Activate Javascript or update your browser for the full Digital Library experience.
Next Page
OCR
OBice Fox Block » Namber, 83
«BY GOULD, ELWELL, PICKARD &
“es
co,
Pashange St;
coer AY INDEPENDENT. FAMILY JOURNAL’ OF LIQERATURS,. EWS, et ee ay ae ods
“PORTLAND, SATURDAY,
JAN. 12; 18563"
lwinoew a ITOLAO.
a | [From the N. ¥. Mirror.
% Theresa cortatn indeseribable a pathos in the fol-
-towin, . which will 1 of Hood's
[Bridge of Sighs,” though t tote ia noting in come
mon the two pocins, save atouching sadness
weathing of the
of Mr, ‘Albert Laighto
“FOUND BEAD.
ound desd—dead and alone; 5
-There was nobody bear, nobod:
> [When the outcast died on bis pillow of stone—
“WS N6 mother, no brother, no sister dear,
5 Nota friendly voice to soothe or cheery.
4." Note watching eye, or & spleyog tear
_" Found dead, dead and
1a the roots street, on ee f stove:
Many a weary dsy ¥
Ctl While wretched and worn rb begged forbread, |
«Fired of life, and longing to It *
Peacefally down with the atlent dead.
© Hanger and cold, scorn and pain"?
+ Bad wasted his form and seared his brain,
~ illat last on a bed of frozen ground, ,
A With a pillow of stone, was the outeast found.
‘t Pound dead—dead and alone...)
But the stars looked down with pitying eyes, >
+ Lo And the chill winds passed with a wailing sound »
_ @'er the lovely spot where his foray vras found.
‘And Gnd a home for the homeless here.
** One, when every human door «#7 2)" y.
Ia closed to his children, scorned and ‘poor,.”)
: _ ,£° Who opens the heavenly portal wide; . .
Ah! God was near when the outcast cried.
tesa Bom Putnam's Monthly, for Janu
T HE GHOST
heey Tay Christmas story.
:
» CONCLU!
vest
5, 3) Mra.
Nis
now said : .
you have told me.
alittle longer, and we will yet make
of right with you??? .«y
stl
tu! edcoldly, “I baye no. more to add. _Tnever
take back anything Isay— never!” alt
top twas. true, He never did—never ! She
half rose from her seat es if to 05 but weak
and sickened | with, the bitter ‘result of her
it, she ‘sank dow ain, ' There was a
pause. ‘Thea solomaly gliding across the
‘ Tighted room, the phantom § stole’ to her side
‘with glory of compassion on its features.—
“ Tenderly, as a’son to a mother, ‘it bent over
her} ite spectral | hands of light were stretch-
*"ed above her ;_ its ‘shadowy fall of hair, once
_ blanched by the fever and the uo anguish, float-
ed on her throbbing brow. ‘
_« The stern and sullen mood from which) haa
ie | dropped but ono fierce flash’ of“ anger, still
hung aba; tie heat of the doctor’s mind,
like a dark racy of thunder- cloud.’ It would
_ have burst anew into a fury of rebuke, had
he but known his daughter, was listening at
the door, while’ the’ colloquy went on. It
“might have flamed violently, had his tenant
ye Tnade any further attempt to change his.pur-
[3 pose. "She hed not. Shehad left the room
. |, meekly, with the samo, curt, awkward bow
” that marked her entrance. “He recalled her
<<” manner very indistinctly} for a feeling, like
~ gq mist, began to gather’ in his mind, and
. “make the occurrences of moments before un-
Beas “certain, °. ‘= 2
Alone, now, “he was yot opprenied with a
‘feeling that something was near him. ¢ Was
‘ita spiritual instinct? forthe phantom stood
” by his side. It stood silently, with one hand
. faised above his head, from which a pale
. _fiame soemed to flow downward to his brain;
‘| from ‘the | igrave.
