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 B I
 
 SEPTIM1US FELTON 
 
 OR 
 
 The Elixir of Life 
 
 BY 
 
 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street 
 
 (Ctw Rtoewi&e press, Tamfcn&0e
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1871. 
 
 BY JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. O.' Houghton & Company.
 
 \ <t n . 
 
 S +1 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 |HE following story is the last written by my 
 father. It is printed as it was found among his 
 manuscripts. I believe it is a striking speci' 
 men of the peculiarities and charm of his style, and 
 that it will have an added interest for brother artists, 
 and for those who care to study the method of his com- 
 position, from the mere fact of its not having received 
 his final revision. In any case, I feel sure that the 
 retention of the passages witliin brackets (e. g. p. 33), 
 which show how my father intended to amplify some 
 of the descriptions and develop more fully one or two 
 of the character studies, will not be regretted by ap- 
 preciative readers. My earnest thanks are due to Mr. 
 Robert Browning for his kind assistance and advic 
 in interpreting the manuscript, otherwise so difficult 
 to me. 
 
 UNA HAWTHORNE. 
 
 til I
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTOST; 
 
 OR, THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 
 
 ]T was a day in early spring ; and as that sweet, 
 genial time of year and atmosphere calls out 
 tender greenness from the ground, beautiful 
 flowers, or leaves that look beautiful because so long un- 
 seen under the snow and decay, so the pleasant air 
 and warmth had called out three young people, who sat 
 on a sunny hillside enjoying the warm day and one an- 
 other. For they were all friends : two of them young 
 men, and playmates from boyhood ; the third, a girl who, 
 two or three years younger than themselves, had been the 
 object of their boy-love, their little rustic, childish gallan- 
 tries, their budding affections ; until, growing all towards 
 manhood and womanhood, they had ceased to talk about 
 sucli matters, perhaps thinking about them the more. 
 
 These three young people were neighbors' children, 
 dwelling in houses that stood by the side of the great 
 Lexington road, along a ridgy hill that rose abruptly 
 behind them, its brow covered with a wood, and which
 
 8 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 stretched, with one or two breaks and interruptions, into 
 the heart of the village of Concord, the county town. 
 It was in the side of this hill that, according to tradition, 
 the first settlers of the village had burrowed iu caverns 
 which they had dug out for their shelter, like swallows 
 and woodchucks. As its slope was towards the south, 
 and its ridge and crowning woods defended them from 
 the northern blasts and snow-drifts, it was an admirable 
 situation for the fierce New England winter; and the 
 temperature was milder, by several degrees, along this 
 hillside than on the unprotected plains, or by the river, 
 or in any other part of Concord. So that here, during 
 the hundred years that had elapsed since the first settle- 
 ment of the place, dwellings had successively risen close 
 to the hill's foot, and the meadow that lay on the other 
 side of the road a fertile tract had been cultivated ; 
 and these three young people were the children's chil- 
 dren's children of persons of respectability who had dwelt 
 there, Rose Garfield, in a small house, the site of which 
 is still indicated by the cavity of a cellar, in which I this 
 very past summer planted some sunflowers to thrust their . 
 great disks out from the hollow and allure the bee and 
 the humming-bird ; Robert Hagburn, in a house of some- 
 what more pretension, a hundred yards or so nearer to 
 the village, standing back from the road in the broader 
 space which the retreating hill, cloven by a gap in that 
 place, afforded ; where some elms intervened between it 
 and the road, offering a site which some person of a nat- 
 ural taste for the gently picturesque had seized upon. 
 Those same elms, or their successors, still flung a noble 
 shade over the same old house, which the magic hand of
 
 SEPTIMIUS 1'ELTON. . 9 
 
 Alcott Las improved by the touch that throws grace, 
 amiableness, and natural beauty over scenes that have 
 little pretension iu themselves. 
 
 Now, the other youug man, Septimius Pelton, dwelt 
 in a small wooden house, then, I suppose, of some score 
 of years' standing, a two-story house, gabled before, 
 but with only two rooms on a floor, crowded upon by 
 the hill behind, a house of thick walls, as if the pro- 
 jector had that sturdy feeling of permanence in life which 
 incites people to make strong their earthly habitations, 
 as if deluding themselves with the idea that they could 
 still inhabit them ; in short, an ordinary dwelling of a 
 well-to-do New England farmer, such as his race had 
 been for two or three generations past, although there 
 were traditions of ancestors who had led lives of thought 
 and study, and possessed all the erudition that the uni- 
 versities of England could bestow. Whether any natural 
 turn for study had descended to Septimius from these 
 worthies, or how his tendencies came to be different from 
 those of his family, who, within the memory of the 
 neighborhood, had been content to sow and reap the rich 
 field in front of their homestead, so it was, that Septim- 
 ius had early manifested a taste for study. By the kind 
 aid of the good minister of the town he had been fitted 
 for college ; had passed through Cambridge by means of 
 what little money his father had left him and by his own 
 exertions in school-keeping ; and was now a recently dec- 
 orated baccalaureate, with, as was understood, a purpose 
 to devote himself to the ministry, under the auspices of 
 that reverend and good friend whose support and instruc- 
 tion had already stood him iu such stead. 
 1*
 
 10 SBPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 Now here were these young people, on that beautiful 
 spring morning, sitting on the hillside, a pleasant specta- 
 cle of fresh life, pleasant, as if they had sprouted like 
 green things under the influence of the warm sun. The 
 girl was very pretty, a little freckled, a little tanned, but 
 with a face that glimmered and gleamed with quick and 
 cheerful expressions; a slender form, not very large, 
 with a quick grace in its movements ; sunny hair that had 
 a tendency to curl, which she probably favored at such 
 moments as her household occupation left her ; a sociable 
 and pleasant child, as both of the young men evidently 
 thought. Robert Hagburn, one might suppose, would 
 have been the most to her taste ; a ruddy, burly young 
 fellow, handsome, and free of manner, six feet high, fa- 
 mous through the neighborhood for strength and athletic 
 skill, the early promise of what was to be a man fit for 
 all offices of active rural life, and to be, in mature age, 
 the selectman, the deacon, the representative, the colonel. 
 As for Septimius, let him alone a moment or two, and 
 then they would see him, with his head bent down, 
 brooding, brooding, his eyes fixed on some chip, some 
 stone,~some common plant, any commonest thing, as if it 
 were the clew and index to some mystery ; and when, by 
 chance startled out of these meditations, he lifted his 
 eyes, there would be a kind of perplexity, a dissatisfied, 
 foiled look in them, as if of his speculations he found no 
 end. Such was now the case, while Robert and the girl 
 were running on with a gay talk about a serious subject, 
 so that, gay as it was, it was interspersed with little 
 thrills of fear on the girl's part, of excitement on Rob- 
 ert's. Their talk was of public trouble.
 
 SEPTIAIIUS FELTON. 11 
 
 "My grandfather says," said Rose Garfield, "that 
 we shall never be able to stand against old England, 
 because the men are a weaker race than he remembers 
 in his day, weaker than his father, who came from 
 England, and the women slighter still ; so that we 
 are dwindling away, grandfather thinks ; only a little 
 sprightlier, he says sometimes, looking at me." 
 
 " Lighter, to be sure," said Robert Hagburn ; " there 
 is the lightness of the Englishwomen compressed into 
 little space. I have seen them and know. And as 
 to the men, Rose, if they have lost one spark of courage 
 and strength that their English forefathers brought from 
 the old land, lost any one good quality without having 
 made it up by as good or better, then, for my part, I 
 don't want the breed to exist any longer. And this war, 
 that they say is coming on, will be a good opportunity 
 to test the matter. Septimius ! don't you think so ? " 
 
 "Think what? "asked Septimius, gravely, lifting up 
 his head. 
 
 " Think ! why, that your countrymen are worthy to 
 live," said Robert Hagburn, impatiently. " For there is 
 a question on that point." 
 
 " It is hardly worth answering or considering," said 
 Septimius, looking at him thoughtfully. "We live so 
 little while, that (always setting aside the effect on a 
 future existence) it is little matter Whether we live 
 or no." 
 
 " Little matter ! " said Rose, at first bewildered, then 
 laughing, " little matter ! when it is such a comfort to 
 live, so pleasant, so sweet ! " 
 
 "Yes, and so many things to do," said Robert; "to
 
 12 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 make fields yield produce ; to be busy among men, aud 
 happy among the women-folk ; to play, work, fight, aud 
 be active in many ways." 
 
 "Yes; but so soon stilled, before your activity has 
 come to any definite end," responded Septimius, gloom- 
 ily. " I doubt, if it had been left to my choice, whether 
 I should have taken existence on such terms ; so much 
 trouble of preparation to live, and then no life at all ; a 
 ponderous beginning, and nothing more." 
 
 " Do you find fault with Providence, Septimius ? " 
 asked Rose, a feeling of solemnity coming over her 
 cheerful and buoyant nature. Then she burst out 
 a-laughing. "How grave he looks, Robert; as if he 
 had lived two or three lives already, and knew all about 
 the value of it. But I think it was worth while to be 
 born, if only for the sake of one such pleasant spring 
 morning as this; and God gives us many and better 
 things when these are past." 
 
 " We hope so," said Septimius, who was again look- 
 ing on the ground. " But who knows ? " 
 
 " I thought you knew," said Robert Hagburn. " You 
 have been to colkge, and have learned, no doubt, a great 
 many things. You are a student of theology, too, and 
 have looked into these matters. Who should know, if 
 not you ? " 
 
 " Rose and you have just as good means of ascertain- 
 ing these points as I," said Septimius ; " all the certainty 
 that can be had lies on the surface, as it should, and 
 equally accessible to every man or woman. If we try to 
 grope deeper, we labor for naught, and get less wise 
 while we try to be more so. If life were long enough to
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 13 
 
 enable us thoroughly to sift these matters, then, indeed ! 
 but it is so short ! " 
 
 " Always this same complaint," said Robert. " Sep- 
 timius, how long do you wish to live ? " 
 
 " Forever ! " said Septimius. " It is none too long for 
 all I wish to know." 
 
 "Forever?" exclaimed Rose, shivering doubtfully. 
 " Ah, there would come many, many thoughts, and after 
 a while we should want a little rest." 
 
 " Forever ? " said Robert Hagburn. " And what 
 would the people do who wish to fill our places ? You 
 are unfair, Septimius. Live and let live ! Turn about ! 
 Give me my seventy years, and let me go, my seventy 
 years of what this life has, toil, enjoyment, suffering, 
 struggle, fight, rest, only let me have my share of 
 what 's going, and I shall be content." 
 
 " Content with leaving everything at odd ends ; con- 
 tent with being nothing, as you were before ! " 
 
 " No, Septimius, content with heaven at last," said 
 Rose, who had come out of her laughing mood into a 
 sweet seriousness. " dear ! think what a worn and 
 ugly thing one of these fresh little blades of grass would 
 seem if it were not to fade and wither in its time, after 
 being green in its time." 
 
 " Well, well, my pretty Rose," said Septimius apart, 
 " an immortal weed is not very lovely to think of, that is 
 true ; but I should be content with one thing, and that 
 is yourself, if you were immortal, just as you are at 
 seventeen, so fresh, so dewy, so red-lipped, so golden- 
 haired, so gay, so frolicsome, so gentle." 
 
