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THE LIGHTNING-ROD MAN.
What grand irregular thunder, thought I,
standing on my hearth-stone among the Acroceraunian
hills, as the scattered bolts boomed
overhead, and crashed down among the valleys,
every bolt followed by zigzag irradiations, and
swift slants of sharp rain, which audibly rang,
like a charge of spear-points, on my low shingled
roof. I suppose, though, that the mountains
hereabouts break and churn up the
thunder, so that it is far more glorious here
than on the plain. Hark!—some one at the
door. Who is this that chooses a time of
thunder for making calls? And why don't he,
man-fashion, use the knocker, instead of making
that doleful undertaker's clatter with his
fist against the hollow panel? But let him in.
Ah, here he comes. “Good day, sir:” an entire
stranger. “Pray be seated.” What is
that strange-looking walking-stick he carries:
“A fine thunder-storm, sir.”
“Fine?—Awful!”
“You are wet. Stand here on the hearth
before the fire.”
“Not for worlds!”
The stranger still stood in the exact middle
of the cottage, where he had first planted
himself. His singularity impelled a closer
scrutiny. A lean, gloomy figure. Hair dark
and lank, mattedly streaked over his brow.
His sunken pitfalls of eyes were ringed by
indigo halos, and played with an innocuous
sort of lightning: the gleam without the bolt.
The whole man was dripping. He stood in a
puddle on the bare oak floor: his strange
walking-stick vertically resting at his side.
It was a polished copper rod, four feet long,
lengthwise attached to a neat wooden staff, by
insertion into two balls of greenish glass, ringed
with copper bands. The metal rod terminated
at the top tripodwise, in three keen tines,
brightly gilt. He held the thing by the wooden
part alone.
“Sir,” said I, bowing politely, “have I the
honor of a visit from that illustrious god, Jupiter
Tonans? So stood he in the Greek statue
of old, grasping the lightning-bolt. If you be
noble storm you have brewed among our mountains.
Listen: That was a glorious peal. Ah,
to a lover of the majestic, it is a good thing to
have the Thunderer himself in one's cottage.
The thunder grows finer for that. But pray be
seated. This old rush-bottomed arm-chair, I
grant, is a poor substitute for your evergreen
throne on Olympus; but, condescend to be
seated.”
While I thus pleasantly spoke, the stranger
eyed me, half in wonder, and half in a strange
sort of horror; but did not move a foot.
“Do, sir, be seated; you need to be dried
ere going forth again.”
I planted the chair invitingly on the broad
hearth, where a little fire had been kindled that
afternoon to dissipate the dampness, not the
cold; for it was early in the month of September.
But without heeding my solicitation, and
still standing in the middle of the floor, the
stranger gazed at me portentously and spoke.
“Sir,” said he, “excuse me; but instead of
my accepting your invitation to be seated on
had best accept mine, and stand with me in the
middle of the room. Good heavens!” he cried,
starting — “there is another of those awful
crashes. I warn you, sir, quit the hearth.”
“Mr. Jupiter Tonans,” said I, quietly
rolling my body on the stone, “I stand very
well here.”
“Are you so horridly ignorant, then,” he
cried, “as not to know, that by far the most
dangerous part of a house, during such a terrific
tempest as this, is the fire-place?”
“Nay, I did not know that,” involuntarily
stepping upon the first board next to the
stone.
The stranger now assumed such an unpleasant
air of successful admonition, that—quite
involuntarily again—I stepped back upon the
hearth, and threw myself into the erectest,
proudest posture I could command. But I said
nothing.
“For Heaven's sake,” he cried, with a
strange mixture of alarm and intimidation—
“for Heaven's sake, get off the hearth! Know
you not, that the heated air and soot are conductors;—to
fire-dogs? Quit the spot—I conjure—I command
you.”
“Mr. Jupiter Tonans, I am not accustomed
to be commanded in my own house.”
“Call me not by that pagan name. You are
profane in this time of terror.”
“Sir, will you be so good as to tell me your
business? If you seek shelter from the storm,
you are welcome, so long as you be civil; but
if you come on business, open it forthwith.
Who are you?”
“I am a dealer in lightning-rods,” said the
stranger, softening his tone; “my special
business is — Merciful heaven! what
a crash!—Have you ever been struck—your
premises, I mean? No? It's best to be provided;”
— significantly rattling his metallic
staff on the floor;—“by nature, there are no
castles in thunder-storms; yet, say but the
word, and of this cottage I can make a Gibraltar
by a few waves of this wand. Hark, what
Himalayas of concussions!”
