bushes, branches, and stumps. The tall brick barrier seemed as
interminable as unbroken. How many houses, thought Balder, might have
been built from the material thus wasted! If ever he came into
possession of the place, he resolved to present the brick to his
friend Charon, that he might replace his wooden shanty with something
more durable and convenient, and perhaps build a dock for the schooner
"Resurrection" to lie in. It must have taken a fortune to put up such
a wall; were the enclosure proportionally valuable, it was worth while
crossing the ocean to see it. Still more wall! fully a mile of it
already, and yet further it rambled on through leafy thickets. But no
signs of a gate!
"I believe the Devil really does live here!" exclaimed Balder, in
impatient heat; "and the only way in or out is on a broomstick,--or by
diving under ground, as Charon said!"
Stumbling onwards awhile farther, he suddenly came again upon the
river-bank, having skirted the whole length of the wall. There was
actually no getting in! The castle was impregnable.
Helwyse sat down at the foot of a birch-tree which grew a few yards
from the wall.
"How does my uncle manage about his butcher and baker, I wonder! He
might at least have provided a derrick for victualling his stronghold.
Perhaps he hauls up provisions by ropes over the face of the cliff. No
doubt, Charon knew about it. Shall I go down and look?"
It was provoking--having come so far to call on a relative--to be put
off with a mile or two of brick wall. The gate must have been walled
up since his father's time, for Thor had never mentioned any
deficiency in that respect. But Balder's determination was
piqued,--not to mention his curiosity. Had the path from Mr.
MacGentle's office to Doctor Glyphic's door been straight and
unobstructed, the young man might have wandered aside and never
reached the end. As it was, he was goaded into the resolution to see
his uncle at all hazards. An additional spur was the thought of the
gracious apparition which he had seen--or dreamt he saw--from the
farther bank. Was she indeed but an apparition?--or the single reality
amidst the throng of fantasies evoked by his overwrought
mind?--beaconing him through misty errors to a fate better than he
knew! In all seriousness, who could she be? Had Doctor Glyphic crowned
his eccentricities by marrying, and begetting a daughter?
These speculations were interrupted by the clear, joyous note of a
bird, just above Balder's head. It was such a note as might have been
uttered by a paradisical cuckoo with the breath of a brighter world in
his throat. Looking up, he saw a beautiful little fowl perched on the
topmost twig of the birch-tree. It had a slender bill, and on its head
a crest of splendid feathers, which it set up at Balder in a most
coquettish manner. The next moment it flew over the wall, and from the
farther side warbled an invitation to follow.
Although he could not fly, Balder reflected that he could climb, and
that the top of the tree would show him more than he could see now.
The birch looked tolerably climbable and was amply high; as to
toughness, he thought not about it. Beneath what frivolous disguises
does destiny mask her approach! Discretion is a virtue; yet, had
Balder been discreet enough to examine the tree before getting into
it, the ultimate consequences are incalculable!
As it was (and marvelling why he had not thought of doing it before)
he set stoutly to work, and, despite his jack-boots, was soon among
the upper branches. The birch trembled and groaned unheeded. The bird
(an Egyptian bird,--a hoopoe,--descendant of a pair brought by Doctor
Glyphic from the Nile a quarter of a century ago),--the hoopoe was
fluttering and warbling and setting its brilliant cap at the young man
more captivatingly than ever. A glance over the enclosure showed a
beautifully fertile and luxurious expanse, damasked with soft green
grass and studded with flowers and trees. A few hundred yards away
billowed the white tops of an apple-orchard in full bloom. Southward,
half seen through boughs and leaves, rose an anomalous structure of
brick, glass, and stone, which could only be the famous house on whose
design and decoration old Hiero Glyphic had spent years and fortunes.
The tract was like an oasis in a forbidding land. The soil had none
of the sandy and clayey consistency peculiar to New Jersey, but was
deep and rich as an English valley. The sunshine rested more warmly
and mellowly here than elsewhere. The southern breeze acquired a
tropical flavor in loitering across it. The hoopoe had seemed out of
place on the hither side the wall, but now looked as much at home as
though the Hudson had been the Nile indeed.
