Book: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860




I had lost patience with the man, partly because it irks me to have
strangers take liberties with my person, and also because I had reached
the conclusion that he was simply a shallow dissembler and rascal. In
a minute more I had cause to reconsider my charge of hypocrisy, and to
question whether he might not lay claim to the nobler distinction of
lunacy. The conductor came down the car, picking out Troubletonians with
his undeceivable eye, and leaned toward us with outstretched fingers.
Mr. Riley rose to his whole gaunt height at a jerk, and laid his hand on
the official's arm with a fierce, bony gripe, which seemed to startle
him as if it were the clutch of a skeleton.

"There is my ticket," said he. "Where is yours? Have you one for the
Holy City? None? Then you are lost, lost, lost!"

The last words rose to a high, clear shriek, which pierced the heavy
rumble of the train and rang throughout the car. The conductor, in spite
of the coolness which becomes second nature to men of his profession,
turned slightly pale and shrank back before this wild apostrophe, with
a thrill of spiritual horror at the solemn meaning of the words, (I
thought,) and not because he considered the man a maniac. The fanaticism
of Troubleton had already flown far and cast a vague shadow of dread
over a large community.

Turning abruptly from the conductor, my companion flung out his long
arms toward the staring passengers, and continued in his strident,
startling tenor:--"I have warned him. I call you all to witness that I
have warned this man of his fearful peril. His blood be on his own head!
The blood of your souls will be upon your heads, unless you turn to
Dispensationism. I have said it. Amen!"

Before he had sat down again I was in the alley on my way to another
car, not anxious to become known as the intimate of this extraordinary
apostle. I found an empty seat by the Doctor, dropped into it, and told
my story.

"My dear friend, give the fellow up," I concluded. "He's as mad as he
can possibly be."

"So Festus thought of Paul," returned my poor comrade, with hopeless
fatuity.

"Festus be d----d!" said I, losing my temper, and swearing for the first
time since I graduated.

"I fear he was so," remarked the Doctor, severely. "Let me urge you to
take warning from his fate."

"I beg your pardon, and that of Festus," I apologized. "But when I see
you losing your reason, I can't keep my patience, and don't wish to."

"You will wonder at these feelings before many hours," he responded
gently. "To-morrow you will be a believer."

"That makes no difference with me now," said I. "I am just as skeptical
as if I hadn't a chance of conversion. Why, Doctor,--well, come
now,--I'll argue the case with you. In the first place, all Church
history is against you. There isn't a respectable author who upholds the
doctrine of modern miracles."

"Mistake!" he exclaimed. "I wish I had you in my library. I could face
you with writer on writer, fact on fact, all supporting my views. I can
prove that miracles have not ceased for eighteen centuries; that they
appeared abundantly in the days of the venerable Catholic fathers; that
a stream of prophecies and healings and tongues ran clear through the
Dark Ages down to the Reformation; that the superhuman influence flamed
in the dreams of Huss, the ecstasies of Xavier, and the marvels of Fox
and Usher. Look at the French Prophets, or Tremblers of the Cevennes,
who had prophesyings and healings and discoverings of spirits and
tongues and interpretations. Look at the ecstatic Jansenists, or
Convulsionists of St. Medard, who were blessed with the same holy gifts.
Look at the Quakers, from Fox downward, who have held it as a constant
principle to expect powers, revelations, discernings of spirits, and
instantaneous healings of diseases. Why, here we are in our own days;
here we are with our chain of miracles still unbroken; here we are in
the midst of this geological and unbelieving nineteenth century."

"Yes, here we are," said I; "and we must make the best of it. It's a bad
affair, of course, to live in scientific times; and it's a great pity
that we were not born in the Dark Ages; but it is too late to try to
help it."

"Ah! you answer with a sneer; you are materialistic and infidel."

"Stop, Doctor! Let me make a bargain with you. If you won't call me
names, I won't call you names. You are not in the pulpit now, and you
have no right to domineer over me."

