Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 62, December, 1862», страница 11

MR. AXTELL

PART V.

"Miss Anna! Miss Anna! Doctor Percival is waiting for you," were the opening words of the next day's life. Its bells had had no influence in restoring me to consciousness of existence. I never have liked metallic commanders. Now Jeffy's Ethiopian tones were inspiriting, and to their music I began the mystic march of another day.

Doctor Percival was not out of patience, it seemed, with waiting; for, as I went in, he was so engrossed with a morning paper that he did not even look up, or notice me, until I made myself vocal, and then only to say,—

"Ring for breakfast, Anna; I shall have done by the time it comes."

"It is here, father"; and he dropped the newspaper, turned his chair to the table, leaned his arms upon it, covered his precious face with two thin, quivering hands, and remained thus, whilst I prepared coffee, and lingered as long as possible in the seeming occupation.

Jeffy—and I suspect that the mischievous African designed the act—overturned the coffee in handing it to my father, who is not endowed with the most equable temper ever consigned to mortals; but this morning he did not give Jeffy even a severe look, for his eyes were full of tender pity, such as I had never seen in them in all the past.

"How is your patient?" I asked.

"Better, thank God!" he replied.

"Were you with him all night?"

"Yes, all night. I must go out this morning to see some patients. I'll send up a nurse from the hospital on my way. I don't think the delirium will return before mid-day; can you watch him till then, Anna?"—and he asked with a seeming doubt either of my willingness or my ability, perhaps a mingling of both.

I did not like to recount my serious failures with Miss Axtell, but I answered,—

"I will try."

Before he went, he took me in to the place of my watching. The gentleman was asleep. The housekeeper was quite willing to relinquish her office. The good physician gave me orders concerning the febrifuge to be administered in case of increase of febrile symptoms, and saying that "it wouldn't be long ere some one came to relieve me," he bent over the sleeping patient for an instant, and the next was gone.

I think a half-hour must have fled in silence, when Jeffy stole in, his eyes opening as Chloe's had done not many days agone, when the vision of myself was painted thereon. I upheld a cautionary index, and he was still as a mouse, but like a mouse he proceeded to investigate; he opened a bureau-drawer the least way, and pushing his arm in where my laces were wont to dwell, he drew out, with exultant delight, the wig before mentioned.

"What do you s'pose he wants with this thing'?" whispered Jeffy; and he pointed to the soft, fair masses of curling hair that rested against the pillow.

Jeffy was a spoiled boy,—"my doing," everybody said, and it may have been truly. He was Chloe's son, and had inherited her ways and affectionate heart, and for these I forgave him much.

I said, "Hush!"—whereupon he lifted up the wig and deposited it upon the top of his tangled circlets of hair before I could stay him.

I reached out my hand for it, not venturing on words, for fear of disturbing the patient; but Jeffy, with unpardonable wilfulness, danced out of my circuit, and at the same instant the sick man turned his head, and beheld Jeffy in the possession of his property. Jeffy looked very repentant, said in low, deprecatory tones, "I'm sorry," and, depositing the wig in the drawer, hastened to escape, which I know he would not have done but for the disabled condition of the invalid, who could only look his wrath. I had so hoped that he would sleep until some one came; but this unfortunate Jeffy had dissipated my hope, and left me in pitiable dilemma.

In the vain endeavor to restore the scattered influence of Morpheus, I flew to one of the aids of the mystic god, and beseeching its assistance, I prepared to administer the draught. I could not find a spoon on the instant. When I did, I made a mistake in dropping the opiate, and was obliged to commence anew, and all the while that handsome face, with large, pleading eyes in it, held me in painful duress. When I turned towards him and held the glass to his lips, I trembled, as I had not done, even in the church, when Abraham Axtell and I stood before the opened entrance into earth. All the words that I that day had heard in the tower were ringing like clarions in the air, and they shook me with their vibrant forces.

"Am I in heaven?"

It was the same voice that had said to Miss Axtell, "Will you send me out again?" that spake these words.

Was he going into delirium again? I was desirous of keeping him upon our planet, and I said,—

"Oh, no,—they don't need morphine in heaven."

"They need you there, though. You must go now," he said; and he made an effort to take the glass from my hand.

"I have never been in heaven," I said.

