University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
PETER TALKS WITH SPIRITS.

TWO distinct knocks that seemed to proceed
from the ground under Peter's feet followed his
question.

“No,” says Peter, “they say that you are
right,” glancing at Samuel. Then addressing
the air again, —

“Tell me, good friends, shall I do with my little Peter
and with Posey what I had in my mind to do?”

Numberless knocks, clear and decided, followed this question;
they were under Peter's feet, on his chair-back, his
shoulders and head — everywhere.

“Thank you, good friends, that'll do,” he said, and then
turning to Samuel: “What furder I have to say concerns
myself, exclusive, and my last will and testimony. Be of a
truthful and sober mind, Sam, for there is them about that
hear, and will hereafter hold you to account. Won't you,
spirits?” This, to the air again. Knocks resembling the
others followed; such sounds as one might make with one's
knuckles on some hard substance, only of a more hollow and
fugitive character; this time, however, they were about
Samuel, and even on his person, insomuch that he stared
about him in amazement; he saw nothing, and turned to
Peter. “They won't harm you,” says he, “they are friends.”
And then, he says, “before another year comes round, Sam,
I shall be under the tuff — under the green tuff — so far as
the mortal house goes! Don't shake your head, nor smile,
Sam; it's been foreshowed,” — here a lively sally of raps

interposed. “Just please be still, my friends, for a space, till
I shall have concluded my testimony,” says Peter, and then
he goes on. “I've been warned, Sam, and I'm ready and
glad to go; I've only one tie to bind me to this sphere, and
that's him that lies on my knees.”

His face grew radiant, and his language conveyed more
clear and definite meanings.

“I'm a-going to make him over to you, Samuel, him and
Posey, and then I'll be free for good and all, — his mother
will not object, — he is like me, and she will not care to be
reminded of me, when I am gone, and I shall not care to
have her. I've stood in her light too long, maybe. Nothing
has been her fault. I began with doing a wrong to her
and to myself, and how should I expect right to come out
of it, or good; her heart was another's, and I took her, knowing
it. Did you ever have a feeling in your sleep, Samuel,
that some person stood by your bed? No? Well, I have,
and I've waked and seen 'em standing there. A few weeks
ago I went to bed one night with my soul a-reaching 'way
out of me, for brighter and better enjoyments than it had
known, when about midnight, as I lay with my eyes closed,
but not asleep, this feeling came upon me with awful power;
there was a little stir, as of garments rustling, and then a
soft hand was put in mine. I looked up, and there, standing
beside me, was a woman with her raiment white as snow,
and flowing about her like a mist of glory. She illumined
all the room with herself, and she was lovely beyond the rose
or the lily, or any flower of the field. I inquired why she
came to me, for I didn't feel worthy to be blessed by her
beautiful presence, and stooping so that her bright hair fell
about my face, she told me in whispers that she was come to
tell me good news; the voice of my soul had reached her in
her beautiful country, she said, and she was come to satisfy
its longing. `You will be among us, and of us,' she said `before
the year is out; be patient, and give yourself to peace.'
Then she showed me a picture of the land I was to inhabit;
a thousand times greener and sweeter than that piece of
earthly land I had coveted so long. Presently all the scene
vanished and the woman vanished, the room was dark again
and I was alone.” He shook slightly, and the radiance
passed from his face, he was all himself again. “She's been
standing by me, Sam,” he said, “all the while I've been talking

about her; she overshadowed me like, and kind o' lifted
me out o' myself. But this is what I meant to say — when
I'm gone, Sam, I want you to have my treasure — my little
likeness — him that's on my knees; I want to give him to
you, Sam, and in trust to you, for him eventual, the bed-blanket!
and this is my will and my testimony. Promise to
take the lad, Sam, and it will be to me like a rainbow, in my
sunset sky, and from this time we'll talk do more about it.
Him and Posey?” He turned from the living man before
him to the invisible spirits, if such there were, asking questions
and receiving answers through raps and other signs,
that he professed to understand as well almost as the articulations
of human speech, awaiting the replies reverently,
observing special courtesy, and in all ways manifesting the
deepest sincerity of conviction.

In vain Samuel tried to persuade him that he was under
some great delusion and near to lose his wits; in vain he
told him that he had dreamed a dream, that his midnight
visitor had been all in his imagination; he could no more
move the steadfast faith of Peter than he could have moved
a mountain; besides, at every word of dissent a perfect
tumult of ghostly sounds assailed him on every hand, so that
in sheer despair of being heard, he was forced to suppress
his skepticism at last. “Your spirit friend may have been
mistaken, at any rate,” he says, “and we'll talk about wills
and testaments, Peter, when your seventy years old!” But
Peter would have no evasion, and at last, to pacify him,
Samuel gave the required promise, upon which, the look of
wonderful beauty before mentioned came back to the sad,
heavy face of the strange man, and he laid the sleeping boy
on the strong arm of his young friend.

