Papers from Overlook House Part 4

When the dark night came over all the village, I crept silently to her wigwam. There she sat by the fire and pressed the chain to her heart, and looked sadly on the flames that rose and fell, and gleamed on one who was near and unknown.

He must live. So I sought him when the red star was over the mountain.

Three moons more could he have slept, and have yet been called from his sleep to see the bright sunbeams.

Oh how beautiful the warrior, when all the coverings were taken away, and I saw him again as on the day when he first fell into his slumber.

As I waked him, he said, "yesterday you said that I should live. I feel strange strength after the sleep of the night that is past."

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 suns.h.i.+ne 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 a.s.sured 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, n.o.body knew how, and n.o.body 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 pract.i.tioner 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 'j.a.panned'

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 fas.h.i.+on 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 gla.s.s 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 a.s.sure 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 G.o.d, he loves to enter there as a sincere and humble wors.h.i.+pper.

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 gra.s.s-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 s.p.a.ce 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 gra.s.s.

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, pa.s.s 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 sh.o.r.e; 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 Hanc.o.c.k'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 sh.o.r.e, When the winds rise and break their mirror there.