“I understood there was sickness somewhere,” another responded vaguely.
“Maybe it’s her aunt over at Whitneyville,” a third suggested. “Mis’ Turner told me in the spring she was real feeble.”
“Mis’ Turner herself ’s real frail. She did n’t feel well enough to come this afternoon.”
“Where ’s Aunt Naomi?” inquired Mrs. Cummings. “It’s ’most five o’clock, and she almost always comes about three.”
“Oh,” responded Mrs. Wright, with a laugh and her quick, bright glance, “you may depend upon it she’s getting news somewhere. She’ll come in before we go home, with something wonderful to tell.”
As if in intentional confirmation of the words, Aunt Naomi at that moment appeared in the doorway. Her shrewd old face showed satisfaction in every wrinkle, and from beneath the unfailing veil of green barège draped from her bonnet over the upper left-hand corner of her face her eyes positively twinkled. She took a deliberate survey of the room, and then with her peculiar rocking gait moved to the group which had been discussing her absence.
“Good afternoon, Aunt Naomi,” Mrs. Cummings greeted her. “We were just wondering what had become of you.”
“And I said,” put in Mrs. Wright audaciously, “that you must be getting some wonderful piece of news.”
Aunt Naomi hitched up her shawl behind with a grasshopper-like motion of her elbows, and sat down with a wide grin.
“Well, this time you were right,” she said. “I was hearing Old Lady Andrews tell about her trip.”
“Old Lady Andrews?” echoed the ladies. “Has she got home?”
“Yes; she got here this noon.”
“And nobody but you knew it!” ejaculated Mrs. Cummings.
They all regarded Aunt Naomi with undisguised admiration, in every look acknowledging her cleverness in discovering what had been hid from the rest of the village. She smiled broadly, and seemed to drink in the sweet odor of this surprise and their homage as an idol might snuff up grateful fumes of incense.
“Did she bring home the body?” Mrs. Cummings asked after a moment, in a voice becomingly lowered.
“Yes, she did,” Aunt Naomi answered, with a chuckle of levity which seemed almost indecent. “She had a dreadful time finding out anything; but she had friends at Washington—her husband had cousins there, you know—and at last she got on the track.”
“Where was he buried?”
Aunt Naomi paused to wag her foot and to nibble at the corner of her green veil in a way common to her in moments of excitement. She looked around in evident enjoyment of the situation.
“He was n’t buried anywhere,” she said, with a grin.
“Why not?” demanded Mrs. Wright excitedly.
“Because he was n’t dead.”
“Was n’t dead?”
“No; only taken prisoner. He was wounded, and he’s been in Libby.”
“How is he now?”
“Oh, he’s all right now. He’s coming over here to show himself, and see his friends.”
The words were hardly spoken when in the doorway appeared the well-known figure of Archie Lovell. He wore the uniform of a lieutenant, he was pale and worn, but handsomer than ever. On his arm was a blushing damsel in a hat with a white feather, her face all smiles and dimples. An exclamation went up from all over the room.
“Why, it’s Archie Lovell!”
It was followed almost immediately by another:—
“And Nancy Turner’s with him!”
“No; it’s Nancy Lovell,” announced Aunt Naomi, in a voice audible all over the vestry. “They were married in Boston.”
The bridal couple advanced. All about the room the ladies rose, but instead of greeting the newcomers, they looked at the “three widows,” and waited as if to give them first an opportunity of accosting their mate, thus returned as if from the very grave, and so inopportunely bringing another mate with him. Miss Burrage and Miss Foster shrank from sight behind the backs of those nearest to them; but Mattie Seaton swept impulsively forward with her hand extended cordially. Her crisp black hair curled about her temples, her eyes shone, and her teeth flashed between her red lips.
“Why, Archie, dear,” she said, in her clear, resonant voice, “we thought we had lost you forever. We all supposed you were dead, and here you are only married. Let me congratulate you, though after being engaged to so many girls, it must seem queer to be married to only one!—and you, Nancy,” she went on, before Archie could make other reply than to shake hands; “to think you got him after all, just because you went ahead and caught him! I congratulate you with all my heart; only look out for him. He’ll make love to every woman he sees.”
She bent forward and kissed the bride before Mrs. Lovell could have known her intention, and turned quickly.
“Come, Delia,” she called across the vestry; “come, Mary! There’s nothing for us to do but to go home and take off our black. We may have better luck next time!”
With this ambiguous observation, which might have been construed to cast rather a sinister reflection upon the return to life of the young lieutenant, she swept out of the vestry, complete mistress of the situation; and although Archie Lovell always strenuously denied that he had ever been engaged to any woman besides the one he married, a general feeling prevailed in Tuskamuck that no girl could have carried it off with a high hand as Mattie did, if she had not had some sort of an understanding to serve her as a support.
But never again while the Civil War lasted did a girl in Tuskamuck put on black for a lover unless the engagement had been publicly recognized before his death.
A MEETING OF THE PSYCHICAL CLUB
I
The meeting of the Psychical Club had been rather dull, and it was just as the members were languidly expecting an adjournment that the only interesting moment of the evening came. The papers had been more than usually vapid, and, as one man whispered to another, not even a ghost could be convicted upon evidence so slight as that brought forward to prove the existence of disembodied visitants to certain forsaken and rat-haunted houses. At the last moment, however, the President, Dr. Taunton, made an announcement which did arouse some attention.
“Before we go,” he said, smiling with the air of one who desires it to be understood that in what he says he distinctly disclaims all personal responsibility, “it is my duty to submit to the Club a singular proposition which has been made to me. A gentleman whom I am not at liberty to name, but who is personally known to many—perhaps to most—of you, offers to give to the Club an exhibition of occult phenomena.”
The members roused somewhat, but too many propositions of a nature not dissimilar had ended in entire failure and flatness for any immediate enthusiasm.
“What are his qualifications?” a member asked.
“I did not dream that he possessed any,” Dr. Taunton responded, smiling more broadly. “Indeed, to me that is the interesting thing. I had never suspected that he had even the slightest knowledge or curiosity in such matters, and still less that he made any pretensions to occult powers. The fact that he is a man of a position so good and of brains so well proved as to make it unlikely that he would gratuitously make a fool of himself is the only ground on which his proposition seems to me worth attention.”
