Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself. Vol. II (of 2)

He heaped question upon question, and assurance upon assurance, with such haste and fervour, that it was some minutes before I could speak. I took advantage of his first pause to detail the latest, and, at that moment, the most oppressive of my griefs.

"I have been robbed," I cried, "of four hundred dollars, and a dozen silver spoons, by a rascal I found lying drunk under a shed. But I'll have the villain, if it costs me the half of his plunder, and – "

"Be not awroth with the poor man," said my deliverer. "It was a wickedness in him to rob thee; but thou shouldst reflect how wickedness comes of misery, and how misery of the inclemency of the season. Be merciful to the wicked man, as well as to the miserable; for thereby thou showest mercy to him who is doubly miserable. But how didst thou come by four hundred dollars and a dozen silver spoons? Thou canst not be so poor as to prove an object of charity?"

"No," said I, "I am no beggar. But I won't be robbed for nothing."

"Verily, I say unto thee again, be not awroth with the poor man. Thou shouldst reflect, if thou wert robbed, how far thou wast thyself the cause of the evil; for, having four hundred dollars about thee, thou mightst have relieved the poor creature's wants; in which case thou wouldst have prevented both a loss and a crime – the one on thy part, the other on his. Talk not, therefore, of persecuting the poor man; hunt him up, if thou canst, administer secretly to his wants, and give him virtuous counsel; and then, peradventure, he will sin no more."

I was struck by the tone and maxims of my deliverer; they expressed an ardour of benevolence, an enthusiasm of philanthropy, such as I had never dreamed of before. I could not see his face, the night being so thick and tempestuous; but there was a complacency, a bustling self-satisfaction in his voice, that convinced me he was not only a good, but a happy man. I regarded him with as much envy as respect; and a comparison, which I could not avoid mentally making, betwixt his condition and my own, drew from me a loud groan.

"Art thou hurt?" said the good Samaritan. "I will help thee into my wheeled convenience here, and take thee to thy home."

"No," said I, "I will never go near that wretched house again."

"What is it that makes it wretched?" said the Quaker.

"You will know, if you are of Philadelphia," I replied, "when I tell you my name. I am the miserable Abram Skinner."

"What! Abram Skinner, the money-lender?" said my friend, with a severe voice. "Friend Abram, I have heard of thy domestic calamities, and verily I have heard of those of many others, who laid them all at thy doors, as the author and cause thereof. Thou art indeed the most wretched of men; but if thou thinkest so thyself, then is there a hope thou mayst be yet restored to happiness. Thou hast made money, but what good hast thou done with it? thou hast accumulated thy hundreds, and thy thousands, and thy tens of thousands – but how many of thy fellow-creatures hast thou given cause to rejoice in thy prosperity? Truly, I have heard much said of thy wealth, and thy avarice, friend Abram; but, verily, not a word of thy kind-heartedness and charity: and know, that goodness and charity are the only securities against the ills, both sore and manifold, that spring from groaning coffers. I say to thee, friend Abram, hast thou ever given a dollar in alms to the poor, or acquitted a single penny of obligation to the hard-run of thy customers?"

My conscience smote me – not, however, that I felt any great remorse for not having thrown away my money in the way the Quaker meant: but his words brought a new idea into my mind. It was misery on the one hand, and the hope of arriving at happiness on the other, which had spurred me from transformation to transformation. Each change had, however, been productive of greater discontent than the other; and the woes with which I was oppressed in my three borrowed bodies, had been even greater than those that afflicted me in my own proper original casing. It was plain that I had not exercised a just discretion in the selection of bodies, since I had taken those of men whose modes of existence did not dispose to happiness. What mode of existence then was most likely to secure the content I sought? Such, I inferred from the Quaker's discourse, as would call into operation the love of goodness and of man – such as would cause to be cultivated the kindly virtues unknown to the selfish – such as would lead to the practice of charity and general philanthropy. I was grieved, therefore, that I had entered so many bodies for nothing; my conscience accused me of a blunder; and I longed to enter upon an existence of virtue; not that I had any great regard for virtue itself, but because I valued my own happiness. Had my deliverer chanced to break his neck while discoursing to me, I should have reanimated his corse, to try my hand at benevolence. As for being good and charitable in the body I then occupied, I felt that it was impossible: the impulse pointed to another existence.

