UNCHARITABLENESS.

"Cecil, the grave, the wise, the great, the good,What is there more that can ennoble blood?"

He had, it seems, "a minde to be a churchman, and, so he might have favour to make one sermon to the King, he careth not what thereafter sould befall him; for he would not flatter though he saw Death." Queen Elizabeth is the mark of a most scandalous imputation, and the mildest of Ben's remarks respecting her is that she "never saw herself, after she became old, in a true glass; they painted her,and sometymes would vermilionher nose." "Of all styles," he said, "he most loved to be named Honest, and hath of that one hundreth letters so naming him." His judgments on other poets were insolently magisterial. "Spenser's stanzas pleased him not, nor his matter"; Samuel Daniel was a good honest man, but no poet; Donne, though "the first poet in the world in some things," for "not keeping of accent, deserved hanging"; Abram Fraunce, "in his English hexameters, was a foole"; Sharpham, Day, and Dekkar were all rogues; Francis Beaumont "loved too much himself and his own verses." Some biographical items in the record of these conversations are of interest. It seems that the first day of every new year the Earl of Pembroke sent him twenty pounds "to buy bookes." By all his plays he never gained two hundred pounds. "Sundry tymes he hath devoured his bookes," that is, sold them to supply himself with necessaries. When he was imprisoned for killing his brother actor in a duel, in the Queen's time, "his judges could get nothing of him to all their demands but I and No. They placed two damn'd villains, to catch advantage of him, with him, but he was advertised by his keeper"; and he added, as if the revenge was as terrible as the offence, "of the spies he hath ane epigrame." He told a few personal stories to Drummond, calculated to moderate our wonder that Mrs. Jonson was a shrew; and, as they were boastingly told, we must suppose that his manners were not so austere as his verse. But perhaps the most characteristic image he has left of himself, through these conversations, is this: "He hath consumed a whole night in lying looking to his great toe, about which he hath seen Tartars and Turks,Romans and Carthaginians, feight in his imagination."

Jonson's fortunes seem to have suffered little abatement until the death of King James, in 1625. Then declining popularity and declining health combined their malice to break the veteran down; and the remaining twelve years of his life were passed in doing battle with those relentless enemies of poets,—want and disease. The orange—or rather the lemon—was squeezed, and both court and public seemed disposed to throw away the peel. In the epilogue to his play of "The New Inn," brought out in 1630, the old tone of defiance is gone. He touchingly appeals to the audience as one who is "sick and sad"; but, with a noble humility, he begs they will refer none of the defects of the work to mental decay.

"All that his weak and faltering tongue doth craveIs that you not refer it to his brain;That 's yet unhurt, although set round with pain."

The audience were insensible to this appeal. They found the play dull, and hooted it from the stage. Perhaps, after having been bullied so long, they took delight in having Ben "on the hip." Charles the First, however, who up to this time seems to have neglected his father's favorite, now generously sent him a hundred pounds to cheer him in his misfortunes; and shortly after he raised his salary, as Court Poet, from a hundred marks to a hundred pounds, adding, in compliment to Jonson's known tastes, a tierce of Canary,—a wine of which he was so fond as to be nicknamed, in ironical reference to a corpulence which rather assimilated him to the ox, "a Canary bird." It is to this period, we suppose, we must refer his testimony to his own obesity in his "Epistle to my Lady Coventry."

"So you have gained a Servant and a Muse:The first of which I fear you will refuse,And you may justly; being a tardy, cold,Unprofitable chattel, fat and old,Laden with belly, and doth hardly approachHis friends, but to break chairs or crack a coach.His weight is twenty stone, within two pound;And that 's made up, as doth the purse abound."

As his life declined, it does not appear that his disposition was essentially modified. There are two characteristic references to him in his old age, which prove that Ben, attacked by palsy and dropsy, with a reputation perceptibly waning, was Ben still. One is from Sir John Suckling's pleasantly malicious "Session of the Poets":—

"The first that broke silence was good old Ben,Prepared before with Canary wine,And he told them plainly he deserved the bays,For his were called works where others were but plays.*....*....*....*Apollo stopped him there, and bade him not go on;'T was merit, he said, and not presumption,Must carry 't; at which Ben turned about,And in great choler offered to go out."

"The first that broke silence was good old Ben,Prepared before with Canary wine,And he told them plainly he deserved the bays,For his were called works where others were but plays.

*....*....*....*

Apollo stopped him there, and bade him not go on;'T was merit, he said, and not presumption,Must carry 't; at which Ben turned about,And in great choler offered to go out."

That is a saucy touch,—that of Ben's rage when he is told that presumption is not, before Apollo, to take the place of merit, or even to back it!

The other notice is taken from a letter from Howel to Sir Thomas Hawk, written the year before Jonson's death:—

"I was invited yesternight to a solemn supper by B. J., where you were deeply remembered. There was good company, excellent cheer, choice wines, and jovial welcome. One thing intervened which almost spoiled the relish of the rest,—that B. began to engross all the discourse, to vapor extremely by himself, and, by vilifying others, to magnify his own Muse. For my part, I am content to dispense with the Roman infirmity of Ben, now that time has snowed upon his pericranium."

But this snow of time, however it may have begun to cover up the solider qualities of his mind, seems to have left untouched his strictly poetic faculty. That shone out in his last hours, with more than usual splendor, in the beautiful pastoral drama of "The Sad Shepherd"; and it may be doubted if, in his whole works, any other passage can be found so exquisite in sentiment, fancy, and expression as the opening lines of this charming product of his old age:—

"Here she was wont to go! and here! and here!Just where those daisies, pinks, and violets grow:The world may find the Spring by following her;For other print her airy steps ne'er left:Her treading would not bend a blade of grass,Or shake the downy blow-ball from his stalk!But like the soft west-wind she shot along,And where she went the flowers took thickest root,As she had sowed them with her odorous foot!"

Before he completed "The Sad Shepherd," he was struck with mortal illness; and the brave old man prepared to meet his last enemy, and, if possible, convert him into a friend. As early as 1606 he had returned to the English Church, after having been for twelve years a Romanist; and his penitent death-bed was attended by the Bishop of Winchester. He died in August, 1637, in his sixty-fourth year, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. The inscription on the common pavement stone which was laid over his grave still expresses, after a lapse of two hundred years, the feelings of all readers of the English race,—

"O rare Ben Jonson!"

It must be admitted, however, that this epithet is sufficiently indefinite to admit widely differing estimates of the value of his works. In a critical view, the most obvious characteristic of his mind is its bulk; but its creativeness bears no proportion to its massiveness. His faculties, ranged according to their relative strength, would fall into this rank:—first,Ben; next, understanding; next, memory; next, humor; next, fancy; and last and least, imagination. Thus, in the strictly poetic action of his mind, his fancy and imagination being subordinated to his other faculties, and not co-ordinated with them, his whole nature is not kindled, and his best masques and sweetest lyrics give no idea of the general largeness of the man. In them the burly giant becomes gracefullypetite; it is Fletcher's Omphale "smiling the club" out of the hand of Hercules, and making him, for the time, "spin her smocks." Now the greatest poetical creations of Shakespeare are those in which he is greatest in reason, and greatest in passion, and greatest in knowledge, as well as greatest in imagination,—his poetic power being

"Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone,Binding all things with beauty."

