It is charming to sail on a good ship on this the mightiest of fresh-water seas, and to lose sight of land while skimming over its dark green depths. We have had a smooth sea and delicious bracing air, and find nothing to complain of and much to commend. Before closing I wish to say something of the remarkable civility of the officers and employes of this great road. The managers evidently know the value of politeness on the part of those who cater to the traveling community, the hardest and most difficult to satisfy of all others. Four out of five of them pack their trunks for a trip and expect to find the comforts of their home while on the go, and find fault at every turn. This Van Horne seems to know, and has so drilled his people, from the highest to the lowest, that courtesy, the cheapest of valuable commodities, is never lacking.
I am finishing this letter while our ship lies in the great lock at the "Soo." We are again under the protection of the Stars and Stripes. The rush of waters of the great "Sault" fills the air with its roar. This was a few moments since deadened by the greater turmoil from some twenty dynamite blasts in the hard rock through which Uncle Sam is cutting for the huge lock, which is to aid the present one in passing to and fro the mighty traffic of our great system of fresh-water seas. The present lock is wholly inadequate, and steamers often wait for five hours for their turn, and that, too, although it admits several vessels at a time. Over beyond the cascade the Dominion is erecting a vast system of locks on its own ground. The near future will need them all.
A PLEA FOR RECIPROCITY.
We look across the foamy river and see a beautiful little town, the "Canadian Soo." Behind it lifts a gently rising land, all clothed in sweet verdure and making an exquisite picture. There, for thousands of miles east and west and extending several hundreds of miles to the north, are a people in every way our kinsmen. We wander among them and feel that we are among friends of our own clan, and yet I cannot take my satchel ashore without submitting it to the inspection of our custom-house officers. How long will this thing last? Why should two people so closely united by every bond except that of so called nationality, submit to this hampering of their kindly relations? When will the bars be thrown down so that the Canuck and the Yankee can trade as brothers and friends? I may not be a statesman, but what little of statecraft I possess, tells me there should be absolute reciprocity between Americans from the Gulf of Mexico to the frozen seas; reciprocity at least for all productions of the respective countries.
I look out of my window; the ship is sinking down between the massive walls of the lock. In a few moments we will be on a level with Lake Huron, and just below the lock we will land in Michigan. So now we bid adieu to the hospitalities of President Van Horne, and will commend his iron highway to all who love nature and its grand works, and who delight in its sublimest displays.
CHAPTER IX.
THE ST. MARY'S RIVER. CHARMING SCENERY. THE LOCALITY FOR SUMMER HOMES. AN EPISODE. MACKINAW. GRAND RAPIDS, A BEAUTIFUL CITY.
At Sault Ste. Marie, we took steamer for Mackinaw. The steamer was comfortable, and the trip a charming one.
The run down the Ste. Marie into Lake Huron, has few equals in sweet, gentle, and at times picturesque scenery. Low lying hills lie on both banks of the river, some of them lifting from the water. Now and then, a promentory or an island point lifts the general quiet tone into something of boldness. These are washed and laved by waters of pallucid purity. The hills, both however, generally lie back from the river on banks with pretty plains under them; here, wide enough for a small field, or garden; there, giving space for a pretty farm. The uplands rise from the small bottoms in easy flowing slopes, green in fresh growth. There are on both slopes occasional farms and small hamlets, affording life and movement to the pretty picture.
When this continent shall become a single nation—one grand Republic; the frozen arms of an Arctic ice-floe enfolding its northern boundary; the warm breath of the Gulf of Mexico reddening the cheek of the orange and covering Magnolia groves with snowy bloom along its southern shores; the mighty Pacific pouring its sonorous swell on its western confines from Behring's sea to the Tropic of Cancer, and the storm breeding Atlantic roaring along its shores, from Lincoln Sea to Key West; when brothers shall clasp hands across the deep waters of the lakes without the espionage of a custom collector, then these low-lying hills and sweet plains at their feet—these pretty islands and rugged promentories, will become the summer homes of the rich of the mighty land, and the green waters will reflect the villas and cottages of the wealthy and the well to do, along the entire river; and the world will know no more beautiful and sweetly rural locality.
I was leaning on the taffrail of our boat, enjoying the sweet prospect—the long reach of Georgian Bay, lying to the east—and some bold points lifting about us, when I heard a gentleman call the attention of a lad by his side, to a rock they could see in the distance through their glasses.[1]
"At the foot of that rock, I caught twenty black bass in an hour," said the gentleman.
A deep groan close by my side caught my ear. I turned to find a gray headed old man, also leaning on the rail, whose glass was turned in the same direction as those of the gentleman and lad. The man of the groan, was evidently seventy odd years old, with a gentle face, but now in deep and painful thought; tears were coursing down his cheeks, and when he lowered his glasses, showed eyes red with weeping. His face looked so wan that I feared he was sick. I spoke to him gently.