‘Miller, paler hen, before, hed, sat
‘mute and trembling among the hopes he had
ruined. Yet her desperation forbade her to
abandon the chia! of his mercy, and she
| ~ }ist and choir had mét for practice... Whatev-
‘ve. {Dr Renton, you surely don’t meal what
- Won't you bear with us
+ “Thave given you ‘my ‘answer,” ‘he ‘yotum-
its other hand pointed movelessly to the open
letter on thé table, by his side. * <*
"Dr. Renton took the sheets from the table
thinking, at the moment, only of George Fe-
val; but the first line on which: his eye rest-
ed was,’“In"the name: of the Saviour, I
charge you be true and tender to all men!”
and the words touched him like a low voice
‘Their penetrant reproach
pierced the hardness of his heart... He tossed
the letter back on thé table. » The very man-
ner of the act accused him of’ an insult to
the dead. In a moment ‘he took up the fad-
ed sheets more reverent: b but only to lay
|| them down again.’
He had thrown’ himself ona sofa, striving
to be rid of his’ remorseful thoughts, when
the library door opened, and the inside man
appeared, with his hand held bashfully. over
his nose. “It flashed on him at once that his
tenant’s husband was the servant of a family
like thisfellow} and, irritated that the whole
matter should be thus broadly forced upon
him’ again, he harshly’ asked him what
he wanted. The man only came in to say
tha Mrs, Renton and ‘the young lady had
gone out for'the evening, but that tea was
“}laid for him in the dining-yoom. Dr. Ren-
ton ‘did not want ‘any tea, and if anybody
called, he was not at home. With this charge
the man left the toom, closing. the door be-
hind him.
: Rising from the soft, the doctor tarned
“| down the lights of the chandelier and sereen-
ed the fire, The room was still. The ghost
stood, faintly radiant,’ in a remote corner.—
Dr. Renton lay down again, but he could not
sleep. » Things he had forgotten of his dead
| friend, now started up again in remembrance,
i | fresh from the sleep of many years ; and not
one of them but inked itself with'some mys-
terious bond stop pemething connected with
his tenant, and became an accusation.
‘ He had lain thus for more than an hour,
his menial excitement fast becoming intoler-
© ablé, when he heard a low strain of music,
from the Swedenborgian chapel, hard by.—
Its first impression was one of solemnity and
rest, and its first sense, in his mind, was of
relief. Perhaps it was the music: of an eve-
ning meeting ; or it Might be that the organ-
er its purpose, it breathed through his heated.
fancy like a cool and fragrant wind. «Low
and sad at first, he heard it swell and rise to
a mournful dirge, but so subdued that it
touched him with awe.» Gradually the fires
in bis brain sank down, and all yielded toa
sense ‘of coolness and repose, +! -)'
, Gradually sinking, also, the music failed,
A pause, and then it rose again, blended with
the solemn voices of the choir. » It rose from
pathos into wild despair; and, swelling up-
ward in an agony of supplication, sank, and
dicd in alow and wailing sigh. «1
~ Yielding now with a sense in his spirit like
despair, the tears streamed silently down the
listener's 3‘ face; and the low ‘chant’ sighed
above him, end died away.- Dr..'Renton
slept. ' The room was dim and silent, , and
the farniture took uncouth ‘shapes around
him, !'The red glow upon the ceiling, from
thé screened fire, showed the misty figure of
the phantom kneeling by hia side, All light
had gone from the spectral form, It knelt
beside him, mately, as in prayer., Once it
gazed athis quict face witha mournful ten-
derness; and its shadowy, hands caressed his
forehead. x Then it resumed its former atti-
tude, and the slow hours crept by.