The Quaker's indignation soon abated; he looked upon my silence as the effect of remorse, and the idea of converting me into an alms-giver and a friend of the poor, like himself, took possession of his imagination, and warmed his spirit. By such a conversion his philanthropic desires would be doubly gratified; it would make me happy, and, as I was a rich man, some hundreds of others also. He helped me into the chair, and driving slowly towards the city, attempted the good work by describing the misery so prevalent in the suburbs, and dilating with uncommon enthusiasm upon the delight with which every act of benevolence would be recorded in my own bosom.

It seems that he was returning from a mission of charity in one of the remotest districts, where he had relieved the necessities of divers unhappy wretches; and, he gave me to understand, it was his purpose to make one more charitable visitation before returning home, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour and the fury of the tempest. And this visit he felt the more urged to make, since it would afford a practical illustration of his remarks, and show how doubly charity was blessed, both to the giver and receiver.

"Thou shalt see," said he, "even with thine own eyes, what power he that hath money hath over the afflictions of his race – what power to dry the tear of the mourning, and to check the wicked deeds of the vicious. He that I will now relieve is what thou didst foolishly call thyself – to wit, the most miserable of men; for he is both a beggar and a convicted felon, having but a few days since been discharged from the penitentiary, where he had served out his three years, for, I believe, the third time in his life."

"Surely," said I, "he is then a reprobate entirely unworthy pity."

"On the contrary," said the philanthropist, "he is for that reason the more to be pitied, since all regard him with distrust and abhorrence, and refuse him the relief without which he must again become a criminal: the very boys say to him, 'Get up, thou old jail-bird;' and men and women hoot at him in the streets. Poverty made him a criminal, and scorn has hardened his heart; yet is he a man with a soul; and verily thou shalt see how that soul can be melted by the breath of compassion. In this little hovel we shall find him," said the Quaker, drawing up before a miserable frame building, which was of a most lonely aspect, and in a terrible state of dilapidation, the windows being without shutters and glasses, and even the door itself half torn from its hinges.

"It is a little tenement that belongeth to me," said my friend; "and here I told him he might shelter him, until I could come in person and relieve him. A negro-man whom I permitted to live here for a while did very ungratefully, that is to say, very thoughtlessly – destroy the window-shutters, and other loose work, for fire-wood, I having forgotten to supply him with that needful article, and he, poor man, being too bashful to acquaint me with his wants. Verily I do design to render it more comfortable; but in these hard times one cannot find more money than sufficeth to fill the mouths of the hungry. Descend, friend Abram, and let us enter. I see the poor man hath a fire shining through the door; this will warm thy frozen limbs, while the sound of his grateful acknowledgments will do the same good office for thy spirit."

CHAPTER X.

CONTAINING AN AFFECTING ADVENTURE WITH A VICTIM OF THE LAW

My benevolent friend, leaving his horse standing at the door, led the way into the hovel, the interior of which was still more ruinous than the outside. It consisted of but a single room below, with a garret above. A meager fire, which furnished the only light, was burning on the hearth, to supply which the planks had been torn from the floor, leaving the earth below almost bare. There was not a single article of furniture visible, save an old deal table without leaves, a broken chair, and a tattered scrap of carpet lying near the fire, which seemed to have served as both bed and blanket to the wretched tenant.

"How is this?" said the Friend, in surprise. "Verily I did direct my man Abel to carry divers small comforts hither, which have vanished, as well as the poor man, John Smith."

John Smith, it seems, was the name of the beneficiary, and that convinced me he was a rogue. I ventured to hint to our common friend, that John Smith, having disposed of those "small comforts" he spoke of to the best advantage, was now engaged seeking others in some of our neighbours' houses; and that the wisest thing we could do in such a case would be to take our departure.

"Verily," said my deliverer, with suavity, "it is not possible John can do the wicked things thou thinkest of; for, first, it is but three days since he left the penitentiary, and secondly, I sent him by my helper and friend, Abel Snipe, sufficient eatables to supply him a week; so that he could have no inducement to do a wicked thing. Still it doth surprise me that he is absent; nevertheless, we will tarry a little while, lest peradventure he should return, and be in trouble, with none to relieve him. It wants yet ten minutes to midnight," continued the benevolent man, drawing out a handsome gold watch, "and five of these at least we can devote to the poor creature."

