Caxton's Book: A Collection of Essays, Poems, Tales, and Sketches.

by W. H. Rhodes

  [Decoration]

  XVIII.

  _A PAIR OF MYTHS:_

  BEING A CHAPTER FROM AN UNPUBLISHED WORK.

  Eight days passed away unreckoned, and still I remained unconscious ofeverything occurring around me. The morning of the ninth dawned, draggedheavily along, and noon approached, whilst I lay in the same comatosestate. No alteration had taken place, except that a deeper and soundersleep seemed to have seized upon me; a symptom hailed by my physicianwith joy, but regarded by my mother with increased alarm.

  Suddenly, the incautious closing of my chamber door, as my sister, MissLucy Stanly, then in her fifteenth year, entered the apartment, arousedme from slumber and oblivion.

  Abed at noonday! What did it betoken? I endeavored to recall somethingof the past, but memory for a long time refused its aid, and I appearedas fatally and irremediably unconscious as ever. Gradually, however, myshattered mind recovered its faculties, and in less than an hour aftermy awakening, I felt perfectly restored. No pain tormented me, and notorpor benumbed my faculties. I rapidly reviewed, mentally, theoccurrences of the day before, when, as I imagined, the disaster hadhappened, and resolved at once to rise from my bed and prosecute myintended journey.

  At this moment my father entered the apartment, and observing that Iwas awake, ventured to speak to me kindly and in a very low tone. Ismiled at his uneasiness, and immediately relieved him from allapprehension, by conversing freely and intelligibly of the latecatastrophe. His delight knew no bounds. He seized my hand a thousandtimes, and pressed it again and again to his lips. At length,remembering that my mother was ignorant of my complete restoration, herushed from the room, in order to be the first to convey the welcomeintelligence.

  My bed was soon surrounded by the whole family, chattering away, wildwith joy, and imprinting scores of kisses on my lips, cheeks andforehead. The excitement proved too severe for me in my weak condition,and had not the timely arrival of the physician intervened to clear mychamber of every intruder, except Mamma Betty, as we all called thenurse, these pages in all probability would never have arrested thereader's eye. As it was, I suddenly grew very sick and faint; everythingaround me assumed a deep green tinge, and I fell into a deathlike swoon.

  Another morning's sun was shining cheerily in at my window, whenconsciousness again returned. The doctor was soon at my side, andinstead of prescribing physic as a remedy, requested my sister to sit atmy bedside, and read in a low tone any interesting little story shemight select. He cautioned her not to mention, even in the most casualmanner, _Mormonism_, _St. Louis_, or the _Moselle_, which order she mostimplicitly obeyed; nor could all my ingenuity extract a solitary remarkin relation to either.

  My sister was not very long in making a selection; for, supposing whatdelighted herself would not fail to amuse me, she brought in amanuscript, carefully folded, and proceeded at once to narrate itshistory. It was written by my father, as a sort of model or sampler formy brothers and sisters, which they were to imitate when composition-daycame round, instead of "hammering away," as he called it, on moralessays and metaphysical commonplaces. It was styled

  THE KING OF THE NINE-PINS: A MYTH.

  Heinrich Schwarz, or Black Hal, as he was wont to be called, was an oldtoper, but he was possessed of infinite good humor, and related a greatmany very queer stories, the truth of which no one, that I ever heardof, had the hardihood to doubt; for Black Hal had an uncommon share of"Teutonic pluck" about him, and was at times very unceremonious in thedisplay of it. But Hal had a weakness--it was not liquor, for that washis strength--which he never denied; _Hal was too fond of nine-pins_. Hehad told me, in confidence, that "many a time and oft" he had rolledincessantly for weeks together. I think I heard him say that he oncerolled for a month, day and night, without stopping a single moment toeat or to drink, or even to catch his breath.

  I did not question his veracity at the time; but since, on reflection,the fact seems almost incredible; and were it not that this sketch mightaccidentally fall in his way, I might be tempted to show philosophicallythat such a thing could not possibly be. And yet I have read of verylong fasts in my day--that, for instance, of Captain Riley in the GreatSahara, and others, which will readily occur to the reader. But I mustnot episodize, or I shall not reach my story.

