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In the days of my early childhood, the little village of ——, separated by green hills and broad fields from the busy city, formed one of the pleasantest summer resorts of the wealthy inhabitants of New York. Many a stately villa was reared upon the banks of the Hudson, many a neat country-house sheltered itself within the winding lanes which traversed the village, for its vicinity to the great mart offered irresistible temptations to those whose hands were chained to the galley of commerce, while their hearts were still wedded to nature. One of the fairest pictures in the “chambers of mine imagery” is that of a large old-fashioned mansion, seated in the midst of a garden “too trim for nature, and too rude for art,” where a long avenue of cherry trees threw a pleasant shade across the lawn, while a rude swing, suspended between two of these sturdy old denizens of the soil, afforded a cool and delightful lounge to the studious and imaginative child. My earliest days were passed in that pleasant home, and my earliest lessons of wisdom learned in the school of that pretty village; therefore it is that my thoughts love to linger around those scenes, and therefore it is that I have fancied others might find something of interest in one of my reminiscences.
My shortest road to school led through a narrow green lane, rarely traversed by the gay vehicles which dashed along the main avenues of the village, and I was delighted to find such a quiet and shady path, where the turf was always so soft, and the air so fragrant with the breath of flowers. But I was soon induced to take a wide circuit rather than pass the solitary cottage which stood within that secluded lane. It was a low one-story building, with a broad projecting roof, throwing the narrow windows far into shade; and, as if to add to its sombre appearance, some former occupant had painted the house a dull lead color, which, by the frequent washings of the rain, and powderings of wayside dust, had assumed the grayish tint that gave to the cottage its distinctive appellation. Every village has its haunted house, and an evil name had early fallen on the “gray cottage.” Behind it, and so near that three paces from the little porch would lead a person to its very brink, was a deep and rocky ravine, forming a basin for the waters of a rapid brook, which, after flowing in sunshine and music through half the village, fell with sullen plash into the gloom of this wild dell. Some dark and half forgotten tale of guilt had added the horrors of superstition to the natural melancholy of the place, and few of the humbler inhabitants of the neighborhood would have been willing to stand after sunset on the brink of the Robbers’ Glen. It was said that the house, in former times, had been the abode of wicked and desperate men. The earth of the cellar beneath it was heaved up with hillocks like graves, and supernatural sounds had been heard to issue from these mysterious mounds. For many years it had stood untenanted, and the boys of the village often amused themselves by pelting it, at a cautious distance, with stones.
But a “haunted house” had great attractions for the mind of one who revelled in fancies of the wild and wonderful. I was exceedingly anxious to behold the interior of the lonely cottage, which had now become invested with so much dignity in my eyes, and finding a few companions of like spirit, we determined to visit it. We accordingly fixed upon a certain Saturday afternoon, and determined to find some means of ingress into the barred and bolted cottage. A gay and light-hearted troop were we, as we scrambled over rail fences, gathered our aprons full of wild flowers, or chased the bright butterflies which mocked our glad pursuit. But as we entered the lane our merry shouts of laughter ceased, each looked earnestly in the face of the other, as if, for the first time, sensible of the mysterious importance of our undertaking, and, but for shame, several would have retraced their steps. I believe not one of us was insensible to the gloom which seemed suddenly to fall upon us, and as we looked towards the cottage, standing in the deep shadow of a spreading elm, while all else within the lane was glistening in the slant beams of the declining sun, we almost feared to approach the darkened spot. Cautiously advancing, however, and peeping through the rusted keyhole, we found our curiosity entirely baffled by the total darkness of the interior. It was proposed that we should climb the fence and attempt an entrance from the rear of the building, where we should be less likely to be interrupted or discovered by wayfarers, and after a brief consultation, held in hurried whispers, we resolved upon the daring feat. Silently treading the margin of the Robbers’ Glen, we reached the back porch of the little cottage, and beheld one of the window shutters open. We looked into the apartment but saw nothing save the naked walls of the dilapidated room, and as one of our party turned the latch of the door, to our great astonishment, it yielded to the touch and allowed us free entrance. Half frightened at our own success, we stood huddled together in the narrow passage, hesitating to advance, when suddenly a tall woman, clad in the deepest black, and displaying a countenance as white and (as it seemed to our excited fancies) as ghostly and rigid as a sheeted corpse, stood in the midst of us. How we ever got out of the house I cannot tell. I remember our desperate speed, the wild and headlong haste with which we threw ourselves over the low fence, and the total exhaustion we felt when once fairly escaped from that frightful place. As we lay on the grass, to rest before returning home, each one told her own story of that terrible apparition. None had heard a footstep when that fearful woman came among us; none had seen her approach, and though the sound of our own buzzing voices, and the fixed attention with which we were just then regarding the door of the apartment, which we wished yet dreaded to enter, might easily account for both these circumstances, yet we all came to the conclusion that we had seen a ghost, or, at the least, a witch.