I was about to remonstrate a second time, when a step was heard approaching at a distance in the street.

"Peradventure it is John himself," said my friend; "and peradventure it will be better thou shouldst step aside into yonder dark corner for an instant, that thou mayst witness, without restraining by thy presence, the feelings of virtue that remain in the spirit, even when tainted and hardened by depravity."

I crept away, as I was directed, to a corner, where I might easily remain unobserved, the room being illumined only by the fire, and that consisting of little besides embers and ashes. From this place I saw Mr. John Smith as he entered, which he declined doing until after he had peeped suspiciously into the apartment, and been summoned by the voice of his benefactor.

He was as ill-looking a dog as I had ever laid eyes on, and his appearance was in strange contrast with that of his benevolent patron. The latter was a tall and rawboned man of fifty, with an uncommonly prepossessing visage; rather lantern-jawed, perhaps, but handsome and good-natured. The other was a slouch of a fellow, short of stature, but full of fat and brawn, with bow legs, gibbon arms, and a hang-dog visage. He sidled up to the fire hesitatingly, and, indeed, with an air of shame and humility; while the philanthropist, laying his watch upon the table, extended his hand towards him.

"Be of good heart, friend John," he said; "I come, not to reproach thee for thy misdeeds, but to counsel thee how thou shalt amend them, and restore thyself again to the society of the virtuous."

"'Es, sir," grumbled John Smith, dodging his head in humble acknowledgment, rubbing his hands for warmth over the fire, and casting a sidelong look at his benefactor. "Werry good of you, sir; shall ever be beholden. Werry hard times for one what's been in the penitentiary – takes away all one's repurtation; and, Lord bless us, sir, a man's but a ruined man when a man hasn't no repurtation."

And with that worthy John drew his sleeve over his nose, which convinced me he was not so much of a rascal as I thought him.

"John, thou hast been but as a sinner and a foolish man."

"'Es, sir," said John, with another rub of his sleeve at his nose; "but hard times makes hard work of a poor man. Always hoped to mend and be wirtuous; but, Lord bless us, Mr. Longstraw (beg pardon – can't think of making so free to say friend to such a great gentleman), one can't be wirtuous with nothing to live on."

"Verily, thou speakest, in a measure, the truth," said my friend; "and I intend thou shalt now be put in some way of earning an honest livelihood."

"'Es, sir," said John; "and sure I shall be werry much beholden."

But it is not my intention to record the conversation of the worthy pair. I am writing a history of myself, and not of other people; and I therefore think it proper to pursue no discourses in which I did not myself bear a part. It is sufficient to say, that my deliverer said a thousand excellent things in the way of counsel, which the other received very well, and many indicative of a disposition to be charitable, which Mr. John Smith received still better; and in the end, to relieve the pressing wants of the sufferer, which Mr. John Smith feelingly represented, drew forth a pocketbook, and took therefrom a silver dollar; at the sight of which, I thought, Mr. John Smith looked a little disappointed. Nay, it struck me that the appearance of the pocketbook, ancient and ill-looking as it was, had captivated his imagination in a greater degree than the coin. I had before observed him steal several affectionate looks towards the gold watch lying on the table, which now, however, the sight of the well-thumbed wallet seemed to have driven from his thoughts entirely. Nevertheless, he received the silver dollar with many thanks, and with still more the assurance that the philanthropist would procure him employment on the morrow; and Mr. Longstraw's eyes, as he turned to beckon me from the corner, began to twinkle with the delight of self-approbation.

I was myself beginning to feel a sentiment of pleasure, and to picture to my mind the unfortunate felon, converted, by a few words of counsel, and still fewer dollars of charity, into an honest and worthy member of society, when – oh horror of horrors! – the repenting convict suddenly snatched up a brand from the fire, and discharged it, with a violence that would have felled an ox, full upon the head of his patron.

The sparks flew from the brand over the whole room, and my friend dropped upon the floor on his face, followed by the striker, who, seizing upon his cravat, twisted it tightly round the unfortunate man's throat, thus completing by strangulation the murder more than half accomplished by the below.

