for Gideon’s body seemed a little off the perpendicular; and
accordingly he was assisted in removing himself to a tree, which
the sudden thawing of the snow had revealed, and there he was
stationed, leaning against its trunk, while the same precautions
for their safety were adopted as before. Minute after minute passed
on, and still the enemy came not. The stones lay exactly in the
same position. The doomed tailor could now listen, with a slight
portion of faith and hope, to the consolation which young Mauncel
gave; when a slight rustling was heard in the branches of the tree,
and something of a red colour was perceived. All strained their
eyes, but nothing more of shape, colour, size, or essence, could be
learned.
“Ah!” Jeremiah began, “he is fond of trees. How he coiled himself,
as Dr. Mauncel observed, in the tree of knowledge of good and evil,
pointing to the apples, and smacking his own lips! But let him
stay there at present, and hatch a blackbird’s nest, if he be so
inclined. Gideon, you are now safe.”
Scarcely had he finished these words, when a fiery cloud was seen
coming from the direction of the sand hills, and soon Satan stood
before his heap of sand, with a large trowel in his hand, ready
to build the wall. But first he looked around, and descrying the
altered station of the party, walked up to the circle, while his
mouth belched forth fire and smoke.
“Think not,” he exclaimed in a horrible tone, “think not that you
shall escape, although, by your wiles, I have been detained; and
heavier shall be your punishment, for the trouble you have given
me.”
“Do you sweat much?” kindly inquired William Mauncel; “then stand a
little to cool yourself. You have time enough to finish the wall.
Why have you returned so soon? Pray, let us have a friendly chat.”
“Gideon Chiselwig,” continued the fiend, without noticing the words
by which he had been interrupted, “I tell thee that thy doom shall
be much more severe. Rejoice at my momentary disappointment, as I
detail it to you, and then think how much more I shall rejoice over
the torments which it shall cause you, as my subject, for ever. I
placed the first load of sand in your brother’s apron, and flew
away with it--(Gideon, you shall have wings too, in a little,)--but
when passing the moss, the cursed string broke,--”
“Honesty is the best policy, friend,” cooly remarked Jeremiah.
“You are well served for a rogue. You stole away my apron, and you
have received a just recompense. Learn, Nick, to be more honest
for the future, at least on earth. You may escape the clutch of
a magistrate, as you and his worship seem to be on very intimate
terms, but believe me, that sooner or later, vice will be punished.
You know the proverb, I presume, ‘that those who begin with a pin,
may end with an ox,’ and I cannot exactly say, but that this apron
stealing might have brought you into very serious danger. Let it be
an example, Nicholas.”
“Rejoice at present,” was the reply. “Mock me, Gideon, as well as
your brother does, and listen. The strings of the apron broke,--”
“Bad thread, bad thread, Gideon,” again interrupted Jeremiah, “I
told you so when it came. It must not be used for the collar of a
coat.”
“The strings of the apron broke,” patiently resumed the enemy, “and
all the sand fell into the moss, and there it lies, a large heap
and mountain. But, Gideon, beneath as heavy a mountain of my wrath
you shall lie, for ever and ever:” and he instantly departed to
commence his work.
Soon the wall arose a foot or two from the ground, and Gideon’s
fears once more attacked him. A loud laugh was raised, at
intervals, by the infernal builder, and it seemed echoed by
millions and millions of the lost spirits. He skipped upon the
wall, and, revealing his awful proportions, gazed upon Gideon, with
eyes of such fiendish malice and revenge, that even the reckless
Mauncel shuddered, and covered his face to banish the sight. And
now the wall was nearly finished, the earth was shaking all around,
the hissing of serpents was heard, and strange forms were seen
moving beside the enemy.
“Claim him! claim him!” shrieked forth innumerable voices. The air
seemed on fire, and dark masses were hastening through it, to the
hellish scene. Deep gulfs were sounding and lashing their fury
beneath the ground; and thunder seemed to bow the very poles of
heaven, and make them totter. A long and wide circle of fiends was
now made, dancing, and all pointing to Gideon with their black paws.
“Hell claims him. Which part shall we seize? Yours, noble leader,
is the head. Give me the hand,--how fondly I shall shake it.
Give me the breast,--how fondly I shall lie upon it. Give me
the arm,--how confidently he shall lean upon mine. Let me kiss
him,--how he shall love my sweet lips. Let me wash his feet,--how
gently shall the fire dry them. Let me perfume his body.
