THE MAN WITH THE BOOK.
Through shades and solitudes profound,
The fainting traveler wends his way;
Bewildering meteors glare around,
And tempt his wandering feet astray.
—Montgomery.
The autumnal evening was cool, dark and gusty. Storm-clouds
were gathering thickly overhead, and the ground beneath was covered
with rustling leaves, which, blighted by the early frosts, lay
helpless and dead at the roadside, or were made the sport of the
wind. A solitary horseman was slowly plodding along the road but a
few miles from the village of Salem. In truth he was so near to the
famous Puritan village, that, through the hills and intervening
tree-tops, he could have seen the spires of the churches had he
raised his melancholy eyes from the ground. The rider was not a
youth, nor had he reached middle age. His face was handsome, though
distorted with agony. Occasionally he pressed his hand to his side
as if in pain; but maugre pain, weariness, or anguish, he pressed
on, admonished by the lengthening shadows of the approach of night.
Turning his great, sad, brown eyes at last to where the road wound
about the valley across which the distant spires of Salem could be
seen, he sighed:
"Can I reach it to-night? I must!"
Salem, that strange village to which the horseman was wending
his way, in October, 1684, was a different village from the Salem
of to-day. It is a town familiar to every American student, and,
having derived its fame more from its historic recollections than
from its commerce or industries, its name carries us back two
centuries, suggesting the faint and transient image of the life of
the Pilgrim Fathers, who gave that sacred name to the place of
their chosen habitation. Whatever changes civilization or time may
bring about, the features of natural scenery are, for the most
part, unalterable. Massachusetts Bay is as it was when the Pilgrim
Fathers first beheld it. On land, there are still the craggy hills,
with jutting promontories of granite, where the barberries grow,
and room is found in the narrow valleys for small farms, and for
apple trees, and little slopes of grass, and patches of tillage
where all else looks barren.
The scenery is not more picturesque to-day, than on that
chill autumnal eve, when the strange horseman was urging his jaded
steed along the path which led to the village. His garments were
travel-stained and his features haggard.
Three hunters with guns on their shoulders were not half a
mile in advance of the horseman. They, too, evidently had passed a
day of arduous toil; for climbing New England hills in search of
the wild deer was no easy task.
They were men who had hardly reached middle age; but their
grave Puritanic demeanor made them look older than they were. Their
conversation was grave, gloomy and mysterious. There was little
light or frivolous about them, for to them life was sombre. The
hunt was not sport, but arduous toil, and their legs were so weary
they could scarcely drag themselves along.
"Now we may rejoice, John Bly, that home is within sight, for
truly I am tired, and I think I could not go much farther," one of
the pedestrians remarked to the man at his side.
"Right glad will I be when we are near!" answered the
fatigued John Bly. "This has been a hard day with fruitless
result."
"We have had some fair shots to-day," put in a third man, who
walked a little behind the others.
"Verily, we have; yet what profits it to us, Samuel Gray,
when our guns fail to carry the ball to the place? I had as many
fair shots to-day as would bring down a dozen bucks, and yet I
missed every time. You know full well I am not one to
miss."
"You are not, John Louder."
Then the three men looked mysteriously at each other. They
were all believers in supernatural agencies, and the fact that such
a faultless marksman should miss was enough to establish in their
minds a belief that other than natural causes were at work. There
could be no other reason given that John Louder should miss his
mark, than that his gun was "bewitched." It was an age when the
last dying throes of superstition seemed fastening on the people's
minds, and the spasmodic struggle threatened to upset their reason.