"But what do you say to all these signs and wonders which I have
mentioned?"

"What do you say to the Rochester knockings and the Stratford mysteries
and the Mormon miracles?"

"All deceptions, or works of the Devil," affirmed the Doctor, without a
moment's hesitation.

"Excuse me for smiling," I replied "It is pleasant to observe what a
quick spirit you have for discerning the true wonders from the false."

"You will see, you will see," he answered, and relapsed into a grave
silence.

We reached New Haven and took rooms at the New Haven Hotel. I had
anticipated a little nap before going out on our expedition; but I had
not made allowance for the proselyting zeal of Dispensationists. My poor
bewildered friend Potter uttered something which he sincerely meant to
be a prayer, but which sounded to me painfully like blasphemy. Next they
sang a queer hymn of theirs in discordant chorus. After that, Mr. Riley
rolled up his sleeves and his eyes, flung his arms about, wept and
shrieked unknown tongues for twenty minutes. Then the butcher, the
baker, and candlestick-maker had a combined convulsion on the floor,
rolling over each other and upsetting furniture. By this time the hotel
was roused and the landlord made us a call.

"What the Old Harry are you about?" he demanded, angrily. "Don't you
know it's after midnight?"

"We are holding a Dispensary," said Mr. Riley, solemnly.

"Well, I'll dispense with your company, if you don't stop it," returned
mine host. "There's a nervous lady in the next room, and you've worried
her into fits."

"Let me see her," cried the Doctor, eagerly. "It may be that the power
of our faith is upon her. Which is her door?"

"You're drunk, Sir," returned the landlord, severely. "Keep quiet now,
or I'll have you put to bed by the porters."

So saying, he shut the door and went muttering down-stairs. This
untoward incident put an end to our exercises. A whispered palaver on
Dispensationism followed, during which I tilted my chair back against
the wall and stole a pleasant little nap.

It was about half past one when the Doctor shook me up and said, "It is
time." We slipped down-stairs in our stockinged feet, got the front-door
open without awakening the porter, shut it carefully after us, and put
on our boots outside. Mr. Riley immediately started up College Street,
which, as all the world is aware, runs northerly to the Canal Railroad,
where it changes to Prospect Street and goes off in a half-wild state up
country. At the end of College Street we left the city behind us, struck
the rail-track, forsook that presently for a desert sort of road known
as Canal Street, and kept on in a northwesterly direction for half a
mile farther. It was a dark, cool, and blustering night, such as the New
Englanders are very apt to have on the second of April. The wind blew
violently down the open country, shaking the scattered trees as if
it meant to wake them instantly out of their winter's slumber, and
screeching in the murky distances like a tomcat of the housetops, or
rather like a continent of tomcats. The Doctor lost his hat, chased it a
few rods, and then gave it up, lest he should miss his burglars. Once I
halted and watched, thinking that I saw two or three dark shapes dogging
us not far behind, but concluded that I had been deceived by the
black-art of magical Night, and hastened on after my crazy comrades.
Presently Riley stopped, pointed to a dark mass on our right which
seemed about large enough to be a story-and-a-half cottage, and
whispered, "Here we are, brethren."

"No doubt about that," said I. "But what the mischief is to come of it?"

"Oh! let's go back and call the police," urged the baker, in a tremulous
gurgle.

"Too late!" returned Riley. "It is given to me to see the burglars. They
are inside. They are taking the silver out of the closet. There will be
murder in five minutes."

"If there must be murder, why, of course we ought to have a hand in it,"
I suggested. "Our motives at least will be good."

"Right!" said Riley. "Come on, brethren! We must prove our faith by our
works."

