Fictitious composition
is now admitted to form an extensive and important portion of literature.
Well-wrought novels take their rank by the side of real narratives, and are
appealed to as evidence in all questions concerning man. In them the customs of
countries, the transitions and shades of character, and even the very
peculiarities of costume and dialect, are curiously preserved; and the
imperishable spirit that surrounds and keeps them for the use of successive
generations renders the rarities for ever fresh and green. In them human life
is laid down as on a map. The strong and vivid exhibitions of passion and of
character which they furnish, acquire and maintain the strongest hold upon the
curiosity, and, it may be added, the affections of every class of readers; for
not only is entertainment in all the various moods of tragedy and comedy
provided in their pages, but he who reads them attentively may often obtain,
without the bitterness and danger of experience, that knowledge of his
fellow-creatures which but for such aid could, in the majority of cases, be
only acquired at a period of life too late to turn it to account.
This “Library of Select
Novels” will embrace none but such as have received the impress of general
approbation, or have been written by authors of established character; and the
publishers hope to receive such encouragement from the public patronage as will
enable them in the course of time to produce a series of works of uniform
appearance, and including most of the really valuable novels and romances that
have been or shall be issued from the modern English and American press.
There is scarcely any
question connected with the interests of literature which has been more
thoroughly discussed and investigated than that of the utility or evil of novel
reading. In its favour much may be and has been said, and it must be admitted
that the reasonings of those who believe novels to be injurious, or at least
useless, are not without force and plausibility. Yet, if the arguments against
novels are closely examined, it will be found that they are more applicable in
general to excessive indulgence in the pleasures afforded by the perusal of
fictitious adventures than to the works themselves; and that the evils which
can be justly ascribed to them arise almost exclusively, not from any peculiar
noxious qualities that can be fairly attributed to novels as a species, but
from those individual works which in their class must be pronounced to be
indifferent.
But even were it
otherwise--were novels of every kind, the good as well as the bad, the striking
and animated not less than the puerile, indeed liable to the charge of
enfeebling or perverting the mind; and were there no qualities in any which
might render them instructive as well as amusing--the universal acceptation
which they have ever received, and still continue to receive, from all ages and
classes of men, would prove an irresistible incentive to their production. The
remonstrances of moralists and the reasonings of philosophy have ever been, and
will still be found, unavailing against the desire to partake of an enjoyment
so attractive. Men will read novels; and therefore the utmost that wisdom and
philanthropy can do is to cater prudently for the public appetite, and, as it
is hopeless to attempt the exclusion of fictitious writings from the shelves of
the library, to see that they are encumbered with the least possible number of
such as have no other merit than that of novelty.
THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY.
I. LIFE OF WICLIF. By
C. W. Le Bas...1 vol.
II. CONSISTENCY OF
REVELATION. By Dr. Shuttleworth. 1 vol.
FAMILY LIBRARY.
I.II.III. MILMAN’S
HISTORY OF THE JEWS...3 vols.
IV. V. LOCKHART’S LIFE
OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE...2 vols.
VI. SOUTHEY’S LIFE OF
LORD NELSON...1 vol.
VII. WILLIAMS’S LIFE OF
ALEXANDER THE GREAT...1 vol.
VIII. NATURAL HISTORY
OF INSECTS...1 vol.
IX. GALT’S LIFE OF LORD
BYRON...1 vol
X. BUSH’S LIFE OF
MOHAMMED...1 vol.
XI. SCOTT ON DEMONOLOGY
AND WITCHCRAFT...1 vol.
XII. XIII. GLEIG’S
HISTORY OF THE BIBLE...2 vols.
XIV. DISCOVERY, &c.
IN THE POLAR SEAS AND REGIONS 1 vol.
XV. CROLY’S LIFE OF
GEORGE IV...1 vol.
XVI. DISCOVERY AND
ADVENTURE IN AFRICA...1 vol.
XVII. XVIII. XIX.
CUNNINGHAM’S LIVES OF PAINTERS, &c. 3 vols.
XX. JAMES’S HISTORY OF
CHIVALRY AND THE CRUSADES 1 vol.
XXI. XXII. BELL’S LIFE
OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS...2 vols.
XXIII. RUSSELL’S
ANCIENT AND MODERN EGYPT...1 vol.
XXIV. FLETCHER’S
HISTORY OF POLAND...1 vol
XXV. SMITH’S FESTIVALS,
GAMES, AND AMUSEMENTS...1 vol.
XXVI. BREWSTER’S LIFE
OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON...1 vol.
XXVII. RUSSELL’S
PALESTINE, OR THE HOLY LAND...1 vol.
XXVIII. MEME’S MEMOIRS
OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE 1 vol.
XXIX. THE COURT AND
CAMP OF BONAPARTE...1 vol.
XXX. LIVES OF EARLY
NAVIGATORS, &c....1 vol.
XXXI. DESCRIPTION OF
PITCAIRN’S ISLAND, &c....1 vol.
XXXII. TURNER’S SACRED
HISTORY OF THE WORLD...1 vol.
XXXIII. XXXIV. MEMOIRS
OF FEMALE SOVEREIGNS...2 vols.
XXXV. XXXVI. LANDERS’
TRAVELS IN AFRICA...2 vols.
XXXVII. ABERCROMBIE’S
INTELLECTUAL POWERS, &c...1 vol.
XXXVIII. XXXIX. XL. LIVES
OF CELEBRATED TRAVELLERS 3 vols.
Classical Series.
I. II. XENOPHON.
(Anabasis and Cyropædia.)...2 vols.
III. IV. LELAND’S
DEMOSTHENES...2 vols.
V. ROSE’S SALLUST...1
vol.
Dramatic Series.
I. II. III. MASSINGER’S
PLAYS...3 vols.
IV. V. FORD’S PLAYS...2
vols.
LIBRARY OF SELECT
NOVELS.
I. II. CYRIL THORNTON.
III. IV. DUTCHMAN’S
FIRESIDE.
V. VI. THE YOUNG DUKE.
VII. VIII. ANASTASIUS.
IX. X. PHILIP AUGUSTUS.
XI. XII. CALEB
WILLIAMS.
XIII. XIV. THE
CLUB-BOOK.
XV. XVI. DE VERE.
XVII. XVIII. THE
SMUGGLER.
XIX. XX. EUGENE ARAM.
XXI. XXII. EVELINA
XXIII. XXIV. THE SPY.
TALES OF GLAUBER-SPA. BY SEVERAL AMERICAN AUTHORS. To seize the papers, Curl, was next thy care;
The papers light fly
diverse, toss’d in air;
Songs, sonnets, epigrams
the winds uplift,
And whisk them back to
Evans, Young, and Swift.
The letter from Mr. S.
Clapp which follows this announcement will sufficiently explain to the reader
the manner in which the manuscripts from which the tales in these volumes have
been printed came into the possession of the Publishers. Having obtained
permission from Mr. E. Clapp to take time for consideration, they were inclined
to believe on inspection that the handwriting of a portion of the collection
was not new to them. But on applying to the quarter suspected, they obtained no
admissions or information which threw any light upon the subject. They then
submitted the whole to a select committee of five gentlemen, distinguished in
private for their critical acumen. Their report was a singular one; inasmuch as
each one unequivocally condemned, as un-typeworthy, four-fifths of the whole;
but the single and separate fifths which separately pleased each of them, and
on which each bestowed high commendations (no two of them agreeing), made up
the entire fardel which Mr. Clapp wished to dispose of.
Under these
circumstances they bethought themselves of procuring an inspection of the books
kept at the Spa; and through the kind offices of a friend were enabled to
ascertain that among those whose names were entered as having visited the new
spring were Miss Sedgwick, Messrs. Paulding, Bryant, Sands, and Leggett. The
name of G. C. Verplanck had been written, but a line was drawn through it, as
if the entry had been made by mistake. There were no other names to whom
suspicion could attach; and the Publishers have been unable, in reply to very
polite inquiries, to obtain any light from the parties mentioned. They
disclaimed, however, any right of property in the manuscripts, the contents of
which are now given to the public; sanctioned, in the manner which has been
mentioned, by the opinions of five gentlemen of discriminating taste. That they
may afford pleasure to the reader, and some profit to Mr. Clapp, who is
ascertained to be a man of exemplary character, and who has suffered so
unexpectedly from the late painful affliction with which the land has been
visited, is the sincere desire and hope of
To the Misters Harpers, AT THEIR STORE IN New-York City. Glauber-Spaw,
July--. This letter my son, Eli Clapp,
will hand you, along with the parcel. I do not suppose you know me, though I
have advertised once in one of your York papers; and the only way I came to
know you was by seeing in it that you printed all the books, and I take the
freedom of writing to you on the strength of it.
I have lived at Sheep’s
Neck since I was a boy, and so did my father before me; but we have altered the
name lately to Glauber-spaw, and call the Old Ram’s-alley Epsom-walk, out of a
notion of the doctor’s and my daughters. I will tell you how it happened, or
else you would not understand how I came to write to you.
I lived on the old
homestead, man and boy, and was married and had a family of children, for forty
years and rising, when my wife would send my daughters to a fashionable school
in Wetherville, to learn French and darning-work and the forte-piano. I cannot
say I had much peace after that. From one thing to another, I was obliged to
build two new wings and a back-kitchen to the old house; and when those were
finished, that was pulled down and another built, as they said it was not in
good taste. It tasted better to me altogether than the new place; for I was
obliged to raise money on a mortgage to pay for the willer, as they called it,
after they had cut down all the willers that were to be found upon it. They
found the furniture, too, but I had to pay for it; and when it was in order, as
they said, it was such a trumpery, bandbox-looking place, that I could not spit
in it with any comfort.
The next thing they
did, and by this time they had got my wife and youngest son all on their side
(though Eli, who is a discreet lad, went and lived in the barn, and would not
come inside of their shingle-shanty, as he called it), was to say that Sheep’s
Neck was no name at all for the farm. I told them they might call it Clapp’s
Folly, if they liked; at which they turned up their noses, and talked about St.
Romans, and Tully-veal-and-lamb, and Mount-Peeler, and Bawl-town, and other
names, to which I did not see no likeness in the premises.
Just about this time
young Doctor Jodine, who had come to settle in the village, and soon got thick
with my wife and daughters, began to analyze, as he called it, the waters of my
spring, which we had all been drinking for ever, taking it to be plain water.
But it was no such thing. The doctor made a memorandum of what it was, which he
had published in a pamphlet, now for sale at the bookstore in Sheep’s Neck
Village. It had saline and gaseous properties, and was made out of different
kinds of stuff, in which there was plenty of oxhides and gin, as far as I can
understand it, with a good deal of sulphur and soda. It is strange how the
water did not seem to affect us any before the doctor had analyzed it. But
after he had had the spring walled in, and let it off through logs so as to
make it squirt up in a fountain, it is really astonishing how we came to find
out its properties, and the kimistry of it. I take this opportunity of begging
you to contradict a false tale which some of the neighbours who go to the
second meeting-house got up, and which I have denied in my advertisement, that
the doctor buried a barrel of salts and potashes under the spring, which I know
not to be the fact.
The kimistry of this
water, after it was found out, troubled me considerable. I suffered in body and
estate; as the doctor’s bill was highish, and I lost a fine heifer and two of
my best hogs, who drank out of the fountain by mistake. There was little left
of the poor things but the hide and bristles. The doctor said that the Spaw, as
he called it, was medicine-like, and must only be taken by advice, as it was
good for vallydinarians. We had a fine well on the farm, in which there is no
flavour of hides or potashes that ever I tasted. I took to drinking that out of
the bucket, to avoid mistakes; but my wife and daughters took half a tumbler of
the Spaw every morning before breakfast, by the doctor’s advice, as he observed
they seemed to be in delicate health--which they did. They were almost as lean
as the poor heifer and swine; and are not much better off in flesh now, though
they have left off drinking the Spaw, and been taking what the doctor calls
tunnicks.
