love-lorn life, he had taken to his starving heart a white Angora cat.
This creature, instinct with feline beauty, had proved most
unsatisfactory in temper, and, having consequently become obnoxious to
an entire ship's crew, had finally been despatched at the hand of an
ireful cook. A family of seven white mice had succeeded this unamiable
_protege_. These tiny cannibals had also disappointed the hopes of
their patron, a general home-consumption having eventually left, in
the once populous cage, but a single inhabitant. The survivor,
ultimately becoming as hipped as the poet's "Last Man," fell a prey to
melancholy in lieu of mice. After the above abortive efforts, John
Gravesend foreswore pets; but here, now, was this poor greenhorn,
Ferguson, a likely lad, and consigned to his tenderest care. Why, to
love _him_ would be "worth while." And when, during their first week
out, on that wild, windy night in Jack's watch below, the boy, fevered
and seasick, mistook his sailor nurse, with those clumsily tender
ways, for his own fond mother, and, throwing his young arms about the
watcher's burly neck, begged him never, never, to forget him, Jack
made a strong, silent vow that he never would. Alas, he never _did_,
for that was his bitter destiny, never, _never_ to forget Will
Ferguson! This ailing spell well past, the lad mended steadily, and
was, ere long, able to be on deck and on duty. Glad days these were
for John Gravesend, and still gladder nights; for now, the boy sharing
his watch on deck, the pair might, night after night, listen to the
sea-song at the _Ohio's_ keel, watch the moonlight silvering the
crested deep, or, in that other deep above them, might trace the
splendid constellations glittering clear and far; Jack, meantime,
spinning for Will bewitching sea-yarns, fraught with the simple charm
of that every-day knowledge which is the fruit of experience, while
Will (who was a bookish lad) might, in his turn, impart to the unread
sailor that other knowledge which is the fruit of study. And thus it
befell that, ere the _Ohio_ had made a third of her long voyage, this
man and boy were bound heart to heart, with a two-fold cord of love,
pure and passionless, yet "passing the love of woman."
For Gravesend, this was, indeed, a gracious time. No more craving for
human tenderness, less thirst for that tempting poison, which had
lured his unguarded sense in the old, cabin-boy days, when the busy
steward had unwisely permitted him to drain the spirit-glasses. The
pernicious taste thus engendered in the child had, alas! grown with
his growth, and, at times, had even overmastered the strong man. In
Samson's might, as we are told, there was but a single flaw; yet,
_there_, Delilah found him weak as the weakest. So it was with our
sailor, and hence, at irregular intervals, there were decidedly black
days in the otherwise clean life of John Gravesend.
The _Ohio_, bound for China, in due time cast anchor at Canton. Jack
and Will had got leave to go ashore together. And there it was that
John Gravesend's demon took possession of him. Through all that long
afternoon of drunken riot, Will (sorely astonished and dismayed)
never once left this frenzied creature. And when Jack had run his mad
muck, and, laboriously piloted back to the ship, had at last been
persuaded to get into his berth, where he lay, safe, but brutish and
insensate, the lad cast himself wearily upon the cabin floor and had
a good long, sobbing cry--like the child that he was--the
single-hearted, loving child, whose faith in a human soul had been
rudely shocked and shaken. On the morrow, Jack was himself again. A
trifle dull and heavy-eyed, yet the same old, kind, and sober fellow.
That night in their watch the friends talked it all over. Jack
retained no distinct consciousness of yesterday's wild doings. After
drinking more heavily than he meant, or ought, he had fancied that the
crowd had set upon him, and, with spinning head, he had rushed
incontinently upon the _crowd_, and knew no more until he awoke next
morning in his own snug berth, with Will yet sleeping wearily upon the
hard floor. And now, with Ferguson's hand in his own warm clasp,
Gravesend vowed no more to touch, taste, or handle, the unclean thing;
and, through all that perilous fortnight in port, he never once broke
his vow.
