University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.
MARGARET AND CHILION.

Margaret was carried to Deacon Ramsdill's, where, after
hovering a few days between extreme excitability and
positive sickness, she at length emerged into tolerable composure
and strength. There was no precedent that forbade
a man under sentence of death the sight of his friends,
and what Margaret had so much at heart she at length attained—permission
to visit her brother. Her dress and
person were strictly searched by Miss Arunah Shooks,
maiden daughter of the jailor. She found her brother
handcuffed, and locked to the floor by a chain about his
ankles; a treatment some might think unnecessarily rigid,
but one to which her own conduct had contributed; since
a scrap of paper, discovered on the prisoner, led to these
additional precautions. The cell was small, dark, cold and
noisome. Her brother rose as she entered. She heard
the clanking of iron; standing for a moment like one stupefied,
she rushed forward and folded the wretched one in her
arms. They sat down together upon the edge of the bed.
“My brother! O my brother! poor Chilion!” and similar
outbursts, was all she could say. She had many tears to
shed, and many sighs to dispose of, before she could speak
with connection or calmness.

“It is all over with me,” said Chilion at length.

“I know it, I know it,” said she.

“I have been making up my mind to the worst. If I
could only put my arms around you, Margaret, I would
ask no more.”

“Dear, dear Chilion! lean against me. I can hold you.”

“When you was little I carried you in my arms; and
how I have loved to lead you through the woods! If it
were not for you, Margaret, I should not care so much to
die. Let me feel your face.”

“Tony gave me some Nuremburg salve to rub on your
sores; but they took it away because they thought it was
poison. Would it were, and that you could kill yourself at
once. Your foot is dreadfully swollen.”

“That is the foot I lamed when I was in the woods after
you, Margery; I suffered more that night, when I thought
you was dead, than I have here.”

“Poor, dear Chilion! I will sit on the floor and hold
your feet. The chain has worn through your stocking. Let
me put my hand under.”

“That feels easier; but don't sit there, my pains will
soon be ended. If you smooth my hair a little I should be
glad. I have not been able to lift my hand to it, and it is
all touzled.”

“You look deadly pale—or is it the light of the room?
and how thin you are!”

“I have not been able to stir about any. I walked the
length of my chain till it hurt me so much.”

“I will hold up the chain, and see if you cannot walk.”

“No, no, Margery, I am content to sit here by the side
of you. It is but a little while we have together, and I
feel as if I had many things to say to you.”

“To say to me, my dear brother! How little have we
spoken to one another! Why do you tremble so?”

“O Margaret, Margaret! I have loved you, so loved
you, as no words can tell. All my heart has been bound up
in you.”

“Speak, Chilion, tell me all you feel; you have always
been so silent.”

“I know I have, but only because I could not talk, or
did not know what to say. Since I have been in prison,
things have labored in my mind, and I have been afraid I
should die without seeing you. When I have been silent
I have thought of you the most, and loved you the most.
When you came, a little baby, I loved you; I used to feed
you, play with you, sleep with you; I rocked you to sleep
on my shoulder; I loved your sweet baby breath; I set you
on the grass and watched you while I spooled on the door-stone
for Ma; I took you out in my boat on the Pond, and
got Bull for you to play with. When you grew older I led
you into the woods; I made you a canoe and taught you
how to paddle it; I made a sled for you to coast with in
the winter; I let you run about in the summer. You
loved to do these things, and I knew it would make you
strong, healthy and bold. I remember just how you looked
when you were small, and stood under a currant bush and
picked off the currants. Ma used to watch you when
you went through the Mowing, the grass as high as
your head, and your hat swimming along in it, and you
reached up to get the buttercups, and I have seen her cry. I
grew proud of you, you had better parts than I; and when
the Master came to our house, he took a good deal of
notice of you, and said you learned so well, better than a
great many did. As you grew up, I followed you in my
mind and with my eye, every day, every hour.”

“Why have you not told me of this before, Chilion? I
always knew you loved me, but you never expressed your
feelings to me.”

“It was never my nature to talk much; I did not seem
to have the use of words as others did; and I never knew

what to say. Perhaps I took a kind of pride in seeing you
go on; you went farther than I did, you had more thoughts
than I, and I was willing to be silent. You seemed to have
a mysterious soul, anagogical, the Master calls it, and all I
could do was to play to you. I played myself, my feelings,
my thoughts to you.”

“So you did, Chilion, and I knew you felt a good deal.”