He answered me kindly, and then said: "I was watching through my glass a spot in the distance beyond the rock adverted to by the gentleman to that boy, and when he spoke of catching fish at its base, a long ago past was weighing on my mind. His words brought up the groan you heard and not any illness of my own—a past connected with a big rock near the spot I was looking at, and of a tragedy which deeply distressed me, and changed the course of my life."
I very naturally asked: "Are the matters you refer to, such that you cannot speak of them?" I handed him, at the same time, my card. He looked up saying "Ah, yes! I know of you. A few days since I read some letters of yours in the ChicagoTribune, from the National Park. They made me half resolve to go there next year." He asked me if I intended publishing them in book form; that he thought such a book, just now, would be acceptable; that he had preserved my letters for use, should he make the excursion. A man who has published any thing, is as easily captured by a kindly word for his bantling, as ever mother was by praise for her first baby. I told him that my letters, even if enlarged as I might see fit, would hardly make a book of fit size for publication.
The elderly gentlemen landed at Mackinaw with us. After wandering over this pretty old island, visiting its places of interest which well repay a visit—after listening to a few dozen prominent lawyers, judges, merchants and physicians talking through their noses—all of them victims of hay-fever—I was lazily resting on the hotel piazza, awaiting the hour for taking the ferry boat to reach the train for home, when my new made friend of the boat came to me and said: "Mr. Harrison, you say your letters are not enough to make a book of publishing size. I spoke to you of a tragedy, which changed the course of my life. I have at home, but will send it to you, a manuscript, touching that sad affair, which would not be inappropriate in a letter touching a trip from the Soo to Chicago. The manuscript is a plain and faithful story of the events narrated; you can, however, supply fictitious names, and alter certain immaterial points and touch up the whole. I thanked him, and assured him I would probably gladly use his material." He afterward sent to me "The Secret of the Big Rock," which will be found following this letter.
A night's run brought us to Grand Rapids. Its people ought to be proud of it. It is not only a thriving, busy town, growing with great rapidity, but is one of the prettiest cities in America. Its business quarters are fine and wear a metropolitan air, but its residence portion is very pretty. The streets are lined with trees, which grow with such luxuriance park commissioners might envy.
We spent a half day in the charming place and in a few hours reached home, having enjoyed a glorious "outing," which I freely recommend every one who can, to make, and as early as possible. If I had to choose between a trip to Europe of two or three months, and the excursion we have just made, and were compelled to forego one or the other, I would forego the European one.
PART II.THE OLD MAN'S STORY.
CHAPTER I.
THE SECRET OF THE BIG ROCK.
In the spring of 185– I was head bookkeeper and confidential clerk of a Cincinnati firm, having a large trade with the Cotton States. I had an adored wife, and two fine children, who were our pride and our delight. Not ambitious for wealth, I was perfectly satisfied if my endeavors conduced to the prosperity of my employers. My salary was sufficient for our wants. None of us had ever been sick and the family physician was rather a friend than an adviser. The firm was prosperous; my employers, always kind and considerate; my modest home was cheerful, and I believed myself the happiest of men.
Cholera was that year prevalent, and toward the first of June, threatened to become epidemic in our city. My employers hurried with their families to the country, leaving me in full charge of the house. Continuous immunity from sickness, made my wife and myself so confident, that had we been able to strike the sign of the passover on our door posts, we would scarcely have thought the precaution necessary. Even the dread scourge, cholera, had few terrors for us.
Going home one Saturday afternoon, I read on the Bulletin Board of a newspaper office, that the physicians believed Cincinnati had passed the crisis; that no epidemic need be feared. I had a habit, when walking alone, of whistling softly. Near my house a neighbor smiled, as he said, "he was glad to see my mouth in so fine a pucker, for it spoke well of the day." My wife met me at the door, as usual, but told me she felt quite sick; seeing my face become clouded, she assured me it was not much, and laughingly repeated a witty speech of our little girl. Hardly had she finished, when she almost screamed with pain. In twenty-four hours, she was a corpse; and Monday, at noon, I was wifeless and childless.
I did not pray to die, believing that God knew and did what was best for his children; but I would have greeted with a smile the grim monster, had he reached out his hand for me.
In two days I was at my desk, for there were important matters to be attended to. The necessity for work, kept me from falling by the wayside. My mother had taught me, "that man's highest duty is, to do his duty." This saying had been adopted as my motto.
