Chapter VII (4)

"Fearful of being remarked, I slipped below, a second time disappointed, but with such exultant feelings that I tried in vain to sleep. The intimacy of species and their common language, lost in the degeneracy of the first human beings, were about to be restored by me. Confusion had overcome the counsels of the countless things which had talked and dwelt together in the past, but science was about to win back from sin the great secret of communication. I should translate the scream of eagles and the cooing of doves; I should hear the gossip of my household kittens, and speak familiarly with the mighty hippopotami. The serpent should teach me his traditions, and the multitude of mollusks should develop the mysteries of their sluggish vitality; nay, the plurality of worlds should be demonstrated, and with the combined intelligences of all the systems, we should wrest the mysteries of life, matter, and eternity from their Divine repository!

"I lay awake all night revelling in these anticipations, and at dawn was quite weak of body. It was now the Sabbath, and at nine o'clock all hands were summoned to the poop-deck for the customary worship. I lay upon a coil of rope, when the mate commenced to read the service, and a deep drowsiness came over me. The lesson was a part of the first chapter of Genesis--the weird history of creation. He had reached the twenty-eighth verse when I dropped asleep. It could have been only an instant's forgetfulness, for when I awoke he had not finished the reading of the same verse, but in that instant a vision had passed before me.

"A female of marvellous beauty rose from the water. I had seen the long green locks, the eyes of azure, and the glossy neck--it was Tethys, the queen of the sea-nymphs. She was begotten of humidity in the remote beginning, and seemed even now cloudy and incorporeal. Euripius, the divinity of whirlpools, lay in the waves at her feet, projecting a spectrum of spray, in an arch, above her head.

"'Man,' she said, or rather rippled, for it was like the even voice of waters, 'your love of nature, the boundlessness of your kindness, the daring of your speculation, the profoundness of your introspection, have made you one of us. Awake, and hear our decree!'

"She melted into vapor, and disappeared. I opened my eyes. The crew were grouped about the deck, the mate was reading the lesson, the words which I heard were: 'Have dominion over the fish!'

"'A fall! a fall!' was shouted from the maintop. The men on watch had discovered the long-expected prey.

"'Man the boats!' cried the captain; 'all hands be spry! Where away, look out?'

"'Sou'-west!' answered the crow's-nest, 'about two leagues. There must be hoceans of 'em! They 'eave like water-spouts, and, lor! how they lobtail!'

"The seven boats were arranged in curved shape, so as to form a semicircle around the animals; and the captain's, of which I took the helm, formed the left tip of the crescent. We pulled steadily for a half-hour over a smooth sea, and came at length so close to our victims that we could count them. Truly it was 'a fall'! A few cubs played recklessly around the surface; but there was an enormous bull, whose bulk was much greater than that of the ship's hull, which came once in full view, dived vertically, and beat the water with his terrible tail, making such billows that a storm seemed to be raging. The other animals swam in the froth and foam thus developed, now plunging to the far depths, now shooting their huge bodies into the air, and falling with a splash, as of the emptying of the ocean. The scene was so exciting that even my wonderful discoveries passed out of mind. Our oars dipped noiselessly; the crews were silent; the harpooners stood, each in the bow of his launch, with naked weapons extended, waiting to strike. The first opportunity occurred to the launch on our extreme right. At the distance of twenty yards the executioner hurled his javelin full into the back of the great bull; a roar ensued and a frightful leap. The other creatures repeated the agonized cry, and they swam southward with the velocity of a ship under full sail.

"'Now, lads, bend your oars!' shouted the captain through his trumpet. The entire length of rope unwound directly from the reel or 'bollard' of the first launch, and the line of a second boat was attached forthwith; a third and a fourth were annexed, but the whale exhibited no sign of exhaustion, and dragged his pursuers like the wind. A fifth and a sixth line spun out. The captain's cheek grew pale, and he opened his clasp-knife with a curse upon his lips. There remained the line of our boat alone: unless the monster stopped within ten minutes, we should lose every foot of the ship's cordage, and this last rope would have to be severed. Tremulously a seaman attached it; it was whirled out as if by a locomotive. The oars moved like light, but no human activity could approach that of our victim. He nearly swamped the launch, and the friction of the bollard threatened to set it ablaze.

"'What devil of the deep is this?' said the captain, bending forward with his blade. The sailors ceased with hot faces, and stared aghast. I seemed to hear calling voices; I grew faint and blind. The bollard snapped with a dead, dull sound; I was entangled in the stout twine, and tossed into the sea. Some oars were thrown overboard, that I might be buoyed up. Three of the launches were turned toward me, and the seamen called aloud that I should keep up courage. But the line pulled me downward; my heart ceased to beat; I beheld with indescribable terror the pale surface receding, and the dark shapes of the vessels above me were finally lost to view. I knew that at the first inhalation the brine would fill my mouth and lungs; I held my breath hard, and tried to pray. Down, down, down into the blue depths--a cycle of protracted years it seemed! My ears were stunned with strange noises; my lips parted, and at length the sea rushed into my throat; for an instant I seemed to strangle, but I did not perish.

"The fluid was mysteriously expelled from me. I breathed as freely of the water as a moment before I had breathed of the air! A weight was lifted from my brain, which had before been crushing it, and my temples grew suddenly cool. A spiracle had developed at the apex of my cranium, and I exuded water through a cavity or 'blow-hole' in the top of my head, like the cetacea around me!"