“Almost my only comfort in this world has been you and
my fiddle. Our family were once in better circumstances,
we have not always lived at the Pond; but that was before
you were born. Pa did something wrong and lost his ear,
and he never has been himself since. We have followed
drinking, and that has ruined us. Ma has lost her courage,
Pa doesn't care what he does, and Hash is not what he was
when he was a boy.—And we were all in drink that
dreadful night.”

“Can you not now, Chilion, tell me something about
what happened then?”

“Solomon behaved bad to you?”

“He only asked to kiss me.”

“Was that all?”

“He said if I wouldn't let him, he would turn us out of
house and home; but I knew he was drunk, and did not
mind him.”

“Did he do nothing more? Rose said his manner was
insulting.”

“Perhaps it was; but you know I tasted some, and it
went into my head so, I hardly knew what was done. But
do tell me if you did murder him?”

“If I tell you all I know, will you truly promise never to
speak of it till after I am gone?”

“I will promise any thing; but your manner frightens me.
What is coming?”

“Rose, Margery, you know, loves you as much as I do.
She is happy only with you; and she feels for you as for
her own sister. That night she told me what Solomon
was doing, and she was very much excited about it. We
had both taken too much, and hardly knew what we were
about. I was at work on my violin with the file, and she
told me if I did not throw it she would—”

“Then you did not do it, you will not die!”

“Hear me, Margaret, I had murder in my heart; I
should have been glad at the moment to have seen Solomon
shot dead. I know it was a wrong feeling, but I had
it. I have not had right feelings towards him for a long
while. Rose told me how he followed you—”

“I was never afraid of him; if he was drunk I knew I
could get out of his way, and if he was sober he would not
dare to touch me.”

“That may be, but Rose is very sensitive about what
might happen; she seems to look upon most men as a
kind of devils.”

“Alas! yes.”

“I knew Solomon had a spite against you because he
could not find the gold; and Rose told me of his saying
you should marry him or he would turn us out of doors.
He has been rough with me, he cut down some nice ash
trees I had marked for basket-stuff, and once he bored a
hole in my boat and let her fill. I have had dark feelings
towards him, dark as night; and then the light would come
and I felt easier. I have wished him dead, and then I
would go to fiddling and get the better of such thoughts.
But that night he seemed uglier than ever, and all things
looked gloomy, and I did'nt care what happened. I thought
if we were all dead it would be an end of our troubles. I
threw the file, and I knew no more about it.”

“Then you did really mean to kill him?”

“The law holds people answerable when they are sober
for what they do when they are intoxicated. Besides, the
Judge laid down that if death followed an act done with
intention to injure, it was murder as much as if there was
an intention to kill.”

“There was so much noise and hurly burly in the room,
I was hardly conscious of any thing. Pa I know began to
grow frantic, and seizing me by the arm he ran with me to
the barn. When I came back, they carried Solomon away,
and most of them were gone. What did Rose do?”

“They cried out that I had done it. One and another
said they could swear they saw me do it. I seemed to
come to my senses; I saw how it was. I might have tried
to get away, but I was lame and could not run. Rose said
it was her act, and she would abide the consequences; and
told me to take Nimrod's horse and fly. When I refused,
she said she would stay with me. She fell on her knees
and pleaded to stay, she did not wish to live, and perhaps
my life would be saved. At last, Nimrod mounted
his horse, and Sibyl dragging Rose from the house threw
her into his arms, and they rode off.”

“Unhappy Rose!”

“She grew very dear to me, Margaret; I could almost
say, if it were possible for me to say such a thing, I loved
her. One day she told me something of what she had
been through. She loved to hear me play, and I knew
the music made her happier and better. I would die a
hundred deaths before a hair of her head should come to
harm. I have now told you all, Margaret; I could say
nothing before. Esq. Bowker questioned me, and I dared
not speak, since Rose and I were so dreadfully connected in
the thing.”

“Have I not loved you, Chilion? Have I not been kind
to you? Yet not so much as I ought to have been. I
remember once you asked me to dig you some angle
worms, but I went off into the woods and did not do it.
Can you forgive me for that? And now you are going to
die, it seems as if I had not been half so good to Pa and
Ma, and Hash and Bull, as I ought to have been. O, I
can understand now what those people mean who say they
feel so wicked! I thank you for telling me so much; do,
Chilion, tell me more about yourself.”

“What I think more of than any thing is you, my dear
sister. I seem to have had strange hopes about you. I
remembered the dreams you had when you was a girl, you
have seemed to me sometimes destined to good things.
There is something about you I could tell, but if you live
you will know all, and if you do not,—well, let it go. I
have brought you up to music, Margaret, I have taught
you the notes, and as much of the art as I know. The
Master always insisted you should have books, though I
did not care much about them. There is a great deal in
Music. I have played myself to you when I could not
speak it.”