The next week, my employers returned to town, and ordered me to Fort Mackinaw for a couple of months' vacation, presenting me with a thousand dollar check, to cover my expenses. Two months between the Island and the Soo were passed in fishing, with such benefits resulting, that the excursion has been renewed whenever an absolute necessity for a change has been felt.
My employers on my return, seeing the good effects upon me, of the water and the rod, presented me with a nice skiff, telling me to take every Thursday afternoon for a holiday, and to keep them supplied with fish for Friday; at the same time, kindly informing me, that a plate would always be at one or the other of their tables for me to help enjoy my catch.
Being a man of almost machine like habits of regularity, my boat was always seen on the proper afternoon, rain or shine, during the fishing seasons for several years.
It was in '58 that I accidentally threw my line in a deep pool or hole, in the Licking river, a mile or two from the Ohio, and almost immediately struck a fine gaspergou perch, or as the people in Kentucky called it, a "New Light." This fish was first seen in the state, when the forerunners of the present Cambellite, or Christian church, the "New Lights," were creating much enthusiasm in the Kentucky religious world.
The catch was followed by several others, when a terrible splashing was made close to my hook by an out-rigger rowed by a stalwart negro. The Ethiopian scowled upon me as he shot by. In a few moments he returned and caught acrab, letting an oar back water about the same place on his run down stream. The disturbance drove all the fish from the locality; at least I had no more bites.
The two following Thursdays, I tried the same pool, but my darkey was again rowing about the ground, and no fish were to be had.
About a month later, there was a press of business at the store. At the request of our senior to forego my usual holiday, I worked all Thursday afternoon, with the understanding I was to take the next day and bring in my fish for Friday's supper. I started early and rowed some distance up the Licking, to what were considered good fishing grounds. In passing the spot where my sport had been twice disturbed, I saw the outrigger handled by the sable oarsman, while a handsome young man in the stern drew up a fine black bass. The negro again scowled at me.
I reached my ground, and was having but indifferent success, when almost without a ripple the outrigger drew up close to my side.
"What luck?" demanded the gentleman, in a clear, sweetly modulated voice, which made me for a minute forget the colored man's evident ill will.
"Rather poor; nothing to what I was enjoying four weeks ago, before your boat drove all the fish away from the hole where I saw you an hour ago. I have a notion your man had a method in his madness."
The gentleman laughed a laugh so breezy and cheery, that it drew me at once to him.
"Yes, Jim told me of his exploit, and we have come up to invite you back to "our hole" as he calls it."
I could not refuse an offer so cordially extended.
The gentleman as we gently floated down the stream informed me, that Jim had selected "our hole" as one little likely to attract Cincinnati Waltons, and regularly every Friday left in it a fine feed for fish; that Jim was almost amphibious and seemed to know how to draw the finny denizens of the river to whatever spot he selected and at fixed times; that he was surprised to learn I had found fish in the place on Thursday, when there should have been none until Friday; that the sable conjuror was not so much put out, because I had found the spot, as because the fish had lost their reckoning and were a day ahead of time.
"I am supposed to be Jim's boss," he smilingly went on, "but in fact, on the water, am governed by Jim; his rod is one of iron."
At "our hole" we lay to, and in an hour had a fine mess of bass and new lights—as many as we needed.
Felden was the name my new acquaintance gave me as his—"Jack Felden" he said, "and this coon is Jim Madison."
Jim grinned and was the very personification of the free and easy, yet servile southern "body servant."
Mr. Felden said, "I make it a rule, Mr. Jamison, never to kill a single fish I can not consume either myself or through a few friends, to whom I now and then send a mess. The poor things have a right to their pursuit of life, health and happiness, and should not be killed in wanton love of killing. As one of the dominant animals of this earth, I claim the right to take fish for my uses. I enjoy the sport of angling; but when enough are caught the sport ends, and I reel in my line, and silently steal away."
"You are a sportsman of my own kidney," I rejoined, "we have enough."
Jim then emptied a pail of fish feed into the river, saying:
"Dey'll guzzle all dat afore dark, and termorrer dey'll come here and find nuthin', and dey'll go away, but shuah as death and 'ligeon dey'll be back here nex' Friday. Dis niggah skeert em de las' fo' weeks, a Thursdays."
Jim grinned in my face as he said this, and I was forced to commend his prudence, though it had been at my cost.
The following Thursday, I tried the hole, but Jim was right; no fish took my bait; he was seen, however, scudding along in Felden's outrigger. He grinned at me and asked, "how isde hole?"
The following week, to my gratification, I found Mr. Felden on the river. We fished at "our hole" with some success: Jim then fed the fish, while his master informed me that he had concluded to go shares with me. Hereafter, he would meet me on Thursday, so as to enable me to gratify the Catholic appetites of my employers. Thus he would have the pleasure of bettering our acquaintance. He paid me the compliment of saying that he had circled the globe, associating with men in all lands, and felt we ought to be friends.
