
Even Jacopo philosophically hardened into baseness, and rich only in
memories of crime, was somewhat won by the summer loveliness of that
sequestered lane.
“Fresher than Italy!” he cried, as surmounting a hill, he saw the long
line of dark gray fabrics, peeping from a chaos of leaves and blossoms
Then down the hill, into a dell, the lane wandered with rustic walls of
stone,—crowned with wild flowers—on either hand, and the breeze blowing
freshly all the while, with its varied perfumes, stolen from the shrubs
by the water-side. There was a bridge across the brook which murmured
in the hollow of the dell; a bridge formed of a few rude planks,
with wild grass growing in every crevice.
Jacopo lingered there for a single instant.
A green meadow, watered by the brook, and rising gently until it was
lost in an apple orchard. Sunlight, very rich and hazy, upon the heighths,
and in the valley, shadows deep and solemn. The air full of bees, humming
their kimmer song, and the great sky, arching far above without a
cloud.
Something there was in this scene, that stole imperceptibly into Jacopo's
heart, as resting his arms upon the rude rail of the bridge, he drew in the
fragrance and music of the place, as you would drink a cup of rich old
wine. May be in that moment, some ember of a better nature, flamed up
within his heart, and by the sudden light he read, how base and cowardly
had been his life; how lost and sunken, from every manly purpose, his
prostituted soul. May be? Yes, it was even so. For although no tear
shone on his cheek, nor although no tremor of the lip altered a single
throb of sincere feeling, yet for an instant, the heart of the degraded Man,
went back to some dear nook of Childhood, and over the dreary wastes
of memory, he caught one golden gleam from other Days.
How shall we account for this gleam of purer feeling? Was it but a
ray from the ashes of his own soul, or was it, a wandering beam, from the
other World? Perchance, even in that moment, some pure Spirit—invisible
to the gross eyes of sense—came with sudden steps to his side, and
spoke to his sealed ear, a Word from God.
In saying that this Man felt purer, better, for a single moment, as the
pardon of those learned and pious people, who maintain, that Human
Nature is all Corrupt; born to be wicked; and destined to grow fat on
sin. Your forgiveness gentle folks. Total Depravity is a comfortable
digma, and we would not for a moment rob you of the holy consolation
which flows from the belief, that the Human Heart—even the heart of the
Babe, resting so smilingly upon its Mother's heart—is nothing but a Labaratory
of Crimes.
Forgive us, if we believe somewhat differently.
Even this wretch, who leaning upon the rail of the rustic bridge, surveys
the silent dell,—this wretch who embodies in his own person, all the
craft and cunning, the menial vice and livened baseness which forms the
very Religion of modern Civilization—appears to us, not altogether lost
and wicked; not altogether corrupt and depraved.
Search his heart, horrified as it is by the disease of selfishness, and you
will find a throb of purer feeling, beating even there,—even there, you will
discover the pulse of a holier,—yes—a God-like nature.
If there exists such a thing as Total Depravity on the face of the earth,
you will find it in the heart of the man, who has so brutalized his nature,
as to be able to believe the Dogma.
For while the Great Father of Us All, hold the stars in the hollow of
his hand, no man can assert, that He has created one being, totally depraved,—only
one—without having the Lie which he utters, flung back
into his face by every star that shines in the midnight sky, by every blossom
that floats in the summer air,—by the angel-eyes of childhood smiling
some glimpses of Heaven, even into the soul of Jesus.
Jacopo lingered there until the shadows began to grow longer, under the
orchard trees, and at last with something like a sigh went in silence up the
hill. The hill-top gained, the free sun and air upon his face once more,
the town in sight, its roofs framed in foliage, —he was himself again, and
all traces of better feeling, had passed away with the silence and shadow
of the grassy dell.
24. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH.
ADVENTURES OF JACOPO.
“Germantown!” soliloquized Jacopo, advancing with a most portentous
stride—“Where witches are plenty as cabbages, and ghosts come thick as
onions. I must break upon the vision of the unsophisticated villagers,
gently, very gent-l-y, and yet imposing as a full moon seen through a fog.”
And he passed rapidly along the lane.
There came green fields, full of the music of bees and the fragrance of
new mown hay. There came gardens too, bordered with fruit trees,—the
cherry, the peach, the apple and the pear,—and with little children and
brown-cheeked peasant girls, singing and laughing among the vine-covered
arbors. There came an old cottage, with the roof bent down by the gnarled
limb of a great oak tree, and its solitary window, adorned with a single
flower, set in a broken pitcher. And on the stone before the low door-way,
underneath the music of the restling leaves, was a gaunt old man,
with a face as brown as a russet apple, hair white as snow, and garb as
poor as very Poverty. And as he turned his face,—for he was startled
by the sound of the coming footstep—the sun shone upon it, and gave a
golden glow to his cold, dead eyeballs.
He was blind, and poor and old, and yet before his cabin door, he sat,
pressing his hands together, and turning his sightless eyes to the sun, as
if tho' he was glad that he was alone, and singing all the while in a
cracked voice, some words of a rude German Song.
Jacopo glanced upon him with grimace,—wondered “what the deuce he
was singing about”—and without a word, passed on his way.
Soon he came to the end of the lane, and stood in the solitary street of
Germantown.
Jacopo sank on a bench, by the roadside, and for some moments contemplated
the novelty and freshness of the scene in silence, and yet with
frequent ejaculations of delight.
He gazed to the south. The dusty road, in some places shadowed by
rows of trees, in others reddened by gleams of sunlight, descended the
slope of a long hill, and far to the south, was lost to view under an arch
of foliage. There were tenements of wood and stone on either hand;
here a cottage, with its gable-end toward the street, and a rustic porch
before the door; there a two-storied edifice with steep roof and narrow
windows, and a cool, quiet garden, sheltered from the roadside dust by
trees. Altogether, that road stretching to the south, presented an impressive
perspective of cottages, gardens and trees, reposing half in shadow,
half in sunlight, with a clear blue sky above.
Jacopo turned his eye to the north. A wide and grassy lawn, seperated
from the road by a stone wall, and dotted with elms and oaks, with a
gray old mansion in the background, slept in the beams of the afternoon
sun.
That lawn, reposing so quietly in the sunlight, was soon destined to become
holy ground—drenched by the blood of martyrs, its grass and
flowers—its dark gray mansion rent by cannon shot, and crowded with
dead—it was soon to be known in history as the Battle-Field of Germantown.
Opposite the bench on which our Philosopher rested, appeared a two-storied
mansion, which seemed invested with a peculiar atmosphere of
silence and isolation. Among the homes of that quiet hamlet, it looked
sad and deserted. The shutters were fast closed; there was grass in the
nooks of the high stone steps before the dusky hall door; the steep roof
was covered with green moss and withered leaves. It looked as though
no foot had passed its threshold for many years.
On the northern side, the foliage of its neglected garden overhung a
high wall, whose gray stones were half-concealed by a wild and luxuriant
vine. And on the south, built half way up the gloomy gable of the mansion,
a one-storied cabin was seen, with a little garden plot between it and
the road, and the wide-spreading branches of a solitary oak stretching
above its roof.
Through the leaves of the oak, the smoke of the cabin chimney wound
into the sky, shining and glowing against the blue heavens as it caught the
radiance of the sun.
“Well!” cried Jacopo, “That cabin under the big tree, looks like a
solitary chicken under the wing of a fat hen, while this gloomy mansion—
ugh! looks like a frozen night-mare.”
Arising from the bench he crossed the road,—surveyed the silent mansion
with a careful scrutiny—and then passed on, until he reached the
neatly white-washed pale fence, in front of the cabin.
“Ho! Ho! A table under the oak—bottles and mugs, and two or
three buglers taking the world easy! I hope I'm not intruding upon a
family party—”
With his hand upon the latch of the gate, he hesitated for a moment,
uncertain whether to enter or pass on, when his eye was arrested by a
board nailed upon the bark of the tree, and bearing in remarkable characters
a most mysterious inscription.
Bier & SiDeR.
These enigmatical characters seemed intended to convey the idea that
Beer and Cider were to be obtained for coin, somewhere in the vicinity
and entered.
The three villagers seated around the table, with pewter mugs in their
hands, did not hear his approach. Bending over the table, their heads
laid together; they maintained a low-toned and earnest conversation.
Our Philosopher paused and listened:
“Chon you may dependt it's a fact,” said one of the three, who appeared
in shirt sleeves and red waistcoat—“Dis house has bin shut up
dese twenty or dirty years. Dey do say, de man as owned it, soldt himself
to de defil.—”
Jacopo started, and drew a step nearer.
“Now Jake, you haint got the rights of the story,” responded “Chon”
or John, whose sharp features were half-hidden by an extensive wool-hat.
—“The house is owned by somebody away there in the old country, and
there's a lawsuit about it afore somebody they call Chancery, or some
sich name, and of course it's shet up until the case is decided. What do
you say, Pete?”
“Pete” was a solemn little man, with an apron on his chest, and some
three or four days beard on his face.—We may here remark, that in our
researches into the Ancient Records, we have never been able to ascertain
the full names of those three respectable individuals; they are simply
called Chon, and Jake, and Peter. It appears however, that “Jake” was
a man of substance, well-to-do in the worldly sense; Pete a shoemaker,
and Chon a man-of-all-work about somebody's farm.
As Pete replied, our friend Jacopo still unobserved, drew a step nearer:
“There's been lights seen in that house. Queer noises heer'd.
Rattlin' of a chain. Say somebody was murdered. Thirty years ago,
come next Christmas. It's his ghost. The man that was murdered.
They say so.”
Lest the remarks of Peter should appear broken or abrupt, it may as
well be stated, that he punctuated with his pewter mug, applying it to his
lips wherever we have placed a full stop.
“Ish it possible!” ejaculated Jake, with eyes like saucers.
“They say so,” whispered Pete, again punctuating with his mug.
It taint,—I tell you, it taint,” remarked Chon, fanning himself with
his wool hat, “As to its bein' ha'nted, I'm not the man to deny that, for
we all know that ghosts in some houses are thick as hops, but as to it's
bein' owned by a man that sold hisself to the Devil, I don't believe it.”
“Rash man!” said a shrill, screeching voice.
With one bound the three started to their feet, and beheld Jacopo
attired in solemn black, with his hands extended in the air, and his mouth
composed in an expression of remarkable severity.
“Rash man!” he continued, while the three stricken into statues, listened
with vacant amazement—“As an humble clergyman, I feel bound
to the devil? My young friend, I pity you! Why in the course of my
journeying around this scene of terrestrial vanity, I have met with no less
than six hundred persons, who acknowledged with tears, that they had
sold themselves to the devil.—They had married old maids,” he said in
an under tone.
“It's a Dominie!” cried Jake.
“I don't deny it,” said Chon, awed and abashed by the reproof of the
reverend man, “But as to this house bein' owned by sich a person—”
“Shet up Chon. Don't you see the Minister's agin you. Take a seat,
sir,—travelled far to day?”
Pete brushed a chair with his apron, and placed it before Jacopo.
That reverend personage was now in his glory. Calmly surveying the
three, he begged them in a pleasant voice to be seated once more, adding
with a sweet smile that he was not at all angry, but felt rather charitable
than otherwise.
“I am on my way to my little flock,” he continued, as he took a seat
at the table—“I have a parish in the back settlements among the Injin's
beyond Carlisle. You never heard of Hog's Run, did you?”
They had never heard of this classic locality; and Jacopo leaning back
in his chair and resting his hands upon his paunch, concluded his remarks
by asking for a little cider.
“Betsy!” exclaimed Jake, “Dis way, dis w-a-y! Dere's a gentleman
here as wants a glass of siter.”
And in a moment “Betsy,” the proprietor of the roadside cottage, appeared
in the doorway, holding a bowl of fragrant October in her hand.
Betsy was by no means old or thin, or ugly. A bouncing dame of some
thirty-five years, with very small bright eyes shining in a face round as
the full moon, and blooming as a garden of roses. Her capacious bust
was enveloped in a snow-white handkerchief, and her dark linsey skirt
descending but half way below the knee, left exposed to view a pair of
ankles, which encased in home-spun stockings, seemed altogether too
slender for her luxuriant form. Her feet, too, enveloped in course leather
shoes, did not seem at all adapted to bear the weight of so much substantial
womanhood, and as for her hands, small and white and fat, with dimples
sprinkled all over the joints, they were altogether too diminitive in
comparison with her arms, which bared from the shoulder, showed their
clear skin and full round outline freely to the sunlight.
On Betsy's chesnut-brown hair, parted neatly over her full moon face
a small muslin cap nestled like a bird in its nest; her cheeks, her chin,
—her neck—whiter even than the snowy handkerchief which bound her
bust—were scattered with dimples, every one of which laughed like a
sunbeam.
Betsy was a widow; she sheltered her sorrows in the cottage by the
on festival occasions; in the summer she bloomed and flourished like the
bee in its hive, or the seed in an apple, selling `Bier & Sider' to thirsty
villagers, or dusty travellers.—So runs the quaint portraiture of the Ancient
Records.—
Jacopo opened his eyes; he was astounded by the display of so many
charms—charms at once compact and luxuriant.
Springing from his seat he darted toward the door, and took the bowl
from her hand.
“And this is Betsy!” he said, meditatively shutting one eye, as he suffered
his fingers to linger upon the hand which held the cup. “My name
is James, Betsy, the Reverend Jacob James. A friend of mine, who
passed this way last year, spoke of you, and of your—cider. You have
been well, Betsy?”
Betsy laughed. Oh, the Poverty of language! Had you seen her
white teeth gleam out from her red lips, while her eyes danced, and the
dimples on her cheeks and chin and throat laughed in chorus! In fact,
she laughed all over. Then, when she spoke, every word touched with
a scarcely perceptible German accent, how the white of her teeth and the
red of her lips seemed to play bo-peep with each other!
“Ha, ha! Excuse me—you must n't think anythin' of me laughin',
but—but—”
And away she went again. We cannot aver that Jacopo's somewhat
singular figure excited her merriment, for a black coat and white cravat,
will turn the eye away at any time from physical or moral deformity.
Jacopo as Jacopo might have been simply ridiculous; but, Jacopo as a
Reverend was decidedly respectable.
Betsy laughed for the same reason that the ripe peach looks beautiful
in the sun,—or the bird sings, when perched on the topmost bough—she
laughed because she was full of life.
Betsy was a widow; Betsy had no care; Betsy had teeth like pearls;
therefore Betsy laughed.
“Don't mindt te gal, Dominie,” exclaimed Jake, “It's her way. Always
grinnin' like a chessy-cat.”
“Mind her? Bless my soul, I love to see young persons enjoy themselves.
Laugh, my child, laugh. It expands the muscles, throws out the
chest, and clears the cobwebs out of the brain. Laugh, my child, laugh!”
And the venerable Jacopo, in a fit of paternal feeling, laid his hand upon
the round arm of the Widow Betsy.
“`Young persons,' ha, ha, ha! Gott bless us! Ha! Ha! I'm an
oldt woman—ha! ha!”
And as if to prove it, she folded her white arms over her capacious
bust, while the dimples went rioting her cheeks, and the ring of her
laugh pealed on the air, mellow and musical, as the note of a bird.
“Twenty-one,” said Jacopo, “Twenty-one. Not a year older. Quite
a child—a little girl, in fact.”
And the good man patted her playfully on the downy cheek.
“Tont!” said the widow with a simper and a blush, that would have
done honor to a lady of fashion—“Be gwit tat!”
Jacopo warmed into a playful humor—Reverend men will be playful
sometimes—attempted to seize her hand. You should have seen Betsy
as she stood in the cabin door, laughing all over, as a stray sunbeam fell
on her dimples, and danced about her throat, where it began to widen into
the expansive bust!
“Mindt yer own pizness!” she said, with an air of offended dignity
some what modified by her dimpled visage.
Encouraged by the good humor of the buxom dame, Jacopo grew familiar—nay,
paternal, is the word. He took her hand, he rolled it gently
within his own, as a child plays with a piece of stolen dough; his small
eyes begin to sparkle in his comely visage.
“You must be careful of your health, my dear,”—her voice sinking
into a persuasive whisper—“Avoid the night air. Eschew wet feet. Your
health is delicate—your form fragile—the slightest puff of air might blow
you into a gallopin' consumption. Ah, me! What a tender flower!”
Jacopo cast his eyes to heaven, and fashioned his mouth into a grimace
of frightful solemnity.
“Delicate? Me!” cried Betsy—“O Lordt!” and then in the serene
amplitude of her charms, she laughed and shook, shook and laughed again,
until she looked like an immense flower, blossoming in the frame of that
cabin door, with its leaves tost to and fro, by a sudden blast.
And all the while, the sunbeam went dancing over her face now tinting
her warm lip, now lingering about her white round throat, now nestling in
a dimple of her joyous cheek.
“By the bye my dear child,” continued Jacopo still kneading the plump
hand of the good Betsy: “They say that it is haunted.”
“It?” and Betsy's eyes expanded while something like a cloud came
over her laughing face.
“The house next door. The old house. Owned by a gentleman who
sold himself to the devil. Tenanted by spooks—eh, Betsy?”
Just as you have seen a sheet of clear and spotless letter paper, suddenly
made hideous by a blot from an upturned ink bottle, so the face of
Betsy, round and joyous, grew black with a cloud of indignation.
“Spooks?” she cried—and her voice grew shrill—“Who says it?
You, Jake? Or, Chon? Or, was it you, Pete?”
The three dropped their mugs, and started backward with one impulse.
Not a word was said. Betsy stood in the doorway clenching her small
hand, while her face flashed, and her eyes shone with anger. Jacopo with
though he had suddenly stepped upon a rattle-snake.
“Who says so?” continued the indignant dame—“A pack of idle, goot-for-nothing
vagapones to go apout tellin' lies apout a decent oldt house!
Aint ye ashamed o'yerselfs? Nefer show yer ugly mugs inside of my
toors agin. Ha'nted in-t-e-e-d!”
Betsy paused for breath, and shook her clenched hand in the faces of
the affrighted villagers, who looked into each others faces, and kept steal-thily
retreating toward the gate.
“But Betsy, dey do say, dat te tefil—” begun Jake.
“Betsy spooks has been seen thar”' cried Chon.
“An' noises heer'd—dev'lish noises—” suggested Pete.
Betsy seized her broom. The affair grew solemn.
The broom, that peculiar weapon of all lonely and afflicted women, from
the trembling virgin who grasps it to immolate a spider to the injured wife
who rears it to admonish a drunken husband—the Broom! It was the
sight of this formidable missile that made the pot-companions tremble.
Their retreat became a route. With one brilliant attack, Betsy worried
them over the grass plot and charged them through the gate.
“Now ye ornery fystes ever say tat house is hanted agin if ye dare!”
They went their ways, Jake cursing, Pete blowing and Chon endangering
his blood vessels by a smothered fit of laughter.
“Te ornery fystes!” panted Betsy as she flung the broom away, and
sank exhausted into a chair, beside the wondering Jacopo.
“Ornery fystes!” This phrase looks mysterious. The first word is a
modification of “Ordinary” and is much used in the Land of Penn, to
express the last extreme of worthlessness. A spavined horse; a Bank
Director `found out' in his little speculations; a lady of fashion, whose
husband and lover come to fisty-cuffs, about her damaged reputation; a
lawyer who pockets fees from both sides, and drives a smart trade between
the Thief and the Bailiff; a sheriff elected to office by a certain party
and sharing all the plunder with the hungry ones of the opposite party
—these all, in Pennsylvania language are “Ornery.”
As to the cabalistic word, “Fyste” we know not whether it is German,
Greek or Indian. Possibly it is Choctaw. It was once much in vogue
in the German districts of Pennsylvania. It is said to have been applied
in the first place, to those benevolent pilgrims, who journeying from the
land of Plymouth Rock, enlightened the benighted Germans by a severe
course of wooden nutmegs, horn flints and patent medicines.
“Tat Yankee fyste!” was the exclamation of a Berks County farmer
who had been persuaded to purchase a Patent-Right of an Improved
Wheel-barrow which was to go of itself; by gravitation as the Yankee
candidly observed.
But those days are passed. New England from the fountain of her
former goodly offering of Pedlars and Horse-Jockies. She sends us
Preachers, Editors and Lawyers. They do not peddle—not they! Nor
jockey? No, Sir! Why our souls could not be saved, nor our minds
enlightened, nor the course of Justice go forward, were it not for these
Missionaries, sent to our benighted clime, by Old New England. In fact,
every path that leads to eminence or pennies, is macadamized by flints
from Plymouth Rock. They preach our sermons, they do our law, they
publish our papers, they write our histories. Pennsylvania could not get
on without them. And once a year they get together in some cozy hotel
—as many of them as Society can spare—and amid a wilderness of
chowder and punkin-pie, they drench themselves with Cider from Jersey
and Blarney from Plymouth Rock. Persons there are, who pretend that
New England keeps her Religion, her Intellect, her Liberality at Home,
and only sends abroad her Fanaticism, her Stupidity and Meanness. These
persons grossly err; we all know that Pennsylvania like a worn out clock
would stop forever, were she not wound up by a key, fashioned from the
iron bolt of that New England gibbet on which they hung Quakers in
good old times. Was it not a Boston Historian who told us the other
day, that William Penn was only great, because he came of true blue
Yankee stock; a kind of Quaker mastodeon from the fossil region of Ply-mouth
Rock?
The word “Fyste!” was once applied to the Pedlar and Jockey; now—
In this modern day, the word has undergone strange modifications.
It has become a word of honor. It is no longer applied to the cheat, the
blackguard and the vagabond. It is now used to designate the learned
Judge who preaches Temperance from the Bench and sells licenses at the
Back-Door. Or, the honorable Sheriff who distributes “Tracts” before
he is elected, and after his election pounces upon the possessions of the
unfortunate debtor, feeding and gorging himself, even to the last shred, until
you are reminded of a buzzard perched upon its festering prey. Or,
the Politician who hungry for office, and sworn to have it at all hazards,
prepares himself for his grave duties by a series of arduous exercises,
such as Obscenity from the stump, Libel in the newspaper and Perjury
everywhere.
These gentlemen are all known as “Fystes;” some of them, truth to
tell, well deserve the full force of the vernacular,—“Ornery Fystes.”
“My dear child,” whined Jacopo, as the dame sat panting and blowing
in the chair, whose capacious arms might scarce contain her bulky
loveliness—“Be calm!”
He handed her a mug of cider, and fanned her heated visage with his
three-cornered hat.
“Be calm!” echoed the panting dame—“It's very easy to talk! But to
and all tat!”
“Then the house is not haunted,” suggested Jacopo very mildly.
“Good Lordt! N-o-o!” and the Widow burst into a laugh.
“No spooks there? Eh?”
“Spooks? Not even the spook of a cat,”—Betsy laughed until she
shook again.
“Then tell me, my child, why it is shut up so closely, like a grave
vault, or a bottle of old wine, with its red cork covered with cobwebs?”
The Reverend man, in the warm impulse of paternal feeling, seized her
hand, and looked quite tenderly into her eyes.
“Because to folks who owns it is away in Englandt or Chiney,” replied
Betsy, with sudden gravity—“Do you think tat I'd live next toor
to a ha'nted house? I vos brought up rispectable, I vos. And I've
lived rispectable tis eighteen year, since I lost my huspand, poor Adam,
Gott bless him. A purty shtory inteed! Tat in my oldt tays I should
live next toor to a house wit spooks and tevils in it!”
“It is ridiculous, Betsy, nay it is infamous!” cried Jacopo, with becoming
gravity. “For one I don't believe it. Get me a pipe, my dear.”
Betsy rose in order to comply with this request, when a harsh deep
voice broke suddenly upon the evening stillness.
25. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIFTH.
“THE VAGABOND.”
“And so they say the old house is haunted—do they?”
Betsy uttered a scream and Jacopo bounded from his chair.
The speaker stood very near them—within arm's length indeed—he
had passed through the gate unperceived, and now pausing under the
branches of the oak, rested his hands upon his staff, and gazed into their
wondering faces, while the sunlight tinted his grey hairs.
He was an old man, very tall and robust, with sunburnt features and
long hair and beard—both as white as the driven snow. He stood resting
his hands upon a knotted staff, while the sunlight revealed his gaunt
form, enveloped in miserable attire. In fact, he was arrayed in rags.
The garment that clothed his chest, and gathered to his waist by a leathern
girdle, descended to his knees, might have once been blue or black or
His shoes, rent and torn, were bound to his feet by an intricate lacing of
rags and cords; his tattered buckskin leggings, clothing limbs by no means
deficient in muscle, were also fastened by strips of twine and leather.
And thus, staff in hand, the gaunt old man, clad in rags that a beggar
might have been ashamed to wear, stood between the gazers and the
light of the western sky, his silvery hair reddened at the edges by the
rays of the declining sun.
His sunburnt face and piercing eyes, shadowed by an old felt hat, and
framed in that mass of snowy beard and hair, were animated by something
like a smile, as he surveyed the wondering pair. Here Jacopo,
with his mouth agape, his small eyes expanding in his blooming face;
there the buxom widow, her round arms crossed over her luxurious bust,
while her mouth assuming the shape of the letter O! displayed her
pearly teeth in even rows.
“A very pleasant day, my friends,” said the old man, his harsh deep
voice tempered to a mild and pleasant tone, while he slowly lifted the
hat from his white hairs—“And so they say—” his voice was harsh and
deep again—“that the old house is haunted—do they?”
“Vonders vere he comes from,” murmured Betsy.
“Looks like a Ragged Rainbow,” soliloquized Jacopo.
“You do not answer me,” continued the old man, with a smile that
showed that despite his years, his teeth were firm and white. “Am I an
unwelcome guest?”
“Vots yer name?”—Betsy assumed a position of great dignity, while
Jacopo slunk quietly behind her capacious shoulders—“Never seed you
in tese parts pefore?”
“Pay-As-I-Go,” responded the old man, and at the word, from some
obscure nook of his rags, he drew forth a crown of shining silver. “That's
my name. And now I'll take some bread and cheese, or a bit of cold
chicken and a mug of cider, with a pipe of tobacco. Stir yourself, my
good woman.”—
Betsy was puzzled. Shading her eyes with her hand, she gazed
anxiously into the old man's visage, while the face of Jacopo was seen
peering over her white shoulder. Something there was in the manner
and appearance of the stranger that impressed the good dame with a sensation
of wonder mingled with fear.
“His peard is so white and yit his voice is so shtrong! His dress so
raggedt, and yit he handles money like a Lordt! Kin he want to steal—
or murder?”
These thoughts passed rapidly through Betsy's mind, while Jacopo,
pressing his lips against her smooth shoulder—unconsciously you may
be sure—whispered softly in her ear—
“Speak to him kind, Betsy. He may be an angel in disguise.”
Betsy had heard of angels in a state of Paradisical nudity; she had
seen in her old Dutch Bible various pictures of corpulent angels, but the
idea of a Ragged Angel was too much for her gravity.
She laughed until the air rung again. But her merriment as suddenly
died away. The old man grew red in the face, he gasped for breath, and
sank helplessly in a chair, his mouth wide open and his eyes closed, as
if in a deathly swoon.
To seize a mug of cider, to moisten his lips and face with the fragrant
October, to chafe his hands with her soft palms, and slap him violently on
the back as you would slap a choking infant; all this was the work of
a moment.
Betsy was in her true element. Hovering round the insensible old man,
she looked like one of those substantial Angels, pictured in the Dutch
Bible aforesaid, while Jacopo, stirred into activity by her example, and
fanning the stranger with his coat-tails, brought to mind, a Dutch Satan
making mischief near a Dutch Eve.
“Lordt if he should die on my place, we'd have the Coroner sittin' on
him—Git som water—dash it in his face—shake him, shake him—”
The old man moved, at first very gently and then in the agonies of a
spasm. He clutched his staff and brandished it wildly to and fro, while
Betsy tried very hard to hold him in the chair. The staff came in contact
with Jacopo's shoulder; as a matter of course Jacopo plunged rather
suddenly to the ground. When he raised himself again, and rubbed his
eyes, he saw a sight which made him doubt his eyes.
The luxuriant form of Betsy rested on the old man's knee; the old
man's arm was about her neck; the old man's white beard against her
smooth cheek—nay the old man—in his spasm—was kissing her violently,
—kissing her warm lips, her cheeks, her chin—kissing every dimple in
her joyous face. And in his spasm, he pressed her round neck in his
fingers, and gathered her massive loveliness, very closely to his breast.
“Let me go! Be guit! Te tefil!” screamed Betsy, completely bewildered
by this spasmodic attack—“You old fyste—you—”
The old man stopped her mouth with a kiss, and Betsy with one desperate
bound escaped from his arms, and stood panting and glowing, her
kerchief disarranged and her brown hair floating loosely about her blushing
face.
Jacopo could not believe his eyes!
The old man, recovered from his swoon, sate calmly in his chair, resting
his hands upon his staff, while his aged face, turned from side to side
—from Betsy who blushed and panted here, to Jacopo, who squat upon
the ground, rubbed his eyes without ceasing—with an expression of vague
bewilderment.
“Excuse me, my good friends;” he muttered wildly—“Where am I?”
One of my spasms.”
He passed his hand over his aged face,—very slowly and with a
thoughtful motion—like a man who endeavors to recall his wandering
memory.
“Spasms!” ejaculated Jacopo rubbing his bruises.
“Spasms!” echoed Betsy, bursting with indignation, as she arranged
her hair and smoothed her kerchief.
“Spasms, my children,” said the aged man, “Been subject to 'em
since I was a boy.” It was beautiful to a painter's eye, to see that figure
of venerable old age, enthroned in the arm chair, under the oaken tree,
with Jacopo prostrate at its feet, and Betsy hovering near.
“Get me something to eat, my good girl, or the spasm will come on
again,” said the ragged venerable, while a curious light shone in his eyes.
Betsy turned away, enraged and murmuring, her great bust heaving like
an immense billow, as she entered the cabin door, while Jacopo rising
from the ground with a careful motion, seated himself as far from the
stranger as possible, observing him at the same time, as you would eye a
suspicious beast.
“Devil take his spasms,” he muttered rubbing his wounds.
Betsy returned, glorious in her full-blown beauty, but formidable with
festival array; a jug of cider, a platter of cold ham, a loaf of home-made
bread and a pipe of fragrant tobacco.
“There,” she said emphatically, “Andt no more of yer spasms.”
The old man cooly wheeled his chair, and set about his work. It was
by no means eating; it was actual work, that he displayed before the eyes
of the good Widow. With one impetuous movement he assaulted the
ham, carried the home-made bread by storm, and brought the cider to
close quarters. In silence, as though conscious of having a certain amount
of labor before him, and a fixed time for its accomplishment, the good old
man pursued his task. Jacopo sat aloof, his round visage rendered melancholy
by a vacant stare; the widow sank into a seat, her voluptuous
mouth once more assuming an alphabetical shape, and writing a sort of
dumb O! upon her blooming face.
“I thought I had an appetite,” murmured the Philosopher. “I say,
my good friend, did you ever in the course of your travels happen to be
shipwrecked,—and if so—did you ever happen to eat anybody,—for instance,
a fat man, or a healthy child, or even a hearty little nigger?”
To this polite inquiry the old man did not respond, until he had carried
by storm, the last bit of ham, and the last crust of home-made bread.
“I feel my spasm, comin' on again,” he said—his eyes twinkling—his
staff once more in his right hand.
Jacopo moved his chair; the widow seized her broom.
“I sometimes gits tem tings meself, and when I toes, I breaks people's
heads mit tis broom.”
“And that it was, that drove your poor Adam to see, some sixteen years
or so ago,” said the old man, lighting his pipe, at the tinder box, which
stood on the table.
Reddening and panting the good dame started to her feet, satisfied that
the stranger was in fact, none other than the—.
“My husband!”
“Your husband (puff.) Poor Adam! (puff) He used te weep at the
memory of that broom. `Caleb,' says he to me one day, as we sat on
ship board together, if you should ever chance to get to Germantown, seek
out my wife, and tell her that the old broom was the cause of my broken
heart. (puff) Poor Adam!”
The widow was dumb; the ends of her fingers trembled with a sort
of feline motion.
“What would you say if Adam was to come back?” continued the
aged man, “Come back, sometime within a month”—he paused and puffed
—“within a week—” pause and puff again—“within a day—an hour—
(pause and puff) within a minute!”
“My Gott!” gasped the widow, sinking back into a chair, “but you
aint him?'
The old man leaned his head upon his hand, thus shading his face from
the light, while the Widow bending forward in her chair, awaited his answer
in an agony of suspense.
“This reminds me of Homer,” muttered Jacopo, “a Ragged Ulysses
and a Dutch Penelope.”
“Has'nt she a dog to know him, and then die? Even a cat would do.”
“No, Betsy; I am not him,” said “Pay-As-I-Go” to give the stranger
his own name, “Let me cut a long story short. Scarcely a year ago,
Adam died in my arms, somewhere in the West Indies. Yellow fever,
you understand? He told me to give you, this—”
He flung a small package, wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine,
into the widow's lap. The twine broke and the brown paper parted;
sixteen bright pieces of gold, started from the aperture, and glistened vividly
before the eyes of the thunder-stricken woman.
“Only dead a year!” she gasped, “Why ten if I'd married Chon Butz
a year an' two months ago, tey would have put me in jail for—for—”
“Mahogany,” suggested Jacopo
“For mahogany,” continued the widow, using this new synonym for
bigamy without a thought, that it was in the least degree incorrect—“Only
a year! Poor Adam!'
She applied her apron to her eyes, and the bright pieces clinked upon
the ground.
The old man did not permit her much leisure for the indulgence of her
his staff, and rose from his chair.
“I have another commission to fulfil in these parts,” he said “Betsy
do you know anything about an old couple, who used to live in a cottage,
somewhere about the graveyard? Morton, I think they were called,—or
what was their name?”
There was a slight tremor in the old man's voice; his eyes, bright at
all times shone with unusual light.
“Morgan,” said Betsy looking at him from the corners of his eyes,
“Very old folks they vos—”
“Was?” echoed the old man with a start.
“Been deadt a year,” continued Betsy—“Never was very well, since
their son, went away some two years ago. Old Abel and Hannah sickened
and diedt within two days of each other.”
The old man was observed to tremble, and grasp his staff, while his
features were violently agitated.
“Dead!” he muttered, “What did you say was the name of their son?”
“Gilbert Morgan,” said Betsy, “But tell me more of Adam—”
“Dead!” again repeated the old man, “And I had a message from their
son. Tell me,—did they want for bread? Were their last days wretched
with poverty—with hunger and cold? Speak, Betsy, for—for—you
see poor Gilbert told me to see them,—to give them gold—and beg their
blessing on his guilty soul. Speak, I say! Did the old folks die the
miserable death of poverty and age?'
“I was with 'em mesself,” said Betsy, between her sobs, “Tey wanted
for nothing while I was tere, andt I saw 'em laidt in te grave; but, Gilbert,
what ever became of him?”
“God bless you for that,” the voice of the old man was tremulous but
earnest as he dashed a tear from his eye—“You were near them in their
dying hour. God bless you! As for Gilbert, what kind of character did
he bear in these parts? A wild fellow,—drunken,—eh?”
“Many a time have I seen him stand where you stand, when he was
quite a poy. A goot poy, too, but—Gilbert went away suddenly about
two years ago—next christmas will be three years—andt—there was
a young girl foundt murteredt back on the Wissahikon—Madeline
Dorfner—”
“Eh, some village gossip, I suppose?” said the old man with a hearty
laugh, but a laugh that from his previous tone, sounded hollow and unnatural.
“This Madeline is dead, then,—murdered by Gilbert Morgan?”
There was a strange hesitation in the widow's voice, and manner as
she answered:
“She has never been seen since. Gilbert murteredt her—so they say.
But, as Gott sees me, I never believed it, and tont believe it now—tat's
all.”
“Well, well, a queer story! Little did I think when I pressed Gilbert's
hand away in the Indies, that he'd been murderin' purty girls
on the Wissa—Wissa—what d'ye call it? Good night, Betsy,—see you
again sometime—take care that poor Adam does n't come back, and take
care of all strangers who are troubled with—spasms!”
Grasping his staff, the old man turned suddenly away, and with a hearty
burst of laughter went toward the garden gate, his silvery hair floating on
his shoulders, and his tall form, clad in rags, shone distinctly in the evening
sunlight. He stood for a moment at the gate, gazing up the street
and down, laughing heartily to himself all the while, and then suddenly
dissappeared.
26. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXTH.
HOW JACOPO SAW THE HORSEMAN IN GRAY; AND THEN REASONED ACUTELY
UPON A LIMB, A ROOF, AND A WINDOW.
“Jist look,” cried Betsy to Jacopo—“Run and see if he has n't sunk
in the groundt—”
Jacopo, however, being a Philosopher, calmly knelt at the widow's
feet, and examined the golden coin, piece by piece.
“Good, all good. Doubloons, every one of them. Give yourself no
anxiety, Betsy. It is not the Devil; it's a livin' human being. Had it
been the Devil, he would have given you counterfeit money or bank
notes.”
Consoled by this philosophic train of reasoning, the widow gathered
the coin in her apron, and as the separate pieces rolled together with a
musical clink, she muttered, as if by way of chorus—“Poor Adam! Andt
I should have been guilty of mahogany!”
Jacopo sat himself very near her, and in his usual felicitous manner
attempted to lead the tearful Betsy into conversation. He laid his hand
gently on her round arm, and endeavored to make her speak of the
Haunted House. Betsy frowned, and pursed her lips at the very word.
Next Jacopo spoke of Madeline. Betsy jumped from her seat, uttering
a solemn ejaculation, which sounded very much like the monosylable
“Pooh!” Then Jacopo, as if determined to be agreeable or die in the
attempt, whimpered dolefully a word or two in regard to the departed
cabin that nestled under the limbs of the oaken tree.
Betsy said “Tush!” and “Pooh!” in a breath, and then sailed grandly
into the cabin, the gold pieces clinking with rich music, as she entered
the door.
Lighting a pipe, Jacopo leaned his chair against the tree, and while the
smoke curled round his face,—like incense hovering over the visage of
some Hindoo idol—he allowed his soul to meander at pleasure, amid the
mazes of a profound philosophical meditation.
“If I ever get over the events of this day, I will forswear the world,
abandon the delights of polite society, and bury my genius and my sorrow
within the drear walls of a Monastery. Nay—I will found a new order
of monks—the holy Fraternity of “Puzzled People.” That shall be their
title; we 'll say prayers in a Puzzling garden, and the only texts for our
sermons shall be the Puzzles of this day. First, `Who was the elderly
man, who frightened Father Jacopo out of his wits, on the Wissahikon,
and converted him into an itinerant Post-office?' Puzzler number one.
Next and secondly, `Who was the old man who brought the buxom
Betsy some news of her absent Adam?' Third and lastly, `The Haunted
House, and what the deuce was in it?' There are three Puzzles, that
will occupy my Fraternity of Puzzled People for at least three hundred
years.”
Thus ran the current of the Philosopher's thoughts, while gloomily
before rose the Haunted House, scowling above the humble cabin of the
forlorn widow. Jacopo's eye traversed the monotonous extent of that
gable wall, and Jacopo's heart grew cold, as he thought of the adventure
which was before him.
“I am to enter that dismal den.—How? Deliver this letter? To whom?”
The letter was in his hand; he examined once more its blank surface,
and held its portentous seal close to the tip of his nose.
“I would like to read it, but it's dangerous to meddle with the correspondence
of his Satanic majesty. Ah!” he exclaimed, raising his eyes,
“That is a very important fact. There is but one window in the gable
of the Haunted House: or rather a round hole, without a sash. That
window may be reached from the top of the widow's cabin. And the
top of the cabin, in its turn, may be attained by climbing this tree, and
swinging from that crooked limb.”
The solitary window, the top of the cabin, and the crooked limb, gave
our Philosopher an unusual degree of satisfaction. Leaning against the
tree, with his limbs on the table, and the pipe curling its mild incense
around his nostrils, he did not move nor speak until the shades of evening
began to darken round.
Then rising, he beheld the substantial form of Betsy, enthroned in the
cabin door, her eyes twinkling brightly through the gloom.
“Betsy, my child, I will take a walk, and be back to supper in a few
moments. I have an appointment to meet a Reverend friend, up the
street. We have a theological point to settle, my dear, whether Roman
papists have souls, and if they have, what is to be done with them. After
supper, I will pursue my way. Have supper ready in five minutes,
my love.”
“Yes, Dominie,” answered Betsy, somewhat won by the courteous
manner and profound diction of the Reverend man.
Jacopo sauntered forth, and presently arrived at the lower extremity of
Chew's Wall. The last gleam of day was playing over the verdure of
that beautiful lawn, and the evening breeze stirred with low music among
the trees.