But the baker hung back in a most dough-faced fashion, while the butcher
and the candlestick-maker encouraged him in his cowardice. At last it
was agreed that this unheroic trio should wait in the yard as a reserve,
while Riley, the Doctor, and I went in to worry the burglars. Leaving
the weaker brethren in a clump of evergreen shrubbery, we, the
forlorn-hope, stole around the house to get at a back-door which Prophet
Riley had plainly seen in his dream, and which he foretold us we should
find unlocked. I was not much amazed to discover a back-door, inasmuch
as most houses have one, but I really was surprised to learn that it was
unfastened. My astonishment at this circumstance, however, was over-
balanced by my alarm at finding that the Doctor still persisted in his
intention of entering; for I had hoped that at the last moment his
faith would give way, and let him slide down from the elevation of his
ridiculous and reckless purpose.

"But you are not really going in?" I whispered, jerking at his
coat-tails.

"Certainly," he replied. "The robbers are surely there. The door was
unlocked."

"Mere carelessness of the servants. Stop! Come back! Nonsense! Madness!
You'll get into a scrape. Respectable family. Good gracious, what a pack
of fools!"

While I was rapidly muttering these observations, he was pulling away
from me and stealing into the house after his prophet. Finding that
there was no stopping him, I followed, in obedience, perhaps, to that
great and no doubt beneficent, but as yet unexplained, instinct which
causes sheep to leap after their bellwether. We were in a basement, or
semi-subterranean story. I felt the walls of a narrow passage on
either side of me, and can swear to a kitchen near by, for I smelt its
cooking-range. I walked on the foremost end of my toes, and would have
paid five dollars for a pair of list slippers. Rather than take another
such little promenade as I had in that passage, I would submit to be
placed on the middle sleeper of a railroad-bridge, with an express-train
coming at me without a cowcatcher. Presently I overtook the Doctor's
coat-tails again, and found that they were ascending a staircase. At the
top of the stairs was a door, and on the other side of the door was a
room, the uses of which I won't undertake to swear to, for I never saw
it, although I was in it longer than I wanted to be. All I know is
that it seemed to be as full of chairs, and tables, and sofas, and
sideboards, and stoves, and crickets, as if it had been a shop for
second-hand furniture. I was just rubbing my shins after an encounter
with a remarkably solid object, nature uncertain, when somebody near me
fell over something with a crash and a groan. Immediately somebody else
seized me by the cravat and began to throttle me. Whoever it was, I
floored him with a right-hander, and sent him across the other person,
as I judged by the combined grunt, and the desperate, though dumb
struggle which followed. Now there were two of them down, and how many
standing I could not guess. An instant afterward, a muffled voice, like
that of a man only half awake, shouted from a room behind me, "Who's
there? Get out! I'm a-coming!" This seemed to encourage the individuals
who were having a rough-and-tumble on the carpet, for they commenced
roaring simultaneously, "Help! murder! thieves! fire!" without, however,
relaxing hostilities for a moment.

The next pleasant incident was a pistol-shot, the ball of which whizzed
so near my head that it made me dodge, although I have not the least
notion who fired it or whom it was aimed at. Female screams and
masculine shouts now sounded from various directions. Thinking that
I had done all the good in my power, I concluded to get out of this
confusion; but either the doorway by which we entered had suddenly
walled itself up, or else I had lost my reckoning; for, stumble where I
would, feel about as I would, I could not find it. I did, indeed, come
to an opening in the wall, but there was no staircase the other side of
it, and it simply introduced me to another invisible apartment. I had no
chance to reflect upon the matter and decide of my own free will whether
I would go in or not. A sudden rush of fighting, howling persons swept
me along, jammed me against a pillar, pushed me over a table, and forced
me to engage in a furious struggle, exceedingly awkward by reason of the
darkness and the extraordinary amount of furniture. A tremendous punch
in the side of the head upset me and made me lose my temper. Rising in a
rage, I grappled some man, tripped up his heels, got on his chest, and
never left off belaboring him until I felt pretty sure that he would
keep quiet during the rest of the _soiree_. I hope sincerely that this
suffering individual was Mr. John M. Riley; but, from the rotundity of
stomach which I bestrode, I very much fear that it was the Doctor.

