Various - Famous Stories Every Child Should Know

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You must have often observed the likeness of certain men to certain
animals, and of certain dogs to men. Now, I never looked at Rab
without thinking of the great Baptist preacher, Andrew Fuller. The
same large, heavy, menacing, combative, sombre, honest countenance,
the same deep inevitable eye, the same look--as of thunder asleep, but
ready--neither a dog nor a man to be trifled with.

Next day, my master, the surgeon, examined Ailie. There was no doubt
it must kill her, and soon. It could be removed--it might never
return--it would give her speedy relief--she should have it done. She
curtsied, looked at James, and said, "When?" "To-morrow," said the
kind surgeon--a man of few words. She and James and Rab and I retired.
I noticed that he and she spoke little, but seemed to anticipate
everything in each other. The following day, at noon, the students
came in, hurrying up the great stair. At the first landing-place, on a
small well-known blackboard, was a bit of paper fastened by wafers,
and many remains of old wafers beside it. On the paper were the
words--"An operation to-day. J.B. _Clerk_."

Up ran the youths, eager to secure good places: in they crowded, full
of interest and talk. "What's the case?" "Which side is it?"

Don't think them heartless; they are neither better nor worse than you
or I; they get over their professional horrors, and into their proper
work--and in them pity--as an _emotion_, ending in itself or at best
in tears and a long-drawn breath, lessens, while pity as a _motive_,
is quickened, and gains power and purpose. It is well for poor human
nature that it is so.

The operating theatre is crowded; much talk and fun, and all the
cordiality and stir of youth. The surgeon with his staff of assistants
is there. In comes Ailie: one look at her quiets and abates the eager
students. That beautiful old woman is too much for them; they sit
down, and are dumb, and gaze at her. These rough boys feel the power
of her presence. She walks in quickly, but without haste; dressed in
her mutch, her neckerchief, her white dimity short-gown, her black
bombazine petticoat, showing her white worsted stockings and her
carpet-shoes. Behind her was James with Rab. James sat down in the
distance, and took that huge and noble head between his knees. Rab
looked perplexed and dangerous; forever cocking his ear and dropping
it as fast.

Ailie stepped up on a seat, and laid herself on the table as her
friend the surgeon told her; arranged herself, gave a rapid look at
James, shut her eyes, rested herself on me, and took my hand. The
operation was at once begun; it was necessarily slow; and
chloroform--one of God's best gifts to his suffering children--was
then unknown. The surgeon did his work. The pale face showed its pain,
but was still and silent. Rab's soul was working within him; he saw
that something strange was going on--blood flowing from his mistress,
and she suffering; his ragged ear was up, and importunate; he growled
and gave now and then a sharp impatient yelp; he would have liked to
have done something to that man. But James had him firm, and gave him
a _glower_ from time to time, and an intimation of a possible
kick;--all the better for James, it kept his eye and his mind off
Ailie.

It is over: she is dressed, steps gently and decently down from the
table, looks for James; then, turning to the surgeon and the students,
she curtsies--and in a low, clear voice, begs their pardon if she has
behaved ill. The students--all of us--wept like children; the surgeon
happed her up carefully--and, resting on James and me, Ailie went to
her room, Rab following. We put her to bed. James took off his heavy
shoes, crammed with tackets, heel-capt and toe-capt, and put them
carefully under the table, saying, "Maister John, I'm for nane o'yer
strynge nurse bodies for Ailie. I'll be her nurse, and I'll gang aboot
on my stockin' soles as canny as pussy." And so he did; and handy and
clever, and swift and tender as any woman, was that horny-handed,
snell, peremptory little man. Everything she got he gave her: he
seldom slept; and often I saw his small shrewd eyes out of the
darkness, fixed on her. As before, they spoke little.

Rab behaved well, never moving, showing us how meek and gentle he
could be, and occasionally, in his sleep, letting us know that he was
demolishing some adversary. He took a walk with me every day,
generally to the Candlemaker Row; but he was sombre and mild; declined
doing battle, though some fit cases offered, and indeed submitted to
sundry indignities; and was always very ready to turn, and came faster
back, and trotted up the stair with much lightness, and went straight
to that door.

Jess, the mare, had been sent, with her weather-worn cart, to Howgate,
and had doubtless her own dim and placid meditations and confusions,
on the absence of her master and Rab, and her unnatural freedom from
the road and her cart.