It was not long after
he had fixed up the spring, before my neighbour Woolley Lamb, who keeps the
tavern and post-office at Sheep’s Neck Village, sent his son Chris one evening
to tell our folks that a carriage-load of people were asking him where the Spaw
was, and whether they could get boarded there. My wife and daughters overheard
the message, and very much to my surprise came fluttering out, like a
clothes-wash in a gale of wind. I had boarded the Yankee schoolmaster, off and
on, several years before; and some high-flying girls that had been at school
with mine had come to see them for a spell, after they had reformed the house,
as they called it; during which I spent the most of my spare hours in the barn,
along with Eli. But I had no idea of taking regular boarders, though for that
matter, I did not see what else the new house was good for. Presently the
doctor came up in the wagon, with my youngest son Cush, who had a load of
unaccountable victuals and sauce, enough to last a whole winter. The doctor
said that a member of Congress’s family had come; and that two of the ladies
were vallydinarians, who had been sent from away south to Glauber-Spaw, as the
only place where they could get rid of their pulmonitory symptoms, and be saved
from dying a natural death.
How my wife and
daughters fixed it, I did not know, and hardly understand to this day. The
party presently came up in a great coach and four, and a gig with two negroes
a-horseback. I thought it was none of my business to help them in, as I was not
allowed to hinder them from doing it. The carriages and all the cattle, as I
found on coming back at evening, had been put into the barn, and poor Eli’s
chamber was broken up; and there was a great deal of clatter in the house, and
my wife and daughters were so busy, and looked so airy, that there was no
getting a word out of them. I was put down by being told by my woman, when I
came to talk to her, that if I would only mind the farm, she would make a mint
of money, that the girls would get well married, and that I need not trouble
myself about the Spaw House, as Cush would see about it all.
Not to be too long with
my story, I made myself as busy as I could with working the farm, and got my
meals in the kitchen or in the fields, not troubling myself with the traps that
they had up stairs, though I saw much coming and going, and some new faces.
Cold weather came, and the house was empty; and some people that my wife had
hired, unbeknown to me, were sent off. They looked as fine, almost, as the
boarders, and had shown no more respect to me when they came straggling about,
than if the land did not belong to me. As they were going out of the gate the
sarciest one of the lot took off his hat in a contemptible kind of a manner,
and said, “Good-by, daddy.” I gave him a few kicks that sent him rather anyhow
into Merino Creek, that they now called Magnesia Springs; and Eli, taking his
ox-goad to the balance of them, made them “walk Spanish,” as they say here.
They sued us for it, and the case is not tried yet. I don’t see how they are to
get any witnesses.
Eli told me he was
going to be married to a neighbour’s daughter, and live on his farm; though he
would help me to work mine for fair wages, and carry the stuff to market for me
in partnership. He never asked his mother and sisters to the wedding, and so
they don’t speak. Presently my neighbour Colonel Cross, who had the mortgage,
came for a year’s interest, and part of the principal, which he had a right to
ask for. My crops had been bad, and though I had cut considerable hay, what
with mending fences when the high-flyers at the Spaw House had broken them,
paying the hands, and getting little or nothing from the market for vegetables,
as the most of them had been wasted in the house, I had not ready money enough
to pay even the interest. So I went to my wife, who had all along been
blarneying me, when she got time to talk, about her great prospects. But she
opened her eyes, and asked me if I was crazy, to think she could catch money at
once, out of the clouds, after all the expense she had been at? I never heard her
talk such hard words before, as she had picked up from the strangers she had
been waiting on; and I do not wonder at it, for I heard that some of them were
Nullyflyers; and I am told that those sort of people are not Christians, and
are a kind of unnat’ral like. She talked about divestments, and futer returns,
and the goose that laid the golden eggs. This was all I understood of her
new-fashioned prose; and I could not help saying rather passionate-like, “Burn
my old clothes, misses, if you haven’t divested me of my farm, and I won’t have
no futer returns to it, that’s flat. You’re a goose yourself, and have made a
gander of me, and where are the golden eggs?” Then she showed me all the bills
for furniture, and groceries, and servants (she paid them vagabonds more for a
month than I can make off the farm), and told me she had paid nearly half of
them. And she said that next season she could make an estate, as all the
company had promised to come back and bring good society with them, if she
would make more room for them. And she showed me a parcel of trash that had
been given to the girls,--singing-books, and old clothes, and poetry-works, and
smelling-bottles, which she said were invaluable proofs of regard from the
genteel ladies that would take care of Sally and Nancy.
I saw that I was in a
hobbleshow, and I knew that Colonel Cross was twistical; but I did not know how
to help myself, when he came and said that he must have money, and could not
afford to wait for it; but that if I would give another mortgage for three
times as much as the principal and interest came to on the whole farm, he would
lift the other, as he knew a man in Wetherville who would advance it if I would
make further improvements, so as to accommodate all the company that would like
to come. He said my wife and daughters were smart and active; and that, as I
did not know any thing about it, he would see to the improvements himself, if I
would give him a commission. I did not know what he meant, and told him he must
go to the governor for that, but found out that he wanted to be paid for his
trouble.
I had a heavy heart
enough when I signed the new mortgage, and did not get a cent of the money;
which the colonel put into the bank to pay for the improvements; and I spent a
melancholy winter, having no good of my family, and being often driven out of
doors in cold weather by the everlasting strumming that was kept up on the
cracked piano, which, I was told for my comfort, was to be changed for a new
one. The spring had hardly come when the whole place was covered with timber
and carpenters. The colonel was boss, and I was told I had nothing to do with
it, though I had made up my mind to that before. Another story was put upon the
house, with long painted shanties, and sheds, and stables, and boxes with
crosses and vanes upon them, all about the premises. They put one of these up
on the hill we used to call Sheep’s Misery, which they called New ’Limpus, over
Merino Creek; and in the next general rain it limped down of its own accord;
and it cost more, I was told, to put it up the second time than it had done the
first.
They had not got every
thing painted and varnished and gilded, and cleared away the chips, and got in
the wagon-loads of curosities that they bought for furniture, before we heard
that the cholera morbus had come over along with twenty thousand paddies and
radikles into Canada, up to the north; and the people talked about nothing but
whether it would come into these parts. The doctor had newspapers and tracts
which he brought every day, and said he could cure it with the Spaw. Sometimes
he said it was the real sphixy that had killed so many abroad, and then he said
it wasn’t. And he talked about premonitories, and made us show our tongues. He
wanted me to take some pills; but I told him it was out of the contract, and I
did not belong to the Spaw. But my wife and daughters took them, and a
sorrowful time they had of it. I believe he would have gone on physicking them,
and killed them, as he did an old maid in the village, if it had not been that
he would have had no patients at the house if there had been no one to keep it.
We soon heard that the
cholera had got into York State. We had then but a few boarders, who all drank
regularly of the water, and yet had premonitories all the time. But when the
news came that it was in the city, there was in a few weeks such a run of
people that the house would hold no more, and they boarded about with all the
neighbours. Among them was a town doctor, who said his nerves could not stand
the sight of the disease; and he too talked about nothing but premonitories.
Our doctor and he at first had a quarrel, and my wife talked of turning him out
of doors, when he said it would be certain death to drink the Spaw. But the two
doctors soon made it up, as they seemed to be likely to have business enough
for both. Then our doctor gave notice that he would give a public lecture
gratis about the disease, in the meeting-house, and we all went to it. I did
not pretend to understand it, nor did I find any one who did; only it was fixed
now that it was the real sphixy, and that a collapse couldn’t be cured. I
believed as much, for I was aboard of a steamboat when one of the flues
bursted. They called it a collapse; and I am certain it was easier to make a
new one than to mend that. When he came to talk about premonitories and the
spasms, there began soon to be a sighing and grunting, and finally a general
groaning, for all the world like anxious meeting. Everybody, women and all,
were putting their hands over their bowels; and my neighbour Slaughter, the
butcher, who weighs twenty-three stone, clapped his on each of his sides, and
getting up to give them a squeeze, set up a sort of a bellow like one of his
own bullocks going to be killed. I felt a little squirmish myself, though I had
not noticed it before. When he came to tell what was good to eat and drink, it
was curious to hear him. I did not see that he left any thing for our victuals
but beef and rice. Neighbour Slaughter stroked down his jacket as if he felt a
little more comfortable, when he talked of beef; but I felt more uneasy than
before, thinking what was to become of all my peas, and beans, and beets, and
onions, and all kinds of sauce, and corn, and watermilions, which he said it
would be wilful murder to eat. All liquids he said must be avoided; and as for
the Spaw, he explained how the air was so peculiar-like, that what was good
physic in common times was poison now, and a kind of worked backwards. But he
said that as long as the people staid quiet there, the air was better than it
was anywhere else; and if they minded the premonitories, and sent for him or
his friend Doctor Nervy when they got them, there was no manner of danger. He
also gave notice that he would make out a list of what was proper to be eaten
at the Spaw House for the benefit of strangers.
For the matter of that,
though I only saw what was going on in the kitchen sometimes, they seemed to
have pretty much the same cooking that they had the year before, when the
Congress-people and Nullyflyers had been there; except that all the beautiful
vegetables, which never looked nicer before, were left alone. I was not sorry
for this, except that I could not have them cooked for myself without going
over to Eli’s, where I soon made a bargain to get my dinner regular and
comfortable. But after he had been to market a few times, and come back
complaining that he could not sell his load to the huckster-women, he returned
at last with the whole load; saying he had been ordered off by the mare’s men
in the market; that all the shops were shut, and the streets whitewashed; and
that everybody that died had eaten some premonitory or another. And being a
hasty man, who has not yet got religion, he damned the cholera morbus, and the
mare, and the vegetables too, in a profane manner--though that you need not
mention.
Half the people were
kept half-sick, and the rest did not look well, and the two doctors had
business all the time; and I began to think my wife might make something of a
spec out of the business, as the boarders seemed glad enough to sleep anywhere,
and fare as they could. Two or three times when I looked in by accident, at
night, I saw a party in one room that were reading written papers aloud; and
from what I heard my wife and daughters talking about it, I gathered that they
amused themselves with it, and that it was made out of their own heads. I
thought it as good a way of killing time as any, and better than strumming on
the forte-piano, which was kept a-going from morning till night, till a child
fell through the cover one day, and smashed all the wire-works. I was plaguy
glad of this, for I didn’t mind the fidells, and flutes, and tambyreens that
they got to dance to, half so bad as the nasty noise, to no tune at all, that
they made with the piano. Luckily there was nobody to mend it, and the poor
thing stays smashed to this minute. I don’t believe it will fetch much.
But to come to the
marrow of the matter, after these premonitories, one night, about two weeks
ago, my old negro Samboney, who lives with his wife Dinah in a little old stone
house near the Spaw, complained of a great many of them. I didn’t see any good
the doctors did, and Samboney was awful afraid of them. He said he had drunk
nothing all day but hard cider, and eat no thing but salt pork and plenty of
the nice vegetables Master Eli gave him (being some of the same that would have
been wasted otherwise), and some watermilions, hard biled eggs, and nice green
apples. Dinah said he had taken near a pint of spirits too, which was but
natural in the poor neger; for after such a mess I should have taken some
myself, for all Doctor Skinner and Doctor Nervy might have said. I told him to
be quiet, and Dinah to kiver him up; but I had hardly sneaked into bed in the
little room on the groundfloor, where my wife had put me since the company
came, and begun to get asleep, when I heard Dinah screaming and thumping at the
door, and bawling out, “Cholera Morbish!--Samboney has got him!--He’s a kicking
down the house!--Cholera!--Cholera!” loud enough to wake the dead, and scare
all the vallydinarians out of all the life that was left in them. I got up,
while she kept on hollering; and when I went out, it was a curious thing to see
and hear. There was all the people in the windows and piazzas to the back of
the house, in their night-clothes, some screeching as if they had fits; and
there was the nigger-wench in her white shimmey, dancing a rigadoon on the
grass, and pulling out her wool, and thumping herself like a possessed body in
the New Testament. And when she yelled out “Cholera!--Cholera!” it put me in
mind of the cry of wo set up in the streets of the old Jerusalem by a crazy
man, which I used to read about in Josephus, when I had a clean place to set
down in and read any thing.
