1. I.
THE DOCTOR.
A man was sitting in a house on Gloucester
Street, in Williamsburg, Virginia,
about a hundred years ago, busy at a
very singular employment.
In this lower world the inner character
of men and things connects itself so
mysteriously with their outward appearance,
that a pen-and-ink sketch is desirable
of the room in which the personage
we have introduced was sitting, and
of the personage himself.
It was the front apartment of a small
house, standing somewhat back from the
street, in the midst of a small garden,
given up chiefly to flowers; and, as the
season was autumn, the borders burned
with prince's - feathers, asters, yellow
primroses, and late geraniums. You approached
by a gravel-walk, mounted two
stone steps, entered by a heavy door, ornamented
with an enormous brass lock,
and, passing through an inner door on
the right, found yourself in the apartment
mentioned. It was half sitting-room,
half laboratory. A thick carpet,
with lozenge-shaped figures of black and
red alternately, covered the floor, and
some old, high - backed chairs rested
against the dingy walls. In one corner
was a walnut-wood bookease, containing
an array of volumes, chiefly upon medi
cal subjects, and these had overflowed
upon the chairs and the carpet. On the
tall mantel-piece were jars, phials, retorts,
and bones. It was plain that physiology
was a favorite study of the owner
of the mansion; and specimens of the
master-worm, man, in every stage of his
physical development, from the embryo
to the skeleton, dangling its legs and
arms, and grinning frightfully, met the
eye on every hand.
In the centre of the room stood a
long table, covered with machines and
retorts. Beside it, poring, with knit
brows, over a large leather-bound volume,
and looking, from moment to moment,
at a white rabbit under a glass
cover, sat the master of the establishment.
He was an altogether singular personage—a
sort of cut-off giant, scarcely five
feet in height, with an enormous chest,
broad and powerful shoulders, and long
arms, ending in immense hands. Here,
however, the Herculean character of the
strange figure terminated. An impotent
conclusion ensued. The legs were actual
pipe-stems, so slender were they; and
their tenuity was exaggerated by the enormous
size of the feet, reposing in mighty
buckled shoes. The costume of this
personage consisted of heavy silk stockings,
knee-breeches of drab cloth, a long
waistcoat reaching nearly to the knees,
and buttoned up to the throat; and a
species of overcoat with a cape attached,
capacious flapped pockets, and skirts so
long that they reached down to the
wearer's heels. Neck, this
outré figure
had none, apparently. The huge head,
half covered by long, gray elf-locks, rose
abruptly from the shoulders, and the face
was on a par with the
torso. The eyes
were dark, piercing, and seemed to burn
with cynical fire under the bushy, gray
eyebrows. The nose was long and prominent;
the mouth wide, with thin, compressed
lips, and a sardonic, almost sneering
expression. From time to time the
personage uttered a sort of grunt, agreeably
alternating with a growl resembling
that of a wolf disturbed while tearing
his food.
He closed the book, and raised the
glass cover, beneath which was stretched
the body of the rabbit—a white one of
the English species.
“Well,” he said, in a vibrating and
metallic voice, “he is dead, after all, I
think. The formula was wrong. To be
certain, however.”
He took the white rabbit, and, opening
the window, placed it upon the sill
in the fresh air. For ten minutes he remained
looking attentively at it. No
movement indicated life.
“Humph!” he said; “yes, this time
he's dead. Decidedly the formula was
wrong. And yet—it is my dream, perchance,
but no—this is not a chimera.
And, if not—”
He looked toward the skeleton, and,
shaking his fist at it, exclaimed, in grim
and triumphant tones:
“I cannot conquer you, King Death!
My science is powerless in face of your
strength—you are master! But I do not
yield; I can fight you, drive you back;
and, if not checkmate you, can sometimes
tear your prey from your grasp! If I find
what I seek now, I triumph!—and I will
find it!—Yes, the formula was wrong—
there is a better—yonder!”