The naturalist here paused and ran his hand through his hair. The shining something among his gray locks revealed itself as a plate of silver, circular in shape, covering what had evidently been an opening in the skull. He looked less like a man than ever, and when, consulting a glutinous old chronometer, like a jellyfish, he found that his hour was passing, he begged so earnestly to be allowed to finish his "Introduction," that I gave him leave. A boy coming in with copy so frightened him, however, that I thought he was going to turn upon his stomach, and swim away through the window.

"I became sensible directly of three organic changes: my heels clave together, my feet flattened, and my toes turned out, like a caudal fin; my integument grew thick and hard, and my blood thin and chill. But these conditions being novel to me, and my fears only equalled by my wonder as yet, I was paralyzed, and continued to sink. I had descended about one hundred fathoms, and was experiencing a strange oppression, as of the forcing together of my bones, when I heard a sonorous voice close below me say! 'If you go any deeper, you will sustain a pressure of twenty atmospheres, and may not get back at all.'"

I looked beneath, and to my horror a huge whale was coming upward with extended jaws. His half-human eyes were turned benignantly upon me; but he was evidently in pain, and from a point in his back, where a broken harpoon still remained, gouts of blood curdled upward, coloring the water. His vocal power lay in his spiracle, and he said again:

"'I should have been asphyxiated in five minutes.'

"'Who is it that speaks?' I faltered. 'Leviathan, king of the sea, be merciful!'

"'I am called _New England Tom_ by the creatures of the upper element,' answered the whale, 'although falsely thought to be of the family of the Spermaceti; but though my exploits have recommended me to my species, I am not equal to the high title you have given me. _That_ is possessed by you and our sovereign Jonah only!'

"The conviction rushed upon me that I had, indeed, 'dominion over the fish'!

"'I have suffered this wound for your majesty's sake,' said the whale again; 'for I had been deputed to wait in this latitude for your arrival, and convey you to our sovereign. But though I am now in the third century of my age, I can survive a dozen such prickings, and if I chose could shiver the Crimson Dragon with a blow of my tail, as in 1804 I stove the Essex, and made driftwood of her spars.'

"In an instant I was seated within the mighty maw of this famous monster. His jaw-bones were forty feet in length; the roof of his mouth was fifteen feet high, and formed of a spacious arch of 'balleen,' or whale-bone. His crescent-shaped tail, thirty-five feet from tip to tip, swept the depths twice or thrice; and when we emerged into the air, the blood spouted from his pores, and he threw cataracts of water through his spiracle. I saw the Crimson Dragon some miles away, but there were no traces of her boats. The crews of the launches were fathoms deep in the ocean!

"I passed the cape of Greenland, rounded the base of Mount Hecla, and was escorted to the abode of the king of the cetacea by a multitude of his subjects. A submarine island, forty fathoms from the surface, had been occupied three thousand years by this venerable person. He came out to meet me upon the back of a mighty 'rorqual,' and a body-guard of four hundred picked narwhals swam before him. Fifty white whales surrounded their monarch, and a host of dolphins, grampuses, and porpoises brought up the rear. Banners of dyed seal-skin bore his arms--three gourds, _argent_, upon a field _vert_; and with these were carried as trophies the wrecks of ships, including the identical shallop whence he was expelled on the voyage to Tarshish. But, marvellous beyond all, the 'great fish' (falsely so translated, since no cetaceous creature can be denominated a _fish_) into which he was received still lived, and accompanied him. It was now the eldest of the species, but very sprightly, and burdened with dignities. The Seer-King saluted gravely, and gave me a draught of spirits, distilled from the fronds of a rare sea-tangle. His long tenure in the deep had obliterated much of the similitude to man, but his memory of terrestrial matters was extraordinary. The weeds were wrapped about his head after the manner of a crown, and he carried a sceptre of walrus tusk. He told me that his original three days' experience under the sea had so cooled his blood, that the suns of Nineveh parched him, and he had cried for cooling water. I informed him that Nineveh no longer existed, at which he was gratified beyond measure; for his only knowledge of events happening on the earth had been derived from the wrecks which had sunk into his domain. I found that he was badly informed upon matters of science, and he heard my theories of harmonizing the universes with impatience. In his days, he said, no such ideas were broached, and he was indifferent to the intellectual development of his subjects.

"My visit was brief, for, though the palace of Jonah had a sepulchral grandeur about it--a mighty cavern beneath the waves--yet the glittering stalactites which studded the roof, and the cold columns of ice supporting its halls, nearly froze me, and at length I made ready to depart.

"An escort of 'thrashers,' or grampuses, accompanied me. The Seer-King would have detached a cohort of white whales, but the animosity of my tribes might have provoked combat. I left the cetacea with some foreboding. They were allied in some degree to man; they were capable of some human impressions; their blood was warm like mine; they breathed with lungs; they had double hearts; and nourished kindness for their offspring. But I was now about to be delivered over to the cold, cruel, gluttonous tribes of the fish. The family of sharks received me. They could not be counted for multitude. The terrible _requiem_ of the storm--the cannibal white shark--welcomed me with open jaws; the blue shark flung up his caudal for joy; the fox-shark lashed the sea; the northern shark glared through his purblind orbs; the hammer-head dilated his yellow irides; the purple dog-fish made a low purring huzza; and the spotted eyes of the monk-fish glistened with satisfaction. The hound-shark, the basking-shark, and the port-beagle were not less loyal; and these, the most perfectly organized of my cartilaginous tribes, handed me over to the deep-swimming Norwegian 'sea-rat.' Thus I kept steadily southward, the water growing warmer hour by hour, now riding on the serrated snouts of saw-fishes, now moving in the midst of battalions of sword-fish, now acknowledged by the great pike, now vaulting above the surface on the backs of flying-fish, now clinging to the spines of sturgeons, now passing through illimitable shoals of cod, now borne by the swift sea-salmon, now dazzled by the golden scales of the carp, now passing over miles of flat-fish, now hailed by monster conger-eels, now swimming down files of leering hippocampuses, now received by congregations of staid aldermanic lobsters. The torpedo telegraphed my coming to the tribes before, and at last I reached my abode, on the line of the equator, in mid-Atlantic.