There was a general
mixture of noises and running about the house; but I could hear calls for
Doctor Nervy, and cries of “Send for Doctor Skinner,” more than any thing else.
Doctor Nervy at last came out on the upper piazza in his flannel night-gown,
with a blanket over it, though the nights were as hot as Tophet (as I had heard
Eli profanely remark), with a bottle at his nose, and a candle in his hand, to
help him see the moonshine. When he heard and saw Dinah, he looked flustrated,
and said she was crazy, and must be tied and taken away, till he could attend
to her in the morning. The wench was in a great passion to hear him say this,
and went on screaming, “You no tie me!--Come tie Samboney!--Cholera got
him!--He kick down de house and bedstead!--Cholera!--Cholera!--C’lapses,
spazemzes, and plemoneraries--he got um all!”
The doctor said if
Dinah wasn’t tied he could not answer for the health of his nervous patients;
whom he besought to get into bed, as he meant to do himself. Some of the
servants ran to the village for Doctor Skinner, and some went with me, at a
respectful distance however, as I pushed Dinah ahead, and followed her to the
house. Sure enough, poor Samboney had kicked out the foot-board of the bed, and
thrown off all the clothes. He was an awful spectacle, and roared terribly. We
could not keep clothes on him, or make him be quiet, until he became so of his
own accord, after an hour or more. Then his nails were as blue as indigo. We
could hardly say whether he breathed or not, and he lay with his eyes open,
quite resigned-like, as if he had given up fighting the cholera, and meant to
leave the end to Providence. He was just so when the doctor came. He did not
know, I believe, whether Sam was alive or dead. He talked a good deal of what
he could do if he could get apparatus, and said he must have a consultation
with Doctor Nervy. But he wouldn’t come, and had locked his door, ordering from
the window that no one should be let into the room who had been near the case.
Doctor Skinner then stuck a lancet into Samboney, but no blood came that would
trickle; and he got the whiskey-bottle, and would have crammed the muzzle into
the poor fellow’s mouth, but his teeth were set so tight that he only spilled
it all over him. The short and long of it was, that Sam died an hour before
daylight; and the peculiarest part of all was, that he began to kick again
after he was a dead corpse.
When daylight did come,
every carriage was ordered up to the door, and such as had none were off on
foot to the village, some of them without remembering even to ask for their
bills. My wife and daughters stood on the steps with real tears in their eyes;
and I cannot but say, that the two latter were served shabbily enough. Mrs.
Mullock had been pressing them hard to take a short jaunt with her to the
Falls; and now they wanted to go there out of pure fright. But though there was
plenty of room in the carriage, she crammed it full of bandboxes and unwashed
clothes, to show the impossibility of the thing, and said she depended on seeing
them in Alabama next season.
Before breakfast-time
not a stranger was left in the house. Doctor Nervy was one of the first who run
off. And though there has been but one case in the neighbourhood since, and
that five miles distant, not a soul has come to the Spaw.
What is to become of my
farm and the fine house I do not know. I suppose neighbour Cross must have
both.
On looking about the
rooms, and at the various rubbish which had been left, I found, in one where
the reading-party used to meet by themselves, a great pile of papers, making, I
should say, many quires of foolscap. I thought, though they had been left as
good for nothing, and were of no use to me, they might turn to some account.
But I resolved to have the speculation all to myself; and on talking to Eli, he
thought there would be no harm in seeing what the papers were worth. They have
not been inquired after in two weeks, and I do not know whose they are; so I
conclude they belong to me. If you will give any thing for them, I will trust
to you to fix the price. I am an unfortunate man; and every trifle will help me
that I can come by in an honest way. There were other scraps and blotted papers
about the house, and some love-letters and verses; but I take it for granted
they are not worth any thing.
Page
LE BOSSU... 25
CHILDE ROELIFFE’S
PILGRIMAGE... 109
THE SKELETON’S
CAVE...(193)
MEDFIELD... 243
Qual è quella ruina
che, nel fianco
Di quà da Trento, l’Adige percosse. O
per tremuoto, o per sostegno manco,
Che, da cima del monte onde si mosse, Al
piano è si la rocca discoscesa,
Ch’ alcuna via darebbe a chi su fosse-- Cotal
di quel burrato era la scesa.
Dante, We hold our existence at
the mercy of the elements; the life of man is a state of continual vigilance
against their warfare. The heats of noon would wither him like the severed
herb; the chills and dews of night would fill his bones with pain; the winter
frost would extinguish life in an hour; the hail would smite him to death, did
he not seek shelter and protection against them. His clothing is the perpetual
armour he wears for his defence, and his dwelling the fortress to which he
retreats for safety. Yet, even there the elements attack him; the winds
overthrow his habitation; the waters sweep it away. The fire, that warmed and
brightened it within, seizes upon its walls and consumes it, with his wretched
family. The earth, where she seems to spread a paradise for his abode, sends up
death in exhalations from her bosom; and the heavens dart down lightnings to
destroy him. The drought consumes the harvests on which he relied for
sustenance; or the rains cause the green corn to “rot ere its youth attains a
beard.” A sudden blast ingulfs him in the waters of the lake or bay from which
he seeks his food; a false step, or a broken twig, precipitates him from the
tree which he had climbed for its fruit; oaks falling in the storm, rocks
toppling down from the precipices are so many dangers which beset his life.
Even his erect attitude is a continual affront to the great law of gravitation,
which is sometimes fatally avenged when he loses the balance preserved by
constant care, and falls on a hard surface. The very arts on which he relies
for protection from the unkindness of the elements betray him to the fate he
would avoid, in some moment of negligence, or by some misdirection of skill,
and he perishes miserably by his own inventions. Amid these various causes of
accidental death, which thus surround us at every moment, it is only wonderful
that their proper effect is not oftener produced--so admirably has the Framer
of the universe adapted the faculties by which man provides for his safety, to
the perils of the condition in which he is placed. Yet there are situations in
which all his skill and strength are vain to protect him from a violent death,
by some unexpected chance which executes upon him a sentence as severe and
inflexible as the most pitiless tyranny of human despotism. But I began with
the intention of relating a story, and I will not by my reflections anticipate
the catastrophe of my narrative.
One pleasant summer
morning a party of three persons set out from a French settlement in the
western region of the United States, to visit a remarkable cavern in its
vicinity. They had already proceeded for the distance of about three miles,
through the tall original forest, along a path so rarely trodden that it
required all their attention to keep its track. They now perceived through the
trees the sunshine at a distance, and as they drew nearer they saw that it came
down into a kind of natural opening, at the foot of a steep precipice. At every
step the vast wall seemed to rise higher and higher; its seams and fissures,
and inequalities became more and more distinct; and far up, nearly midway from
the bottom, appeared a dark opening, under an impending crag. The precipice
seemed between two and three hundred feet in height, and quite perpendicular.
At its base, the earth for several rods around was heaped with loose fragments
of rock, which had evidently been detached from the principal mass, and
shivered to pieces in the fall. A few trees, among which were the black walnut
and the slipperyelm, and here and there an oak, grew scattered among the rocks,
and attested by their dwarfish stature the ungrateful soil in which they had
taken root. But the wild grape vines which trailed along the ground, and sent
out their branches to overrun the trees around them, showed by their immense
size how much they delighted in the warmth of the rocks and the sunshine. The
celastrus also here and there had wound its strong rings round and round the
trunks and the boughs, till they died in its embrace, and then clothed the leafless
branches in a thick drapery of its own foliage. Into this open space the party
at length emerged from the forest, and for a moment stopped.
“Yonder is the Skeleton’s
Cave,” said one of them, who stood a little in front of the rest. As he spoke
he raised his arm, and pointed to the dark opening in the precipice already
mentioned.
The speaker was an aged
man, of spare figure, and a mild, subdued expression of countenance. Whoever
looked at his thin gray hairs, his stooping form, and the emaciated hand which
he extended, might have taken him for one who had passed the Scripture limit of
three-score years and ten; but a glance at his clear and bright hazel eye would
have induced the observer to set him down at some five years younger. A
broad-brimmed palmetto hat shaded his venerable features from the sun, and his
black gown and rosary denoted him to be an ecclesiastic of the Romish faith.
The two persons whom he
addressed were much younger. One of them was in the prime of manhood and
personal strength, rather tall, and of a vigorous make. He wore a hunting-cap,
from the lower edge of which curled a profusion of strong dark hair, rather too
long for the usual mode in the Atlantic States, shading a fresh-coloured
countenance, lighted by a pair of full black eyes, the expression of which was
compounded of boldness and good-humour. His dress was a blue frock-coat trimmed
with yellow fringe, and bound by a sash at the waist, deer-skin pantaloons, and
deer-skin mocasins. He carried a short rifle on his left shoulder; and wore on
his left side a leathern bag of rather ample dimensions, and on his right a
powder-flask. It was evident that he was either a hunter by occupation, or at
least one who made hunting his principal amusement; and there was something in
his air and the neatness of his garb and equipments that bespoke the latter.
On the arm of this
person leaned the third individual of the party, a young woman apparently about
nineteen or twenty years of age, slender and graceful as a youthful student of
the classic poets might imagine a wood-nymph. She was plainly attired in a
straw hat and a dress of russet-colour, fitted for a ramble through that wild
forest. The faces of her two companions were decidedly French in their
physiognomy; hers was as decidedly Anglo-American. Her brown hair was parted
away from a forehead of exceeding fairness, more compressed on the sides than
is usual with the natives of England; and showing in the profile that approach
to the Grecian outline which is remarked among their descendants in America. To
complete the picture, imagine a quiet blue eye, features delicately moulded,
and just colour enough on her cheek to make it interesting to watch its
changes, as it deepened or grew paler with the varying and flitting emotions
which slight cause will call up in a youthful maiden’s bosom.
Notwithstanding this
difference of national physiognomy, there was nothing peculiar in her accent,
as she answered the old man who had just spoken.
“I see the mouth of the
cave, but how are we to reach it, Father Ambrose? I perceive no way of getting
to it without wings, either from the bottom or the top of the precipice.”
“Look a few rods to the
right, Emily. Do you see that pile of broken rocks reaching up to the middle of
the precipice, looking as if a huge column of that mighty wall had been
shivered into a pyramid of fragments? Our path lies that way.”
“I see it, father,”
returned the fair questioner; “but when we arrive at the top, it appears to me
we shall be no nearer the cave than we now are.”
“From the top of that
pile you may perceive a horizontal seam in the precipice extending to the mouth
of the cave. Along that line, though you cannot discern it from the place where
we stand, is a safe and broad footing, leading to our place of destination. Do
you see, Le Maire,” continued Father Ambrose, addressing himself to his other
companion, “do you see that eagle sitting so composedly on a bough of that
leafless tree, which seems a mere shrub on the brow of the precipice directly
over the cavern? Nay, never lift your rifle, my good friend; the bird is beyond
your reach, and you will only waste your powder. The superfluous rains which
fall on the highlands beyond are collected in the hollow over which hangs the
tree I showed you, and pour down the face of the rock directly over the
entrance of the cave. Generally, you will see the bed of that hollow perfectly
dry, as it is at present, but during a violent shower, or after several days’
rain, there descends from that spot a sheet of water, white as snow, deafening
with its noise the quiet solitudes around us, and rivalling in beauty some of
the cascades that tumble from the cliffs of the Alps. But let us proceed.”
The old man led the
party to the pile of rocks which he had pointed out to their notice, and began
to ascend from one huge block to another with an agility scarcely impaired by
age. They could now perceive that human steps had trodden that rough path
before them; in some places the ancient moss was effaced from the stones, and
in others their surfaces had been worn smooth. Emily was about to follow her
venerable conductor, when Le Maire offered to assist her.
