—The reader paused again, and cast his flashing eye toward the bed on
which the unconscious sleeper lay.

“It's no dream,” he muttered “I'm awake I believe!—”

“I remember unclosing my eyes, in that familiar room of my childhood's
home, and even now, I can see his face lowering upon me, as I lay
stretched upon the floor. That was a fearful look—like madness—which
stamped his features, as awaking from my swoon, I reached forth my
arms to him and murmured, Gilbert! And yet he stabbed me—”

—The paper dropped from the old man's hands. He saw his face in
the glass, those sunburnt features framed in white hair, and livid as death,
and started back, as though horror-stricken at the Image of his soul,
painted in the glittering mirror. Again a pause ensued. Still the sleeper
rested in her luxurious couch, unconscious that the eyes of a wanderer,
an outcast, had profaned the sanctity of her chamber.

“Consciousness returned once more. I awoke—looked around—the
room of my childhood's home was gone. Could I believe my senses—
was I enveloped by the horrors of a nightmare? A pale blue light shone
in my face, as I awoke, and gave a ghastly radiance to the arches and pillars
of a grave vault. Yes, my form unclothed, my limbs arranged in
the attitude of death, I was about to be shut up forever in the slumber of
the grave. Nay—I was buried already—the arches of my tomb were
around me; that pale light, was the ghastly meteor, which hovers over
the festering decay of the charnel.

“The horror of that moment I shall never—never forget!

“I started up, and dragged my stiffened limbs over the cold floor, and
felt a sharp pain shoot through my bleeding breast. I was buried alive.—
Thank God! There was an open door, yes the entrance of the tomb
was open. I hurried through into the cold and darkness, and without
knowing whither I fled, ascended stairway after stairway, and fell fainting
at last upon a bed, which stood in the shadows of a large and gloomy
chamber. I had escaped the grave—I knew no more—

“After a troubled sleep, broken by a frightful dream,—in which I saw
his face and the uplifted knife—I woke once more, and became conscious
that a woman's form was slumbering at my side. I reached forth my arm,
and with a shriek the unknown woman bounded from the bed. Looking
through the curtains I saw her stand, so beautiful in the centre of the
gloomy room—It was the Wizard's daughter! That lovely girl, whose
face I had often seen, in the forest, although—as she swept so proudly by
me—I had never exchanged a word with her.

“The truth rushed upon me; I was in the house of Isaac the Wizard.
My heart was ice—an overwhelming fright, made me tremble from head
to foot. I remembered the scene of the night before, when in the silence
of the wintry woods, beside the dead body of Yoconok, I met the pale old
man, Issac Van Behme. I remembered his prediction, as he took my

[figure description] Page 422.[end figure description]

hand, and chilled me with the wild unnatural look of his eyes—`No Bridal
Ring shall ever cross this hand. No child shall ever bless your sight. I read
it in the lustre of your eye, which is lighted by the fire of a changeless
Destiny! Alas! Alas! I pity and rejoice! Dishonor and a Sudden
Death will soon be yours!”'

—The old man raised his eyes; he was trembling from head to foot
like a withered leaf. His visage displayed at once a kind of rugged sympathy
mingled with a vague amazement.—

“This was the Prophecy, which he had uttered only the night before.
What fearful, what incredible events had followed that Prophecy! Not
Dishonor, no! no! Temptation is not sin; we may look over a dizzy
height and not fall—”

—“Madeline!” muttered the old outcast, when he had read this sentence,
“Thank God! Thank God!—”

“But the wound inflicted by Gilbert's hand was still bleeding; my
breast was stained with clotted blood. And now, for what was I reserved?
The supernatural atmosphere investing the very name of the Wizard—
the wild stories told about the hearths of Wissahikon, concerning his compact
with the Fiend—his Prophecy uttered to me, only the night before,
a Prophecy almost fulfilled by events so sad and appalling—thoughts and
memories like these filled me with terror worse than death itself.

