MR. CLEMENT LINDSAY FINISHES HIS LETTER--WHAT CAME OF IT.
The first thing Clement Lindsay did, when he was fairly himself again,
was to finish his letter to Susan Posey. He took it up where it left
off, "with an affection which----" and drew a long dash, as above. It was
with great effort he wrote the lines which follow, for he had got an ugly
blow on the forehead, and his eyes were "in mourning," as the gentlemen
of the ring say, with unbecoming levity.
"An adventure! Just as I was writing these last words, I heard the cry
of a young person, as it sounded, for help. I ran to the river and
jumped in, and had the pleasure of saving a life. I got some bruises
which have laid me up for a day or two; but I am getting over them very
well now, and you need not worry about me at all. I will write again
soon; so pray do not fret yourself, for I have had no hurt that will
trouble me for any time."
Of course, poor Susan Posey burst out crying, and cried as if her heart
would break. Oh dear! Oh dear! what should she do! He was almost
killed, she knew he was, or he had broken some of his bones. Oh dear! Oh
dear! She would go and see him, there!--she must and would. He would
die, she knew he would,--and so on.
It was a singular testimony to the evident presence of a human element in
Mr. Bytes Gridley that the poor girl, on her extreme trouble, should
think of him as a counsellor. But the wonderful relenting kind of look
on his grave features as he watched the little twins tumbling about his
great books, and certain marks of real sympathy he had sometimes shown
for her in her lesser woes, encouraged her, and she went straight to his
study, letter in hand. She gave a timid knock at the door of that awful
sanctuary.
"Come in, Susan Posey," was its answer, in a pleasant tone. The old
master knew her light step and the maidenly touch of her small hand on
the panel.
What a sight! 'there were Sossy and Minthy intrenched in a Sebastopol
which must have cost a good half-hour's engineering, and the terrible
Bytes Gridley besieging the fortress with hostile manifestations of the
most singular character. He was actually discharging a large sugar-plum
at the postern gate, which having been left unclosed, the missile would
certainly have reached one of the garrison, when he paused as the door
opened, and the great round spectacles and four wide, staring infants'
eyes were levelled at Miss Susan Posey.
She almost forgot her errand, grave as it was, in astonishment at this
manifestation. The old man had emptied his shelves of half their folios
to build up the fort, in the midst of which he had seated the two
delighted and uproarious babes. There was his Cave's "Historia
Literaria," and Sir Walter Raleigh's "History of the World," and a whole
array of Christian Fathers, and Plato, and Aristotle, and Stanley's book
of Philosophers, with Effigies, and the Junta Galen, and the Hippocrates
of Foesius, and Walton's Polyglot, supported by Father Sanchez on one
side and Fox's "Acts and Monuments" on the other,--an odd collection, as
folios from lower shelves are apt to be.
The besieger discharged his sugar-plum, which was so well aimed that it
fell directly into the lap of Minthy, who acted with it as if the
garrison had been on short rations for some time.
He saw at once, on looking up, that there was trouble. "What now, Susan
Posey, my dear?"
"O Mr. Gridley, I am in such trouble! What shall I do? What shall I
do?"
She turned back the name and the bottom of the letter in such a way that
Mr. Gridley could read nothing but the few lines relating their
adventure.
"So Mr. Clement Lindsay has been saving a life, has he, and got some hard
knocks doing it, hey, Susan Posey? Well, well, Clement Lindsay is a
brave fellow, and there is no need of hiding his name, my child. Let me
take the letter again a moment, Susan Posey. What is the date of it?
June 16th. Yes,--yes,--yes!"
He read the paragraph over again, and the signature too, if he wanted to;
for poor Susan had found that her secret was hardly opaque to those round
spectacles and the eyes behind them, and, with a not unbecoming blush,
opened the fold of the letter before she handed it back.
"No, no, Susan Posey. He will come all right. His writing is steady,
and if he had broken any bones he would have mentioned it. It's a thing
his wife will be proud of, if he is ever married, Susan Posey,"
(blushes,) "and his children too," (more blushes running up to her back
hair,) "and there 's nothing to be worried about. But I'll tell you
what, my dear, I've got a little business that calls me down the river
tomorrow, and I shouldn't mind stopping an hour at Alderbank and seeing
how our young friend Clement Lindsay is; and then, if he was going to
have a long time of it, why we could manage it somehow that any friend
who had any special interest in him could visit him, just to while away
the tiresomeness of being sick. That's it, exactly. I'll stop at
Alderbank, Susan Posey. Just clear up these two children for me, will
you, my dear? Isosceles, come now,--that 's a good child. Helminthia,
carry these sugar-plums down--stairs for me, and take good care of them,
mind!"