“Nay, uncle,” said she,
“I know you are the politest of men, but I think your rifle will give you
trouble enough. I have often heard you call it your wife; so I beg you will
wait on Madame Le Maire, and leave me to make the best of my way by myself. I
am not now to take my first lesson in climbing rocks, as you well know.”
“Well, if this rifle be
my spouse,” rejoined the hunter, “I will say that it is not every wife who has
so devoted a husband, nor every husband who is fortunate enough to possess so
true a wife. She has another good quality--she never speaks but when she is
bid, and then always to the point. I only wish for your sake, since I am not
permitted to assist you, that Henry Danville were here. I think we should see
the wildness of the paces that carry you so lightly over these rocks, a little
chastised, while the young gentleman tenderly and respectfully handed you up
this rude staircase, too rude for such delicate feet. Ah, I beg pardon, I
forgot that you had quarrelled. Well, it is only a lover’s quarrel, and the
reconciliation will be the happier for being delayed so long. Henry is a worthy
lad and an excellent marksman.”
A heroine in a modern
novel would have turned back this raillery with a smart or proud reply, but
Emily was of too sincere and ingenuous a nature to answer a jest on a subject
in which her heart was so deeply interested. Her cheek burned with a blush of the
deepest crimson, as she turned away without speaking, and fled up the rocks.
But though she spoke not, a tumult of images and feelings passed rapidly
through her mind. One vivid picture of the past after another came before her
recollection, and one well-known form and face were present in them all. She
saw Henry Danville as when she first beheld, and was struck with his frank,
intelligent aspect and graceful manners,--respectful, attentive, eager to
attract her notice, and fearing to displease,--then again as the accepted and
delighted lover,--and finally, as he was now, offended, coid, and estranged. A
rustic ball rose before her imagination--a young stranger from the Atlantic
States appears among the revellers--the phrases of the gay and animated conversation
she held with him again vibrate on her ear--and again she sees Henry standing
aloof, and looking gloomy and unhappy. She remembered how she had undertaken to
discipline him for this unreasonable jealousy, by appearing charmed with her
new acquaintance, and accepting his civilities with affected pleasure; how he
had taken fire at this--had withdrawn himself from her society, and transferred
his attentions to others. It was but the simple history of what is common
enough among youthful lovers; but it was not of the less moment to her whose
heart now throbbed with mingled pride and anguish, as these incidents came
thronging back upon her memory. She regretted her own folly, but her thoughts
severely blamed Henry for making so trifling a matter a ground of serious
offence, and she sought consolation in reflecting how unhappy she must have
been had she been united for life to one of so jealous a temper. “I am
confident,” said she to herself, “that his present indifference is all a
pretence; he will soon sue for a reconciliation, and I shall then show him that
I can be as indifferent as himself.”
Occupied with these
reflections, Emily, before she was aware, found herself at the summit of that
pile of broken rocks, and midway up the precipice.
--I’ll look no more,
Lest my brain turn.
-- The ecclesiastic was the
first of the party who arrived at the summit. He had seated himself on one of
the blocks of stone which composed the pile, with his back against the wall of
the precipice, and had taken the hat from his brow that he might enjoy the
breeze which played lightly about the cliffs; and the coolness of which was
doubly grateful after the toil of the ascent. In doing this he uncovered a high
and ample forehead, such as artists love to couple with the features of old
age, when they would represent a countenance at once noble and venerable. This
is the only feature of the human face which Time spares: he dims the lustre of
the eye; he shrivels the cheek; he destroys the firm or sweet expression of the
mouth; he thins and whitens the hairs; but the forehead, that temple of
thought, is beyond his reach, or rather, it shows more grand and lofty for the
ravages which surround it.
The spot on which they
now stood commanded a view of a wide extent of uncultivated and uninhabited
country. An eminence interposed to hide from sight the village they had left;
and on every side were the summits of the boundless forest, here and there
diversified with a hollow of softer and richer verdure, where the hurricane, a
short time before, had descended to lay prostrate the gigantic trees, and a
young growth had shot up in their stead. Solitary savannas opened in the depth
of the woods, and far off a lonely stream was flowing away in silence,
sometimes among venerable trees, and sometimes through natural meadows, crimson
with blossoms. All around them was the might, the majesty of vegetable life,
untamed by the hand of man, and pampered by the genial elements into boundless
luxuriance. The ecclesiastic pointed out to his companions the peculiarities of
the scenery; he expatiated on the flowery beauty of those unshorn lawns; and on
the lofty growth, and the magnificence and variety of foliage which distinguish
the American forests, so much the admiration of those who have seen only the
groves of Europe.
The conversation was
interrupted by a harsh stridulous cry, and looking up, the party beheld the
eagle who had left his perch on the top of the precipice, and having passed
over their heads, was winging his way towards the stream in the distance.
“Ah,” exclaimed Le
Maire, “that is a hungry note, and the bird is a shrewd one, for he is steering
to a place where there is plenty of game to my certain knowledge. It is the
golden eagle; the war eagle, as the Indians call him, and no chicken either, as
you may understand from the dark colour of his plumage. I warrant he has gorged
many a rabbit and prairie hen on these old cliffs. At all events, he has made
me think of my dinner: unless we make haste, good Father Ambrose, I am positive
that we shall be late to our venison and claret.”
“We must endeavour to
prevent so great a misfortune,” said Father Ambrose, rising from the rock where
he sat, and proceeding on the path towards the cavern. It was a kind of narrow
terrace, varying in width from four to ten feet, running westwardly along the
face of the steep solid rock, and apparently formed by the breaking away of the
upper part of one of the perpendicular strata of which the precipice was
composed. That event must have happened at a very remote period, for in some
places the earth had accumulated on the path to a considerable depth, and here
and there grew a hardy and dwarfish shrub, or a tuft of wild-flowers hanging
over the edge. As they proceeded, the great height at which they stood, and the
steepness of the rocky wall above and below them, made Emily often tremble and
grow pale as she looked down. A few rods brought the party to a turn in the
rock, where the path was narrower than elsewhere, and precisely in the angle a
portion of the terrace on which they walked had fallen, leaving a chasm of
about two feet in width, through which their distance from the base was
fearfully apparent. Le Maire had already passed it, but Emily, when she arrived
at the spot, shrunk back and leaned against the rock.
“I fear I shall not be
able to cross the chasm,” said she, in a tone of alarm. “My poor head grows
giddy from a single look at it.”
“Le Maire will assist
you, my child,” said the old man, who walked behind her.
“With the greatest
pleasure in-life,” answered Le Maire; “though I confess I little expected that
the daughter of a clear-headed Yankee would complain of being giddy in any
situation. But this comes of having a French mother I suppose. Let me provide a
convenient station for Madame le Maire, as you call her, and I will help you
over.” He then placed his rifle against the rock, where the path immediately
beyond him grew wider, and advancing to the edge of the chasm, held forth both
hands to Emily, taking hold of her arms near the elbow. In doing this he
perceived that she trembled.
“You are as safe here
as when you were in the woods below,” said Le Maire, “if you would but think
so. Step forward now, firmly, and look neither to the right nor left.”
She took the step, but
at that moment the strange inclination which we sometimes feel when standing on
a dizzy height, to cast ourselves to the ground, came powerfully over her, and
she leaned involuntarily and heavily towards the verge of the precipice. Le
Maire was instantly aware of the movement, and bracing himself firmly, strove
with all his might to counteract it. Had his grasp been less steady, or his
self-possession less perfect, they would both inevitably have been precipitated
from where they stood; but Le Maire was familiar with all the perilous
situations of the wilderness, and the presence of mind he had learned in such a
school did not now desert him. His countenance bore witness to the intense
exertion he was making; it was flushed, and its muscles were working
powerfully; his lips were closely compressed; the veins on his brow swelled,
and his arms quivered with the strong tension given to their sinews. For an
instant the fate of the two seemed in suspense, but the strength of the hunter
prevailed, and he placed the damsel beside him on the rock, fainting and pallid
as a corpse.
“God be praised,” said
the priest, drawing heavily the breath which he had involuntarily held during
that fearful moment, while he had watched the scene, unable to render the least
assistance.
--A hollow cave,
Far underneath a craggy
cliff ypight,
Dark, doleful, dreary,
like a greedy grave.
Spenser --Beneath whose sable
roof,
--ghostly shapes
Might meet at noontide,--Fear
and trembling Hope--
Silence and
Foresight,--Death the Skeleton,
And Time the Shadow.
--Wordsworth.
Some moments of repose
were necessary before Emily was sufficiently recovered from her agitation to be
able to proceed. The tears filled her eyes as she briefly but warmly thanked Le
Maire for his generous exertions to save her, and begged his pardon for the
foolish and awkward timidity, as she termed it, which had put his life as well
as her own in such extreme peril.
“I confess,” answered
he, good-naturedly, “that had you been of as solid a composition as some ladies
with whom I have the honour of an acquaintance, Madame Le Maire here would most
certainly have been a widow. I understood my own strength, however,” added he,
for on this point he was somewhat vain, “and if I had not, I should still have
been willing to risk something rather than to lose you. But I will take care,
Emily, that you do not lead me into another scrape of the kind. When we return
I shall, by your leave, take you in my arms and carry you over the chasm, and
you may shut your eyes while I do it, if you please.”
They now again set out,
and in a few moments arrived at the mouth of the cavern they had come to visit.
A projecting mass of rock impended over it, so low as not to allow in front an
entrance to a person standing upright, but on each side it receded upwards in
such a manner as to leave two high narrow openings, giving it the appearance of
being suspended from the cavern roof. Beneath it the floor, which was a continuation
of the terrace leading to the spot, was covered, in places, to a considerable
depth, with soil formed by the disintegration of the neighbouring rocks, and
traversed by several fissures nearly filled with earth. As they entered by one
of the narrow side openings, Emily looked up to the crag with a slight shudder.
“If it should fall!” thought she to herself; but a feeling of shame at the idle
fear she had lately manifested restrained her from giving utterance to the
thought. The good ecclesiastic perceived what was passing in her mind, and
said, with a smile--
“There is no danger, my
child; that rock has been suspended over the entrance for centuries, for
thousands of years perhaps, and is not likely to fall today. Ages must have
elapsed before the crags could have crumbled to form the soil now under our
feet. It is true that there is no place sacred from the intrusion of accident;
everywhere may unforeseen events surprise and crush us, as the foot of man
surprises and crushes the insect in his path; but to suppose peculiar danger in
a place which has known no change for hundreds of years is to distrust
Providence. Come, Le Maire,’ said Father Ambrose, “will you oblige us by
striking a light? Our eyes have been too much in the sunshine to distinguish
objects in this dark place.”
Le Maire produced from
his hunting bag a roll of tinder, and lighting it with a spark from his rifle,
kindled in a few moments a large pitch-pine torch. The circumstance which first
struck the attention of the party was the profound and solemn stillness of the
place. The most quiet day has under the open sky its multitude of sounds--the
lapse of waters, the subtle motions of the apparently slumbering air among
forests, grasses, and rocks, the flight and note of insects, the voices of
animals, the rising of exhalations, the mighty process of change, of perpetual
growth and decay, going on all over the earth, produce a chorus of noises which
the hearing cannot analyze--which, though it may seem to you silence, is not
so; and when from such a scene you pass directly into one of the rocky chambers
of the earth, you perceive your error by the contrast. As the three went
forward they passed through a heap of dry leaves lightly piled, which the winds
of the last autumn had blown into the cave from the summit of the surrounding
forest, and the rustling made by their steps sounded strangely loud amid that
death-like silence. A spacious cavern presented itself to their sight, the roof
of which near the entrance was low, but several paces beyond it rose to a great
height, where the smoke of the torch ascending, mingled with the darkness, but
the flame did not reveal the face of the vault.