“You interrupted yourself; your special
business you were about to speak of.”
“My special business is to travel the country
for orders for lightning-rods. This is my specimen-rod;”
tapping his staff; “I have the best
of references”—fumbling in his pockets. “In
Criggan last month, I put up three-and-twenty
rods on only five buildings.”
“Let me see. Was it not at Criggan last
week, about midnight on Saturday, that the
steeple, the big elm, and the assembly-room
cupola were struck? Any of your rods there?”
“Not on the tree and cupola, but the
steeple.”
“Of what use is your rod, then?”
“Of life-and-death use. But my workman
was heedless. In fitting the rod at top to the
steeple, he allowed a part of the metal to graze
the tin sheeting. Hence the accident. Not
my fault, but his. Hark!”
“Never mind. That clap burst quite loud
enough to be heard without finger-pointing.
Did you hear of the event at Montreal last
year? A servant girl struck at her bed-side
with a rosary in her hand; the beads being
metal. Does your beat extend into the Canadas?”
“No. And I hear that there, iron rods only
are in use. They should have mine, which are
copper. Iron is easily fused. Then they draw
out the rod so slender, that it has not body
enough to conduct the full electric current.
The metal melts; the building is destroyed.
My copper rods never act so. Those Canadians
are fools. Some of them knob the rod at the
top, which risks a deadly explosion, instead of
imperceptibly carrying down the current into
the earth, as this sort of rod does. Mine is the
only true rod. Look at it. Only one dollar a
foot.”
“This abuse of your own calling in another
might make one distrustful with respect to
yourself.”
“Hark! The thunder becomes less muttering.
It is nearing us, and nearing the earth,
too. Hark! One crammed crash! All the
vibrations made one by nearness. Another
flash. Hold!”
“What do you?” I said, seeing him now,
instantaneously relinquishing his staff, lean intently
forward towards the window, with his
right fore and middle fingers on his left wrist.
But ere the words had well escaped me, another
exclamation escaped him.
“Crash! only three pulses — less than a
third of a mile off—yonder, somewhere in that
wood. I passed three stricken oaks there,
ripped out new and glittering. The oak draws
lightning more than other timber, having iron
in solution in its sap. Your floor here seems oak.
“Heart-of-oak. From the peculiar time of
your call upon me, I suppose you purposely
select stormy weather for your journeys.
When the thunder is roaring, you deem it an
hour peculiarly favorable for producing impressions
favorable to your trade.”
“Hark!—Awful!”
“For one who would arm others with fearlessness,
you seem unbeseemingly timorous
yourself. Common men choose fair weather
for their travels: you choose thunder-storms;
and yet —”
“That I travel in thunder-storms, I grant;
but not without particular precautions, such as
only a lightning-rod man may know. Hark!
Quick—look at my specimen rod Only one
dollar a foot.”
“A very fine rod, I dare say. But what are
these particular precautions of yours? Yet
first let me close yonder shutters; the slanting
rain is beating through the sash. I will bar
up.”
“Are you mad? Know you not that yon
iron bar is a swift conductor? Desist.”
“I will simply close the shutters, then, and
call my boy to bring me a wooden bar. Pray,
touch the bell-pull there.”
“Are you frantic? That bell-wire might
blast you. Never touch bell-wire in a thunder-storm,
nor ring a bell of any sort.”
“Nor those in belfries? Pray, will you tell
me where and how one may be safe in a time
like this? Is there any part of my house I
may touch with hopes of my life?”
“There is; but not where you now stand.
Come away from the wall. The current will
sometimes run down a wall, and—a man being
a better conductor than a wall—it would leave
the wall and run into him. Swoop! That
must have fallen very nigh. That must have
been globular lightning.”
“Very probably. Tell me at once, which
house?”
“This room, and this one spot in it where I
stand. Come hither.”
“The reasons first.”
“Hark!—after the flash the gust—the sashes
shiver—the house, the house!—Come hither
to me!”
“The reasons, if you please.”
“Come hither to me!”
“Thank you again, I think I will try my old
stand—the hearth. And now, Mr. Lightning-rod-man,
in the pauses of the thunder, be so
good as to tell me your reasons for esteeming
this one room of the house the safest, and
your own one stand-point there the safest spot
in it.”
There was now a little cessation of the storm
for a while. The Lightning-rod man seemed
relieved, and replied:—
“Your house is a one-storied house, with an
an attic and a cellar; this room is between.
