Читать книгу: «Papers from Overlook-House», страница 4
When he fell asleep a great night had crept up to his eye, – and he saw not the hunting-ground, – the fierce battle, – the wigwam, – but darkness, – and beyond it darkness, – and beyond that the land of all spirits. Now his eye was sad, – but he looked as one who heard voices call him to go forth, and be not as the stone that lies on the hill-side.
I sought Mahanara, and told her that he would come back from far, and would seek her as the bride of a warrior. I sent him to her home, and he trod the forest paths as the sunshine sweeps from wave-crest to wave-crest in the brook that hurries on, leaving the sound of peace in its murmurs. So out of the years they met, as the breeze so sweet from over the wild-flowers and trees of the valley, and the wind that carried strength from the sides of the mountain.
"Can you marvel that they call me the great medicine man among the tribes? Thou art a great brother. Thy fire-water is good. The white men honor thee. Thou keepest the sod that is wet with tears from being turned over. They call thee the very great man of thy tribe." I will not tell you all that he said of me. Let others learn that of him, and speak of it. Then he said, – "Brother tell thou me more of thy wonderful powers. I will teach thee how to mingle the cup for the sleep of many years." "So he told me," said the doctor, "how to compound the mixture. And the secret no one shall hear from my lips. If you will, I will put you to sleep for as long a time as you can desire. Put your money out at interest. Go to sleep until all you have has been doubled. Then let me wake you, and you can enjoy it."
This desire to put a fellow-creature into this sleep took possession of the doctor, and it was his dream by day and night, when he was tipsy, or half ready to become so. He tried to persuade a good-natured negro, Jack, who lived near his premises, to indulge in the luxury. But Jack assured him that he was as much obliged to him as if he had done it.
At last he formed his plan, and attempted to carry it into execution. There was Job Jones, who lived, nobody knew how, and nobody cared whether he lived or not. When he could gain a few coppers, he was a great and independent statesman at the tavern. And when he had no pence, he walked along in the sun as if he had no business in its light, and with a cast-down look as if he thanked the world for not drowning him, like supernumerary kittens.
So one evening the doctor easily enticed Job to his office. Then he partook of whisky until he lost all sense of all that occurred around him. The poor fellow soon fell asleep. The great experimenter dragged him to a box prepared for him in the cellar. Then he poured down his throat the final draught, and covered him with great boughs of cedar. He then ascended to his office. His first thought was that of triumph. "There," he said, "was that shallow Doctor Pinch, the practitioner at the next village, who had called him an ignoramus, and said that he was not fit to be the family physician of a rabbit. He had written the account of the boy who had fallen down and indented his skull, and that some of his brains had to be removed, – all done so skilfully by Doctor Pinch, that he was ever after, a brighter fellow than ever before. His mother always boasted of the manner in which the doctor had 'japanned' his skull. But what will he be when I wake up Job? Sleep away, Job! You will have for years to come, the easiest life of any man in these United States. No want of shoes, or clothes, or whisky. When you wake you shall have a new suit, after the fashion of that coming time. Doctor Pinch! Pooh! what is Doctor Pinch to Doctor Benson?"
After a little while a cry of murder rang through his half intoxicated brain. A great chill crept over his frame. The night became horrible in its stillness.
He must try the old resource. It never failed, whisky must restore the energy. He took up the glass from the table. It fell from his hands as if he was paralyzed.
He had made a fearful mistake. The cup of whisky which he had poured out for himself was the last drink which he had ministered to Job. He had taken the sleeping draught by mistake.
When they came, he thought and found him so still, so senseless, and that for days he never moved, would they not bury him! Then he might smother in the grave! Or waking some twenty years hence, he would wake in some tomb, some vile epitaph over him, written by that Pinch, and call for aid, and die, and die.
He saw himself in his coffin. The neighbors were all around him. The clergyman was ready to draw an awful moral against intemperance from his history. He was about to assure his hearers that no one could doubt what had become of such a man in another world.
His brain became more and more confused. He sank on the floor senseless. So Job slumbered in the box, and the doctor on the floor of the office.
Twenty years have elapsed. Dr. Benson wakes. It is a clear morning. How has the world changed! There, out of his window he sees the village. That row of neat dwellings is his property. He has a pleasant home to wake in. His wife is the very personification of happiness and prosperity. The clothes in which he arrays himself are a strange contrast to the miserable habiliments in which he fell down to sleep on the office floor twenty years ago. There is the spire of the church – and thank God, he loves to enter there as a sincere and humble worshipper.