They soon came to
where, as Father Ambrose informed them, the cave divided into two branches. “That
on the left,” said he, “soon becomes a low and narrow passage among the rocks;
this on the right leads to a large chamber, in which lie the bones from which
the cavern takes its name.”
He now took the torch
from the hand of Le Maire, and turning to the right guided his companions to a
lofty and wide apartment of the cave, in one corner of which he showed them a
human skeleton lying extended on the rocky floor. Some decayed fragments,
apparently of the skins of animals, lay under it in places, and one small remnant
passed over the thighs, but the bones, though they had acquired from the
atmosphere of the cave a greenish yellow hue, were seemingly unmouldered. They
still retained their original relative position, and appeared as never
disturbed since the sleep of death came over the frame to which they once
belonged. Emily gazed on the spectacle with that natural horror which the
remains of the dead inspire. Even Le Maire, with all his vivacity and
garrulity, was silent for a moment.
“Is any thing known of
the manner in which this poor wretch came to his end?” he at length inquired.
“Nothing. The name of
Skeleton’s Cave was given to this place by the aborigines; but I believe they
have no tradition concerning these remains. If you look at the right leg you
will perceive that the bone is fractured: it is most likely the man was wounded
on these very cliffs either by accident or by some enemy, and that he crawled
to this retreat, where he perished from want of attendance and from famine.”
“What a death!”
murmured Emily.
The ecclesiastic then
directed their attention to another part of the same chamber, where he said it
was formerly not uncommon for persons benighted in these parts, particularly
hunters, to pass the night. “You perceive,” added he, “that this spot is higher
than the rest of the cavern, and drier also; indeed no part of the cavern is
much subject to moisture. A bed of leaves on this rock with a good blanket, is
no bad accommodation for a night’s rest, as I can assure you, having once made
the experiment myself many years since, when I came hither from Europe. Ah,
what have we here? coals, brands, splinters of pitch-pine! The cave must have
been occupied very lately for the purpose I mentioned, and by people too who, I
dare say, from the preparations they seem to have made, passed the night very
comfortably.”
“I dare say they did
so, though they had an ugly bedfellow yonder,” answered Le Maire; “but I hope
you do not think of following their example. As you have shown us, I presume,
the principal curiosities of the cave, I take the liberty of suggesting the
propriety of getting as fast as we can out of this melancholy place, which has
already put me out of spirits. That poor wretch who died of famine!--I shall
never get him out of my head till I am fairly set down to dinner. Not that I
care more for my dinner than any other man when there is any thing of
importance in the way, as, for example, a buffalo, or a fat buck, or a bear to
be killed; but you will allow, Father Ambrose, that a saddle of venison, or a
hump of buffalo and a sober bottle of claret are a prettier spectacle,
particularly at this time of day, than that mouldy skeleton yonder. I had
intended to shoot something in my way back just to keep my hand and eye in practice,
but it is quite too late to think of that. Besides, here is Emily, poor thing,
whom we have contrived to get up to this place, and whom we must manage to get
down again as well as we can.”
The good priest, though
by no means participating in Le Maire’s haste to be gone, mildly yielded to his
instances, particularly as they were seconded by Emily, and they accordingly
prepared to return. On reaching the mouth of the cave, they were struck with
the change in the aspect of the heavens. Dark heavy clouds, the round summits
of which were seen one beyond the other, were rapidly rising in the west; and
through the grayish blue haze which suffused the sky before them, the sun
appeared already shorn of his beams. A sound was heard afar of mighty winds
contending with the forest, and the thunder rolled at a distance.
“We must stay at least
until the storm is over,” said Father Ambrose; “it would be upon us before we
could descend these cliffs. Let us watch it from where we stand above the tops
of these old woods: I can promise you it will be a magnificent spectacle.”
Emily, though she would
gladly have left the cave, could say nothing against the propriety of this
advice; and even Le Maire, notwithstanding that he declared he had rather see a
well-loaded table at that moment than all the storms that ever blew, preferred
remaining to the manifest inconvenience of attempting a descent. In a few
moments the dark array of clouds swept over the face of the sun, and a tumult
in the woods announced the coming of the blast. The summits of the forest waved
and stooped before it, like a field of young flax in the summer
breeze,--another and fiercer gust descended,--another and stronger convulsion
of the forest ensued. The trees rocked backward and forward, leaned and rose,
and tossed and swung their branches in every direction, and the whirling air
above them was filled with their leafy spoils. The roar was tremendous,--the
noise of the ocean in a tempest is not louder,--it seemed as if that
innumerable multitude of giants of the wood, raised a universal voice of
wailing under the fury that smote and tormented them. At length the rain began
to fall, first in large and rare drops, and then the thunder burst over head,
and the waters of the firmament poured down in torrents, and the blast that
howled in the woods fled before them as if from an element that it feared. The
trees again stood erect, and nothing was heard but the rain beating heavily on
the immense canopy of leaves around, and the occasional crashings of the thunder,
accompanied by flashes of lightning, that threw a vivid light upon the walls of
the cavern. The priest and his companions stood contemplating this scene in
silence, when a rushing of water close at hand was heard. Father Ambrose showed
the others where a stream, formed from the rains collected on the highlands
above, descended on the crag that overhung the mouth of the cavern, and
shooting clear of the rocks on which they stood, fell in spray to the broken
fragments at the base of the precipice.
A gust of wind drove
the rain into the opening where they stood, and obliged them to retire farther
within. The priest suggested that they should take this opportunity to examine
that part of the cave which in going to the skeleton’s chamber they had passed
on their left, observing, however, that he believed it was no otherwise
remarkable than for its narrowness and its length. Le Maire and Emily assented,
and the former taking up the torch which he had stuck in the ground, they went
back into the interior. They had just reached the spot where the two passages
diverged from each other, when a hideous and intense glare of light filled the
cavern, showing for an instant the walls, the roof, the floor, and every crag
and recess, with the distinctness of the broadest sunshine. A frightful crash
accompanied it, consisting of several sharp and deafening explosions, as if the
very heart of the mountain was rent asunder by the lightning, and immediately
after a body of immense weight seemed to fall at their very feet with a heavy
sound, and a shock that caused the place where they stood to tremble as if
shaken by an earthquake. A strong blast of air rushed by them, and a
suffocating odour filled the cavern.
Father Ambrose had
fallen upon his knees in mental prayer, at the explosion; but the blast from
the mouth of the cavern threw him to the earth. He raised himself, however,
immediately, and found himself in utter silence and darkness, save that a livid
image of that insufferable glare floated yet before his eyeballs. He called
first upon Emily, who did not answer, then upon Le Maire, who replied from the
ground a few paces nearer the entrance of the cave. He also had been thrown
prostrate, and the torch he carried was extinguished. It was but the work of an
instant to kindle it again, and they then discovered Emily extended near them
in a swoon.
“Let us bear her to the
mouth of the cavern,” said Le Maire; “the fresh air from without will revive
her.” He took her in his arms, but on arriving at the spot he placed her
suddenly on the ground, and raising both hands, exclaimed, with an accent of
despair, “The rock is fallen!--the entrance is closed!”
It was but too
evident,--Father Ambrose needed but a single look to convince him of its
truth,--the huge rock which impended over the entrance had been loosened by the
thunderbolt, and had fallen upon the floor of the cave, closing all return to
the outer world.
Had one been there,
with spirit strong and high,
Who could observe as he
prepared to die;
He might have seen of
hearts the varying kind,
And traced the
movements of each different mind;
He might have seen that
not the gentle maid
Was more than stern and
haughty man afraid.
Crabbe. Before inquiring
further into the extent of the disaster, an office of humanity was to be
performed. Emily was yet lying on the floor of the cave in a swoon, and the old
man, stooping down and placing her head in his lap, began to use the ordinary
means of recovery, and called on Le Maire to assist him. The hunter, after
being spoken to several times, started from his gloomy revery, and kneeling
down by the side of the priest, aided him in chafing her temples and hands, and
fanned her cheek with his cap until consciousness was restored, when the priest
communicated the terrible intelligence of what had happened.
Presence of mind and
fortitude do not always dwell together. Those who are most easily overcome by
the appearance of danger often support the calamity after it has fallen with
the most composure. Le Maire had presence of mind, but he had not learned to
submit with patience to irremediable misfortune; Emily could not command her
nerves in sudden peril, but she could suffer with a firmness which left her
mind at liberty to employ its resources. The very disaster which had happened
seemed to inspire both her mind and her frame with new strength. The vague
apprehensions which had haunted her were now reduced to certainty; she saw the
extent of the calamity, and felt the duties it imposed. She rose from the
ground without aid and with a composed countenance, and began to confer with
Father Ambrose on the probabilities and means of escape from their present
situation.
In the mean time, Le
Maire, who had left them as soon as Emily came to herself, was eagerly employed
in examining the entrance where the rock had fallen. On one side it lay close
against the wall of the cavern; on the other was an opening of about a hand’s
breadth, which appeared, so far as he could distinguish, to communicate with
the outer atmosphere. He looked above, but there the low roof, which met the
wavering flame of his torch, showed a collection of large blocks firmly wedged
together; he cast his eyes downwards, but there the lower edge of the vast mass
which had fallen lay imbedded in the soil; he placed his shoulder against it
and exerted his utmost strength to discover if it were moveable, but it yielded
no more than the rock on which it rested.
“It is all over with
us,” said he, at length, dashing to the ground the torch, which the priest,
approaching, prudently took up before it was extinguished; “it is all over with
us; and we must perish in this horrid place like wild beasts in a trap. There
is no opening, no possible way for escape, and not a soul on the wide earth
knows where we are, or what is our situation.” Then turning fiercely to the
priest, and losing his habitual respect for his person and office in the
bitterness of his despair, he said, “This is all your doing,-- it was you who
decoyed us hither to lay our bones beside those of that savage yonder”
“My son--” said the old
man.
“Call me not son,--this
is no time for cant. You take my life, and when I reproach you, you give me
fine words. You call yourself a man of God,--can you pray us out of this
horrible dungeon into which you have enticed us to bury us alive?”
“Say not that I take
your life,” said Father Ambrose mildly, without otherwise noticing his
reproaches; “there is no reason as yet to suppose our case hopeless. Though we
informed no person of the place to which we were going, it does not follow that
we shall not be missed, or that no inquiry will be made for us. With to-morrow
morning the whole settlement will doubtless be out to search for us, and as it
is probable that some of them will pass this way, we may make ourselves heard
by them from the mouth of the cavern. Besides, as Emily has just suggested, it
is not impossible that the cave may have some other outlet, and that the part
we were about to examine may afford a passage to the daylight.”
Le Maire caught eagerly
at the hope thus presented. “I beg your pardon, father,” said he, “I was
hasty-- I was furious--but it is terrible, you will allow, to be shut up in
this sepulchre, with the stone rolled to its mouth, and left to die. It is no
light trial of patience merely to pass the night here, particularly,” said he,
with a smile, “when you know that dinner is waiting for you at home. Well, if
the cave is to be explored, let us set about it immediately; if there is any
way of getting out, let us discover it as soon as possible.”
They again went to the
passage which diverged from the path leading to the skeleton’s chamber. It was
a low, irregular passage, sometimes so narrow that they were obliged to walk
one behind the other, and sometimes wide enough to permit them to walk abreast.
After proceeding a few rods it became so low that they were obliged to stoop.
“Remain here,” said Le
Maire, “and give me the torch. If there be any way of reaching daylight by this
part of the cavern, I will give an account of it in due time.”
Father Ambrose and
Emily then seated themselves on a low bench of stone in the side of the cavern,
while he went forward. The gleam of his torch appearing and disappearing showed
the windings of the passage he was treading, and sometimes the sound of
measured steps on the rock announced that he was walking upright, and sometimes
a confused and struggling noise denoted that he was making his way on his
elbows and knees. At length the sound was heard no longer, and the gleam of the
torch ceased altogether to be descried in the passage.
