DOWN THE RIVER.
Look at the flower of a morning-glory the evening before the dawn which
is to see it unfold. The delicate petals are twisted into a spiral,
which at the appointed hour, when the sunlight touches the hidden springs
of its life, will uncoil itself and let the day into the chamber of its
virgin heart. But the spiral must unwind by its own law, and the hand
that shall try to hasten the process will only spoil the blossom which
would have expanded in symmetrical beauty under the rosy fingers of
morning.
We may take a hint from Nature's handling of the flower in dealing with
young souls, and especially with the souls of young girls, which, from
their organization and conditions, require more careful treatment than
those of their tougher-fibred brothers. Many parents reproach themselves
for not having enforced their own convictions on their children in the
face of every inborn antagonism they encountered. Let them not be too
severe in their self-condemnation. A want of judgment in this matter has
sent many a young person to Bedlam, whose nature would have opened kindly
enough if it had only been trusted to the sweet influences of morning
sunshine. In such cases it may be that the state we call insanity is not
always an unalloyed evil. It may take the place of something worse, the
wretchedness of a mind not yet dethroned, but subject to the perpetual
interferences of another mind governed by laws alien and hostile to its
own. Insanity may perhaps be the only palliative left to Nature in this
extremity. But before she comes to that, she has many expedients. The
mind does not know what diet it can feed on until it has been brought to
the starvation point. Its experience is like that of those who have been
long drifting about on rafts or in long-boats. There is nothing out of
which it will not contrive to get some sustenance. A person of note,
long held captive for a political offence, is said to have owed the
preservation of his reason to a pin, out of which he contrived to get
exercise and excitement by throwing it down carelessly on the dark floor
of his dungeon, and then hunting for it in a series of systematic
explorations until he had found it.
Perhaps the most natural thing Myrtle Hazard could have done would have
been to go crazy, and be sent to the nearest asylum, if Providence, which
in its wisdom makes use of the most unexpected agencies, had not made a
special provision for her mental welfare. She was in that arid household
as the prophet in the land where there was no dew nor rain for these long
years. But as he had the brook Cherith, and the bread and flesh in the
morning and the bread and flesh in the evening which the ravens brought
him, so she had the river and her secret store of books.
The river was light and life and music and companionship to her. She
learned to row herself about upon it, to swim boldly in it, for it had
sheltered nooks but a little way above The Poplars. But there was more
than that in it,--it was infinitely sympathetic. A river is strangely
like a human soul. It has its dark and bright days, its troubles from
within, and its disturbances from without. It often runs over ragged
rocks with a smooth surface, and is vexed with ripples as it slides over
sands that are level as a floor. It betrays its various moods by aspects
which are the commonplaces of poetry, as smiles and dimples and wrinkles
and frowns. Its face is full of winking eyes, when the scattering
rain-drops first fall upon it, and it scowls back at the storm-cloud, as
with knitted brows, when the winds are let loose. It talks, too, in its
own simple dialect, murmuring, as it were, with busy lips all the way to
the ocean, as children seeking the mother's breast and impatient of
delay. Prisoners who know what a flower or an insect has been to them in
their solitary cell, invalids who have employed their vacant minds in
studying the patterns of paper-hangings on the walls of their
sick-chambers, can tell what the river was to the lonely, imaginative
creature who used to sit looking into its depths, hour after hour, from
the airy height of the Fire-hang-bird's Nest.
Of late a thought had mingled with her fancies which had given to the
river the aspect of something more than a friend and a companion. It
appeared all at once as a Deliverer. Did not its waters lead, after long
wanderings, to the great highway of the world, and open to her the gates
of those cities from which she could take her departure unchallenged
towards the lands of the morning or of the sunset? Often, after a
freshet, she had seen a child's miniature boat floating down on its side
past her window, and traced it in imagination back to some crystal brook
flowing by the door of a cottage far up a blue mountain in the distance.
So she now began to follow down the stream the airy shallop that held her
bright fancies. These dreams of hers were colored by the rainbows of an
enchanted fountain,--the books of adventure, the romances, the stories
which fortune had placed in her hands,--the same over which the heart of
the Pride of the County had throbbed in the last century, and on the
pages of some of which the traces of her tears might still be seen.