It was a case of gross bribery and corruption, for the fortress was
immediately, evacuated on the receipt of a large paper of red and white
comfits, and the garrison marched down--stairs much like conquerors,
under the lead of the young lady, who was greatly eased in mind by the
kind words and the promise of Mr. Byles Gridley.
But he, in the mean time, was busy with thoughts she did not suspect. "A
young person," he said to himself,--"why a young person? Why not say a
boy, if it was a boy? What if this should be our handsome truant?--'June
16th, Thursday morning!'--About time to get to Alderbank by the river, I
should think. None of the boats missing? What then? She may have made a
raft, or picked up some stray skiff. Who knows? And then got
shipwrecked, very likely. There are rapids and falls farther along the
river. It will do no harm to go down there and look about, at any rate."
On Saturday morning, therefore, Mr. Byles Gridley set forth to procure a
conveyance to make a visit, as he said, dawn the river, and perhaps be
gone a day or two. He went to a stable in the village, and asked if they
could let him have a horse.
The man looked at him with that air of native superiority which the
companionship of the generous steed confers on all his associates, down
to the lightest weight among the jockeys.
"Wal, I hain't got nothin' in the shape of a h'oss, Mr. Gridley. I've got
a mare I s'pose I could let y' have."
"Oh, very well," said the old master, with a twinkle in his eye as sly as
the other's wink,--he had parried a few jokes in his time,--"they charge
half-price for mares always, I believe."
That was a new view of the subject. It rather took the wind out of the
stable-keeper, and set a most ammoniacal fellow, who stood playing with a
currycomb, grinning at his expense. But he rallied presently.
"Wal, I b'lieve they do for some mares, when they let 'em to some folks;
but this here ain't one o' them mares, and you ain't one o' them folks.
All my cattle's out but this critter, 'n' I don't jestly want to have
nobody drive her that ain't pretty car'ful,--she's faast, I tell
ye,--don't want no whip.--How fur d' d y' want t' go?"
Mr. Gridley was quite serious now, and let the man know that he wanted
the mare and a light covered wagon, at once, to be gone for one or two
days, and would waive the question of sex in the matter of payment.
Alderbank was about twenty miles down the river by the road. On arriving
there, he inquired for the house where a Mr. Lindsay lived. There was
only one Lindsay family in town,--he must mean Dr. William Lindsay. His
house was up there a little way above the village, lying a few rods back
from the river.
He found the house without difficulty, and knocked at the door. A
motherly-looking woman opened it immediately, and held her hand up as if
to ask him to speak and move softly.
"Does Mr. Clement Lindsay live here?"
"He is staying here for the present. He is a nephew of ours. He is in
his bed from an injury."
"Nothing very serious, I hope?"
"A bruise on his head,--not very bad, but the doctor was afraid of
erysipelas. Seems to be doing well enough now."
"Is there a young person here, a stranger?"
"There is such a young person here. Do you come with any authority to
make inquiries?"
"I do. A young friend of mine is missing, and I thought it possible I
might learn something here about it. Can I see this young person?"
The matron came nearer to Byles Gridley, and said: "This person is a
young woman disguised as a boy. She was rescued by my nephew at the risk
of his life, and she has been delirious ever since she has recovered her
consciousness. She was almost too far gone to be resuscitated, but
Clement put his mouth to hers and kept her breathing until her own breath
returned and she gradually came to."
"Is she violent in her delirium?"
"Not now. No; she is quiet enough, but wandering,--wants to know where
she is, and whose the strange faces are,--mine and my husband's,--that 's
Dr. Lindsay,--and one of my daughters, who has watched with her."
"If that is so, I think I had better see her. If she is the person I
suspect her to be, she will know me; and a familiar face may bring back
her recollections and put a stop to her wanderings. If she does not know
me, I will not stay talking with her. I think she will, if she is the
one I am seeking after. There is no harm in trying."
