My Dear Friend: – At last, as if borne to you by some scape-grace of a messenger, these papers, copied from the time-discoloured manuscripts, so carefully preserved in the old book-case, which with its dark lustre, its bright brass ornaments, is still the prominent object in our library, are destined to reach the hands into which they should long ago have been placed.

I well remember the evening on which you first heard of them, and listened to my attempt to read them to you; perplexed as I was with the faded lines, traced by fingers which can write no more.

You will not forget our drives, previously, during the day, and late in the afternoon, in consequence of my week-day service in the old church. Perhaps the ancient edifice would need the excuse of days of architectural ignorance, but no Cathedral on earth can surpass it, in its claim to occupy a place amid scenes of surpassing beauty and sublimity. There it stands alone, on the slope of an immense hill, with the whole range of the mountains from the water-gap to the wind-gap full in view – glorious walls to sustain the great blue dome of heaven! The great solitude of the road that winds along the grave-yard, has often caused me to think of distant friends, and has riveted them to my soul with still more indissoluble bonds. And the Great Friend has been the great relief from oppressive loneliness, as I thus stood in one of the beautiful gates of the Eternal Temple. As to that quiet grave-yard itself, the "rhetoric of the dead" is there well spoken, and they whose ashes are here deposited, do not find "second graves" in our short memories.

You will tell me that all connected with my church is not always solemn. Your perverse memory will never forget the leader of the choir; nay, the useful man who was often choir itself. He sang at least with energy. Unfortunately – oh well do I remember my fearful victory over my features, when I first became cognizant of the fact; a victory at a time when a smile had endangered my claims to due ministerial sobriety; unfortunately he had the habit of marking time emphatically, by raising himself on his toes, and simultaneously elevating his hand, his chin, his eyes, and his hair. Yet that was but a slight trial to us both. The man was better than either of us; and the first impression having subsided, we found that he did well in calling forth the voices of the congregation. You will recollect our return home, as we refused all offers of hospitality, although the snow was falling, and we were warned not to risk the drifts, promised by the rising wind. We would not be detained, as we had set our hearts on passing the evening together in the old mansion of my fathers. On we drove, the sound of the bells sweeping in wild merriment over the great fields of snow, or rising to a louder chime as we passed through the forest, under a thousand triumphal arches, of boughs laden with white honors. Only once, and where the road was in a ravine, was I afraid that you would be exposed some hours to the storm, until we should hear the voices of hunters, and the bay of their dogs, sent to seek us, after our custom, when any one is lost in the snow. Happily we extricated ourselves, and soon saw the lights gleaming from the windows of the house upon the hill.