"Then they deceive, they deceive, and there isn't any heaven! Oh, what if after all there shouldn't be such a place?"

He lifted up his one usable hand in agony.

"We wait until we die, before going there," I said; "I am alive, don't you see?"

"Alive, and not dead? you! whom I killed eighteen years ago, have you come to reproach me now? Oh, I have suffered, even to atonement, for it! You would pardon, if you only knew what I have suffered for you."

Surely delirium had returned. I urged the poor man to take the contents of the glass.

He promised, upon condition of my forgiveness,—forgiveness for having killed me, who never had been killed, who was surely alive. Jeffy had come in again, and had listened to the pleading.

"Why don't you tell him yes, Miss Anna? He doesn't know a word he's sayin'. It'll keep him quiet like; he's like a baby," he whispered, with a covert pull at my dress by way of impressment.

And so, guided by Chloe's boy, I said, "I forgive."

"Why don't you go, if you forgive me? I don't like to keep you here, when you belong up there"; and he pointed his words by the aid of his available hand.

I knew then why Miss Axtell had loved this man: it was simply one of those cruel, compulsory offerings up of self, that allure one, in open sight of torture, on to the altar. Oh, poor woman! why hath thy Maker so forsaken thee? And in mute wonder at this most wondrous wrong, that crept into mortal life when the serpent went out through Eden and left an opening in the Garden, I forgot for the while my present responsibility, in compassionate pity for the pale, beautiful lady in Redleaf, into whose heart this man had come,—unwillingly, I knew, when I looked into his face, and yet, having come, must grow into its Eden, even unto the time that Eternity shadows; and I sent out the arms of my spirit, and twined them invisibly around her, who truly had spoken when she said, "I want you," with such hungry tones. God, the Infinite, has given me comprehension of such women, has given me His own loving pity,—in little human grains, it is true, but they come from "the shining shore." "Miss Axtell does want me," I thought; "she is right,—I am gladness to her."

"Will you go?" came from the invalid.

"A woman, loving thus, never comes alone into a friend's heart," something said; "you must receive her shadow"; and I looked at the person who had said, "Will you go?"

There are various words used in the dictionary of life, descriptive of men such as him now before me. They mostly are formed in syllables numbering four and five, which all integrate in the one word irresistible: how pitifully I abhor that word!—every letter has a serpent-coil in it. "Love thy neighbor even as thyself." It is good that these words came just here to wall themselves before the torrent that might not have been stayed until I had laid the mountain of my thought upon the sycophantic syllabication that the world loves to "lip" unto the world,—the false world, that, blinded, blinds to blinder blindness those that fain would behold. There is a crying out in the earth for a place of torment; there are sins for which we want what God hath prepared for the wicked.

"Are you going?"—and this time there was plaintive moaning in the accents.

"You must take him in, too," my spirit whispered; and I acted the "I will" that formed in the mental court where my soul sat enthroned,—my own judge.

"Oh, no, I am not going away," I said; "I am come to stay with you, until some one else comes."

A certain resignment of opposition seemed to be effected. I knew it would be so,—it is in all such natures,—and he seemed intent upon making atonement for his imaginary wrong, since I would stay.

"Mary, I didn't mean to kill you," he said; "I wouldn't have destroyed your young life; oh! I wouldn't;—but I did! I did!"

"You make some strange mistake; you ought not to talk," I urged, surprised at this second time being called Mary.

"Yes, I guess 'twas a mistake,—you're right, all a mistake,—I didn't mean to kill you; but I did him, though. Oh! I wanted to destroy him,—he hadn't any pity, he wouldn't yield. But it's you, Mary, you oughtn't to hear me say such things of him."

"I am not Mary, I am Miss Percival; and you may tell me."

"I beg pardon, I had no right to call you Mary; but it is there, now, on your tomb-stone in the old church-yard,—Mary Percival,—there isn't any Miss there. Do they call you Miss Percival in heaven?"—and he began to sing, deep, stirring songs of rhythmic melody, that catch up individual existences and bear them to congregated continents, where mountains sing and seas respond, amid the encore of starry spheres.

O Music! if we could but divine thee, dear divinity, thou mightst be less divine! then let us be content to be divinized in thee!—and I was. I let him sing, knowing that it was in delirium; and for the moment my wonder ceased concerning Miss Axtell's love for Herbert.