His mind is "one entire and perfect chrysolite," while Jonson's rather suggests the pudding-stone. The poetinBen, being thus but a comparatively small portionofBen, works by effort, rather than efficiency, and leaves the impression of ingenuity rather than inventiveness. But in his tragedies of "Sejanus" and "Catiline," and especially in his three great comedies of "The Fox," "The Alchymist," and "The Silent Woman," the whole man is thrust forward, with his towering individuality, his massive understanding, his wide knowledge of the baser side of life, his relentless scorn of weakness and wickedness, his vivid memory of facts and ideas derived from books. They seem written with his fist. But, though they convey a powerful impression of his collective ability, they do not convey a poetic impression, and hardly an agreeable one. His greatest characters, as might be expected, are not heroes or martyrs, but cheats or dupes. His most magnificent cheat is Volpone, in "The Fox"; his most magnificent dupe is Sir Epicure Mammon, in "The Alchymist"; but in their most gorgeous mental rioting in imaginary objects or sense, the effect is produced by a dogged accumulation of successive images, which are linked by no train of strictly imaginative association, and are not fused into unity of purpose by the fire of passion-penetrated imagination.

Indeed, it is a curious psychological study to watch the laborious process by which Jonson drags his thoughts and fancies from the reluctant and resisting soil of his mind, and then lays them, one after the other, with a deep-drawn breath, on his page. Each is forced into form by main strength, as we sometimes see a pillar of granite wearily drawn through the street by a score of straining oxen. Take, for example, Sir Epicure Mammon's detail of the luxuries he will revel in when his possession of the philosopher's stone shall havegiven him boundless wealth. The first cup of Canary and the first tug of invention bring up this enormous piece of humor:—

"My flatterersShall be the pure and gravest of divinesThat I can get for money."

Then another wrench of the mind, and, it is to be feared, another inlet of the liquid, and we have this:—

"My meat shall all come in in Indian shells,Dishes of agate, set in gold, and studdedWith emeralds, sapphires, hyacinths, and rubies."

Glue that on, and now for another tug:—

"My shirtsI 'll have of taffeta-sarsnet, soft and lightAs cobwebs; and for all my other raiment,It shall be such as might provoke the Persian,Were he to teach the world riot anew."

And then, a little heated, his imagination is stung into action, and this refinement of sensation flashes out:—

"My gloves of fishes' and birds' skins perfumedWith gums of Paradise and Eastern air."

And now we have an extravagance jerked violently out from his logical fancy:—

"I will have all my beds blown up, not stuffed;Down is too hard."

But all this patient accumulation of particulars, each costing a mighty effort of memory or analogy, produces no cumulative effect. Certainly, the word "strains," as employed to designate the effusions of poetry, has a peculiar significance as applied to Jonson's verse. No hewer of wood or drawer of water ever earned his daily wages by a more conscientious putting forth of daily labor. Critics—and among the critics Ben is the most clamorous—call upon us to admire and praise the construction of his plays. But his plots, admirable of their kind, are still but elaborate contrivances of the understanding, all distinctly thought out beforehand by the method of logic, not the method of imagination; regular in external form, but animated by no living internal principle; artful, but not artistic; ingenious schemes, not organic growths; and conveying the same kind of pleasure we experience in inspecting other mechanical contrivances. His method is neither the method of nature nor the method of art, but the method of artifice. A drama of Shakespeare may be compared to an oak; a drama by Jonson, to a cunningly fashioned box, made of oak-wood, with some living plants growing in it. Jonson is big; Shakespeare is great.

Still we say, "O rare Ben Jonson!" A large, rude, clumsy, English force, irritable, egotistic, dogmatic, and quarrelsome, but brave, generous, and placable; with no taint of a malignant vice in his boisterous foibles; with a good deal of the bulldog in him, but nothing of the spaniel, and one whose growl was ever worse than his bite;—he, the bricklayer's apprentice, fighting his way to eminence through the roughest obstacles, capable of wrath, but incapable of falsehood, willing to boast, but scorning to creep, still sturdily keeps his hard-won position among the Elizabethan worthies as poet, playwright, scholar, man of letters, man of muscle and brawn; as friend of Beaumont and Fletcher and Chapman and Bacon and Shakespeare; and as ever ready, in all places and at all times, to assert the manhood of Ben by tongue and pen and sword.

I hold society responsible for a great deal.

I wondered once where all the disconsolate came from,—where all the human wrecks tossed up by the waves of misfortune received their injuries, and what became of those who sailed from port in early youth and were never heard of more. I marvelled, too, that there were so many unhappy bachelors, so many forlorn maids, so many neither wife nor maid; but at all these things I wonder no longer. I have solved the problem I set myself. Society makes them all.

I am not going to analyze society to please any one. I make mine own. Hyacinth, I dare swear, makes his. Why shall I paint it? It is you, it is I, it is both of us, and many more. Can I sketch the figures in a kaleidoscope ere they change? If I could, I might say what society is or was. To-day members of circles marry, or are given in marriage. Disease comes and war decimates; foul tongues asperse, and the unity that was perfect is so no longer. The whole world is society, and I believe there was not so much confusion at the Tower of Babel after all. Men speak in different tongues, but their motives are the same in all climes.

I love or I hate my Celtic friend. The sea rolls between us, but from afar the same sun warms us. If he does a good deed, I shall applaud it; or, if he is mean, shall I not smite him? The world looks on, and puts us all to the test alike. We love or we hate.

Are there no Procrustean couches in these days? If my neighbor is too short, what shall I do but stretch him? if he is too long, I am the one who shall hack off his superfluous inches.

Ah! believe me, sceptic, there is a mote in thine eye, but in mine there is no beam. It is I who am immaculate. "The king can do no wrong." I am a king unto myself; but, whether king or commoner, how lenient I am to my own faults,—how intensely alive to my neighbor's!

If Kubla Khan decide to build his pleasure dome,—nay, if he but hint at it,—I set myself to wonder where he can possibly have obtained the funds. Not in commerce surely. Not in that vulgar little furnishing-store in which he has toiled early and late for twenty years. He is doubtless a spy of the government,—a detective of some kind; and, now that I recall it, he certainly was away some time during the Rebellion. In short, there are many ways by which he may have procured this money dishonestly. Rather than believe my neighbor quite honest and beyond reproach, I discuss the topic of his supposed fall from virtue with our mutual neighbors, until at last I bring them to the conclusion I have long ago arrived at, which is, if the truth were known, that Kubla Khan is no better than the law compels him to be.

I do this, of course, solely from a regard for virtue, from a sense of duty. The times, I say in my discussions, are such that one must know his associates thoroughly; and so I believe, or profess to believe, K. K. to be a rogue rather than an honest, upright man.

I have a right to my opinion, have I not? Most unquestionably. While this tongue and beard can wag, I will assert the privilege of free speech. But have I a right to traduce my neighbor? What business is it of mine if he has money, and sees fit to build a house with it? Am I his banker, that I give heed to his concerns? Why cannot I look on with delight, and even help select the site of the future edifice? All of his previous life has been blameless and without reproach; but now I suddenly discover that my neighbor is not trustworthy. Is this charity?