 "But I am to grow old, and to be brown and wrin-
 
 14 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 kled, gray-haired and ugly," said Rose, rather sadly, as 
 she thus enumerated the items of her decay, " and then 
 you would think me all lost and gone. But still there 
 might be youth underneath, for one that really loved me 
 to see. Ah, Septimius Felton ! such love as would see 
 with ever-new eyes is the true love." And she ran away 
 and left him suddenly, and Robert Hagbura departing at 
 the same time, this little knot of three was dissolved, and 
 Septimius went along the wayside wall, thoughtfully, as 
 was his wont, to his own dwelling. He had stopped for 
 some moments on the threshold, vaguely enjoying, it is 
 probable, the light and warmth of the new spring day 
 and the sweet air, which was somewhat unwonted to the 
 young man, because he was accustomed to spend much 
 of his day in thought and study within doors, and, in- 
 deed, like most studious young men, was overfond of the 
 fireside, and of making life as artificial as he could, by 
 fireside heat and lamplight, in order to suit it to the arti- 
 ficial, intellectual, and moral atmosphere which he derived 
 from books, instead of living healthfully in the open air, 
 and among his fellow-beings. Still he felt the pleasure of 
 being warmed through by this natural heat, and though 
 blinking a little from its superfluity, could not but confess 
 an enjoyment and cheerfulness in this flood of morning 
 light that came aslant the hillside. While he thus stood, 
 he felt a friendly hand laid upon his shoulder, and look- 
 ing up, there was the minister of the village, the old 
 friend of Septimius, to whose advice and aid it was owing 
 that Septimius had followed his instincts by going to col- 
 lege, instead of spending a thwarted and dissatisfied life 
 in the field that fronted the house. He was a man of
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 15 
 
 middle age, or little beyond, of a sagacious, kindly as- 
 pect ; the experience, the lifelong, intimate acquaintance 
 with many concerns of his people being more appar- 
 ent in him than' the scholarship for which he had been 
 early distinguished. A tanned man, like one who labored 
 in his own grounds occasionally ; a man of homely, plain 
 address, which, when occasion called for it, he could 
 readily exchange for the polished manner of one who had 
 seen a more refined world than this about him. 
 
 " Well, Septimius," said the minister, kindly, " have 
 you yet come to any conclusion about the subject of 
 which we have been talking ? " 
 
 "Only so far, sir," replied Septimius, "that I find 
 myself every day less inclined to take up the profession 
 which I have had in view so many years. I do not think 
 myself fit for the sacred desk." 
 
 " Surely not ; no one is," replied the clergyman ; " but 
 if I may trust my own judgment, you have at least many 
 of the intellectual qualifications that should adapt you to 
 it. There is something of the Puritan character in you, 
 Septimius, derived from holy men among your ancestors ; 
 as, for instance, a deep, brooding tum, such as befits 
 that heavy brow; a disposition to meditate on things 
 hidden ; a turn for meditative inquiry ; all these things, 
 with grace to boot, mark you as the germ of a man who 
 might, do God service. Your reputation as a scholar 
 stands high at college. You have not a turn for worldly 
 business." 
 
 "Ah, but, sir," said Septimius, casting down his heavy 
 brows, " I lack something within." 
 
 " Faith, perhaps," replied the minister ; " at least, you 
 think so."
 
 16 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 " Caunot I know it ? " asked Septimius. 
 
 " Scarcely, just now," said his friend. " Study for the 
 ministry ; bind your thoughts to it ; pray ; ask a belief, 
 and you will soon find you have it. Doubts may oc- 
 casionally press in ; and it is so with every clergyman. 
 But your prevailing mood will be faith." 
 
 " It has seemed to me," observed Septimius, " that it 
 is not the prevailing mood, the most common one, that is 
 to be trusted. This is habit, formality, the shallow cov- 
 ering which we close over what is real, and seldom suffer 
 to be blown aside. But it is the snakelike doubt that 
 thrusts out its head, which gives us a glimpse of reality. 
 Surely such moments are a hundred times as real as the 
 dull, quiet moments of faith, or what you call such." 
 
 " I am sorry for you," said the minister ; " yet to a 
 youth of your frame of character, of your ability I will 
 say, and your requisition for something profound in the 
 grounds of your belief, it is not unusual to meet this 
 trouble. Men like you have to fight for their faith. 
 They fight in the first place to win it, and ever after- 
 wards to hold it. The Devil tilts with them daily, and 
 often seems to win." 
 
 "Yes; but," replied Septimius, "he takes deadly 
 weapons now. If he meet me with the cold pure steel 
 of a spiritual argument, I might win or lose, and still 
 not feel that all was lost; but he takes, as it were, a 
 great clod of earth, massive rocks and mud, soil and 
 dirt, and flings it at me overwhelmingly ; so that I am 
 buried under it." 
 
 " How is that ? " said the minister. " Tell me more 
 plainly."
 
 SEPTIM1US FELTON. 17 
 
 " May it not be possible," asked Septimius, " to have 
 too profound a sense of the marvellous contrivance and 
 adaptation of this material world to require or believe 
 in anything spiritual? How wonderful it is to see it 
 all alive on this spring day, all growing, budding ! Do 
 we exhaust it in our little life? Not so; not in a 
 hundred or a thousand lives. The whole race of man, 
 living from the beginning of time, have not, in all their 
 number and multiplicity and in all their duration, come 
 in the least to know the world they live in ! And how 
 is this rich world thrown away upon us, because we 
 live in it such a moment ! What mortal work has ever 
 been done since the world began ! Because we have no 
 time. No lesson is taught. We are snatched away from 
 our study before we have learned the alphabet. As the 
 world now exists, I confess it to you frankly, my dear 
 pastor and instructor, it seems to me all a failure, be- 
 cause we do not live long enough." 
 
 " But the lesson is carried on in another state of 
 being ! " 
 
 " Not the lesson that we begin here," said Septimius. 
 " We might as well train a child in a primeval forest, to 
 teach him how to live in a European court. No, the 
 fall of man, which Scripture tells us of, seems to me 
 to have its operation in this grievous shortening of earth- 
 ly existence, so that our life here at all is grown ridicu- 
 lous." 
 
 "Well, Septimius," replied the minister, sadly, yet 
 not as one shocked by what he had never heard before, 
 "I must leave you to struggle through this form of 
 unbelief as best you may, knowing that it is by your
 
 18 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 own efforts that you must come to the other side of 
 
 this slough. We will talk further another time. You 
 
 are getting worn out, my young friend, with much 
 
 study and anxiety. It were well for you to live more, 
 
 for the present, in this earthly life that you prize so 
 
 highly. Cannot you interest yourself in the state of 
 
 i this country, in this coming strife, the voice of which 
 
 I now sounds so hoarsely and so near us ? Come out of 
 
 J your thoughts and breathe another air." 
 
 " I will try," said Septimius. 
 
 "Do," said the minister, extending his hand to him, 
 "and in a little time you will find the change." 
 
 He shook the young man's hand kindly, and took his 
 leave, while Septimius entered his house, and turning 
 to the right sat down in his study, where, before the 
 fireplace, stood the table with books and papers. On 
 the shelves around the low-studded walls were more 
 books, few in number but of an erudite appearance, 
 many of them having descended to him from learned 
 ancestors, and having been brought to light by himself 
 after long lying in dusty closets ; works of good and 
 learned divines, whose wisdom he had happened, by help 
 of the Devil, to turn to mischief, reading them by the 
 light of hell-fire. For, indeed, Septimius had but given 
 /the clergyman the merest partial glimpse of his state of 
 J mind. He was not a new beginner in doubt; but, on 
 | the contrary, it seemed to him as if he had never been 
 ! other than a doubter and questioner, even in his boy- 
 \ hood ; believing nothing, although a thin veil of rever- 
 ence had kept him from questioning some things. And 
 now the new, strange thought of the sufficiency of the
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 19 
 
 world for man, if man were only sufficient for that, kept 
 recurring to him; and with it came a certain sense, 
 which he had been conscious of before, that he, at least, 
 might never die. The feeling was not peculiar to Sep- 
 timius. It is an instinct, the meaning of which is mis- 
 taken. We have strongly within us the sense of an 
 undying principle, and we transfer that true sense to 
 this life and to the body, instead of interpreting it justly 
 as the promise of spiritual immortality. 
 
 So Septimius looked up out of his thoughts, and said 
 proudly : " Why should I die ? I cannot die, if worthy 
 to live. What if I should say this moment that I will 
 not die, not till ages hence, not till the world is ex- 
 hausted ? Let other men die, if they choose or yield ; 
 let him that is strong enough live ! " 
 
 After this flush of heroic mood, however, the glow 
 subsided, and poor Septimius spent the rest of the day, 
 as was his wont, poring over his books, in which all 
 the meanings seemed dead and mouldy, and like pressed 
 leaves (some of which dropped out of the books as he 
 opened them), brown, brittle, sapless; so even the 
 thoughts, which when the writers had gathered them 
 seemed to them so brightly colored and full of life. 
 Then he began to see that there must have been some 
 principle of life left out of the book, so that these gath- 
 ered thoughts lacked something that had given them 
 their only value. Then he suspected that the way truly 
 to live and answer the purposes of life was not to gather 
 up thoughts into books, where they grew so dry, but 
 to live and still be going about, full of green wisdom, 
 ripening ever, not in maxims cut and dry, but a wisdom
 
 20 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 ready for daily occasions, like a living fountain; and 
 that to be this, it was necessary to exist long on earth, 
 drink in all its lessons, and not to die on the attainment 
 of some smattering of truth ; but to live all the more 
 for that; and apply it to mankind and increase it 
 thereby. 
 
 Everything drifted towards the strong, strange eddy 
 into which his mind had been drawn : all his thoughts 
 set hitherward. 
 
 So he sat brooding in his study until the shrill-voiced 
 old woman an aunt, who was his housekeeper and 
 domestic ruler called him to dinner, a frugal din- 
 ner, and chided him for seeming inattentive to a dish 
 of early dandelions which she had gathered for him ; 
 but yet tempered her severity with respect for the fu- 
 ture clerical rank of her nephew, and for his already 
 being a bachelor of arts. The old woman's voice spoke 
 outside of Septimius, rambling away, and he paying little 
 heed, till at last dinner was over, and Septimius drew 
 back his chair, about to leave the table. 
 
 "Nephew Septimius," said the old woman, "you 
 began this meal to-day without asking a blessing, you 
 get up from it without giving thanks, and you soon to 
 be a minister of the Word." 
 
 " God bless the meat," replied Septimius (by way of 
 blessing), "and make it strengthen us for the life he 
 means us to bear. Thank God for our food," he added 
 (by way of grace), " and may it become a portion in us 
 of an immortal body." 
 
 "That sounds good, Septimius," said the old lady. 
 " Ah ! you '11 be a mighty man in the pulpit, and worthy
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 21 
 
 to keep up the name of your great-grandfather, who, 
 they say, made the leaves wither on a tree with the 
 fierceness of his blast against a sin. Some say, to be 
 sure, it was an early frost that helped him." 
 
 " I never heard that before, Aunt Keziah," said Sep- 
 timius. 
 
 " I warrant you no," replied his aunt. " A man dies, 
 and his greatness perishes as if it had never been, and 
 people remember nothing of him only when Ihey see his 
 gravestone over his old dry bones, and say he was a good 
 man in his day." 
 
