A
DEVOTEE OF THE MARVELLOUS.
Among the most remarkable events which took place in Haxey, towards the
close of the last century, was the settlement, in that ancient village,
of curious Toby Lackpenny, the philosophical tailor. Toby's coat was
usually out at the elbows, but he had long held, throughout the whole
Isle of Axholme, a high reputation as a man of deep and singular
learning. His "library" was the theme of marvel unceasing to his plain
and unsophisticated customers; and though it consisted but of forty or
fifty ragged volumes, it constituted a wealth that the philosophical
Toby, himself, priced above rubies. To this treasury of wisdom he,
nightly, resorted, with ever-fresh delight, as regularly as his manual
labour closed; and many an ecstatic hour did he live over his books in
the sweet stillness and solitude of early morning. There were tractates
on the whole circle of science, in his bibliographical collection, Toby
asserted; for, like all other great philosophers, he aspired to be an
encyclopedist in knowledge: but, up to the time at which we are
commencing this brief record of Toby's history, it was simply, by his
mastery of the erudite pages of Nicholas Culpepper,--and of a very
ancient volume comprising treatises on Astrology, Geomancy, Palmistry,
and other kindred occult studies,--that Toby had won for himself,
throughout the length and breadth of Axholmian land, so high a character
for wisdom. None could doubt the profundity of Toby's acquirements; for
whoever took a wild flower to his door was sure to be told its
name,--its healing virtues,--and the names of its presiding influences,
the planets and zodiacal constellations,--those celestial potencies from
which, he assured the visiter, every herb and flower derived their
medicinal virtues. And, oh! the decoctions, and the salves, and the
ointments, and the plasters, and the poultices, and the liniments, and
the electuaries, and the simples, and the compounds, that were made by
the old women of Haxey, and all Axholme, by Toby Lackpenny's oracular
direction! And then the exultant looks and honied words with which some
would return thanks to Toby, and assure him all their tooth-ache, or
head-ache, or elbow-ache, had vanished, like magic, by their diligent
attention to his prescription; and then the reach and shrewdness he
displayed in answering such as complained that his advice had not been
of the service they had apprehended, namely, that they had not plucked
the flower in the hour when its own planet presided,--or they had not
boiled it before the Moon rose,--and she was in opposition to Jupiter,
the lord of the plant wormwood,--or some other convincing reason why the
device had not succeeded.
Toby's advancement in the "astral science," also brought him an
increasing number of customers,--though the naked condition of his
elbows told the fact that this growing knowledge was somewhat profitless
in a substantial sense. Nevertheless, every successive day strengthened
his confidence that he would soon be "even with Booker, or Lilly, or
Gadbury, or any of 'em that his grandfather used to talk about;"--for he
had also been eager, in his day, to be able to prognosticate future
events by tracing "the stars in their courses." And, now, as surely as
the evening returned, Toby might be seen at his own door, seated on a
low stool, drawing astrological diagrams on a fragment of slate, and
placing the symbols of the planets and signs of the zodiac in due
position in the "table of houses."
The vagueness which Toby found to be so characteristic of what
astrologers call the "rules of judgment" often brought the zealous
student to a pause, as to the real utility of his pursuit; but the
extreme credulousness of his constitution usually urged him to put an
end to the dubious reasonings that often rose within him. Now and then,
a sharp stroke from the village parson,--levelled, in full canonicals,
from the pulpit of a Sunday forenoon,--with the marksman's stern eye
fixed, meanwhile, on poor Toby,--made him stagger a little. It was a
guilty act,--the clergyman asserted,--to rend away the natural veil
which the Creator had drawn over man's discernment of futurity: it was a
controversion of the order of His Providence: it was an attempt to seize
upon the Almighty's own attributes, and wield a power that belonged
solely to Himself. Such eloquent sentences bothered Toby still more,
when the well-intentioned shepherd rounded them by exclaiming, as he
beat the
"----drum ecclesiastic
With fist instead of a stick,"
that "star-gazers, and wizards, and enchanters, were, each and all, an
abomination to the Lord!"
But, alas! for poor Toby,--when his favourite disciple Joe, after being
torn from him by Dame Deborah's commandment in obedience to Toby's great
foe,--the vicar,--alas! for Toby, when Joe, filled with zeal to
discharge his conscience, re-entered the tailor's cottage one evening at
dusk, and attacked his old teacher in the very heart and centre of his
predilections, declaring there would be no salvation for him in this
world, till he had followed the example of the Ephesian Christians, and
burnt his cabalistical books; nor any happiness for him in the prospect
of a future life, until he had eschewed all his delusive vanities, and
cried at the footstool of his Maker for the pardon of his sins! Never
was the might with which a mind sinewed by some strong enthusiasm
controls even an elder and more experienced intellect more signally
evinced than in the contest between the orphan Joe, under his religious
frenzy, and his old teacher, the soothsaying tailor. In the outset of
this strange opposition and aggression on the part of his late scholar,
Toby Lackpenny stoutly parried the blows of his unexpected adversary by
returning text for text, and argument for argument.