What a change in this lapse of years! What an awakening! How is the world altered!
If the doctor's voice reached the ear of the intemperate man, he said, "Friend, better the fang of the rattlesnake than your cup. The bands that you think to be threads, are iron bands that are clasping you not only for your grave, but forever. Awake! and see if the good Lord will not give you a world changed, as the world has thus been to Dr. Benson."
II.
THE GHOST AT FORD INN – NESHAMONY
PART FIRST
There, where the time-worn bridge at School House Run,
Spans o'er the stream unquiet as our lives,
You find a place where few will pause at night;
Where the foot-fall is quick, and all press on
As if a winter's blast had touched the frame,
And men drew to themselves. Oft there is seen,
So men aver, the quiet gliding ghost.
Descend yon hill, near woods so desolate,
With upward gloom, and tangled undergrowths,
And shadows mouldering in the brightest day.
Near is the Indian spring's unmurmuring flow.
The summit now is gladdened by the Church.
You leave all village sounds, and are alone,
On grass-worn paths your feet emit no sound.
The thick damp air is full of dreary rest,
And stillness there spreads out like the great night.
Upon the left, hidden by aged oaks,
Is a small cedar grove; where broken winds
Are organ-like with requiem o'er some graves.
A low stone wall, and never-opened gate
Protect the marble records of the dead.
To stand at sunny noon, or starry night
Upon the arch, where you can yield the soul,
Captive to nature's impress, power with peace,
Is stillness from afar. The solitude
Seems linked with some far distant, distant space
In the broad universe, where worlds are not.
Unrest with rest is there. We often call
That peace, where thoughts are deep, but where the soul
Moves as the great, great sea, in mighty waves.
Here memories for tears, forgotten thoughts
Come without seeking. Just as the winds of May
Bring with unlaboring wings, from unknown fields,
Sweet scents from flowers, and from the early grass.
The fearful man, who left the village store,
Near to the cross roads, where the untutored tongue
Supplies the gossip of the printed sheet,
Has here beheld the mist-like, awful ghost.
The rustic lover under midnight stars,
Detained so long by Phebe's sorceries,
His little speech taking so long to say,
Has had his faith sore tried, as he has asked,
Will I, next week, pass here alone, again?
Far the most haunted spot lies yet beyond,
Follow the road until you reach the Ford,
There at the mouldering pile of wall and logs,
Where once the floating raft was as a bridge,
A pure white spirit oftentimes is seen.
She sometimes wanders all along the shore;
Sometimes from off the rocks, she seems to look
For something in the waters. Then again
Where the trees arch the road that skirts the bank,
And night is like the darkness of a cave,
This gentle spirit glides. Earth's sorrow yet,
Its burden, weary burden, borne alone.
Sad is the story of her earthly life.
You see that lonely house upon the green,
With its broad porch beneath that sycamore.
'Tis now a pleasant undisturbed abode.
There lingereth much of ancient time within:
Long may it cling there in these days of change!
Quaint are the rooms, irregular. The bright fire
Glows from the corner fire-place. Often there
I sit, and marvel o'er the shadowy past.
It is a place of welcome. Loving hearts
Extend the welcome. Angels welcome thus.
Dear sisters, reading there the purest page,
Planning some act of gentleness to wo,
The selfishness of solitary life,
Not finding place amid your daily thoughts,
For you commune with that activity
Of love most infinite, that once came down
From the far Heaven, to human form on earth.
The music of the true, the harmony
Of highest thoughts, that have enthroned as kings
The best in heart, and head of all our race,
Have their great kindred echoes as you read.
O as your prayers ascend, pray oft for me,
And then I shall not lose the name of friend.
The golden link that bindeth heart to heart
Forever, is the Love and prayer in Christ.
Since the Great Being gives me love at home,
The Diamond payment for my worth of dust,
Gives me that bright and daily light of earth,
I'm bold, and covetous of Christian love.
This house, in ancient days a wayside inn,
Has sheltered men of mark. Here Washington
Rested his weary head without despair,
Before the sinking tide rose with bright waves
At Trenton, and the spot where Mercer fell.
Here youthful La Fayette was also seen,
Whose smile, benign in age, was joy to me,
As my loved Father, at our fire-side spake
To him, as the true Patriot speaks to those
Who win a nation's homage by their toils.
Here even now, on an age-colored pane,
The letters, diamond-cut, show Hancock's name.