“Father Ambrose!” said
Emily, after a long interval. These words, though in the lowest key of her
voice, were uttered in such a tone of awe, and sounded, moreover, with such an
unnatural distinctness in the midst of that perfect stillness, that the good
father started.
“What would you, my
daughter?”
“This darkness and this
silence are frightful, and I spoke that you might reassure me by the sound of
your voice. My uncle is long in returning.”
“The passage is a long
and intricate one.”
“But is there no
danger? I have heard of death-damps in pits and deep caverns, by the mere
breathing of which a man dies silently and without a struggle. If my poor uncle
should never return!”
“Let us not afflict
ourselves with supposable evils, while a real calamity is impending over us.
The cavern has been explored to a considerable distance without any such
consequence as you mention to those who undertook it.”
“God grant that he may
discover a passage out of the cave! But I am afraid of the effect of a
disappointment, he is so impatient--so impetuous.”
“God grant us all grace
to submit to his good pleasure,” rejoined the priest; “but I think I hear him
on the return. Listen, my child, you can distinguish sounds inaudible to my
dull ears.”
Emily listened, but in
vain. At length, after another long interval, a sound of steps was heard,
seemingly at a vast distance. In a little while a faint light showed itself in
the passage, and after some minutes Le Maire appeared, panting with exertion,
his face covered with perspiration, and his clothes soiled with the dust and
slime of the rocks. He was about to throw himself on the rocky seat beside them
without speaking.
“I fear your search has
been unsuccessful,” said Father Ambrose.
“There is no outlet in
that quarter,” rejoined Le Maire sullenly. “I have explored every winding and
every cranny of the passage, and have been brought up at last, in every
instance, against the solid rock.”
“There is no
alternative, then,” said the ecclesiastic, “but to make ourselves as tranquil
and comfortable as we can for the night. I shall have the honour of installing
you in my old bed-chamber, where, if you sleep as soundly as I did once, you
will acknowledge to-morrow morning that you might have passed a worse night. It
is true, Emily, that one corner of it is occupied by an ill-looking inmate, but
I can promise you from my own experience that he will do you no harm. So let us
adjourn to the skeleton’s chamber, and leave to Providence the events of the
morrow.”
To the skeleton’s
chamber they went accordingly, taking the precaution to remove thither a
quantity of the dry leaves which lay heaped not far from the mouth of the cave,
to form couches for their night’s repose. A log of wood of considerable size
was found in this part of the cavern, apparently left there by those who had
lately occupied it for the night; and on collecting the brands and bits of wood
which lay scattered about they found themselves in possession of a respectable
stock of fuel. A fire was kindled, and the warmth, the light, the crackling
brands, and the ever-moving flames, with the dancing shadows they threw on the
walls, and the waving trains of smoke that mounted like winged serpents to the
roof and glided away to the larger and loftier apartment of the cave, gave to
that recess lately so still, dark, and damp, a kind of wild cheerfulness and
animation, which, under other circumstances, could not have failed to raise the
spirits of the party. They placed themselves around that rude hearth, Emily taking
care to turn her back to the corner where lay the skeleton. Father Ambrose had
been educated in Europe; he had seen much of men and manners, and he now
exerted himself to entertain his companions by the narrative of what had fallen
under his observation in that ancient abode of civilized man. He was
successful, and the little circle forget for a while in the charm of his
conversation their misfortune and their danger. Even Le Maire was enticed into
relating one or two of his hunting exploits, and Emily suffered a few of the
arch sallies that distinguished her in more cheerful moments to escape her. At
length Le Maire’s hunting watch pointed to the hour of ten, and the good priest
counselled them to seek repose. He gave them his blessing, recommending them to
the great Preserver of men, and then laying themselves down on their beds of
leaves around the fire, they endeavoured to compose themselves to rest.
But now that each was
left to the companionship of his own thoughts, the idea of their situation intruded
upon their minds with a sense of pain and anxiety which repulsed the blessing
of sleep. The reflections of each on the events of the day and the prospects of
the morrow were different; those of Emily were the most cheerful, as her hopes
of deliverance were the most sanguine. Her imagination had formed a picture of
the incidents of her rescue from the fate that threatened her, a little romance
in anticipation, which she would not for the world have revealed to living ear,
but which she dwelt upon fondly and perpetually in the secrecy of her own
meditations. She thought what must be the effect of her mysterious absence from
the village upon Henry Danville, whose very jealousy, causeless as it was,
demonstrated the sincerity and depth of his affection. She represented him to
herself as the leader in the search that would be set on foot for the lost
ones, as the most adventurous of the band, the most persevering, the most
inventive, and the most successful.
“He will pass by this
precipice to-morrow,” thought she; “like others, he has heard of this cave; he
will see that the fall of the rock has closed the entrance, his quick
apprehension will divine the place of our imprisonment, he will call upon those
who are engaged in the search, he will climb the precipice, he will deliver us,
and I shall forgive him. But should it be my fate to perish; should none ever
know the manner and place of my death; there will be one at least who will
remember and regret me. He will bitterly repent the wrong he has done me, and
the tears will start into his eyes at the mention of my name.” A tear gushed
out from between the closed lids of the fair girl as this thought passed
through her mind, but it was such a tear as maidens love to shed, and it did
not delay the slumber that already began to steal over her.
Sleep was later in
visiting the eyes of Le Maire. The impatience which a bold and adventurous man,
accustomed to rely on his own activity and address for escape in perilous
emergencies, feels under the pressure of a calamity which no exertion of his
own can remedy, had chafed and almost maddened his spirit. His heart sank
within him at the thought of the lingering death he must die if not liberated
from his living tomb. Long and uneasily he tossed on his bed of leaves, but he
too had his hopes of deliverance by the people of the village, who would
unquestionably assemble in the morning to search for their lost neighbours, and
who might discover their situation. These thoughts at length prevailed over
those of a gloomier kind; and the fatigues of the day overcoming his eyes with
drowsiness, he fell into a slumber, profound, as it seemed from his hard-drawn
breath, but uneasy and filled with unpleasant dreams, as was evident from
frequent starts and muttered exclamations.
When it was certain
that both were asleep, Father Ambrose raised himself from his place and
regarded them sorrowfully and attentively. He had not slept, though from his
motionless posture and closed eyes, an observer might have thought him buried
in a deep slumber. His own apprehensions, notwithstanding that he had
endeavoured to prevent his companions from yielding themselves up to despair,
were more painful than he had permitted himself to utter. That there was a
possibility of their deliverance was true, but it was hardly to be expected
that those who sought for them would think of looking for them in the cavern,
nor was it likely that any cry they could utter would be heard below. The old
man’s thoughts gradually formed themselves into a kind of soliloquy, uttered,
as is often the case with men much given to solitary meditation and prayer, in
a low but articulate voice. “For myself,” said he, “my life is near its close,
and the day of decrepitude may be even yet nearer than the day of death. I
repine not, if it be the will of God that my existence on earth, already
mercifully protracted to the ordinary limits of usefulness, should end here.
But my heart bleeds to think that this maiden, in the blossom of her beauty and
in the spring-time of her hopes, and that he who slumbers near me, in the pride
and strength of manhood, should be thus violently divorced from a life which
nature perhaps intended for as long a date as mine. I little thought, when the
mother of that fair young creature in dying committed her to my charge, that I
should be her guide to a place where she should meet with a frightful and
unnatural death. Accustomed as I am to protracted fastings, it is not
impossible that I may outlive them both, and after having closed their eyes,
who should have closed mine, I may be delivered and go forth in my uselessness
from the sepulchre of those who should have been the delight and support of
their friends. Let it not displease thee, O, my Maker! if, like the patriarch
of old, I venture to expostulate with thee.” And the old man placed himself in
an attitude of supplication, clasping his hands and raising them towards
heaven. Long did he remain in that posture motionless, and at length lowering
his hands, he cast a look upon the sleepers near him, and laying himself down
upon his bed of leaves, was soon asleep also.
A dull imprisoned ray, A
sunbeam that hath lost its way,
And through the crevice
and the cleft
Of the thick wall is
fallen and left.
Prisoners of Chillon
Of course the slumbers
of none of the party were long protracted. They were early dispersed by the
idea of their imprisonment in that mountain dungeon, which now and then showed
itself painfully in the imagery of their dreams. When Emily awoke she found
herself alone in the skeleton’s chamber. Her eyes, accustomed to the darkness,
could now distinguish most of the objects around her by the help of a gleam of
light, which appeared to come in from the larger apartment. The fire, kindled
the night previous, was now a mass of ashes and blackened brands; and the
couches of her two companions yet showed the pressure of their forms. She rose,
and not without casting a look at the grim inmate of the place, whose
discoloured bones were just distinguishable in that dim twilight, passed into the
outer chamber. Here she found the priest and Le Maire standing near the mouth
of the cavern, where a strong light, at least so it seemed to her eyes,
streamed in through the opening between the well and the fallen rock, showing
that the short night of summer was already past.
“We are watching the
increasing light of the morning,” said the priest.
“And waiting for the
friends whom it will bring to deliver us,” added Le Maire.
“You will admit me to
share in the occupation, I hope,” answered Emily. “I am fit for nothing else,
as you know, but to watch and wait, and I will endeavour to do that patiently.”
It was not long before
a brighter and a steady light, through the aperture, informed the prisoners
that the sun had risen over the forest tops; and that the perfect day now shone
upon the earth. To those, who could look upon the woods and savannas, the hills
and the waters around, that morning was one of the most beautiful of the
beautiful season to which it belonged. The aspect of nature, like one of those
human countenances we sometimes meet with, so radiant with cheerfulness that it
seems as if they had never known the expression of sorrow, showed, in the
gladness it now put on, no traces of the tempest of the preceding day. The
intensity of the sun’s light was tempered by the white clouds that now and then
floated over it, trailing through a soft blue sky; and the light and fresh
breezes seemed to hover in the air, to rise and descend, with a motion like the
irregular and capricious course of the butterfly; now stooping to wrinkle the
surface of the stream, now rising to murmur in the leaves of the forest, and
again descending to shake the dew from the cups of the opening flowers in the
natural meadows. The replenished brooks had a livelier warble, and the notes of
innumerable birds rang more cheerfully through the clear atmosphere. The
prisoners of the cavern, however, could only distinguish the beauty of the
morning by slight tokens,--now and then a sweep of the winds over the forest
tops--sometimes the note of the wood-thrush, or of the cardinal bird as he flew
by the face of the rocks; and occasionally a breath of the perfumed atmosphere
flowing through the aperture. These intimations of liberty and enjoyment from
the world without only heightened their impatience at the imprisonment to which
they were doomed.
“Listen!” said Emily; “I
think I hear a human voice.”
“There is certainly a
distant call in the woods,” said Le Maire, after a moment’s silence. “Let us
all shout together for assistance.”
They shouted
accordingly, Le Maire exerting his clear and powerful voice to the utmost, and
the others aiding him as well as they were able, with their feebler and less
practised organs. A shrill discordant cry replied, apparently from the cliffs
close to the cave.
“A parrokeet,”
exclaimed Le Maire. “The noisy pest! I wish the painted rascal were within
reach of my rifle. You see, Father Ambrose, we are forgotten by mankind; and
the very birds of the wilderness mock our cries for assistance.”
“You have a quick
fancy, my son,” answered the priest; “but it is yet quite too soon to give
over. It is now the very hour when we may expect our neighbours to be looking
for us in these parts.”
They continued
therefore to remain by the opening; and from time to time to raise that shout
for assistance. Hour after hour passed, and no answer was returned to their
cries, which indeed could have been but feebly heard, if heard at all, at the
foot of the precipice; hour after hour passed, and no foot climbed the rocky stair
that led to their prison. The pangs of hunger in the mean time began to assail
them, and, more intolerable than these, a feverish and tormenting thirst.