The literature which was furnished for Myrtle's improvement was chiefly
of a religious character, and, however interesting and valuable to those
to whom it was adapted, had not been chosen with any wise regard to its
fitness for her special conditions. Of what use was it to offer books
like the "Saint's Rest" to a child whose idea of happiness was in
perpetual activity? She read "Pilgrim's Progress," it is true, with
great delight. She liked the idea of travelling with a pack on one's
back, the odd shows at the House of the interpreter, the fighting, the
adventures, the pleasing young ladies at the palace the name of which was
Beautiful, and their very interesting museum of curiosities. As for the
allegorical meaning, it went through her consciousness like a peck of
wheat through a bushel measure with the bottom out, without touching.
But the very first book she got hold of out of the hidden treasury threw
the "Pilgrim's Progress" quite into the shade. It was the story of a
youth who ran away and lived on an island,--one Crusoe,--a homely
narrative, but evidently true, though full of remarkable adventures.
There too was the history, coming much nearer home, of Deborah Sampson,
the young woman who served as a soldier in the Revolutionary War, with a
portrait of her in man's attire, looking intrepid rather than lovely. A
virtuous young female she was, and married well, as she deserved to, and
raised a family with as good a name as wife and mother as the best of
them. But perhaps not one of these books and stories took such hold of
her imagination as the tale of Rasselas, which most young persons find
less entertaining than the "Vicar of Wakefield," with which it is
nowadays so commonly bound up. It was the prince's discontent in the
Happy Valley, the iron gate opening to the sound of music, and closing
forever on those it admitted, the rocky boundaries of the imprisoning
valley, the visions of the world beyond, the projects of escape, and the
long toil which ended in their accomplishment, which haunted her sleeping
and waking. She too was a prisoner, but it was not in the Happy Valley.
Of the romances and the love-letters we must take it for granted that she
selected wisely, and read discreetly; at least we know nothing to the
contrary.
There were mysterious reminiscences and hints of her past coming over her
constantly. It was in the course of the long, weary spring before her
disappearance, that a dangerous chord was struck which added to her
growing restlessness. In an old closet were some seashells and
coral-fans, and dried star-fishes and sea, horses, and a natural mummy of
a rough-skinned dogfish. She had not thought of them for years, but now
she felt impelled to look after them. The dim sea odors which still
clung to them penetrated to the very inmost haunts of memory, and called
up that longing for the ocean breeze which those who have once breathed
and salted their blood with it never get over, and which makes the
sweetest inland airs seem to them at last tame and tasteless. She held a
tigershell to her ear, and listened to that low, sleepy murmur, whether
in the sense or in the soul we hardly know, like that which had so often
been her lullaby,--a memory of the sea, as Landor and Wordsworth have
sung.
"You are getting to look like your father," Aunt Silence said one day; "I
never saw it before. I always thought you took after old Major Gideon
Withers. Well, I hope you won't come to an early grave like poor
Charles,--or at any rate, that you may be prepared."
It did not seem very likely that the girl was going out of the world at
present, but she looked Miss Silence in the face very seriously, and
said, "Why not an early grave, Aunt, if this world is such a bad place as
you say it is?"
"I'm afraid you are not fit for a better."
She wondered if Silence Withers and Cynthia Badlam were just ripe for
heaven.
For some months Miss Cynthia Badlam, who, as was said, had been an
habitual visitor at The Poplars, had lived there as a permanent resident.
Between her and Silence Withers, Myrtle Hazard found no rest for her
soul. Each of them was for untwisting the morning-glory without waiting
for the sunshine to do it. Each had her own wrenches and pincers to use
for that purpose. All this promised little for the nurture and
admonition of the young girl, who, if her will could not be broken by
imprisonment and starvation at three years old, was not likely to be
over-tractable to any but gentle and reasonable treatment at fifteen.
Aunt Silence's engine was responsibility,--her own responsibility, and
the dreadful consequences which would follow to her, Silence, if Myrtle
should in any way go wrong. Ever since her failure in that moral coup
d'etat by which the sinful dynasty of the natural self-determining power
was to be dethroned, her attempts in the way of education had been a
series of feeble efforts followed by plaintive wails over their utter
want of success. The face she turned upon the young girl in her solemn
expostulations looked as if it were inscribed with the epitaphs of hope
and virtue. Her utterances were pitched in such a forlorn tone, that the
little bird in his cage, who always began twittering at the sound of
Myrtle's voice, would stop in his song, and cock his head with a look of
inquiry full of pathos, as if he wanted to know what was the matter, and
whether he could do anything to help.