Again the _Ohio_ cast anchor. It was in Boston Harbor, and on a
May-day evening. Will Ferguson and John Gravesend went ashore
together. The month had, this year, come smiling in, and juvenile
Boston had paraded in muslin and greenery to its heart's content. Upon
the Common, there still lingered a breath of the May-day festivitiy. A
balmy south wind stirred among the new-leaved trees,--a delicious
murmuring wind, prophesying violets, jonquils, and endless forthcoming
spring delights.
On such bewitching, yet enervating nights, riotous young blood leaps
hotly through quickened pulses, and, for the hour, to live in the
sweet, sensuous present is enough; the soul craves no higher good.
Will Ferguson, thus far, had developed no taste for that reckless
youthful procedure, apologetically termed "the sowing of wild oats."
A long sea voyage, and its consequent social limitations, had,
however, quickened in the boy a legitimate youthful craving for fun
and frolic, and, what with the witchery of this May night, the coming
to port, the rapturous thought of home, mother, and that glad greeting
of pretty Kate Benson to-morrow at Springfield, he was, as he
laughingly averred, "chock full of happiness, and on hand for any sort
of a lark." In the heyday of the hour he had not all forgotten that
black day at Canton, and had, within himself, resolved to "hold on
hard whenever he smelt mischief for Jack."
Sauntering idly into North Street, the pair were abruptly brought to a
stand by the gay twang of a violin. "A fiddle; and a waltz!" This set
Will's merry feet going; and while he shuffled, boy-fashion, on the
sidewalk, a smiling personage, issuing from the door of a certain
edifice having over its entrance the sprightly designation of "Dance
House," with an "Hullo, there, my hearties!" begged them "Come in a
while, and see the fun."
Now, Jack Gravesend was quite aware that in a dance-house "the fun" is
of a questionable character. That within it is "the way to hell going
down to the chambers of death," and, being a man of clean kernel, he
had no lascivious affinity with a dance-house; but here was Will
eagerly curious. He liked to humour the lad; and (truth must be told)
he, himself, on this May night, was somewhat morally unbraced. Thus it
was that, lured on by the merry music, and the cordial solicitations
of the doorway panderer, the two crossed the threshhold of this evil
place. Bacchus, be it known (no less than Venus and Terpsichore),
presides over the festivities of the dance-house, and Will Ferguson,
soon weary of the "fun," which was in no wise to his liking, found, to
his dismay, that Jack Gravesend was weakly succumbing to the
fascinations of the "Jolly God." Unable to coax him from the place, he
lingered on, inwardly bemoaning his own inquisitive folly; yet
resolved, let what would come, to see Jack well out of the scrape. It
was not in John Gravesend's nature to do a thing by halves. Whatsoever
he did, was done heartily, and mightily; and, having determined to
drink, he _drank_, until--ah, well! the bestial orgies of a Circean
herd are not things for description, albeit they are nightly enacted
in the dance-houses of our own metropolis.
It was broad day. Jack Gravesend awoke. He rubbed his eyes, and looked
curiously about him. Where was he? Strange! He couldn't have turned in
_here_. He got up, and shook himself wide awake. Two villanous-looking
men, having risen from two neighbouring beds, were doing likewise.
"Hullo, shipmates!" said Jack, now fairly on his feet; "lend a hand
here, and tell me where I am."
The two burglars--for such they were--being well-posted in the leading
particulars of his arrest, glanced knowingly at each other, and
smirked with sinister significance peculiarly aggravating to Jack, and
burglar number one remarked to his associate, "Golly, Bill; he _is_ a
green one! Wants to know _where he is_! do you twig, Bill? Why, my
fine tar, you're in the lock-up, to be sure."
"In the _lock-up_!" said Jack; "and how in thunder _came_ I here?"
"_Brung_ here, of course," responded his informant, "'t ain't a road
folks gin'ally travels on their own account, eh, Bill?" Bill
assenting, with a prodigious wink, Jack propounded a third query: "And
what the deuce may I be here _for_?"