  Black Hal was sitting late one afternoon in a Nine-Pin Alley, in thelittle town of Kaatskill, in the State of New York--it is true, for hesaid so--when a tremendous thunder-storm invested his retreat. Hiscompanions, one by one, had left him, until, rising from his seat andgazing around, he discovered that he was alone. The alley-keeper, too,could nowhere be found, and the boys who were employed to set up thepins had disappeared with the rest. It was growing very late, and Halhad a long walk, and he thought it most prudent to get ready to starthome. The lightning glared in at the door and windows most vividly, andthe heavy thunder crashed and rumbled and roared louder than he had everheard it before. The rain, too, now commenced to batter downtremendously, and just as night set in, Hal had just got ready to setout. Hal first felt uneasy, next unhappy, and finally miserable. If hehad but a boy to talk to! I'm afraid Hal began to grow scared. A versethat he learned in his boyhood, across the wide sea, came unasked intohis mind. It always came there precisely at the time he did not desireits company. It ran thus:

  "Oh! for the might of dread Odin The powers upon him shed, For a sail in the good ship Skidbladnir,[A-236] And a talk with Mimir's head!"[B-236]

  [Footnote A-236: The ship Skidbladnir was the property of Odin. He couldsail in it on the most dangerous seas, and yet could fold it up andcarry it in his pocket.]

  [Footnote B-236: Mimir's head was always the companion of Odin. When hedesired to know what was transpiring in distant countries, he inquiredof Mimir, and always received a correct reply.]

  This verse was repeated over and over again inaudibly. Gradually,however, his voice became a little louder, and a little louder still,until finally poor Hal hallooed it vociferously forth so sonorously thatit drowned the very thunder. He had repeated it just seventy-seventimes, when suddenly a monstrous head was thrust in at the door, anddemanded, in a voice that sounded like the maelstrom, "What do _you_want with Odin?" "Oh, nothing--nothing in the world, I thank you, sir,"politely responded poor Hal, shaking from head to foot. Here the headwas followed by the shoulders, arms, body and legs of a giant at leastforty feet high. Of course he came in on all fours, and approached inclose proximity to Black Hal. Hal involuntarily retreated, as far as hecould, reciting to himself the only prayer he remembered, "Now I lay medown to sleep," etc.

  The giant did not appear desirous of pursuing Hal, being afraid--so Halsaid--that he would draw his knife on him. But be the cause what itmight, he seated himself at the head of the nine-pin alley, and shouted,"Stand up!" As he did so, the nine-pins at the other end arose and tooktheir places.

  "Now, sir," said he, turning again to Hal, "I'll bet you an ounce ofyour blood I can beat you rolling."

  Hal trembled again, but meekly replied, "Please, sir, we don't bet_blood_ nowadays--we bet _money_."

  "Blood's my money," roared forth the giant. "Fee, fo, fum!" Hal tried invain to hoist the window.

  "Will you bet?"

  "Yes, sir," said Hal; and he thought as it was only _an ounce_, he couldspare that without much danger, and it might appease the monster'sappetite.

  "Roll first!" said the giant.

  "Yes, sir," replied Hal, as he seized what he supposed to be the largestand his favorite ball.

  "What are you doing with Mimir's head?" roared forth the monster.

  "I beg your pardon, most humbly," began Hal, as he let the bloody headfall; "I did not mean any harm."

  "Rumble, bang-whang!" bellowed the thunder.

  Hal fell on his knees and recited most devoutly, "Now I lay me down,"etc.

  "Roll on! roll on! I say," and the giant seized poor Hal by the collarand set him on his feet.

  He now selected a large ball, and poising it carefully in his hand, rana
few steps, and sent it whirling right in among the nine-pins; but whatwas his astonishment to behold them jump lightly aside, and permit theball to pass in an avenue directly through the middle of the alley. Halshuddered. The second and third ball met with no better success.Odin--for Hal said it was certainly he, as he had Mimir's headalong--now grasped a ball and rolled it with all his might; but longbefore it reached the nine-pins, they had, every one of them, tumbleddown, and lay sprawling on the alley.