How pleasant the welcome of our good old Cæsar, the man of dark hue, who had no desire to be the first man in the village, nor the second man at Rome; but was all eagerness to have a place, however lowly, in the Eternal City! Another glad welcome in the hall; a net-work of questions from little threads of voices, and the seats before the great wood-fire, one of the few remaining representatives of the profuse customs of the fathers; one witness that our forests are not yet all swept away. Did we not give ample tributes to the repast prepared by Cæsar's wife! Two hungry men rescued from snow waves, we proved that one could feast on Dinah's poetry of food, and yet, in the ensuing night, behold no magnificent bandit, with a beard that would have done credit to a Roman Centurion, and a dagger that honored the sense of sublime danger, by the assurance that if it was to give us our death-blow, it was no coarse weapon; the grand villain peering over you with an eye in which the evil fires take refuge when conscience is in ashes. You know that in that coming night, you did not even see the "fair ladie," now your wife, borne away from you, in a mysterious coach, by some ruffians clad in splendid mantles, while you were palsied, and could not move to seize the sword, or gun, or could not call for aid. How pleasant was that evening! From your weed rose the cloud that no counterblast, royal or plebeian, has ever yet been able to sweep away from the lips of men. Knitting by her little stand, sat one, whom to name is to tell, in a word, the great history of my best earthly happiness. I am sure her sweet thoughts, when spoken, were as the fragrance of flowers over our homelier fields; while her gentle sympathy added to our strength, and her instinctive and pure impressions, aided our conceptions, as gentle guides, and taught us how wisdom was linked to minds swayed by goodness. What a bond has she been of our long-enduring friendship! We talked of the old times – of the ancient famed hospitality of the house. We spoke of those who came there at Christmas – when the hymn of Milton seemed to be read in a grand audience chamber – at the Spring when the world seemed again so young – at Autumn where the mountains and hills were all a glow, as if angels had kindled them with a fire, burning, but not consuming them, turning them into great altars, by which man could stand, and offer his adoration. Then we spoke of the papers that had been read among the assembled guests. I told you their history; a history further recorded in the fourth chapter; the last of the four chapters preliminary. These were written by my grandfather. As your curiosity was awakened, I drew forth some of these, from the old book-case in the library, and read them as I could. You insisted that I should decipher them, and let you send them to the press; send them to some one of your honorable publishers, so that many eyes could read, what few eyes have rested on, in this distant solitude. Julia seconded the proposition. What had I to do, but to obey! Some years have passed, and you have often complained of my procrastination. Shall I make excuses? Excuses are the shadows which the irresolute and idle, the evil, keep ever near, as their refuge from just accusation. The moment you feel the least loss of self-respect in seeking them, the moment you have to search to find them, take heed of them. Those formed to be giants, often live in them, and then life is consequently the life of the dwarf. I knew that I could have sent the papers long ago, had I written two or three lines each day, since I gave my promise. Julia, who, woman-like, always convicts me when I excuse myself, and consoles me, and defends me, when I am in the ashes, and contrite with self-upbraiding, who is never severe with me, but when I spoil the children by keeping them up too late at night, says, that I never allow a literary effort to encroach on my great duties; that I have had so much to do, that I could not sooner perform my promise. She laughs, and says that the dates I annex to my papers, during my progress in this work, show how I was interrupted, and that if the histories of intermediate parochial work were given, the book would be a strange record. Often the sick and suffering have caused long intervals to elapse in these labors. When I could attempt the work, the change in the current of my associations has been a relief. Julia has wished me to write histories of the lives of some of those, who composed various papers in the old case. Of course, some of the authors have been passing utterly from the minds of a race, that cannot remember, but the least remnant of those who have gone before. We lament the ravages of time. Multitudes are forgotten on the earth, whom it would be a blessing to have in perpetual remembrance. Alas! we have also to confess, that time conceals the story of innumerable others, when it is well that it should be buried in its deepest oblivion.

I hope that I have copied these papers with commendable accuracy. We trust that they will add to the happiness of those who read them, and prove at the same time to be profitable. May they increase kind impressions! May they sow seeds that shall have the sun and dew that never falls on growth that is evil! Man has tablets in the heart, for inscriptions greater, and more enduring, than those of the great ledges of rock in the far East.

As one would hesitate to write the outlines of his coming destiny, if such a pen of Providence could be ready for his hand, so he, who has any love for others, would pause before he would carve, even in faintest letters, one word on these, which could sully the surface, where the indestructibility warns us, that all is an eternal record with Him, whose eye is too pure to look upon iniquity. I need not attempt, like authors of a former age, to solicit a favorable criticism, from the "gentle reader." If I say, here, that the hall has rung with peals of laughter, as some of the papers of the old book-case have been read, that some have shed tears over the Ghost of Ford Inn, and said, it is too sad, these assurances will not predispose one who shall open the proposed volume, to utter a favorable opinion. These waifs must be cast on the waters, like all other similar ventures. We must wait, and learn where Providence shall waft them.

Will these papers outlive this decaying house? Will men love us because we have sent them forth? Will we, because of them, be grasped with a kindlier hand? Will they soften hearts in this trying world, and aid men to a greater charity?