The specialty of Cynthia Badlam was to point out all the dangerous and
unpardonable trangressions into which young people generally, and this
young person in particular, were likely to run, to hold up examples of
those who had fallen into evil ways and come to an evil end, to present
the most exalted standard of ascetic virtue to the lively girl's
apprehension, leading her naturally to the conclusion that a bright
example of excellence stood before her in the irreproachable relative who
addressed her. Especially with regard to the allurements which the world
offers to the young and inexperienced female, Miss Cynthia Badlam was
severe and eloquent. Sometimes poor Myrtle would stare, not seeing the
meaning of her wise caution, sometimes look at Miss Cynthia with a
feeling that there was something about her that was false and forced,
that she had nothing in common with young people, that she had no pity
for them, only hatred of their sins, whatever these might be,--a hatred
which seemed to extend to those sources of frequent temptation, youth and
beauty, as if they were in themselves objectionable.
Both the lone women at The Poplars were gifted with a thin vein of music.
They gave it expression in psalmody, of course, in which Myrtle, who was
a natural singer, was expected to bear her part. This would have been
pleasantry if the airs most frequently selected had been cheerful or
soothing, and if the favorite hymns had been of a sort to inspire a love
for what was lovely in this life, and to give some faint foretaste of the
harmonies of a better world to come. But there is a fondness for minor
keys and wailing cadences common to the monotonous chants of cannibals
and savages generally, to such war-songs as the wild, implacable
"Marseillaise," and to the favorite tunes of low--spirited Christian
pessimists. That mournful "China," which one of our most agreeable
story-tellers has justly singled out as the cry of despair itself, was
often sung at The Poplars, sending such a sense of utter misery through
the house, that poor Kitty Fagan would cross herself, and wring her
hands, and think of funerals, and wonder who was going to die,--for she
fancied she heard the Banshee's warning in those most dismal ululations.
On the first Saturday of June, a fortnight before her disappearance,
Myrtle strolled off by the river shore, along its lonely banks, and came
dome with her hands full of leaves and blossoms. Silence Withers looked
at them as if they were a kind of melancholy manifestation of frivolity
on the part of the wicked old earth. Not that she did not inhale their
faint fragrance with a certain pleasure, and feel their beauty as none
whose souls are not wholly shriveled and hardened can help doing, but the
world was, in her estimate, a vale of tears, and it was only by a
momentary forgetfulness that she could be moved to smile at anything.
Miss Cynthia, a sharper-edged woman, had formed the habit of crushing
everything for its moral, until it lost its sweetness and grew almost
odious, as flower-de-luces do when handled roughly. "There's a worm in
that leaf, Myrtle. He has rolled it all round him, and hidden himself
from sight; but there is a horrid worm in it, for all it is so young and
fresh. There is a worm in every young soul, Myrtle."
"But there is not a worm in every leaf, Miss Cynthia. Look," she said,"
all these are open, and you can see all over and under them, and there is
nothing there. Are there never any worms in the leaves after they get
old and yellow, Miss Cynthia?"
That was a pretty fair hit for a simple creature of fifteen, but perhaps
she was not so absolutely simple as one might have thought.
It was on the evening of this same day that they were sitting together.
The sweet season was opening, and it seemed as if the whispering of the
leaves, the voices of the birds, the softness of the air, the young life
stirring in everything, called on all creatures to join the universal
chorus of praise that was going up around them.
"What shall we sing this evening?" said Miss Silence.
"Give me one of the books, if you please, Cousin Silence," said Miss
Cynthia. "It is Saturday evening. Holy time has begun. Let us prepare
our minds for the solemnities of the Sabbath."
She took the book, one well known to the schools and churches of this
nineteenth century.
"Book Second. Hymn 44. Long metre. I guess 'Putney' will be as good a
tune as any to sing it to."
The trio began,--
"With holy fear, and humble song,"
and got through the first verse together pretty well. Then came the
second verse:
"Far in the deep where darkness dwells,
The land of horror and despair,
Justice has built a dismal hell,
And laid her stores of vengeance there."
Myrtle's voice trembled a little in singing this verse, and she hardly
kept up her part with proper spirit.
"Sing out, Myrtle," said Miss Cynthia, and she struck up the third verse:
"Eternal plagues and heavy chains,
Tormenting racks and fiery coals,
And darts t' inflict immortal pains,
Dyed in the blood of damned souls."
