Wise Saws and Modern Instances Part 10

But, alas! for poor Toby,--when his favourite disciple Joe, after being torn from him by Dame Deborah's commandment in obedience to Toby's great foe,--the vicar,--alas! for Toby, when Joe, filled with zeal to discharge his conscience, re-entered the tailor's cottage one evening at dusk, and attacked his old teacher in the very heart and centre of his predilections, declaring there would be no salvation for him in this world, till he had followed the example of the Ephesian Christians, and burnt his cabalistical books; nor any happiness for him in the prospect of a future life, until he had eschewed all his delusive vanities, and cried at the footstool of his Maker for the pardon of his sins! Never was the might with which a mind sinewed by some strong enthusiasm controls even an elder and more experienced intellect more signally evinced than in the contest between the orphan Joe, under his religious frenzy, and his old teacher, the soothsaying tailor. In the outset of this strange opposition and aggression on the part of his late scholar, Toby Lackpenny stoutly parried the blows of his unexpected adversary by returning text for text, and argument for argument.

"Is it not plainly declared in the Book of Judges, that 'the stars in their courses fought against Sisera?'" asked Toby, with all the emphasis which his zeal for the hereditary honour and power of the stars prompted;--"can any thing prove more clearly that they sway human affairs? And the inspired Psalmist saith of the heavenly bodies, that 'Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.' Which word _line_, according to Aben Ezra, and the most skilful cabalists," continued Toby, diving into the profoundest depths of his learning for the defence of his beloved theories, "ought to be rendered _rule_ or _direction_, and evidently sets forth the fact that the planets exercise lordship in their respective houses,--while the latter part of the pa.s.sage makes known the precious truth that the wise and skilful student will learn to understand their language."

"But you have studied their language a long time without understanding it a whit the surer,--you know you have,--for you have told me so more than once, neighbour Toby," replied Joe, with honest and unshrinking fervour; "and as your head is fast becoming grey, and as flowers are often nipped though but in the bud,--I think it would be wiser in you as an aged man, and in me as a frail youth, to get prepared for death;--therefore, I conjure you, Toby, as you value your own soul, to forsake these vanities!"

This simple and sincere language, from one who was then little more than a child in years, shook the old man's heart more than all the clergyman's hortatory thunderbolts had shaken his reason. Toby attempted to renew his sophistries, at Joe's succeeding visits; but felt, at length, thoroughly subdued under the heartfelt and persevering enthusiasm of a mere boy.

"Verily!" Toby Lackpenny often exclaimed in after-times, when relating the progress of his conversion,--"although my will was stubborn, I often trembled before the spirit of that child, like Felix before Paul, or like the gaoler in the prison at Philippi!"

The astrologer burnt his books of the astral science, and all the other occult, and therefore satanical sciences; and he and Joe were thenceforth united in a novel and more elevated pursuit,--the acquirement of a purified and spiritual nature. But the distinctness of minds, and the force of habit in different natures, were strikingly discoverable in the relative degrees of zeal with which the youth and Toby followed their new object. Joe's ascetic fervour has been described. But Toby's bent was of a diverse character: he found it impossible to enter with Joe's vehemence into the quest of an entire renewal of heart,--and could not resist the tendency to seek for enlightenment among the curious treasures of his little library. With indescribable rapture Toby found, as he thought, exactly what he wanted, in the abstruse pages of Jacob Boehmen. He had long kept the volumes of the mystical German on his shelves; but he a.s.sured himself that he never saw the true meaning of the high mysteries developed in the "Forty Questions," with so clear a vision as he did now the films of the "old Adam" were beginning to fall from his eyes.

