The Laughing Mill and Other Stories Part 1

The Laughing Mill and Other Stories.

by Julian Hawthorne.

PREFACE.

What is called the human interest in fiction is doubtless more absorbing than any other, but other legitimate sources of interest exist. The marvellous always possesses a fascination, and justly; for while it is neither human nature nor fact, it ministers to an aesthetic appet.i.te of the mind which neither fact nor human nature can gratify. Superst.i.tion has been well abused; but that were a sad day which should behold the destruction in us of the quality which keeps superst.i.tion alive.

Fortunately that day can never come--least of all under a Positivist administration.

Such works as "The Tempest," "Faust," and "Consuelo" show their authors at their best, because, being obliged by the subject to soar above the level of vulgar possibility, the writers catch a gleam of transcendent sunlight on their wings. And he who would mirror in his works the whole of man must needs include the impossible along with the rest. Whoever has lived thoughtfully feels that there has been something in his experience beyond what appears in "Tom Jones," "Adam Bede," and "Vanity Fair." They are earth without sky. I do not refer to that goody-goody Sunday-school sky which weeps and smirks over the mimic worlds of so many worthy novelists, male and female; but to that unfathomed mystery opening all around us--the sky of Shakespeare and Dante, of Goethe and Georges Sand. A reader with a healthy sense of justice feels that an occasional excursion mystery-ward is no more than he has a right to demand. And such excursions are wholesome for literature no less than for him. For the story-teller, sensible of the risk he runs of making his supernatural element appear crude and ridiculous, exerts himself to the utmost, and his style and method purify and wax artistic under the strain.

These remarks must smooth the way to the confession that in the present volume no "human interest" will be found, or has been attempted. The gist of the work (or at least of three-fourths of it) is to show how the impossible might occur. Now, in order to appreciate the delicate flavour of a ghost, it is indispensable that the palate should not be cloyed by a contemporary diet of flesh and blood. In other words, the reality of the personages amidst whom the disembodied spirit appears should be insisted upon no further than is necessary to the telling them apart; only that side of the human figures which is most in accord with the superhuman should be made prominent. If the writer has managed this part of his business properly, he is open to criticism only in so far as he may have sinned in the way of conception and literary execution; and upon those points he is happily spared the necessity of p.r.o.nouncing judgment. He may however be permitted to observe that the following stories are among the very lightest and least profound of their cla.s.s; there are no tears or terrors in them; barely even a smile or a sigh; and, in short, their success--should they achieve any--will be mainly due to the fact that with such small pretensions failure would actually become difficult.

One of the tales, it should be added, is a mere _jeu d'esprit_, the presence of which in the collection is justifiable only on the plea that it makes believe to be what the others are--relieving a note too monotonously sounded by lowering it to the key of mockery. Possibly, nevertheless, it may turn out to be the float which will save the weightier portion of the cargo from going too speedily to the bottom.

All the stories have appeared, during the last four years, in various periodicals, to the editors of which my acknowledgments are due for leave to reproduce them.

_January, 1879._

THE LAUGHING MILL.

I.

Among the pleasantest memories of my earlier days is one of an old gabled farmhouse overlooking the sea. It is a July afternoon, calm and hot. The sea is pale blue and its surface gla.s.sy smooth; but the pa.s.sage of a storm somewhere to the eastward causes long slumberous undulations to lapse sh.o.r.ewards. They break upon the Devil's Ribs--that low black reef about half a mile out--and the sound is borne to our ears some seconds after the white-foam line has marked itself against the blue and vanished. There is a fine throb of sun-loving insects in the air, which we may hear if we listen for it; but more immediately audible is the guttural drawing of old Jack Poyntz's meerschaum pipe, and the delicate clicking of his sweet daughter Agatha's polished knitting-needles. From within doors comes the fillip of water and the clink of chinaware--good Mrs. Poyntz washing up the dinner-things. For we have just dined, and the blessing of a good digestion is upon all of us.