This last verse was a duet, and not a trio. Myrtle closed her lips while
it was singing, and when it was done threw down the book with a look of
anger and disgust. The hunted soul was at bay.
"I won't sing such words," she said, "and I won't stay here to hear them
sung. The boys in the streets say just such words as that, and I am not
going to sing them. You can't scare me into being good with your cruel
hymn-book!"
She could not swear: she was not a boy. She would not cry: she felt
proud, obdurate, scornful, outraged. All these images, borrowed from the
holy Inquisition, were meant to frighten her--and had simply irritated
her. The blow of a weapon that glances off, stinging, but not
penetrating, only enrages. It was a moment of fearful danger to her
character, to her life itself.
Without heeding the cries of the two women, she sprang up-stairs to her
hanging chamber. She threw open the window and looked down into the
stream. For one moment her head swam with the sudden, overwhelming,
almost maddening thought that came over her,--the impulse to fling
herself headlong into those running waters and dare the worst these
dreadful women had threatened her with. Something she often thought
afterwards it was an invisible hand held her back during that brief
moment, and the paroxysm--just such a paroxysm as throws many a young
girl into the Thames or the Seine--passed away. She remained looking, in
a misty dream, into the water far below. Its murmur recalled the whisper
of the ocean waves. And through the depths it seemed as if she saw into
that strange, half--remembered world of palm-trees and white robes and
dusky faces, and amidst them, looking upon her with ineffable love and
tenderness, until all else faded from her sight, the face of a fair
woman,--was it hers, so long, long dead, or that dear young mother's who
was to her less a recollection than a dream?
Could it have been this vision that soothed her, so that she unclasped
her hands and lifted her bowed head as if she had heard a voice
whispering to her from that unknown world where she felt there was a
spirit watching over her? At any rate, her face was never more serene
than when she went to meeting with the two maiden ladies on the following
day, Sunday, and heard the Rev. Mr. Stoker preach a sermon from Luke vii.
48, which made both the women shed tears, but especially so excited Miss
Cynthia that she was in a kind of half-hysteric condition all the rest of
the day.
After that Myrtle was quieter and more docile than ever before. Could it
be, Miss Silence thought, that the Rev. Mr. Stoker's sermon had touched
her hard heart? However that was, she did not once wear the stormy look
with which she had often met the complaining remonstrances Miss Silence
constantly directed against all the spontaneous movements of the youthful
and naturally vivacious subject of her discipline.
June is an uncertain month, as everybody knows, and there were frosts in
many parts of New England in the June of 1859. But there were also
beautiful days and nights, and the sun was warm enough to be fast
ripening the strawberries,--also certain plans which had been in flower
some little time. Some preparations had been going on in a quiet way, so
that at the right moment a decisive movement could be made. Myrtle knew
how to use her needle, and always had a dexterous way of shaping any
article of dress or ornament,--a natural gift not very rare, but
sometimes very needful, as it was now.
On the morning of the 15th of June she was wandering by the shores of the
river, some distance above The Poplars, when a boat came drifting along
by her, evidently broken loose from its fastenings farther up the stream.
It was common for such waifs to show themselves after heavy rains had
swollen the river. They might have run the gauntlet of nobody could tell
how many farms, and perhaps passed by half a dozen towns and villages in
the night, so that, if of common, cheap make, they were retained without
scruple, by any who might find them, until the owner called for them, if
he cared to take the trouble.
Myrtle took a knife from her pocket, cut down a long, slender sapling,
and coaxed the boat to the side of the bank. A pair of old oars lay in
the bottom of the boat; she took one of these and paddled it into a
little cove, where it could lie hid among the thick alders. Then she went
home and busied herself about various little matters more interesting to
her than to us.
She was never more amiable and gracious than on this day. But she looked
often at the clock, as they remembered afterwards, and studied over a
copy of the Farmer's Almanac which was lying in the kitchen, with a
somewhat singular interest. The days were nearly at their longest, the
weather was mild, the night promised to be clear and bright.
The household was, to all appearance, asleep at the usual early hour.
When all seemed quiet, Myrtle lighted her lamp, stood before her mirror,
and untied the string that bound her long and beautiful dark hair, which
fell in its abundance over her shoulders and below her girdle.
She lifted its heavy masses with one hand, and severed it with a strong
pair of scissors, with remorseless exaction of every wandering curl,
until she stood so changed by the loss of that outward glory of her
womanhood, that she felt as if she had lost herself and found a brother
she had never seen before.