For some days Ailie did well. The wound healed "by the first
intention;" for as James said, "Oor Ailie's skin's ower clean to
beil." The students came in quiet and anxious, and surrounded her bed.
She said she liked to see their young, honest faces. The surgeon
dressed her, and spoke to her in his own short kind way, pitying her
through his eyes, Rab and James outside the circle--Rab being now
reconciled, and even cordial, and having made up his mind that as yet
nobody required worrying, but, as you may suppose, _semper paratus_.

So far well: but, four days after the operation, my patient had a
sudden and long shivering, a "groosin'," as she called it. I saw her
soon after; her eyes were too bright, her cheek coloured; she was
restless, and ashamed of being so; the balance was lost; mischief had
begun. On looking at the wound, a blush of red told the secret: her
pulse was rapid, her breathing anxious and quick, she wasn't herself,
as she said, and was vexed at her restlessness. We tried what we
could; James did everything, was everywhere; never in the way, never
out of it; Rab subsided under the table into a dark place, and was
motionless, all but his eye, which followed every one. Ailie got
worse; began to wander in her mind, gently; was more demonstrative in
her ways to James, rapid in her questions, and sharp at times. He was
vexed, and said, "She was never that way afore; no, never." For a time
she knew her head was wrong, and was always asking our pardon--the
dear, gentle old woman: then delirium set in strong, without pause.
Her brain gave way, and then came that terrible spectacle--

"The intellectual power, through words and things,
Went sounding on its dim and perilous way."

she sang bits of old songs and Psalms, stopping suddenly, mingling the
Psalms of David and the diviner words of his Son and Lord, with homely
odds and ends and scraps of ballads.

Nothing more touching, or in a sense more strangely beautiful, did I
ever witness. Her tremulous, rapid, affectionate, eager, Scotch
voice--the swift, aimless, bewildered mind, the baffled utterance, the
bright and perilous eye; some wild words, some household cares,
something for James, the names of the dead, Rab called rapidly and in
a "fremyt" voice, and he starting up surprised, and slinking off as if
he were to blame somehow, or had been dreaming he heard; many eager
questions and beseechings which James and I could make nothing of, and
on which she seemed to set her all, and then sink back ununderstood.
It was very sad, but better than many things that are not called sad.
James hovered about, put out and miserable, but active and exact as
ever; read to her when there was a lull, short bits from the Psalms,
prose and metre, chanting the latter in his own rude and serious way,
showing great knowledge of the fit words, bearing up like a man, and
doating over her as his "ain Ailie." "Ailie, ma woman!" "Ma ain bonnie
wee dawtie!"

The end was drawing on: the golden bowl was breaking; the silver cord
was fast being loosed--that _animula blandula, vagula, hospes,
comesque_, was about to flee. The body and the soul--companions for
sixty years--were being sundered, and taking leave. She was walking
alone, through the valley of that shadow, into which one day we must
all enter--and yet she was not alone, for we know whose rod and staff
were comforting her.

One night she had fallen quiet, and as we hoped, asleep; her eyes were
shut. We put down the gas and sat watching her. Suddenly she sat up in
bed, and taking a bed-gown which was lying on it rolled up, she held
it eagerly to her breast--to the right side. We could see her eyes
bright with a surprising tenderness and joy, bending over this bundle
of clothes. She held it as a woman holds her sucking child; opening
out her night-gown impatiently, and holding it close, and brooding
over it, and murmuring foolish little words, as over one whom his
mother comforteth, and who sucks and is satisfied. It was pitiful and
strange to see her wasted dying look, keen and yet vague--her immense
love.

"Preserve me!" groaned James, giving way. And then she rocked back and
forward, as if to make it sleep, hushing it, and wasting on it her
infinite fondness. "Wae's me, doctor; I declare she's thinkin' it's
that bairn." "What bairn?" "The only bairn we ever had; our wee Mysie,
and she's in the Kingdom, forty years and mair." It was plainly true:
the pain in the breast, telling its urgent story to a bewildered,
ruined brain, was misread and mistaken; it suggested to her the
uneasiness of a breast full of milk and then the child; and so again
once more they were together and she had her ain wee Mysie in her
bosom.

