THE TERROR BY NIGHT AND BY DAY
"A place
Before his eyes appeared, sick, noisome, dark,
A Lazar house it seemed, wherein were laid
Numbers of those diseased;
Dire was the tossing, deep the groans, despair
Tended the sick, busy from couch to couch;
And over them triumphant Death, his dart
Shook."--MILTON.
All changes are more or less tinged with melancholy, for what we are
leaving behind is part of ourselves. The last night I spent in Austin
was full of fears and sorrowful memories. The Sixth Cavalry had left
the week previous, and I was in terror of the negroes who hungry and
angry were going to-and-fro in the darkness, seeking whom they could
injure or rob. I dared not sleep. But about two o'clock a severe
thunder storm came on and relieved me from any fear of negroes; for I
knew that they were terrified by thunder and lightning, and, moreover,
that they seriously objected to getting wet.
The storm troubled me, because I dreaded detention. If we were to
leave, then the sooner the better. I did not like plans to be delayed,
they always seemed to lose something in the interval, and to come to
the point at last but half-heartedly. So I wandered about the house,
or sat musing in spirit by the two little graves in that lonely suburb
of the dead, which I should never, in this life, see again. When the
dawn began to break I fell asleep, and on awakening found that it was
an exquisite morning, cool and bright, with a refreshing little wind
stirring the tree tops.
We had a pleasant breakfast, and then made our last preparations. I
had sold the furniture, but it was in some confusion, and had such a
hopeless look of hurry and dispersion, that I felt angry at the
senseless things. I did not expect the coach until eleven o'clock, but
I knew there would be many callers, and I wished to be able to give
them my whole time. And at this hour of parting all differences were
forgotten and forgiven; acquaintances I had not spoken to for five or
six years came to bid me farewell, girls I had helped and taught, men
and women of later acquaintance, all alike came with farewell gifts
and good wishes.
So the house was full until the coach was driven up to the door; then
I ran into the living-room to stop the clock. I did not wish to leave
"my time" for I knew not whom, and as I touched the pendulum, I
remembered its fall, and glanced at the dial plate. It was ten minutes
past eleven. So I smiled and said to Mary, "We are leaving exactly at
the hour your father left." And she answered, "You know, Mamma, every
one who goes by this coach will go about the same hour." I nodded my
head to this remark, and taking Alice by the hand, we made our final
adieus and started.
Somehow, I seemed to have suddenly lost a foothold, my spirits were
dashed, and I was relieved when the house was out of sight, and we
were driving down the avenue. And yet I was soon sorry, that we had
taken that way of exit from the city, for my heart ached when I
remembered the beautiful highway, as I saw it, the day I first entered
Austin--bathed in spring sunshine, redolent with the perfume of the
China trees, gay with white-robed women and picturesque men, with busy
stores, and little rambling hints of music from negroes picking their
banjos, while waiting for their masters or watching their horses. It
was so charming, so happy, so full of calm content and evident
prosperity.
Now! Ah! Now it was a desolate place. Only two or three stores were
open, the rest were closed, and had an air of desertion. I did not see
a dozen white men on the sidewalks, and just two white women were
visible, and they were robed in deepest black, and their faces closely
covered by long black veils. There was no sound or sight of business
of any kind, the doors of the hotel were shut, and not even an empty
chair stood under its shady verandah. All the signs of life present
were black signs--squads of ragged negro men, and with every squad
negro women equally ragged; while squatting near them, there was
usually some black hairless Mexican dogs--all else, despondency and
loneliness.
I was glad when we were beyond any sight or sound of Austin, and now I
confess that I remember only the Austin I saw and loved in 1856. I had
to call peremptorily on memory to restore me my last view of it, in
1866. The latter was but a passing condition. I know now that splendid
natural avenue is bright and busy, and wonderfully built up and
adorned with all that marks commercial prosperity. I do not want to
see it in its modern splendor. I prefer to keep my memory of it in
A.D. 1856. It was then, I think, the brightest, happiest, most
romantic street in the whole world.