"My uncle," said Balder to himself, as he swayed among the branches of
his birch-tree, "has really succeeded very well in transporting a
piece of Egypt to America. Were I on the other side of the wall, no
doubt I might appreciate it also!"
The hoopoe responded encouragingly, the tree cracked, and Balder felt
with dismay that it was tottering beneath him. There was no time to
climb down again. With a dismal croak, the faithless birch leaned
slowly through the air. There was nothing to be done but to go with
it; and Balder, even as he descended, was able to imagine how absurd
he must appear. The tree fell, but was intercepted at half its height
by the top of the wall. The upper half of the stem, with its human
fruit still attached to it, bent bow-like towards the earth, the trunk
not being quite separated from the root.
Helwyse had thus far managed to keep his presence of mind, and now,
glancing downwards, he saw the ground not eight feet below. He loosed
his hold, and the next instant stood in the soft grass. The birch had
been his broomstick. Meanwhile the hoopoe, with a triumphant note,
flew off towards the house to tell the news.
XVI.
LEGEND AND CHRONICLE.
Hiero Glyphic's house came not into the world complete at a birth, but
was the result of an irregular growth, progressing through many years.
Originally a single-gabled edifice, its only peculiarity had been that
it was brick instead of wooden. Here, red and unornamented as the
house itself, the future Egyptologist was born. The parallel between
him and his dwelling was maintained more or less closely to the end.
He was the first pledge of affection between his mother and father,
and the last also; for shortly after his advent the latter parent, a
retired undertaker by profession, failed from this world. The widow
was much younger than her husband, and handsome to boot. Nevertheless,
several years passed before she married again. Her second lord was
likewise elderly, but differed from the first in being enormously
wealthy. The issue of this union was a daughter, the Helen of our
story, a pretty, dark-eyed little thing, petted and indulged by all
the family, and reigning undisputed over all.
Meanwhile the old brick house had been deserted, Mrs. Glyphic having
accompanied her second husband to his sumptuous residence in Brooklyn.
But in process of time Hiero (or, as he was then called, Henry) took
it into his head to return to the original family mansion and live
there. No objection was made; in truth, Henry's oddities,
awkwardnesses, and propensity to dabble in queer branches of research
and experiment may have allayed the parting pangs. Back he blundered,
therefore, to the banks of the Hudson, and established himself in his
birthplace. What he did there during the next few years will never be
known. Grisly stories about the man in the brick house were current
among the country people. A devil was said to be his familiar friend;
nay, it was whispered that he himself was the arch-fiend! But nothing
positively supernatural, or even unholy, was ever proved to have taken
place. The recluse had the command of as much money as he could spend,
and no doubt he wrought with it miracles beyond the vulgar
comprehension. His mind had no more real depth than a looking-glass
with a crack in it, and its images were disjointed and confused. There
are many such men, but few possess unlimited means of carrying their
crack-brained fancies into fact.
During this--which may be called the second--period of Glyphic's
career, he made several anomalous additions to the brick house, all
after designs of his own. He moreover furnished it anew throughout, in
a manner that made the upholsterers stare. Each room--so reads the
legend--was fitted up in the style of a different country, according
to Glyphic's notion of it! He was said to live in one apartment or
another according as it was his whim to be Spaniard, Turk, Russian,
Hindoo, or Chinaman. He also applied himself to gardening, and
enclosed seven hundred acres of ground adjoining the house with a
picket-fence, forerunner of the famous brick wall. The whole tract was
dug out and manured to the depth of many feet, till it was by far the
most fertile spot in the State. The larger trees were not disturbed,
but the lesser were forced to give place to new and rare importations
from foreign countries. Gorgeous were the hosts of flowers, like banks
of sunset clouds; the lawns showed the finest turf out of England;
there was a kitchen-garden rich and big enough to feed an army of
epicures all their lives. In short, the place was a concentrated
extract of the world at large, where one might at the same moment be a
recluse and a cosmopolitan. Here might one live independent of the
world, yet sipping the cream thereof; and might persuade himself that
all beyond these seven hundred enchanted acres was but a diffused
reflection of the concrete existence between the cliff and the fence.