“What does he propose to do?”
“He does not say.”
“He must have given some sort of idea.”
“He said only that he was able to perform some tricks—experiments, I think, was his word; or no—he said demonstrations. He thought they would interest the members.”
“Did he say why he offered to do them?”
“No further than to observe not over politely that he was weary of some of the nonsense the Club circulated, and that he would therefore take the trouble to teach them better.”
The members smiled, but some colored a little as if the touch had reached a spot somewhat sensitive.
“It is exceedingly kind of him,” one elderly gentleman remarked stiffly.
“He is explicit in his conditions,” the President added.
The members were beginning to seem really awake, and Judge Hobart asked with some quickness what the conditions were.
“First,” the President answered, “that his identity shall not be revealed. I am not to tell his name, and he trusts to the honor of any member who may recognize him. A meeting is to be appointed when and where we please. He is to know nothing more than the time. I am to send a carriage for him, to provide certain things of which he has given me a list, to arrange a room according to his directions, and to give him my word that no record of the meeting shall appear in the newspapers.”
“Are the things he wishes difficult to procure?”
“This is the list,” said Dr. Taunton, taking a paper from his pocket. “You will see that they are all sufficiently simple.
“‘Two rings of iron, four or five inches in diameter, interlocked and welded firmly.
“‘A ten-inch cube of hard wood.
“‘A six-inch cube of iron.
“‘A sealed letter, written by some member.
“‘A carpenter’s saw.
“‘A gold-fish globe ten inches or so across.
“‘Three smaller globes, one filled with red, one with blue, and one with a colorless liquid.
“‘A scale on which a man may be weighed.
“‘A stick of sealing-wax.
“‘A flower-pot filled with earth.
“‘An orange seed.’”
“The articles are simple enough,” Judge Hobart commented. “Are the arrangements required difficult?”
“No. He asks for a committee to examine him in the dressing-room; a platform insulated with glass and some substance he will furnish, and a little matter of the arrangement of lights that is easy enough.”
The members of the Club meditated in silence for a moment, and then Professor Gray spoke.
“It must depend, it seems to me,” he said, “on the sort of a man your mysterious magician is. If he is a person to be trusted, I should say go ahead.”
“He is a gentleman,” the President answered; “a man of social standing, money, education, and with a reputation in his special branch of knowledge both here and in Europe. If I named him, you would, I feel sure, give him a hearing without question.”
“What is his specialty?” one member inquired.
“I hardly think it would be fair for me to tell. It would possibly be too good a clue to his identity.”
“Is it fair to ask if it is connected with any psychical branch?”
“Not in the least. I think I said at the start that I never suspected him of any interest in such subjects. He was asked to join this Club, and declined.”
“Did he give any particular reason?”
The President smiled satirically.
“He said it would never accomplish anything.”
“Perhaps that shows his common sense,” Judge Hobart observed dryly. “I am bound to say that it has not accomplished much thus far. What I do not understand is why at this late day he takes an interest in our work.”
“He did n’t go into that. He did not seem especially anxious. He merely told me that he was willing to show the Club certain things, and named his conditions. That is about the whole of it.”
“Well,” observed Judge Hobart, with his air of burly frankness, “I vote we have him. The only reason for shying off is that so many fellows, otherwise sensible, lose their heads the moment they try to investigate anything psychical.”
“Is that a reflection on our Club?” Professor Gray asked good-naturedly.
In the end the decision was that the President should be instructed to make arrangements with the unknown, and an evening was chosen for the meeting. The place was left to the President, to be imparted to the members confidentially on the day appointed. Then the gentlemen went their several ways, each, except the President who knew, speculating upon the possible identity of the mysterious wonder-worker.
II
When the clock struck eight on the evening appointed, the members of the Club were all present. The room to which they had been summoned by Dr. Taunton was simply furnished with a table, before which the seats were arranged in a semicircle, and behind which was a small platform on which stood a single chair. This platform was raised on blocks of glass, above which were thin slabs of a substance which to the eye seemed like a sort of brown resin, in which were to be discerned sparkles of yellow, as of minute crystals. The chair was in turn insulated in the same manner, while before it for the feet of the performer was placed a slab of glass covered with the same resinous substance. On the chair lay a thick robe of knitted silk. Beneath the table was a trunk containing the articles of which the President had read a list at the previous meeting.
The members examined everything and handled everything except the platform and the chair upon it. These they were especially requested not to touch. At five minutes past eight a carriage was heard to stop outside, and almost immediately the President came in.
“The gentleman is in the dressing-room,” he said, “and is ready for the examining committee. If the members will be seated, we shall be prepared to receive him.”
The members took their seats, and there was a brief interval of silence. Then Judge Hobart and Professor Gray, who had gone to the dressing-room, reëntered. Between them was a tall man, well formed, rather slender, but showing in his figure some signs of approaching middle age. He wore simply a single garment of knit silk. It was laced in the back, and fitted him so tightly that the play of his muscles was as evident as it would have been in a nude figure. His face was covered down to the lips by a black mask of silk.
The unknown stepped out of the loose slippers he wore, mounted the platform, put on the silk robe, and sat down in the chair. Judge Hobart made a formal statement that the perfor— that their guest had neither properties nor apparatus concealed about his person. Then he sat down, and silence filled the room.
“We are ready,” President Taunton said.
The stranger smoothed from his lips the smile which had curled them when Judge Hobart so nearly spoke of him as the “performer.” He rose, and stood on the slab before his chair.