“Alas! And where shall I hear any more Music or
another Chilion!”

“Let that go now.—Those who can be reached by
nothing else are reached by Music; at the balls and dances
I have seen this.”

“I thought things went strange sometimes, and I could
not account for it.”

“I could raise a storm, and then still it. It was given
me to perceive this power when I was quite a boy. You
remember the brawl at No. 4, one Thanksgiving, we cured
by a song. I cannot explain it, I only saw it was done.”

“It must be what Deacon Ramsdill calls `nater.'”

“There is nature in it. I have seen the Old Indian stop
against our door a long time when I have been playing.”

“Rose was completely subdued, and at times wholly
transformed by your Music.”

“Yes, and how we could manage Dick; and when they
brought you up out of the woods, I had them all a dancing,
even what the Mater calls the saints danced, and the Ministers
looked on and smiled.”

“Is not Music what the Deacon calls praying? He
says it is `feeling up.'”

“Yes, it is that. I have done all my praying with my
fiddle I had a tune almost ready for the Lord's Prayer,
which I was taught a good many years ago. When you
talk with people their prejudices close their ears against
you; when you play it seems to open their hearts at once.
Music goes where words cannot. And Music makes people
so happy, and when they are happy, they love one another.
Music takes away the bad passions, and people are not
envious or quarrelsome while you play. All this I have
seen, and it would always be so, if it were not for the
drinking. If I could have got ready and played, as I was
going to do, I think Solomon would not have been rude to
you, as you say somebody tamed wild beasts and savages
by Music—”

“Orpheus, you mean, who subdued Pluto and rescued
Eurydice with his lyre?”

“There is something else, it has seemed to me that
Music might be a good thing for the world. I have sometimes
thought if I were not lame, and we were not so poor,
I would travel off and make Music. You, too, Margaret,
can play, you can sing songs, your voice and ear are good.
You know how we are at home, you know what people

think of us; it has seemed to me that we might make our
way up among folks by Music. I have had many, many
thoughts about you and Music, and the world, more than I
can speak of. You yourself have a certain unknown connection
with Music, which I cannot tell. Then I do not mean
mere fiddle-strings, because when you told me about your
Dream of Jesus, he seemed to me like a Harp, it had the
same effect on me that Music does; then in one of your
Dreams you said you heard invisible Music. It is not all
in catgut and rosin. There has been a certain something
in my mind, which I have not words to explain. It has
been coming upon me for several years. I think it is one
thing that has closed my mouth so. My heart and thought
have gone out to it very often. And now I am cut off in
the midst of my hopes—”

“O sad condition! O most inexplicable existence! I am
sunk lower than our bottomless Pond, in doubt and fear.
I can now feel as Rose does what a dreadful thing life is.
The Fates have left us the solitary comfort of a tear!”

“Let us, my dear sister, bear up under it as well as we
can. You will live if I do not; Apollo's Lyre, as you call
it, I bequeath to you.”

“Pitiful Fiddle! Here it lies broken-hearted like its
Master. When I heard you playing the other night, it
sounded to me as if Rose's heart had been set in motion
like a wild harp. It will never, never play another tune.”

“I hear the bolts shoving, they are coming for you.
Parson Welles and Deacon Hadlock were here yesterday,
but I could not say much to them. I wish you would ask
Deacon Ramsdill to come and the Camp-preacher. He
prayed so for you, when you was lost in the woods, I can
never forget him. I want also to have Dick stay with me,
if they will let him. If you see Ma, I wish you would ask

her to bring me a clean linen shirt, and my best clothes
those I wore to balls, I had rather come to my last in
them.”

“O, Chilion! O, my brother!”

“Be quiet, Margaret, as you can. Let us hope, if our
sins are forgiven, we shall meet in a better world.”

Margaret was obliged to leave her brother. She represented
his wishes to Deacon Ramsdill. “The Parson and
Brother Hadlock tell a hard story of Chilion, I know,”
replied the Deacon. “But we should not judge too harsh.
Down to Arcady they said the French were savages, that
their crosses bewitched the people; but they were a dreadful
harmless set of folk. And we must take care too,
Molly, what we think. The Parson has a good deal of
nater in him, only it is all grown over with notions and
politicals. You give your cows tarnips and you taste it in
the milk; now he has been feeding on tarnips all his days,
and I count your brother don't like the smack of him. Besides,
Chil is what we were saying the other day, a baby
in these matters, and he ought to have the very sweetest
and best of milk, and if you put in a little molasses it
wouldn't hurt him. Brother Hadlock has nater too,
nobody in the world would sooner do you a kindness.
But he runs of an idea that things are about done for, that
there is no use trying any more. But, if we would fetch
the butter we must keep the dasher a-going. Yellow-bugs
have been the pest of our gardens for two or three year;
now I have noticed they don't trouble new burnt ground.
If we should get burnt over a little, perhaps we could raise
better squashes and cowcumbers than we do now. The
Preacher is more nateral, but he is as wild as a calf that
runs in the woods. When you wind a ball of yarn you
make little holes with your thumb and finger, and as you

