The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 60, October, 1862

"See here! I'm right!" and as I spoke, I drew a match across the stone step. The wind put out the flame. I guarded the second one with my shawl, and lighted the lamp.

"Open quickly, before I lose it," I said.

He did, and we went in,—in through the vestibule, where I first had seen this man, tolling the bell for his mother's death,—up the aisle, where I had gone the day I saw the thirsty, hungry, little mouse. I felt afraid, even with this strong man, for I did not know where I was going. We drew near the pulpit,—the pulpit in which Aaron preached.

"She is not here," Mr. Axtell said; and he looked about the empty pews, feebly lighted from my small flame.

He started forward as he spoke.

"Don't leave me," I said; and I put my hand within his arm.

What we saw was a change in the pulpit, an opening, as if some one had destroyed the panelled front of it.

"Come," I said; and I drew near, and put the lamp through the opening, showing a few stone steps; perhaps there were a dozen of them; at least, they went down into undefined darkness.

"What is this, Miss Percival?"

"I don't know,—I have never seen it before; but I think it leads to the tower. You will find her there. Come!" and I went down the first step, with a feeling far stronger than the prisoner's doomed to step off into interminable depths, in that Old-World castle famous for wrongs to mankind,—for I knew my danger: he does not, as he comes to the last step, from off which he goes down to a deep, watery death.

Mr. Axtell was aroused. He took the lamp from my unsteady hand, and, bidding me come back, went down before me. At the foot we found ourselves in a stone passage-way. It seemed below the reach of rains, and not very damp. Once I hit my foot against a stone, and fell. As Mr. Axtell turned back to see if I was hurt, he let the light fall distinctly on the ground. I saw a letter. He went on. I groped for it, one moment, then found it, and put it, with the torn piece of envelope to which it might belong, within my pocket. We came, at last,—a long distance it seemed for only a hundred feet,—to steps again. There were only three of them. Mr. Axtell held the lamp up; there was an opening. I shaded the light immediately, and whispered,—

"She's up there, I'm sure. Don't alarm her."

"How can I help it?" he asked.

I had as little of wisdom on the point as he; but I heard a noise. I saw a glimmer of light, as I looked up; then it was gone. I put my head through the opening, then reached down for the lamp. I held it up, and called,—

"Miss Axtell!"

No answer.

"We shall have to go up," her brother said.

I entered the tower, the place I had so loved before,—and now seemed destined to atone for my love by suffering.

"Don't let the light go out, Mr. Axtell," were all the words spoken; and we went up the long, winding stairway.

At the top stood Miss Axtell, fixed and statue-like, with fever-excited eyes. She looked not at us, but far away, through the rough wood inside, through the stone of the tower: her gaze seemed limitless.

"Come, Lettie! come, sister! come home with me," her brother said.

She heeded not; the only seeming effect was a convulsion of the muscles used in holding the lamp. I ventured to take it from her.

"Where did you find it?" she asked, in determined tones; "will you tell me now?"

"Whom is she speaking to?" asked Mr. Axtell.

I answered,—

"Yes, Miss Axtell, it was in here."

"Where is the rest?" and her beautiful eyes were coruscant.

I handed to her the last of the trophies of my first visit. She seized it eagerly.

"Don't do that," said Mr. Axtell, as she lighted it from the lamp he held. But she was not to be stayed; she held it aloft until the fire came down and touched her fingers; then she dropped it, burning still, down to the stone floor, far below.

She seemed helpless then; she looked as she did when a few hours before she had said, "I want some one to help me."

"Oh!—I've—lost—something!" and she tolled the words out, as slowly as the notes of the passing bell.

"What is it, Lettie? Come home; the day is breaking"; and Mr. Axtell put his arm about her.

I thought of the letter that I had picked up in the passage-way.

"What have you lost, Miss Axtell? Is it anything that I could find for you?" and I laid my hand upon hers, as the only method of drawing away her eyes from their terrible immutation of expression.

"You? No, I should think not; how could you? you only found a piece of it."

"What is this?" I asked; and I held up the letter: the superscription was visible only to herself.

What a change came over her! Soft, dewy tears melted in those burning eyes, and sent a mist of sweet effluence over her face. Mr. Axtell was still supporting her; she did not touch the letter I held; she reached out both of her hands, bent a little toward me,—for she was much taller than I am,—took my cold, shivering face in those two burning hands, and touched my forehead with her lips.