“I must say a word or two by way of preface,” he began, in a voice cultivated and pleasant. “In the first place, I have no concealed motive in coming here to-night. I am not even—as I shall convince you before we are done—gratifying my vanity by advertising my powers. It has seemed to me that the Club is not on the right track, and although in one sense it is none of my business, I am interested in the subject which it is, as I understand, the object of this body to investigate. The paper by Judge Hobart in a recent number of the ‘Agassiz Quarterly’ decided me to show to him that certain forces which he conclusively proves to be non-existent do, nevertheless, exist. As I am personally known to perhaps half the gentlemen in the room, and am likely to meet some of them not infrequently, I take the liberty of asking that if any one shall chance to recognize me, he will remember that I come on the condition that my identity remain concealed. The President,” he continued, “will bear me out when I say that I have not seen the things provided for use this evening, and that I had no knowledge of the place appointed for the meeting. The dressing-gown I sent him because the scantiness of my dress makes it rather a necessity. I presume that he has examined it carefully enough to be sure that it is innocent of witchery and of trickery.”
He paused for a moment, and then in a tone somewhat more determined went on.
“One thing I must add. I decline to answer any questions whatever in regard to the means which produce the effects to which I shall call your attention. Those from whom I have learned would be sufficiently unwilling that I exhibit my power at all, and were there no other reason, their wishes would be sufficient to prevent me from offering information or explanation. I may not succeed in doing all that I shall attempt. I have laid out a pretty serious evening’s work, especially for one who lives as I do amid unfavorable conditions; and of course I can receive no assistance from my audience.”
He took off the dressing-gown and dropped it into the chair. Then he removed from his finger a large seal ring, and laid it between his feet on the resinous slab.
“I wish to show you first,” the stranger said, “that if I chose, I could manage to deceive you into thinking that I accomplished much that I did not really do. For instance, I perhaps at this moment look to you like an elephant.”
The members of the Psychical Club gasped in astonishment. Surely upon the platform stood a large white elephant, twisting his pink trunk.
“Or a palm tree,” they heard the voice of the stranger say.
No; not an elephant stood on the platform, but a tall and graceful date-palm, crowned with a splendid cluster of spreading fronds.
“Or Dr. Taunton.”
The members looked in amazement from the figure of the President sitting in his chair, twirling his gold eye-glasses with his familiar gesture, and his double on the platform, as faithful as a reflection in a mirror, doing the same thing.
“But all this is mere illusion,” the voice went on; “I am none of these things.”
Once more they saw only the silken-clad figure, tall and supple, smiling under the black mask.
“What I profess to do,” the speaker continued, “I shall really do, and not depend upon cheating your senses. I shall hope to leave you proofs and evidences to establish this completely. The difficulty of the different expositions of force is not to be judged by appearances. First, for instance, I shall show you an exceedingly simple and easy thing. It has come to be customary, for some foolish reason, to speak of these phenomena as illustrations of the ‘fourth dimension.’ The term, I suppose, is as good as another, since it certainly conveys no definite idea whatever to people in general. I will ask a couple of gentlemen to take a pair of interlocked iron rings that I suppose are among the articles prepared, and to bring them to me. I do not wish to leave my insulation, as in later trials I shall need all my force.”
The rings were taken from the trunk and brought forward. They were of iron as thick as a man’s thumb, were linked together, and firmly welded. To pull them apart would have been impossible for teams of strong horses. By the direction of the stranger they were held before him by the two gentlemen.
“I have asked Dr. Taunton,” he said, “to have the rings privately marked, so as to insure against any possible suspicion of substitution. I have never seen them.”
He leaned forward, and laid his hand lightly on the junction of the rings. They fell apart instantly. Both were unbroken; and neither gave the slightest appearance of strain or rupture. A murmur of surprise circled the room, and then the members of the Club broke into hearty applause.
The stranger laughed frankly.
“I thank you, gentlemen,” he said good-humoredly; “but I am not a juggler.”
He asked next for the cube of wood and for the sealed letter.
“I have never seen either of these,” he said, the phrase being repeated almost with a mechanical indifference. “I suppose that the President or the person who wrote the letter can identify the note wherever he finds it.”
At his direction President Taunton held up before him the cube with the letter lying upon it. The stranger laid his hand over the letter, and then showed an empty palm toward the audience.
“You see I have not taken the letter,” he said. “If the saw is there, please cut the block in two in the middle. Cut it across the grain.”
While the sawing was going on, the magician put on his wrap and sat down. He resumed his signet ring, and sat with his head bowed in his hands. When the block had been divided, the ends of the letter, cut in halves, appeared in the midst of the wood.
“I think,” the stranger said, “that the two halves of the note will slip out of the envelope without difficulty, and Dr. Taunton will then be able to say whether it is the original letter or not.”
The president with a little trouble pulled out the pieces of paper and fitted them together. He examined them critically, even using a pocket-glass.
“If I had not been deceived earlier in the evening, and if I did not know that it is wildly impossible,” he said, “I should say that this is my letter.”
“‘I believe because it is impossible,’” quoted the stranger. “You may keep the pieces and decide at your leisure.”
He rose as he spoke, and once more threw off his robe. The Club waited breathless. He again placed the ring between his feet.
“I wish now,” he said, “the three globes filled with colored fluid.”
These were brought to him on a tray, and at his bidding placed close together in a triangle.
“This is only another of the innumerable possible variations upon the penetrability of matter, and would come under the head in common nomenclature of that stupidly used term ‘fourth dimension.’ I said that I am not a juggler, but of course I chose some of the tests because they are picturesque, and so might amuse an audience. See.”
He laid his hand upon the top of the three globes. Instantly they became one by intersection, the three bases being moved nearer together. Each globe preserved perfectly its shape, and in the divisions now made by the coalescing of the section of one sphere with that of another the liquid was of the hue resulting from a mingling of the colors of the differently tinted fluids.
A murmur went around. Several of the members rose to examine the globes.
“Put them on the table,” the wonder-worker said, “and then everybody may see.”
“We are not to ask questions of methods,” Judge Hobart observed. “Is it proper to inquire whether the experiment involves a contradiction of the old law that two bodies cannot occupy the same space?”
“Not at all,” was the answer. “Modern science has shown clearly enough that to seem to occupy space is only to fill it as the stars fill the sky. I have only taken advantage of that fact to crowd more matter into a defined area.”
The members were asked to seat themselves, and when this had been done, the stranger said: “Any number of examples of this power could be given, but these should be enough, unless some one would prefer to improvise a test on the spot.”