But there—near the lower extremity of the wall—halting his horse by
the roadside, was the unknown, whose tall form was wrapped from observation
by a long gray overcoat. His hat was drawn over his eyes; he
sat very calmly in the saddle, the rein thrown loosely on his horse's neck.
“Good evening, friend,” said Jacopo, as he drew near, and attempted
by a searching glance to gain some knowledge of the horseman's face:
“You seem to enjoy the evening air?”
“You have a letter?” said the horseman, in a quick, abrupt tone.
Jacopo started back as though the horse had kicked him in the breast.
“That voice!” a thought flashed over him—“Can it be—”
“You have a letter—for me?” the Horseman said again; and Jacopo
heard a scabbard clank against his boot, as the steed, covered with dust
and foam, pawed the ground with his hoof—“The letter, I say!”
Jacopo drew it from his pocket and placed it in the stranger's hand, still
anxiously endeavoring to catch a glimpse of his face.
“Stand off,—or my horse will kick you,” and the Horseman, tearing
open the letter, read it by the fading light—“`The son of Gaspard—
Michael lives!' he murmured, and then abruptly turned his horse's head
toward the lane by which Jacopo had journeyed from Wissahikon.
“Here, fellow, is something for your trouble,” he flung a gold piece in
the dust, and sunk the spurs into the flanks of his steed. Even as Jacopo
stood confounded and motionless, the horse dashed into the Wissahikon
lane; not an instant passed ere horse and rider were lost to sight.
It was many moments before our Philosopher recovered his composure.
“It's him,” he said, picking the gold piece from the dust—“I'd know
that nose and those eyes among ten thousand!”
Absorbed in a train of novel and perplexing thoughts, Jacopo slowly
passed the Haunted House—passed the wall, overhung by the foliage of
the neglected garden, the hall door, scowling so dark and desolate upon
the village street—and re-entered the widow's home.
The supper was spread upon the table under the oak; cheese and home-made
bread, and toothsome ham, and a mug of spicy October. Betsy
other, she stood ready to do the honors of the table.
“Come, Dominie, here's your supper, Gott pless you—”
“Betsy, my child, your neighbor at the corner of the lane, wishes to
see you for a moment. So she told me. You can go and see her, while
I eat my supper. That's a dear woman.”
Betsy, all unconscious of a Lie from the lips of the Reverend man,
hurried through the gate, telling him in her good-humored way—“Make
yerself at home, Dominie, and tont spare te vittels.”
Jacopo listened intently for the last echo of her footsteps—glanced
cautiously around—and then, with the stealthiness of the cat, combined
with the agility of an ape, he sprang into the branches of the oaken tree.
It only required a moment to traverse the crooked limb; he stood upon
the peak of the widow's cabin, with the gloomy window of the Haunted
House within the reach of his arm.
Again Jacopo listened—his heart beat wildly—all was still and shadowy
around—no voice nor ray came from the dark aperture, by which
he was about to enter the mansion.
Jacopo hesitated; he cast a longing glance toward the crooked limb,
and then his eye rested lovingly upon the supper, spread so temptingly
beneath the leaves.
“Shall I return? I can escape to Philadelphia, and get beyond the
reach of this Demon?”
Poor Jacopo was in his saddest Puzzle! To go forward was, perchance,
to encounter the Devil in bodily form; but to go backward was
—and no perchance—to meet the Gallows!
“I'll risk the Perchance!” said Jacopo, as he felt for the mysterious
letter, in the depth of his pocket. “Now then, for the last Puzzle?”
Shivering all over as with an ague chill, he drew himself up to the
window, and with a groan plunged into the garret, and into the darkness
of the Haunted House.
27. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENTH.
THE VAGABOND AGAIN.
His heels had scarce disappeared within the window, when the foot-step
of Betsy—light and tripping for such a substantial beauty—was heard
in the garden.
“Why, Dominie, how could you tell sich a fib,” she exclaimed, as she
burst through the gate, “Tere aint nopody at home over the way, but the
cat, andt—” she gazed wonderingly through the gloom, which was only
broken by a broad streak of light pouring from her cabin door. “Gott
pless us! The Dominie's gone too!”
The Reverend man was indeed gone; but in his place at the table under
the oak, appeared the tall figure of the old man, whose costume of rags,
combined with his sudden spasms, had made such an impression on the
good widow, not an hour before.
His cheeks resting on his hands, while his staff leaned against his
chair, he sat beside the table, with his back turned to the light. His grey
hair, stirred gently by the evening breeze, was only touched by a glimpse
of light; all the rest of his form was wrapped in vague shadow. He did
not heed the approach of the widow, nor raise his head, but remained
as motionless as the trunk of the old tree, whose branches fluttered
above him.
The widow started back when she first became aware of this unexpected
Apparition, with as much terror as a thoroughly bred lady would
experience at the sight of a spider dangling playfully before her nose.
“You here agin!”
The old man did not manifest the least consciousness of her presence.
“Did you put the Dominie in yer pocket?”
Still the same statue-like immovability; not a word or gesture from
the ragged wanderer.
“He aint teadt is he? It aint decent to come and die dis way, afore a
lone woman's toor. It's rale ornery—”
“Betsy,” the old man spoke, but in a tone so changed and deep, that
the good woman felt an involuntary thrill pervade her veins at every
accent; “I've been in the graveyard—”
“Lordt! He's peen in the graveyard!” gasped the Widow sinking into
a chair—“Toes he sleep there o' nights?”
“I saw a white tombstone, very plain indeed, but to all appearance recently
placed there. It bore neither the record of a birth nor a death, only
no sign of a buried corpse.
“Beside this tombstone, I saw another, also new and white, and without
a grave. `To the Memory of Gilbert Morgan.' Now, Betsy I want you
to tell me what it all means? Gilbert Morgan I'm sure did not die in
these parts, and as for this Madeline—is it the same of whom you spoke
awhile ago?”
“The fery same,” replied Betsy as the old man turned his head and
bent the full light of his eyes upon her face, which illuminated by the rays
from the cabin doorway, betrayed in every feature, a mingled and inexplicable
emotion.
“Madeline is dead, then?” the voice of the old man was lower, deeper,
—his gaze made Betsy afraid.
“To pe sure,—everybody says so,” she replied, hesitating on every
word.
“She is buried beneath that tombstone? You don't mean to say it?”
Thus speaking the old man rose, and grasped her firmly—rather rudely
—by the wrist, as she stood in the centre of the belt of light.
Betsy shrunk, she knew not why from his intense look. She `felt
afraid' at the sound of his voice. So tall, so poverty-stricken, so way-worn,
and yet in such an attitude of command, that white-haired old man
stood before her, while the silence of evening was all around, grasping
her by the wrist and urging his question, in a firm emphatic tone, that the
good Widow felt her blood tingle and grow cold by turns, and at the same
time could not turn her eyes away from his face.
“It's none of my pizness. Go a-way! Jist let go my handt if you
please!”
The blood rushing once more to her face, she shone out in all her dignity,
radiant as the full moon after an eclipse.
“Very well, my child,—” the old man laughed—“Just as you please.
I'll light my pipe and go on my way.”
And then with a cool impudence that thrilled Betsy to the heart, he
strode very leisurely along the walk, and disappeared into the door of her
cabin. She saw him, in a moment, in the act of lighting his pipe by her
candle. She waited for him to come forth, but he did not seem to be at
all hurried, for while the dame, in all the palpitations of fear and wonder,
stood hesitating under the oak, a cloud of tobacco smoke rushed from the
cabin door. Should she call the neighbors? Should she summon the
magisterial dignataries of Germantown, to take the stranger into custody,
and commit him to prison under a serious charge of poverty and rags?
“But ten he may tell the folks apout my poor Adam,” was the thought
of the window, as boldly turning her steps to the door, she resolved to enter
her cottage, and dare the worst.
She entered. A tallow candle, inserted in an iron candlestick, which
whose whitewashed walls sequestered Betsy's charms, — and cider
—from the gaze of the profane world. It was the principal—almost her
only room. It was cleanly to a fault. The walls were white as her kerchief;
the floor scrubbed and sanded to the last extremity of cleanliness;
from the open cupboard in one corner, her burnished pewter shone like
silver; the very table on which the candle stood, looked as if Betsy had
been polishing it, under the strong impression that it was made of some
kind of precious metal, and would shine like a looking glass some day.
In the way of ornament, or luxury, there was a round Dutch clock
hung in one corner, with its pendulum and chain, swinging away, over the
whitewhashed wall—free from any thing like a case—and reminding you
of a transfixed beetle, dangling its broken legs in the air. A looking glass
too, shone from the wall, near the clock, its walnut frame, adorned with a
boquet of roses, violets, and lilies, in the centre of which, by way of capping
the climax, was placed a huge sun-flower. Over the broad but fireless
hearth, hung two dingy and smoke-darkened engravings, one representing
a Shepherdess, feeding her lamb, and the other picturing the renowned
Doctor Faustus, in the act of selling his soul to the Devil.
These pictures were evidently the work of some Flemish artist, who—
deluded by no vague idea of the ideal or spiritual in beauty—took for his
rule, Bulk for Expression, and Quantity for Grace. The Shepherdess
was a fat, blooming dame—more substantial even than the good Widow
herself—and the lamb which she was feeding, was evidently a Premium
Lamb, in its way, for it was lost in a wilderness of white wool, and
seemed big enough to feed a whole corporation of Aldermen. As for
Doctor Faustus he was a jolly Burgomaster, with cheeks like pippins and
a nose like a red hot coal; the very Devil himself was inclined to fatness,
and looked as if his only drink was beer.
Such was the apartment into which the ragged wanderer, had intruded
with so little ceremony.
He was seated in the arm chair, near the table, anxiously perusing a
slip of paper, which he held near the light. As he read, he smoked, and
seemed determined not only to make himself perfectly at home, but to
wrap his visage in an impenetrable fog of tobacco.
“Some folks seem to make 'emselves at home—any how,” said the
Widow rather sarcastically.
“Betsy,” said the old man without raising his gaze from the slip of
paper, “How shall I get inside of the Haunted House?”
The question was asked very calmly—almost carelessly—and yet the
Widow could not believe her ears. From some cause or other, not yet
revealed to us, the very name of the Haunted House, made Betsy's dimples
disappear in one ominous frown, while her capacious bust heaved
cheeks, with the rapidity of lightning.
“Wot did you say?” she cried,—rising, folding her white arms over
her bust—and looking into the old Man's face with eyes like saucers.
“The Haunted House. That is what I said. How shall I get into it?
You must know. You live next door. It would be funny if you did n't.”
And the old fellow puffed and read, as if for a wager.
“Tont you know that house is Ha'nted? Tere's spooks and ghosts
and te oldt Sam himself in it;” said Betsy waving the forefinger of her
right hand with an ominous gesture.
“The very thing I'd like to see. Why bless your soul I never saw a
ghost in my life. I'd sooner see one that eat my supper.”
“Then go into it, and see 'em. I tont hinder you.”
“Yes, yes, my good girl, but you do hinder me. How shall I get in?”
looking keenly at her, from the shadow of his uplifted hand—“You ought
to know?”
“Me!” cried Betsy in a spasm of virtuous indignation—“Do I look
as if I had any thing to do with ghosts?”
She certainly did not. No ghost—save the Ghost of a Flemish painter
—but would have been frightened at the exuberant life of her full moon
face.
The old man rose, and advanced toward the hearth with a measured
stride.
“This is a fine closet,—this between the fire-place and the wall,” and
as he spoke he turned the button of the closet door.
It did indeed seem as if these words and the accompanying action, had
frozen every drop of blood in Betsy's veins. Her hands dropped on her
lap; she muttered a prayer in German.
“Let's see what's inside o' 't,” said the ragged wanderer. Betsy with
colorless face and expanding eyelids, watched his every movement. He
opened the door, and the closet, wide and roomy, with oaken panels, was laid
bare to the light.
“Rather singular, Betsy, the back part of the closet, is bolted—d' ye
hear? Bolted just like a door! Where does it lead you to?” the old man
turned his face over his shoulder, and looked at her with a sneering grimace—“Into
the next house, may be? Ho, ho, my girl did you think to
fool me?”
Betsy slid from the chair upon her knees.
“Tont! Tont! For Gott's sake, tont!” she gasped, clasping her
hands, while a mingled look of terror and entreaty convulsed her face—
“You tont know what you do—you tont know what you do—” and she
wrung her hands as she knelt upon the floor.
The old man with his finger on his lip, regarded her for a moment with
a searching look.
“There is more in all this than meets the eye, by Jove!—” he advanced,
and took the candle from the table, “By the Lord Harry, but I
believe this paper tells the truth. We'll see.”
Candlestick in hand, he entered the closet and drew the bolt, and at the
same moment Betsy bounding from the floor, crossed the room with a
spring, and grasped him nervously with both hands.
The old man started as he beheld the terror—the wild affright—the
almost grotesque entreaty painted on her face
“If you go on I'll holler murter!” she whispered, clenching his right
arm with both hands.
“Do so! Call the neighbors, and after I've told 'em of poor Adam's
death, I'll tell them that there's been a murder committed in the next
house, and myself and the neighbors will go in together. Holler Betsy!”
The widow as if utterly unnerved by this threat relaxed her grasp, and
fell back into a chair.
“Gott pity me! Gott pity me!” and she wrung her hands, while the
tears streamed down her cheeks.
28. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTH
THE HAUNTED HOUSE.
The old man drew the bolt, and the back panel of the closet opened
like a door. Light in hand, he peered across the gloomy threshold, the
rays streaming over his shoulders, and marking his figure in a bold relief
against the darkness.
“A door cut through the thick stone wall into the Haunted House!” he
muttered, and crossed the threshold.
Betsy as if driven to the last extremity of despair, uttered a groan,—a
muttered prayer in German—and the old man thoroughly steeled against
her groans and prayers, closed the door after him, and secured it by a bolt,
which glided into the thickness of the wall.
“She's prayin'—” he murmured, listening at the panel—“What in the
deuce is the matter with the good woman?”
Raising the light, he examined the features of the place. There are
certain faces, which strike you at first sight with an inexplicable feeling,
which mingles terror the most instinctive with fascination the most irresistible.
eyes away from it. It suggests at once the idea of some terrible crime,
or of suffering too deep for tears.
So in the depths of the forest, where withered leaves give their harsh
echo to your lonely tread, and gloomy pines shuts out the daylight from
your face, you sometimes chance upon a scene that fills you with the
same indescribable emotion of mingled terror and fascination. This scene
may be a lonely pool sunken in the hollow of herbless rocks, and looking
as if the foot of man had never profaned its solitude—it may be a cavern,
hollow and vast, and agitated with the murmurs of dripping water—it
may be a grassy glade in the thick woods, full of herbage and flowers, and
yet so terribly still, so utterly isolated; without the hum of a bee to break
its stillness, or the mark of a footprint to disturb its profound loneliness.
Still in every case this scene of nature makes its mark upon your soul;
leaves there forever a sensation of fascination combined with terror.
If there are faces—if there are scenes in wild nature—that possess this
singular power, so it has often seemed to me, there are chambers in old
and deserted mansions that have a character all their own; that strike you
at once with a shudder and a joy; that pervade your whole being with
the memory of a vivid pleasure and the dim consciousness of a hideous
crime.
It was a chamber such as this, in which the old man stood lifting the
candle above his head.
It was wide and spacious. The ceiling was lofty; the walls panelled
with sombre wood. Along the window,—looking perchance into the
garden—hung curtains of rich texture and purple dye. The hearth was
broad and roomy, and above extended the mantle, adorned with a thousand
intricate carvings.
Such were the general outlines of the place, and yet it impressed the
heart of the gazer, with that mingled feeling—a shuddering fear, an overwhelming
fascination.
Had the thousand figures sculptured on the panelled walls, dusky now
with dust and time ever witnessed scenes of misery—of crime—enacted
upon the glittering mahogany floor? Had the lofty ceiling ever echoed
the shrieks of outraged maidenhood, or the last, low, gurgling groan of
life—life snapt in twain by the hand of Murder? That fire place so
broad and roomy,—how many scenes had its fires lighted in days bygone,
how many happy faces had clustered in its glow,—faces of the Child too
new from Heaven to know Sin, of the Maiden just palpitating into Love,
of the Aged waiting with gray hairs, and sluggish blood for Death to come
and chill them into dust!
Thoughts like these steal on the mind in one of those ancient chambers
of a deserted home. It seemed to the awed intruder upon this silent
place, as if the isolated room—bit with memories—had a Soul.
The old man looked silently about the place, while the candle held
aloft in his right arm, cast its rays over his long, white hair, and beard
waving on his breast: over his tall frame, clad in beggar's rags, and made
a circle of light around him, leaving all beside in twilight obscurity.
“I have seen a Face, which reminds me of this room!” he said—and
started at the sound of his voice.
The Face which he remembered had a terror also, for he trembled as
he spoke of it, although his eyes grew more vivid in their light.
“This is the place,” he said, “The very room of which poor Adam
spoke as he died in my arms. `I had thought to take advantage of it myself'
he said,—how his white lips quivered, as the words were uttered
with his passing breath! `but I'll never see home agin'. Then he gave
me this paper, and says he, `if Betsy's alive be kind to her—don't let her
come to want, comrade, or I'll haunt you, by —!' About an hour
after that he died.”
The old man placed the light upon the mantel, and held before its rays
the slip of paper, which he so anxiously perused not many minutes before.
It was dingy and worn as though it had been handled many a time by
rough fingers, and the characters traced upon it, were written in a bold
yet rugged hand. The words which it bore were few,—without comma
or period—and to all appearance without a meaning.
Four rooms on the lower floor The Room next the
garden south of the hall under the Harp
“Under the Harp,” murmured the old man, passing around the room
light in hand, and examining with a keen glance the carvings which
adorned the panels: “Here are angels and devils, and all sorts of odd images
cut in black wood, but as for a Harp—hey? Let's see? Nothing
o' th' kind here,—nor here—zounds! I must have mistook the room.”
He traversed the room many times, not only perusing the panels as
though they were the leaves of some precious book, but carefully examining
the figures carved upon the mantel-piece, and raising the candle
above his head, as he attentively surveyed the ceiling. His search was
however in vain.
Nothing like the figure of a Harp met his gaze.
“Yet Adam believed in it; a straight story, too, and told just before he
died. If I find it—if the story is true—if—if—curses upon that if!”
He clenched his right hand, pressed his nether lip between his teeth,
and muttered an oath as he glided on tip-toe along the dusky floor.
“If! Then I may escape, yes escape from this—”
He paused; the words died on his tongue, as though a sudden memory
had frozen his utterance. Trembling—writhing in every nerve—his face
struggle in all the bitterness of despair, with a more than mortal anguish.
“What ray of hope? Not one—not one! Like a man buried alive,
I feel the coffin lid upon my breast, but cannot move.”
He placed the light upon the mantel, and covered his face with his
hands.
We may not picture the full agony of that moment, nor reveal the
cause of the old man's measureless woe! Scalding tears were on his
cheeks—with a curse he dashed them away, and raised his flashing eyes
toward the light.
“I must be gone. I must leave this place. There is work for me,—a
dog's work and a devil's wages!”
Turning away, his eye was arrested even as he raised the light, by a
small hook which projected from the panel above the mantel. There was
a belt suspended from this hook, a belt of many dyes, whose vivid contrasts
glared upon him from the dark background of the wainscot. He
seized the belt with an eager gesture; he held it to the light; it needed
no second glance to ascertain its use and purpose.
29. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINTH.
THE BELT OF WAMPUM.
It was a Belt of Wampum, woven with those heiroglyphs which are
letters, learning, Memory to the Red Man.
“The Belt of Yoconok!” he gasped, in a broken whisper.
Then, as if this wampum string, rich with the enigmas of the Indian's
history, brought home to him—the wandering beggar—some memory of
his own life, in hues of terrible distinctness, he sank upon his knee and
his head dropped on his breast. Upon the broad stones of the hearth he
knelt, while the light from above shone upon his gray hairs, as they trembled
with the strong impulse which shook his frame.
Before his fixed eyeballs, upon the very slab on which he knelt, the
figure of a Harp appeared, sculptured in the dim red stone. He saw it,
but heeded it not.
Impelled by some unknown but powerful cause, he had sought for it
earnestly and long, but now that it was thrust upon his sight, he did not
think it worthy of a moment's thought.
The Wampum Belt, which he grasped with a quivering hand, carried
his soul to other days; called up before him the face of the beautiful
and—Dead.
“How came it here?” he gasped, “Whose work is this? Is it another
trick of the Devil,—or can it be a token of forgiveness?”
Starting from the hearth he seized the light, his features quivering and
his eye rolling wildly, as he hurried to the door of the chamber.
“I must search this den,” he cried, with an oath—“For the living I do
not care, and as for the dead, there is one now sleeping in the sod who
would not harm even me.”
Then out into the gloomy and silent hall, with its broad staircase and
dusky wainscot, he hurried, and through the rooms of the lower floor,
rooms stored with antique furniture, but still and breathless as the grave.
Massive mirrors returned the rays of his candle in broken flashes; velvet
carpets gave no echo to his frenzied step; pictures framed in gold and
seen in mingled light and shadow, seemed to sneer and scowl as he
went by.
Three gorgeous chambers were those on the lower floor, with dust and
cobwebs upon their antique furniture; with their windows sealed from the
light of sun or star; their very atmosphere breathing of desolation and decay.
The old man searched them all, and then his foot was on the wide
staircase which led toward the upper rooms of the forsaken house. He
listened—there was no sound. A night deeper and more death-like than
the night without, reigned through the place. The old man went up the
stairs, and reached the last step, when a sudden blast—like the air pouring
through an open door—extinguished his light.
He was alone, in the thick darkness, alone in the intense night of that
Haunted House. Haunted indeed to him, for the Wampum Belt which
he grasped, evoked the Ghosts of memory, and he saw, even through
the darkness, a pale face and a blood-bedabbled breast, as he had seen them
in other days.
Clasping the railing of the staircase—afraid of his own footstep's echo,
—he peered through the darkness, while his heart leaped to his throat.
Slowly, as his eyes became more accustomed to the gloom, he became
conscious that a broad window, at the end of the corridor was open, with
a gleam of starlight and a breath of evening air stealing through its parted
curtains. This window looked out upon the neglected garden.
There was a long pause of hesitation and doubt. The old man, completely
bewildered by a train of irresistible emotions, aroused into life by
sight of the Wampum Belt, knew not which way to turn. That vast,
gloomy, soundless old mansion, struck him with a mysterious interest and
yet with a creeping terror.
“Curses on it! The light is gone, and I dont know which way to
move. What hand opened that window? Can this dreary old place be
dark, or feel the bony fingers of a skeleton ag'inst my cheek.”
Turning his face from the direction of the window, he peered into the
darkness of the corridor, when lo! that darkness was broken by a sudden
and quivering ray. A ray that flashed into the gloom, lighting up the
dusky walls, and then was gone!
The old man held his breath, but felt his heart mount to his throat.
“Was it a fancy o' mine—I believe I'm goin' mad—”
That ray once more, flashing, not across the corridor, but from its farther
extremity, and quivering in a long line over the dark floor, into the
very eyes of the bewildered man!
“Hah! This passage does n't extend through the house like the one
on the lower floor—only half-way—and it is terminated not by a door—
no! That ray came through a curtain—I'd swear it.”
Hurrying along on tip-toe, like a man who is conscious that the next
moment may plunge him into some frightful surprise, he presently touched
the curtain with his extended hands. He dashed it aside—his convulsed
features, framed in the waving hair and beard, were bathed in a gush of
light.
It was the light of a tall waxen candle, which illumined a silent and
deserted apartment. Hesitating on the threshold, the old man took in
the features of the place at a glance. Circular in form, hung with dark
hangings, the ceiling lofty and the floor glittering like a mirror, this room
presented vividly to his gaze, a table or altar, covered with a snow-white
cloth, and thrown into bold relief by the sombre background.
In the centre of this altar the waxen candle, in a candlestick of silver;
above from the dark wall, an image of the Saviour glowed in the light; and
a massive volume lay open upon the altar cloth.
The old man advanced—wondering—pale—with every faculty of his
soul dilating with an intensity of suspense. These objects—the table, the
Crucifix, the Book—alone disturbed the sullen uniformity of the circular
apartment.
“It's the Bible,” he whispered, bending over the book, “An' that
Image looks as if it came from a South American Church.”
Clutching the Wampum Belt with unconscious force, the old man surveyed
the apartment, while its silence and gloom imbued his very being
with an awe which he endeavored in vain to dispel.
Hark! Was it a footstep—or the sound of the breeze, among these dim
curtains? His arms dropped by his side; he bent his head, and listened—
Again that sound, like the echo of a footstep; it came near and nearer,
it resounded beyond those hangings.
The old man glided back into the darkness of the corrider, and at the
same instant that step was heard within the apartment, which he left.
There was a pause; an unbroken stillness; the old man, holding his
by the curtains but dared not look through their folds.
How the images of his aroused soul—the images of memory—of crime
—seemed to take shape, in that moment, and glare before him, through
the night of the corridor!
At length he gathered courage: parting the curtains without a sound,
he looked within.
A white form was kneeling before the white altar, beneath the Divine
Image, with hands like marble, clasped above her head, whose long and
flowing hair, fell on her shoulders, pure and beautiful as snow.
The face he could not see, but the white hands clasped above the head,
—the pure skin of the half-covered shoulders, gleaming through the intervals
of the waving brown hair—met his gaze and yet he could not for a
moment believe that he beheld a living being.
It was the form of a woman, rounded and full, as though the bud of
maidenhood, had just opened its leaves, and ripened into perfect bloom.
The robe which clothed it, was white and loose and flowing and yet it
could not hide the outlines of a shape, which slender and full of grace,
was yet stamped in the rich mould of voluptuous loveliness.
Beneath the folds of the robe, the feet appeared, small and beautiful, and
looking like marble, when contrasted with the dark floor.
It was like the image of a Marble Nun, kneeling in the Sanctity of
some cathedral shrine; an image of deathless purity, centered among
images of gloom and death.
It was no ghost; nor marble form, but a breathing and beautiful woman,
full of life; with warm blood coursing through her veins. That glimpse
of her shoulders, seen through the mazes of the brown hair, told the story
of a young and beautiful shape.
And the poor wretch, clad in rags, clutched the curtains with trembling
hands, and looked,—while a ray of light shining upon his eyeballs,
showed that they flashed—grew dim with tears—and burned into life again.
Was it a voice that he heard? Low, whispering, scarcely audible, a
voice breathing words of prayer.
Had the world been his to give, he would have given it, but to catch
one glimpse of her face. She did not move—her hands above her dark
hair, she seemed gazing into the face of the Crucified.
What name was that, mingling with her prayer? The wandering wretch
who looked, and listened—with eyes, and ears and soul—felt the cold
sweat start from his forehead.
It was the name of a Criminal; of a man doomed to walk the earth
with a curse upon his soul; a man capable of the highest deeds but immersed
in vices the most repulsive,—a Murderer.
And yet the unknown prayed for this wretch—but no, it could not be.
The listener had not heard aright.
“O that she would rise, and look this way! It's worth ten lives to
look upon that face—but no! It cannot be. I'm only dreamin'.”
She rose, and took the light and gazed slowly around the room. And
then passed through the hangings, and all was darkness. But he had seen
her face, her neck and shoulders, with a gleam of the spotless breast,
heaving above the ruffle of her loosened robe. She was gone, but that
face was painted on the darkness—stamped upon his soul.
“By—!” he cried, sinking helplessly on the floor—“It's Madeline!”
30. CHAPTER THIRTIETH.
THE OUTCAST IN THE CHAMBER OF MADELINE.
How long he knelt he knew not, but when full consciousness came back
again, he found himself in the darkness, grasping the curtains of that lone
room, with stiffened fingers, and clutching still—with his right hand—the
Wampum Belt of Yoconok.
An hour may have passed since that bright Presence shone before the
solitary altar.
“I must begone—” he muttered, pressing his hand against his damp
forehead. “There is work for me yonder, among the hills—the hand that
leads me, neither man nor devil can resist. But no! Not until I have
found out the secret of this place—not until—”
There came a Thought which chilled every vein.
He rose, and as if guided by some strange instinct—or by Destiny—
he soon discovered the passage by which the beautiful form, had entered
the lone room.
Along this passage he stumbled, in the darkness of course, until he suddenly
passed between the hangings, and found himself in a large and
spacious chamber, where a single light—the waxen candle of the place
of prayer—was dimly burning.
“It is the room above the one, by which I entered this house—” the
thought flashed upon him, as he gazed around. “But where is she? Hah!
Yonder,—in the arms of her Husband—or paramour!”
A strange thing it was to see that robust old man, stand so tattered and
wayworn, in the mingled light and gloom of that luxurious chamber.
Upon the threshold, his brow knit,—the eyes flashing with a look of ominous
clenching his hands, as he surveyed the place.
The light stood upon an antique bureau, whose jet-black wood, was
surmounted by a large mirror. That mirror, dimly glittering, reflected the
bed which stood opposite, with snowy curtains drawn together,—the carpet
of velvet—the hangings of crimson silk—and the wan haggard figure,
standing on the threshold, the livid face, gazing in scorn upon all this
splendor.
It certainly did not look like the Haunt of a Ghost. The harp near
the curtained bed, was evidently swept by no spectral hand; that dress
of black velvet, embroidered with gold was not intended to clasp the cold
form of the dead; those jewels, scattered over the bureau were not designed
to display their radiance, save upon the white brow or panting
breast of a young and passionate woman.
—Even as I write, there is a picture of that scene before me. It is
rudely sketched upon a blank space in the original Manuscript, from which
this history is derived. Rudely sketched with pen and ink, and brown
with age, and yet it makes its mark upon the soul.
It is but a picture of a wild and haggard figure—the very type of poverty
and age—standing amid the hangings of a lofty and spacious room,
and gazing with an indescribable scorn, upon its luxurious display. In
one corner, a snow-white couch, with curtains closely drawn, glares from
the darkness; and the scene is lighted by a solitary candle, which glitters
into the smooth surface of a mirror framed in gold, like a star shining into
a waveless pool. The Harp, the costume of velvet, the jewels on the
bureau, all are sketched; and from the curtains of the bed, appears a hand
and arm, which at once enchain your gaze with their faultless outline.
Indeed, gaze upon the picture as often as you will, your eye at last alternates
between that haggard face, and the half-revealed arm of the unknown
sleeper.—
“Sleeping? Hah! The sound of her breath, and his mingling together.
A look by Jove, only one, ho, ho! Satan peepin' into Eden—”
Half-muttering these words, the aged vagabond or outcast, as you will,
drew near the bed, his hand wandering—instinctively perchance—to the
knife whose hilt appeared at his girdle, among his rags. He reached forth
his hand to grasp the curtain, but as suddenly withdrew it, and started
backward, as if swayed by a new impulse.
Treading on tip-toe he approached the antique bureau. His haggard
face was reflected vividly in the mirror, by the rays of the candle. He
recognized it with a grim smile, indeed his laughter deep and mocking and
but half suppressed, sounded unlike the mirth of a human being.
“Ho! What have we here! Letters,—ah, ha! Let me make myself
at home, and peruse at my leisure these precious memorials of love!”
This man so uncouth in his attire, so various in his speech—now uttering
the broken words of deep and sincere emotion, now sneering at his
very agony, and turning his Fear into a jest—reached forth his hand, and
grasped a mass of manuscript, which was laid upon the cloth of the bureau,
among the jewels.
“A fine hand, too,—delicate and woman-like! Confessions of love for
the Rich and Titled, mingled with curses for the outcast and murderer.
By the Fiend!” he pressed his hand suddenly to his forehead. “It seems to
me that this is some feverish dream!”
Then seating himself in an arm chair, with its high back between the
light and the bed, he glanced over the manuscript. While the sound of
the sleeper's breath, broke softly on the deep silence, the old man gazed
eagerly upon those pages, which seemed to reveal the mystery of a Woman's
Life. On the first page, in a hand tremulous yet bold was written,
title of the Manuscript.
31. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIRST.
CONFESSION OF MADELINE.
“How shall I ever recall the events of that fatal night! My blood
chills at the memory, and yet a fascination which I cannot resist impels
me to make the record.
“Afar from my native land, surrounded by scenes of luxury and splendor,
my heart pants for—Home! Home! In all the world there is no
home for me but Wissahikon. Could I but drink of its waters once more,
—stand for a moment among its rocks and trees, and sunlight and shadows—the
next moment I would be willing to die. Then a grave amid
those scenes of Wissahikon! Alas! Alas!—”
When the old man had read thus far he laid down the Manuscript and
covered his face with his hand. Many moments elapsed before he resumed
the reading.
“Let me, by recording the events of that fatal night, endeavor to bring
home the rocks and trees of Wissahikon! Strange and mysterious events
—was ever fate, so dark and yet so inexplicable as mine?”
—The reader paused again, and cast his flashing eye toward the bed on
which the unconscious sleeper lay.
“It's no dream,” he muttered “I'm awake I believe!—”
“I remember unclosing my eyes, in that familiar room of my childhood's
home, and even now, I can see his face lowering upon me, as I lay
stretched upon the floor. That was a fearful look—like madness—which
stamped his features, as awaking from my swoon, I reached forth my
arms to him and murmured, Gilbert! And yet he stabbed me—”
—The paper dropped from the old man's hands. He saw his face in
the glass, those sunburnt features framed in white hair, and livid as death,
and started back, as though horror-stricken at the Image of his soul,
painted in the glittering mirror. Again a pause ensued. Still the sleeper
rested in her luxurious couch, unconscious that the eyes of a wanderer,
an outcast, had profaned the sanctity of her chamber.
“Consciousness returned once more. I awoke—looked around—the
room of my childhood's home was gone. Could I believe my senses—
was I enveloped by the horrors of a nightmare? A pale blue light shone
in my face, as I awoke, and gave a ghastly radiance to the arches and pillars
of a grave vault. Yes, my form unclothed, my limbs arranged in
the attitude of death, I was about to be shut up forever in the slumber of
the grave. Nay—I was buried already—the arches of my tomb were
around me; that pale light, was the ghastly meteor, which hovers over
the festering decay of the charnel.
“The horror of that moment I shall never—never forget!
“I started up, and dragged my stiffened limbs over the cold floor, and
felt a sharp pain shoot through my bleeding breast. I was buried alive.
—Thank God! There was an open door, yes the entrance of the tomb
was open. I hurried through into the cold and darkness, and without
knowing whither I fled, ascended stairway after stairway, and fell fainting
at last upon a bed, which stood in the shadows of a large and gloomy
chamber. I had escaped the grave—I knew no more—
“After a troubled sleep, broken by a frightful dream,—in which I saw
his face and the uplifted knife—I woke once more, and became conscious
that a woman's form was slumbering at my side. I reached forth my arm,
and with a shriek the unknown woman bounded from the bed. Looking
through the curtains I saw her stand, so beautiful in the centre of the
gloomy room—It was the Wizard's daughter! That lovely girl, whose
face I had often seen, in the forest, although—as she swept so proudly by
me—I had never exchanged a word with her.
“The truth rushed upon me; I was in the house of Isaac the Wizard.
My heart was ice—an overwhelming fright, made me tremble from head
to foot. I remembered the scene of the night before, when in the silence
of the wintry woods, beside the dead body of Yoconok, I met the pale old
man, Issac Van Behme. I remembered his prediction, as he took my
Ring shall ever cross this hand. No child shall ever bless your sight. I read
it in the lustre of your eye, which is lighted by the fire of a changeless
Destiny! Alas! Alas! I pity and rejoice! Dishonor and a Sudden
Death will soon be yours!”'
—The old man raised his eyes; he was trembling from head to foot
like a withered leaf. His visage displayed at once a kind of rugged sympathy
mingled with a vague amazement.—
“This was the Prophecy, which he had uttered only the night before.
What fearful, what incredible events had followed that Prophecy! Not
Dishonor, no! no! Temptation is not sin; we may look over a dizzy
height and not fall—”
—“Madeline!” muttered the old outcast, when he had read this sentence,
“Thank God! Thank God!—”
“But the wound inflicted by Gilbert's hand was still bleeding; my
breast was stained with clotted blood. And now, for what was I reserved?
The supernatural atmosphere investing the very name of the Wizard—
the wild stories told about the hearths of Wissahikon, concerning his compact
with the Fiend—his Prophecy uttered to me, only the night before,
a Prophecy almost fulfilled by events so sad and appalling—thoughts and
memories like these filled me with terror worse than death itself.
“Meanwhile the Wizard's daughter, pale and beautiful and convulsed
with affright stood in the centre of the room, rending the air with her
shrieks. Two figures appeared, Black David, the miserable deformed of
Wissahikon—”
—The old man uttered an ejaculation, and bent down to the MSS.
with a more intense interest flashing from his eye.—
—“And Isaac the Wizard. I can only remember that with the blood
oozing from my breast, I sprang from the bed, and clutched the beautiful
girl by the knees. Save me! Save me! These words I uttered and then
all was a blank,—a blank only disturbed by the never-fading vision of
Gilbert's face, convulsed with the purpose of Murder, and Gilbert's arm
quivering the knife above my naked breast.”
—“This Gilbert must have been an infernal scoundrel,” said the old
man, with a sardonic smile. “I should like to meet him some day!” And
then he laughed to himself as though he had uttered an excellent jest, and
turned to the Manuscript again.—
“How well I remember it, that day when the dream passed away, and
I found myself stretched upon a comfortable couch, with the air of spring,
fresh with the breath of violets, blowing gently through the unclosed window
of a large and luxuriously furnished apartment. My room in the
Haunted House of Germantown!”
—“Hah! The Haunted House!” ejaculated the reader.—
“Then first appeared my unknown friend, that kind Protector, who
but whom still—it is ungrateful, it is wicked! I can never look upon,
without a tremor, a shudder.”
—It was terrible to see the expression which darkened the old man's
face, as grasping the Manuscript with both hands, he held it closer to his
eyes, devouring every word with a gloating intensity.—
“He drew near my beside. How well I remember the impression
made upon me by his face, his form! While the sun was stealing through
the unclosed window, I saw a man of some sixty years, with short gray
hair and a pale melancholy face, stand near me, with his hands upon his
breast. His attire, which indicated by its fashion and texture, the gentleman
of rank or wealth, could not altogether conceal the defects, I cannot
say, deformities of his shape. As he advanced, I saw that he was lame;
his limbs mis-shapen, and his broad shoulders rising in an unsightly
hump. But his face, so pale,—so steeped in melancholy—the forehead
bold and high, with a single lock of gray hair falling down the centre; his
lips wearing a sad yet gentle smile, the eyes seeming as though they did
not shine, but burn in their sockets.—I could not help being won to that
face, and at the same time I regarded it with a shudder. Such was my
first impression of that kind friend, who has been to me, Father, World,
Home; who has unclosed to my soul the golden worlds of Music, Painting,
Poetry; who has borne me from land to land, and taught the poor
Orphan Girl of Wissahikon to mingle unabashed with the throngs of
fashion, the liveried crowds of a royal court. Still, one drink from the
waters of the Wissahikon were worth it all!'
—“Wissahikon! It's a sweet word, and yet you were stabbed there,
girl, by the hand of this Gilbert—this murderer.” The old man did not
wipe away the tear that rolled down his cheek. He read on; the Manuscript
revealed a strange escape from the grave.—
“He, my more than friend, near my bed—even now I hear his voice,
whose tones charm the soul like bursts of subdued music:
“`The hand of the Murderer struck in vain. You are weak and faint,
my child, but the wound is healed. Well was it for you that his hand
trembled!'
“`But Gilbert,' I cried, raising myself languidly upon my bed—`Gilbert!
They have loaded him with chains, they have hurled him into
prison. O, hasten to him; let him be free! He was my friend, almost
my Husband—'
“`Gilbert,' said my Protector, `Gilbert is dead.'
“`I heard no more. It was a long time before I unclosed my eyes.'
“`And thou, fair child, shalt leave these scenes. I will be to thee as
Father; thou shalt be my Daughter. These people who have wronged
thee, shall never behold thy face again. Wilt thou go with me to the end
of the world?'
“His gaze penetrated me with an inexplicable fascination. I could
not help it—I stretched forth my arms, and said, `Father!' The tears
rolled down his cheeks, and then he muttered wildly to himself.
“`How was I saved—' I asked.
“`On that night I was journeying through the forest of Wissahikon,
when a poor deformed wretch placed in my arms the body of a half-naked,
and almost lifeless maiden. Black David gives thee this—he said,
with a wild laugh, and disappeared.'
“`Black David! The poor deformed! He saved my life then—saved
me from the Wizard—'
“`Black David is dead,' said my Protector, in a mournful tone, and
then told me how he had borne me to this house, keeping my very existence
a secret from the village folk, while himself and a kind-hearted woman
watched by my beside. It was many days before I recovered my
strength. One night we left the `Haunted House,' and since that hour
my heart has never ceased to long for Wissahikon.”
