Kitabı oku: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 39, January, 1861», sayfa 5
From our next resting-place we proceed through a gallery, an exhausted vein, kept open as a passage from one shaft to another. As we turn a corner, we seem to plunge into a rocky cavern; our feet tread on roughly imbedded rocks; the sides of the cave jut out in refuse boulders,—harsh, dark-colored, ashen; overhead are beams of hard wood, bracing and strengthening the excavation. We traverse this gallery hastily.
Now that we are here, we are conscious of excitement. Mon Amie manifests hers by her steady, deliberate tones, a sort of exaltation foreign to her usually vibrating voice, her tremulous cadences; she seems borne along, despite and above herself. For my own part, as my lungs inflate themselves with this pure, dry, bracing air, exquisitely redolent of health, and testifying at once to a total exemption from noxious exhalations or mephitic vapors, I grow tête-montée, rattle-brained; my laugh echoes through these stony chambers, wild snatches of song hover on my lips, odd conceits flit through my brain, I joke, I dash forward with haste; my excitement endows me with a superfeminine self-possession.
But now we hear an ominous rattle, a clanking of chains, a rumbling as of distant thunder; we are approaching a shaft. The shafts in this mine are not sunk perpendicularly, but are slightly inclined: the huge buckets, lowered and raised by means of powerful machinery, are but ancient caldrons, counterparts of those in which the weird witches in "Macbeth" might have brewed their unholy decoctions, or such as the dreadful giants that formed the nightmare of my childhood might have used in preparing those Brobdignagian repasts among the ingredients of which a plump child held the same rank as a crab in ours.
The sounds grow nearer; presently our guide disappears; then I behold the Colonel, in whose steps I follow, faithful as his shadow, crouch sidewise: we must pass behind this inclined plane, which rests on roughly hewn rocks, that protrude till it appears impossible that any living thing, except a lizard, can find a passage. I am sure we must shrink from the original rotundity with which Nature blessed us. I feel as the frog in the fable might have felt, if, after successfully inflating himself to the much-envied dimensions of the ox, he had suddenly found himself reduced to his proper proportions. Edging sidewise, accommodating the inequalities of the damp surfaces to the undulations of our forms, deafened, crazed by the roar of the caldrons that dash madly from side to side, we fairly ooze through.
More ladders! This time they are not hung quite perpendicularly, are shorter, and some lean, a little, which affords rest; others have one side higher than the other: to these my already aching palms cling with desperation. So have I seen insects adhere, through sheer force of fear, to a shaken stem, or a perilous branch beaten by a storm-wind.
The voices of my companions come to me from above, though I cannot see the soles of Mon Amie's friendly feet, which at first preserved an amiable companionship with my own hands; but, looking far upward, I behold a tiny, star-like spark. When I was a child, I used to think that fire-flies were the crowns of the fairies, which shone despite their wearers' invisibility: this idea was recalled to me.
Hark! booming from unthought-of depths, a roar rolls up in majestic waves of echoing thunder. At this resonant burst, I tremble,—I think a prayer.
"They are blasting below us," cries the Colonel, de profundis.
Then up rushes a volume of thick, white smoke, and we are enveloped as in shrouds. I have no more fear,—but the odor, ah! that sulphureous, sickening, deathly odor! Faintness seizes me,—the ladder swims before my eyes,—I am paralyzed,—Death has me, I think!
But the very excess of the danger has in it something of reviving power. I remember, that, just as I left my room,—whose quiet safety never before appeared so heavenly,—prompted by some instinctive impulse, I had placed a small vial of ammonia in the breast-pocket of my coat.
I have wellnigh swooned with ecstasy, as I have inhaled the overcoming odors of some rare bouquet, love-bestowed and prized beyond gems; my senses have reeled in the intoxication of those wondrous extracts whose Oriental, tangible richness of fragrance holds me in a spell almost mystical in its enthralment; but I dare aver that no blossom's breath, no pungent perfume distilled by the erudite inspiration of Science, ever possessed a tithe of the delicious agony of that whiff of unromantic ammonia, which, powerful as the touch of magic, and thrilling as the kiss of love, snatched me back to life, arrested my tottering senses, as they blindly staggered on the very brink of certain death.
