CHAPTER XI. MR. LEYCRAFT RAMBLES PLEASANTLY ABOUT.
By the time Ishmael Small had returned to the street,
darkness had set in, and was growing along all the thoroughfares
into the wide-bodied mantle worn by so many
stragglers and evil-minded persons, and supposed to be a
commodious cloak for all sorts of villanies and misdemeanors.
As Ishmael came into the open way, his eye fell upon
a tall, gaunt figure, that kept before him, not altogether in a
straight line, but winding about through the crowd of laborers
and 'prentices that began to set up Chatham street at
this hour, in a strong current; not halting at any time, exactly,
but pausing every now and then in its progress, and
glancing about into the faces of those it encountered. Mr.
Small observed that the tall figure occupied itself exclusively
in gazing into men's faces, and into none of these save such
as seemed to be in the early prime of life. The figure
would look about and contemplate a face in this way for a
moment, and then disengaging itself from the crowd—as if
thwarted in its purpose—would hurry forward, until it plunged
again into another, and renewed the never-ending scrutiny.
On the traces of this personage, Ishmael hung, until they
reached Doyer street, and into this crooked by-way it hastened,
first casting a swift glance back upon the throng that
speeded by, and Ishmael Small followed.
The tall figure glided stealthily along, close up by the
house-walls, and peered in wherever he could at the casements,
coming at times to a dead pause, putting his face
against the window and looking long and painfully within,
as if he were bound to have an inventory of every article
in the apartment.
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In this way he toiled through the street, until he had
reached its farthest extremity, where he crossed, entered
a covered stable-way, and took up his station against
the wall, his eyes still gleaming restlessly about, and his
body bent forward into the partial darkness to catch sight
of any face that chanced to pass.
“Evening, Emp'ror,” said Ishmael Small, crossing over
at this juncture, and approaching him—lifting his cap at the
same time with an air of profound respect—“taking the
census, eh?”
“I wish I was,” said the other, sternly, plucking his hat
over his brow, “I'd have a chance then of learning whether
he lives among men yet.”
“You have the queerest fancy for faces I ever did see,
Mr. Leycraft” said Ishmael, turning his own delightful
countenance comically up towards Leycraft's, “the very
funniest taste for juvenile noses that was ever heard of.
Nothing 'll serve you but a first-swathe mug, about twenty-three
year old, with a small black-berry mole under the left
eye. Is that it?”
“That describes the child—that was put foully out of the
way,” answered Leycraft, “so long ago, that it seems as if
all had passed in another world, and yet as fresh, by heaven!
as if it belonged to yesterday.”
“There 's a plenty of boys in this street,” answered Ishmael,
“and in the next, and the next to that—that 'ud answer,
Emp'ror: you can have your pick, perhaps you won't
get the black-berry under the eye, but then you can get lots
of hair-lips, and boar-teeth; burnt faces and scald heads,
and what do you say to a lad with a portmantle on his
shoulders, like Ishmael Small, for example.”
“Do you think Fyler Close has any clue to the boy—
dead or alive?” asked Leycraft, paying no heed to the suggestion
of Ishmael.
“Lord! He know anything of the scape-grace,” exclaimed
Mr. Small, turning about so that the light of a stable
lamp that hung above them should fall directly on his
blank visage, “bless you, Mr. Leycraft, he 's ignorant as
the Mogul—the great grand Eastern Mogul, that takes tea
with the moon. He knows nothing, nor cares nothing!”
Mr. Leycraft grasped the seat with both hands, and bending
down, looked sternly into the countenance of his companion,
but discovering there nothing to the purpose, soon
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returned to his former position, and standing almost bolt
upright, gazed straight forward, as if he would pierce the
utmost limits of the darkness with his glance.
“I 'd give my soul if the boy were alive!” he at length
exclaimed, with startling energy, reining in his breath as
he spake, and discharging each word with the force of a
missile; “alive! Ragged though he might be, maimed,
blind, in prison, the commonest vagabond, or vilest felon
that stalks a prison-hall; yea, though he stood before me
now, and with his raised hand should strike me to the earth,
I 'd leap up to greet him, and would bid him welcome back
to God's light, readier than his mother's lips hailed his first
coming into life!”
“Why do 'nt you go to bed and sleep off this nonsense?”
inquired Mr. Small; “the youth 's abed somewhere or other,
I 'll warrant; if not in a four-poster, may be in a church-yard
crib. Sleep 's the physic for your Excellency.”