“You have practised
fasting,” said Le Maire to Father Ambrose; “and so have I when I could get nothing
to eat. In my hunting excursions I have sometimes gone without tasting food
from morning till the night of the next day. I found relief from an expedient
which I learned of the old hunters, but which I presume you churchmen are not
acquainted with. Here it is.”
Saying this, he passed
the sash he wore once more round his body, drawing it tightly, and securing it
by a firm knot. Father Ambrose declined adopting, for the present, a similar
expedient, alleging that as yet he had suffered little inconvenience from want
of food, except a considerable degree of thirst; but Emily, already weak from
fasting, allowed her slender waist to be wrapped tightly in the folds of a silk
shawl which she had brought with her. The importunities of hunger were thus
rendered less painful, and a new tension was given to the enervated frame; but
the burning thirst was not at all allayed. The cave was then explored for
water; every corner was examined, and holes were dug in the soil which in some
places covered the rocky floor, but in vain. Le Maire again ventured into the
long narrow passage which he had followed to its termination the day previous,
in the hope of now discovering some concealed spring, or some place where the
much desired element fell in drops from the roof, but he returned fatigued and
unsuccessful. As he came forth into the larger apartment a light fluttering
sound, as of the waving of a thin garment, attracted the attention of the
party. On listening attentively it appeared to be within the cavern; but what most
excited their surprise was, that it passed suddenly and mysteriously from place
to place, while the agent continued invisible, in spite of all their endeavours
to discover it. Sometimes it was heard on the one side, sometimes on the other,
now from the roof, and now from the floor, near, and at a distance. At length
it passed directly over their heads.
“It is precisely the
sound of a light robe agitated by the wind, or by a swift motion of the person
wearing it,” said Emily.
“It is no sound of this
earth, I will depose in a court of justice,” said Le Maire, who was naturally
of a superstitious turn; “or we should see the thing that makes it.”
“All we can say at
present,” answered the priest, “is, that we cannot discover the cause; but it
does not therefore follow that it is any thing supernatural. What is perceived
by one of our senses only does not necessarily belong to the other world. I
have no doubt however, that we shall discover the cause before we leave the
cavern.”
“Nor I either,”
rejoined Le Maire, with a look and tone which showed the awe that had mastered
him; “I am satisfied of the cause already. It is a warning of approaching
death. We must perish in this cavern.”
Emily, much as she was
accustomed to rely on the opinions of the priest, felt in spite of herself the
infection of that feeling of superstitious terror which had seized upon her
uncle, and her heart had begun to beat thick, when a weak chirp was heard.
“The mystery is
resolved,” exclaimed Father Ambrose, “and your ghost, my good friend, is only a
harmless fellow-prisoner, a poor bird, which the storm doubtless drove into the
cave, and which has been confined here ever since.” As he spoke, Emily, who had
looked to the quarter whence the sound proceeded, pointed out the bird sitting
on a projection of rock at no great distance.
“A godsend!” cried Le
Maire; “the bird is ours, though his little carcass will hardly furnish a
mouthful for each of us.” Saying this, he took up his rifle, which stood
leaning against the wall of the cavern, and raised the piece to his eye.
Another instant and the bird would have fallen, but Emily laid her hand on his
arm.
“Cannot we take him
alive,” asked she; “and make him the agent of our deliverance?”
“How will you do that?”
said Le Maire, without lowering his rifle.
“Send him out at the
opening yonder with a letter tied to his wing to inform our friends of our
situation. It will at least increase the chances of our escape.”
“It is well thought of,”
answered Le Maire; “and now, Emily, you shall see how an experienced hunter
takes a bird without harming a single feather of his wings.”
Saying this, he went to
the mouth of the cave, and began to turn up, with a splinter of wood, the fresh
earth. After considerable examination he drew forth a beetle, and producing
from his hunting-bag a quantity of packthread, he tied the insect to one end of
it, and having placed it on the point of a crag, retired to a little distance
with the other end of the packthread in his hand. By frequently changing his
place, he caused the bird to approach the spot where he had laid the insect. It
was a tedious process; but when at length the bird perceived his prey, he flew
to it and snapped it up in an instant, with the eagerness of famine. By a
similar piece of management he contrived to get the thread wound several times
about one of the legs of the little creature; and when this was effected, he
suddenly drew it in, bringing him fluttering and struggling to his hand. It
proved to be of the species commonly called the cedar bird.
“Ah, Father Ambrose,”
cried Le Maire, whose vivacity returned with whatever revived his hopes, “we
have caught you a brother ecclesiastic, a recollet, as we call him from the
gray hood he wears. No wonder we did not see him before, for his plumage is exactly
of the colour of the rocks. But he is the very bird for a letter; look at the
sealing-wax he carries on his wings.” As he spoke he displayed the glossy brown
pinions, the larger feathers of which were ornamented at their tops with little
appendages of a vermilion colour, like drops of delicate red sealing-wax.
“And now let us think,”
continued he, “of writing the letter which this dapper little monk is to carry
for us.” A piece of charcoal was brought from the skeleton’s chamber, and Le
Maire having produced some paper from his hunting-bag, the priest wrote upon it
a few lines, giving a brief account of their situation. The letter, being
folded, and properly addressed, was next perforated with holes, through which a
string was inserted, and tied under the wing of the bird. Emily then carried
him to the opening, through which he darted forth in apparent joy at regaining
his liberty. “Would that we could pass out,” said she, with a sigh, “as easily
as the little creature which we have just set free. But the recollet is a lover
of gardens, and he will soon be found seeking his food in those of the village.”
The hopes to which this
little expedient gave birth in the bosoms of all contributed somewhat to cheer
the gloom of their confinement. But night came at length, to close that long
and weary day; a night still more long and weary. The light which came in at
the aperture began to wane, and Emily watched it as it faded, with a sickness
of the heart which grew almost to agony, when finally it ceased to shine
altogether. She had continued during the day to cherish the dream of
deliverance by the sagacity and exertions of her lover; and had scarcely
allowed herself to contemplate the possibility of remaining in the cavern
another night. It was therefore in unspeakable bitterness of spirit that she
accompanied the priest and Le Maire to the skeleton’s chamber, where they
collected the brands which remained of the fire of the preceding night, and
kindled them into a dull and meager flame. That evening was a silent one--the
day had been passed in various speculations on the probability of their
release, in searching the cave for water, and in shouting at the entrance for
assistance. But the hour of darkness,-- the hour which carried their neighbours
of the village to their quiet and easy beds, in their homes, overflowing with
abundance, filled with the sweet air of heaven, and watched by its kindly
constellations--that hour brought to the unhappy prisoners of the rock a
peculiar sense of desolation and fear, for it was a token that they were, for
the time at least, forgotten; that those whom they knew and loved slumbered,
and thought not of them. They laid themselves down upon their beds of leaves,
but the horrible thirst, which consumed them like an inward fire, grew fiercer
with the endeavour to court repose; and the blood that crept slowly through
their veins seemed to have become a current of liquid flame. Sleep came not to
their eyes, or came attended with dreams of running waters, which they were not
permitted to taste; of tempests and earthquakes, and breathless confinement
among the clods of earth and various shapes of strange peril, while their
friends seemed to stand aloof, and to look coldly and unconcernedly on, without
showing even a desire to render them assistance.
My brother’s soul was
of the mould
Which in a palace had
grown cold,
Had his free breathing
been denied
The range of the steep
mountain side.
Prisoners of Chillon Shall Nature,
swerving from her earliest dictate,
Self-preservation, fall
by her own act?
Forbid it Heaven! let
not, upon disgust,
The shameless hand be
foully crimsoned o’er
With blood of its own
lord.
On the third day the
cavern presented a more gloomy spectacle than it had done at any time since the
fall of the rock took place. It was now about eleven o’clock in the morning,
and the shrill singing of the wind about the cliffs, and through the crevice,
which now admitted a dimmer light than on the day previous, announced the
approach of a storm from the south. The hope of relief from without was growing
fainter and fainter as the time passed on; and the sufferings of the prisoners
became more poignant. The approach of the storm, too, could only be regarded as
an additional misfortune, since it would probably prevent or obstruct for that
day the search which was making for them. They were all three in the outer and
larger apartment of the cave. Emily was at a considerable distance from the
entrance reclining on a kind of seat formed of large loose stones, and
overspread with a covering of withered leaves. There was enough of light to
show that she was exceedingly pale; that her eyes were closed, and that the
breath came thick and pantingly through her parted lips, which alone of all her
features retained the colour of life. Faint with watching, with want of
sustenance, and with anxiety, she had lain herself down on this rude couch,
which the care of her companions had provided for her, and had sunk into a
temporary slumber. The priest stood close to the mouth of the cave leaning
against the wall, with his arms folded, himself scarcely changed in appearance,
except that his cheek seemed somewhat more emaciated, and his eyes were lighted
up with a kind of solemn and preternatural brightness. Le Maire, with a spot of
fiery red on each cheek,-- his hair staring wildly in every direction, and his
eyes bloodshot, was pacing the cavern floor to and fro, carrying his rifle,
occasionally stopping to examine the priming, or to peck the flint; and
sometimes standing still for a moment, as if lost in thought. At length he
approached the priest, and said to him, in a hollow voice,
“Have you never heard
of seamen on a wreck, destitute of provisions, casting lots to see which of
their number should die, that the rest might live?”
“I have so.”
“Were they right in so
doing?”
“I cannot say that they
were not. It is a horrid alternative in which they were placed. It might be
lawful--it might be expedient, that one should perish for the salvation of the
rest.”
“Have you never seen an
insect or an animal writhing with torture, and have you not shortened its
sufferings by putting an end to its life?”
“I have--but what mean
these questions?”
“I will tell you. Here
is my rifle.” As he spoke, Le Maire placed the piece in the hands of Father
Ambrose, who took it mechanically. “I ask you to do for me what you would do
for the meanest worm. You understand me?”
“Are you mad?” demanded
the priest, regarding him with a look in which the expression of unaffected
astonishment was mingled with that of solemn reproof.
“Mad! indeed I am mad,
if you will have it so-- you will feel less scruple at putting an end to the
existence of a madman. I cannot linger in this horrid place, neglected and
forgotten by those who should have come to deliver me, suffering the slow
approaches of death--the pain--the fire in the veins--and, worst of all, this
fire in the brain,” said Le Maire, striking his forehead. “They think,--if they
think of me at all,-- that I am dying by slow tortures; I will disappoint them.
Listen, father,” continued he; “would it not be better for you and Emily that I
were dead?--is there no way?--look at my veins, they are full yet, and the
muscles have not shrunk away from my limbs; would you not both live the longer,
if I were to die?”
The priest recoiled at
the horrid idea presented to his mind. “We are not cannibals,” said he, “thanks
be to Divine Providence.” An instant’s reflection, however, convinced Father
Ambrose that the style of rebuke which he had adopted was not proper for the
occasion. The unwonted fierceness and wildness of Le Maire’s manner, and the
strange proposal he had made, denoted that alienation of mind which is no
uncommon effect of long abstinence from food. He thought it better, therefore,
to attempt by mild and soothing language to divert him from his horrid design.
“My good friend,” said
he, “you forget what grounds of hope yet remain to us; indeed, the probability
of our escape is scarcely less to-day than it was yesterday. The letter sent
out of the cave may be found, and if so, it will most certainly effect our
deliverance; or the fall of the rock may be discovered by some one passing this
way, and he may understand that it is possible we are confined here. While our
existence is prolonged there is no occasion for despair. You should endeavour,
my son, to compose yourself, and to rely on the goodness of that Power who has
never forsaken you.”
“Compose myself!”
answered Le Maire, who had listened impatiently to this exhortation; “compose
myself! Do you not know that there are those here who will not suffer me to be
tranquil for a moment? Last night I was twice awakened, just as I had fallen
asleep, by a voice pronouncing my name, as audibly as I heard your own just
now; and the second time, I looked to where the skeleton lies, and the foul
thing had half-raised itself from the rock, and was beckoning me to come and
place myself by its side. Can you wonder if I slept no more after that?”
