Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches Part 4

"One dark night the dip of oars was heard, and as the boat was run upon the pebbly sh.o.r.e, four men stepped briskly out, and laboriously lifted and carried a large, heavy, oblong box, and placed it in the cellar. John said it was merchandise, and must be stored; it was unsalable now, and it was best to keep it until there was a market for it.

"'But, John, why can it not be stored in the city, where it would be at hand when the demand arises for it, and why do these uncouth-looking men bring it at the dead of night? It would have been easier, and certainly more pleasant, to have brought it in the daylight.'

"'My dear little sweetheart,' he turned and said abruptly, 'women know nothing of business matters, and you would not understand me if I explained it all.'

"'You are deceiving me; for it does not require a business education to enable one to guess that there might be something wrong about a midnight transaction such as this.'

"He deigned no explanation, but answered half kindly, half sarcastically, 'Good night; ask no more of your puzzling questions.

Take this kiss; you are a little nervous and disturbed in temper, you need rest--go to bed.'

"He dismissed me with another kiss, as he had often done before. It was the first to have a tinge of bitterness to it. I was far from satisfied. What could this occupation be, that required him to remain away so long and gather about him such a.s.sociates? He had been gone a whole month. Oh, what a weary, unhappy, dreary month that was for me!--I thought it would never end. Why could not the fates let loose their wrath all at once? Why was not all revealed? I wept myself asleep, and was frightened into wakefulness by some horrid dream. I took up the newspaper and tried to read it; the letters all ran together. It was the Alexandria _Times and Advertiser_, of May, 1798.

Instinctively my eyes caught the following notice:

"_Counterfeit Dollars._ The public are requested to be on their guard with respect to a number of counterfeit dollars of the United States, now pa.s.sing in this city. They are made of block-tin and pewter, and, if not quite new, may be detected on sight. They are well cast, and, therefore, the impression is exact; but the milling around the edge is nothing like the true dollar, thereby may be easily known.

They are about four penny-weights too light."

"The paper fell from my hands. Why I could not tell, and yet the reading of that paragraph seemed connected with my life. Had that box merchandise in it? Had my husband become one of a gang of base money coiners? He could not have fallen so low; he was too good and too honest. That mysterious box was always present, turn which way I would. I felt impelled to go to the cellar and examine it. There could be no harm in merely looking; it would ease my troubled brain. I took the lantern and stealthily groped my way down into the damp earthy atmosphere. It was silent as death there; the dim light revealed nothing but the box. I held the lantern up over it, and the uncertain flickering of its rays fell upon the lid. There was no denying the ownership, it was marked in large bold letters, 'John Othard.' Now, I must know what it contained; I could wait no longer; a sort of determined malice took possession of me to connect it with the newspaper, and with my husband--fiendish thought. I did not desire to prove him other than the pure and n.o.ble man I had loved; but I was not myself--I would do it just to still my excited suspicions. Putting the lamp down over the name, as if that could blot it out, I went up the creaking steps, and hastened back with the axe firmly clenched in both hands, as if I feared a rescue. Placing the light on the earth floor, I hesitated whether to strike or not--the blow was to reveal joy or eternal misery to me. To leave the fatal box to itself, and go to my chamber, was to be racked with horrible doubts. I seized again the axe, and with repeated blows splintered the cover; then, with bleeding hands I ripped it off and hurled it from me. Yes, there, wrapped in rolls, shining with d.a.m.nable brilliancy, was my husband's secret. I was first stunned then frantic; cursed myself and him; wished I had been unable to read; that I had been blind, dead, rather than find him whom I had enshrined in my heart of hearts as a G.o.d, so unworthy. He would go to a felon's cell--perhaps to an ignominious death--and me, where could I go? I left the dreadful thing uncovered; as I backed away from it toward the stairway, those glittering witnesses grinned at me. I walked the floor all night--I could not rest. The angel of sleep had fled, frightened at the discord in my frame, and the angel of death was spreading his baneful wings over me.

"Dawn surprised with its unwelcome light, and found me a shivering, crouching wretch. That incestuous love with which we had defied the fates, had now borne its full fruit.

"About mid-day John came home. Despair had cooled me. I handed him the paper and pointed to the notice. I watched his eager face while he read it. He flushed and paled, and raising his eyes to meet mine, asked if I knew all.