And, crossing the room with hasty
strides, he took down a heavy volume
from the bookcase. As he did so, there
fell from the shelf, where it had been
concealed behind the volume, a small
white glove, with a bow of blue ribbon
affixed to the wrist—only the delicate
fabric, once snow-white, was discolored
by age, and the ribbon-knot was faded.
The eccentric personage picked up
the glove and looked at it. An expression
of wonder had replaced the stern
glance.
“This here!” he muttered—“not
crumbled and gone to dust like all
else?”
He remained perfectly motionless for
a long time, looking at the glove, upon
which a ray of the autumn sunshine fell,
through the window. An expression of
sadness, almost of tenderness, had come
to the deep-set eyes now, and the thin
lips.
“I thought that was all done for—
that business!” he muttered; “and yet
here it is!—a ghost out of the past.—
What a fool I am!—The roses are as
faded as the blue of this ribbon; and
the woman—she has forgotten!”
The pathetic expression had already
disappeared, and the sardonie smile came
back.
“Here I am, dreaming over a woman's
glove!” he muttered; “the old
squat dwarf, with his patients to look
after! I'll cease this fooling!—go back
to your hiding-place, ghost!” he said,
replacing the glove behind the books;
“I'll never summon you again or look at
her, unless she calls me. `Send to me
if you are in trouble,' I said to her, `and
I'll come, day or night.' I'll do that—
but she shall send for me first.”
Muttering to himself, he went back
with his book to the table; at the moment,
a clock in the adjoining room
struck the hour of noon.
“Well, here's the morning wasted,
and I must go to the governor,” he said,
closing his book.—“Snuffers!”
This cabalistic word died away, and
was then repeated in a louder tone:
“Snuffers!”
“Very well, Dr. Vandyke!” a voice
said from the next room; “there's no
use bawling at me—I'm coming.”
The door opened, and an old woman
of short stature, rotund person, and ruddy
face, appeared, her white head-kerchief
extending backward in the shape of a
sugar-loaf.
“Most excellent Mrs. Snuffers,” said
Dr. Vandyke, with his satirical smile,
“will you be so obliging as to inform
any person who calls to see me that I
have gone to the governor's?”
“And when will you be back?”
“I am unable to say, madam.”
Thereat the elderly lady looked peculiarly
irate.
“And how am I to know when you
will want your dinner, Dr. Vandyke?
How am I to take care of you, and act as
a Christian woman by you, when here,
just as I am getting ready to put the
dinner on the table, you go flying off!”
Dr. Vandyke glared at his enemy.
“Dinner?” he said.
“Dinner!” retorted the foe, in a
loud voice—“dinner! and I'd like to
know how often I have said—”
“That eating was the great object of
existence? A thousand times, most respectable
Snuffers! True, life is after all
but a struggle against starvation. All
else but what the human animal eats is
vanity! And the fact here stated is susceptible
of demonstration. From the
singular organization of the creature denominated
man—”
Unfortunately for the doctor's learned
discourse, an instant interruption thereof
occurred. Breathless, pop-eyed, with
haste written all over his face, rushed in
a small black urchin, who nearly precipitated
himself into the doctor's arms.
That gentleman received him with immovable
elbow, sharp and bony, which
sent him flying back.
“What's the meaning of this, you rascal?”
quoth Dr. Vandyke.
The boy cowered and fell back. But
in a moment he regained breath and
courage to deliver his message. A gentleman,
while riding along Gloucester
Street, had been thrown from his horse,
badly injured, and borne into the Raleigh
Tavern, where he awaited Dr. Vandyke's
professional services.
“Say I am coming,” grunted Dr.
Vandyke.
“And your dinner!” shrilled Mrs.
Snuffers.
The doctor wheeled and scowled at
her.
“Snuffers!—you are a pair of extinguishers
instead of the implement bearing
your name. That is to say, you are
—a woman!”
Having discharged this thunder-bolt
at the head of his enemy, Dr. Vandyke
put on his hat, grasped a large stick in
his vigorous right hand, and, with his
long overcoat flapping against his
shrunken legs, went out of the house,
and toward the Raleigh Tavern.
