University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.

Our tale, gentle reader, must now assume a more serious
aspect. From the more light, and often somewhat
ludicrous incidents through which we have passed to this
stage of our narrative—incidents from which more gifted
pens than ours might have plentifully drawn the shafts of
effective satire, or the food for merry laughter—we now

reluctantly turn to scenes calculated to cause other reflections—to
awaken other and more painful emotions.

About ten days subsequent to the events recorded in our
last chapter, William Botherworth, whose frolicsome exhibitions
of masonry improved occupied a conspicuous place
in the first or introductory part of these remarkable adventures,
received from a commercial acquaintance of the
neighboring port the following letter:—

Sir,—As war is now declared, and a fleet of the
enemy's forces said to be hovering round the coast, we are
fearful that they will reach this place, in which case our
property would be exposed to destruction. The quantity
of hops which you left in store with us might be removed into
the interior without much trouble or expense; and I am
very anxious that you should come to town immediately to
devise measures respecting them. I wish you to come tomorrow,
as after that I may be absent several days. Do
not fail of being here by to-morrow evening.

“Pshaw!” said Botherworth to himself—“pshaw, man!
your wits must surely be wool-gathering. In the first
place the British will never get there; and if they should,
they will doubtless respect all private property. They
must be wanton fiends indeed to destroy my few hundreds
of hops. However, Rodgers may know more than he tells,
and perhaps, on the whole, I had better ride down to-morrow
and see for myself.”

Such were the passing thoughts of Botherworth as he
run over for a second time this brief epistle, so artfully
calculated to arrest the attention of the person to whom it
was addressed. And, putting up the letter with the conclusion
that he should obey the summons, as unnecessary
and even singular as it appeared to him, proceeded to
make such little arrangements about his farm as he considered
his intended absence for a day or two would require.

Botherworth, although by nature a person of great buoyancy
of spirits and cheerfulness of disposition, qualities
which he still in a good measure retained, had yet of late
years manifested much less inclination for convivial companionship,
or for mingling with society at large, than formerly.
And becoming of consequence more domestic, he
had supplied himself with a good selection of books with
which to furnish that recreation and employment of his
leisure at home which the excess of his social feelings had
formerly led him to seek too much perhaps abroad in the
usual routine of profitless amusements. From these, together
with the early advantages which he had enjoyed of
seeing the world and becoming acquainted with mankind,
he had by this time acquired a stock of general knowledge
much more extensive than is commonly to be met with
among men in his sphere of life; while at the same time,
aided by a mind naturally acute and discriminating he had
formed original views and settled opinions upon almost all
subjects connected with the different classes and organizations
of society and its various institutions. The circumstance
of his expulsion from the masonic lodge for causes
growing out of the prevailing characteristic of his more
youthful years, as before intimated, creating probably some
degree of acrimony and sensitiveness of feeling towards
the fraternity, had led him to bestow much study and reflection
on the nature and principles of that peculiar institution.
The result of all of which was to establish in his
mind the honest, though at that period, the singular, conviction
that the whole system was founded on principles
radically wrong, and unjust and unequal in their operations
towards the rest of society; and, to say nothing of its
ceremonies and lofty pretensions which he had always felt
disposed to ridicule, that its oaths and obligations could
not be either legally or morally binding upon those who
had taken them. And it was with these views and impressions
that he had ventured, a few months previous to
the time of which we are speaking, upon the act of which
the reader has been already apprised, that of imparting to

a young friend, in a confidential way, all the essential secrets
of Freemasonry—little dreaming, at the time, as he
had formerly made partial experiments of the kind with
impunity, that consequences so melancholy to himself were
so soon to follow, and even now wholly unconscious that he
had been betrayed to the infuriated, but cautious and dark-doing
brotherhood.