"God has made you well," she said; "thank Him."

She did not ask for the letter. I put it whence I had taken it. She evidently trusted me with it.

"Abraham, I'm sick," she said; and she laid her head upon his shoulder, passively as an infant might have done.

Her strength was gone; she could no longer support herself, and the day was breaking. Mr. Axtell, strong, vigorous, full-souled man as I knew him to be, looked at me, and his look said, "What am I to do with her?"

I answered it by throwing off the shawl and putting it upon the floor where we were standing, and saying,—

"Let her rest here, until I come."

I took the still burning lamp and went down,—down through the entrance into the deep, walled passage-way, on, step after step, through this black tunnel, built, when, I knew not, or by whom; but I was brave now. I had won the trust of a soul: it was light unto my feet. I reached the twelve stone steps leading into the church. I ran lightly up them, and, stooping, crept into this still house of God. Silence held the place. The next reign would be that of worship. Is it thus in the church-yard, after the silence of Death,—the long waiting, listening for the slowly gathering voice of praise, that, one fair day in time, time, shall transfuse the reverent souls, until the voice of the dew God sends down shall be heard dropping on the grassy sod, and welcomed as the prelude to the archangel's grand semibreve that will usher in the sublime Psalm of Everlasting Life?

Wait on, souls! it is good to wait the voice of the Lord God Almighty, who holdeth the earth in the hollow of His hand,—His hand, that we may feel for, when the way is dark, whose living fibres thrill both heart and soul. Yes, God's hand is never away from earth. I reached out anew for it in that dismal pathway through which I had come, and it guided me into this quiet, peaceful place, full of morning rays.

I did not stop to think all this; I felt it; for feeling is swifter than thought. Thought is the tree; feeling, the blossom thereof. I closed the panelling behind me, leaving the church as it had been on the day when, I saw the little hungry mouse treading sacred places. I went down the aisle; and as I passed by the hempen rope in the vestibule that so often had set the bell a-ringing, a longing came to do it now, to tell the village-people, by voice of sacred bell, that there was a new-born worship come down from Heaven. But I did not. I hurried on, and went out, locking the door after me. The March morning was cold. I missed the shawl I had left. My hair was as much astir as Aaron's had been one morning, not long before, and I truly believe there was as much of theology in it. No one was abroad. People sleep late on Sunday mornings. The east was blossoming into a magnificent sunflower.

Looking at myself, as I began my walk, I laughed aloud. I was still carrying a lighted lamp,—for the wind, like the village-people, slept at sunrise. I comforted myself by thinking of a predecessor somewhat famous for a like deed, and bent upon a like errand. The man that I searched for I should surely find, and honest, too; for it was Aaron.

The parsonage was cruelly inhospitable. No door was left unfastened. I knocked at a window opening on the veranda. I gave the signal-knock that Sophie and I had listened and opened to, unhesitatingly, for many years. It needed nothing more. Instantly I heard Sophie say,—"That's Anna's knock"; and immediately thereafter the curtain was put aside, and Sophie's precious face and azure eyes peeped out. She looked in amazement to see me thus, and in one moment more had let me in.

"Wake Aaron," I said, without giving her time to question me.

"He is awake. What has happened? Is Miss Axtell dying?" she questioned.

"No," I said; "but I want to speak to Aaron, directly. I'm going to my room one moment."

I went up. The tower-key was hanging where I had left it. I took it down, and made myself respectable by covering up my breezy hair with a hood, with the further precaution of a cloak. I had not long to wait for Aaron's coming; but it was long enough to remind me to carry some restorative with me. Aaron came.

"Miss Axtell is very ill," I said; "she is quite wild, and left the house in the night. She's up in the church-yard tower. Will you help her brother take her home, as soon as you possibly can?"

"How strange!" were his only words; and as I went the garden way, Aaron started to arouse his horse from morning sleep.

"No one need to know the church entrance," I thought; and as I went in, I tried to close down the heavy stone, which fitted in so well, that it seemed, like all the others, built to stay.