‘At last it rose, and glided to the table,’ 6 on
which lay the open letter. . It Seemed to try }¢
to lift the sheets with . its misty hands—but
yainly. «Next it essayed the lifting of a pen
which lay there—but failed. It was a piteous
sight, to see its idle effortson these shapes
:| ot grosser matter, which, to its strengthless
essence, had now but the existence of illu-
sions. Wandering about the shadowy room,
it wrang its phantom hands as in despair,
i-Presently it grow still. Then it passed
quickly to his side, and stood before him.—
Us slept calmly. It placed one ghostly hand
above his forehead, end, with the other,
pointed to the open letter....In thi ,
its shape grew momentarily more iatinet—-
Tt began to kindle into brightness. The palo
flame again flowed from its hand, streaming
downward to the brain, , A look. of trouble
darkened the sleeping ‘face... Stronger—
‘stronger, brighter—brighter; until, at last,
it stood before him, a glorious shape of light,
with an awful look of commanding’ love in
ita shining features—and, the doctor * sudden:
ly awoke.
The phantom. had vanished. He « saw noth-
ing. ;, His first impression was, not that he
had dreamed, but that awaking in the famil-
iar room, he had seen the spirit of his dead
friend, bright and awful, by, his side, and
that it had gone! , In the flash of that quick
change, from sleeping to waking, he had de-
tected he thought, the unearthly being that,
he now felt, watched him from behind the air,
andithad vanished! The library was the
same as in the moment of that supernatural
revealing; the open letter lay upon the table
still; only’ that was: gone which had made
these common aspects terrible. Then, all
the hard, strong skepticism of his nature,
which bad, been driven, backward by the
shock of his first conviction, , recoiled, and
rushed within him, violently straggling for
its former vantage ground; till, at length, it
achieved the foothold for adoubt. . Could he
have dreamed?., The ghost invisible s:ill
watched him. Yes—adream—only a dream ;
but, how yvivid—how strange! , With aslow
thrill creeping through his veins—the blood
eurdling at his heart—a cold sweat starting
on his forehead, he stared brough the. dim-
ness of the room.
In a moment, remembering’ the ‘letter to
which the phantom of his dream had point-
ed he rose and took it from’ the takle, - The
last page lay upward, and every word of tho
solemn counsel at the end seemed to dilate on
the paper, and allits mighty meaning rushed
upon his soul. Trembling in his own despite,
helaidit down, and turned away. A physi-
cian—he remembered that he was in a violent
state of nervous excitement, and thought
that when be grew calmer its effects would
pass away. But the hand that had touched
him, had gone down deeper than the physi-
cian, and reached what God made,
He strove in vain. , The very room in its
light and silence, and the Jarking sense of
something watching him, became terrible. —
He could not endure it.,.The devils in hig
-heart, grown pusillanimous, cc cowered beneath
the flashing stroke of bis aroused and terri.
ble conscience. Ife could not endure it, Ie
will go out. , He will walk the streets. It is
not late—it is butten o'clock, He will go.
“The ait of bis dream still hung heavily
about him, Ile was in the street—he hardly
remembored how he baa got there, or when ;
bat; there he was, . pped, up from the
searching cold, thinking, vith a quiet horror
in his mind, of the darkened room he had
left behind, and haunted by the sense that
something was groping about there in the
darkness, searching for him. The night was
still and cold, , The full moon was in the
zenith. Its icy, splendor lay.on the bare.
streets, and on, the walls of the dwellings, —
‘The | lighted oblong squares , of curtained
windows, here and there, seemed’ dim’ and
waxen in the frigid glory.‘ The familiar as-
pectof the quarter had passed, leaving be-
hind only a corpse-l like neighborhood, whose
hage, dead features, staring rigidly through
the thin} white shroud of moonlight that coy-
ered all, left no breath upon the stainless
skies, Through the vast silence of the night
ho ‘passed along; the “very sound. of his
footfalls was remote to his mafiled scnse.
Gradually, as he reached the first corner,
he ‘had an uneasy feeling that a thing—a
formless, unimaginable thing—was dogging
him.” He had thought of going down to his
club-room; but he now shrank from enter
ing, With this thing near him, the lighted
rooms where his set were busy with cards
and billiards over their liquors and cigars.—
z.
e
and where the heated air was full of their
idle faces and careless chatter, lest some one
should bawl out thathe was pale, and ask
him what was the matter, and he should ans-
wer, tremblingly, that something was follow-
ing, and was near him then! He must get
rid of it first; he must walk quickly,’ and
and bafite its pursuit by turning sharp, cor-
ners, rand plunging into devious streets and
crooked Janes, and so lose it!