It need scarcely be observed that Joe heard Toby's announcement of these abstract discoveries with rigid indifference. Neither when the lad's fervour had abated, and disgust and melancholy succeeded, did he feel able to receive the tailor's a.s.surances of the superior consolation to be derived from these puzzling studies. Toby's exhilaration of spirits, happily for himself, suffered little interruption after the full growth of his devoted attachment to the cloudy exercitations of the old quietest.--"Of a truth," he would often say to his customers, "I can never be sufficiently thankful that a merciful Providence showed me the spiritual lantern of Jacob Boehmen, wherewith I might find, and possess, the pearl of great price!"

Within two years of the expiry of Joe's apprenticeship, however, the devotional and marvel-loving tailor had transferred his worship from the shrine of the mystical German shoemaker to the more lofty, as well as more celestial image of Baron Emanuel Swedenborg. The Scripture histories had, thenceforth, an allegorical sense for Toby, as well as for Joe; and the lad could scarcely hint that he thought the transactions in the garden of Eden were to be read as a figure, before the learned Lackpenny was ready to pour out a profound descant on the _proprium_, or "sensual principle," which he affirmed to be typified by the serpent in the garden;--and declared his conviction, that the Mosaic account of the first human pair was, in reality, a mere symbolical history of "the First Church," and of the causes of its forfeiture of purity.

At another argumentative season, when the apprentice had ventured to ask if Toby did not think there was something incongruous in the account of Noah's flood, and in the size the ark was said to be,--and how the beasts went in,--and how they were supported,--the penetrating Swedenborgian a.s.sured the inquirer, with the utmost gravity, that he thought there was nothing in the whole world of books or facts more easy of explication.

"Know thou, my beloved Joey," said the sincere old man, raising his spectacles, and placing them, like two additional eyes, in the centre of his large forehead, "that whoever giveth his hearty faith to the teaching of the celestial-minded Swedenborg will receive a second eye-sight,--spiritual, and far more precious than the eyes of this earthly body. The Deluge, Joey, represents 'the Second Church,' as the garden of Paradise represents the first. The ark is the man of the church; and the forty days' rain is a figure for the temptations of the senses, by which the Second Church, as well as the First, was tried: you may see that figure plainly cleared up by our Saviour's temptation in the wilderness. The ark is also described as having a window above,--that signifies the intellectual principle; and a door, moreover, at the side,--that denotes the faculty of hearing."

"I wish all these things had been described in a plainer way, if they mean all this," interjected the youth, impatient of his mystic friend's harangue.

"_If!_" exclaimed Toby, astonished out of measure that any sane person could, for one moment, doubt what seemed to himself to be so pellucidly clear;--"if!--why, only read it for yourself, Joe, in the 'Celestial Arcana' of the inspired Emanuel of the North!"--and, therewith, the agile old philosopher sprang from his chair, and reached the volume from his shelves.

"Never mind, friend Toby: not at present," said Joe, very quietly.

"Well, well," said Toby, "another time then;--but you won't hear me out, or otherwise I could clearly prove what I had begun to say."

"But what confidence can one place in these dreams of your favourite Emanuel?" said Joe.

"Dreams!" retorted the mystic tailor, lowering his voice, and changing the expression of his countenance, until Joe wondered what was the matter with him.--"Dreams! no, no, he didn't dream, Joey. He was favoured with heavenly visions! The angels actually took him several times to heaven,--for he says so himself----"

"And Mahomet said the same," interjected Joe.

"Interrupt me not!" continued Toby, looking still more awfully mysterious:--"I tell thee, the angels took him to heaven, and unfolded to him hidden mysteries! And I tell thee, Joey, that I believe it is possible to attain unto such a pure state here, in this world, that we may converse with angels. I have fasted every day this week till sunset," concluded the poor honest old enthusiast, creeping close to Joe, and speaking almost in his ear,--"and I have faith to believe, that, in a little time, after much prayer, I, even I, shall be permitted to see the angelic world, yea, and to converse with it!"

One of Joe's fellow-apprentices here lifted up the latch, and informed him that Dame Deborah wished he would come home, for the hour was getting late. Pressing his old friend's hand, without looking him in the face, the youth wished him "Good-night!" not a little relieved by the summons of his mistress.

