University of Virginia Library

9. IX.
A SPIRITUAL CIRCLE.

A SOILED spelling-book was placed before the
colonel, who took a pencil, and commenced
pointing at the A B C's like a schoolmaster.
He went over them twice without success; but the occupation
fixed his mind for the moment, and it favored silence.

“There's more harmony now,” said Ann Maria; “a better
influence. Don't you feel it, mother?”

“Oh, yes! I guess I do! There was a rap!”

Colonel Bannington held his pencil on the letter F, and
the rap was distinctly repeated, — a small, soft, concussive
sound, on or under the mahogany, apparently very near the
colonel's hand. Startled by what he evidently did not expect,
he looked up keenly at Ann Maria; whose face, to his disappointment,
betrayed no guile, but was full of lively, girlish
interest.

“Is F right?” asked Mrs. Burble.

A little pattering of the same small, soft, concussive sounds,
like a dry rain, all around the colonel's hand, was considered

a very decided affirmative response. F was accordingly taken
down on a sheet of foolscap by Doctor Biddikin, who acted
as scribe.

The invalid, slightly agitated, but far from losing his shrewd
sense, called for a sheet of paper, which he placed over the
alphabet in a manner to conceal it from all mortal eyes but
his own; then recommenced pointing. Rap!

“E,” said he a moment after to Doctor Biddikin. Immediately
there was another rap, — at A. But, instead of repeating
the letter, he went through the alphabet, and, coming
back, began again at B. No rap. C — D — E: still no
sound. But, the instant his pencil touched A, the rap was
repeated. The intelligence and persistence thus shown in the
rap-producing power damped his marble forehead with perspiration.

“Ann!” said he, once more flashing his steel-gray eyes
upon the medium, “can you see the letters I point at?”

“No, sir,” replied the girl with simple earnestness. “If
you think I do, you needn't pint at 'em at all, but go over
'em in your mind. They'll rap jest the same that way for
some folks.”

Bannington accordingly discarded the pencil, and fixed his
eyes on the alphabet, which he still kept concealed from the
company. A rap; and, after some hesitation, T was announced.
H, E, and R were afterwards given in the same
manner. Then the sounds ceased. The colonel, who had
lost the run of the letters, called on Doctor Biddikin for the
result.

“The word feather,” said the doctor, showing his scrawl.

“Feather!” echoed the colonel, seeming greatly relieved.
“Not a very ghostly communication, doctor. Feather —
in whose cap?” And he flung the paper contemptuously
on the table.

“Is feather right?” quietly inquired Ann Maria. Two
raps, — a negative response. “Which letter is wrong? The
first?” — No. “Second?” — Yes. “Try again for the
second letter?” — Yes.

The colonel consented to make another trial, and got A.

“Are there two A's?” asked Ann Maria. — No.

“Then the word is father!” cried Doctor Biddikin excitedly.

“Yes, yes, yes!” came the decided affirmative raps.

The colonel snatched the record, and studied it; astounded
by the ingenious amendment of a word, which, a moment
since, he felt certain had been spelled out by the merest
chance.

“I were quite sure,” cried Doctor Biddikin, “that the
knock came before you got to E; and you pointed very fast,
you remember.”

The invalid made no answer, but regarded intently the
sheet of foolscap, his forehead damp again.

“Is it Mr. Bannington's father?” asked Ann Maria.

Rap, rap, rap!

“Were your father in your mind, colonel?” asked Doctor
Biddikin, who had picked up somewhere a theory that

communications of that kind were reflections from somebody's
brain.

The colonel compressed his narrow lips. “I wasn't thinking
of my father at all,” he said; “and I no more believe
it's my father than I believe Swedenborg is in Mr. Murk's
arm. If the spirit — if 'tis a spirit — will tell me a few
things, maybe I'll begin to think there's something in it. I
want first the spirit's name in full.”

Jubilant affirmative raps promised loudly to grant this reasonable
request. They ceased; and no more sounds could
be obtained, although the colonel sat for several minutes with
his eyes on the spelling-book. The truth was, that he neglected
to put his mind upon the alphabet, thinking the raps
might come the same.

“Look out, Archy!” whispered Ann Maria.

“Keep still, Archy!” commanded the colonel.

“I can't!” cried Archy, jerking his arms violently.
“Sumpthin's got hold of me!” and he began to pound the
table in a fearful manner.

