AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
Among the visitors at Lissa’s home was one whom she at first received
with scant hospitality, if not actual discourtesy. This was Professor
Russell.
How he had chanced to come to their neighborhood she never knew. He had
accompanied her husband home from the post one evening, and the dismay
she felt at the sight of him had not been easily disguised.
Why he should have sought them was a question that often returned to her
as the months brought frequent visits from him, sometimes prolonged into
weeks of sojourn in the neighborhood. Sometimes for months nothing would
be seen of him, then suddenly he would appear like a dangerous comet,
bringing a feeling of uneasiness to Lissa, wherefore she could not have
told.
When inquired of as to his wanderings and uncertain appearances, he
always said he had been in the East, but added no further account of
himself.
Lissa at first distrusted and disliked him instinctively. His bland,
insinuating manner was thrown away upon her, she told herself.
And yet she feared him too much to refuse him admittance to her home.
Since that night when, at the house of Squire Bartram, he had so
accurately described her brother-in-law’s encounter with the Sioux she
had not doubted his power of divination or clairvoyance, or whatever the
faculty might be termed. But it was an uncanny, unpleasant power, and
she felt a shudder of superstitious terror whenever he approached her.
She would have been glad of any justifiable pretext to keep him from
visiting them, and was happy when the weeks would roll by without his
appearing among them.
This feeling, however, gradually wore away in some measure as she became
more accustomed to his presence, and as her sister, and later her
mother, became interested in his theories, she began to tolerate with
more patience his teaching of spiritism.
He held frequent seances in the neighborhood, and many of the families
about her had become more or less interested in the doctrines, few of
them openly opposing them and their teacher, except her handsome
brother-in-law, Mark Cramer. He was outspoken in his condemnation of
both the man and his _ism_.
One mild November afternoon, when the sisters and mother were together
at Lissa’s home, the name of a sister who had died in infancy was
mentioned.
“If,” said Alice, “there is any truth in Professor Russell’s
communications, I would like to have him bring me word from Elsie. No
one here, not even Mark, knows of her having existed, as we so rarely
mention her.”
Lissa assented, and observed that it was the anniversary of her death,
the thirteenth of November.
Before they had finished their conversation upon the topic they were
startled by a rap at the outer door and Lissa opened it to see the
ubiquitous Professor himself, who, after shaking hands with the sisters
and Mrs. Clyne, seated himself, and without asking for either Nathan or
Mark, observed suavely:
“As both of your husbands are to be at home to-day, I called to see if
we might not invite in some of the neighbors and hold a seance this
evening.”
“But Nathan is absent,” said Lissa, “and will not be home until
Saturday.”
“And Mark is out upon the plains, forty miles from here,” added Alice.
The Professor smiled indulgently.
“They are both coming home and will be here before evening,” he said
with an air of assurance.
The three women exchanged glances. Was this but talk, or did he have the
power of unveiling the future as well as the past? Or did he
clairvoyantly see Nathan and Mark directing their course thither-ward?
“You speak with conviction, Professor,” Lissa at length replied. “Have
you received intelligence from the absent ones which is not known to
us?”
“That which I see, ye cannot now perceive,” the man said sententiously.
“Yet the time is coming when you as well shall have the power to lift
the veil which hides the dreaded unknown and learn the mysteries which
are only revealed to those who are willing to seek in the right manner
and submit themselves to the spirit influences which surround them. You
can never know, Mrs. Clyne, the peace you will experience when you have
ceased to resist and rebel against the gentle influences which seek only
to promote your happiness and well-being. There is one angelic form now
hovering about you and anxiously striving to win recognition from those
so near and dear to her when on earth.”
“Can you tell her name,” questioned Lissa, as the man, with his eye
fixed upon the opposite wall, paused and seemed wrapped in thought.
“It is a woman, young and beautiful. She must be a near relative. Her
name is E-l-s-i-e—Elsie.”
Alice looked at her mother with awe-shaded eyes. Whence did this man’s
knowledge come? It was certainly remarkable. He could not have known
Elsie.
Further speculation or conversation was arrested by the sound of a
horse’s feet outside the door, and in a moment the handsome, smiling
face of Mark Cramer appeared. His curling, yellow hair hung in womanish
profusion to his powerful shoulders, over which a large soft hat rested
becomingly. His hunting costume of gray, with belt and pistols, spoke of
his wild, free life; and his clear blue eyes, florid complexion, and
Herculean frame made a magnificent picture of manly strength and
perfection, as for a brief time he stood framed in the open doorway
against the back-ground of the setting sun.