"_Here_ for?" responded the garrulous ruffian. "Thunderin' black job,
my cove! Got drunk last night, and _killed_ a man!"
"_Killed_ a man!" groaned Jack, his eyes dilating, and his flesh
creeping with sudden horror. "Killed a _man_! My God! what will Will
Ferguson say?"
"Ferguson? Bill--Bill Ferguson," growled the other burglar. "By
jiminy, Tom! he wants to know what Bill Ferguson'll say! Precious
_little_, _I'm_ thinkin'; he's about said _his_ say! Why, grampus,
Bill Ferguson's the very indentercal chap you've done for!"
Officer L---- long remembered a cry that woke the echoes of the
lock-up on that May morning. It might have been the yell of a hunted
thing at bay, the outcry of a mortal in fierce extremity, the
despairing wail of a hell-tormented soul.
Turning the key in the lock of No. 17, he hastily entered that
apartment. On the floor, face downward, lay a man.
"Cove in a fit," explained the facetious Tom. "Bill, here, jes' let on
'bout the killin', an' he gin a howl an' went off in a jiffy."
Officer L---- was humane. Good men, thank God! fill many of these
humble places of authority. Silencing the bold ruffian, he bade the
pair help raise the senseless form and adjust it on the rude cot. This
done, he smoothed the tossed hair, wiped the foam from the purple
lips, and chafed the great brown hands as helpfully as if they had
been little "May's," the dear sick lamb of his own pretty flock. At
length, the convulsive throes ceased, and consciousness returned to
the stricken man.
Like some dim-remembered dream, the curt, cruel words of the burglar
recalled themselves to Gravesend's bewildered brain. One look into the
kindly face of the officer reassured him. Feebly rising to his feet,
he sank upon his trembling knees, and prayed brokenly to hear it all.
He was "all right again, and wanted to know the whole truth. He could
bear the _very worst_, and would thank him for it; indeed, sir, he
would." The "very worst" was soon told.
There had been, explained the officer, on the previous night, a
drunken row at a dance-house on North Street. The prisoner had,
unfortunately, been concerned in the affair, and, in the temporary
frenzy of intoxication, had drawn his dirk upon a woman. A young man,
who had hitherto looked on, taking no part in the _melee_, now dashed
in to arrest the assailant's hand, and himself received the murderous
thrust. The brawlers had been duly arrested, the youth carried to the
hospital, where, his wound proving mortal, he had, in half an hour,
expired.
On his body a small diary had been found. It was inscribed:
"Willie Ferguson, from his mother.
Springfield, Jan. 1, 18--."
* * * * *
Will--Fergus-on, Springfield,--18--
Will--Springfield--from--his--mother. 18--Will, Willie, Will. Will
Ferguson. He had sworn never to forget him. He is keeping his oath!
Will--W-i-l-l F-e-r-g-u-s-o-n. There it is; on the walls, on the
ceiling, up and down, over and across! Everywhere, everywhere, the
_name_, the weary, _weary_ name!
He has spelt it, over and over, forward and backward, fast and slow,
loud and softly, again and again, till his brain spins; and sparks,
like wicked little sprites, dance before his strained eyes, and now,
cowering among his pillows, he strives to hide from that terrible
pursuing name. "Smothering? they mean to smother him, do they?" He
starts from his pillow, and, wild and eager, peers about his chamber.
Blood! blood everywhere! The bed-spread is dabbled with it; it
trickles down the walls; it lies in clotted pools upon the floor! In
the window sits an Angora cat, white, mottled with red; she laps
hungrily from an ever-brimming basin of blood! A knife is hanging
yonder. It is a dirk-knife, bright and new. Its handle is lettered.