When the aged man had read this passage, he started from the chair
and drew near the bed, whose curtains enshrined the sleeper.
“Black David was more merciful to you than Gilbert!” he muttered—
and touched the white hand as it projected from the curtains. Touched
the hand, with a gentle and respectful movement, even as a Devotee would
press the hand of a marble divinity.
“Sleep on, sleep on,” muttered the Outcast, as the sound of her breath
stole on the stillness, “You can sleep in safety, for Gilbert, the Murderer,
is dead.”
Gliding back to the light, he contemplated the Manuscript of Madeline
with a look of profound emotion.
“There's much food for thought in your words, young girl, and it
makes a man's brain boil like hot lead, but to read your sufferin's. One
more glance, and then I'll go. What business has the devil in Eden?”
Once more he took up the Confessions of Madeline.
“How shall I ever record that scene. There are no words in human
speech to describe it; even now, the memory of that incident perplexes
and confounds me. It occurred on the Twenty-Third of November,
1775. We were sitting in our quiet home among the hills of Yorkshire.
The leaves were falling; from our window, a wide sweep of brown heath
stretched sullenly toward the river shore, and the mists of autumn curled
slowly about the distant hills.
“My Protector was unusually sad.
“`My child,' said he, seating me in a chair before him, and taking my
hands within his own, `This is a day dedicated to an awful memory. The
blackest day in the long calendar of three hundred years.' His eyes
assumed a strange glassy intensity; they were fixed upon me with overwhelming
which without thee, will be lost forever.
“His voice went to my heart. And yet, strange as it may seem, I
fell asleep, even while he held my hands and looked into my eyes. My
eyelids grew weary; I struggled and wrestled with the slumber which
came over me, but in vain. It was not sleep, in the familiar sense. No!
My body was numbed; paralyzed; I could not move a finger, but my Soul
was awake, free, and full of life. O, the calm delight of that moment! I
was conscious that my Protector was there; I heard his voice, felt his
presence, and yet my body was paralyzed in a strange, unnatural sleep.
But my soul: it was like a bird suddenly set free, soaring into the sky,
high and higher, with unbroken light upon its wings. Then it was like
a waveless Lake, set in the hollow of some mountain top, without a breeze
to stir its glassy surface, even into the faintest ripple, without a sound to
break the profound stillness of its borders,—calm, calm,—unutterably
calm.[1]
“Then a new consciousness crept over me. It seemed to me that the
Soul of my Protector talked with mine; that I heard the Thoughts of his
soul, spoken in a voice without a sound; such a voice as we imagine
when reading a favorite book alone; it was, in a word, as though his Soul
had taken the place of mine, filling my whole being with its power.
“While in this state, an incident—or shall I call it a vision? took
place, which I have never been able to comprehend or explain. Let me
record it as it appeared to me; it is beyond my hope to depict either its
causes or its full details; some broken glimpses of that incident—that
Truth or Dream—are all that the poverty of words enable me to describe.
“Thus it seemed to me:
“My Soul escaping from the body, which sat dumb and paralyzed, in
the chair before my Protector's gaze, My soul traversed a space of some
hundreds of years back into time, and hovering invisible in the air of a
half-lighted chamber, beheld a deed which took place in the Sixteenth
Century.
“It was in a room in some guard old Feudal Castle, lighted by a single
lofty and pointed window, which looked to the western sky, where huge
white clouds, were glowing in the setting sun. Even now I can see that
chamber, with high ceiling and dark purple tapestry,—nay I can feel the
atmosphere of gloom, which seemed to brood over its antique splendor,
even as the broad gleam of sunshine, came through the casement. There
was the effigy of a Knight in armor, near the window, glittering sullenly
in the light; and in the shadows stood a massive couch, overhung with
drapery, and crowned with a Lordly crest.
“Near the window, where the sunshine was brightest sat a woman of
surpassing beauty, clad in black velvet, embroidered with gold, with her
hair, falling unrestrained over her shoulders. She did not look like an
English woman; there were no looks of golden hair, twining about a
sunny face. No! Her hair was black as jet; her eyes large, dark and
wildly brilliant; her pale forehead, shaded by the jetty hair, was invested
with a lofty, almost hallowed beauty. She was very young; her form,
so fragile and girlish, seemed to tell the story of seventeen venteen summers, but
her face, pale and beautiful, stamped with unspeakable grief, indicated that
in suffering at least, she had already lived a life-time.
“And upon her young breast—it was bare, and her black robe, made it
seem whiter than marble—hung a babe, not more than three months old.
A very tiny thing, that slept so calmly in the sunset rays, and laid its little
marble hand, upon its young mother's midnight hair.
“No words can tell how passingly beautiful this lone woman and her
babe, seemed to me; the babe smiling in its sleep; the mother so sad
and thoughtful amid all this splendor.
“Suddenly I became conscious of another form. It was a man, dressed
in a garb, that mingled strangely the costume of the Monk with the soldier.
He came from the darkness, stole softly behind the Mother, and
then I saw his face. The sun shone upon it; I beheld it, and it is before
me now in clear, distinct and terrible outlines.
“It was the face of my Protector! but oh! how changed, how distorted
as with the conflict of infernal passions!
“He stood behind the Mother's chair—unseen and scowling—his lip
tightening as he saw the babe, nestling upon her white breast. Then I
heard his voice—”
“`Leola my wife, this is the Twelfth of November, he whispered—
`Dost thou remember last year?'
“Before she could turn her face to look upon him, nay before her parting
lips could frame a word, his arm rose above her head—a sharp blade
flashed in the air—and the face of the child, was covered with blood;
blood which spouted from the mother's breast. Yes, the blade was buried
to the hilt—the golden hilt, which shone upon that snowy breast,
amid the gushing blood, as if in very mockery of the deed.
“The young mother did not fall; she did not even stir. But even as
she sat there in the chair, grasping her babe, she raised her eyes to her
Husband's face and died. Her lips moved just before her eyes grew
fixed and glassy—I would have given the world to have heard her words
—but her voice was inaudible. She spoke to him as she died, but that
low whisper melted unheard upon the air.”
“And the Husband, now convulsed with a Remorse as terrible as his
Crime, bent over the dead body, as it sate erect, and with repeated out-cries,
seemed determined to wrench her last words, from her pale cold
lips.
“At this moment, I heard the voice of my Protector's soul, speaking to
mine. Yes, it may seem extravagant,—mad—but while my Protector
clasped the hands of my unconscious body, his Soul spoke to mine, even as
that Soul was an invisible witness to a terrible scene of a long past age.
And these are the words, which that soundless voice spoke to me:
“`Madeline! Thy soul is now a silent witness of the Deed which took
place centuries ago. Thy soul now hovers above his guilty face—above
her mangled form. Tell me, O tell me in the name of the Murdered
Mother, and remember the fate of an immortal soul hangs on thy answer,
tell me, didst thou hear the last words which quivered on her lips,
ere she died?'
My soul framed its answer:
“`No! No! Her lips moved, but her words I could not hear!'
“Then the entire scene passed away. The vision, or the spell, term it
what you will, passed away. I awoke; the blood stirred in my veins
with a slow, languid motion; I unclosed my eyes, and found myself sitting
in the chair, with the hands of my Protector—my Father shall I call
him? clasping my arm.
“Never shall I forget the expression of his face! His eyes burned with
more than mortal lustre, his features were horribly distorted; his quivering
lips were spotted with foam, and the lock of gray hair, swept aside
from his forehead revealed the cicatrice of a hideous wound, in the form
of a Cross.
“`Go to! Go to! Thou couldst not hear her last words? Is it so?
Then the blood of Leola does not course in thy veins—thou art not of
my race—some beggar's offspring, I trow, left by thy gipsy mother, in the
woods of Wissahikon!'
“As his face, deformed by unnatural agony, writhed before my gaze, it
seemed—shall I write it down, that vague improbable suspicion?—yes it
seemed to me, that I did not behold my kind Protector, my Father, but
Black David, the poor Deformed of Wissahikon.
“He turned away with curses, and fell insensible at my feet, his eyes
glassy, and the white foam hanging about his lips.”
—The old man lingered over this passage, while his eyes, sunken beneath
his white brows, glimmered with a sombre and glassy light. Not
a word passed his lips; the emotion which convulsed his frame, was only
indicated by his heaving chest and corrugated features. He turned to the
last paragraph of the Manuscript. It was dated June first, 1777.—
“Wissahikon! I have not seen it yet, but soon—very soon I hope to
stand among its leaves and flowers, and drink of its waters. Once more
I find myself wrapt in the solitude of the Haunted House—my Protector,
leaves me for hours, for days alone. When I beseech him to permit me
to see the Wissahikon once more, he answers—always in the same words,
and with a strange, sad smile, `Not yet, not yet. Wait my child; the
appointed time will soon be here.'
“To-day as I was thinking of `the old times,' when the poor Orphan
Girl dwelt in the woods of Wissahikon, without a care, I fell asleep
and dreamed a strange dream. The branches of those dear old trees, were
once more over my head; I was seated upon the moss, beside `the Indian
Spring' whose clear waters sparkle in the hollow of a rock. Every thing
seemed full of peace; bees were humming in the wild flowers; birds
sang in the trees, a wild tremulous song, that burst upon me like music
from Paradise; the sunshine came through the thickly woven branches,
and a single ray shone down into the bosom of the spring. I was happy,
O it seemed to me as if my heart rose with the notes of the bird, and
soared away in thankfulness to God. Gilbert was there, dressed in his
plain hunter's costume, with his rifle on his knee, as in the days of old.
Nay the Wampum Belt which Yoconok gave me was clasped in our
joined hands, as a token of unbroken faith, and I looked into his frank
honest face, without a fear. There was no sorrow upon his features, and
as his eye, rested upon me, he told me in a low voice how he would build
a cottage in the woods, and I should be his little wife and—. But
at this point of my dream, a drop of blood, fell from the branches of the
tree, into the very bosom of the spring. That drop widened slowly, un
til the clear water in the rocky basin, looked like a pool of blood. I gazed
upward in horror, and among the branches saw a hand, grasping a dying
Dove, and crushing it slowly to death. It was the hand of Peter Dorfner:
I saw his face, grinning in triumph, among the leaves. Even as I
looked, another face was there, framed in the leaves, the visage of my
Protector,—his lips were impressed with a cold sad smile, his eyes were
fixed upon me, with a look that chilled my blood. I started up in horror,
and flung my arms around Gilbert's neck, beseeching him to save the
dying Dove from the grasp of its murderer, when a hand was lightly laid
upon my shoulder, and a low deep voice, breathed my name. Turning
my head, even as I clung to Gilbert's breast, I saw the face of Reginald—”
Was this magnetism? The Author has experienced sensations precisely similar,
while in `the magnetic state,' as it is technically termed. Some years ago, he
was magnetized by the learned and eminent Dr. Nott, President of Union College,
a man above suspicion of trickery or deceit of any kind. The sensation was one
of unutterable calmness; the Physical Being in a state of paralysis, while the
Mind was in possession of all its powers, and as clear and serene as a sky without
a cloud. There are, indeed, no words in language to express this state; you might
as well try to paint a finished picture with brick dust and a dry stick, as to attempt
the delineation of the magnetic sleep by the words of human speech. At the same
time, the author frankly confesses, that he would not believe any thing like magnetism,
had he not experienced a portion of its phenomena in his own person, G.L.
32. CHAPTER THIRTY-SECOND.
MADELINE AND THE OUTCAST.
Here the Manuscript abruptly ended. The name of Reginald was the last
word.
The old man, sat perfectly motionless, absorbed in thought. One hand,
grasping the Manuscript shook with a nervous tremor; the other, shading
his eyes, could not conceal the tears which rolled one by one, over his
sun-burnt face.
And while he sat before the mirror,—an image of poverty and wretchedness,
encircled by the dim splendor of that chamber—the sound of the
sleeper's breath broke gently on the stillness, mingling with his half-uttered
groans.
“Reginald!” he whispered, “And who is Reginald? Ah, a light
breaks in upon me! Soh,—good girl, it was Reginald, who put his hand
upon your shoulder as you clung to Gilbert's neck? And you think
kindly of Gilbert, too, but your `Confessions' end with the the name of
Reginald. That means a great deal; a world o' meanin' in that word—”
The outcast rose, and with unsteady footsteps approached the bed. His
lips moved without a sound, as he went, and once or twice his hand wandered
instinctively to the hilt of his knife. Presently he stood beside the
couch, his face turned from the light, gazing in silence upon the beautiful
hand and arm, which appeared among the white curtains.
“An' that hand has toyed with Reginald's chesnut curls, as his kisses
warmed her lips!”
Trembling from head to foot, the old man parted the curtains and looked
within,—his right hand all the while laid upon the hilt of his knife.
In the mysterious twilight of the curtained couch, she slept, her cheek
resting on her bent arm, her dark brown hair, rising and falling with the
pulsations of her half-uncovered breast. The fringes of her closed lids
lay darkly on her cheek; her paried lips, gave a glimpse of her teeth; a
flush like an opening rose-bud bloomed upon her face. Her form, presenting
in its every outline, a type of ripened womanhood, lay motionless
as Death beneath his gaze.
Even as the Fiend, looked in upon the sleep of sinless Eve, parting the
leaves which shielded her form, as his breath polluted her cheek, so this
wan and haggard Outcast drew aside the curtains, and glowered with
ominous eyes, upon the slumber of poor Madeline.
“Madeline!” he whispered.
She stirred in her sleep, and her robe falling lower on her shoulder, disclosed
of that fatal scar, seemed to madden the Outcast.
“Madeline!” he hissed the word in her ear, and grasped her roughly
by the wrist—“Awake! Awake!”
She started up in the bed, and unclosed her eyes.
“God pity me!” she whispered, shuddering as she drew her white
arms over her breast. “This is some frightful dream!”
Between her and the light rose the tall form of the Outcast; she but
dimly discerned his face, but his eyes, flashing with unnatural lustre, penetrated
her very blood, with an icy shudder. She did not shriek, nor groan,
but folding her arms over her breast, gazed upon that terrible Apparition
with a vacant stare.
“Madeline—” said the Outcast, and his voice was broken and faint
like the voice of an aged man, “I have a message for you from Gilbert
Morgan!”
“Gilbert Morgan? Who are you that speak to me of Gilbert Morgan?”
She looked very beautiful, as clad in her loosened robes, as white as
snow, she crouched upon the edge of the bed, and gazed wonderingly
into the Outcast's face, very beautiful, but her cheek was colorless, her
eyes wildly brilliant with terror, while her bosom rested beneath her folded
arms, without pulse or motion.
“Come, Madeline, sit by me: I will tell you of Gilbert Morgan,” said
the old man, and with no rude grasp, he took her by the hand and led her
from the couch toward the light.
She sank into a chair, never once removing her frightened gaze from
his face, while her clasped hands gathered her robes over her breast, and
her brown hair falling to her shoulders, made her cheek seem pale and
death-like.
He sat in the shadow with his hand raised to his brow, and his burning
gaze centred upon her countenance.
“Gilbert Morgan?” she said, as she endeavored to collect her wandering
senses. “What mean you? Ah! Old man, your gaze fills me with
terror! Do not harm me, do not for the sake of Heaven!”
“Harm thee?” returned the Outcast, in a faint and broken voice—“The
old man is weak; he could not harm thee if he would. Thy hand, young
girl, can crush him into dust, even a hand so small and delicate as thine.
Listen Madeline! The good woman, who lives in the cabin next door,
gave me entrance to this house, and I made bold to enter your chamber:
for I have a message — a message of life and death, from Gilbert
Morgan!”
Faint and fainter his voice became; the last words were pronounced in
a whisper. At once, Madeline's terror and her paleness passed away.
Her cheek flushed, her bosom heaving, her eye radiant with delight, she
started from her chair, and laid her hands upon his arm.—
“Then Gilbert is not dead,” she cried—“He lives! Tell me,—he
lives?”
The Outcast did not reply. So radiant and yet so pure, in her womanly
beauty, she trembled there, her hands laid upon his arms, while her eyes
lighted up with all a woman's soul, that the old man, touched to his very
heart-strings by the sight, turned his face away, and with his toil-worn
hand brushed away a tear.
“He lives. That is, Gilbert lives. He sent me to you. And he sent
this token, so that you might know me for his messenger.”
From his rags he drew forth the token, a hunting knife with a handle
of bone, and a long blade, darkened at the point by a blood-red stain.
“This a token from Gilbert to me?” Madeline's face became pale
again; she started back, and regarded the old man with a dilating eye.
He held the knife toward her, but her hand shrunk back, and the fatal
weapon fell at her feet on the rich carpet, with a sullen sound.
His voice was broken, husky, as he replied:
“Yes, a token from a Murderer to his victim. He stabbed you with
that knife, young girl. You know it! Stabbed as you called him by
name, and reached out your arms to clasp his neck.” He paused—hesitated—and
continued—“That's the only token from a poor devil like
Gilbert, to a lady so rich and beautiful as you, my girl!”
“And Gilbert lives!” murmured Madeline, with an absent glance. “Is
this no dream? They told me that he was dead—”
“Dead: worse than dead,” answered the Outcast—“A man that's dead
sleeps in his grave, and nothin' troubles him. Winter and storm, summer
and sunshine, pass on, but still he's there—safe under ground—at
rest. But as for Gilbert, he's not dead, but only buried alive. That's all.”
“Buried alive?” echoed Madeline.
“Yes, he's dead, forever dead to peace,—to quietness—to what the
good folks mean when they use these words, `a heart at rest with God
and man.' He only lives to do the devil's work; he's only awake to
crime. And then it's his curse to go about the earth, like a ghost, bound
by a frightful oath, never to permit any one to know him as Gilbert
Morgan. Do you understand, girl? He may see the graves of his father
and mother, hidden in the corner o' th' graveyard, without a stone to mark
their resting place, and he dare not shed a tear over their ashes, dare not
plant a flower there, lest somebody might know him for Gilbert Morgan.
Did you ever hear of one condemned to walk about the earth, among his
friends,—the scenes of his boyhood—invisible to every one, and at the
same time seein' and hearin' everythin', without the power to speak?
Gilbert Morgan's that man!”
“And who,” faltered Madeline, and she felt a strange sympathy mingled
with abhorence or fear, while she gazed upon the old man—“And who
has laid this doom upon him?”
“Hush! Do not speak so loud. He may hear you,” whispered the
Outcast, with a low, mocking laugh, and yet with an accent of undisguised
terror.
“He? Of whom do you speak?” asked Madeline, her blood chilled by
the unnatural laugh, and shuddering tone of the old man.
He bent forward, while the light fell upon his white hair—eyebrows
and beard—and showed the contrast between these and his sunburnt features
and brilliant eyes. He glanced from side to side with a stealthy look.
“Don't you know who I mean?” he whispered—“That Devil in human
shape, or rather that Fiend's soul in only a half-human body, who puts
his witchcraft upon you, an' takes away your power over your own will,
and fills your brain with his own Soul. Cant you guess his name? He
may be far away from you,—and you may know it—and yet there are
moments when you feel that his soul is present with you, like a cloud
from —, or when his Will stirs in your brain, and makes your hand
perform deeds that your heart abhors. Don't you know yet?” he hissed
the words between his set teeth, as the affrighted girl shrunk from his
fiery gaze—“He's sometimes called Black David, and sometimes Mr.
Rolof Sener, and again — but no! no! I dare not speak that
name!”
Madeline's face resembled the visage of a dead woman, while her eye
burned like a flame. A shriek died half uttered on her lips.
“Rolof Sener!” she whispered—“My Protector—my father!”
“Yes—yes—Black David, your Protector! Rolof Sener, your father!
Why, girl, I could tell you a story o' that Fiend, that would drive you
stark, starin' mad. Do you ever pray, girl—” his voice grew husky,
choaking—“Do you ever kneel at night, and ask God with a free heart to
bless you? Then I beg of you, sometimes pray for Gilbert Morgan, who
is sold body and soul to the Fiend in human shape, Rolof Sener!”
“Do I ever pray?” said Madeline, a burning flush visible in her death-like
cheek—“Why he has often besought my prayers. He, Rolof Sener,
has many a time sat in this very room, listening while I have read from
the Bible—read those words which make the dying heart feel strong again,
and nerve the weary soul with life from God.”
“And yet—” the low, mocking laughter of the Outcast broke on the
stillness of the chamber, with a hollow emphasis—“And yet you remember
`the Twelfth of November,' do you? The dyin' mother stabbed,
while her baby slept upon her breast? And Rolof Sener sittin' near you,
holdin' your hands as your Soul—by his will, mark ye—saw this crime,
committed by him, three hundred years ago?”
Madeline was silent; the solitary flush which had warmed her cheek
died away; she fixed her large eyes, flashing with wild lustre, upon the
half-shadowed face of the Outcast, and clasped her hands, her lips moving,
trembling—but without a sound.
“Is this man or devil?” cried the Outcast—“This Protector, who puts
his spell upon a pure girl, and while her body is like a corpse, sends her
soul whirling away into long-forgotten times, and shows her what hellish
things he did three hundred years ago!”
“A fear has crept upon me—I cannot deny it—many a time, while
gazing on his face, a fear and a shudder worse than death. And yet, to
me, he has never spoken an unkind word—his eye never rests upon me,
save with a look of love,—love such as a father might feel for a dear child.
When all the world forsook me, when the wound was bleeding on my
breast, and the unconscious body of the Orphan Girl was given to the
mercy of a cold winter night, then he was my friend, my only friend.
And yet—and yet—”
Madeline buried her forehead in her hands, as though some Thought too
terrible for utterance, had suddenly gloomed upon her soul. Her hair
glossy and brown, flowing in copious waves to her shoulders, her white
robes floating loosely around her womanly shape, she seemed—contrasted
with the Outcast, so haggard and way-worn—like a pure spirit, summoned
into life by a wizard's spell, and convulsed with grief as the realities of
the world were made known to her once more, after she had enjoyed the
untroubled calm of the grave.—The wizard, the enchanter sat near her,
glowering fixedly upon her face, with flashing but tearful eyes.—
“That's right,” he whispered—“You cannot speak too badly of Gilbert
Morgan. The knife with which he stabbed you, lies at your feet,
and doubtless the memory of his crime rankles in your heart.” He rose
and stood before her, tall and haggard, with the light upon his face, while
his form was wrapped in shadow. “Good-bye, girl, I'm goin'. And I'll
tell Gilbert that you speak of him with loathing, and at the same time keep
all your love for the fiend in human shape, or perhaps for Reginald.—
Wasn't that his name?”
The young woman started to her feet, and stood before him, pale but
beautiful, all that was pure, all that was impassioned in her soul, rushing
to her eyes.
“Tell him, tell Gilbert,” she cried, weighing every word, and looking
him full in the face, “That the name of Reginald is to me, but as a sound
uttered in the delirium of a fever. Even now, as I speak it, my heart
leaps in my bosom, and yet that name brings home to me, no memory
save that which speaks of a proud Lord, plotting the dishonor of a poor
Orphan child. But the name of Gilbert—”
“Gilbert, yes, his name—” interrupted the Outcast.
“The name of Gilbert speaks to me of Wissahikon—” her voice fell,
the tears streamed down her cheeks—“Of Home!”
She sank in the chair, and her tresses floated over the hands which
were pressed against her brow; the old man started wildly forward,
position—cold, erect, and to all appearance, immovable.
“Can I say more?” she raised her face, brilliant with tears, toward the
light—“Have I not bared my heart to you? To you, whom I have
never seen before, whom I do not know,—unless indeed—”
She gazed upon him long and anxiously, while he awaited the result
of her scrutiny in evident suspense.
“Unless—well, well, my girl—”
“Unless indeed, you are my Protoctor,—my Father—in this disguise!
O, say, have you not done this to test my affection for you? But it is
not kind,—it is not manly—to steal thus upon me at dead of night, and
force me to lay bare the secrets of my heart, by telling me that Gilbert
lives. Gilbert, alas! who has long since crumbled into dust!”
He shrunk away from her extended arms, and turned his face aside from
the light.
At this moment, as she stood with outstretched arms,—her face reflected
in the mirror, warming slowly into bloom once more—while he started
back and concealed his face from the light, an incident took place, witnessed
by neither, and yet—it may be—fraught with the most important
results.
A hand appeared among the hangings, which separated this chamber
from the next; a letter was thrown into the room; it alighted at the very
feet of Madeline, and yet she did not see it. The hand then disappeared,
and in its place a red round face peered in through the hangings,—looked
hurriedly round with large vacant eyes—and then vanished without a
sound.
Was it the face of Jacopo the Philosopher?
“Come, Father, confess it! This is a merry jest of yours to test my
affection for you, and at the same time learn the secrets of my heart, in
regard to Reginald and Gilbert. You know father, that Reginald was
only a passing cloud, while Gilbert's memory has ever been to me dear
as the summer sky, which smiles above my Wissahikon home. Could
the grave give up its dead, could Gilbert come back this hour, you know
—you must know—how willingly I would share his fate, and endeavor to
atone for the past, by loving his own faithful wife among the woods of
Wissahikon!”
There was music in her voice—blushes like daybreak upon her cheek
—light pure as the midnight stars in her large full eyes.
“But I am not Rolof Sener,” said the Outcast, in a voice thick and
broken as his chest heaved, and he turned his face aside—“I am not the
miserable Deformed—no, by —! I am taller than he,—your own eyes
might convince you of that!”
“Yes, yes, but is this hair, this beard so venerable your own?” and she
burst into a merry laugh. “Come—come—father, confess it! The man
stature. Ah, ha! Have I found you out? But it was not kind; indeed,
indeed it was a cruel jest. Now you will fulfil your promise—I shall go
to Wissahikon, shall I not?”
Laughing, blushing, her bosom once more beating into full life, she
sprang toward him with outstretched arms,—like a beloved daughter who
has foiled her father in some merry surprise—she clasped him by the
neck, and her hair flowed over his shoulders.
He unwound her arms,—thrust her gently aside—and hurried with unsteady
steps from her chamber.
She stood there like a statue of surprise, gazing—not after him—but
upon the spot where he had been, with a mingled look of mirth and
wonder, her lips smiling while her eyes gathered new light as they shone
with tears.
And all the while the letter which had been thrown into the room by
an unknown hand, lay unperceived at her feet.
33. CHAPTER THIRTY-THIRD.
“GILBERT MORGAN!”
Meanwhile the Outcast threading the dark passages with hurried steps,
soon reached the corridor. Through its gloom he hastened, and descending
the stairway presently stood in the darkness of the lower chamber,
his hands extended as he searched anxiously for the door, which communicated
with Betsy's cabin. The door was found; the bolt drawn;
and there burst into the presence of the astonished widow, an Apparition
that might have frightened many a bolder heart than hers.
She was on her knees in the closet, praying in strong German and with
copious tears for the safety of the poor Girl, who, like a Nun in her Cloister,
was enshrined in the darkness of the Haunted House. She had procured
another candle; it stood upon her table, and flung a strong light over the
luxuriant form, which—kneeling—bloomed securely within the capacious
closet. The bust of the widow rose and fell like a big wave; her warm
lips gave utterance to a melancholy litany of sobs, moans and prayers.
“Te oldt fyste!” she cried with a decided accent—“To go into tat
house witout leave or license! And fot is to becom of me? Fot, I say?
[She did not say what on this occasion, but with emphasis, Fot!] Te
tefil as pays me for takin' care of te girl, will carry me off in a puff o'
-nefer, nefer!”
At this moment the bolt was drawn, and the Apparition of the old outcast,
with tall form and haggard face, long hair and beard as white as
snow, gloomed upon the widow's eyes. He did not seem to wait for
ceremony for leaping over the widow's shoulder, even as she knelt
in her sorrow, he plunged through the closet into her room, and began to
caper over the floor, his white hair waving like a banner, as he whirled
round and round.
“Lordt!” cried Betsy—“Fot next!”
The old man uttered bursts of wild laughter as he performed this lively
exercise, exclaiming between every burst—“Don't mind me Betsy. I'm
only crazy, that's all. Have n't got as much sense as would make a decent
Idiot of myself. You see I had to run from the girl, or I'd a-gone
stark mad.”
Presently he brought his dance abruptly to a close; he flung himself
into a chair, and the widow started to her feet, not only astonished but
completely overwhelmed in all her modest instincts.
“Untressin' hisself in my room!” she gasped—“Tis is too much!
Fot next!”
It was no dream, but a painful truth. The old man was engaged in
divesting himself of his clothing with the rapidity of a tailor's apprentice.
He did not take off his miserable shoes, but simply tore them from his
feet. Nor did he cut the strings which bound his leggings, but rent away,
and ripped away, until strings and leggings lay on the floor beside the
worn-out shoes. Next, his girdle fell; and then the tattered garment,
which reached from his broad shoulders to his knees, was lifted over his
head, and dashed at Betsy's feet.
“O!” gasped the widow, taking one interminable breath as her eyes
dilated in her blushing face.
Do not imagine for a moment that the aged gentleman had transformed
himself into one of those elegant representations of Ancient Statuary,—
known in our modern days as Artistes,—qualified with the big word
Model—and renowned at once for scantiness of drapery and decency.
Do not fancy that he had turned himself into Apollo bending the Bow;
or Ajax defying the lightning; or even that most renowned of all-classic
studies, the African alarmed at the sound of thunder.
No! He had thrown aside his shoes and leggings, but in their place
appeared a pair of stalwart limbs, encased in boots of black leather, and
hose of red velvet; the ragged garment he had flung at Betsy's feet, but
where it had dangled its rags, the widow now beheld a coat of rich velvet,
green embroidered with gold, clothing a broad and muscular chest, and
gathered to a manly waist, by a glittering girdle, adorned with a dagger
with golden hilt, and a pair of pistols mounted in silver.
The long flowing beard, the waving hair white as snow, alone prevented
the widow from deciding that this sudden transformation had converted a
miserable outcast into as handsome a cavalier, as ever eyes of woman
looked upon.
“Ah!” ejaculated the widow, drawing another breath in a paroxysm of
delight and wonder—“Tat is nice!”
The outcast started to his feet, displaying a magnificent form, almost
of giant stature, clad in a dress which showed to advantage its manly proportions,
and at the same time gave it something of a military air. His
hair and beard so white and long, presented a singular contrast to his
youthful form and elegant attire.
“Betsy, how do I look now?” he said, lifting at once his old felt hat,
his hair and beard from his head, as you would raise your hat in the
course of a polite bow. “Do you know me, girl?”
There was no sign of withered age upon the face, which now caught
the rays of the light. A hardy, sunburnt face, with a thick brown beard
about the firm chin and muscular throat; a face boldly featured, lighted
by clear blue eyes, and with short and copious curls of chesnut hair, clustering
around a frank open forehead, which was darkened only by one
deep wrinkle and a single scar.
“Gott pless us!” cried the widow, with her eyes raining tears—“Its
the teadt come back to life—it's Gilbert Morgan, or his ghost!”
“Yes, Gilbert Morgan is no longer afraid of his own name, no longer
in the power of the Fiend!” As he spoke he rose to his full stature, and
his form was knit in every muscle, his eyes—sunken beneath the compressed
brows—lighted by all the resolution of his iron will.
“From this hour I defy him, and cast off his chains. If he comes to
me in human shape, why a pistol or a knife will do his work forever.
But if he is, indeed, a devil in a half-human body, why, Madeline shall
pray to God for me. Her soul is pure—her prayer will be heard.”
“What you mean, Gilbert?” faltered Betsy.
He turned to her, and the cloud passed from his face; his eyes fairly
danced with joy.
“Come, Betsy, we will go to Madeline! She will know me now, and
d'ye hear, Betsy? There 'll be a cottage soon, under the shadow of a
big rock, by the Wissahikon shore, a cottage for Gilbert and his wife.
And you shall come and live with us, Betsy—no more spasms, ha, ha!
Forgive me. Betsy, for I've led a wild life, but now it is over. Come—
softly—let us steal gently up the stairs, and ask her where the old man
has gone!”
While he spoke, his eye dancing, his chest heaving in broad and deep
respirations, every tone of his voice tremulous with an intense—almost
maniac—joy, he led the way through the closet into the lower room of
the Haunted House. Betsy followed him with hands upraised, and
capital O!
“D'ye see that Harp carved on the middle stone of the fire place?
There's money under that stone, Betsy, money buried there years ago by
a rich merchant, who made his millions in the slave trade, and died of the
fear of poverty. Come—never mind it now; we'll see Madeline first,
and talk of the money afterwards.”
Up the stairs and through the corridor, holding the light above his head,
while Betsy follows at his heels, rubbing her eyes in order to assure herself
that it is no dream. They reach the entrance of the place of prayer
where the white altar stands alone in the gloom, and the Image of the
Crucified smiles over the Holy Book.
“Wait here, Betsy; I will go alone. Take the light and wait; in a
moment I will call you. O! if you only knew how my heart went leapin'
to my throat, as she put her arms about my neck, and yet, I was
afraid to tell her my name.”
With these words he left the good widow standing at the end of the
corridor, and passing through the silent Oratory, soon stood on the threshold
of Madeline's chamber.
“Madeline!” he called—in the familiar voice of the olden time—but
there was no answer. His hand upon the curtains, which protected the
entrance of her chamber, his form veiled in their shadows, he called again:
“Madeline! Madeline! It is I—Gilbert—come back to life again!”
He listened, while the blood swept like molten fire in every vein; he
listened, but there was no reply.
He parted the curtains and entered her chamber, reaching forth his arms
to clasp her to his heart.
The light still glimmered in the mirror, shedding a dim ray over the
luxurious furniture and white-curtained bed, but—Madeline was not
there.
Gilbert paused in the centre of the room, looking from side to side, with
a vague and bewildered stare.
“She is gone!” he cried, with an accent of inexpressible despair. “The
Fiend has foiled me once again! But no—she is concealed somewhere in
this accursed mansion, I will search it from the garret to the cellar. I
will—”
He parted the curtains of the bed; it bore the impress of Madeline's
form, but she was gone.
“I will defy the fiend, and walk abroad once more among livin' men
like a livin' man. Ah! What's this?”
A white object glared from the sombre carpet at his feet. It was a
letter, the seal had the appearance of having been but lately broken; it
bore no superscription, but a single word at once rivetted Gilbert's
attention.
“`To Madeline!”' he muttered as he held it to the light, and then
sinking in a chair, he read the following lines:
“Do not tremble, fair girl, when you behold the name, written beneath
these lines! It is, I—it is Reginald,—who sought your love, under a
cowardly disguise, and sought to lure you to dishonor, on the fatal New
Year's morning of 1775. And Reginald, repenting of the crime, now
seeks to make atonement, and thus deserves your forgiveness.
Forgive me Madeline. The dream of passion, has passed away. I no
longer look upon you with the gaze of an unholy love. You are to me,
as something set apart from the crimes and woes of this mortal life—you
are, to me, as pure, as distant, as unapproachable, as the evening star,
which trembles serenely on the sunset horizon—as a Saint enthroned in
Heaven, to whom we may present our prayers, but whose sanctity repels
the idea of earthly passion.
“I seek to atone for the past. Will you listen, Madeline,—can you forgive?
Come to Wissahikon, Madeline; my servant who bears this note,
will lead you to the appointed place, where your hand will be joined with
the hand of your plighted Husband, Gilbert Morgan. This is the atonement
which I would make; Gilbert is my friend; and believe me your,—
Gilbert read this letter, examined the seal, bearing a coat of arms, with
the cipher, “R. L.” and then exclaimed in a tone, whose emphasis of despair,
no words, can depict:
“And she has been cheated by this lie—she has gone to meet this Reginald
Lyndulfe. The thrice-perjured knave! My name must serve as
a cloak for his schemes,—in my name, he will complete Madeline's dishonor.”
He rose from his seat, and stood for a moment buried in thought, his
frank, manly face, darkening slowly, with the impress of a desperate
resolve.
“`His servant'—hah! I thought I recognized the knave, when I sat
under the oak, this afternoon. But it is not yet too late to foil this wretch.
I will to Wissahikon, I will meet him there, and as for the Fiend, why a
true heart and a good purpose is worth the malice of a thousand devils at
any time!”
As he spoke, his almost giant form, presented an impressive image of
muscular power, linked with a rugged but manly beauty, His sunburnt
cheek, flushed with new life; his eyes shone with new fire; a defiant
resolve, hung on his lip; and with his neck thrown proudly back upon
his broad shoulders, his right hand laid upon the dagger's hilt, his wide
yes the Hero.
“Now for the Wissahikon!” he said and was turning away from the
light, when—His eyes grew fixed and glassy. His limbs rigid and motionless.
He stood as if suddenly transformed to stone, his features, livid
and immoveable as Death.
This change took place within the compass of a second. One instant
he was turning away with a flushed cheek and defiant lip; the next, he
was stone—his limbs stiffened—his fixed eyeballs, glaring in the mirror
with a cold glassy lustre. There was something awful, beyond the power
of words, in this inexplicable transformation.
His lips moved languidly, but every muscle of his face was stiff, frozen—
“I hear your voice—” he slowly uttered—“And I will obey.”
Was it Gilbert Morgan, the brave man, conscious of his fearless heart
and iron arm, who spoke? Or, was it Gilbert Morgan, the victim of a remorseless
soul, which had deprived him of all power over his own will,—
destroyed in fact, for the moment, his individuality—and filled his brain
with the Soul of Another?
Like a man walking in his sleep, Gilbert strode slowly from the room,
as he fixed his glassy eyes upon the darkness, and murmured languidly,—
“Master, I come! I come!
Thus he reached the corridor, where Betsy awaited, light in hand. She
spoke to him—he passed her without a word—his eyes fixed, his hands
outstretched, his gait measured and artificial.
He reached the stairway, and began to descend. Betsy filled with
wonder, darted forward light in hand, and saw his face, as she called him
by name. She saw his face, and fell fainting at the head of the stairs.
It was not a living man,—the thought flashed on her, as she saw his
face—who walked thus in silence, with fixed eyeballs, and stride measured
and artificial. It was a Corpse, placed on its feet by some infernal wizard-craft,
and sent abroad, to chill the hearts of the living, with its sad terrible
gaze.
Our history now returns to the farm-house of Peter Dorfner, and to the
room where Madeline on the last night of 1775, sank beneath the dagger
of Gilbert Morgan.
33. CHAPTER THIRTY-THIRD.
“ROLOF SENER.”
The sunbeam stealing through the small panes of the narrow window,
tinted with its warm glow, the dusky stain, which dyed the floor, and
shone upon the massive forehead of the Unknown, as seated beside the
table, his gaze rested upon the papers and manuscripts which were scattered
there.
From the moment when Jacopo left the room, in obedience to his commands,
he had remained in the same position, his head drooped, his eye
fixed upon those manuscripts, his pale and delicate hand resting upon the
table. Sometimes a smile wreathed his thin lips—again his eyes, sunk
deeper beneath the down-drawn brow, and shone with a sad, gloomy lustre—and
then his face was calm and cold again, immoveable and statue-like
as his form.
One finger rested upon a golden coin, which bore an ancient date, and
an inscription in bold characters, somewhat worn by time. Whenever
his eye wandered to this coin, his gaze grew glassy; his lips were compressed;
his forehead was darkened by a single vein, which rising from
the brows, swelled beneath the pale skin, in distinct and—almost hideous
—prominence.
Then his face was imbued by an expression, which gave a kindly
smile to his lips, a clear and tranquil light to his eyes. It was a look
of indescribable calm, indicating a heart full of peace, a soul at rest with
God and man.
He bent down again to the papers which covered the table, examined
them one by one, muttering all the while to himself, while his face changed
from light to shadow, from that look of indescribable calm, to one steeped
in dark and repulsive emotion.
Thus an hour passed away.
When the hour was gone, and the sunbeam wandered from the pale
brow of the Unknown, to the papers on the table, there was a footstep
on the stairway which led to Madeline's chamber. It was the footstep
of a strong man, completely unnerved by some powerful emotion; it
echoed through the passage at the head of the stairs, and Reginald Lyndulfe
stood upon the threshold of that fatal room.
Clad as you doubtless remember, in that blue hunting shirt, which concealed
his scarlet uniform, with knife and powder horn at his side, and
rifle on his shoulder, he paused upon the threshold, while his chesnut
hair, floating carelessly from beneath his cap, could not relieve the death-like
pallor of his face.
He started as his gaze rested upon the Unknown, and resting one arm
against the door-post, muttered in a half-audible tone—“A stranger here!
What can this mean? The negro told me that the house was deserted,
and as for old Peter I passed him, as he was sleeping in the arbor.”
The Unknown raised his eyes, and calmly surveyed the manly form,
which—framed in the doorway—stood hesitating on the threshold.
“Ah! Is it you, Reginald!” he said with a smile—“Come in my Lord.
Take a seat on—is there no chair? Well then take a seat on the bed; it
is covered with dust, but you wont mind that.”