In the evening following the day which brought him the
letter above quoted, Botherworth came into his house with
looks so uncommonly pensive and dejected as to attract
the notice of the family; for still a bachelor, though now
upwards of forty, he had living with him at this time, in capacity
of house-keeper, a quaker lady whose husband followed
the sea, with her two children, both fine boys, to
all of whom Botherworth was much attached. Taking a
seat at an open window, he long sat gazing out, in thoughtful
silence, on the surrounding landscape, that lay spread
in tranquil beauty before him. The stars were beginning
to twinkle through the gathering curtains of night; and
the full orbed moon, majestically mounting the deep cerulean
vault of the orient heavens, and brightening each moment
into more glorious effulgence, as the twilight, streak
after streak, slowly faded in the west, threw her silvery
beams, with increasing splendor, over the broad and diversified
landscape, now glimmering on the placid stream,
now kindling in refracted brightness and beauty on the
cascade, and now shedding a varied and sombre glory
over hill and dale, town and woodland, as far as the eye
could reach, round the adjacent country, all quiet and noisless
as the repose of sleeping infancy, except when the
voice of the plaintive whippoorwill, responding to his mate
on the distant hill, at measured intervals, broke sweetly in
upon the silence of the scene.

“Miriam,” said he at length, partially rousing himself
from his long reverie, and addressing the quakeress who
sat knitting in quiet cheerfulness near him, “Miriam, what
a beautiful evening!—or rather,” he continued after a

pause, “beautiful, and happifying it seems to me it should
be, with all these bright and glorious objects before us.”

`And why is it not so, friend William,' said the person
addressed.

“I know not,” replied the other, “but every thing to-night
to me appears to wear a singularly gloomy aspect.
Even this scene, with all its brightness, which ever before
as I remember, looked pleasant and delightful, now appears
strangely mournful and deathly. And why is it?
Can it be that nature ever sympathises with our feelings,
or rather is it, that the state of our feelings produces this
effect? What are those favorite lines of yours, Miriam,
which I have often heard you singing, containing, I think,
some sentiments on this subject?”

`It is not according to my people's creed to sing,'
meekly replied the quakeress, `yet not deeming the forbearance
essential, I sometimes transgress, perhaps wrongfully;
but does thee wish me to sing the lines now?'

Botherworth replying in the affirmative, the lady, who,
though untutored by art, was yet one of those whom nature
has often gifted with powers of minstrelsy more exquisite
and effective than any thing which the highest acquirements
in musical science alone can bestow, now
commencing in a low, soft, melodious voice, sang the following
stanzas:—

“Miriam,” said Botherworth, again apparently awakening
from the moody abstraction into which he had relapsed
when the quakeress had ceased, “Miriam, do you believe
we shall have an existence in another world?”

`Surely, friend William,' said she, in evident surprise
at the question, `surely thee cannot doubt the scriptures?'

“No, I do not,” replied the other—“on them my only
hope of a hereafter is grounded, for, but for them I should
be forced into the fearful conviction, that with the body
the soul perished. Human pride I know flatters itself
with the thought of immortality, and in the wish, the
strong hope, believes it, calling this belief, which grows
only out of the desire, as I have often thought, a proof of
the soul's future existence. But is there any thing in nature—in
reason, that sufficiently indicates it? The soul
and body comparatively begin their existence together—
are in maturity at the same time, and at the same time decay,
and apparently terminate their existence. When the
oil in the lamp is consumed, the light goes out, and is
seemingly extinguished for ever. But the thought—the
bare thought of annihilation, how dark, how dreadful!”

`What makes thee talk so,' again soothingly asked the
quakeress, `and appear so gloomy to-night. Thee art
generally jocose, and I sometimes think too vain and light
in thy conversation—but now. Thee art well, friend Wiliam?'

“Yes, I am well, Miriam,” said he, mournfully, “but it
seems to me as if this pleasant evening was to be the last
I shall ever behold. But what matters it, should it in reality
be so? I have no wife or children, no relations indeed,
but the most distant, to mourn for me. The world
in which I once delighted to mingle, will move on without

me, unconcious of its loss. The gay will still be merry and
laugh, as I have done; the mercenary will still traffic and
contrive, absorbed in their own interests, and the ambitious
will still go on, pursuing the objects of their aim, and
thinking only of their own advancement. The little vacancy
in the ranks of society which my absence may occasion,
will quickly be filled by others, probably more deserving.
And who will miss me?”

`Why!—thou dost indeed surprise me!' said the agitated
listener, laying down her knitting work with increasing
emotion—`It pains me, friend William, to hear thee talk
so. Why does thee expect to die now more than any other
time?'

