"Loitering slow the Future creepeth,
Arrow-swift the Present sweepeth,
And motionless forever stands the Past!"
"'I had been out a-fishing in the 'Old South Bay,'" said a Long Island subscriber the other day, "with one of those crafty fishermen to whom no days, on which the water may be tempted, are considered days for 'bad luck;' 'dies infaustus' being a term unknown in his calendar. He was one of those 'long-necked clam'-eaters, whose stomach rose and fell with the tides which made them plentiful or left them scarce. As we were coming in in our boat, after a successful foray upon bass and sheepshead, we 'fell to meditate' upon various matters which were neither piscatory nor akin to it. As Boswell would say of the colloquies of the Great Leviathan: 'We spoke of Ghosts.' 'You say ghosts have been seen on Long Island, but you never seen 'em, and don't believe in 'em!' 'Wal, yes, I can't say I do believe in 'em, but I guess I should believe in 'em, ef I had such luck in gettin' a sight on 'em as a man did down to Jerusalem-South a good many years ago. The way of it was this: You see, it was a dreadful cold winter's night, about nine o'clock (how the Old South Bay roared that night)! when there was a sleigh with three fellows into it, druv up under the hoss-shed at the tavern. Two on 'em got out; and as they got out, they said to 't'other one, 'Jim, jist you sit there and mind the hosses while we go in and git somethin' warmin': we'll be right out agin.' They went into the tavern, but they didn't 'come right out again' by a jug-full, though when they did come out they had more than a jug-full apiece into 'em—both on 'em had—ha! ha! 'Fore they come out, though, Bill the 'ostler said to the man sittin' in the sleigh, 'Ef I was you I wouldn't sit there in the cold as long as you're a-sittin', blamed if I would: why don't you go in and get somethin' too?" The man never said nothin', though, in answer, but sot up as straight as an Indian. Bill, who was lookin' after some other hosses under the same shed, a'ter a while said somethin' more to him, but he was as still as a 'yster. Pooty soon Bill said to hisself, 'Goy-blamed ef I don't think he's friz to death, or else he'd say somethin'!' So he went up to him and shook him; and sure enough, he found him fruz as stiff as a stake; and when he come to hold up his lantern to look, he found him propped up on each side on the seat; the lines was wound round his hands; he was muffled up with comforters about his face—and he was stone-dead!
"'Bill wasn't nobody's fool, ef he did attend to hosses. He smelt the whole thing out to-once. Two or three graves had been robbed about there only a little while before, and the two chaps in the tavern was two body-gatherers that had been paid by doctors to get bodies for 'em, for to cut up, and they'd been and robbed a new grave that night; and here was the corpse, wrapped up and propped up in that sleigh, so that folks wouldn't suspicion nothing about it! Now what d'you 'spose Bill does? He goes and takes, Bill does, that body out of the sleigh (for he wasn't afraid of the very devil), strips off the clothes, and puts it into the oat-bin inside, and fastens the door: then he puts on the dead man's clothes hisself, and he goes and gets into the sleigh with 'em onto him, puts the lines round his hands, props hisself up, and waits for the body-snatchers to come out from the bar-room. Pooty soon, out they come, got in on the wide seat along side of him, and druv off. There Bill sits, as stiff as a rail; but 'twasn't long 'fore one o' the chaps says to t'other, feelin o' Bill's leg a little, 'Why, the body's gettin' warm! Feel o' that leg!' T'other one put down his hand and felt o' Bill's legs; and then he started back and said: 'It's a fact, by Thunder! it is warm, and no mistake!' 'Twas Bill's time, now: so he turned his head round, stiff-like and straight, without moving his body, and says he, 'Warm?—wal, I guess you'd be WARM ef you'd been took out o' h-ll only a little while ago, as I was!'
"'Bill says it wan't half a second 'fore both o' them chaps had pitched head-first out o' that sleigh, and n'ither on 'em stopped runnin' till they was clean out o' sight. Then he turned right square round and druv back to the tavern. There he told the whole story; and he made a good spec. out o' the thing too, in the end; for you see, the friends of the man that was dug up guv him fifty dollars for savin' of the body, and as nobody ever come back a'ter the sleigh and hosses, he sold 'em to Captain B——, down on H—— Plains, for nigh upon three hundred dollars! 'Twas a fust-rate team—so they said. That's the most profitable and about the only ghost that ever I heerd tell on! Good many folks talks about seein' 'em, but I expect they never did—not r'ally.'"
It was not an uncommon thing in England, before the abuse was corrected by an especial act of Parliament, for interested parties to secure the incarceration, in private asylums for lunatics, of those who, from pecuniary or other considerations, they were desirous of "getting out of the way, and keeping out of the way:" but in this country the difficulty attending such transactions rendered them infrequent of execution. Yet as late as in October, 1847, a learned clergyman of the Church of England, of unique mind, and in his manners not a copyist of others, was imprisoned in a lunatic asylum not three hundred miles from New York, on the alleged ground that he was "crazy." The truth was soon discovered, however, and he was liberated; but the result arose from a mere accident. The victim had asked permission, on a Sunday, to attend church. The request was refused. A second demand to the same effect was met with: "If you ask to go to church again, we shall confine you to the 'second floor'"—a hall with cells and grated windows, and seldom entered by visitors. Whereupon the incarcerated clergyman, who had not been prohibited from having writing materials, sent to the overseer of the institution the following lines:
"Go on, go on! your prison den
No terrors has for me:
God is my shield! why fear I then
A moment's tyranny?
"Vain man may bind his fellow clay,
Incarcerate the wise,
Dungeons shut out the cheerful day,
And darkness shroud my eyes:
"Go on, go on! free Fancy smiles,
And soars on golden wings,
The Spirit spurns your petty wiles—
The Muse, unfettered, sings!
"Bring on, bring here your threats and chains,
Imagination bind!
Bring grates, bring all your iron panes—
Cage in the steadfast mind!
"Your power is faint, your threatenings naught,
What empire have ye now?
This poor, frail body—not one thought—
Shall to your thralldom bow.
"Sure is that day not distant far,
When Truth shall claim her son,
Offended Justice wake the war,
And speak in thunder-tone:
"How did ye dare, on Mercy's plea,
Abuse her sacred name,
Till violated Liberty
Bring in her sternest claim.
"Now Justice reign, bereft of sight,
For mortal woes and fears;
In Freedom's cause uphold the Right!
Back, back, ye struggling tears!"
These lines seemed to create an impression, in the minds of those who saw them, that there was at least some "method" in the writer's "madness," and the requisite inquisition soon put an end to his incarceration. He is now, as he was then, a learned and accomplished divine, and is at present preaching to a large and flourishing congregation in a sister city.