On the morrow, the neighbourhood was thrown into a state of alarm by a cottager having found poor Toby Lackpenny in a swoon upon his shop-board. Finding the experiment attended with such imminent hazard, the fervent enthusiast was persuaded the next night, by Joe, after two hours' indefatigable argumentation, to lay aside his attempt, by devout abstinence, at "purging the frame terrestrial till it could witness the vision celestial."

The occurrence of a very singular incident, however, and some effects that followed it, produced many a misgiving in poor Toby's mind that he had done wickedly in giving up the pursuit of this spiritual and exalted object. It was about the third night after Toby had yielded to Joe's prudent counsel,--and while they were sitting in quiet converse on one of their old themes,--that Toby's cottage door was suddenly burst open by a blow which resembled the stroke of a thunderbolt in the imagination of Joe and his ancient gossip,--and, on the centre of the floor, as suddenly stood Frank Friskit, Joe's younger fellow-apprentice, and the most mischievous scape-grace in the village. The face of the unexpected visitant was like the whitened wall; and his curly locks, as if in consternation at the unwonted pallor of his countenance, stood "nine ways of a Wednesday," as Toby phrased it. His trembling knees and torn dress made confession,--the trembler himself being tongueless with dread,--that Frank had been engaged in some fearful adventure. Joe hastened to support him,--for the lad swooned almost instantly. Toby hastened for cold water to aid his recovery;--and, in a few seconds, Noah Wallhead, Joe's other fellow-apprentice, also entered Toby's cottage, and manifested considerable solicitude about Frank's alarming condition. After a plentiful libation upon his temples, Frank began to come to his senses.

"What's the matter, Franky?" said Toby, gently, as soon as he thought the convalescent was able to bear the inquiry.

"I've--I've seen some'at!" replied Frank, hysterically.

"Seen!--well, but what have you seen, Frank?" asked Joe.

"A bar-ghost, Joe, or else th' old lad!" answered Friskit, with a chattering of the teeth.

Noah Wallhead laughed; but Toby and Joe, seeing the young ghost-seer was now able to sit up without help, requested him, when they had closed the door, to tell his story at length, and conceal nothing.

The repentant Frank avowed himself to be the guilty perpetrator of a series of malicious attempts upon the natural liberty of Toby Lackpenny's cat! Every urchin in the village of Haxey had been blamed, at one time or other, for the base machination of setting "snickles," or nooses of wire, in the tailor's little garden. The sage Toby profoundly conjectured, and openly maintained, all along, that these wicked devices were intended to ensnare his favourite tabby; but neither he, nor any one else, had ever suspected Frank Friskit to be the foul conspirator, inasmuch as he was so frequently in Toby's cot, and on friendly terms with him. Under the agitation of affright, the conscience-stricken and self-discovered culprit solemnly vowed that he would forsake the way of transgression thenceforth; for he had seen such a sight, while setting a snickle, as he could never forget as long as he lived! How he had got over the hedge he could not tell:--he believed his wits left him as soon as he saw the bar-ghost,--for he could remember nothing besides that queer sight!

"But what was it like, Frank?" asked Joe.

"Like!--why it had a dark-looking face, and a pair of eyes as big as owls' heads!" replied the lad, with a shudder.

"And how big was it?" asked Joe, again.

"I only saw the great foul face grinning and staring at me, and all on a blaze,--and then it was gone!" said Frank.

Joe received the last answer with a smile,--but, on turning round, when Noah Wallhead touched his elbow, he could not forbear laughter. Noah showed Joe the hollow turnip, with its eyes and mouth, that had so marvellously affrighted the younger apprentice when lit up with a bit of candle,--a common trick among rustic youngsters. Toby, however, was not let into the secret, and took it very ill that Joe, especially, should laugh at what he considered a very alarming narrative. Feeling it inc.u.mbent on himself to use this advantageous opportunity for enforcing a homily on reform, he thus addressed himself to the penitent Frank Friskit:--

"Be thankful, foolish boy," he said, "that this evil spirit has done thee no real harm; and, for the future, lay aside thy wicked follies.