“Meanwhile the Wizard's daughter, pale and beautiful and convulsed
with affright stood in the centre of the room, rending the air with her
shrieks. Two figures appeared, Black David, the miserable deformed of
Wissahikon—”

—The old man uttered an ejaculation, and bent down to the MSS.
with a more intense interest flashing from his eye.—

—“And Isaac the Wizard. I can only remember that with the blood
oozing from my breast, I sprang from the bed, and clutched the beautiful
girl by the knees. Save me! Save me! These words I uttered and then
all was a blank,—a blank only disturbed by the never-fading vision of
Gilbert's face, convulsed with the purpose of Murder, and Gilbert's arm
quivering the knife above my naked breast.”

—“This Gilbert must have been an infernal scoundrel,” said the old
man, with a sardonic smile. “I should like to meet him some day!” And
then he laughed to himself as though he had uttered an excellent jest, and
turned to the Manuscript again.—

“How well I remember it, that day when the dream passed away, and
I found myself stretched upon a comfortable couch, with the air of spring,
fresh with the breath of violets, blowing gently through the unclosed window
of a large and luxuriously furnished apartment. My room in the
Haunted House of Germantown!”

—“Hah! The Haunted House!” ejaculated the reader.—

“Then first appeared my unknown friend, that kind Protector, who

[figure description] Page 423.[end figure description]

has since wound himself about my heart by innumerable acts of kindness,
but whom still—it is ungrateful, it is wicked! I can never look upon,
without a tremor, a shudder.”

—It was terrible to see the expression which darkened the old man's
face, as grasping the Manuscript with both hands, he held it closer to his
eyes, devouring every word with a gloating intensity.—

“He drew near my beside. How well I remember the impression
made upon me by his face, his form! While the sun was stealing through
the unclosed window, I saw a man of some sixty years, with short gray
hair and a pale melancholy face, stand near me, with his hands upon his
breast. His attire, which indicated by its fashion and texture, the gentleman
of rank or wealth, could not altogether conceal the defects, I cannot
say, deformities of his shape. As he advanced, I saw that he was lame;
his limbs mis-shapen, and his broad shoulders rising in an unsightly
hump. But his face, so pale,—so steeped in melancholy—the forehead
bold and high, with a single lock of gray hair falling down the centre; his
lips wearing a sad yet gentle smile, the eyes seeming as though they did
not shine, but burn in their sockets.—I could not help being won to that
face, and at the same time I regarded it with a shudder. Such was my
first impression of that kind friend, who has been to me, Father, World,
Home; who has unclosed to my soul the golden worlds of Music, Painting,
Poetry; who has borne me from land to land, and taught the poor
Orphan Girl of Wissahikon to mingle unabashed with the throngs of
fashion, the liveried crowds of a royal court. Still, one drink from the
waters of the Wissahikon were worth it all!'

—“Wissahikon! It's a sweet word, and yet you were stabbed there,
girl, by the hand of this Gilbert—this murderer.” The old man did not
wipe away the tear that rolled down his cheek. He read on; the Manuscript
revealed a strange escape from the grave.—

“He, my more than friend, near my bed—even now I hear his voice,
whose tones charm the soul like bursts of subdued music:

“`The hand of the Murderer struck in vain. You are weak and faint,
my child, but the wound is healed. Well was it for you that his hand
trembled!'

“`But Gilbert,' I cried, raising myself languidly upon my bed—`Gilbert!
They have loaded him with chains, they have hurled him into
prison. O, hasten to him; let him be free! He was my friend, almost
my Husband—'

“`Gilbert,' said my Protector, `Gilbert is dead.'

“`I heard no more. It was a long time before I unclosed my eyes.'

“`And thou, fair child, shalt leave these scenes. I will be to thee as
Father; thou shalt be my Daughter. These people who have wronged
thee, shall never behold thy face again. Wilt thou go with me to the end
of the world?'

[figure description] Page 424.[end figure description]

“His gaze penetrated me with an inexplicable fascination. I could
not help it—I stretched forth my arms, and said, `Father!' The tears
rolled down his cheeks, and then he muttered wildly to himself.

“`How was I saved—' I asked.

“`On that night I was journeying through the forest of Wissahikon,
when a poor deformed wretch placed in my arms the body of a half-naked,
and almost lifeless maiden. Black David gives thee this—he said,
with a wild laugh, and disappeared.'