The whole affair was the work of an instant; and had I possessed the will or courage to interfere, I could not have done so in time to arrest the mischief. But, in truth, I had not the power to stir; horror and astonishment chained me to the corner, where I stood as if transformed to stone, unable even to vent my feelings in a cry. I was seized with a terrible apprehension on my own account; for I could not doubt that the wretch who would thus murder a benefactor for a few dollars, would have as little hesitation to despatch me, who had witnessed the deed. I feared every moment lest the villain should direct his eye to the corner in which I stood, separated from him only a few yards; but he was too busy with his horrid work to regard me; and, terrified as I was, I looked on in safety while my deliverer was murdered before my eyes.

How long Mr. John Smith was at his dreadful work I cannot say; but I saw him, after a while, relax his grasp from his victim's throat, and fall to rummaging his pockets. Then, leaping up, he seized upon the watch, and clapped it into his bosom, saying, with a most devilish chuckle and grin,

"Damn them 'ere old fellers what gives a man a dollar, and preaches about wirtue! I reckon, old Slabsides, there's none on your people will hang me for the smash. Much beholden to you for leaving the horse and chair; it makes all safer."

With these words the wretch slipped out of the hovel, and a moment after I heard the smothered roll of the vehicle as it swept from the door.

CHAPTER XI.

IN WHICH THE PLOT THICKENS, AND THE TRAGEDY GROWS DEEPER

I supposed that Mr. John Smith had taken himself away with as much speed as was consistent with the strength of his horse and the safety of his bones, and I recovered from the fears I had entertained on my own account. I crept up to the philanthropist to give him assistance, if such could be now rendered. But it was too late; he was already dead: Mr. John Smith had not taken his degrees without proper study in his profession; and I must say that his practice on the present occasion did not go far to confirm me in the love of benevolence.

Nevertheless, the appearance of the defunct threw my mind into a ferment. I had been hunting a body, and now I had one before me; I had come to believe that, if I wished for happiness, I must get possession of one whose occupant had previously been happy; and I had seen enough of the deceased to know that he had been an uncommonly comfortable and contented personage.

The end of all this was a resolution, which I instantly made, to take advantage of the poor man's misfortune, and convert his body to my own purposes. I had seen him for the first time that night; I did not remember ever to have heard his name mentioned before; and I consequently knew nothing of him beyond what I had just learned. Where he lived, who were his connexions, what his property, &c. &c., were all questions to which I was to find answers thereafter. It appeared to me that a philanthropist of his spirit and age (the latter of which I judged to be about fifty) could not but be very well known, and that all I should have to do, after reanimating his body, would be to seek the assistance of the first person I should find, and so be conducted at once to the gentleman's house; after which all would go well enough. But, in truth, I took but little time for reflection; or perhaps I should not have been in such a hurry to attempt a transformation. A little prudence might have led me to inquire into the consequences of the change, inferred from the condition of the body. Suppose his scull should prove to be broken; who was to stand the woes of trepanning? I do say, it would have been wiser had I thought of that– but unluckily I did not: I was in too great a hurry to think of any thing save the transformation itself; and the result was, that I had a lesson on the demerits of leaping before looking, which I think will be of service to me for the remainder of my life, as it might be to the reader, could the reader be brought to believe that that experience is good for any thing, which costs nothing.

My resolution was quickened by a step which I heard approaching along the street. "It is a watchman," thought I to myself: "I will jump into the body and run out for assistance."

I turned to the defunct.

"Friend Longstraw," said I, "or whatever your name is, if you are really dead, I wish to occupy your body."

That moment I lost all consciousness. The reader may infer the transfer of spirit was accomplished.

And so it was. I came to my senses a few moments after, just in time to find myself tumbling into a hole in the earth beneath the floor of the hovel, with Mr. John Smith hard by, dragging to the same depository the mortal frame I had just deserted. I perceived at once the horrible dilemma in which I was placed; I was on the point of being buried, and, what was worse, of being buried alive!

"I conjure and beseech thee, friend John Smith," I cried – but cried no more. The villain had just reached the pit, dragging the body of the late Abram Skinner. He was startled at my voice; but it only quickened him in his labours. He snatched up the corse and cast it down upon me as one would a millstone; and the weight, though that was not very considerable, and the shock together, jarred the life more than half out of me.