Hence its comparative safety. Because lightning
sometimes passes from the clouds to the
earth, and sometimes from the earth to the
the middle of the room, because, if the lightning
should strike the house at all, it would
come down the chimney or walls; so, obviously,
the further you are from them, the better.
Come hither to me, now.”
“Presently. Something you just said, instead
of alarming me, has strangely inspired
confidence.”
“What have I said?”
“You said that sometimes lightning flashes
from the earth to the clouds.”
“Aye, the returning-stroke, as it is called;
when the earth, being overcharged with the
fluid, flashes its surplus upward.”
“The returning-stroke; that is, from earth
to sky. Better and better. But come here on
the hearth and dry yourself.”
“I am better here, and better wet.”
“How?”
“It is the safest thing you can do—Hark,
again!—to get yourself thoroughly drenched in
a thunder-storm. Wet clothes are better conductors
than the body; and so, if the lightning
strike, it might pass down the wet clothes
again. Have you a rug in the house?
Rugs are non-conductors. Get one, that I
may stand on it here, and you, too. The skies
blacken—it is dusk at noon. Hark!—the rug,
the rug!”
I gave him one; while the hooded mountains
seemed closing and tumbling into the
cottage.
“And now, since our being dumb will not
help us,” said I, resuming my place, “let me
hear your precautions in traveling during
thunder-storms.”
“Wait till this one is passed.”
“Nay, proceed with the precautions. You
stand in the safest possible place according to
your own account. Go on.”
“Briefly, then. I avoid pine-trees, high
houses, lonely barns, upland pastures, running
water, flocks of cattle and sheep, a crowd of
men. If I travel on foot—as to-day—I do
not walk fast; if in my buggy, I touch not its
back or sides; if on horseback, I dismount and
lead the horse. But of all things, I avoid tall
men.”
“Do I dream? Man avoid man? and in
danger-time, too.”
“Tall men in a thunder-storm I avoid. Are
you so grossly ignorant as not to know, that
the height of a six-footer is sufficient to discharge
an electric cloud upon him? Are not
lonely Kentuckians, ploughing, smit in the unfinished
furrow? Nay, if the six-footer stand
by running water, the cloud will sometimes
select him as its conductor to that running
water. Hark! Sure, yon black pinnacle is
split. Yes, a man is a good conductor. The
lightning goes through and through a man, but
only peels a tree. But sir, you have kept me
so long answering your questions, that I have
not yet come to business. Will you order one
of my rods? Look at this specimen one?
See: it is of the best of copper. Copper's the
best conductor. Your house is low; but being
upon the mountains, that lowness does not
one whit depress it. You mountaineers are
most exposed. In mountainous countries the
lightning-rod man should have most business.
Look at the specimen, sir. One rod will answer
for a house so small as this. Look over
cost, only twenty dollars. Hark! There go
all the granite Taconics and Hoosics dashed
together like pebbles. By the sound, that
must have struck something. An elevation of
five feet above the house, will protect twenty
feet radius all about the rod. Only twenty
dollars, sir—a dollar a foot. Hark!—Dreadful!—Will
you order? Will you buy? Shall
I put down your name? Think of being a
heap of charred offal, like a haltered horse
burnt in his stall; and all in one flash!”
“You pretended envoy extraordinary and
minister plenipotentiary to and from Jupiter
Tonans,” laughed I; “you mere man who
come here to put you and your pipestem between
clay and sky, do you think that because
you can strike a bit of green light from the
Leyden jar, that you can thoroughly avert the
supernal bolt? Your rod rusts, or breaks, and
where are you? Who has empowered you,
you Tetzel, to peddle round your indulgences
from divine ordinations? The hairs of our
heads are numbered, and the days of our lives.
In thunder as in sunshine, I stand at ease in
See, the scroll of the storm is rolled back; the
house is unharmed; and in the blue heavens I
read in the rainbow, that the Deity will not,
of purpose, make war on man's earth.”
“Impious wretch!” foamed the stranger,
blackening in the face as the rainbow beamed,
“I will publish your infidel notions.
The scowl grew blacker on his face; the indigo-circles
enlarged round his eyes as the
storm-rings round the midnight moon. He
sprang upon me; his tri-forked thing at my
heart.
I seized it; I snapped it; I dashed it; I trod
it; and dragging the dark lightning-king out
of my door, flung his elbowed, copper sceptre
after him.
But spite of my treatment, and spite of my
dissuasive talk of him to my neighbors, the
Lightning-rod man still dwells in the land;
still travels in storm-time, and drives a brave
trade with the fears of man.
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