Mrs. Lindsay took a good long look at the old man. There was no
mistaking his grave, honest, sturdy, wrinkled, scholarly face. His voice
was assured and sincere in its tones. His decent black coat was just
what a scholar's should be,--old, not untidy, a little shiny at the
elbows with much leaning on his study-table, but neatly bound at the
cuffs, where worthy Mrs. Hopkins had detected signs of fatigue and come
to the rescue. His very hat looked honest as it lay on the table. It
had moulded itself to a broad, noble head, that held nothing but what was
true and fair, with a few harmless crotchets just to fill in with, and it
seemed to know it.
The good woman gave him her confidence at once. "Is the person you are
seeking a niece or other relative of yours?"
(Why did not she ask if the girl was his daughter? What is that look of
paternity and of maternity which observing and experienced mothers and
old nurses know so well in men and in women?)
"No, she is not a relative. But I am acting for those who are."
"Wait a moment and I will go and see that the room is all right."
She returned presently. "Follow me softly, if you please. She is
asleep,--so beautiful,--so innocent!"
Byles Gridley, Master of Arts, retired professor, more than sixty years
old, childless, loveless, stranded in a lonely study strewed with wrecks
of the world's thought, his work in life finished, his one literary
venture gone down with all it held, with nobody to care for him but
accidental acquaintances, moved gently to the side of the bed and looked
upon the pallid, still features of Myrtle Hazard. He strove hard against
a strange feeling that was taking hold of him, that was making his face
act rebelliously, and troubling his eyes with sudden films. He made a
brief stand against this invasion. "A weakness,--a weakness!" he said to
himself. "What does all this mean? Never such a thing for these twenty
years! Poor child! poor child!--Excuse me, madam," he said, after a
little interval, but for what offence he did not mention. A great deal
might be forgiven, even to a man as old as Byles Gridley, looking upon
such a face,--so lovely, yet so marked with the traces of recent
suffering, and even now showing by its changes that she was struggling in
some fearful dream. Her forehead contracted, she started with a slight
convulsive movement, and then her lips parted, and the cry escaped from
them,--how heart-breaking when there is none to answer it,--"Mother!"
Gone back again through all the weary, chilling years of her girlhood to
that hardly remembered morning of her life when the cry she uttered was
answered by the light of loving eyes, the kiss of clinging lips, the
embrace of caressing arms!
"It is better to wake her," Mrs. Lindsay said; "she is having a troubled
dream. Wake up, my child, here is a friend waiting to see you."
She laid her hand very gently on Myrtle's forehead. Myrtle opened her
eyes, but they were vacant as yet.
"Are we dead?" she said. "Where am I? This is n't heaven--there are no
angels--Oh, no, no, no! don't send me to the other place--fifteen
years,--only fifteen years old--no father, no mother--nobody loved me.
Was it wicked in me to live?" Her whole theological training was
condensed in that last brief question.
The, old man took her hand and looked her in the face, with a wonderful
tenderness in his squared features. "Wicked to live, my dear? No
indeed! Here! look at me, my child; don't you know your old friend Byles
Gridley?"
She was awake now. The sight of a familiar countenance brought back a
natural train of thought. But her recollection passed over everything
that had happened since Thursday morning.
"Where is the boat I was in?" she said. "I have just been in the water,
and I was dreaming that I was drowned. Oh! Mr. Gridley, is that you?
Did you pull me out of the water?"
"No, my dear, but you are out of it, and safe and sound: that is the main
point. How do you feel now you are awake?"
She yawned, and stretched her arms and looked round, but did not answer
at first. This was all natural, and a sign that she was coming right.
She looked down at her dress. It was not inappropriate to her sex, being
a loose gown that belonged to one of the girls in the house.
"I feel pretty well," she answered, "but a little confused. My boat will
be gone, if you don't run and stop it now. How did you get me into dry
clothes so quick?"
Master Byles Gridley found himself suddenly possessed by a large and
luminous idea of the state of things, and made up his mind in a moment as
to what he must do. There was no time to be lost. Every day, every
hour, of Myrtle's absence was not only a source of anxiety and a cause of
useless searching but it gave room for inventive fancies to imagine evil.
It was better to run some risk of injury to health, than to have her
absence prolonged another day.
"Has this adventure been told about in the village, Mrs. Lindsay?"
"No, we thought it best to wait until she could tell her own story,
expecting her return to consciousness every hour, and thinking there
might be some reason for her disguise which it would be kinder to keep
quiet about."
"You know nothing about her, then?"
"Not a word. It was a great question whether to tell the story and make
inquiries; but she was safe, and could hardly bear disturbance, and, my
dear sir, it seemed too probable that there was some sad story behind
this escape in disguise, and that the poor child might need shelter and
retirement. We meant to do as well as we could for her."