“There's a very powerful battery in the circle,” said Mr.
Murk, the philanthropist, with a phlegmatic drawl; “very
powerful.”

“I never sor any thing so extraordinary!” ejaculated Biddikin.

“You will see stranger things than this,” dryly prophesied
Mr. Murk. “The other one, there, will begin next,” —
fixing his steady eyes, with a dull fire in them, on Ann Maria,

and slowly waving his hands, as if throwing over her some
spell.

Presently she began to jerk, and pound the table, in company
with Archy.

“Now you'll see manifestations!” and Mr. Murk calmly
folded his arms, looking on with a stolid smile. “There are
our two mediums, doctor.”

“Very singular!” aspirated Biddikin. “Is there no
danger? — Don't it hurt your hands?” to the mediums.

“No; but, by gosh!” broke forth Archy in a shaken
voice, “I wish I could stop!”

There was now observable a striking uniformity between
the movements of the two mediums. Archy's arms would
jerk, then Ann Maria's would jerk similarly. Archy's head
would toss up and down, and Ann Maria's would toss up and
down. Then they beat a tattoo on the table, so exactly together,
that a listener would have supposed that only one pair
of hands was in motion.

“Bandage their eyes, and see if they'll do that as well!”
commanded the colonel.

“'Twill make no difference,” observed Mr. Murk; while
Mrs. Burble blindfolded Ann Maria; and Doctor Biddikin,
Archy. “This thing has its use. There is perfect harmony
between them now. You can have almost any manifestation
you want.”

Archy at that moment clapped his hands, and shouted; at
which Ann Maria also clapped, and, jumping up, ran, blindfold

as she was, out of the dining-room, and through two
other rooms, returning immediately with the great family
Bible in her hands.

“That girl never knowed where that Bible was in this
world!” exclaimed the amazed mother.

Ann Maria flung it upon the table with a heavy jar; and
Archy, seizing it, turned over the leaves like lightning, ran
his hand up a page, and stopped, with his finger fixed.

“It's the family record!” said the awe-struck doctor.

“See where his finger is!” uttered the colonel, his face
pallid and wet, and his voice husky.

Biddikin adjusted his glasses with trembling hands; but,
before he could speak, both the mediums cried out with one
breath, —

“Lucius Bannington!”

The doctor got his finger on the spot where Archy's was,
and, drawing the book towards him, read, —

“Lucius Bannington, born Sept. 2, 1770; died Oct.
5” —

Here he was interrupted by a shout from Archy.

“The record lies! Lucius Bannington didn't die: I'm
alive now, and hearty! Don't you believe it?” with which
words the obsessed youth made a lunge at the colonel, swung
him round in his chair, and fell to slapping and rubbing his
legs with demoniac fury.

“Take him away!” gasped the terrified invalid.

“Let him work,” coolly countermanded Mr. Murk.

“He'll cure that paralysis: I've seen hundreds of such
cases,” he added, stoical as stone in the midst of the general
consternation.

“He's fainting!” shrieked little Doctor Biddikin, springing
to support the colonel; who, overcome by superstitious
terrors, sank down insensible in his chair.

Archy desisted from operating on the legs, and, walking
gravely aside, sat down upon a lounge; while Mrs. Burble
brought a camphor-bottle, and assisted Doctor Biddikin to restore
the invalid to consciousness.

“There! Take away that stuff! I'm all right!”

“Will you go to your room?” asked the frightened housekeeper.

“No: I'll see it through. Sit down!” said the colonel.

“Shall I dror you to the table again?” asked Doctor Biddikin;
and, without waiting for an answer, he wheeled up the
chair. “That were your father, Colonel Bannington! Don't
you think so?”

Bannington wiped his forehead, and sat silent. The circle
was formed again, omitting Archy. Ann Maria, having
taken the handkerchief from her eyes and come out of her
abnormal condition, answered with surprising calmness and
innocence of manner, that, if all would be passive, the raps
would presently be heard again.

“Shall I take the alphabet?” said the little doctor, eagerly
seizing it as he spoke; his shrivelled and starved features
lighting up with an unwholesome flush.

“Any sperits here that will rap to the doctor?” said Mrs.
Burble.

Instantly there came a loud thump, as if some one had
struck the table. The doctor, wildly excited, looked round,
suspicious that somebody was playing him a trick.

