CHAPTER TWENTY-FIFTH. “THE VAGABOND. ”
“And so they say the old house is haunted—do they?”
Betsy uttered a scream and Jacopo bounded from his chair.
The speaker stood very near them—within arm's length indeed—he
had passed through the gate unperceived, and now pausing under the
branches of the oak, rested his hands upon his staff, and gazed into their
wondering faces, while the sunlight tinted his grey hairs.
He was an old man, very tall and robust, with sunburnt features and
long hair and beard—both as white as the driven snow. He stood resting
his hands upon a knotted staff, while the sunlight revealed his gaunt
form, enveloped in miserable attire. In fact, he was arrayed in rags.
The garment that clothed his chest, and gathered to his waist by a leathern
girdle, descended to his knees, might have once been blue or black or
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brown, but now its texture and color were lost in a multitude of patches.
His shoes, rent and torn, were bound to his feet by an intricate lacing of
rags and cords; his tattered buckskin leggings, clothing limbs by no means
deficient in muscle, were also fastened by strips of twine and leather.
And thus, staff in hand, the gaunt old man, clad in rags that a beggar
might have been ashamed to wear, stood between the gazers and the
light of the western sky, his silvery hair reddened at the edges by the
rays of the declining sun.
His sunburnt face and piercing eyes, shadowed by an old felt hat, and
framed in that mass of snowy beard and hair, were animated by something
like a smile, as he surveyed the wondering pair. Here Jacopo,
with his mouth agape, his small eyes expanding in his blooming face;
there the buxom widow, her round arms crossed over her luxurious bust,
while her mouth assuming the shape of the letter O! displayed her
pearly teeth in even rows.
“A very pleasant day, my friends,” said the old man, his harsh deep
voice tempered to a mild and pleasant tone, while he slowly lifted the
hat from his white hairs—“And so they say—” his voice was harsh and
deep again—“that the old house is haunted—do they?”
“Vonders vere he comes from,” murmured Betsy.
“Looks like a Ragged Rainbow,” soliloquized Jacopo.
“You do not answer me,” continued the old man, with a smile that
showed that despite his years, his teeth were firm and white. “Am I an
unwelcome guest?”
“Vots yer name?”—Betsy assumed a position of great dignity, while
Jacopo slunk quietly behind her capacious shoulders—“Never seed you
in tese parts pefore?”
“Pay-As-I-Go,” responded the old man, and at the word, from some
obscure nook of his rags, he drew forth a crown of shining silver. “That's
my name. And now I'll take some bread and cheese, or a bit of cold
chicken and a mug of cider, with a pipe of tobacco. Stir yourself, my
good woman.”—
Betsy was puzzled. Shading her eyes with her hand, she gazed
anxiously into the old man's visage, while the face of Jacopo was seen
peering over her white shoulder. Something there was in the manner
and appearance of the stranger that impressed the good dame with a sensation
of wonder mingled with fear.
“His peard is so white and yit his voice is so shtrong! His dress so
raggedt, and yit he handles money like a Lordt! Kin he want to steal—
or murder?”
These thoughts passed rapidly through Betsy's mind, while Jacopo,
pressing his lips against her smooth shoulder—unconsciously you may
be sure—whispered softly in her ear—
“Speak to him kind, Betsy. He may be an angel in disguise.”
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Betsy had heard of angels in a state of Paradisical nudity; she had
seen in her old Dutch Bible various pictures of corpulent angels, but the
idea of a Ragged Angel was too much for her gravity.
She laughed until the air rung again. But her merriment as suddenly
died away. The old man grew red in the face, he gasped for breath, and
sank helplessly in a chair, his mouth wide open and his eyes closed, as
if in a deathly swoon.
To seize a mug of cider, to moisten his lips and face with the fragrant
October, to chafe his hands with her soft palms, and slap him violently on
the back as you would slap a choking infant; all this was the work of
a moment.
Betsy was in her true element. Hovering round the insensible old man,
she looked like one of those substantial Angels, pictured in the Dutch
Bible aforesaid, while Jacopo, stirred into activity by her example, and
fanning the stranger with his coat-tails, brought to mind, a Dutch Satan
making mischief near a Dutch Eve.
“Lordt if he should die on my place, we'd have the Coroner sittin' on
him—Git som water—dash it in his face—shake him, shake him—”
The old man moved, at first very gently and then in the agonies of a
spasm. He clutched his staff and brandished it wildly to and fro, while
Betsy tried very hard to hold him in the chair. The staff came in contact
with Jacopo's shoulder; as a matter of course Jacopo plunged rather
suddenly to the ground. When he raised himself again, and rubbed his
eyes, he saw a sight which made him doubt his eyes.