All this while the house resounded with outcries of, "Who's there?"
"What's the matter?" "Father!" "Henry!" "Jenny!" "Maria!" "Thieves!"
"Murder!" "Police!" and so forth. Of course I did not feel disposed to
tell who was there; and in actual fact I could not have explained
what was the matter. Accordingly I left all these inquisitive people
unsatisfied, and busied myself solely with my fallen antagonist.
Quitting him at last in a state of quiescence, I knocked over a person
who had been attacking me in the rear, and then blundered into a
passage, which I suppose to have been the front-hall, just as a light
glimmered up in the rooms behind me. It gives one a very odd sensation
to tread on a prostrate body, not knowing whether it is dead or alive,
whether it is a man or a woman. I had that sensation in ascending a
stairway which seemed to be the only egress from the aforesaid passage.
The individual made no movement, and I did not stop to count his or her
pulses. Without feeling at all disposed to take my oath on the matter, I
rather suspect that a negro servant-girl had fainted away there in the
act of trying to run off in her nightgown. Upstairs I tumbled, resolved
to get upon the roof and slide down the lightning-rod, or else jump from
a window. Pushing open a door, which I fell against, I found myself in
a pretty little bedroom lighted by a single candle, articles of female
costume banging across chairs and scattered over dressing-tables, while
on the floor, just as she had swooned in her terror, lay a blonde girl
of nineteen or twenty, pale as marble, but beautiful. Right through my
alarm jarred a throb of mingled self-reproach and pity and admiration. I
tossed a pile of bedclothes over her, kissed the long light-brown hair
which rippled on the straw matting, daguerreotyped the face on my memory
with a glance, blew out the light, opened a window, and slipped out of
it. It is unpleasant to drop through darkness, not knowing how far you
will fall, nor whether you will not alight on iron pickets. Fortunately,
I came down in a fresh flower-bed, with no unpleasant result, except a
sensation of having nearly bitten my tongue off. I had scarcely steadied
myself on my feet, when a tall figure made a rush from some near
ambuscade and seized me by the collar. Supposing him to be one of our
reserve force, I quietly suffered him to lead me forward, and was on the
point of whispering my name, when my eye caught a glimmer of metal, and
I knew that I was in the hands of a policeman.

"Come in and help," said I. "The house is full of rascals."

Thinking me one of the family, he loosed his hold on my broadcloth and
hurried away to the back-door. Whoever reads this story has already
taken it for granted that I did not follow him, but that I did, on the
contrary, make for the city and never cease travelling until I had
reached the hotel. Let no man reproach me with forsaking my friend, the
Doctor, in his extremity. I was brought up to reverence the law and to
entertain a virtuous terror of policemen; and, besides, what could I
have effected in that horrible labyrinth of dark rooms and multitudinous
furniture? I rang up the porter, went to bed, and lay awake alt the rest
of the night, listening for the return of my companions. No one came:
no Doctor, no Riley, no butcher, no baker, no candlestick-maker. I was
apparently the sole survivor of our little army. In the morning I walked
over to the police-station, peeped cautiously through the grated door of
a long room where the night's gatherings are lodged, and discovered my
five friends, tattered and bruised, but holding a lively Dispensary in
one corner. From that moment I despaired of the Doctor and resolved to
let him manage his own monomania. I was still peeping when two of the
police and a sly-looking man in citizen's dress came up and stared
boldly at the prisoners.

"Well, Old Cock, do you see your game?" asked one of the "force."

"Thaht's him," returned the Old Cock, speaking with the soft drawl of
the New York cockney. "Tall fellah thah with thah black eye, thaht's
a-goin' it now. Thundah, what a roarah!"

"Well, what is he?" inquired the second of the New-Haveners.

"Joseph Hull, 'ligious lunatic," said the Old Cock. "Was in thah
Bloomingdale Asylum. Cut off one night about foah months ago and stole a
suit o' clothes that belonged to John M. Riley, with a lot o' money and
papahs and lettahs in thah pockets. How'd you get hold of him?"