  "Two spares!" said the giant, as he grinned most gleefully at poor Hal."Get up!" and up the pins all stood instantly. Taking another ball, hehurled it down the alley, and the same result followed. "Two morespares!" and Odin shook his gigantic sides with laughter.

  "I give up the game," whined out Hal.

  "Then you lose double," rejoined Odin.

  Hal readily consented to pay two ounces, for he imagined, by yielding atonce, he would so much the sooner get rid of his grim companion. As hesaid so, Odin pulled a pair of scales out of his coat pocket, madeproportionably to his own size. He poised them upon a beam in the alley,and drew forth what he denominated two ounces, and put them in onescale. Each ounce was about the size of a twenty-eight pound weight, andwas quite as heavy.

  "Ha! ha! ha!! Ha! ha! ha!!! Ha! ha! ha!!!!" shouted the giant, as hegrasped the gasping and terrified gambler. He soon rolled up hissleeves, and bound his arm with a pocket handkerchief. Next he drewforth a lancet as long as a sword, and drove the point into the biggestvein he could discover. Hal screamed and fainted. When he returned toconsciousness, the sun was shining brightly in at the window, and thesweet rumbling of the balls assured him that he still lay where thegiant left him. On rising to his feet he perceived that a large coagulumof blood had collected where his head rested all night, and that hecould scarcely walk from the effects of his exhaustion. He returnedimmediately home and told his wife all that had occurred; and though,like some of the neighbors, she distrusted the tale, yet she neverintimated her doubts to Black Hal himself. The alley-keeper assured mein a whisper, one day, that upon the very night fixed on by Hal for theadventure, he was beastly drunk, and had been engaged in a fight withone of his boon companions, who gave him a black eye and a bloody nose.But the alley-keeper was always jealous of Black Hal's superiority instory telling; besides, he often drank too much himself, and I suspecthe originated the report he related to me in a fit of wounded pride, ordrunken braggadocio. One thing is certain, he never ventured to repeatthe story in the presence of Black Hal himself.

  # # # # #

  In spite of the attention I endeavored to bestow on the marveloushistory of Black Hal and his grim companion, my mind occasionallywandered far away, and could only find repose in communing with her whoI now discovered for the first time held in her own hands the thread ofmy destiny. Lucy was not blind to these fits of abstraction, andwhenever they gained entire control of my attention, she would pause,lay down the manuscript, and threaten most seriously to discontinue theperusal, unless I proved a better listener. I ask no man's pardon fordeclaring that my sister was an excellent reader. Most brothers, perhapsthink the same of most sisters; but there _was_ a charm in Lucy's accentand a distinctness in her enunciation I have never heard excelled. Owingto these qualities, as much, perhaps, as to the strangeness of thestory, I became interested in the fate of the drunken gambler, and whenLucy concluded, I was ready to exclaim, "And pray where is Black Halnow?"

  My thoughts took another direction, however, and I impatiently demandedwhether or not the sample story had been imitated. A guilty blushassured me quite as satisfactorily as words could have done, that MissLucy had herself made an attempt, and I therefore insisted that as shehad whetted and excited the appetite, it would be highlyunfraternal--(particularly in my present very precariouscondition)--that parenthesis settled the matter--to deny me the means ofsatisfying it.

  "But you'll laugh at me," timidly whispered my sister.

  "Of course I shall," said I, "if your catastrophe is half as melancholyas Black Hal's. But make haste, or I shall be off to St. Louis. But prayinform me, what is the subject of your composition?"

  "The Origin of Marriage."

  "I believe, on my soul," responded I, laughing outright, "you girlsnever think about anything else."

  I provoked no reply, and the manuscript being unfolded, my sister thusattempted to elucidate

  THE ORIGIN OF MARRIAGE.