Yes; there we three sit, in my memory, side by side upon the stone bench outside the farmhouse door. The projecting eaves throw a quiet, transparent shadow over us. Two or three venerable hens are scratching and nestling in the hot sandy soil near yonder corner, and conversing together in long-drawn comfortable croakings. The fragrant smoke from Poyntz's pipe-bowl circles upwards on the air, until it takes the sunlight high over head. Truly a pleasant time, whose peacefulness is still present with me after so many years. I am old, who then was young; but that July sunshine is warm in my heart to-day.

Poyntz was an ancient mariner--not lean and uncanny, however; but burly, jovial, and brown; with a huge grizzled beard spreading over his mighty chest, a voice as deep and mellow as a sea-lion's, and eyes as blue and clear as the ocean upon which they had looked for more than sixty years.

He had been a successful sailor, had visited many lands and brought home many cargoes, and was, in a rough simple way, a thorough cosmopolitan.

After his last voyage he had settled down in the ancestral farmhouse, and applied himself to agriculture. He was as prosperous, contented, and respected a man as any in the neighbourhood; and during the fortnight or so that I had lodged beneath his roof, I had grown into a hearty liking for him. While as to Agatha--ah, it was not liking that I felt for her! Strange that that fair, finely-moulded, queenly creature was only a sailor's daughter! Much as I honoured Poyntz, I could not help sometimes feeling surprised at it. At all events, she was as perfect a lady as ever stepped on high-arched feet; and I fancied that the old mariner and his wife treated her in a manner more befitting a distinguished visitor than a child of their own. There was st.u.r.dy little Peter, now--he whose brown legs were visible beneath the low spreading bough of a scrub-oak beside the mill-stream yonder--there could be no doubt as to _him_. But what a brother for Agatha!

How well I recall her aspect, though it is more than twenty years since that day. Her shapely head was bound about with a turban of her bright yellow hair, but her eyes and eyebrows were dark. Her neck was round and slender, and supported its burden in unconscious poses of maidenly dignity. The contours of her figure were full, yet refined; her wrists were small, and her hand was shaped like that which lies on the bosom of Canova's Venus. Her manners breathed simplicity and sweet composure, yet were reserved and serious withal, and sometimes they were tinged with a shadow of melancholy. At such moments her hands would fall into her lap, her head would droop a little forward, and her dark eyes gravely fix themselves upon some sunlit sail that flecked the pale horizon. So would she remain until, perhaps, the sail sank below the verge, or became invisible in shadow; then, with a sigh, the soft fetters of her preoccupation would seem to fall away from her. What were her thoughts during those reveries? and why should they be sad ones? I had never ventured to question her much as yet; her mystery was itself a fascination.

One thing about her had attracted my particular notice from the first--the curious pearl-sh.e.l.l necklace that she always wore clasped round her smooth throat. It was composed of very small sh.e.l.ls of a peculiar species, not found in that part of the world. These were woven into a singular pattern of involved curves, and were fastened with a broad gold clasp, in the centre of which was set a large pearl. Handsome as the ornament was, however, and becoming to its wearer, it would not have so riveted my attention but for a circ.u.mstance to which I must here make a pa.s.sing allusion.