The New Englander's mind was prepared for mysteries as the fallow
ground is prepared for the seed. He was busied conquering the
rugged earth and making it yield to his husbandry. His time was
divided between arduous toil for bread and fighting the Indians. He
was hemmed in by a gloomy old forest, the magnitude of which he did
not dream, and it was only natural, with his fertile imagination,
narrow perceptions and limited knowledge, that he would see strange
sights and hear strange sounds. Images and visions which have been
portrayed in tales of romance and given interest to the pages of
poetry were made by him to throng the woods, flit through the air
and hover over the heads of terrified officials, whose learning
should have placed them beyond the bounds of superstition. The
ghosts of murdered wives, husbands and children played their part
with a vividness of representation and artistic skill of expression
hardly surpassed in scenic representation on the stage. The
superstition of the Middle Ages was embodied in real action, with
all its extravagant absurdities and monstrosities. This, carried
into the courts of law, where the relations of society and conduct
or feelings of individuals were suffered to be under control of
fanciful or mystical notions, could have but one effect. When a
whole people abandoned the solid ground of common sense, overleaped
the boundaries of human knowledge, gave itself up to wild reveries,
and let loose its passions without restraint, the result was more
destructive to society than a Vesuvius to Pompeii. When John Louder
said his gun was bewitched, there was no incredulous smile on his
companions' faces.
The political complexion of New England at that time no doubt
had much to do with the superstitious awe which overspread that
country. Within the recollection of many inhabitants, the parent
government had changed three times. Charles II. had lived such a
life of furious dissipation, that his earthly career was drawing to
a close.
The New England people were zealous theologians, and
Massachusetts and Plymouth hated above all sects the Roman
Catholics. Charles II. could not reign long, and James, Duke of
York, his brother, would be his successor, as it was generally
known that Charles II. had no legitimate heir. It was hoped by some
that his illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, a Protestant,
might succeed him. Some had even hinted that Charles II., while
flying from Cromwell, had secretly married Lucy Waters, the mother
of the duke; but this has never been proved in
history.
The somewhat ostentatious manner in which the Duke of
York had been accustomed to go to mass, during the life of his
brother, was the chief cause of the general dislike in which he was
held. Even Charles, giddy and careless as he was in general, saw
the imprudence of James' conduct, and significantly told him on one
occasion that he had no desire
to go upon his travels again, whatever James might wish. When it
became currently reported all over the American colonies that this
bigoted Catholic would, on the death of his brother, become their
ruler, the New Englanders began to tremble for their religion.
There was murmuring from every village and plantation, keeping
society in a constant ferment.
The three hunters were still discussing their ill luck when
the sound of horse's hoofs fell on their ears, and they turned
slowly about to see a stranger approaching them on horseback. His
sad, gray eye had something wild and supernatural about it. His
costume had at one time been elegant, but was now stained with dust
and travel. It included a wrought flowing neckcloth, a sash covered
with a silver-laced red cloth coat, a satin waistcoat embroidered
with gold, a trooping scarf and a silver hat-band. His trousers,
which were met above the knees by a pair of riding boots, like the
remainder of his attire, was covered with dust.
The expression of pain on his face was misconstrued by the
superstitious hunters into a look of fiendish triumph, and John
Louder, seizing the arm of Bly, whispered:
"It is he!"
"Perhaps——"
"I know it, Bly, for he hath followed me all
day."
"Then wherefore not give him the ball, which he hath guarded
from the deer?"
"It would be of no avail, John. A witch cannot be killed with
lead. He would throw the ball in my face and laugh at
me."
The three walked hastily along, casting wary and uneasy
glances behind as the horseman drew nearer. Each trembled lest the
horseman should speak, and once or twice he seemed as if he would;
but pain, or some other cause unknown to the hunters, prevented his
doing so. He rode swiftly by, disappearing over the hill in the
direction of Salem.
When he was out of sight the three hunters paused, and,
falling on their knees, each uttered a short prayer for deliverance
from Satan. As they rose, John Louder said:
"Now I know full well, good men, that he is the wizard who
hath tampered with my gun."
"Who is he?"
"Ah! well may you ask, Samuel Gray, who he is; a stranger,
the black man, the devil, who hath assumed this form to mislead and
torment us. One can only wonder at the various cunning of Satan,"
and Louder sighed.
"Truly you speak, friend John," Bly answered. "The enemy of
men's souls is constantly on the lookout for the
unwary."
"I have met him and wrestled with him, until I was almost
overcome; but, having on the whole armor of God, I did cry out 'Get
thee behind me, Satan!' and, behold, I could smell the sulphur of
hell, as the gates were opened to admit the prince of
darkness."
The shades of night were creeping over the earth, and the
three weary hunters were not yet within sight of their homes, when
the horseman who had so strangely excited their fears drew rein at
a spring not a fourth of a mile from the village of Salem and
allowed his horse to drink. He pressed his hand to his side, as if
suffering intolerable anguish, and murmured:
"Will I find shelter there?"