Perhaps I do not touch upon Kubla Khan and his prospective chateau atall. My neighbors in the house adjoining engross my attention. Come! let us watch for the butcher and the baker, that we may see what our neighbors' fare is. I will engage that I can fix to a shilling the amount of their weekly bills. Such meanness are some people guilty of, that they live upon a sum that would not keep my boy in tarts. I am certain that our neighbors take ice but every other day in the summer, and if the milk they buy is not swill-fed, then I am no judge. The steaks are not porter-house, but rump-steaks. Last Saturday night I saw Pater-familias bring home a smoked shoulder,—not aham, because that is much dearer; and—will it be believed?—the bonnets the girls wear are revamped from those of last year. Young Threadpaper dances attendance upon them, and I am sure of all low things a man milliner is the lowest. Two weeks ago Pater-familias rode down town with me, and I saw upon his shoe an immense patch, while his hat was so shiny, with frequent caressings from a silk handkerchief, that it seemed to be varnished and polished.

His clothes are very unfashionable, too. He is invariably a year behind the style; and how can one respect a person who does not wear garments of the prevalent cut?

There must be something mysterious about this man. If there is, I am the one to ferret it out. Let me see. His manner is reticent. From this I deduce the fact that he has at some time been a convict. All men who have been incarcerated are just so quiet. I was once in a jail in Massachusetts, with other persons, and one poor fellow, taking advantage of our presence, whispered to his neighbor, whereat the jailer swore awfully, and punished him; but the rest were very quiet, just like my neighbor. It is certainly suspicious.

He is economical, too. Ah! that follows quite naturally. Remorse has seized him, and he is now endeavoring to pay off his indebtedness, or do something else which I cannot fathom just now; thus making his family suffer doubly for his misdeed.

O, I cry in the pride of my heart, truly "the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children," and I not only fix the nature of my neighbor's transgression, but the very jail in which he was incarcerated.

Fool and blind that I am! If I had but a tithe of that intuition I boast, I might have discerned that my neighbor was one of those rare individuals we sometimes read of in tracts, but seldom meet in the flesh,—one of those heroes who fight daily battles with trial, temptation, suffering, and privation in many shapes, that he may live honorably before men, and leave a heritage of honor to his children when he goeth to his long home. I might have seen that this man worked early and late without complaint, that he might pay debts his dead father incurred for his education, and that the poor decrepit old lady whom no physician can cure is his mother. She costs him a pretty penny for her support, I warrant me, and accuses him in her dotage with harboring a desire to get rid of her. What wonder if he is reticent to the world? Look in his eye. It is the eye of an honest man. Take his hand. 'T is a true palm, and many a beggar shall be refused at Dives's door, but not at his.

But he is poor; he looks downcast. Come, let us beslime him with the breath of suspicion. Let us gossip about him. Let us look askance at him, and direct our children to avoid his,—when they play their little hour, to run swiftly past that wretched abode of silence.

Silence! said I. Ah! that is a queer silence which reigns in my neighbor's dwelling. When he comes to his family there are shouts and laughter, and rosy-mouthed roisterers stand ready to pillage the plethoric pockets laden to the flaps with bananas and oranges he has starved himself to procure. I do not hear that he discusses his neighbor's affairs, or that he distils into his oolong one drop of bitter scandal by way of flavor. Nay, I am certain thatI might lose five hundred dollars per diem, and the world would be none the wiser through him.

So much for externals.

How sharply we see things which have no existence! How quickly we discern faults in our neighbors, but how slow we are to find out our own!

Now I look at it, there is a grievous rent in my neighbor's doublet; but look at mine own. How it fits! Is it not immaculate? I have a suit of character in which I am triply armed,—a coat of mail of reputation which I defy slander to pierce. The man who wrote

"He that is down need fear no fall,He that is up no pride,He that is humble ever shallHave God to be his guide,"

knew nothing about human nature. I fancy I could teach that genius a thing or two. The springs of human action are not concealed to me. Ah, no! I see them all, in my own conceit, and no mean motive of other people escapes me.

But how shall my neighbor fare at my hands in argument? Well, I trust, if he agree with me. That is, provided he sees things as I do. If he sees the shield to be gold, and I see it so also, what sagacity he has! what judgment! "A man of fine talents," I say to my son. "See that you emulate him. Mark how quickly he grasps the same points that I did,—with what nice discrimination he avoids irrelevant matters, and treats only the main idea." Next to myself, I say in my heart, there is no one but my neighbor who could have solved this riddle so quickly.

But let him dare to disagree with me,—let him say the shield is gold when I say it is silver, or brass if I like,—and what depth of stultification is too deep for him,—what pit of error too dark for him to stumble in? He is a sophisticator, a casuist; he chases every paltry side-issue until his brains are so muddled that he cannot tell what he does think; he is a mole, an owl, a bat; he is a blockhead, to boot.

What! differ fromme?—the idiot! I say the shieldissilver; how can it be gold? Is it not white? doth it not glisten? hath it not lustre? what else can it be?

My neighbor suggests sportively that it is tin; whereupon I impugn my neighbor's good-sense; and that is a logical conclusion of the controversy. It does not occur to me that a man may differ in opinion from his fellows, and yet not be a convicted felon or a disturber of the peace. His views are his; foolish, perhaps, from my standpoint; yet, because he is not so wise as I, is he any the less entitled to courtesy, to consideration and charity,—is he the less a fond father, a patriot, or an honorable man? Why insist that of all the world I am sagest and always right?

Why shall I break the images men set up? Iconoclast that I am, reflection would show me what long years ago my copy-book told me,Humanum est errare,—and that violence, intolerance, and discourtesy are poor weapons to fight prejudice and bigotry with. Come! let us throw them aside hereafter; let none be persecuted or derided in social circles for their opinions' sake. There are more forcible arguments than vituperation and personality, and if we cannot convince, let us be content.

The world is made for all. When my Uncle Toby took the fly and let him out, he did as men should to others who differ in opinion. Go! I say to the sceptic, the world is wide enough for thee and me.

At the commencement of this paper, I said it was no mystery where the disconsolate came from,—society made them; and I reassert it as my conviction that the supply is far ahead of the demand. I say too many in society are hollow and false, and not true to themselves, nor to the instinct planted in every human breast.

By word or deed I convey to myvis-à-visin the crowdedsalonmy opinion that our host's daughter is a failure; the money spent upon her education is thrown away. She has no air, no manner,no tone. Myvis-à-visunderstands me, and, taking her cue, goes to the cherished of her heart, and straightway repeats the slander, and we smile and smile and are villains.

"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, saith the Preacher," and I say after him, Is there nothing but nettles in the world's garden,—nothing but noxious weeds? Have we no traits and sentiments which are lofty and ennobling? Why cannot we see these and talk about them? But whoever went to a party where the guests talked of virtue?

Here is Straitlace. His wife is in the country; he will therefore bear watching. Come! let us invent and suppose, let us pry and peek. Ah, ha! I see a letter,—abillet-doux, a delicately scented one, and he is so close to me in the cars that, by the merest accident I assure you, I am able to read the beginning,—"Dearest of my soul."