Ha--ha--ha!”
Their leader now raised two stones in his hands, and thundered
forth, with an awful voice--
“Friends, these are the two last--and the wall is finished! Wretch,
who art called Gideon Chiselwig--dost thou behold them? the two
last! the two last!” and the whole infernal host raised a laugh of
exultation, and poor Gideon fell to the ground. “Stay one little
moment, Gideon,” the enemy exclaimed, “and you shall be supported
in these loving arms. Stay--”
At that very moment a deep silence pervaded the place, and a
loud crowing was raised by a cock, as it announced the devil’s
day break, who must, therefore, depart, without being allowed to
finish the wall. He stamped in fury, and all his infernal agents,
disappointed of their prey, shrieked, and fled away. Jeremiah and
young Mauncel comprehended the cause, and they shouted in joy,
and taunted the fiend, until they beheld him approaching. In his
hands he bore a large stone:--but his eyes glared not upon them,
nor yet on the prostrate Gideon. They were fixed upon some object,
which the branches of the tree seemed to conceal. Jeremiah, as he
regained courage, addressed him,--
“So, Nicholas--dost thou see an apple which courts that hungry eye?”
There was no answer made, but a motion of the devil’s arm heaved up
the stone, and instantly a cock fell down dead at Jeremiah’s feet,
who, raising it, thus apostrophized it,--
“And thou hast saved my brother’s life, by losing thine own! But,
unless thou has contracted thyself to the enemy, he shall not get
thee, provided he does not invite himself along with us to dinner
some day soon. No, Nick, begone. A fortnight ago, that church-yard
clod, the sexton, told me that I was a brawny stripling, for I
could mount my grandmother’s cat with a stepping stone. Oh! the
fiend _is_ gone! Well, poor bird, thou art a martyr, yet I shall
commit thy sacred remains to my stomach, begging your young
reverence’s pardon, in hopes of a safe and certain resurrection.”
They succeeded in raising Gideon from the ground, and when he was
sufficiently recovered to listen to his escape, and the death of
his preserver, the sadness of the latter news did not much take
away from the joy of the former; and he was altogether cured of his
mania for supernatural achievements.
And here, as the devil left his work unfinished, we leave ours;
with the exception of satisfying a few longings, which the
antiquary, the lover, and the unfortunate husband of a termagant
wife, may feel.
The first may yet see the heap of sand which the breaking of the
devil’s apron strings deposited in the moss. It is now called
“Shirley Hill;” and thus observation confirms tradition, for how
could a mountain of sand be native to a moss? He indeed cannot be
gratified with a sight of the apron; for Jeremiah on the following
day, escorted it home, and subsequently, exhibited it so often to
the good folks of Ormskirk, that the strings again broke, one dark
night as he was making his way through a lane; and he had his
suspicions that the hands of some old maid, and not the thread were
culpable.
The Devil’s Wall still stands, but the acute Jeremiah had observed
that the infernal builder, could not, with any portion of justice,
have claimed Gideon, because the conditions of the contract, were
not fulfilled, as the wall had only been built with sand. The large
stone, some thirty years ago, could be seen firmly clasped between
the boughs of the tree, where the cock fell--a martyr to his love
of truth.
And now, fair reader, what is the question which you wish to ask
the old man? Ah! concerning William and Mary Mauncel! A few weeks
after the adventure, the worthy Doctor joined their hands, and
as much happiness as thy own beautiful and romantic fancy can
imagine in future for thyself, fell to their lot. On the occasion,
Rehoboam and Jeroboam, with all their tribes, did not fail to
appear:--and for their loyalty towards the fortunes of the family,
they received marked attentions from the Reverend head; whose lips,
in an appropriate manner, confessed an attachment, by no means
slight. Jeremiah, in the course of the nuptial evening, stepped in,
to cry over the happiness of the young wedded pair, and, with his
accustomed propriety, wished that the bands of love might never
be broken, like his apron strings; however fortunate the last
circumstance had, most undoubtedly been. Years passed on, and
sweet laughing voices came upon the ear of the old vicar, as he sat
in his study; and rushing in, a band of beautiful grand-children
began, in innocent mischief, to sport at his knees.
The unhappy husband is informed, that Gideon and Nelly Chiselwig,
were happy in each other: and that their only weapons of attack and
defence were sweet words, and fond caresses.
Some represent the devil as having horns: if so, he must have taken
them from the head of Gideon Chiselwig.
THE PROPHETESS AND THE REBEL.