Among my most precious possessions at that time was a fine oil portrait of my great-grandmother, who was a famous beauty in her day. My family, I should have said, is of Danish extraction, though the name--Feuerberg--was, after the emigration of the elder branch to America, translated to the present Firemount. In my great-grandmother's days there had been a bitter family quarrel; the younger brother had attempted to cast doubts upon the legitimacy of the firstborn, and when he failed to make good his claim, he had fraudulently seized upon a large portion of the inheritance and made his escape--whither was not known, for no effort was made to pursue him. It was believed that he went to Germany and married there; and that afterwards he or his son had made another remove, since which even conjecture had been silent concerning them. But to return to the portrait. It was a half-length, and had the quaint headdress and costume of the period, one detail only being out of the fashion; but this it was that had always possessed most interest for me. It was the curious pearl-sh.e.l.l necklace, woven in a strange pattern, and fastened with a golden clasp, which was represented upon my great-grandmother's statuesque bosom. This necklace had for centuries been a family heirloom, and many quaint traditions were connected with it. It was said to have been given to the founder of our race by a water-witch, or some such mythologic being; and sundry mysterious virtues were supposed to belong to it. Precisely what these virtues were I cannot tell, nor does it happen to be of much consequence. One saying only I remember--that the wearing of it would ensure us happiness and prosperity so long as no member of the family brought dishonour on the name; but thereafter it would bring ruin.

Now the necklace had been handed on from one prosperous generation to another, until the date of the quarrel above alluded to; and then, all at once, it had disappeared; and my great-grandmother was the last person known to have worn it. She mentioned it on her deathbed, and foretold that no good fortune was to be expected for the Feuerbergs until the sacred heirloom was recovered, and made a symbol of the healing of the family feud.

The negative part of the prophecy had certainly been verified. The elder branch of the Feuerbergs never got over the effects of the blow inflicted upon it by the younger brother. They gradually subsided from their original high estate; and were at last compelled to abandon the ancestral homestead, and try their luck in the New World. At the time of my birth we were in decently comfortable circ.u.mstances, which improved upon the whole as I grew towards manhood. I pa.s.sed through college, and was afterwards admitted to the Bar, which by-and-by afforded me a tolerable income. But one spring I fancied myself ailing, and resolved to try the sea air; and so it happened that I became acquainted with Jack Poyntz, and with Agatha, and with her pearl-sh.e.l.l necklace.

Of course, all idea of recovering the original necklace had long ago been abandoned. It had been conjectured that the seceding brother of old times had appropriated it along with many other things that did not belong to him; but there was no proof of this, other than that its disappearance had been simultaneous with his own. Moreover, if the fact must be told, I had outgrown the easy credulity of boyhood, and rather inclined to suspect that the whole picturesque old tradition was three parts imagination to one of truth. It might soothe my family pride to ascribe our decadence to the loss of a trinket, or I might excuse my indolence by declaring that fortune was attainable only on condition of its being found again; but if I descended to hard matter-of-fact, as a lawyer should do, I must admit there was nothing cross-questionable in such an old-wives' tale.

Cross-questionable or not, it will readily be conceived that the sight of Agatha's pearl-sh.e.l.ls gave me a thrill of surprise, and deepened my interest in one who needed no such accidental attraction to render her irresistible. The necklace so closely resembled the one in the portrait, that the latter might have been painted from it. It was possible, no doubt, that my great-grandmother's necklace was not unique; that a duplicate--nay, many duplicates--existed. But it was not upon the face of it probable, nor was I disposed to accept any such commonplace solution of the problem. I loved Agatha, and I loved to think (for have I not hinted that I was romantic, though a lawyer?)--I say it suited me to believe that the necklace linked her, however unaccountably, with me. It was evident that she herself looked upon it as a most precious possession. She wore it continually, as she might have worn a talisman, and touched it often, twisting the golden clasp about, or following the woven pattern with meditative finger-tips. Once, when suddenly alarmed, I saw her grasp it quickly in her hand, as if either seeking protection from it, or instinctively yielding it protection; and another time, during a storm, when a vessel was labouring in the offing, and seemed in danger of being carried upon the Devil's Ribs, I came upon her just as she kissed the great pearl in the clasp, as a Catholic would have kissed the crucifix to avert misfortune.

"Water-witch! water-witch! be thy spells wholesome?" I said in Danish, for a knowledge of the ancestral tongue has always been kept alive in the family.

She turned round, started, and to my no small surprise, answered in the same language: "Doubt not the spell, if the danger be daunted!"