Overcome by suffering, he at last slipped from his saddle
and, sitting among the rustling leaves heedless of the lowering
clouds and threatened storm, buried his face in his hands. Two
hours had certainly elapsed since he first came in sight of Salem,
and yet so slow had been his pace, that he had not reached the
village; but on the earth, threatened with a raging tempest, he
breathed in feeble accents a prayer to God for strength to perform
the great and holy task on which he was bent. He was sick and
feeble. In his side was a wound that might prove fatal, and to this
he occasionally pressed his hand as if in pain.
He who heareth the poor when they cry unto Him, answered the
prayer of the desolate. A farmer boy came along whistling merrily
despite the approaching night and storm. Not the chilling blasts of
October, the dread of darkness, nor the cold world could depress
the spirits of Charles Stevens, the merry lad of Salem. In fact, he
was so merry that, by the straight-laced Puritans, he was thought
ungodly. He had a predisposition to whistling and singing, and was
of "a light and frivolous carriage." He laughed at the sanctity of
some people, and was known to smile even on the Lord's Day. When,
in the exuberance of his spirits, his feet kept time to his
whistling, the good Salemites were horrified by the ungodly
dance.
Charles Stevens, however, had a better heart, and was a truer
Christian than many of those sanctimonious critics, who sought to
restrain the joy and gladness with which God filled his soul. It
was this good Samaritan who came upon the suffering stranger whom
the three Puritans had condemned in their own minds as an emissary
of the devil.
"Why do you sit here, sir?" Charles asked, leaving off his
whistle. "Night is coming on, and it is growing so chill and cold,
you must keep moving, or surely you will perish."
"I cannot rise," was the answer.
"Cannot rise! prythee, what ails you, friend?"
"I am sick, sore and wounded."
"Wounded!" cried Charles, "and sick, too!"
"Cannot rise! Prythee, what ails you, friend?"
"Cannot rise! Prythee, what ails you, friend?"
His sharp young eyes were enabled to penetrate the deepening
shades of twilight, and he saw a ghastly pallor overspreading the
man's face, who, pressing his hand upon his side, gave vent to
gasps of keen agony. His left side was stained with
blood.
"You are wounded!" Charles Stevens at last declared. "Pray,
how came it about?"
"I was fired upon by an unseen foe, for what cause I know
not, as, being a stranger in these parts, I have had no
quarrel."
"Come, let me help you to rise."
"No, it is useless. I am tired and too faint to go further.
Let me lie here. I will soon be dead, and all this agony will be
over."
At this, the cheerful mind of Charles Stevens asserted itself
by inspiring hope in the heart of the fainting
stranger.
"No, no, my friend, never give up. Don't say die, so long as
you live. It is but a few rods further to the home where I live
with my mother. I can help you walk so far, and there you can get
rested and warmed, and mother will dress your wound."
"Can I go?" the traveller asked.
"Men can do wonders when they try."
"Then I will try."
"I will help you."
The boy threw his strong arm around the man and raised him to
his feet; but his limbs no longer obeyed his will, and he sank
again upon the ground.
"It is of no avail, my good boy. I cannot go. Leave me to
die."
Charles turned his eyes about to look for the stranger's
horse; but it had strayed off in the darkness. To search for him
would be useless, and for a moment the good Samaritan stood as if
in thought; then, stripping off his coat and wrapping it around the
wounded man, he said hopefully:
"I will be back soon, don't move," and he hurried away
swiftly toward home. On reaching the threshold, he thanked God that
he was not a wanderer on such a night.
The New England kitchen, with its pewter-filled dresser,
reflecting and multiplying the genial blaze of the log-heaped
fire-place, its high-backed, rush-bottomed chairs, grating as they
were moved over the neatly sanded floor, its massive beam running
midway of the ceiling across the room, and its many doors, leading
to other rooms and attics, was a picture of comfort two hundred
years ago. The widowed mother, with her honest, beautiful face
surrounded by a neat, dark cap border, met her son as he entered
the kitchen and, glancing at him proudly, said:
"The wind gives you good color, Charles."