“He loves me now,” he said, “and his love is precious to
me, but you, Sam, by degrees, and easy like, must wean him
away from me; I want to see it a-doing while I'm here so as
to be sure it'll all be right when I'm gone; I want to see my
flower striking root, so that I shall know he is going to take
kindly to the new soil.” As he loosened the little clinging
hands from his neck, he turned away, and passed his rough
hand across his face. “Don't mind me, Sam,” says he;
“don't mind me; I'll get used to it by and by.” He took
up the bed-blanket, folded it very carefully, and put it away
in the till of the chest, and having by this process diverted,

and sat himself up, he returned to Samuel's side with an
apple, bright as gold, in his hand, together with some rude
toys of his own manufacture.

“Give him these, Sam,” he says, “like as if I'd never seen
'em, and coax him out with you to the meader sometimes;
and if you happen to find a flower in the furrer, pick it for
him, and tell him stories, Sam, about boys that have good-for-nothing
fathers, that they set moping into old cellars, and
had better be dead; and tell him all such boys oughtn't to
care for their fathers, nor to go nigh 'em; but ought to take
to nice young men that they're healthy and smiling, and'll
bring 'em up into right principles. Take him on your knees,
Sam, right afore my face and eyes, and talk to him as I've
drawed the picter of it, and his thoughts'll pint to me
naturally. Don't shake your head, Sam, I shan't mind; on
the whole, I think it'll be amusing to me; I'll enjoy it vast,
Sam! it can't be otherways.” He spoke loud, and with
a forced liveliness, and at the conclusion, bent down so that
his face was away from Samuel, and untied and retied his
shoes, “Confound all shoe strings,” he said, “I never had a
pair that they'd stay tied!” And then he said he felt
unusual happy.

“I'd rather not do this, Peter,” says Samuel; “you've got
so little as it is.” And then he says, “If it should happen
to me to outlive you, I'll take your boy into my house and
heart; you may make sure of that; but Peter, just look at
this arm.” He had shoved back the sleeve; the arm had
swollen as big as two arms and was turned of a purplish
black, mingled with angry red.

Peter laid the arm tenderly on the palm of his great hand,
and after a moment of thoughtful silence, said addressing
himself to vacancy, as before. “What shall Samuel do for
his boy? Won't you tell him, good friends.” Raps on the
head of the vinegar-barrel, which Samuel had made his
oratory, followed this question, loud and fast. “Shall I call
the alphabet, friends?” says Peter. Three distinct raps.
“Ay,” says Peter, and he repeats the alphabet, beginning
with A, and calling slowly until a rap on the oratory announced
that he had reached the right letter, the which,
marking in pencil, he began anew, and when another letter
was rapped upon, marked that, and so repeated the alphabet,
and marked the letters, until a sentence was spelled out.

And in this way he conversed, or seemed to converse, with
persons or things invisible, for half an hour, at the end of
which he got the information he wanted. “Now, Samuel,”
he said, “do as I shall direct, and that arm will be all right
in the morning; but one thing I enjine — you must make as
if you done it all yourself, and that nothing of it is owing to
me. It'll be a good beginnin' for you, and a good one for
me too.” He laughed as he said this, but the laughter was
hollow and melancholy. And then he adds, with real interest,
“Here's a spirit, Sam, that wishes to communicate with
you!”

“Very well,” says Samuel, hiding a smile by ducking his
face behind the boy, “tell him to go ahead.”

“It's the spirit of a man,” continued Peter, and he says
he'd give his name on my arm.”

“Indeed!” says Samuel; “I shall like to see it!”

Peter began twitching and trembling, and in about half a
minute, thrust his shirt sleeve back to his elbow, and displayed,
in fiery red letters, the name of John C. Sparks.

“He says he's your uncle! did you have an uncle John?”
says Peter.

“Yes, but he ain't dead! You've made a slight mistake
somehow!”

Peter inclined his ear, and seemed to listen. And then he
said, “He tells me he ain't dead, but that he's passed on —
and now I see the picter of a red mill, on the wall — did he
own a mill?”

Samuel turned now and looked at the wall where Peter
looked, but he could see no red mill. “Tell him to give us
all his name, if he is here,” he says, “we want to know what
that C. stands for.”