"The magnitude and beauty of my court no mind can realize. A truncated cone of granitic rock, whose base extended to the profoundest depths of the sea--even to the region of perpetual fire--formed with its upper plane a circular lagoon at the surface of the ocean. Geysers or volcanoes of fresh water gurgled up through the centre of this palace, and vast submarine groves, intermixed with meadows, extended for leagues along its sides. My household consisted entirely of silver and golden carp, but my guards were of the loyal and gentle, yet courageous and powerful xiphias (sword-fish). These barred the unlicensed ingress of my subjects, and if the adventurous foot of man should profane my lagoon, I could close its inlet and cover it with floods. The dim aisles of the waters were full of wonderful lights: combinations of colors, unknown above, were here developed in gigantic _fuci_, around whose boles the scarlet tangle climbed, and parasites of purple and emerald played upon their rinds. Some of these forests pointed upward toward the sun; some grew downward, deriving light and heat from the incandescent gulfs. My state apartments were built of coral, in wondrous architecture, and trumpet-weed clothed their battlements. Some cavernous recesses were lit with constellations of shining zoophytes, and there were floors of pearl, studded with diamonds. I could stroll through marvellous arch-ways, gathering jewels at every step, or wander in my royal meadows, among the wrecks and spoils of hurricanes; or rising through the mellow depths, sit among the palms of the lagoon, watching the white sails of ships or studying the awfulness of the storm.

"For a time I secluded myself, theorizing upon the policy of my government. My dominions were vast and venerable; they comprehended two thirds of the surface of the globe; no deluges had destroyed them, and they had been peopled ages before the coming of man. Life here inhabited forms, vegetable and animal, to which the greatest terrestrials were puny. But the darkness which of old rested on the face of the deep, now shadowed its depths. There was no _mind_ here. These gigantic beings were shapes without souls. How should I reason with creatures who could not feel, whose heads could not know till to-morrow that their members had been severed to-day--some of whom, in a single moment, passed their whole existences, and fulfilled all the functions of eating, drinking, and generating--who were not only incapable of thoughts, affections, and emotions, but who could not see, smell, hear, taste, or touch? But such subjects are among the afflictions of all wise rulers, and I resolved to conclude upon nothing till I had visited every part of my dominions.

"During three years of travel I classified the fishes anew, all previous enumeration being paltry, and made the notes and queries which form the staple of my manuscript. I found fresh-water creatures to which the sheat-fish would be a morsel, and hydras to which the fabled sea-serpent would be a worm. I ascended the rivers with the salmon, and fathomed the motives of the climbing-perch. I heard the narrative of a _siluris_ tossed out of a volcano, and talked with a haddock which produced at a birth more young than there are men upon the globe. I have noted the harlequin-angler, which lived three weeks in Amsterdam, hopping about on his fins like a toad; the sucking-fish which adhered to Marc Antony's galley and held it fast; the horned-fish (_fil en dos_) which the savages discard from their nets in terror and prayer; and the sprats which rise with vapors into the clouds, and are rained back into the sea. I have collected the traditions of many of these beings, and have translated some of their ballads. There is music under the ocean; but most of the fishes sing with their fins, beating the water to rude measures. Among the traditions of all the tribes is that of a time when the waters were peaceful and the fishes happy, when none were rapacious, when death was unknown, when no storms lashed the ripples into billows, and when beings of the upper air bathed at the surface, and the fishes rendered them homage. But some foul deed of which the finny folk were guiltless brought confusion into the waters; the ocean covered all the globe, corpses sank into the depths and were devoured, nets were let down from above, strange fires were kindled beneath, and whirlpools, water-spouts, storms, and volcanoes began.

"I devoted a fourth year to perfecting my system of organic communication, and made some advance toward developing life in inorganic matter. From this latter attainment it would be but a step to _perpetuate_ life, and I should thus restore immortality to man. But the shark family having threatened to revolt, I left off my investigations for some months, and organized a military force, with which I massacred the malcontents till my subjects swam in blood. Returning victoriously at the head of my legions, a sad incident occurred. A ship was crossing our line of march, and I had an unaccountable curiosity to hear something of terrestrial affairs. Five sawfish, at my bidding, staved in the ship's bottom, and she sank almost instantly. The corpses of the drowned drifted slowly down, and as I passed among them, turning up the faces, I recognized in one the features of my mother!

"After a season of remorse I continued my investigations, but a novel and unexpected discovery deranged my plans, and wrought a change in my destiny.