“`Black David! The poor deformed! He saved my life then—saved
me from the Wizard—'

“`Black David is dead,' said my Protector, in a mournful tone, and
then told me how he had borne me to this house, keeping my very existence
a secret from the village folk, while himself and a kind-hearted woman
watched by my beside. It was many days before I recovered my
strength. One night we left the `Haunted House,' and since that hour
my heart has never ceased to long for Wissahikon.”

When the aged man had read this passage, he started from the chair
and drew near the bed, whose curtains enshrined the sleeper.

“Black David was more merciful to you than Gilbert!” he muttered—
and touched the white hand as it projected from the curtains. Touched
the hand, with a gentle and respectful movement, even as a Devotee would
press the hand of a marble divinity.

“Sleep on, sleep on,” muttered the Outcast, as the sound of her breath
stole on the stillness, “You can sleep in safety, for Gilbert, the Murderer,
is dead.”

Gliding back to the light, he contemplated the Manuscript of Madeline
with a look of profound emotion.

“There's much food for thought in your words, young girl, and it
makes a man's brain boil like hot lead, but to read your sufferin's. One
more glance, and then I'll go. What business has the devil in Eden?”

Once more he took up the Confessions of Madeline.

“How shall I ever record that scene. There are no words in human
speech to describe it; even now, the memory of that incident perplexes
and confounds me. It occurred on the Twenty-Third of November,
1775. We were sitting in our quiet home among the hills of Yorkshire.
The leaves were falling; from our window, a wide sweep of brown heath
stretched sullenly toward the river shore, and the mists of autumn curled
slowly about the distant hills.

“My Protector was unusually sad.

“`My child,' said he, seating me in a chair before him, and taking my
hands within his own, `This is a day dedicated to an awful memory. The
blackest day in the long calendar of three hundred years.' His eyes
assumed a strange glassy intensity; they were fixed upon me with over-

[figure description] Page 425.[end figure description]

whelming power. `On this day, sinless virgin, thou mayst save a soul,
which without thee, will be lost forever.

“His voice went to my heart. And yet, strange as it may seem, I
fell asleep, even while he held my hands and looked into my eyes. My
eyelids grew weary; I struggled and wrestled with the slumber which
came over me, but in vain. It was not sleep, in the familiar sense. No!
My body was numbed; paralyzed; I could not move a finger, but my Soul
was awake, free, and full of life. O, the calm delight of that moment! I
was conscious that my Protector was there; I heard his voice, felt his
presence, and yet my body was paralyzed in a strange, unnatural sleep.
But my soul: it was like a bird suddenly set free, soaring into the sky,
high and higher, with unbroken light upon its wings. Then it was like
a waveless Lake, set in the hollow of some mountain top, without a breeze
to stir its glassy surface, even into the faintest ripple, without a sound to
break the profound stillness of its borders,—calm, calm,—unutterably
calm.[1]

“Then a new consciousness crept over me. It seemed to me that the
Soul of my Protector talked with mine; that I heard the Thoughts of his
soul, spoken in a voice without a sound; such a voice as we imagine
when reading a favorite book alone; it was, in a word, as though his Soul
had taken the place of mine, filling my whole being with its power.

“While in this state, an incident—or shall I call it a vision? took
place, which I have never been able to comprehend or explain. Let me
record it as it appeared to me; it is beyond my hope to depict either its
causes or its full details; some broken glimpses of that incident—that
Truth or Dream—are all that the poverty of words enable me to describe.

“Thus it seemed to me:

“My Soul escaping from the body, which sat dumb and paralyzed, in
the chair before my Protector's gaze, My soul traversed a space of some
hundreds of years back into time, and hovering invisible in the air of a
half-lighted chamber, beheld a deed which took place in the Sixteenth
Century.

[figure description] Page 426.[end figure description]

“It was in a room in some guard old Feudal Castle, lighted by a single
lofty and pointed window, which looked to the western sky, where huge
white clouds, were glowing in the setting sun. Even now I can see that
chamber, with high ceiling and dark purple tapestry,—nay I can feel the
atmosphere of gloom, which seemed to brood over its antique splendor,
even as the broad gleam of sunshine, came through the casement. There
was the effigy of a Knight in armor, near the window, glittering sullenly
in the light; and in the shadows stood a massive couch, overhung with
drapery, and crowned with a Lordly crest.