This while, Jeffy stood speechless, transfused into melody. Whence came this love of Africans for harmonious measure? Oh, I remember: the scroll of song whereon were written the accents of the joyed morning-stars, when they grew jubilant that earth stood create, was let fall by an angel upon Afric's soil. No one of the children of the land was found of wisdom sufficient to read the hieroglyphs; therefore the sacred roll was divided among the souls in the nation: unto each was given one note from the divine whole.

"Jeffy must have received a semi-breve as his portion," I thought, for he was rapt in ecstasy.

"Oh, sing again!" he said, unconsciously, when, exhausted, the invalid reached the shore of Silence,—where he did not long linger, for he changed his song to lament that he could not reach his ship, that would sail before he could recover; and he made an effort to rise. He fell back, fainting.

It seemed a great blessing that at this moment the housekeeper introduced the person Doctor Percival had sent.

That night, and for many after, it seemed, my father looked extremely anxious. I did not see the patient again until the eventful twenty-fifth of March was past.

Two days only was I permitted for my visit. Would Miss Axtell expect me? or had she, it might be, forgotten that she had asked my presence?

My father had not forgotten the obligation of the ring of gold; he made allusion to it in the moment of parting, and I felt it tightening about me more and more as the miles of sea and land rolled back over our separation; and a question, asked long ago and unanswered yet, was repeated in my mental realm,—"Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?" and I said, "I will not try."

It was evening when I arrived at the parsonage. Sophie was full of sweet sisterly joy on seeing me, and of surprise when I told her what had occurred in our father's house. It was so unprecedented, this taking in a stranger whose name and home were unknown; for I could not tell Sophie my conviction that father had discovered who the patient was.

"Miss Axtell is almost well." Sophie gave the information before I found time to ask. "She pleases to be quite charming to me. I hope she will be equally gracious to you." And so I hoped.

From out the ark of the round year God sends some day-doves of summer into the barren spring-time, to sing of coming joys and peck the buds into opening. One of His sending brooded over Redleaf when I walked forth in its morning-time to redeem my promise.

"Miss Percival! I'm so glad!"

Katie showed me into the room that once I had been so much afraid of.

She did not long leave me there.

"Miss Lettie would like to see you in her room."

Sophie was right. She is almost well.

"Come!" was the sole word that met my entering in; then followed two small acts, supposed to be conventionalities. Isn't it good that all suppositions are not based upon truth? I thought it good then. I hope I may away on to the dawning of the new life.

This was my first seeing of Miss Axtell in her self-light. She said,—

"This is the only day that I have been down in time for breakfast,"—she, who looked as if the fair Dead-Sea fruits had been all of sustenance that had dropped through the leaden waves for her; and an emotion of awe swept past me, borne upon the renewal of the consciousness that I had been made essential to her.

"I knew that you would come," she continued. "Oh! I have great confidence in you; you must never disappoint me,—will you?"—and, playfully, she motioned me to the footstool where she had appointed me a place on the first night when she told me of her mother, dead.

I assured her that I should. I must begin that moment by mentioning the time of my visit's duration.

"How long?" and there was import in the tone of her voice.

"I must be at home to-morrow morning."

"No reprieve?"

I answered, "None,"—and turned the circlet of obligation upon my finger.

"I am glad you told me; I like limits; I wish to know the precise moment when my rainbows will disband. It's very nice, meeting Fate half-way; there's consolation in knowing that it will have as far to go as you on the return voyage."

I smiled; a little inward ripple of gladness sent muscle-waves to my lips. She noticed it, and her tone changed.

"I see, I see, my good little Anemone! You don't know how exultant it is to stand alone, above the forest of your fellows,—to lift up your highest bough of feeling,—to meet the Northland's fiercest courser that thinks to lay you low. Did you ever turn to see the expression with which the last leap of wind is met, the peculiar suavity of the bowing of the boughs, that says as plainly as ever did speaking leaves, 'You have left me myself'? You don't understand these things, you small wind-flower, that have grown sheltered from all storms!"

"One would think not, Miss Axtell, but"—and I paused until she bade me "Go on."

"Perhaps it is vanity,—I hope not,—but it seems to me that I have a mirror of all Nature set into the frame of my soul. It isn't a part of myself; it is a mental telescope, that resolves the actions of all the people around me into myriads of motives, atomies of inducement, that I see woven and webbed around them, by the sight-power given. Besides, I am not an anemone,—oh, no! I am something more substantial."