But to this second period succeeded finally the third,--that which
witnessed the birth and growth of the Egyptian mania. Its natal moment
has not been precisely determined; perhaps it was a gradual accretion.
Mr. Glyphic's relatives in Brooklyn were one day electrified by the
news that the quondam Henry--now Hiero--purposed instant departure for
Europe and Egypt. Before starting, however, he built the brick wall
round his estate, shutting it out forever from human eyes. Then he
vanished, and for nine years was seen no more.
His return was heralded by the arrival at the port of New York of a
mountain of freight, described in the invoice as the property of
Doctor Hiero Glyphic of New Jersey. The boxes, as they stood piled
together on the wharf, might have furnished timber sufficient to build
a town. They contained the fruits of Doctor Glyphic's antiquarian
researches.
The Doctor himself--where he picked up his learned title is
unknown--was accompanied by a slender, swarthy young factotum who
answered to the name of Manetho. He was introduced to the Brooklyn
relatives as the pupil, assistant, and adopted son of Hiero Glyphic.
The latter, physically broadened, browned, and thickened by his
travels, was intellectually the same good-natured, fussy, flighty
original as ever; shallow, enthusiastic, incoherent, energetic.
He and his adopted son shut themselves up behind the brick wall; but
it soon transpired that extensive additions were making to the old
house. Beyond this elementary fact conjecture had the field to itself.
Both architects and builders were imported from another State and
sworn to secrecy, while the high wall and the hedge of trees baffled
prying eyes. Quantities of red granite and many blocks of precious
marbles were understood to be using in the work. The opinion gained
that such an Oriental palace was building as never had been seen
outside an Arabian fairy-tale.
By and by the work was done, the workmen disappeared. But whoever
hoped that now the mystery would be revealed, and the Oriental palace
be made the scene of a gorgeous house-warming, was disappointed. The
dwellers behind the wall emerged not from their seclusion, nor were
others invited to relieve it. In due course of time Doctor Glyphic's
worthy step-father died. The widow and her daughter continued to live
in Brooklyn until the former's death, which took place a few years
afterwards. Then Helen came to her brother, and the Brooklyn house was
put under lock and key, and so remained till Helen's marriage, when it
was set in order for the bridal pair. But Thor's wife died as they
were on the point of moving thither, and he sold it four years later
and left America forever.
After his departure less was known, than before of how things went on
behind the brick wall. The gateway was filled in with masonry. No one
was ever seen entering the enclosure or leaving it; though it was
supposed that, somehow or other, communication was occasionally had
with the outside world. As knowledge dwindled, legend grew, and wild
were the tales told of the invisible Doctor and his foster-son. In his
youth, the former had been suspected of simple witchcraft, but he was
not let off so easily now. Manetho was first dubbed a genie whom the
Doctor had brought out of Egypt. Afterwards it was hinted that these
two worthies were in fact one and the same demon, who by some infernal
jugglery was able to appear twain during the daytime, but resumed his
proper shape at night, and cut up all manner of unholy capers.
By another version, Doctor Glyphic died in Egypt, not before
bargaining with the Prince of Darkness that his body should return
home in charge of a condemned soul under the guise of Manetho. During
the day, affirmed these theorists, the body was inspired by the soul
with phantom life; but became a mummy at night, when the condemned
soul suffered torments till morning. With sunrise the ghastly drama
began anew. This state of things must continue until the sun shone all
night long within the brick wall enclosure.
A third, more moderate account is that to which we have already
listened from Charon's lips. And he perhaps built on a broader basis
of truth than did the other yarn-spinners. But under whatever form the
legend appeared, there was always mingled with it a vaguely mysterious
whisper relating to the alleged presence in the Doctor's Den (so the
enclosure was nicknamed) of an apparition in female form. What or
whence she was no one pretended soberly to conjecture. Even her
personal aspect was the subject of vehement dispute; some maintaining
her to be of more than human beauty, while others swore by their heads
that she was so hideous fire would not burn her! These damned her for
a malignant witch; those upheld her as a heavenly angel, urged by love
divine to expiate, through voluntary suffering, the nameless crimes of
the demoniac Doctor. But unless the redemption were effected within a
certain time, she must be swallowed up with him in common destruction.