 " What truth there is in Aunt Keziah's words ! " 
 exclaimed Septimius. "And how I hate the thought 
 and anticipation of that contemptuous appreciation of 
 a man after his death ! Every living man triumphs over 
 every dead one, as he lies, poor and helpless, under the 
 mould, a pinch of dust, a heap of bones, an evil odor ! 
 I hate the thought ! It shall not be so ! " 
 
 It was strange how every little incident thus brought 
 him back to that one subject which was taking so strong 
 hold of his mind ; every avenue led thitherward ; and he. 
 took it for an indication that nature had intended, by >. 
 innumerable ways, to point out to us the great truth 
 that death was an alien misfortune, a prodigy, a mon- 
 strosity, into which man had only fallen by defect ; and / 
 that even now, if a man had a reasonable portion of his/ 
 original strength in him, he might live forever and spurn 
 death. 
 
 Our story is an internal one, dealing as little as pos-. 
 sible with outward events, and taking hold of these only 
 where it cannot be helped, in order by means of them to
 
 22 SEPTIMIUS FELTOX. 
 
 ( delineate the history of a mind bewildered in certain 
 Verrors. We would not willingly, if we could, give a 
 lively and picturesque surrounding to this delineation, 
 but it is necessary that we should advert to the circum- 
 stances of the time in which this inward history was 
 passing. We will say, therefore, that that night there 
 was a cry of alarm passing all through the succession of 
 country towns and rural communities that lay around 
 Boston, and dying away towards the coast and the 
 wilder forest borders. Horsemen galloped past the line of 
 farm-houses shouting alarm ! alarm ! There were stories 
 of marching troops coming like dreams through the mid- 
 night. Around the little rude meeting-houses there was 
 here and there the beat of a drum, and the assemblage 
 of farmers with their weapons. So all that night there 
 was marching, there was mustering, there was trouble ; 
 and, on the road from Boston, a steady march of sol- 
 diers' feet onward, onward into the land whose last war- 
 like disturbance had been when the red Indians trod it. 
 
 Septimius heard it, and knew, like the rest, that it was 
 the sound of coming war. " Fools that men are ! " said 
 he, as he rose from bed and looked out at the misty stars ; 
 " they do not live long enough to know the value and 
 purport of life, else they would combine together to live 
 long, instead of throwing away the lives of thousands as 
 they do. And what matters a little tyranny in so short 
 a life ? What matters a form of government for such 
 ephemeral creatures ? " 
 
 As morning brightened, these sounds, this clamor, 
 or something that was in the air and caused the clamor, 
 grew so loud that Septimius seemed to feel it even in
 
 SEPT1MIUS FELTON. 23 
 
 his solitude. It was in the atmosphere, storm, wild 
 excitemeiit, a coming deed. Meu hurried along the usu- 
 ally lonely road in groups, with weapons in their hands, 
 the old fowling-piece of seven-foot barrel, with which 
 the Puritans had shot ducks on the river and Walden 
 Pond ; the heavy harquebus, which perhaps had levelled 
 one of King Philip's Indians ; the old King gun, that 
 blazed away at the French of Louisburg or Quebec, 
 hunter, husbandman, all were hurrying each other. It 
 was a good time, everybody felt, to be alive, a nearer kin- 
 dred, a closer sympathy between man and man; a sense 
 of the goodness of the world, of the sacredness of coun- 
 try, of the excellence of life ; and yet its slight account 
 compared with any truth, any principle; the weighing of 
 the material and ethereal, and the finding the former not 
 worth considering, when, nevertheless, it had so much to 
 do with the settlement of the crisis. The ennobling of 
 brute force ; the feeling that it had its godlike side ; the 
 drawing of heroic breath amid the scenes of ordinary life, 
 so that it seemed as if they had all been transfigured since 
 yesterday. O, high, heroic, tremulous juncture, when 
 man felt himself almost an angel ; on the verge of doing 
 deeds that outwardly look so fiendish ! O, strange rap- 
 ture of the coming battle ! We know something of that 
 time now ; we that have seen the muster of the village 
 soldiery on the meeting-house green, and at railway sta- 
 tions ; and heard the drum and fife, and seen the fare- 
 wells ; seen the familiar faces that we hardly knew, now 
 that we felt them to be heroes ; breathed higher breath 
 for their sakes ; felt our eyes moistened ; thanked them 
 in our souls for teaching us that nature is yet capable of
 
 24 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 heroic moments ; felt how a great impulse lifts up a peo- 
 ple, and every cold, passionless, indifferent spectator, 
 lifts him up into religion, and makes him join in what 
 becomes an act of devotion, a prayer, when perhaps he 
 hut half approves. 
 
 Septimius could not study on a morning like this. He 
 tried to say to himself that he had nothing to do with 
 this excitement; that his studious life kept him away 
 from it ; that his intended profession was that of peace ; 
 but say what he might to himself, there was a tremor, a 
 bubbling impulse, a tingling in his ears, the page that 
 he opened glimmered and dazzled before him. 
 
 " Septimius ! Septimius ! " cried Aunt Keziah, look- 
 ing into the room, " in Heaven's name, are you going to 
 sit here to-day, and the redcoats coming to burn the 
 house over our heads ? Must I sweep you out with the 
 broomstick ? For shame, boy ! for shame ! " 
 
 " Are they coming, then, Aunt Keziah ? " asked her 
 nephew. " Well, I am not a fighting-man." 
 
 " Certain they are. They have sacked Lexington, and 
 slain the people, and burnt the meeting-house. That 
 concerns even the parsons; and you reckon yourself 
 among them. Go out, go out, I say, and learn the 
 news ! " 
 
 Whether moved by these exhortations, or by his own 
 stifled curiosity, Septimius did at length issue from his 
 door, though with that reluctance which hampers and 
 impedes men whose current of thought and interest runs 
 apart from that of the world in general; but forth he 
 came, feeling strangely, and yet with a strong impulse to 
 fling himself headlong into the emotion of the moment.
 
 SEPTIMIUS FKLTON. 25 
 
 It was a beautiful morning, spring-like and summer-like 
 at once. It' there Lad been nothing else to do or think 
 of, such a morning was enough for life only to breathe 
 its air and be conscious of its inspiring influence. 
 
 Septimius turned along the road towards the village, 
 meaning to mingle with the crowd on the green, and 
 there learn all he could of the rumors that vaguely filled 
 the air, and doubtless were shaping themselves into vari- 
 ous forms of fiction. 
 
 As he passed the small dwelling of Rose Garfield, she 
 stood on the doorstep, and bounded forth a little way to 
 meet him, looking frightened, excited, and yet half 
 pleased, but strangely pretty ; prettier than ever before, 
 owing to some hasty adornment or other, that she would 
 never have succeeded so well in giviug to herself if she 
 had had more time to do it in. 
 
 " Septimius Mr. Felton," cried she, asking informa- 
 tion of him who, of all men in the neighborhood, knew 
 nothing of the intelligence afloat ; but it showed a certain 
 importance that Septimius had with her. " Do you 
 really think the redcoats are coming? Ah, what shall 
 we do ? What shall we do ? But you are not going to 
 the village, too, and leave us all alone ? " 
 
 " I know not whether they are coming or no, Rose," 
 said Septimius, stopping to admire the young girl's fresh 
 beauty, which made a double stroke upon him by her 
 excitement, and, moreover, msde her twice as free with 
 him as ever she had been before; for there is nothing 
 truer than that any breaking up of the ordinary state of 
 things is apt to shake women out of their proprieties, 
 break down barriers, and bring them into perilous prox- 
 2
 
 26 SEPT1MIUS FELTON. 
 
 imity with the world. " Are you alone here ? Had you 
 not better take shelter in the village ? " 
 
 " And leave my poor, bedridden grandmother ! " cried 
 Rose, angrily. " You know I can't, Septimius. But I 
 suppose I am in no danger. Go to the village, if you 
 like." 
 
 " Where is Robert Hagburn ? " asked Septimius. 
 
 " Gone to the village this hour past, with his grand- 
 father's old firelock on his shoulder," said Rose ; " he 
 was running bullets before daylight." 
 
 " Rose, I will stay with you," said Septimius. 
 
 " gracious, here they come, I 'in sure ! " cried Rose. 
 " Look yonder at the dust. Mercy ! a man at a gallop !" 
 
 In fact, along the road, a considerable stretch of which 
 was visible, they heard the clatter of hoofs and saw a lit- 
 tle cloud of dust approaching at the rate of a gallop, and 
 disclosing, as it drew near, a hatless countryman in his 
 shirt-sleeves, who, bending over his horse's neck, applied 
 a cart-whip lustily to the animal's flanks, so as to incite 
 him to most unwonted speed. At the same time, glaring 
 upon Rose and Septimius, he lifted up his voice and 
 shouted in a strange, high tone, that communicated the 
 tremor and excitement of the shouter to each auditor: 
 " Alarum ! alarum ! alarum ! The redcoats ! The red- 
 coats ! To arms ! alarum !" 
 
 And trailing this sound far wavering behind him like a 
 
 pennon, the eager horseman dashed onward to the village. 
 
 " dear, what shall we do ? " cried Rose, her eyes full 
 
 of tears, yet dancing with excitement. " They are com- 
 
 * $ ! they are coming ! I hear the drum and fife." 
 
 "I really believe they are," said Septimius, his cheek
 
 SEPTIM1US FELTON. 27 
 
 flushing and growing pale, not with fear, but the inevita- 
 ble tremor, half painful, half pleasurable, of the moment. 
 " Hark ! there was the shrill note of a fife. Yes, they are 
 coming ! " 
 
 He tried to persuade Rose to hide herself in the house ; 
 but that young person would not be persuaded to do so, 
 clinging to Septimius in a way that flattered while it per- 
 plexed him. Besides, with all the girl's fright, she had 
 still a good deal of courage, and much curiosity too, to 
 see what these redcoats were of whom she heard such 
 terrible stories. 
 
 " Well, well, Rose," said Septimius ; " I doubt not 
 we may stay here without danger, you, a woman, and 
 I, whose profession is to be that of peace and good-will 
 to all men. They cannot, whatever is said of them, be 
 on an errand of massacre. We will stand here quietly; 
 and, seeing that we do not fear them, they will under- 
 stand that we mean them no harm." 
 
 They stood, accordingly, a little in front of the door by 
 the well-curb, and soon they saw a heavy cloud of dust, 
 from amidst which shone bayonets ; and anon, a military 
 band, which had hitherto been silent, struck up, with 
 drum and fife, to which the tramp of a thousand feet fell 
 in regular order; then came the column, moving mas- 
 sively, and the redcoats who seemed somewhat wearied 
 by a long night-march, dusty, with bedraggled gaiters, 
 covered with sweat which had run down from their pow- 
 dered locks. Nevertheless, these ruddy, lusty English- 
 men marched stoutly, as men that needed only a half- 
 hour's rest, a good breakfast, and a pot of beer apiece, to 
 make them ready to face the world. Nor did their faces
 
 28 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 look anywise rancorous ; but at most, only heavy, clod- 
 dish, good-natured, and humane. 
 
 "0 heavens, Mr. Felton ! " whispered Rose, "why 
 should we shoot these men, or they us ? they look kind, 
 if homely. Each of them has a mother and sisters, I 
 suppose, just like our men." 
 
 " It is the strangest thing in the world that we can 
 think of killing them," said Scptimius. "Human life 
 is so precious." 
 
 Just as they were passing the cottage, a halt was 
 called by the commanding officer, in order that some 
 little rest might get the troops into a better condition 
 and give them breath before entering the village, where 
 it was important to make as imposing a show as possi- 
 ble. During this brief stop, some of the soldiers ap- 
 proached the well-curb, near which Rose and Septimius 
 were standing, and let down the bucket to satisfy their 
 thirst. A young officer, a petulant boy, extremely hand- 
 some, and of gay and buoyant deportment, also came up. 
 
