sough of tumbling waters could drown; for, on a sudden, neither remote
nor suppresed, a fierce, a pitiful cry, like that of one in some dread
life-peril, struck upon his ears, succeeded by the breaking asunder of
the boughs of trees, and then a plunge in the water--a heavy plunge,
that made itself heard above the monotonous murmur of the falling flood.
Astonished, almost alarmed, he rose, and was hastening through the
thicket toward the Nut-hole, whence the noise had proceeded, when, as he
was about to cross the track that led from the manse to the main road to
Aberdeen, he beheld flying toward him a dark-mantled figure: he knew it
at once. Her hands stretched toward him, her face ghastly with the
death-white of intense horror, Barbara staggered toward him, and with a
sharp, short gasp, as if she dreaded to give utterance to deep fear by a
louder sound, she fainted at his very feet.
He thought no more of the Nut-hole, or of what might have happened
there, absorbed in his solicitude for his beloved cousin, but his
endeavors to restore her to animation were fruitless. The manse lay not
two hundred yards distant; so at such a juncture, regardless of what the
consequences might be to himself, he bore her in his arms; and not
without some difficulty, for the track was narrow and broken up, and the
night had darkened with falling rain. He reached the house. Fortunately,
there was no one in the parlor but Miss Henny; and the startled maiden,
seeing a stranger bearing the body of her niece, would have screamed,
had he not at once whispered his own name, briefly explained what had
happened, and entreated her to befriend them.
"Gae awa', gae awa', laddie," said she, as she quickly brought some
vinegar from the sideboard and bathed her niece's brow with the
refreshing liquid. "My brither maunna see you; nor, if I can help it,
sall he know acht o' this. Gae awa', Johnny dear; he'll be back, belive.
She's beginning to revive. I'll get her to bed, and tell him she's too
ill to attend prayers. God bless you, my ain dawtie, what's a' this?"
added she, kissing the brow of the girl, whose eyes opened to perceive
the retiring form of her cousin.
If Barbara Comyn revealed to her good aunt the cause of her fright and
consequent illness, it is very certain that Miss Henny kept the secret.
Next morning, indeed, though with a wan face, Barbara appeared at
prayers; and Mr. Comyn had concluded reading a portion of the Gospel,
when a paper, falling out of the Bible, arrested his attention for a
moment. Only for a moment, however; for, mentally supplicating
forgiveness for that involuntary wandering of his thoughts from the act
of worship in which he was engaged, the good man knelt and prayed with
fervor. This sacred duty terminated, they sat down to the
breakfast-table, and then the minister slowly opened the paper, glanced
over it, turned deadly pale, and exclaimed,
"The great and good God be around us! Let not the delusions of Satan
prevail, but keep from us the evil spirits that make us see things that
are not!"
"What is the matter, brither?" cried the wondering Miss Henny, whilst,
as though chained to the table, Barbara neither moved nor spoke.
"Take this, woman," said he, in a tremulous voice, "and read it to me,
that I may be sure the same awful words that meet my sight also meet
yours."
And the astonished Henrietta, taking the paper, read what follows:
Last night, after leaving you, I was stopped by your sexton, my
landlord, David Bain, who led me out of the highroad to the
Nut-hole, under pretence of showing me a large salmon which he had
hooked but could not land. He there felled me to the earth, robbed
me, and flung my body into the river Dee. Pray for the soul of
SIMON BRUCE.
When the awe-struck Henrietta ceased, she found that Barbara had
fainted; and the minister, in a whirl of distracting thoughts to which
he was unaccustomed, ascribing his child's swoon to terror, placed the
ominous paper in the Bible, and determined to make known the whole
mysterious case at once to Mr. Craigie, the chief magistrate of
Aberdeen. Not for a single instant did Mr. Comyn suspect a hoax, or
imagine the affair to be only the mischievous trick of some idler.
Indeed, such was not likely; the times were superstitious, nor were
there any persons connected or at variance with the family who were
liable to be suspected of having played off such a foolish and wicked
jest at the expense of the minister, even if any motive for doing so had
existed. The minister, therefore, hastened up stairs to change his coat,
leaving the Bible containing the document from the dead on the table;
while his sister, finding her niece better, left her to see that her
brother's best hat and gloves were ready.