And then, seeming to recollect herself, she blushed, and said in English: "It was a song my old nurse taught me. I should like to be a witch, if I might save people from being shipwrecked."

I made no reply, and we stood silently watching the struggle of the vessel with the storm for perhaps ten minutes. At length it succeeded in tacking at the very moment when all seemed lost, and bore safely away.

Agatha's eyes met mine for an instant; there were both smiles and tears in them. She kissed her pearl again and moved away. But my digression has already gone farther than I intended. Let us return to the stone bench beneath the eaves, and the hot July sunshine.

II.

"Mr. Poyntz," said I, clasping my hands behind my head, and crossing one knee over the other, "how happens your house to be set up directly opposite the Devil's Ribs, and at least a mile and a half from the village? It's well enough in summer of course, but in winter, when the snow is on the ground, I should think you'd want to be nearer your butcher, not to speak of the meeting-house."

"Ay, surely!" answered Mr. Poyntz, taking the pipe from his mouth, and smoothing down the great sheaf of his beard. "But, d'ye see, sir, 'twas not I set the house here, nor my father before me, and maybe there was no butcher, nor yet no meeting-house along in those times. And another thing, since you've set me a-going, sir; you see the lighthouse on the point yonder?" indicating an abrupt rocky promontory half a mile to the right of our position, which lay athwart the sh.o.r.e like a vast wall, separating us from the little fishing hamlet on the other side. "Ye see the lighthouse on tip-end of Gloam's Point, don't ye? Well, sir, old as that lighthouse looks to you now, I, that am a deal older than you are, can remember when 'twa'nt there. And that brings me round to what I was going to say. Along in those times, sir, when there wa'nt no regular lighthouse, but no bit less danger of craft running ash.o.r.e, they used to rig up a sort of a jury-light, if I might so call it, in the front of our old gable. Ye may see the fixings now if ye steps forward a bit and look up there. Ay, ay, every dark night, more especially every dirty night, some of us would mount the garret shrouds, d'ye see, and show the lantern. And many a ship we saved, no doubt; but they'd come ash.o.r.e once in a while, for the best we could do."

"That's a suggestive name--Devil's Ribs. I suppose the bones of many a good man and vessel lie swallowed up in them."

"Ay, surely," returned the ancient mariner, swathing his head in a haze of tobacco-smoke. "The more since the currents and whirlpools thereabout mostly keep back the floating bits--spars, bodies, and such like--from getting to the beach. Whatever strikes there, sinks there, speaking in a general way. And forasmuch as there's five-and-thirty fathom clear water there, and always a tidy bit of surf on, 'tain't very popular work dredging."

"That's an ugly thought," I observed; "a great ship might go down there, and nothing ever be found to show what she was or who sailed in her."

I happened to glance at Agatha as I made this observation, and noticed that she paled a little and let her hands fall in her lap, and after a few moments she got up and entered the house, leaving Mr. Poyntz and me to ourselves. I fancied--but I may have been mistaken--that as she pa.s.sed the threshold she laid her finger upon the pearl-sh.e.l.l necklace.

"Miss Agatha doesn't like to hear of wrecks," I remarked after a pause.

"Why no, sir," said Poyntz slowly, his blue eyes fixed upon the surf-whitened reef; "and perhaps 'tis natural she should not--specially those wrecks that the Devil's Ribs is to blame for."

"Has that necklace of hers anything to do with it?" I asked--though I cannot tell what possessed me to put so inconsequent a question. Partly to justify myself, I added: "It looks as if it might have been washed up out of the sea."

Poyntz threw a sharp look at me out of the corner of his weather-eye.

"Ye've noticed the necklace, have ye?" said he; "and ye've a quick wit of your own, as they say is the way with lawyers. Howbeit, I think Jack Poyntz knows an honest man when he sights him, and hoping ye'll excuse the freedom, sir, methinks you are one. Now there's a bit of a yarn I'd like to spin ye--you being beknown amongst the great gentlefolks down to New York and elsewhere--about a wreck that once was on the Devil's Ribs.