There, that is quite enough. Dearest of her soul, indeed! Do wives begin letters in that way? Not many. Shocking! Dreadful! And then my comrades and I roll the sweet morsel under our tongues, when, after all, the model husband was only reading his model wife's letter.

Or look at this phase of uncharitableness. What a happy faculty my countrymen have for finding out each other's business. I move into some country village, where a small but select community meet and agitate various topics for the moral regeneration of all. I am from the city, and therefore have some ways easily noticed. I am unquestionably "stuck up," and am hardly settled in my place before a tea-party is held, not to do me honor, but to sit in inquest upon me and my family.

Are our virtues discussed at the inquest? Have we any good qualities? Are we not almost outcasts? How we drawl our words, for example. We wear white skirts, when balmorals are good enough for most folks. We starve our children, too, because they get only bread and milk for tea, and no pies or cakes. In short, how very far below our neighbors we are in social standing!

Go to, ye shallow dissemblers, retailers of scandal, disturbers of the peace! Leaveusin peace, and possess your souls in patience. We are human, and frail even as you are. We have faults and virtues. Why not extend the hand of friendship to us? Why not be courteous, instead of making us detest your presence,—instead of souring our tempers, and making us feel as though every one's hand was against us?

There is that Abigail, whom I have often seen lounging at the next door below. She snuffeth scandal from afar. She heareth the whisperings and innuendoes of them that traffic in reputations, and she loseth little time ere she adorns the secret meetings of the conspirators with her presence. Away with her to the scaffold! she is chiefest among the malefactors. Offer her up a sacrifice to charity, and let none say nay!

Suppose I stand by when the tale-bearer begins his monotonous song, what am I to lose by keeping silent, as he tears my neighbor to pieces?

There were two maidens, saith the fable, one of whom was lovely to look upon, while the other was plain; but when the former spake, toads and serpents fell from her lips, while from the unlovely lips came diamonds and pearls. I know which I should have wooed, and I hope won, for I value more a quiet life than false lips and a tongue that speaketh lies.

"Speech is silvern, but silence is golden." I shall be silent when the detractor begins his tale.

"Teach me to hide the faults I see,And feel for others' woe,"

saith the poet, and, though he may be accused of uttering a platitude, I subscribe to it. I am willing to forgive and forget, instead of enlarging upon all the flaws, all the weaknesses, of human nature. I shall not thunder on the roof of some hapless wretch who has stumbled, fallen by the wayside, and cry, "Come out! come out! thou villain, anddo penance for thy sin." I will rather give him my hand and help him arise. I will set him up again, and I will back him against all takers that he never slips again.

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin," saith another poet; but he meant good, not bad nature, for he knew full well how to set communities by the ears with his sharp sayings.

To-day it is the sister against her brother, the son against his father, and the world is so full of evil, if we might believe the scandal-mongers, that no good will ever exist again in it.

"Let those who dance pay the piper," says Worldly-mindedness, and he chuckles as he says it for a sharp thing. But there are some who like dancing that have not the wherewithal, and to those I offer my purse. If a man fall down, I am not going to jump upon his back and jeer him. He has danced, and cannot pay now; but what of that? Some day he will.

Here is one hand and one heart that shall never betray. Come to me, ye scandal-torn and society-ridden. Come to me, ye whom venomous tongues have harried, and ye whose characters hang in shreds about you, come also. Ye have faults, and so have I. Somewhere ye have good traits, and these are what I respect.

Let us defy the "they-says," and as for those whose shibboleth is, "I have it upon good authority," we will give them the go-by.

We will laugh to see the tribulation of them that sit in council, and hold foul revelry over their neighbors' shortcomings; they shall read of our resolutions, and there shall be no comfort in the cup of tea any more which Tabbies sip delectably, while they tear Miss Bright-eyes to pieces. There shall lurk a maggot in the shreds of dried beef which these modern ghouls rend, as they rend my fair name; and may the biscuits be as heavy upon their stomachs as tale-bearing shall one day be upon their consciences.

Thou shalt not bear false witness.

If I am unlike you, gentle reader, guiltless of this crying sin, I know you will not condemn me, will not decry me, make little of me, or seek to poison men's minds against me. You will have that charity for me which is not puffed up; and where I err, or you are ignorant of my motive, hold your peace.

To-day there are dear ones in exile, or in the bonds of sin, for this very practice. There are lives hopelessly lost to virtue, and others imbittered forever. Families are separated, and high hopes and aspirations crushed, while the fountains of affection which should be filled to the brim afford only a trickling stream, or, worse still, foul lees which never will subside. There are shadows in many homes, and empty chairs that never will be filled. The child on the floor misses its playfellow, the wife her husband, the mother her son, the betrothed her lover, and still the tale-bearers go upon their rounds, and their feet never, never rest.

There lived a few years ago in one of the small seaport towns of New England a solitary, friendless man, of the name of John Chidlaw,—a gray-headed, stoop-shouldered, hollow-chested person of about fifty years of age at the time our story begins. He was sober, steady, and industrious, and always had been so since his first appearance in the place, but somehow he never got ahead. He was thriftless, people used to say, and they got in the habit of calling him "Johnny," and then "Old Johnny," until nobody called him anything else, unless it were here and there some poor child or sympathetic woman, who said "Uncle Johnny," with that sort of gentle kindness that is never bestowed on the prosperous.

He did not resent anything, even pity, but took his hard fortune as a matter of course, and the heavier the burden, why, the more he bent his shoulders, but he did not complain. Nobody had ever asked his history,—the history of a man who has patches at his knees, and whose elbows are out, is not, by those more fortunate persons who have no patches at their knees, and whose elbows are not out, generally supposed to be of an interesting character. John Chidlaw was, therefore, never bothered with questions.

Could he lift a heavy log? Could he tend a saw-mill? Could he drive a team, or carry a hod of bricks? These, and the like, were the questions that were asked him mostly; and as he could say yes to any and all of these, and as people did not require him to say more, he seldom did say more, but lifted the log, or drove the team, as the case might be, in silence.

He looked a good deal older than he was,—not that his head was so gray, and not that his shoulders bent so much, but the rather that there was an utter absence of buoyancy, an indurated and inflexible style and expression about the whole man, as if, in fact, he had been born old. You could not think of him as having ever been a boy, with cherry cheeks, and laughing eyes, and steps that were careless and fleet as the wind, but he had had his boyhood and his boyhood's dream, as will appear by and by.

It had happened to him at one time that a saw had gone into his hand, and left a jagged and ugly scar across the back; another time it had happened that his horse had run away, upsetting his cart, and breaking one of his legs, so that he limped thereafter, and was disabled from some of the harder kinds of work he had been used to do. He had been dismissed by one and another, in consequence of his inability to make a full day's work, and was sitting one day on a pile of bricks in the outer edge of the town where he lived, quite down-hearted, and chewing, not the cud of sweet and bitter fancies, but, instead thereof, a bit of pine stick, which he held partly in and partly out of his mouth.