When we reach the next level, and our faces are revealed to each other, with one voice they exclaim, "How frightfully pale you are!" But I say nothing. In fact, their familiar features, wearing no longer their daylight semblance, present an aspect at once grim and grotesque, and more like the spirits of my friends than their incorporated substances.
Traversing the wild, rude corridors, we find that the path grows more perilous, the way more intricate; we have words of warning from our protectors, who often look back anxiously. They have begun to realize what they have done in yielding to a woman's odd caprice.
In this level we are shown the spots from which famous masses of copper have been removed, and are granted useful, but fleeting statistics of weight; we are also so fortunate as to discover some chips of the wonderful block, raised in '54, I think, which weighed five hundred tons. Then we chance upon chasms, which, seen so dimly, though dreadful enough in reality, are made a thousand times more so by the terrors of imagination; we creep along the brinks of these, scarcely daring to look down; above, the heavy boulders lie heaped in frightful confusion. When we have crawled past these death-traps and stand in safety once more, we throw down bits of stone, and seconds elapse before we hear the dull thump with which each signals its arrival in the depths. Along the edges of some of these gloomy pits we cannot pick our way; therefore a plank is thrown across, and, trusting to so slender a bridge, we pass, one by one. A single false step were enough to dash one to atoms,—so to be transformed to a bruised and mangled mass, to perform one's own sepulture, and lie in a grander grave than will ever be hollowed by mortal hands to hide our useless bodies.
The deeper one penetrates into these mines, the wilder, more dangerous the paths. It is as though the upper regions were kept in "company" order, but lower down we meet with the every-day roughnesses of veritable miners'-life; we follow their hazardous, but familiar steps; we behold all the hardships these toiling, burrowing workers undergo, that the hidden coffers of Earth may yield their tribute of treasure to Man, its self-appointed, arrogant master.
Occasionally we meet a passing miner. Grasping his ponderous tools, he flits by like a phantom; even in the momentary glance, we can perceive how livid his sunless labor has left him; he is blanched as a ghoul, and moves as noiselessly, with feather-light step. Each with a motion salutes the Captain; but they do not heed the little group of strangers who have braved so many dangers to behold the wonders which to them are as commonplace as the forge to a blacksmith, or to a carpenter his work-bench.
Still farther below us we hear the clink and clatter of real work. Down we plunge,—another ladder, "long drawn out." Some of its rounds are wanting; others are loose and worn to a mere splinter. Warned by the voice below me, I proceed with a trembling caution, tenfold more exciting to the strained nerves than the wildest bound on a mettled racer, the fiercest rush that ever tingled through every fibre of the rider's frame.
The water has saturated the banks by which our crazy ladder hangs, and every round is damp and slimy with clayey mud. Alas, for my poor pretty gantlets! Mon Amie has thrown away hers, as useless.
Finally the ladder ceases abruptly. My feet in vain seek a resting-place. There is none.
A voice says,—that kindly, earnest voice, the symbol of protective care, and our smoother of all difficulties,—"We have swung ourselves down by a chain that hangs from the side of the last round. We are too far below to reach or assist you. Take the chain firmly; it is the only route, and we cannot return!"
Que faire? Behold a pleasant predicament for two city-bred ladies, not "to the manner born," of swinging themselves from the end of a ladder by means of a rusty iron chain, from which they would alight—where? Surely, we know not.
I am very sure I could not reproduce in description, and probably not by practice, the inevitable monkey-contortions, the unimaginable animal agility, by which I transfer my weight to the clumsy links of this almost invisible chain. The size of the staple from which it hangs dissipates all fears in respect to its strength. Hand over hand, my feet sliding on the slippery bank, remembering sailors in the shrouds, and taking time to pity them, at last I reach friendly hands, and stand breathless on another level.
How the soft, white, dimpled palms of Mon Amie testify to the hardship of this episode, as she bathes them in the cooling water! But, because one's hands are tender, cannot one's nerves be strong, one's will indomitable?
Again on the tramp. The cavernous passages are sublime in height, the chasms fearful in their yawning gulfs. We pick our way daintily, at intervals pausing to listen to the distant reverberations of exploding blasts. The atmosphere here, as above, is fairly heavenly in its purity and invigorating freshness; it girds us with singular strength, and clothes us as in a garment of enchanted armor that defies all soul-sinking.