Our friendship grew into intimacy, before the season was over. He invited me tohis den. It was a plain cottage, externally; but within sumptuous; skins of lions, tigers, leopards of every variety of spots, and of other animals covering the floors of hard wood at that time rarely seen. Several of the pelts, he said, were the trophies of his own skill with the rifle. The walls were tapestried with rare draperies, and rugs, all of them valuable souvenirs of Eastern lands. One room was given up to cabinets, in which curios and objects de vertu sparkled in oriental beauty. All was arranged with rare taste. I hinted to my host, that his house was a temptation to the burglar. He went to the door and whistled gently. In rushed two fine dogs; noble specimens of monster mastiffs.
"These are my guardians. Woe to the thief that gets into this house; if he escapes Jim and me, these fellows would tear him into fish bait. Wouldn't you my Mogul?" One of the huge mastiffs sprang up with a growl that startled me.
"Now Akbar! you and Queen salute this gentleman. He is my friend and must be yours."
The two dogs came up to me, smelt all about me, then one of them laid a great paw in my lap, while the other put both feet on my shoulders, yawning mightily in my face showed fangs long enough and strong enough to give the king of the forest no mean battle.
I spent a charming evening with my new friend, and found him one I could gladly call such.
During the following winter, I dined with Jack—I had accepted his request to address him thus familiarly—at least one day in each week. His dinners were at the then unusual hour of seven, a habit acquired as he informed me in India. Jim was butler, and Dinah, his wife was cook. She was an artist of a kind to be found nowhere in the world, outside of old southern plantation halls. The table service was of pure china and cut glass. The menu was never extensive, thereby not conducing to over-indulgence, but everything was perfect of its kind, and cooked absolutely to a "T". A single bottle of wine was always served for us two, either of Rhine or one of the best clarets. My host and I never emptied more than two glasses each. At the end of each meal, Dinah and Jim came in as the table was being cleared off, and drank to our healths in glasses of the same set, and from the same wine used by the master.
Mr. Felden never smoked cigars at table, but we each had a jasmine Turkish pipe and puffed delicious Ladikiyah, received by him from Beyrout in hermetically sealed cans.
One evening when we were lolling back on softest chairs and enjoying to our full the fragrant weed, Jack said to me, "Paul," (this was the first and almost the only time, he thus called me,) "you have told me the sad, sweet story of your life. I propose, if you wish, to give you mine."
"I am very glad of it, and have been hoping you would."
For some minutes he was silent, and his noble face was lighted with what seemed an illumination from within, wholly different from that laid upon it by the mellow glow from the candelabra.
"I am thirty years old; have light auburn and very curly hair." I started, for his hair and beard were dark brown, almost black, and without even a wave. Without noticing my surprise, he continued, "My complexion is florid and my face without a scar."
"My goodness, Jack, you are making sport of me," I cried, for the man before me had a complexion of richest olive, and a terrible scar had been cut across his cheek, as he once laughingly intimated, by a tiger's claw.
"No, I am telling you simple facts. I am the son of a rich planter in ——," he did not name the state; "my father and my uncle owned adjoining estates of great value, and were as proud as they were rich. I was an only child. My uncle had but one, and that a daughter. Our parents inherited their fortunes from my grandfather, and at an early date they determined to unite the family wealth again by a marriage between my cousin Belle and myself. She was a pure blonde, one year my senior, very stately, very cold, and intensely proud. We grew up to consider ourselves as indissolubly betrothed. Belle treated it as calmly as if we had been married for years. This she did as soon as she was out of the school room. She never seemed to doubt the propriety of our engagement. She loved 'Clifton' and 'Brandon'—I will thus call the two plantations—she loved the two estates next to her father. Him she worshipped. These two loves filled her soul, and left no room for any other genuine affection. Yes; she loved herself, our name, our lineage, and her pride."
For awhile he was silent, and his soul seemed to be working in his face; then, with a sigh of pain, he continued:
"I graduated from one of the best colleges in the land at twenty, and at once with a learned tutor, was sent abroad. We traveled in continental Europe for a few months and I was intensely happy. Before the first year had half ran out, we were summoned home. My father was ill, and would probably not live to see me. This was my first great pain, for my mother had died at my birth. We hurried to New York by the first steamer, then by rail and coach we flew southward without having heard a word from home. We were too late; my poor father had been dead nearly a fortnight. I had loved him with intense devotion.