His eyes looked solemnly out from under his gray eyebrows as now and then a whistling teamster drove by, throwing a whole cloud of hot, suffocating dust over him. Sometimes a pedler, or some stroller with a monkey on his shoulder and an organ on his back, would nod to him as he passed; but the pedler did not think of exhibiting his wares, nor the organman of grinding out a tune, or of setting his monkey to playing tricks, for the like of old Johnny. The sun was growing large toward the setting, and nothing had turned up, when all at once there was a wild whirl of wheels, and a crying and shouting and holding up of hands by all the men andboys along the road. A horse was running away. On he came, galloping furiously, while the old heavy-topped buggy to which he was attached rattled and creaked and swayed from side to side frightfully,—frightfully, because it was in imminent danger of being crushed all to pieces; and sitting still and solemnly upright, swaying with the buggy, and in imminent danger of being crushed to pieces too, was a child,—a beautiful little girl, with a cloud of yellow curls rippling down her bare shoulders. Her white dress fluttered in the wind, and her hat was swimming on the pond half a mile in the rear; but still she sat, sober and quiet as though she had been on her mother's knees, and not so much as puckering her pretty lip for all the tumult and fright.

A dozen men were in the road, some with rails in their arms, with which they no doubt intended to intercept the mad creature; but the best intentions fail sometimes, and the men with rails in their arms threw them down, and got themselves out of the way, as soon as the danger came near them.

John Chidlaw went into the road among the rest, but without a rail in his arms. He did not, however, get himself out of the way,—not he. He threw himself with might and main upon the neck of the frightened beast, and there he held, and was dragged along,—half the time, as it seemed, under his very feet.

"That's you, Johnny!" "Go it!" "Good for you!" were the cheers and calls of encouragement that followed him. The horse was valuable, and he was in danger of breaking his neck; and what matter about John Chidlaw! He had no friends!

He required not to be thus stimulated, if they had but known it: he had been stimulated sufficiently already, by the tossing hair and fair face of the little girl, to peril his life, and he was not the man to look back when he had his hand to the plough.

The blood besmeared his face, and streamed down his neck, and wet his shirt-bosom and sleeves, and still the voices cried, "Hold on, Johnny!" They thought he was being battered to death, though the blood was from the mouth of the horse, for the entire weight of the man was being dragged by the bit.

At the toll-gate an old woman ran out with a broom,—she could have shut the gate, but did not,—and when Johnny had stopped the horse, which he did a little farther on, she told him that but for his being in the way she could have stopped the beast at once, and that, if he was as badly battered as he seemed, she would be at the pains of getting the poor-house cart, and seeing that he was carted away! The old carriage was surrounded in a few minutes, and the child lifted out, and kissed and coaxed, and petted and praised, and fed with candies and cakes, and handed from the arms of one to another; and the feet and legs of the horse were carefully examined, and he was dashed with cool water, and combed and rubbed, and petted and patted, and given a variety of either grand or endearing names; but nobody looked after Johnny, and the only kindness shown him was that of the old woman with the broom.

But even Fortune tires of frowning at last, and the time of her relenting toward John Chidlaw was at hand.

He was washing the blood from his face in a wayside puddle, when the man who owned the horse and buggy came breathlessly up. "My good friend," he said, slapping him on the shoulder, "you have saved my child's life!" And then his hand slipped from shoulder to waist, and he positively hugged the astonished Johnny, who was almost awe-struck at first, for the hugger was well to do, and he that was hugged was exceeding poor, as the reader knows.

"My name," he said, introducing himself, "is Hilton, David Hilton, and I keep the ferry at the lower end of the town; should n't wonder if I could put business in your way! You canturn your hand to a'most anything, I reckon,—a man of your build mostly can."

A fortnight later, and John Chidlaw was the master of a little black sailboat not much bigger than a canoe, and his business was to carry butchers' meat, bread, poultry, and vegetables from the market-town in which he lived to the great hotels situated on the hills above the opposite shore. His boat had, therefore, in his eyes, somewhat the dignity of a merchantman; and as he was entitled to a part of the profits of the trade he carried on, he was at once a proud and a happy man. He had christened his boat "The Rose Rollins," and kept her as neat and trim as she could be. He wore a sailor's jacket, from professional pride, and used all the nautical phrases he could muster. His shoulders got the better of their stoop, and his chest of its hollowness, in a wonderfully short time; and one day, when he was asked about the scar on his hand, he answered that he had been bitten by a whale when he was a young man at sea. It will be perceived that he was gaining confidence, and growing in worldly wisdom. The questioner was a very timid person, but she said she guessed she could trust herself with an old sailor like that, and at once went aboard. She was a milliner, laden with boxes for the ladies in the opposite hotels, and was the first female passenger the master of the Rose had had;—for his legitimate trade was merchandise, and not the transportation of men and women; but occasionally, as his confidence grew, he had taken a passenger or two across the ferry, on his own hook, as he phrased it.

"I took such a wiolent fancy to the name o' your wessel," says the milliner, "and that is how I come to take passage with you. Ain't she a nice little thing, though?"

"Trim as a gal o' sixteen!" says John. "But had n't you better unlade yourself o' your merchandise, and fix to enjoy the sail some?"—and he began taking the boxes from her lap.

"O sir, you 're wery good!" says the milliner, quite blushing. And then she adjusted her skirts, and flirted them about as she adjusted them, and then she untied her bonnet-strings and knotted them up again, for nothing in the world but the pleasure of tying knots in ribbon apparently; but John Chidlaw thought he had never in his life seen such a graceful and enchanting performance. He brought his jacket directly, and offered to spread it over the board on which she was sitting.

"Oh, you 're wery good, wery good, I am sure, sir,—but I 'm a-givin' you too much trouble!"—and, saying so, she partly rose and allowed the seat to be cushioned as proposed. The wind caught the bright ribbons, and fluttered them in the man's face as he was thus employed.

"Oh!" says the milliner, with a little start; and then she says, "The nasty winds have such a wulgar way of catchin' up a body's things"; and she pulls back the innocent strings and holds them against her bosom by main force.

"Pray, miss, don't haul 'em round that way on my account; they did n't hurt me none! Why, I thought 't was a butterfly at fust, and then I thought 't was a hummin'-bird, and them was allers pleasin' things to me, both on 'em."

The woman was flattered. In the first place she was not young,—not much younger than he, in fact,—and he had addressed her as "miss"; and in the next place his comparing her ribbons to butterflies and humming-birds seemed the same as a personal compliment.

"O Captain!" she says, coloring up, "did you think so, werily?"—and then she changes the subject, and talks about the appearance of the clouds, and the prospect of rain. "I suppose you old sailors can tell, purty much," she says, "whether it 's a-goin' to rain, or whether the clouds will ewaporate intomist; and I should really walue your judgment, for if my things should git wet, you see, it would cost me a wery considerable sum!"

"I'll just take an obserwation!" says John; and he set his foot on a bread-basket, and cocked up one eye. He had never given the sound ofwto hisvbefore, but he had noticed that his fair passenger did so, and he adopted the pronunciation, partly in gallantry, partly because it struck him as elegant. While he was taking the observation, a bright thought came to him. "I guess we shall have foul weather afore long," says he. "When the clouds hev sich disjinted shapes as they hev this mornin', it 's generally portentous; but I can knock up a canvas kiver in a minute, and if it still looks like fur rain when we go into port, why, I would adwise you just to stay aboard,—it sha'n't cost you a cent more, not if you make a dozen trips!"