Peter listened again. “His spirit tells me,” says he, “that
if you will look under the Bible that lies on the head of the
vinegar barrel, you will find a piece of folded paper with his
name writ on one side, and with something else writ on
t'other side that'll make you wiser than you are.”

“Just look under the Bible! just for the fun o' the thing!”
says Samuel.

“I wouldn't make light,” says Peter; “spirits don't like it,
treat 'em just the same as you would if they were in the
body;” and lifting the Bible, he took up a-piece of folded
paper, having something written upon it. “See if it's right,”

he says, handing it to Samuel, who turning it up and down,
and this way and that, at last assented — “it's the name,
and no mistake,” he says, “and it looks like his writing too!
John Catwild Sparks. If it had been anything but Catwild,”
says he, looking at Peter curiously, “I wouldn't have wondered
so much;” and slowly and thoughtfully he unfolded
the paper.

He turned white, and then flushed and trembled, and
sliding the boy from his knees, rose and stood before Peter
with the open paper in his hand.

“You double-faced villain!” he cries, “did you ever see
this writing before? and who was it writ for, and what more
was writ? The truth, sir, and nothing but the truth!”

Peter read the writing, and then backing against the wall,
seemed dumb with terror.

“Speak!” demands Samuel, “and mind that you speak
the truth — I'm not in a temper to be fooled with, I warn
you!”

“I don't know what to do,” says Peter; “I don't know
what's right — I promised him I wouldn't tell.”

“Promised who? But I know who! And so you are
using your devilish machinations for a cold-blooded pretender,
and agin me, are you?”

Peter hid his face in his arm, and shook like a leaf in a
storm.

“I wouldn't have believed,” Samuel went on, “that you
would a lent yourself to such devil's work! I see now why
that smooth-faced hypocrite is prowlin' about here o' nights!
it's to get you and Satan in league agin me, and agin an innocent
child, is it! God 'a' mercy! I thought I could 'a'
trusted you, Peter!”

“And so you can,” stammered Peter, at last; his hand
before his eyes, and the tears running through his fingers.
“I am no more to blame, Samuel, for what is writ on that
paper than the baby unborn, unless so be that you blame me
for having anything whatsomever to do for him that it's
writ for.”

“Him! Who? I know, but I'll make you say, for all
that!”

“If you know, Sam, why would you make me say? I
promised him I wouldn't tell nothing about his coming here
o' nights. Folks don't like to have it known, mostly.”

Samuel remembered now that he was keeping a bad
promise, all the while, and relented, a little. “Well, then,
you needn't call his name,” he said; “it was writ for Mr.
Lightwait, and its bearin' is all agin me and agin an innocent
child who is dearer to me than my life; tell me only when it
was writ, and why you writ it.”

“In the first place,” says Peter, “him that it was writ for
has been a friend to me, and, Sam, I hain't got no friends to
spare; he's lighted dark hours for me, and I hain't got none
too much light; I don't know nothing agin him, and I don't
want to say nothing agin him; so far as he's spoke o' you,
he's spoke praises, and that was one thing that made me like
him; he told me he was in trouble, and that drawed me to
him still more; and so tother night it came about that he
says to me, `S'pose, Brother Peter, you ask the spirits if they
can advise me?' and never dreaming of harming nobody, I
asked, and what's writ on that paper is what was writ
through my hand, to him, and the spirit that writ it was the
spirit of his mother. I didn't know a word of it at the time,
and I hardly know now, for I glanced hasty, and I can't
read writing much, no how; read it for me, will you?”

“If you couldn't read it, why did you tremble and turn
pale? Don't try to deceive me, Peter, it'll be worse for you,
if you do.”

“I trembled because I knowed the paper, and I knowed
who the writing was for, and because I didn't know what
was writ, but guessed from your anger that it was some way
agin you; and God knows I speak the truth. O, Sam, don't
turn agin me without looking at it fair all round.”

The heart of the man was evidently in his words, and
Samuel, going to the candle, read the paper. The writing
was in pencil, and the paper crumpled and torn, but he read
with an instinctive apprehension, from the first glance.
This was what was written: “Bishop John, can, and will
outwit his rival, if he perseveres; Margaret's eyes will be
dazzled, her pride will be pleased, and her better judgment
may then be overborne by a stronger will; it were better,
however, that she should marry S. D. The young Bishop is,
therefore, earnestly admonished to desist from a pursuit that
must inevitably bring pain to more hearts than one. Let
him leave the butterfly among the roses, while its wings are

untarnished, and while his own conscience is clear.” Signed,
Betty Honeywell.