“Colonel — Colonel Bannington!” he spluttered, “that
were a boot: you kicked the table!” forgetting, in the
heat of the moment, the colonel's paralysis. “Beg pardon!
I — were it a rap?”

“'Twas the loudest rap I ever heard!” said Ann Maria:
“wa'n't it mother?”

“I guess it was!” exclaimed Mrs. Burble emphatically.
“Ask any thing you want to, doctor.”

“I — I want them to tell me about that money.”

Thump, thump, thump! came three loud knocks, which
made the table shake.

“I — I confess — I'm too excited to — I wish you'd ask
questions for me,” said the doctor to Ann Maria, — like a
weak, frightened, old-faced child of sixty appealing for help to
a grave little woman of thirteen.

With quiet self-reliance, Ann Maria said, —

“Sperits please to give their names?”

Knock, knock, knock!

“Take a pencil, and pint, if you please.”

With a shaky hand, the doctor went over the alphabet.
There was a knock at M; then at A; then at D; the doctor
growing more and more agitated, and at length, as the next
letter — I — was given, crying out prematurely, —

“Madison! — is the name Madison?”

Thump, thump, thump!

“My son! — it is my son Madison!” exclaimed the doctor,
jumping up from the table. “Colonel, it is my son, —
my Madison!” clasping his skinny hands, and bursting into
tears.

His passion soon spent itself, and he was prevailed upon to
be seated again.

“I don't believe Madison is dead,” said Ann Maria in a
consolatory tone.

“What! not if he is here and says so?” said the little
doctor. “Madison, my son, are you present?”

If Madison made the resounding affirmative knocks that
followed, he was present most certainly.

“Will you tell us where you died?” asked Ann Maria,
inclined to refute him.

“At sea,” was spelled out.

“What were the cause of your death?” inquired the
bereaved parent.

“Drownded,” said the raps.

“Are you happy, my son?”

“Jolly!”

“That sounds jest like him for all the world!” said Mrs.
Burble.

“In what sphere are you, my son?”

“Seventh sphere!” exclaimed Mrs. Burble, counting the
knocks. “How he has progressed! That's the highest
sphere there is!”

“He were a wonderful spiri'chal-minded boy, though bad
influences here kept him down. You have better companions
now, my son, haven't you?”

“Perfect bricks!” spelled out the spiritual-minded boy.

“I — I were never pleased with his slang phrases,” said
the doctor, chagrined. “Mr. Murk, do you think a spirit in
the seventh sphere would make use of that low expression, —
`perfect bricks'?”

“These things have their uses,” replied Mr. Murk. “The
spirit resumes its former character in order to give you tests
of its identity.”

“Very philosophical!” said the doctor; and, with returning
enthusiasm, he proceeded with the communications.

Colonel Bannington, in the mean while, had his attention
occupied by other things. On the lounge sat Archy, still acted
upon by mysterious influences; now appearing to take snuff,
bent over like a feeble old man; wiping his eyes with Doctor
Biddikin's handkerchief, while his hand seemed shaking with
the palsy of age; and lastly imitating, in movement and attitude,
an octogenarian carefully feeling his chin, and plucking
out his beard, a hair at a time, with forceps.

“Jest look!” whispered Mrs. Burble. “Ann Mari', do
see Archy! It's old Mr. Bannington, over and over again!
He used to set hour after hour jest like that, pullin' out his
baird with pinchers; for he wouldn't let anybody shave him,
and his hand had got too unstiddy to shave himself.”

The colonel breathed short and fast, his face beaded again
with cold sweat. Archy uttered a senile, cackling cough.

“Why! I'd have thought 'twas old Mr. Bannington himself,
if I didn't know!” murmured the housekeeper.

“Keep still!” cried Doctor Biddikin. “I must get this
communication! `Dear father!' He were a very affectionate
son: colonel, he has rapped out `dear father!'”

“I am with you always,” said the raps.

“O Mr. Murk!” exclaimed the afflicted parent, “that
is my son, — that is my son! He were a very dutiful boy. O
Mr. Murk, if you could only have known my son Madison!”

“I think I see him now,” said Mr. Murk, staring at the
blank air. “Was he a tall, strong young man?”

“That is my son! You describe him better than I could
myself. Colonel — Colonel Bannington, Mr. Murk can see
the spirit of my boy!”