“Curse it! I can't sleep,” rejoined Leycraft, “I have put
myself on board sloops and dirty coal-smacks, and toiled
away at the ropes till my palms were blistered; have let
myself to carry logs and great iron sticks of timber, by the
day, and yet, when night came—night, that 's nothing but
a hideous dream to men like me—I 've laid down and shut
my eyes, and just as slumber began to come pleasantly upon
me, a hand, a small hand seemingly, but as strong as a giant's,
would be laid on my arm, would shake me, and rousing,
I beheld that accursed child's eyes looking steadily in
mine, broad awake and glittering, but not half so cheerful,
as broad day; and then shaking its head mournfully, for a
minute or two, it would move away, leaving me gasping
and struggling for breath, on the hard couch, like a drowning
man. Blast my face, I 'm but a dead-alive, after all;
pleasant company this, every night, but a little too much
of it!”
While Leycraft ejaculated this passage in an under-breath,
Mr. Small stood aside, and grinned cheerfully, as if
at an imaginary spectacle of a very pleasant nature, which
might be going on at a short distance before him; at one
minute he leaned forward with an ideal opera-glass at his
eye; then he clapped his hands gently, as if the sport were
well-conducted, and then he fell back, as against a comfortable
support, and laughed, as if it were too much for him.
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All this he did as if entirely unconscious of the presence
of Mr. Leycraft or any one whatever.
“Blast you!” cried Leycraft, fixing his eye sharply
upon Ishmael, “You don't make a mock of me—do you,
young Radish-legs? eh!”
“Lord bless your Excellency!” rejoined Mr. Small,
waking, as by surprise, from an agreeable reverie, “You
can't seriously mean such a thing. I was thinking just
then of a cumbat I had seed once at the thea-ter, betwixt
a fine speckled India tiger, and a little pock-marked
man in a military jacket. The brute-beast was too much
for him I guess,” continued Ishmael smiling pleasantly
directly in Mr. Leycraft's face: “the way he got the fangs,
first here and then there, now in the head, now in the
bosom, was very agreeable to a young operative surgeon
what was aside o' me in the pit, very agreeable I can assure
you.”
“In God's name, Ishmael,” said Leycraft, his mood
changing abruptly from that of extreme fierceness, to
one of earnest entreaty, “Tell me what you know of
this matter! If the child be dead, let me go and gather
up his bones and give them decent burial at least!
“Suppose the lad died where you think he did,
Emp'ror,” said Ishmael, evading a direct answer, “It
was a natural death, without drugs or doctors: that's a
comfort, I'm sure.”
“A natural death, do you call it!” cried Leycraft,
“the death of a pilfering weasel, or a foul mud-rat rather.
There's plenty of nature in great black woods, that swarm
with bats and hideous birds of darkness: where no step
comes but that of villains fled from city justice; and where
the earth is dank with slime and sluggish ooze. A cradle
and a calm pillow, with a face or two to look in upon
it when one dies, is rather nearer the mark!”
“And it's a very pleasant subject to talk of too,” said
Ishmael. “There's no place like a open stable-way
for an agreeable interview; unless it's in the jail entry.
`Mr. Leycraft's case is a very bad one,' says the keeper
with his twist in his mouth. `Not so bad, after all,'
says the keeper's man, knocking the bunch o' keys agin
his leg. `It was only a juvenile boy.”'
“Blast you again!” exclaimed Leycraft, seizing Ishmael
this time by the collar, and holding him in a hard
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gripe, “Do you mock me for journey-work I've done
for that old devil,” pointing toward the lodgings of Mr.
Fyler Close, “Do you tell me I may come to hang for
the job! There'll be three pairs on the tree, my brave
fellow, the day John Leycraft swings: Three ripe villains
and you'll be the youngest, and that old chap who
begins to smell over-ripe, shall have the middle place,
out of respect to his talents!”
Ishmael again protested that he was friendly, and that
he was only striving with his little wit, to help Mr. Leycraft
realize a pleasant scene that he might one day
come to be a party to: to which explanation Mr. Leycraft
would, however, by no means hearken, but dragging
Ishmael forth by the collar into the street, he pushed
him from him with great vehemence, and while Mr.
Small reeled off laughing to himself as he staggered,
Leycraft turned his back upon him and hastened away.