Creeping behind another shaft, we reach still another chasm, above which piles of dark rocks lie heaped in such confusion as might result from a great convulsion. There is a narrow path along its edge, and here the stones are small; but, as we look up, the mighty masses frown down upon us with threatening grandeur. Along this path, treading lightly, as if gifted with wings, the Captain passes; then the Agent (for we had slightly altered our order of march); Mon Amie follows. She is half-way past the danger, when an ominous pause,—we are ordered to stop.
Down into the chasm rolls a stone, displaced by an unlucky step of our pioneer. One stone is nothing,—but more follow that had been supported by this: small ones at first,—but the larger rocks threaten a slide. If they are not arrested in their course, she is lost!
What a moment that is! I dare not breathe. Mon Amie stands statue-like, awaiting the death which she believes is upon her. Not many words are spoken. I think I feel all that her one glance conveys. But the brave men beyond her, with instant unanimous action bracing themselves against the sliding rocks, oppose their feeble force to the down-sweeping agents of destruction; a moment more, and they would have been too late. With the step of a frightened antelope Mon Amie trembles past them. I see her safe, and hasten on. "Step lightly!" says a voice full of suspense and fear, despite its calmness.
Step, indeed! As if I rest on those treacherous stones! My feet brush them no more than the wing of a butterfly grazes the roses among which it flutters. Step, forsooth! If ever the angels concerned themselves for this atom in Creation's myriads, they hover round me now, they bear me up, they teach me how to fly! Deprived now of their human props, how the angry fragments leap and tumble and chase one another through the echoing abyss below! These reverberations seem freighted with elfin voices that jeer the insensate rocks for their baffled scheme of mischief.
But they chanted a far different chorus, and the darkness saw another sight, when, a few moons later, they dashed themselves down in irresistible array, and bore with them in their desperate plunge the lifeless bodies of two passing miners, in whose hearts, it may be, dwelt at the moment only happy thoughts of the homes 'neath the blue skies to which they were hurrying, the dear familiar sunlit Paradise that would succeed the endless night of their Inferno of toil.
"But men must work, and women must weep;
And the sooner 'tis over, the sooner to sleep!"
Well, we take up our march again presently, and, led by a monotonous hammering, proceed toward the sound. Some of the miners are at work here, clearing a mass of ore from the stubborn rock. Their strokes fall as regularly as those of machinery, and the grim men who wield the ponderous hammers accompany each blow with a peculiar loud indrawing of the breath, like the pant of a blacksmith at his anvil. So strong is this resemblance, that we burst forth all together in the strains of the "Anvil Chorus"; and the accompaniment is beaten with tenfold more regularity and effect than on the stage, in the glare of the footlights, by "Il Trovatore's" gypsy-comrades. I doubt if Verdi's music was ever so rendered before, amid such surroundings. The compliment may be the higher, coming from so low a region.
Beyond this group are a few miners resting from toil. One of these, as he stands leaning his folded arms on a jutting rock, upon which he has placed his candle, elicits our spontaneous admiration. His beauty is Apollo-like,—every chiselled feature perfect in its classic regularity; his eyes sad, slumberous, and yet deep and glowing, are quite enough for any susceptible maiden's heart; about a broad expanse of forehead cluster thick masses of dark brown hair; his shirt, open at the throat, reveals glimpses of ivory; altogether he is statuesque and beautiful. Even his hands, strongly knit as they are, have not been rendered coarse by labor; they bear the same pallid hue as his face, and he looks like some nobly-born prisoner. "What untoward fate cast him there?" I often ask myself. He exists in my memory as a veritable Prince Charming, held captive in those gloomy caves of enchantment that yielded up to me their unreal realities in that nightmarish experience. I never fancy him on upper earth living coarsely, even, it may be, talking ungrammatically, defying Horne Tooke and outraging Murray, among beings of a lower order of humanity; but he rises like a statue, standing silent and apart.
Some one throws away a nearly burnt-out candle at this spot. It falls but a few inches from a can of gunpowder, which is not too securely closed. As I utter a quick word of warning to the careless one, a miner starts. "Good Heaven!" I hear him exclaim, as we disappear,—"that was a woman!"