"Broke into a house eout here last night," related the first
New-Havener. "He and them other fellers, and one more that we ha'n't
found. I was on my beat 'bout one o'clock, and see 'em puttin' up
College Street full chisel. I thought they looked kinder dangerous. So I
called Doolittle here, and Jarvis, and Jacobs, and we after 'em. Chased
'em 'bout a mild and treed 'em at Square Russoll's, way up Canal, eout
in the country. Three was in the yard and gin right up without doublin'
a fist, though they had their pockets chuck full o' little pistols. We
locked 'em into the cellar, and then, went upstairs, where there was a
devil of a yellin' and fightin'. Hanged if I know what they come there
for. They'd been pitchin' into one another and knockin' one another's
heads off, besides smashin' furnichy and chimbly crockery, but hadn't
stole a thing. The fat one and the long one--them two with white
chokers--was lyin' on the floor pootty much used up. There was another
that got up-stairs and jumped out a winder. Jarvis was outside and
collared him, but thought he was Russell's son-in-law,--ho, ho, ho!--and
let him off,--ho, ho, ho! Tell ye, Jarvis feels thunderin' small 'bout
it. Ha'n't been reound this mornin'."

"Well, I'll leave my warrant with your big-wigs, and come after my man
when they've got through with him," said the New York detective, turning
away.

Fearing the return of the enlightened Jarvis, I now left, and,
taking the first train to Troubleton, informed some of the leading
Dispensationists concerning their pastor's calamity. By dint of heavy
bail and strong representations they saved him, together with the
butcher and baker and candlestick-maker, from the disgrace of prison and
the lunatic asylum. But the adventure was the ruin of Dispensationism.
Mr. Joseph Hull had to give up Mr. John M. Riley's valuables, and return
to his seclusion at Bloomingdale. Deprived of the apostle who had set
them on fire, and overwhelmed by public ridicule, the Dispensationists
lost their faith, got ashamed of their minister, and turned him adrift.
He disappeared in the great whirl of men and other circumstances which
fills this wonderful country. From time to time, during five years, I
had made inquiries concerning him of mineralogists, botanists, and
other vagrant characters, without getting the smallest hint as to his
whereabouts. At last he had turned up as the private prophet of three
middle-aged widows.

"Jenny," said I to my wife, "do you remember the night I frightened you
so and kissed you as you lay in a fainting-fit?"

"You always say you kissed me, but I don't believe it," returned that
dear woman whom I love, honor, and cherish. "Yes, I remember the night
well enough."

"Well, that poor Doctor Potter, who was my Mahomet on that occasion,
and led me to victory in your parlor, and was the indirect means of my
getting my houri,--I have heard from him. He is our next neighbor."

"Mercy on us, Frederic! I hope not! What mischief won't he do to people
who are so handy?"

"Don't be worried, my dear," said I. "I sha'n't go over to his religion
again,--unless, indeed, you should insist upon it. But here he is, and
still a supernaturalist. I am anxious to know just how mad he is. I
shall call on him in a day or two."

So I did. One of the three widows met me with a tearful countenance and
told me that Doctor Potter had disappeared. So he had. I think that he
was ashamed to meet me again, and therefore ran away. The widows thought
not. They came to the conclusion, that, like Enoch and Elijah before
him, he had been translated. They cried for him a good deal more than he
was worth, quarreled scandalously among themselves, sold their house at
a loss, and dispersed. I know nothing more of them. Neither do I know
anything further of my neighbor, the prophet.

* * * * *


THE PILOT'S STORY.


I.

It was a story the pilot told, with his back to his hearers,--
Keeping his hand on the wheel and his eye on the globe of the jack-staff,
Holding the boat to the shore and out of the sweep of the current,
Lightly turning aside for the heavy logs of the drift-wood,
Widely shunning the snags that made us sardonic obeisance.