» It was difficult to reach through memory
to the crazy chaos of his mind on that night,
and recall the route he took while haunted
by this feeling; but he afterwards remember-
ed that, without any other purpose than’ to
bafile his imaginary pursuer, he traversed at
‘ rapid pace a large portion of the moonlit
city; always (he knew not why) avoiding the
most populous thoroughfares, and choosing
unfrequented and tortuous by-ways, but nev-
er ridding himself of that horrible confusion
of mind, in which the faces of his dead friend
and the ‘pale woman were strangely blended,
nor of the fancy that he ‘was followed.—
Once, as he passed the hospital where Feval
died, a faint hint seemed to flash and vanish
from the clouds of his lanacy, and almost
identify the dogging goblin with the figure of
his dream ;, but the conception instantly mix-
ed. with/a disconnected’ remembrance that
this was Christmas eve, ‘and then’ slipped
from him, and was lost. He did not . pause
there, but strode on. At last he was ‘hannt-
ed with a gathering sense “that his journey
was coming to an end. ‘And suddenly, thank
God! the goblin was gone. Ile was free.
Ile stood panting, like one just roused from
someterrifid. dream, wiping the recking'per-
spiration from his forehead: "Hé felt he hdd
wandered a Jong fistance from his houée,
but had no distinct perception of his wherea~
bouts. Hoontyy he was in some thinly-
peopled street, whose familiar aspect seemed
lost to him in the magical disguise the superb
moonlight had thrown over all. - Saddenly
a film scemed to drop from his eyes, as they
became riveted on a lighted window, on the
opposite side of the way, Te started, and
a secret terror crept over bim, vaguely mix-
ed with the memory of the shock he had felt
as he turned the last corner, and his distinct,
awful, feeling that something invisible had
assed him. Atthe same instant he felt, and
thrilled to feel, a touch, as of a light finger
on his cheek.’ Ie was in Tanover street.—
Before him was the house—the oyster-room
staring at him through the lighted transpa-
rencies of its two windows, like two square
eyes, below; and his tenant’s lightin a cham-
ber above!’ ‘The’ added ‘shock which this
discovery gaye to the heaving of his heart,
made him gasp for breath. Could it be?—
Did he still dream? While he stood pant-| «
ing, and staring at the building, the city
clocks began’ to strike. °
was ten when he came faway; how he must
have driven! Ilis thoughts caught up the
word. Driven—by what? - Driven from his
house in horror, through street and lane,
over halt the city—driven—hunted in terror,
and smitten by a shock here!’ Driven—driv-
ent! He could not rid his mind of the word,
nor of its meaning. The pavements about | him:
him began to ring and echo with the tramp of} -
many feet, and the cold, brittle. air was shiv-
ered with the noisy voices that had roared
and bawled applause and laughter at the Na-
tional Theatre,’ all the ‘evening,’ and were
now singing and howling homeward.’ Groups
of rude men, and rader boys,’ their breaths
steaming in the icy air, began to tramp: by,
jostling him as they passed, till he was fore-
‘ed to draw back’ to the wall, and give’ them
the sidewalk. *Dazzled and giddy, in ‘cold
fear, and with the retarning sense of some-
thing near him, he stood and watched the
groups that pushed and tumbled in through
the entrance of the ‘oyster room, whistling
and chattering as they went, and banging the
door behind them. “We noticed that some
camo out presently, banging the door harder,
and went, smoking and shouting, down the
street.