“I am glad that you say this,” Professor Gray remarked. “I am subject to the prejudice, foolish enough but common, of being more impressed by experiments of my own contriving. Do you mind, sir, if Dr. Taunton and I loop handkerchiefs together, and let you separate them while we hold the ends?”
“Certainly not,” was the reply.
The experiment was instantly successful, and was repeated for double assurance.
“If we had nothing else to do,” the stranger observed, “we might go on in this line indefinitely; but this is enough of the ‘fourth dimension,’ so called. Now we will try development.”
III
The flower-pot filled with earth was placed upon the slab at the feet of the magician. The orange seed was laid upon the earth.
“So ingenious an explanation has recently been given—or, more exactly, recently revived—of the development of a plant from a seed, that you may suppose me to have all the different pieces of an orange grove concealed about me, despite the fact that my dress is not adapted to the concealment of a needle. However, you may judge for yourselves.”
He leaned forward, and with the point of his finger pushed the seed into the earth.
“Will some one cover the pot with a handkerchief?” he said. “Please be careful not to touch me or it. Hold the handkerchief out, and drop it.”
One of the members followed the directions, and for a moment the stranger sat quiet, his eyes fixed on the covered flower-pot. The centre of the handkerchief was seen gradually to rise, and when the cloth was lifted, the astonished eyes of the Club beheld a glossy shoot, three or four inches in height. Without again covering it, the magician continued to gaze fixedly upon the plant. Before the eyes of the spectators the shoot became a shrub, the shrub a tree; the fragrance of orange blossoms filled the air, and among the shining leaves began to swell the golden fruit. The time had been numbered only in minutes, yet there stood a tree higher than a man’s head, and laden with golden globes.
“Take it away,” the wonder-worker said, “and let me rest a little before I try anything more. You will find the tree to-morrow, and I think you will concede that it is too bulky to have been concealed under these fleshings. If you think it only an optical delusion or the result of hypnotism, try to-morrow by the senses of persons who do not know how it was produced.”
He sat for some moments with his head bowed in his hands. Then at his direction a globe about a foot in diameter was filled with clear water and placed on the table. The lights were then turned down so as to leave all the room in shadow except the platform.
“I must ask you to be as quiet as possible,” the magician requested. “The experiment is a difficult one, and from living in the atmosphere which surrounds my daily life I am out of the proper condition.”
Putting his hands behind him, he sank downward on the slab to his knees, and so reached forward as to press his thumbs upon his great toes. The position was a singular one, and earlier in the evening might have raised a smile. Now all was breathless silence for a couple of moments. Then the stranger sprang suddenly to his full height, and directed his forefinger with a violent movement toward the globe. A spark of violet light not unlike that from an electric battery flashed from the outstretched finger to the globe, and was seen to remain like a star in the midst of the water.
From this violet centre, with slow, sinuous movement, numerous filaments of light grew out in the liquid, until the globe was filled with tangled and intertwined threads like the roots of a hyacinth in its glass. Slowly, slowly, the nucleus rose to the surface, dragging the threads behind it. Then above the water began to form a faint haze. With gradual motion it mounted, absorbing by degrees the fire from the phosphorescent fibres which served for its roots, until a faintly luminous pillar of dully glowing mist four or five feet high showed above the mouth of the globe.
The magician made strange gestures, and a slow rotary motion was discerned in the cloud. Without abrupt or definitely marked alteration the pillar was modified in shape until more and more plainly was evident a resemblance to the human form. He rose to his full height, and extended both his hands toward the figure. Slowly it detached itself from the water and from the globe, and floated in the air, the perfect shape of a woman, transparent, faintly luminous, but with a lustre less cold than at first. One of the men drew in his breath with a deep and audible inspiration. The shape wavered, and another spectator impulsively cried “Hush!” The word seemed to break the spell. The wonderful visionary form trembled, shivered, and its exquisite beauty melted in the air.
The magician resumed his seat with visible disappointment.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I am already tired, and you distracted my attention. The experiment has failed. May the lights be turned up, please.”
A murmur of disappointment ran around the room.
“I am sorry,” he repeated. “I should have impressed on you more strongly the need of absolute quiet. I am not quite up to beginning this over again. Let me show you the opposite—disintegration. It is easier to tear down than to build up.”
The block of iron he had asked for was by his direction laid on the floor in front of the platform. The magician sat for a moment with closed eyes, his hands laid palm to palm upon his knees. Then with an abrupt movement he pointed his two forefingers, pressed together, toward the cube. A report like that of a pistol startled the members, and the solid iron shivered into almost impalpable dust. The members of the Club crowded together to the spot.
“Please do not touch my platform,” he requested, as he had earlier in the evening. “I must still show you something more.”
IV
“Levitation is a phenomenon which is common enough,” he said by way of preface, “but our examination would by no means be complete without it. Of course I am only touching upon a few of the less subtle principles that underlie what is commonly misnamed occultism; but this is one of the obvious ones. Please let some heavy man step upon the scales.”
Judge Hobart was with some laughter persuaded to take his place upon the platform of the scales, and the indicator marked a weight of two hundred and six pounds.
“Will you look again?” the stranger asked of the gentleman who had read the number.
“Why, he weighs nothing!” the weigher exclaimed, in astonishment.
“His weight has broken the scales,” another member declared.
“You may think,” the magician went on, “that I have bewitched the spring. Will somebody lift the Judge?”
Professor Gray, who happened to stand nearest, put out one hand and picked the venerable Judge up as easily as he would have lifted a pocket-handkerchief. As he took his victim by the collar, the effect did not tend toward solemnity.
“What do you mean, sir?” demanded the Judge. “Put me down, sir, at once.”
The stranger made a little sign with his hand. The Professor saw and understood, so instead of putting Judge Hobart down, he lightly tossed the rotund figure upward. The Judge, probably more to his amazement than to his satisfaction, found himself floating in the air with his head against the ceiling, and with his legs paddling hopelessly as if he were learning to swim. The other members shouted with laughter.
“That will do,” the magician said. “I did not mean to turn things into a farce.”
The ponderous form of Judge Hobart floated softly to the floor; his face showed a wonderful mixture of bewilderment, wounded vanity, and relief.