"Good-by, Myrtle!" she said, and, opening her window very gently, she
flung the shining tresses upon the running water, and watched them for a
few moments as they floated down the stream. Then she dressed herself in
the character of her imaginary brother, took up the carpet-bag in which
she had placed what she chose to carry with her, stole softly
down-stairs, and let herself out of a window on the lower floor, shutting
it very carefully so as to be sure that nobody should be disturbed.
She glided along, looking all about her, fearing she might be seen by
some curious wanderer, and reached the cove where the boat she had
concealed was lying. She got into it, and, taking the rude oars, pulled
herself into the middle of the swollen stream. Her heart beat so that it
seemed to her as if she could hear it between the strokes of the oar.
The lights were not all out in the village, and she trembled lest she
should see the figure of some watcher looking from the windows in sight
of which she would have to pass, and that a glimpse of this boat stealing
along at so late an hour might give the clue to the secret of her
disappearance, with which the whole region was to be busied in the course
of the next day.
Presently she came abreast of The Poplars. The house lay so still, so
peaceful,--it would wake to such dismay! The boat slid along beneath her
own overhanging chamber.
"No song to-morrow from the Fire-hang-bird's Nest!" she said. So she
floated by the slumbering village, the flow of the river carrying her
steadily on, and the careful strokes of the oars adding swiftness to her
flight.
At last she came to the "Broad Meadows," and knew that she was alone, and
felt confident that she had got away unseen. There was nothing,
absolutely nothing, to point out which way she had gone. Her boat came
from nobody knew where, her disguise had been got together at different
times in such a manner as to lead to no suspicion, and not a human being
ever had the slightest hint that she had planned and meant to carry out
the enterprise which she had now so fortunately begun.
Not till the last straggling house had been long past, not till the
meadows were stretched out behind her as well as before her, spreading
far off into the distance on each side, did she give way to the sense of
wild exultation which was coming fast over her. But then, at last, she
drew a long, long breath, and, standing up in the boat, looked all around
her. The stars were shining over her head and deep down beneath her.
The cool wind came fresh upon her cheek over the long grassy reaches. No
living thing moved in all the wide level circle which lay about her. She
had passed the Red Sea, and was alone in the Desert.
She threw down her oars, lifted her hands like a priestess, and her
strong, sweet voice burst into song,--the song of the Jewish maiden when
she went out before the chorus of, women and sang that grand solo, which
we all remember in its ancient words, and in their modern paraphrase,
"Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea!
Jehovah hath triumphed, his people are free!"
The poor child's repertory was limited to songs of the religious sort
mainly, but there was a choice among these. Her aunt's favorites, beside
"China," already mentioned, were "Bangor," which the worthy old New
England clergyman so admired that he actually had the down-east city
called after it, and "Windsor," and "Funeral Hymn." But Myrtle was in no
mood for these. She let off her ecstasy in "Balerma," and "Arlington,"
and "Silver Street," and at last in that most riotous of devotional
hymns, which sounds as if it had been composed by a saint who had a
cellar under his chapel,--"Jordan." So she let her wild spirits run
loose; and then a tenderer feeling stole over her, and she sang herself
into a more tranquil mood with the gentle music of "Dundee." And again
she pulled quietly and steadily at her oars, until she reached the wooded
region through which the river winds after leaving the "Broad Meadows."
The tumult in her blood was calmed, yet every sense and faculty was awake
to the manifold delicious, mysterious impressions of that wonderful June
night, The stars were shining between the tall trees, as if all the
jewels of heaven had been set in one belt of midnight sky. The voices of
the wind, as they sighed through the pines, seemed like the breath of a
sleeping child, and then, as they lisped from the soft, tender leaves of
beeches and maples, like the half-articulate whisper of the mother
hushing all the intrusive sounds that might awaken it. Then came the
pulsating monotone of the frogs from a far-off pool, the harsh cry of an
owl from an old tree that overhung it, the splash of a mink or musquash,
and nearer by, the light step of a woodchuck, as he cantered off in his
quiet way to his hole in the nearest bank. The laurels were just coming
into bloom,--the yellow lilies, earlier than their fairer sisters,
pushing their golden cups through the water, not content, like those, to
float on the surface of the stream that fed them, emblems of showy
wealth, and, like that, drawing all manner of insects to feed upon them.