"Is it not plainly declared in the Book of Judges, that 'the stars in
their courses fought against Sisera?'" asked Toby, with all the emphasis
which his zeal for the hereditary honour and power of the stars
prompted;--"can any thing prove more clearly that they sway human
affairs? And the inspired Psalmist saith of the heavenly bodies, that
'Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the
end of the world.' Which word _line_, according to Aben Ezra, and the
most skilful cabalists," continued Toby, diving into the profoundest
depths of his learning for the defence of his beloved theories, "ought
to be rendered _rule_ or _direction_, and evidently sets forth the fact
that the planets exercise lordship in their respective houses,--while
the latter part of the passage makes known the precious truth that the
wise and skilful student will learn to understand their language."
"But you have studied their language a long time without understanding
it a whit the surer,--you know you have,--for you have told me so more
than once, neighbour Toby," replied Joe, with honest and unshrinking
fervour; "and as your head is fast becoming grey, and as flowers are
often nipped though but in the bud,--I think it would be wiser in you as
an aged man, and in me as a frail youth, to get prepared for
death;--therefore, I conjure you, Toby, as you value your own soul, to
forsake these vanities!"
This simple and sincere language, from one who was then little more than
a child in years, shook the old man's heart more than all the
clergyman's hortatory thunderbolts had shaken his reason. Toby attempted
to renew his sophistries, at Joe's succeeding visits; but felt, at
length, thoroughly subdued under the heartfelt and persevering
enthusiasm of a mere boy.
"Verily!" Toby Lackpenny often exclaimed in after-times, when relating
the progress of his conversion,--"although my will was stubborn, I often
trembled before the spirit of that child, like Felix before Paul, or
like the gaoler in the prison at Philippi!"
The astrologer burnt his books of the astral science, and all the other
occult, and therefore satanical sciences; and he and Joe were
thenceforth united in a novel and more elevated pursuit,--the
acquirement of a purified and spiritual nature. But the distinctness of
minds, and the force of habit in different natures, were strikingly
discoverable in the relative degrees of zeal with which the youth and
Toby followed their new object. Joe's ascetic fervour has been
described. But Toby's bent was of a diverse character: he found it
impossible to enter with Joe's vehemence into the quest of an entire
renewal of heart,--and could not resist the tendency to seek for
enlightenment among the curious treasures of his little library. With
indescribable rapture Toby found, as he thought, exactly what he wanted,
in the abstruse pages of Jacob Boehmen. He had long kept the volumes of
the mystical German on his shelves; but he assured himself that he never
saw the true meaning of the high mysteries developed in the "Forty
Questions," with so clear a vision as he did now the films of the "old
Adam" were beginning to fall from his eyes.
It need scarcely be observed that Joe heard Toby's announcement of these
abstract discoveries with rigid indifference. Neither when the lad's
fervour had abated, and disgust and melancholy succeeded, did he feel
able to receive the tailor's assurances of the superior consolation to
be derived from these puzzling studies. Toby's exhilaration of spirits,
happily for himself, suffered little interruption after the full growth
of his devoted attachment to the cloudy exercitations of the old
quietest.--"Of a truth," he would often say to his customers, "I can
never be sufficiently thankful that a merciful Providence showed me the
spiritual lantern of Jacob Boehmen, wherewith I might find, and possess,
the pearl of great price!"
Within two years of the expiry of Joe's apprenticeship, however, the
devotional and marvel-loving tailor had transferred his worship from the
shrine of the mystical German shoemaker to the more lofty, as well as
more celestial image of Baron Emanuel Swedenborg. The Scripture
histories had, thenceforth, an allegorical sense for Toby, as well as
for Joe; and the lad could scarcely hint that he thought the
transactions in the garden of Eden were to be read as a figure, before
the learned Lackpenny was ready to pour out a profound descant on the
_proprium_, or "sensual principle," which he affirmed to be typified by
the serpent in the garden;--and declared his conviction, that the Mosaic
account of the first human pair was, in reality, a mere symbolical
history of "the First Church," and of the causes of its forfeiture of
purity.
At another argumentative season, when the apprentice had ventured to ask
if Toby did not think there was something incongruous in the account of
Noah's flood, and in the size the ark was said to be,--and how the
beasts went in,--and how they were supported,--the penetrating
Swedenborgian assured the inquirer, with the utmost gravity, that he
thought there was nothing in the whole world of books or facts more easy
of explication.