We left Austin on the twenty-fifth of September, A.D. 1866, at ten
minutes past eleven A.M., and we arrived at Bastrop at ten o'clock
P.M., having stopped at a place called Nash's for supper. Then all
night we were in the stage, not reaching a village called La Grange
till near noon next day. At La Grange we had a good meal, and then
took a stage for Allington, where we arrived between seven and eight
o'clock that night. Here we stayed at a small hotel, and never before
in all my life had beds been so welcome. The children were worn out,
and I had a bad nervous headache but a long night's sleep put us all
right.
When I awoke, I found that Mary and Lilly had dressed the younger
children, and were dressing themselves, and by hurrying a little, I
was able to go with them when the gong called us to breakfast. Calvin
and Alexander were missing, but were soon found in speechless worship
and wonder before the railway engine. Calvin was a natural mechanic,
and the engine attracted him as nothing in all his short life had ever
done. He held his little brother by the hand, and was explaining it to
him in his childlike manner. After breakfast we took the train for
Galveston, but did not arrive there until it was nearly dark.
We had all left Allington in high spirits, but as the day went on a
great depression fell upon every one of us. The boys appeared to feel
its influence most, and they became silent and even sad. I thought it
was only physical weariness, for I was conscious also of a great
melancholy. A little while before we reached Galveston, we had to
cross a very long bridge or viaduct, connecting the main land with the
island of Galveston. Over this viaduct the train moved very slowly. I
looked at Alexander who was sitting on my knees, for I expected him to
be full of interest and chatter, and I saw that his eyes had the most
remarkable appearance. He seemed to be looking through his eyeballs,
as through a window, seeing something at an infinite, incalculable
distance. He was evidently unconscious, and _I_ could neither speak
nor move. Calvin was in the same trance. Mary and Lilly were gazing at
the boy, but neither of them moved nor spoke. Suddenly Alexander
shuddered, and with a deep sigh was conscious, but he made no remark.
At the same moment Calvin awoke to life, in the same manner, and none
of us uttered a word. The boys were exceedingly sad, but neither of
them asked a question, or made any allusion to their experience. The
strangest, most sorrowful atmosphere pervaded the car, and I could
scarcely move under the somber, silent inertia; but I expected the
train to stop at any moment, and Robert would be waiting. This
nameless, causeless, speechless dejection would be too cruel. It would
never do, it must be conquered.
I made a great effort, and got the children to answer me in an
absent-minded way, but when the train stopped, and Robert stepped
forward happy and smiling, and stretching out his arms for Alice, we
could hardly speak to him. For weeks and months we had all been
joyfully anticipating this very hour, and when it came, none of us
appeared to be even decently pleased. Robert was astonished but very
good-natured, and pitied us because we were too weary for anything but
sleep. But when I told him, a little later, about the kind of trance
into which both boys had fallen at the same time, he was much
troubled.
"Was it a trance, Robert?" I asked.
"It was _vision_," he answered sadly. "The same experience came to
Ethel, the day before her death."
"And what is _vision_?"
"The cup of strength, given only to those who will need its comfort."
Then we were both silent, and for some time both unhappy, though we
did not again name the circumstance.
We stayed in a boarding-house while furnishing our new home, and this
occupied over two weeks, for Robert could not spare much time to
assist me, though he had seen to it, that the house itself was
spotlessly clean and in good order. The rest had to be mainly my work.
Now, how is it, that the very same circumstances are not always
equally pleasant? I could not but remember our happy furnishing in
Austin ten years previously. What a joyous time it was! And there was
nothing to prevent, in some measure, a renewal of this experience;
there were even one or two things favorable towards making it a still
more delightful one; for instance, we had more money to spend, and
more certain prospects.
But it was quite different. Robert went about the matter generously
and helpfully, and the result was a pretty, comfortable home, with
which we were both pleased; but its making had not been the same
delightful event that our Austin home represented. There had been no
disagreement, no disappointment, not one untoward circumstance of any
kind, _but it was not the same_! Why? We loved each other better than
ever before; what had caused the change? _Ten years?_ When I was
alone, I could not help a few regretful tears, but alas!
"No tears can make the grass to grow
On the trampled meadows of long ago."