I could not stir it. Perhaps Aaron would not look, when he came in; but doubting his special blindness, I asked Mr. Axtell to put it back. He seemed to comprehend my meaning. I took his place beside Miss Axtell. She was no longer wilful or determined. Her strength was gone. Her head drooped upon my shoulder, and when I held a spoon, filled with the restorative that I had brought, to her lips, they opened, and she took that which I gave, mechanically. Her eyelids were down. I looked at the fair, beautiful face that lay so near to my eyes. It was full of the softest pencillings; little golden sinuosities of light were woven all over it; and the blue lines along which emotion flies were wonderfully arrowy and sky-like in their wanderings, for they left no trace to tell whence they came or whither led. I heard the heavy, ponderous weight let fall. It was the same sound as that which I heard on that memorable night. Miss Axtell shivered a little; or was it but the effect of the concussion?

The brother came up; he looked down, kindly at me, lovingly at his sister.

"Shall I relieve you?" he asked.

I folded my arm only a little more tightly for answer, and said,—

"Mr. Wilton will be here soon; he is getting the carriage, to take your sister home."

"I will go and help him, if you don't mind being left"; and he looked inquiringly.

"There's no danger. I shall not fall asleep," I said.

"She's harmless now, poor child! If we can only get her back safely!" And with these words he left me again.

Sophie came up soon, quite fearless now. She brought a variety of comforting things, among them a pillow. Miss Axtell was too much exhausted to open her eyes, or speak. I thought two or three times that she had ceased to breathe. What if she should die here? They came. She was lifted up, and borne down to the carriage, that waited outside the graveyard. Helpless ones are carried in often: never before (it might be) had one been taken thence. And still the village-people seemed to be buried in rest.

Sophie and I walked on, whilst slowly the carriage proceeded to the gable-roofed, high-chimneyed house, that arose, well defined and clear, in the early sunlight. Smoke was rising from the kitchen-fire. Sophie and I went in, just as the carriage stopped. She waited to receive the invalid, whilst I went up to see if the absence had been discovered. It was but little more than an hour since Mr. Axtell and I had gone out. Evidently there had been no visitors. The wood that had been put on the fire before I left had gone down into glowing coals that looked warm and inviting. I kneeled and stirred them to a brighter glow, and put on more wood, my fingers very stiff the while. I drew back the curtains from the bed, smoothed the pillows, and the disorder occasioned by our hasty exodus, and went down. Aaron and Mr. Axtell had carried the poor invalid to the library, and laid her upon the sofa there, but it was very cold. The fire was not yet built.

There was a sound of some one coming from the kitchen-way. Mr. Axtell looked at me. "You know how to keep a secret," he said, and motioned me in the direction whence came the sound, I hurried out, closing the door, and met Katie running up to know "what had happened?"

I sent her back on some slight pretext, and followed whither she went. I heard the cook mumblingly scolding about "noises in the night, dogs barking and doors shutting, she knew; such a house as it was, with people dying, getting sick, and putting every sort of a bothersome dream into a quiet body's head, that wanted to rest, just as she worked, like a Christian." And all the while she went on making preparations for a future breakfast.

"What was 't now that ye heard? Kate, you're easy enough at hearing o' noises in the broad daylight: I wish 't ye would be as harksome at night."

"Hush, Cooky!" said Katie; "Miss Percival is here."

I went up to Cooky and soothed her, told her that I had heard the dog barking too, and that I thought that I did hear something like the shutting of a door in the night. Cooky rewarded my efforts at sympathy by expressing gladness "that there was one sensible person in the house that had ears fit for Christian purposes."

"Don't mind her, Miss Percival," Katie said; "she's cross because I wakened her too early; she'll get over it when she has had her breakfast"

I gave Katie something to do, telling her to make coffee for Miss Axtell as soon as possible; and with a few more words, meant to be conciliating to Cooky, I took up the glass Katie brought me, and went back.

They had carried Miss Axtell up-stairs. Sophie was taking her wrappings off. How carefully she had guarded herself, even in her illness, for the walk! and now, all the nerve of fever gone, she lay as white and strengthless as she had done in the tower. I went for Doctor Eaton, on my own responsibility.

"He would come in a few minutes," was the message to me.

Sophie said "that she would stay, for I must go home."

As she said so, a little wavering cloud of doubt went across her forehead, eclipsing, for a moment, its light; then all was bright again.

"What is it?" I asked. "Something for Aaron, I know."

Sophie looked the least bit like a rather old child asking for sugar-candy; but she said,—

"Just you tie his cravat for him, there's a good sister; don't forget; that's all. After that you may go to sleep, and sleep all day. You look as if you needed it."

She came to say one more forgotten thing,—

"Just see that Aaron gets a white handkerchief: he's fond of gay colors, you know. Two Sundays ago, when I wasn't looking, he carried off to church one of Chloe's turbans, and deliberately shook out the three-cornered article, and never knew the difference till his face told him it was cotton instead of silk."

I promised extra caution on the second point, and had just closed the lower door—Aaron was already holding the gate open for me—when the softly purplish bands of hair came again into the wind.

"One thing more, Anna: do see what he takes for a sermon. The text is in the fifth chapter of First Thessalonians. He will certainly pick up a Fast-day or a Thanksgiving sermon, if you don't put the right one into his hands."

"Hasn't he two sermons on the same chapter?" I asked.

"Yes, half a dozen. You'll know the one for to-day; I wrote it for him the day he had the headache; the text is"—and there was a little moment of thought; then she said—"'Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.' Aaron's waiting; don't keep him; good bye!" and she was closed in.

I felt faint and weary, now that there was no more to be done. The village-people were awake. Village-sounds were abroad in the Sunday atmosphere, vibrant with holiness. The farmers stopped in their care for their animals, and spent a moment in innocent wonder of the reason why their pastor should be abroad thus early.

Chloe's turban welcomed us first, then Chloe's self. Breakfast, that morning, had a rare charm about it for me. I felt that I had a right to it; in some wise it was a breakfast earned. Aaron looked melancholy; his coffee was not charmful, I knew; the chemical changes that sugar and milk wrought were not the same as when Sophie presided over the laboratory of the breakfast-tray. I am not an absorbent, and so I reflected Aaron's discomfort. He was disposed to question me for a reason for Miss Axtell's aberration. I was not empowered to give one, and was fully determined to impart no information until such time as I could with honor tell all. Aaron desisted after a while, and changed interrogation for information.

"We're to have a new sexton," he said.

"Why, Aaron?" I asked,—and, in my surprise, put sugar, destined for my coffee, into a glass of water.

"Because Abraham Axtell has resigned."

"When?"

"This very morning."

"He will be sexton until you find another, will he not?"

"For one week only," he said.

I remembered that my pocket held the church-key. I could not send it to him without exciting question. Aaron would surely ask how I came by it, if I trusted him to restore it. So, sleepy, weary, I sat down at the window from which Sophie and her sister Anna had watched the strange man digging in the frosty earth,—sat down to my last watching, waiting to see Mr. Axtell come up to ring the first bell.

I found I was an hour too early; so I went and talked to Chloe a little, scattered crumbs for the first-come birds and corn for the chickens, and looked down the deep, deep well, with its curb lichened over, into the dark pupil of water, whose iris is never disturbed, unless by the bucket that hung in such gibbety repose on the lofty extreme of the great sweep, that creaked dismally, uttering a pitiful cry of complaint. If it hadn't been Sunday, I would have coaxed Aaron to pour some oil on its turbulence; but since Sunday it was, I was to be content to let it screech on. It was not a "sheep fallen into a pit," only a disturbed well-sweep. Do well-sweeps feel, I wonder? Why not? Mr. Axtell asked how I knew that the dead cannot hear.

Aaron came out in search of me. He had been assiduously trying to make a ministerial disposition of his cravat, until it was creased and wrinkled beyond repair.

"I did not know that you put on the paraphernalia of pastorhood so early," I said, "or I would have come in."

"I shall be very thankful, if you'll give me a respectable appearance," he said, which I faithfully tried to do.

I gave him the sermon and the proper handkerchief, then left him to his hour of seclusion before service, when even Sophie never went nigh.

Half-past nine of the clock came. It was the time for the ringing of the first bell. No sexton appeared. I looked far down the street, having walked to the corner of the church for the purpose. Perhaps Mr. Axtell was searching for the key. What if I should ring the bell? I had wished to, still earlier in the morning. No one would see me go in.

The third time I entered within the church. The bell-rope swayed to and fro with a mimic oscillation; a sort of admonitory premonition of what it must shortly do ran up its fibres. I had left the entrance into the place devoted to worship open. I closed it now. There was nothing very alarming in standing there. The floor was oaken and old; the walls were gray, and seamed with crevices; there were steps, at either extreme, leading into galleries,—one for the choir, two for happy children excluded by numbers from the straight family-pews, right under Aaron's gray eyes, that saw everything, except the few items that Sophie must watch for him, such as neckties, handkerchiefs, and sermons.