With aching eyes he spells, "J-a-c-k, f-r-o-m W-i-l-l. C-a-n-t-o-n,
18--." Let him but reach that knife and hurl it into the sea! He is
bound; he struggles; but cannot get free; and there still is the
knife, horribly familiar, with the _name_ staring at him from its
heft, until every letter becomes a mocking serpent's tongue, hissing
over and over in his tormented ear: "Will! Will! Will Ferguson!" He
shivers; his brain is on fire; he can no longer look nor listen; he
can but moan piteously: "Mercy! mercy! God have mercy!" They are
putting a glass to his lips. He is terribly thirsty; and here is no
blood; only an innocent saffron-tinged liquid. He drains it with eager
lips. He is cooler now. The room grows dusky. He can no longer see
that accursed dirk. Somebody had swabbed the floor, and they have
unbound him.
A balmy evening wind, just the very idle land whisper that strayed
among the leaves that night while he and Will sauntered through Boston
Common, wanders in at the open casement. It winnows the hot air, it
breathes upon his fevered brow, "like the benediction that follows
after prayer." He sleeps, and, in his dream, is again with Will, and
on board the _Ohio_. Becalmed in the Gulf Stream, hard by the lovely
"Land of Flowers," lies the huge, idle craft. It is the Sabbath, and
the sailors,--idle as the ship,--gathering in lazy groups, have
pleasant talk of wives and sweethearts (for they are homeward bound).
Will, half-reclined upon a coil of rope, reads aloud from his red
pocket Testament. He has chanced upon this passage, from the dream of
the Patmos seer: "And them that had gotten the victory ... stand on
the sea of glass, having the harps of God." The "victory!" Ah! that is
a _hard_ thing to get! Shall _he_, John Gravesend, ever hold in his
hand a harp of God? While he turns the text over in his mind, looking
wistfully far out across the glassy deep, Will silently rises, walks
swiftly astern, and, without a farewell word, drops quietly into the
sea. He strives to follow. In vain! His limbs are holden in leaden
heaviness. Wrestling with this demon of slumber, he at last awakes.
Springing to his feet, he searches eagerly the empty, moonlit room. He
calls, softly, "Will, Will!" No answer! He fancies a gentle sigh
beneath his window. Will is there, sure enough, waiting for him in the
pleasant moonlight. He need but drop softly to the ground to join him.
Slight iron bars cross the window; he is strong; he wrenches at them
manfully. They yield! They are displaced, and now only this paltry
sash and a bit of glass between him and Will! These are soon
demolished. The window is low, and, noiselessly dropping into the yard
beneath, he calls softly, "Will! Will!" No response. Strange! A moment
ago he was there! It is cool and quiet out here beneath the summer
moon, and Will cannot be far off,--over that wall, perhaps. He scales
it. "Not here? Well, he will run on a bit, and come up with him." And
run on he does. On and on, through that long summer night. Across
dewy-scented garden-plots, over trim cut lawns, whose tender grass is
as velvet to his bare, fleeting feet. Through moist, wide meadows, and
across low, babbling brooks, till, at last, he is upon the long, white
road. Fleet as a hound upon the flying scent, pausing but to listen,
and whisper, huskily, to the heedless night, "Will! Will! Will!" he
hurries on. A half-clad, phantom-like form, breathlessly pursuing a
phantom. The moon sets. The stars are paling in the still, sweet dawn,
when, in the purlieu of a tangled wood, pale and spent, foam gathering
on his lips, blood trickling from his torn feet, he pauses; and,
tottering feebly into an odorous covert of blossoming underwood, falls
prone upon the earth. An angel, with broad and kindly wing, the
gentlest of all God's ministering host, descends to brood tenderly
this desolate creature,--_Sleep_, messenger of peace, forerunner of
that eternal quietude that somewhere stays for all earth's life-worn
children!
On the ensuing morning, sensation craving readers of the Boston
_Morning Chronicle_ read, with characteristic relish, the following:
GREAT EXCITEMENT!!!
A Murderer Pretends Insanity and Escapes!
The citizens of Taunton and its vicinity were this morning
startled by tidings of the escape of a patient from our State
Lunatic Hospital. The man was entered, for treatment, from
Charles Street Jail, and his name is John Gravesend.
