Not Pretty, but Precious; And Other Short Stories Part 12

"It's nothing of ours, I'm pretty sure," said her sister, looking at it.

"But come, if you've got what you want: let's go into the other room--it's cold here."

As they crossed the threshold, Miss Faithful started.

"What's the matter?" said her sister, though she well knew the reason. She too had heard the same long sigh felt the same breath of chill air.

"Why, it seemed as if something breathed close to my ear," said Miss Faithful, turning white; "and what's more," she continued, as they crossed the pa.s.sage and entered the work-room, "I believe you heard it too, and that you've seen things in this house you haven't told me of."

"Well, child," said Miss Sophonisba in a subdued tone, "there _are_ some queer things in this world, that's a fact--queerer than ever I thought till lately."

Miss Faithful did not press for an explanation: she went quietly on with her dressmaking, and her sister, hurried though she was about her work, set herself to examine the papers.

I remember seeing the original ma.n.u.script when I was a little girl, but it was unfortunately destroyed by an accident. My father, however, had copied part of it, and this copy is yet in my possession. Miss Sophonisba could make very little of the record, which related to scientific matters of which she was quite ignorant; and as the most important words were indicated by signs and figures, she was completely puzzled. The writer seemed to have been seeking in vain some particular result. She looked on through the dates of the year 1785, and saw here and there familiar names, and at last commenced reading at these words:

"_June_ 3. This day took possession of my house. Busied in making arrangements. Shall build my own furnace. Am sure now that I am in the right way. Am determined no one shall come into the house."

Much followed which Miss Sophonisba could not understand, until, under the date of July 1, she found recorded:

"Being over at Neponset, looking for the plant witch-hazel, bethought myself to ask of the fellow they call Indian Will. Going to the little hovel he lives in, found him lying very ill with pleurisy. By the grace of G.o.d was able to help him. His wife told me where to find what I sought. To my surprise, discovered she knew much of its virtues. It may be these people have a knowledge of simples worth investigating.

"_Sept._ 3. No nearer my great end. My means fast growing less. Have borrowed from Jonathan Phelps, but the sum is but a drop for such a purpose. Most like some of these people, who complain of my price for the exercise of my skill, would give me threefold did they know what I work for, if they might share in its result. Yet I know I am in the right way.

Should I die before I come to its end--Is Death the gate of knowledge?"

"_Oct._ 7. I advance just so far and no farther. Why is it that I see my path so plain just to the one point, and there it stops? How small our understanding of the endless mysteries around us! yet should something differing from every day's experience befall us, how quickly we speak of the _supernatural_!

"_Oct._ 29. No nearer, no nearer, and my money all but done. Took some of my books into Boston and offered them to sell. Refused, of course. How should they know their value? Have sent them to London. It was hard, but patience! patience!"

"_Oct._ 30. This day Indian Will brought the plants I wanted. Have bade him never to tell any one that he comes here. He only has ever entered. So far as I know, he has obeyed. He thinks me like one of his own powahs.

"_Dec._ 15. At last! I have pa.s.sed the crisis, and without accident. How simple it seems, now that I know! It was my last bit of the essential metal: like from like. Each element has its seed in itself. The poor people say I have been good to them. Should success be final, I can indeed help mankind.

"_Dec._ 16. Last night, lifting the crucible from the furnace, spilled the liquor on the floor. Had I one particle more of the essential element! All was utterly lost: no one will lend to me.

"_Dec._ 18. What have I done that I should feel guilt? What was worth the life of such a useless creature to the interests of mankind? Why did he not trust my word and give me what I needed when I asked him? If he had not waked from his half-drunken sleep when I made the attempt, I would have given him threefold. I gave him his life once: why will not that atone? No one will know ever. I will devote my life to relieve distress.

What is such as his, weighed in the balance with my purpose? It is strange that since then I have forgot the very essential thing in the process. I cannot read my own cipher in which I wrote it down; but it will come, it will come.

"_Dec._ 19. Have been all day trying to read the cipher in vain. Have lost the key, have forgotten the chief link. Until I can recall it the metal is useless. What if it should never come to me? This night went down to the Point. Threw into the sea the evidences of what I have brought to pa.s.s.

The tide will soon wash them away.

"_Dec._ 20. Surely it is not meant this thing should be known. To-day a body came on sh.o.r.e, bruised and shattered, but said to be identified by those who should have known best. Now, no one will ever search this house.

Twice to-day I have been to look at the place: nothing can be seen.

Providence means I should live to finish my work--to complete that which I alone of mortal men have rightly understood. Why is it this link is broken off in my mind, and the cipher I myself wrote darker than before? Would the creature but have given it up quietly! It was in self-defence I struck at last. What was it to repent of? Some have held that such as he are not human--only animals a little more sagacious than the brutes about us.

"_Dec._ 22. Useless, useless! My memory fails me entirely. I have tried to go on in vain. What is this that is with me now these last two days?

"_Dec._ 25. Once I kept Christmas in another fashion than this. I had no guest but one I dare not name--

'Tumulum circ.u.mvolat umbra.'