And, above all, Frank, bethink thee that thou has' been guilty of a great sin to be so long pretending good neighbourship with me, and yet to be all the while plotting how to snickle my poor dumb creatur'. No wonder the bar-ghost should visit thee! Say thy Belief, as well as thy prayers, to-night, Frank,--and be a good lad in futur', and then thou may' hope that the Lord will forgive this deceit, for that's a greater sin than mischief!"--and then, fearing to renew the lad's terrors,--since he already began to tremble afresh,--Toby besought Joe and Noah Wallhead to take him home.

Toby Lackpenny felt "indescribably queer," as he afterwards said,--when left alone that night. He tried to banish the remembrance of Frank's strange description of the trunkless head,--but he found that to be impossible, as long as he sat by the fire,--for every flicker of the flames startled him with a new fear or fancy. So he betook himself to bed. But alas! poor Toby's frame had been so completely weakened by fasting, and his indulgence of the marvelling propensity of his const.i.tution had rendered his understanding and will so powerless, that he felt like a being that has no longer any self-government. The head,--the queer head that Frank had seen,--with its fiery eyes and mouth,--was all Toby could think about, as he lay tossing to and fro in bed:--"What a marvellous sight it must have been!" said Toby to himself,--"a grinning dark face, with eyes as big as owls' heads,"--the boy said;--"all on a blaze in a moment, and then gone!" And the revolting picture, at length, burst in reality,--he believed,--before his eyes! Nor had he the power to banish the uncouth and distorted phantasm,--although he gathered up all his courage and tried to laugh, once:--it was in vain,--the sound of his own forced laughter caused his skin to creep! Then Toby shut his eyes, and turned himself on his pillow, and bravely resolved he would sleep,--but it still was in vain:--when his eyelids ached with the compressure he had exerted upon them, he opened his eyes once more,--and lo! there was a real, grinning, goggle-eyed head,--all on fire,--coming towards him, from an immense distance! The trunkless head was a mile off, apparently,--but it was coming,--and what was he to do? It came on rapidly,--and the heart of poor Toby beat loudly against his ribs, and the perspiration started from his brow; and, at length, when the glaring phantom of a head was approaching very near, he made a convulsive effort, and dashed his head beneath the bed-clothes! Half suffocated with heat and fear, he threw the clothes sufficiently off to obtain a breath or two, when, to his unspeakable relief, his incomprehensible tantaliser vanished.

In a few minutes, however, the horrible spectre of a head appeared again, in the immense, immeasurable distance. It approached at the same rapid and threatening rate as before, and with features he thought still more frightful; and, again, he had recourse to the bed-clothes for protection from this terrific visitant. When the head commenced its menacing approach for the third time, Toby's horror exceeded endurance, and he jumped from his low bed, and threw open his little window to catch the cool air. The night breeze speedily dispelled his giddiness, and effectually banished the disturbing figure from his disordered sensory.

Toby stood a few moments attempting to rally his mind, by his old employment of counting the stars in each of the more striking constellations, which were at the time distinctly and brightly visible;--but the hour of midnight, told by the solemn tones of the church clock, warned him to close the window, and endeavour to find the rest he felt he now so much needed. Exhaustion, happily, came to his relief, and Toby forgot the fiery head without a trunk, in more gentle dreams.

Joe heard Toby's relation of this singular visit, the next night, with a degree of phlegm and coolness that amazed the marvel-stricken tailor.

