A STRANGE DISCOVERY.
FRANKLIN went to London.
Franklin loved old bookstores. There were many in London, moldy and
musty, in obscure corners, some of them in cellars and in narrow
passageways, just off thronging streets.
One day, when he was sixty years of age, just fifty years after his
association with Uncle Benjamin, he wandered out into the byways of the
old London bookstores.
It was early spring; the winter fogs of London had disappeared, the
squares were turning green, the hedgerows blooming, the birds were
singing on the thorns. Such a sunny, blue morning might have called him
into the country, but he turned instead into the flowerless ways of the
book stalls. He wandered about for a time and found nothing. Then he
thought of old Humphrey, of whom he had bought books perhaps out of
pity. There was something about this man that held him; he seemed
somehow like a link of the unknown past. He compelled him to buy books
that he did not want or need.
"This is a fine spring morning," said old Humphrey, as he saw the portly
form of Franklin enter the door. "I have been thinking of you much of
late. I do not seem to be able to have put you out of my mind; and why
should I, a fine gentleman like you, and uncommonly civil. I have
something that I have been allotting on showing you. It is very curious;
it is a library of thirty-six volumes of pamphlets, and it minds me that
a more interesting collection of pamphlets was never made. I read them
myself in lonesome days when there is no trade. Let me show you one of
the volumes."
"No, never mind, my friend. I could not buy the whole library, however
interesting it might be. I will look for something smaller. This is a
very old bookstore."
"Ay, it is that. It has been kept here ever since the times of the
Restoration, and before. My wife's father used to keep it when he was an
old man and I was a boy. And now I am an old man. I must show you one of
those books or pamphlets. They are all written over."
Benjamin Franklin sat down on a stool in the light, and took up an odd
volume of the Canterbury Tales.
Old Humphrey lighted a candle and went into a dark recess. He presently
returned, bringing one of the thirty-six volumes of pamphlets.
"My American friend, if one liked old things, and the comments of one
dead and gone, this library of pamphlets would be food for thought. Just
look at this volume!"
He struck the book against a shelf to remove the dust, and handed it to
Franklin.
The latter adjusted his spectacles to the light, and turned over the
volume.
"As you say," he said to old Humphrey, "it is all written over."
[Illustration: A STRANGE DISCOVERY.]
"And uncommonly interesting comments they are. That library of
pamphlets and comments, in my opinion, is as valuable as Pepys's Diary.
Old Humphrey had struck the right chord. In Pepys's Diary, which was
kept for nine years during the gay and exciting period of the reign of
Charles II, one lives, as it were, amid the old court scenes.
Franklin turned over the leaves of the volume. "It is a curious book,"
said he.
The light was poor, and he took the book to the door. Above the tall
houses of the narrow street was a rift of sunny blue sky.
"There is something in the handwriting that looks familiar," said he.
"It seems as though I had seen that writing somewhere before. Where did
you find these books?"
"They came to me from my wife's father, who kept the storeway until he
was nigh upon ninety years old. He set great store by these books, which
led me to read them.
"When Pepys's Diary was printed I was reminded of them, and read them
over again, the comments and all. The person who made those notes had a
very interesting mind. I think him to have been a philosopher."
The ink on the margin of the volume was fading, and Franklin strained
his eyes to read the comments. Suddenly he turned and came into the
store and sat down.
"Father Humphrey, bring me another volume."
Father Humphrey lighted the candle again and went into the same dark and
tomblike recess, and brought out two more volumes, striking them against
the corners of shelves to remove from them the dust and mold.
He noticed that his patron seemed overcome. Franklin was not an
emotional man, but his lip quivered.
"You think that the book is interesting?"
He lifted his face and seemed lost in thought.
"Ecton--Ecton--Ecton," he said. "Uncle Tom lived there--Uncle Tom, who
started the subscription for the chime of bells."
He had found the word "Ecton" in the pamphlets, and he again began to
turn the leaves.