“I have no reason for thinking so,” relied Botherworth,
in the same desponding tone, “none that would generally
be considered as one, I presume; but as I before intimated,
there is a dark and fearful cloud upon my soul. For
several hours past, I have felt some unaccountable influence
acting on my feelings under which they seem to labor
in troubled agony as if they, and not my reason, were
instinctively sensible that some danger, some hidden evil
was impending over me—the whole operating upon me,
in spite of all my endeavors to shake it off, like what the
sailors used to call the death-spell which sometimes seized
the victim doomed soon to perish by battle or storm. But
what it is, or when, or where, the bolt is to fall, I know
not. To-morrow I am going to town to be absent perhaps
several days. If any thing should happen to me, you will
find my will in my desk which you may deliver to the person
to whom it is directed, and in proper time you will
learn what I have done for you and your children.”

So saying, he bid the quakeress a tender good night,
and leaving her with tears standing in her eyes, retired to
rest.

Among all the various branches of the reputed supernatural,
as enchantment, witchcraft, second-sight visions,
prophetic dreams, apparitions, signs, warnings &c., which
have successively been in vogue in different countries, and

in different ages of the world, but which are now mostly
exploded as discovered to have been but the tricks and
inventions of the artful and designing, or accounted for on
natural principles, there is no one that has received less
attention from intelligent and philosophical writers than
that which is generally known by the term of presentiments.
And, yet, it appears to me there is no one of them
all, that is so well entitled to consideration, as regards the
many and authenticated facts which can be cited in support
of its real existence, and at the same time so difficult
of solution when that existence is established. History,
biography and the records of travellers and journalists furnish
numerous instances of men having experienced deep
forebodings of the fate which soon awaited them, but
which no human foresight could then reasonably have predicted.
Men too, whose character for intelligence and
courage, exempted them from the presumption that they
might have been under the influence of imagination or superstitious
fears. Among these, for example, may be instanced
the brave Baron De Kalb, who fell at the south in
the American Revolution, and the gallant Pike, a victim of
the last war, both of whom, previous to the battles in which
they respectively perished, felt an unwavering conviction
that their earthly career would be terminated in the approaching
contest. The conflagration of Richmond theatre
furnished also one or two most striking examples of
this kind. If these and the like instances are not attributable
to sheer chance, which, it appears to me we are
hardly warranted in presuming, then it follows that the
doctrine of presentiments is established as having a foundation
in fact, and is not the less entitled to credit because
it has a particular and not a general application.
But once admitting the existence of this mysterious principle,
where is the human philosophy that can explain its
operation or fathom its causes? If I rightly understand
the history of these cases, and I have heard some of them
from the lips of those who described from actual experience,
the operation seems to be instinctive, and chiefly
confined to the feelings or animal sensibilities, and apparently
originating with them, while the impression on the
mind is vague and undefined, suggesting no distinct ideas,
and seemingly putting it in action only for the purpose
of contriving or providing escape from the boded danger.
Indeed the intellect appears to have but little to do with
these impressions—and often, while the mind rejects them
and seems to convince itself that they arise from assignable
causes, the same dark, boding, irrepulsible feeling, in spite
of all the suggestions of reason, again and again returns
to haunt the agitated bosom. To what then is this principle
to be assigned? To instinct, like that which is said to
forewarn the feathered tribe of approaching convulsions of
nature? Or is it a direct communication from higher spiritual
beings made to the animal, not the intellectual part
of our existence? But this last supposition would involve
the proposition that spiritual, can communicate with animal
existence without the intervention of mind—a proposition
never yet admitted among the settled principles of
philosophy—it would open the door to a new and unexplored
field in the doctrine of pneumatology. Whence
then shall we turn for a solution of this inextricable subject?
Where are the enterprising Locks and Stewarts of
the age, that they pass the subject unnoticed? If a vulgar
superstition, is it not prevalent enough to require a refutation?—and
if not, why do they shrink from the investigation,
and the attempt of solving the mystery?

The next morning, Botherworth arose lively and cheerful.
The cloud had evidently passed from his brow; and
taking his breakfast in his usual serenity of mind, and sociability
of manner, and without the slightest allusion to the
events of the preceding evening, set forward on foot to
where he expected to intersect a public stage, which before
night would land him at his place of destination.