"Yes, mother," rubbing his cheeks, "they do burn
some;—mother."
"Well?"
"I heard you tell Mr. Bly, the other day, that you could
trust me with all you had. Will you trust me with old Moll and the
cart to-night?"
"What do you want with Moll and the cart?"
"To go to the big spring under the hill for a poor man who is
sick and wounded."
"And alone?"
"Yes, mother."
"It is a freezing night."
"Yes, mother, and he may die. He is unable to walk. Remember
the story of the good Samaritan."
After a long pause, the widow said, "Yes, you may have old
Moll and the cart. Bring him here, and we will care for him; but
remember that to-morrow's work must be done."
"If you have any fault to find to-morrow night, don't trust
me again!" and the boy, turning to the cupboard beneath the
dressers, buttered a generous slice of bread, then left the room
with a small pitcher, and returned with it brimming full of cider,
his mother closely noting all, while she busied herself making
things to rights in her culinary department. Charles next went out
and harnessed the mare to the cart, then returned to the kitchen
for his bread and cider.
"Why not eat that before you go?" queried the
mother.
"I am not hungry, I have had some supper, you know. Good
night, mother. I will be back soon; so have the bed ready for the
wounded stranger."
"God bless you, my brave boy," the mother exclaimed, as he
went out and sprang into the cart. She now knew that he had taken
the bread and cider for the sick man, under the hill.
Charles hurried old Moll to a faster gait than she was
accustomed to go, and found the stranger where he had left him.
Leaping from the cart, he said:
"I am back, sir! You said you were faint. Here's some of our
cider, and if you will sit up and drink it and eat this bread, you
will feel better, and here is old Moll and the cart ready to take
you home where you will receive good Christian treatment until you
are well enough to go on your way rejoicing."
So he went on, bobbing now here and now there and talking as
fast as he could, so as not to hear the poor man's outpourings of
gratitude, as he ate and drank and was refreshed. With some
difficulty, he got the stranger into the cart, where, supported by
the boy's strong arm, he rode in almost total silence through the
increasing darkness to the home of the widow Stevens. He was taken
from the cart and was soon reclining upon a bed.
His wound, though painful, was not dangerous and began to
heal almost immediately. Surgery was in its infancy in America, and
on the frontier of the American colonies, every one was his own
surgeon.
The widow dressed the wound herself, and the stranger
recovered rapidly. Charles next day found a horse straying in the
forest with a saddle and holsters, and, knowing it to be the steed
of the wounded stranger, he brought it home.
As the wounded man recovered he became more silent and
melancholy. He had not even spoken his name and seldom uttered a
word unless addressed.
One night this mysterious stranger disappeared from the
widow's cottage. He might have been thought ungrateful had he not
left behind five golden guineas, which, the note left behind said,
were in part to remunerate the good people who had watched over and
cared for him so kindly. Charles Stevens and his mother were much
puzzled at this mysterious stranger, and often when alone they
commented on his conduct.
Their home was outside the village of Salem, and for days
they did not have a visitor; but two or three of their neighbors
had seen the stranger while at their house, yet they told no one
about him. His mysterious disappearance was kept a secret by mother
and son. Little did they dream that in after years they would
suffer untold sorrow for playing the part of good
Samaritans.
John Louder and his friends had almost forgotten their day of
hard luck in the woods. Their more recent hunts had proven
successful, for the witches had temporarily left off tampering with
their guns. The stranger whom they had met on that evening was
quite forgotten.
A fortnight after the stranger disappeared, John Louder was
wandering in the forest, his gun on his shoulder. The sun had just
dipped below the western hills and trees, and he was approaching a
small lake at which the deer came to drink.
It was a dense forest through which he was pressing his way.
In places it was so dense he was compelled to part the underbrush
with his hands. Centuries of summer suns had warmed the tops of the
same noble oaks and pines, sending their heat even to the roots.
Though the early frosts of October had stricken many a leaf from
its parent stem, enough still remained to obscure the vision at a
rod's distance.
Night was approaching, and John Louder, brave as he was to
natural danger, had a strange dread of shadows and the
unreal.