Ah, if we had known that it was our last home making! The very last
time we should talk together about chairs and tables, curtaining and
china, how almost sacred these common household things would have
become. I have not an article left of this furnishing, but a pretty
Queen Anne cream pitcher. On leaving Galveston forever, I gave this
pitcher to Mrs. Lee of that city, as a memorial of her great kindness
to me in the most terrible hours of my life. Twenty years afterwards,
she sent it with a loving message back to me, knowing that it would be
a relic beyond price. Surely the veil God draws between us and the
future is a veil of mercy. If Robert and I had known it, how
heart-breaking that furnishing would have been!
We took possession of our new home on the sixteenth of October. It was
then in perfect order, and we made a gala meal of our first supper, at
which all the children were present. Then there followed half-a-year
of days sweet as the droppings from the honeycomb. Lilly and Calvin
were at good schools, Mary was studying music, and learning how to
dance, and I was busy enough with my house, with the sewing for the
whole family, and with giving Alexander his first lessons. Alice
though near seven years old was yet too weak to be troubled. She had
been born during the excitement and terror of the beginning of the
war, and she brought with her--not the fervid spirit of the time--but
its exhaustion and weakness.
During the worry and trouble following the Emancipation, Robert had
received a letter from my sister Mary, telling him of my father's
death, but advising that I should not be informed of it, while I had
so many every day troubles and anxieties. Robert thought well of this
request, and so he did not tell me until we were happily settled in
our Galveston home. I could weep no sorrowful tears for my father's
release. For a long time earth had lain at his feet like a cast-off
sandal. He had longed to depart, and to be with Christ and the loved
ones waiting for him; and Mary said he went away smiling, like one who
goes on a pleasant journey.
During his last days he frequently expressed a wish that he might go
on a Sabbath morning, while the bells were ringing for service. Very
wise people will doubtless think that was a childish wish, but the
kindly angel of his release granted it. On a Sabbath morning, while
the bells of Baildon church were ringing a joyful peal, and filling
the air with the gladdest music that can ever be between heaven and
earth, he went away with the air and the smile of one,
"To whom glad news is sent,
From the far country of his home,
After long banishment."
No I could not weep for my father's release. I could sit and recall
his fine face, his gracious manner, his blameless life, his wonderful
sermons and our long pleasant walks together, but though my tears were
dropping upon my sewing, they were not sorrowful tears. I could wipe
them away with thanksgiving.
For half a year everything went on in the happiest manner. We had very
pleasant neighbors; the markets were cheap and plentiful. A few old
Austin friends had gathered round us, and we had many new ones. Life
seemed to me in those days like a busy, happy story. True, every day
was much alike; yet every day was different--a fresh visitor, a new
book, the children's school gossip, the household and city happenings
made changes that were sufficient. And in the evenings, if we had no
company, I played and sang and read to Robert and the three eldest
children, or we took a walk to the beach, which was scarce a quarter
of a mile away.
Thus one day slipped into another, and I find no complaints in my
diary against anything, or anyone, but _myself_. To its pages I am
constantly lamenting my too vivid enjoyment of earthly happiness, and
my forgetfulness of past sorrows and trials. Yet if this small book
tells the truth, as I am sure it does, I must have loved God through
these happy days very sincerely. I wish with all my soul that I loved
him now, as I did then, with a conscience sensitive as a nerve, and a
heart that acknowledged no truer love, or dearer loyalty. Yes, in my
eighty-first year, I am ashamed before the memory of that woman in the
prime of her life, who could write such passionate longings for God's
love, and such sorrowful regrets for her small lapses of duty or
temper. Surely _He_ cannot have forgotten.
It was not until late in April that the first whisper of calamity
came. We lived in a cottage belonging to Judge Wheeler, and standing
next to his own house, and one evening he came over to smoke his pipe
with Robert on our verandah.
"Barr," he said, "I hear a good deal of talk about yellow fever, and I
dare say people will be advising you to leave this house, because
there is a meat market not far away, which will be sure to attract the
fever. Don't you believe them. Sit still. You are as safe here as
anywhere. We do not intend to move, nor do the Dalzells, who have the
next house to us."