"I see, very"; and before I could divine her intent, she had lifted up my face in both her hands and held my eyes in her own intensity of gaze, as, oh, long ago! I remember my mother to have done, when she doubted my perfect truth.

Miss Axtell was engaged in looking over old treasured letters, bits of memory-memoranda, when I arrived. She had laid them aside to greet me, somewhat hastily, and a rustling commotion testified their feeling at their summary disposal. Now she sat framed in by the yellow-and-white foam, that had settled to motionlessness,—an island in the midst of waves of memory.

"Did you bring my treasures?" were the first words, after investigating my truth.

"They are safely here."

I gave the package.

She made no mention of former occurrences. She trusted me implicitly, with that far-deep of confidence that says, "Explanation would be useless; your spirit recognizes mine." She only said, drooping her regal head with the slightest dip into motion,—

"I want to tell you a story; it is of people who are, some in heaven and some upon the earth;—a story with which you must have something to do for me, because I cannot do it for myself. I did not intend telling so soon, but my disbanded rainbow lies in the future."

Before commencing, she wandered up and down the room a little, stopped before the dressing-bureau, brushed back the hair, with many repetitions of stroke, from the temples wherein so much of worship had been gathered, smoothed down the swollen arches of veinery that fretted across either temple's dome, looked one moment into the censers of incense that burned always with emotionary fires, flashed out a little superabundant flame into the cold quicksilver, turned the key, fastening our two selves in, examined the integrity of the latch leading into the dressing-room beyond, threw up the window-sash,—the same one that Mr. Axtell had lifted to look out into the night for her,—asked, "should I be cold, if she left it open?" looked contentment at my negative answer, rolled the lounge out to where her easy-chair was still vibrating in memory of her late presence, made me its occupant, reached out for the package over which I had been guardian, pinioned it between her two beautiful hands, laid it down one moment to wrap a shawl around me, then, resuming it, sat where she had when she said, "I want to tell you a story," and perhaps she was praying. I may never know, but it was many moments before she made answer to my slight touch, "Yes, child, I have not forgotten," and with face hidden from me she told me her story.

MISS AXTELL'S STORY

"Alice Axtell was my sister. Eighteen years ago last August-time she was here.

"There has been beauty in the Axtell race; in her it was radiant. It would have been truth to say, 'She is beautiful.'

"I said that it was August-time,—the twenty-seventh day of the month. Alice and I had been out in the little bay outside of Redcliff beach, with your sister. You don't remember her: she was like you. Doctor Percival had given Mary a boat, taught her to row it, and she had that afternoon given Alice a first lesson in the art. The day went down hot and sultry; we lingered on the cooler beach until near evening. We saw clouds lying dark along the western horizon, and that voiceless lightnings played in them. Then we came home. The air was tiresome, the walk seemed endless; still Alice and Mary lingered at the gate of your father's house to say their last words. The mid-summer weariness was over us both, as we reached home. We came up to this room,—our room then. Alice said,—

"'I think I shall go to bed, I'm so tired.'

"She closed the blinds. As she did so, a crash of thunder came.

"'We're going to have a thunder-shower, after all,' she said; 'how quickly it is coming up! Come and see.'

"I looked a moment out. Jet masses of vapor were curling up amid the stars, blotting out, one by one, their brightness from the sky. Alice was always timid in thunder-storms. She shuddered, as a second flash pealed out its thunder, and crept up to me. I put my arms around her, and rested my cheek against her head. She was trembling violently.

"'Lie down, Allie; let me close the other blinds; don't look out any longer.'

"Our mother came in.

"'I came to see if the windows were all down,' she said; 'it will rain in a moment'; and she hurried away, and I heard her closing, one after another, the windows that had been all day open.

"Alice lay for a long time quietly. The storm uprose with fearful might; it shook the house in its passing grasp, and I sat by this table, listening to the music wrought out of the thunderous echoes.

"'Couldn't we have a window open?' Alice asked; 'I feel stifled in here'; and she went across the room and lifted the sash before I was aware.

"I looked around, when I heard the noise. The same instant there came a blinding, dazzling light; then, that awful vacuous rattle in the throat of thunder that tells it comes in the name of Death the destroyer.