My uncle having died three years before, Belle had been living since then with my father at Clifton. She met me at the door, enveloped in black, and looking the very embodiment of decorous grief. She kissed me on the forehead, and when within told me in a voice as calm as ice of my poor father's last illness, of his death, and of the immensely attended funeral. She opened her writing desk, read letter after letter of condolence, and with a fitting sigh spoke of the gratification we should feel, 'that dear uncle had so many admirers among the best people of the south.' Her well-poised calmness nearly stifled me. Yearning for love and sympathy, all I received from the only relative I had on earth, at least of near degree, were congratulations that my father had found in death the cold esteem of friends.
As soon as I could decently leave the house, I hurried to the negro quarters to see my foster mother, Dinah, and her husband, Jim. There I found loving hearts, and for many minutes was clasped in the arms of her who had nursed me on her bosom through my babyhood. I lay upon a settee, given Dinah by myself as a Christmas present years before, and with my head on the old negress' lap, let her comb the hair over my aching brow. Soothed and rested by the kind, homely sympathy, I lay with closed eyes, when the cabin became redolent of that peculiar odor given out by genuine crepe, and Belle walked in. In calm, cold words she said she was sorry John could not find some one at the house to brush his head.
The next day my cousin handed me a letter, 'the last,' she said 'Uncle had ever written.' It told me where I would find his will; that everything he possessed was left to me, and asked, as a dying request, that I should marry my cousin the day I became twenty-one. He told me how all the love he had borne my mother had been centered upon me; gave me a few words of advice, but said he felt advice unnecessary, as he knew how good his only son was.
When I had finished reading I handed the letter to Belle, saying there was something in it concerning her. I watched her through my fingers and saw that her reading was simply perfunctory; she had evidently read it before. She sighed, came to my seat, put her arms about my neck—called me her dear John, and kissed me on the lips. I felt like one fettered and powerless. My heart was filled with a sort of numbness—despair. Two facts were as clear to me as daylight: that I did not love my cousin, that she did not love me; she was incapable of real passion. I turned to her and said:
'Belle you have read my father's letter, what do you suggest?'
'Why, of course, John, we will be married on the 20th day of February. We have a month to get ready, besides we need not much preparation, for we will at once go to Europe for a year, until the sad events of the past few weeks shall have been obliterated from our minds.'
Good God! she could speculate on the death of grief. I hated her. But I would as soon have thought of exhuming my father's body and scattering it to the four winds of heaven, as to think of not obeying his wishes.
Well, we were married, and at once went abroad. I tried to and did respect my wife. She attracted great attention, for she was superbly beautiful—queenly. But there was never a moment when I felt like pressing her stately form to my breast; never had the slightest inclination to kiss her lips; never once felt I could look into her great blue eyes, and breathe out my life on her bosom.
A marble statue would as quickly have aroused a feeling of passion in my heart. She was cold and did not seem to realize that I was not a model husband, for I was her attentive and watchful companion. She seemed thoroughly satisfied, while my heart was hardening into stone.
In July we visited a flower show in Regent's Park, accompanied by two English ladies, both married, romantic and full of sentiment. In our rounds, we met a lady in company with a gentleman and a little boy. She was about eighteen years old, with dark melting eyes under a perfectly arched brow, and a broad low forehead, over which her black hair was banded in massive silken waves. Her complexion was so deeply brunette as to be almost olive. The blood was rich and flowing in her cheeks, and her lips were two full ripe riven cherries, when she spoke parting over large pearly teeth. Her head was exquisitely poised on shoulders of superb mould, and her form and gait queenly. We were on the opposite side of a wonderful erica admiring its masses of pink flowers. Our eyes met. I stood as if spell bound. I had never before seen a perfect beauty and all of my own chosen type. She was exactly my opposite, I, high florid; she intensely brunette.
The color came into her cheek and mounted to her very hair when she caught my fixed gaze. One of our English friends noticed this. Afterwards in our walks, we met again and again the lady in the brown shawl—for so our friends called her. Whenever we met, my eyes instinctively sought those of the unknown, and always caught her glance in return, and at every such encounter her face crimsoned. This was remarked by our two lady friends and caused them to banter me. They told my wife to be on her guard; that if I were not already married, they would say I had certainly met my fate.
Ah! little did they dream they were speaking truth—that this girl was my fate for weal or for woe! I heard the unknown's voice several times without catching her words. It sank into my very soul. I became absent minded throughout the remainder of the day. Belle joined the ladies in declaring that the "brown shawl" had bewitched me.
Mr. Jamison, I have a very decided theory of true marriage. The Bible is a mass of oriental rubbish! Forgive me, I do not mean to offend. I reverence the bible, but not every word of it. It is made up of ingots of gold covered and almost hidden within masses of sand—grains of truth and Godly wisdom, in bulks of chaff. It is made up of God's wisdom and oriental fable legend and poetry. You reverence the gold, the grains—the sands and the chaff. I wash out the sand, and pick out the gold; winnow away the chaff, and gather up the rich grains.
