"It might as easily have been I," he mused as he went down the steps, and shuddered again.
"I doubt if it was fault of his or virtue of mine that determined which of us two should be the prosecutor."
A RUSTY LINK IN THE CHAIN.
_"In the brainy that wondrous world with one inhabitant, there are recesses dim and dark, treacherous sands and dangerous sh.o.r.es, where seeming sirens tempt and fade; streams that rise in unknown lands from hidden springs, strange seas with ebb and flow of tides, resistless billows urged by storms of flame, profound and awful depths hidden by mist of dreams, obscure and phantom realms where vague and fearful things are half revealed, jungles where pa.s.sion"s tigers crouch, and skies of cloud and hue where fancies fly with painted wings that dazzle and mislead; and the poor sovereign of this pictured world is led by old desires and ancient hates, and stained by crimes of many vanished years, and pushed by hands that long ago were dust, until he feels like some bewildered slave that Mockery has throned and crowned."_
Ingersoll.
When I called, last Sunday afternoon, as was my habit, upon my old college friend--now a distinguished physician--I found him sitting in his office holding in his hand a letter. His manner was unusually grave and, I thought, troubled. I asked him, laughingly, if he had had bad news from beyond the seas--from his Castle in Spain.
"No, it is worse than that, I fear," he said gravely. "It looks to me very much like bad news from beyond the grave--from the Castle of Heredity in the realm of an Ancestor."
"I hope, doctor, that you have not had,--that my little jest was not a cruel touch upon a real hurt."
"Not at all, not at all, old fellow," he said, smiling a little.
"It is not my own trouble at all; but--well, it set me to thinking strange thoughts. Shall I tell you about it? I should really like to know just how it would impress you--an intelligent man out of the profession."
He placed the letter on the table beside him, looked at me steadily for a moment, and then began:
"It may be as well to say that I have never before ventured to tell the story of George Wetherell"s curious experience, simply because I have always felt certain that to a really intelligent and well-in-formed physician it would be a comparatively familiar, and not specially startling (although a wholly uncomprehended) phase of human disorder; while to many, not of the profession, it would appear to involve such fearful and far-reaching results, that they would either refuse to believe it possible at all, or else jump to the conclusion that numerous cases which have only some slight point of similarity are to be cla.s.sed with it and explained upon the same basis.
"In regard to these latter persons, I do not intend to convey the impression that I am either ambitious to shield them from the consequences of their own nimble and unguarded reckonings, or that by my silence in this particular instance I suppose that I have prevented them from forming quite as erroneous opinions founded upon some other equally misunderstood and ill-digested sc.r.a.p of psychological and medical information.
"But it has sometimes seemed to me that there were certain features connected with the case of George Wetherell which, in the hands of the ignorant or unscrupulous, might easily be used to the disadvantage of their fellow-beings, and I have therefore hesitated to lay it before any one who was not, in my opinion, both intelligent and honorable enough to accept it as one of the strange manifestations in an individual experience; and to understand, because of the innumerable conditions of mental and physical heredity--which were not likely ever to occur again in the same proportions--that therefore the same manifestations were, not to be looked for in a sufficient number of persons to ever make this case in any sense a type or a guide.
"Notwithstanding this, there are, as I said in the first place, certain features connected with it which many members of the medical profession will recognize; but they are none the less puzzling symptoms.
"The matter has been brought back with unusual force to my mind at this time, by a circ.u.mstance connected with one of Wetherell"s children, which is detailed in this letter. It lends a new touch of interest to the malady of the father. To enable you to obtain even a fairly comprehensive idea of the strange development, it will be necessary for me to tell you, first, something about the man and his surroundings.
"To be as brief as I may, then, he was the son of a merry, whole-souled, stout, and, withal, mentally alert, Southern gentleman, who had taken the law into his own hands and duly scandalized the reputable part of the community in which he lived by giving his slaves (all of whom he or his wife had inherited) their freedom at a time and under circ.u.mstances which made it necessary for him to betake himself with some considerable alacrity to a part of the country where it was looked upon as respectable to pay for the voluntary services of one"s fellowmen, rather than to pay for the man himself with the expectation that the services were to be thrown in.