“You know my name?” ejaculated Reginald, with a look of immeasurable
surprise, and then relapsing into a look and attitude of aristocratic
hauteur, he exclaimed—“You have the advantage of me, sir. I do not
know you.”
“And yet I stood beside your father, when he placed this Medal about
your Mother's neck, the day before she embarked for England. It was
in the island of Jamaica—at your father's plantation—twenty-one years
ago.”
These words pronounced in that calm, even voice, with an expressive
movement of the small white hand, had the effect of magic. The face of
Reginald became frightfully pale, he staggered into the room, and placed
his hands upon the table, while his eyes were rivetted to the face of the
unknown.
“You—stood—by—my—father—” he gasped, speaking with a choking
sensation in his throat—“You!”
“Here is the medal,” said the unknown, carelessly extending his hand
—“You can examine it at your leisure. I saw your father place it about
your mother's neck twenty-one years ago.”
But Reginald did not grasp the medal; he saw the cross and the inscription
which it bore, and shrank away from it, as though its touch was
Death.
“Your name—” faltered Reginald.
“Rolof Sener, my child. The Swedish traveller, of whom you've
doubtless heard your father speak?”
“Rolof Sener!” echoed Reginald, and he sunk back on the bed—whose
coverlet yet bore the print of Madeline's form—pressing his hand nervously
to his forehead, for his brain was throbbing with intense torture: “Rolof
Sener! Yes; my father has spoken of you—oftentime. But you do not
look like a very aged man, and Rolof Sener, eighteen years ago, was at
least fifty years old.”
He raised his eyes, and for the first time, discovered that the figure of
Rolof Sener was characterized by a deformity, which seemed to have been
subdued by a careful mode of dress. His shoulders were broad and high;
his spine marked by an unsightly curvature; indeed, looking at him, from
the side, instead of face to face, the head of Rolof seemed to rest against
hunchback, and yet his deformity—not so much observable at a front view,
and with his head bent over the table, in the act of writing—was now
painfully apparent.
“Yes, I was with your father on that occasion, twenty-one years ago,”
said Rolof Sener, turning his chair so that he sat face to face with Reginald—“And
with him at his Jamaica plantation on another occasion.
Toward the close of the year 1757, when your father received the first
intelligence of that two-fold calamity, which converted him,—Clarence
Albert—the younger, nay the youngest son, into a Peer of the Realm,
yes, Duke of Lyndulfe, with a rent roll of one hundred thousand pounds,
per year. I remember it well!”
“Two-fold calamity,” muttered Reginald, passing his hand over his
forehead—“I have heard of it; but not from my father's lips. An aged
peasant at Lyndulfe told me not more than a year since, that my grand-father,
John, Duke of Lyndulfe, and his eldest son, Ranulph John, died
about the same time, by a strange accident.”
“A very strange accident—” and the face of Rolof Sener was darkened
by that solitary vein—“Remarkably strange!” There was a mocking
smile upon his lips.
“What mean you? My grand-father was thrown from his horse, and
my uncle—his eldest son—was killed, by the horse, in the attempt to
save his father's life.”
The color came to Reginald's face once more; his deep blue eye flashed
with anger.
“And the old Duke was found dead, beside his dead steed,” continued
Rolof in an absent tone—“As for Ranulph John, his body was found in a
ditch, so hideously mangled, the face trodden as though by horse's hoofs,
that his best friends, could only know him by some fragment of his dress.
It was a strange accident, and by that accident your father, the youngest
of three sons, became Duke of Lyndulfe.”
Again that cold and mocking smile, played around the thin lips of Rolof
Sener.
“Three sons?” echoed Reginald with a start—“There were but two—
my father and his Elder Brother.”
“Three, my child, three. A son younger than Ranulph John, but older
than your father, who had been born on the German possessions of your
House, and enjoyed those possessions in his mother's right. His name
was Gaspard Michael; he bore the title of Count, and was something of
a German as much by feeling and education, as by his birth. Three
sons, my”—
“Hold,—” Reginald once more pressed his hand to his forehead—
“This is not so. At least,” he hesitated—“I never heard of it before.”
“You are young, handsome, fond of the sex, and with no disinclination
it is to be presumed, that you have heard of everything. Is it not my
Lord?”
The mocking scorn which had lingered about Rolof's lips, now
mounted to his eyes. There is nothing in the world, so cutting in its
calm contempt, as the sneer of an old man, who turns all the fire of Youth,
into ice with his glance, and withers its warmest hope, with one cold
look.
“You are disposed to jest with me,” said Reginald, while the blood
rushed to his face. “Still, I must repeat, that I never heard of this Gaspard
Michael. He died young?”
“He disappeared, soon after the double-calamity,” replied Rolof calmly
“There were proofs of his death, or else your father would not have sue
ceeded to the title and estates of Lyndulfe.”
“Of course he left no heir,” said Reginald carelessly.
“Suppose he did leave an heir,” replied Rolof Sener, in that peculiar
tone which penetrated the listener's heart, “Or, to carry out, the hypothesis;
suppose that heir is in existence at this moment? What then?”
Reginald's face was shadowed by a cloud.
“It is impossible,” he said—“You are dreaming.”
“What then?” repeated the singular personage, with a latent laughter
in his eye.
“You mock me,”—and Reginald's eye shone with anger, while he
could not turn his gaze aside from the pale face of Rolof; “In the first
place, Gaspard Michael, never lived. True, I have your word,—or your
jest—as proofs of his existence. In the second place, even if his existence
were no fable, by your own admission, he died and left no heir.
There is no need, ha, ha, no need of your `what then?' my good sir.”
It was pleasant to see Reginald laugh; his teeth were so white; his
blue eyes so full of Youth and Hope. And then he was Twenty-Two!
Twenty-Two, delicious age, when some fragrance from Paradise, still
clings to the flowers of Earth; when every pulse beats Pleasure; and the
expanding eye looks through the Future, and beholds only the blossoms
and sunshine of that glorious landscape, without one thought of the Skeleton
whom those blossoms conceal, or one glance for the Grave, which the
sunshine only invents with rosy light.
“Twenty-Two!” Even I who write these words,—and certainly I
am very far from being an old man yet; at least not in the almanac sense
of the phrase—even I look back over the pathway of four years, and wonder
in what dim grave, I buried the Boy of Twenty-Two.
“Twenty-Two!” It is the time of Illusions; sweep them away as you
grow older; but what is there in Life to repay you for those glorious Illusions?
It is the day of Romance—it is soon passed—you awake to the
naked Realities of life; those grim skeletons, which the blossoms of
once, who after a life of intense brain-labor, had brought himself
into communion with the Other World, and forced its Spirits to grant his
desires, `let me be Twenty-Two forever, with its Illusions, its Dreams, its
Loves, and its Hates, and I ask no more.'
It was pleasant, I say, to see Reginald laugh, for he was Twenty-Two.
“What then?” echoed the singular personage, known by the name of
Rolof Sener—“Why Reginald, the Duke of Lyndulfe—that is to be—
will become that most pitiful of all paupers; the heir to the noble blood, and
gilded poverty of a Younger Son. A kind of genteel beggar, who is tolerated
by the great on account of his lineage; a sort of `poor relation' a gentleman
Lazarus, in fact, who haunts the Royal Court, until his sores are
dressed with a pension, and his rags made decent, with a little golden tinsel.
Is't not laughable? Reginald Duke of Lyndulfe, Baron of Marionhurst,
of Dernberg, of Camelford, with a string of other titles that I do not now
remember, and a rent-roll of one hundred thousand a year, suddenly transformed
into plain Captain Reginald, a gentleman of elegant figure, and—
five hundred a year!”
“This is insulting,” cried Reginald, glowing with indignation—“Your
age alone protects you!”
“And if I were younger, you would dissect my lungs with a sma
sword, or search for my brains with a pistol bullet, and thus vindicate
your honor! Bah! I am ashamed of you. Read that!”
He took a letter from the table, and handed it to Reginald.
“What is this, I see! From my father, and dated yesterday; written,
too, from our Camp in Jersey! It is indeed his own handwriting; without
a doubt his signature. What does it mean?”
“Read!” said Rolof.
Reginald read the letter aloud:
“`The plan is good; the project itself confers immortal honor on its
originator. The Army of His Majesty is now in Jersey, as you are aware,
advancing toward the Delaware; the object of the General being the possession
of Philadelphia. But the project will pay us for a thousand Philadelphias;
will end the war, in fact, and bring the revolted colonies to the
foot of the throne. I will be in * * * * * * * * * * at the appointed time, and
at the place you designate. Let your messenger meet me there, with a
line from you, in your own hand, which I will take as a token to go forward.
You will have time to perfect your understanding with our friends
in Philadelphia; we can seize HIM away from HIS camp; conceal HIM for
a few days in Philadelphia, and—the war is at an end—”'
“What mean these stars?” asked Reginald, his face the very embodiment
of surprise.
“There are ten,” answered Rolof, “and there are just ten letters in the
word Germantown.”
“And my father is coming — but who is this person designated
as `him?”'
“Washington, the rebel leader. He will be here,—at Wissahikon—to-night.
Some days since, he received a letter from Philadelphia, signed
by Jefferson, and other prominent members of the rebel Congress. That
letter designated the Wissahikon as the scene for an important interview,
between Washington and these rebel statesmen; to take place on the last
night of the second week in June.”
“To-night!”
“Yes, to-night he will be here, and the rebel leaders from Philadelphia
will offer him the crown.”
“And my father?” cried Reginald, trembling with agitation.
“He will be here to-night. With a band of trusty Philadelphians, rich
men, my child, friends of the King, he will surround the house in which
the Rebel General and the Rebel Statesmen are in conclave, and take
prisoner, the heart and arm of America, George Washington.”
“It is a magnificent idea!” cried Reginald, in a broken voice, but with
flashing eyes—“And my father, the Duke, will have the honor of this
capture. But what has this to do with Gaspard Michael?”
“You have not yet finished the letter. Read on—” said Rolof Sener.
“`The papers which you have furnished me, in regard to the existence
of the Son of Gaspard Michael, are indeed appalling. Search further
Rolof; assure yourself that this person, of whom you speak, is indeed the
Son of Gaspard Michael. The house of Lyndulfe must not be shaken by
the hand of a Pretender to its wealth and honors. You inform me that
he was living six months ago; I beseech you, my good friend, to spare
no exertions in this matter. Does he live now? What is his condition
—where his place of abode? I assure you, that my first reason for embarking
in your project, was a wish to rivet myself in the favor of the
King, and thus secure his interest against the claims of this—or any other
—Pretender.
Lyndulfe.”'
Reginald crushed the letter in his fingers, exclaiming with an oath—
“This is indeed a terrible revelation!” Then he buried his face in his
hands, and sat gazing on the floor, with a blank and colorless visage.
Rolof Sener regarded him with a searching look, but with a smile.
“This Gaspard Michael—this Son—where is he?” shouted Reginald,
* * * above us, I'll throttle you!”
“He lives on the Wissahikon,” said Rolof Sener, in a calm tone, his
face serene and smiling. “Within a mile from where you stand, and—
you wont throttle me.”
“On the Wissahikon!” and Reginald sank back upon the bed. It was
indeed a crushing blow; the mere Chance of this Pretender's existence
was terrible, but the Certainty was madness. Reginald seated on the bed
—printed with the outlines of Madeline's form—felt the Dukedom gliding
from under his feet, even as a hunter, gazing over the brow of a precipice,
feels the solid rock quiver and tremble ere it falls.
“This room is accursed—the very air breathes ruin to me and to my
race!” he muttered, in a wild tone, and gazed with sidelong glance at the
dusky stain near the foot of the bed, where the sunbeam gayly shone.
“What mean you?” asked Rolof, with a look and accent of wonder.
“You know, you must know it,—” cried Reginald, starting up and
pacing the floor—“For you seem to know everything that is evil. Here,
here, twenty-one years ago, on a dark and stormy night, my Mother was
murdered—murdered, even as she struggled in the anguish of a mother's
pains. They tore her babe from her still quivering form—”
His look ghastly, his accent ringing with an emphasis of unutterable
horror, he confronted Rolof Sener, with clenched hands and swelling
chest.
“How know you this?” said the elderly man, very calmly—“Is that
stain near your feet, your mother's blood?”
Reginald started back, with a shudder in every nerve.
“Or does that dingy blood-mark bring to mind, the anguish of a poor
and friendless Orphan Girl, who, struggling in her seducer's arms—in this
room, two years and six months ago—besought his mercy, in the name
of her murdered mother, and besought in vain!”
These words fell upon Reginald like so many mortal thrusts from the
blade of a keen and polished dagger.
“Hold!” he cried,—“Another word, and I will —” he laid his
trembling hand upon the hilt of his hunting-knife, as his face grew purple
with settled rage.
35. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIFTH.
“MY SISTER!”
“Her prayers, her tears, even the memory of her murdered mother—
all were in vain! Nothing could deter you, from that cowardly outrage.
You had palsied her mind, fevered her blood with a poisonous drug. And
to this bed, Sir—or rather—my Lord—where poor and friendless, but
innocent, she was sleeping—to this bed, with your hellish purpose gleaming
in your blood-shot eye, you crept, at the dead of night, and—ha, ha!
Fell back, frightened and cold, when you saw this Medal glimmering on
her bosom.”
“I knew it not,” said Reginald, in a choking voice,—“I knew not that
she was my — Fiend! You will drive me mad!”
“You knew it not,” whispered Rolof, bending forward, while a withering
sneer crept over his pale face. “That cannot excuse your purpose,
nor in the slightest degree palliate your crime. For the woman, who is
at once poor, friendless, and innocent, is the Sister of every Man, who has
one throb of honor in his breast. His Sister, not indeed by ties of blood,
but by a loftier and more touching relationship; by that Poverty, which,
while it makes her Virtue shine only the brighter, as the diamond gleams
more beautiful when in the dust, invokes protection from honest Manhood,
in a voice that a devil alone could disobey.”
His large eyes dilated and gleamed with a calm deep light, while his
voice, rising as he went on, rang upon the ears of the guilty man, like the
tones of an accusing angel.
“Do not shelter yourself behind that petty plea, my Lord! The man
who wrongs a poor Poor maiden, and uses his wealth as an excuse for his
fraud, in plain words, wrongs his own Sister.”
Reginald fell back from the tone, the deep steady gaze of Rolof Sener,
and stood like a convicted culprit before his Judge, his hands hanging by
his side, his head sunken on his breast.
He did not raise his eyes until many moments were passed.
“Come, my Lord,” said Rolof, in a changed voice, “How do you know
that your mother was murdered in this room?”
“From the day when my father saw her embark for England, not a
word was ever heard of my mother, nor of the ship in which she sailed,
until three years ago. Then, in a letter, without a signature, my father
was informed, that the ship had been taken by a Pirate vessel, and that
my mother, Alice of Lyndulfe, had been brought to Philadelphia, by one
of the pirates, soon after the capture of the ship.”
“With what object, pray?” asked Rolof.
“The anonymous letter gave me no motive,” said Reginald—“It merely
stated that she was brought to Philadelphia, in secresy, and concealed in
the house of a good citizen, who was a confederate of the pirate crew.”
“One of those good merchants who go to church on Sunday, and fit
out a slave-ship on Monday morning?” suggested Rolof—“When the
cargo of slaves die off, or prove unprofitable, what so easy,—so mercantile
—as to transform the Slaver into the Pirate. Go on, my child.”
“It was this information, that induced my father to send me to Philadelphia,
three years ago. While here, in fact on the morning of January
First, '75, a London paper was handed to me, which contained “the last
speech and confession of one Greiley a Pirate” who had been executed
at Tyburn in the fall of '74. This “speech” stated distinctly that on the
23d of November, 1756, a woman was murdered, on the Wissahikon, near
Philadelphia, by a man named Torfen or Dorfner, the confederate of a
band of pirates, robbers, or—slave-dealers.”
“You put the slave-dealer, who is a very respectable person and a
Christian withal, in very dubious company,” said Rolof Sener, with a
smile—“Well, the motive of the deed?”
“The husband of the woman was supposed to have a large amount of
plate and coin—all gold—concealed on some Island, in the West Indies,”
resumed Reginald. “This confederate Torfen or Dorfner, attempted to
wring from her lips, the secret of this place of concealment. She was
seized with the pains of child-birth, while the ruffian's hand was at her
throat. She died `and her body was concealed in a closet, near a window
which looks out upon a chesnut tree' so the Confession ran, `and the child
was taken away.”'
“And you came here to-day, in order to search that closet?” asked
Rolof.
“That was my purpose. The merchant Hopkins, to whom my Father
entrusted the matter, has never written, since the hour when I left Philadelphia,
more than two years ago. Therefore I conjecture that all traces
of the deed have long since been removed, or that Hopkins has been unable
to obtain access to this room, on account of Dorfner's repulsive and
ferocious character.”
“Why not invoke the aid of the law?”
“Do you not perceive that this would foil all my father's plans? He
is by no means certain that the murdered woman and my mother, are the
same. Then the confession of the dying pirate, strong enough to warrant
a suspicion, is still by no means sufficient, to ensure a successful prosecution.”
“And yet there is the medal, found by yourself, on the breast of Madeline,
on Orphan Girl, whose parentage no one could trace. The very
coin, which your father placed around the neck of his wife, twenty-one
eyes.”
“Could I speak to my father of this medal? Could I tell him that—”
Reginald paused; the blood rushed to his face, and after a moment he
continued, in a hollow whisper—“Beside, what need was there to prosecute
the inquiry? Madeline was dead—I dare not tell my father so—but
she was dead, before I left Philadelphia, on that fatal morning.”
“There is the closet,” said Rolof again turning his chair, and bending
over the table, “You had better search it. If there's any truth in the
confession of the pirate, you may discover some traces of the murdered
woman.”
Reginald gazed for a moment upon the singular being, who sat with
downcast head, and eyes fixed upon the manuscripts which covered the
table, and then slowly advancing toward the closet, `near the window
which looked out upon the chenut tree,' he laid his hand upon its single
panel reaching from the ceiling to the floor.
The western window was shaded, as we have said before, by a cloak
or some other garment, which only permitted a few wandering gleams of
light, to tremble over the floor.
His hand upon the panel, Reginald felt an unknown terror steal through
his veins; he dared not open the closet door.
“It is dark and gloomy in this corner of the room,” he muttered, and
tore the dust-covered garment from the window. A flood of light, rushed
through the narrow panes, and revealed the face of Reginald, distorted by
a new emotion, surprise mingled with Remorse.
It was the dress of Madeline, which lay at his feet. Yes dingy and
moth-eaten, as it was, that garment had enveloped her young limbs, on the
fatal night, when she clasped Gilbert Morgan by the hands, and kindled
into blushes at his kiss. It was her wedding dress.
Reginald was a man of the world; that is, he had whiled away, a year
or more at a sound Orthodox College, made some advances toward Latin
and Greek, whirled through Europe in search of the picturesque, learned
all the manners of a gentleman, from drinking his third bottle of Champagne,
without staggering, to killing his man in a duel without a tremor,
or crushing the honor of some unprotected woman, without a blush—he
was a man of the world. He was an officer in the service of his Majesty;
he was heir to a Dukedom; he was a finished specimen of British
Chivalry, in its transition state it may be, yet still British Chivalry.
But now he trembled and shook, and grew pale like any common man.
One of the rude `blackguard people' could not have manifested more
ungentlemanly feeling. Tears started to his eyes, tears such as every-day
people weep, only somewhat more bitter and scalding. Could Jacopo
have seen him, at this moment, he would have been ashamed of his pupil
man.
All the manhood, that the world had left in his breast, was now roused
into spasmodic life.
The wedding dress of the murdered girl, lay at his feet—his hand was
on the panel of the closet, which was supposed to conceal the skeleton
of her murdered mother.
And the girl, who had been murdered in that room two years before,
and the woman who twenty-one years gone by, had died by violent hands,
in the anguish of a mother's pains, also in that room, were joined in the
holiest relationship, Mother and Daughter. And the blood which coursed
in Reginald's veins, was also their blood; two words started to his lips,
as he thought of them, words that crushed him into abject misery, with
their meaning—Mother! Sister!
Unable to speak, he bent down, and raised the dress of Madeline, and
laid it gently on the bed. Then gazing from the window, he saw the glad
sunshine, resting upon the garden and its flowers—sleeping upon the broad
field, strown with heaps of new-mown hay—and gilding with living light
the tops of the distant forest trees. All was calm and peaceful there, yes
all without breathed of day and sunshine, but within was darkness, the
night of Remorse, with the memory of Madeline written upon its very
gloom.
“Shall I pursue this search?” he said aloud, in a changed voice, and
with the desire of crushing his emotions—“Dorfner may come; and I do
not wish to meet him, at least, until I am certain of his guilt—”
Rolof Sener seated at the table did not reply; his head bent upon his
breast, he appeared lost in his studies.
Gazing through the window, Reginald saw the garden with the arbor
rising in its centre, and there, enshrined among the vines of the arbor,
appeared the round face of Peter Dorfner, its cheeks and beard and eyes,
bathed at once, in sunshine and in—sleep.
“Peter will not disturb you,” said Rolof without turning his head.
“I found him, not many moments since, in a position of some danger,—
sleeping with the knife of his blind Negro, poised over his head. I turned
the blow aside, and entered the house,—Peter will sleep until his time
comes.”
The last words were accompanied by a burst of half-suppressed laughter.
The door of the closet was unlocked; Reginald drew it open, and gazed
within.
“There is nothing here,” he cried with an accent of profound disappointment—“The
closet is sunken in the thickness of the wall. It is
empty. There is no sign nor mark of any secret recess.”
“Sound the wall with the hilt of your hunting knife,” the voice of
Rolof Sener was heard.
“It returns only a dull, leaden sound,” exclaimed Reginald sounding
the wall to the right and left. “This cannot be the place of concealment
mentioned in the Pirate's confession. Hold! What is this!”
The back wall of the closet, resembling in its dark hue and time-worn
appearance, the walls on the right and left, echoed the blow of the knife,
with a sharp, hollow sound. Reginald struck again, and again with the
hilt of a knife, and suddenly it receded from him, and separated from the
body of the closet, like a door swinging on its hinges.
The scene which Reginald beheld, deprived him for a moment of all
power of speech or motion. His face was bathed in a red and murky
light, which struggled through the aperture, and—contending with the
light of day—made his features assume a livid and spectral hue
He stood upon the threshold of a small room, whose doors and windows,
did not seem to have been unclosed for at least twenty years. It
was the room which intervened between the stairway and the chamber
of Madeline. Over a large table of smoke-darkened wood, a flickering
tallow candle, inserted in a rusty candlestick, shed its red and murky light,
while the rest of the apartment was enveloped in gloom. In one corner
the outlines of a bed, were dimly discernible, and near the feet of Reginald,
appeared a dark space in the floor. A plank had been torn away;
the dark space was the aperture, between the floor and the ceiling of the
lower room.
“Pah! It smells like a vault! Ah, I remember; it was in this room
I was to have slept two years ago. Can you tell me Sir, what it means?”
he continued, turning his head toward Rolof Sener, who was still seated
at the table in the Chamber of Madeline—“This light burning here, in
broad day?”
“The light itself may satisfy your curiosity. Look on the table, beneath
its rays.”
Reginald advanced to the table, carefully avoiding the cavity in the
floor. He discovered that a portion of the table was covered by a dingy
cloth, which bore some resemblance to the fragment of an old sail.
“There is nothing here,” he cried—“Nothing but a smoky candle and
piece of old sail. The room itself looks as though it might have been the
private study of a Sexton or Undertaker.”
“Lift the cloth, my Lord—” said a soft, low voice, and Rolof Sener
laid his hand upon the shoulder of the young man. Reginald felt an indescribable
sensation pervade him at the touch of that hand; he gazed
sidelong upon the pale face, and bold forehead of Rolof Sener—lighted by
the red rays of the candle—and a thought came over his mind that he had
seen that face before. Where?
“You seem to hesitate,” said Rolof—“are you afraid to lift that bit of
sackcloth?”
Reginald replied with a laugh, and placing his knife in the girdle of his
hunting shirt, raised the sackcloth from the table. The smile which hung
about his manly lips, the flush upon his cheek, the careless light in his
deep blue eyes—all passed away, and he fell back silent and wondering.
The skeleton of a human being was stretched upon the table; and the
light tinged with red lustre every bone, and glared as if in mockery, into
the hollow orbits of the skull.
“Your mother!” whispered Rolof Sener. He took the hand of Reginald
within his own, and pointed to the cavity in the floor. “Behold her
grave!”
36. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIXTH.
A LETTER FROM THE DEAD MOTHER.
Reginald of Lyndulfe was kneeling there beside the remains of his
murdered Mother.
His face was buried in his hands, and the red light which mocked the
crumbling skeleton, shone over the luxuriant chesnut curls of the young
Lord. Not a sound disturbed the stillness; the door which led into
Madeline's room was closed, and the candle fast burning to its socket,
flung its uncertain and flickering light into the shadows of the narrow
apartment.
Near Reginald stood Rolof Sener. Picture to yourself that form clad
in black, broad in the chest and shoulders, and rendered harsh in outline,
by the deformity of the spine, while the long pallid face seems to rest not
so much upon the neck as upon the chest. His large head stood out from
the gloom, and as the light flickered and fell, his features seemed to pass
through every change of expression, now scowling in sullen scorn, now
beaming with smiles and joy.
With his finger on his lip, he stood near the kneeling man, looking like
a stern spirit, sent from the Other World to judge between the Living and
the Dead.
While the light shines upon those blackened bones—which were once
a beautiful and living form—upon that skull—once it enthroned a Mother's
* * * * *.
At last he rose and confronted Rolof Sener with a pallid face, and lustreless
eye. Every feature was steeped in dull apathy; this scene had
palsied him in every nerve.
“When did you make this discovery?” he said, in an almost inaudible
tone.
“An hour ago,” replied Rolof, “urged by motives which will be made
known in due time, I came toward this house, and found old Dorfner
sleeping in the arbor with the Negro's knife above his head. That blind
negro was the slave of your mother; at least he fought for her in her
dying hour.”
“Let me go to him at once,” said Reginald, starting to the door—“He
may tell us something of my mother's fate—”
“Not so fast. Listen before you act, my Lord. For my own reasons
—which will also be made known in due time,—I turned the negro's
hand aside, and left the old man to his slumbers. Entering the house, I
lighted this candle, and sought the room where you discovered me. I obtained
entrance to the closet by a false key, and did not hesitate in my
researches until I had discovered the secret door at the back of the closet.
Then, I stood confounded. The pirate's words were false. This was
my only thought. Urged onward, however, by an impulse, which I cannot
account for—save as an instinctive interest in the affairs of your
house—I searched this room, sounded the walls, and every board of the
floor. The result of my search is before you.”
He spoke in a calm and even voice, his gaze full of sympathy, every
lineament of his countenance steeped in sorrow.
“But there were papers with the corse? Some word to tell of my
mother's last hour? Some record of the manner of her fate?”
Reginald seized his hand, and trembled in suspense, as he awaited the
answer.
“With the skeleton, I discovered certain papers—” said Rolof.
“Where are they? Let me behold them!”
“I was engaged in the examination of these papers when you first appeared—”
Rolof began. “They are in the next room!”
“Ah, this indeed is the work of Heaven! The record of my mother's
wrongs—the manner of her death—the purpose of the murderers—it is all
written there; is it not?”
Once more he started to the door, quivering with impatience, but the
hand and voice of Rolof held him back.
“Not one word of your mother's fate!” was the reply, which crushed
every hope of the young Lord into nothingness. “There are letters from
your father to your mother, before their marriage, with some manuscripts
pertaining to the ancient history of your house, but that is all.”
Reginald's countenance was clouded in apathetic gloom.
“It is indeed a mystery,” he said, and taking the light, gazed into the
cavity, which had for twenty years encoffined his mother's form. It was
a narrow place, between the huge planks, not more than eighteen inches
wide, and scarcely a foot in depth. The bottom which formed the ceiling
of the lower room, was strown with dust.[2]
A feeling of freezing awe
came over Reginald as bending down he looked into the aperture.
“Ah! They must have crushed her body into this narrow space,” he
muttered—“It is too horrible for thought! Her blood yet warm, they
trampled her into this cavity, and nailed the board over her mangled face,
while the breath yet lingered on her lips.”
Reginald held the candle directly over the cavity, and thrust his hand
into the dust—or ashes—which overspread its lower boards. Fragments
of a dress, which crumbled like the cinders of burnt paper, the moment he
grasped them—the half-severed bones of a hand—a mass of hair, long and
waving, and yet covered with the mould of the tomb—these were the
fruits of his search. At last from among that dust, which had once been
Life, he drew a folded paper, dark and clammy, as with the taint and
stain of Death.
He opened it, and by the candle-light saw that it was covered with
writing, which was in many places, blotted by a dingy red stain; some of
the lines were altogether obliterated, and even the plainest words were
difficult to read.
He smoothed it out upon the floor, near the cavity, and bent down, his
breath coming in gasps, his eye fired with sudden light.
“The twenty-third of November!” he exclaimed, “Joy! Thank God!
Here at last we have some words, traced by my mother's hand!”
Rolof Sener heard this exclamation with a start; his face was changed
in every lineament; at once he sank by Reginald's side, and looked over
his shoulder, his large eyes dilating, and flashing with the intensity of
madness.
There was a dead silence, as kneeling together, they perused that blotted
record, which seemed, and was in truth, a voice from the Dead.
It is not for us to attempt to explain the full meaning, which that paper
was originally intended to convey, nor will we dare to erase its blots, and
read the words, buried beneath their dark red stain. But as the paper,
the Letter from the Dead, appeared to the eyes of these silent and breathless
men, who knelt upon the floor in the dimly lighted room, and followed
its every word with eye and soul, we now place it upon this page
of our history.
Should these lines, traced with a hand, fevered by disease ever
meet your eyes, you will learn something of the fate of your poor friend,
Cath............
the day when our ship was boarded by pirates, who threatened to dismantle
it, and consign every soul to the waves, unless `the person and property
of Lady Alice, wife of Right Hon. Clarence Albert Lyndulfe was surrendered
to them'..........
........ scene which ensued..
.. my poor husband, John Conwell, had died the week before,.
. a poor lieutenant on half pay.. widow a beggar.
. had received kindness at your husband's hands, while in the
West Indies, and....... I was alone in
the world; your life was valuable.......
..... notwithstanding your entreaties, I assumed your
dress, ornaments, etc., and some personal resemblance aided my disguise.
..............
..............
..............
. from the decks of the pirate vessel I saw the Artemesia on her.
way.............
......... concealed for a month or
more in the City of Philadelphia, and now am a prisoner in a house,
in the midst of a forest; how far from the city I know not.
To day my persecutors came; they had searched your chests, but without
finding the gold or the papers for which they sought. They assailed
me with threats, and demanded of me, either the gold plate, or papers, or
they said my life..........
from their broken hints, I imagine that yaur husband was in some measure,
connected with an attempt to destroy this terrible organizotion.
..............
papers containing matter sufficient to put, in peril the lives of many noble
and wealthy persons, not only in England, but in the Colonies, were contained
in the chest, entrusted by your husband to the Captain of the Artemesia..........
........ slave traffic and
pir........
..........
a hope of deliverance dawns upon me! A poor negro, whom I saw on
board of the pirate ship, and whom my husband, had rescued a year ago,
from a severe punishment, in Jamaica, has followed me, discovered the
place of my concealment, and it is to his hands that I entrust this let.
..........
..........
... and O! Alice! if the child that now throbs within me,
ever should see the light, to you and to yours I dedicate...
.............
..... be called, Madeline.....
Such was the letter, blotted with blood and tears, which Rolof and Reginald
perused by the uncertain light, as they knelt side by side on the
floor of that room, whose atmosphere breathed memories of crime and
death.
“What does it mean?” gasped Reginald, after a long pause—and the
letter shook in his quivering fingers. “It is a letter to my mother—written
by whom?”
Rolof was silent.
Resting his arm on his knee, he bent his head, low on his breast and
remained for many moments absorbed in profound thought.
Reginald gazing over his shoulder, at his motionless form, saw his lips
move, while his eyes grew spectral, glassy—as though the Soul of the
strange man was buried within its tortuous thoughts.
Again he repeated his question—
“By whom was it written? It is like a dream! Thoughts as vague
and frightful as the visions of a night-mare crowd upon me. Speak! You
that seem to know the history of my race, as though you were its Destiny—speak!”
Rolof raised his face, and while his gaze was fixed upon the pallid face
of Reginald—looking at him and yet seeming not to see him—he spoke,
in those measured and musical tones, which at once enchained the listener's
ear.
This appears to me, to be the truth of the matter. The ship Artemesia,
bound from Jamaica to England, at the close of the summer of
1756, in the second week of her passage, was boarded by pirates. Their
chief threatened to destroy the vessel and murder the passengers—in fact,
sacrifice every soul—unless the person and property of Alice, wife of the
Right Honorable Clarence Albert Lyndulfe, were surrendered to him—”
“His object,” interrupted Reginald—“Wherefore demand—my mother?”
“The widow of a poor officer—named John Conwell, who had died
the first week of the voyage—assumed the dress and ornaments of the
Lady Alice, and was transferred to the deck of the pirate vessel in her
place. It seems she bore a striking personal resemblance to your mother,
at least she reasoned thus, `You Lady Alice are rich and noble; a husband,
a child are yours. I am poor and alone in the world. I will assume
noble thought, especially for a poor woman.”
“But the Captain of the vessel was base—cowardly!” cried Reginald—
“To permit the sacrifice! Better have gone down with his ship, or blown
her into the air. Better, much better—”
“From the deck of the pirate ship, Catherine Conwell, saw the good
ship Artemesia pursue her way,” continued Rolof, without seeming to
regard the presence of Reginald—“Possibly saw the beautiful Lady Alice,
waving her 'kerchief to the breeze. That was the last that ever was seen
of the good ship Artemesia; foundered in a gale perchance; or destroyed
by fire, it may be; she never reached her destination. Of course all on
board perished with her.”
Reginald uttered a groan.
“As for the widow of the poor officer, on half-pay, we find her next in
Philadelphia, whither she has been taken by the pirates and their confederates.
How she was taken there, or where concealed it is not for me to
say. After a month or more, she was removed to the house of Peter
Dorfner, on the Wissahikon, and with her the chests and so forth, containing
the property of Clarence Albert Lyndulfe—your father. The good
Peter—and may be some virtuous merchants of Philadelphia—searched
the chests, stamped with your father's initials, but searched in vain.”
“For what did they search?” again interrupted Reginald.
“Perhaps for gold plate,—it may be for doubloons—I cannot tell. But
Clarence Albert, had become a very rich man, in the course of three years.
It has been said that he was largely interested in the slave traffic—nay, I
have heard it stated that he was connected with a wide-spread organization,
whose object was the most comprehensive system of stealing and
selling, human flesh and blood.”
“A base calumny!”
“Let us for the sake of argument admit that he was connected with this
organization. That having made money enough, by its members, he was
determined to confide their darker secrets, to the ears of the Royal Ministry,
and thus reap a rich harvest of reputation for loyalty and other valuable
qualities—”
“This is too much!” cried Reginald—“You slander my father—I will
hear no more!”
“Therefore he conceals in a certain chest—confided to the care of the
Captain of the Artemesia—” continued Rolof, without regarding the angry
tone of the young Lord—” A series of papers, which embody secrets,
very dangerous to the lives of more than one, rich and titled personage,
not only in England, but also in his Majesty's colonies. These papers
reveal the existence of a wide-spread organization, whose banner bears
but two words, Man-Stealing... Piracy. In a word, these papers, strike
at reputation, fortunes, lives, and the members of the aforesaid organization,
to seize his wife and property, at one swoop.'
“But this is a dream,” exclaimed Reginald—“A fancy thin as air!”
“They have the chest in their possession, and with it, Catherine Conwell,
the silly woman who personated the Lady Alice. They search the
chest, but do not find the object of their search. They threaten the poor
woman with death, unless she tells them, in what part of Clarence-Albert's
plantations, the secret is concealed. She cannot tell them, for the
rather forcible reason, that she does not know herself. And on he 23rd
of November—a fatal, fatal day for the house of Lyndulfe! the poor woman
beholds the face of a negro slave, who having seen her, on board the
pirate ship, is determined to rescue her or die.”
“The same who now lives with Dorfner?”
“The husband, it seems saved the black from a severe punishment, the
year before. He is grateful; a proof of his incapacity for civilization.
And on the fatal Twenty-third, the poor widow—with her unborn child
beating in her bosom—writes the letter, which you hold, determining to
send it by the hands of the negro to your mother, or to your father. How
the miserable African was to find them, is another question. Catherine
Corwell seems to have had faith in the fellow—he was grateful. Well—
I hope you are listening to my story. I would not weary you for the
world.”
“You mock me. Go on—go on. Curses upon this scoundrel,
Dorfner!”
“Well, to continue my story,” resumed Rolof, still fixing his glassy
eye upon the floor. “She has written her letter, or rather, she is in the
act of signing her name, when her `persecutors' appear. They question;
she cannot answer. They proceed to violence; crush her with blows, or
maybe, only frighten her into premature labor. The negro appears, fights
for her,—in vain—they blind him with their knives. She dies in the
throes of a mother's agony, and they huddle her corse, still warm, into a
cavity made by removing a board from the floor. They bury her there,
and with her bury the letter, whose last word is the name of her child—
of Madeline.”
He paused. His voice was soft and musical no longer. It was harsh,
husky with emotion, and his glassy eyes, gazing so vacantly upon the
floor, were wet with tears.
“Such is the history which I gather from this letter, blotted with the
blood and tears of a poor woman. Well—well! What matter's it?
These poor creatures are only born for the service of the rich and titled.
She died in the path of her duty.”
Vain were the attempt to paint the mingled emotions which contended
for the mastery on Reginald's face. Kneeling still—the cavity which had
utterance for the thoughts struggling within his breast.
“Madeline—Madeline—” he gasped, as the fast-crowding emotions
swelled in his throat, and filled the ball of each eye with injected blood—
“Madeline was not my—Sister!”
His soul was tossing in a fiery whirlpool of joy; a mad delighted
boundless intoxication pervaded his whole being.
Starting to his feet, he placed the light upon the table, and saw the
skeleton once more, but without a shudder
“And my mother—the Lady Alice—died not—died not—” he wrung
his hands in the very madness of delight—“She died not by the hand of
violence!”
Meanwhile, Rolof Sener, folding his arms upon his breast, watched his
raptures with a calm smile
“Madeline was a poor girl, after all,” whispered Rolof, “The medal
which you found upon her breast, was taken by Catherine Conwell, from
your mother. The aristocratic interest which poor Madeline first inspired,
seems now to disappear in a measured pity? Does it not, my
Lord?”
“She was very beautiful!” answered Reginald, gazing absently toward
the light, with his head slightly dropped, and something like a tender
memory in his deep blue eye—“Very—very beautiful! And yet—
and yet—”
“She was poor!” interrupted Rolof.
“True, sir, true. Beauty by the side of a forest spring, with a milk-pail
in her hand, is very touching,—no doubt—but something there is, in
high birth and ancestral associations, which gives a nameless charm to a
lovely woman, and bathes her whole form in a dim and yet luxurious
splendor. I could never touch a woman's hand with so much pleasure,
as when I felt, that the blood which bounded at my touch, had coursed
through the veins of women, as fair and noble, a thousand years before!”
The handsome face of the young Lord was warm and glowing once
more; every feature indicated that his soul—freed from the pressure of
almost supernatural terror—was wrapping itself in luxurious dreams.
“Your remarks indicate a cultivated mind—yes, the delicacy of taste
which is born with true gentlemen, and which the vulgar herd can never
—never attain:” as he spoke, in his usual tone, so calm and penetrating,
Rolof Sener folded his arms and regarded the young Lord with a fixed
and tranquil gaze. “Search the history of England's aristocracy, and
what do we see? The men all gallant and chivalric; no brutal murders,
no dastardly assassinations; not a single perjury from an English nobleman
in the course of six hundred years. Can the world furnish a picture
so commanding, so astounding in all its details? Behold the Lord of all
noblemen, the British King! From Henry the Eighth, who reformed
made Lust a God, and Chastity a crime—how grand, how heroic the British
King! Their noble blood, transmitted without taint, through the course
of six centuries; ah, it is touching, it is sublime; this pure stream of
aristocracy, flowing on so serenely, through the veins of men, noble above
all—honor; and women, too pure for—such slight things as marriage vows!
The untainted blood it is that touches us into tears, as if no base born
lacquey ever trailed his livery over the velvet of a Ducal marriage bed, or
as though the loftiest Dukedoms that England reveres, did not date their
origin from the moment, when some new `court beauty' grew loving with
`Faith,' in the person of its Defender, a British King!