  Professor Williams having ceased his manipulations, my eyesinvoluntarily closed, and I became unconscious to everything occurringaround me. There's truth in mesmerism, after all, thought I, and beingin the clairvoyant state, I beheld a most beautiful comet at this momentemerging from the constellation Taurus, and describing a curve about thestar Zeta, one of the Pleiades. Now for a trip through infinite space!and as this thought entered my brain, I grasped a hair in the tail ofthe comet as it whizzed by me.

  I climbed up the glittering hair until I found myself seated verycomfortably on the comet's back, and was beginning to enjoy my starlitramble exceedingly, when I was suddenly aroused from my meditations bythe song of a heavenly minstrel, who, wandering from star to star andsystem to system, sang the fate of other worlds and other beings tothose who would listen to his strains and grant him the rites ofhospitality. As I approached, his tones were suddenly changed, his voicelowered into a deeper key, and gazing intently at me, or at whatevidenced my presence to his sight, thus began:

  The flaming sword of the cherub, which had waved so frightfully abovethe gate of the garden of Eden, had disappeared; the angel himself wasgone; and Adam, as he approached the spot where so lately he had enjoyedthe delights of heaven, beheld with astonishment and regret thatParadise and all its splendors had departed from the earth forever.Where the garden lately bloomed, he could discover only the dark andsmouldering embers of a conflagration; a hard lava had incrusted itselfalong the golden walks; the birds were flown, the flowers withered, thefountains dried up, and desolation brooded over the scene.

  "Ah!" sighed the patriarch of men, "where are now the pleasures which Ionce enjoyed along these peaceful avenues? Where are all thosebeautiful spirits, given by Heaven to watch over and protect me? Eachguardian angel has deserted me, and the rainbow glories of Paradise haveflown. No more the sun shines out in undimmed splendor, for clouds arrayhim in gloom; the earth, forgetful of her verdure and her flowers,produces thorns to wound and frosts to chill me. The very air, once allbalm and zephyrs, now howls around me with the voice of the storm andthe fury of the hurricane. No more the notes of peace and happinessgreet my ears, but the harsh tones of strife and battle resound on everyside. Nature has kindled the flames of discord in her own bosom, anduniversal war has begun his reign!"

  And then the father of mankind hid his face in the bosom of hiscompanion, and wept the bitter tears of contrition and repentance.

  "Oh, do not weep so bitterly, my Adam," exclaimed his companion. "True,we are miserable, but all is not yet lost; we have forfeited the smilesof Heaven, but we may yet regain our lost place in its affections. Letus learn from our misfortunes the anguish of guilt, but let us learnalso the mercy of redemption. We may yet be happy."

  "Oh, talk not of happiness now," interrupted Adam; "that nymph who oncewailed at our side, attentive to the beck, has disappeared, and fledfrom the companionship of such guilty, fallen beings as ourselves,forever."

  "Not forever, Adam," kindly rejoined Eve; "she may yet be lurking amongthese groves, or lie hid behind yon hills."

  "Then let us find her," quickly responded Adam; "you follow the sun,sweet Eve, to his resting-place, whilst I will trace these sparklingwaters to their bourn. Let us ramble this whole creation o'er; and whenwe have found her, let us meet again on this very spot, and cling to herside, until the doom of death shall overtake us."

  And the eye of Adam beamed with hope, then kindled for the first time onearth in the bosom of man; and he bade Eve his first farewell, andstarted eastward in his search.

  Eve turned her face to the
west, and set out on her allotted journey.

  The sun had shone a hundred times in midsummer splendor, and a hundredtimes had hid himself in the clouds of winter, and yet no human foot hadtrod the spot where the garden of Eden once bloomed. Adam had in vaintraced the Euphrates to the sea, and climbed the Himalaya Mountains. Invain had he endured the tropical heats on the Ganges, and the winter'scold in Siberia. He stood at last upon the borders of that narrow seawhich separates Asia from America, and casting a wistful glance to thefar-off continent, exclaimed: "In yon land, so deeply blue in thedistance, that it looks like heaven, Happiness may have taken refuge.Alas! I cannot pursue her there. I will return to Eden, and learn ifEve, too, has been unsuccessful."