"All right, Mrs. Lindsay. You do not know who she is, then?"
"No, sir, and perhaps it is as well that I should not know. Then I shall
not have to answer any questions about it."
"Very good, madam,--just as it should be. And your family, are they as
discreet as yourself?"
"Not one word of the whole story has been or will be told by any one of
us. That was agreed upon among us."
"Now then, madam. My name, as you heard me say, is Byles Gridley. Your
husband will know it, perhaps; at any rate I will wait until he comes
back. This child is of good family and of good name. I know her well,
and mean, with your kind help, to save her from the consequences which
her foolish adventure might have brought upon her. Before the bells ring
for meeting to-morrow morning this girl must be in her bed at her home,
at Oxbow Village, and we must keep her story to ourselves as far as may
be. It will all blow over, if we do. The gossips will only know that
she was upset in the river and cared for by some good people,--good
people and sensible people too, Mrs. Lindsay. And now I want to see the
young man that rescued my friend here,--Clement Lindsay, I have heard his
name before."
Clement was not a beauty for the moment, but Master Gridley saw well
enough that he was a young man of the right kind. He knew them at sight,
fellows with lime enough in their bones and iron enough in their blood to
begin with,--shapely, large-nerved, firm-fibred and fine-fibred, with
well-spread bases to their heads for the ground-floor of the faculties,
and well-vaulted arches for the upper range of apprehensions and
combinations. "Plenty of basements," he used to say, "without attics and
skylights. Plenty of skylights without rooms enough and space enough
below." But here was "a three-story brain," he said to himself as he
looked at it, and this was the youth who was to find his complement in
our pretty little Susan Posey! His judgment may seem to have been hasty,
but he took the measure of young men of twenty at sight from long and
sagacious observation, as Nurse Byloe knew the "heft" of a baby the
moment she fixed her old eyes on it.
Clement was well acquainted with Byles Gridley, though he had never seen
him, for Susan's letters had had a good deal to say about him of late.
It was agreed between them that the story should be kept as quiet as
possible, and that the young girl should not know the name of her
deliverer,--it might save awkward complications. It was not likely that
she would be disposed to talk of her adventure, which had ended so
disastrously, and thus the whole story would soon die out.
The effect of the violent shock she had experienced was to change the
whole nature of Myrtle for the time. Her mind was unsettled: she could
hardly recall anything except the plunge over the fall. She was
perfectly docile and plastic,--was ready to go anywhere Mr. Gridley
wanted her to go, without any sign of reluctance. And so it was agreed
that he should carry her back in his covered wagon that very night. All
possible arrangements were made to render her journey comfortable. The
fast mare had to trot very gently, and the old master would stop and
adjust the pillows from time to time, and administer the restoratives
which the physician had got ready, all as naturally and easily as if he
had been bred a nurse, vastly to his own surprise, and with not a little
gain to his self-appreciation. He was a serviceable kind of body on
occasion, after all, was he not, hey, Mr. Byles Gridley? he said to
himself.
At half past four o'clock on Sunday morning the shepherd brought the
stray lamb into the paved yard at The Poplars, and roused the slumbering
household to receive back the wanderer.
It was the Irishwoman, Kitty Fagan, huddled together in such amorphous
guise, that she looked as if she had been fitted in a tempest of
petticoats and a whirlwind of old shawls, who presented herself at the
door.
But there was a very warm heart somewhere in that queer-looking bundle of
clothes, and it was not one of those that can throb or break in silence.
When she saw the long covered wagon, and the grave face of the old
master, she thought it was all over with the poor girl she loved, and
that this was the undertaker's wagon bringing back only what had once
been Myrtle Hazard. She screamed aloud,--so wildly that Myrtle lifted
her head from the pillow against which she had rested it, and started
forward.
The Irishwoman looked at her for a moment to assure herself that it was
the girl she loved, and not her ghost. Then it all came over her,--she
had been stolen by thieves, who had carried her off by night, and been
rescued by the brave old man who had brought her back. What crying and
kisses and prayers and blessings were poured forth, in a confusion of
which her bodily costume was a fitting type, those who know the
vocabulary and the enthusiasm of her eloquent race may imagine better
than we could describe it.