“Nay, Katharine, let us not return from all this quiet, to the
noise of the town, until, like a young widow who veils her face
from the past, and the relations of her dead husband, to go forth
to other scenes, there once more to unveil it,--twilight wraps up
the beauties of this vale, and then gives gentle and holy echoes to
the streets. The town is pleasant then; but now--a little further
on, and we shall seat us by the Hermit’s Well. On its calm surface
the first and brightest star of night will glimmer beneath our
feet. Heed not my laughing sister.”
“My brother,” gaily answered the companion of the lady, whom the
speaker addressed, and whose arm was within his, “is pleased to
be poetical. But cannot you prevent that same widow of yours, Mrs.
Twilight, from leaving this vale, and entering the town in search
of a husband, by wedding her yourself? Perhaps you are engaged
already?--Is he Katharine?”
“Really, Alice, do you suppose that your brother would make me his
confidant?”
“Would that Mrs. Twilight,” was the exclamation of the mischievous
girl, “were here, to hide the blush on somebody’s face! Oh, look
angry, hate James and his sister. He has scarcely succeeded in
making you as sly a hypocrite as himself. My father sent him to
Cambridge, to devote himself to Mother Alma, but he soon found
another saint, who cared not for books and themes. The diligent
student, whose letters home spoke of nothing but long vigils, and
faint tapers burning through the night, was in love! He had met
with a beautiful lady of gentle blood, and high birth, whom I have
seen, Katharine,” and she looked archly up at her companion. “He
thought of nothing but love, and of no one but her, and yet he
counterfeited so well, that when he returned to us, he was pale in
appearance, and retired in habits.”
“Alice,” replied her brother, laughing, “you are a rare vixen, and
will never be reformed, until love has caught you. You, indeed, pay
but a poor compliment to the imagination and heart of a student,
to suppose that he cannot be a lover. Ponderous tomes will crush
every feeling but love. Mathematics will measure and bound, with
their cold laws, every feeling but love. Amidst all his researches,
the image of one appears before him, bright and beautiful, even by
the faint light of his lamp. She is of earth, but holy; and the
more that learning and genius throw their rays upon his mind,--that
being the mirror in which she is reflected,--the purer and softer
does she become. But, Alice, you frequently cautioned me not to be
a hard student.”
“And,” added Katharine, “did not your brother gain many of the
highest prizes?”
“He has gained one, Katharine, has he not?” and the mischievous
girl smiled significantly to her companion, who blushed with a
deeper tinge than before, and seemed still more embarassed.
“You mean the beautiful gold medal, Alice?” inquired her brother,
anxious to smooth over the hint.
“Ah! do I?” returned his sister with a playful sneer. “But I have
a tale to unfold concerning it. I often observed you walking in
the garden, looking anxiously upon something suspended from your
neck, and when I came up, you quickly placed it again next to your
breast. Katharine, are you listening? Well, one day I surprized
you; you affirmed that it was the gold medal--I denied that it was.
It was a miniature likeness of one of my friends,” and she fondly
placed her arm around her companion, who drew the necklace closer
to her bosom, lest, perchance, some miniature might be discovered
there also.
They wandered on, and they beheld the beauties of the setting sun,
only on each other’s countenances. They became more thoughtful,
but not less happy. The two lovers,--for such was the relationship
between James Dawson, and Katharine Norton,--frequently exchanged
kind looks, which the playful Alice did not fail to remark.
James and Alice were the only children of a wealthy physician in
Manchester. Their mother had died early, and this circumstance made
them cling closer to each other. Dr. Dawson was harsh to them: he
had been disappointed in the marriage-portion of his wife; and he
bade a very cold adieu to his son, as he left for Cambridge, and
chided Alice for crying and teazing herself many days after. Yet,
at times, affection arose in his breast towards them, for they were
the exact image of her, who had once been enshrined in his love,
until avarice hoarded up other treasures. Besides, he knew that he
could not, with justice, condemn his son as a mere bookworm, for
James excelled in every athletic and graceful accomplishment: and
he could not, on the other hand, taunt him as only a gamester and a
fencer, for he had carried off the highest literary and scholastic
honours. His endowments, both physical and mental, had frequently
drawn forth the admiration of his father, but it soon subsided into
indifference and neglect. Alice, occasionally, as she sung the
lays which her mother had taught her, and romped about his chair,
in all her beauty and innocence, could warm her father’s heart, so
that he pronounced a blessing upon her destiny. But often, all her
smiles and fond arts to please him were disregarded: she could not
relax, by all her attentions, the sternness of his countenance. A
tear would then start into her deep blue eye, and she would retire
to call up the remembrance of her sainted mother.