"The subtlest forms of matter, as commonly known, are the imponderables--light, heat, magnetism, and electricity. I had concluded that these were manifestations of some still subtler form, and that this was _life_, beyond which lay the ethereal elements (called _principles_) of mind and soul--soul being ultimate and eternal. To demonstrate this I resolved to descend as far as possible into the depths of the sea, and examine the beings which dwelt in the remotest darkness. The conical shape of my island allowed me to descend within its shelving interior, and yet sustain no great atmospheric pressure. I selected a sturgeon, whose body was so powerfully plated that he could not be crushed, and his long-pointed shape gave him great facility for penetrating dense waters. I attached a phosphorescent light to his caudal, that I might not lose him in the gloom, and he preceded me along the sloping interior. We passed the foundations of my court, bade adieu to the deep-swimming hydras, left the profoundest polypi behind, and came at length to uninhabited regions, three thousand fathoms below the surface. My pioneer here suffered great inconvenience, and only by the most vigorous efforts was able to progress at all. The blackness was literally tangible, and our lantern, at most, only 'darkness visible.' By threat and persuasion I forced him forward, hardly able to make headway myself. He swept the almost solid element with his powerful tail, depressed his sharp snout, sucked a long breath, and we darted forward simultaneously. There was a cracking as of bones forced together, and my cranium seemed to split. We shot out of the density into lighter water, and the momentum carried us fifty fathoms beyond!

"We had passed out of the limit of solar attraction, and were being drawn toward the centre of the earth!

"Before, we had been descending; now, we were rising. The fluid grew rarer and warmer as we proceeded, the darkness more luminous, and at last we became visible to each other, swimming in a ruby and transparent liquid, unlike any aspect or part of our native domain. The fluid became so rare finally, that the sturgeon was unable to go farther, kept down by his superior gravity. Some lights glimmering above us, and some mysterious sounds alarming him, he turned and fled. I was left alone.

"I reached the surface of this peaceful sea. A scene lay before me more beautiful than any wonder of the deep. I knew that I was among immortals, and that this was 'Happy Archipelago'!

"The surface was calm. Some purple islets were sprinkled here and there, and creatures marvellously fair were basking in the roseate waters. They looked like angels half way out of heaven. Their faces were of a silvery hue; their hairs shone on the stream like tremulous beams of light; their eyes were of a tender azure, and their bosoms rose and fell as if they were all dreaming of blessedness. Some strains of ravishing harmony that were floating among the islands ceased when I appeared, and I thought I heard the snapping of a lute-string. All the spirits started at once. They were crescent-shaped, and stood upon their nether tips. A star upon their foreheads shone like a pure diamond. They saw me and vanished!

"All but one! She was the fairest of the spirits, and looked, thus frightened, like the pale new moon. The violet veins faded from her lids, and her blue eyes were full of wonder. I felt as if, for the first time, a sinless being had looked upon me, and my heart grew so black and heavy that I sank a little way. I feared to breathe, for she might vanish. I wished to lie forever with her face shining upon me. What were science, and dominion, and the secret of man's immortality to one pure glance like hers? In the agony of my soul I spoke: 'Spirit! Immortal! Woman! O stay! Speak to me!'

"'Who are you? Whence do you come? You are not of us, nor of our element.'

"The voice was like a disembodied sound, coming from nothing, floating in space eternally.

"'I am a creature of a cursed race--ruler of a blighted domain--a realm filled with violence: it lies beneath you.'

"The pale face grew tender; the star on the forehead grew dim, like a tearful eye. She pitied me.

"'There are beings above us,' she said, 'winged beings, that talk with us sometimes; but nothing below. Are _they_ sorrowful as you are? Are their brows all heavy with sadness like yours? Why are they unhappy?'

"I wept and moaned.

"'They have not your pure eyes; they cannot hear your voice. They have sinned.'

"She glided toward me. I felt my gray hairs dropping one by one; my heavy heart grew light; my groans softened to sighs.

"A shape came suddenly between us.

"I knew the long green locks, and the glossy neck. It was Tethys who spoke. 'Man,' she said, 'you were made one of us, not one of these. Go back to your domain, for you are mortal. Resume dominion over the fish, or, striving to win more, lose all!'

"I turned my face seaward bitterly. I looked back once; the blue eyes were gleaming--oh, so tenderly!--and I could not go. I muttered an execration at my bitter fate. Straightway the sky rocked, the sea rose, the pale star vanished. I had spoken a wicked word.

"I was consigned to Euripius, the divinity of whirlpools. In vain I struggled in his watery arms; the swift current bore me circling away, and finally whirled me with frightful velocity. My feet were shaken asunder, my integument softened, my brain reeled. I was passed from eddy to eddy; I became drunken with emotion; I suffered all the tortures of the lost. A waterspout lifted me from the clutch of the sea, and deposited me upon the dry land, close to the home of my infancy.

"I have passed the weary hours of my penance in arranging the memoirs which follow. Science has again wooed me with her allurements; the stars continue their correspondence. I have not despaired of the great secret of immortality; and though these hairs are few and white, I shall be rejuvenated in the tranquil depths of the water, and reassert for ages my rightful dominion over the fish!"

I was in doubt whether to laugh or wonder when the Ancient Mariner concluded; but I was relieved from passing judgment upon his article by the unceremonious entrance of a tall, lithe, gray-eyed person, who wore gold seals and carried a thick walking-stick. The naturalist appeared to be bent on diving through the floor, and swimming away through the cellar; but he caught the stern, keen eye of the stranger and cowered. The tall man lifted his cane, and struck the manuscript out of his Highness's hands; he demolished the microscope at a blow, and flung the geological hammer out of the window.

"Come along," he said. "No! drop that trash--every article of it, or else you'll be experimenting again. Come along!"