Nothing to me in the book of Genesis, reveals more deep knowledge of human nature, than the account of the creation of Adam; he was made from the dust of the ground, and his soul was breathed into him by the breath of God. When a man dies, his body returns to the dust, his soul goes back to its maker. God created man! male and female, created hethem! They were then good. He afterward separated the female from the male. Each thus became imperfect—each became a part and not a whole. There is a constant yearning in them for reunion. When the true Eve unites with her Adam, they become one, and their union is bliss. When so united, no man shall put them asunder. The union is founded directly on natural and, not on moral or religious laws. The natural laws speak within, and draw irresistibly two hearts to be mated. Whoever obeys the impulse find a Heaven on earth. Others, falsely-mated, may not find absolute misery, but, it is equally certain, true happiness is never theirs. Men and women are made for each other; not one man for one certain woman, but in classes. A man finds his physical mate in one of a certain class. If her moral qualities be not fitted by education, he should wait with a well grounded hope of finding another in the same class, whose bringing up will have better fitted her for him.
Now, the woman in thebrown shawlwas my mate, that is one of the proper class. I could not get her out of my mind, and my wife's coldness, constantly made me yearn for her. Travel was distasteful to Belle, so that before the fall had set in, we were again at home. I did not love my wife, she did not love me. She was fully satisfied to live with me in the proud dignity given us by our vast estates.
Besides his plantation, negroes and stock, my father had left me largely over a hundred thousand dollars in money and convertible bonds and mortgages. I resolved to turn all of these into cash, and to abandon wife and country. I got all in readiness; executed and left with my lawyers papers conveying every thing else to Belle; went to New York on some pretended business and sailed for Europe, writing home that I would never return. I sought the American colonies and hotels in every country, in a sort of vague hope that I could find the woman in the brown shawl. She was my fate. I was mad with the one idea. I was no libertine, Mr. Jamison. I simply yearned for her, not asking what the result would be should she be found. I drifted into the East and wandered through Russia, Turkey, Greece, Palestine and Egypt. I did not meet her; and could get no tidings of her.
[1]The reader may take all reference to this gentleman as fact or fiction, as his own fancy suggests.
CHAPTER II.
I resolved to lose myself in the far East. I went to India; hunted in the jungles, reckless of life and danger. I was successful in overcoming the monsters of the wilds; and escaped dreadful fevers because I seemed to bear a charmed life. It was worthless to me, and a bad penny could not be lost.
In India I met with a cunning native, who changed my locks from light to their present color, curly to straight; my complexion from florid to its olive hue. He taught me how to put a scar on my cheek that would deceive the eyes of a surgeon, but from which I could at any time free myself in a single night, and renew at will. So perfectly was my disguise, that my Indian servant, who had been with me for a year, failed to recognize me. He never knew me again. With my skin I changed my name. I was a stranger even when in my most frequented haunts, and as you see, am still disguised. I visited Siam, Burmah, China and Borneo. I wandered five years in the far East, and returned to America by the Pacific and Panama, and thence to New Orleans.
In that city, I went to a Mardi-Gras ball. On entering the brilliant assembly room, I was almost stunned by the sight of my wife, standing close by my side. She looked at me without recognition. She was the same cold, queenly woman. I was presented and talked to her of her husband, whom I had met in the far East. She seemed considerably interested in me, but did not evince the slightest emotion when I spoke of her husband and told her I had heard of his death in India. She said in chilling tones she felt sure it was a false rumor. Had she shown any feeling, I think I would have tried to get her into my heart.
I went to my old home, and pretending to be shooting and belated, went to Jim Madison's cabin about sun-down and talked to him and Dinah. Neither of them recognized me, but when her back was to me I spoke; she started, for my voice reached her memory. They were both true to Mars John, whom I told them I had known at college. Dinah shed bitter tears, because she could never see him again, and Jim would be like Simeon of old, if his eyes could rest upon him once more. They were to be trusted.
I went to the cabin door and finding there was no one in the neighborhood, I drew my hat over my face and said in my natural voice: "Jim, Dinah, don't you know me?"
They sprang to me at once, with a cry, "Oh bress de Lord, it's him,—it's him—it's Mars John" and for minutes I was pressed in their arms, while they shed tears and gave thanks to the good God. The two lowly hearts were true as steel to me, and would be willing to follow me to the ends of the earth. Jim was a teamster and had to draw a load of cotton to the nearest steam boat landing on the following day.