A moment later, and Alice, with a little cry of welcome, sprang to greet
him. The Professor aroused himself from his semi-trance, and Mrs. Clyne
and Lissa were extending their hands and expressing surprise at his
coming.
“How did you chance to come home so much earlier than you expected?”
Alice asked radiantly, when the greetings were over and they were
seated. “We did not look for you for a fortnight.”
“We lost one of our men, Wish-has-ta, and as he was to marry Enona,
daughter of the chief, when he returned, we thought it our first duty to
look him up, and so started back to see what had become of him.”
“And did you find him?”
“Well, yes, in town. He had become separated from us by buffalo. The mad
little mustang he rode kept along with the herd, in spite of him, for
several miles, or until at last he came to a ravine and managed to fall
into it. He narrowly escaped being trampled to death as the herd went
over him, but he got out with only a few injuries. He lost his pony,
however, and instead of following us, made his way back to camp. He left
word at C—— that he was safe, as he knew we’d be looking for him.”
“And did you see Nathan,” asked Lissa.
“Yes, he’ll be home to-night too. I came into C—— early and called at
his place of business. That’s a fine place Nathan has, with the Major.
Good pay and light duties. Much better than his position at the post.”
“Yes, only it keeps him away from home more. And so you will both be
here to-night after all. Professor Russell, you have in this case proven
a true prophet.”
“I trust I am in every case,” he replied, with an expressive gesture of
the hand. “I do not rely upon lying spirits for my information.”
“Well,” said Lissa, not perceiving Mark’s frown of disapproval, “if we
have a seance here to-night we must get word to our neighbors.”
“I will myself go and call Mrs. McCleary and good Auntie Dearborn,” said
Russell, “and will get word to the Jenkinsons and Sol Garrett, if you
wish.”
“Be sure and have Esther McCleary present,” said Mrs. Clyne. “I am
greatly interested in that girl.”
“Certainly; no meeting would be complete without her,” responded
Russell, bowing himself from the room.
“Esther will not come if she can avoid it,” said Alice after the
Professor had gone. “She feels deeply mortified because of the
exhibition she was forced to make of herself at Mr. Jenkinson’s. She
herself has no faith in spiritism, even though her mother is so absorbed
in it.”
“Poor girl, I pity her,” Lissa said. “It is a shame the way her mother
misuses her. Letting her have all the care of that large family, while
she sits in her easy chair and holds communion with spirits, as she
claims.”
“Was she always like that,” asked Mrs. Clyne. “I confess she impresses
me as being just a little out,” tapping her forehead significantly.
“She was quite an invalid when she first came here,” replied Lissa, “and
of course the burden of household care fell upon Esther, and since Mrs.
McCleary has been in better health she does not seem inclined to
shoulder responsibility of any kind, and Esther is cook, housekeeper,
and nurse to those children, as entirely as though she were the only
woman about the house. She is a delicate girl, too, and must break down
soon if she is not relieved of some of her burdens, I’m afraid.”
“Mrs. McCleary was all right until she became a convert to this accursed
spiritism,” said Mark. “I have known her for years. She used to live
near my old home in Iowa, and was a good, capable woman; but she seems
now to have no interest in anything that does not come from the other
world. If Esther should die and become a spirit she might become an
object of her interest and solicitude. I am utterly disgusted with
Russell and all of his nonsense about spirit manifestations, and
revelations, and the like. In my opinion, all the spirit he communes
with is the spirit of evil, his Satanic majesty. I can’t have a bit of
faith in the fellow, and I believe Nathan feels as I do about it.”
“O, come now,” said Alice, “you are too bad, Mark. Professor Russell
certainly believes in his creed himself, and is honest in his
convictions, whether they be right or wrong.”
“I even doubt that,” replied Mark.
“He foretold your coming here to-day. What do you think of that?” asked
Alice triumphantly.
“I think he probably saw Wish-has-ta, who told him we would certainly
come back for him, or possibly he may have seen me in C—— after my
arrival. I stopped there several hours. Depend upon it, he learned it
from no disembodied spirit.”
“And more than that, Mark, he told us about our sister Elsie, and I am
sure he could not have heard about her,” Alice continued.
“Unless he may have heard you talking about her, with mother or Lissa,
lately.”
Lissa flushed.
“How suspicious you are, Mark. I am sure he might have learned these
things through spirit agency, as well as many others which can be
explained in no other way.”
“How do you know, Alice, that they can be explained in no other way?”
“But have not all tribes and races believed in spiritualism since the
beginning of the world,” said Mrs. Clyne.