The war had found the host of the Ford Inn
A happy man; no idler round a bar;
For his chief calling was upon his farm,
With rich fields open to the sun, amid
The dense surrounding forests, where the deer
Still lingered by the homes of laboring men.
He bore arms for his country. And he heard
The last guns fired at Yorktown for the free.
One little daughter played around his hearth;
Oft tracked his steps far in the furrowed field;
Looked up with guileless eye in his true face.
After each absence short, her merry shout
Of greeting at his coming, rose as sure
As sounds from those dark cedars on the shore,
When the winds rise and break their mirror there.
Oh happy child! She also learned the love
That places underneath her the strong arms
Of Him who held the children when on earth,
Journeying along his pathway to the cross.
She opened all her gentle Heaven-touched heart
To all the unknown teachings of her home.
The wild-flower's beauty passed into her thoughts,
And as she gazed, and saw in earth and sky,
In every form the love of God stream forth,
She knew of beauty that could never fade.
For He, from whom these emanations came,
Will never cease to be a God revealed.
Happy the child, for her fond parents both
Had souls to kindle with her sympathies.
They learned anew with her the blessed love,
Which makes the pure like children all their days.
With her pure mind repassed the former way,
Their age and youth blended at once in her.
There was a small church in the little town
Of Bristol, some miles distant, over which
A loving pastor ruled with watchful care.
He came from England, – and but few had known
That he was bishop, of that secret line
Which Ken, and other loyalists prolonged,
Prepared for any changes in the realm.
The good man loved his people at the ford.
The child's expanding mind had ample seals
Of his kind guidance. From his store of books
He culled the treasures for her thoughtful eye.
Another memorable influence,
To add refining grace, came from the town.
One, whose sweet beauty threw a woman's charm
Over a household, seeking health in air,
That rustles forest leaves, that sweeps the fields,
Came to their home, and was not useless there.
She threw round Ellen, in resplendent light,
What Ellen knew before, in fainter day.
The lady was so true in all her grace,
Such open nature, that the child, all heart,
Could think, could love, could be as one with her.
How sad, that the refinement of the world,
Should often be the cost of all that's true!
From the volcano's side the dreadful stream,
That buried the great city, pressed its way,
To every room of refuge. Prison ne'er
Gave bondage like those dark and awful homes.
Around each form came the encrusting clay:
Death at the moment. Dying ne'er so still.
In passing ages all the form was gone:
The dark clay held the shapes of what had been,
And when the beauteous city was exhumed,
Into those hollows, moulds of former life,
They poured the plaster, and regained the form,
Of men, or women, as they were at death.
So all that lives in nature, in the heart,
Is often, living, buried by the world,
By its dead stream. Dust only can remain.
And in its place the statue – outward all
The form of beauty – the pretense of soul.
How the child basked in all her loveliness!
Unconscious, she was moulded day by day,
Sweet buds that in her heart strove to unfold,
Had waited for that sun. And Ellen saw
Her mother in changed aspect. The soft charms
Of her new friend, revealed at once in her,
More of the woman's natural tenderness.
The gentle child, had not a single love
For all the varied scenes of bank and stream —
And these to her were almost all the earth,
But as each glory centered round her home.
If the descending sun threw down the light
Tinged with the mellow hues of autumn leaves,
Upon the waters till they shone as gold,
And yet diminished not the million flames
That burnt upon the trees, all unconsumed,
It was to her a joy. But deeper joy
Came with the thought, that all her eye surveyed,
Was but a repetition of the scene,
When her fond mother, at some former day,
Had by her side blessed God for these his works.
And all the softest murmurs of the air
Recalled her father's step, and his true voice.
Thus home entwined itself with every thought,
As that great vine with all that wide-branched oak.
PART SECOND
And in this quiet scene, the child grew up,
To know not inequalities of lot,
Of any rank dissevering man from man.
Once from the splendid coach, the city dame
And her young daughter entered the Ford Inn.
As Ellen gazed upon the little one
Whose eye recalled the dove, and then the gleam
That morning threw upon her much loved waves,
And on the tresses, like the chesnut fringe
In full luxuriance, she came forth and stood
With such a guileless, and admiring love,
That tenderness was won. And then they strolled
O'er Ellen's favorite haunts. She asked the child,
Have you such waters, and such trees beside
Your home far off? The little languid eye
Gazed vacantly on all the beauty there,
And then, as one who had not heard the words,
And least of all could give forth a response
To nature's loving call, even as it passed
To her, through Ellen's eyes, and Ellen's voice,
And from her kindled soul, – she turned again,
Absorbed in the small wagon which they drew,
And to the stones they skimmed upon the stream.