Katharine Norton was an orphan, and her parents had been of
illustrious rank. She had travelled with a maiden aunt, and, as
they were residing for a few weeks in the vicinity of Cambridge,
she had met with young Dawson, and thus commenced an ardent
attachment between them. And well might her appearance have
inspired even a stoic with the most thrilling love. Smooth, and
fair as light was her finely-formed brow,--changing its expression
as a dark ringlet fell upon it,--or was thrown back. Her eyes
seemed to be souls in themselves, endued with the faculty of
thinking and feeling; their brilliancy their colour, and their
form, were as if they had been given by the emotion which then
ruled her mind. The features were stamped with a wild and noble
beauty. Nor was her form inferior to her countenance: majestic, yet
playful; like a vision with all the movements of music. She was now
spending the summer in Manchester, where Dawson had introduced to
her his sister, and they were seldom out of each other’s presence.
They walked together, and James frequently joined them.
The shadows of twilight were now mixing with the fading light of
the western sky, and the hush of early eve was whispering silence
in the vale where they were wandering. At length they reached the
angle; on rounding which, at a short distance, was the Hermit’s
Well, not famed for any medicinal properties, but for the pure
water, which was said to have refreshed an old man (who, in olden
times, haunted the adjacent hills,) every morning, as soon as he
had left his hard couch to journey along with the sun.
On a stone beside it, there sat a young female, dressed in the
rustic simplicity of a foreign country. Her age seemed only that of
a child. Yet there was a feverish rolling of the eye, a changing
tremor of the lips, and a gentle throbbing of the breast, which
speak the mystery of a hidden sorrow, or of a superior nature. Not
a blush of colour tinged the pure pallor of her face--like a statue
dedicated to thought, in the midst of fragrance and light. Her
hands were playing with flowers, carelessly,--for her thoughts, it
was evident, were on a less tranquil subject,--and although they
were, at intervals, raised to her face, yet it assumed a still
sadder expression.
She was singing to herself in a low and melancholy strain, almost
modulated to the still hush of the vale: and the notes seemed not
so much to be proceeding from her voice, as her soul. Once or twice
she started up, held her hands towards the west, and then placed
them on her brow. Then she dipped them in the well, and with the
pure water bathed her eyes. As soon, however, as young Dawson and
his fair companions had approached within a few yards, her eyes
quickly moved in the direction of the spot where they stood, and
she became silent in her song.
“Ah, brother,” cried the laughing Alice, evidently not conscious
of the merry tone in which she spoke, for her heart had quickly
sympathized with the youthful sadness, of which she had now,
unexpectedly, been a witness;--“is this your young and interesting
Mrs. Twilight? What a beautiful creature! She seems to enjoy all
the luxury of grief, and her heart refuses to lose a tear of its
sorrow. That brow might have been kissed by the last breath of many
a brother, sister, and playmate:--so pale, calm and holy.”
“She is not of our country,” added Katharine Norton. “Her dress,
as well as her air, is foreign. How simply are those raven tresses
braided!”
“Katharine,” said her lover, “dost thou believe in young spirits,
who are said to haunt solitary places? Here, you might almost
imagine, that we have intruded upon one of them. How beautiful and
thoughtful that girlish face is! Now she looks towards us. Let
us draw near, and entreat her to sing to us, while the stars are
taking their places in the sky.”
The object of their curiosity and admiration arose meekly, as they
stood before her, and allowed the hand of Katharine to be laid on
her head.
“A blessing on you, fair strangers! It is night,--and do you wander
abroad? It is night, for the dew is upon me. Ah! that hand now laid
on my head is gentle and soothing, as that which so often presses
it in my sleepless dreams, throughout the long night;
Ah! it speaks not to me:
No face appears with smile,
Its light I could not see,
And trace the gentle wile,
But bathed in perfume from the far-off land,
Upon my head comes,--lies, a holy hand,”
and she raised her face to the sky so earnestly.
“But, my pretty child,” inquired Katharine, “why do you gaze
upwards? Does that hand, which visits you so oft, in dreams, appear
then, at this hour, from out one of those changing clouds?”
“Do I!” the child exclaimed in intense emotion, indicated by her
livelier tones and brightened face,--“do I, indeed, gaze upon the
wide, the beautiful sky? Yes, it breathes upon my forehead! Feel
it!”