“My son, these are but
the dreams of a fever.”
“And then, whenever I
go by myself, I hear low voices and titterings of laughter from the recesses of
the rocks. They mock me, that I, a free hunter, a denizen of the woods and
prairies, a man whose liberty was never restrained for a moment, should be
entrapped in this manner, and made to die like a buffalo in a pit, or like a
criminal in the dungeons of the old world,--that I should consume with thirst
in a land bright with innumerable rivers and springs,--that I should wither
away with famine, while the woods are full of game and the prairies covered
with buffaloes. I could face famine if I had my liberty. I could meet death
without shrinking in the sight of the sun and the earth, and in the fresh open
air. I should strive to reach some habitation of my fellow-creatures; I should
be sustained by hope; I should travel on till I sank down with weakness and
fatigue, and died on the spot. But famine made more frightful by imprisonment
and inactivity. and these dreams, as you call them, that dog me asleep and
awake, they are more than I can bear.-- Hark!” he exclaimed, after a short
pause, and throwing quick and wild glances around him; “do you hear them
yonder--do you hear how they mock me!--you will not, then, do what I ask?--give
me the rifle.”
“No,” said the priest,
who instantly comprehended his purpose: “I must keep the piece till you are
more composed.”
Le Maire seemed not to
hear the answer, but laying his grasp on the rifle, was about to pluck it from
the old man’s hands. Father Ambrose saw that the attempt to retain possession
of it against his superior strength, would be vain; he therefore slipped down
his right hand to the lock, and cocking it, touched the trigger, and discharged
it in an instant. The report awoke Emily, who came trembling and breathless to
the spot.
“What is the matter?”
she asked.
“There is no harm done,
my child,” answered the priest, assuming an aspect of the most perfect
composure. “I discharged the rifle, but it was not aimed at any thing, and I
beg pardon for interrupting your repose at a time when you so much need it.
Suffer me to conduct you back to the place you have left. Le Maire, will you
assist?”
Supported by Le Maire
on one side, and by the priest on the other, Emily, scarcely able to walk from
weakness, wasled back to her place of repose. Returning with Le Maire, Father
Ambrose entreated him to consider how much his niece stood in need of his
assistance and protection. He bade him recollect that his mad haste to quit the
world before called by his Maker would leave her, should she ever be released
from the cavern, alone and defenceless, or at least with only an old man for
her friend, who was himself hourly expecting the summons of death. He exhorted
him to reflect how much, even now, in her present condition of weakness and peril,
she stood in need of his aid, and conjured him not to be guilty of a
pusillanimous and cowardly desertion of one so lovely, so innocent, and so
dependent upon him.
Le Maire felt the force
of this appeal. A look of human pity passed across the wild expression of his
countenance. He put the rifle into the hands of Father Ambrose. “You are right,”
said he; “I am a fool, and I have been, I suspect, very near becoming a madman.
You will keep this until you are entirely willing to trust me with it. I will
endeavour to combat these fancies a little longer.”
A burst of rain Swept
from the black horizon, broad descends
In one continuous
flood. Still overhead
The mingling tempest
weaves its gloom, and still
The deluge deepens.
--Thomson. In the mean time the
light from the aperture grew dimmer and dimmer, and the eyes of the prisoners,
though accustomed to the twilight of the cavern, became at length unable to
distinguish objects at a few paces from the entrance. The priest and Le Maire had
placed themselves by the couch of Emily, but rather, as it seemed, from that
instinct of our race which leads us to seek each other’s presence, than for any
purpose of conversation, for each of the party preserved a gloomy silence. The
topics of speculation on their condition had been discussed to weariness, and
no others had now any interest for their minds. It was no unwelcome
interruption to that melancholy silence, when they heard the sound of a mighty
rain pouring down upon the leafy summits of the woods, and beating against the
naked walls and shelves of the precipice. The roar grew more and more distinct,
and at length it seemed that they could distinguish a sort of shuddering of the
earth above them, as if a mighty host was marching heavily over it. The sense
of suffering was for a moment suspended in a feeling of awe and curiosity.
“That, likewise, is the
rain,” said Father Ambrose, after listening for a moment. “The clouds must pour
down a perfect cataract, when the weight of its fall is thus felt in the heart
of the rock.”
“Do you hear that noise
of running water?” asked Emily, whose quick ear had distinguished the rush of
the stream formed by the collected rains over the rocks without at the mouth of
the cave.
“Would that its channel
were through this cavern,” exclaimed Le Maire, starting up. “Ah! here we have
it--we have it!--listen to the dropping of water from the roof near the
entrance. And here at the aperture!” He sprang thither in an instant. A little
stream detached from the main current, which descended over rocks that closed
the mouth of the cave, fell in a thread of silver amid the faint light that
streamed through the opening; he knelt for a moment, received it between his
burning lips, and then hastily returning, bore Emily to the spot. She held out
her hollowed palm, white, thin, and semi-transparent, like a pearly shell, used
for dipping up the waters from one of those sweet fountains that rise by the
very edge of the sea-- and as fast as it filled with the cool, bright element,
imbibed it with an eagerness and delight inexpressible. The priest followed her
example; Le Maire also drank from the little stream as it fell, bathed in it
his feverish brow, and suffered it to fall upon his sinewy neck.
“It has given me a new
hold on life,” said Le Maire, his chest distending with several full and long
breathings. “It has not only quenched that hellish thirst, but it has made my
head less light, and my heart lighter. I will never speak ill of this element
again--the choicest grapes of France never distilled any thing so delicious, so
grateful, so life-giving. Take notice, Father Ambrose, I retract all I have
ever said against water and water-drinkers. I am a sincere penitent, and shall
demand absolution.”
Father Ambrose had
begun gently to reprove Le Maire for his unseasonable levity, when Emily cried
out--“The rock moves!--the rock moves! Come back--come further into the cavern!”
Looking up to the vast mass that closed the entrance, he saw plainly that it
was in motion, and he had just time to draw Le Maire from the spot where he had
stooped down to take another draught of the stream, when a large block, which
had been wedged in overhead, gave way, and fell in the very place where he left
the prints of his feet. Had he remained there another instant, it must have
crushed him to atoms. The prisoners, retreating within the cavern far enough to
avoid the danger, but not too far for observation, stood watching the event
with mingled apprehension and hope. The floor of the cave just at the edge, on
which rested the fallen rock, yawned at the fissures, where the earth with
which they were filled had become saturated and swelled with water, and unable
any longer to support the immense weight, settled away, at first slowly, under
it, and finally, along with its incumbent load, fell suddenly and with a
tremendous crash, to the base of the precipice, letting the light of day and
the air of heaven into the cavern. The thunder of that disruption was succeeded
by the fall of a few large fragments of rock on the right and left, after which
the priest and his companions heard only the fall of the rain and the heavy
sighing of the wind in the forest.
Father Ambrose and
Emily knelt involuntarily in thanksgiving at their unexpected deliverance. Le
Maire, although unused to the devotional mood, observing their attitude, had
bent his knee to imitate it, when a glance at the outer world now laid open to
his sight, made him start again to his feet with an exclamation of delight. The
other two arose, also, and turned to the broad opening which now looked out
from the cave over the fores. On one side of this opening rushed the torrent
whose friendly waters had undermined the rock at the entrance, and now dashed
themselves against its shivered fragments below. It is not for me to attempt to
describe how beautiful appeared to their eyes that world which they feared
never again to see, or how grateful to their senses was that fresh and fragrant
air of the forests which they thought never to breathe again. The light, although
the sky was thick with clouds and rain, was almost too intense for their
vision, and they shaded their brows with their hands as they looked forth upon
that scene of woods and meadows and waters, fairer to their view than it had
ever appeared in the most glorious sunshine.
“That world is ours
again,” said Le Maire, with a tone of exultation. “We are released at last, and
now let us see in what manner we can descend.”
As he spoke, he
approached the verge of the rock from which the severed mass had lately fallen,
and saw to his dismay that the terrace which had served as a path to the
cavern, was carried away for a considerable distance to the right and left of
where they stood, leaving the face of the precipice smooth and sheer from top
to bottom. No footing appeared, no projection by which the boldest and the most
agile could scale or descend it. Le Maire threw himself sullenly on the ground.
“We must pass another
night in this dungeon,” said he, “and perhaps starve to death after all. It is
clear enough that we shall have to remain here until somebody comes to take us
down, and the devil himself would not be caught abroad in the woods in the
midst of such a storm as this.”
The priest and Emily
came up at this moment:-- “This is a sad disappointment,” said the former, “but
we have this advantage, that we can now make ourselves both seen and heard. Let
us try the effect of our voices. It is not impossible that there may be some
person within hearing.”
Accordingly they
shouted together, and though nothing answered but the echo of the forest, yet
there was even in that reply of the inanimate creation something cheering and
hope-inspiring, to those who for nearly three days had perceived that all their
cries for succour were smothered in the depths of the earth. Again they raised
their voices, and listened for an answering shout,--a third time, and they were
answered. The halloo of a full-toned, manly voice arose from the woods below.
“Thank heaven, we are
heard at last,” said Emily.
“Let us see if the cry
was in answer to ours,” said the priest, and again they called, and again a
shout was returned from the woods. “We are heard--that is certain,” continued
he, “and the voice is nearer than at first,--we shall be released.”
At length the sound of
quick footsteps on the crackling boughs was heard in the forest, and a young
man of graceful proportions, dressed, like Le Maire, in a hunting-cap and
frock, emerged into the open space at the foot of the precipice. As he saw the
party standing in the cavity of the rock, he clapped his hands with an
exclamation of surprise and delight. “Thank heaven, they are discovered at
last! Are you all safe--all well?”
“All safe,” answered Le
Maire, “but hungry as wolves, and in a confounded hurry to get out of this
horrid den.”
The young man regarded
the precipice attentively for a moment, and then called out, “Have patience a
moment, and I will bring you the means of deliverance.” He then disappeared in
the forest.
Emily’s waking dream
was, in fact, not wholly unfulfilled. That young man was Henry Danville; she
knew him by his air and figure as soon as he emerged from the forest, and
before she heard his voice. He had been engaged, with many others belonging to
the settlement, in the pursuit of their lost curate and his companions, from
the morning after their absence, and fortunately happened to be at no great
distance when the disruption of the rock took place. Struck with astonishment
at the tremendous concussion, he was hastening to discover the cause, when he
heard the shout to which he answered.
It was not long before
voices and steps were again heard in the wood, and a crowd of the good
villagers soon appeared advancing through the trees, one bearing a basket of
provisions, some dragging ladders, some carrying ropes and other appliances for
getting down their friends from their perilous elevation. Several of the
ladders being spliced together, and secured by strong cords, were made to reach
from the broken rocks below to the mouth of the cavern, and Henry ascended.
My readers will have no
difficulty in imagining the conclusion. The emotions of the lovers at meeting
under such circumstances are of course not to be described, and the dialogue
that took place on that occasion would not, I fear, bear to be repeated. The
joy expressed by the villagers at recovering their worthy pastor brought tears
into the good man’s eyes; and words are inadequate to do justice to the delight
of Le Maire at seeing his old companions and their basket of provisions. My
readers may also, if they please, imagine another little incident, without
which some of them might think the narrative imperfect, namely, a certain
marriage ceremony, which actually took place before the next Christmas, and at
which the venerable Father Ambrose officiated. Le Maire, when I last saw him,
was living with one of Emily’s children, a hale old man of eighty, with a few
gray hairs scattered among his raven locks, full of stories of his youthful
adventures, among which he reckoned that of his imprisonment in the cave as
decidedly the best. He had, however, no disposition to become the hero of
another tale of the kind, since he never ventured into another cave, or under
another rock, as long as he lived; and was wont to accompany his narrative with
a friendly admonition to his youthful and inexperienced hearers, against
thoughtlessly indulging in so dangerous a practice.