  And then he took one more look at the distant land, sighed his adieu,and set out on his return.

  Poor Eve! First child of misery, first daughter of despair! Poor Eve,with the blue of heaven in her eye, and the crimson of shame upon herlip! Poor Eve, arrayed in beauty, but hastening to decay--she, too, wasunsuccessful.

  Wandering in her westward way, the azure waters of the Mediterraneansoon gleamed upon her sight. She stood at length upon the pebbly shore,and the glad waves, silent as death before, when they kissed her nakedfeet, commenced that song still heard in their eternal roar. A mermaidseemed to rise from the waters at her feet, and to imitate her everymotion. Her long dark tresses, her deep blue eyes, her rosy cheek, hersorrowful look, all were reflected in the mermaid before her.

  "Sweet spirit," said Eve, "canst thou inform me where the nymphHappiness lies concealed? She always stood beside us in the garden ofEden; but when we were driven from Paradise we beheld her no more."

  The lips of the mermaid moved, but Eve could hear no reply.

  Ah! mother of mankind, the crystal waters of every sea, reflecting thylovely image, still faithful to their trust, conceal a mermaid in theirbosom for every daughter of beauty who looks upon them!

  Neither the orange groves of the Arno, nor the vineyards of France;neither the forests of Germania, nor the caves of Norway, concealed thesought-for nymph. Eve explored them all. Her track was imprinted in thesands of Sahara, by the banks of the Niger, on the rocks of Bengola, inthe vales of Abyssinia--but all in vain.

  "O Happiness! art thou indeed departed from our earth? How can we livewithout thee? Come, Death," cried Eve; "come now, and take me where thouwilt. This world is a desert, for Happiness has left it desolate."

  A gentle slumber soon overcame the wearied child of sorrow, and in hersleep a vision came to comfort her. She dreamed that she stood before anaged man, whose hoary locks attested that the snows of many winters hadwhitened them, and in whose glance she recognized the spirit of Wisdom.

  "Aged Father," said Eve, "where is Happiness?" and then she burst into aflood of tears.

  "Comfort thyself, Daughter," mildly answered the old man; "Happiness yetdwells on earth, but she is no longer visible. A temple is built for herin every mortal's bosom, but she never ascends her throne until welcomedthere by the child of Honor and Love."

  The morning sun aroused Eve from her slumber, but did not dispel thememory of her dream. "I will return to Eden, and there await until thechild of Honor and Love shall enthrone in my bosom the lost nymphHappiness;" and saying this, she turned her face to the eastward, andthinking of Adam and her vision, journeyed joyfully along.

  The sun of Spring had opened the flowers and clothed the woods inverdure; had freed the streams from their icy fetters, and inspired thewarbling world with harmony, when two forlorn and weary travelersapproached the banks of the river Pison; that river which had flowedthrough the garden of Eden when the first sunshine broke upon the world.A hundred years had rolled away, and the echo of no human voice hadresounded through the deserted groves. At length the dusky figuresemerged from the overshadowing shrubbery, and raised their eyes intoeach other's faces. One bound--one cry--and they weep for joy in eachother's arms.

  Adam related his sad and melancholy story, and then Eve soon finishedhers. But no sooner had she told her dream, than Adam, straining her tohis bosom, exclaimed:

  "There is no mystery here, my Eve. If Happiness on earth be indeed thechild of Honor and Love, it must be in Matrimony alone. What else nowleft us on earth can lay claim to the precious boon? Approved by heaven,and cherished by man, in the holy bonds of Matrimony it must consist;and if this be all, we need seek no further; it is ours!"

  They then knelt in prayer, and returned thanks to Heaven, that thoughthe garden of Eden was a wild, and the nymph Happiness no longer anangel at their side, yet that her spirit was still present in everybosom where the heart is linked to Honor and Love by the sacred ties ofMatrimony.

  [Decoration]