"Of course it was imperative--not only for the peace, but for the safety of all parties concerned--for him to transport both his family and his freed-men to a place where it was at once honorable for a white man to do such a deed and for a black man to own himself. This he did; and while a number of the negroes remained in the service of the family, the son (on whose account, and to prevent whom from believing in and being enervated by the possession of slaves the step had, in great measure, been taken) had grown to manhood with a curious mingling of Southern sympathies and Northern reasoning and convictions.
"The outbreak of the war found the young fellow struggling bravely, with all the fire and energy of a peculiarly gifted nature, to establish a newspaper in a border State, and to convince his readers that the extension of slavery would be a grave calamity, not only for the owned but for the owner.
"His two a.s.sociates were Eastern college-bred men, and it was therefore deemed wisest to push young Wetherell forward as the special champion of free soil, under the illusion that his Southern birth and sympathies would win for him a more ready and kindly hearing on a subject which at that time was a dangerous one to handle freely, especially in the border-land then under dispute.
"But the three young enthusiasts had reckoned, as young people will, upon a certain degree of reason about, and calm discussion of, a question which at that time they still recognized as having two very strong and serious sides; for they had not taken the stand of the Abolition party at all. They called themselves free-soil Democrats, and were simply arguing against the extension of an inst.i.tution which they were not yet prepared to believe it wise to attempt to abolish where it was already established, and where there was seemingly no other peaceable or fair solution than the one of limitation and gradual emanc.i.p.ation, through the process of mental and moral development of the ruling race. This position was not an unnatural one, surely, for young Wetherell, and was only what might have been expected from the son of a man who had given practical demonstration of the possibility of such evolution in the slave-holding and slave-dependent cla.s.s.
"But, as I have intimated, the confidence and reasonableness of youth had led to a complete misconception as to the temper of the opposition.
It is quite possible that the frank, pa.s.sionate, free-soil editorials, if they had come from either of the Eastern men, might have been accepted as the delusions of youth, the prejudice of section, or, at worst, as the arguments of partisans; but from a man of Southern birth--the son of a law-breaker (you must remember that the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the slaves had been a serious infraction of the law, strange as that sounds to the ears of the present generation)--from the son of such a man they could mean only a malicious desire to stir up strife and cause bloodshed by making restless slaves dangerous and dangerous slaves desperate. The result was that one night, after the issue of a paper containing an article of unusual force and power, young Wetherell found himself startled from a sound sleep, in the back room of his office, by the smell of smoke and gleam of flame.
"He understood their significance at a glance, and knew that escape by the front door meant a reception by masked men, five minutes for prayer, and--a rope.
"Springing from the back window into the river, he swam to the other sh.o.r.e, and within a few days raised the first regiment of volunteers that the State sent in response to the call of the President, and cut adrift at once and forever from all effort to argue the case from an ethical or a financial outlook.
"It is more than likely that anger may have had something to do with his sudden conversion from a "peace and argument," to first a "war Democrat," and shortly thereafter to a Republican; but be that as it may, it is certain that at such crises as these, mental activity is spurred and radical changes are made with a rapidity and decision astonishing to contemplate in periods of quiet and peace.
"So it came about that this lad of twenty-three suddenly found himself at the head of a regiment of somewhat desperate border men, most of whom were more than twice his own age, wildly charging a battery in one of the first battles of the war.
"He received three wounds, one of which was a slight abrasion of the scalp, not looked upon as more than a scratch by either the surgeon or himself; indeed, it would hardly be worth mentioning but for the strange events which followed. Whether this wound had anything to do with the condition of which I am about to tell, you will have to decide for yourself; but I must warn you, in the beginning, that there was nothing like a fracture of the skull, and the little path made by the bullet through the scalp healed without trouble, almost without attention, and never afterward gave the slightest pain.