“Near the window, where the sunshine was brightest sat a woman of
surpassing beauty, clad in black velvet, embroidered with gold, with her
hair, falling unrestrained over her shoulders. She did not look like an
English woman; there were no looks of golden hair, twining about a
sunny face. No! Her hair was black as jet; her eyes large, dark and
wildly brilliant; her pale forehead, shaded by the jetty hair, was invested
with a lofty, almost hallowed beauty. She was very young; her form,
so fragile and girlish, seemed to tell the story of seventeen venteen summers, but
her face, pale and beautiful, stamped with unspeakable grief, indicated that
in suffering at least, she had already lived a life-time.

“And upon her young breast—it was bare, and her black robe, made it
seem whiter than marble—hung a babe, not more than three months old.
A very tiny thing, that slept so calmly in the sunset rays, and laid its little
marble hand, upon its young mother's midnight hair.

“No words can tell how passingly beautiful this lone woman and her
babe, seemed to me; the babe smiling in its sleep; the mother so sad
and thoughtful amid all this splendor.

“Suddenly I became conscious of another form. It was a man, dressed
in a garb, that mingled strangely the costume of the Monk with the soldier.
He came from the darkness, stole softly behind the Mother, and
then I saw his face. The sun shone upon it; I beheld it, and it is before
me now in clear, distinct and terrible outlines.

“It was the face of my Protector! but oh! how changed, how distorted
as with the conflict of infernal passions!

“He stood behind the Mother's chair—unseen and scowling—his lip
tightening as he saw the babe, nestling upon her white breast. Then I
heard his voice—”

“`Leola my wife, this is the Twelfth of November, he whispered—
`Dost thou remember last year?'

“Before she could turn her face to look upon him, nay before her parting
lips could frame a word, his arm rose above her head—a sharp blade
flashed in the air—and the face of the child, was covered with blood;
blood which spouted from the mother's breast. Yes, the blade was buried
to the hilt—the golden hilt, which shone upon that snowy breast,
amid the gushing blood, as if in very mockery of the deed.

[figure description] Page 427.[end figure description]

“The young mother did not fall; she did not even stir. But even as
she sat there in the chair, grasping her babe, she raised her eyes to her
Husband's face and died. Her lips moved just before her eyes grew
fixed and glassy—I would have given the world to have heard her words—
but her voice was inaudible. She spoke to him as she died, but that
low whisper melted unheard upon the air.”

“And the Husband, now convulsed with a Remorse as terrible as his
Crime, bent over the dead body, as it sate erect, and with repeated out-cries,
seemed determined to wrench her last words, from her pale cold
lips.

“At this moment, I heard the voice of my Protector's soul, speaking to
mine. Yes, it may seem extravagant,—mad—but while my Protector
clasped the hands of my unconscious body, his Soul spoke to mine, even as
that Soul was an invisible witness to a terrible scene of a long past age.
And these are the words, which that soundless voice spoke to me:

“`Madeline! Thy soul is now a silent witness of the Deed which took
place centuries ago. Thy soul now hovers above his guilty face—above
her mangled form. Tell me, O tell me in the name of the Murdered
Mother, and remember the fate of an immortal soul hangs on thy answer,
tell me, didst thou hear the last words which quivered on her lips,
ere she died?'

My soul framed its answer:

“`No! No! Her lips moved, but her words I could not hear!'

“Then the entire scene passed away. The vision, or the spell, term it
what you will, passed away. I awoke; the blood stirred in my veins
with a slow, languid motion; I unclosed my eyes, and found myself sitting
in the chair, with the hands of my Protector—my Father shall I call
him? clasping my arm.

“Never shall I forget the expression of his face! His eyes burned with
more than mortal lustre, his features were horribly distorted; his quivering
lips were spotted with foam, and the lock of gray hair, swept aside
from his forehead revealed the cicatrice of a hideous wound, in the form
of a Cross.