 " Get me a cup, pretty one," said he, patting Rose's 
 cheek with great freedom, though it was somewhat and 
 indefinitely short of rudeness; "a mug, or something to 
 drink out of, and you shall have a kiss for your pains." 
 
 "Stand off, sir!" said Septimius, fiercely; "it is a 
 coward's part to insult a woman." 
 
 "I intend no insult in this," replied the handsome 
 young officer, suddenly snatching a kiss from Rose, 
 before she could draw back. " And if you think it so, 
 my good friend, you had better take your weapon and 
 get as much satisfaction as you can, shooting at me from 
 behind a hedge."
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 29 
 
 Before Septimius could reply or act, and, in truth, 
 the easy presumption of the young Englishman made it 
 difficult for him, an inexperienced recluse as he was, to 
 know what to do or say, the drum beat a little tap, 
 recalling the soldiers to their rank and to order. The 
 yoaag officer hastened back, with a laughing glance at 
 Rose and a light, contemptuous look of defiance at Sep- 
 timus, the drums rattling out in full beat, and the troops 
 marched on. 
 
 "What impertinence!" said Rose, whose indignant 
 color made her look pretty enough almost to excuse the 
 offence. 
 
 It is uot easy to see how Soptimius could have 
 shielded ner from the insult ; and yet he felt incon- 
 ceivably outraged and humiliated at the thought that 
 this offence had occurred while Rose was under his 
 protection, and he responsible for her. Besides, some- 
 how or other, he was angry with her for having under- 
 gone the wrong, though certainly mosc unreasonably ; 
 for the whole thing was quicker done than said. 
 
 " You had better go into the house now, Rose," said 
 he, " and see to your bedridden grandmother." 
 
 " And what will you do, Septimius ? " asked she. 
 
 " Perhaps I will house myself, also," he replied. 
 "Perhaps take yonder proud redcoat's counsel, and 
 shoot him behind a hedge." 
 
 "But not kill him outright; I suppose he has a 
 mother and a sweetheart, the handsome young officer," 
 murmured Rose pityingly to herself. 
 
 Septimius went into his house, and sat in his study for 
 some hours, in that unpleasant state of feeling which a
 
 30 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 man of brooding thought is apt to experience when the 
 world around him is in a state of intense action, which 
 he finds it impossible to sympathize with. There seemed 
 to be a stream rushing past him, by which, even if he 
 plunged into the midst of it, he could not be wet. He 
 felt himself strangely ajar with the human race, and 
 would have given much either to be in full accord with 
 it, or to be separated from it forever. 
 
 " I am dissevered from it. It is my doom to be only 
 a spectator of life ; to look on as one apart from it. Is 
 it not well, therefore, that, sharing none of its pleasures 
 and happiness, I should be free of its fatalities, its brev- 
 ity ? How cold I am now, while this whirlpool of public 
 feeling is eddying around me ! It is as if I had not been 
 born of woman ! " 
 
 Thus it was, that, drawing wild inferences from phe- 
 nomena of the mind and heart common to people who, by- 
 some morbid action within themselves, are set ajar with 
 the world, Septimius continued still to come round to 
 that strange idea of undyingness which had recently 
 taken possession of him. And yet he was wrong in 
 thinking himself cold, and that he felt no sympathy in the 
 fever of patriotism that was throbbing through his coun- 
 trymen. He was restless as a flame ; he could not fix 
 his thoughts upon his book ; he could not sit in bis 
 chair, but kept pacing to and fro, while through the open 
 window came noises to which his imagination gave di- 
 verse interpretation. Nowit was a distant drum ; now 
 shouts ; by and by there came the rattle of musketry, 
 that seemed to proceed from some point more distant 
 than the village; a regular roll, then a ragged volley,
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 31 
 
 then scattering shots. Unable any longer to preserve 
 this unnatural indifference, Septimius snatched his gun, 
 and, rushing out of the house, climbed the abrupt hillside 
 behind, whence he could see a long way towards the vil- 
 lage, till a slight bend hid the uneven road. It was 
 quite vacant, not a passenger upon it. But there seemed 
 to be confusion in that direction ; an unseen and inscru- 
 table trouble, blowing thence towards him, intimated by 
 vague sounds, by no sounds. Listening eagerly, how- 
 ever, he at last fancied a mustering sound of the drum ; 
 then it seemed as if it were coming towards him ,- while 
 in advance rode another horseman, the same kind of 
 headlong messenger, in appearance, who had passed the 
 house with his ghastly cry of alarum ; then appeared 
 scattered countrymen, with guns in their hands, strag- 
 gling across fields. Then he caught sight of the regular 
 array of British soldiers, filling the road with their front, 
 and inarching along as firmly as ever, though at a quick 
 pace, while he fancied that the officers looked watchfully 
 around. As he looked, a shot rang sharp from the hill- 
 side towards the village ; the smoke curled up, and Sep- 
 timius saw a man stagger and fall in the midst of the 
 troops. Septimius shuddered ; it was so like murder 
 that he really could not tell the difference; his knees 
 trembled beneath him ; his breath grew short, not with 
 terror, but with some new sensation of awe. 
 
 Another shot or two came almost simultaneously from 
 the wooded height, but without any effect that Septimius 
 could perceive. Almost at the same moment a company 
 of the British soldiers wheeled from the main body, and, 
 dashing out of the road, climbed the hill, and disappeared
 
 32 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 into the wood and shrubbery that veiled it. There were 
 a few straggling shots, by whom fired, or with what 
 effect, was invisible, and meanwhile the main body of 
 the enemy proceeded along the road. They had now 
 advanced so nigh that Septimius was strangely assailed 
 by the idea that he might, with the gun in his hand, 
 fire right into the midst of them, and select any man of 
 that now hostile band to be a victim. How strange, 
 ^how strange it is, this deep, wild passion that nature has 
 implanted in us to be the death of our felloWrcreaturesT 
 and which coexists at the same time with horror ! Sep- 
 timius levelled his weapon, and drew it up again ; he 
 marked a mounted officer, who seemed to be in chief 
 command, whom he knew that he could kill. But no ! 
 he had really no such purpose. Only it was such a 
 temptation. And in a moment the horse would leap, 
 the officer would fall and lie there in the dust of the 
 road, bleeding, gasping, breathing in spasms, breathing 
 no more. 
 
 While the young man, in these unusual circumstances, 
 stood watching the marching of the troops, he heard the 
 noise of rustling boughs, and the voices of men, and 
 soon understood that the party, which he had seen 
 separate itself from the main body and ascend the hill, 
 was now marching along on the hill-top, the long ridge 
 which, with a gap or two, extended as much as a mile 
 from the village. One of these gaps occurred a little 
 way from where Septimius stood. They were acting as 
 flank guard, to prevent the uproused people from coming 
 so close to the main body as to fire upon it, He looked 
 and saw that the detachment of British was plunging
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 33 
 
 down one side of this gap, with intent to ascend the 
 other, so that they would pass directly over the spot 
 where he stood ; a slight removal to one side, among the 
 small bushes, would conceal him. He stepped aside 
 accordingly, and from his concealment, not without 
 drawing quicker breaths, beheld the party draw near. 
 They were more intent upon the space between them 
 and the main body than upon the dense thicket of 
 birch-trees, pitch-pines, sumach, and dwarf oaks, which, 
 scarcely yet beginning to bud into leaf, lay on the other 
 side, and in which Septimius lurked. 
 
 [Describe how their faces affected him, passing so near; 
 how strange they seemedJ] 
 
 They had all passed, except an officer who brought up 
 the rear, and who had perhaps been attracted by some 
 slight motion that Septimius made, some rustle in the 
 thicket ; for he stopped, fixed his eyes piercingly towards 
 the spot where he stood, and levelled a light fusil which 
 he carried. " Stand out, or I shoot," said he. 
 
 Not to avoid the shot, but because his manhood felt a 
 call upon it not to skulk in obscurity from an open 
 enemy, Septimius at once stood forth, and confronted the 
 same handsome young officer with whom those fierce 
 words had passed on account of his rudeness to Rose 
 Garfield. Septimius's fierce Indian blood siirraljn. him, 
 and gave a murderous excitement. 
 
 "Ah, it is ^ouT" saicPthe young officer, with a 
 haughty smile. " You meant, then, to take up with my 
 hint of shooting at me from behind a hedge ? This is 
 better. Come, we have in the first place the great quar- 
 rel between me a king's soldier, and you a rebel ; next 
 2* c
 
 31 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 our private affair, on account of yonder pretty girl. 
 Come, let us take a shot ou either score ! " 
 
 The young officer was so handsome, so beautiful, in 
 budding youth ; there was such a free, gay petulance in 
 his manner ; there seemed so little of real evil in him ; he 
 put himself on equal ground with the rustic Septimius so 
 generously, that the latter, often so morbid and sullen, 
 never felt a greater kindness for fellow-man than at this 
 moment for this youth. 
 
 "I have no enmity towards you," said he; "go in 
 peace." 
 
 " No enmity ! " replied the officer. " Then why were 
 you here with your gun amongst the shrubbery ? But I 
 have a mind to do my first deed of arms on you ; so give 
 up your weapon, and come with me as prisoner." 
 
 "A prisoner ! " cried Septimius, Jhatjndian fierceness 
 that was in him arousing itself, and thrusting up its ma- 
 lign head like a snake. " Never ! If you would have 
 me, you must take my dead body." 
 
 " Ah well, you have pluck in you, I see, only it needs 
 a considerable stirring. Come, this is a good quarrel of 
 ours. Let us fight it out. Stand where you are, and I 
 will give the word of command. Now ; ready, aim, 
 fire ! " 
 
 As the young officer spoke the three last words, in 
 rapid succession, he and his antagonist brought their 
 firelocks to the shoulder, aimed and fired. Septimius 
 felt, as it were, the sting of a gadfly passing across his 
 temple, as the Englishman's bullet grazed it ; but, to his 
 surprise and horror (for the whole thing scarcely seemed 
 real to him), he saw the officer give a great start, drop
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 35 
 
 his fusil, and stagger against a tree, with his hand to his 
 breast, He endeavored to support himself erect, but, 
 failing in the effort, beckoned to Septimius. 
 
 " Come, my good friend," said he, with that playful, 
 petulant smile flitting over his face again. "It is my 
 first and last fight. Let me down as softly as you can 
 on mother earth, the mother of both you and me ; so we 
 are brothers ; and this may be a brotherly act, though it 
 does not look so, nor feel so. Ah ! that was a twinge 
 indeed ! " 
 
 " Good God ! " exclaimed Septimius. " I had no 
 thought of t his, no malice towards you in the least ! " 
 
 " Nor I towards you," said the young man. " It was 
 boy's play, and the end of it is that I die a boy, instead 
 of living fbrever, as perhaps I otherwise might." 
 
 " Living forever ! " repeated Septimius, his attention 
 arrested, even at that breathless moment, by words that 
 rang so strangely on what had been his brooding thought. 
 
 " Yes ; but I have lost my chance," said the young 
 officer. Then, as Septimius helped him to lie against 
 the little hillock of a decayed and buried stump, " Thank 
 you ; thank you. If you could only call back one of 
 my comrades to hear my dying words. But I forgot. 
 You have killed me, and they would take your life." 
 
 In truth, Septimius was so moved and so astonished, 
 that he probably would have called back the young man's 
 comrades, had it been possible ; but, marching at the 
 swift rate of men in peril, they had already gone far on- 
 ward, in their passage through the shrubbery that had 
 ceased to rustle behind them. 
 