Our readers will, no doubt, recall him to memory as the
abandoned wretch who, not long since, was arrested in this city
for the murder of young Ferguson, a mere lad, whom he enticed
into one of the North Street dens, and there, after robbing his
victim of a large sum of money, butchered the ill-fated boy.
The mother of Ferguson, as will be remembered, died soon after
of a broken heart. While awaiting the award of his crime,
Gravesend--having successfully feigned insanity--was consigned
to the State asylum. On the night of the 15th, the asylum
watchman making his round at ten o'clock, found Gravesend, as
he supposed, in a sound sleep. At two, the rascal was gone.
Being a man of great muscular power, he had displaced the
grating of his window, and thus made good his escape. The
wretch has been tracked for several miles, and we are informed
that two efficient detectives, assisted by hospital _employes_,
are now in full pursuit. Other outrages are imputed to this
daring villain, and it is hinted that he is concerned in a
certain mysterious murder, that yet thrills our community with
horror. Great alarm prevails in the vicinity, and it is hoped
that the fugitive will be speedily secured.
This "bloodthirsty" monster was, on the afternoon succeeding his
escape, found slumbering as placidly as the leaf-strewn "Babes in the
Wood," in that flowery covert to which we have already tracked him.
From this long trance-like slumber--the crisis of his mental
malady--John Gravesend awoke, with strained, aching limbs, and brain
yet hazy from delirium. Restored to the asylum and treated for his
malady, he gradually returned from that labyrinthian world in which,
for more than two months, his mind had wearily wandered.
Mind and body in their normal condition, he was remanded to jail, and
subsequently arraigned for the wilful destruction of a life dearer to
him than his own. Pleading guilty, and legally condemned for
manslaughter, he was sentenced to confinement for life in the State
Prison. Unmoved, he hears the terrible mandate that dooms him to
life-long banishment from God's wide, beautiful world. With him, the
fatal Rubicon is already passed. He has slain the beloved one. Life
holds in reserve no heavier woe; and death has not in store a pang
more terrible.
A BUNCH OF VIOLETS.
"There's Neilson, takin' his afternoon walk," said the good-natured
turnkey, making a casual survey of the prison yard from the grated
window near the guard-room door, which he was about to open for my
exit. Neilson! and in the yard? At last, I must encounter that bad
man! I was, be it known, on my way to the prison hospital, carrying a
basket of Parma violets for distribution among a score or so of my
fellow-sinners, now stretched upon hard beds, or wearily sitting on
harder chairs, in that mildly penal department of the institution;
and, no doubt, not eminently deserving of agreeable sniffs at Parma
violets. At this unlooked-for announcement of the turnkey, a cold
shiver ran down my back, for Neilson, even in prison circles, was
accounted a desperate man. He was both robber and murderer; and for
the last fifteen years had been serving out a life sentence of
solitary confinement in one of the dreary cells of the "Upper Arch."
Five of these awful years had he passed in uninterrupted solitude,
but, since the advent of the present humane prison warden, Neilson had
been permitted to take, daily, an hour's exercise in the prison yard,
a sunny enclosure, opening on the workshops, the hospital wing, and
indirectly on the "Upper Arch." In the centre of this court, "the new
warden" had caused a cheery flower plot to be made, and now, in April,
many-hued crocuses already brightened its borders.
It was just before the establishment of the beautiful and helpful
Flower Mission that I undertook, not without some discouragement, to
try the gracious effect of violets, roses, pinks, and heartsease,
behind the bars. In my _then_ limited experience, to be locked out of
the friendly guard-room, and sent alone across the prison yard, had
not been agreeable to me; and, in deference to my groundless fears, an
officer had been detailed to accompany me from the main prison to the
hospital wing. As the years went on, my social popularity in the State
Prison became well assured, and some surprise at this needless
precaution was expressed to me by the convicts; and one attached
prison friend (a highway robber) had even assured me that "if anybody
in that prison should lay a finger on me, he'd be torn to pieces by
the men, afore you could say Jack Robinson."