"'Yes, I do know all. The box contains base coin. I have seen them.

They are there, and will consign you to a prison and me to my grave; that is, if there lives one single, pitying human being, who will take the trouble to heap the sod over a friendless, homeless wretch, as I now am.'

"'Calm yourself, darling; they cannot connect me with it. I will bury it. But few persons know of it, and they dare not tell.'

"He went to the cellar. I could hear him working away and talking excitedly to himself. I approached the steps and listened. He had ceased for a moment, I could hear his heavy breathing. I stepped down a few steps; he turned toward me, coat off; his face grimed with perspiration and dirt, he glared upon me. 'Aha, you come too late; I have concealed it, I am not the owner of it; you cannot prove _me_ guilty.' His mind was wandering; he imagined the officers were come to take him. I moved toward him; a pistol shot, a heavy fall, and he had escaped--so far as human penalty was concerned. Here I was, alone, on this accursed island; even the servants had fled in terror, and left me with the dead body of my husband. His blood ran from the wound, and formed in little pools, which the thirsty black earth drank, and left no stain. Now was I strong with frenzy; the method of madness was on me; I seized the tools, which the suicide had left, and commenced to dig what must now be a grave--wider, and deeper, and longer I dug it; then settled the body into it; and covering it up, heaped and rounded it. I did not mind the work; it was excitement and kept me from dying.

I went out into the open air--it was not yet light--the peaceful heavens gave no sign of wrath, and the bright twinkling stars looked down upon this scene of crime, and madness, and suicide, as serenely as they had before the island was changed from a domestic paradise to a pandemonium. I hear him calling, as if from the river; it is a stifled cry for a.s.sistance. I must go to him. I can save him, and I--"

The newspaper of that period contained the following:

"The body of a female was found floating in the river at the Great Falls of the Potomac--Unknown."

THE FAIRIES OF WARM SPRING MOUNTAIN.

A LEGEND OF BERKELEY SPRINGS.

To one who has not lived in a mountain country the abounding beauty of those sequestered regions is unknown. The mountains, blue, dim, and mysterious, with range backing range, and pillaring the heavens, lift their mist-enveloped peaks far above this breathing, thinking world.

There the wild deer roams in solitude and security, and there the daring of man has never penetrated. Grim old sentinels, clothed with verdure to their very summits, frown down upon coeval valleys which they protect, and through which they send their bower-born springs with gurgling music to the smiling plains, and onward, broadening into majestic rivers. The valleys, as if conscious of and grateful for the protection, run up to meet and embrace their gigantic guardians, with offerings of wild flowers and many-hued foliage. Afar off a human habitation clings to the side of the steep mount, surrounded by fields of emerald hue; a homestead, hewn from the primeval forest.

Leafless trees, blasted and riven by the angry elements, stretch their scathed limbs for mercy, while their earthless roots writhe like knotted reptiles and twist into hideous shapes. Roads, toiling lazily over steeps, gray, rugged, and rutty, lead away to unknown regions. A bald spot--rock--whose face has borne the violence of the storm for ages, yet defiantly stands there, inviting the fury of its ancient enemy. The clouds, broken into fantastic forms, cast gossamer shadows, which go floating phantom-like, away, as unreal as spirits and as tranquil as the promised land. Jutting crags, piled up in grotesque confusion, capped by monstrous rocky platforms, overhang the leafy depths. The rail track, like a glistening serpent, winds its way along the narrow sh.o.r.e, and over bridges light and fanciful, mere webs, spun by human spiders, spanning streams which foam their anger through narrow pa.s.ses. Beneath, in a distant valley, the river, like a shining thread, flows on through tangled thickets, past populous towns and lowly huts.

But these mountain solitudes were not always so lonely. Ages gone by, when the world first began, they were peopled by a race of fairies.

These little creatures lived and reveled in these grand old forests, and made them joyous with their merry shouts and sports. They knew no care, and nightly gathered beneath the spreading branches, sporting until the gray of morning drove them to their hiding places. They wantoned in the cool streams and swung in the pendant flowering vines, while the moon sent her silvery light down through the trembling leaves to light them on their way. The daylight was hateful to them, and all day long they pa.s.sed the time in secret bowers and mossy recesses, away from the light, and only left them when the starry heavens bade them forth again to their nightly revels.