"What! old Slabsides," said he, "ar'n't you past grumbling?"

With that, the bloody-minded miscreant seized upon a fragment of plank, and began to belabour me with all his strength.

I had entered the philanthropist's body only to be murdered. I uttered a direful scream; but that was only a waste of the breath which Mr. John Smith was determined to waste for me. He redoubled his blows with a vigour that showed he was in earnest; nor did he cease until his work was completed. In a word, he murdered me, and so effectually, that it is a wonder I am alive to tell it. He assassinated me, and even began to bury me, by tumbling earth down from the floor; when, as my good fate would have it, the scene was brought to a climax by the sudden entrance of a watchman, who, running up to the villain, served him the same turn he had served me, by laying a leaded mace over his head, and so knocking him out of his senses.

It seems (for I scorn to keep the reader in suspense, by indulging in mystery) that this faithful fellow, having made a shorter nap than was warranted by the state of the night, had taken a stroll into the air, to look about him; that he had passed the hovel, and, seeing the chair standing at the door, had looked through a crack, and perceived Mr. Longstraw, with whose person and benevolent character he was acquainted, and myself – that is, my late self – warming ourselves by the convict's fire; and that, after pursuing his beat for a while, he was about to return by another way, when, to his surprise, he lighted upon the vehicle at more than a square's distance from the house; and the horse being tied to a post, it was evident he had not strayed thither. This awaking a suspicion that all was not right, he determined to pay a second visit to the hovel; and was on the way thither when I set up the scream mentioned before. Then quickening his pace, he arrived in time to witness the awful spectacle of Mr. John Smith thrusting the two bodies into the pit; which operation the courageous watchman brought to a close by knocking the operator on the head, as I have related.

What had brought Mr. John Smith back again, and why he should have troubled himself to conceal the victim of his murderous cupidity, must be conjectured, as well as the amazement with which, doubtless, he found he had two bodies to bury instead of one. He perhaps reflected, that the visit of his patron was known to other persons; who, upon finding his body, would readily conjecture who was the murderer; and therefore judged it proper to conceal the evidence of assassination, and leave the fate of his benefactor in entire mystery.

As it happened, his return had wellnigh proved fatal to me, and it was any thing but happy for himself. It caused him to take up his lodgings for a fourth time in the penitentiary; and there he is sawing stone, I believe, to this day, unless pardoned out by the Governor of Pennsylvania, according to the practice among governors in general. The visitation was, however, thus far advantageous to me, that it caused me to be conducted to the dwelling of Mr. Longstraw with all due expedition and care; whereas, had it not happened, I might have remained lying on the floor of my miserable tenement until frozen to death; for the night was uncommonly bitter.

As for my late body, it found its way to Abram Skinner's mansion; whence, having been handsomely coffined, it was carried to the grave, which, but for me, it would have filled three months before.

BOOK V

CONTAINING THE ADVENTURES OF A GOOD SAMARITAN

CHAPTER I.

THE PHILANTHROPIST'S FAMILY

If my first introduction to the life of the philanthropic Zachariah Longstraw (for that was his name) was attended with circumstances of fear and danger, I did not thereby escape those other evils, which, as I hinted before, might have been anticipated, had I reflected a moment on the situation of his body. It was covered with bruises from head to foot, and there was scarce a sound bone left in it; so that, as I may say, I had, in reanimating it, only exchanged anguish of spirit for anguish of body; and which of these is the more intolerable, I never could satisfactorily determine. Philosophers, indeed, contend for the superior poignancy of the former; but I must confess a leaning to the other side of the question. What is the pain of a broken heart to that of the toothache? The poets speak of vipers in the bosom; what are they compared to a bug in the ear? Be this, however, as it may, it is certain I had a most dreadful time of it in Mr. Longstraw's body; and it would have been much worse, had not the blows I had received on the head kept me for a long time in a delirium, and therefore in a measure unconscious of my sufferings. The truth is, the body which I so rashly entered was in such a dilapidated condition, so bruised and mangled, that it was next to an impossibility to restore its vital powers; and it was more than two weeks, after lying all that time in a state of insensibility, more dead than alive, before I came to my senses, and remembered what had befallen me; and it was not until four more had elapsed that I was finally able to leave my chamber, and snuff the early breezes of spring.