The luxuriant form of Betsy rested on the old man's knee; the old
man's arm was about her neck; the old man's white beard against her
smooth cheek—nay the old man—in his spasm—was kissing her violently,—
kissing her warm lips, her cheeks, her chin—kissing every dimple in
her joyous face. And in his spasm, he pressed her round neck in his
fingers, and gathered her massive loveliness, very closely to his breast.
“Let me go! Be guit! Te tefil!” screamed Betsy, completely bewildered
by this spasmodic attack—“You old fyste—you—”
The old man stopped her mouth with a kiss, and Betsy with one desperate
bound escaped from his arms, and stood panting and glowing, her
kerchief disarranged and her brown hair floating loosely about her blushing
face.
Jacopo could not believe his eyes!
The old man, recovered from his swoon, sate calmly in his chair, resting
his hands upon his staff, while his aged face, turned from side to side—
from Betsy who blushed and panted here, to Jacopo, who squat upon
the ground, rubbed his eyes without ceasing—with an expression of vague
bewilderment.
“Excuse me, my good friends;” he muttered wildly—“Where am I?”
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he continued like a man awaking from some troubled d eam—“O, I remember!
One of my spasms.”
He passed his hand over his aged face,—very slowly and with a
thoughtful motion—like a man who endeavors to recall his wandering
memory.
“Spasms!” ejaculated Jacopo rubbing his bruises.
“Spasms!” echoed Betsy, bursting with indignation, as she arranged
her hair and smoothed her kerchief.
“Spasms, my children,” said the aged man, “Been subject to 'em
since I was a boy.” It was beautiful to a painter's eye, to see that figure
of venerable old age, enthroned in the arm chair, under the oaken tree,
with Jacopo prostrate at its feet, and Betsy hovering near.
“Get me something to eat, my good girl, or the spasm will come on
again,” said the ragged venerable, while a curious light shone in his eyes.
Betsy turned away, enraged and murmuring, her great bust heaving like
an immense billow, as she entered the cabin door, while Jacopo rising
from the ground with a careful motion, seated himself as far from the
stranger as possible, observing him at the same time, as you would eye a
suspicious beast.
“Devil take his spasms,” he muttered rubbing his wounds.
Betsy returned, glorious in her full-blown beauty, but formidable with
festival array; a jug of cider, a platter of cold ham, a loaf of home-made
bread and a pipe of fragrant tobacco.
“There,” she said emphatically, “Andt no more of yer spasms.”
The old man cooly wheeled his chair, and set about his work. It was
by no means eating; it was actual work, that he displayed before the eyes
of the good Widow. With one impetuous movement he assaulted the
ham, carried the home-made bread by storm, and brought the cider to
close quarters. In silence, as though conscious of having a certain amount
of labor before him, and a fixed time for its accomplishment, the good old
man pursued his task. Jacopo sat aloof, his round visage rendered melancholy
by a vacant stare; the widow sank into a seat, her voluptuous
mouth once more assuming an alphabetical shape, and writing a sort of
dumb O! upon her blooming face.
“I thought I had an appetite,” murmured the Philosopher. “I say,
my good friend, did you ever in the course of your travels happen to be
shipwrecked,—and if so—did you ever happen to eat anybody,—for instance,
a fat man, or a healthy child, or even a hearty little nigger?”
To this polite inquiry the old man did not respond, until he had carried
by storm, the last bit of ham, and the last crust of home-made bread.
“I feel my spasm, comin' on again,” he said—his eyes twinkling—his
staff once more in his right hand.
Jacopo moved his chair; the widow seized her broom.
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“I sometimes gits tem tings meself, and when I toes, I breaks people's
heads mit tis broom.”
“And that it was, that drove your poor Adam to see, some sixteen years
or so ago,” said the old man, lighting his pipe, at the tinder box, which
stood on the table.
Reddening and panting the good dame started to her feet, satisfied that
the stranger was in fact, none other than the—.
“My husband!”
“Your husband (puff.) Poor Adam! (puff) He used te weep at the
memory of that broom. `Caleb,' says he to me one day, as we sat on
ship board together, if you should ever chance to get to Germantown, seek
out my wife, and tell her that the old broom was the cause of my broken
heart. (puff) Poor Adam!”
The widow was dumb; the ends of her fingers trembled with a sort
of feline motion.
“What would you say if Adam was to come back?” continued the
aged man, “Come back, sometime within a month”—he paused and puffed—
“within a week—” pause and puff again—“within a day—an hour—
(pause and puff) within a minute!”