 " Yes ; I must die here ! " said the young man, with
 
 36 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 a forlorn expression, as of a school-boy far away from 
 home, " and nobody to see me now but you, who have 
 killed me. Could you fetch me a drop of water? I 
 have a great thirst." 
 
 Septimius, in a dream of horror and pity, rushed 
 down the hillside ; the house was empty, for Aunt Ke- 
 ziah had gone for shelter and sympathy to some of the 
 neighbors. He filled a jug with cold water, and hurried 
 back to the hill-top, finding the young officer looking 
 paler and more deathlike within those few moments. 
 
 " I thank you, my enemy that was, my friend that is," 
 murmured he, faintly smiling. " Methiuks, next to the 
 father and mother that gave us birth, the next most in- 
 timate relation must be with' the man that slays us, who 
 introduces us to the mysterious world to which this is 
 but the portal. You and I are singularly connected, 
 doubt it not, in the scenes of the unknown world." 
 
 " 0, believe me," cried Septimius, " I grieve for you 
 like a brother ! " 
 
 "I see it, my dear friend," said the young officer; 
 " and though my blood is on your hands, I forgive you 
 freely, if there is anything to forgive. But I am dying, 
 and have a few words to say, which you must hear. 
 You have slain me in fair fight, and my spoils, according 
 to the rules and customs of warfare, belong to the vic- 
 tor. Hang up my sword and fusil over your chimney- 
 place, and tell your children, twenty years hence, how 
 they were won. My purse, keep it or give it to the 
 poor. There is something, here next my heart, which I 
 would fab nave sent to the address which I will give 
 you."
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 37 
 
 Septimius, obeying his directions, took from his breast 
 a miniature that hung round it ; but, on examination, it 
 proved that the bullet had passed directly through it, 
 shattering the ivory, so that the woman's face it repre- 
 sented was quite destroyed. 
 
 " Ah ! that is a pity," said the young man ; and yet 
 Septimius thought that there was something light and 
 contemptuous mingled with the pathos in his tones. 
 " Well, but send it ; cause it to be transmitted, accord- 
 ing to the address." 
 
 He gave Septimius, and made him take down on a tab- 
 let which he had about him, the name of a hall in one of 
 the midland counties of England. 
 
 " Ah, that old place," said he, " with its oaks, and its ^ 
 lawn, and its park, and its Elizabethan gables ! I little 
 thought I should die here, so far away, in this barren 
 Yankee laud. Where will you bury me ? " 
 
 As Septimius hesitated to answer, the young man con- 
 tinued : " I would like to have lain in the little old church 
 at Whituash, which conies up before me now, with its low, 
 gray tower, and the old yew-tree in front, hollow with 
 age, and the village clustering about it, with its thatched 
 houses. I would be loath to lie in one of your Yankee 
 graveyards, for I have a distaste for them, though I 
 love you, my slayer. Bury me here, on this very spot. 
 A soldier lies best where he falls." 
 
 " Here, in secret ? " exclaimed Septimius. 
 
 " Yes ; there is no consecration in your Puritan burial- 
 grounds," said the dying youth, some of that queer nar- 
 rowness of English Churchism coming into his mind. 
 " So bury me here, in my soldier's dress. Ah ! and
 
 38 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 my watch ! I have done with time, and you, perhaps, 
 have a lo,ig lease of it ; so take it, not as spoil, but 
 as my parting gift. And that reminds me of one other 
 thing. Open that pocket-book which you have in your 
 hand." 
 
 Septimius did so, and by the officer's direction took 
 
 from one of its compartments a folded paper, closely 
 
 / written in a crabbed hand ; it was considerably worn in 
 
 the outer folds, but not within. There was also a small 
 
 silver key in the pocket-book. 
 
 " I leave it with you," said the officer ; " it was given 
 me by an uncle, a learned man of science, who intended 
 me great good by what he there wrote. Reap the profit, 
 if you can. Sooth to say, I never read beyond the first 
 lines of the paper." 
 
 Septimius was surprised, or deeply impressed, to see 
 v that through this paper, as well as through the minia- 
 ture, had gone his fatal bullet, straight through the 
 midst ; and some of the young man's blood, saturating 
 his dress, had wet the paper all over. He hardly thought 
 himself likely to derive any good from what it had cost 
 a human life, taken (however uncriminally) by his own 
 hands, to obtain. 
 
 " Is there anything more that I can do for you ? " 
 asked he, with genuine sympathy and sorrow, as he knelt 
 by his fallen foe's side. 
 
 " Nothing, nothing, I believe," said he. " There was 
 one thing I might have confessed ; if there were a holy 
 man here, I might have confessed, and asked his prayers ; 
 for though I have lived few years, it has been long 
 enough to do a great wrong. But I will try to pray in
 
 SEPTIMITJS FELTON. 39 
 
 my secret soul. Turn my face towards the trunk of the 
 tree, for I have taken my last look at the world. There, 
 let me be now." 
 
 Septimius did as the young man requested, and then 
 stood leaning against one of the neighboring pines, watch- 
 ing his victim with a tender concern that made him feel 
 as if the convulsive throes that passed through his frame 
 were felt equally in his own. There was a murmuring 
 from the youth's lips which seemed to Septimius swift, 
 soft, and melancholy, like the voice of a child when it has 
 some naughtiness to confess to its mother at bedtime ; 
 contrite, pleading, yet trusting. So it continued for a 
 few minutes; then there was a sudden start aud struggle, 
 as if he were striving to rise ; his eyes met those of Sep- 
 timius with a wild, troubled gaze, but as the latter caught 
 him in his arms, he was dead. Septimius laid the body 
 softly down on the leaf-strewn earth, and tried, as he had 
 heard was the custom with the dead, to compose the 
 features distorted by the dying agony. He then flung 
 Limself on the ground at a little distance, and gave him- 
 self up to the reflections suggested by the strange occur- 
 rences of the last hour. 
 
 He had taken a human life ; and, however the circum- 
 stances might excuse him, might make the thing even 
 something praiseworthy, and that would be called patri- 
 otic, still, it, was not at once that a fresh country 
 youth could see anything but horror in the blood with 
 which his hand was stained. It seemed so dreadful to 
 have reduced this gay, animated, beautiful being to a 
 lump of dead flesh for the flies to settle upon, aud which 
 iu a few hours would begin to decay; which must be
 
 40 SEPTIMIUS FELTOX. 
 
 put forthwith into the earth, lest it should be a horror 
 to men's eyes ; that delicious beauty for woman to love ; 
 that strength and courage to make him famous among 
 men) a ll C ome to nothing ; all probabilities of life ill 
 one so gifted ; the renown, the position, the pleasures, 
 the profits, the keen ecstatic joy, this never could be 
 made up, all ended quite; for the dark doubt de- 
 scended upon Septimius, that, because of the very fitness 
 that was in this youth to enjoy this world, so much the 
 less chance was there of his being fit for any other 
 world. What could it do for him there, this beautiful 
 grace and elegance of feature, where there was no 
 form, nothing tangible nor visible ? what good that readi- 
 ness and aptness for associating with all created things, 
 doing his part, acting, enjoying, when, under the changed 
 conditions of another state of being, all this adapteduess 
 would fail ? Had he been gifted with permanence ou 
 earth, there could not have been a more admirable crea- 
 ture than this young man ; but as his fate had turned 
 out, he was a mere grub, an illusion, something that 
 nature had held out in mockery, and then withdrawn. 
 A weed might grow from his dust now ; that little spot 
 on the barren hill-top, where he had desired to be 
 buried, would be greener for some years to come, and 
 that was all the difference. Septimius could not get 
 beyond the earthiness ; his feeling was as if, by an act 
 of violence, he had forever cut off a happy human exist- 
 ence. And such was his own love of life and clinging 
 to it, peculiar to dark, sombre natures, and which lighter 
 and gayer ones can never know, that he shuddered at 
 his deed, and at himself, and could with difficulty bear
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 41 
 
 to be alone with the corpse of his victim, trembled at 
 the thought of turning his face towards him. 
 
 Yet lie did so, because he could not endure the imagi- 
 nation that the dead youth was turning his eyes towards 
 him as he lay ; so he came aud stood beside him, looking 
 down into his white, upturned face. But it was won- 
 derful ! What a change had come over it since, only a 
 few moments ago, he looked at that death-contorted 
 countenance ! Now there was a high aud sweet expres- 
 sion upon it, of great joy and surprise, and yet a quie- 
 tude diffused throughout, as if the peace being so very 
 great was what had surprised him. The expression was 
 like a light gleaming and glowing wilhiii him. Septim- 
 ius had often, at a certain space of time after sunset, 
 looking westward, seen a living radiance in the sky, 
 the last light of the dead day, that seemed just the 
 counterpart of this death-light in the young man's face. 
 It was as if the youth were just at the gate of heaven, 
 which, swinging softly open, let the inconceivable glory 
 of the blessed city shine upon his face, and kindle it up 
 with gentle, undisturbing astonishment and purest joy. 
 It was an expression contrived by God's providence to 
 comfort ; to overcome all the dark auguries that the 
 physical ugliness of death inevitably creates, and to 
 prove by the divine glory on the face, that the ugli- 
 ness is a delusion. It was as if the dead man himself 
 showed his face out of the sky, with heaven's blessing 
 on it, and bade the afflicted be of good cheer, and believe 
 in immortality. 
 
 Septimius remembered the young man's injunctions 
 to bury him there, on the hill, without uncovering the
 
 42 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 body ; and though it seemed a sin and shame to cover 
 up that beautiful body with eartli of the grave, and give 
 it to the worm, yet he resolved to obey. 
 
 Be it confessed that, beautiful as the dead form 
 looked, and guiltless as Septimius must be held in caus- 
 ing his death, still he felt as if he should be eased when 
 it was under the ground. He hastened down to the 
 house, and brought up a shovel and a pickaxe, and began 
 his unwonted task of grave-digging, delving earnestly a 
 deep pit, sometimes pausing in his toil, while the sweat- 
 drops poured from him, to look at the beautiful clay that 
 was to occupy it. Sometimes he paused, too, to listen 
 to the shots that pealed in the far distance, towards the 
 east, whither the battle had long since rolled out of 
 reach and almost out of hearing. It seemed to have 
 gathered about itself the whole life of the land, attend- 
 ing it along its bloody course in a struggling throng of 
 shouting, shooting men, so still and solitary was every- 
 thing left behind it. It seemed the very midland solitude 
 of the world where Septimius was delving at the grave. 
 He and his dead were alone together, and he was going 
 to put the body under the sod, and be quite alone. 
 
 The grave was now deep, and Septimius was stooping 
 down into its depths among dirt and pebbles, levelling 
 off the bottom, which he considered to be profound 
 enough to hide the young man's mystery forever, when 
 a voice spoke above him ; a solemn, quiet voice, which 
 he knew well. 
 
 " Septimius ! what are you doing here ? " 
 
 He looked up and saw the minister. 
 
 "I have slain a man in fair fight," answered he, "and
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 43 
 
 am about to bury him as he requested. I am glad you 
 are come. You, reverend sir, can fitly say a prayer at 
 liis obsequies. I am glad for my own sake; for it is 
 very lonely and terrible to be here." 
 
 He climbed out of the grave, and, in reply to the 
 minister's inquiries, communicated to him the events of 
 the morning, and the youth's strange wish to be buried 
 here, without having his remains subjected to the hands 
 of those who would prepare it for the grave. The min- 
 ister hesitated. 
 