“It’s very warm at the top of the room,” he said, wiping his red forehead; “very warm. Heat rises so.”
“Other things rise also at times,” somebody said.
Everybody laughed, and then the members settled into quiet again, and listened to the magician.
“Examples of this sort are infinite in number, but one is as good as many. The principle is everywhere the same. Levitation is really too simple a matter to occupy more of our time. The transporting of matter through space and through other matter is more interesting and more important. It is also more difficult, and consequently less common. Some time ago it was proposed in London, as a test of the reality of occultism, that a copy of an Indian paper of any given date be produced in London on the day of its publication in Calcutta. The test was shirked by those who are advertising themselves by pretending to powers which they did not have, and those who were able to do the feat had no interest in helping to bolster up a sham. That the thing was easily possible is the last fact with which I shall trouble you to-night. Allow me to offer you a copy of the ‘London Times’ of this morning.”
As he spoke, a newspaper fluttered from the air above, and fell upon the table. The stranger checked a movement which Judge Hobart made to examine it.
“Let me seal it first,” he said. “It will make future identification surer. Please lay it with that stick of sealing-wax on the platform.”
When this had been done, he took the wax and held it above the paper. The wax melted without visible cause, and dropped on the margin of the journal. Leaning forward, the magician pressed his seal into the red mass, and then flung the paper again on the table.
“It will be easy,” he remarked, “to compare this with a copy received through the ordinary channels. You do not need to be instructed in the means proper for securing and identifying this. The experiment may seem to you a simple one, but I assure you that it is so difficult that you cannot hope to repeat it without preparation you would find pretty severe.”
He rose as he spoke, and drew his robe about him.
“I have to thank you,” he continued, “for your patience and attention. As I meet so many of you not infrequently, it is better to trust to your courtesy not to name me than to your ignorance.”
He pulled off, as he spoke, the black mask, and with cries of surprise more than half the members of the Club called out the name of one of the best-known club men of the town, a man who had traveled extensively in the East, a man who had proved his powers by distinguished services in literature, a man of wealth and of leisure, and one of dominating character. Smiling calmly, he replaced the mask, and stood a moment in silence.
“That is all,” he said.
Then, with a peculiar gesture he waved his arms over the company, and repeated a few words in some unknown tongue. He stepped down from the platform and walked quietly from the room. But by that gesture or spell he had strangely wrought upon their minds; from that moment no man of them all, not even the President, has ever been able to remember who was their acquaintance who that evening did such wonders in the sight of the astonished Psychical Club.
TIM CALLIGAN’S GRAVE-MONEY
I
“’T was a fool’s notion to get tipped out of a boat anywhere,” said Tim Calligan to his circle of fellow pensioners at the Dartbank poor-farm, “me that’s been on the water like a bubble from the day me mother weaned me, saints rest her soul, and she as decent a woman as ever was born in County Cork.”
Tim was relating the oft-told tale of his escape from drowning, a story of which they were fond, and which he delighted to tell. The old man had a fertile Celtic fancy, and his narrations were luxuriant with exuberant growth.
“So there was meself drownin’ like a blind kitten in a pond,—and many ’s the litter of ’em I’d sent to the cat’s Purgatory by the way of that very river, saving that the Purgatory of cats there ain’t any, having no souls, by the token that having nine lives they’d belike have nine souls, and being so many they’d crowd good Christian souls in Paradise,—blessings on the holy saints for previnting it.
“No more could I make me head stay out of water,” Tim went on, “than if it was a stone. ‘Good-by, Tim, me boy,’ sez I to meself. ‘Ye’re gone this time,’ sez I, ‘and I’ll miss nothing in not being at yer wake, by the token that there won’t be no wake; and ef there was,’ sez I, still to meself, ‘there could be nothing to drink but water here in this cursed stream.’ And down I went again, like a dasher in a churn. ‘Holy St. Bridget,’ thinks I, ‘how far ’ll it be to the bottom of this ondecent river. Likely it goes clean through to Chiny,’ thinks I, ‘and one of them bloody, onbelaving heathen ’ll be grabbing me presently with his mice-eating hands. But it’s better being pulled out by a heretic heathen than staying in and soaking.’ With that up again I goes, like a shellaly at a fair; and it was like fire flashing in me eyes. Sez I to meself: ‘That ’ll be Widdy Malony’s bit of a house,’ sez I, spaking always in me mind because of the floods of water in me mouth. ‘It’ll be burning to the very ground,’ sez I, ‘and me missing all the fun of it. The blessed saints help the poor woman, turned out of house and home to get bite and sup for her children like a chipmunk, and every one of them taking after Dennis, and I might have married her meself long ago if they was fewer, for I’d want a ready-made family small,’ sez I to meself, plunking up and down in the water like a dumpling in the broth. ‘’T is pitiful to think of her house burning down over her head,’ sez I, ‘and she never to know the man might have made her Mis’ Calligan’s down here drowning in plain sight of the very flames of it, and she nor nobody doing one thing to save him, praise be to the handiworks of God. Faith, and ’t would be better for the both of us if she had more water and meself more fire,’ sez I in me mind. And all the time ’t was no fire, but just the blessed sun I’d never see again, barring I had n’t got saved, and it shining and flashing in the eyes of me from the widdy’s windows.”
The tale was long, for it included an enumeration of all the sensations and emotions which Tim had really experienced, and all those which, in the course of long years, he had been able to imagine he might have felt. As at the poor-farm time was not an object, however, except of slaughter, the length of the narrative was its greatest recommendation.
“And with that,” Tim at last ended his recital, “I felt the whole top of me head pulled off as I lay soft and easy on the bottom of the flood, and thinking nothing at all, but reflecting how soft the mud of it were and pitying Pat Donovan that he’d never get the quarter I owed him. ‘That ’ll be a Chany-man or the Divil, Tim, me boy,’ sez I to meself; and then I made no more observes to meself at all, owing to the soul having gone out of me body. And all the time it was Bill Trafton catching me by the hair, him having dove for me just shortly after me being dead, and dragging me to the top when I could n’t be moved from the bottom, and was likely to die any minute, saving that it was dead already I was. And he saved me life, by the token that the soul had gone out of me peaceful; but, Holy Mother, how’ll I be telling ye the pain of its coming back! ’T was like the unwilling dragging back of a pig out of a praitie patch to get the soul of me back from the place it had gone to, and they rubbing me to show it the care they’d take of me, and coaxing it for two mortal hours.”