Thus, these happy little people lived, and far and near through all the woods, yielded willing allegiance to a queen, majestic, lovely, and beloved by her tribes. Her sway was mild, for mutual kindness was the bond between them. But for a long time her sorrowing followers had noticed that her sweet face wore a troubled look; that she had not as usual joined in their pleasures, nor even approved of them. They felt that some dreadful secret filled her heart and clouded her brow, yet what it was none dared to ask, and she herself remained silent. They would willingly have died to free her from this sorrow, but they knew not what to do. They surrounded her and said:

"Beloved sovereign, may we not share thy grief?"

"It may be, soon," she replied.

"Have we caused you pain? Have we not been dutiful?"

"My sorrow, dear people, is not of your creation; you have ever been loving, faithful subjects."

"What, then, can we do to show our devotion to you?"

"Our season of enjoyment, my subjects, is almost gone, and soon we must hide ourselves to escape the cold. When the spring returns again you shall learn it all; until then seek to know no more."

The winter was dead and pa.s.sed away, and the genial breath of spring wafted silently over his grave, evoking glowing treasures from the ruin he had left. The earth, alive again, put forth its most beautiful creations, and tempted once more the fairies of the mountains to appear. The queen, true to her promise, sent swift messengers to her remotest people; she summoned them all to her presence. They came in troops, and filled the mountain tops and sides, and reached down into the valleys. She welcomed them as they approached her. In majesty she was seated upon a summer throne. It was formed of the finest woods of the forest, and quaintly fashioned by the little work-people. It was cushioned with the most delicate mosses, and wild vines had been trained up and over and around it, blending charmingly with the rustic woodwork. Above her tiny head spread a canopy of delicate twigs, twisted into fantastic shapes by skillful hands, and roofed with the glittering wings of the rarest insects, overlapped with such exactness that not even a drop of dew could penetrate. It was right royal, and she was worthy of it. Near the queen's pavilion were ranged the princ.i.p.al leaders of the various tribes, together with her most favored advisers.

Her eyes, sad and mournful, wandered over this vast a.s.semblage of devoted friends.

"My people," she commenced, "as I promised, I have called you from your sylvan abodes to impart what I have too long concealed. It has been known to myself alone that the period for our allotted stay upon earth has almost expired. In a short time we must go, forever, from these scenes of pleasure--from these woody retreats where we have known so many joys. Our places will soon be taken by the sons of men.

It is our fate that when they come we must disappear. Through all our lives we have done nothing but waste our time in pursuit of mere pleasure, hastening the time of our banishment and doing good to no one. Like the bees, fluttering from flower to flower, we will have sipped the sweets of life and left no mark that we ever existed. It is my wish ere we go, that we do something by which we may be remembered.

"Let us bestow upon mankind a gift so great that it shall last them forever, and which they may enjoy and bless us for to the end of time.

Such a gift is within our reach, but we have never sought it for ourselves."

With one voice they said--

"What shall it be? The will of our queen is our pleasure."

"I was sure of it," she said. "Now listen: It is known to us all that within this very mountain the purest waters are imprisoned. But we can release them; these crystal streams must be set free from their subterranean channels and brought sparkling to the surface."

They all bowed obedience, and asked when this great task should be commenced.

"Let the preparation for this arduous undertaking go forward," she said, "now while the summer is with us. Waste not the time; let our whole people be employed in making instruments suitable for breaking the crust which confines the treasure we are going to bring forth for the benefit of mankind. We must hasten to our work and be diligent. I dismiss you, but a.s.semble again when next the dreary winter is past and the genial sun warms the buds into leaflets--when the upland rills have found their voices once more, and come leaping from their hidden birthplaces."

The gentle summer had pa.s.sed, the winter had again come and gone, and the troops were gathering in response to the command of their mistress. They had been industrious. Each came armed with a stout staff, made from the toughest wood and shod with the hardest flint. In myriads they arrived--whole armies of them--and eagerly awaited the command to go forward. They moved in column, headed by captains, down the steep declivities. They toiled with a will. Many died of fatigue, but their places were soon filled by other eager workers. At length their toil was rewarded, and the bright and beautiful waters gushed forth in great fountains.

The fairies have long since disappeared, but the waters still flow and fill the little valley with sweet, health-giving streams.