They went away together, leaving my office littered with broken glass and sea-shells. With some astonishment I followed through the warehouse to the street; they had entered a carriage and were driving rapidly away. The next morning's paper explained the whole occurrence in the following paragraph:

"_Much Learning hath made him mad._--Yesterday noon an elderly lunatic, named Robert Jones, committed suicide by leaping over the parapet of London Bridge. He was in the custody at the time of Dr. Stretveskit, the celebrated keeper of the Asylum for Monomaniacs. He had been at large some days, and was traced to several publishing-houses, whither he had gone to contrive the publication of some insane vagaries. He was finally overhauled at the office of Spry, Stromboli & Co., and placed in a carriage; but seizing a favorable moment when travel was impeded upon the bridge, he burst through the glass door and cleared the parapet at a bound. Jones was an adventurous and dangerous character. Some years ago he set fire to the Shrimpshire Asylum, where his family had confined him, and went abroad upon a whale-ship; but meeting with an accident, he underwent the process of trepanning and came home more crazy than before. At one time he attempted to drown his mother, in furtherance of some strange experiment; but it was thought at the date of his death that he was recovering his wits. Among his delusions was a strange one--that he had been made viceroy over all the fishes. His body has not been recovered."

I read the last sentence with a thrill. My late visitor might even now be presiding at some finny council; and as I should have occasion to cross the sea some day, an untimely shipwreck might place me in closer relations with him. I determined, therefore, to print the manuscript which remained in my hands. May it appease his Mightiness, the King of the Fishes!

THE CIRCUIT PREACHER.

His thin wife's cheek grows pinched and pale with anxiousness intense;
He sees the brethren's prayerful eyes o'er all the conference;
He hears the Bishop slowly call the long "Appointment" rolls,
Where in His vineyard God would place these gatherers of souls.

Apart, austere, the knot of grim Presiding Elders sit;
He wonders if some city "Charge" may not for him have writ?
Certes! could they his sermon hear on Paul and Luke awreck,
Then had his talent ne'er been hid on Annomessix Neck!

Poor rugged heart, be still a pause, and you, worn wife, be meek!
Two years of banishment they read far down the Chesapeake!
Though Brother Bates, less eloquent, by Wilmington is wooed,
The Lord that counts the sparrows fall shall feed His little brood.

"Cheer up! my girl, here Brother Riggs our circuit knows 'twill please.
He raised three hundred dollars there, besides the marriage fees.
What! tears from us who preached the word these thirty years or so?
Two years on barren Chincoteague, and two in Tuckahoe?

"The schools are good, the brethren say, and our Church holds the wheel;
The Presbyterians lost their house; the Baptists lost their zeal.
The parsonage is clean and dry; the town has friendly folk,--
Not half so dull as Murderkill, nor proud like Pocomoke.

"Oh! Thy just will, our Lord, be done, though these eight seasons more,
We see our ague-crippled boys pine on the Eastern Shore,
While we, Thy stewards, journey out our dedicated years
Midst foresters of Nanticoke, or heathen of Tangiers!

"Yea! some must serve on God's frontiers, and I shall fail, perforce,
To sow upon some better ground my most select discourse;
At Sassafras, or Smyrna, preach my argument on 'Drink,'
My series on the Pentateuch, at Appoquinimink.

"Gray am I, brethren, in the work, though tough to bear my part;
It is these drooping little ones that sometimes wring my heart,
And cheat me with the vain conceit the cleverness is mine
To fill the churches of the Elk, and pass the Brandywine.

"These hairs were brown, when, full of hope, ent'ring these holy lists,
Proud of my Order as a knight--the shouting Methodists--
I made the pine woods ring with hymns, with prayer the night-winds shook,
And preached from Assawaman Light far north as Bombay Hook.

"My nag was gray, my gig was new; fast went the sandy miles;
The eldest Trustees gave me praise, the fairest sisters smiles;
Still I recall how Elder Smith of Worten Heights averred.
My Apostolic Parallels the best he ever heard.

"All winter long I rode the snows, rejoicing on my way;
At midnight our revival hymns rolled o'er the sobbing bay;
Three Sabbath sermons, every week, should tire a man of brass--
And still our fervent membership must have their extra class!

"Aggressive with the zeal of youth, in many a warm requite
I terrified Immersionists, and scourged the Millerite;
But larger, tenderer charities such vain debates supplant,
When the dear wife, saved by my zeal, loved the Itinerant.

"No cooing dove of storms afeard, she shared my life's distress,
A singing Miriam, alway, in God's poor wilderness;
The wretched at her footstep smiled, the frivolous were still;
A bright path marked her pilgrimage, from Blackbird to Snowhill.

"A new face in the parsonage, at church a double pride!--
Like the Madonna and her babe they filled the 'Amen-side'--
Crouched at my feet in the old gig, my boy, so fair and frank,
Naswongo's darkest marshes cheered, and sluices of Choptank.

"My cloth drew close; too fruitful love my fruitless life outran;
The townfolk marvelled, when we moved, at such a caravan!
I wonder not my lads grew wild, when, bright, without the door
Spread the ripe, luring, wanton world--and we, within, so poor!

"For, down the silent cypress aisles came shapes even me to scout,
Mocking the lean flanks of my mare, my boy's patched roundabout,
And saying: 'Have these starveling boors, thy congregation, souls,
That on their dull heads Heaven and thou pour forth such living coals?

"Then prayer brought hopes, half secular, like seers by Endor's witch:
Beyond our barren Maryland God's folks were wise and rich;
Where climbing spires and easy pews showed how the preacher thrived,
And all old brethren paid their rents, and many young ones wived!

"I saw the ships Henlopen pass with chaplains fat and sleek;
From Bishopshead with fancy's sails I crossed the Chesapeake;
In velvet pulpits of the North said my best sermons o'er--
And that on Paul to Patmos driven, drew tears in Baltimore.