The welcome of the two other women was far less demonstrative. There
were awful questions to be answered before the kind of reception she was
to have could be settled. What they were, it is needless to suggest; but
while Miss Silence was weeping, first with joy that her "responsibility"
was removed, then with a fair share of pity and kindness, and other
lukewarm emotions,--while Miss Badlam waited for an explanation before
giving way to her feelings,--Mr. Gridley put the essential facts before
them in a few words. She had gone down the river some miles in her boat,
which was upset by a rush of the current, and she had come very near
being drowned. She was got out, however, by a person living near by, and
cared for by some kind women in a house near the river, where he had been
fortunate enough to discover her.--Who cut her hair off? Perhaps those
good people,--she had been out of her head. She was alive and unharmed,
at any rate, wanting only a few days' rest. They might be very thankful
to get her back, and leave her to tell the rest of her story when she had
got her strength and memory, for she was not quite herself yet, and might
not be for some days.
And so there she was at last laid in her own bed, listening again to the
ripple of the waters beneath her, Miss Silence sitting on one side
looking as sympathetic as her insufficient nature allowed her to look;
the Irishwoman uncertain between delight at Myrtle's return and sorrow
for her condition; and Miss Cynthia Badlam occupying herself about
house-matters, not unwilling to avoid the necessity of displaying her
conflicting emotions.
Before he left the house, Mr. Gridley repeated the statement is the most
precise manner,--some miles down the river--upset and nearly
drowned--rescued almost dead--brought to and cared for by kind women in
the house where he, Byles Gridley, found her. These were the facts, and
nothing more than this was to be told at present. They had better be
made known at once, and the shortest and best way would be to have it
announced by the minister at meeting that forenoon. With their
permission, he would himself write the note for Mr. Stoker to read, and
tell the other ministers that they might announce it to their people.
The bells rang for meeting, but the little household at The Poplars did
not add to the congregation that day. In the mean time Kitty Fagan had
gone down with Mr. Byles Gridley's note, to carry it to the Rev. Mr.
Stoker. But, on her way, she stopped at the house of one Mrs. Finnegan,
a particular friend of hers; and the great event of the morning
furnishing matter for large discourse, and various social allurements
adding to the fascination of having a story to tell, Kitty Fagan forgot
her note until meeting had begun and the minister had read the text of
his sermon. "Bless my soul! and sure I 've forgot ahl about the letter!"
she cried all at once, and away she tramped for the meeting-house. The
sexton took the note, which was folded, and said he would hand it up to
the pulpit after the sermon,--it would not do to interrupt the preacher.
The Rev. Mr. Stoker had, as was said, a somewhat remarkable gift in
prayer,--an endowment by no means confined to profoundly spiritual
persons,--in fact, not rarely owing much of its force to a strong animal
nature underlying the higher attributes. The sweet singer of Israel
would never have written such petitions and such hymns if his manhood had
been less complete; the flavor of remembered frailties could not help
giving a character to his most devout exercises, or they would not have
come quite home to our common humanity. But there is no gift more
dangerous to the humility and sincerity of a minister. While his spirit
ought to be on its knees before the throne of grace, it is too apt to be
on tiptoe, following with admiring look the flight of its own rhetoric.
The essentially intellectual character of an extemporaneous composition
spoken to the Creator with the consciousness that many of his creatures
are listening to criticise or to admire, is the great argument for set
forms of prayer.
The congregation on this particular Sunday was made up chiefly of women
and old men. The young men were hunting after Myrtle Hazard. Mr. Byles
Gridley was in his place, wondering why the minister did not read his
notice before the prayer. This prayer, was never reported, as is the
questionable custom with regard to some of these performances, but it was
wrought up with a good deal of rasping force and broad pathos. When he
came to pray for "our youthful sister, missing from her pious home,
perhaps nevermore to return to her afflicted relatives," and the women
and old men began crying, Byles Gridley was on the very point of getting
up and cutting short the whole matter by stating the simple fact that she
had got back, all right, and suggesting that he had better pray for some
of the older and tougher sinners before him. But on the whole it would
be more decorous to wait, and perhaps he was willing to hear what the
object of his favorite antipathy had to say about it. So he waited
through the prayer. He waited through the hymn, "Life is the time"--He
waited to hear the sermon.