 "At an ordinary time," said he, "such a singular 
 request would of course have to be refused. Your own 
 safety, the good and wise rules that make it necessary 
 that all things relating to death and burial should bb 
 done publicly and in order, would forbid it." 
 
 " Yes," replied Septimius ; " but, it may be v scores 
 of men will fall to-day, and be flung into hasty graves 
 without funeral rites; without its ever being Known, per. 
 haps, what mother has lost her son. I cannot but think 
 that I ought to perform the dying request of the youth 
 whom I have slain. He trusted in me not to uncover his 
 body myself, nor to betray it to the hands of others." 
 
 " A singular request," said the good minister, gazing 
 with deep interest at the beautiful dead face, and grace, 
 ful, slender, manly figure. " What could have been its 
 motive ? But no matter. I think, Septimius, that you 
 are bound to obey his request ; indeed, having promised 
 him, nothing short of an impossibility should prevent 
 your keeping your faith. Let us lose no time, then." 
 
 "With few but deeply solemn rites the young stranger 
 was laid by the minister and the youth who slew him in
 
 44 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 bis grave. A prayer was made, and then Septimius, 
 gathering some branches and twigs, spread them over 
 the face that was turned upward from the bottom of the 
 pit, into which the sun gleamed downward, throwing its 
 rays so as almost to touch it. The twigs partially hid 
 it, but still its white shone through. Then the minister 
 threw a handful of earth upon it, and, accustomed as 
 he was to burials, tears fell from his eyes along with the 
 mould. 
 
 " It is sad," said he, " this poor young man, coming 
 from opulence, no doubt, a dear English home, to die 
 here tor no end, one of the first-fruits of a bloody war, 
 so much privately sacrificed. But let him rest, Sep- 
 timius. 1 am sorry that he tell by your hand, though it 
 involves no shadow of a crime. But death is a thing 
 too serious uot to melt into the nature of a man like 
 you." 
 
 " It does not weigh upon my conscience, I think," said 
 Septimius ; " though I cannot but feel sorrow, and wish 
 my hand were as clean as yesterday. It is, indeed, 
 a dreadful thing 10 take human life." 
 
 " It is a most serious thing," replied the minister ; " but 
 perhaps we are apt to over-estimate the importance of 
 death at any particular moment. If the question were 
 whether to die or to live forever, then, indeed, scarcely 
 anything should justify the putting a fellow-creature to 
 death. But since it only shortens his earthly life, and 
 brings a little forward a change which, since God per- 
 mits it, is, we may conclude, as fit to take place then as 
 at any other time, it alters the case. I often think that 
 there are many things that occur to us in our daily life,
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 45 
 
 many unknown crises, that are more important to us 
 than this mysterious circumstance of death, which we 
 deem the most important of all. All we uuderstand of 
 it is, that it takes the dead person away from our knowl- 
 edge of him, which, while we live with him, is so very 
 scanty." 
 
 " You estimate at nothing, it seems, his earthly life, 
 which might have been so happy." 
 
 "At next to nothing," said the minister; "since, as 
 I have observed, it must, at any rate, have closed so 
 soon." 
 
 Septimius thought of what the young man, in his 
 last moments, had said of his prospect or opportunity 
 of living a life of interminable length, and which pros- 
 pect he had bequeathed to himself. But of this he did 
 not speak to the minister, being, indeed, ashamed to 
 have it supposed that he would put any serious weight 
 on such a bequest, although it might be that the dark 
 enterprise of his nature had secretly seized upon this 
 idea, and, though yet sane enough to be influenced by 
 a fear of ridicule, was busy incorporating it with his 
 thoughts. 
 
 So Septimius smoothed down the young stranger's 
 earthy bed, and returned to his home, where he hung 
 up the sword over the mantel-piece in his study, and 
 hung the gold watch, too, on a nail, the first time he 
 had ever had possession of such a thing. Nor did he 
 now feel altogether at ease in his mind about keeping 
 it, the time-measurer of one whose mortal life he had 
 cut off. A splendid watch it was, round as a turnip. 
 There seems to be a natural right in one who has slain
 
 46 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 a man to step into his vacant place in all respects ; and 
 from the beginning of man's dealings with man this right 
 has been practically recognized, whether among warriors 
 or robbers, as paramount to every other. Yet Septimius 
 could not feel easy in availing himself of this right. He 
 therefore resolved to keep the watch, and even the sword 
 and fusil, which were less questionable spoils of war, 
 only till he should be able to restore them to some 
 representative of the young officer. The contents of the 
 purse, in accordance with the request of the dying youth, 
 he would expend in relieving the necessities of those 
 whom the war (now broken out, and of which no one 
 could see the limit) might put in need of it. The min- 
 iature, with its broken and shattered face, that had so 
 vainly interposed itself between its wearer and death, had 
 been sent to its address. 
 
 But as to the mysterious document, the written paper, 
 that he had laid aside without unfolding it, but with a 
 care that betokened more interest in it than in either 
 gold or weapon, or even in the golden representative of 
 that earthly time on which he set so high a value. 
 There was something tremulous in his touch of it; it 
 seemed as if he were afraid of it by the mode in which 
 he hid it away, and secured himself from it, as it were. 
 
 This done, the air of the room, the low-ceilinged east- 
 ern room where he studied and thought, became too 
 close for him, and he hastened out ; for he was full of 
 the unshaped sense of all that had befallen, and the per- 
 ception of the great public event of a broken-out war 
 was intermixed with that of what he had done personally 
 in the great struggle that was beginning. He lo'nged,
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 47 
 
 too, to know what was the news of the battle that had 
 gone rolling onward along the hitherto peaceful country 
 road, converting everywhere (this demon of war, we 
 mean), with one blast of its red sulphurous breath, the 
 peaceful husbandman to a soldier thirsting for blood. 
 He turned his steps, therefore, towards the village, think- 
 ing it probable that news must have arrived either of 
 defeat or victory, from messengers or fliers, to cheer or 
 sadden the old men, the women, and the children, who 
 alone perhaps remained there. 
 
 But Septimius did not get to the village. As he 
 passed along by the cottage that has been already de- 
 scribed, Rose Garfield was standing at the door, peering 
 anxiously forth to know what was the issue of the con- 
 flict, as it has been woman's fate to do from the begin- 
 ning of the world, and is so still. Seeing Septimius, she 
 forgot the restraint that she had hitherto kept herself 
 under, and, flying at him like a bird, she cried out, " Sep- 
 timius, dear Septimius, where have you been ? What 
 news do you bring ? You look as if you had seen some 
 strange and dreadful thing." 
 
 " Ah, is it so ? Does my face tell such stories ? " ex- 
 claimed the young man. "I did not mean it should. 
 Yes, Rose, I have seen and done such things as change a 
 man in a moment." 
 
 " Then you have been in this terrible fight," said Rose. 
 
 " Yes, Rose, I have had ' my part in it," answered 
 Septimius. 
 
 He was on the point of relieving his overburdened 
 mind by telling her what had happened no farther off 
 than on the hill above them; but, seeing her excitement,
 
 48 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 and recollecting her own momentary interview with the 
 young officer, and the forced intimacy and link that had 
 been established between them by the kiss, he feared to 
 agitate her further by telling her that that gay and beau- 
 tiful young man had since been slain, and deposited in a 
 bloody grave by his hands. And yet the recollection of 
 that kiss caused a thrill of vengeful joy at the thought 
 that the perpetrator had since expiated his offence witli 
 his life, and that it was himself that did it, so deeply was 
 Septimius's Indian nature of revenge and blood incor- 
 porated with that of more peaceful forefathers, although 
 Septimius had grace enough to chide down that bloody 
 spirit, feeling that it made him, not a patriot, but a mur- 
 derer. 
 
 "Ah," said Rose, shuddering, "it is awful when we 
 must kill one another ! And who knows where it will 
 end?" 
 
 "With me it will end here, Rose," said Septimius. 
 " It may be lawful for any man, even if he have devoted 
 himself to God, or however peaceful his pursuits, to fight 
 to the death when the enemy's step is on the soil of his 
 home; but only for that perilous juncture, which passed, 
 he should return to his own way of peace. I have done 
 a terrible thing for once, dear Rose, one that might well 
 trace a dark line through all my future life ; but hence- 
 forth I cannot think it my duty to pursue any further a 
 work for which my studies and my nature unfit me." 
 
 " O no ! no ! " said Rose ; " never ! and you a 
 minister, or soon to be one. There must be some 
 peacemakers left in the world, or everything will turn to 
 blood and confusion; for even women grow dreadfully
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 49 
 
 fierce in these times. My old grandmother laments her 
 bedriddenness, because, she says, she cannot go to cheer 
 ou the people against the enemy. But she remembers 
 the old times of the Indian wars, when the women were 
 as much in danger of death as the men, and so were 
 almost as fierce as they, and killed men sometimes with 
 their own hands. But women, nowadays, ought to be 
 gentler ; let the men be fierce, if they must, except you, 
 and such as you, Septimius." 
 
 "Ah, dear Rose," said Septimius, "I have not the 
 kind and sweet impulses that you speak of. I need 
 something to soften and warm my cold, hard life ; some- 
 thing to make me feel how dreadful this time of warfare 
 is. I need you, dear Rose, who are all kindness of heart 
 and mercy." 
 
 And here Septimius, hurried away by I know not 
 what excitement of the time, the disturbed state of 
 the country, his own ebullition of passion, the deed he 
 had done, the desire to press one human being close to 
 his life, because he had shed the blood of another, his 
 half-formed purposes, his shapeless impulses; in short, 
 being affected by the whole stir of his nature, spoke 
 to Rose of love, and with an energy that, indeed, there 
 was no resisting when once it broke bounds. And Rose, 
 whose maiden thoughts, to say the truth, had long dwelt 
 upon this young man, admiring him for a certain dark 
 beauty, knowing him familiarly from childhood, and yet 
 having the sense, that is so bewitching, of remoteness, 
 intermixed with intimacy, because he was so unlike her- 
 self; having a woman's respect for scholarship, her im- 
 agination the more impressed by all in him that she could
 
 50 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 not comprehend, Rose yielded to his impetuous suit, 
 and gave him the troth that he requested. And yet it 
 was with a sort of reluctance and drawing back; her 
 whole nature, her secretest heart, her deepest woman- 
 hood, perhaps, did not consent. There was something 
 in Septimius, in his wild, mixed nature, the monstrous- 
 ness that had grown out of his hybrid race, the black 
 infusions, too, which melancholic men had left there, 
 the devilishness that had been symbolized in the popu- 
 lar regard about his family, that made her shiver, even 
 while she came the closer to him for that very dread. 
 And when he gave her the kiss of betrothment her lips 
 grew white. If it had not been in the day of turmoil, 
 if he had asked her in any quiet time, when Rose's heart 
 was in its natural mood, it may well be that, with tears 
 and pity for him, and half-pity for herself, Rose would 
 have told Septimius that she did not think she could 
 love him well enough to be his wife. 
 