"The hair, it is true, did not grow again over the parting, and, as it was nearly in the middle of his head, it made him an involuntary follower of the fashion of a certain effeminate type of youths for whom he had an overwhelming contempt. Neither of the other two wounds was serious, and after a very short period in the hospital he reported for duty, was promoted, and given sole charge of a post of considerable importance.
"Shortly thereafter his father received a some what discomposing telegram. He had previously had several more or less lucid despatches from his son while the patient was still in the hospital; but any lack of clearness in their wording had been attributed to haste or to carelessness in the transmission, and as they all indicated rapid recovery, no undue anxiety had been felt. But the message in question now produced the impression that there was something wrong. It read: "Send me one thousand swords immediately."
"After a few moments" consultation with the boy"s mother, Mr. Wetherell packed his hand-bag, and, armed with a letter from President Lincoln, whose personal friend he was, started for the seat of war.
"Upon arriving at his destination, the son expressed no surprise whatever, but much pleasure, at seeing his father. He asked, in the most natural and affectionate way, about each member of the family, and then suddenly put his hand to his head and appeared to be in deep thought.
"His eyes contracted in the manner peculiar to some persons when attempting to recall a long-forgotten event; but in a moment this had pa.s.sed away and he appeared to be perfectly clear and natural.
"He attended to the affairs of his office in a manner which not only escaped criticism, but won praise from his superiors, and conversed with great freedom and marked intelligence on the stirring subjects of the time.
"He had had some little fever while his wounds were fresh, but in no degree to cause alarm, and even this had now almost entirely left him. In short, he appeared to be in nearly perfect mental and physical health. There was, however, one peculiarity which the father noticed as unfamiliar in his son; but as it was not at all strange that so young a man--or any man, indeed, who had suddenly been given control of matters of such grave importance--should at times be very quiet and appear to be struggling to recall some matter of moment, the habit was not given more than pa.s.sing attention, and it was not sufficiently marked to be noticed at all by any one except a near relation. At these times young Wetherell would contract his eyebrows, look steadily at some object near him,--as the toe of his boot or the palm of his hand,--raise his head suddenly, gaze at the distant horizon, bite his lip, and then appear to either give it up or be satisfied with some mental solution of his puzzle.
"One day his father said: "What is it, George?"
"The young fellow turned his eyes quickly upon his father and asked:
""Have I forgotten anything? It seems to me there is something I just fail to recall. I am on the edge of it constantly, but it slips. I can"t get quite enough hold on it to be sure what it is--or to be certain, indeed, that it is anything. Can you think of anything I ought to do that I have overlooked?"
"This all sounded natural enough, and was, seemingly, a condition not unfamiliar to his father, so they began together going over the duties pertaining to the son"s office to see if, by a mischance, something had been neglected. Everything was complete and in perfect order; but still the look returned from time to time, until it became almost habitual.
"This was ten days after his father had reached camp, and his plan was to leave for home that afternoon; for, as I said, the boy"s wounds were almost entirely healed, and he appeared to be in need of nothing whatever. More and more his superior officers called him into their councils, and more and more his clear judgment was commended by them.
"He was to walk to the train with his father. The moment they were outside the limits of the camp George remarked, casually, "I must stop on the way and order those swords."
"The remark recalled the queer telegram which had caused Mr. Wetherell to come to his son, the wording of which had been wholly obliterated from his mind by their meeting.
""What swords?" inquired his father, now on the alert again.
"The young fellow turned and looked at his father for a moment, and then said: "I don"t know. It is a secret order. Don"t mention it. The general told me to order them. They are to be sent to me."
"This all seemed probable enough to Mr. Wetherell, and yet he somehow felt, rather than saw, a queer change in his son"s eyes, which he thought he had noticed once or twice before.
"He decided not to return home for the present.
"When he told his son this, the boy took it quite as a matter of course, and made no comment whatever on the sudden alteration of purpose.
"On the way back to camp George stepped into a military supply station and ordered fourteen hundred swords to be delivered to him immediately.