Were the how and wherefore of these alternatives called in question,
the answer was a wise shake of the head!
The gentle reader will believe no one of the fantastic legends here
recorded; possibly they were not believed by their very fabricators.
They are useful only as tending to show the moral atmosphere of the
house and its occupants. There is sometimes a subtile symbolic element
inwoven with such tales, which--though not the truth--helps us to
apprehend the truth when we come to know it. Moreover, the fanciful
parts of history are to the facts as clouds to a landscape; a picture
is incomplete without them; they aid in bringing out the distances,
and cast lights and shadows over tracts else harsh and bare.
Beyond what he had gathered from the ancient mariner, Balder Helwyse
knew nothing of these fearful fables. This perhaps accounted for the
boldness wherewith he pursued his way towards the mysterious house,
following in the airy wake of the clear-throated little hoopoe.
XVII.
FACE TO FACE.
The ground-plan of the house was like a capital H placed endwise
towards the river. The northern side consisted of the original brick
building and the additions of the second period; the southern was that
stone edifice which so few persons had been lucky enough to see. The
centre or cross-piece comprised the grand entrance-hall and staircase,
heavily panelled with dark oak, and the floor flagged with squares of
black and white marbles.
This entrance-hall opened eastward into a generous conservatory,
filling the whole square court between the wings at that end. The
corresponding western court was devoted to the roomy portico. Two or
three broad steps mounted to a balcony twenty feet deep and nearly
twice as wide, protected by a lofty roof supported on slender Moorish
columns. Crossing this, one came to the hall-door, likewise Moorish in
arch and ornamentation. Considered room by room and part by part, the
house was good and often beautiful; taken as a whole, it was the
craziest amalgamation of incongruities ever conceived by human brain.
Balder, approaching from the north, trod enjoyingly the silken grass.
No misgiving had he; his uncle would hardly be from home, nor would he
be apt to discredit his nephew's identity. His face had already been
evidence to more than one former knower of his father, and why not
also to his uncle?
The house was more than half a mile in a direct line from the
birch-tree, and presented an imposing appearance; but on drawing near,
the odd architectural discrepancies became noticeable. Side by side
with the prosy Americanism of the northern wing, sprang gracefully the
Moorish columns of the portico; beyond, uprose in massive granite,
quaintly inscribed and carved, and strengthened by heavy pilasters,
the ponderous Egyptian features of the southern portion. The latter
was neither storied nor windowed, and, as Balder conjectured, probably
contained but a single vast room, lighted from within.
Meanwhile there were no signs of an inhabitant, either in the house or
out of it. It wore in parts an air of emptiness and neglect, not
exactly as though gone to seed, but as if little human love and care
had been expended there. The deep-set windows of the brick wing, like
the sunken eyes of an old woman, peered at the visitor with dusky
forlornness. Lonely and stern on the other side stood the Egyptian
pilasters, as though unused to the eye of man; the hieroglyphics along
the cornice intensified the impression of desertion. As the young man
set foot beneath the portico, he laid a hand on one of the slender
pillars, to assure himself that it was real, and not a vision. Cool,
solid marble met his grasp; the building did not vanish in a peal of
thunder, with an echo of demoniac laughter. Yes, all was real!
But the stillness was impressive, and Balder struck the pillar sharply
with his palm, merely for the sake of hearing a noise. There was no
answering sound, so, after a moment's hesitation, he walked to the
door,--which stood ajar,--purposing to call in the aid of bell and
knocker. Neither of these civilized appliances was to be found. While
debating whether to use his voice or to enter and use his eyes, the
note of the hoopoe fell on his ear. An instant after came an answering
note, deeper, sweeter, and stronger,--it thrilled to Balder's heart,
bringing to his mind, by some subtile process, the goddess of the
cliff.