This was the close. She sank rapidly: the delirium left her; but as,
she whispered, she was "clean silly;" it was the lightening before the
final darkness. After having for some time lain still--her eyes shut,
she said "James!" He came close to her, and lifting up her calm,
clear, beautiful eyes, she gave him a long look, turned to me kindly
but shortly, looked for Rab but could not see him, then turned to her
husband again, as if she would never leave off looking, shut her eyes,
and composed herself. She lay for some time breathing quick, and
passed away so gently, that when we thought she was gone, James, in
his old-fashioned way, held the mirror to her face. After a long
pause, one small spot of dimness was breathed out; it vanished away,
and never returned, leaving the blank clear darkness of the mirror
without a stain. "What is our life? it is even a vapour, which
appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away."

Rab all this time had been full awake and motionless; he came forward
beside us: Ailie's hand, which James had held, was hanging down, it
was soaked with his tears; Rab licked it all over carefully, looked at
her, and returned to his place under the table.

James and I sat, I don't know how long, but for some time--saying
nothing: he started up abruptly, and with some noise went to the
table, and putting his right fore and middle fingers each into a shoe,
pulled them out, and put them on, breaking one of the leather
latchets, and muttering in anger, "I never did the like o' that
afore!"

I believe he never did; nor after either. "Rab!" he said roughly, and
pointing with his thumb to the bottom of the bed. Rab leapt up and
settled himself; his head and eye to the dead face. "Maister John,
ye'll wait for me," said the carrier; and disappeared in the darkness,
thundering downstairs in his heavy shoes. I ran to a front window;
there he was, already round the house, and out at the gate, fleeing
like a shadow.

I was afraid about him, and yet not afraid; so I sat down beside Rab,
and being wearied, fell asleep. I awoke from a sudden noise outside.
It was November, and there had been a heavy fall of snow. Rab was _in
statu quo_; he heard the noise too, and plainly knew it, but never
moved. I looked out; and there, at the gate, in the dim morning--for
the sun was not up--was Jess and the cart--a cloud of steam rising
from the old mare. I did not see James; he was already at the door,
and came up the stairs and met me. It was less than three hours since
he left, and he must have posted out--who knows how?--to Howgate, full
nine miles off; yoked Jess, and driven her astonished into town. He
had an armful of blankets and was streaming with perspiration. He
nodded to me, spread out on the floor two pairs of clean old blankets
having at their corners, "A.G., 1794," in large letters in red
worsted. These were the initials of Alison Graeme, and James may have
looked in at her from without--himself unseen but not unthought
of--when he was "wat, wat, and weary," and after having walked many a
mile over the hills, may have seen her sitting, while "a' the lave
were sleepin';" and by the firelight working her name on the blankets
for her ain James's bed.

He motioned Rab down, and taking his wife in his arms, laid her in the
blankets, and happed her carefully and firmly up, leaving the face
uncovered; and then lifting her, he nodded again sharply to me, and
with a resolved but utterly miserable face, strode along the passage,
and downstairs, followed by Rab. I followed with a light; but he
didn't need it. I went out, holding stupidly the candle in my hand in
the calm frosty air; we were soon at the gate. I could have helped
him, but I saw he was not to be meddled with, and he was strong, and
did not need it. He laid her down as tenderly, as safely, as he had
lifted her out ten days before--as tenderly as when he had her first
in his arms when she was only "A.G."--sorted her, leaving that
beautiful sealed face open to the heavens; and then taking Jess by the
head, he moved away. He did not notice me, neither did Rab, who
presided behind the cart.

I stood till they passed through the long shadow of the College, and
turned up Nicholson Street. I heard the solitary cart sound through
the streets, and die away and come again; and I returned, thinking of
that company going up Libberton Brae, then along Roslin Muir, the
morning light touching the Pentlands and making them like on-looking
ghosts; then down the hill through Auchindinny woods, past "haunted
Woodhouselee"; and as daybreak came sweeping up the bleak Lammermuirs,
and fell on his own door, the company would stop, and James would take
the key, and lift Ailie up again, laying her on her own bed, and,
having put Jess up, would return with Rab and shut the door.

James buried his wife, with his neighbours mourning, Rab inspecting
the solemnity from a distance. It was snow, and that black ragged hole
would look strange in the midst of the swelling spotless cushion of
white. James looked after everything; then rather suddenly fell ill,
and took to bed; was insensible when the doctor came, and soon died. A
sort of low fever was prevailing in the village, and his want of
sleep, his exhaustion, and his misery, made him apt to take it. The
grave was not difficult to reopen. A fresh fall of snow had again made
all things white and smooth; Rab once more looked on, and slunk home
to the stable.