"Well! well! my brethren, it is true we should not preach for pelf--
(I would my sermon on Saint Paul the Bishop heard himself!)
But this crushed wife--these boys--these hairs! they cut me to the core;
Is it not hard, year after year, to ride the Eastern Shore?

"Next year? Yes, yes, I thank you much! Then my reward may fall!
(That is a downright fair discourse on Patmos and St. Paul!)
So Brother Riggs, once more my voice shall ring in the old lists,
Cheer up, sick heart, who would not die among these Methodists?"

THE BIG IDIOT.

"Sister, thy boy is a big idiot--a very big idiot!" said Gerrit Van Swearingen, the Schout of New Amstel. Then the Schout struck his long official staff on the ground, and went off in a grand manner to frighten debtors.

The Widow Cloos made no reply, but dropped a couple of tears as she saw her son, Nanking, shrink away before his uncle's frown and roll his head in deprecation of such language.

"My mother," he whispered, "won't the big wild turkeys fly away with my uncle Gerrit if he calls me such dreadful names?"

"Nanking," said the widow, kissing the big idiot, "your uncle is a very great man. I don't know what is greater, unless it is an admiral, or a stadtholder, or maybe a king!"

"Yes," conceded Nanking, "he is a dreadfully great man. He puts drunken Indians in the stocks and ties mighty smugglers up to the whipping-pump. But Saint Nicholas will punish him if he calls me an idiot."

"Ah! Nanking," replied the widow, "nothing can curb your uncle--neither the valiant Captain Hinoyossa, nor the puissant director of every thing, great Beeckman, nor hardly Pietrus Stuyvesant himself."

"I know who can frighten him," exclaimed the big idiot. "Santa Claus! He's bigger than a schout. Mother, his whip-lash can reach clear over New Amstel--isn't it so? How many deers and ponies does he drive? Will he bring me any thing this year?"

"My poor son!" said the poor mother, "we are so far from Holland and so very humble here, that Saint Nicholas may forget us this year; but God will watch over us!"

Nanking could hardly comprehend this astonishing statement: that Saint Nicholas could ever forget little boys anywhere. So he went out by the river to think about it. There were three or four Swedish boys out there rolling marbles and playing at jack-stones. They did not like to play with Dutch boys, but Nanking was only a big idiot, and they did not harbor malice against him.

"_He! Zoo!_" they cried; "wilt thou play?"

"Yes, directly. But tell me, Peter Stalcop, and you, Paul Mink, do the very poorest little boys in Sweden get nothing on Christmas?"

"_Ah, Zon der tuijfel!_ without doubt," cried the boys. "Old Knecht Clobes, your Santa Claus, is a bad man. That is why he gave the Dutch our country here. And in Sweden, too, he turns people to wolves, and brothers and sisters tear each other to pieces."

"But not in Holland," exclaimed Nanking. "There he gives the strong boys skates and the weak boys Canary wine. He brought, one time, long ago, three murdered boys to life, so that they could eat goose for Christmas dinner. And three poor maidens, whose lovers would not take them because they had no marriage portions, found gold on the window-sill to get them husbands."

"_Foei! Fus!_ You're lied to, Nanking! There is no good Christmas in this land."

Nanking said they were very wicked to doubt true and good things. He believed every thing, and particularly every thing pleasant. His mother, whose house was on the river bank, looked out with a fond sadness as she heard him playing, his heart amongst the little boys, although he was so big.

"_Ach! helas!_" she said to herself, "what will become of my dear man-lamb? He is simple and fatherless, poor and confiding. Thank God, at least he is not a woman!"

The Widow Cloos had come but recently from Holland, sent out by charity at the instance of her brother, Van Swearingen, the schout or bailiff of New Amstel colony. Her son, who was almost a man in years, had been kept in the Orphan House at Amsterdam until his growth made him a misplaced object there, and his feeble intellect forbade that he should become a soldier, and die, like his father, in the Dutch battles. So the Widow Cloos brought Nanking out in the ship Mill, to the city of Amsterdam's own colony on the banks of the South River, which the English called the Delaware. They came in a starving time, when the crops were drenched out by rains and all the people and the soldiery of the fort were down with bilious and scarlet fever. The widow was just getting over a long attack of this illness, and her brother, the schout, regarded the innocent Nanking as the cause of her poverty.

"Thou hadst better drown him," said the hard official; "he'll eat all thy substance or give the remainder away, for he believes every thing and everybody."

"O brother!" pleaded the widow, "if he did not believe something, how sad would he be! All the children love him, and he is company for them."

It was an odd sight to see Nanking down with the boys, as big as the father of any of them, playing as gently as the littlest. He rode them pig-a-back on his broad shoulders; they liked to see him light his pipe and smoke without getting sick. He worked for his mother, carrying water and catching fish, and was the only person in New Amstel (or Newcastle) who could go out into the woods fearlessly among the Minquas Indians; for the Indians all believed that feeble-minded people were the Great Spirit's especial friends, and saw beyond the boundaries of this world into that better heaven where shad ran all the year in the celestial rivers, and the oysters walked upon the land to be eaten. Nanking believed all this, too. It was his confiding nature which made him useless for worldly business. Hobgoblins and genii, charms and saints, and whatever he had heard in earnest, he held in earnest to be true.

"Dear me!" thought Nanking, when he was done playing marbles, "can't I be of use to somebody? Perhaps if I could do something useful my uncle would not think me a big idiot. Then, besides, little Elsje Alrichs might let me be her sweetheart and carry her doll!"