When we reach the next shaft, the Captain deposits himself in the descending bucket, and, irregularly tossing from side to side, goes down to overlook some work, and leave fresh orders with the miners. We await his return before again betaking ourselves to the ladders.
On the next level, we behold scores of men in busy action. I can think only of ants in an ant-hill: some are laden with ore; others bearing the refuse rocks and earth, the débris of the mine, to the shafts; others, again, are preparing blasts,—we do not tarry long with these; others with picks work steadily at the tough ore. In some places, the copper freshly broken glitters like gold, and the specks on the rocks, or in the earth-covered mass, as our candle-light awakens their sparkles, gleam like the spangles on a dancer's robe or stars in a midnight sky. All the while we hear the dreadful rattle of the down-sinking caldrons, or the heavy labor of the freighted ones, as they ascend from level to level.
Suddenly our path conducts us past a seated bevy of miners taking their "crib," as it is termed, from the food-can, which stands at hand,—a small fire blazing in the midst of them. Weary and sore, we seat ourselves near them, while our hardier companions talk with the respectful group.
They work eight hours at a time, they tell us,—ascending at the expiration of that period to betake themselves to their homes, which are mostly in the little village where the yelping curs also reside. They enjoy unusual health, and pity the upper-world of surface-laborers, whom they regard with a kind of contempt. Accidents are not frequent, considering the perils of their occupation. The miners here are generally Cornish-men, with some Germans.
I sit silent, thinking of my Prince Charming, with many vague conjectures.
At first, these men have paused in their repast in presence of the strangers; but now, with rude courtesy, noticing our weariness, they offer a portion to us. Faint and famishing, we by no means disdain it. I wonder what Mrs. Grundy would say, could her Argus-eyes penetrate to the spot, where we,—bound to "die of roses in aromatic pain,"—in miners'-garb, masculine and muddy, sit on stones with earthy delvers, more than six hundred feet under ground,—where the foot of woman has never trod before, nor the voice of woman echoed,—and sip, with the relish of intense thirst, steaming black tea from an old tin cup!
Eh, bien! for all that, let me do it justice. Never was black tea less herb-like; never draught of sillery, quaffed from goblet of rare Bohemian glass, more delicious! And so, with thank-yous that were not only from the lip, we toil on some distance yet, to the shaft by which we are to ascend,—one quite remote from that by which we began our trip.
Halting at the foot of the ladder, we pour forth the "Star-spangled Banner" with the full strength of lungs inflated by patriotism, until the stirring staves ring and resound through those dim caves. The miners, who hold the superstition, that to whisper bodes ill-luck, must have imagined we were exorcising evil spirits with an incantation.
Then begins our weary way upward. We sing "Excelsior" in our hearts, and forget our aching limbs, for the most laborious portion of the night's toil is before us. The almost perpendicular ladder is just beside the powerful pump, which, worked by a steam-engine, exhausts the water from the mine, and its busy piston, in monotonous measure, keeps time to our climbing.
Two rests during the entire distance, which we travel in brave silence. Indeed, we cannot speak,—the oppressive strain upon the chest is so great. Step after step, hand over hand, up we go. At last, warmer air greets us, lights flicker from above; the trap-door is reached; we are on the surface again; we are out of the depths,—and our hearts whisper a Te Deum of thanksgiving.
I think well of the establishment of a chapel, such as exists at the entrance to the Valenciana mine in Mexico, where each miner spends half an hour, going to or returning from his labors. Such a union of work and worship seems a proper adjunct to the profit and the peril.
There is a faint glimmer of coming dawn far away in the east, as we go forth into the midsummer-night, and we catch the distant notes of chanticleer, as he sounds his shrill réveille to the day.
As my confused brain seeks repose, and my weary limbs sink into the softness of the never-so-welcome bed, my thoughts fly to distant ones, to whom I would whisper,—as I do to you who have so patiently burrowed with me,—"Only love me for the dangers I have passed!"
But it is in vain that you long for a similar experience, my dear Laura Matilda. Being the first, we are also the last women to whom these subterranean passages will yield their mysteries, their windings, and their wonders. Against all of my own sex the Pandemonian depths of the Minnesota Mines are henceforth as obstinately barred as ever were the golden gates of the Mohammedan Paradise.