He pressed his way through the wood, until a spot almost
clear of timber was in sight. This little area, which afforded a
good view of the sky, although it was pretty well filled with dead
trees, lay between two of those high hills or low mountains into
which the whole surface of the adjacent country was
broken.
Dashing aside the bushes and brambles of the swamp, the
forester burst into the area with an exclamation of
delight.
"One can breathe here! There is the lake to which the deer
come to drink. Now, if Satan send not a witch to lead my bullets
astray, perchance I may have a venison ere an hour has
passed."
He gathered some dry sticks of wood and, with his flint and
steel, quickly kindled a fire.
His fire was to keep off the mosquitoes, which were
tormenting in that locality. The fire did not alarm the deer, for
they had seen the woods burn so often that they would go quite
close to a blaze.
Hardly had he lighted his fire, when he was startled by the
tramp of feet near, and a moment later a horseman rode out of the
woods and drew rein before him.
Louder was surprised, but by no means alarmed. A man in the
forest was by no means uncommon, yet he felt a little curious to
know why he was there. He reasoned that probably the fellow had
lost his way, and had been attracted by his camp fire; but the
stranger's question dispelled that delusion.
"Are you John Louder?" he asked.
"Yes."
"You live at Salem?"
"I do."
"Are you a Protestant?"
"I am."
"You do not believe in the transubstantiation of the body and
blood of Christ into the bread and wine of the
Sacrament?"
John Louder, who was a true Puritan and a hater of the
Papists, quickly responded:
"I do not hold to any such theology."
"Nor do you believe in the infallibility of the
pope?"
"I believe no such doctrine."
"Then there can be no doubt that you are a true
Protestant."
"I am," Louder answered with no small degree of
pride.
"So much the better."
The stranger dismounted from his horse and slipped his left
hand through the rein, allowing the tired beast to graze, while
with his right hand he began searching in his pockets for
something.
"Would you have a Catholic king?" he asked while searching
his pockets.
"No."
"You prefer a Protestant."
"I do."
"I knew it," and he continued, "King Charles is nearing his
end. But a few months more must see the last of this monarch, and
then we will have another. The great question which appeals to the
heart of every Englishman to-day is, shall it be a Protestant or a
Catholic?"
"A Protestant!" cried John Louder, in his bigoted
enthusiasm.
"Then, John Louder, it behooves the English people to speak
their minds at once, lest they have fastened upon them a monarch
who will wrench from them their religious liberties."
Louder was wondering what the man could mean when the
stranger suddenly took from his pocket a book. It was a book with a
red back, as could be seen from the fire-light. The stranger drew
from another pocket a pen and an ink horn and, in a voice which was
solemn and impressive, said:
"Sign!"
John Louder was astonished at the request, or command,
whichever it might be, and mechanically stretched out his hand to
take the book. At this moment the camp-fire suddenly flamed up, and
he afterward averred that the face of the stranger was suddenly
changed to that of a devil, and from his burning orbs there issued
blue jets of flame, while the whole air was permeated with sulphur.
With a yell of horror, he started back, crying:
"Take it away! take away your book! I will not sign! I will
not sign!"
"Sign it, and I promise you a Protestant king."
"Away! begone! The whole armor of God be between me and
you."
Seizing a firebrand, he searched for the print of a cloven
hoof.
Seizing a firebrand, he searched for the print of a cloven
hoof.
Quaking with superstitious dread, Louder sank down upon the
ground and buried his face in his hands. For several minutes he
remained thus trembling with fear, and when he finally recovered
sufficiently to raise his eyes, the stranger was gone.
He and his horse had vanished, and John Louder, seizing a
firebrand, searched the ground for the print of a cloven foot. He
found it and, snatching up his rifle, ran home as rapidly as he
could. It was late that night when he reached his house and,
rapping on the door, called:
"Good-wife! Good-wife, awake and let me in!"
"John Louder, wherefore came you so early, when I thought you
had gone to stalk the deer and would not come before
morning?"
"I have seen him!"
"Whom have you seen?"
"The man with the book."
This announcement produced great consternation in the mind of
good-wife Louder. To have seen the man with the book was an evil
omen, and to sign this book was the loss of one's eternal
soul.
"Did you sign it, John?" she asked.
"No."
"God be praised!"