Just for a brief space, down there seemed to fall
A veil between the two – a veil like night.
All Ellen's greater, deeper swell of tides
Of soul, forever dashing on the cliffs
On which mind's ocean-great forever beat
Their swell of thunder, here could find no height
That could reverberate. And yet her heart
Was all too noble, high, serenely pure,
Too Christ-taught ever thus to stand apart.
The tender gentleness, the laughing eye,
The soul responsive to the moment's joy,
The power to love, the softening sympathy
With every bird or squirrel that appeared,
Or rabbit, scarce afraid, with wondering eye,
The love of parents, her sweet talk of friends,
And above all, a heart to beat so true
To all that One in heaven had said to her,
Were most alluring powers. Ellen forgot
Wherein they differed: And their souls then chimed
As sounds of bells, blended in summer's wind.
So, as if sunbeams faltering on the bank,
The cloud departing, creep o'er all the green,
Her brightening interest rested on the child.
And when they parted at the bridge of logs,
Though the child's dress was gorgeous, and the pomp
Of city livery from the chariot shone,
While the soft tear was in our Ellen's eye,
There still dwelt all unknown in her sweet mind,
All free from pride, the deep inspiring wish,
That she could raise this merry-hearted one
Above herself: and then there came the thought,
Unconscious, causing sorrows – higher aims —
That the one gone was poor, and she was rich.
There was a loneliness, and so she sought
Her mother; whose companionship was peace:
Who ever won her to her wonted rest.
There is a poetry in many hearts
Which only blends with thought through tenderness:
It never comes as light within the mind
Creating forms of beauty for itself.
It has an eye, and ear for all the world
Can have of beauty. You will see it bend
Over the cradle, sorrow o'er the grave.
It knows of every human tie below,
The vast significance. Unto its God
It renders homage, giving incense clouds
To waft its adorations. By the cross,
It hears the voice, "How holy all is here!"
It speaks deep mysteries, and yet the clue
Is most apparent to the common mind.
Its sayings fall like ancient memories;
We so accept them. Natures such as these
Are often common-place, until the heart
Is touched, and then the tones from gates of heaven.
Such are the blessed to brighten human life —
To give a glory to our earth-born thoughts —
To teach us how to act our deeds as kings,
Which we might else perform as weary slaves.
They give us wings, not sandals, for the road
Full of dry dust. And such the mother was.
So as we tell you of the child, there needs
No voice to say, and such the woman was.
One day she sought her father in the field,
Just before sunset, ready for his home.
And as they reached the rocks along the shore,
Where the road turns, to meet the deep ravine,
Nigh unto Farley, a faint cry for help
Rang in their ears. It was a manly voice
Grieving through pain. They turned aside, and found
A stranger, who had fallen, as he leapt
From out his boat. His fallen gun and dress
Proclaimed the sportsman. Aid was soon at hand,
And in their dwelling he found friends, and care.
Days past. His mother came, and soon she found
He spake to Ellen, Ellen unto him;
As they spake not to others. And it seemed,
Such a perpetual reference in his talk,
As if he had not now a single thought,
Which had not been compared with thought of hers.
At first her pride was moved. And while she stood
Irresolute, the spell was fixed: as when
The power of spring thaws winter to itself.
She knew her son was worthy: and she knew
Here, in the wide-world must he seek a wife.
And in due time she was his fair-haired wife.
They had a rural home across the stream.
Their lights at night answered the cheerful light
Of her paternal home. Their winter's fires
Mingled their gleam upon the dark night wave,
Or on the ice. By summer's winds her voice
Was wafted o'er the waters, as she sang:
And loving hearers blessed her in their hearts.
Oh! what a joy, when in her arms they placed
Her son – ah doomed to be her only born!
Her cup of happiness seemed now so full.
And then the Father, knowing all to come,
Gave her more grace, and so she loved him more,
And had no Idol. But, as days rolled on
Such sorrow came, I scarce can tell the tale.
She saw her husband's manly strength all gone.
There was a withering tree, in the spring time,
Which on the lawn, seemed struggling to assume
The Autumn's hues amid the world's full green.
He faintly smiled, and said, "So do I fade."
Soon it was dead. He lingered slowly on.
Hopes came: hopes faded. From the early world
'Tis the same story. It was well for her,
In this her sorrow, she had learned to weep
In days of bliss, as she had read the page
Which tells of Jesus bearing his own cross.