wind along you cover them up, and when you are done,
the ball has a great many of these holes. So folk get all
wound up with their notions and politicals and haremscarems,
but they are still chock full of these little holes of
nater. Speaking of holes, I have seen mice make their
nests in rocks, and then the bees came and used these nests
for hives, so that, arter all, we got nice honey out of hard
rocks and mischievous mice. I will try to get the squirrel
to your brother. Down to Arcady, the little gals cried as
if their hearts would break because we wouldn't let them
bring away their moppets and baby-houses; I can't forget
that.”

During the interval between the Trial and End, a period
of ten days, Margaret was allowed to visit her brother two
or three times. Soon as possible after the sentence, under
the auspices of Deacon Ramsdill, a petition was privately
circulated, for the pardon of the prisoner; it was sent to
the Governor with about half a dozen signatures, at the
head of which stood the name of Judge Morgridge. This
movement was vain.

The day preceding the last was consecrated to final interviews.
The sheriff having taken up his quarters at the
jail-house, and a guard being kept about the premises at
night, it was deemed safe to knock the chains from the
prisoner, and allow him a more commodious and better
lighted apartment. He had on the dress he ordered, a
pearl-colored coat, buff swansdown vest, white worsted
breeches and stockings, all somewhat worn and faded.
Margaret brought a new linen stock the widow Luce made
for him. Tony the Barber came in to perform his last
office on the condemned.

“Don't know but it cuts,” said the negro. “I am getting
old, and my hand is unsteady.”

“You stand a chance to wash off the blood,” replied
Chilion.

“Cold, gusty day,” said Tony, “can't keep the water
out of these eyes. Never shaved a man going to be hung
the next day, since the War, and them was wicked tories.
Neck as fair as Mistress Margery's. Sheriff Kingsland
wanted to get this gentleman to play the drum to-morrow.
Can't degrade the profession at that rate—God bless Chilion,
good-by, my brother; forgot my rose-powder. There
— threw the towel out of the window. I am growing old
and forgetful.”

Margaret and Chilion were left to themselves.

“Let me kiss your neck,” said she. “I would put my
arms about it, an amulet to keep off the terrible things.
Hold your face to mine, let me feel it, and keep the feeling
as long as I live; look into my eyes, that I may have your
eyes also. I want some of your hair, too. How shall I
get it unless I bite it off? I had a pair of scissors in my
pocket, but they were taken from me.”

“Tony has forgot his razor, too. It lies there on the
bed. You can use that.”

“What a tempting edge!” said Margaret.

“Don't hold it up to me so,” replied Chilion, “I shall
be tempted by it.”

“I had a thousand times rather you would take your
own life than that the sheriff should do it. How easy for
you to slit a vein! I would catch the blood with my own
lips—you should expire in my arms.”

“It is considered wrong to kill one's self,” replied Chilion.
“They hold it right to kill me because I killed another.”

“Right and wrong! wrong and right! I am all confusion,
Chilion. There is no truth or nature in any thing.
I am losing all clearness, all sense of consistency.”

“God have mercy on you, Margaret, and on me, too!
Throw the razor out of the window! Let us not keep it,
or talk about that.”

“I will, Chilion. I would not trouble you.”

“I wish for your sake, my dear sister, I could live longer.
You are all I care for. You have made our home happy.
But I do not know as I would stay in this town. I would
go elsewhere, and perhaps you will find some one to love
you. I would like to go up and see the Pond once before
I die.”

“Can I leave it, Chilion, its woods, my little canoe, my
flowers, the dear gods, Mons Christi, that we had given to
the Beautiful One? Whither in this wide wicked world
shall I go? Mr. Evelyn is gone, Isabel is sick, and perhaps
she too will die; the master is sick, and Rose—she,
after all, is worse off than I. Why do I complain? And
Damaris Smith I know loved her brother, and he too is
dead! What is this feeling in my breast? How selfish I
seem to myself. You alone are good. Ah me! miserable
sinner that I am!”