During the following month the terror grew daily, and as the hot
weather came on, we were sensibly aware of our too close proximity to
the meat market, Robert was sure we ought to remove, and he came home
one day delighted with an empty house which he had found. It was near
the sea, and it had unusually large rooms, all of which had just been
renovated, papered and painted. It is not great things, but trivial
ones, which generally produce the most important and tragic
consequences; and it was the fresh papering and painting that made me
willing to go through another removal. Yet I did not inspect the house
before moving into it; if I had, I am sure I should have hesitated
about doing so, but the weather was hot and humid, and the road
between it and the Wheeler cottage deep with sand. My feeling about
the change was really one of assent, rather than desire.
The place, however, appeared to be all that had been represented--roomy
and clean, freshly papered and painted, and so near to the Gulf that
we could hear the waves breaking on the shore. But as I walked through
the rooms, an indefinable repugnance took possession of me, and I
asked Robert if he knew who had been living in it?
"I do not," he said a little tartly. "I never thought of asking such a
question. Does it matter, Milly?"
"Yes," I answered, "it does matter a great deal. In spite of the fresh
paper and paint, the air of these rooms is not clean. Wicked people
must have lived in them."
Then he laughed, and said, "You are too fanciful. No one has lived in
the house," he continued, "for a great many years. It was almost a
ruin, when old Durr bought it. We are its first tenants since its
restoration to a respectable dwelling."
I said nothing further at the time, but I noticed that when the two
large lamps were lit in the parlor, they did not light the room. It
remained dull and gloomy, and full of shadows, and an eerie feeling of
fear and unconquerable depression dashed all desire to talk over our
arrangement of the furniture; deny it as he would, Robert and the
children were affected in the same way.
But the change was made, and the wisest plan was to accept it
hopefully. I put up the white curtains, and white mosquito draperies
as soon as possible, not only because they were necessary to our
comfort, but because I hoped the profusion of white would relieve the
gloom. I filled the rooms with flowers, I hung no pictures but such as
were of light coloring and cheerful subjects, and when I had finished
my work, I felt more satisfied with the place.
Then life settled to its usual routine, yet hardly so, for I was
counseled against allowing the children to study during the hot months
in which they were acclimating; and I felt little inclination myself
for any duty that was not an imperative necessity. I sat drowsily
within the open door hardly thinking. Life gradually became inertia. I
laid down my book and needle, and the children played without spirit,
or lay sleeping in any cool place they could find. In Austin the
thermometer had often stood ten or twelve degrees higher, and not
affected our work or spirits, but as soon as it passed ninety degrees
in Galveston it became intolerable. And at this time the average heat,
if I remember rightly, was one hundred degrees and upward.
Still I am glad now to recall we kept up as far as possible all our
household ways and traditions. No matter how hot the morning or night,
we never missed the usual family worship, and only in case of
sickness, did I permit either myself or the children, to neglect
dressing to meet their father for supper. I did not read so much aloud
to them, for we were all too listless and anxious to care about
imaginary sorrows, with so much real danger and suffering around.
Sometimes, however, I took a little stroll with Robert to the beach,
and sometimes even I went downtown with him as far as our grocer's. He
was a Glasgow man called Shaw, and Robert had formed a warm friendship
with him.
As the days and weeks went on, we could not escape the certain
knowledge that the fever was steadily gaining ground. During the
latter part of June the corporation were keeping large fires of tar
burning all through the city, and the gutters had a horrible odor of
disinfectants. Far and wide the lurid smoke of these fires darkened
the hot humid atmosphere, and at night their dark fantastic shadows,
and the singular forms they took, seemed to prefigure and presage the
fate of the doomed city. Here and there stores were closed, and
frequently dwellings full of human beings were marked with the dreaded
yellow cross.
At this time I had no great fear of the fateful sickness. However,
towards the middle of July affairs were coming to a frightful crisis.
The fever had at last reached the military camp of the United States
soldiers, which was but a block or two behind our house. There were a
thousand men in it, and every morning I saw long lines of carts filled
with rude boxes and tarred canvas pass the house. They were carrying
the dead to the long trenches made for them. In August the colonel of
this regiment died of the fever, and not thirty of the men were alive
to bury him.