In my boyhood his aquatic qualities won my admiration and were the wonder of the negroes for many miles around. To my inquiry as to his ability in that line now, he proudly stated that "he was a duck a-top the water, an' a musrat under it." I then told him to be on the lookout, when on the wharf boat the next day; that I would be there; would manage to tumble into the river; he was to rescue me, and out of gratitude I would purchase him and Dinah, and take them north to freedom.
We performed our comedy admirably. Water could scarcely drown me, for from childhood, I had been a water-dog, and when Jim made his wonderful dive, and brought me from the bottom, to which I had conveniently sunken the third time, I acted the drowned man so well, that the negroes around nearly killed me by rolling me on a barrel to get the water out of my stomach. I managed to be properly resuscitated, and in three days Jim and Dinah, paid for, were on their way north. They had no children, and left no ties behind. Jim says, "he is a bigger slave than ever, for I am always on his mind."
We reached Cincinnati last spring, and I feel certain my identity can never be discovered. I have my two oldest earthly friends with me, and now my newest, and almost only other one. I am trying to recover a part of my fortune, for I had but little left when I reached this city. I came here because, the only words I ever distinctly caught from my brown shawled mate and her companions were, when the boy said, "but Cincinnati, you know"—that was all. I am here making a little money speculating in grain; using Jim's rheumatism to inform me as to weather probabilities and if prices will go up or down—and keeping my eyes always open for the only woman I have ever seen whom I can love.
And now fill up your chilbouque and let us have a glass of beer." He rang a bell and told Jim to open a couple of bottles of ale.
I was deeply impressed by the story—more so, than I cared my friend to see. To open up a light vein of conversation I asked:
"What was that you said about Jim's rheumatism?"
"I spoke in earnest;" answered Jack, "last summer and fall I used Jim's ankles to tell me if the weather would be favorable for crops. He believes implicitly in his rheumatic prognostications. To humor him I follow his advice, and so far have never failed to make a good deal by so doing."
I thanked Felden for his story, and went home pondering upon his notions and pluck. It was strange to see a man who evidently so enjoyed lavish luxury, living as he did, when a beautiful wife, a vast fortune and high position were waiting for him, whenever he should acknowledge his proud name.
Toward the end of the winter, a messenger brought me, from Mr. Felden a request for the address of a first class physician, and telling me Dinah was much indisposed. The next evening I dropped in at his house, but he begged to be excused. The message brought to the door by Jim, made me feel my visits were not desired for the time being. Ten days elapsed without any news from him, when I met Dr. J. and inquired as to the condition of his dusky patient.
"Oh! ho! Then I owe to you this new patient!"
I stated the circumstances.
"Well, Mr. Jamison, I thank you, for I have had a revelation at that bedside, for which I would not take a thousand dollars."
I expressed gratification and some surprise.
"You know," the genial doctor continued, "you know that I am an old time abolitionist, and one of the straightest kind."
I replied, I had often regretted the fact. Scarcely noticing my remark he went on:
"I have received a revelation, Mr. Jamison, and one that God willing! will make me a more charitable—a braver, perhaps a better man. Think of it sir: I went to see this black woman, expecting to find her in charge of some other ignorant woman of her color. But instead of that, there was an elegant gentleman sitting at her bed side; his hand was upon her hot forehead, and every now and then he whispered, "Don't be afraid Mammy, little John is by you, and he will take care of you." The poor creature was delirious. She thought herself on a southern plantation, and that some one was trying to do her bodily harm.
"When I stepped forward, he motioned me to be still. I am generally an autocrat in a sick room, but that man's look and gesture made me a regular sucking babe."
I laughed at the thought.
"You needn't laugh, sir. I am telling God's truth. Well! when he had quieted her, he took me into an adjoining room, and gave me his diagnosis of the case. It was the opinion of a man of science, absolutely correct. I left my prescription, promising to be on hand as early as possible the next morning. Would you believe it, sir, I was there before day-light? I wanted to see that man. I found him seated as he had been the night before, and learned he had been there ever since I left. She was still out of her head.
Something she said caused the gentleman to say, "She must be saved. She and her husband are all that are left to me of a great plantation and five hundred negroes."
"Instead of feeling disgust for the owner of five hundred human beings, I felt they had lost a friend when they lost their master. For a whole week, that man never took off his clothes, and as far as I could see, never left that lowly bed side. I never saw such devotion. It pulled her through; my drugs were a humbug, sir. That Christian gentleman saved her life."
The doctor took off his hat and mopped his brow. It was wet from the energy of his speech.
"It was a revelation to me, sir. Think of it! A man can own human beings, and still be a Christian. If our Saviour has a true follower on this earth, that born slave owner is of his chosen ones."