"I 'm sure I 'm wery much obliged, Captain, and I 'll take your adwice when we come to port, and if the weather still looks wacillating, I won't wenter ashore. It would n't be worth while to risk my goods,—some of 'em welwets, too, of great walue!"

"The keepin' on 'em aboard sha'n't cost you nothin'," says John, "if that 'll be any object to you."

He wished to convey the idea, that, to a person of her fabulous wealth, dealing in velvets and the like, a fare more or less could not possibly be an object, and at the same time to show a magnanimous disposition on his own part.

"Money is money," says the milliner, "there is no denying of that; and it has its adwantages, on account o' which I set a certain walue upon it; but just for its own sake I can't say that I do walue it,—not over and above!"

"I hev n't hed no great on 't," says John, "but I 've hed enough, sense I 've come into business, to know that if I hed to keep it a-chinkin' into my pocket I should n't value it much."

Then he corrected himself, and saidwalue.

"I 'll tell you how money is waluable to me," says the milliner, "if I may wenter so far?"

"Most certainly!" exclaimed John. "You could n't venter nothin' that would n't be to your credit,—I 'll vouch a fippenny bit on that!"

Then he repeated himself, substitutingwenter, andwouch, in the places of the words previously used.

"Dear me! I should become wain o' myself if I thought your compliment was walid," says the milliner, dropping her eyes; but the next moment she gives her bonnet-strings a little flirt, and goes on in the sprightliest way about a hundred trifles,—one of which had no connection with another.

"You 've forgot what you sot out on!" says John, interrupting her at last; "and you kerried me away so, I was a-forgittin' on 't too. Howsever, it 's no odds, as I know on,—you make whatever you touch so interestin'!"

"O Captain! how you do warnish me up! I shall certainly wacate the premises when we come to port, if you don't stop sich things!—that is, if there's a single westige o' clear sky. But we were talking of the walue of money, was n't we?" She cast down her eyes again, and spoke with a sweet seriousness. "I walue money," she says, "when I see I can make another happy with it." And then she says her lot in life has been a wery lonely and sad one,—wersatile, but on the whole lonely, sometimes to the wery werge of despair!

"You don't say?" says John. "I certainly should n't 'a' thought it possible! Why, you don't mean to say you 've allers been alone in the world?"

Then she tells him how she thought she fell in love, at seventeen, with a green-grocer that turned out to be a miserable wagabond, inwesting all her earnings in whiskey and rum, and drinking them himself.

"The villain!" cried John;—and then, finding that he had not done justice to his feelings, he repeated, with great stress of indignation, "The willain! the black-hearted willain! Buthe never dared to lay violent—wiolent, I mean—hands onto you!"

"Dear me, how my heart wibrates!" says the woman,—"not so much with the memory of what I have suffered as that—that anybody should manifest such a—such a wery kind feeling toward me now!"

"How anybody that seen you should 'a' helpt from doin' on 't," says the boatman, "is awful curus to me!"

"Law mercy, how selfish I am, never offering you a seat all this while!" says the artful woman. And she hitched along, and smoothed out the jacket.

"Well, whatever your trouble 's been," says John, "I hope your red on 't!"

It was an ingenious method of saying he hoped the vagabond was out of the way.

He turned toward her as he spoke, and the wind once more fluttered the gay ribbons in his face. She lifted her hand to draw them back. "Don't you be a-mindin' on 'em," says John; "they're just as sweet as rose-leaves, and I like to hev em a-blowin' over me so."

You may smile, reader, if you will, but you would not smile if you had seen the soul yearning in the eyes of the man, if you had heard the pleading in the sad sincerity of his tone. He was fifty years old now, and I dare say a woman's ribbon had never touched him till then. He was wrinkled and gray, and old to look upon, but his heart in its tender sentiment was as fresh and young as a boy's.

So, with the ribbons fluttering on his cheek, and his boat drifting as it would, John Chidlaw listened to the story of the woman's life, and as Desdemona loved the Moor for the dangers he had passed, so he loved her for the sorrows she had borne.

"Yes, Captain," she says, "my troubles is over now, pretty much. I've been a widder this ten year,"—(he hitched a little closer,)—"I 've been a widder, and I 've had peace o' mind, and I 've laid up money; but, law me when a body has nobody to lay up for, what 's the use?"

"Sure enough, what is the use on 't?" says John.

"Why, it's no use," she answers; "it's wanity and wexation! that's what it is!"

"Wanity and wexation!" he repeats.

And then she says, if anybody had ever showed a warm heart toward her, she 'd 'a' been a different woman to what she is.

"A different woman!" says John. "How different to what you be?" He could not conceive of the possibility of a difference for the better.

"Why, I would 'a' been ten year younger and ten year smarter," says the widow, "and then may be somebody might 'a' took a notion to me! Who knows? We women never cease to hope, you know!"

"And hev n't they, as 't is?" says John, eagerly bending toward her.

"What a saucy Captain you are, to ask me such questions!"—and she put him gently back with her white hand. "But here we are almost ashore!"—and she began gathering up her band-boxes and paper parcels with great energy.

"I thought you said you was a-goin' to take my advice?" says John, with a soft reproach in his voice.

"Did I? O, then I will!" she answers, with the most innocent air possible, and leaning quite across his knee to replace one of her boxes. "What is your adwice, now? But you must bear in mind the walue of the welwets. I 've one bonnet in the lot, of a wermilion color, that's worth a wast deal; and you know welwet, when it 's once wet, looks just like a drownded cat. No dressing can make anything of it. Some ladies wears it, butmyladies does n't."

"I never knew clouds look like them," says John, "when it did n't pour; and, if you take my adwice, you 'll stay just where you be."

"I 'll take your adwice," says the widow, touching his hand lightly with her soft fingers, and smiling upon him with that unpremeditated coquetry that always makes a woman charming. It was especially charming to this man,for no woman had ever smiled upon him like that; and then to think she had asked and accepted his advice, withal! It was enough to turn his head, and it did.

"I'll take your adwice, Captain," she says, "and keep the welwets dry, for it would cost a pretty penny to replace that wermilion, to be sure! I shall lose some time by it; and time is money. But what 's money but wanity and wexation, when nobody has a warm heart toward us?"

John Chidlaw sighed a long, long sigh, and then he turned his boat about and they sailed back again. By and by, as if to push him toward his fate, there flashed down a few big drops of rain. The sun was shining all the while, but he bestirred himself, and worked with a will, and the widow lent her little hindering help, and directly the canvas was spread and securely drawn down, and they were sitting beneath it, side by side, cosey as could be. She became more communicative now, and told him in what street she was born and who her father was.

"What! not —— Street, of our town here? And your father's name Peter Rollins, too?"

"Yes, Peter Rollins, coffin-maker, satin-lined and silver-screwed! The wery tiptop. None but quality come to him. When I was a little girl, I used to get into 'em, when we played hide and seek. Why, if you believe me, I 've been into many a hundred-dollar one, and had my head into the satin piller of it! That's the way I happened to cultiwate a taste for satins and welwets and the like, I guess."

She did not heed the intimation of her companion that he had known her father, but went on for half an hour without once stopping to take breath.