“As I understand it,” says Peter, brightening up, “the
advice is all in your favor.”

“Yes, and the promise all in his,” says Samuel, bitterly.
“What does he care for advice, to be sure — even though it
was give by the angel Gabriel — he wouldn't heed it, not in
this case.”

Like all men who are in love, Samuel thought that every
man must needs see with just his eyes. There was a good
deal more talk between the men, in which Peter labored
hard to convince Samuel that he did great injustice to the
bishop's son, but at every word he damaged his cause.
What to the one seemed simple honesty and brotherly
regard, seemed to the other adroit management and artful
calculation. “He comes in so friendly like,” says Peter,
“and takes my hard hand in his soft one, and calls me
brother, all the same as if I was a class-leader!”

“I dare say,” answers Samuel, with a sneer.

“And he praises your mistress so, Sam, and that's sweeter
to me than rain to the thirsty ground.”

“Ah, to be sure, he knows what he's about.”

“And he talks o' you with such admiration, Sam.”

“Yes, I'm just the sort of a man he would admire!”

“Then he reads our hymns, and he makes them sound
a'most like the anthem when it's sung in the meetin'-house.”

“O, he's cunning.”

“Maybe these things don't seem o' much account to you,
Sam, because things is as things is with us, and inard things
make outard things fit, and your soul is not hungry and
a-cryin' out in you as mine is, I don't s'pose.”

“Yes it is,” says Samuel, “crying out with a wilder and
a hungrier cry; and woe to him who comes between me and
my rights.”

“Him that we're talking of wouldn't do that,” says Peter.
And then he tells Samuel what kind things he said about
him the last time he saw him.”

“I dare say,” says Samuel, “but he was just leadin' you
through!”

“Leadin'?” says Peter — “no he want, he just kind o'
made me go myself, and made me say things that they was
a'most agin my own will; he's gifted high, Sam.”

“Yes, but with dangerous gifts, he's mighty sweet and
quiet like, outside, but he's got a will of cast iron, and he
wouldn't let nobody in the world have no way but just his,
if he could help it. There's them that seem to yield, but
they never do, and when they draw back, it's just for a spring,
and he's one of 'em; but was he a-talking about me when
he got that communication, as you call it?”

“Just wait Sam, till I recollect my recollection.”

Peter put his head in his hand, and after a little, replied in
the affirmative.

“What did he say of me? not that I care. I don't care
what he thinks, only as it may take in others.”

“Well, in the first place he said there was some fine young
men in the church, and, though I can't tell his words, he
put you forard of `em all.”

“Less give thanks!” says Samuel, holding up his hands.

“Give 'em for what?” says Peter.

“O things generally, but go on, what more did he say?”

“He said you was a good looking man, didn't I think so?
And he liked you, he said, didn't I? And then he said,
wasn't you my friend particular? to which I said yes,
emphatic, you was my friend particular.”

“And then what?”

“Then he sighed like, and said he was afraid you had
trouble afore you, a disappointment in love, he wished you
success, hearty, he said, but things looked agin you.”

“Is that all?”

“Purty much, he asked if somebody had been here lately,
to have their fortune told; and if it was any friend to
you?”

“Ay, I understand him! and what else did he say about
somebody, and somebody's fortune?”

“Well, Sam, I can't tell — not to give his words precise,
but it kind o' come to me from his talk one way and another,
which it was all into your favor, and into her favor that he
talked of her; but no matter what come to me.”

“Ah, but it is, though. What come to you?”

“Well then, Sam, it kind o' come to me that she hild herself
up above you like, and that the mother of her didn't
look at you level. He didn't say this 'ere, mind, it only
kind o' come to me. He said he hoped for the best, and
would like to serve you, and all them sort o' things that are

lovely into a man to feel for a feller man. So, Sam, don't
set nothin' down agin him. If things is to be sot agin anybody
I prefer 'em to be sot agin me; nothin' can harm me
no furder much than what I am harmed.”

Samuel took the clumsy hand of the man in his, and said:
“Cheer up, Peter! we'll be friends, you and me, come what
will. I'm sorry I spoke so short to you — forget it; I don't
blame you, your honest and true, and too good for your own
advantage; I wish I was half as good.”

“O, Sam, to think o' you a-praisin' me! Why, I feel my
cheek a blushin' like a girl's to hear it.”

“Before we part,” says Samuel, “I must give you one
word of advice; have nothin' to do with these spirits, even
admitting that they are spirits.”