The miniature forests of ferns came down to the edge of the stream, their
tall, bending plumes swaying in the night breeze. Sweet odors from
oozing pines, from dewy flowers, from spicy leaves, stole out of the
tangled thickets, and made the whole scene more dream-like with their
faint, mingled suggestions.
By and by the banks of the river grew lower and marshy, and in place of
the larger forest-trees which had covered them stood slender tamaracks,
sickly, mossy, looking as if they had been moon-struck and were out of
their wits, their tufts of leaves staring off every way from their
spindling branches. The winds came cool and damp out of the
hiding-places among their dark recesses. The country people about here
called this region the "Witches' Hollow," and had many stories about the
strange things that happened there. The Indians used to hold their
"powwows," or magical incantations, upon a broad mound which rose out of
the common level, and where some old hemlocks and beeches formed a dark
grove, which served them as a temple for their demon-worship. There were
many legends of more recent date connected with this spot, some of them
hard to account for, and no superstitious or highly imaginative person
would have cared to pass through it alone in the dead of the night, as
this young girl was doing.
She knew nothing of all these fables and fancies. Her own singular
experiences in this enchanted region were certainly not suggested by
anything she had heard, and may be considered psychologically curious by
those who would not think of attributing any mystical meaning to them.
We are at liberty to report many things without attempting to explain
them, or committing ourselves to anything beyond the fact that so they
were told us. The reader will find Myrtle's "Vision," as written out at
a later period from her recollections, at the end of this chapter.
The night was passing, and she meant to be as far away as possible from
the village she had left, before morning. But the boat, like all craft
on country rivers, was leaky, and she had to work until tired, bailing it
out, before she was ready for another long effort. The old tin measure,
which was all she had to bail with, leaked as badly as the boat, and her
task was a tedious one. At last she got it in good trim, and sat down to
her oars with the determination to pull steadily as long as her strength
would hold out.
Hour after hour she kept at her work, sweeping round the long bends where
the river was hollowing out one bank and building new shore on the
opposite one, so as gradually to shift its channel; by clipper-shaped
islands, sharp at the bows looking up stream, sharp too at the stern,
looking down,--their shape solving the navigator's problem of least
resistance, as a certain young artist had pointed out; by slumbering
villages; by outlying farm-houses; between cornfields where the young
plants were springing up in little thready fountains; in the midst of
stumps where the forest had just been felled; through patches, where the
fire of the last great autumnal drought had turned all the green beauty
of the woods into brown desolation; and again amidst broad expanses of
open meadow stretching as far as the eye could reach in the uncertain
light. A faint yellow tinge was beginning to stain the eastern horizon.
Her boat was floating quietly along, for she had at last taken in her
oars, and she was now almost tired out with toil and excitement. She
rested her head upon her hands, and felt her eyelids closing in spite of
herself. And now there stole upon her ear a low, gentle, distant murmur,
so soft that it seemed almost to mingle with the sound of her own
breathing, but so steady, so uniform, that it soothed her to sleep, as if
it were the old cradle-song the ocean used to sing to her, or the lullaby
of her fair young mother.
So she glided along, slowly, slowly, down the course of the winding
river, and the flushing dawn kindled around her as she slumbered, and the
low, gentle murmur grew louder and louder, but still she slept, dreaming
of the murmuring ocean.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII.
MYRTLE HAZARD'S STATEMENT.
"A Vision seen by me, Myrtle Hazard, aged fifteen, on the night of June
15, 1859. Written out at the request of a friend from my recollections.
"The place where I saw these sights is called, as I have been told since,
Witches' Hollow. I had never been there before, and did not know that it
was called so, or anything about it.
"The first strange thing that I noticed was on coming near a kind of hill
or mound that rose out of the low meadows. I saw a burning cross lying
on the slope of that mound. It burned with a pale greenish light, and
did not waste, though I watched it for a long time, as the boat I was in
moved slowly with the current and I had stopped rowing.
"I know that my eyes were open, and I was awake while I was looking at
this cross. I think my eyes were open when I saw these other
appearances, but I felt just as if I were dreaming while awake.
"I heard a faint rustling sound, and on looking up I saw many figures
moving around me, and I seemed to see myself among them as if I were
outside of myself.
"The figures did not walk, but slid or glided with an even movement, as
if without any effort. They made many gestures, and seemed to speak, but
I cannot tell whether I heard what they said, or knew its meaning in some
other way.