“He puts his arms around your neck,” said Mr. Murk.

“I think I can feel them! — I feel his arms distinctly!”
And the ardent father opened his own to clasp the filial
shade.

“He wears a pea-jacket and sailor's trousers,” remarked
the matter-of-fact Mr. Murk. “He kisses you on your right
cheek.”

“He were always such an affectionate boy! I feel his
kiss!” and, weeping, the parent kissed back. “He were
wild, you know, colonel, but so affectionate at heart! Can't
you speak to me, my son?”

“There he is! — in the door!” faintly screamed Mrs.
Burble.

And, starting up, she pointed at the apparition of a tall,
sunburnt, swaggering young man, entering, not in ghostly
pea-jacket and spiritual trousers, but in clothes of unmistakable
mundane fabric, coarse and ragged and soiled, and
covering stout limbs of actual flesh and blood.

“Madison!” gasped out the little doctor, uncertain at
first whether he saw his son in the flesh or in the spirit.

“Hello, dad!” the dutiful youth responded, entering with
a reckless air. “What's the row?”

“Madison!” ejaculated the parent, “what does this
mean? Where have you been?”

“Lying around loose, here and there,” answered the affectionate
boy. “I saw the old chaise and Pitman's white
crow-bait as I was going by, and thought I'd get a lift up
the hill. Le' go my collar!” And he put his father from
him as a giant would a pygmy.

“I'll have none of your insolence! Come along with
me!” And Biddikin flew round to find his hat.

“Oh, don't you splutter, you little old burnt-out tallow-candle!”
said the youth, his chin on one side, and one eye
half-closed with a malign expression. “How are you, Colonel
Bannington?”

The colonel was himself again.

“We've had the cursedest hocus-pocus! — been getting
communications from your ghost for the last half-hour,” said
the colonel.

“The devil you have!” said Madison.

“You came from the seventh sphere, and rapped; and
Mr. Murk, here, saw you; and your father felt your arms on
his neck!”

“Oh, gas!” laughed the youth, with his tongue in his
cheek.

“It is easily explained,” observed Mr. Murk, stoical and
dry as ever. “A mischievous spirit has been deceiving us.
He has gone to Archy: I think he will give his name.”

The words had scarcely parted from his lips, when Archy
rushed to the table, and, seizing a pencil, struck it across a
sheet of paper with a sort of zig-zag jerk. Ann Maria,
taking the paper, held it up, and read, —

“`Joe Prince!'” written in a bold, rapid hand. “Jest
like Joe Prince to come and fool us so!”

“Precisely!” said the colonel: “only Joe Prince happens
to be alive. Squire Pelt had a letter from him yesterday.
Let me tell you, all this is humbug! What isn't trickery
is mesmerism, and what isn't mesmerism is imagination.
Rhody Burble, you'd better attend to your housekeeping in
future. Doctor Biddikin, you've got your buried treasure to
look after; that's enough for one cracked brain: you'd better
let the spirits alone. As for you, Mr. Murk, philanthropist!”
— lashing himself into a fury as he proceeded, —
“I believe you are a villain, with your bobbing fist and your
Swedenborg! — and, if ever I see you coming to my house
again after mediums, I'll make a target of that big nose of
yours, — I swear by the Almighty! Madison, carry your

father home, and keep him: he's in his dotage. Aaron,
come in, and put a stop to this deviltry!”

Burly, bearded, black, Aaron Burble darkened the doorway,
frowning at the evidences of a circle. His wife flew to
the kitchen for refuge, followed by Ann Maria. Archy came
out of his trance, and shrunk sheepishly away. Biddikin
found his hat, and thrust his head into it; while Madison
stood with his cocked on one side, insolently laughing.

“It will, perhaps, be expedient for us to withdraw for the
present,” Mr. Murk observed philosophically. “It has been
a rather edifying season; and when our brother, here, has
risen above the sphere of passion” —

“Aaron, kill that scoundrel!” hissed the colonel.

“If Aaron wishes for an opportunity to do so, I will
remain,” drawled Mr. Murk: “otherwise I shall depart.”
And, as Aaron manifested no disposition to commit manslaughter,
the philanthropist considered himself justified in
retiring.

Doctor Biddikin was, by this time, half-way down the
avenue, calling violently to Madison to “Come along!”
Mr. Murk followed; and the three, getting into the rickety
old chaise, rode away.