We wonder what Barbara is about meanwhile.
Presently Mr. Comyn returned to the parlor, and putting the Bible in his
pocket, (for he dared not again look at the horrible piece of writing,)
set off at a quick pace for the town. Nor, as he hurried on, did he give
a passing glance at the track which diverged from the highroad toward
the Nut-tree-hole. The magistrate was at home, and great indeed was his
amazement when he heard the minister's story; but lo! when Mr. Comyn,
reverently taking the Bible from his pocket, opened it to show Mr.
Craigie the note, written as he declared in the peculiar handwriting of
his friend, he found nothing where he had deposited it but a piece of
blank paper, folded up in the same form, but utterly void. And then in
truth the worthy magistrate waxed somewhat wroth; at first accusing Mr.
Comyn of being credulously duped by some pawkie servant who owed him a
grudge, and ending by setting him down as "clean daft, doited, and dazed
by too mickle study," (and in his ire he had very nearly added, "too
much toddy.") But, as in no amicable frame of temper the gentlemen were
about to quarrel downright, the magistrate asking the minister what
proof he could adduce of Mr. Bruce's not being alive and merry, a
seasonable and loud knocking at the street-door interrupted them; and
presently a servant entered to announce that a drowned man had been
found in the Dee, and that his body had been brought to the door!
With shaking limbs the minister followed Mr. Craigie down stairs to the
lobby, now full of people. It appeared that some men employed in the
salmon fisheries had, within the last hour, dragged their nets, in which
they had discovered the corpse of a man whose skull had been literally
smashed in twain by a violent blow.
It was, in fact, the body of Mr. Bruce. Here, indeed, was confirmation
strange of the statement which the mysterious and missing document had
contained; and both Mr. Craigie and the minister, exchanging looks that
expressed their mutual dismay, were sorely perplexed in their own minds
how to account for these singular events. The body was reverently laid
out in the hall, whilst the magistrate, summoning some of his officials,
and accompanied by the clergyman and one or two of the fishermen,
proceeded to the cottage of David Bain.
The bell-man was not at home, having gone, they said, "to Mr. Comyn's,
to inquire about his lodger, Mr. Bruce, who had not come home to his bed
the night before, as was customary."
Strange glances passed between the auditors; but a sign from the
magistrate imposed silence, and they departed, determining to survey the
Nut-hole, near which, in the river, the body had been found in the nets,
after which they had no doubt they would find the sexton at the manse.
As they threaded the thicket of hazel, at some distance from the pool,
one of the salmon-fishers declared, that from a plot of white-thorn and
bramble-bushes he had seen the eyes of a foumart or polecat glare out
upon him; and in a low voice, directing the attention of a comrade to
the spot, they both imagined they could detect the figure of a man
crouching among the trailing shrubs. Whispering their suspicion to Mr.
Craigie, he ordered the whole party to join quietly in a search, and
follow him and the minister to the Nut-hole. Thither, then, the
magistrate, attended only by Mr. Comyn, proceeded; and who, think ye,
found they there?
A young man, handsome and well-dressed, in the undisguised apparel of a
gentleman, stood there, evidently unconscious of the advancing twain. He
held a stout, club-like stick in his hand, which he was examining
intently--for it was covered with blood, now dried, and amidst which
stuck clots of hair! As the gentlemen came suddenly upon him he started,
and dropped the stick; whilst Mr. Comyn, staring at him in wonder, for,
as we have said, all disguise had been discarded, exclaimed--
"John Percival, is this you?"
A question which the young man could have answered in the affirmative
with strict veracity, but for the assertion from the magistrate which
followed it up.
"And you, sir, are the murderer of Mr. Bruce!"
"Good God! what do you mean!" cried the horrified youth.
"That stick, which you have just dropped, is covered with blood," said
Mr. Craigie; "a foul murder has been committed, and we find you with the
supposed instrument of that murder, near the very spot where there is
ground to believe the act was perpetrated."
A fearful pang shot through Percival's frame, but conscious innocence
made it brief, and with a calmness of demeanor which guilt never could
have assumed, and gravely smiling, he turned to his uncle saying--
"_You_ cannot believe that I am guilty?"
"No, no, John!" answered the individual appealed to. "God forbid that I
should judge you wrongfully, but--"
"But," interrupted the magistrate, "not only does it appear that you
have slain a man, but that, desirous of fixing your guilt upon another,
you have written a letter, falsely accusing an innocent person of that
crime."
"Letter!" repeated Percival, "Sir, I do not even know what you mean."
"Mr. Comyn," asked the magistrate, "this young man--the nephew of my
lamented friend, your late wife--paid court, as I understand, to your
daughter, and was by her rejected?"
"By me, sir--by me, Mr. Craigie," answered the clergyman; "the lassie
never rejected him, but _I_ did."
"And the murdered man," slowly pronounced the magistrate, "was the
betrothed husband of Miss Comyn?"
Percival started violently, uttering an ejaculation of horror and
wonder, for at last he saw the inferences which Mr. Craigie seemed
willing to draw from circumstances that certainly looked suspicious.
"As God is my judge, that is the truth," replied the minister, "and I
had forgotten all about it. Oh! John Percival, as you are the nephew of
my beloved Mary, answer me with truth, and say that you are innocent of
this heinous deed!"
"I am indeed innocent, my dear uncle," said the young man; "nor did I
know until this moment who the unfortunate man was, of whose untimely
death I am accused."
"Here he is, gentlemen; we've got him safe and sound!" cried several
voices; and dragging a wild and haggard-faced man, the fishers and
officials of justice approached the trio who stood by the Nut-tree-hole.
"The Lord be our guide!" exclaimed Mr. Comyn, "it is really David Bain!"
and as the wretched sexton struggled to free himself from the arms that
pinioned him, the minister, prompted by a sudden impulse, advancing
toward him, and looking steadily in his face, said--
"David Bain, look not to deny your crime, but confess it, and implore
your Maker's pardon, even at this the eleventh hour. In my Bible, this
morning, I found a paper, written by the spirit of him you murdered here
last night, and charging you with the commission of the deed."
At these strange words, which in our modern times might have produced
mirth, the guilty creature, losing all self-possession, uttered a loud
cry, and pointing to the bloody cudgel which still lay at the
magistrate's feet, exclaimed--
"I did it with that! I did it with that!" and fell back in a fit.
It would be easy to lengthen out our historiette into one of
circumstantial evidence, trial, condemnation, and ultimate discovery;
but we have preferred telling it as it really happened. On the person of
David Bain were found a pocket-book and purse, recognized as the
property of the late Mr. Bruce, and containing bank-notes and bills to a
considerable amount; the sight of which, in the possession of his
lodger, had evoked the cupidity of the bell-man. He made a full
confession, and in due time suffered the penalty due to his offence.
Meanwhile the minister, in the thankfulness of his soul to find his
nephew guiltless, embraced him tenderly, and freely permitted that
courtship to proceed between his daughter and him, which he had before
so strenuously opposed.
One circumstance still remained a mystery, undeveloped to all save
Barbara's aunt, Percival, and the worthy magistrate,--by whose advice,
indeed, it was concealed from the minister; who, to his dying day,
confidently believed that the paper he had found in his Bible had been
placed there by supernatural interposition. But the hand of the dead had
nothing to do with it, as we mean to explain.
On the evening of the murder, Barbara Comyn sallied forth to meet her
cousin, leaving Mr. Bruce and her father discussing punch and polemics.
She was later than usual, and as she sped along, she became aware of the
approach from Aberdeen of an individual, whom she could not avoid
meeting if she proceeded direct to the tryst. She therefore stole into a
different track, thinking to make a circuit which would occupy the time
the stranger might take in passing the copse of hazels; but,
unfortunately (or fortunately, was it?), she met a poor woman, the wife
of a neighboring peasant, who was on her way to the manse to implore
some black currant jelly for a child suffering from sore throat. The
call of distress was never disregarded by Barbara, and she flew back to
the manse, procured the jelly, and giving it to the woman, hastened
amidst falling rain to the trysting-place. As she was about to round the
point which hid the Nut-hole from view, she heard the sounds of
struggling feet and wrestling arms; and, regardless of danger to herself
in her fears for Percival, she forced her way through some bushes, and
beheld two men, in no friendly embrace, staggering on the very verge of
the pool. Before she could look again the one had fallen on the earth;
and the other, with a desperate blow of his stick on the head of the
prostrate man, uttered an oath in a voice whose peculiar tones were
well-known to Barbara, and in the twinkling of an eye shoved the wounded
man over the bank into the Nut-tree hole!
Her blood curdling with horror, Barbara found no voice, no strength, to
speak or stir; but she became, so to speak, all eye; and as the
murderer, swiftly cramming into his hat and pockets something which she
could not define, rose up, and forgetful of the cudgel, which lay
blood-dabbled on the grass, rushed from the place where he had taken the
burden of a deadly sin upon his soul, she saw his face, and recognized
her father's sexton--David Bain.
In terror, that found no tongue, she reached her lover, and became
insensible; nor was it till her recovery, when she found herself alone
with her aunt, that she felt how important to her future life might be
the events of that night. She resolved, ere yet she spoke one word in
reply to the questions of her aunt, to ascribe her swoon to anything but
the real cause; and it was, perhaps, well she so determined, for she
remembered that, in her flight from the fatal spot where she had
witnessed the perpetration of so foul a deed, she had picked up a
letter, which she had hid in her bosom, scarcely conscious of what she
did, yet, perhaps, imperceptibly aware--with the foresight of
inexplicable convictions--that it might yet prove of essential service.
When she retired to her chamber, and had got rid of Aunt Henny, she took
the paper from its concealment, and saw that it was the empty cover of a
letter addressed to "Mr. Bruce, at the house of David Bain, Sexton;" and
then the certainty struck her of the murdered man being her affianced
husband.
The character of David Bain was marked by extreme avarice, and Barbara's
conclusions as to the instigating cause of the crime he had committed
were easily formed. But what means could she pursue in order to convict
guilt, without at the same time rendering her own appearance before a
public court of justice necessary? from which she shrank nervously,
since the cause of her presence in such a spot, and at such an hour,
must of course be revealed. A sudden thought struck her--and, wild as it
was, she put it into instant execution. She knew her father's belief in
supernatural agency, and trusted strongly to the effect such a document
as that which she now prepared would have upon him. She wrote the note
which Mr. Comyn discovered in the Bible, imitating Mr. Bruce's hand,
which was peculiar, as closely as she could; and then, when the minister
left it there--a circumstance which, though she did not foresee,
rejoiced her--she subtracted it thence, uninterrupted and unsuspected.
But when it pleased the Almighty to make manifest the murderer by the
means thus strangely suggested to her, she confessed the whole to the
indulgent Henny and her lover, and by their advice took the magistrate
also into her confidence.
We have nothing more to relate, but that Barbara Comyn and John Percival
were soon after united by the worthy minister; whilst Miss Henny was as
busy as a bee in preparations for the wedding, and as happy in
witnessing the happiness of others as if she had never known a care of
her own.
* * * * *
THIERS has abandoned politics and history for the summer to visit
England.
Miscellanies.
[From Charles Mackay's New Volume of Poems, "Egeria," &c.]
THE GARDEN GATE.
"Stand back, bewildering politics!
I've placed my fences round;
Pass on, with all your party tricks,
Nor tread my holy ground.
Stand back--I'm weary of your talk,
Your squabbles, and your hate:
You cannot enter in this walk--
I've closed my garden gate.
"Stand back, ye thoughts of trade and pelf!
I have a refuge here;
I wish to commune with myself--
My mind is out of gear.
These bowers are sacred to the page
Of philosophic lore;
Within these bounds no envies rage--
I've shut my garden door.
"Stand back, Frivolity and Show.
It is a day of Spring;
I want to see my roses blow,
And hear the blackbird sing.
I wish to prune my apple-trees,
And nail my peaches straight;
Keep to the causeway, if you please--
I've shut my garden gate.
"I have no room for such as you,
My house is somewhat small:
Let Love come here, and Friendships true
I'll give them welcome all;
They will not scorn my household stuff,
Or criticize my store.
Pass on--the world is wide enough--
I've shut my garden door.
"Stand back, ye Pomps! and let me wear
The liberty I feel.
I have a coat at elbows bare--
I love its _dishabille_.
Within these precincts let me rove,
With Nature, free from state;
There is no tinsel in the grove--
I've shut my garden gate.
"What boots continual glare and strife?
I cannot always climb;
I would not struggle all my life--
I need a breathing time.
Pass on--I've sanctified these grounds
To friendship, love, and lore:
Ye cannot come within the bounds--
I've shut the garden door."
* * * * *
POETICAL COMPOSITION.--If metre and melody be worth anything at all, let
them be polished to perfection; let an author "keep his piece nine
years," or ninety and nine, till he has made it as musical as he can--at
least, as musical as his other performances. Not that we counsel
dilatory and piecemeal composition. The thought must be struck off in
the passion of the moment; the sword-blade must go red-hot to the anvil,
and be forged in a few seconds: true; but after the forging, long and
weary polishing and grinding must follow, before your sword-blade will
cut. And melody is what makes poetry cut; what gives it its life, its
power, its magic influence, on the hearts of men. It must ring in their
ears; it must have music in itself; it must appeal to the senses as well
as to the feelings, the imagination, the intellect: then, when it seizes
at once on the whole man, on body, soul, and spirit, will it "swell in
the heart, and kindle in the eyes," and constrain him, he knows not why,
to believe and to obey.--_Fraser, for June._
* * * * *
POETRY OF THE LAST AGE AND THE PRESENT.--A writer in the last number of
_Fraser's Magazine_ says well that, "there is in periodicals and
elsewhere, a vast amount of really poetic imagery, of true and tender
feeling, and cultivated ingenuity, scattered up and down in the form of
verse. We have no new great poets, but very many small ones--layers, as
it were, and seedlings from the lofty geniuses of the last generation,
showing in every line the influence of Scott, Shelley, Burns,
Wordsworth, and their compeers, seeing often farther than their masters
saw, but dwarfs on giants' shoulders. Not that we complain of this.
Elizabethan ages must be followed by Caroline ones; and our second
Elizabethan galaxy is past; Tennyson alone survives, in solitary
greatness, a connecting link between the poetry of the past and that of
the future. In poetry, and in many other things, ours is a Caroline age;
greater than the first one, as every modern cycle in a God-taught world,
will be nobler, richer, wiser than its ancient analogue; but still a
merely Caroline age--an age of pedantries and imbecilities, of effete
rulers, side by side with great nether powers, as yet unaccredited,
anarchic, unconscious of their own laws and destinies--an age of
formalisms and Pharisaisms, of parties embittered by the sense of their
own decrepitude--an age of small men, destined to be the fathers of
great ones. And in harmony with this, we have a poetic school of
Herberts and Vaughans, Withers and Daniels, to be followed hereafter, it
may be, by a Milton, of whom as yet the age has given no sign."
* * * * *
DEATH-BED SUPERSTITIONS.--The practice of opening doors and boxes when a
person dies is founded on the idea that the minister of purgatorial
pains took the soul as it escaped from the body, and flattening it
against some closed door, (which alone would serve the purpose,) crammed
it into the hinges and hinge openings; thus the soul in torment was
likely to be miserably pinched and squeezed by the movement on casual
occasion of such door or lid. An open or swinging door frustrated this,
and the fiends had to try some other locality. The friends of the
departed were at least assured that they were not made the unconscious
instruments of torturing the departed in their daily occupations. The
superstition prevails in the north as well as in the west of England;
and a similar one exists in the south of Spain, where I have seen it
practiced. Among the Jews at Gibraltar there is also a strange custom
when a death occurs in a house; and this consists in pouring away all
the water contained in any vessel, the superstition being that the angel
of death may have washed his sword therein.
* * * * *
Old authors notice the training of camels to move in measured time by
placing the animal on gradually heated plates, and at the same time
sounding a musical instrument.
* * * * *