I told this to Felden a few days later. He smiled and said, "I thank the good doctor. Don't tell him I am a worshipper of the one unknown, and unknowable God. I reverence Jesus of Nazareth—I reverence Sidartha, the Buddh—I reverence Zoroaster. They were the greatest of men, whom long meditation sublimated and lifted above their kind. But there is only one God. No one of woman born, ever could, or can conceive his form.
The best and purest Christian I ever met was a Hindoo, not only in race, but in religion. Yet, he was a Christian in the true sense of the word. He lived and acted the life inculcated by Jesus. The next best was a Parsee worshipper of the sun. He did unto his kind as he would they should do unto him. He clothed the naked, fed the hungry and healed the sick; yet he gave the body of his beautiful and idolized daughter to be devoured by vultures on the Tower of Silence. One of the genuine Christians I have met, was a Chinaman, who worshipped Joss, and daily knelt at a shrine erected to him in the back of his shop. He washed the wounds of a stranger, and nursed him for weeks, though his house was shunned as the home of pestilence.
"Forgive them Father, they know not what they do," might be offered up in behalf of fully one half of the good people of this Christian land. They wrap themselves up in their egotism and their bigotry. They follow the blind lead of narrow minded preachers and make the pulpit their fetich. Bah! how I hate cant and hypocricy! Poor Dinah is as black as the ace of spades, but under her dusky breast is as white a soul as ever came from the breath of God; and I am supposed to be a good man, simply because I did not leave her to die like a crippled dog."
"No, Mr. Jamison, I am no better than I ought to be. Dinah nursed me on her breast and fed me from her life's blood, when I was helpless. I was only a man when I nursed her through this illness. I came to tell you she is nearly well again, and Jim wishes you to eat a dinner of his cooking to-morrow evening. Good day." And with that he showed me his straight back and massive shoulders as he walked with swinging strides from the store.
We commenced fishing in March and spent many a pleasant hour together, on the water by day, and in his den at evening. Early in May, I went as per agreement to dine with him. Jim handed me a note. It read,
"Dear Jamison, go in and make the most of the dinner. I am off for how long, I know not. I met to-day, my fate of the brown shawl. I follow wherever it may lead me, never to stop until my doom be found.Yours, in the height of folly,Jack."
"Dear Jamison, go in and make the most of the dinner. I am off for how long, I know not. I met to-day, my fate of the brown shawl. I follow wherever it may lead me, never to stop until my doom be found.
Yours, in the height of folly,
Jack."
Jim informed me his master had come in a half hour before; after hurriedly filling a valise and satchel, he had jumped into the carriage, which brought him home, saying "Goodbye old folks, take care of the dogs, and expect me home, when you see me."
Jim added, "He's all right up here sah," touching his head, "but his heart's sort'er crazy."
I could scarcely taste the food, for I felt that there was over Jack, and thus over me, an impending disaster. I had become deeply attached to him. One knowing the intense nature of the man could not but fear he was following an ignis fatuus to his doom. Here was a married man, who had schooled his heart and reason to the belief he was not wedded—that his marriage was a fiction of the law, and not binding on his conscience. I was a religious man, and shuddered lest my friend with his marvelous fascinations, and goaded by a mad passion, might do some act abhorrent to my notions of right.
Days and weeks of uneasiness on my own part, and apparently of distress on the part of the two colored servants passed by, without a word from the absent one. At first I went to his house repeatedly to rest and to think of him, but finally satisfied myself with inquiries at the door.
About two months after his disappearance, it became necessary for me to make a journey to a distant state in the interest of our house. I was absent over a fortnight. Immediately upon my return, I visited the den (I had learned to call it thus). A white woman met me at the door with the information that she was the present tenant. She knew nothing of the late occupants, but referred me to a real estate firm as her landlords. I went to them. They knew nothing of the late tenants of the cottage, farther than, that Mr. Jack Felden had sent them the keys, and the rent to the end of the term. They found the premises in fine condition, but nothing to indicate where the people had gone.
It was evident that Felden had what he considered good reasons for not communicating with me. I was sure he sincerely liked me, and would not thus act, unless he desired to cover his tracks. I respected his wishes and did not afterwards refer to him. Desiring to work off my anxiety I went to the river for a hard trial at rowing. The man in charge of my boat handed me a note written he said, by himself at Jim's dictation. It simply said, "Mars Jack axes you to take his canoe for yersef. He won't want it no more. Good bye, sah, may de Lord be good to you, for Mars Jack loved you.
hisJim X Madisonmark"
I soon learned to scull the outrigger called by Jim, canoe, and used it for years, but its late owner was seen by me no more in Cincinnati. By degrees I ceased to expect him again. I often thought of him, and a prayer for his happiness became a part of my nightly supplication, before the throne of grace.
CHAPTER III.
Nearly a year after Felden's disappearance, I was surprised by the following letter from him: