THE STRANGER’S MANUSCRIPT.
‘I pass over my boyhood.
‘I had now entered upon my sixteenth spring, and with less unhappiness, perchance, than ordinarily meets us in this world. Sadness I had known, but unkindness I had never felt; nor had a suspicion of how very opposed the heart is to rectitude, found a lodgment in my mind. I was on the point of visiting the metropolis; and I know I felt as boys mostly do on their entering into the great world—elated with the thoughts of what I was to see and meet with, in a scene I had heard so much about. I talked of little else; and when the day came heralded by a morning of unusual loveliness, my happiness almost sickened me. I remember I went out into the fields, and every thing looked gayer and brighter than I had ever seen it. The flowers looked prettier—the dew was brighter—the birds chirped to me as I passed them—and a subtle spirit of life seemed to pervade all things and participate in my happiness. I returned home happy, and strove to while off the hours preceding my departure (for I was not to leave till the afternoon)—but ere that afternoon came, a dingy, dusky atmosphere, spread itself all about the earth, and the very sky looked, as I thought, fiendish—threatening. I shall not soon forget how soon it was communicated to my feelings. My spirits sunk down. A fearful change seemed working itself through my disposition, which amazed and maddened me. I answered those sharply, who interrogated me as to the cause of it. I gave my orders harshly. I ran from room to room, absent and thoughtful. In fine, all my characteristic amiableness had gone from me, and I seemed transformed into something devilish. I was changed as I suppose those spirits will be at the last day, when they turn half hoping to the judgment seat, and, reading their condemnation there, instantly become fiends.
‘A gentle tap was heard at the door, and my mother glided silently into the room; and seating herself beside me, she laid my head upon her bosom. She parted the dark curls from my forehead, and I felt her lips pressed feverishly upon it, and a tear fell upon my face—one of her tears! I opened my eyes at this and looked her full in the face—O! how she looked—pale—wan—beautiful.
“My son—my son—speak to me”—Staring her full in the face, I drew my hand half unconsciously over my eyes—then, recollection suddenly returning, I knelt wildly at her feet—
“Your blessing—Mother!” I gasped.
“Bless thee—bless thee—my boy!” I started up—screamed—and fled from the room. It seemed as if I was mad at her—mad even in my idolatry; and I verily believe I struck her, for I heard her groan and fall heavily upon the floor.
‘Before I slept I was upon the ocean—and I have a dim recollection that there was a storm—that the green and crested billows hissed angrily as the thunder growled over them—that the ship went forward like a mad horse plowing through whole mountains of water, and shaking off the white surf from her bows in sheets of silver—and I remember that the violence of the tempest seemed to harmonize awfully with the loud passions within me.
‘Years had passed. The bright enthusiasm of youth had gone off with them. The glowing thoughts, passions, sympathies, consuming themselves in their own fire—my whole character had saddened down into the melancholy, homeless wanderer. I was no longer the sunny featured boy that had spent so many pleasant hours on the hill side—by the sandy margin of the lake that washed its base and sent up there with every wind that fanned it, a gentle lullaby—by the rivulet that in early days had caught my laughing features as I bent over it to gather water flowers—no! I was that boy no longer. The peace which had once lived in my heart, had become a worthless and withered flower, scentless as a shadow; the innocency which once gave a zest to every thing had gone from me; the gray hairs of premature age were intermingled with the dark ones of my youth—no! I was that boy no longer. I had traveled—but what was travel to me? I had been in the north and south, in the east and west; I had wandered over the solemn grounds of Corcyra, and amid the classic ruins of Italy; I had stood beneath the sky of Africa and sat me down like Marius amid the relics of her better days, and tried to wake in my heart some of that dormant enthusiasm belonging to young minds; but it was like seeking to resuscitate the dead dust in the earth beneath, or to call life into the mouldering mausoleums and temples around me—no! I was that boy no longer.
‘The time of the grain gathering had gone by, and later Autumn had fully set in; for the trees were more than half stripped of that gorgeous covering peculiar to this season; and no music came out from the forest save the whistle of a single quail, and this too in that pensive cadence which is heard only at the close of the year. I was revisiting the scenes of my childhood—a spot I had not seen for twenty years, and during which period I had been a wanderer where no tidings of the weal or wo of my family reached me. It is not necessary to recount the circumstances which had made me thus long a voluntary exile. It need only be said, I parted from home and all I held dear, in anger—angry with self—angry with man—angry with that pure and exemplary being who had borne me on her heart, and by whom I had been so often taught to kneel and pray even before I could myself frame a benediction—‘with her who taught me that God loved obedient children.’ O! that one offence! Any thing else—had it been any thing else, I had suppressed the groans over my nightly pillow, and borne it like a man while it grieved me. But she, she in whose character unkindness had no part—a blow, a damning blow—God! God! this was unmitigated misery. And yet I had suffered—God knows it, year after year, and seen it preying on my health, and felt it withering up all my finer sensibilities—and yet I would not return. I could not. I felt as if a power was upon me, against which my united energies were nothing. I felt as if it was my destiny, and strange as it may appear, I thought it right. I felt it certain that home was not for me, and though I would wake from an unrefreshing sleep, and recount for hours as a miser his gold every early association, it brought the wish but not the purpose to return. Sickness came—O! what a leveler is sickness of all the petty passions and enmities which creep into the dispositions of men! How it tears up the character, wrings out from the hardened heart the bitter gall of contrition, and forces into amendment! Sickness accomplished in me what reason and conscience could not do, and broke down that indomitable barrier which had so long interposed betwixt me and duty. I rose from my bed, a habitant rather of another world than the denizen of this, and my first thought was home. This cherished for a few weeks grew into a passion, and the fear that the grave had closed over all I loved magnified the wish a thousand fold, while every obstacle which now interposed betwixt me and a return sent a chill through me, like that which we may suppose lies on the heart of the dead. The swiftest speed seemed but delay, and it was only on the last day of my journey and I neared home that my impatience subsided, and my anxiety began to assume another form—something terrible and strange, foreboding and oppressive.
‘The tread of the post horses down the gravelly slope which led directly to the village, roused me from a lethargy I had fallen into, and I sprang to the coach window like a madman. We were opposite the village inn. The same old antiquated elm creaked before the door, and the same old sign board flapped in the blast, and upon the high step stones that led to the main body of the building, sat a human form. A staff lay on the ground beside him—his ragged scrip was at his feet—and his form was doubled up with age. I looked closely—God of Heaven!—it was my brother.
‘But my cup was not yet full. We drew up at the inn door, and I heard the guard rudely order the beggar from the spot, and curse him for an idle mendicant. This was too much for my swollen heart to bear, and leaping from the opposite side of the carriage, I took my way forward alone. I came to the small hill which ran along by the side of the village, from the top of which the immediate valley where lay my father’s dwelling appeared in view; and as I paused there for a moment, and memory ran over the thousand senseless objects that lay around me with each of which I could associate a forgotten happiness, I thought death a boon I could have prayed for. At that moment the village school poured forth its groups of noisy and innocent children. This was as it was wont to be—this seemed natural. But looking nearer, I knew them not—they were strangers. Here and there I thought I recognized a face I had once known, but it was transient and soon passed—all was strange. A celebrated ‘Retreat for the Insane’ was in our village, and reaching the summit of the hill I stood by its walls. The door was closed but not fastened; and I know not why, but an indefinable feeling led me to enter there. I know not but it was the unbreathed wish of my heart to witness some spectacle of human suffering—hoping thereby to lessen my own; perhaps I thought I might soon make it my own dwelling, and I wanted to familiarize the objects I should meet with;—but I entered. Seated upon the ground with scarce a mat to cover them, was a lot of wretched beings busied as their several dispositions prompted them. One was blowing bubbles—he said he was maturing a system of astronomy, whereby Galileo should be forgotten and the world profited. Another was heaping up sand, and hoarding it in his bosom—he called it gold. A third it seemed had been a lay preacher, and now and then he howled forth a torrent of truth and error, interlarded with imprecations and blasphemies the most horrid. And there was one there, a tall and handsome youth, with eyes as black as midnight, and his brow drawn down into the scowl of a demon—He said he was ANALYZING A HUMAN HEART. Sudden my ears were saluted with loud and piercing shrieks that made my whole frame shiver, and betwixt each scream I thought I recognized the shrill echo of a lash as applied to the naked skin. Another—and an old man came tottering round an angle of the building; and seeing me, he ran to my feet and cowered down like a whipped hound seeking for protection.
“Curse them for inhuman wretches”—groaned, or rather screamed the old man—“They chain me up like a vile beast—a dog to murder me. They drag me into that black den and shut me there, and say I’m crazed—mad. What is mad? Who?—O! yes,—my children, they broke my heart—one went from me, and the other—Ah! save me—save me”—His keepers came in sight, and in their hands were the scourges they had been using, the sounds of which had rung in my ears so appalling. “O! don’t—don’t—I’ll follow—you won’t whip me, will you master—I’m good—good”—and the old man actually knelt down, and like a beast licked the feet of his tormentors. I fell to the earth senseless.
‘A long and doleful night followed—a blank—a vacancy; so long, it seemed ten thousand eternities; so gloomy, it seemed as if the darkness was consolidated. O! what a night is that, when the helm of reason breaks—the unshackled faculties wander forth—and the maddened powers invoke images of horror, only to madden themselves the more by gazing at them! All that is grand—all that is terrible—all horrible, loathsome, fearful images, that the mind had ever while healthy repulsed, then come back on the heart like vultures that have been scared awhile from their prey, whose fasts have only whetted their ungorged appetites. At one moment, I seemed borne through the Eternal void chained to the lightnings; at another, I was dashing downward towards a tremendous barrier of cavernous rocks, and their serrated pinnacles seemed waiting to embrace me. Now I was tossed on billows of fire, and a tremendous surge would hurl me on a jagged precipice; then with its reflux suck me down through unimaginable depths, and the hot fires scorched me as they shot into my brain. Again I heard peals of laughter, and howlings of formless, shapeless beings that hovered around me; they had snakes and basilisks twisted round their foreheads, and the flames that issued from their forked mouths seemed to burn into my very soul. Then came the sense of a release—the gasping, choking, horrible consciousness, that you are struggling on the confines of two worlds, and not knowing which is to be yours—whether earth or death shall have you. Suddenly a fountain seemed tossing its cool spray over me—the fires that withered up my brain went out—the fiends that howled about me passed away—the subtlest life began to dance through my veins—and I awoke!
My first thoughts were true to their mark, and my first words, “Mother, lives she? The rest—father, brother—God of Heaven! why was I reserved for it?”
‘A form stood by me—a little maid. O! how the innocent words and kind attentions of infancy, soothe the pillow of an irritable sickness! We can’t bear the cold studied kindness of such as we are, we are jealous of them; we fear they will condole with us, curse us with their stinted pity; and that too in the measured phraseology which speaks of the head and not of the heart. But a child, a gentle child—to see its little form gliding about your couch—to feel its little arms about your pillow—to catch its warm breath on your cheek as winds breathed from flowers—and see the kind and touching solicitude of the eye unused to sights of sorrow, yet enduring it like a martyr, and for ourselves too,—these make irritable diseases tolerable—may I not say happy? for the evidence of a pure and devoted affection in a human being, makes a misanthrope (and such I then was) contented with misery. And my disease was of this nature: it was a nervousness induced by excess of suffering, and my faculties had become so exquisite, that the least thing sent a dart through me that seemed tearing flesh and soul asunder.
“Mother! is she—?” excessive weakness forbade me finish the sentence.
“Your mother lives”—but she placed her finger upon her lips in token of silence. I attempted to answer—she laid her hand upon my mouth with a sweet smile, then turned and left the room.