At first he hurried forward, with his head down and his
hands clenched like one bound on a task that must be
performed; but presently, as he got into the throng of a
thoroughfare, another purpose seemed to enter his mind,
and raising his eyes suddenly he began to peer about like
one wakened from a dream. Then he watched every
face that passed him; sometimes singled one out from
all others, and followed it for a while until it crossed a
light, and then he fell back as if he had made a fatal
mistake; and then taking up another, and another, and
another, he renewed the pursuit, and again fell off into a
state of blank despair. At times, too, he would strike
from the crowd into by-streets, lone and deserted, where
no soul was to be seen, and walking here for awhile, cast
his thoughts back upon what had passed—would to God,
there were no such past time, he thought—years and years
ago.
“I remember well,” he said to himself, in one of these
pauses, “how the old devil brought the work about:
`Leycraft,' said he, with a very pleasant and cheerful
smile on his countenance, `There's a sweet child—it 's
young, quite young, that 's never been in that piece of
woodland,' pointing to the hemlocks to the north-west,
`in its life, near as it is. Now it 's quite a warm evening
and the wood will be much cooler than the close room; the
mother 's dying within there — she can't last above a
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couple of hours — not beyond day-break at the best,
and I 'm quite curious, as she must go to Heaven, for
she 's a delightful woman as ever was made; I 'm quite
curious to see which 'll get there first, the mother post-marked
by the doctors, or the young lad franked by the
night air. It 's a very curious little problem, is'nt it?'
I of course, fool, double-woven, three-ply ass that I was,—
answered to his wish, and when night fell, having the
very sighs and moans of the poor dying lady in my ear,
bore the child away. An apoplexy the first step I had
taken would have been Heaven's blessing on the job.”
At that moment a sick man was borne by in a curtained
litter; Leycraft heard a groan, as of severe suffering and anguish
from within; and this goaded his restless and uncomfortable
thoughts anew.
“He, the generous, noble-hearted gentleman that he
is, allowed me a lodging in the garret as long as I chose,”
said he, or rather recited to himself as he formed the
thought in his own mind—“I might as well have lodged
in the oven of eternal flame; the whole house cried out,
from peak to foundation, against the deed I had done.
The first night—good Heaven, can I ever forget it?—I
slept well for a few hours, the agony of doing the crime
had exhausted me; but when I awoke, it was from a
dreadful, dreary phantasm, made up of howling crowds in
pursuit, dark, chill woods, and a whole army, it seemed,
of innocent children, surrounding and pleading with me,
or cursing, I do'nt know which. Before me—in a gloomy
corner of the garret I saw—where the moonbeam fell
upon it through a rent in the roof and dressed it in
ghastly light, the very child I had slain. It stood like
a spectre, stiff, cold, threatening and rebuking me with
its snake's eyes and visage of church-yard marble. At
first I was smitten aghast—but soon the devil stirred
within me, and rushing from my bed I seized upon an
old revolutionary sword, one that had been dyed long
ago in a black Hessian's blood, and stood at the bed-head—
and advancing upon the apparition, struck at it.
It moved not. I struck again and again—it was still
dumb. In this way I wrestled with it, grasping my sword
fast with a death-hold, all night, at least till I fell down
where I had fought, like one in a swound. When morning
dawned, I turned my eyes fearfully toward the quarter of
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my adversary, and then discovered that I had been battling
all night long with nothing but the picture of a little old
man—in all seeming an ancestor of the murdered child;
and that I had pierced it at a hundred points. A hideous
night—God, thanks be to him, sends few such to men!”
Whenever his thoughts ceased to toil with visions like
these, he renewed his inquisition among the crowds through
which he was passing, or which he hurried on to meet.
In this way he struggled with himself or speeded forward
the better part of the night. Toward day, when one
might suppose he would have sought home and rest,
wriggling his way through lanes and crooked streets, that
plunged down into the heart of the city, he entered an
alley of ten-pin players, and casting aside his coat without
a word, joined a grim-looking man who had amused
himself with tossing the balls, one over the other, against
flies upon the ceiling, till Leycraft came in. They rolled
away for hours; bowling at the pins as if they had been
men, and knocking six at least in head at each stroke.
Mathews, Cornelius, 1817-1889 [1842], The career of Puffer Hopkins (D. Appleton & Co., New York) [word count] [eaf264].