As the tale ended, the bleared eyes of one of the auditors were attracted to a light wagon which had turned into the lane at the foot of the long slope upon which the poor-house stood.
“Somebody ’s comin’,” old Simeon observed deliberately. “Likely it’s the new Overseer.”
“Yes, that’s him,” Tim assented. “That’s Dan Springer.”
“I ’spected he was a-comin’,” Grandsire Welsh commented, with a senile chuckle. “Huldy and Sam’s been a-slickin’ up things.”
“Huldy and Sam,” in more official language Mr. and Mrs. Dooling, were the not unworthy couple who had the poor-farm in charge.
“Wa’n’t you sayin’ t’other day,” asked old Simeon, “thet you particular wantid to see the Overseer?”
“It’s pining for him I am the time,” Tim answered.
The old men sat silent, watching the approach of the visitor, who drove up to the hitching-post near them, and who leaped from his wagon with a briskness almost startling to the aged chorus.
“Spry,” old Simeon commented. “I’ve seen the time, though, when I was spry too.”
Springer fastened his horse, and came toward them.
“How d’ do, boys?” he said cheerily. “How goes it?”
The contrast between his great hearty voice and the thin quavers in which they answered him was pathetic. He lingered a moment, and then turned to make his way into the house. Tim rose and hobbled rheumatically after him.
“Whist, Mister Springer,” he called; “would ye be after waiting a wee bit till I have a word of speech with yer.”
“Well, what can I do for you?” Springer asked good-naturedly. “Don’t they treat you well?”
The old man took him by the arm and drew him around the corner of the house, away from the curious eyes of his companions.
“Whist!” he said, with a strange and sudden air of excitement. “Wait till I’m after telling yer. Your honor’ll mind I’m after trusting yer; trusting yer, and ye’ll no be betraying an old man. It’s meself,” he added, with a touch of pride at once whimsical and pathetic, “is ninety-three the day.”
“Are you as old as that? Well, I’d keep your secret if you were twice as old,” Springer returned, with clumsy but kindly jocoseness.
Tim raised himself until he stood almost upright.
“It’s the money,” he whispered, “the money I’ve saved for me burying.”
He turned to stretch his thin, bloodless finger toward the bleak cluster of mounds on the hillside where mouldered the dead of the poor-farm.
“I’ll no lie there,” he said, with husky intensity. “I’ve scraped and scraped, and saved and saved, and it’s the wee bit money I’ve got to pay for a spot of consecrated ground over to Tiverton. Ye’ll no put me here when I’m gone! I’ll no rest here! Me folks was respectable in the Old Isle, an’ not unbeknowing the gentry; and there’s never a one put outside consecrated ground. Ye’ll promise me I’ll be put in the graveyard over to Tiverton, and me got the money to pay.”
Springer was as unemotional and unimaginative as a hearty, practical, well-fed man could be, but seeing the tears in the old pauper’s bleared eyes, and hearing the passion of his tone, he could not but be moved. He had heard something of this before. His predecessor in office had mentioned Tim, and his twenty years’ saving, but so few were the chances a pauper in Dartbank had of picking up even a penny that the hoard even of so long a time could not be large. Now and then some charitable soul had given the old man a trifle. A vague sympathy was felt for the pathetic longing to be assured of a grave in consecrated ground, even among the villagers who regarded the idea itself as rank superstition.
“It’s all right, Tim,” the Overseer said. “If you go off while I have the say, I’ll see to it myself. If you’d be any more comfortable over in Tiverton, we’ll plant you there.”
“Thank yer honor kindly,” Tim answered. “The Calligans has always been decent, God-fearing folks, and it’s meself’d be loth to disgrace the name a-crawling up out of this unholy graveyard forby on Judgment Day, and all the world there to see, and I never could do it so sly but the O’Tools and the O’Hooligans ’d spy on me, and they always so mad with envy of the Calligans they’d be after tattling the news all over Heaven, and bringing shame to me whole kith and kin.”
The Overseer laughed, and responded that if Tim had laid by the money to pay for the job, he would certainly see that the grave was made in the consecrated earth of Tiverton churchyard. Then with a brisk step he passed on to attend to the sordid affairs of his office within. The most troublesome matter was left until the last.
“As to the Trafton child,” he said to Huldy and Sam, “I don’t see that anything can be done. I’ve spoken to the Selectmen about it, and they don’t think the town should be called on to pay out twenty-five dollars when here’s a place for the child for nothing.”
“That’s just what I told Louizy,” Huldy responded. “I said that’s what they’d say; but Louizy ’s dretful cut up.”
Springer moved uneasily or impatiently in his seat, so that the old wooden chair creaked under the weight of his substantial person.
“I know she is,” he said; “if I could afford it, I’d send the child to her folks myself; but I can’t, and I don’t see but the girl’s got to go to ’Lizy Ann Betts. Perhaps she won’t be so hard on her.”
“Hard on her,” sniffed Huldy; “she’ll just kill her; that’s all.”
At the word a wretched-looking woman pushed into the kitchen as if she had been listening at the door. She held out before her a right hand withered and shriveled by fire.
“Oh, Mr. Springer,” she broke out, tears running down her cheeks, “don’t send my Nellie to be bound to that woman! She’s all I’ve got in the world; and she never wanted till I was burned. Send her to my folks in Connecticut and they’ll treat her as their own.”
She sank down suddenly as if her strength failed, and sat stiff and despairing, with eyes of wild entreaty.
“It’s hard, I know,” Springer answered awkwardly, “but Nellie’ll be near you, and she would n’t be in Connecticut. ’Lizy Ann Betts ain’t a bad-hearted woman. She’ll do well by the child, I hope.”