There was nothing for the custom's house and post office to do, their
doors were shut; the Strand, which was the principal business street
of the city, was rank with waving grass. Its large warehouses, shops,
wharves and public buildings were closed. There were half a dozen
little places scattered about, that were still open, mainly for the
sale of bread and drugs, but they had an air of hopeless silence and
abandonment. A dreadful haze hung over the city, and the sea--a haze
that appeared to be filled with the very odors of despair and death. I
was glad when the corporation gave up all efforts at prevention. The
fever was now far beyond it, and Galveston was strictly isolated from
the living world. It had become a city of dreadful death.
Day after day and week after week the weather was of the same
distressing character--an hour or two of pouring, beating, tropical
rain, and then an hour or two of such awful heat and baleful sunshine,
as the language happily has no words to describe. These two conditions
alternated continually, and the consequence was streets full of
grass--this grass being literally alive with tiny frogs, frogs not
bigger than a bean, but in such enormous quantities that pedestrians
crushed hundreds under their feet with every step they took. I do not
exaggerate this sickening plethora of life; it is impossible to do
so.
One evening towards the end of August I told Robert we were out of
certain household necessities, and asked if he knew how they could be
procured. He answered, "Yes, Shaw told me if we wanted anything to
knock at his house door, and he would give me what was required. I
will go and see him after supper."
Then I pleaded, "Let me go with you, Robert. I want a walk so much."
He entreated me not to go, but I was resolved to see with my own eyes
whether things were as bad as reported, and after some demur he
consented. So I walked down into the city with him. A walk through
hell could hardly have been more dreadful. The beds of the dying were
drawn to the open windows, and there was hardly a dwelling wanting a
dying bed. The faces of the sufferers were white and awful, their
heads covered with crushed ice. They were raving, moaning, shrieking,
or choking with the appalling vomito. I covered my eyes, and clung to
Robert, and finally asked him to turn back.
"We are nearly at Shaw's," he answered, "and you had better rest there
half an hour. It will then be darker."
So he knocked at the door for admission, and one of Mr. Shaw's clerks
opened to us. Robert asked for Mr. Shaw, and the young man replied,
"He is in bed, very ill with the fever."
I knew it the moment the door was opened. A strong sickly odor, like
nothing ever felt before, told me so. I said to myself on the instant,
"It is the smell of yellow fever." And no one, I think, would have
failed to give it its own dreadful name--that is, if they were in a
situation where the fever was probable. There is no odor on earth to
which it is comparable. The soul loathes, and sickens, and trembles in
its presence; for there is no straighter or surer avenue to the soul
than the sense of smell.
I went home thoroughly frightened, and Robert I think was not sorry.
He had often told me I was too indifferent--not to the discomfort of
the situation--but to its danger. We found on reaching home that
Calvin and Alexander had not gone to bed, and then both boys cried in
our arms and said they dared not go to their rooms upstairs.
"There are evil spirits there, Papa," sobbed Calvin, "and they walk
about and stand and look at us. They emptied my drawers last night.
They pulled the clothes off our bed. Oh, they are so wicked, and so
dreadful! Save us from them, Papa! We cannot go upstairs tonight."
We were astounded, the more so as Mary and Lilly had a similar story
to tell. The dear children had been consulting in our absence, whether
we must be told, or whether they should try to bear it a little
longer--_until Mamma felt better_. Those four words smote me like a
whip.
Of course we comforted them, and gave the boys a room downstairs
beside us. Then I went to the kitchen to make some inquiries of the
servant, who also slept upstairs. She was a sensible middle-aged Dutch
woman, as little likely to be psychic, or even imaginative, as was the
bed upon which she slept. I found that she had gone home to sleep, but
would be back early in the morning. When she came in the morning, I
said to her, "Why did you go home last night, Gertrude?"
"Because it is impossible to sleep here, Madame," she answered. "There
are such strange noises, and I see dreadful men going up and down
stairs all night. I am afraid of them."
I told Robert what she said, and he answered in a sad, slow voice, "I
hear such things wherever I turn Milly. It is astonishing what some
men have told me. I could almost fear we were all in hell and did not
know it. During the great cholera year in Glasgow, 1847-8, people told
the same things, but the spiritual terror is far, far greater here,
and now, than it was there, and then."
"Do you think such a calamity as this is the work of evil spirits,
Robert?"