"Ah, Captain," she says, "I 've been dethroned in the world! I was born to riches and a proud position, but I married beneath me, a poor green-grocer that turned out a wagabond; and in my trials with him, I lost all my good looks; for I may say, without wanity, that I was good-looking in my girlish days, and lost all my wiwacity, and come to be the sober, staid old woman you see me."

"Old woman, to be sure!" says John. "Why, nobody would think o' callin' you old. You look a'most like a girl o' sixteen to me!"

"O Captain!" says the widow; and then she says his sight must be failing, though his eyes do look so uncommon bright; and then she says, with a little sigh, that she is upwards of forty.

She had observed John's wrinkled face, and her confession was not without method, though she might have added five to the forty years, if she had chosen to be very accurate.

"Up'ards o' forty!" says John, charmed alike with her sincerity and her well-preserved beauty. "Why, I snum, you might marry a man o' twenty-five any day, if you had a mind."

"Ah, Captain, but I have n't the mind. I want a man—that is, if I ever wenter to marry agin—who is older than myself,—say from ten to fifteen year older. I would n't be so wery particular." And then she says to John,—for a possibility crosses her mind,—"Does your family live hereabouts?"

John blushed up to his eyes. "Family!" says he. "I never was so fortinate as to hev one."

"Not even a wife, to be sure?"

"No, miss." And then he says he never expects to hev one.

"Law, Captain, why? if I may wenter."

"Cause nobody 'd hev me, miss; and to say truth, I never thought on 't much till sense we 've been a-takin' this voyage"; and he glanced at her slyly, and touched the ends of her ribbon.

"And what could 'a' put it into your head now, Captain Chidlaw?"

"Can you ask me that in airnest?" says John, still holding the ribbons as for dear life. "Then I must tell you to just look into the glass, and you 'll see what."

"O Captain, you ought to be ashamed to plague a poor lone woman like methat way; it 's wery bad of you, wery, and I 've a great mind to box your ears!" and she put out her little hand to him in a sweetly menacing manner.

John seized the hand and kissed it, and then, frightened at himself, ran to the other end of the boat and looked hard at the clouds.

"O, come back! come back!" screamed the widow; "the boat 'll upset, with me at one end and you at the other!"

"Sure enough!" says John, and he went sheepishly back, and again seated himself by her side.

She gave him a little tap on the ear, and asked him if he would promise never to run away and frighten her so again.

John said he would promise her anything in the world that was in his power to grant; and he looked at her with such adoration that the woman overcame the coquette, or the coquette the woman,—which shall I say?—and she went as far from the "dangerous edge of things" as possible, and told him demurely that the only promise she exacted was, that he should listen to the long and techin' story of her life. It all came back upon her, and she felt as if she must tell it to somebody. "May be, though, you don't want to hear it?" says she.

"May be I don't want to hear it! How can you?" says John, edging up. And she began:—

"I told you, Captain, that I had been dethroned, and I have,—wilely dethroned, and brought low, by my own woluntary act."

"Dear heart!" says John, "so much the worse, if it was woluntary, so few pities you."

"Ah, that 's it," says the widow; "nobody pities me,—nobody in the wide world has got a warm heart toward me." She broke quite down, and the tears came to her eyes.

"What may your name be?" says John, seizing both her hands and gazing tenderly in her face.

"Why do you ask? I 'm but a transient wisitor to your boat; you can't have no interest in me; and, besides, my name is hateful to me."

"But I must call you somethin'!"

"Well, then, inwent a name. My maiden name reminds me of the royal hours when my father's position gave me rank, and before the wicissitudes of fortune brought me low; I cannot therefore consent to be called by that; and my married name is the name of a wagabond, and I despise it. O sir, inwent a name, for mercy's sake!"

"I 'll inwent it for love's sake," says John, slipping his arm round her waist, and drawing her close to him; "and I 'll call you my dove, coz you see you 've got all the timidity and gentleness o' that lovely bird, and your voice is sweeter than the turtle's, I 'm sure."

"O Captain, my woice is n't a nice woice now-a-days,—my woice went with the rest of my attractions when I was dethroned. I had a nice woice once. If we could have met then!"

"My dove!" says John, "whatever your woice hes ben, I would n't hev it no sweeter than what it is now; it kerries me back to the years that hed hope in 'em,—the years when I was a boy, and in love."

"Say no more," says the widow; "my heart already tells me that you love another,"—and she began to pout.

"Lord bless us!" says John; "our boat is aground. I was so took up with you, Rose, that I did n't see she was driftin' down stream, and here we be, high and dry, and a storm a-comin' on; but you can't blame me so ha'shly, my dear Rose, as what I blame myself. Can you forgive me?"

"Forgive you?" cries the widow, reproachfully. "Can you forget that I am an undertaker's daughter?"

This speech did not convey any very clear meaning to the mind of John Chidlaw; but he attributed that to his own dulness, and as this struck him as being very great, somehow or other, though he could not tell how, he bowed his head in shamefaced silence.

In spite of what he had said about being in love in his youth, the widow took great courage. He had said "ourboat" instead of "my boat," and he had called her Rose,—her real name,—how should he know that? She could not tell, but somehow she augured favorably from it; besides, they were aground, and must wait for the rising of the tide, and in the intervening time who knew what might be done? She would tell all her story; and its pathos, she fancied, must subjugate the most obdurate heart.

"Yes," she renewed, "I am, or rather was, an undertaker's daughter, with the most brilliant prospects before me that ever allured a wile wagabond of a fortune-hunter, for such he was who stole me from the satin pillers my young head had played among, and give me a piller of husks, and cold wittles, and wulgar lodgings."

"The wretch!" cries John. "The wile wretch! if he yet lived, I would wow myself to wengeance!" And, like Jacob of old, he lifted up his voice and wept.

"Don't take on so," says the widow. "I would not cause you a moment's sorrow for the world."

"To think any man should have abused the like o' you!" says John. "But surely he never laid wiolent hands ont' you? I think I shall lose my senses if you say that."

"Then I won't say it," says the widow, tenderly stroking his hand.

"That touch is wivifying," says John; "so, dear Rose, you may go on and tell the wust on 't."

Then the widow came to the worst; for after all the trials she had with the old wagabond, she said, she could have put up with him but for one nasty habit,—he walked into his sleep! "And now a man that walks into his sleep," says she, "is a trial and a torment to his wife which there is no tongue can tell it."

"Ah, to be sure," says John, "you ought to hev been divorced, and to have recovered big damages into the bargain. To think that the willain dared to walk into his sleep, and frighten a poor timid dove like you! But the hearts o' some does seem manufactured o' flints, and his'n was one on 'em, I guess."

"Yes, as you say wisely, some is flint," says the widow; "but then some is n't!" And she dropped her eyes, and gave his hand a confiding little squeeze. And then she says that, once married, diworce is n't got for the asking,—"you are tied for good and all." And then she says, that brings her to the p'int.