“Be composed, Margaret. There are things not quite
so bad in my case as in some others. Deacon Ramsdill
says he will have me buried in the graveyard. Don't
cry, Margaret, don't cry; if you do I shall cry, and here
is little Dick looking up into your face as if he meant to
cry too. I want you to go to Mr. Smith's and ask their
forgiveness for me, and the little willow-basket I made to
hold your sewing work do you give to Damaris. My boat
you may sell to pay Deacon Penrose for some screws and
a chisel, and some red lead I got to paint your canoe with,
and some silk Ma had to mend this waistcoat. I have eight
or ten baskets ready made which he will take. My fiddle
I wanted you to have, but I think you had better sell it to

pay some of Pa's debts; Tony, I guess, will give six or
seven dollars for it. You will find, Margaret, in the bottom
of my chest, up garret, five dollars and a quarter; it
is what I got several years ago for wolf-skins; I have
been saving it to buy you a guitar; but you must take it to
help pay for my coffin; and I want you to go up to the
Ledge to Mr. Palmer's, and get a plain slab of marble to
put on my grave. He has always remembered you kindly,
and I think he will let you have it for a low price. This
is a good deal to ask of you, Margaret, but when I am
dead and gone, I don't want people to lay up little things
against me. Speak, Margaret, don't you feel so bad. Get
up from the floor. I can't raise you, but I can hold you
in my arms. There, there, Margaret.”

“I will do any thing, all you wish; but when it is ended,
I only ask to be laid under the same sod with you.”

“You may live for good. God only knows. You may
see Mr. Evelyn again; if you do I wish you would give
him a lock of my hair, and tell him as my dying words, that
I truly forgave all men and wished to be forgiven of all.
The lady's slipper that I made a box for, I want you to let
Susan Morgridge have for Esq. Bowker's sake; he is
going to marry her, and this is all I can do for his kindness
to me. On the slab I want Mr. Palmer to put `Chilion,'
simply. I should like to have it said, `Here lies one who
tried to love his fellow-men'—but that cannot be.—I hear
Pa a-hemming. Let us be as still as we can.”

There entered the cell the prisoner's father and mother,
and his brothers, Hash and Nimrod. Margaret receded to
the foot of the bed, where she sat with her face folded in
her hands. The bloated frame of Pluck surged and
trembled; on his bald crimson pate stood large drops of
sweat; in most sober and earnest grief he embraced

Chilion; with a quivering lip, and a faltering accent, he
said, “Farewell, my son, farewell forever;” and turning
away, wept like a child. “My Chilly!” exclaimed the
mother, falling upon her son's neck, “My youngest boy—
would God I could die for thee. My young hands welcomed
you in your fair babyhood, now these old arms send
you away to the gallows. You were beautiful for a
mother's eye to look upon. You have been a comfort to
your mother, weak and sinful as she is. I have sometimes
hoped for better days, but all is over now.” She sunk to
the floor and sobbed hysterically. Hash was completely
choked with emotion; he could not speak at all. “I have
not always been patient and kind towards you,” said
Chilion; “can you forgive me, my dear brother?” “Stuff
it out, like a red Indian,” said Nimrod. “The Hell-hacks
would crack to see you flinch. Your lips are white as a
fox's—you are sick, Chilion, you can't stand, let me lay
you on the bed—they'll have to hold you up to hang you,
like stuck sheep. If you should die betwixt this and to-morrow
twelve o'clock, how many mourners you would get,
more than you have now—I feel as if the rope was round
my throat—hem—I'm choking!—Ecod! I was going to be
married to Rhody next Thanksgiving—Chilion will not be
there—I have been wicked—I am going to try to do
better.”—Margaret broke into louder weeping, and the
room was pervaded with an uncontrollable and shattered
wail. In the midst of all appeared Rose, like a pale and
sudden ghost; she ran forward to Chilion and clung
frantically to him: “He shall not die, I did it, I did it, let
me suffer for him,” she said in a wild passionate tone.
Nimrod was obliged to interfere; she resolutely persisted;
by force he unfastened her grasp and carried her struggling
out of the apartment.

Deacon Ramsdill and the Preacher came in; all knelt,
while the latter, in heartfelt earnestness and tender
solemnity, commended the soul of the prisoner to God and
the forgiveness of his grace. Smiles and good humor fled
the face of the Deacon, whose deep and variegated furrows
were flowed with tears. The few friends and acquaintances
of Chilion came to bid him farewell, and Margaret was
again left alone with her brother. These final moments of
the two, so tenderly attached, so mournfully separated, we
will not intrude upon.