“She’ll do well?” the mother cried shrilly, raising herself with sudden vehemence. “Did she do well by the last girl was bound to her from this farm? Did n’t she kill her?”
“There, there, Louizy,” interposed Huldy, “it ain’t no sort of use to make a fuss. What the S’lectmen say they say, and—”
She was interrupted by a cry without, and in an instant the door was flung open by old Simeon, who with wildly waving arms and weirdly working face cried out:—
“F’ th’ Lord’s sake! Come quicker ’n scat! Old Tim’s in a fit!”
II
The account old Simeon and Grandsire Welsh gave of Tim’s seizure was that he had been sitting outside the kitchen window, where they all were listening with interest to the conversation within, when suddenly he had thrown up his arms, crying out that he could not do it, and had fallen in a fit. No one at the poor-farm could know that Tim had reached the crisis of a severe mental struggle which had been going on for days. He had for days listened to the bitter words of Mrs. Trafton, and had sympathized with her grief over her child; and all the time he listened he had been secretly conscious that the little hoard he had gathered for his burying would save Nellie from the Betts woman, a shrew notorious all over the county for her cruelty. He remembered that Bill Trafton had saved him from drowning; that Mrs. Betts had the credit of having caused the death of her last bound child; and against this he set the terror of rising at the Resurrection from the unblessed precincts of the Dartbank Potter’s Field. The mental conflict had been too much for him, and the appeal of Mrs. Trafton to the Overseer had broken old Tim down.
Tim was got to bed, and in time recovered his senses, although he was very weak. Mrs. Trafton volunteered to watch with him that night, and so it came about that at midnight she sat in the bare chamber where old Tim lay. As the hours wore on Tim seemed much brighter, and asked her to talk to him to while away the time. The only subject in her mind was her child.
“If Nellie was with my folks,” she said, “I’d try to stand being away from her; but it’s just killing me to have that Betts woman starve her and beat her the way she’s done with the others. She’d kill Nellie.”
Tim moved uneasily in bed.
“But ye’d be after seein’ the child here,” he muttered feebly.
“I’d see her no more’n if she was with my folks,” returned Louizy bitterly; “but I’d know how she was suffering.”
The sick man did not answer. He turned his face to the wall and lay silent. After a time his regular breathing showed that he slept, while the watcher brooded in hopeless grief. At length Tim grew restless and began to mutter in his sleep.
“The poor creature’s having a bad dream,” Louizy said to herself, as his words grew more vehement and wild. “I wonder if I’d better wake him.”
She was still debating the matter in her mind when Tim gave a sudden cry and sat up in bed, trembling in every limb. His face was ghastly.
“Oh, I will, I will!” he cried out. “I will, so help me Holy Mary!”
“Tim, Tim, what’s the matter?” asked the nurse.
The old man clutched her hands desperately for a moment, and then seemed to recover a little his reason. He sank down again and closed his eyes. For a time he lay there silent. Then he said with strange solemnity:—
“’T is a vision meself has had this night, Louizy.”
She thought his mind still wandering, but in a moment he went on with more calmness: “I’ll tell it to ye all, Louizy. Give me a sup till I get strength. I’m no more strong than a blind kitten that’s just born.”
She gave him nourishment and stimulant, and Tim feebly and with many pauses told his dream. The force of a natural dramatic narrator still shaped his speech, and as he became excited, he spoke with more and more strength, until he was sitting up in bed, and speaking with a voice more clear than he had used for many a day.
“But it was a fearsome dream’s had holt on me the night. ’T is meself’s been palarvering with the blessed St. Peter face to face and tongue to tongue; and if I’d ought to be some used to it through having been dead once already by drowning, this time I was broke up by being dead in good earnest, by the same token that when St. Peter set his two piercing black eyes on me, I could tell by the look of ’em that it was straight through me whole body he was seeing.
“And the first thing I knew in my dream I was going all sole alone on a frightsome road all sprinkled over with ashes and bones, and I that crawly in my back I could feel the backbone of me wiggling up and down like a caterpillar, so my heart was choking in my throat with the fear of it. And I went on and I went on; and all the time it was in the head of me there was that coming behind was more fearsome than all the bones and skelingtons forninst. And I went on and I went on, seeming to be pushed along like, and not able to help meself; and all the time something was creeping, and creeping, and creeping behind, till all the blood in my body was that chilled the teeth of me chattered. And I went on and I went on till I could n’t stand it one mortal minute more; but I had to turn if the life went out of me for it. And there behind was a mite of a girl, a wee bit thing, thin and starved looking, and seeming that weak it was pitiful to see. ‘Poor thing,’ sez I to my own ghost, ‘it’s pitying her the day is Tim Calligan, if I be him,’ sez I, ‘and not some other body, for having no body perhaps I ain’t anybody at all, but just a spook in this place that ain’t nowhere.’ And all the time I was that scared of the wee bit child, being as it were where it could n’t be, and me dead before it and it dead behind me, and always following and following; so without thinking deeply what was to be done, I starts up and runs as hard as my legs that was turned into ghost shanks would let me. And I run through them ashes, stumbling on bones and seeing shadows that would get in the way and I had to run through ’em, and the weight of the horror of it words would n’t tell.
“And when I run, the wee bit child run; and it scared me worse than ever when the further I run away from it the closer it was to me, till at last it had a grab on the tail of my coat; and it clung on, and I that mad with fear I had no more sense than a hen with its head cut off and goes throwing itself round about for anger at the thought of being killed, and not knowing it is dead already. And oh, Louizy, the scaresomeness of the places I run through a-trying to get rid of that wee bit thing! It’s downright awful to think of the things that can happen to a dead man while he’s alive all the time and forgetful of it through dreaming!