“In a kind of spiritualism, perhaps; so have they believed in many other
_isms_, but that does not prove them true,” replied Mark. “The heathen
searchers after God have found Him in the water, in the fire, in the
sun, and in the creatures of His making, and have worshiped the spirit
of the universe as manifested in material things; but these so-called
spiritists put aside the Creator and make a religion of a belief in
spirits of mortals, like themselves.”
“But do you not think this should strengthen one’s faith in the soul’s
immortality? Are we not spirits living in material bodies? And when the
material body dies, if our spirits are immortal, why should not they
seek to manifest themselves to their friends on earth? I am sure if you
would read Davis’s works you would have less scepticism,” said Alice
with some warmth.
“Alice, have you been reading them?” Mark spoke quickly and almost
harshly. The color deepened in Alice’s face.
“Certainly I have, and many others. What harm can come of learning all
one can? I am sure we should not condemn any creed until we investigate
it.”
Mark frowned. “Where did you get all these books?”
“Professor Russell has brought them to us, and mother, Lissa and I have
read them at his request, and I assure you we have been much interested
in them.”
“All of them, as well as Swedenborg, teach sound morality and oppose
evil.”
“Your Bible teaches you that, Alice; and as I understand it, it does
_not_ teach you that the spirit of mortal man comes back on earth to
perform the absurd feats of overturning tables, rapping and tapping upon
furniture, making it dance around the room, and like antics. It seems to
me, if I were a spirit, I would prefer to be engaged in some more
dignified occupation.”
“I hope, Mark,” said Mrs. Clyne, “you won’t let prejudice make you
unjust. There is certainly much about this matter which we cannot
understand, and is it not our duty to learn all we can?”
“Mother, there _is_ much about this that I don’t understand, neither do
I understand how the juggler or the East Indian magician performs his
marvelous feats, nor can I see that it is necessary for us to know.”
“But if the knowing would be valuable to us? If we should learn from
it?”
“I have great faith in my mother’s Bible. I believe that teaches all the
religion it is wisdom for us to understand. I prefer the teachings of
Christ and his disciples to any disembodied spirit, good or bad,—the
Professor admits that evil as well as good spirits commune with
mortals,—and I never have seen any really good results from a belief in
spiritism. ‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’ I find that in many
instances its believers become its victims, and either end their days in
a mad-house or permit themselves to drift into free-love doctrines or
some other demoralizing fad, until they become unprincipled and lose the
respect of their fellow-men. This much I have learned from observation,
and I have yet to see one person whom this belief has made better,
nobler, or more useful to society. Nor, in my opinion, improved in what
pertains to good morality and good citizenship.”
Alice looked abashed, but Lissa said:
“I am afraid you will not relish spending your first evening here at a
spirit-seance. I am sorry that the Professor happened to come at this
time.”
“I prefer to be here if Alice is to be present at such a meeting; in
fact, I strongly object to her attending one in my absence,” Mark said.
“I will say in all sincerity, I wish she and you had never seen this
Russell or heard of his abominable _ism_. I am sorry that you have been
fed on such literature as he has been sending you, and I regret more,
that you have given enough credence to it to tolerate his society or his
absurd seances. He is, in my opinion, a gross humbug.”
“But that is only your _opinion_, Mark,” suggested Alice.
“I don’t believe there is any mystery about this that cannot be
explained by one of three hypotheses: first, animal magnetism or
hypnotism; second, jugglery or sleight of hand in the medium; third,
thought transference, mind-reading and telepathy, or perhaps I should
say the force, not yet well understood, that makes these things
possible. These, aided by the excited and overwrought imagination of the
witnesses, can produce any phenomena adduced. There are men with strong
wills, sufficient to control entirely those with whom they come in
contact, and make them do, think, feel or believe whatever they suggest.
We have frequently seen these exhibitions from traveling mesmerists, who
make no pretense to spiritism, nor attribute their power to spirit
agency. I believe the Davenport brothers perform their feats in the same
manner. It seems to me that our mind, like our body, is dual, and that
one part of it can come entirely under the control of another person if
we are sufficiently interested in anything to be off our guard. How
differs this spiritism from the Babylonian necromancy? Undoubtedly there
is a force which, if understood by man, would enable him to put himself
in a hypnotic state at will, and when in that state to see
clairvoyantly, hear clair-audiently, and communicate with other minds or
intelligences in the same condition. Hence the remarkable clairvoyant
dreams, visions, etc., which come under peculiar stresses of excitement.