"Know thou, my beloved Joey," said the sincere old man, raising his
spectacles, and placing them, like two additional eyes, in the centre of
his large forehead, "that whoever giveth his hearty faith to the
teaching of the celestial-minded Swedenborg will receive a second
eye-sight,--spiritual, and far more precious than the eyes of this
earthly body. The Deluge, Joey, represents 'the Second Church,' as the
garden of Paradise represents the first. The ark is the man of the
church; and the forty days' rain is a figure for the temptations of the
senses, by which the Second Church, as well as the First, was tried: you
may see that figure plainly cleared up by our Saviour's temptation in
the wilderness. The ark is also described as having a window
above,--that signifies the intellectual principle; and a door, moreover,
at the side,--that denotes the faculty of hearing."
"I wish all these things had been described in a plainer way, if they
mean all this," interjected the youth, impatient of his mystic friend's
harangue.
"_If!_" exclaimed Toby, astonished out of measure that any sane person
could, for one moment, doubt what seemed to himself to be so pellucidly
clear;--"if!--why, only read it for yourself, Joe, in the 'Celestial
Arcana' of the inspired Emanuel of the North!"--and, therewith, the
agile old philosopher sprang from his chair, and reached the volume from
his shelves.
"Never mind, friend Toby: not at present," said Joe, very quietly.
"Well, well," said Toby, "another time then;--but you won't hear me out,
or otherwise I could clearly prove what I had begun to say."
"But what confidence can one place in these dreams of your favourite
Emanuel?" said Joe.
"Dreams!" retorted the mystic tailor, lowering his voice, and changing
the expression of his countenance, until Joe wondered what was the
matter with him.--"Dreams! no, no, he didn't dream, Joey. He was
favoured with heavenly visions! The angels actually took him several
times to heaven,--for he says so himself----"
"And Mahomet said the same," interjected Joe.
"Interrupt me not!" continued Toby, looking still more awfully
mysterious:--"I tell thee, the angels took him to heaven, and unfolded
to him hidden mysteries! And I tell thee, Joey, that I believe it is
possible to attain unto such a pure state here, in this world, that we
may converse with angels. I have fasted every day this week till
sunset," concluded the poor honest old enthusiast, creeping close to
Joe, and speaking almost in his ear,--"and I have faith to believe,
that, in a little time, after much prayer, I, even I, shall be
permitted to see the angelic world, yea, and to converse with it!"
One of Joe's fellow-apprentices here lifted up the latch, and informed
him that Dame Deborah wished he would come home, for the hour was
getting late. Pressing his old friend's hand, without looking him in the
face, the youth wished him "Good-night!" not a little relieved by the
summons of his mistress.
On the morrow, the neighbourhood was thrown into a state of alarm by a
cottager having found poor Toby Lackpenny in a swoon upon his
shop-board. Finding the experiment attended with such imminent hazard,
the fervent enthusiast was persuaded the next night, by Joe, after two
hours' indefatigable argumentation, to lay aside his attempt, by devout
abstinence, at "purging the frame terrestrial till it could witness the
vision celestial."
The occurrence of a very singular incident, however, and some effects
that followed it, produced many a misgiving in poor Toby's mind that he
had done wickedly in giving up the pursuit of this spiritual and exalted
object. It was about the third night after Toby had yielded to Joe's
prudent counsel,--and while they were sitting in quiet converse on one
of their old themes,--that Toby's cottage door was suddenly burst open
by a blow which resembled the stroke of a thunderbolt in the imagination
of Joe and his ancient gossip,--and, on the centre of the floor, as
suddenly stood Frank Friskit, Joe's younger fellow-apprentice, and the
most mischievous scape-grace in the village. The face of the unexpected
visitant was like the whitened wall; and his curly locks, as if in
consternation at the unwonted pallor of his countenance, stood "nine
ways of a Wednesday," as Toby phrased it. His trembling knees and torn
dress made confession,--the trembler himself being tongueless with
dread,--that Frank had been engaged in some fearful adventure. Joe
hastened to support him,--for the lad swooned almost instantly. Toby
hastened for cold water to aid his recovery;--and, in a few seconds,
Noah Wallhead, Joe's other fellow-apprentice, also entered Toby's
cottage, and manifested considerable solicitude about Frank's alarming
condition. After a plentiful libation upon his temples, Frank began to
come to his senses.
"What's the matter, Franky?" said Toby, gently, as soon as he thought
the convalescent was able to bear the inquiry.
"I've--I've seen some'at!" replied Frank, hysterically.
"Seen!--well, but what have you seen, Frank?" asked Joe.
"A bar-ghost, Joe, or else th' old lad!" answered Friskit, with a
chattering of the teeth.
Noah Wallhead laughed; but Toby and Joe, seeing the young ghost-seer was
now able to sit up without help, requested him, when they had closed
the door, to tell his story at length, and conceal nothing.
The repentant Frank avowed himself to be the guilty perpetrator of a
series of malicious attempts upon the natural liberty of Toby
Lackpenny's cat! Every urchin in the village of Haxey had been blamed,
at one time or other, for the base machination of setting "snickles," or
nooses of wire, in the tailor's little garden. The sage Toby profoundly
conjectured, and openly maintained, all along, that these wicked devices
were intended to ensnare his favourite tabby; but neither he, nor any
one else, had ever suspected Frank Friskit to be the foul conspirator,
inasmuch as he was so frequently in Toby's cot, and on friendly terms
with him. Under the agitation of affright, the conscience-stricken and
self-discovered culprit solemnly vowed that he would forsake the way of
transgression thenceforth; for he had seen such a sight, while setting a
snickle, as he could never forget as long as he lived! How he had got
over the hedge he could not tell:--he believed his wits left him as soon
as he saw the bar-ghost,--for he could remember nothing besides that
queer sight!
"But what was it like, Frank?" asked Joe.
"Like!--why it had a dark-looking face, and a pair of eyes as big as
owls' heads!" replied the lad, with a shudder.
"And how big was it?" asked Joe, again.
"I only saw the great foul face grinning and staring at me, and all on
a blaze,--and then it was gone!" said Frank.
Joe received the last answer with a smile,--but, on turning round, when
Noah Wallhead touched his elbow, he could not forbear laughter. Noah
showed Joe the hollow turnip, with its eyes and mouth, that had so
marvellously affrighted the younger apprentice when lit up with a bit of
candle,--a common trick among rustic youngsters. Toby, however, was not
let into the secret, and took it very ill that Joe, especially, should
laugh at what he considered a very alarming narrative. Feeling it
incumbent on himself to use this advantageous opportunity for enforcing
a homily on reform, he thus addressed himself to the penitent Frank
Friskit:--
"Be thankful, foolish boy," he said, "that this evil spirit has done
thee no real harm; and, for the future, lay aside thy wicked follies.
And, above all, Frank, bethink thee that thou has' been guilty of a
great sin to be so long pretending good neighbourship with me, and yet
to be all the while plotting how to snickle my poor dumb creatur'. No
wonder the bar-ghost should visit thee! Say thy Belief, as well as thy
prayers, to-night, Frank,--and be a good lad in futur', and then thou
may' hope that the Lord will forgive this deceit, for that's a greater
sin than mischief!"--and then, fearing to renew the lad's
terrors,--since he already began to tremble afresh,--Toby besought Joe
and Noah Wallhead to take him home.
Toby Lackpenny felt "indescribably queer," as he afterwards said,--when
left alone that night. He tried to banish the remembrance of Frank's
strange description of the trunkless head,--but he found that to be
impossible, as long as he sat by the fire,--for every flicker of the
flames startled him with a new fear or fancy. So he betook himself to
bed. But alas! poor Toby's frame had been so completely weakened by
fasting, and his indulgence of the marvelling propensity of his
constitution had rendered his understanding and will so powerless, that
he felt like a being that has no longer any self-government. The
head,--the queer head that Frank had seen,--with its fiery eyes and
mouth,--was all Toby could think about, as he lay tossing to and fro in
bed:--"What a marvellous sight it must have been!" said Toby to
himself,--"a grinning dark face, with eyes as big as owls' heads,"--the
boy said;--"all on a blaze in a moment, and then gone!" And the
revolting picture, at length, burst in reality,--he believed,--before
his eyes! Nor had he the power to banish the uncouth and distorted
phantasm,--although he gathered up all his courage and tried to laugh,
once:--it was in vain,--the sound of his own forced laughter caused his
skin to creep! Then Toby shut his eyes, and turned himself on his
pillow, and bravely resolved he would sleep,--but it still was in
vain:--when his eyelids ached with the compressure he had exerted upon
them, he opened his eyes once more,--and lo! there was a real, grinning,
goggle-eyed head,--all on fire,--coming towards him, from an immense
distance! The trunkless head was a mile off, apparently,--but it was
coming,--and what was he to do? It came on rapidly,--and the heart of
poor Toby beat loudly against his ribs, and the perspiration started
from his brow; and, at length, when the glaring phantom of a head was
approaching very near, he made a convulsive effort, and dashed his head
beneath the bed-clothes! Half suffocated with heat and fear, he threw
the clothes sufficiently off to obtain a breath or two, when, to his
unspeakable relief, his incomprehensible tantaliser vanished.
In a few minutes, however, the horrible spectre of a head appeared
again, in the immense, immeasurable distance. It approached at the same
rapid and threatening rate as before, and with features he thought still
more frightful; and, again, he had recourse to the bed-clothes for
protection from this terrific visitant. When the head commenced its
menacing approach for the third time, Toby's horror exceeded endurance,
and he jumped from his low bed, and threw open his little window to
catch the cool air. The night breeze speedily dispelled his giddiness,
and effectually banished the disturbing figure from his disordered
sensory.
Toby stood a few moments attempting to rally his mind, by his old
employment of counting the stars in each of the more striking
constellations, which were at the time distinctly and brightly
visible;--but the hour of midnight, told by the solemn tones of the
church clock, warned him to close the window, and endeavour to find the
rest he felt he now so much needed. Exhaustion, happily, came to his
relief, and Toby forgot the fiery head without a trunk, in more gentle
dreams.
Joe heard Toby's relation of this singular visit, the next night, with a
degree of phlegm and coolness that amazed the marvel-stricken tailor.
Nor could Toby receive for gospel any of the natural explanations of his
young friend: it was in vain that Joe recounted what he had lately read
of Nicolai, the printer of Berlin, and his wondrous diseased
visions,--it was equally in vain that the youth strove to shew Toby that
the very manner of the strange head's visit,--so like what was called
"phantasmagoria" and other optical delusions,--proved, to a dead
certainty, that it all arose from over-excitement of the brain. Toby
poohed and pshawed at every thing Joe said,--and was nearer than Joe had
ever thought him towards calling his former disciple by some offensive
name. The lad was compelled to desist from his attempt to reason Toby
out of his uneasy conviction, that he had actually been visited by some
evil agent as a punishment for his infraction of the vow he took never
to eat food till sunset,--that so he might attain to communion with
heavenly angels!
Left to himself, the stricken idealist fell into still more pernicious
errors. Witchcraft, was the next delusion he was fated to experience.
Not that Toby ever imagined himself to be either a witch or a wizard;
but he fell, most obstinately, into the belief,--ay, as obstinately as
the knight of La Mancha himself,--that he was under the mischievous
power of some who dealt with wicked spirits and practised enchantments.
His imagination in this, as in earlier instances of its treacherousness
to his judgment, made a rapid, though gradual, abandonment of all
self-evident and common-sense conclusions, even in the every-day affairs
of life. That nest of temptation--his library--as, also, in the case of
the world-known Quixote, was, again, the source from which Toby
Lackpenny drew the written proofs for the reality of his credulous
vagaries. "Gloomy Glanvil," as critical Toby had called him in the days
of his higher spiritual-mindedness, was the superstitious expounder of
doctrine to whom the philosophical tailor now attached himself. How
could he deny that a compact with evil spirits was possible to fallen
human creatures, when he had believed, so heartily, with Swedenborg,
that it was possible for sinful man to hold communion with celestial
ministers? Besides, was there not the indubitable history of the Witch
of Endor, and innumerable other references to dealers with familiar
spirits, in the volume of Holy Writ? And were they likely--these wicked
and envious agencies of the "evil eye"--to look on any human being so
maliciously as on him who had aspired to converse with good angels?
Would they not feel an instinctive antipathy towards him? He was
convinced they would, as soon as he inwardly asked the question.
He had just lost his thimble while he was thinking thus; and though he
hunted for it a full hour, he was not able to find it! What though this
had often fallen to his share of ill luck before? It was not, now, to be
accounted for as an accident. No: it had been spirited away: he was
bewitched; he was sure he was. It was by petty acts of mischief that the
withered hags of hell usually commenced their annoyance of those whose
aspirations after purity had raised their devilish hate. His case, he
feared, was too sure to prove a sorrowful one, for he knew not how to
counterwork their malevolence. What a dunce he had been to neglect that
branch of occult study! But it might not be too late to acquire even a
profound knowledge of it; and so he would set about it in right earnest.
And, poor Toby! he _did_ set about it in earnest, insomuch that he sewed
side-seams to tops and bottoms of new garments, and stitched circular
patches on square rents, and squares on circular apertures in the
damaged attire he undertook to repair, and mislaid his thread where he
could not find it for hours,--and pricked his thumbs and fingers,
half-callous though they were, with the needles,--and heated his goose
till he burnt the cloth,--and fell into blunders and mishaps of most
awful consequence to his professional reputation, day by day, more
thickly and disastrously, until the very disasters themselves convinced
him that he was approaching a climax of knowledge in the gloomy science
of which he had now become so devoted a student. The witches knew--foul,
cunning, devil-dealers that they were--they knew, although he did not,
as yet, ken _who_ they were, that he was about to become a match for
them; and, therefore, they were thus bedevilling him and his cloth, and
goose, and shears, and thimble, and needles, in this "hey-day,
hide-and-seek, burn-it-and-bother-it," sort of way.
Toby would not "give it up," however, torment him as they might--the
spiteful fiendlings! He still read and thought, and thought and read,
and compared the descriptions of feature which his books contained, with
the physiognomies of all who visited his abode, until he entertained a
shrewd suspicion of who were the real and identical, though secret,
practisers of all this infernal mischief. Yet, as some of these had
been, for years, his best and kindest employers, the witch-seer found it
go sorely against the grain of his affectionate nature to provoke a
quarrel with them. Often did he chide his spirit when he had permitted
any of these suspicious visiters to depart with heartfelt thanks for the
kindly present of a cake, or a new cheese, or a dish of butter, or
half-score of eggs, with which they had coupled their order for the
repair of a coat, or nether habit; and as often did he resolve to
prepare himself against their next visit for a red-hot quarrel.
Months elapsed before the amiable-hearted visionary could "screw his
courage to the sticking-place," so as to enable him to "fall out" with
his friends and benefactors: not that he feared their witchery, or the
heavier harm it might bring upon him, when he had defied it. He soon
lost all dread of that kind. It was his true-heartedness--his genuine
gratitude--that precious quality which a rogue never feels, though he
talks the most loudly about it, but which honest and noble natures
cannot stifle, even when warm friends have become persecuting foes,--it
was that superlative virtue which struggled to keep its citadel in
gentle Toby's heart's core, and the contest with which was so
troublous to him. Happily for the poor mistaken philosopher, his
loving-heartedness had rendered him so dear to all who knew him, that
none would believe he was in his right mind, when he suddenly became so
discourteous and angry-tempered.
"Pr'ythee, Goody, what think'st ta?" said Dolly Dustit, the little
hard-working flax-woman, to Peggy the staid housekeeper at Farmer
Robinson's,--"is neighbour Toby growing queerish in his heed, wi' so
much book-larning,--or, what the plague can be the matter wi' him? I
asked him to tell me what yerbs I should get to mak' a green plaister
for our Jack's sore scaup, and he grinned like a fummard, and tell'd ma
to gooa to the divvil, and as th' oud lad was a friend o' mine he would
mak' ma my plaisters, with a witness! Doesn't ta think he's gone
stranny?"
"For sartain there's summat the matter wi' his wits, from what our
maister was saying about him this morning," answered Peggy; "but who can
wonder at it, Dolly? I wonder his knowledge-box hasn't gone wrong-side
up'ards many a year since!"
"And Maister Robinson has had some foul speech from him, has he, then,
Peggy?" asked the little flax-woman, curious to learn more of Toby's
vagaries.
"Sich foul speech as maks one queer to mention it," replied Peggy,
though she evidently wanted to unburthen herself of it to her gossip,
and told the shuddering news in the next breath:--"he tell'd th' farmer
that his breeches smelled o' brimstone, and he wouldn't put a stitch in
'em to please ayther him, or the divvil his maister!"
"The Lord ha' marcy on us, Peggy!" ejaculated the honest little
flax-woman, "it's a sore thing to think on; but poor Toby's brain's
addled at last, I'm varry sewer. He's as harmless as a lamb, when he's
right: one nivver heeard a foul word come out of his mouth. I'm varry
sorry for him, Peggy----" and so saying, Dolly Dustit sped on to her
daily work in the flax field, more deeply grieved at what she believed
to be poor Toby's affliction, than at his repulsive treatment of her
application for his medical advice.
Such conferences of inquiry, wonder, and regret, began to arise daily,
in the ancient little town of Haxey, as Toby advanced further into the
spirit and essence of witch-knowing; but the erring philosopher, at
length, set the whole village into uproar by telling no less-beloved a
personage than Dame Deborah Thrumpkinson, herself, that he believed she
was a witch,--nay the queen and ring-leader of all the witches in the
Isle of Axholme,--and, to complete his madness, Toby actually strove to
eject the venerable old woman from his cottage! Fortunately, his
corporal weakness prevented him from effecting the rudeness which he
thus attempted; and the hearty old dame, though pitying, rather than
censuring his folly, felt disposed to try the effect of a somewhat
vigorous reproof of it. Seizing the lean, attenuated student by the
collar, she laid him, with one sinewy lift, fairly on his back,
breathless and fear-stricken, upon the shop-board.
"'Od rabbet thee, and thy fizzlegig foolery!" she exclaimed, setting her
teeth together, as she was wont when moved more strongly than usual,
"what maggots hast thou got into thy star-gazing noddle, now? A witch,
indeed! Who will take thee to be a wizard for saying so, thou dreaming
old owl? Marry, come up! I say a witch, too!"--and then she shook poor
Toby till his teeth chattered, and he would fain have uttered a loud
alarm, but durst not speak, for the life of him.
The dame left him to recover his courage, and laughed heartily, in spite
of some slight feeling of vexation, as she told the story to her
customers during the day. A few hours served to bring a crowd round the
tailor's dwelling, though none would enter it; and, till night-fall,
Toby's ears were assailed with epithets which shook his nerves till he
wished himself a thousand miles off, as he afterwards said to Joe.
During the evening, the elder and more influential members of the little
population of Haxey went from house to house expressing their deep
regret for Toby Lackpenny's lunacy,--for they decided that he _was_
lunatic,--and conjuringly besought the younger and more frivolous people
to desist from persecution of one who had always been so good and
kind-hearted a neighbour, and was now under a visitation of Providence
that rendered him an object of commiseration rather than ridicule. And
so the victim of imagination was delivered from the storm of persecution
which he had foreboded would be renewed on the succeeding day.
Desirous, on her part, of making Toby feel the value of her
neighbourship, Dame Deborah never crossed his threshold on that day.
Toby was thus left a solitary; and yet his mental disease had not yet
reached a stage that would render solitude curative. On the contrary, it
permitted his prurient imagination to become more mischievous in its
influence.
A neat little dove-cote was a conspicuous rural adornment to the ancient
gable of Dame Deborah's dwelling; and its cooing habitants were
familiarly acquainted with the tailor's threshold, and even with his
cottage-floor,--whither they were often attracted by the crumbs Toby
spread upon it, when his favourite tabby had strayed forth from the cot,
and so could give no alarm to these feathered visitants. Toby had been
reading a full description, during that solitary morning, in one of his
witchery-books, of the way in which the most powerful of all charms
might be prepared for subjugating a witch or a wizard; and the entrance
of one of Dame Deborah's pigeons, into his cottage, seemed to give him
the opportunity he coveted of testing the efficacy of the prescribed
charm. He wilily closed his door, and after a brief struggle, captured
the bird,--which he, forthwith, secured, by shutting it up in the oaken
corner cupboard, which served him for wardrobe, larder, and coal-cellar.
The day wore on, and the philosopher, with a struggle against his
misgivings that whispered "cruelty and barbarity," reckoned mightily on
the triumph his newly acquired knowledge was to give him over the
powers of darkness as soon as night arrived, and the murky hour of
twelve approached. He sharpened a knife till the edge was most deadly
keen; he made up a good fire: he collected, at least, one hundred pins
from the patches on his shop-board and in his drawers: he prepared the
string by which the dove's heart was to be hung to roast; and he drove
in the nail to which the string was to be tied.
And now the black midnight hour was near, and trembling with agitation
that might almost be called horror, Toby Lackpenny took the poor
fluttering pigeon out of its hiding-place, and took the fierce knife
into his hand to be ready to dash into its breast as soon as the church
clock struck the first stroke of twelve. Need he had for self-possession
and preparedness of mind and act, in order to complete his necromantic
feat like a true adept,--for although he was not to wound the bird till
he heard the first stroke of twelve, yet he must have its heart out,
alive, and have it stuck full of pins, and placed down at the fire to
roast,--and all before the church clock had told the last stroke of
twelve!
"Pshaw!--nonsense--what a chicken-hearted fool I am!" said poor Toby to
himself, as he stood trying to confine the bird's wings with one hand,
and holding his sharp knife in the other: "let me think of the victory I
shall obtain over these agents of the Evil One,--and not give way in
this childish manner!"
But Toby _did_ give way, and could not help it; as he said to Joe when
he afterwards described this strange temptation to his beloved young
friend. The faster the moments flew, and the more nearly the magical
moment approached, the more Toby trembled, and the more loudly his heart
beat against his ribs, and the more terrifically his conscience menaced
his peace, till--as the last half minute was elapsing, he threw down the
knife, and releasing the pigeon from his grasp, declared aloud, though
out of the hearing of every human being, that he neither could nor would
hurt the poor harmless dove, even if all the witches on earth, and all
the fiends they dealt with in the other place, should, thenceforth, have
power to torment him every minute of his remaining life.
There was an end of Toby's grand achievement of power over all the
witches and wizards with whom he believed the Isle of Axholme to be
infested! The hour had passed over, and it was too late--perhaps, for
ever--for him to perform the all-potent immolation,--since the sacrifice
of the same pigeon would be of no efficacy, after it had been prepared,
and yet remained unslaughtered. His better nature felt satisfaction at
the thought of the pigeon being still alive, though his superstitious
ambition led him to experience a deep shade of regret that he had not
had hardihood of spirit sufficient to enable him to grasp the grand
ideal prize which was so nearly within his reach. Regrets were useless,
however, he reflected; and so he quenched his blazing fire, and lay down
to rest.