“`Go to! Go to! Thou couldst not hear her last words? Is it so?
Then the blood of Leola does not course in thy veins—thou art not of
my race—some beggar's offspring, I trow, left by thy gipsy mother, in the
woods of Wissahikon!'

“As his face, deformed by unnatural agony, writhed before my gaze, it
seemed—shall I write it down, that vague improbable suspicion?—yes it
seemed to me, that I did not behold my kind Protector, my Father, but
Black David, the poor Deformed of Wissahikon.

“He turned away with curses, and fell insensible at my feet, his eyes
glassy, and the white foam hanging about his lips.”

[figure description] Page 428.[end figure description]

—The old man lingered over this passage, while his eyes, sunken beneath
his white brows, glimmered with a sombre and glassy light. Not
a word passed his lips; the emotion which convulsed his frame, was only
indicated by his heaving chest and corrugated features. He turned to the
last paragraph of the Manuscript. It was dated June first, 1777.—

“Wissahikon! I have not seen it yet, but soon—very soon I hope to
stand among its leaves and flowers, and drink of its waters. Once more
I find myself wrapt in the solitude of the Haunted House—my Protector,
leaves me for hours, for days alone. When I beseech him to permit me
to see the Wissahikon once more, he answers—always in the same words,
and with a strange, sad smile, `Not yet, not yet. Wait my child; the
appointed time will soon be here.'

“To-day as I was thinking of `the old times,' when the poor Orphan
Girl dwelt in the woods of Wissahikon, without a care, I fell asleep
and dreamed a strange dream. The branches of those dear old trees, were
once more over my head; I was seated upon the moss, beside `the Indian
Spring' whose clear waters sparkle in the hollow of a rock. Every thing
seemed full of peace; bees were humming in the wild flowers; birds
sang in the trees, a wild tremulous song, that burst upon me like music
from Paradise; the sunshine came through the thickly woven branches,
and a single ray shone down into the bosom of the spring. I was happy,
O it seemed to me as if my heart rose with the notes of the bird, and
soared away in thankfulness to God. Gilbert was there, dressed in his
plain hunter's costume, with his rifle on his knee, as in the days of old.
Nay the Wampum Belt which Yoconok gave me was clasped in our
joined hands, as a token of unbroken faith, and I looked into his frank
honest face, without a fear. There was no sorrow upon his features, and
as his eye, rested upon me, he told me in a low voice how he would build
a cottage in the woods, and I should be his little wife and—. But
at this point of my dream, a drop of blood, fell from the branches of the
tree, into the very bosom of the spring. That drop widened slowly, un
til the clear water in the rocky basin, looked like a pool of blood. I gazed
upward in horror, and among the branches saw a hand, grasping a dying
Dove, and crushing it slowly to death. It was the hand of Peter Dorfner:
I saw his face, grinning in triumph, among the leaves. Even as I
looked, another face was there, framed in the leaves, the visage of my
Protector,—his lips were impressed with a cold sad smile, his eyes were
fixed upon me, with a look that chilled my blood. I started up in horror,
and flung my arms around Gilbert's neck, beseeching him to save the
dying Dove from the grasp of its murderer, when a hand was lightly laid
upon my shoulder, and a low deep voice, breathed my name. Turning
my head, even as I clung to Gilbert's breast, I saw the face of Reginald—”

eaf253.n1

[1] Was this magnetism? The Author has experienced sensations precisely similar,
while in `the magnetic state,' as it is technically termed. Some years ago, he
was magnetized by the learned and eminent Dr. Nott, President of Union College,
a man above suspicion of trickery or deceit of any kind. The sensation was one
of unutterable calmness; the Physical Being in a state of paralysis, while the
Mind was in possession of all its powers, and as clear and serene as a sky without
a cloud. There are, indeed, no words in language to express this state; you might
as well try to paint a finished picture with brick dust and a dry stick, as to attempt
the delineation of the magnetic sleep by the words of human speech. At the same
time, the author frankly confesses, that he would not believe any thing like magnetism,
had he not experienced a portion of its phenomena in his own person, G.L.

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