“I'll do almost anything for you, Samuel,” says Peter,
solemnly, “but not that, you mustn't ask that, there's times
and places where no man has a right to come between
another man and his Maker, where him and his conscience,
which is God's voice a-speakin' low, must just have it out
between 'em! that's my doctrine, which I hold to it firm.”
Samuel turned and looked at Peter in astonishment, perhaps
that he should think anything so clearly, and directly he
went on. “Spirits are almost my only friends, Sam, and it
flatters me like, for I know they see me as I am, and don't
judge me by these rough and dusty garments that I'm into;
I've allers thought they hampered me and hindered me, and
that if I was rid o' my body I'd be more of a man. But
whether this is true, or whether I'm vain, to think it, I know
they help me, and fill me out like, now, why, don't you mind
Sam, how I seem to be hild up by 'em!”

Samuel had remarked just this filling out and holding up,
in an accession of mental force and a less stammering and
more definite utterance, had noticed also, more especially
when he professed to see spirits, a finer and sweeter expression
of countenance, but he forbore to admit the fact, shaking
his head as in contradiction of it, and so shifting the
subject.

“You have put great confidence in me to-night, Peter,”
he says, “and in turn I will confide in you, for why should
we be ashamed to speak of the purest and sweetest feelin's,
we are capable of. My notion is that we ain't worthy of the
natures God has give us, and we go a sneekin' and shufflin'

and blushin' and lyin', where we most ought to go above
board, havin', most evidently, the Divine leadin', not boastfully
nor proudly, but with reverent and solemn awe.”

“Sam,” says Peter, that's some preachin' spirit that's puttin'
that into your head! You'd never a-thought of it, not
of yourself, spirits have a way o' kind o' touchin' the keys
of your mind, so to speak, and bringin' thought out like.
But what was you sayin'?”

“I was sayin', or was about to say,” rejoined Samuel,
“that I love Margaret Fairfax with all my heart — that I
desire above everything to make her my wife; to work for
her, to live for her, to stand between her and harm, and if it
must come, to take it on myself; to be to her hope, health,
sunshine, happiness, comfort through all things; and all
these I could 'a' been, but for a saintly devil that comes between
us. O, Peter, it breaks my heart to think of it!”

“But maybe your a-goin' forard too fast,” says Peter;
“maybe it'll all turn out as you hope.”

“I don't hope,” says Samuel, “I know what's agin hope;
I've seen it all along, and I knowed it before I knowed it, so
to speak; and now it appears that not content with his own
cunning, he must needs come here o' nights and seek to
league himself with invisible powers. It's all plain enough,
if he is called Bishop John, in the communication, and if
Margaret's name hadn't 'a' been writ at all. I should 'a' felt
the truth. Well, let him beware how he crosses my path —
that's all!”

He was turning away, when Peter caught his hand: “You
won't forget your boy's arm,” he said; “you remember you
are to cure it!”

“I forgot what stuff I was told,” replied Samuel, in a sour
fashion.

“This was it — mind every word,” says Peter: “Dip your
left hand in the dew three times, and pronounce the name
of any one you love backwards; now you won't fail to
do it?”

“Nonsense!” cries Samuel, but as he went along the
mead-path, he did it, for all that.

And all that night, and all the following day, his heart
was torn with such jealous pangs as go near driving the
brain to madness; it was some comfort, to be sure, that
little Peter's arm was found to be fair and white and well,

in the morning, and that Peter senior was almost happy in
the thought that his two treasures, his boy and his poor old
Posey, were provided for, but under this comfort, the madness
worked. He laughed loud, and drank hard, and cut the
sides of the sheep as he sheared them, and cut his own
hands into the bargain; got mad, and threatened to whip
the slenderest of the shearers because he broke raw eggs in
his whiskey, and hugged another and talked fondly to him
for saying he didn't like the new preacher. At last he grew
grum and gruff, and swore he was the proudest and most independent
man in the church, and that he could carry things
with a high hand in spite of the bishop's son or anybody
else. And to crown all his folly swore that Margaret Fairfax
was the prettiest girl in all the world, and that he would
marry her if he had a mind, in spite of her mother and the
rest of them!

It was on the evening of this day, at a most unfortunate
hour, as the reader knows, that Margaret came, inquiring for
him. What fell out during the interview, has already been
shown; why it came about, will, perhaps be more clearly
understood in view of Samuel's conversation with Peter,
and the coming to light of the mysterious communication
addressed to Bishop John.

All this was burning like fire in his brain, and when
Margaret said, “it is Mr. Lightwait — what will he think
of me, with you? at this hour!” the fire ran to his fingers'
ends, and his hand did what it did.

And here we reach the point at which our preceding
chapter concluded, where our narrative has been all this
time waiting to be taken up.