On the following Sunday we were scarcely less alarmed, for, just as the services were commencing, the same tall figure, arrayed in deep mourning and veiled to her very feet, slowly proceeded up the aisle and took her seat on the step of the altar. My blood ran cold as I looked upon her, and when I afterwards heard that she had recently become the occupant of the gray cottage, my dread of her supernatural powers gave place to a belief that she was in some way or other mysteriously connected with the guilty deeds of which that cottage had been the scene. I did not trouble myself to remember that the events which had flung such horror around the Robbers’ Glen must have occurred at least half a century previous, and therefore could have little to do with a woman yet in the prime of life. The curiosity which her presence excited was not confined to the children of the village. Her tall stature, her sombre garb, her veiled face, and her singular choice of a place of abode excited the conjectures of many an older and wiser head. But whatever interest her appearance had awakened, it was not destined to be satisfied. Those who, led by curiosity or real kindness, sought to visit her, were repulsed from the threshold; no one was allowed to enter her house; all prying inquiries were silenced, either by stern reserve or bitter vituperations; even the village pastor was refused admittance to her solitude; and, after months and even years, as little was known of her as on the day she first appeared. She lived entirely alone; once in each week she was seen walking towards the city, and on Sunday she was regularly to be found at the foot of the pulpit—but beyond this nothing was to be discovered. Few, very few, had ever distinctly seen the face whose paleness gleamed out from the folds of her thick veil, and, after some time, the people found other objects of interest, while the children carefully avoided all approach to the haunted cottage, and could scarcely repress a shudder of horror as they heard the low rustle of her dusky garments on each returning Sunday.
Years passed on; circumstances occurred to remove me from the village, and the various changes which the heart experiences between the period of joyous childhood and earnest womanhood, had almost effaced from my mind all recollection of the “black witch,” when I was unexpectedly and rather strangely made acquainted with her true history. It was a tale of ordinary trials and sorrows, such as might have befallen many others, and yet there are peculiarities in the sufferings of every individual as strongly marked as are the traits of character. There was no supernatural interest in her story, but it invested her in my mind with the dignity of unmerited sorrow, and it enables me to open for your perusal, gentle reader, another of the many strange written pages of human nature.
For more than twelve years Madeline Graham had been an only child, the darling of her invalid mother, and the pride of her doting father, when the birth of a brother opened a new channel for the affections of all the family. During the earliest period of his infancy the child seemed feebly struggling for existence, but he gradually acquired strength to resist the frequent attacks of disease, and though he gave no promise of robust health, his constitution seemed sufficiently invigorated to warrant a hope of prolonged life. The most unwearied exertions, however, were necessary, and his guidance over the very threshold of being was a task of more difficulty than the lifelong care of a hardy and healthy child. Yet the anxiety which his precarious state awakened, and the constant attention which he required, seemed to endear him the more closely to the little family. He became their idol, the object of their incessant solicitude, and comfort, happiness, even life itself was sacrificed to his welfare. Ere he had attained his third year, Mrs. Graham, who had long been in declining health, sank beneath the fatigue and anxiety she had endured, while, with her dying breath, she enjoined upon Madeline the most devoted attention to her darling boy. Madeline scarcely needed such admonition, for, from his very birth, her brother had been the object of her passionate love; but such a charge, given at such a solemn moment, sank deep into the heart of the young and sensitive girl. Falling on her knees beside her mother, she uttered a solemn vow that no earthly affection and no other duty should ever induce her to place her brother’s interests secondary to her own. A smile of grateful tenderness lit up the face of the dying woman, and her last glance thanked Madeline for the self-sacrifice to which she had thus unconsciously pledged herself.
From that hour the young Alfred became his sister’s especial charge. Young as she was, her father knew that he could trust her latent strength of character, and when she took her brother, even as a child, to her bosom, he felt assured that his boy would never need a mother’s care.
Madeline Graham was no common character. Though she had scarcely counted her fifteenth summer, she had grown up tall and stately, with a face almost severe in its fixed and classical beauty, while her manners, calm almost to coldness, were scarcely such as are usually found connected with youthful feeling and girlish simplicity. Educated solely by her parents, Madeline had acquired some of the characteristic traits of both. To her mother’s morbid sensibility and enthusiasm she united her father’s reserve and fixedness of purpose. She possessed strong passions, but an innate power of repressing them seemed born with them. Her love for truth was unbounded; even the common courtesies of society seemed to her but as so many fetters on the limbs of the goddess of her idolatry, and, therefore, even in her girlhood, her manners had become characterized by a sincerity almost amounting to brusquerie. Her talents were of the highest order, and her habits of reflection, which were singularly developed in one so young, enabled her to reap a rich harvest of knowledge from her father’s careful culture. She was one to be admired, and praised, and wondered at, but she was scarcely calculated to awaken affection. The spontaneous gush of feeling, the guileless frankness of a heart that knows no evil and dreads no danger, the warm sympathy of a youthful nature, the sweet susceptibility which, though dangerous to its possessor, is yet so winning a trait of girlish character—all these attributes, which seem to belong to the spring-time of life, even as the buds and blossoms are inseparably connected with the renewed youth of the visible creation, were wanting to Madeline.