"To be dethroned was bad enough," says she; "and then to see my royal dowery conwerted into whiskey, which it was dewoured by him, the same being took continual; but what was most intolerable of all was that he walked into his sleep! I tried every way to contrawene the wile habit that could be inwented. I coaxed and I scolded, and I got up late, and I give him hot winegar with a little whiskey into it,—he would swaller anything that had a drop of whiskey into it,—and I prewailed on him to sing psalms, and, that failing, I prewailed onto him to inwest into a wiolin and play onto that till late into the midnight, thinking by that means his witality would be exhausted, and he would lie into his bed like any other man; but lo and behold! he inwested into the wiolin a-Monday, and a-Monday night he played till along towards ten o'clock, and I got clean wore out, and, says I, 'Do leave off playing onto that wiolin,' says I, 'for my head aches like all possess'; and with that he up and went to bed, and after a while I hears something fingering the latch, and I riz onto my elbow, and says, in a whisper, 'Dan'l, there 's a man a-trying to break in, as sure as you 're alive!' He did n't answer, and thinks says I, the wiolin has done it, and he is a-sleeping with a wengeance, and then I feels along, and says I, 'Dan'l, Dan'l!' but still no answer; then I felt for the piller, and there was no head onto it, and I scraped a match, and it went out, and I scraped another, and it went out, and I scraped another, and a leetle blue flame just started and flickered, and before I could see what it was a-fumbling at the door,itwentout. Thinks says I, I 'll make sure work now; and I took two of the nasty things into my hand and scraped so hard I crushed them all up together, and they flashed out and seared my finger-ends and burnt a hole into my nightgownd-sleeve, and, seeing I was like to burn up, I slapped my arm with all my might, and at last I slapped the flame down, and at last, by persewerance, I slapped it out; and yet I had n't seen a thing, but I could feel the hole into my nightgownd-sleeve, and my arm all burnt into a light blister. 'Dan'l!' says I again; but Dan'l did n't answer, and then I was full sure it was him, and I scraped with a steadier hand, and the match—it was one of them nasty lucifers, may be you know—"

"Yes, I 've heerd tell on 'em," says John.

And the wretched woman went on: "It was one of them nasty lucifers, and it choked me so I could not find the candle; and though I could just see a ghostly object at the door, I could not tell at all whether it was Dan'l or not, for he never looked like himself when he walked into his sleep; and the match—they are nothing but splinters, you know—was burning closer and closer to my fingers, and I just dabs it wiolently into the washbowl, and puts it out. And then says I, 'Dan'l! Dan'l!' again; and this time he answers, and says he, 'You wixen,' says he, 'shut up your mouth!'

"There was no mistaking that, and all in the dark I wentered after him, and grabbed and ketched him by the end of his neck-tie, and hild with all my might; and at that he began to wociferate at the top of his woice, and, thinks says I, better than rouse all the neighbors and have them broke o' their rest, I 'll just let him go and walk into his sleep till he 's satisfied. I took the key out of the door, and then I tried to find my way back, for, thinks says I, I 'll retire and take my rest anyhow, and, if you believe it, I was so turned round I could n't find the piller! So I went feeling here and there, and every minute I come back to him, and every time I touched him he wociferated at the top of his woice; and then I 'd say, 'Dan'l, it was n't woluntary!' and then I 'd feel and feel by the chairs and the wall, and by one thing and another, as a body will when they can't see, and the first thing I 'd know I 'd be right back to him agin. My blistered arm, meantime, was a-burning like fire, but, thinks says I, it 's no use, I can 't find the water-pitcher, I 'm so turned round; and I just sot down where I was, and there I sot till daylight, blowing all my breath away onto my arm, and the minute I could see I made for the pitcher; but, happening to take it by the snout instead of the handle, away it went, and spilt all the water, and broke the pitcher past all mending,—and a fine pitcher, too!—one that my own father give me in cholera times, when his business was at the best."

"I declare," says John Chidlaw, "it 's enough to make a body's blood run cold!" And then he says he does n't wonder she 's agin matrimony!

Now the widow had said nothing of the sort, and stoutly protested that she had not, but that, on the contrary, she thought it an adwantage to any woman to be married, prowided she could find an indiwidual that had a warm heart toward her; to which John replied that she had found such a one; and she answered, "How you do go on!" and resumed her story.

"Well, a-Tuesday night he took to the wiolin again, and played and played and played and played all the old dancing tunes in creation, and I sot by and never said a word till 'leven o'clock come, and then till twelve o'clock come, and then till one o'clock come, and then till two o'clock come, and at last, thinks says I, my brain will go wild, and says I, 'Dan'l, I ain't a bit sleepy, but I do feel some as if I could go to sleep if you 'd just keep on a-playing; I 've got kind o' used to it, and I don't believe I can go to sleep without it.' With this he flung thewiolin into the cradle,—my father had presented me with a cradle that he had made out of some boards that had been used once and rejected on account of knots, but just as good, you know,—and then he flounced into bed, and he never walked into his sleep that night!"

"You cunnin' little thing!" cries John, overcome with her smartness, and hugging her close. "Who but you would ever 'a' thought on 't? Such a sleek deception!"

"Well, a-Wednesday night he would n't touch his wiolin, and that night, or rather along towards morning, he walked into his sleep, and a-Thursday night he would n't play a stroke agin; in wain I put the wiolin into his sight; and that night he just dewoted himself to walking,—making himself wisible to the neighbors, even. So thinks says I, this won't do; and a-Friday night, says I, I says to him, says I, 'I hate the old wiolin,' says I; 'and I 've a good notion to burn it up!'

"'You just wenter!' says he, and he takes it up and slants it agin his shoulder, and turns his head kind a sideways, all the time a-keeping his eye onto me, and he seesaws and seesaws till I falls asleep into my chair, and then he seesaws and seesaws till I wakes and rubs my eyes, and still his head is kind a sideways, and his wiolin agin his shoulder, aslant like, just as if he had n't moved; and then I pertends to sleep, and I pertends and pertends and pertends, and at last pertence is clear wore out, and I wakes up like, and I says, says I, 'Dan'l, it must be a'most ten o'clock, ain't it?'—I knew it was daylight. And all at once his wisage changed, and the wiolin fairly dropt from his shoulder, and he hild up his head that had been kind a sideways all that while, and went to bed peaceable as a lamb, he did, and for the rest of the night he did n't walk into his sleep at all!"

"You angel!" says John,—"to get round him so."

"Just wait," says the widow; "there's something a-coming that 'll make you open your eyes. A-Saturday night says I, 'I feel like dancing,' says I; 'so, Dan'l, give us one of your liveliest tunes!' and with that I began to hop about like a lark. Of course he was took in, and the wiolin was n't touched; but O how he did walk into his sleep! Wisible to everybody! In wain I argued that walking into sleep was wulgar, in wain I coaxed, and in wain I cried,—though tears will sometimes prewail when nothing else will, that is, if they ain't too woluntary. Some women seems to shed 'em woluntary, and then they are not so prewailing, which it was never my case, Captain, never! I cried for sheer spite and for nothing else; it was always the way with me, especially after I was dethroned; and when tears did n't prewail, thinks says I, I must take adwice, which I took it,—adwice here and adwice there,—and one adwised one thing and one another; but the adwice I took was adwice that it liked to have landed me where I never should have seen the light of this blessed day, nor seen, nor seen, nor seen—you!"

John put both arms round her instead of one, and held her fast, lest she might vanish like a phantom.

Back to Index Next