In the morning, a new temptation awaited the fanatical witch-finder.
Forgetting that Tabby could easily pounce upon the pigeon while left on
the cottage-floor, though she could not get at it in the cupboard,--Toby
had gone to bed without concerning himself about the safety of the bird,
being so much absorbed with the feeling of satisfaction that he had
spared its life. No sooner had her master fallen asleep, however, and
the bird placed its bill under its wing for taking rest, than Tabby
slily seized her prize and butchered it for a secret banquet. Her bloody
mouth and glistening eyes, together with the scattered feathers,
proclaimed her deed, most unmistakeably, as soon almost as Toby had
opened his eyes and looked round his humble dwelling.
A new conviction sprang into his capricious brain: Tabby was a witch,
self-transfigured into a cat! There could be no doubt of it--not the
shadow of a doubt. How strange that he had not marked her particular
habits before!--and yet, it was a fact, now he came to think of
it,--that she purred and squinted, just like the transfigured
cat-witches he had lately read of in his profound, mystical books. As
for the pigeon, she hated it, of course, knowing the purpose for which
it had been brought thither. It was as clear as the sun at noon,--though
all cats liked pigeon flesh if they could get it,--that Tabby devoured
this pigeon because she was a witch, and it had been secreted as a
forthcoming sacrificial charm for overthrowing witch-power!
What, then, was the discerning Lackpenny to do, under this astounding
discovery? He resolved to put an end to Tabby's life, by the peculiar
and effectual mode in which alone a cat-witch could be destroyed: she
must be hung up by the heels over his cottage-door to die a prolonged
but irredeemable death! Toby shuddered; but he was convinced it was the
only righteous and wise way to be taken,--and so he set about carrying
it into effect. Tabby inflicted some vengeful wounds on her old master
while he was in course of tying the cord round her hind feet, and then
hoisting her up over the door,--but Toby fulfilled his office of
executioner--thrust on him by fate and duty, he believed--very stoutly
this time--in spite of the aversion he felt at taking away the life of a
dumb creature which had sung "three-thrum" on his hearth so often, and
borne him company through so many days of poverty, although days of
content. He hung up his cat; but how was he to stop her cries?
A crowd again gathered round his house, and demanded that he should
release his cat. But Toby was more resolute that he would not, the more
they insisted on it. Dame Deborah, at length, stepped from her dwelling,
and, cutting the poor animal loose, broke Toby's counter-enchantment at
a stroke. Then throwing open the tailor's door, and fixing her eyes upon
him very threateningly, she told him she would certainly help to hang
him by the heels,--if ever he attempted again to treat his poor harmless
cat in so barbarous a manner.
Toby spake not one word. His recollection of the fearful shake the aged
dame had lately given him, rendered him apprehensive that she might
renew it, and so he kept prudent silence.
The crowd gradually departed, and left the baffled
philosopher-visionary, once more, to solitary reflection--but it was now
_hungry_ reflection,--and proved to be most effectual in dispelling his
wild fancies. Shame under the keen reproofs of his neighbours, and
failure of his cupboard, contributed to weary him of his witch
notions,--so that on the following morning he was fain to receive a
little present from Dame Deborah, with thanks for her kindness.
Gradually, he became so entirely ashamed of his recent eccentricities
that he made earnest apologies to all whom he had treated with
rudeness,--and all were so ready to forgive, and so happy to see him
restored to a neighbourly temper,--that Toby found it easy to recover
his former ease of mind and habitual good humour.
The longer Toby lived the less likely was it for one so ardently
imaginative by constitution, to sink into the mere matter-of-fact
quietude of thought that characterised the majority of his neighbours.
On the contrary, as he grew older, his brain became more and more
prolific of imaginations; but, happily, they were increasingly of a more
pleasing nature as he increased in years. In spite of all his life-long
dreams and fancies, and in spite of straitness in his means of living,
Toby was a happy old man; for, with all the startling activity of his
imagination, Toby had never corrupted his bodily vigour by a single act
of intemperance. When Joe returned to bury his aged foster-mother, Toby
walked, by the help of two sticks, to the grave-side, declaring that he
saw two lovely angels walking before the coffin, all the way from the
dame's door, and he knew they would come for him next. Whether the
yearning of his desire and imagination, or the great effort he made to
attend the funeral, most assisted to hasten his end, cannot be
said,--but he died the very next day,--with a heaven of smiles on his
aged face,--and with the words "heaven" and "angels" on his tongue.