But I must pause. Lamps will grow dim. Warnings will come, that letters may attain to too great prolixity. Readers are often not sufficiently sagacious, to know that when Homer nods, he has a design. Can I apply, what old Dr. South, the great and witty preacher said, when he printed the sermon at the Royal mandate, that the Majesty of the Realm must excuse the length of the discourse, inasmuch as he had not had time to make it shorter? Or, shall I remember the severe speech, doubtless a dutiful necessity, a knife to remove such a miserable vanity as often makes men worse than useless; the severe speech of an Eastern Divine, who, when the young preacher waited all day in vain for a compliment, to his morning's discourse, and said, in desperation, as the evening waned in the study, "Doctor, I hope that I did not weary your people with the length of my discourse," had for reply the quiet answer, "No, sir; nor by the depth of it."

So, as you have the infirmity of going to sleep over the most interesting discourse, as the lamp is going out, as I am nervous, sitting up at such a late hour, as the paper is all written over, and I have none other near at hand, I release you. Go to sleep, but wake the world to-morrow, and then say that I am your friend.

A friend of many years,Caspar Almore.

CHAPTER I.

ARRIVAL AT THE VILLAGE

I stepped from the stage-sleigh, in the village of Overlook, at the post-office: for there the driver stopped to leave his mail-bag. That important article, which, as a boy, I used to regard with undefined dread, for I associated it with a poor wretch, who was hung for laying villanous hands upon one, in a desolate road, was the old-fashioned leather sack, full of iron rivets.

Perhaps at the time when this writing may reach the press, such a contrivance may have become antiquated; and therefore I had better add to my description, that a weighty chain passed through iron rings, to secure the opening; and finally, there was the brass padlock, at which the Indian gazed with such contempt, when he said, "Brass lock upon leather! that makes my knife laugh." I stepped from the heavy stage-sleigh into the one sent for me by Judge Almore, and it was like passing from a heavy craft on the waters, into one of lesser make, and lighter burden. John Frake, the farmer at Overlook Manor, had driven over for me. His horses seemed exhilarated by the bells, and we dashed forward in splendid style. John Frake was a character; a real man in energy, work, and talk; frank, and good-hearted.

As we drove along, in a loud voice, that permitted not a word to be lost by the melody of the bells, he made his comments upon all things, and especially on the inhabitants along the streets of the village.

"Dr. Norkin lives there," he said, pointing with his whip to a comfortable house. And then as if pondering the beginning of a long train of thought, he added,

"Those Yankees are unaccountable smart people."

"The doctor is a Yankee, then?"

"Oh no! there aint enough Yankee in him to make a spot on the map of Massachusetts. Not but that the doctor has lots of common sense, and keeps all that he has got ready for use, when wanted, as ready as my plough to go through the ground. But those Yankees have the most uncommon ways of putting things together; just as if you took something out of the middle of the earth, and made it fit something on the top of a mountain."

"Yes, but I don't see what Yankees have to do with the doctor."

"I'll tell you what I was thinking about. I was once at the mountains, forty miles off, where there is a mineral spring. There is where ladies and gentlemen go to drink water, eat all manner of things at the tavern, and get well, when they never have been sick. Iron in the water at the springs! Bless you; it would not divide the nails in a horse-shoe in a month, to the whole army of the Revolution, if they had drunk of nothing else. Well our judge and the family followed the fashion. Fashion is a runaway horse that carries a great load of straw behind him, and sometimes he has after him things much better than straw. I drove up to bring them home. But the judge was taken sick just before I got there, and sent for our doctor here, to come up and cure him. In the night, after I got there, one of your uncommon Yankees, who seemed to be well off, and to do fifty things, from what I could gather, to make money, had a bad attack; unlike anything I ever heard of around here. He was awful bad. I heard the racket, and went into his room.

"'My friend,' says I, 'you do look awful bad' – for I always speak my honest sentiments, in a sick-room, or out of it. 'I thank you for your sympathy,' says he – and yet somehow it sounded as if he didn't. I presumed he didn't want any one to talk to him. 'Send down for Dr. Norkin,' says the landlord. 'He is here;' this is what he said to the sick man. 'He lives forty miles off – at Overlook. But he is here, attending on Judge Almore – who has been ill.'