"'Oh, Allie, come away!' I screamed.

"In obedience to my wish, she leaned towards me; but, oh, her face! I caught her, ere she fell, even. I sent out the wings of my voice, but no one heard me, no one came. I could not lift her in my arms, so I laid her upon the floor, and ran down.

"'Go to Alice,—the lightning!' was all I could say, and it was enough.

I heard groans before I gained the street.

"My pale, silent sister was stronger than the storm which flapped its wings around me and threatened to take me to its eyry; but it did not; it permitted me to gain Doctor Percival's door. I was dazzled with the lightning, only my brain was distinct with 'its skeleton of woe,' when I found myself in your father's house.

"I could not see the faces that were there. I asked for Doctor Percival. Some one answered, 'He is not come home. What has happened?' and Mary ran forward in alarm.

"'It is lightning! Oh, come!' was all that I could utter; and with me there went out into the pouring rain every soul that was there when I went in.

"'She is dead; there is nothing to be done.'

"Three hours after the stroke, these words came. Then I looked up. Alice, with her little white face of perfect beauty, lay upon that bed. Thunder-storms would never more make her tremble, never awake to fear the spirit gone. It was Doctor Percival from whom these fateful words came. I had had so much hope! In very desperation of feeling, I strove to look up to his face. My eyes were arrested before they reached him.

"'By what?' did you ask?"

Her long silence had incited me to question, and she turned her face to me, and slowly said,—

"By the Lightning of Life.

"Two sisters, in one night,—one unto Death, the other unto Life. Beside Doctor Percival was standing one. I do not know what he was like, I cannot tell you; but, believe me, it is solemnly true, that, that instant, this human being flashed into my heart and soul. I saw, and felt, and have heard the rolling thunder that followed the flash to this very hour. It was very hard, over my Alice. If I had only been she, how much, how much happier it would have been!—and yet it must have been wiser. She could not have endured to the end. She would have failed in the bitterness of the trial.

"My Alice! I am devoutly thankful that you are safe in heaven!"—and for a moment the hands were lifted up from the treasured packet; they closed over it, and she went on.

"Alice was wrapped up in earth. In the moment when the first fold of the clod-mantle, that trails about us all at the last, fell protectingly over her, I was in that condition of superlative misery that cries out for something to the very welkin that sends down such harsh hardness; and I hurried my eyes out of the open grave, only to find them again arrested by the same soul that had stood beside Doctor Percival and Alice in her death. They said something to me, kinder than ever came out of the blue vault, and yet they awoke the fever of resistance. I would have no thought but that of Alice. What right had any other to come in then and there?

"September came. Its days brought my sorrow to me ever anew. The early dew baptized it; the great sun laid his hot hand upon its brow and named it Death, in the name of the Mighty God; and the evening stars looked down on me, rocking Alice in my soul, and singing lamentful lullabies to her, sleeping, till such time as Lethean vapors curled through the horizon of my mind, and hid its formless shadows of suffering.

"Mary Percival was Alice's best friend; as such, she came to comfort and to mourn with me. One day, it was the latest of September's thirty, Mary lured me on to the sea-shore, and into her small boat once more. Little echoes of gladness sprang up from the sea; voices from Alice's silence floated on the unbroken waves.

"'You look a little like yourself again; I'm so glad to see it!' Mary said. 'There comes Mr. McKey. I wonder what brings him here.'

"I looked up, and saw, slowly walking on to the point at which Mary was securing her boat, the possessor of the existence that had come into mine. There was no way for me to flee, except seaward; and of two suicides I chose the pleasanter, and I stayed.

"'Who is it, Mary?' I had time to question, and she to answer.

"'It is Bernard McKey; he has come to study medicine in papa's office; he came the night Alice died.'

"He was too near to permit of questioning more, and so I stood upon the seashore and saw my fate coming close.

"Mary simply said, 'Good evening,' to him, followed by the requisite introductory words that form the basis of acquaintance.

"'I think Miss Axtell and I scarcely need an introduction,' he said; nevertheless he looked the pleasure it had strewed into his field, and guarded it, as a careful husbandman would choicest seed.