Nor could Toby receive for gospel any of the natural explanations of his young friend: it was in vain that Joe recounted what he had lately read of Nicolai, the printer of Berlin, and his wondrous diseased visions,--it was equally in vain that the youth strove to shew Toby that the very manner of the strange head's visit,--so like what was called "phantasmagoria" and other optical delusions,--proved, to a dead certainty, that it all arose from over-excitement of the brain. Toby poohed and pshawed at every thing Joe said,--and was nearer than Joe had ever thought him towards calling his former disciple by some offensive name. The lad was compelled to desist from his attempt to reason Toby out of his uneasy conviction, that he had actually been visited by some evil agent as a punishment for his infraction of the vow he took never to eat food till sunset,--that so he might attain to communion with heavenly angels!

Left to himself, the stricken idealist fell into still more pernicious errors. Witchcraft, was the next delusion he was fated to experience.

Not that Toby ever imagined himself to be either a witch or a wizard; but he fell, most obstinately, into the belief,--ay, as obstinately as the knight of La Mancha himself,--that he was under the mischievous power of some who dealt with wicked spirits and practised enchantments.

His imagination in this, as in earlier instances of its treacherousness to his judgment, made a rapid, though gradual, abandonment of all self-evident and common-sense conclusions, even in the every-day affairs of life. That nest of temptation--his library--as, also, in the case of the world-known Quixote, was, again, the source from which Toby Lackpenny drew the written proofs for the reality of his credulous vagaries. "Gloomy Glanvil," as critical Toby had called him in the days of his higher spiritual-mindedness, was the superst.i.tious expounder of doctrine to whom the philosophical tailor now attached himself. How could he deny that a compact with evil spirits was possible to fallen human creatures, when he had believed, so heartily, with Swedenborg, that it was possible for sinful man to hold communion with celestial ministers? Besides, was there not the indubitable history of the Witch of Endor, and innumerable other references to dealers with familiar spirits, in the volume of Holy Writ? And were they likely--these wicked and envious agencies of the "evil eye"--to look on any human being so maliciously as on him who had aspired to converse with good angels?

Would they not feel an instinctive antipathy towards him? He was convinced they would, as soon as he inwardly asked the question.

He had just lost his thimble while he was thinking thus; and though he hunted for it a full hour, he was not able to find it! What though this had often fallen to his share of ill luck before? It was not, now, to be accounted for as an accident. No: it had been spirited away: he was bewitched; he was sure he was. It was by petty acts of mischief that the withered hags of h.e.l.l usually commenced their annoyance of those whose aspirations after purity had raised their devilish hate. His case, he feared, was too sure to prove a sorrowful one, for he knew not how to counterwork their malevolence. What a dunce he had been to neglect that branch of occult study! But it might not be too late to acquire even a profound knowledge of it; and so he would set about it in right earnest.

And, poor Toby! he _did_ set about it in earnest, insomuch that he sewed side-seams to tops and bottoms of new garments, and st.i.tched circular patches on square rents, and squares on circular apertures in the damaged attire he undertook to repair, and mislaid his thread where he could not find it for hours,--and p.r.i.c.ked his thumbs and fingers, half-callous though they were, with the needles,--and heated his goose till he burnt the cloth,--and fell into blunders and mishaps of most awful consequence to his professional reputation, day by day, more thickly and disastrously, until the very disasters themselves convinced him that he was approaching a climax of knowledge in the gloomy science of which he had now become so devoted a student. The witches knew--foul, cunning, devil-dealers that they were--they knew, although he did not, as yet, ken _who_ they were, that he was about to become a match for them; and, therefore, they were thus bedevilling him and his cloth, and goose, and shears, and thimble, and needles, in this "hey-day, hide-and-seek, burn-it-and-bother-it," sort of way.