“My Gott!” gasped the widow, sinking back into a chair, “but you
aint him?'
The old man leaned his head upon his hand, thus shading his face from
the light, while the Widow bending forward in her chair, awaited his answer
in an agony of suspense.
“This reminds me of Homer,” muttered Jacopo, “a Ragged Ulysses
and a Dutch Penelope.”
“Has'nt she a dog to know him, and then die? Even a cat would do.”
“No, Betsy; I am not him,” said “Pay-As-I-Go” to give the stranger
his own name, “Let me cut a long story short. Scarcely a year ago,
Adam died in my arms, somewhere in the West Indies. Yellow fever,
you understand? He told me to give you, this—”
He flung a small package, wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine,
into the widow's lap. The twine broke and the brown paper parted;
sixteen bright pieces of gold, started from the aperture, and glistened vividly
before the eyes of the thunder-stricken woman.
“Only dead a year!” she gasped, “Why ten if I'd married Chon Butz
a year an' two months ago, tey would have put me in jail for—for—”
“Mahogany,” suggested Jacopo
“For mahogany,” continued the widow, using this new synonym for
bigamy without a thought, that it was in the least degree incorrect—“Only
a year! Poor Adam!'
She applied her apron to her eyes, and the bright pieces clinked upon
the ground.
The old man did not permit her much leisure for the indulgence of her
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grief, for while the tears streamed over the blooming cheeks, he seized
his staff, and rose from his chair.
“I have another commission to fulfil in these parts,” he said “Betsy
do you know anything about an old couple, who used to live in a cottage,
somewhere about the graveyard? Morton, I think they were called,—or
what was their name?”
There was a slight tremor in the old man's voice; his eyes, bright at
all times shone with unusual light.
“Morgan,” said Betsy looking at him from the corners of his eyes,
“Very old folks they vos—”
“Was?” echoed the old man with a start.
“Been deadt a year,” continued Betsy—“Never was very well, since
their son, went away some two years ago. Old Abel and Hannah sickened
and diedt within two days of each other.”
The old man was observed to tremble, and grasp his staff, while his
features were violently agitated.
“Dead!” he muttered, “What did you say was the name of their son?”
“Gilbert Morgan,” said Betsy, “But tell me more of Adam—”
“Dead!” again repeated the old man, “And I had a message from their
son. Tell me,—did they want for bread? Were their last days wretched
with poverty—with hunger and cold? Speak, Betsy, for—for—you
see poor Gilbert told me to see them,—to give them gold—and beg their
blessing on his guilty soul. Speak, I say! Did the old folks die the
miserable death of poverty and age?'
“I was with 'em mesself,” said Betsy, between her sobs, “Tey wanted
for nothing while I was tere, andt I saw 'em laidt in te grave; but, Gilbert,
what ever became of him?”
“God bless you for that,” the voice of the old man was tremulous but
earnest as he dashed a tear from his eye—“You were near them in their
dying hour. God bless you! As for Gilbert, what kind of character did
he bear in these parts? A wild fellow,—drunken,—eh?”
“Many a time have I seen him stand where you stand, when he was
quite a poy. A goot poy, too, but—Gilbert went away suddenly about
two years ago—next christmas will be three years—andt—there was
a young girl foundt murteredt back on the Wissahikon—Madeline
Dorfner—”
“Eh, some village gossip, I suppose?” said the old man with a hearty
laugh, but a laugh that from his previous tone, sounded hollow and unnatural.
“This Madeline is dead, then,—murdered by Gilbert Morgan?”
There was a strange hesitation in the widow's voice, and manner as
she answered:
“She has never been seen since. Gilbert murteredt her—so they say.
But, as Gott sees me, I never believed it, and tont believe it now—tat's
all.”
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“Well, well, a queer story! Little did I think when I pressed Gilbert's
hand away in the Indies, that he'd been murderin' purty girls
on the Wissa—Wissa—what d'ye call it? Good night, Betsy,—see you
again sometime—take care that poor Adam does n't come back, and take
care of all strangers who are troubled with—spasms!”
Grasping his staff, the old man turned suddenly away, and with a hearty
burst of laughter went toward the garden gate, his silvery hair floating on
his shoulders, and his tall form, clad in rags, shone distinctly in the evening
sunlight. He stood for a moment at the gate, gazing up the street
and down, laughing heartily to himself all the while, and then suddenly
dissappeared.
Lippard, George, 1822-1854 [1848], Paul Ardenheim, the monk of Wissahikon (T. B. Peterson, Wissahikon, Penn.) [word count] [eaf253].