"Squire Isted," he said, "Squire Isted." He had found the name of Squire
Isted on one of the leaves. He had heard the name in his youth.
"The World's End," he said. He stood up and turned round and round.
"How queer he acts!" thought Father Humphrey. "I thought him a very calm
man. What is it about the World's End?" he asked.
"Oh, it is the name of an old tavern that I have found here. I had some
great-uncles that used to have a farm and forge near an inn of that
name. That was very long ago, before I was born. Old names seem to me
like voices of the past."
He put his spectacles to his eyes and held the book again up to the
light.
He presently said: "Luke Fuller--that is an old English name; there was
such a one who was ousted for nonconformity in the days of the
Conventicles."
He turned round and lifted his face and stood still, like a statue.
Was he going mad? Poor old Father Humphrey began to look toward the
door to see if there were clear way of escape for him should the strange
man become violent.
Presently he said:
"Earls--Barton," and lifted his brows.
Then he said:
"Mears--Ashby," and lifted his brows higher.
"What, sir, is it about Earls--Barton, and Mears--Ashby?" asked the
timid Father Humphrey.
"Oh, you are _here_. I've heard of these places before--it was many
years ago. Some folks came over to America from there."
He turned to the book again. "An Essay on the Toleration Act," said he.
"Banbury," he continued. He dropped the book by his side, and lifted his
brows again.
Poor Father Humphrey now thought that his customer had indeed gone daft,
and was beginning to repeat an old nursery rhyme that that name
suggested.
The book went up to the light again. Old Humphrey, frightened, passed
him and went to the door, so that he might run if his strange visitor
should be incited to do him harm.
Suddenly a very alarming expression came over the book-finder's face.
What would he do next, this calm, grand old man, who was going out of
his senses in this unfortunate place?
He dropped the book by his side again, and said, as in the voice of
another, a long-gone voice:
"Reuben of the Mill--Reuben of the Mill!"
Poor Father Humphrey thought he was summoning the ghost of some strange
being from the recesses of the cellar. He began to walk away, when the
supposed mind-shattered American seemed to be returning to himself, and
said in a very calm and dignified manner:
"Father Humphrey, you must think that I have been acting strangely.
There are some notes here that recall old names and places. They carried
my thoughts away back to the past."
The timid man came into the shop hopeful of a bargain.
"It is a useful book, I should think," said Franklin, as if holding
himself in restraint.
He took the two other volumes that Father Humphrey had brought him and
began to look them over.
"Father Humphrey, what do you want for the whole library of the
pamphlets?"
"I do not exactly know what price to fix upon them. They might be
valuable to an antiquarian some day, perhaps to some solicitor, or to a
library. I would be glad to sell them to you, for somehow--and I speak
out of my heart, and use no trade language--somehow I want you to buy
them. Would five pounds be too much for the thirty volumes?"
"No, no. There are but few that would want them or give them room. I
will pay you five pounds for them. I will take one volume away, but for
the present you shall keep the others for me."
He left the store. It was a bright day. Happy faces passed him, but he
saw them not. He walked, indeed, the streets of London, but it was the
Boston of his childhood that was with him now. He wondered at what he
had found--he wondered if there were mysterious influences behind life;
for he was certain that these pamphlets were those that his godfather
Uncle Benjamin had so valued as a part of himself, and that the notes on
the margin of the leaves were in the handwriting of the same
kind-hearted man whose influence had so molded his young life.
He went to his apartments, and sat down at his table and read the
pamphlet and the notes. He found in the notes the very thoughts and the
same expressions of thought that he had received from Uncle Benjamin in
his childhood.
What a life had been his, and how much he owed to this honest,
pure-minded old man!
He started up.
"I must go back to Father Humphrey," he said, "and find of whom he
obtained these books. If these are Uncle Benjamin's pamphlets, this is
the strangest incident in all my life; it would look as though there was
a finger of Providence in it. I must go back--I must go back."