“A Royal Race, beginning with William, a robber, and ending in our
day with George, an idiot. Between this Alpha and Omega, what an
alphabet of chivalrous virtue, colored with the hues of every crime, from
murder done openly on the scaffold, murder done sublimely on the battle-field,
down to the solemn bestialities of James the First, a Solomon, whose
life was one incessant Song in praise of filth, whose noblest thought was
a Proverb of blasphemy against all things holy to God and man. Range
these noblemen side by side, adorn their spotless ranks with the wives of
Henry, or the concubines of Charles; let Elizabeth, the Virgin, stand at
one end, with her platonic lovers at her feet, and Mary the Butcher at the
other, with odors from Smithfield curling like incense to her very nostrils,
and then, contrast with these, the embodied forms of Royal virtue and
Gentle blood, that rugged Clown,—that base born Peasant—that image of
the rugged People—Oliver Cromwell.—You will excuse my warmth,
when you remember, that I am an enthusiast on the score of noblemen;
and British nobility, its lineage and virtues, was always my passion.'
Reginald burst into a laugh.
“Ha, ha, you are disposed to be severe, my good Rolof,” he said,
“There is a sort of pungent malice in your remarks, which gives your
conversation the flavor of old wine!”
“Your own family, young Lord, the race of Lyndulfe, present a striking
embodiment of the stern, heroic virtues of the British aristocracy—” Rolof's
face was perfectly pale and passionless, his tone low and emphatic—
“Did you ever chance to unclose the pages of your family history?”
“Never,” cried Reginald, smiling—“The very idea smacks of black
letter and cobwebs.”
“Yes: you are right, that history is stamped in black letters—the
black letters of madness and murder! It is hung with cobwebs—cobwebs
which cover the records of Parricide!”
“You take strange liberties, sir. It is not for me to hear language such
as this—”
“Ah, and is it so? Your delicate ear revolts at my uncourtly speech!
Let me have your hand—soh—this is the hand of a brave man, a Lord.
of some beautiful Italian damsel—a noble hand, by my faith!”
Reginald felt the blood rush to his cheek, but the large eyes of Rolof
held him motionless. He stood there, helpless as a culprit in the hangman's
hands.
“And yet this hand, within twelve hours, may be stained with the blood
of a Father! Pah! I see the loathsome dye upon it, even now—'tis a
brave hand!”
He flung the hand from him, as though it had been an adder.
“Your deformity protects you,” sneered Reginald, choaking with anger.
At that word a change, as sudden as frightful, came over the face of
Rolof Sener—the black vein swelled out upon his massive forehead—his
eyes, sunken beneath the downdrawn brows, glared with deadly lustre.
He spoke again, his voice lower and yet more distinct, every measured
syllable falling on Reginald's ear, like a separate torture.
The reader will bear in mind, that the floor of this room was separated from the
ceiling of the lower room by a range of rafters, while that ceiling—formed of boards
—was in its turn supported by another range of rafters, which were uncovered.
38. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHTH.
“THE CURSE OF THE HOUSE OF LYNDULFE
You have come to Wissahikon,—to seek the murderers of your
mother—to weep over the ashes of Madeline? No—trickster, your
schemes are webs for flies—they do not blind the eyes of men. You
come hither, in the uniform of his Majesty, your life at the beck of any
rebel who may chance to spy the scarlet under the blue—you come hither
to prosecute an amour with the daughter of Sir Ralph Wyttonhurst. Do
you intend marriage?—Perchance to-night? Well, the bridal party is
assembled, the Preacher is waiting, book in hand, when your father breaks
in upon the scene, and tears you from your beautiful Leola!”
“He dare not,” gasped Reginald, “By Heaven, he dare not—'
“Said I not so? He lays his hand upon you—'tis a way the Lynqulfes
have! You submit, and like a child caught in the pantry among
the sweetmeats, are dragged away to receive your chastisement. You
would not strike your father?”
The brow of the young Lord was corrugated; he stood panting and
trembling, with his hand upon the hilt of his knife.
“He dare not, he dare not,—” the muttered words came through his
set teeth.
“Read, O read the history of your race, and then look into the mirror
and behold your own visage, stamped with the curse, which has descended
from father to son, through the dark course of two hundred years! The
blood which now forsakes your cheek, and rushes to your heart, young
Lord, is impregnated in its every throb with that curse. It only demands
a Time, a Circumstance, and the work is done, the hand of the Son is
reddened with the father's blood.
“You remember the Medal which you tore from the heart of Madeline?
It bears a cross, a name, a date. `Eola' and `November the Twelfth.'
Can you—dare you call to mind, the deeds which through the course of
centuries, have marked that fatal day, in the history of your house?
`November the Twelfth,' in our modern language, simply means `November
Twenty-Third.' On that day, your grandfather, John of Lyndulfe,
was found dead in the park of his ducal mansion, and near him, the mangled
carcase of his eldest son, Ranulph-John. What does this mean? It
has but one meaning; you are a brave man, read it—Parricide.”
No word came from Reginald's lips; he gazed into the face of the
speaker, and was dumb.
“On that day, Catherine Conwell, the victim in place of your mother,
died within these walls, her last groan mingling with the cry of her new-born
child. On that day—but let us go back at once to the reign of the
Eighth Henry, when the destinies of your house were sown in the luxuriant
soil of Murder, * * * * * * and Parricide. It was in the year 1538, that
the baptism of unnatural crimes first descended upon your Race. It was
in the silence of night—after a day spent in drunken revelry—that a
Father and his Sons were linked together, in a series of crimes, whose
blackness might make the Devils weep; weep for shame, at the thought,
that even in the sublimity of Satanic crime, they were outstripped by this
poor creature, Man. Three Lords of your house were bound together in
the deeds of that night; one of those Lords, your Ancestor. Of the
nature of these crimes, I cannot—dare not speak—but they took place on
the Twelfth of November. A year passes; and one of the Three,—
the Parricide, on the anniversary of that day, glides behind the chair of
his wife, whose babe is sleeping on her breast. Then, as she turns her
face to the setting sun, as the babe awakes, and toys with her flowing hair
the Parricide lifts the dagger —
“From that hour, the Race of Lyndulfe has been accursed. The Head
of your house, whether Baron or Duke,—he that wears the title and rules
the domains—dies by the hand of his son. Do you tremble: come, this
is unmanly! Laugh, my Lord—you are witty—give speech to those
merry jests, which even now flit over your brain.—Dies by the hand of
his son, either by accident or design, and from this curse there is no escape;
for it is not the work of an Evil Angel, it is not the judgment of a
blind Fatality, it is simply in your blood, transmitted with your organi
his child.”
As though a dark truth had changed his whole being, Reginald, with
pallid aspect and vacant and lustreless gaze, began to speak in a hollow
voice:
“Yes, yes,—one day while wandering in the park, near the spot where
the dead bodies of the old Duke and his son were found, an aged peasant
breathed into my ear, a tradition of our house—I laughed then, but I
shudder now. I remember its every word. `The Baron of Lyndulfe,
who committed these crimes ages ago, was doomed to live until he had
expiated his guilt by sweeping every one of his race from the earth; or
until he ascertained that the wife whom he so basely slew, was innocent.
From the lips of a woman descended from this wife, and wearing the
Medal which he coined in memory of his Father and his Wife—from the
lips of a woman, and a woman only—can he obtain the word which will
permit him to die. Until that word is pronounced, he is doomed to live
and destroy.' These were the words of the old peasant, and this Demon,
—the embodied Curse of our race—lives at this hour, as he has lived for
centuries. Yes, he glides by us in the sunshine; at dead of night, he
stands near us as we sleep, and breathes the pestilence of his infernal being
into our souls. And I saw him, two years ago—on the rock which stood
near the wayside, as I came to Wissahikon—even now his words ring in
my ears.”
He turned and gazed upon the strange man, whose words had stirred
these dark thoughts into life.
Rolof Sener crouched upon the floor; he had fallen like a man wounded
by a pistol shot; he lay with his face buried in his hands and his limbs
quivering as with a death-spasm.
Reginald attempted to raise him, but in vain. His struggles were like
the writhings of a person seized with epilepsy—his hands shook with an
incessant tremor; he sunk his nails into the boards, and uttered a low,
faint moan.
Reginald turned his face to the light; it was the visage of a dead man,
the features rigid, the eyes fixed as stone.
And the young Lord, heir to the fortunes of Lyndulfe, stood contemplating
this inanimate form, with a look of vague curiosity, while the flickering
light shone full upon those motionless eyeballs.
“Is he dead?” he faltered, while a shudder pervaded his veins—“Hah!
He breathes again, and something like life shines in his eyes.”
“And so, Madeline was not of your blood,—” were the first words
which trembled from the lips of Rolof, as he looked around with a bewildered
glance: “Only the daughter of Poverty and Innocence! Hah! Is't you,
Reginald?” he started to his feet—“Pardon me. I have been subject to
these attacks from childhood. Some wild words have passed between
will be your friend. The Duke comes to Wissahikon, but he shall not
know of your presence here, much less of your intended marriage.'
He seized Reginald's hand while a kindly—almost paternal—smile
stole over his face.
“You have seen Leola?”
“I have; her father's house is thronged with guests from the city. We
met not an hour ago, in the grove which skirts his place. Something was
said between us of a private marriage, to night, but these guests may recognize
me as a British officer; I have no other dress than the uniform
which I wear. Then there is no clergyman—”
“Go to! These guests are all good Tories; stout loyalists, sworn to
the king, every man and woman of them. As for your dress and the
clergyman, when you return to Sir Ralph's you will find them both in the
care of one person, to wit, the knave Jacopo, otherwise known as the Rev.
Jacob James.”
“Jacopo!”
“Aye, Jacopo; he will dress you for the wedding, and marry you
afterward.”
“You speak in mysteries—
“Is he not clergyman enough, for the occasion? Go to, Reginald! I
read your eyes; I translate your heart into words. Leola is a fair girl,
beautiful as a syren,—”
“She is indeed beautiful!”
“That tone reveals your heart! Beautiful she is, without a doubt, and
her form might lure a saint into the madness of passion; but the daughter
of a Baronet is no match for Reginald, heir to the Dukedom of Lyndulfe.
Jacopo is a clergyman—dost comprehend, my child? A convenient
clergyman, whose signature to your marriage parchments may one day
melt into air. Go to, boy—I am your best friend. I serve you and at
the same time rescue your House from the shame of an ill-assorted
marriage.”
With downcast eyes and averted face, Reginald listened, and after a
pause replied—
“Yes, I remember, Jacopo is a clergyman. Did he not take orders
last year? But I must away; even now Leola looks for me, and ah!
I had well nigh forgotten; Paul Ardenheim awaits me at the Blasted
Pine.”
“Paul Ardenheim? A student-like youth, who strangely disappeared
from Wissahikon, two years ago?”
“A noble fellow; every inch a man. He is my friend. He went with
me to England; in a word, we are as Brothers.”
“He is rich?”
While I have a guinea.”
“A dependent then upon your bounty?”
“No! Paul would blush at the idea, with the true instinct of a high-minded
and honorable man.”
“And yet he is poor!'
“But his heart is true, his arm brave! One night, I was beset by
assassins—he saved me at the hazard of his own life. It was a generous
deed, but it left a scar upon his forehead. Paul will carry that scar to the
grave; and while it endures I am his friend.”
“Nobly spoken! Worthy of your race. Go, Reginald, Leola awaits
you.”
Reginald grasped Rolof's hand, some whispered words passed between
them, and then he hurried from that charnel-room, as the light was flickering
in the socket. As if recalled by a sudden thought, he turned upon
the threshold, and exclaimed—
“This Son of Gaspard Michael—was that also a dream?”
“To-night,” replied Rolof, “I will tell you all. We meet at the
wedding.”
With a light heart and a glad step, Reginald turned away from the
gloomy chamber, leaving the skeleton of Catherine Conwell and the
memory of Madeline to silence and the grave, as he hurried onward, with
the name of Leola on his lips.
Rolof Sener closed the door, and turned him once again to the memories
of that silent room.
The light was burning fast into the socket, and its wan and uncertain
glare gave his face a wild and haggard look.
He stood perfectly motionless, his folded arms and vacant eyes and fixed
features, giving him the appearance of some quaint effigy, on an ancient
tomb, rather than a living man.
“Washington comes to Wissahikon, and comes to receive a Crown!
The purity of his soul, the sublimity of his patriotism will be tried—it
would bring a smile to a cheek of marble—this Hero of an hour will
attempt to repeat the old story of Oliver Cromwell! Should he prove
true to his mission—what then? Must he still be surrendered, blinded
and bound, into the hands of the Royalists?
“Twelve o'clock to-night will decide it all.
“The Duke, too, comes to Wissahikon, comes to secure his prisoner,
and—to confront the Son of Gaspard Michael. Well, well, the Duke was
ever a cautious man, full of `business tact,' and attentive to the main
chance”—he smiled.
“Reginald goes to meet Leola, with all the fire of his race in his eye,
and solemn vows on his lips, vows, the more to be relied upon, when we
remember that—Jacopo is to be clergyman. 'Tis a brave youth, this
Reginald!
“Paul Ardendeim!
“And thus, as the clouds, toward the close of a warm summer day,
hasten from every point in the sky, and at the hour of sunset unite
in thunder and lightning, so they gather all—these men and women,—and
before the morrow comes, there will be a storm.
“And I—”
The light flashed its last, and darkness enshrouded the form of Rolof
Sener.
39. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINTH
“SATAN, THE BEAUTIFUL!”
“Beautiful Satan!” muttered Paul, as he felt the clasp of that warm
hand, which led him gently into the shadows of the wood, and then by
an uncertain ray of moonlight, he saw the white robe, gleaming through
the twilight, while the waving hair, swept his fevered brow.
His brain was whirling, as in the mazes of an intoxicating dream. He
heard a low and gentle voice whisper, “Come!” but the face was turned
away. He followed the Unknown in silence, while the blood bounded in
every vein.
Through the woods, and down into the shadows of a glen, up the slope
of a hill, overgrown with laurel, the hand led him, and at last emerging
into the moonlight—it was wan, pale and spectral—he beheld a scene
which broke upon him like a vision from fairy land.
Only a moment he paused, to drink in the beauty of the sight, and
then the hand of the unknown urged him around.
Let us behold that picture of a moment.
He stood on the verge of a smooth and grassy lawn, bordered by noble
pines, and with a mansion, lighted in every window, shining like a funeral
pyre through the half-twilight. Bells of radiance gushed from the
windows of that mansion of dark stone walls, and high roof, crowned
with a tower; and the lawn, the gloomy pines, were touched with rays of
living light.
It was the mansion of Isaac Van Behme, the thought rushed over the
mind of Paul, but no! This mansion so gay with lights in every casement,
this lawn crowded with marble images, which looked like ghosts
in the mingled radiance, did not in the least resemble the isolated home
of Isaac Van Behme, as he saw it on the fatal night.
Then the ground was wrapped in snow, and the dark evergreens, waved
their gloomy branches, about the desolate mansion, like mourners attired
in funeral robes and sorrowing for the dead.
But now, the lawn, overarched by the pure blue sky, and bordered by
the tall pines, was crowded by throngs of men and women,—or ladies and
gentlemen—whose gay costumes shone in the light, and gave a festival
appearance to the scene. The quaint attire of the olden time—full bottomed
wigs for the men, and head dresses like the tower of Babel for the
women, coats with wide skirts, and gowns resembling a peacock's train
—in all its varied and ingenious details Music too, came in bursts of melody,
softened by distance and filling the deep sad sky, with a low murmur,
like the lull of a distant fountain.
While Paul at a glance beheld this scene, the Unknown was half-concealed
from sight among the shadows of the path. The hand still pressed
his own, and sent its magnetic thrill to his heart, but the form clad in the
white robe, was shrouded by the foliage, and the face was lost in the folds
of a veil, whose snowy lace fluttered around the raven tresses, like a cloud
of pale and impalpable mist.
They stood, Paul and the Unknown at the entrance of a secluded walk,
which extended in a magnificent perspective, until it was lost in the shadows.
A line of towering pines, separated the walk from the lawn, and
between their huge trunks, the light rushed in upon the gloom, in fitful
rays, while their branches, bending to the evening air, formed a canopy
overhead.
It was the walk of all walks in the world,—thus on the very verge of
light and life, and yet separated from the gay scene, set apart, as a haunt
sacred to solitude—for a scene of love, when the heart talks with the silent
pressure of the hand, and the low whispers of the lovers, melt into
noiseless kisses.
Along this walk, now in light, now in shadow, Paul was led by the
Unknown; he did not seem to walk on the solid earth, but to tread in air,
trees, mansion and lights, were whirling round him in a mad dance, while
a vision of a beautiful form, and dark eyes, flashing through a snowy veil,
floated before him on waves of golden mist.
“Who art thou!” whispered Paul—“Am I awake! Am I dreaming?
Or is this a delusion invented by Satan, to cheat me into my ruin? Speak!
Who art thou? There's madness in thy touch—thine eyes tear the Soul
from my brain—I am afraid of this wild loveliness!”
The tresses floated on the light, the head was turned, and a low voice
breathed his name through the stillness, and whispered “Come!”
The walk at last came to an end, and the Unknown plunged into
the thick shrubbery, which grew in fragrant and leafy luxuriance along
the western wall of the mansion. All was dark and noiseless here; while
the front was blazing from every window as with a festival illumination,
along the eaves of the roof, and flung its festoons quivering in the air.
Paul was alone in the gloom with the Unknown; he could not see the
sky, nor did a single ray shine through the thickly-woven foliage. He
could not see the beautiful shape, whose bosom heaved above the loosened
robe, nor the snowy veil which covered her face and midnight hair. But
the soft,—gentle—yet maddening pressure of the hand, assured him of
her presence, and her breath mingled with his own, as her lips pressed
his mouth, murmuring—
“Paul, I love thee!”
Very simple words, you say, yet many a time, have words as trite and
plain, been warmed into overwhelming eloquence, by a kiss from young
lips, lips rife with youth and passion, lips throbbing madness into the lips
they press!
Among the shrubbery appeared a narrow door, sunken in the gloomy
wall, and overhung by the tendrils of the creeping vine. A white hand
was extended—the door opened inward, or receded into the wall—the
entrance of a stairway was visible.
“Ah! I remember! Here on the last night—” exclaimed Paul, as his
confused ideas began to condense themselves into shape.
“Come!” cried the Unknown, and Paul sprang over the threshold—
the door was closed,—and in the darkness, he was led upward by that
gentle hand.
Suddenly a door was opened, at the head of the narrow stairway, and
Paul's face was bathed in light.
“I remember!” he muttered—“It is the door of the mirror, through
which I passed on the—”
He stepped over the threshold, the mirror glided back into its place,
and Paul looked around, with the bewildered gaze of a man but half
awakened from some luxurious dream.
It was many moments before he recovered his entire consciousness, and
gazed about him with a steadfast eye.
A soft, voluptuous light prevailed throughout that spacious chamber.
Curtains of lace, resembling wreaths of floating mist, trembled along the
solitary window, and gave entrance to the breeze and star-beam of the
glorious night. The lofty walls were animated and impassioned with
many a beautiful form, that seemed to live, to breathe on canvass, and
from the shadows of a niche, sunken in each corner of the room, a pale
marble image stole gently on the sight. The floor returned no echo to
the tread; it was covered with a velvet carpet, whose warm dyes, subdued
by the dim light, harmonized with the luxurious atmosphere of the
chamber.
There was a mirror too, reaching from the ceiling to the floor—it was
felt the blood mount to his cheek.
“It is the chamber!” the thought flashed over him;—the chamber in
which the Wizard's daughter first dawned upon his eyes.
But where was the gloomy atmosphere which had once invested the
place, where the dark hangings, and dusky floor and sombre couch?
Paul turned, and in the recess, where the bed with the dark hangings,
once had stood, appeared a snow-white couch, with a canopy of satin,
white as snow, arching above its spotless coverlet.
It was in a word, the luxurious chamber of a Woman, at once refined,
beautiful and voluptuous.
“Do you not know me, Paul?”
That voice breathed of the days of old!
She stood before him, like the Spirit of the scene, gathering her flowing
robe over her breast, while her hair rested in midnight waves upon
her half-uncovered shoulders. Not a Spirit cold or pale, or spectral, by
any means, nor a form of marble enshrining the idea of Beauty, as passionless
as ice.
It was a proud spirit whose fast heaving bosom, spoke of the impetuous
blood; whose large eyes, veiled in the shadow of the long lashes, gleamed
with the moist light of passion in its fullness, and love in its most bewitching
langour. There was a rose blooming on each brown cheek; an ivory
line, gleamed through the parted lips, and on the brow so pale and eloquent,
a Thought was struggling into life. It was not the Thought born
of a love, calm and tranquil as the stars, but a Thought fiery and impetuous,
as the blood which was bloom on her lips and cheek.
Was it the form of a Maiden, just ripening into the consciousness of
her being?
It was the form of a Woman, in the first flush of her matured loveliness;
a woman whose shape was only beautiful, because its outlines
mingling grace, with warm voluptuous loveliness, presented the incarnation
of a Soul, lofty in its ambition, boundless in its passion, and—it may
be—remorseless in its revenge.
And before this beautiful shape, clad as much in those dark tresses, as
in the loosely flowing robe, stood the bewildered man, whose dark attire,
displaying a bold, a muscular form, by no means harmonized with the
luxurious hues of the dim-lighted chamber.
His pale brow, relieved by his dark brown hair, his boldly defined features
shadowed by an inexpressible melancholy, his eyes—so deep, so
clear, so full of wondering light—presented a picture which was strongly
contrasted with the warm countenance of the beautiful woman.
“It is no vision then,” he said with an absorbing look, and a voice, that
rung bold and deep upon the silence of the chamber—“You are before
me, once more—living—beautiful as when I first beheld you in this room!
eyes, there is no longer a soul left within my bosom, I look and I am lost,
for my being is at once mingled and dissolved in yours.”
He said no more, but looked into her half-veiled eyes, with a long unchanging
gaze.
“Lost, Paul?” she said—“Do you fear me? Am I then hideous in
your eyes?”
Hideous! She came gently to him, and laid her hands upon his
shoulders, and breathed upon his cheek. Hideous! Her eyes hazy with
liquid light were looking into his own—her breast was near to his heart,
thrilling his every nerve with its impetuous throb. Hideous! Her fingers
trembled gently through his clustering hair; her tresses, floated over his
hands; he was wrapt and lost in the atmosphere of her bewitching loveliness.
“And you were lost to me!” she whispered—“Little did I dream,
when I wandered forth into the wood, an hour ago, that the next hour,
would bring to me, a moment like this!”
Have a care brave Paul! Remember the beautiful Tempter, who maddened
you, until the oath was broken, and the Sealed Chamber profaned—
remember the words of the old man, whose forehead felt your sacreligous
blow—remember Monk of Wissahikon, the solemn Destiny which cuts
you off from all ties of friendship or of love, from all sympathy with the
hopes and ambitions of common men.
Remember —
Paul felt his knees bend beneath him, and in a moment, he looked up
and saw that beautiful face, glowing over him, while his upraised arms,
encircled that voluptuous shape, with a quivering embrace.
It was not love, nor passion, but madness.
“Beautiful Satan!” he cried—for his senses were wild and wandering
—his blood was molten flame again, as on the fatal night—“Tempt me to
my ruin, and I will give my soul to thee! for thee I crossed the Sealed
Chamber, for thee I dashed my father's gray hairs into dust, for thee I
became as Cain, a wanderer upon the earth, with a mark upon my brow,
that scared even the outcast and the felon from my path. Look! I am
thine again!”
And he bowed his head upon her throbbing breast, even as he knelt at
her feet, and girdled her in his arms, and wept aloud, for there was Despair
in his Love, a bitterness like the Death of a Soul, in his delirious
transport.
Woe—woe—to Paul the Monk of Wissahikon.
He raised his face—a Hope had broken in upon his soul.
“Beautiful Spirit!” cried Paul—“Be merciful! Do not tempt me
again to my Despair!”
“Tempt you to your despair!” she whispered, as her form was girdled
in his trembling arms, “You are dreaming Paul!”
O the wild beauty of her face, as she lifted her arms, and swept aside
her raven hair, while her eyes, dilating with an irresistable fascination,
shone steadily upon him, and her voice—softened to a whisper—came to
his ear, like the voice of his own heart, the very accents of his Destiny.
“Do not tempt me again to my despair,” he wildly cried, unable to
turn his gaze from the impassioned beauty of her face—“I hear your voice
again, and all is madness in my veins. It was that voice, which tempted
me, on the fatal night, the night which is graven into my soul, in characters
of deathless Remorse. You remember! While Catharine clung to
my knees, you whispered in my ear, and I crossed the threshold of the
Sealed Chamber, never to know peace or rest again. You remember—”
“The Sealed Chamber!” echoed the beautiful woman, as her robes,
floating so loosely about her voluptuous shape, could not hide the sudden
swell of her impetuous bosom. “I do remember, Paul. Ah, how pale
and terrible you looked, when you came forth from that gloomy chamber.
No word for me, not even a look! And when I saw you last, you were
near the end of the corridor, and your father come trembling from his
room, and—”
“I struck him to the earth—” Paul's voice was faint and broken, his
face clouded with an unutterable Remorse—“With this hand I smote his
gray hairs.”
He was silent—his head sank on his breast, and as if in mockery of his
woe, a burst of music, from the lighted lawn, pealed merrily through the
window.
She gazed upon the kneeling man, and saw his form, writhe at her feet,
with an agony too deep for a murmur or a tear. His hands withdrawn
from her waist, supported his bended head, but she placed her hands upon
his dark hair, and leaning over him, suffered her tresses to enfold him,
like a veil.
“Paul,” she whispered, “I love thee. Would die for thee—for thee,
tempt ruin and despair!”
Slowly he raised his face, and saw her face so near him, that their lips
almost met. Her eyes were shining into his own; her breath fanned his
cheek; all the beauty of her countenance, glowing into the life of passion,
overwhelmed his gaze.
“Come,” she cried, or no! she said it in a voice so low, that her lips
did not seem to speak, but her soul—“Come! Let us talk of other days.
Nay let us talk of the night when first we met, here in this chamber—Do
you remember it Paul? The history of our love is brief, very brief when
measured by time, but in eternity when measured by our thoughts. Come,
Paul let us talk of the olden time!”
It seemed to him, that he could kneel forever there, bathed in the
midnight hair.
He could not answer her; his heart was full; his eyes began to blaze,
not with the serene light of thought, but with the madness of passion—
passion, such as stirs the heart, which has not leadened its pulsations,
with the loves and hates of common life.
As the pallor of his face, vanished before a sudden warmth—as cheek
and lip and brow, glowed in a moment, into a new life—he presented an
image of manly, and impassioned beauty
“And the voice spoke my name before we met,” he whispered, “And
told you that one day, we should mingle our destinies, and become
one soul.”
“The Voice!” she echoed—“Ah! I remember! That Voice which
spoke to me, from the air, and guided my life with its words. But it is
gone, now, Paul. I have never heard it since that night. But the voice
which thrills me now, and melts on my soul, as the voice of my Destiny,
speaks from your lips, Paul from yours!”
She bent near and nearer to him as he knelt at her feet, and his face
and hers were lost in the mazes of her flowing hair
The mirror reflected those forms, palpitating with youth and passion,
and centred among the images of that luxurious chamber.
Was it the echo of a kiss that broke upon the breathless quiet, or the
echo of voices, mingling their accents, as the lips—warm with the life of
youth—clung together?
“Paul!” she cried, raising her radiant face, as his countenance stamped
with the frenzy of passion was revealed—“Now tell me the secret of that
well-remembered night. Tell me the secret of the Sealed Chamber.”
His hands fell from her waist; he was pale and cold again. Where
but a moment before had been a man fired by passion, was now, only a
kneeling form, clad in funeral black, with a face livid as Death.
He rose to his feet and turned his face away.
“There—” he faltered, his face averted, as he extended his hand toward
her, “There—Read it all—and do not let it work such madness in your
soul, as it has in mine.”
It was a Manuscript which he had taken from his breast, where it had
been concealed among the folds of his dress, close to his heart.
Her hand trembled as she took the Manuscript. One gaze toward his
form, as with his face turned away, he stood voiceless and immovable
before her, and she opened those dark pages stained with the blackness
of dead centuries.
She read, her bosom slowly heaving, her eye gradually dilating, with
the light of a wild yet fearful curiosity.
Not once did he turn and look upon her.
She read, and a smile gleamed over her features,—gleamed from the
horror. Her breath came tremulous and broken; she crushed the
Manuscript in her fingers, and gazed around with a look of fright and terror,
and then—while silent and statue-like he stood near her—she fixed
her eyes upon its dark pages once more.
Her beautiful face lost its hues of youth and passion; the hair which
streamed over her shoulders, swept a forehead, white as marble, and damp
with beaded moisture.
40. CHAPTER FORTY.
THE MANUSCRIPT OF THE SEALED CHAMBER.
“To night—so ran the quaint history of Monk Eustace—we will look
upon the double-crime, whose unnatural gilt, forever clouded the House
of Mount Sepulchre.[3]
It is a spacious chamber, with a ceiling like a dome, and a floor paved
with alternate slabs of black and white marble. Four pillars adorned
with fantastic curvings support this dome, and in front of each pillar
stands the figure of a Crusader, in the armor of Richard the Lion heart,
with a red cross painted upon his breast
The walls are hung with purple tapestry, on which are emblazoned the
deeds of Richard the Lion Heart and his knights; here a picture of the
shores of Jordan; there, a fray with Saladin; a little farther on, King
Richard standing with hands clasped on his sword, while he gazes on the
Holy Sepulchre. Therefore, this chamber, illuminated by lamps of perfumed
oil, is called the Hall of Palestine.
In the centre of the place, around a board groaning under the weight
of viands and beakers, behold Lord Harry and his brave Twenty-Four.
He looks right noble in his attire of blue velvet, set off with diamond
stars and chains of gold. His head is proudly placed upon his broad
shoulders, and his long golden hair and brown beard slightly tinged with
red, gave a noble appearance to his bold features and florid complexion.
One hand upon the hilt of his sword, the other lifted a well-filled goblet,
ham, capon, and all imaginable pastries, defended by a solemn array of
bottles and goblets, now, gazing into the faces of his gallant Twenty-Four.
Vain were the power of language to picture the contrasted expressions
of their various faces—the costumes of every fashion and device—the
conversation now echoing in discordant chorus, now broken by peals of
laughter.
Lord Harry glanced upon his company, and arranged himself more
comfortably in his gilded chair, as he surveyed all these indications of pomp
and state, and murmured as the cup pressed his lips,
“It is a right good thing to be Lord of Mount Sepulchre!”
It cannot be denied, that it was a scene of luxurious display, worthy of
an Eastern Sultan.
Around the board were ranged a band of attendant servitors, clad in
silks and laces, their eyes anticipating the commands of Lord Harry and
his Twenty-Four.
The curtains drawn aside toward the north, revealed a glimpse of a
garden, full of rare plants and flowers, whose perfume imbued the atmosphere,
while many fountains glittered in the light of the setting sun through
the thickly clustered foliage.
“A health to our King!” cried Lord Harry, extending his goblet to the
Servitor by his side—“A health to the brave Harry of England and
France, the Eighth of his name!”
Goblets were raised and drained with many a loyal shout.
“To the King, and confusion to Luther!” cried a fair faced Knight,
whose youthful lip was scarce burdened by a shadow of manhood's down.
“To the Spanish woman—confusion!” shouted a grim old Knight,
whose cheeks bore traces of the civil wars.
“To the Devil with the Pope and all enemies of our King!” ejaculated
a courtly Lord, whose eyes were affected with an inordinate habit of
winking.
Baron Henry, like a true knight and sworn Courtier as he was, emptied
his goblet, and exclaimed in a joyous tone—
“Vassals! More wine! We'll have a merry bout of it together, and
hark ye, let our steeds be saddled for a merry ride by torchlight after our
feast is over!”
At this moment there was a heavy foot-tramp by the side of the noble
Lord, and a hoarse voice exclaimed, with an accent of rude courtesy—
“Noble Sir—the Italian craves a word with your Lordship—”
“Hah! Iron Dickon is't thou?”
Turning suddenly he beheld Iron Dickon standing by his side. Iron
Dickon was a stalwart retainer, who stood some six feet seven inches in
his boots, and could fell an ox with a blow of his fist. He looked, indeed,
plates of iron armor, with a dagger in his girdle, and a sword by his side.
His features were coarse, his head somewhat large even for his large body,
and there was a sort of settled vacancy in his large gray eyes, almost hidden
by his thick eyebrows.
He was a rude fellow, and his appearance in this scene of wine and
laughter was almost as welcome as a death's head at a marriage festival.
In what capacity the stout Dickon served the young Lord, few persons
could guess; he could not have been attached to him merely as a common
soldier, for they were too familiar, too often closeted together for that.
And yet, he was no knight; he was called simply Iron Dickon, and ever
since his sudden appearance, some years before,—ere the old Baron was
stricken blind—he was regarded by the other servitors of the castle with
a feeling akin to fear.
A murmur of surprise, mingled with something like anger or loathing
was echoed by the brave Twenty-Four, as they beheld the gloomy retainer
standing beside the young Lord.
“Noble Sir—the Italian craves a word with your Lordship—” repeated
Iron Dickon, scowling gloomily at the festival array.
“The Italian? Let him wait our pleasure—”
Iron Dickon drew nearer to his master's side, and whispered—
“But he will not wait. `Tell thy master I must see him this moment,
or I depart from the Castle without further words.' This was the
message noble sir, which he gave me—”
“Is it so? He shall see me by the Rood—” cried the Baron, starting
from his chair, and flinging his goblet on the table—“Woe to the knave
if he but thinks to cross my humor. Gentles—” he added, turning to the
Twenty-Four—“It is but a matter of a moment's absence. I will be
with you ere a goblet is drained.”
He turned to the door of the Hall, assuming his cap, which was
crowned with white plumes, bound together by a single jewel which
glittered like a coal.
“Dickon, I say—where is this knave?” whispered the young Lord, as he
drew near the door.
“In the Tower of Saladin, your Lordship,” whispered Dickon.
Was it only a fancy, or did the Baron of Mount Sepulchre change color?
“The tower of Saladin?” he echoed—“Knave! How came he there?
Are there no other rooms in Mount Sepulchre, but you must put this
stranger in the tower of Saladin?'
“There are many rooms in the tower of Saladin,” bluntly replied the
vassal, “on the first floor there is a large hall, which has served us for
a guard room ere now. Down among the foundations there is a dungeon.
On the second floor where there are two chambers, one opening into the
other, I have placed this Italian and his page—”
“His page!” cried Baron Harry, as his foot touched the threshold.
“And on the third floor,—” continued Iron Dickon, without heeding his
master—“On the third floor, I say, there is a chamber which overlooks
the country for a score of miles, and there—”
“Be silent!” whispered the Baron, as he laid his hand upon the wrist
of his servitor—“There are other ears listening beside mine.”
The servitors stood ranged beside the lofty door, as their Lord crossed
the threshold, followed by Iron Dickon.
Curious it was to see the amazement pictured on the faces of the redoubted
Twenty-Four. They whispered one with the other, while the
wine-cup stood untasted; they cast anxious glances toward the door; and
soon a breathless stillness pervaded that hall, so lately echoing with the
shouts and laughter. They spoke of various matters with the manner
and look of men who talk of things forbidden. Of the Italian, with his
bronzed visage and eye of flame—was he indeed a Magician? Had he
in truth sold his immortal soul to the enemy of mankind? Of the elder
brother, Ranulph, who had died abroad, they also spoke; and one, bolder
than the rest, whispered somewhat of the old man—the Father. At the
word, there rose an universal murmur, for Lord Harry had forbidden the
mention of his father's name or existence, by any tongue within the castle-walls.
Strange it was, to see the fear which had descended upon the
brave Twenty-Four. Was this strange stillness, this sudden fear, an
Omen of the Calamity which that night befel the house of Mount
Sepulchre?”
An hour passed and the Baron had not returned.
Suddenly the door was opened; every face was turned to look upon
the Baron, and from the manner of his countenance, gather some indications
of the nature of his secret counsels with the Italian.
It was not the Baron who appeared.
A man of tall form, clad like a monk, and with a cowl dropped over
his face, crossed the threshold, and with hurried steps passed through the
gaily-lighted hall. Not once did he turn and look upon the guests; no
eye caught one glimpse of his face—he appeared—he crossed the hall—
and was gone through an opposite door while the joyous Twenty-Four
gazed in each others eyes, in blank amazement.
“The Italian!” the murmur burst from every lip.
It seemed, in truth, as if that tall form, clad in monkish robes, and crossing
the marble floor with a soundless step, had imbued the air with a
spell, and left a mortal fear in every heart. It is even said, that the fragrance
of the perfumed lights was lost in the odor of brimstone; but of
this I am not assured.
“The Italian!” murmured the stout Twenty-Four, and set their half-drained
goblets down.
Another hour was gone. Some of the joyous Knights were sleeping in
idle in the shadows of the lofty pillars, when the silence was broken by a
footstep. There was no dismay, no fear this time. It was the bold step
of Baron Harry, Lord of Mount Sepulchre.
He crossed the threshold with a flushed cheek and sparkling eye, while
Iron Dickon walked scowling and sullen at his heels.
“Gentle sirs, I cry your mercy for this discourtesy,” he exclaimed, as
he stood at the head of the well-filled board, the light shining upon his
noble form, and revealing his animated face, which seemed framed in his
red beard and golden hair—“Matters of some importance claimed my
ear. This Italian tells me, that he can restore the poor old man, my
father, to strength and health again—”
Much wonder looked from the eyes of the Twenty-Four, as they heard
the young Lord pronounce that name of all names the most forbidden—
“My Father!”
“And while he was closeted with the old man, in the third floor of the
Tower, I—ha! ha! 'Tis a merry thought! I was engaged in exploring
the mysteries of this Italian's den on the second floor. I 'faith 'twas a
rare hour I had there alone. Alone, did I say? Yet hold, I must tell
you the history in the proper way. Why sit ye, staring like monks, between
the hour of prayers and dinner? Fill goblets, all, and I will tell
you the merry history of my adventures.”
The Twenty-Four filled their goblets, but even as they drained each
cup, their eyes were fixed upon Lord Harry's comely face
Behind his Lord, his scowling visage half seen above the young Baron's
head, stood Iron Dickon, fixed and immovable as one of the effigies which
encircled the board.
“Ha, ha! 'Tis a story that will burn your ears, my joyous Knights,
brothers of this Companionship, which finds its only prayer in woman's
eyes, its only altar in a well-filled board, its only worship in a brimming
cup. But listen. There are two rooms on the second floor of the Tower
of Saladin, two rooms, separated by a narrow door. Dickon, my gay
Death's head, didst thou not force the door,—ha, ha! In the first room I
found alembics, crucibles, skulls, and parchments, and all other indications
of this Italian's wizard-craft. But in the second room, when Dickon
faced the door,—the Wizard all the while was in the room above, with
the old man, my father, you must remember,—I found a—page! Not a
page from some black-lettered prayer book, my good Knights, but a living,
breathing page, bound in a close-fitting dress of black velvet, with eyes
like stars, hair like a cloud, and a bosom young and warm as—as—is
your blood, after the first cup of rich old wine!”
Wondrous it was to see the curiosity which stamped every face of the
Twenty-Four.
“A woman!” the word burst from every lip.
“A woman!” echoed the hoarse voice of Iron Dickon
“The page was sleeping on his,—or her—couch. A light, very dim
and flickering shone over her face, as I drew near the bed. She lay with
one cheek resting on her bent arm, and her dark hair, half-hidden under
a velvet cap, half-straying over her cheek and neck, only made her complexion
seem more white and beautiful. Although truth to tell it was rather
brown than white,—a ripe brown, with red bloom on the lip, and a rose-bud
on each cheek. And she was sleeping as I drew near the bed, her
limbs clad in black velvet resting upon the white coverlet—a right pleasing
sight, by my knightly word. Do you know, gentle Sirs, what thought
stirred in my brain, as I beheld the sight?
“`Ho, ho, you carry it bravely, Sir Sorcerer,' I muttered—`You come to
Mount Sepulchre, your purpose, the restoring of my good father to health,
and sight. Days pass, and my father is still palsied and blind. But you,
Sir Magician, console your hours with the caresses of your Italian leman;
yes, Sybarite that you are, you turn this chamber of Saladin's tower, in
a bower for your lady-love.' Is't not enough to mad a saint? The insolence
of this swarthy caitiff?”
“'Tis incredible!” chorussed the Twenty-Four, “'Tis hideous! The
conjuring knave!”
“But the page?” cried a grey-bearded Knight, and Twenty-three others
echoed the question.