He crossed the oak-panelled hall (where the essence of mediæval
England lingered) and came to the threshold of the conservatory. It
was a scene confusedly beautiful. The air, as it touched his face, was
tropically warm and indolent with voluptuous fragrance of flowers and
plants. Luxuriant shrubs, with broad-drooping leaves, stood
motionless in the heat. Two palm-trees uplifted their heavy plumes
forty feet aloft, on slender stalks, brushing the high glass roof. In
the midst of the conservatory a pool slumbered between rocky margins,
overgrown with a profusion of reeds, grasses, and water-plants. There
floated the giant leaves and blossoms of the tropic water-lily; and on
a fragment of rock rising above the surface dozed a small crocodile,
not more than four feet long, but looking as old, dried up, and coldly
cruel as sin itself!
The place looked like an Indian jungle, and Balder half expected to
see the glancing spits of a tiger crouching beneath the overarching
leaves; or a naked savage with bow and arrows. But amid all this
vegetable luxuriance appeared no human being,--no animal save the evil
crocodile. Whence, then, that melodious voice,--clear essence of
nature's sweetest utterances?
At the left of the conservatory was a door, the entrance to the
Egyptian temple. It was square and heavy-browed, flanked by short
thick columns rising from a base of sculptured papyrus-leaves, and
flowering in lotus capitals. Three marble steps led to the threshold,
while on either side reclined a sphinx in polished granite, softened,
however, by a delicate flowering vine, which had been trained to cling
round their necks. On the deep panels of the door were mystic emblems
carved in relief. A line of hieroglyphics inscribed the lintel in deep
blue, red, and black,--to what purport Balder could not divine.
At the opposite side of the conservatory was a corresponding door,
veiled by an ample fold of silken tapestry, cunningly hand-worked in
representation of a moon half veiled in clouds, shining athwart a
stormy sea. By her light a laboring ship was warned off the rocks to
leeward. The room (one of the later additions) by its external promise
might have been the bower of some fashionable beauty thousands of
years ago.
Balder looked from one of these doors to the other, doubting at which
to apply. The tapestry curtain was swept aside at the base, leaving a
small passage clear to the room beyond. In this opening now appeared
the bright-crested head and eyes of the hoopoe, peeping mischievously
at the intruder, who forthwith stepped down into the conservatory,
holding forth to the little bird a friendly finger. The bird eyed him
critically, then launched itself on the air, and, alighting on a spray
above his head, warbled out a brilliant call.
Hereupon was heard within a quick rustling movement; the curtain was
thrust aside, and a youthful woman issued forth amongst the warm
plants. She was within a few feet of Balder Helwyse before seeming to
realize his presence. She caught herself motionless in an instant. The
sparkle of laughter in her eyes sank in a black depth of wonder. Her
eyes filled themselves with Balder as a lake is filled with sunshine;
and he, the man of the Wilie and philosopher, could only return her
gaze in voiceless admiration.
Were a face and form of primal perfection to appear among men, might
not its divine originality repel an ordinary observer, used to
consider beautiful such abortions of the Creator's design as sin and
degeneration have produced? Not easily can one imagine what a real man
or woman would look like. Painting nor sculpture can teach us; we must
learn, if at all, from living, electric flesh and blood.
This young woman was tall and erect with youthful majesty. She stood
like the rejoicing upgush of a living fountain. Her contour was
subtile with womanly power,--suggesting the spring of the panther, the
glide of the serpent. Warm she seemed from the bosom of nature. One
felt from her the influence of trees, the calm of meadows, the high
freedom of the blue air, the happiness of hills. She might have been
the sister of the sun.
The moulding finger of God seemed freshly to have touched her face. It
was simple and harmonious as a chord of music, yet inexhaustible in
its variety. It recalled no other face, yet might be seen in it the
germs of a mighty nation, that should begin from her and among a
myriad resemblances evolve no perfect duplicate. No angel's
countenance, but warmest human clay, which must undergo some change
before reaching heaven. The sphinx, before the gloom of her riddle had
dimmed her primal joy,--before men vexed themselves to unravel God's
webs from without instead of from within,--might have looked thus; or
such perhaps was Isis in the first flush of her divinity,--fresh from
Him who made her immortally young and fair.