Though scarcely convinced that the entire demolition of a fellow-being
would indemnify me for such "scaith and scart" as might in the _melee_
accrue to my own poor person, it was on this assurance that I decided
to dispense with official escort to the wing. Thus far, my visits had
been so happily timed that the dreaded "Solitary" had never once
crossed my path. Looking anxiously from the window, I made a hasty
survey of the yard. An officer was just stepping from the door of a
distant workshop. Two or three convicts were, at various points of
observation, shuffling across the yard. Well, it was too late to show
the white feather. The turnkey had already unlocked the door, and
stood waiting. I handed him a tiny nosegay (the good man adored
flowers, and I never omitted this pretty "Sop to Cerberus"); and now,
grasping tightly the handle of my flower basket, "with my heart in my
mouth," I thanked him as he held back the heavy door for me, and
passed trembling out.
With a hard iron clang, the door closed behind me. Descending a roomy
flight of steps, I found myself in the prison yard, and, at the same
moment, confronted by,--yes, it must be that dreadful fellow, Neilson,
himself! And a sinister-visaged wretch he was, with his small, ferrety
eyes, his coarse mouth, and heavy chin. He shuffled as he went, and,
with an evil look, stared boldly in my face.
"A tough subject," I mentally determined; but "total depravity" is not
an article of my creed, and I _do_ believe in humanity. In a moment, I
had dismissed all fear of Neilson, in my zeal for his reformation,
and, stepping up to him with a friendly good-afternoon, into which I
insinuated all the approval I could conscientiously bestow upon so
forbidding a creature, I handed him, from my basket, a bunch of
violets. He took them, and, with a clumsy nod, but not a word of
thanks, passed on, leaving me with a lightened heart. And, now, I
stopped a moment to exchange civilities with the officer whom I had
descried from the guard-room window. We were fast friends, and I was
indebted to him for many a kind turn. He glanced disparagingly at my
flowers, and, as a relief to my chagrin, I said, "Well, I have just
given Neilson a bunch of violets; do you imagine that he cares at all
for them?"
"Neilson?" he questioned, in evident perplexity.
"Yes, Neilson," I replied, "that short, stout man yonder, there he is
_now_! going into that door!"
"Bless your heart, my good lady," exclaimed the officer, "that ain't
Neilson! There _he_ is; can't you see him, the tall fellow with his
nose in the air, standing there by the crocus bed? If there's any
flowers in the yard, Neilson's about sure to fetch up near 'em."
"Is he?" I said; and from that moment "a fellow-feeling made me kind."
I felt sure of the ultimate good-will of Neilson. Meantime, having
exhausted the attraction of the crocus bed, he was moving in my
direction, but so slowly that I had time to make a critical survey of
this famous personage,--a grave, quiet man of slender but firm build,
and, even in his coarse prison uniform, bearing himself with a certain
air of (if I may so express it) scholarly elegance.
Suitably clothed, he might have been taken for a clergyman, or a
Harvard professor. Selecting the very choicest nosegay from my basket,
I bade him, as we met, a cheerful good-afternoon, and, offering the
flowers, said timidly (for I found this grave, lordly being somewhat
unapproachable), "Would you like a bunch of violets to-day?" Absorbed
in his own reflections, he had not, until now, observed me. He
stopped, came out of his reverie, and, lifting his worn prison cap
with a highly ceremonious bow, took the flowers from my hand,
composedly smelt them, and said, slowly: "Thank you, madam, they
_would_ be very refreshing." Though Neilson's demeanour was eminently
stoical, his face was pitiably wan and thin, and in his faded blue eye
there was a world of patient pathos that went straight to my heart.
As he was about to pass on, I detained him for a moment, and said,
eagerly, "If you like flowers--if you--if you think they would _help_
you, I might bring you a few every Monday, as I come to the hospital."