"It may be. But if so, they are only the agents of a wise and merciful
God who permits them so far, and no further. There is the case of Job,
and when Daniel prayed for help, the help, though sent by the
Archangel Michael, was delayed twenty-one days; for Michael had to
fight the Evil Ones, who opposed him." Then we were silent and
thoughtful, and I had suddenly a childish fear, that it was not well
to talk of the Evil Ones. They could perhaps hear what we said.
I will try to write as little as possible about the spiritual terror
of this time, but ignoring a subject does not annihilate it, and this
subject was one of general concern and absorbing interest. There were
few people--men and women both--who had not some strange or terrible
experience to relate. Nor were these experiences confined to the
vulgar, the ignorant, the superstitious or the irreligious; they
affected every class, without any distinction of social standing, age
or culture.
We must remember that every one for three months dwelt at the mouth of
the grave. The terror by night, the pestilence that walked in
darkness, the destruction that wasted at noonday was their companion
and their conversation. The invisible world drew strangely near to the
visible; every one talked with bated breath of things supernatural. It
was an atmosphere in which the solemn and thoughtful grew spiritual,
but which offended and angered natures of clayey mold.
Those who have visited old churches and cathedrals where men have
prayed and poured out spiritual emotions for centuries know how
powerfully they are moved by this unseen force of righteousness; how
softly they tread! How lowly they speak! How readily their souls
respond to the reverent thoughts that spring voluntarily to their
consideration! Such places are really sacred. God has visited them,
angels have rested in their solemn aisles, mortals seeking heavenly
mercy have found it there.
Now the power of evil association with places is quite as great--perhaps
greater; for evil clings passionately to whatever is of the earth.
There are many places today filled with the strong vibrations of
tragedies long since enacted there. Go and stand, even at bright
noonday, amid the ruins of some old Druidical temple, and you will be
chilled by the supernal horror that yet lingers there. Every city has
its own mental atmosphere, and it affects persons moving to it. In a
lesser degree every tabernacle built by man, and used by man, becomes
imbued with his personality, physical and spiritual. I knew
dwellings in England where the same family had lived for centuries,
that had actually the aura of the family, and in their arrangement and
atmosphere, almost its personality. Indeed, every habitation reveals
in some degree the nature of the people who dwell in it. So I wondered
constantly as to who had built and lived in the old house we had
unfortunately taken possession of. I was sure that their wraiths were
still in it, and that our presence annoyed them. But we told ourselves
that their malignity could have no power over us. Whatever came,
though it were the fever, we were determined to take it as from God's
will.
One night in August, Robert brought home with him a Mr. Hall, an old
Austin friend. They had some business to talk over, and when I saw
their conversation was finished, I had supper brought in, and as we
sat down to the table, Mr. Hall glanced round the parlor and remarked,
"The old pirate's nest has quite a Barr-y look already."
"Pirate's nest!" I ejaculated. "What do you mean, Mr. Hall?"
"Well," he answered, "if devils haunt the places they made hells upon
earth, Lafitte and his men must be here. It is said that Durr's house
was standing in the days when Galveston was called Campeachy, and was
a haunt and home of the vilest men, pirates and murderers from the
scum of all nations, ruled by the infamous Lafitte. By the way, Barr,"
he continued, "Lafitte was a great slave trader, and he had a very
convenient way of selling negroes; a dollar a pound for them, old or
young. If this should have been Lafitte's house, as I have heard some
suppose, it was originally painted blood-red, and----"
"Mr. Hall," interrupted Robert, "I think you ought not to mention such
things in Madame's presence."
"I beg Madame's pardon," he answered, "but I felt sure she had already
heard many incomprehensible things. To me they are hardly so, for I
know what fiends once made Galveston Island their home. Do you think
they have forgotten the place of their sins and cruelties? No, Furies
of ancient crimes are here, revengeful souls full of unsatisfied
hatreds. Perhaps they have been given a strange enlargement for some
reason, and that reason must be within the permission and mercy of
God."
Robert made a motion of dissent. "I do not believe," he said, "that
God would select for the execution of any of his purposes, foul
spirits who gloat in cruelties."
"We know nothing more surely of God, than that he is love and mercy. I
am one of those who believe even in the repentance and forgiveness of
that great Archangel who fell, and drew after him a third part of
heaven."