The minister gave out his text from the Book of Esther, second chapter,
seventh verse: "For she had neither father nor mother, and the maid was
fair and beautiful." It was to be expected that the reverend gentleman,
who loved to produce a sensation, would avail himself of the excitable
state of his audience to sweep the key-board of their emotions, while, as
we may, say, all the stops were drawn out. His sermon was from notes;
for, though absolutely extemporaneous composition may be acceptable to
one's Maker, it is not considered quite the thing in speaking to one's
fellow-mortals. He discoursed for a time on the loss of parents, and on
the dangers to which the unfortunate orphan is exposed. Then he spoke of
the peculiar risks of the tender female child, left without its natural
guardians. Warming with his subject, he dilated with wonderful unction
on the temptations springing from personal attractions. He pictured the
"fair and beautiful" women of Holy Writ, lingering over their names with
lover-like devotion. He brought Esther before his audience, bathed and
perfumed for the royal presence of Ahasuerus. He showed them the sweet
young Ruth, lying down in her innocence at the feet of the lord of the
manor. He dwelt with special luxury on the charms which seduced the
royal psalmist,--the soldier's wife for whom he broke the commands of the
decalogue, and the maiden for whose attentions, in his cooler years, he
violated the dictates of prudence and propriety. All this time Byles
Gridley had his stern eyes on him. And while he kindled into passionate
eloquence on these inspiring themes, poor Bathsheba, whom her mother had
sent to church that she might get a little respite from her home duties,
felt her blood growing cold in her veins, as the pallid image of the
invalid wife, lying on her bed of suffering, rose in the midst of the
glowing pictures which borrowed such warmth from her husband's
imagination.
The sermon, with its hinted application to the event of the past week,
was over at last. The shoulders of the nervous women were twitching with
sobs. The old men were crying in their vacant way. But all the while the
face of Byles Gridley, firm as a rock in the midst of this lachrymal
inundation, was kept steadily on the preacher, who had often felt the
look that came through the two round glasses searching into the very
marrow of his bones.
As the sermon was finished, the sexton marched up through the broad aisle
and handed the note over the door of the pulpit to the clergyman, who was
wiping his face after the exertion of delivering his discourse. Mr.
Stoker looked at it, started, changed color,--his vision of "The Dangers
of Beauty, a Sermon printed by Request," had vanished,--and passed the
note to Father Pemberton, who sat by him in the pulpit. With much pains
he deciphered its contents, for his eyes were dim with years, and, having
read it, bowed his head upon his hands in silent thanksgiving. Then he
rose in the beauty of his tranquil and noble old age, so touched with the
message he had to proclaim to his people, that the three deep furrows on
his forehead, which some said he owed to the three dogmas of original
sin, predestination, and endless torment, seemed smoothed for the moment,
and his face was as that of an angel while he spoke.
"Sisters and Brethren,--Rejoice with us, for we have found our lamb which
had strayed from the fold. This our daughter was dead and is alive
again; she was lost and is found. Myrtle Hazard, rescued from great
peril of the waters, and cared for by good Samaritans, is now in her
home. Thou, O Lord, who didst let the water-flood overflow her, didst
not let the deep swallow her up, nor the pit shut its mouth upon her.
Let us return our thanks to the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God
of Jacob, who is our God and Father, and who hath wrought this great
deliverance."
After his prayer, which it tried him sorely to utter in unbroken tones,
he gave out the hymn,
"Lord, thou hast heard thy servant cry,
And rescued from the grave;"
but it was hardly begun when the leading female voice trembled and
stopped,--and another,--and then a third,--and Father Pemberton, seeing
that they were all overcome, arose and stretched out his arms, and
breathed over them his holy benediction.
The village was soon alive with the news. The sexton forgot the
solemnity of the Sabbath, and the bell acted as if it was crazy, tumbling
heels over head at such a rate, and with such a clamor, that a good many
thought there was a fire, and, rushing out from every quarter, instantly
caught the great news with which the air was ablaze.
A few of the young men who had come back went even further in their
demonstrations. They got a small cannon in readiness, and without
waiting for the going down of the sun, began firing rapidly, upon which
the Rev. Mr. Stoker sallied forth to put a stop to this violation of the
Sabbath. But in the mean time it was heard on all the hills, far and
near. Some said they were firing in the hope of raising the corpse; but
many who heard the bells ringing their crazy peals guessed what had
happened. Before night the parties were all in, one detachment bearing
the body of the bob-tailed catamount swung over a pole, like the mighty
cluster of grapes from Eshcol, and another conveying with wise precaution
that monstrous snapping-turtle which those of our friends who wish to see
will find among the specimens marked Chelydra, Serpentine in the great
collection at Cantabridge.