Baron Harry seized the cup, and did not take it from his lips until he
had drained the last drop. He passed his hand through the curls of his
golden hair, smoothed his red beard, and his eyes grew brighter, his cheek
became more flushed and glowing.
“Thoughts like these stirred in my brain,—while Iron Dickon held
the door. I resolved to punish the insolence of the knave, even as he sat
with the old man in the room above. Therefore I gently touched the
sleeper's cheek, and at the same moment crushed the light beneath my
cap. She awoke in darkness, she took my hand, and whispered `Raphael
is it thee,' I answered her with a kiss—without a doubt she mistook
me for the Italian.
Then the brave Lord burst into a fit of boisterous laughter, accompanied
by sundry twitchings of the face and workings of the eye, which seemed
to be well understood by the Twenty-Four, for they laughed and shouted
until the Hall of Palestine rung with the deafening uproar.
“Meanwhile, gentles, Iron Dickon held the door,” continued the Lord
of Mount Sepulchre, “And the Italian, having brought to an end, his interview
with the old man, descended from the upper room, but did not attempt
to enter the love-bower in which I was conversing with his page.
May be he did not see Iron Dickon in the darkness—”
“He passed by me,” said Iron Dickon; “I could have touched him
with my arm. Well for him that he did not attempt to enter that room!”
He raised his brawny arm above the head of his Lord, and growled an
oath.
“We saw the Italian pass through the hall,” cried a youthful Knight
“But as to this page—”
“I left him only a moment ago. This is my purpose good Knight, and
joyous companions! We are very much like monks, here in our good
castle of Mount Sepulchre. We pass our hours in earnest worship, but
woman's smile, never cheers our prayers,—woman's eyes never shine
upon our solemn festivals. What say ye to a beautiful woman, who shall
preside at our board, direct our worship, become, in a word, the Lady
Abbess of our mysterious rites?”
The Twenty-four had simply laughed and shouted before; now they
started from their seats and flung their wine-cups in the air, and filled the
room with one thunder cry.—
“The Lady Abbess! The Lady Abbess of Mount Sepulchre!”
“Dickon hie thee to the castle gate. Give orders there, that this Italian
never enter our castle again, or if he does, let him come in chains, as our
prisoner, and let him be conveyed in secresy, to the deepest cell, beneath
the Tower of Saladin. Dost hear?”
Iron Dickon growled assent, and without a word departed on his errand.
He departed through the Western door which led towards the castle gate:
the Eastern door be it remembered led to the Tower of Saladin.
“It is well,—” cried Baron Harry, his eyes flashing with all the joy of his
young blood, “Thus are we free from the intrusion of the Sorcerer. He
has gone to the ruins of the Monastery in yonder woods; at midnight he
will return, but Iron Dickon will take care of his prisoner. As for the
Lady Abbess she shall never behold him again; we can coin some brave
story of his treachery and flight. Is it not a brave plot my good companions?”
Amid the shouts and laughter Baron Harry took his seat, and filled his
cup and drank to the Lady Abbess of Mount Sepulchre. And the lamps
which hung from the dome of the Hall, shed their mild light over the
scene, revealing those faces convulsed with laughter and drunken with
wine, with the comely face of Lord Harry seen at the head of the board,
encircled by its golden hair. And the massive pillars glowed in the light,
until their fantastic carvings seemed to live and move, like the uncouth
shapes of a dream. And the figures of the Crusaders, clad in the armor
of the time of Richard the Lion Heart, and standing beside the lofty columns,
with the Holy Cross upon their breasts, gazed upon the scene of
uproar, and seemed to smile, as if in sympathy with the boundless revel.
The purple tapestry, too, which hung from the dome to the marble floor,
quivering its heavy folds to and fro with a gentle motion, caught the rays
upon its painted forms, until they also seemed to live and stir. The figure
of Richard the Lion Heart alone, with its hands clasped on the massive
in looking from the banquet scene.
Merry were the songs they sung, joyous the tales they told, without
limit or number the goblets they emptied—the right noble Twenty-Four.
The old knight told many a marvellous legend of their bravery in the
wars; the young spoke of the dread King Henry, and his last Queen,
the winsome Anne Boleyn, and of the merry time which brave lords and
fair dames, kept at his court, where the days of King Solomon lived
again, and Love and Religion went hand in hand. Tis true the Love was
somewhat of the basest, and the Religion seemed but another name for
Lust and Murder, but still King Harry was a dread Monarch, and his
court was a joyous place.
And amid all the uproar, Lord Harry never ceased to lift his cup, and
pledge the health of “the Lady Abbess of Mount Sepulchre!”
“My Lord the Italian has not returned,—” said a sullen voice—“But
I have obeyed your behests. When he comes, he will be conveyed in
secresy to the cell, under Saladin's Tower.”
Iron Dickon, that rude Samson, stood at the shoulder of his Lord,
scowling gloomily over the festival board.
“Hah! You have done well; the knave shall trouble us no more.
What say you gentles?” he cried as he started from his chair—“Shall I
lead the Lady Abbess, into this Hall, to receive the homage of her humble
devotees? While the Italian rests quietly in the darkness of the cell,
shall we confess our sins, to the beautiful Saint, nay the High Priestess
of our Temple?”
“But will she come?” cried one.
“Dare you lead her hither?” exclaimed another.
“The Abbess! The Abbess! Let us behold her!” yelled the others
of the Twenty-Four.
“Dare I lead her hither? Whose voice spoke there! Ha, ha! You
will soon behold her, in all her loveliness, at the head of our board. A
very Venus, by my faith! In a moment, Sirs, I will return!”
He turned toward the Eastern door, but paused a moment to call Iron
Dickon to his side.
“Away, Dickon. Watch by the castle gate. Do not appear again,
until the Italian returns.”
And as the gloomy Servitor departed by the Western door, his Lord,
attired in garments of price, sprinkled with stars and jewels, glided through
the Eastern door, his white plume waving over his laughing face.
The Twenty-Four were alone with their cups again, but their eyes were
incessantly turned toward the Eastern door, over whose threshold the
beautiful Abbess was soon to glide, with the step of a Queen, and a face
worthy of Lady Venus, the Saint of Love.
Ten minutes passed away, but the brave Baron did not appear.
“What detains our Lord? Does the dame prove reluctant?” said one.
“Ah, ha!” laughed another, “It may be that she recognizes her `Raphael'
in person of Lord Harry. 'Twas a brave trick by the rood!”
At this instant a dagger, dripping with blood, fell upon the table, and
clanged against the golden platters, as its blood-drops were sprinkled over
the board.
Vain were the attempt to picture the surprise, the dismay of the Twenty-Four.
Their eyes were fixed upon the dagger, a long blade with a hilt
of gold, and then they gazed pale and wondering into each others faces.
“That dagger was flung there by no human hand!” faltered the old
Knight.
At this moment, the Twenty-Four, gazing toward the head of the table,
behold—Baron Harry with the beautiful woman leaning on his arm? I trow
not. But a tall figure, robed in something like a monkish garb, with the
arms folded, and the cowl drooped over the face.
“The Italian!” the cry burst from every lip—“His hand hath flung this
dagger on our board. Seize him,—seize him, in the name of our Lord!”
They started with one impulse from their chairs, but not a hand was
extended to grasp the sombre figure, which without voice or motion, stood
like a dumb image of wood or stone, at the head of the board.
The face was lost in the shadow of the cowl; they could not trace a
single feature.
The contrast between this solitary form, robed in funeral black and
those gay figures attired as if for a marriage feast, was striking and wonderful.
And yet they did not stir; not an arm was lifted to strike him to the
floor; it seemed as though the strange awe, which fell upon the Twenty-Four,
was his protection; as though his very presence chilled every heart
into ice.
“Seize him,” cried the old Knight—” Remember the words of the
Baron; seize the Sorcerer!”
A voice come from beneath the shadow of that gloomy cowl. It was
not loud,—far from boisterous—and yet it pierced every nook of that spacious
hall.
“That dagger is stained with your Baron's blood. Go! and minister
to him in his dying hour. You have shared his pleasures; now behold
his agonies. He lies on the threshold of the second chamber of Saladin,
even, upon the spot where I struck him down.”
The hall rang with shouts of vengeance, and the light disclosed faces
distorted by rage, but not a hand was raised against the Italian's breast.
“Our Lord murdered! The gallant Harry slain by this Sorcerer!”
“Go!” cried the Italian, still speaking from the shadow of his cowl—
“Bring hither the body of the dying man. In his presence, I will submit
to your judgment.”
The aged Knight spoke to three others—“Come,” he whispered “we
will do as this wretch advises. But look ye—” he cried aloud turning to
the rest of the band—“Look ye, one and all, that the Assassin does not
escape!”
With these words, the aged Knight and the three others left the hall by
the Eastern door, while the remaining Twenty, folding their arms, stood
in dead silence around the board, their eyes fixed as if by some unearthly
spell, upon the veiled form of the Murderer.
Not once did he raise the cowl; not once did he remove his folded
arms from his breast. Silent, erect, immovable, he seemed to fix his
eyes,—from the shadow of the cowl—upon the dagger, which lay amid
the platters and goblets of gold, its blade glittering with blood.
“Wherefore didst thou do this thing?” asked one of the Knights, after
a pause of breathless stillness.
“Was it for the sake of thy leman?” added another.
“By the body of your dying Lord, I will confess,” answered the Italian
in a low voice.
The tramp of footsteps was heard from the Eastern door, and soon the
four Knights appeared, bearing a body, which was covered by a dark
cloth, resting upon face and breast like a pall.
“He is dead,” said the aged Knight, and they laid the veiled corse at
the feet of the Murderer. “Now sir conjuror, look first upon the face of
the dead, and then upon thy death.”
He drew his sword, and the others followed his example, and formed a
circle around the Italian and the body of the dead. And the Servitors,
pale and shuddering, looked over the shoulders of the Knights, and awaited
in dumb suspense the issue of the scene. Iron Dickon alone was absent.
A breathless awe such as comes upon the souls of men, when a deed
of Murder has been done, and when the very air seems to be hushed by
the presence of Death, fell upon the lips and hearts of the spectators of
this scene.
“Beneath that robe lies a dead body, still warm still bleeding; and
only a moment ago that foul thing of clay, was my Lord Harry Baron of
Mount Sepulchre!”
It was this thought that sealed every lip, and roused even the drunken
knights, into the consciousness that Death was there—grim and brooding in
the luxurious Hall of Palestine.
“Tell us, sir conjuror,” said the old knight, even Ralph of Grey-wolf
between his set teeth—“What urged thee to this deed?”
A murmur swelled through the hall, and then again that brooding
stillness.
The Italian did not lift his cowl. No man might trace the emotions of
his face. But he trembled; the hands which were crossed upon his breast
shook as with a spasm.
“Gentle sirs,”—he began in a sad and humbled tone—“Ye have read
in the Holy Book of a poor man who had a lamb, only one, and even
that the Rich Man coveted and tore from its shelter near the poor man's
heart—”
“Read us no monkish lesson,” growled Ralph of Gray-wolf—“There
lies the corse! answer for that deed, and pray; for the time grows short
with thee!”
“There was a Maiden, gentle sirs, whom the poor Scholar had gathered
to his heart, not as a wife or mistress, but as a sister, a holy thing, too
pure for one taint of earth-born love. She had been as a blessing from
God, to him in his weary march through the world—she shone in his
dark cell, like a good Spirit sent by Heaven, to cheer the brain when it
was sick, to nerve the heart when it was faint, to thrill some life into the
soul, when it grew cold within its corpse-like shell. Through many a
land, that true maiden disguised in the apparel of a Page, walked with the
forlorn Scholar,—his good Angel in every dark hour. And when his destiny
led him from the court of your King to this Castle of Mount Sepulchre,
she was with him still, the only thing for which he lived. Your
Lord wished the Scholar to create Gold for him, and spoke something of a
sick old man, blind and palsied, whom the Scholar might restore to sight
and health. And while the Scholar bent down amid his wierd studies in
one chamber of the Tower, this angel in the shape of woman, this pure
maiden whose lip had never throbbed to one unholy kiss—even from his
lips, who had worshipped her—would come gently over the threshold,
and lay her hands upon his fevered brow, and press that brow against her
virgin breast.”
The knights began to gaze upon this strange man with involuntary
interest. So humble and mild his tone, that even Ralph of Grey-wolf was
moved despite himself. He dashed a tear away with a curse, and bado
the Scholar—“Go on, Sirrah! and make brief your words, for the moment
of your death is near!”
“To night I summoned your Lord from the hall. Gold, I assured him,
I would create at his command, but he must give me sight of the old man,
whom I came to Mount Sepulchre to cure. He denied me; I turned to
leave the castle, when at last he bade me seek the old man in the upper
chamber of the tower. Ascending a stairway built in the thickness of the
wall, I came into the room, in the summit of the tower, and by the light
of my lamp, struggling with the moonbeams, that shone through the solitary
window, I beheld a scene that might have moved a Devil into shame
and tears. The old man was there, his white beard waving over his
breast, but his wrists and ankles, were chained to the floor, as though he
had been a savage beast. He was blind, he was palsied, but his own
child had blinded him, his own child had stricken his veins with palsy.
Aye, three years ago, from the bed of fever, the old man was hurled
when his Son brought him into light again, and chained him to the tower
floor. Your young Lord wished the Lordship of Mount Sepulchre ere
his father was dead.”
“It is false! Knave the lie blisters on thy tongue!” shouted Ralph
of Grey-wolf, but the rest of the Twenty-Four was silent. Murmurs such
as the belated wayfarer, hears from the Ghosts that haunt accursed burial
places, began to creep from lip to lip.
“And I struck off his chains. And I raised him from the loathsome
floor of that foul den. And I, the Italian, the Sorcerer, spoke to him the
first word of kindness he had heard in the long night of blindness, yes,—
yes—his dead brain throbbed into something like life at the sound of my
words. Meanwhile your young Lord, crept into the chamber, sacred
with the presence of a pure woman, and in the darkness, aye, like a
coward who does a coward's murder in the dark, he went to his infernal
treachery. He, pressed that lip which I had never touched, even with a
brother's kiss, he dishonored that form, which I had never looked upon,
but from afar and with the reverence of a holy worship.”
“She was thy leman,” said old Ralph bluntly—“This castle is no place
for the loves of a wandering beggar and his mistress.”
But the Twenty-Four did not chorus his words. Something like sympathy
subdued the ferocious resolve, which had impressed their faces;
whispering one with the other, they said with a shudder that it was an
infernal deed, and that my Lord Harry of Mount Sepulchre, had deserved
his death, not so much on account of the Italian woman, as for the blindness
and palsy of the old man, his father.
“Still thou must answer for the deed—” said the youngest of them all,
and an ominous murmur echoed his words, as sword in hand he advanced
from the group—“Answer for it now, and with thy life!”
“First uncover the corse!” said the Italian, clutching his dark robe
with trembling hands.
Old Ralph with his dagger between his teeth, and his sword under his
arm bent down, and touched the dark robe, which veiled the dead,—
“Hold!” cried the young knight—“Let him answer first how the deed
was done. We all beheld thee cross this pall, an hour and more ago, on
thy way to the castle gate. Thou didst not return this way. How didst
gain entrance to the castle? Answer me?”
The Italian simply replied, in his low sad voice—
“Uncover the corse, and I will tell you all!”
Old Ralph grasped the dark cloth, and the interest of the group, was
manifested in their straining eyes, when their circle was increased by a
new spectator, a man with haggard face and blood-shot eyes, who stole
unobserved behind the grim knight, and looked upon the motionless Italian
with a vague and horror-stricken gaze. As every eye was fixed upon the
new spectator of the scene passed unobserved, until the Italian raising his
glance, beheld that haggard face, with its eyeballs discolored with injected
blood.
At the sight the Italian started back, wavered to and fro like a man
drunken with wine, and then his lips gave utterance to an ejaculation
which pierced every soul:
“The Lord of Mount Sepulchre come back to life!” and dropping his
face, covered by the cowl, upon his breast, he stretched forth his white
hands toward the haggard form.
They raised their eyes, and a cry such as never was heard before within
those walls, pealed echoing to the dome:
“The Lord of Mount Sepulchre come back to life!”
It was even so. The haggard form, with dress disordered and golden
hair matted upon the brow—damp with beaded sweat—and blood-shot
eyes rolling in a livid face, was none other than Lord Harry of Mount
Sepulchre.
He gazed into their affrighted faces without a word; his eyes rolled
with an idiotic glare.
“If thou art the Lord of Mount Sepulchre—” the Italian whispered, his
white hands extended and his head drooped on his breast,—“Then who
was it, that fell beneath my steel in yonder chamber?”
Old Ralph stripped the dark cloth from the breast and face of the dead.
And every knight moved one step backward, even old Ralph shrank
shudderingly away; the haggard Lord and the Italian confronted each
other beside the corse.
It was an aged man, whose gaunt form was clad in rags, but whose
white beard, flowing to the breast, was dabbled in blood. The eyes wide
open, fixed in death; the jaw fallen, the hands cramped and distorted,
stretched stiffly beside the lifeless frame—a sadder sight the eye of
man never saw.
It was the old Lord, Hubert of Mount Sepulchre.
And around this hideous image of Sudden Death, thronged the affrighted
spectators,—knights and servitors—every face blank, every lip sealed.
The Italian knelt beside the corse, and stretched forth his hands over
its face, muttering to himself in a low voice.
Lord Harry, like a man ridden by a night-mare, looked vacantly into
the face of the dead, and then into the eyes of the spectators, as if to ask
the meaning of the scene.
The dead awe which rested upon the hall of Palestine, was disturbed
by a low and gentle step, and there came a woman's form, half hidden in
the raven hair which flowed to her knees, stealing through the throng, and
taking her place, in silence, between Lord Harry and the prostrate Italian.
Through the meshes of her hair, her white arms were seen folded over
their brightness, as they vacantly turned their glance from face to face.
“The Italian's leman!”
“So pale and yet so beautiful she stood there, attired as much in the
waves of her black tresses as in her loosened robe, that the spectators
thought they beheld no living woman, but a spirit from the other world.
“Raphael!” she whispered, bending down beside the Italian,—“I am
innocent!”
The words were simple, but the sound of her voice seemed at once to
break the spell which chained the Sorcerer to the corse, and bound the
spectators in breathless awe. At once the Italian started up, and dashed
her from him, yes, dashed her beautiful form upon the breast of the dead;
at once the knights rushed forward, brandishing their swords, at once Lord
Harry, recovering from his idiotic apathy, raised his voice, and called for
vengeance upon the Assassin of his Father.
Amid the infuriated throng, the Italian stood erect, hemmed in by a
circle of interwoven swords, that glittered in the light like fiery serpents
shut out on every side from hope and life, by brawny arms and faces reddening
with the lust of blood.
But at this moment occurred a scene, which, witnessed as it was, by
thirty living men, seems so strange, so utterly incredible, that I, humble
Eustace Brynne, the writer of this chronicle, tremble as I record it upon
my page.
Even as the Knights rushed forward to sheathe their swords in the blood
of the Italian, the lights were obscured and the wide hall darkened by a
cloud of vapor, which rolled from the dome to the floor in vast and undulating
columns. This vapor blinded every eye; no one could distinguish
the face of his neighbor; they tossed to and fro like men bewitched, and
grappled with each other in the gloom. And from that rose-colored cloud,
their shouts and curses swelled into the dome, like the confused cries of
drowning men from the vortex of a whirlpool.
When the vapor cleared away, and the lights shone brightly once more
throughout the hall, and the knights beheld each others' faces, they found
themselves standing sword in hand, around the corse of the old man; Lord
Harry the most infuriate of the throng, rending the stillness with curses
as he shook his dagger over his head.
But the Italian and the Woman had disappeared.
In vain they searched the wide hall; in vain they thrust their swords
behind the hangings; in vain their angry questioning of the frightened
servitors. There was no trace of the Italian and his mistress. No one
had seen them fly; no door had been opened to give them egress from
the Hall.
But they were gone; their place beside the body of the dead was vacant.
They had vanished like forms of cloud before the morning breeze.
When this consciousness was impressed upon the hearts of the Knights,
they gathered again around the body of the old man, resting the points of
their swords upon the marble floor, as they looked with fixed eyes upon
the dead. Lord Harry was in their midst, his arms drawn tightly over
his breast; his eyes sunken beneath the downdrawn brows, were rivetted
upon his Father's face.
No one dared question him concerning his knowledge of this terrible
deed, but that which no one asked, he told himself in broken tones.
“It is the work of Sathanas!” he muttered, as though speaking with
himself—“My hand was on the door of her chamber, when I heard voices
within—his voice and hers—mingling in low and hurried tones. I listened;
she was telling him that he had been there, but an hour before, and that
he had pressed his kiss upon her lip, and—he denied in cold and
angry tones, and my name trembled from his lips, followed by the sound
of a footstep, approaching the door by which I was listening. I drew
back deeper into the shadows; the door was opened, and by the blaze of
light which rushed into the cell, I saw his arm lifted, and saw my father
fall bleeding beneath the blow. He, too, had been concealed within the
cell; he had started up as the light flashed in his face, and received the
blow intended for me. For, as the caitiff struck, he shrieked, `this for
thee, my Lord Harry of Mount Sepulchre!' Then, without turning to
look upon the corse, he fled. How came my father there? True, the
stairway of his cell opens into the Wizard's room, but who unloosed the
old man's chains? It is the work of Sathanas!” he turned with a flushed
cheek and rolling eye, to his brave Twenty-Four, “Yes, the Enemy of
Mankind hath been among us!”
There was no answer for the young Lord of Mount Sepulchre. The
Knights, young and old, looked upon his face and upon the cold face of
the dead, and kept their peace.
“What do I see? Do you shrink from my touch, gentle sirs? Is there
poison in my look? Come—the good old man is dead—Sathanas has
been here—let us forget it all in a brimming cup! God's death, my good
companions, your pale visages are enough to make a man afraid!”
The brave Knight seemed to have forgotten the wine-cup and the board,
in the dumb horror of the dead man's face. Old Ralph alone gave answer
to the Lord of Mount Sepulchre—
“Cover his face, my good Lord, and let us to our beds. As for me, by
to-morrow's light, I am bound for France or for some other land, where
there is Priest and Shrine, to wash out the stain of sin, from my Soul.
This night's work my good Lord, hath made me think strangely of the
wild life, we have led together.”
The young Lord answered him with a curse, when Iron Dickon's huge
form appeared in the Western door, his hand extended in the act of beckoning
to his Master. The Baron crossed the marble floor, and conversed for a
group, as Iron Dickon disappeared.
“He knows nothing yet of this,” said the young Lord, pointing to the
corse, “And as for me, I had neither heart nor time to tell him now. By
my faith, he waited tenderly upon the old man while he lived! He tells
me now, gentle sirs, that an hour ago he secured the Italian, and conveyed
him by a secret passage to the cell beneath Saladin's tower. You may
make of that what you please, but for the present, Iron Dickon brings
strange intelligence to us all. What say you, my good Knight? A messenger
from our King waits at the Castle gate. He demands instant audience
with me. Let the body of the dead be removed; hide it behind
the hangings. I will await the coming of this Messenger, where I stand.”
They raised the corse, and wrapped it in the sombre robe, and hurriedly
concealed it, behind the drapery of the Hall. Lord Harry, with one hand
laid upon the banquet table, and the other resting upon the hilt of his
sword, stood in an attitude of calm dignity, awaiting in silence, the coming
of King Henry's Messenger. His cheek was bloodless, his lips without
color, his eyes blood-shotten, and yet he was calm. Behind him,
ranged in a half circle were grouped the renowned Twenty-Four, their
faces, one and all, wearing a look of blank awe, while their gaze was fixed
upon the Western door of the Hall. They awaited the appearance of the
Messenger with a vague curiosity and suspense.
“He will leave his men-at arms without the castle gate, and enter the
Hall alone,” exclaimed Lord Harry: “'Tis a privilege of Our Race, thus
to receive the Messenger of the King. I' faith he does not seem in a
hurry to fulfil his message. Shall we wait for him, till morning dawns?”
The words had not passed his lips, when the Western door was opened,
by Iron Dickon, and unannounced—either by trumpet peal or the voice of
Herald—the Messenger of the King entered the Hall of Palestine. As
he crossed the marble floor, advancing toward Lord Harry, every eye took
the measure of his form, and a murmur swelled through the Hall, as the
light shone on his face.
He was in good sooth, a man of remarkable bearing.
His form, tall and majestic, was clad in a close-fitting garment of purple
velvet, which set off every grace of his figure, and gave new dignity
to the kingly composure of his carriage. The velvet, which looked black
by the rays of the lamp, was only relieved by a single diamond, which
shone upon his left breast, and dazzled every eye. On his right arm, he
carried a mantle of dark velvet, which hung in easy folds, as he advanced;
and his left hand, grasped his cap, shaded by a cluster of jetly plumes.
His brow was uncovered and every eye beheld his face.
It was a noble countenance, every feature looking like the work of the
Sculptor's chissel, firm, regular, and cold as marble. Around the great
forehead, unseamed by a wrinkle, but pale as death, clustered his hair, in
his arm. His eyes, somewhat sunken beneath the brows, shone with inexpressible
lustre; they were black, and yet more bright and dazzling
than the star which glittered on his breast.
In a word if the form, would have attracted your gaze among a crowd
of a thousand, the face would have won your eye, and chained it too,
among ten thousand faces. While the form indicated the warrior, the
face brought to mind, the countenance of a Monk; not a joyous Monk
red with the juice of the grape, and swollen with good cheer; but a
Monk buried in the awful silence and breathless solitudes of his earth-hidden
cell.
“Your pardon, gentle sirs, for this unwelcome intrusion,” said the
Stranger, as he surveyed the knightly throng, “But I seek the Lord of
Mount Sepulchre, on business of the King. Will it please ye, to inform
him that the Count Capello, craves an interview on behalf of his dread
Majesty Henry the Eighth?”
These words pronounced in a measured voice, and with an air of great
dignity, produced an impression as sudden as it was various. Not a few
of the knights, murmurred such words as, “Foreigner! One of the out-landish
favorites of the King!” others gazed in silence upon the commanding
face of the Stranger, while Ralph of Grey-wolf exclaimed with
a deep sigh—“A true Catholic by the Rood! Mayhap a Cardinal in disguise.
I will confess to him!”
As for Lord Harry, he felt the blood rush to his face, as the quiet tones
of the Count Capello penetrated his ears:
“I am the Lord of Mount Sepulchre, Sir Count,” he said, and drew
himself up with a haughty air.
“Thou!” cried the Count with a start. “I cry your mercy noble Sir,
but I was told that Lord Hubert was an aged man. I pray you, lead me
to him, or at least, give me audience with Lord Ranulph his elder Son.”
“I am Lord Harry, Baron of Mount Sepulchre,” cried the young Lord
in a burst of indignation, for the gaze and look of the foreign Count,
roused his blood—“As for Lord Hubert, he is blind and old, and never
again will give audience to any one, not even to the King himself, were
he to honor my poor mansion with his presence. And Ranulph—he died
abroad years ago. Sir Count, I await the message of the King!”
Beautiful it is to see, the native dignity of a high-born English Lord!
There was Baron Harry, as gallant a Knight as ever rode to battle, raising
himself to his full stature, his proud lip curling, and his blue eyes full of
icy scorn, while the Foreign Count, abashed by his commanding presence
drew back a step, bowed his head and held his jetty plumes before his
face.
“There is the message of the King, gracious Sir,” he said, and without
with a heavy seal.
“The Seal of his Majesty!” murmurred Lord Harry, as he opened the
parchment, “Hah! What is this I behold! `Thy Brother Lord Ranulph
lives—' ” with a flashing eye, he drank in the briaf words of that Royal
missive.
The hand which grasped the parchment dropped by his side. He
turned his face—now bloodless and ashy—toward the Foreign Count,
who still preserved his attitude of mute respect, and held his plumed cap,
before his face.
“The King writes me that my Brother, Lord Ranulph lives, aye, and
by the Mass! that he will be here in a few days. What say ye,
my good Knights? Has not our dread Lord, been deceived by some perfidious
follower of the Pope!”
There was wonder and consternation painted upon the faces of the
Knights, beyond the power of my poor pen to describe. Murmurs pervaded
the air, and old Ralph swore somewhat blasphemously, that he was
bewitched, and given over to Stahanas on account of his sins.
“Sir Count, perchance you will make plain this mystery,” said Lord
Harry, in a tone by no means bold or deep, while his pallid cheek and
quivering lips, contrasted somewhat strangely with his golden curls
and red-brown beard. “You have seen my brother, or is this but a merry
jest of the good King?”
The stranger Count raised his head, and the light fell upon his pale visage,
as it was agitated by a smile of singular sweetness.
“Brother, dost thou not know me, even yet?” he whispered—“My
features I know are changed, but methinks some pulse of our father's
blood, throbbing about thy heart might have told thee ere this, that it was
I, Ranulph thy Brother!”
The gallant Harry staggered back—reeled wildly like one bereft of reason—and
would have fallen to the floor had it not been for the extended
arms of old Ralph.
“Thou!” he cried with chattering teeth and corpse-like visage, as he
struggled in the arms of the old knight: “Thou my brother! Thou,
Ranulph! Nay—nay—Ranulph is dead, Ranulph has been grave-yard
dust long, long ago. It is all a cheat—a mockery!”
Then it was that the Stranger, rising to his full height, surveyed the
silent throng, with a calm gaze and a sad sweet smile. Every one
confessed the majesty of his presence and the noble lineage written on his
brow.
“He does not know me!” he sadly said, “Alas! the woeful hour! I
come back to the castle of my fathers and mine own brother does not
know me!”
He raised the plumed cap as if to hide his tears.
“Lead me,” he muttered, in a voice broken and hurried, “Lead me to
the old man, my father. Let me feel his hands upon my brow again,—
he at least, will know his long lost son!'
Silence reigned throughout the hall, silence dead and leaden as a Wizard's
spell. The Knights fixed their affrighted eyes upon the stranger,
and with curdling blood, confessed within their inmost souls, that he was
indeed Lord Ranulph, or his Ghost. Meanwhile, Harry struggling from
the arms of the old Knight, tottered forward and extended his hand:
“Brother—forgive—” he gasped—“I was but a child, when I saw thee
last. Forgive and take my hand!”
Lord Ranulph—for it was the elder son of Baron Hubert, in good sooth
—lifted his pale face once more, and his dark eyes shone with tears, as
that peculiar smile, at once sad and sweet, hung on his lips.
“Thy hand my brother. Hah! It makes the heart swell, to touch the
palm of a Mount Sepulchre once more. Wine, my gallant Sirs, wine!
For I would pledge my brother in a brimming cup, and my fair dame,
shall press it with her lips, ere he drinks, in token of her sisterly love!”
“Thy dame?” exclaimed Baron Harry, and his surprise was echoed
by the Knight.
“Behold her! The Lady Eola, wife of Ranulph of Mount Sepulchre!'
and from the shadows, came a woman of beautiful shape, clad in a garl
of rich velvet, with a dark veil drooping over her face. She had glided
unperceived over the threshold, and now stood by her husband's side, her
white hand, laid gently upon his mantle. The dark habit which she
wore, disclosed the outlines of a form, at once slender and voluptuous,
while the thick folds of her veil could not altogether hide the dazzling
brightness of her eyes.
Beshrew my heart, but it was right wonderful, to behold the thunder-stricken
faces of the gallant knights!
“He brings his good dame with him, from other lands,” cried one,
“'Tis Venus herself in funoral garb, with a black veil over her face!”
“A form like Anne Boleyn!” exclaimed another.
“And all the dignity and presence of our late Queen!” added a third.
Lord Ranulph took a golden cup, brimming with old wine, from the
hand of Sir Ralph, and spake to the beautiful lady, in an unknown tongue.
She answered in a voice, low and sweet, but the wondering knights, could
by no means comprehend her words.
“The Lady Eola cannot master the rude syllables of our English
tongue,” said Ranulph, turning to his brother, “But she greets you as a
Brother, my true Harry, and consents to press her lips to the cup, ere it
passes to yours, in token of her sisterly love!”
True it was, that the brave Harry, pallid and amazed, looked not unlike
a man enchanted. He saw the white hand of the beautiful dame lift the
cup; he bent forward eager to gain a glimpse of her face, as she parted
golden rim of the goblet, was all that rewarded his gaze.
And in a moment, that white hand held the cup towards him, and as
he took it, their fingers slightly touched each other. 'Twas a circumstance
of no moment; but that touch, slight as it was, filled his blood with fire.
“Drink, my brother, drink to the return of Ranulph, Lord of Mount
Sepulchre! Drink to the Lady Eola, his own fair dame, and henceforth
thy loving Sister, Harry!”
As he spoke, the Lord Ranulph contemplated his brother with an earnest
look, while his great forehead, grew radiant, as with a joy too deep
for utterance.
Harry of Mount Sepulchre,—no longer Lord, but simply, `the Lord's
younger Brother,—' slowly raised the cup, turning his gaze from the
veiled Eola to the Lord Ranulph, as the golden rim touched his lip.
The golden rim touched his lip—
From that instant the place of the brave Harry, in the Castle of his
Race, was vacant forever.
Even as his lip touched the golden rim of the cup, he fell dead at his
Brother's feet, his face pressed against the marble floor, and his hands
resting by his side, without one convulsive tremor. No groan came from
his lips, as he fell, nor did his eyes roll and glare, as if struggling with
the night of death. He touched the cup—he fell. That was all. Every
eye beheld it. When old Ralph came to him, thinking that he had fallen
into a swoon, and tried to raise him from the floor, the body slipt from
his grasp like a pulseless thing of wood or stone. The gray-haired knight
turned him to the light, and his face was seen by every eye. There was
no blackness on it, but a rosy blush pervaded the cheeks, and the eyes,
fixed but not glassy, lay dull and leaden, under the half-shut lids. He
was dead. The golden cup lay near him, and a strong odour,—like the
perfume of old wine, mingled with the scent of laurel blossoms—pervaded
the Hall of Palestine.
Never in all the world was there such a Night as this, whose every
hour was marked by a Death or a Crime. The nameless wrong committed
by Harry upon the Italian woman—the murder of the old man, by the
Italian Sorcerer—the sudden death of Harry, before his brother's eyes—
these deeds all took place on the night, which marked the return of Lord
Randulph, to the Castle of his ancestors.
The hearts of the spectators were too full for speech; clad in their festival
attire, the gay Knights, gay no longer, looked in the dead face of the
brave Harry, in dumb apathy.
The veiled lady clasped her hands, and murmured a prayer, in an unknown
tongue while a shudder, agitated her beautiful shape, from head to
foot.
Lord Ranulph stood for a moment, horror-stricken and spell-bound like
high forehead was darkened by a single vein, swelling upward, from between
the eyebrows. At last a smile broke over his face; a smile
sad as a star-beam twinkling through the gloom of a charnel:
“He is dead! My Brother?” he said in a subdued tone: “He has
died of a strange disease of which I have heard in foreign lands. A disease
that turns the avenues of the heart to bone, while the cheek is full
of life. [4]
Slowly, silently, through the course of long years, this disease
builds up the channels of the heart, until at last, when some sudden emotion,
makes the blood bound like a torrent, `the work is done,' the heart
throbs no longer, and life passes away, without a sigh. My poor brother
died of joy; the emotion was too strong for him! A terrible disease!”
He knelt beside his dead brother, while old Ralph of Grey-Wolf muttered
with an idiotic stare:
“A terrible disease, by the Mass, and—a right strong smell of laurel
leaves, or laurel blossoms, by my soul!”
And these are the deeds which took place on the night, when Lord Ranulph
came home to the Castle of his fathers. And I, Eustace Brynne,
who have written this history, which is intended to be deposited in the
archives of Mount Sepulchre, do hereby avow, on mine own knowledge,
that these are the deeds which were done, and these the words which were
spoken, on that fatal night.
And all other histories of that night, and all rumors which conflict with
this chronicle are lies, born of the Devil and the Pope, and uttered by
their minions, in order to taint the good fame of the House of Mount Sepulchre.
So that their lies may be known, and branded forever, with
their proper infamy, I will here, add certain of the rumors, which have
been raised by the Pope and the Devil aforesaid, against the House of
Mount Sepulchre.
I. That the Italian magician, and my Lord Ranulph were the same
person. In support of this rumor it is stated, that my Lord Ranulph
studied the black art in outlandish parts, and came to the Court of King
Harry, disguised in his Sorcerer's robes, and was there encountered by
Lord Harry, who besought him ardently to come to Mount Sepulchre, and
turn him some lead into gold straightway. Ranulph wishing to see with
his own eyes, how the young Lord bore himself, to his Father and to the
vassals of the Barony, accepted the proposal of Baron Harry, and came
to the Castle, with his outlandish wife, disguised as a page, having at the
same time, the letter of the King about his person. This is a most atrocious
be forced to regard Lord Harry, as the wronger of his brother's wife or
mistress, and Lord Ranulph as the Murderer of his Father. 'Tis a fiendish
calumny.
II. That the death of Lady Eola, which took place on the Twelfth of
November, 1539, (something more than a year after the events recorded,
as aforesaid,) was the work of her true Lord and Husband, Ranulph of
Mount Sepulchre, because he was poisoned with the thought, that the child
sleeping upon her bosom was not * * * * * * *. This is indeed a lie
worthy of Satan or the Pope. In order that future generations may know
the truth of this matter, I, Eustace Brynne, sometime Prior of the Monastery,
but now a true believer in our gracious King, have written this
Chronicle, at the command of the noble Lord Ranulph of Mount Sepulchre.
Thus ended the Manuscript, written by the Monk of the Sixteenth
Century. It was connected with other Manuscripts, written by various
hands, and narrating the history of the House of Mount Sepulchre from
age to age, until the middle of the Eighteenth Century.
But the beautiful reader had not courage to proceed. The mass of
Manuscripts fell from her stiffening fingers, and as they fluttered to the
floor, the harsh sound disturbed the breathless stillness of the place.
The reader will perceive that this is a continuation of that part of the manuscript
contained in the Prologue at the commencement of this work.
41. CHAPTER FORTY-FIRST.
WHAT PAUL BEHELD IN THE SEALED CHAMBER.
“It is too horrible for belief! The Father murdered by his own child,
the brother poisoned by the brother, and the beautiful woman sacrificed
by a nameless outrage. A maze of misery and crime! It is indeed terrible—the
very paper on which these deeds are written, breathes of the
charnel. But Paul, you turn your gaze away. You do not look upon
me. Tell me, I beseech you, what has this Revelation to do with your
fate.”
And the beautiful woman, whose death-like cheek contrasted with her
raven hair, gave a wierd and spiritual loveliness to that face, not long ago
so ripe with passion, glided over the floor, with noiseless steps, and laid
her hands upon the shoulders of Paul Ardenheim.
He stood motionless, his averted face buried in his hands. He felt her
the Sealed Chamber—revelations even more dark and harrowing than
those embodied in the Manuscripts—now clouded his whole being with a
stifling horror.
“Paul!” she whispered—“I dare not read farther; I have not the
courage. The very touch of those pages chills my blood. Speak to me,
Paul. Tell me the secret of this mystery.”
“Read on,” muttered Paul, still hiding his face in his hands—“Read
on, and learn the history of our race, and drink in, with every page, some
portion of the madness which has cursed my existence, since the fatal
hour, when your voice—yours—persuaded me to cross the threshold of
the forbidden chamber. Read on!”
“Do you reproach me, Paul?” whispered the Wizard's child.
He turned and confronted her, grasping her wrist, while the light fell
upon his ashen and colorless visage.
“Reproach you! No! No! For so much sorcery there is in your look,
so much witchcraft in your tone, that even now, as I stand before you, at
once conscious of your presence and of my own dark fate, it seems to me,
that for you I would sacrifice my immortal soul,—yes—at a word, a look
from you I would strike my father's gray hairs into dust!”
He had been wild,—mad—before, but now his pale face and settled
tone, his look at once fixed and dazzling, overwhelmed this beautiful
woman with a freezing awe. His wild reproaches, his wandering ejaculations,
his eyes rolling vaguely, his cheeks flushed with passion—all these
she could have borne, and borne with a secret triumph—but this calm
madness, this conscious despair, palsied every vein with the leaden apathy
of terror.
“Take up the dark record, once more,” he exclaimed, while she felt
his hand, as it clasped her wrist, grow cold as ice: “Let not the breath
of the charnel fright you, let not the atmosphere of unnatural crimes make
your soul afraid. Read on! Learn the history of our Race by heart;
steep your soul in every damning detail. Learn how Lord Ranulph of
Mount Sepulchre, stained with the blood of father and brother, crept behind
the chair of his beautiful wife, and sheathed his dagger in her bosom,
even as her babe was sleeping there. Learn how the man who had
stabbed his father, and poisoned his brother became the Assassin of the
woman, whose love and life had been mingled with his in the veins of
that innocent child. Nay, do not tremble and turn pale; you have asked
of me, the Secret of the Sealed Chamber; I will tell that secret, although
every word costs me an agony, deeper than the tortures of the damned.”