Elsje was the daughter of Peter Alrichs, the late great director's son, whose father slept in the graveyard of the little log church on Sand Hook, beside Dominie Welius, the holy psalm-tune leader. Nanking believed that when the weathercock on the church tingled in the wind, it was Dominie Welius in the grave striking his tuning-fork to catch the key-note. Peter Alrichs inherited the well-cleared farm of his papa, and had the best estate in all New Amstel except Gerrit Van Swearingen, who was accused of getting rich by smuggling, peculating, and slave-catching. Little Elsje liked Nanking, but her father too, said he was a big idiot. So Nanking had a hard time.

"Elsje," cried Nanking one day, "don't tell anybody if I give you a secret."

"No, big sweetheart!"

"I'm going to catch a stork!"

"We don't have storks in New Netherlands, Nanking."

"That's just where I'm going to be smart," exclaimed Nanking. "Because there are no storks here I'm going to catch one. Then uncle Gerrit cannot call me a big idiot."

Elsje gave Nanking her doll to hold. He sat there as big as a soldier, and handled the doll tenderly; for he believed it to be alive as much as she did, and she was a little girl.

"In Holland," said Nanking, "there is a stork on every happy chimney. The farmers put a wagon-wheel on the chimney-top, and along comes your stork and his family, and they build a nest on the wagon-wheel. There it is, Elsje, all twigs and grass, warm as pie, heated by the chimney-fire, and such a squawking you never heard. It keeps the devil away! The old stork sits up on one long straight leg, and with the other foot he hands the worms around to the family. I used to sit down and watch them by the hour in that other Amstel where ours gets its name."

"By the great city of Amsterdam?" asked Elsje.

"That's it. In Amstel, the suburb of Amsterdam, where you can see such beautiful ships from all parts of the world. If I get a stork for our chimney may I hold your doll another day?"

"Yes, Nanking, and I'll give you a kiss."

Nanking told his mother next day that he was going to the woods, and not to cry if he did not return at dark. The Widow Cloos kissed him, and saw him go happily up the street.

"_Om licht en donker!_" she moaned. "Between the hawk and the buzzard! Poor, simple son! The Indians may kill him, but here he will only get his uncle's curse!"

Nanking walked out through the little settlement of log and brick, and past the court-house, where the stocks and whipping-post were always standing. He saw his uncle Van Swearingen's smart dwelling, with its end to the street and notched gables, and many panes in its glazed windows, and two front doors, and large iron figures in front, telling the date his uncle built it. A little way off was the fine residence of Peter Alrichs, with a balcony on the roof where the family sat of evenings, smoking their pipes and seeing starlight come out on the river and the flag drop at sunset from Fort Casimir; or hearing the roll of drums as they changed the guard or fired a gun to overhaul a vessel.

"If I get a stork and bring it back," thought Nanking, "won't I astonish this town? It'll be proclaimed, I expect, in a public manner, that Nanking Cloos is no longer the big idiot."

The woods closed round New Amstel not very far from the houses, and only an Indian path led on through the strong timber or marshy copse. Nanking was unarmed and not afraid. He walked until long after sun-up, and waded the headwater swamps of Christine Kill, until he saw before him the hills of Chisopecke rise blue and wooded, and there he knew the Minquas kept their fort. But the Minquas had no storks. He turned the first and second of these hills and then crossed the range and descended to the rain-washed country on the other side, where, amid the low sparse pines on the lonely barrens, he could walk more readily, guided south-westward by the proceeding sun. The fierce Susquehannocks dwelt beyond the next high range, and Nanking had heard from other Indians that they only had some storks. Fierce Indians they were, but all Indians had been good to Nanking; so he advanced right merrily, and at the crossing of the second river snaked a fish out of the water with his line and made a fire with his flint and punk-wood to cook it. When he had finished his meal he looked up and was surrounded by Indians.

They were fierce, grave Indians, armed with spears and bows. Although they looked angry, Nanking wiped his mouth on his ragged sleeve and saluted them all kindly--shaking hands. He perceived that they formed around him closely, in front and rear, but he was not suspicious on this account. The Indians marched him over a long range of very high hills and stopped at a place where, through the timber, could be seen a noble bay.

"It is Chisopecke Bay," cried Nanking gladly, "and there, they say, are storks and plentiful geese. I suppose, when we come to a proper place, these Indians will ask me what I want."

The Indians turned down from the bay-view, backward, by another trail, and entered a very rocky glen, where rocks as big as the houses of New Amstel were strewn all over the country-side. Following downward, by a dangerous way like stair-steps, they entered at length a small shady amphitheatre, where a waterfall plunged down a gorge and foamed and thundered. Nanking fairly danced with delight.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, "I have seen paintings of cascades in Holland, but nothing like this. My mother and Elsje must come here."

The Indians, now present in great numbers, looked at Nanking dancing and laughing with the greatest wonder, but still they were far from affable. After a while they began to sit around in a large circle and sing a doleful sort of tune. Then two Indians produced a long piece of grapevine and tied one end of it to a tree and the other end around Nanking's wrists, which were fastened together behind his back. A fire had already been lighted at the foot of the tree, and the coals were now strewn over the ground.

"_Hond mold!_ Keep courage!" thought Nanking. "It is only some kind of play or game. How can I get a stork from them unless I play with them?"

But the Indians still sung their doleful tune and did not laugh a bit. The month was December, and the fire, at first grateful, grew unreasonably warm. At last Nanking trod on a hot coal, which burnt his old shoe through, and raised a blister on his heel.