Toby would not "give it up," however, torment him as they might--the spiteful fiendlings! He still read and thought, and thought and read, and compared the descriptions of feature which his books contained, with the physiognomies of all who visited his abode, until he entertained a shrewd suspicion of who were the real and identical, though secret, practisers of all this infernal mischief. Yet, as some of these had been, for years, his best and kindest employers, the witch-seer found it go sorely against the grain of his affectionate nature to provoke a quarrel with them. Often did he chide his spirit when he had permitted any of these suspicious visiters to depart with heartfelt thanks for the kindly present of a cake, or a new cheese, or a dish of b.u.t.ter, or half-score of eggs, with which they had coupled their order for the repair of a coat, or nether habit; and as often did he resolve to prepare himself against their next visit for a red-hot quarrel.

Months elapsed before the amiable-hearted visionary could "screw his courage to the sticking-place," so as to enable him to "fall out" with his friends and benefactors: not that he feared their witchery, or the heavier harm it might bring upon him, when he had defied it. He soon lost all dread of that kind. It was his true-heartedness--his genuine grat.i.tude--that precious quality which a rogue never feels, though he talks the most loudly about it, but which honest and n.o.ble natures cannot stifle, even when warm friends have become persecuting foes,--it was that superlative virtue which struggled to keep its citadel in gentle Toby's heart's core, and the contest with which was so troublous to him. Happily for the poor mistaken philosopher, his loving-heartedness had rendered him so dear to all who knew him, that none would believe he was in his right mind, when he suddenly became so discourteous and angry-tempered.

"Pr'ythee, Goody, what think'st ta?" said Dolly Dust.i.t, the little hard-working flax-woman, to Peggy the staid housekeeper at Farmer Robinson's,--"is neighbour Toby growing queerish in his heed, wi' so much book-larning,--or, what the plague can be the matter wi' him? I asked him to tell me what yerbs I should get to mak' a green plaister for our Jack's sore scaup, and he grinned like a fummard, and tell'd ma to gooa to the divvil, and as th' oud lad was a friend o' mine he would mak' ma my plaisters, with a witness! Doesn't ta think he's gone stranny?"

"For sartain there's summat the matter wi' his wits, from what our maister was saying about him this morning," answered Peggy; "but who can wonder at it, Dolly? I wonder his knowledge-box hasn't gone wrong-side up'ards many a year since!"

"And Maister Robinson has had some foul speech from him, has he, then, Peggy?" asked the little flax-woman, curious to learn more of Toby's vagaries.

"Sich foul speech as maks one queer to mention it," replied Peggy, though she evidently wanted to unburthen herself of it to her gossip, and told the shuddering news in the next breath:--"he tell'd th' farmer that his breeches smelled o' brimstone, and he wouldn't put a st.i.tch in 'em to please ayther him, or the divvil his maister!"

"The Lord ha' marcy on us, Peggy!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the honest little flax-woman, "it's a sore thing to think on; but poor Toby's brain's addled at last, I'm varry sewer. He's as harmless as a lamb, when he's right: one nivver heeard a foul word come out of his mouth. I'm varry sorry for him, Peggy----" and so saying, Dolly Dust.i.t sped on to her daily work in the flax field, more deeply grieved at what she believed to be poor Toby's affliction, than at his repulsive treatment of her application for his medical advice.

Such conferences of inquiry, wonder, and regret, began to arise daily, in the ancient little town of Haxey, as Toby advanced further into the spirit and essence of witch-knowing; but the erring philosopher, at length, set the whole village into uproar by telling no less-beloved a personage than Dame Deborah Thrumpkinson, herself, that he believed she was a witch,--nay the queen and ring-leader of all the witches in the Isle of Axholme,--and, to complete his madness, Toby actually strove to eject the venerable old woman from his cottage! Fortunately, his corporal weakness prevented him from effecting the rudeness which he thus attempted; and the hearty old dame, though pitying, rather than censuring his folly, felt disposed to try the effect of a somewhat vigorous reproof of it. Seizing the lean, attenuated student by the collar, she laid him, with one sinewy lift, fairly on his back, breathless and fear-stricken, upon the shop-board.