He paused for a moment, and passed his hand over his forehead; the
beautiful woman shuddered as she beheld the expression of his features.
“The child was not his own. The blood that flowed in its veins, was
poisoned in its every throb, by his brother's unnatural crime. Thoughts
suspicion. Therefore, he stabbed his wife; stabbed the pure woman, who
at least, had been no partner in his brother's wrong. She was dead; the
child smiled in his face from her mangled bosom. But the history of our
Race does not end here. That child grew to manhood, and became the
Lord of Mount Sepulchre. He, too, became a father: and he, like his
Grandsire, died by the hand of his son. Since that hour, through the
course of two hundred years, there have been eight Lords of Mount Sepulchre,
and every one has gone to his grave a Parricide, slain by the
hand of Parricide. You will say that there is madness lurking in our
blood, from the moment of birth; you will attempt to explain this red history
of unnatural murder, by the idea of a constitutional malady, transmitted
from father to son, for two hundred years. But no! no! Had
you crossed the forbidden threshold, and seen what I saw, and stood face
to face with Fate, as I stood, hollow words like these could never pass
your lips.”
“Paul! Your words fill me with horror beyond the power of utterance,”
cried the Wizard's child, attempting to free her wrist from the clasp
of his icy hand.
“Read on! Take up the blood-red record once more. You will there
discover, that my father, the younger son of this accursed House, soon
after the last Parricide, which took place not more than twenty years ago,
determined to leave the Old World, and bury himself and his children in
the profound solitudes of the New. He was resolved to save me, his
only son, from the curse of our house. Therefore, he renounced the
world, gave up his very name, and crossed the ocean. No human eye
tracked his course, no human eye recognized in the pale old man of Wissahikon,
the Last Lord of Mount Sepulchre. He had defied fate; he had
evaded destiny. The hand of his Son should never be stained with the
guilt of Parricide. This was his thought; a thought which breathed a
blessing on his solitude, and turned the wild Wissahikon into the very
garden of God. Now mark the sequel. All his plans—elaborated and
woven together through the years of a life-time—were crushed, not in a
day, not in an hour, but in a moment. Scattered to air, by the breath of
a woman!”
He fixed upon the Wizard's daughter the light of his eyes, flashing
with scorn, and every lineament of his face was agitated by a smile,—a
smile which was Satanic in its very mockery of joy.
“A woman!” he repeated: “Her breath destroyed the Hopes of a
life-time.” Again he smiled in mockery.
“Nay, you must listen. My father had preserved that Record of Mount
Sepulchre, in all his wanderings. He had concealed it within the chamber,
whose door was marked with a cross. It was his thought, that his
Son should never know the history of the parricidal race, until the Father
into the great world, by the temptations of rank and power, for the name
of Mount Sepulchre had long ceased to the title of his Race. It was the
name which our house had borne in ages past, but it had been replaced,
for a hundred years at least, by other names and more swelling titles.
Therefore, Paul, the son, reading that Chronicle after the death of his
Father, would not dream that his Race, or their once immense possessions,
had an existence any longer. He would only know, that he was the last
of the Mount Sepulchres; that he was buried in the forests of Wissahikon;
and that the once boundless domains of his fathers, their Castles in
England and Germany, their gold counted by millions, and their broad
lands measured by leagues—all were now embodied in the—ruined Block
House of Wissahikon. That the great name of the Race, their fame ennobled
by titles only second to Royalty, had dwindled down into the name
of the friendless boy—`Paul Ardenheim!”'
Again he paused—looked sadly in her face—while her eyes brightened
with a Thought which she dared not speak.
“His race may exist at this hour, in all their wealth and power. Another
may count his gold, and wear his titles, while the true Lord remains
unknown and friendless among these forests.”
And as Paul stood gazing in her face,—his death-cold hand upon her
wrist—the music from the lawn came gushing through the window, like
the joyous peal of a Bridal Festival.
“Read that record, beautiful woman!” Paul continued, after a breathless
pause. “Then you will know something of the mysteries of that fatal
chamber; but the full mystery—the complete history of the hour which
I spent there—I may never tell to mortal ears. But listen! There,
within that Sealed Chamber, which I had entered by a Perjury—entered
because the sorcery of your eyes and voice had maddened me—there, I
stood face to face with Ranulph of Mount Sepulchre, who lived three hundred
years ago.”
“Ranulph of Mount Sepulchre! This is a dream!” The hand which
clasped her wrist, had changed from ice to fire.
“I stood face to face with him, and looked into his eyes, and heard his
voice. It was not a Corpse which touched me with its hand—it was not
a Spirit evoked from the Sepulchre, like Samuel of old, which conversed
with me as I stood enveloped in the horrors of that forbidden place. But
it seemed to me, as if I stood in the presence of a Corpse, animated by a
living Soul. Even now, my heart writhes and grows cold at the mere
remembrance of that hour.”
As though the memory of that incredible interview, had transformed
him into the very image which his imagination pictured—a dead body instinct
with a living Soul,—Paul Ardenheim paused, his lips moved but
framed no sound; his form was motionless, his face without life or color
in his breast.
And the Woman so imposing in her voluptuous beauty, this incarnation
of all that is lovely or bewitching, among the forms of external nature,
this creature whose touch was madness, whose kiss kindled every
throb into living flame, whose glance paralyzed the reason, or only roused
it into frenzied action,—even She shrank with terror from the face of
Paul Ardenheim. Her finger on her dewy lip, one hand placed upon her
breast, as if to still its throbbings, she retreated a step, and gazed upon
him through the meshes of her unbound hair.
At this moment she looked like Esther, beautiful and voluptuous, queen-like
in form and stature, and yet with an unutterable fear, creeping through
every vein, from her heart to her eyes. Yes, she seemed like the impassioned
Jewess, summoned suddenly from the silence of her luxurious
chamber, by the death-shrieks of her murdered People, or by the blind
anger of her Monarch-Husband.
“Paul you spoke with Ranulph who lived three hundred years ago,”
she exclaimed after a pause, and her low voice, resounded through every
nook of the still chamber: “You stood face to face with this living Soul,
enshrined within the breast of a Corpse? It was a dream Paul, only a
dream, believe me. Your imagination was excited to madness, by the
revelations of this manuscript.”
Paul fixed upon her a vacant gaze, which looked into her eyes, without
seeming conscious of her presence.
“I crossed the threshold, and at once my light was drowned in a luminous
radiance, which shone around the fatal chamber. In the centre of
that radiance appeared the corpse-like form, and from the dead face, the
eyes gazed upon me, and at the same time, filled the place with light,
unlike the rays of sun, or moon, or star, but resembling the pale radiance
which flutters over the graves of the newly-buried dead. And he spoke to
me; his lips did not move, there was no sound, and yet I heard his voice. It
seemed, as though that Soul, enshrined in the breast of a Corpse, conversed
with mine, in the language of the other World, without one accent
or syllable of mortal speech. Was this a dream? Oftentimes I have
tried to hug that idea to my soul, but in vain. It was no dream, but reality,
as cold and palpable, as that which thrills through your frame, when
your hand, for the first time, encounters the dead face of a beloved one.”
“Do you remember the words, Paul?” faltered the Wizard's daughter.
“Could you look upon my heart, after death, you would behold those
words written there—yes, stamped upon my very being.
`Until the last descendant of that incestuous Child is swept from the
earth, I am condemned to live. From the hour, when my hand, smote
the bosom of Eola, until this moment, when I stand face to face, with you,
Paul Ardenheim, I have walked beside the Lords of your race, and infused
they have died; the Parricide father by the hand of the Parricide son;
it was my Soul, that prompted every murder; it was I, that nerved every
arm, and I—in spite of all my Remorse—have stood smiling, while Parricide
after Parricide, was gathered to the grave-yard dust.
`Think not to escape me, Paul of Ardenheim, in whose soul I recognize
some portion of my own. Your father has traversed half the globe;
he has forsaken the wealth, the honor of his race; he has reared you
afar from the world, reared you in ignorance of your race, your fortunes,
and your very Name. But I, Ranulph of Mount Sepulchre have been
near you, from the hour of birth; have watched every moment of your
existence; have loved you, as I saw your Mind grow into shape and
power, and at the appointed time, I will nerve your arm, for the deed of
Parricide.
`When the hour comes your Father will die by your hand.
`Because I have looked upon your life with love, because I have been
somewhat won from the cold horror of my existence, by the spectacle of
a heart, so young and brave as yours, nurtured into vigor, even amid these
virgin solitudes,—do not think that my arm can spare, or my soul
relent.
`I can never know the blessing of Death, until all—all—of the race of
the incestuous Child, even the child of Eola, are swept from the face of
the earth.
`When the last is dead, then, and then only, I can die.
`It is true, that sometimes,—after long intervals of hopeless Evil—a
hope has dawned upon my soul. From a woman, descendant from Eola,
and like Eola in mind and form, I may obtain the blessed words, which
will permit me to—die. Those words, nothing more, than the last accents,
which fell from her lips; accents which will assure me, that she,
no willing partner in my brother's crime, and that the child which slept
upon her bosom, as I killed her, derived its life, from my veins. Yet
this Woman cannot appear, until the eighth Lord of your race, has fallen
by the blow of Parricide. And she must wear upon her bosom, a Medal,
which I hung around the neck of my dead wife, and buried with her
corse, on the Twelfth of November, 1539; a medal, which I had prepared
in anticipation of her death, bearing her name, the date of her murder,
and the sign of the Cross.
`This medal, or this embodied record of my crime, I saw twenty-one
years ago—saw it for the first time, since Eola's death—and upon the breast
of a beautiful woman. But the Eighth Lord, the head of the eighth generation
was not yet dead. With the consciousness that this medal, was at
once, the token of past crime and future forgiveness, I replaced it upon
the neck of the beautiful woman, descended from Eola, and resolved to
complete the long chain of Parricide, with the death of your father's
your father's brother, but the beautiful Woman was dead. She was buried
in the Ocean. The medal lies there, with her bones. That hope
has gone out in utter darkness; I am left to my Remorse and to my career
of Crimes.
`Do not fancy, that it is an impalpable Spirit, a vague form of air, that
converses with you now. Paul Ardenheim I live,—have lived, for well-nigh
three hundred years. Learn at once the mystery of my beieg. When
I was young, when I first left my home of Mount Sepulchre, for other
lands, a latent hope was in my breast, that I might one day, achieve the
great secret, for which the Seers of ages had sought in vain, and become
Immortal, even upon this earth. The days and nights of long years, the
toil of my hand and my brain, were surrendered to this search. At last,
beneath the foundations of old Rome, in the Catacombs, those awful cities
of the dead, which spread beneath the feet of living millions, I grasped
the Secret; the Problem of ages was solved; the Truth for which the
Seers of forty centuries had sought in vain, became mine. I discovered
the hidden principle which Men call life, and even from the forms of the
dead, I wrung the knowledge, how to perpetuate that Life, and make it
Eternal even upon this earth.
`But at the same time, there passed from my Soul, all power to believe
in another World; all consciousness of a race of beings, superior in intelligence
to Man; all knowledge of an all-paternal Creator, whom men
call God. To me, from the moment when the pulses of a deathless life,
stirred in my veins, there was no longer Another World, nor a state of
being, higher and better than this earth; nor Saint, Angel, nor God. In a
word, the power to believe, passed from my nature; I became conscious
that I was to live on this earth, while the earth itself endured; to grow
old in knowledge; to become familiar with every principle of the machinery
which moves the Universe; and at the same time, to be as utterly
incapable of Faith—even Faith such as lights the beggar's heart, and
throws a halo round his very rags—as the dumb stones on which I trod.
`Was this existence, this Life which I myself had won, for Good or
for Evil?
`It seemed to me, as I stood palpitating with my new being, amid the
damps and shadows of those earth-hidden Cities of the Dead, that I might
become the Destiny of mankind. Watch over them, while ages rolled
away, and replace Superstition, Bigotry and War, with the calm and omnipotent
Unity of Universal Brotherhood. That I would reveal the great
secrets of the Universe, to a chosen few, and teach men to love one another,
by a simple disclosure of the sublime harmony, which pervades all
nature, from the Star that rolls surely on its way, through an orbit of millions
of miles, to the little flower, that only demands an inch of earth and
a drop of water for its existence. Yes, I said with unutterable rapture, I
year, from age to age, I will swell the number of my chosen band, and
encircle myself with men re-created and purified by the Knowledge of the
great laws of the Universe. And at last, when ages shall have passed
away, I will select some one, superior to all others, in love and power,
and fill his veins with the same immortality that throbs in mine. Should
he prove faithless to his trust, and use his deathless life for purposes of
Evil, I can, at the worst, meet him in a sublime although terrible combat
—oppose my own immortality to his—track his footsteps over the globe,
surround him with the atmosphere of my Power—point him out to all
the world, even to the humblest of men, as the Wretch who would mar
the Divine Harmony of the Universe, by the spasmodic throbs of his own
selfish ambition:
`Divine Harmony of Universe?
`It is the law that guides the Star more surely on its accustomed
course, than your arm, in the moment of full health, can follow the impulse
of your Will. But let the Star depart but a moment from its orbit, and
lo! entire creations of Stars, of Suns, of Worlds, are wrecked in hopeless
chaos. And the man who suffers himself to perpetrate a wrong upon
man, his brother, arrests the very Order of the Universe with the deed;
and creates a chaos more dark and discordant, in the vast family of souls,
than the wandering Star in the boundless fraternity of Worlds.
`Thus I mused beneath the foundations of old Rome, in the Cities of
the Dead.
`It was my purpose, to use my deathless existence for the Good of
mankind.
`Behold the manner in which this purpose of boundless Good was
wrecked into a Necessity of hopeless Evil.
`A memory of Home came over me. I thought of my aged father, of
my younger brother; I resolved to leave the scene of my deathless toil,
the catacombs which had been the Alembic of my deathless life, and
return to England, and look once more upon the faces of my people.
`Eola was my companion. Her previous history need not be told, nor
is it for me to relate the manner in which her life was first interwoven
with the life of a man like me—a Student in the vast labarynth of unrevealed
Nature—a Scholar, whose book was the Universe, whose Masters
were the dead Seers of forgotten ages.
`But she had joined her fate with mine. When my brow was pale
with the horror of the night-long watch among the dead, when my eye
was mad with the glare of Thought,—Thought indulged and prolonged at
the expense of the physical being, until the heart was pulseless and the
nerves palsied—then Eola, who knew no learning but the instinct of
Woman's all-trusting Faith, would call me back to life with her presence,
wake the heart into motion with her voice, thrill the nerves into serene
calm lake is to an arid landscape,—what the eye is to the human face,—
what the first gleam of life was to the visage of the dead Lazarus.
`She was beautiful beyond all the daughters of earth. Had it not been
for the pure Soul, which shone calmly from her eyes, her form would
have presented only a type of animal beauty in its most exciting shape.
All that you can imagine of physical loveliness was hers. The rounded
limb, the clear skin, ripe with the young blood of virgin passion, the
bosom blooming with the very fulness of life, the gesture that bewitched
and the voice that held you dumb with its ever-changing music,—all that
you can picture of shape, color, sound, life, combined in one breathing
Harmony—all were hers. Never did the eye of the sensualist rest upon
a more voluptuous shape—never did the gaze of the devotee linger upon a
face more hallowed by calm and spiritual beauty.
`Such was Eola—a pure Soul, incarnate in a young and passionate form.
`And she was mine. Think not that her lip had ever quivered to my
kiss; do not for a moment dream that all this treasure, of untold loveliness,
ever became even by a single caress, less pure, less virgin, than
when it first came from the hand of unpolluted Nature.
`Eola was my virgin-wife. Never should the rites of our marriage
ripen into the consummation of full enjoyment, until her Being became
deathless as my own, and until the Wife, instinct in every vein with the
pulses of immortal life, might become the Mother of a deathless child.
`This was my resolve. For I had resolved to raise Eola to my own
sphere; to lift her from the decay that withers and the death that corrodes,
into beauty that could never fade, and youth that could never die.
`And with this resolve impressed upon my being, I came to England.
As the way-worn Scholar, under a false name and in an humble disguise.
I came to my father's Home. Where I expected to find an aged man, no
less rich in years than in the respect of men, a Patriarch encircled by his
grateful People, I only found a blind old man, chained and imprisoned,
like a savage beast. Where I had hoped to meet an honorable Brother,
with truth in his heart, and the atmosphere of a generous soul, kindling
noble deeds into life wherever he turned, I only met a brutal Debauchee,
surrounded by brutal Sensualists, and growing more debased every hour
in an atmosphere of pollution. From this wretch nothing was sacred.
The poor man, the serf who was forced to dig for a crust, and barter life
itself for an untimely grave—the mistaken vestal, who had thought to
crush all the passion and the hope of her young life, within the walls of a
Convent,—the good old man, the Father, who for years had looked forward
to old age, as the appropriate time for the full development of his
son's reverence and filial love—all these, alike, were the victims of the
base animal, My Brother. The Serf to his mere love of cruelty; the Nun
to his brutal lust; the Father to his no less brutal avarice.
`And this wretched animal, this creature, who ere his youth was gone,
had grown hoary in the hyena's appetite, and the tiger's lust,—this Brother
of mine, it was, who mingled the pollution of his being with the pure
life of Eola, and made her bosom thrill with the life of a child as base as
himself.
`Eola became the Mother of his child, * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * *.
`He had roused the mere animal part of her nature—her soul was lost
in the delirium of the gross and earthy senses—she became the partner
of his appetite, and the Mother of his Child.
`And, for him I stained my hands with my Father's blood, and stamped
upon my deathless forehead, the hand of Cain!
`Do you begin to read the destiny of your Race, Paul of Ardenheim?
This woman whom I had destined to become the mother of a pure and
glorious Child, became the Mother of a Child, which as it kindled into
life in her breast was impressed in every fibre of its existence, with the
terrible necessity of Parricide. The Mother was conscious that my hand
had slain my father, and this consciousness was instilled into her Child
before it saw the light. This consciousness was the seed of a rich harvest
of unnatural crimes.
`The Child was sleeping on her bosom as I raised the steel, which deprived
her of life. There it slept with its father's baseness, the latent impulse
of Parricide, and some portion of its Mother's better nature, written
upon its stainless face. She died, but the Child I could not kill, for even
then a hope burned in my soul, that the life which beat in its veins was
derived from mine.
`I resolved to permit it to live, so that its very life might prove its
liveage.
`It lived; it grew to manhood; it struggled awhile with temptation,
soared awhile above the dust, and then sank with open arms into the embrace
of pollution. That child was at last a hoary old man, tottering to
the grave under the triple burden of age, disease and lust. And, even the
little space of life permitted to the aged sinner, was coveted by his son.
The Son slew his Father—then the lineage of Eola's Child was no
longer a doubt, no more a mystery to me.
`From that Child, Paul of Ardenheim, your race have descended. In
vain have the Lords of your Race attempted to escape the curse which
rested upon the birth of that child—and, as for you—the purity of Eola's
better nature may shed a halo around you for a little while, but the baseness
of my brother's blood, and the dark necessity of Parricide will work
their inevitable results at last, and like every one of your race, you, Paul
of Ardenheim, will sink into the grave of the Sensualist, with your brow
seared by the mark of Cain, your hand red with the dye of Parricide.'
Thus far, in a voice unbroken by a single tremor, had Paul Ardenheim
repeated the words of the singular Being, whom he had encountered in
the Sealed Chamber. As he went on, his form immovable as an image
of stone, his eye shining steadily from his corpse-like face, his voice hollow
and deep, but undisturbed by one pause, or sign of hesitation, it
seemed to the beautiful woman that she beheld Ranulph of Mount Sepulchre
himself, that she heard his own sad accents, repeating the details of
his incredible history, while Paul Ardenheim passed entirely from her
sight.
But now he paused, he hesitated, overwhelmed by emotion he was unable
to proceed, and Paul Ardenheim once more stood before her.
“The full history of that hour I dare not repeat; it would strike me
dead, but to tell it to human ears,” he resumed, in a faint and gasping
voice; “He revealed to me, the page of the Future, and showed me the
gray hairs of my father, dabbled in blood. He, Ranulph of Mount Sepulchre,
depicted the utter folly of any attempt on my part to evade Fate, and
battle with Destiny, and yet—and yet—
“`And yet there is a Hope born of a Better World, and that Hope is
yours!'
“These words fell from his lips the moment before he disappeared.
Yes, in the very bitterness of his mockery, he pointed me to Heaven after
he had surrounded me with the atmosphere of Hell.—Beautiful woman!
Do you now comprehend my destiny?” Paul grasped her hand; his pale
cheek was tinged by a faint glow. “Do you now understand the source
of the Voice, which spoke to you, and bade you urge me to my Despair?
It was the spirit of this Demon which filled your breast, and gave words
to your tongue. Ranulph of Mount Sepulchre found an instrument for
his purposes in you—your eyes, your tones, the very pressure of this
hand translated his infernal design into the semblance of virtue and courage,
and with a broken vow upon my soul, I crossed the fatal threshold,
and flung my soul into his Power. Had I not covered myself with
perjury he could have had no power to move me. But as it was, I had
already proved his words, and decided my destiny before I saw his corpse-like
Face. It was the perjury that wrecked my soul. And, now what
canst thou give me in recompense for the guilt of that Broken vow?
Thou art very beautiful—yes, thou art like Eola! `Never did the eye of
the Sensualist rest upon a more voluptuous shape—never did the gaze of
the Devotee linger upon a face more hallowed by calm and spiritual
beauty.' And yet, were the Universe thine to bestow, thou couldst repay
me for the guilt of that Broken vow!”
And as the words fell from his lips, the music from without came in
merry peals through the curtained window, filling the chamber with its
bounding echoes.
The Wizard's daughter smiled, and quietly surrendered her hand to the
parted lips; her eyes were full of latent mirth.
“Did it never occur to you, Paul, that the woman who loves you, was
no real form of flesh and blood, but a misty creation of the Demon's skill?
A spirit sent by Ranulph to win you to despair? A beautiful Demon
placed in your path, by Ranulph's power, and armed with the fascination
that bewilders only to destroy?”
She spoke laughingly, but Paul's forehead grew dark at her words.
He dropped her hands, and retreated from her gaze, while his eyes were
chained to her face.
“Eola!” he muttered, with a vacant eye.
“Let me frame another supposition,” she spoke again, but her face was
sad, her voice deep and thrilling: “You are surrounded by the arts of a
Demon, who has lived three hundred years, and who cannot die until he
has plunged you into a vortex of unnatural crimes. Tell this to the people
of the every-day world, and they will laugh at you for a madman. I
will believe it; yes, I will receive the Revelations of the Sealed Chamber
as common-place truth. But where will you find this demon? In the
form of the Woman who loves you, or in the shrunken figure of that Old
Man, who has stolen you away from the halls of your fathers,—buried
you in the shades of Wissahikon—surrounded you with incredible temptations—poisoned
your very blood with suspicion and madness?”
Paul gazed upon her in blank amazement—
“Of whom do you speak?” he cried.
“Do you not guess my meaning? Of the aged man, whom you call,
Father!” she whispered and clasped his hand. There was persuasion in
her tone, a calm, deep conviction in her eyes.
“My father!” Paul drew his hand from her grasp, and his face was
stamped with unmingled horror. “Beware!” he whispered—“You blaspheme
the Dead.”
“Ah, he is dead, then? He has disappeared—” her lip curled, and
her eye flashed with the very laughter of scorn: “Disappeared! First,
your Sister dies; sacrificed to his relentless vengeance, and then he—
disappears! And, Paul Ardenheim, who was driven forth from Wissahikon,
like a felon two years and more ago, comes back again to weep by
his Sister's grave, and mourn forsooth at the disappearance of the Demon
who had deprived him of rank and power—of race and Name—and
planted in his heart the fear of Parricide. Man! You are unworthy of
your Destiny, for you have yielded yourself a willing victim to the very
Demon whom you abhor, and—it is enough to bring a smile to a cheek
of marble—you have called this Demon by the name of—`Father!”
“Woman! You blaspheme the dead!” cried Paul in a voice hoarse
with agony, and yet her words penetrated his soul, and overwhelmed with
a Conviction which he could neither banish nor confute.
“I will not, I dare not think it!” he cried, wringing his hands in very
frenzy, as a flood of memories, swept over him, bewildering every faculty,
with their confused voices: “My father and Ranulph of Mount Sepulchre
the same? No—no—by the salvation of my immortal soul—no!
It is false, it is blasphemous—”
His voice rising with all the emphasis of despair, mingled with the melody,
which burst gay and thrilling through the curtained window.
He buried his face in his hands for a moment, and then started toward
the mirror with outstretched arms and distorted features:
“Away!” he gasped—“Thou art the Demon. Thy voice whispered
ruin. Thine eyes looked Death into my soul. Thy very presence breathes
Evil—Remorse—Despair! My father is dead; my sister sleeps the untroubled
slumber of the grave, and I am left alone upon the earth, but
left to work out a solemn duty, which permits no communion with the
passions or hatreds of mankind. Away—I hate thee!”
His hands grasped the mirror, as he sought madly for the secret spring,
while his face was turned over his shoulder.
“Hate thee! Dost read it in my eyes? 'Twas a Woman base and
beautiful as thee, who wrecked the life of Ranulph, and bartered his eternal
despair, for the brutal appetite of his Brother! Away! Thou art Eola!”
And he sought for the secret spring with trembling hands.
The beautiful woman, glided calmly to his side. She did not reply to
his reproaches, nor return him scorn for scorn. Her eyes were downcast;
her face and bosom hidden in the folds of her luxuriant hair.
“You will leave me, Paul,” she whispered, extending her hands—
“Behold! The door is open. Your way is free. And yet—” there was
a tremor in her voice—“I would not part in anger.”
Her hand had touched his own, as it sought for the secret spring. She
was by his side; the hair which shadowed her face, waved against his
breast, swayed by the breeze which came through the opened door, and
gave him a glimpse of her faultless throat, and one white gleam of her
panting bosom. He could not see her face; it was lost in shadow. But
a tear glittered upon that gleam of the snowy breast, and he heard her
voice die away in an inarticulate murmur.
Paul began to tremble; he was ice and flame by turns; his foot was on
the threshold, yet he lingered one moment, ere he left her Presence and
went forth into the silence and shadow of Night.
42. CHAPTER FORTY-SECOND.
“TO NIGHT I AM TO BE MARRIED, PAUL.”
One moment! It passes ere the pen can write the letters, and yet ages
of Thought may come and go, within its compass.
One moment!
It may be, only the last pebble which tops the pyramid, or the pivot on
which a world spins round.
“Go forth,” she faltered, “But not in anger.”
She touched his hand, and clasped his fingers with an almost imperceptible
pressure.
Paul's face was no longer wild and distorted; it was subdued by a
vague melancholy, but his heart beat tumultuously, and he was forced to
lean for support against the frame of the secret door.
A breathless pause ensued, while she stood near him, her face in shadow,
while her hand gently touched his own.
The door was free. Beyond was the darkness and silence of night;
here Paradise, made beautiful by Eve.
Paul lingered—
Where was the anger, which had swelled his heart, and quivered in
burning accents from his tongue?
She raised her face, and looked at him silently through the intervals of her
dark hair; her lips moved as if in the effort to speak, but without a sound;
and then she stretched forth her arms, and sank upon his breast.
“To night,” she murmured, as she buried her face upon his bosom.
“To-night I am to be married Paul.”
Her breast was throbbing against his heart; her arms were round his
neck, her hair waved over his arms and shoulders. It was as though
liquid fire had been poured into his veins. He gathered her form to his
breast with one arm, and closed the secret door with the other. The
mirror in its place once more, reflected her head pillowed on his breast;
his face, glowing with the fire and quivering with the tumult of a sudden
rapture.
“Married!” he echoed, and—looking over her shoulder, he saw the
white couch, among its snowy curtains, and knew at once that he beheld
the Bridal Bed.
He was lost in a tumult of conflicting emotions; he was mad with
boundless joy.
“Thou wilt be my wife!” he gasped, “Thou so young and beautiful,
wilt take the nameless wanderer to thy arms!”
The dim luxurious light of that silent chamber, the pictures glowing
from the walls, the statues gleaming from each shadowy recess, the music
bursting in merry peals, through the window, the Bridal Bed, enshrined
in twilight, all these conspired to inflame his senses, but the Woman who
clung to his neck, and suffered her bosom to beat against his breast, completed
his delirium.
“My wife!” he cried, “For me these marriage guests, for me these
peals of marriage music, for me this silent room, made sacred by the Marriage
Bed! It is too much—my brain is mad. For me the wanderer
without a name, the outcast without one rood of land, with no heritage
but Poverty and Despair.”
And then the Thought came over his soul, that this beautiful woman
had discovered his real Name; had found the clue to the title and the
wealth of his race, and planned this scene as a merry surprise, for him—
her Husband.
“Speak! Tell me the secret of this mystery with thy lips ripe with
passion. Tell it to me with thine eyes. Nay be silent. Do not speak,
or I shall grow mad indeed. Thy heart beating against mine own, speaks
a language which needs no words to be understood.”
She gently unwound her arms from his neck, and removed his hand
from her waist, and stood before him, radiant, glowing—with all her loveliness
about her like a veil
“I love you Paul,” she whispered—in a measured voice, with a pause
between each word—and took his hand: “Never can I love any one but
you. We will love each other until we are dead. In all the world, there
is no man, whose destiny is linked with mine, but you. We will climb
the heighths of fame and power together. I will be near you, when darkness
clouds your soul. I will cheer you in the moment of Despair.
When there is no resting-place for you, in all the world, my bosom shall
pillow your head. But Paul, I am to be married to-night, but not to
you.”
It seemed to him, that he was cursed with sudden blindness. The
room, the lights, the Marriage Bed, and the voluptuous form, all were lost
in thick darkness. His brain swam; he heard sounds like the ringing of
death bells in his ears; he was at once blind, mad and dumb.
“I am to be married to-night, but not to you!”
These words he heard; they sounded again, and again; they mingled
with the tolling of the death-bells.
There was a long pause, ere he saw clearly again, and found himself
still in the room, the Marriage Bed before him, and the beautiful woman
by his side.
“Pity me!” he faltered—“I am in a dream. Soon I will awake, and find
myself beside the Wissahikon, with the moonlight on my face. Yet it is
a fearful dream. If I do not soon awake I will die.”
Rising to her full stature, she swept her dark hair aside, and revealed
her face,—unutterably beautiful—but calm and pale as Death.
“It is no dream, Paul. It is real, terribly real. To-night I am to be
married. Married to Wealth, joined in solemn vows, uttered in the presence
of Heaven, to Gold. The history is intricate and long, but I will
speak it Paul, in few words. A Rich man has my father in his power;
all this wealth which you behold, is hollow and fantastic as the gold of
the Arabian legend; it shines brightly, but turns to withered leaves, before
your eyes. This mansion, adorned with all the externals of wealth,
these lands by the Wissahikon, nay the very liberty of my father, are
shut up in the Rich Man's coffers,—coffined and frozen in the charnel
house of `Law.' My body, Paul, is to be sold to-night, in the solemn
auction of Marriage; sold by the Priest, to pay the debt of my father,
and secure his gray hairs from the ignominy of the jail. The Rich Man,
the creditor of my father will purchase me,—yes, buy my body—but the
Soul, Paul, the Soul! That at least cannot be bought; it is free, as air
or Death!”
Paul did not answer. As the first man in Eden, suddenly awoke from
his dream of innocence, and found himself naked and was ashamed, so
Paul Ardenheim, started up from his wild dreams, and found himself—
Poor.
Poor! The Woman whom he worshipped—for whom he would
have bartered his Soul—was to be sold, into the arms of sanctified lust,
for the price of some thousands of round and bright and beautiful doubloons.
Could he save her! Could he redeem her body from this unholy
traffic? He could not call one piece of gold his own. He was Poor.
The agonies of the damned, are sometimes written in those three
syllables—“I am poor.”
“Come,” he muttered, as the room swam round him, and the death-bells
sounded in his ears—“We will leave this place. Some cabin by a
hill-side, will give us shelter. Our souls are rich, what need we care for
the Gold that pampers the body and damns the Soul?”
His eye was vague and wandering; his accents broken and faint; he
spoke like a man half roused from some horrible dream.
“Love in a cottage!” she whispered, while her face was radiant with
that laughter of scorn, which gave a Satanic lustre to its beauty. “No,
Paul. We are not mad enough for that. Wouldst like to gaze upon the
face of a Child, and feel that thou hadst given it being, with the curse of
Poverty upon its brow? The Leper of old, had no right to love or marry;
the Leprosy which poisoned his blood, he might bear in the silence of
despair; it was a sin darker than Parricide, to communicate that Plague
to the veins of a Child. Which is most fearful Paul, the Leprosy which
corrodes the blood, or the Poverty which transforms body and soul, into
one hideous ulcer?”
Paul was still silent, but the blindness had passed away; his eyes shone
clear and deep again; his Soul was possessed by a fixed and irrevocable
Resolve
“To night I am to be married, Paul. Hark! How the marriage music
peals through the window! The Priest will say his Prayer, or rather,
repeat the words which make the sale complete. The guests will throng
around the Bride, and while the Rich Man, contemplates his Purchase,
they will prepare Her, for the consecrated orgies of the Marriage Couch.
This is all fair; is it not? Legal, too, aye and Religious? When a Man
buys a thing, and gives his gold for it, he has a right to use it as he pleases
—has he not? But hold—” she grasped his hand, and looked into his
eyes: “Suppose the thing that is sold, has a Soul—a Will. Suppose the
Woman bought with Gold, meets her Buyer on the threshold of the Bridal
Chamber, and taught by his own `Golden Rule,' whispers in his ear—
`You have purchased the body, Husband by law, but Another has married
the Soul. Soul and body, are not to be separated: I am fearful, Husband
by law, that you cannot enjoy the one, without the possession of the
other. You have bought the body with your gold; Husband by law, that
gold is now your Curse. For with that gold, I will raise the Husband of
my soul, to rank and power; aye with your gold, I will unloose the prison
bars of Poverty, and let Genius spread its wings, and seek the Sun.
Do not murmur, Husband by Law; before the world, I will be, your Wife.
I will submit to be surveyed, by the noble and the rich, as your Purchase.
But the threshold of this chamber, you may never pass; while there is a
throb in my veins, or a Soul in my bosom you shall never mount that
Bridal Bed—Husband by law!”'
“He will be base enough, to hear this, and obey?” murmured Paul,
while his Resolve gave a terrible light to his eye, an unnatural glow to his
cheek.
“The man who buys a woman with his gold, and is content, with love
that is only purchased, is base enough, cowardly enough, for anything.
And then Paul, do I look like a Woman, who will be foiled by a creature,
like this? When I look into your eyes, Paul, I feel that you are the Master
of my Soul. And shall I, armed with this consciousness, falter and
turn pale, at the cunning or the gold of the Husband by Law?”
Paul did not answer her in words, but his gaze, spoke the purpose of
his soul. She was before him, in all her transcendant loveliness, a bold
and fearless soul embodied in a voluptuous shape. His bronzed cheek
was growing with a crimson flush; his eyes deep and clear and yet flashing
as with liquid light, devoured at a glance the witchcraft of her face, the
warm palpable beauty of her virgin form. He extended his arms,—he
drew her to his breast. And girdled in that arm, with all her life, throbbing
in her bosom, and throbbing against his breast, she felt his touch, as
burning, passionate, mad—as his lips clung to her own.
And their broken sighs—the low murmur of their love, half-drowned by
their mingling lips were lost in the Marriage Music, which still pealed
gaily through the curtained window.
And the mirror reflected their forms,—her robes like the driven snow
floating about his dark attire—and their faces, both impassioned by the
same glow, her eyes kindling with the fire of his gaze, her hair, streaming
over the arm, which held her to his breast.
“Thou art mine,” he gasped, “And now. Behold our Bridal Bed.”
And ere the words had died on his tongue, ere the kiss which answered
him, had sealed her full assent upon his lips, the mirror glided silently
aside, and two forms entered the apartment, with noiseless footsteps.
Reginald of Lyndulfe, gay and magnificent in his wedding attire, with
the pale face of Rolof Sener, smiling coldly over his shoulder.
“Leola!” cried the voice of Reginald.
“Save me! Reginald save me!” cried the beautiful woman, springing
from the arms of Paul—“Save me from this villian!”
And Paul turned and saw her clinging to the neck of Reginald, her face,
stamped with terror—aye with hatred—turned toward him, while the pale
visage of Rolof Sener, smiled coldly at his side.
43. CHAPTER FORTY-THIRD.
LEOLA, PAUL AND REGINALD.
“Save me from this villian! He entered my chamber, by that secret
door, he assailed with threats, aye with violence! He assailed my life
and more than life—my honor!”
And the Wizard's Daughter clung, frightened and pale to the neck of
Reginald.
Paul was dumb.
“It is not Paul Ardenheim that I behold. It is some miserable coward,
who bearing some resemblance to the noble Paul, has stolen his dress
and name. It is not—it cannot be Paul Ardenheim.”
Reginald's cheek was flushed, his blue eyes flashing with concentrated
rage, but his tone was calm and measured, in its very mockery of doubt.
them gently, at the same time, gathering all the sweetness of her voluptuous
mouth, in a long and passionate kiss.
Paul was dumb.
Rolof Sener, who stood near the mirror, with folded arms, surveyed
the three, with his cold and passionless smile. Here the beautiful woman,
clinging to the neck of Reginald, arrayed in his wedding dress;
there Paul Ardenheim, standing alone, his arms hanging by his side, his
face colorless and leaden as the visage of death.
“Had I been a moment later—By Heaven, it makes my blood boil
to think of it!” and Reginald gazed fondly—tenderly—in the face of the
Wizard's daughter. “Only a moment later, and I should have entered
this room, to find you my Leola, dishonored and a corpse.”
Again he clasped her hands, and pressed a kiss upon her lips.
Paul was dumb.
Rolof Sener's sunken eyes began to flash with peculiar light, and the
icy smile played around his pale thin lips, but he did not speak.
“One moment, love,” whispered Reginald, and he unwound the arms
of the beautiful woman, “I will punish this villian, who has assumed the
name and dress of Paul Ardenheim, and then Leola—” he gazed fondly
into her eyes—“the guests are waiting for us in the room below, and
every thing is prepared for our Marriage.”
Paul's chest began to heave; the color rushed to his cheek, and a
deadly light, glimmered from his bloodshot eyes.
“Leola!” he gasped, and with the utterance of that fatal name, all the
mystery of this scene, was revealed to his soul. When the word had
passed his lips he was pale and dumb again.
Reginald resigned the arm of Leola, and crossed the floor, until he
stood face to face with Paul. Rolof Sener smiled as he remarked the
contrast. The muscular yet graceful form of the Monk of Wissahikon,
clad in the garb of a Heidelberg Student; a garb worn with travel, and
bearing in every detail, the unmistakable indications of Poverty: the muscular
and military figure of the Lord, attired in the costume of a wealthy
gentleman, on the eve of marriage; a costume of silk and velvet, adorned
with jewels, and eloquent of Gold. Reginald's chesnut hair, touched by
the hand of his valet, and carefully dressed after the fashion of the time,
relieved with its powdered locks, his clear blonde complexion; Paul's
dark hair, flowed wildly aside from his bronze visage, and only made his
cheek seem paler, his eyes more intensely bright.
This was the contrast which fixed the icy smile on Rolof Sener's lips.
“As regards brute strength, they seem fairly matched,” he muttered,
“Only Paul seems palsied in every nerve, while Reginald is stronger than
ever, with settled rage.”
Leola clasped her hands, and awaited the issue, without the power to
stir from the spot where she stood.
Reginald stood face to face with Paul, and surveyed him from head to
foot, with a glance of overwhelming scorn. Paul returned his gaze, with
a vacant and apathetic stare. For a moment neither spoke; the color
went and came on Paul's bronzed cheek; now he was panting and gasping
as if for life, and now pale and immovable as the dead; while Reginald's
cheek glowed into one scarlet flush, and his eyes shone with settled
hate. At last he broke the stillness—
“Paul Ardenheim!” he whispered, hissing that name through his set
teeth, as though it was in itself the bitterest scorn, that his rage could
utter.
Paul did not answer—did not move—his eyes was fixed upon the floor.
“Speak! Speak Paul! Make but the lamest excuse; frame but the
basest apology, and I will listen patiently. In a moment my servants will
hurl you from this room and scourge you from the house. Speak! I am
waiting—with patience—am I not? What means your presence in this
chamber?”
Reginald bent forward as he spoke, until his breath inflamed by rage,
fanned the very cheek of the Monk of Wissahikon.
Paul stood motionless and dumb, with his eyes cast to the floor.