"Such a game as this I never learned in Amsterdam or New Amstel," thought Nanking, laughing good-naturedly; "I guess I will cut it short by riding one of their boys pig-a-back."

So he picked out a young Indian with his roving eye, one perhaps sixteen years old, and, darting upon him, lifted the Indian boy up in powerful arms and carried him around the fiery circle. The young brave struggled in vain. Nanking clinched his big fingers around the Indian and dandled him like a baby. The effect upon the Indians in the circle was exciting; they seized their spears, stopped their singing, and rushed upon their guest with apparent or assumed fury.

"_Ha! herfe!_" cried Nanking, "I have changed the monotony of this game, anyhow!"

At this moment an old Indian woman, the mother of the boy whom Nanking had desired to amuse, threw herself between the upraised spears and the laughing widow's son. She shouted something very earnestly, and then stretched herself at Nanking's feet. All the other Indians also flung themselves down in fear or revulsion of feeling, and some crawled in another minute to where the burning coals were strewn over the sward, and with their fingers or with tree-boughs returned these coals to the fire, while others quenched the fire itself with water from the torrent. Nanking had never lost his temper. He put the young Indian down and kissed him, and shook hands with one after another, who only rose as he approached them with a kind countenance. They unbound his hands and overwhelmed him with attentions and professions, and placed their fingers on their foreheads significantly, still looking at him.

"Well," exclaimed Nanking, "I hope they also don't take me for a big idiot! No, they do not. It is only a part of the queer game."

It was now growing late in the day, and Nanking wanted some food. The Susquehannocks produced nuts, venison, fish, hominy, and succotash. Their formerly savage countenances beamed confidence and consideration. Nanking expressed his wishes by signs. He wanted a great, long-legged, long-winged bird, a stork, to carry back alive to New Amstel. The Indian chiefs conferred, and finally replied, by signs and assurances, that they had such a bird, but that it would take two whole days to procure one.

"Very well," thought Nanking, "I may as well stay here until I get it, and not return home like a fool. My mother will trust in God, if not in Saint Nicholas, and I trust in both. Elsje will not forget me at any time!"

All the next day Nanking played ball and bandy with the Susquehannock boys, and taught them jack-stones and how to make a shuttlecock. They put eagle's feathers in his hair, and the old men adopted him into their tribe. On the third day the absent Indians returned with a stork. It was a white stork with a red bill and plenty of stork's neck, but short legs. Nanking doubted if it could stand on one leg on the top of a chimney and feed worms around to the young stork family, but he felt very proud and happy. The whole tribe seemed to have assembled to see Nanking go away. He had become the friend of all the boys and women and the _protégé_ of the tall warriors. They placed his stork in a canoe, and in a second canoe following it were a couple of large deers freshly killed, which he was to take to his mother as the gift of the fierce Susquehannocks. Amid the cheers and adieus of the nation the two canoes pushed off and, entering the broad bay, paddled up a river under the side of a bar of blue mountains, until the river dwindled to a mere creek, and finally its navigation ceased altogether. By signs upon the head of the dead stag, indicating a larger deer, Nanking knew they were at the "Head-of-Elk" River. His fierce friends left him here with many professions of apology and esteem, and soon after they departed Swedes and Minquas appeared, who had observed the hostile canoes from their lookout stations on the neighboring hills. These also welcomed Nanking, being already well acquainted with him, and taking up his venison proceeded through the woods toward New Amstel. He carried the live stork himself--a rough bird, which would not yield to blandishments or good treatment. After a very fatiguing journey and four days' absence from home, Nanking entered New Amstel in the dead of night.

"To-morrow," he thought, "I shall be repaid for all this. They will say, 'Nanking Cloos is the smartest man in the colony of New Amstel.' Perhaps I shall be a burgomaster, and eat terrapin stewed in Canary wine!"

Nanking was up betimes, looking at the chimneys on his mother's dwelling, of which there were two, and both were the largest chimneys in New Amstel. The Widow Cloos lived in a huge log building with brick ends, long and rather low, which had been built by the commissary of the colony at the expense of the city of Amsterdam as a magazine of food and supply for her colonists; but after several years of unprofitable experiment with the colony, it was resolved to give no more provisions away, and the director, great Captain Hinoyossa, when Van Swearingen became the schout, allowed the latter's sister to inhabit one end of the warehouse, and that the farthest end from the water. The rest was uninhabited, and Nanking, looking at the chimney which surmounted the river gable, said to himself:

"That will never do for my stork, as there is no fire lighted there. I never saw smoke from that chimney in my life. The stork requires a nest where there is heat, and plenty of it."

He therefore prepared to climb to the chimney on the land-side and establish a nest. There was a broken cart-wheel in the warehouse, which Nanking procured and drew to the roof, and when daylight broke upon the town the earliest loungers and fishermen saw the happy simpleton working like a chimney-sweep, as they thought, except that instead of brushing he was piling brush around the chimney on the cart-wheel. His mother came out and looked joy to see him back; the soldiers strolled down from the fort and the boys and women from the town. Uncle Van Swearingen was there, smiting the ground with his shodden staff, and ejaculating, "_Foei! weg! fychaam u!_ Fie! leave off! fie on you! What absurdity is this on the property of our _hoofstad_, our metropolis?"

"Never mind, uncle!" answered the beaming Nanking. "I have been a great man in the last few days. I have lived among the fierce Susquehannocks. Presently you shall see something that you shall see!"