"The sick man, after a groan or two, raised himself up in his bed. It was as good as the best apple, to see how quickly he seemed to ungear his mind from his sick body. He gave a long thought. Then he said,

"'Did the judge send for that doctor, because he was in the house at the time when he was taken sick? Or did he send all the way to Overlook for him to come here to him?'

"'He sent for him to Overlook,' says the landlord, before I could put in a word.

"'Then I'll see him,' says he – speaking quickly out, and firm like, as if he was a king. Now wasn't that cute? I tell you such men think faster, and a great way before other people. Well; it's a free country, and all people aint bound to do their thinking alike."

We now came to the entrance of the lane, that led up to Overlook House.

Two large cherry trees stood on either side of the gate. I drew the attention of my companion to them. They were very venerable, and their winter boughs showed some signs of decay.

"Them big trees," – said he. "Either of them, I'll engage is as old as three average men. They say a man averages thirty years of life. Now they are full ninety years old, and big at that."

"You have lived long with the judge?"

"Bless your heart, sir, long indeed. But he's a good man. There's few that don't say so – well, thank God, it is those kind of people that don't. When he speaks and acts, you feel that our Lord has taught him his religion – just as we know it is Sunday, when we wake and hear the church-bells ringing, and all the sun-light seems full of the sweet sound, and all the sound as if it had gone through the bright sun. I do love Sunday."

Here we were close to the house. "Come and see me," he said, "down at my house there. It is not as big as the judge's, but then there is room in it for a hearty welcome. I will give you a glass of good cider, or two, or three, for that matter. As for wine, I never keep any. It seems to me to be poor stuff, as if it was trying to be brandy, and couldn't." The mission of the sleigh was now over. I and my trunks were at the porch of the house. So the worthy farmer and I parted for the present.

CHAPTER II.

THE WELCOME AT OVERLOOK-HOUSE

A colored servant man, of most respectable appearance, and of quiet manners, evidently glad of my arrival ushered me into the house, saying that Judge Almore would be home in a short time, as he had gone but a little distance on the farm; and that his good lady would come down stairs in a few minutes. The hall of the house was large, and decorated with Indian relics; with long deer-horns, also, and other trophies of the hunting ground. I was hastened into an adjoining room, which I had scarcely entered, before I felt the invigorating heat from the great fire-place. There the hickory logs seemed doing their best, with their immense flame, to make me feel as if I was cared for, a stranger from a distance. On the hearth there was a small mountain of glowing coals. How pleasant it is to sit before such a fire, and to think that our interminable forests, will supply abundant fuel, for the inhabitants of our cities for hundreds of years to come. Even when New York, and Philadelphia, Trenton, and Boston, may, two or three centuries hence, have each two or three hundred thousand inhabitants, and that expectation of their increase in population, is not so chimerical as it seems, and when the country round them, may be so cleared and cultivated, that in a circle of fifteen or twenty miles in diameter, the farm-houses may generally be in sight of one another, it is probable that the decrease of our woods will scarcely be perceptible.