Rolof Sener smiled his icy smile, as he stood beside the mirror. As
for Leola, with her finger pressed upon her bloodless lip, and her entire
frame quivering like a tigress, about to dart upon its prey, she silently
awaited the end of his tragedy.
“You are my friend, Paul,” whispered Reginald, with scorn in his
look and in every accent. “Do you remember our vow?”
Paul shuddered.
“We will be true to each other, and in no extremity or danger desert
each other, but cherish forever the solemn symbol of the Broken but not
divided Coin—broken not divided for its seperate pieces are moved by two
hearts, joined in one by the holy tie of Brotherhood. Do you remember
it, Brother Paul? Quite romantic—eh?”
Paul raised his eyes, as if about to speak, and at the same moment
Leola started one step forward, and her gaze encountered the eyes of the
Monk of Wissahikon. That look was unperceived by Reginald. Paul
felt it to the inmost core of his heart, and his pale face, glowed into life
again. Rolof saw it and smiled. No words can describe it, for the whole
being of Leola, was embodied in that single glance. It was passion, it
was entreaty, it was madness. It said to Paul, `Spare me! And at the
proper moment I will tell you all! Spare me! For I am thine!”
Paul therefore, although his heart beat madly against his breast, was
silent as the dead.
“You still wear the Broken Coin about your heart?” cried Reginald
Coin upon your heart, you stole coward-like into this chamber, and attempted
the dishonor of my Wife.”
“Your wife!” ejaculated Paul, and then—again that look from the
flashing eyes of Leola.
“My betrothed,” answered Reginald, “In a few moments—after my
servants have scourged you from the mansion, mark ye—she will be my
wife.”
Reginald placed his hand within the ruffled lace, which fluttered between
his silken waistcoat and his breast, and in an instant, drew forth his half
of the Broken Coin. He cast it at the feet of Paul, exclaiming, “Take
it up, my Brother! It will serve to remind you of our vow.”
Paul trembled from head to foot, he started forward as if his agony had
at last unsealed his lips, but looking over the shoulder of Reginald he
again encountered Leola's gaze. He was dumb once more. He knelt in
silence, took the Broken Coin, and placed it within his garment, close to
his heart.
The moment rapidly drew near, when Reginald's rage at first settled
into a tone of biting sarcasm, was to burst all bonds, and vent itself in
loud reproaches, perchance, in dishonorable blows.
“Thou paltry knave!” he cried, “Did I not feed thee of my bread,
and give thee to drink of my cup? Thou to meditate an act like this?
Beggar! Did I not share my purse with thee, and clothe thy coward's
form, with the very garment, which it now wears?”
The cup of Paul's agony at last was full. Scorned for his treachery,
insulted for his cowardice, and now, tainted with his—Poverty.
“I am poor!” he muttered wildly, and fixed his blood-shot eyes on
Reginald's face, his arms quivering to the very fingers as with a spasm.
Was he about to grapple with the young Lord, and trample him beneath
his feet?
Rolof Sener smiled.
Leola crossed the floor with noiseless steps, and stole gently behind
Reginald, winding her arms around his neck as she whispered in his ear,
but at the same time, gazing steadily into the very eyes of Paul Ardenheim.
“Do not be angry with the poor knave, Reginald,” she whispered—
“Do not so far forget yourself as to strike him. This gentleman who
stands near us, and whom I have seen to-day before, will doubtless charge
himself with the care of the poor wretch. Will you not, good Rolof?
Thrust him forth by the secret stairway, and our guests will not be disturbed
by the scandal of his presence. For my sake, Reginald!”
And her look which flashed into Paul's very soul, spoke to him, as her
voice spoke to Reginald:
“Spare me! I am thine! When the time comes, I will tell you all!”
“Away Leola!” cried Reginald, thrusting her gently from his side:
“This knave shall answer to me, and without delay. Speak, coward!
If within your craven form, there yet lingers one throb of manhood, speak
and answer me! Have you no word to excuse this outrage?”
Paul raised his form to its full stature, and surveyed Reginald with
steady look, at the same time wiping the cold sweat from his forehead.
But he did not speak. There was a spell upon his tongue, upon his blood,
upon his Soul. It was the Soul of Leola flashing from her eyes.
Rolof Sener advanced; spoke a few brief words; extended his hands,
and then retreated to his former position near the mirror. It was but the
work of an instant, and yet his extended hands, placed a sword in the
hands of Reginald and Paul, and the words which he had spoken were
full of meaning.
“Do not forget that you are gentlemen. There are two swords. The
peal of the Marriage Music will drown their clashing. Leave scolding to
women. The outrage was attempted in this chamber, and here it must
be atoned for.”
Reginald surveyed his sword, with an exclamation of joy, as wild as
incoherent. Paul felt the hilt in his grasp, saw the sharp blade glitter in
the light, and with an involuntary glance, measured the form of his
antagonist.
“Defend yourself!” cried Reginald, glowing at once with the consciousness
of muscular power, and with the fury of revenge: “Come!
This matter can be settled in a moment!”
Had Rolof Sener been a Demon, he could not have looked more coldly
calm, or more serenely delighted than at the present moment.
As for Leola, like some beautiful Statue of Terror, she stood rooted to
the floor, her hands hanging stiffly by her side, while her eyes flashed
vividly in her death-like countenance.
Paul grasped the sword, and his blood-shot eye brightened with a ferocious
instinct. He gazed upon the breast of Reginald, gay with marriage
attire, and seemed to meditate the blow, which would crimson that marriage
attire with the Bridegroom's blood. He had forgotten the solemn
mission which forever separated him from the loves and hatreds of mankind;
forgotten his dead Father, and the stern Prophecy uttered by the
Living-corpse in the silence of the Sealed Chamber; he was only conscious
of the three-fold taunt of treachery, cowardice, and poverty. His
blood bounded once more in his veins, as he felt that sword hilt in his
grasp; the lust of bloodshed possessed him from head to foot. He measured
his antagonist, and stood ready—to kill.
“Come—it is enough—” he cried, in a voice almost inaudible, while
his discolored eyeballs gave an unnatural look to his visage—“Here,
beside the Bridal Bed, thou shalt die.”
And at the same instant, his sword fell from his nerveless hand, and
his iron grasp—and trembling from head to foot, he stood gazing vacantly
upon his fallen sword.
“Coward! Said I not so? He dare not confront his Brother Reginald.—Thus—thus—I
inflict upon you, the last shame which might even
stir a craven into manhood.”
And he struck Paul across the shoulder with his sword; not with the
edge, as he would strike a man, but with the side of the blade as he would
strike a dog.
Then the smile which had lingered about Rolof's lips, mounted to his
eyes, and radiated over his massive forehead.
Paul calmly folded his arms—calmly, although his chest was swelling
with fearful agony—and looked Reginald in the eyes.
“Strike higher next time;” he quietly said, “Let the scar upon my forehead,
direct your aim.”
The scene which then occurred defies all power of description. Even
as Paul, raising himself to his full stature, placed his finger upon the scar,
while a singular calmness overspread his face; even as he spoke of that
scar, which had been received in the defence of his friend's life, Reginald,
blinded by his rage, raised the sword, and struck the defenceless man
across the forehead. As before, he used not the edge, but the side of his
sword. Still, the blow was violent, and the scar received for Reginald,
bled afresh.
Paul, with the blood upon his forehead, staggered to and fro for a moment,
then, conquered as much by his agony as by the blow, fell like a
dead man to the floor.
His arms were outspread without life or motion, and his ashen face,
with the features fixed as if in death, was half-concealed by his dark hair,
which was damp and matted with his blood.
Reginald struck the blow, and before a moment passed, stood gazing
upon the prostrate form, the sword still clenched in his right hand. Near
him Leola, without the power to speak or move, her hands clasped, and
her head bowed on her breast, while Rolof Sener, in front of the mirror,
looked on the scene with his brilliant eyes and icy smile.
For a moment, something like regret struggled with the mad anger of
Reginald's face, as he surveyed that noble forehead, half-hidden by the
dark hair drenched in blood.
But Rolof Sener, gliding over the floor with a soundless step, was at
his side:
“Reginald, let us remove the body,” he whispered, in his softest tone.
Reginald felt an unknown fear creep through his veins; he cast his
eyes to the floor, and trembled in every nerve. For the words of Rolof
Sener told him, that he beheld not a living man,—stunned by a sudden
blow—but a Corpse
“He is dead,” whispered Rolof, “He died, not so much by your hand,
as from the breaking of his proud heart. 'Twas a noble fellow, after all.
And the scar—eh, Reginald? Received in your defence, when he saved
your life? But come, we will remove the body, and to-morrow this matter
may be duly explained to the wedding guests. There is no time to be
lost—quick, Reginald!”
Reginald wondered to hear him speak thus in the presence of Leola.
He turned to look upon her and mark the expression of her face, but
Leola had fallen in a swoon. Without a sigh, like a flower broken on its
stem, she had sunk insensible, her hair waving over her face as she fell.
“She will not awake until we return,” whispered Rolof, “And we can
tell her a merry story, how we scourged the `Monk' from her father's
grounds.”
And without another word, they bore the body of Paul Ardenheim
through the secret door and down the narrow stairway. We will not
aver, that Reginald's hands did not tremble as he grasped the body of his
dead `Brother,' nor dare we assert that his heart did not grow cold as he
felt the head of Paul upon his breast. But the moment before they went
from the light into the dark stairway, Reginald, gazing upon the face of
Rolof—illumined in every feature by that light, and thrown distinctly into
view by the darkness of the stairway—felt something like a dim memory
flit over his brain. It was a remarkable visage, you will remember, its
thin lips stamped with that eternal smile, with its great forehead relieved
by short gray hair,—a single lock falling down the centre—its eyes sunken
deep, yet gleaming with dazzling lustre, and lighting up a visage whose
colorless complexion reminded you of the waxen face of the dead.
“I have seen that face among the family portraits of our Race,” the
thought flashed over the mind of the young Lord—“And it looks like the
face of Ranulph-John, who was found dead beside the dead body of my
Grandsire.”
And thus they took the body of Paul Ardenheim from the voluptuous
light of Leola's chamber, into the silence and darkness of the summer
night. The marriage music which smote their ears, fell cold and dead
upon his pulseless brain. And the light, which came in fitful rays through
the shrubbery which encircled the opening of the secret stairway, shone
upon his marble visage and dark hair drenched with blood.
Meanwhile Leola, stretched insensible upon the floor of her Bridal
Chamber, with her dark hair waving over her face, was all unconscious
that the Rich Man, who had bought her with his Gold, had borne away
the lifeless body of Paul, the Husband of her Soul.
It was not many moments ere Reginald again stood in the secret door,
gazing upon the voluptuous images of Leola's chamber, ere his footstep
crossed its threshold. His eye lingered for awhile upon the statues
gleaming from each recess, upon the pictured walls, wrapt in luxurious
gloom. Then all the pallor was gone from his face, and the smile of his
red lip, the gleam of his deep blue eyes, the heaving of his broad chest,
all told, that his thoughts had passed from the dead Paul to the living
Leola.
“And ere an hour passes, she will be mine. The wedding guests are
waiting, even now; and the good Clergyman, the Reverend Jacopo!
stands impatient, book in hand, and eye cast toward the floor.
And the handsome Reginald smiled as he crossed the threshold, and
looked around, impatient for Leola's bewitching glance.
Leola, however, had gone from the Bridal Chamber.
Reginald's face manifested something like disappointment, but sinking
in a chair, with his back to the secret door, he surrendered himself to his
thoughts.
“She has gone to array herself for the marriage ceremony,” he thought,
and a smile crossed his lips—“The most beautiful woman I ever beheld!
A good friend, that Rolof, for when my father storms and talks of an ill-assorted
marriage, Rolof will quietly point to Jacopo, the amateur clergy-man.
And he lies dead, out yonder, in the darkness, with his bloody forehead
against the damp grass. Twice he saved my life. Once on the
Wissahikon, when the huntsman's knife was at my throat, and again in
the streets of London. Dead, now! I have always had a lurking fear,
although I never confessed it to myself, that the man would be dangerous
to me some day or other. But now he is dead.”
You must not imagine that thoughts like these found utterance in words,
for even as they crowded upon him, in all their vivid hues, his lips spoke
a far different language.
“Leola, the beautiful!” he said, aloud, “She will be mine, ere an hour
passes, and we will be happy together, here on the Wissahikon. He is
not dead—no by Heaven! Only a fainting fit; it was a hard blow, but it
could not kill. But I must leave this place—ha, ha! It would not do
for me to be summoned to the marriage, from the Bridal Chamber, and
therefore, I will make my retreat by this passage. I can enter the hall
door, and tell my good friends, that I have been taking a solitary stroll by
moonlight. That will do. Pshaw! He is not dead!”
He rose, and turned toward the secret doorway. He made but a step
forward, when a new wonder paralyzed his entire frame, and drove the
hues of passion from his handsome cheek.
The frame of the doorway was occupied by a beautiful picture. Had
the hand of Rolof Sener stretched the canvass there, and placed before
him, this Picture which smote his heart, no less with its calm beauty than
with its terrible memory? Or was it an Apparition from the shadows of
the Other World.
It was the picture of a young woman, whose brown hair was gathered
Eyes of deep and tranquil hazel lighted that face, and gave an expression
pure and virgin, to the warm cheeks and ripe and dewy lips. The form
was young, graceful, and yet swelling in every outline with the ripe loveliness
of womanhood—but womanhood that has only a moment passed
from maidenhood into perfect bloom.
It was a picture of Madeline.
“Madeline!” faltered Reginald, as the blood left his cheek, and gathered
in tumultuous throbs about his heart.
And then the Picture moved from its frame, and came forward into the
chamber, and spread forth its arms, from beneath the dark mantle which
floated over its white robes, and fell upon Reginald's neck with tears in
its hazel eyes.
“It is Madeline! No ghost, but Madeline living, and more beautiful
than ever!”
And he pressed his kiss upon her lips, even as she clung to his neck,
and wept upon his bosom. It was not a Brother's kiss. It was warm
and passionate and clinging; the kiss of a Sensualist. Then he raised
her face from his breast, and gazed long and ardently upon its beauty,
bathed as it was, in tears, and held her form at arm's length, and with a
gaze as long and ardent, surveyed its ripe and womanly outlines. She
was not so queenly as Leola. There was not the witchcraft in her eyes,
that gave such overwhelming power to Leola's glance. There was no wild
ambition on her young brow, no daring Thought written upon the warm
lineaments of her young face. She was but a Woman, with only a woman's
purity and a woman's holiest instincts written upon her countenance,
while Leola was a bold and fearless Spirit, embodied in a voluptuous
form. And yet there was something in the very Innocence, something
in the very Womanliness of Madeline, that roused the senses of the young
Sensualist, and made his blood beat with a wilder throb, than ever stirred
his breast when encompassed by Leola's surpassing loveliness.
And she was not his Sister; she was only Madeline, the daughter of
Catherine Conwell, the Poor Woman.
A thousand vague plans for the Future, already shone in Reginald's
sensual gaze, plans which rushed upon him in a flood—vague, misty and
shapeless—yet all fraught with danger to the innocence of Madeline.
“My beautiful bird,” he cried gaily, “and have I found you again?
Have you risen from the grave, have you dropped from the sky? Tell
Madeline, my beautiful, where have you buried yourself so long?
“Brother!” she answered, while something like fear pervaded her
bosom as she felt his ardent gaze upon her face; and yet it was fear,
overshadowed by the very Innocence of her virgin soul—“I received
your letter only an hour ago. I am here to claim your promise. You
hands in marriage with my plighted Husband, Gilbert Morgan.”
Reginald did not suffer the unmingled surprise which pervaded his
being to appear in one lineament of his handsome face. He bowed his
head,—thought deeply, intensely for a moment—and then drew her gently
to him, and pressed his kiss once more upon her lip.
“So I did Sister,” he murmured without raising his face, “and so I will,
my pretty one. You shall be married to Gilbert. I vow it on my soul.”
44. CHAPTER FORTY-FOURTH.
MADELINE, GILBERT AND ROLOF SENER.
And at the same moment, the door of the chamber was opened, and a
footstep echoed from the secret stairway. Reginald heard neither the
echo of the step, nor the sound of the opening door.
But when he raised his head, he saw Leola standing by his side, her
lips curling in scorn, her eyes flashing with wild light—Leola surpassingly
beautiful in her Bridal Dress, with her dark hair crowned with pale lilies,
and a diamond glittering on her proud forehead.
Leola was at his side, and before him stood Gilbert Morgan, his almost
giant form attired in green and gold, trembling in every nerve, his sun-burnt
face darkening with deadly anger, his hands clenched, and his brown
hair falling in disordered masses over his corrugated brow.
Gilbert had entered by the secret door, as Leola came through the other
door of her chamber.
“Go on,” she cried laughingly, in a tone of withering scorn, “This
drama amuses me. Go on, husband of mine. I would not disturb your
love scene for the world.”
And the future Duchess of Lyndulfe cast upon him a glance, which
might have killed him, had glances the power to kill.
“And soh, my gay friend, we've met at last,” said Gilbert, drawing a
hunting knife from his belt: “I've waited a long time for this meetin'. But
we have met, an' face to face too. There's no mistake this time. We
can settle our long account at once, and without delay. Come!”
And in the face of his plighted wife, and with her scornful gaze upon him,
and in the face of Gilbert, and with his uplifted knife flashing in the light,
Reginald drew Madeline to his breast, and kissed her rosy lips once
more.
Gilbert uttered a blasphemous oath; Leola bit her red lip until it was
stained with blood.
“For this, Madeline,” he cried, “for this I have defied the power of
the Fiend, and resolved to shake off his infernal sorcery, and be a man
agin! Ah, girl, your words and heart are alike—false—false as the
Fiend himself!”
Leola did not speak, but her thoughts was full of agony—“For this, I
have sacrificed Paul Ardenheim!”
Reginald's handsome face was convulsed with laughter.
“Leola! Behold my long lost sister!” he cried, and taking Madeline
by the hand, urged her gently into the arms of his Betrothed.
“Ah! That face is stamped upon my soul. Yes, yes, I have seen you
before!” and the proud damsel extended her arms to clasp the Orphan
Girl to her heart.
But Madeline did not respond to her caresses, nor look into her eyes.
For Madeline's warm cheek was warm and glowing no longer, and Madeline's
bright eyes were obscured with a misty film. Trembling in every
limb, she had suffered Reginald to press her lip, and lead her toward his
Betrothed, but from the moment, when the voice of Gilbert broke on her
ears, she had lost all consciousness of anything but his presence. And
yet she had not seen him; she had not the power of will to turn and gaze
upon him.
Even as the queenly woman pressed her hands, Madeline murmured
faintly—“You saved my life on that fatal night!” but her thoughts were
of Gilbert—every instant she expected to clasp his hand and be gathered
to his heart.
“You are not well; this excitement has been too much for you, my
sweet sister,” exclaimed Leola.
And like a maiden walking in her sleep, Madeline turned and beheld
Gilbert. Stood face to face with him—surveying not his glittering suit
so different from the rude huntsman's costume of other days, nor yet his
sunburnt face, with brown curls about the brow, and a thick beard around
the muscular throat—but looking into his eyes, as though she would grasp
his very Soul.
Gilbert saw her look so wildly on him—trembled—and reached forth
his arms. “Come, Madeline,” he said, in a husky voice—“You're the
only thing left to me on this earth, and you only can save me from the
Fiend.”
She did not glide to him, she did not dart into his arms, but she was
there—upon his breast—her maidenly form, which looked slight and diminutive
beside his giant frame, quivering in his convulsive grasp. And the
tears of that strong man fell like rain upon her face, and in the very agony
of his joy, he muttered incoherent ejaculations, which no one unfamiliar
with his adventures, might comprehend.
“True! True! True by —! True as light to-day, or an angel to
its God. There aint no blemish in you, girl. Spotless as the driven
snow. And you'll pray for me, and God will hear your prayer. Wont
you Madeline?” He did not suffer her to answer him with words, but
took his answer from her lips. How that kiss, the first that had pressed his
mouth from Madeline's lips, since the fatal night thrilled poor Gilbert's
soul! It was like a token of Peace—of Forgiveness.
“And I murdered you, Madeline; yes, stabbed you as if you'd been a
savage beast, or a devil in human shape, like myself. Did n't I? Can
you ever forgive?”
“Gilbert,” she answered softly, pressing her hands upon his sunburnt
face, as he held her to his breast, as you would hold a child: “The darkness
has gone from us forever. It is morning with us now!”
Leola proud and beautiful, as she was in her bridal attire, could not restrain
her tears. She suffered them to flow freely, and did not attempt to
hide them, as they flashed over her glowing cheek.
Reginald with a moody brow, and lips pressed between his teeth, surveyed
the scene in sullen silence, only muttering a deep curse or two,
with some gallant ejaculation, such as this: “He carries it bravely! The
peasant grub turned butterfly, as I live! Zounds! He'll strangle her
with his clownish kisses!”
“And as you intend to marry the Lady Madeline, sister of my Lord
Reginald, may I, as an humble friend of the family, presume so far as to
request the favor of your name?”
It was a very mild voice, low and gentle, and yet it thrilled Leola and
Reginald with the same shudder; forced a shriek, half joy, half fear from
Madeline's lips, and as for Gilbert, it seemed to transform into a statue;
a sort of quaint effigy of the giant Sampson, with a face of marble, and
costume of velvet glittering with gold.
It was the voice of Rolof Sener.
He had glided unperceived from the secret door, and now he stood between
Gilbert and Reginald, his pale face slightly drooped upon his breast,
as he gazed—with upturned eyes—into Gilbert's visage. There was
something at once grotesque and sublime in the horror manifested by Gilbert,
at the sight of Rolof Sener.
“The Fiend himself!” he gasped, “save me from him, Madeline—save
me, or I'm lost. He put his Soul upon me an hour ago, when I was in
your room, at the Haunted House, away yonder at Germantown, and I
was forced to obey him—and walk where he wished—and do as he
willed me—but I've resolved to break his power. To break his power, I
say, and cast off his spells, and be my own man agin. You can help me,
Madeline—you only! Back! Back! I say! You dare not touch me
while this pure girl is on my breast!”
“Why this is my father, good Rolof Sener,” cried Madeline, amazed
at Gilbert's horror.
“You see, my children, I have not moved an inch, and yet he bids me
back! and shrinks away from me, as if I meant to strike him. I indeed!
when a blow from his arm would crush me to powder.”
Rolof with his arms folded, and his head drooped on his breast, gazed
around with upturned eyes, while a sad sweet smile hung on his thin lips.
Leola shuddered; why, she could not tell: “His face does not seem to
me, like the Rolof Sener, who talked with me to-day!” the thought darted
over her mind.
“Ranulph John!” muttered Reginald, as a singular memory agitated
his brain.
“You wish to marry this lady,” continued Rolof, who now kept his
gaze fixed immovably upon Gilbert's horror-stricken face—“You are
gaily dressed. This is well. Unless indeed, your beautiful plumage
covers a vulture's heart. But we wish to know your name?”
“Back! Back! Your eyes from my face I say, your curse from my
soul!” shrieked Gilbert, and in his despair he clutched poor Madeline
with an embrace like Death itself; “You're spinnin' your infernal web
around me—I know it, I know it. An' I must come into your clutches
at last, but while this girl is near my heart, I defy you.”
The words had scarcely passed his lips, when his arms were out-stretched,
with a stiff, mechanical movement; his features became rigid
and motionless; his eyes, fixed in their sockets, shone with a dull leaden
lustre.
“It is not Gilbert!” shrieked Madeline—“It is a Corpse!” and half-swooning
she sank into the extended arms of Reginald.
“Now my Lord, and you fair lady, with your permission I will question
the cunning knave, who thinks to hide his criminal life, and cowardly
designs, under the cloak of madness. Have the goodness to remain perfectly
still while I question him. And you, my own Madeline, let not
your heart throb against your bosom, like a bird against the bars of its
cage. The real Gilbert, may come back some day.”
“The real Gilbert?” cried Madeline, “This is Gilbert Morgan,—at
least—” she gazed into the corpse-like face and hesitated—“At least I
thought it was a moment ago.”
It is not to be denied that Leola and Reginald awaited the issue of this
scene with a breathless interest. And as they stood, perfectly silent and
motionless, their eyes alternating between the remarkable visage of Rolof
and the face of Gilbert, who looked in truth, like a frozen man, placed
on his feet, by some strange fancy, the merry sound of the Marriage
Music, still burst in one bounding peal, through the window of the Bridal
Chamber.
“Answer me,” said Rolof Sener, never for an instant removing his
gaze from Gilbert's face, “Where was you, this night one year?”
A horrible smile distorted Gilbert's lips, while the other part of his
face remained fixed as Death.
“On board the brave Ship Avenger, with as tight a crew as ever trod a
pirate's deck. Ha, ha—” it was not a burst of laughter, which came from his
lips, but rather a series of spasmodic groans—“How we boarded the
East Indiaman, at set of sun, and raked her decks, and drove her crew
into the hold, and then——why then, the moon came up, and saw
five hundred of them walk the plank, and struggle their last, among the
waves as red as blood.”
“You hear?” whispered Rolof, turning to Madeline—this is your
lover.
Madeline was silent, but Leola muttered—“If he was brave, and only
made war upon the strong, I could love him in spite of all.”
Rolof again turned to Gilbert, whose face still retained its corpse-like
immovability. “You were the Captain of the Ship? answer me truly;
I know your life, and can punish falsehood with a halter.”
“The Captain—ha, ha!” again that burst of unearthly laughter—
“You should have asked my men, as they gathered about me after the
fight, who was Captain of our Avenger! We had wine from the stores
of the East Indiaman, and women, too,—aye, we saved the best of the
lot, and made a night o' t together. We did. I and my jolly crew.”
“You are listening my child?” and again Rolof with his sweet smile
turned to Madeline.
“It is only a frightful dream!” she faltered and gathered her hands,
across her breast with a clash like iron. “And yet in spite of all, it is
Gilbert, and he is my plighted husband.”
Leola reached forth her hand, and pressed the cold hand of the Orphan
Girl, while a tear glittered in her proud eye.
Meanwhile Reginald's face, manifested the extremes of surprise and
horror. “The wretch!” he muttered and retreated a step from Gilbert:
“He would have stolen my sister, and made her the toy of his brutal
orgies!” Fraternal Reginald!
“Listen once again, Madeline, my child. Tell me, Sir Pirate, did you
ever encounter a rude landsman in your travels, named Gilbert Morgan?
You lately assumed his name; but his rugged honesty would put your
shallow knavery to the blush.”
“I did. In the West Indies, I saw him two years ago; he often spoke
of the Wissahikon. By—it was the last word on his lips!,'
“The last word?” cried Madeline, starting from the arms of Reginald.
“He is dead, then, but no—no! It is a mockery. You are here, Gilbert.
My heart tells me, it is you. Wherefore these idle words? Speak to me
Gilbert! What means this scene?”
But the Man whom she addressed did not answer her with a word—
not even with a look. His leaden gaze was still centered on the visage
of Rolof Sener. To Rolof, Madeline turned and laid her head upon his
folded arms, looking into his face, with all her soul, in the intensity of her
gaze: “This is not kind of you, my Father! It is unworthy of your
generous nature!”
Yet Rolof without pausing to answer her, continued his questions:
“You saw the last of Gilbert Morgan?”
“He died in my arms, scarcely two years ago, of the yellow fever too,
raving to the last about Wissahikon and Madeline,” was the answer.
The Orphan Girl sank back as if a bullet had penetrated her bosom;
she buried her pale face upon the breast of Leola, who whispered—
`Courage, my Sister! It is not so dark as it appears.”
“You bear a great personal resemblance to Gilbert Morgan?” Madeline
awaited the answer to this question with quivering suspense.
“I do. Not a doubt of it, by Jove! My comrades often laughed about
it, while he lived, and when he was dead, I resolved that I'd turn it to
advantage, if I ever came to Philadelphia.”
Madeline buried her face again; the last hope had gone out.
“How?” asked Rolof Sener.
And the Man with the motionless form and corpse-like visage, uttered
a burst of hollow laughter as he replied: “Gilbert had spoken of the
pretty lass named Madeline. Had told me, in fact, those dear little secrets
of his love affairs, which are generally only known to two persons,
to wit, the lover and the sweetheart. Says I,—that is after he died—if
I even come to Philadelphia, I will seek out this Wissahikon, and make
love to this Madeline—if she happens to be living—in the name of the
dead Gilbert. So I planned it, and so I've tried to accomplish it, but
you—”
“Villian! I have foiled your cunning and brought your knavery to the
light,” interrupted Rolof, his eyes for the first time, flashing with rage.
“Now depart! Once this day, have I warned you; I now repeat my
warning! This time you depart unscathed. But remember! Should
you ever appear upon the Wissahikon again or dare again, to assume the
name of poor Gilbert Morgan—remember! I will deliver you into
the clutches of that Justice, whose very name, makes your face wear the
look of death, and the heart within turn to ice. This time depart in
Peace!”
And the man, clad in the green doublet embroidered with gold, turned
his fixed eyeballs from the light, and with a measured, but mechanical
stride, crossed the threshold of the secret stairway.
“Gilbert! Gilbert!” shrieked Madeline, darting forward with panting
bosom and outspread arms, “Do not leave me! Do not leave me, Gilbert—”
But he did not turn back, and cast one farewell look upon her
threshold, and was gone.
“Let me arrest his flight,” cried Reginald, starting from his stupor,
which had bound his senses while these events transpired before his very
eyes: “A wretch like this, is not fit to live!”
Rolof waved him back. “Would the Lord of Lyndulfe convert himself
into a bailiff on his wedding night. I have unmasked the wretch.
That is sufficient. Let him depart in peace.”
“Unmasked, indeed,” murmured Madeline, sadly, gazing upon the spot
where the Pirate had lately stood: “But at the same time, good father,
you have unmasked my grave. It was concealed by flowers, only a few
moments since. I see it clearly now, and—my foot is on the brink.”
Was it a tear that subdued the stern light of Rolof's gaze? Very sad
it was, to see her standing there, the centre of the silent group, her pure
and virgin loveliness frozen at its fountain, by the corpse-hand of despair.
“Come, Madeline, you need repose,” said Rolof, kindly, as he took her
by the hand: “This house must be your home, until you depart for England,
with your Brother Reginald, and your sister, his Bride.”
Even the thought of leaving Wissahikon, brought no glimpse of color
to her cheek; she took his hand in silence, and with faint and uneven foot-steps,
moved with him toward the door.
“Reginald,” he said, as he passed the young Lord, “I will join you
again, before the marriage ceremony. Jacopo waits below,” he added, in
a whisper, “and when Leola cloys your appetite, the daughter of Catherine
Conwell will lead on the drama of your loves.” There was a strange
significance in his look and smile, as he spoke these latter words.
Then passing onward, to where Leola stood, he addressed her in a
paternal tone: “Arrayed for the bridal, my child? I thought you beautiful
before, but now, it seems to me, you look like the Duchess of Lyndulfe,
and yet—” he hissed the words in an emphatic whisper: “Paul
Ardenheim will yet be yours!”
With Madeline clinging to his arm, he left the Bridal Chamber, while
the Bride stood gazing on vacancy, her cheek flushed and her bosom
heaving; and the Bridegroom, with his gaze fixed upon Madeline's retreating
form, felt all the sensualism of his nature, mount to his eyes. The
last words of Rolof Sener had thrilled like molten fire through their veins.
“Paul Ardenheim will yet be yours!” murmured Leola, as she laid her
hand upon her voluptuous breast.
And Reginald, as he smoothed the snow-white cambric which fluttered
over his breast, exclaimed to himself—“The daughter of Catherine Conwell
and Leola! A delicious contrast, upon my soul!”
With thoughts like these stirring in their hearts, they took each other
by the hand, and looked into each other's eyes. Never stood nobler pair
before the marriage altar. Reginald magnificent in his young manhood,
once graceful and muscular; his blonde complexion lighted by eyes of
dark blue, his forehead relieved by hair of chesnut brown. Leola, well-developed
in every rounded limb, her bosom swelling with life, her clear
brown complexion blooming into vermillion on the lips and cheeks, the
intense blackness of her hair, encircled with pale lilies, only exceeded by
the darkness of her eyes. The Soul of a sensualist embodied in a manly
form—the Soul of a proud and ambitious Spirit embodied in the shape of
a voluptuous Woman. There they were, hand in hand, eye gleaming in
eye, looking into one another's faces, with all the frankness of an all-trusting
Faith, and meanwhile, in their hearts was written, Lust and
Pride.
“A beautiful animal!” he thought, as he pressed her hand.
“A convenient stepping stone for me and Paul!” she thought, as she
looked into his eyes.
There is a lesson in this scene; a lesson worth all the sermons ever
preached in grand marble churches, to ears of lead and hearts of brass.
Survey it with your own eyes; paint it in your memory.
This luxurious chamber, so beautiful with the pictures that seem to
breathe from the canvass, and marble images that look like human beings
whose footsteps have only been arrested for a moment by a passing
thought; this luxurious chamber, whose very atmosphere seems hallowed
by the sacred Marriage Bed, while its curtains move to and fro, to the
impulse of a breeze that comes ladened with Marriage Melody. Is it not
a beautiful scene?
And here, in the centre of the place, stand the Bridegroom and the
Bride, looking into each other's eyes, with glances that seem to speak of
Love, as pure as that which trembled from the gaze of Adam into the
heart of spotless Eve, and—and after all, this Bridegroom and Bride
are only a Rich Man and his Purchase.
The Marriage Bed—ah! What words spoken from a book, what
Priest ordained by a Bishop, what vows uttered in the sight of God and
man, can render holy that Marriage Couch?
“This night has beheld many dark and troubled scenes,” whispered
Leola, as her eyes wore a vague and dreamy light.
“But, Leola,” whispered Reginald, as his passionate breath fanned her
cheek, while his eye, gazing over her snowy shoulder, beheld the Marriage
Bed—“But, Leola, after all it is our Marriage Night.”
At this moment, what scenes are passing yonder, within the Block-House
of Wissahikon? And Paul Ardenheim—does he live?
CHAPTER THE LAST.
THE END OF ALL.
When Paul awoke again, the luxurious chamber had passed away. He
found himself alone, in the silence and shadow of Night. His form was
prostrate; his brow was pressed against the damp grass. He raised himself
and looked around, and endeavored to collect his shattered senses.
There was blood upon his forehead; a sharp pain smote his very brain.
He was in the shrubbery, near the secret door. This much he knew.
But how had he come hither? Why this mark of blood upon his brow?
The form of the Wizard's Daughter, clinging to the neck of Reginald—
was that only the remembrance of a dream?
And through the shrubbery which shut him in, came fitful and broken
rays of festival light, and the murmur of music—music pealing within
solid walls—came faintly to his ear.
“Where am I?” he muttered, and placed his hand against his bleeding
brow. “Ah—it was all a dream. I knew that I would awake at last.
Yet it seems to me, that I heard Reginald call her by the name of Leola.
And that I saw her clinging to the neck of Reginald. A troubled dream—
nothing more!”
A burst of music, mingled with the hum of merry voices, rushed upon
his ear: and at the same moment, a form emerged from the shadows and
drew near his side, and by a ray of broken light, he saw the pale visage
of Rolof Sener. A memory smote the heart of Paul, that he had seen
that Face before. But where?
“The Bride has gone to her chamber,” said a voice, singular in its
sweetness, “And now the young Husband goes to claim his Purchase.
Do you hear the shouts of the marriage guests? Leola is young and
beautiful—and married. Or is Sold the word? And the Rich Man who
bought her—do you remember how an hour ago, he smote you on the
forehead,—aye, smote the very scar you received in his cause? How he
thrust you from the chamber, and flung you, bleeding and insensible, upon
this sod? Reginald, your friend, did this—an hour ago—and now he
goes to claim his Purchase. His footstep is on the threshold—Leola
in the Bridal couch awaits him.”
And Paul Ardenheim felt something pressed into his grasp by the
speaker; he clutched it, and raised it until it met a fitful ray; it was a
dagger, with a hilt of iron, and a long blade sharp and glittering.
“That door leads to her chamber,” whispered Rolof Sener; and Paul
Ardenheim, without a word, went through the narrow door into the darkness
of the secret chamber, the iron-hilted dagger in his grasp.
As he disappeared, the withered frame of Isaac Van Behme—or Sir
Ralph Wyttonhurst, as you will—crept from the bushes, and glided to
Rolof Sener's side, and then sank trembling and prostrate at Rolof Sener's
feet. His pallid face, seen by the wandering rays, was stamped with awe
—his hands were clasped, as if in the act of worship — he gazed into
the face of Rolof Sener, and murmured.—“Satan!”
“Have no fear,” said the sweet voice of Rolof Sener, “Paul Ardenheim
is mine, and Paul Ardenheim is gone to bring the precious blood for
which thou dost seek.”
Up the dark stairway, dagger in hand, went Paul Ardenheim, and
pressed the spring of the secret door, but in vain. It did not move at his
touch; the mirror was fastened in its place. Then Paul, in the darkness,
laid his hand upon his bleeding hrow, and thrust that hand within his
garment, and felt the fragment of the Broken Coin. Then, as if every
relenting pulse had turned to ice, he pressed his weight against the door;
it yielded without a sound—and he crossed the threshold of Leola's
chamber.
A solitary lamp was burning there, and its rays left the statues and the
pictures in twilight shadow, while the Bridal Bed, its white curtains drawn
together, gleamed distinctly on his sight—and from those snowy folds, the
sound of murmuring voices met his ear. Leola in the arms of Reginald—
Leola in the embrace of the Rich Man, who had bought her with his gold!
Yes, her white robe appeared in the interval of the curtains; her form was
dimly discernible through their folds; she was standing beside the bed,
bending over it, and with an arm around her snowy neck.
Paul stood on the threshold—glanced around for an instant—crossed
the chamber with noiseless steps, and over Leola's shoulder, struck his
dagger into the breast of Reginald, even as he reclined upon the couch.
And then Leola turned to look upon him, and Paul, tearing the curtains
with his frenzied hands, rushed forward, eager to catch the last look of the
dying man. It was too dim; he could not see; he heard Leola's half-uttered
shriek, but the face and the visage of the Dying was lost in the
shadow.
Then, suddenly a burst of warm radiance filled the place—Paul turned,
and by the glad light which gushed through the doorway of the chamber,
saw Leola and Reginald encircled by the marriage guests. And at the
same time, from the secret door appeared the face of Isaac Van Behme,—
quivering with an infernal desire—while Rolof Sener calm and smiling,
stepped into the room with folded arms.
Paul turned to the Bed once more, and saw the prostrate form, and knew
the ashen face. It was His Father. But this Woman by the bed-side,
whose golden hair waves aside from a face, serenely beautiful, with its
eyes of clear, deep blue, lighted by an Angel's love? It is Catherine.
his hand, writhed his last agony!
She took him by the hand—his Sister—and pointed to the quivering
features of the old man. “He dies, Paul—” she said—yes—he heard
her voice and lived—“But not by your hand. Look! The knife is
buried in the pillow. As you struck, I raised my hand, scarce knowing
why, and turned aside the deadly aim. Away, Paul; this is no time for
explanations; no time for thought. Away—let not your footsteps pause
until you stand within our Home once more. To the Block-House, Paul,
and when you have rescued the Deliverer, and looked upon your true
Destiny, then I, Catherine, your Sister, will tell you all.”
Paul heard her voice, and looked into her eyes, and drank the God-born
Thought, which gave them light. For a moment he lingered to press his
Sister's hand to his lips,—even as a Catholic might the marble hand of a
sculptured Mary, mother of the Lord—and then with an agitated countenance,
but with eyes radiant with a holy Resolve, he turned away, and
passed through the door, passed between the forms of Leola and Reginald
—without a glance, without a word.
The rest of the events of that night—are they not written in the
chronicles of Mount Sepulchre? Some day we will again take up the
Record, and from the mysterious cyphers translate the history of Paul;
Leola; Reginald: of Madeline and Gilbert, and of the dread Ranulph,
whose corpse-like visage, Paul beheld in the shadows of the Sealed
Chamber. But now, we linger only for a parting word—
As Paul crossed the threshold, Rolof Sener rushed to the Bed,—saw
that the dagger was harmless—and then with a livid face approached
Reginald, even as Leola, pale and beautiful, hung on his arm:
“Behold the Son of Gaspard-Michael!” he cried and pointed to the retreating
form of Paul Ardenheim.
And Catherine kneeling by the bed, and pressing her Father's death
chilled hands within her own, lifted up her eyes and voice to Heaven,
and thanked the God of all life, that the Malice of Satan, his intricate
plans and infernal cunning, all had been brought to nothing, conquered
and crushed by the instinct of a Sister's Love.
| Paul Ardenheim, the monk of Wissahikon | |