And what of Rab? I asked for him next week of the new carrier who got
the goodwill of James's business, and was now master of Jess and her
cart. "How's Rab?" He put me off, and said rather rudely, "What's
_your_ business wi' the dowg?" I was not to be so put off. "Where's
Rab?" He, getting confused and red, and intermeddling with his hair,
said, "'Deed, sir, Rab's deid." "Dead! what did he die of?" "Weel,
sir," said he, getting redder, "he didna exactly dee; he was killed. I
had to brain him wi' a rack-pin; there was nae doin' wi' him. He lay
in the treviss wi' the mear, and wadna come oot. I tempit him wi' kail
and meat, but he wad tak naething, and keepit me frae feedin' the
beast, and he was aye gur gurrin', and grup gruppin' me by the legs. I
was laith to make awa wi' the auld dowg, his like wasna atween this
and Thornhill--but, 'deed, sir, I could do naething else." I believed
him. Fit end for Rab, quick and complete. His teeth and his friends
gone, why should he keep the peace, and be civil?

XI

PETER RUGG, THE MISSING MAN[2]

Sir--Agreeably to my promise, I now relate to you all the particulars
of the lost man and child which I have been able to collect. It is
entirely owing to the humane interest you seemed to take in the
report, that I have pursued the inquiry to the following result.

You may remember that business called me to Boston in the summer of
1820. I sailed in the packet to Providence, and when I arrived there I
learned that every seat in the stage was engaged. I was thus obliged
either to wait a few hours or accept a seat with the driver, who
civilly offered me that accommodation. Accordingly I took my seat by
his side, and soon found him intelligent and communicative.

When we had travelled about ten miles, the horses suddenly threw their
ears on their necks, as flat as a hare's. Said the driver, "Have you a
surtout with you?" "No," said I; "why do you ask?" "You will want one
soon," said he; "do you observe the ears of all the horses?" "Yes, and
was just about to ask the reason." "They see the storm-breeder, and we
shall see him soon." At this moment there was not a cloud visible in
the firmament. Soon after a small speck appeared in the road. "There,"
said my companion, "comes the storm-breeder; he always leaves a Scotch
mist behind him. By many a wet jacket do I remember him. I suppose the
poor fellow suffers much himself, much more than is known to the
world." Presently a man with a child beside him, with a large black
horse, and a weather-beaten chair, once built for a chaise body,
passed in great haste, apparently at the rate of twelve miles an hour.
He seemed to grasp the reins of his horse with firmness, and appeared
to anticipate his speed. He seemed dejected, and looked anxiously at
the passengers, particularly at the stage-driver and myself. In a
moment after he passed us, the horses' ears were up and bent
themselves forward so that they nearly met. "Who is that man?" said I;
"he seems in great trouble." "Nobody knows who is he, but his person
and the child are familiar to me. I have met them more than a hundred
times, and have been so often asked the way to Boston by that man,
even when he was travelling directly from that town, that of late I
have refused any communication with him, and that is the reason he
gave me such a fixed look." "But does he never stop anywhere?" "I have
never known him to stop anywhere longer than to inquire the way to
Boston; and, let him be where he may, he will tell you he cannot stay
a moment, for he must reach Boston that night."

We were now ascending a high hill in Walpole, and as we had a fair
view of the heavens, I was rather disposed to jeer the driver for
thinking of his surtout, as not a cloud as big as a marble could be
discerned. "Do you look," said he, "in the direction whence the man
came, that is the place to look; the storm never meets him, it follows
him." We presently approached another hill, and when at the height,
the driver pointed out in an eastern direction a little black speck as
big as a hat. "There," said he, "is the seed storm; we may possibly
reach Polley's before it reaches us, but the wanderer and his child
will go to Providence through rain, thunder, and lightning." And now
the horses, as though taught by instinct, hastened with increased
speed. The little black cloud came on rolling over the turnpike, and
doubled and trebled itself in all directions. The appearance of this
cloud attracted the notice of all the passengers; for after it had
spread itself to a great bulk, it suddenly became more limited in
circumference, grew more compact, dark, and consolidated. And now the
successive flashes of chain lightning caused the whole cloud to appear
like a sort of irregular network, and displayed a thousand fantastic
images. The driver bespoke my attention to a remarkable configuration
in the cloud; he said every flash of lightning near its centre
discovered to him distinctly the form of a man sitting in an open
carriage drawn by a black horse. But in truth I saw no such thing. The
man's fancy was doubtless at fault. It is a very common thing for the
imagination to paint for the senses, both in the visible and invisible
world.