‘Weeks passed, and still was I the denizen of a sick room; and but slowly regaining my pristine energies. My form had shrunk away—my eyes were sunk—my voice was almost entirely gone; and as I slowly paced my apartment and from the window threw my eyes on the dreariness without, (for the year had gone far into later fall, and the loud winds whistled bitterly through the naked poplars) I felt as if I had but little to do in the world, and would as lief go from it. But yet, one thing held me back, one thirst, one burning desire—the wish to see my mother. She I had not seen, and for reasons I could not unravel, her name was never mentioned. And though I was told she was in the house, I was not suffered to visit her. She was sick, but not dangerous—received my messages of love daily—returned them—this was all.
‘One dark night (I shall not forget that night) I was sitting up in bed, and counting off the weary hours as they limped laggingly by me. A weight had been on my heart all day, and racking fires had seemed scorching my brain; and so acute was the suffering, as if a band of hot iron were riveted closely round my forehead. I sat thinking—thinking of self—of my sorrows—of my strange destiny; and then there came back to me the remembrance of other days, and with them my mother—her care, love, and early tenderness, until my eyes were suffused with tears. Sudden I was startled by a low sigh breathed as it were close in my ears. I thought it delusion, but was soon undeceived—for it was repeated, and that too so audibly I could not mistake. I turned my eyes in the direction from whence it came. Again I caught it, and a strain of music rose soft and sweetly as if an angel sang it, and I saw indistinctly a shadow gliding past me. Then my name was distinctly sounded, and in a voice I knew too well. Terror had chained the powers of utterance, and I only gazed at vacancy with all the horrors of some dark, indefinite foreboding. The same sigh was repeated and the name, and then as a cloud passed over the moon, a figure stood in the apartment clad in the habiliments of the grave. It smiled sweetly upon me—it was my mother! I knew she must have passed from this to a better world, and the truth came over me with a cold sweat while the palsy of my limbs made the very bed tremble. I spread out my arms in agony, and wildly clasped the air. There was another sigh, the repetition of my name—and the figure vanished.
‘I rose and threw my night garments round me, and grasping my own flesh to be sure I dreamed not, I took the light from my table and commenced a search to find—what? my mother’s corse! for such I felt I must find her, if at all—the warning was not for nothing. I traversed room after room—met no one—and came to the wing of the building where I had ever deemed she lodged; and leaving the light at the door, I slowly lifted the latch and entered the apartment. On a bed in the centre of the chamber, she lay lifeless. There was no light there, but the moon broke forth at the moment, and I saw she was shrouded for the grave.
‘O! death!—death!—how solemn thou art! How awful, when thou comest on those we love! How thought at such moments crowds on the living! How the words that once issued from the lips that lie there, come up to recollection! How the eye that looks so chill and glassy, gleams again—and the face marble-cold and as expressionless, radiates with love, hope, happiness! There she lay dead, dead—and I not forgiven. She was gone. I had not heard her say, ‘I forgive thee, boy.’ Not a word—not a look—not a blessing—God! God!—what next! O, what next!
‘I crept up to the bier and laid my cold face down to hers, and moaned in all my heart brokenness of sorrow. I kissed her—I shrieked her name—I stamped—I threw myself upon her corse. There was no Promethean heat that could reanimate it—and I felt I was alone.
‘Had I heard her say, ‘I forgive—I bless thee, child’—life were tolerable, and I would have breasted the forceful waves of misery as they came tumbling in upon me, like a man. This was denied me, and in its place is blazed in shapes of fire—That one offence.’
The evening wore away, what with the reading of the manuscript and my many inquiries concerning the stranger, and my host now showing me to my room, where with many expressions of his happiness to wait upon me, &c. &c. he bade me good night, I jumped into bed. In the morning I met him again and tried my hand with him at a good, honest, hearty, New Hampshire breakfast; afterwards I shook hands with his family, mounted my horse, and continued my journey—and such was my ‘Night at the Farm House.’