 And how was it with Septimius? Well; there was 
 a singular correspondence in his feelings to those of 
 Rose Garfield. At first, carried away by a passion that 
 seized him all unawares, and seemed to develop itself all 
 in a moment, he felt, and so spoke to Rose, so pleaded 
 his suit, as if his whole earthly happiness depended on 
 her consent to be his bride. It seemed to him that her 
 love would be the sunshine in the gloomy dungeon of 
 his life. But when her bashful, downcast, tremulous 
 consent was given, then immediately came a strange 
 misgiving into his mind. He felt as if he had taken to 
 himself something good and beautiful doubtless in itself, 
 but which might be the exchange for one more suited
 
 SEPTIMIUS TEUTON. 51 
 
 to him, that he must now give op. The intellect, which 
 was the prominent point in Septimius, stirred and heaved, 
 crying out vaguely that its own claims, perhaps, were 
 ignored in this contract. Septimius had perhaps no 
 right to love at all; if he did, it should have been a 
 woman of another make, who could be his intellectual 
 companion and helper. And then, perchance, per- 
 chance, there was destined for him some high, lonely 
 path, in which, to make any progress, to come to any 
 end, he must walk unburdened by the affections. Such 
 thoughts as these depressed and chilled (as many men 
 have found them, or similar ones, to do) the moment of 
 success that should have been the most exulting in the 
 world. And so, in the kiss which these two lovers had 
 exchanged there was, after all, something that repelled ; 
 and when they parted they wondered at their strange 
 states of mind, but would not acknowledge that they 
 had done a thing that ought not to have been done. 
 Nothing is surer, however, than that, if we suffer our- 
 selves to be drawn into too close proximity with people, 
 if we over-estimate the degree of our proper tendency 
 towards them, or theirs towards us, a reaction is sure to 
 Mow. 
 
 Septimius quitted Rose, and resumed his walk towards 
 the village. But now it was near sunset, and there be- 
 gan to be straggling passengers along the road, some of 
 whom came slowly, as if they had received hurts; all 
 seemed wearied. Among them one form appeared which 
 Rose soon found that she recognized. It was Robert 
 Hagburn, with a shattered firelock in his hand, broken
 
 52, SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 at the butt, and his left arm bound with a fragment of 
 his shirt, and suspended in a handkerchief; and he 
 walked weariedly, but brightened up at sight of Rose, 
 as if ashamed to let her see how exhausted and dispirited 
 he was. Perhaps he expected a smile, at least a more 
 earnest reception than he met; for Rose, with the re- 
 straint of what had recently passed drawing her back, 
 merely went gravely a few steps to meet him, and said, 
 "Robert, how tired and pale you look! Are you 
 hurt?" 
 
 " It is of no consequence," replied Robert Hagburn ; 
 " a scratch on my left arm from an officer's sword, with 
 whose head my gunstock made instant acquaintance. 
 It is no matter, Rose ; you do not care for it, nor do I 
 either." 
 
 " How can you say so, Robert ? " she replied. But 
 without more greeting he passed her, and went into his 
 own house, where, flinging himself into a chair, he re- 
 mained in that despondency that men generally feel after 
 a fight, even if a successful one. 
 
 Septimius, the next day, lost no time in writing a 
 letter to the direction given him by the young officer, 
 conveying a brief account of the latter's death and burial, 
 and a signification that he held in readiness to give up 
 certain articles of property, at any future time, to his 
 representatives, mentioning also the amount of money 
 contained in the purse, and his intention, in compliance 
 with the verbal will of the deceased, to expend it in 
 alleviating the wants of prisoners. Having so done, he 
 went up on the hill to look at the grave, and satisfy him- 
 self that the scene there had not been a dream ; a point
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 53 
 
 which he was- inclined to question, in spite of the tangible 
 evidence of the sword and watch, which still hung over 
 the mantel-piece. There was the little mound, however, 
 looking so iiicontrovertibly a grave, that it seemed to him 
 as if all the world must see it, and wonder at the fact of 
 its being there, and spend their wits in conjecturing who 
 slept within ; and, indeed, it seemed to give the affair a 
 questionable character, this secret burial, and he wondered 
 and wondered why the young man had been so earnest 
 about it. Well ; there was the grave ; and, moreover, 
 on the leafy earth, where the dying youth had lain, there 
 were traces of blood, which no rain had yet washed 
 away. Septimius wondered at the easiness with which 
 he acquiesced in this deed'; in fact,hfc-fclt in a slight 
 degree the effects of that taste of blood, which makes 
 the slaying of men, like any other abuse, sometimes } 
 become a passion. Perhaps it was his Indian trait 
 stirring in him again; at any rate, it is not delightful 
 to observe how readily man Becomes a blood-shedding 
 animal. 
 
 Looking down from the hill-top, he saw the little 
 dwelling of Rose Garfield, and caught a glimpse of the 
 girl herself, passing the windows or the door, about her 
 household duties, and listened to hear the singing which 
 usually broke out of her. But Rose, for some reason or 
 other, did not warble as usual this morning. She trod 
 about silently, and somehow or other she was translated 
 out of the ideality in which Septimius .usually enveloped 
 her, and looked little more than a New England girl, 
 very pretty indeed, but not enough so perhaps to engross 
 a man's life and higher purposes into her own narrow
 
 54. SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 circle ; so, at least, Septimius thought. Looking a little 
 farther, down iuto the green recess where stood Robert 
 Hagburn's house, he saw that young man, looking 
 very pale, with his arm in a sling sitting listlessly on a 
 half-chopped log of wood which was not likely soon to be 
 severed by Robert's axe. Like other lovers, Septimius 
 had not failed to be aware that Robert Hagburn was sen- 
 sible to Rose Garfield's attractions ; and now, as he looked 
 down on them both from his elevated position, he won- 
 dered if it would not have been better for Rose's happi- 
 ness if her thoughts and virgin fancies had settled on 
 that frank, cheerful, able, wholesome young man, instead 
 of on himself, who met her on so few points; and, iu 
 relation to whom, there was perhaps a plant that had its 
 root in the grave, that would entwine itself around his 
 whole life, overshadowing it with dark, rich foliage and 
 fruit that he alone could feast upon. 
 
 For the sombre imagination of Septimius, though he 
 kept it as much as possible away from the subject, still 
 kept hinting and whispering, still coming back to the 
 point, still secretly suggesting that the event of yesterday 
 was to have momentous consequences upon his fate. 
 
 He had not yet looked at the paper which the young 
 man bequeathed to him ; he had laid it away unopened ; 
 not that he felt little interest in it, but, on the contrary, 
 because he looked for some blaze of light which had been 
 reserved for him alone. The young officer had been only 
 the bearer of it to him, and he had come hither to die by 
 his hand, because that was the readiest way by which he 
 could deliver his message. How else, in the infinite 
 chances of human affairs, could the document have found
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 55 
 
 its way to its destined possessor ? Thus mused Septim- 
 ius, pacing to and fro on the level edge of his hill-top, 
 apart from the world, looking down occasionally into it, 
 and seeing its love and interest away from him ; while 
 Hose, it might be looking upward, saw occasionally his 
 passing figure, and trembled at the nearness and remote- 
 ness that existed between them ; and Robert Hagbura 
 looked too, and wondered what manner of man it was 
 who, having won Rose Garfield (for his instinct told him 
 this was so), could keep that distance between her and 
 him, thinking remote thoughts. 
 
 Yes ; there was Septimius, treading a path of his own 
 on the hill-top ; his feet began only that morning to wear 
 it in his walking to and fro, sheltered from the lower 
 world, except in occasional glimpses, by the birches and 
 locusts that threw up their foliage from the hillside. But 
 many a year thereafter he continued to tread that path, 
 till it was worn deep with his footsteps and trodden 
 down hard ; and it was believed by some of his supersti- 
 tious neighbors that the grass and little shrubs shrank 
 away from his path, and made it wider on that account; 
 because there was something in the broodings that urged 
 him to and fro along the path alien to nature and its pro- 
 ductions. There was another opinion, too, that an invisi- 
 ble fiend, one of his relatives by blood, walked side by 
 side with him, and so made the pathway wider than his 
 single footsteps could have made it. But all this was 
 idle, and was, indeed, only the foolish babble that hovers 
 like a mist about men who withdraw themselves from the 
 throng, and involve themselves in unintelligible pursuits 
 and interests of their own. For the present, the small
 
 56 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 world, which alone knew of him, considered Septimius as 
 a studious young man, who was fitting for the ministry, 
 and was likely enough to do credit to the ministerial 
 blood that he drew from his ancestors, in spite of the 
 wild stream that the Indian priest had contributed ; and 
 perhaps none the worse, as a clergyman, for having an 
 instinctive sense of the uature of the Devil from his tradi- 
 tionary claims to partake of his blood. But what strange 
 interest there is in tracing out the first steps by which we 
 enter on a career that influences our life ; and this deep- 
 worn pathway on the hill-top, passing and repassiug by a 
 grave, seemed to symbolize it in Septimius's case. 
 
 I suppose the morbidness of Septimius's disposition 
 was excited by the circumstances which had put the paper 
 into his possession. Had he received it by post, it might 
 not have impressed him ; he might possibly have looked 
 over it with ridicule, and tossed it aside. But he had 
 taken it from a dying man, and he felt '-hat his fate was 
 in it ; and truly it turned out to be so. He waited for a 
 fit opportunity to opej^it and read it ; he put it off as if 
 he cared nothing about it ; but perhaps it was because he 
 cared so much. Whenever he had a happy time with 
 Rose (and, moody as Septimius was, such happy moments 
 came), he felt that then was not the time to look into the- 
 paper, it was not to be read in a happy mood. 
 
 Once he asked Rose to walk with him on the hill- 
 top. 
 
 "Why, what a path you have worn here, Septimius ! " 
 said the girl. " You walk miles and miles on this one 
 spot, and get no farther on than when you started. That 
 is strange walking ! "
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 57 
 
 " I don't know, Rose ; I sometimes thiuk I get a 
 little omvard. But it is sweeter yes, much sweeter, 
 I fiud to have you walking on this path here than to 
 be treading it alone." 
 
 "I am glad of that," said Rose; "for sometimes, 
 when I look up here, and see you through the branches, 
 with your head bent down and your hands clasped 
 behind you, treading, treading, treading, always in one 
 way, I wonder whether I am at all in your mind. I 
 don't think, Septiniius," added she, looking up in his face 
 and smiling, "that ever a girl had just such a young 
 man for a lover." 
 
 " No young man ever had such a girl, I am sure," 
 said Septimius ; " so sweet, so good for him, so prolific 
 of good influences ! " 
 
 " Ah, it makes me thiuk well of myself to bring such 
 a smile into your face ! But, Septimius, what is this 
 little hillock here so close to our path ? Have you 
 heaped it up here for a seat ? Shall we sit down upon it 
 for an instant ? for it makes me more tired to walk 
 backward and forward on one path thau to go straight 
 forward a much longer distance." 
 
 " Well ; but we will not sit down on this hillock," 
 said Septimius, drawing her away from it. " Farther out 
 this way, if you please, Rose, where we shall have a better 
 view over the wide plain, the valley, and the long, tame 
 ridge of hills on the other side, shutting it in like human 
 life. It is a landscape that never tires, though it has 
 nothing striking about it ; and I am glad that there are 
 no great hills to be thrusting themselves into my 
 thoughts, and crowding out better things. It might be 
 3*
 
 58 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 desirable, in some states of mind, to have a glimpse of 
 water, to have the lake that once must have covered 
 this green valley, because water reflects the sky, and 
 so is like religion in life, the spiritual element." 
 
 " There is the brook running through it, though we do 
 not see it," replied Rose ; " a torpid little brook, to be 
 sure ; but, as you say, it has heaven in its bosom, like 
 Walden Pond, or any wider one." 
 