"_Dec._ 27. To day it put out its hand: the soft wet fingers touched me. I will go out into the world, I will go out into the world. I will help those who are sick and in misery. Will it not be at peace then?"

Then the journal paused: there was no further entry till April 29, 1786:

"The girl, Hepsey Ball, died to-day. Her eyes were opened to see what I see all the hours in the day. I must go. I have not dared to leave, lest the awful Thing should be found in its hiding-place. They begin to press me for money. The house will go on the mortgage. Heard Phelps say if it was his he would drain the place in the cellar. To-day received fifty dollars from the sale of apparatus. Could not part with it before, thinking I should recover my lost knowledge, and should use it. Perhaps it will come back to me if I go away: it may be This will not follow me. I will drop the gold into the same place: if it is that it wants, it will rest. I cannot tell what I have done, my life is too precious. I only, of all men, have seen unveiled the mystery. I will leave This behind. When I am safe it may be found, and they will lay it to rest in the earth, if that is what it seeks. Then it will cease to persecute me with its step close at my back, its loathsome clinging touch."

Miss Sophonisba (my friend went on) looked up from her reading with such a strange expression that her sister was startled. "Put on your bonnet, Faithful," said she: "I'm going down to see the minister."

"What do you mean?" said Miss Faithful: "it's nearly nine o'clock."

"I don't care if it's midnight. I'm going to show these to him, and tell him what's happened here, and he may make what he can of it."

"Then you have seen something?" said Miss Faithful, turning pale.

Miss Sophonisba made a sign of a.s.sent; "I'll tell you all about it when we get there, but do come along now. You're work's done, and I'll take the bonnet with me and finish it there."

They lived at some distance from the parsonage, and the roads were in even worse condition than they are now. It was a tiresome walk, and Miss Faithful, clinging to her sister's side, was almost inclined to wish they had braved the terrors at home rather than ventured out into the dark. The clergyman was a middle-aged bachelor, a grandson of the Parson H---- mentioned by Mrs. T----. He heard Miss Sophonisba's story in silence, but without any sign of dissent. Faithful, in spite of her terror, could not but feel a mild degree of triumph in her sister's evident conviction that what she had seen was, to say the least, unaccountable.

Mr. H---- looked over the papers which had been found in the cupboard, and which Miss Sophonisba had brought with her. "This is undoubtedly Doctor Haywood's writing," he said at last. "I have a book purchased of him by my grandfather, and which has marginal notes in the same hand."

"What shall we do, sir?" asked Miss Sophonisba.

"If I were you I should leave the house as soon as possible. If there is anything in the air which induces such--" Mr. H---- hesitated for a word--"sensations as these, it would be better to go."

"Sensations!" said Miss Sophonisba, almost indignant. "I tell you I saw it myself; and what made the wet spot on Faithful's cape, and the rest?"

"I can't undertake to say, Miss T----; but if you like I will just come up to-morrow, and we will look into the matter a little. My cousin, Lieutenant V----, is here from his ship, and he will a.s.sist me. And meantime you had best stay here to-night: my sister will be very glad to see you."

Miss H---- was a particular friend of the sisters, but she could not but feel a little curious to know the object of their visit. Miss Sophonisba would have kept the matter to herself, but Miss Faithful, in her excitement, could not but tell the story of their experiences. Miss H----, however, was a discreet woman, and kept the tale to herself.

The next evening the clergyman, his cousin the lieutenant and Miss Sophonisba went quietly about dusk to the old house. They went down into the cellar, and the drag which the sailor had constructed brought up some bleached bones, and at the second cast a skeleton hand and a skull. As the latter was disengaged from the drag something fell glittering from it upon the cellar floor: two coins rolled to different corners. Mr. H----, picked them up. One was a Spanish piece, the other an English half guinea.

"Miss T----," said the clergyman in a low tone, "I will see that these poor relics are laid in the burial-ground; and then--really I think you had better leave the house."

Miss Sophonisba made no opposition.

The three ascended the cellar stairs, but as they entered the room they paused terror-stricken, for across the floor, making, as it pa.s.sed, a wild gesture of despair, swept the Shape, living yet dead.

"What was that?" said the clergyman, who was the first to recover himself, "_It_," said Miss Sophonisba in a whisper.

"I have seen that face before," said the sailor. "Once on a stormy pa.s.sage round the Cape we came upon a deserted wreck rolling helplessly upon the waves. I, then a young midshipman, went in the boat which was sent to board her. No living creature was there, but in the cabin we found a corpse, that of an old, old man. The look of the Thing was so awful that I could not bear it and hid my face. One of the sailors, however, took from the dead hand a paper covered with characters in cipher, which no one could read. This paper afterward fell into my possession, and I submitted it in vain to several experts, all of whom failed to read it. By an accident it was destroyed, and the secret, whatever it was, is hidden for ever; but the face of that corpse was the face I have just seen in this room."

CLARA F. GUERNSEY.

The Blood Seedling.