There is a queer thing about this force which may manifest itself in
another way. I remember that when I was at college we boys used to try
this experiment. We would place one of our number in a chair and two of
us would lift him high from the floor—while he held tightly to the
chair—by merely placing the little fingers of one hand under the bend of
his knees and the forefingers of the other hand under his elbows. We
would use no force, seemingly, in lifting him, and he would appear but a
featherweight, but we would all hold our breath at the same instant and
_think_ of lifting him. We lifted men weighing two hundred pounds in
this way. Ordinarily the muscles of those fingers would not sustain such
a weight. What then was the force which aided us? Mind-reading is a
proven fact, as is hypnotism. Subjects in the hands of a hypnotist will
imagine themselves Napoleon, Washington, or any individual suggested,
and assume the character and carriage of such individuals, talking,
reasoning, and affirming in harmony with the character assumed.
“Why then should we attribute everything of this kind seen at a spirit
seance to spirits?”
“Professor Russell is clairvoyant,” said Lissa.
“But clairvoyancy, or psychic force, is not spiritism, and those mediums
are either self-deceived or deceive their audiences by their
legerdemain. I can understand that in some instances they might be
self-deceived, as a hypnotic subject, by suggestion. It seems this
second intelligence of ours will reason from a false starting point as
well as from a correct one, and, given a false suggestion—”
“But, Mark,” again interrupted Alice, “you are only giving your opinion
and we all have a right to our own individual opinions, and we think and
reason for ourselves.”
Mark sighed. “Yes, only do not let that Professor think and reason for
you. Read your Bible, and pray God that you may not be deceived.” Then,
passing his hand caressingly over her fair hair he continued lightly,
“Don’t you think we have had enough of this for the present?”
“Yes; only—Mark, I want to say one thing. The Bible contains many
passages which confirm the truth of spiritism. Don’t you remember the
fingers of a man’s hand that wrote upon the wall at Belshazzar’s feast?”
“Ah, some more of Russell’s thinking for you. That is the worst of it.
Almost anything may be proven by the Bible in the hands of a skilful and
unscrupulous manipulator, who quotes solitary texts without reference to
the subject which precedes or follows them. Professor Russell has
doubtless called your attention to many such ‘proofs.’ Beware of the
blind leaders of the blind, Alice. I do not object to the spiritualism
of the Bible, which comes from God; but I do make a distinction between
that and the modern spiritism, which consists of buffoonery and worse.
This demon worship, or worship of spirits who like to assume the form
and speech of an Indian child, or ignorant buffoon, is ridiculous. Let
me see, what was it Mrs. Jenkins said her mother appeared in?”
“In the form of a morning-glory,” said Lissa, laughing. “But I didn’t
know before, Mark, that you were such a theologian.”
Mark smiled.
“I went to Sunday-school when I was a boy, and I had a praying mother
and father. Besides, I used to hear the Bible read each day when I was
at home, and one does not forget his early lessons.”
“Well, come to tea now. I think your ride and talk must have given you
an appetite.”
“It does not require a canter over the prairies nor a dissertation on
spiritism to give me that when you are the cook,” he replied gallantly,
and the party gathered about the table.
Later, when Lissa and her mother were busy in the other room, Alice
approached her husband.
“Did I understand you to say that you did not wish me to see Professor
Russell when you are away?”
“I may not have said as much, but I should much prefer you do not.”
Alice’s cheeks reddened and she lifted her chin angrily.
“Yes,” repeated Mark, noticing her rising color, “I mean what I say.
Russell must keep away from my house in my absence.”
“And I say—” began Alice, but paused as the door opened and Nathan
entered, accompanied by the light-hearted, fun-loving Donald.
“O Don, we just needed you. Every one is so sepulchral here to-night,”
cried Lissa. Then she continued in a half-whisper to Mark: “Even
Professor Russell has no power over Donald. He did not foretell _his_
coming.”
“Mne! I suspect he would have been willing to have excused his absence,”
remarked Mrs. Clyne.
“You do look a little solemncholy, that’s a fact,” Donald said.
“Don’t we? And all because we are going to have a spirit seance
to-night.”
Nathan started.
“How does this happen,” he asked. “I thought that Russell had left the
neighborhood.”
“He has returned. It’s the old story of the bad penny,” replied Lissa.
“Isn’t it the still older story of the serpent in the garden?” suggested
Donald.
“Yes, I think you’ve hit it, Don,” said Mark. “The cloven hoof is in
evidence and he leaves a trail of brimstone behind him.”
“That must have been what made this room look so blue when we came in.
His excellency must have been here, I take it. Are there not yet blue
flames playing in the corners?”
“If not there will be, doubtless, before the evening is over. But I must
make haste or you two hungry men will not get any supper. Come, sit down
and eat before it is cold.”
“I, for one, need no second bidding,” said Donald.