A LONELY HOUSE
"Some weighty crime that Heaven could not pardon,
A secret curse, on that old building hung,
And its deserted garden."
HOOD'S Haunted House.
One autumn evening, not very long ago, I was driving out with my uncle. I had been spending several weeks at his house, and in that time had driven with him very often, so that I supposed myself familiar with nearly all the roads that stretched away from the pleasant village where he resided; but on this occasion he proposed taking me in an entirely new direction, over a tract of country I had never before seen.
For a mile or two after we left home, we bowled rapidly along on a well-travelled turnpike; then a sudden turn to the right brought us, with slackened speed, into a quiet country-road. Passing through the fields that bordered the highway, we came into a wild, romantic region of hill and dale that fully deserved all that my uncle had said in its praise.
Giving ourselves up to the sweet influences of the scene, we trotted our horses slowly, past dusky bits of forest that made the air fragrant with the damp smell of the woods, and by occasional shining pools adorned with floating pond-lilies, and shaded with thick, low bushes of witch-hazel. The sunlight had that orange glow that comes only on autumn evenings, the long, slant rays striking across the yellow fields and lighting up the dark evergreens which dotted the landscape with a tawny illumination, like dull flames. The locusts hummed drowsily, as if they were almost asleep, and the frogs in the ponds sent out an occasional muffled croak. Altogether, it was deliciously calm and deserted; we did not meet a human being or a habitation for miles, as we wound along the secluded path, now up and now down, but on the whole gradually ascending, till we reached the summit of a hill larger and steeper than the rest.
Here there stood a lonely house.
Pausing to allow our horses a moment's rest, my eye was caught by its deserted and dilapidated appearance. It had evidently been uninhabited for years. The fence had gone to decay, the gate lay rotting on the ground, and a forlorn sleigh, looking strangely out of place in contrast with the summer-flowers that had over-grown it, was drawn up before the entrance. The grass had obliterated every trace of the path that once led to the decayed steps, bushes had grown up thickly around the lower story of the house, and tangled vines, creeping in through the broken panes of the windows, hung in festoons from the moss-covered sills. The door had dropped from its hinges, and on one side of the front the boards had fallen off, so that I could see quite into the interior, where I noticed, with surprise, some furniture yet remained, though in great confusion, a broken chair and an overturned table being the most prominent objects. Outside, the same disorder was manifest in the great farm-wagon, left standing where it had last been used, and the neglected out-buildings fast going to decay. About the whole place there was an aspect of peculiar gloom, and the house itself stood on this bleak hill looking out over the lonesome landscape with a sort of tragic melancholy in its black and weather-beaten front.
Now such a sight as this is very rare in our busy New England, where everything is turned to advantage, and where the thrifty owner of a tenement too old for habitation is sure to tear it down and convert the materials of which it is built to some other use. My curiosity was, therefore, at once excited regarding this place, and I turned to my uncle with an inquiry as to its history.
"It is a very sad one," he answered,—"so sad that it gives a terrible dreariness to this solitary spot."
"Then I am sure you will tell me the causes which led to its desertion.
You know how much I like a story."
My uncle complied with the request, and, as we wended our way home through the deepening twilight, related a series of strange facts, which, at the time, took a powerful hold on my imagination, and which I have since endeavored to group into a continuous narrative.
* * * * *
This house, now so forlorn, was once a neat and happy home. It was built by a young farmer named James Blount, who went into it with his young wife when he brought her home from the distant State where he had married her. For several years they seemed very prosperous and happy; then a heavy affliction came. The healthy young farmer was thrown from his horse, and carried to his home only to linger a few terrible hours and expire in great agony. Thus early in its history was the doomed house overshadowed with the gloom of sudden and violent death.
Every one was heartily sorry for the widow with her two little boys, and the people of the country-side did all that they could to cheer her loneliness and lighten her grief. But, as I have said, she was a stranger among them, and she seems to have been naturally of a reserved disposition, preferring solitude in her affliction; for she so repelled their attentions, that, one by one, even her husband's friends deserted her. Then, too, her house was three miles from the nearest neighbor, and this was necessarily a barrier to frequent social intercourse. She very rarely went into the village, even to church, and thus people came to know very little of her manner of life; it was only guessed at by those few acquaintance who, at rare intervals, made their way to the Blount farm-house.