“So when I’d been going on till mortal man could n’t stand it no longer, let alone a ghost, there I was just forninst the gate of Heaven, not in the least knowing how I come there or would I get in; and blessed St. Peter himself on a white stone outside the gate sitting and smiling and looking friendly so the terror went out of me like a shadow in the sun. And I scraped my foot, and I went up close to him, standing that way would I hide the child ahind of me; for sez I to meself: ‘What’ll I say to his Reverence and he axes me about the girl?’ And St. Peter he sez to me, mighty polite and condescending: ‘Good-morning,’ sez he. ‘The top of the morning to your Reverence, and thank ye kindly,’ sez I. ‘And what’ll be your name?’ sez he. ‘Tim Calligan, your honor,’ sez I, answering as pert as ever I could; for there was that in his manner of speaking that made me feel shivery, as if me heart’d been out all night in a snowstorm. ‘It’s a decent, respectable body I am, your Reverence,’ sez I, ‘though I say it as should n’t, having nobody else at hand that would put in a word for me.’ ‘And was ye buried in holy ground?’ sez he. ‘I was that,’ sez I; ‘and many’s the weary year I’ve been scraping to do that,’ sez I. ‘And what’ll that be behind ye?’ sez he. And I looked this way and that way, trying to make as if I did n’t know; and at last I pretended to spy the child, and to be that surprised he could n’t suspect I ever clapped eyes on the wee bit thing before. ‘That, your Reverence,’ sez I, ‘has the look of a scrap of a girl. Is it one your Reverence is bringing up?’ sez I, being that desperate I was as bold as a brass kettle. ‘And what’ll she be doing here?’ sez his Reverence, paying no heed to the impertinence of the question. ‘Sure, how’ll I know that?’ sez I. ‘Will she be coming with you?’ sez he. ‘Don’t she belong hereabouts?’ sez I, trying hard to brazen it out, and feeling my heart go plump down out of my mouth into my boots, more by token that I was barefoot the time. ‘Will she be coming with you?’ sez he again. ‘Sorra a bit,’ sez I; ‘I just could n’t get away from her,’ sez I. ‘And what for’ll you be trying to get away from her, and her no bigger than a bee’s knee?’ sez he, looking at me so hard that I could n’t hold up my face forninst him. ‘Well, your Reverence,’ sez I, looking down at the stones, and seeing the weeds trying to grow between them in the very face of Heaven itself, ‘it’s inconvenient traveling with a child anywhere, let alone the ondecent places I’ve been through this night; and the girl was n’t mine, and I might get blamed for keeping her out late, with her folks getting scared about her, not knowing where she was, and not understanding she was where your Holiness would be after caring for her.’ And with that St. Peter put out his hand, looking that sharp his eyes went through me like needles; and he pulled the wee bit child from behind me, and he sez to her: ‘What is the name of yer?’ ‘Nellie,’ sez she, her voice so thin you could n’t hear it, only knowing what she said from the moving of her lips like shadows on the wall. ‘And how came you here?’ sez he. ‘I was beat and starved to death,’ sez she, shivering till ’t was a mercy she did n’t go to pieces like a puff of smoke. And with that St. Peter looked at me once more, and the cold sweat run down my backbone like rain down a conductor in a thunder-storm. ‘Your Reverence,’ sez I, trembling, ‘I did n’t beat and starve the girl.’ ‘That may be,’ sez he, ‘but there’ll be some reason why she’s hanging on to your coat-tail like a burr on a dog,’ sez he. ‘What for are you following Tim Calligan,’ sez he to the girl, ‘and he dead and resting in holy ground?’ And with that she put you her little front finger, that was as thin as a sparrow’s claw that’s starved to death in winter, and she pointed to me, and sez she: ‘He would n’t give the money to send me to my folks,’ sez she; ‘and my own father saved the life of him when he was dead and drownded before I was born,’ sez she. ‘What for would n’t you give the money, Tim?’ sez St. Peter, sitting there on that white stone like a judge trying the life of a man. ‘Your Reverence,’ sez I, falling down on the stones at the feet of him, ‘twenty years was I struggling, and saving, and scraping to get the bit money for a grave in holy ground! If I’d give it to the child, I’d be down this blessed minute I’m having the honor of conversing with your Holiness—and it’s proud I am of your condescending so far!—lying in unconsecrated ground all cheek by jowl with heretics, and like as not getting my bones mixed with theirs at the blessed resurrection. Sorra a bit did I know the suffering of this poor wee bit thing.’ ‘And did her father save your life?’ sez he. ‘He did that,’ sez I, ‘and a good, decent, God-fearing man he were,’ sez I, ‘barring he were a heretic, your Reverence, owing to his not being asked, it’s likely, would he be born a good Catholic,—and I hope your Reverence ain’t been too hard on Bill Trafton if he’s come this way,’ sez I. ‘Tim,’ sez St. Peter, looking at me with a look like one of the long isuckles on the north side of the barn in January,—‘Tim, ’t is no use trying the palarver on me,’ sez he. ‘Ye know ye let this child get bound to that Betts woman, and now she’ll be bate to death, and who’s to bear the blame if not ye that might have stopped it? Do ye think, Tim Calligan,’ sez he, raising his voice so the blessed angels come a-looking over the holy walls of Heaven to see what would be the matter,—by the same token that the little gold hoops floating round their heads kept clashing together and sounding like sleigh-bells, their heads was that close together on top of the wall, and all their eyes looking at me that sorrowful like it nigh broke my heart,—‘do ye think,’ sez he, ‘you’re sleeping in holy ground when the price of the grave your worthless old carcass is in was the life of this wee bit child?’ And all the angels shook their heads, and looked at me that reproachful the heart in me got so big it would have killed me with its swelling only saving that I was dead already, not to say being dead twice; and I fell to sobbing and praying to St. Peter for mercy,—and the first thing I knew I woke up in bed, praise be to the handiworks of God! made alive again, this being the third time, counting the time I was first born.”
Tim’s tale was long, and it was interrupted by frequent intervals of rest made necessary by his weakness. When he ended, the pale forecast of dawn shone into the squalid room. Louizy was crying softly, in the suppressed fashion of folk unaccustomed to give full vent even to grief. Tim lay quiet for a long time. At last he aroused himself to feel beneath the mattress, and to bring to light a dirty bag of denim. This he pressed into the hand of his nurse.
“It’ll take you both,” he murmured feebly. “Blessings go with ye, and the saints be good to the soul of Tim Calligan, coming up at the Day of Judgment like a scared woodchuck out of unblessed ground!”