II.

All the soft, damp air was full of delicate perfume
From the young willows in bloom on either bank of the river,--
Faint, delicious fragrance, trancing the indolent senses
In a luxurious dream of the river and land of the lotus.
Not yet out of the west the roses of sunset were withered;
In the deep blue above light clouds of gold and of crimson
Floated in slumber serene, and the restless river beneath them
Rushed away to the sea with a vision of rest in its bosom.
Far on the eastern shore lay dimly the swamps of the cypress;
Dimly before us the islands grew from the river's expanses,--
Beautiful, wood-grown isles,--with the gleam of the swart inundation
Seen through the swaying boughs and slender trunks of their willows;
And on the shore beside its the cotton-trees rose in the evening,
Phantom-like, yearningly, wearily, with the inscrutable sadness
Of the mute races of trees. While hoarsely the steam from her
'scape-pipes
Shouted, then whispered a moment, then shouted again to the silence,
Trembling through all her frame with the mighty pulse of her engines,
Slowly the boat ascended the swollen and broad Mississippi,
Bank-full, sweeping on, with nearing masses of drift-wood,
Daintily breathed about with hazes of silvery vapor,
Where in his arrowy flight the twittering swallow alighted,
And the belated blackbird paused on the way to its nestlings.

III.

It was the pilot's story:--"They both came aboard there, at Cairo,
From a New Orleans boat, and took passage with us for Saint Louis.
She was a beautiful woman, with just enough blood from her mother,
Darkening her eyes and her hair, to make her race known to a trader:
You would have thought she was white. The man that was with her,--you
see such,--
Weakly good-natured and kind, and weakly good-natured and vicious,
Slender of body and soul, fit neither for loving nor hating.
I was a youngster then, and only learning the river,--
Not over-fond of the wheel. I used to watch them at _monte_,
Down in the cabin at night, and learned to know all of the gamblers.
So when I saw this weak one staking his money against them,
Betting upon the turn of the cards, I knew what was coming:
_They_ never left their pigeons a single feather to fly with.
Next day I saw them together,--the stranger and one of the gamblers:
Picturesque rascal he was, with long black hair and moustaches,
Black slouch hat drawn down to his eyes from his villanous forehead:
On together they moved, still earnestly talking in whispers,
On toward the forecastle, where sat the woman alone by the gangway.
Roused by the fall of feet, she turned, and, beholding her master,
Greeted him with a smile that was more like a wife's than another's,
Rose to meet him fondly, and then, with the dread apprehension
Always haunting the slave, fell her eye on the face of the gambler,
Dark and lustful and fierce and full of merciless cunning.
Something was spoken so low that I could not hear what the words were;
Only the woman started, and looked from one to the other,
With imploring eyes, bewildered hands, and a tremor
All through her frame: I saw her from where I was standing, she shook so.
'Say! is it so?' she cried. On the weak, white lips of her master
Died a sickly smile, and he said,--'Louise, I have sold you.'
God is my judge! May I never see such a look of despairing,
Desolate anguish, as that which the woman cast on her master,
Griping her breast with her little hands, as if he had stabbed her,
Standing in silence a space, as fixed as the Indian woman,
Carved out of wood, on the pilot-house of the old Pocahontas!
Then, with a gurgling moan, like the sound in the throat of the dying,
Came back her voice, that, rising, fluttered, through wild incoherence,
Into a terrible shriek that stopped my heart while she answered:--
'Sold me? sold me? sold----And you promised to give me my freedom!--
Promised me, for the sake of our little boy in Saint Louis!
What will you say to our boy, when he cries for me there in Saint Louis?
What will you say to our God?--Ah, you have been joking! I see it!--
No? God! God! He shall hear it,--and all of the angels in heaven,--
Even the devils in hell!--and none will believe when they hear it!
Sold me!'--Fell her voice with a thrilling wail, and in silence
Down she sank on the deck, and covered her face with her fingers."

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