Among them it was remarked, that the widow, still quite young, was unnaturally stern and cold, and that her two sons, who were growing up in this sad isolation, were strangely like their mother, not only in appearance, but in manners. Their names were James and John. There was but little over a year between them, and they were so much alike that most persons found a difficulty in distinguishing one from the other. Both had fierce, black eyes, short, crisp, black hair, and swarthy skins,—quite unlike our freckled-face Yankee boys,—so that the older villagers declared, with a sigh, that there was not a trace of the good-hearted father about them; they wholly resembled their strange mother. The boys themselves did nothing to lessen this disagreeable impression; they were unusually grave and reserved for their years, taking no interest in the sports of other children; and after a time, it became painfully evident to those who watched them that they had no fondness for each other; on the contrary, that affection which would naturally have sprung from their nearness in age and their constant companionship seemed to be entirely wanting, and its place usurped by an absolute dislike.
When this was first discovered, it was supposed to account for the widow's aversion to society. This idea, being once started, made those idle busybodies there are in every village eager to discover if the suspicion were correct. Through the men hired to work on the farm, it was ascertained that the poor mother, with all her sternness and her iron law, had difficulty in keeping peace between the boys. Twenty times a day they would fall into angry dispute about some trifle; and so violent were these altercations, that it was said that she durst not for a moment have them both out of her sight, lest one should inflict some deadly injury upon the other. That this was no ill-founded fear was evinced by a quarrel that took place between them, when John was perhaps eleven, and James twelve years old.
It was witnessed by a village lad named Isaac Welles. He was an alert, active person, who liked to earn a penny or two on his own account, out of work-hours. With this notable intention, he arose soon after dawn of a pleasant summer-morning, for the purpose of picking blackberries. Now he knew that they were very plentiful in a field near the Blount farmhouse, and, thinking such small theft no robbery, he made his way thither with all speed, and was soon filling his basket with the dew-sprinkled fruit. Early as it was, however, he soon discovered that there was some one up before him. He heard a sound of talking in low, caressing tones, and, glancing in the direction whence it came, he saw John Blount sitting under a tree near by, and playing with a little black squirrel, which appeared to be quite tame. Not caring to be discovered and warned off, Isaac went on with his work quietly, taking care to keep where he could see without being seen.
John was not long left alone in his innocent amusement, for in a few moments James Blount came running down from the house towards him. As he approached, John's face darkened; he caught up the squirrel, and made an endeavor to hide it under his jacket.
"No, you don't!" said James, as he came up, breathless. "I see you have got him, plain enough; he sha'n't get away this time,—so you might as well give him to me."
"No, I won't!" replied John, sullenly.
"You won't?"
"No!" said John, more fiercely, and then burst out, passionately,—"I don't see why you want to tease me about it; he a'n't your pet; I have found him and tamed him; he knows me and loves me, and he don't care for you; besides, you only want him to torment him. No! you sha'n't have him!"
"Sha'n't I? we'll see!" And James made a step forward.
John drew back several paces, at the same time trying to soothe the squirrel, which was becoming impatient of its confinement. His face quivered with excitement, as he went on, passionately,—
"I know what you want him for: you want him to hurt some way. You wrung my black kitten's neck, and now you want to kill my squirrel. You are a bad, wicked boy, and I hate you!"
With the last words he started to run; but he had not gone far when his foot struck a stone, and he fell. At this, the squirrel, terrified, jumped from his arms; but James was close by, and before it could escape, he had caught it. John was up in an instant, and James, seeing that he could not avoid him, gave the poor little creature's neck a sudden twist and flung it gasping at his brother's feet, exclaiming,—
"There, now, you may have it!"
For one moment John stood still, white with rage and grief; then he uttered a sort of choking howl, and sprang at James,—
"You cruel coward!"
The words were accompanied with a half-articulate curse, as he struck at him, blindly, fiercely, and they closed in what seemed a deadly struggle. John, being the younger, had a slight disadvantage in size and weight, but wrath gave him more than his usual strength; while James fought desperately, as if for life. After a few moments they rolled on the ground together.