In the meantime the distant thunder gave notice of a shower at hand,
and just as we reached Polley's tavern the rain poured down in
torrents. It was soon over, the cloud passing in the direction of the
turnpike toward Providence. In a few moments after, a
respectable-looking man in a chaise stopped at the door. The man and
child in the chair having excited some little sympathy among the
passengers, the gentleman was asked if he had observed them. He said
he had met them; that the man seemed bewildered, and inquired the way
to Boston; that he was driving at great speed, as though he expected
to outstrip the tempest; that the moment he had passed him a
thunderclap broke distinctly over the man's head and seemed to envelop
both man and child, horse and carriage. "I stopped," said the
gentleman, "supposing the lightning had struck him, but the horse only
seemed to loom up and increase his speed, and, as well as I could
judge, he travelled just as fast as the thunder cloud." While this
man was speaking, a peddler with a cart of tin merchandise came up,
all dripping; and, on being questioned, he said he had met that man
and carriage, within a fortnight, in four different States; that at
each time he had inquired the way to Boston; and that a thunder shower
like the present had each time deluged him, his wagon and his wares,
setting his tin pots, etc., afloat, so that he had determined to get
marine insurance done for the future. But that which excited his
surprise most was the strange conduct of his horse, for that, long
before he could distinguish the man in the chair, his own horse stood
still in the road and flung back his ears. "In short," said the
peddler, "I wish never to see that man and horse again; they do not
look to me as if they belonged to this world."

This is all that I could learn at that time; and the occurrence soon
after would have become with me like one of those things which had
never happened, had I not, as I stood recently on the doorstep of
Bennett's Hotel in Hartford, heard a man say, "There goes Peter Rugg
and his child! he looks wet and weary, and farther from Boston than
ever." I was satisfied it was the same man that I had seen more than
three years before; for whoever has once seen Peter Rugg can never
after be deceived as to his identity. "Peter Rugg!" said I, "and who
is Peter Rugg?" "That," said the stranger, "is more than anyone can
tell exactly. He is a famous traveller, held in light esteem by all
inn-holders, for he never stops to eat, drink, or sleep. I wonder why
the Government does not employ him to carry the mail." "Ay," said a
bystander, "that is a thought bright only on one side. How long would
it take, in that case, to send a letter to Boston? For Peter has
already, to my knowledge, been more than twenty years travelling to
that place." "But," said I, "does the man never stop anywhere, does
he never converse with anyone? I saw the same man more than three
years since, near Providence, and I heard a strange story about him.
Pray, sir, give me some account of this man." "Sir," said the
stranger, "those who know the most respecting that man say the least.
I have heard it asserted that heaven sometimes sets a mark on a man,
either for judgment or trial. Under which Peter Rugg now labours I
cannot say; therefore I am rather inclined to pity than to judge."
"You speak like a humane man," said I, "and if you have known him so
long, I pray you will give me some account of him. Has his appearance
much altered in that time?" "Why, yes; he looks as though he never
ate, drank, or slept; and his child looks older than himself; and he
looks like time broke off from eternity and anxious to gain a
resting-place." "And how does his horse look?" said I. "As for his
horse, he looks fatter and gayer, and shows more animation and
courage, than he did twenty years ago. The last time Rugg spoke to me
he inquired how far it was to Boston. I told him just one hundred
miles. 'Why,' said he, 'how can you deceive me so? It is cruel to
deceive a traveller. I have lost my way. Pray direct me the nearest
way to Boston.' I repeated it was one hundred miles. 'How can you say
so?' said he. 'I was told last evening it was but fifty, and I have
travelled all night.' 'But,' said I, 'you are now travelling from
Boston. You must turn back.' 'Alas!' said he, 'it is all turn back!
Boston shifts with the wind, and plays all around the compass. One man
tells me it is to the east, another to the west; and the guide-posts,
too, they all point the wrong way.' 'But will you not stop and rest?'
said I; 'you seem wet and weary.' 'Yes,' said he, 'it has been foul
weather since I left home.' 'Stop, then, and refresh yourself.' 'I
must not stop, I must reach home to-night, if possible, though I
think you must be mistaken in the distance to Boston.' He then gave
the reins to his horse, which he restrained with difficulty, and
disappeared in a moment. A few days afterwards I met the man a little
this side of Claremont, winding around the hills in Unity, at the
rate, I believe, of twenty miles an hour."

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