Maybe some of those you do business for can throw light upon it like; for what the ship was that was wrecked, or whence she sailed, was never known; for only that necklace that Agatha wears--only that and--something else, ever came to land. Ye guessed right, sir, d'ye see, and in hopes of your guessing yet more, I'll spin ye the yarn, leastways if ye've no objection. But afore starting, if ye'll kindly allow me, sir, I'll load my pipe, for with me the words come ever easier when there's smoke behind 'em."

I said nothing, but Poyntz saw well enough that I was very much interested, and, like all incorrigible yarn-spinners, he found a humorous pleasure in prolonging his hearer's suspense. It was five minutes before his pipe was cleaned out, refilled, and lighted to his satisfaction, and then, having spread out his great arms along the back of the bench, stretched his mighty legs in front of him, and fixed his gaze upon the lighthouse--his favourite yarn-spinning att.i.tude--he appeared to wait for an inspiration.

"How long ago was it?" I asked at length, to set him going.

"Well, sir, it might be five-and-twenty years ago that that wreck took place. You was hardly more than out of your nursery then, I'm thinking.

As for me, I was a chap of maybe forty--or maybe not so much; my old father he had just parted his last cable, as I might say, and I had just come in from a voyage to the Pacific Coast for hides, and was living in this house alone by myself. I'd come home, sir, to find the girl as had given me her word spliced to another man; and so it happened that I stayed a bachelor till after the age when many find themselves grandads.

But I wedded at last, sir, as ye see, and never had cause to think the worse of myself for doing it!"

"I should think not, indeed," I a.s.sented, laughing. But meanwhile I was telling myself that Agatha must be nearly twenty years old, and that if Poyntz had wedded only at the age of a grandfather, she could hardly be his own offspring by marriage. Were the doubts which her aspect had already suggested to me well founded, then? I prudently waited, in the hope that this question likewise might find its answer in the course of my host's story.

"It was along about that time, sir," Poyntz continued, having acknowledged my compliment with a friendly nod, "that I first came acquainted with Scholar Gloam, as the folks called him; him that yonder point's named after, and that lived at the Laughing Mill, over there, back of the wood. But now I come for to think on it," broke off the old yarn-spinner, pulling his meerschaum out of the corner of his mouth and looking round at me, "did I ever chance to speak to ye of Scholar Gloam afore?"

"I don't think you ever did; but I always like to hear about anything that has a picturesque nickname, as almost everything hereabouts seems to have."

The hale old man laughed, and raked his brown fingers through his spreading beard. "In an out-of-the-way place like this, sir," said he, "where's few enough things anyway, nicknames come natural. Well, now, as touching Scholar Gloam, he died nigh a score of years ago; leastways he knocked off living in the body. For there be those," lowering his voice and wrinkling his brows, "there be those--superst.i.tious like--ready to take affidavit of having seen him, certain days in the year, a prowling round the Laughing Mill. His grave is near by, right under the Black Oak; and maybe the place is a bit skeery.

"Howsoever, that don't concern us now. When I knew Scholar Gloam, he was a middling-sized, slender-built young gentleman, having queer hair not all of the same colour, and a trick of talking to himself in a sort of a low mumbling way, as it might be the bubbling of water under a ship's stern, if ye know what I mean, sir. He was a comely favoured man of the pale sort, and grave and silent, though always the gentleman in his manners, as by blood and breeding. For the Gloams was the great family here fifty years ago, and was landlords of most of the farms roundabout; but they steered a bad course, as I might say, and died out, so as Scholar Gloam was the last of 'em. Old Harold, the Scholar's father, he was a reckless devil if any man ever was; and when he died 'twas found that Gloam Hall and all belonging thereto must go to the auction. The only bit left was the Laughing Mill itself, and an acre or two of land round about it."