Eleven o'clock; it}:
the street was startled with their riot, and he. .
bar-room within echoed their trampling feet, , °
and hoarse voices. Then, as his glance wan-;
dered upward, to ‘his tenant’s window, hes -.
thought of ‘the sick child, mixing this hide-«”
ous discord in the dreams of fever. The»
word Brought’ up the name and the thought *
of his dead friend, ".*In the name of the Sa-. * ~
viour, I charge you bé trne and tender to all?!"
men!” -“The nfeméry of these words seem~ ,
ed toring ‘cléarly, #8 if a voice, had ‘spoken |. +_>
them; above the’ rdar‘that “suddenly tose fo
his mind. “In that moment he ‘felt himself a
wretched and most guilty man. ¢ He felt that
hig ‘cruel words‘ had - entered that bumble ~-
hénié;“to"thaké desperate poverty more des- ‘
perate, to sicken sickness, and to sadden sor-
row. Before him was the dram shop, let and
licensed to nourish the worst and most brat-
al appetites and instincts of human natures,
at the sacrifice of all their highest and holi-
ae
est tendencies. The throng of tipplers and
drunkards was swarming through its hopeless.“ >
door, to galp’ the’ fiery liquor whose fumes
give all shames, vices, miseries, and crimes, ~~,
a lawless strength and life,.and change the
man into the pig or tiger. Murder was done, C
or nearly done, within those walls last night.
Within those walls no good was ever done ;
but, daily, unmitigated evil, whose results.
were reaching on to torture unborn genera- .
tions.” He had consented to it all 1 Hecould ‘
not falter, or equivocate, or evade, of excuse. :
His dead, friend’s words rang in his con- ‘
selon Tike the tramp of the judgment. an-
erie this he was conquered, “and then the “ot
world; ‘sadder than before, but sweeter, seem- L
éd to come back to him. <A great feeling of !
relief flowed uponhis mind. Dale and trem- if
bling still, he crossed the strect with a quick, af
unsteady step, entered a yard at the side of :
the house; and brushing by a host of white,
rattling epectres of frozen clothes, which dan-
gled from linos in the inclosure, mounted 1
some wooden steps, and rang the bell. Ina - Tg
minute he heard footsteps within, and saw fi
the gleam of a lamp.” [lis heart palpitated
violently as ho heard the. lock turning, lest
the answerer of his summons might. be his
tenant. The door opened, and, to his relief,
he stood before a rather decent-looking Irish- ‘
man, bending forward in his ‘stocking feet, * :
with one boot and 8 lamp in his hand. . The
man stared at him froma wild head of tum- '
bled red hair, with a, half smile round his
loose open mouth, and said “Begorra ra
This was # second floor tenant.
‘Dr. Renton was. relicved at the sighiset
him; but he rather failed ia-an aitemft st
his rent day suavity of manner, when ‘be
said— és
« “Good evening, ; Mr. Flanagan. Do you
think I can gee Mrs. Miller to-night?” *
-“She’s up there, docther, anyway.” Mr.
Flanagan made a sudden start for the stairs,
with the boot and lamp at arm’s length be-
fore him, and stopped as suddenly, “Yall .
go up t—or wud she come e down to ye 77
There was as. much anxious indecision in
Mr. Flanagan’s: general aspect, pending the
ren ss 7 ho had to answer the question .
me go up, Mr. Flanagan,” returned Dr
Renton, stepping in, after a panso, and shut
ting the door. “Bat I'm afraid she’s in bed.” !
“Naw—she'snot, sur.” Mr. Flanagan made
another feint with the boot and lamp at the
stairs, but stopped again ia curious bewilder-
ment, and rubbed his head. : Then with an-
other inspiration, and speaking with such ve- -
locity that his words ran “into ‘each other," ait
pell-mell, he continued ;. “The small girl’s :
sick, sur, Begorra, I wor just pullin’ on th’
cots tuh gaw for the docther, in th’ nixt :
streth, an’ summons him ‘to hur relief, far ,
it’s bea, sheis., A’id bettherbe goan.” An = '
Suill they Poured i in and out, while! ¥ by Dr. Rentoa 0
other start, anda movement to put qu the
boot ‘instantly, bafiled by his getting the
lamp into the leg “of it, and involving him-
self in difficulties in trying to getit out again
Without dropping either, - and stopped Sale -