There was a smooth place on the rope. The roughness had been worn away by contact of human hands. Abraham Axtell's hands—the same that covered his face before the young girl's picture, that digged the grave, and so gently soothed his sister that very morning—had worn it smooth. It was out of my reach, too high up for me to attain unto; and so I held it tightly lower down. The ungrateful rope was very prickly; it hurt me, but I held fast, and slowly, surely drew it down. Too slowly; there was not sound enough to frighten a bird out of the belfry, had one been there to listen; but Aaron, on his knees within his study, praying for the gift of healing, that he might restore sick souls, would hear. Once more I drew the rope, with a tiny persistence that was childish, amusing. A baby-tone came to me from the bell, accustomed to other things. I had gained courage from the two attempts; it grew rapidly; and soon, out into the people's homes, the sounding strokes were ringing, clear, sonorous, and true. I had never noticed how long a time the "first bell" rang. It was the last Sunday morning's service of the sexton. He might be expected to linger a little in the net-work of memory; and thus, anxious to do my duty well, I rang on.

The neighbor's boy opened the door and put his head inside; and then he opened his eyes wondrously wide at me, and, frightened, ran away. I left my bell to tone itself to silence, with little sighing notes, like a child sobbing itself into sleep, and called after him. The rough boy came to me. I asked "if he would do me a favor." He said, "of course he would."

"I wish you to build the church-fires; and don't tell any one that you saw me ringing the bell."

"If you tell me not to, I sha'n't," was his laconic reply.

I went home, my latest duty done. I saw, far down the willow-arched street, Mr. Axtell coming.

With closed blinds, and room of silence, I ought to have found rest; but I did not. I heard Aaron go out. I trusted that he had got the proper sermon. I heard the second bell ring. It was so near, how could I help it? I heard the congregation singing. Triumphant joy was the impression that the song brought to my darkened room. I thought of the letter that was in my pocket. It did not please me to feel that it was out of my keeping. I took it thence, and held it in my hands. It had no envelope. It was written upon soft, white paper, and was addressed to some one: to whom I would not see. Not if my happiness depended upon it, would I sacrifice the trust reposed in me. Holding the letter thus, a face came to memory. It was the third face of the three that had been painted in anthracite. I could not tell where I had known it in life. It did not seem as if it belonged to mortal time. I got up, opened the blinds for a moment, and looked in the glass. I saw myself,—and yet,—yes, there was a similitude to that I saw in memory; and then that strange, sad seeming of soul-sense, that says, "Such as you are, you have been somewhere for ages," overwhelmed and sent shakings of solemn ague to me.

"I'm getting ill," I thought; "I'll have no more of this."

I looked at a bottle of chloroform standing conveniently near, took it up, and drew out the stopper. Lifting it to the light, I looked at it. Quiet and calm and peaceful it reposed, unconscious of ill done or to be done by itself. It was so innocent that I could not let it sin by hurting me. I gazed again at my reflection in the glass, and a sudden intuition taught me a startling truth.

It may have been, nay, must have been, the innocence born of the lucent chloroform, reflected in my own face; but I was certain that the mirror and the Axtell house contained two pictures that were the one like the other. I smiled at the fancy. The illusion, if illusion it was, fled. The picture on the wall never smiled from out the canvas. I took dark winding-cloths and bound them about my head, covering the hair and forehead, all the while watching the effect produced in the mirror. The result was somewhat striking, it is true, but not of the agreeable style. I unbound my frontlet, taking off the black phylactery, whose memorable sentence, written in white letters, had been visible to myself alone. A contrast suggested itself to me. I would try white; and so I materialized the suggestion, and stood looking the least bit in the world like a nun, bound about with my white vestments, and had obtained only one very unsatisfactory glimpse of the effect produced upon the sensitive heart of quicksilver, when I found that that subtile heart responded to influences other than mine. What I discovered was another face, not in the most remote degree like mine,—as different as it could possibly be,—a face belonging to the carboniferous strata of the human ages. Had it been imitating me? Its race are eminent for imitative genius. A queer sort of a nun it was, wearing neither black nor white, but high tropical hues. Repose of being did not belong to this face. It darted around, and looked into my eyes.