"Now, Hall----"
"Yes, I believe in the full and final triumph of good. Why else should
Christ have descended into hell to preach to the spirits in prison
there? He had surely some hope or promise to give, or He would not
have gone. I hope I may at least have the same divine charity which is
expressed in one of the most ancient Persian hymns."
"Do you know the hymn, Mr. Hall?" I asked.
"I know the lines I refer to."
"Will you repeat them?"
"In the translation I possess, they read thus:
'Ormuzd grant me the grace, the joy of seeing
Him who makes the Evil, be brought to comprehend
The purity of the Heart. Grant that I may see the
Great Chief of the Evil Ones, loving nothing but holiness;
And forever speaking the Word, among the
Converted demons.'"
"Thank you," I answered, and Mr. Hall continued, "Take your Bible.
Between cover and cover, there is not any doctrine more constantly
taught and exemplified, than the one teaching angelic and demoniacal
agency. What says Madame?"
"I believe in it," I answered, "just as I believe in the resurrection
of the dead and the communion of saints. They are articles of the same
creed. I cannot doubt one, without doubting the other; and I hope I
have a share of that divine charity which inspired the Persian
worshipper. David believed that even if he made his bed in hell, God
would care for him, and Ezekiel tells us that Pharaoh shall be
comforted in hell." (Ezekiel, 32:31.)
"Do you remember in what chapter?" asked Mr. Hall.
"No," I answered, "but we will look for it after supper." Then I
changed the conversation for Robert looked as much like a Sadducee as
any dweller in ancient Jewry could have done.
That night we were both very sad and quiet, and after Mr. Hall had
left, Robert sat down by his two sons and talked softly to them for a
long time. I sat at the open door, listening to the great voice of the
sea lamenting and creeping up through the darkness. At that hour my
faith was weak, and I could not help remembering how, when I first
crossed this unhappy threshold, my heart sighed heavily, and my very
steps were reluctant and prelusive of sorrow. But in a little while
Robert came to comfort me, and he spoke so bravely of God's omnipotent
power, and of his goodness to us in every emergency, that I soon found
no difficulty in carrying my fearful heart from this unhappy house,
safe to the hidden house of God's abiding.
That night I had a dream. It is as clear to my inward vision this hour
as when I awoke from it. I was by the side of a river, a river black
and motionless. Great trees overshadowed it, and all its banks were
hidden in a lush growth of rushes and long grasses. It was a horror of
marshy earth and dead water. And among the long rushes and dead water,
a human figure lay, a man unnaturally thin and tall, with a yellowish,
deathlike face, surrounded by long straight black hair. He lay prone
as if asleep, but slowly raised himself, and looked at me. Then with a
languid air, but a voice of fate, he said, "_One shall be taken, and
the other left_."
I awoke, and my heart was sick, for I had seen the likeness of yellow
fever. And from that hour I knew, that either I must leave my dear
ones, or they would have to leave me. For come how it may, dreams _do_
read the future. Then why should we despise their teaching? How can we
tell what subtle lines run between spirit and spirit? Fifty years ago
we would have thought it a thing incredible, if told that a man in New
York could talk with a man in Chicago. Can it not be as easy for the
dear ones who have left us, to send a warning dream, as it is for our
scientists by means of spectrum analysis, to examine a ray of light
from Sirius, Capella or any distant star, and tell us what are the
elements of their composition. And from the dream there soon followed
reality. I went softly. I hung around my husband and children with a
wistful tenderness. I asked God to prepare me for whatever He sent,
and all my prayer was, "Let us fall into Thy Hands."
I can make no apology for being now compelled to refer to a life not
this life. It would indeed be a miserable one-sided biography of any
human being, that was only a biography of their physical life. We are
soul as well as body. It is not that we _have_ a soul, we _are_ a
soul; and this higher part is in no one quiescent. The men who think
of nothing outside their physical senses, have often souls of a far
more pronounced type than their physical man; the type may be evil,
but even while they ignore its agency, they are ruled by it.