"He asked the style of question which monosyllables can never answer, to which responding, one has to offer somewhat of herself; and all the time of that sombre autumn, there grew from out the chasm of the lightning-stroke luxuriant foliage. I gave it all the resistance of my nature, yet I knew, as the consumptive knows, that I should be conquered by my conqueror. It was only the old story of the captive polishing chains to wear them away; and yet Mr. McKey was simply very civil and intentionally kind, where he might have been courteously indifferent. Abraham was away when Bernard McKey came to Redleaf. For more than twelve months this terrible something had been working its power into my soul. Yet we were not lovers,"—and Miss Axtell made the pronunciamiento as if she held the race mentioned in utmost veneration. "Day by day brought to me new reasons why Bernard McKey must be unto me only a medical student in Doctor Percival's office, and the stars sealed all that the day had done; whilst no night of sky was without a wandering comet, whereon was inscribed, in letters that flashed every way, the sentence that came with the lightning-stroke; even storms drowned it not; winter's cold did not freeze it. Verily, little friend, I know that God had put it into Creation for me, and yet there seemed His own law written against it"; and Miss Axtell's tones grew very soft and tremulously low, as she said,—

"Mr. McKey had faults that could not, existing in action, make any woman happy: do you think happiness was meant for woman?"

She waited my answer in the same way that she had done when she was ill and asked if I liked bitters concealed. She waited as long without reply. The pause grew oppressive, and I spanned it by an assurance of individual possessive happiness.

"Anemones never know which way the wind blows, until it comes down close to the ground," she said; "but souls which are on bleak mountain-summits must watch whirlwinds, poised in space, and note their airy march. So I saw, clearly cut into the rock of the future, my own face, with all the lines and carvings wrought into it that the life of Bernard McKey would chisel out, and I only waited. I might have waited on forever, for Mr. McKey had not cast one pebbly word that must send up wavy ripples from deep spirit-waters; he only wandered, as any other might have done, upon the shore of my life, along its quiet, dewy sands, above its chalk-cliffs, and by the side of its green, sloping shores. He never questioned why rose and fell the waves; he never went down where 'tide, the moon-slave, sleeps,' to find the foundations of my heart's mainland. I had only seen him standing at times, as one sees a person upon a ship's deck, peering off over Earth's blue ocean-cheek, simply in mute, solemn wonder at what may be beyond, without one wish to speed the ship on.

"It might have been forever thus, but Abraham came home. He is my brother, you know. If he made me suffer, he has been made to suffer with me. Bernard McKey was Doctor Percival's favorite. He made him his friend, and was everything to him that friend could be. I cannot tell you my story without mention of my brother, he has been so woven into every part of it. An unaccountable fancy for the study of medicine developed itself in his erratic nature soon after he came home; and he relinquished his brilliant prospects and devoted himself to the little white office near Doctor Percival's house, with Bernard McKey for his hourly companion. The two had scarce a thought in common: one was impulsive, prone to throw himself on the stream of circumstance, to waft with the wind, and blossom with the spring; the other was the great mountain-pine, distilling the same aroma in all atmospheres, extending fibrous roots against Nature's granite, whenceever it comes up. How could the two harmonize? They could not, and a time of trial came. We knew, before it came, why Doctor Percival's little white office held Abraham so many hours in the day. It was because the Mountain-Pine found in the moss of Redleaf the sweet Trailing-Arbutus."

She asked me if I knew the flower; and when I answered her with my words of love of it, she said, "she had always thought it was one of Eden's own bits of blossomry, that, missing man from the hallowed grounds, crept out to know his fate, and, finding him so forlornly unblest, had sacrificed its emerald leaves, left in the Garden, and, creeping into mosses, lived, waiting for man's redemption. We used to call Mary 'The Arbutus,' and it was pleasant to see the great rough branches of Abraham's nature drooping down, more and more, toward the pink-and-white pale flower that looked into the sky, from a level as lofty as the Pine's highest crown. Abraham goes out to search for the type of Mary every spring"; and rising, she brought to me the waxen buds that were yet unopened.

I took them in my hands, with the same feeling that I would have done a tress of Mary's hair, or a fragment that she had handled. I think Miss Axtell divined this feeling; for she cautiously opened the door leading into her brother's room, and finding that he was not there, she bade me "come and see." It was Mary's portrait that once more I looked upon; framed in a wreath of the trailing-arbutus, it was hanging just where he could look at it at night, as I my strange tower-key.