They were bewildered at the strangeness of her words and movements.
She took Katharine’s hand, and held it to her brow, and then
resumed,--
“Now take it away. You would not deprive me of that sweet, sweet
influence. Oh! they tell me how glorious the sky is. I cannot see,
I cannot think of it, I cannot even dream of it. I know all the
flowers of earth by their touch and fragrance. I know, fair ladies,
that you are beautiful, but the sky is far, far above me. I hear
its sounds, but its face is veiled from me. Will the time never
come, when mine eyes shall open to a star, a bright-tinged cloud,
a fair expanse of love, to canopy and bound our dream? Must the
mean reptile be permitted to see them, although it prefers to crawl
amidst dust and clods,--and shall not I?”
“God pities the blind, fair child,” kindly returned Dawson.
“Have you seen God?”
“No; he cannot be seen by us, now.”
“Then I am happy,” she replied. “Oh! what a curse it would have
been on me, when all others could see the perfection of love,
wisdom, and power,--(for the flowers of earth, the sounds of
heaven, tell me that God must be that perfect being,)--I, I alone
was blind. Yes, I shall see yet. The little infant, for days awakes
not its eyelids to behold the mother, in whose bosom it is so
fondly nursed, and the rich stream by which its pouting lips are
fed; but soon they are opened to meet hers, beaming love upon every
movement. I never knew that infant’s joy. Oh! how I longed, in the
midst of soft whispers, to become acquainted with her who called me
child. But I am nature’s child, and when this short life is ended,
these eyes will be opened, and nature, my mother, shall be seen by
me. These sightless orbs! Oh! I know not what it is to see, even
in dreams. Dreams only hush me with sound, fragrance, and touch of
love, in a dark cradle, but never remove the covering, that I might
gaze upon the universe around. My little brother, far away in other
lands, was my inseparable companion, until he went to the tomb. He
led me to the river, and pointed my hand to the flickering light
on its ripple, and then bade me look in that direction. He made me
touch the sunbeam, resting and sporting alternately upon the bank,
and then asked if I did not see it. He placed me beneath the moon,
and bade me feel if I could not perceive its rays. He rowed me over
the still, placid lake, and then he would rest on his oars, and
point my finger to the stars, which, he said, were embosomed there;
and oh! what secret sounds thrilled through my silent soul. But I
never saw one object! He bathed his beautiful face, and flung back
his soft silken hair, and bade me gaze on a brother;--and I could
not!”
Overpowered with the strength of her feelings, she sat down. Still,
she covered not her face with her hands, but looked earnestly up,
as if it were a sin to gaze away from the sky, which she longed so
much to greet. Katharine and her companion kissed the young child,
while Dawson kindly asked,--
“From what land do you come? You speak our language, but your
appearance and feelings betoken you a native of a more genial sun.
Why do you wander here?”
“Wander! Is not life altogether a wandering? I have no friends but
flowers, and our home is the wide earth. I ever find them the same,
wherever I am, and, therefore, I think that I am the same; neither
changed in place nor time. My brother left me alone. Oh! was it not
cruel to commit the beautiful boy to the tomb? And yet, they told
me that his name and age were marked in white, innocent letters
upon his coffin! Oh! could the worms dare to crawl upon, or even
touch with their pollution ‘Henrico Fortice, aged twelve years.’
Was it not kind to mention his name and age?”
The two ladies took her hands in theirs, and kindly pressed them.
They gazed upon her large bright eyes, and almost, for the moment,
doubted that no light had ever entered them, until tears had come
trickling down her cheeks. They took a seat beside her, on the
mossy stone. She spoke not, and her hand returned not their touch.
They knew not how to console her. To their questions concerning
her past life, her friends, and native country, she had given no
definite answer: not because she seemed unwilling to detail all the
facts, but because she seemed never to have known them herself;
a creature of mere feelings, and thoughts, with no faculty for
earth. Her existence had, evidently, been but a dream, beautiful,
though troubled: and she had, hitherto, passed through it, like
a bird, through every land, feeling the sunshine of the laughing
sky, breathing the fragrance of wood and vale, at morn and eve,
and echoing a part in the universal chorus, but knowing no more;
careless of all things but flight and happiness. She raised the
hands of the two young ladies to her lips, and turning paler and
paler, at length dropped them, and shrunk back with a low and half
suppressed shriek of horror.