His mother came, but Ellen was repelled
By the stern brow of one who met the shock
And would not quail. That hard and iron will
Was so unlike her firmness. She was one
Who had ruled abjects. Sorrow seemed a wrong.
The parting time drew near. And then as one
Who asked as one gives law. "This little boy
Should dwell with me. Thereby shall he attain
All discipline to form the noble man.
Even as I made his Father what he was,
So will I now, again, care for the child.
Let him with me. And he shall often come
And visit you. This surely will be wise."
We need not say that Ellen too was firm.
A mother's love! In all the world a power,
To educate as this! Could any wealth
Of other learning recompense this loss!
Would this stern woman ripen in his heart
Fruits, that angelic eyes beheld with joy?
"When the boy grew, at times she'd gladly send
With thanks, the child to all this proffered care."
But now – to send him now! Why at the thought
A darkness gathered over all the world.
From all things came a voice, "All, all alone,
The husband is not – the child far away."
There was strange meaning in the angry eye;
A strange defiance, and an unknown threat,
Enmity and a triumph. As if a triumph gained.
A nation crushed, her husband's mother looked,
No flush was on her face – her voice the same.
Coldly she said, farewell. And Ellen held
The child with firmer grasp, when she was gone.
Then she had sorrow that they thus should part;
For she felt all the reverence death made due,
And also mourned rejection of her love.
As the child slept one night, watched by his nurse,
She crossed the river on the bridge of logs,
To reach her parents. Under the bright stars
The Neshamony, and its hurried waves,
Rising and falling all around her path.
No peace in all the Heavens that she could see
Was like her peace. "I suffer here," she said,
"But suffering, I shall learn more love for all."
She had returned. Her footsteps died away,
Her parents stood yet in the open air,
Where they had parted with her for the night.
Then o'er the stream there came an awful cry.
It was her cry. Oh agony to hear!
It stilled all sounds besides. It seemed to make
The wide-arched Heavens one call to echo it.
Parents and others rushed there with affright,
In breathless terror. Nurse and child were gone.
Each wood around, and every forest road
Gleamed all the night with torches. But no cheer
Rose to proclaim a trace of faintest hope.
One traveler said, that on a distant road
He met a carriage, hurrying with strange speed,
And heard, in passing, cries of a young child.
In vain they follow. Hopeless they return.
Oh wondrous, the ingenious plan devised
By that poor mother to regain her child!
Her parents tried, as if for life and death
To give her aid: and saw that she must die:
For patience such as hers was all too grand
To linger long on earth. She day by day
Trod her old haunts. But never did she see
The Heaven, or beauteous world. Her pallid lips
Moved with perpetual prayer. And when she leaned
On those who loved her, the storm-tossed at rest,
She was as quiet as in days, when she
Was but an infant. When they spoke of hope
She smiled. It was a smile of love, not hope.
It was indeed simplicity to one,
Just on the threshold where His people pass,
And where, forever, they have more than hope.
All saw that she attained a mystic life,
That was not of the earth. What might she had
To love the sorrowing! By the dying bed
She seemed as if she had not known a pang,
Her voice so peaceful. Little children round
Gazed sorrowful: and in their confused thought
Deemed that the anguish of her little child
Weeping its mother, was her dying pain;
And thought how desolate fond hearts would be
If they were gone, as was her little one.
One sweet Lord's Day she knelt down at the rail,
In her loved Church, and had forgot all grief,
Receiving there the hallowed Bread and Wine,
And the one shadowed forth had strengthened her,
So that she fed on food come down from Heaven.
The others moved. But she was in her place.
The Pastor came, and found that she was dead.
Oh how the tears of Christians fell that day!
Oh how they thanked God for her good release!
And so she went to her eternal rest.
But men, unreasoning, said they saw her form,
Oft in the night, along the river shore —
Oft at the Ford, which now is crossed no more.
And men will say, in firmness of belief,
That when the Inn was closed, and no man dwelt
In its forsaken walls, a light was seen
In Ellen's room. And then they also say,
That pure while flowers which never grew before,
Now come with Spring, where her bright spirit walks.
My children say, that if you hear the owl
Along her pathway, you may hasten on
Sure that her spirit will not meet you there.
But should you hear a bird of plaintive song,
Break the night's stillness, then go far around
By field and wood – for you may see her form
Along the shore she gladdened with her life —
A shore of many sorrows at the last.