I had been _in touch with myself_ all my life long; by night and
day the other Amelia was familiar to my apprehension, and an
incommunicable sense of another world never far away. Hitherto, I
had been astonished that while others saw and heard so much from
this other world, I had been singularly free from spiritual
influences. The dream I have just related, was the first intimation I
received of a personal share in the general calamity. I did not speak
of it to Robert, but as I have said, I went prayerfully about my
house, and all my pleasant work fell from my listless hands.
Sometime after midnight on the twentieth of August I rose from my bed.
I could not sleep; I was too restless and unhappy, but all whom I
loved appeared to be sleeping well. So I sat down in a rocking-chair
facing an open window which looked towards the sea. This open window
was however screened by the ordinary green blinds, made of thin slats
of wood. All was quiet but the dull roar of the sea, troubling the sad
heart of the night with a sound of vague anger and menace; and the
stillness of earth and sky was ghostly and melancholy. I heard a faint
stir among the leaves of the Japonica hedge that surrounded the place,
and I stopped rocking and sat motionless listening.
Then there fell upon the closed blinds--on which my eyes were fixed--a
blow so tremendous, that I was sure they must be shattered; but ere I
could rise, another blow of less intensity followed, and then a third
not quite as crashing as the second. I never for a moment thought the
blows were given by any instrument. I was sure they were made by hand.
I went to Robert's side. He was fast asleep. The children also were
sleeping. Then I understood. I prayed for God's mercy, but God seemed
far from me. Until the dim gray dawn I sat in troubled thought, but
when I heard Robert stir I told him what had happened, and begged him
to come to the window with me. I had been afraid to go near it; I had
turned my back upon it, but I was sure the blinds were shattered.
There was not a slat broken. But the thin strips of wood were indented
and showed plainly the full shape of a hand twice as large as any
human hand. Why were the blinds not broken to pieces by three blows
from a hand like that? And how could the thin strips of wood be made
to bend and to take that impression? This evidence of physical force,
made by some spiritual entity remained for every one to see, as long
as I lived in the house. As to what came after, I know not. I never
again went within sight of the place.
That day I noticed that the leaves of the Japonica hedge had turned
black, and were covered with a loathsome sweat or moisture, and Robert
told me he had been with Scotch Brown to the camp to do something for
a Scotchman ill there, and that they were shown the body of a calf
killed one hour previously, and it was as black as a piece of coal. "I
would not let the children go outside, Milly," he said, "the very
atmosphere has the fever."
That night Alexander was taken ill, and before midnight he was
delirious. The next day Lilly was sick, and the following day Mary.
There was then no institution like the present trained nurses, but the
Scotchmen of Galveston had formed themselves into a society for
nursing each other, if attacked by fever; and Robert and Scotch Brown
had been busily engaged in this work for some weeks. Now Scotch Brown
came to our assistance. He went into the kitchen, and could cook a
suitable meal if necessary. He kept the negro hired help at their
duties, and no woman could have been more tender, more watchful, more
ready to help and to comfort. Lilly had not a very bad attack, but
Mary came perilously near to the fatal end. But carefully watched and
nursed, they passed the crisis, and began to recover. The recovery
from yellow fever is very rapid, but if a relapse should take place,
the case is hopeless.
On Sunday, the sixth of September, Alexander, Lilly and Mary were
apparently getting well as satisfactorily as we could expect. Mary
looked white and frail; Alexander lay mostly on the sofa; Lilly, in
spite of yellow fever, had her usual bright smile and cheerful voice;
but, Oh, how happy we were to be able to gather at the dinner table!
Very sparing was the food of the invalids, but they enjoyed it, and we
had a pleasant meal. It was a very happy day, I remember every hour of
it. It was the last day I was to spend with my husband and sons, but I
knew it not. Surely, I thought, God has heard my prayers, and we shall
all be spared to thank Him. We did so together, as soon as supper was
over, and the children with kisses and loving words went early to
rest. Robert and I sat until late; Robert was very quiet, but I leaned
my head against his shoulder, and we spoke tenderly and hopefully to
each other of things past, and of things likely to come. And as I
brushed out my hair, and coiled it for the night, I said cheerfully to
him,
"God doth not leave His Own.
The night of weeping for a time may last,
Then tears all past,
His going forth shall as the morning shine.
The sunrise of His favor shall be thine and mine,
God doth not leave His Own."