All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography Part 35

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 h.e.l.l 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 G.o.d 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 superst.i.tious or the irreligious; they affected every cla.s.s, 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. G.o.d has visited them, angels have rested in their solemn aisles, mortals seeking heavenly mercy have found it there.

Now the power of evil a.s.sociation with places is quite as great--perhaps greater; for evil clings pa.s.sionately 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 G.o.d'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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "What do you mean, Mr. Hall?"

"Well," he answered, "if devils haunt the places they made h.e.l.ls 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 sc.u.m 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 G.o.d."

Robert made a motion of dissent. "I do not believe," he said, "that G.o.d would select for the execution of any of his purposes, foul spirits who gloat in cruelties."

"We know nothing more surely of G.o.d, 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 h.e.l.l 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 h.e.l.l, G.o.d would care for him, and Ezekiel tells us that Pharaoh shall be comforted in h.e.l.l." (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 G.o.d'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 G.o.d'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 gra.s.ses. 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 p.r.o.ne 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 a.n.a.lysis, 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 G.o.d 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 j.a.ponica 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 G.o.d's mercy, but G.o.d 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 ent.i.ty 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 j.a.ponica 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 inst.i.tution 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 a.s.sistance. 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 pa.s.sed 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, G.o.d 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,

"G.o.d 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, G.o.d doth not leave His Own."

CHAPTER XVII

THE NEVER-COMING-BACK CALLED DEATH

"Calamity is a delicate G.o.ddess, and her feet are tender. Her feet are soft. She treads not on the ground. She takes her path upon the hearts of men."

The next day was the worst we had yet seen. It poured incessantly, and when the rain ceased at nightfall, it was followed by a fog so dense that it seemed palpable. Every room in the house was full of it, lights would hardly burn, and breathing was not easy. Robert and the children went early to bed, but I wandered about the different rooms, watching the sleepers. I did not feel very well, and was nervous and full of fears. When the clock struck twelve I was worse, and I concluded it would be well for me to try to sleep. But before putting down the lamp, I opened the Bible, for my father had often told me, to take a verse to bed with me to meditate upon, if I happened to be wakeful. It was a common, almost a nightly custom, and I followed it at that hour more as a habit than a conscious intent. So opening the Bible, as my fingers touched the screw of the lamp, my eyes fell upon these words, "_Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let your widows trust in me_." (Jeremiah, 49:11.)

My first emotion was anger. I closed the Book hastily but did not put out the light. I told myself, that I would not go to bed with that strange verse pealing in my ears. And I wondered at my opening on the Book of Jeremiah; it was one book that we never read, either personally or in the family. Its pages indeed were fresh and white, while the Psalms and Gospels were well worn and discolored. All that splendid faith, which is exactly to the inner woman what courage is to the physical woman, had slipped away from me. Why was G.o.d so hard to me? I wanted so much a little verse of comfort, and I had been given an evil prediction. I cried very much as a sensitive child would cry, who thought its dearly loved father had been unkind, or indifferent to its distress.

I had said, I would not go to bed with that verse pealing in my ears, but the pain in every limb of my body grew constantly worse. I put my fingers upon my wrist, and found there that peculiar "bound" that says at every throb, _yellow fever_! I knew at last, that I was smitten with the fever. Then I called Robert, and was quickly in such physical anguish that I forgot all else; also a feeling of sheer despair took possession of me, and during the ensuing week I was only conscious of the agony of a thirst, which could not be satisfied but at the risk of the vomito. Robert put bits of crushed ice between my lips frequently, but they did not a.s.suage the cruel longing for water. I was in an unconscious state wandering in "a desolate land, where the pains of h.e.l.l get hold on me--a land of deserts and pits, a land of drought and of the shadow of death, that no man pa.s.sed through, and where no man dwelt;" and into which neither husband nor child could follow me; tossing, muttering, slowly parching and burning up, I lived on from day to day.