But as I gazed into the flames which soon removed all chilliness from my frame, I had no time for lengthened speculations on the future of our land; for Mrs. Almore entered the room, and greeting me with great cordiality, assured me of my welcome. As I was engaged in conversation with this most estimable lady, I found myself called on to regret her visitation with a great affliction. Her cheerful countenance and manner, however, proved that she had not permitted it to hang over her as a cloud, to darken her days, or to make her selfish in her expectation of attention. The affliction was a great deafness, one evidently of long duration, and incurable; so I judged from the evidence of her loud tones, almost shouting when she addressed me. I flatter myself that I can cause any one to hear me speak, who has the ability to know, that a pistol is discharged not far from his ear. And I always feel great commiseration for those who hear with difficulty. Meeting with such, I regard the power of my lungs, as a gift, particularly designed for their service and enjoyment. Indeed I undesignedly secured a legacy from an aged aunt, by the assiduity I exhibited in informing her of what was said around her, when others neglected her, as she thought, because it was so difficult to make her to hear. Trained as I had been in the past, I have to confess, that my powers of loud speech, were never more taxed than on the present occasion. The loud tones in which we commenced our conversation, were gradually increased; I perceived that as she raised the pitch of her voice, it was a delicate intimation to me, that I must speak with increased effort, if I would secure a perfect hearing. As we were engaged in this polite rivalship, each being, not only a diligent hearer, but a good speaker, a most comfortable-looking African woman, of very dark hue, entered to receive the orders of her mistress. She desired to know, as it soon appeared, some particulars concerning the approaching meal; and also to receive some orders which pertained to the room I was to occupy. The good mistress then stepped aside and drew near to the swarthy domestic. To my surprise, the lady dropped her voice to a good undertone, and gave her directions, as it were, "aside." She is one of those deaf persons, I said to myself, who can understand what others, with whom they are familiar, have to say when they see the motion of their lips. I once met with a man who had this singular gift. He possessed it to such an extent, that strangers, who conversed with him, never knew that he did not hear a word which they spoke. Yet what could I do now! I was compelled to hear what was said. How strange it was, that the good lady overlooked the fact, that I must hear all that could be heard by Dinah. And this Dinah was now informed what set of china should be placed on the table for my special benefit. From what she hinted, I inferred, that there was some special honor in this arrangement; as it proved to her that the Holemans, who took tea with them the night before, having made use of a decidedly inferior service, were some grades less respectable than myself – though the mistress, when the insinuation was made, peremptorily declared, that the aforesaid Holemans were very worthy people, and should always be treated with great respect, as valued friends, in her house. An occasion was also taken, on the mention of the white and gold china, to administer a cutting reproof to Mrs. Dinah, for a nick in the spout of the tea-pot, – which circumstantial evidence, clearly and hastily summed up, proved to be the result of carelessness in the kitchen. To this attack, Dinah, as I must honestly testify, made persistent defense, and gave some most curious rebutting testimony. And I am also under obligation to state, that even when most excited by the charge, she never even made the most distant allusion, to the possibility that the cat had anything to do with this domestic calamity. Such was the honor of the kitchen in the good old times. I also learned, incidentally, some curious information concerning the comparative ages of some chickens, which had lately been cooped up and fattened.

I gleaned besides, some antiquarian lore concerning a venerated "comfortable," that was intended for my bed, – and a hint that some portion of its variegated lining had been the valued dress of a grandmother, worn by her on some memorable occasion, – a proud record in the family history. Some very particular directions were also given for my comfort, so that my ideas on the art of house-keeping, were greatly expanded; and I was ready to look on each lady, who ruleth over a house, as a minute philosopher.

Dinah was also informed, that she was forbidden to act on a speculative principle, which she advanced, with great assurance; namely, that bachelors did not see, or know anything; that it was only married men who did; being set up to it by their wives, who made a mighty fuss in another house, when all the time they knew things wasn't as tidy at home. She was told not to act on any such miserable sophistry – that things were to be done right, and kept right – no matter whether any one noticed them, or not. In the course of conversation, my having come from New York was the subject of an allusion; whereupon the dark woman slipped in the observation, that she did wish she could get to that place, for she "was afraid that she should die, and have nothing to tell."

After all this important business was transacted, there was a hasty, and sudden digression for a moment, in the shape of a kind inquiry into the present state of the health of the hopeful heir of the said Dinah, who was spending the chief portion of his days in a cradle. I was, I must confess it, very much astonished to learn, from the reply and descriptions of the mother, that there is such a wonderful sympathy, between the teeth which are trying to make their way into the world, and the mechanism of a juvenile which is concealed from human sight in his body. It seemed to me a marvellous proof of the manner in which such little creatures maintain their hold on life, that he could possibly have endured such astonishing internal pains; and, also, that all the world ought to know the sovereign virtues of an elixir, which was compounded at Overlook House. Its virtues, unlike the novel devices that are palmed on the public with such pretentious certificates, have been tested by the infants of several generations.

1 2 3 >

На страницу:

Перейти

1 из 3