"I knew the faces of some of these figures. They were the same I have
seen in portraits, as long as I can remember, at the old house where I
was brought up, called The Poplars. I saw my father and my mother as
they look in the two small pictures; also my grandmother, and her father
and mother and grandfather, and one other person, who lived a great while
ago. All of these have been long dead, and the longer they had been dead
the less like substance they looked and the more like shadows, so that
the oldest was like one's breath of a frosty morning, but shaped like the
living figure.
"There was no motion of their breasts, and their lips seemed to be moving
as if they were saying, Breath! Breath! Breath! I thought they wanted
to breathe the air of this world again in my shape, which I seemed to see
as it were empty of myself and of these other selves, like a sponge that
has water pressed out of it.
"Presently it seemed to me that I returned to myself, and then those
others became part of me by being taken up, one by one, and so lost in my
own life.
"My father and mother came up, hand in hand, looking more real than any
of the rest. Their figures vanished, and they seemed to have become a
part of me; for I felt all at once the longing to live over the life they
had led, on the sea and in strange countries.
"Another figure was just like the one we called the Major, who was a very
strong, hearty-looking man, and who is said to have drank hard sometimes,
though there is nothing about it on his tombstone, which I used to read
in the graveyard. It seemed to me that there was something about his
life that I did not want to make a part of mine, but that there was some
right he had in me through my being of his blood, and so his health and
his strength went all through me, and I was always to have what was left
of his life in that shadow-like shape, forming a portion of mine.
"So in the same way with the shape answering to the portrait of that
famous beauty who was the wife of my great-grandfather, and used to be
called the Pride of the County.
"And so too with another figure which had the face of that portrait
marked on the back, Ruth Bradford, who married one of my ancestors, and
was before the court, as I have heard, in the time of the witchcraft
trials.
"There was with the rest a dark, wild-looking woman, with a head-dress of
feathers. She kept as it were in shadow, but I saw something of my own
features in her face.
"It was on my mind very strongly that the shape of that woman of our
blood who was burned long ago by the Papists came very close to me, and
was in some way made one with mine, and that I feel her presence with me
since, as if she lived again in me; but not always,--only at times,--and
then I feel borne up as if I could do anything in the world. I had a
feeling as if she were my guardian and protector.
"It seems to me that these, and more, whom I have not mentioned, do
really live over some part of their past lives in my life. I do not
understand it all, and perhaps it can be accounted for in some way I have
not thought of. I write it down as nearly as I can give it from memory,
by request, and if it is printed at this time had rather have all the
real names withheld.
"MYRTLE HAZARD."
NOTE BY THE FRIEND.
"This statement must be accounted for in some way, or pass into the
category of the supernatural. Probably it was one of those intuitions,
with objective projection, which sometimes come to imaginative young
persons, especially girls, in certain exalted nervous conditions. The
study of the portraits, with the knowledge of some parts of the history
of the persons they represented, and the consciousness of instincts
inherited in all probability from these same ancestors, formed the basis
of Myrtle's 'Vision.' The lives of our progenitors are, as we know,
reproduced in different proportions in ourselves. Whether they as
individuals have any consciousness of it, is another matter. It is
possible that they do get a second as it were fractional life in us. It
might seem that many of those whose blood flows in our veins struggle for
the mastery, and by and by one or more get the predominance, so that we
grow to be like father, or mother, or remoter ancestor, or two or more
are blended in us, not to the exclusion, however, it must be understood,
of a special personality of our own, about which these others are
grouped. Independently of any possible scientific value, this 'Vision'
serves to illustrate the above-mentioned fact of common experience, which
is not sufficiently weighed by most moralists.
"How much it may be granted to certain young persons to see, not in
virtue of their intellectual gifts, but through those direct channels
which worldly wisdom may possibly close to the luminous influx, each
reader must determine for himself by his own standards of faith and
evidence.
"One statement of the narrative admits of a simple natural explanation,
which does not allow the lovers of the marvellous to class it with the
quasi-miraculous appearance seen by Colonel Gardiner, and given in full
by Dr. Doddridge in his Life of that remarkable Christian soldier.
Decaying wood is often phosphorescent, as many readers must have seen for
themselves. The country people are familiar with the sight of it in wild
timber-land, and have given it the name of 'Fox-fire.' Two trunks of
trees in this state, lying across each other, will account for the fact
observed, and vindicate the truth of the young girl's story without
requiring us to suppose any exceptional occurrence outside of natural
laws."