 As they sat together on the hill-top, they could look 
 down into Robert Hagburn's enclosure, and they saw 
 him, with his arm now relieved from the sling, walking 
 about, in a very erect manner, with a middle-aged man 
 by his side, to whom he seemed to be talking and explain- 
 ing some matter. Even at that distance Septimius could 
 see that the rustic stoop and uncouthness had somehow 
 fallen away from Robert, and that he seemed devel- 
 oped. 
 
 " What has come to Robert Hagburn ? " said he. 
 " He looks like another man than the lout I knew a few 
 weeks ago." 
 
 " Nothing," said Rose Garfield, " except what comes 
 to a good many young men nowadays. He has enlisted, 
 and is going to the war. It is a pity for his mother." 
 
 " A great pity," said Septimius. " Mothers are greatly 
 to be pitied all over the country just now, and there are 
 some even more to be pitied than the mothers, though 
 many of them do not know or suspect anything about 
 their cause of grief at present." 
 
 " Of whom do you speak ? " asked Rose. 
 
 "I mean those many good and sweet young girls," 
 said Septimius, " who would have been happy wives to
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 59 
 
 flie thousands of young men who now, like Robert Hag- 
 burn, are going to the war. Those young men many 
 of them at least will sicken and die in camp, or be shot 
 down, or struck through with bayonets on battle-fields, 
 and turn to dust and bones ; while the girls that would 
 have loved them, and made happy firesides for them, will 
 pine and wither, and tread along many sour and discon- 
 tented years, and at last go out of life without knowing 
 what life is. So you see, Rose, every shot that takes ef- 
 fect kills two at least, or kills one and worse than kills 
 the other." 
 
 " No woman will live single on account of poor Robert 
 Hagbuni being shot," said Rose, with a change of tone ; 
 " for he would never be married were he to stay at home 
 and plough the field." 
 
 " How can you tell that, Rose ? " asked Septimius. 
 
 Rose did not tell how she came to know so much about 
 Robert Hagburn's matrimonial purposes ; but after this 
 little talk it appeared as if something had risen up be- 
 tween them, a sort of mist, a medium, in which their 
 intimacy was not increased ; for the flow and interchange 
 of sentiment was balked, and they took only one or two 
 turns in silence along Septimius's trodden path. I don't 
 know exactly what it was ; but there are cases in which 
 it is inscrutably revealed to persons that they have made 
 a mistake in what is of the highest concern to them ; 
 and this truth often comes in the shape of a vague de- 
 pression of the spirit, like a vapor settling down on a 
 landscape; a misgiving, coming and going perhaps, a 
 lack of perfect certainty. Whatever it was, Rose and 
 Septimius had no more tender and playful words that
 
 60 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 day ; and Rose soon went to look after her grandmother, 
 and Septimius went and shut himself up in his study, 
 after making an arrangement to meet Rose the next 
 day. 
 
 Septimius shut himself up, and drew forth the docu- 
 ment which the young officer, with that singular smile on 
 his dying face, had bequeathed to him as the reward of 
 his death. It was in a covering of folded parchment, 
 right through which, as aforesaid, was a bullet-hole and 
 some stains of blood. Septimius unrolled the parchment 
 cover, and found inside a manuscript, closely written in 
 a crabbed hand ; so crabbed, indeed, that Septimius could 
 not at first read a word of it, nor even satisfy himself in. 
 what language it was written. There seemed to be Latin 
 words, and some interspersed ones in Greek characters, 
 and here and there he could doubtfully read an English 
 sentence ; but, on the whole, it was an unintelligible 
 mass, conveying somehow an idea that it was the fruit 
 of vast labor and erudition, emanating from a mind very 
 full of books, and grinding and pressing down the great 
 accumulation of grapes that it had gathered from so 
 many vineyards, and squeezing out rich viscid juices, 
 potent wine, with which the reader might get drunk. 
 Some of it, moreover, seemed, for the further mystifica- 
 tion of the officer, to be written in cipher ; a needless 
 precaution, it might seem, when the writer's natural chi- 
 rography was so full of puzzle and bewilderment. 
 
 Septimius looked at this strange manuscript, and it 
 shook in his hands as he held it before his eyes, so 
 great was his excitement. Probably, doubtless, it was
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 61 
 
 in a great measure owing to the way in which it came 
 to him, with such circumstances of tragedy and mys- 
 tery; as if so secret and so important was it it 
 could not be within the knowledge of two persons at 
 once, and therefore it was necessary that one should die 
 in the act of transmitting it to the hand of another, 
 the destined possessor, inheritor, profiter by it. By the 
 bloody hand, as all the great possessions in this world 
 have been gained and inherited, he had succeeded to 
 the legacy, the richest that mortal man ever could re- 
 ceive. He pored over the inscrutable sentences, and 
 wondered, when he should succeed in reading one, if it 
 might summon up a subject-fiend, appearing with thun- 
 der and devilish demonstrations. And by what other 
 strange chance had the document come into the hand 
 of him who alone was fit to receive it ? It seemed to 
 Septimius, in his enthusiastic egotism, as if the whole 
 chain of events had been arranged purposely for this 
 end; a difference had come between two kindred peo- 
 ples; a -war had broken out; a young officer, with the 
 traditions of an old family represented in his line, had 
 marched, and had met with a peaceful student, who had 
 been incited from high and noble motives to take his 
 life ; then came a strange, brief intimacy, in which his 
 victim made the slayer his heir. All these chances, as 
 they seemed, all these interferences of Providence, as 
 they doubtless were, had been necessary in order to put 
 this manuscript into the hands of Septimius, who now 
 pored over it, and could not with certainty read one 
 word! 
 
 But this did not trouble him, except for the momen-
 
 62 SEPTIMITJS FELTON. 
 
 tary delay. Because he felt well assured that the strong, 
 concentrated study that he would bring to it would 
 remove all difficulties, as the rays of a lens melt stones ; 
 as the telescope pierces through densest light of stars, 
 and resolves them into their individual brilliancies. He 
 could afford to spend years upon it if it were necessary ; 
 but earnestness and application should do quickly the 
 work of years. 
 
 Amid these musings he was interrupted by his Aunt 
 Keziah ; though generally observant enough of her 
 nephew's studies, and feeling a sanctity in them, both 
 because of his intending to be a minister and because she 
 had a great reverence for learning, even if heathenish, 
 this good old lady summoned Septimius somewhat per- 
 emptorily to chop wood for her domestic purposes. 
 How strange it is, the way in which we are summoned 
 from all high purposes by these little homely necessities ; 
 all symbolizing the great fact that the earthly part of us, 
 with its demands, takes up the greater portion of all our 
 available force. So Septimius, grumbling and groaning, 
 went to the wood-shed and exercised himself for an hour 
 as the old lady requested ; and it was only by instinct 
 that he worked, hardly conscious what he was doing. 
 The whole of passing life seemed impertinent ; or if, for 
 an instant, it seemed otherwise, then his lonely specula- 
 tions and plans seemed to become impalpable, and to 
 have only the consistency of vapor, which his utmost 
 concentration succeeded no further than to make into i lie 
 likeness of absurd faces, mopping, mowing, and laughing 
 at him. 
 
 But that sentence of mystic meaning shone out before
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 63 
 
 him like a transparency, illuminated in the darkness of 
 his mind ; he determined to take it for his motto until he 
 should be victorious in his quest. When he took his 
 candle, to retire apparently to bed, he again drew forth 
 the manuscript, and, sitting down by the dim light, tried 
 vainly to read it ; but he could not as yet settle himself 
 to concentrated and regular effort ; he kept turning the 
 leaves of the manuscript, in the hope that some other 
 illuminated sentence might gleam out upon him, as the 
 first had done, and shed a light on the context around it ; 
 and that then another would be discovered, with similar 
 effect, until the whole document would thus be illumina- 
 ted with separate stars of light, converging and concen- 
 trating in one radiance that should make the whole visi- 
 ble. But such was his bad fortune, not another word of 
 the manuscript was he able to read that whole evening ; 
 and, moreover, while he had still an inch of candle left, 
 Aunt Keziah, in her nightcap, as witch-like a figure 
 as ever went to a wizard meeting in the forest with Sep- 
 timius's ancestor, appeared at the door of the room, 
 aroused from her bed, and shaking her finger at him. 
 
 " Septimius," said she, " you keep me awake, and you 
 will ruin your eyes, and turn your head, if you study till 
 midnight in this manner. You '11 never live to be a min- 
 ister, if this is the way you go on." 
 
 " Well, well, Aunt Keziah," said Septimius, covering 
 his manuscript with a book, " I am just going to bed 
 now." 
 
 "Good night, then," said the old woman ; "and God 
 bless your labors." 
 
 Strangely enough, a glance at the manuscript, as he
 
 64 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 hid it from the old woman, had seemed to Septimius to 
 reveal another sentence, of which he * had imperfectly 
 caught the purport ; and when she had gone, he in vain 
 sought the place, and vainly, too, endeavored to recall 
 the meaning of what he had read. Doubtless his fancy 
 exaggerated the importance of the sentence, and he felt 
 as if it might have vanished from the book forever. In 
 fact, the unfortunate young man, excited and tossed to 
 and fro by a variety of unusual impulses, was got into a 
 bad way, and was likely enough to go mad, unless the 
 balancing portion of his mind proved to be of greater vol- 
 ume and effect than as yet appeared to be the case. 
 
 The next morning he was up, bright and early, poring 
 over the manuscript with the sharpened wits of the new 
 day, peering into its night, into its old, blurred, forgotten 
 dream ; and, indeed, he had been dreaming about it, and 
 was fully possessed with the idea that, in his dream, he 
 had taken up the inscrutable document, and read it off as 
 glibly as he would the page of a modern drama, in a 
 continual rapture with the deep truth that it made clear 
 to his comprehension, and the lucid way in which it 
 evolved the mode in which man might be restored to his 
 originally undying state. So strong was the impression, 
 that when he unfolded the manuscript, it was with almost 
 the belief that the crabbed old handwriting would be plain 
 to him. Such did not prove to be the case, however ; so 
 far from it, that poor Septimius in vain turned over the 
 yellow pages in quest of the one sentence which he 
 had been able, or fancied he had been able, to read 
 yesterday. The illumination that had brought it out wa
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 65 
 
 now faded, and all was a blur, an inscrutableness, a scrawl 
 of unintelligible characters alike. So much did this affect 
 him, that he had almost a mind to tear it into a thou- 
 sand fragments, and scatter it out of the window to the 
 west -wind, that was then blowing past the house ; and if, 
 in that summer season, there had been a fire on the 
 hearth, it is possible that easy realization of a destructive 
 impulse might have incited him to fling the accursed 
 scrawl into the hottest of the flames, and thus returned it 
 to the Devil, who, he suspected, was the original author 
 of it. Had he done so, what strange and gloomy pas- 
 sages would I have been spared the pain of relating ! 
 How different would have been the life of Septimius, 
 a thoughtful preacher of God's word, taking severe but 
 conscientious views of man's state and relations, a heavy- 
 browed walker and worker on earth, and, finally, a slum- 
 berer in an honored grave, with an epitaph bearing testi- 
 mony to his great usefulness in his generation. 
 
 But, in the mean time, here was the troublesome day 
 passing over him, and pestering, bewildering, and tripping 
 him up with its mere sublunary troubles, as the days 
 will all of us the moment we try to do anything that we 
 flatter ourselves is of a little more importance than others 
 are doing. Aunt Keziah tormented him a great while 
 about the rich field, just across the road, in front of the 
 house, which Septimius had neglected the cultivation of, 
 unwilling to spare the time to plough, to plant, to hoe it 
 himself, but hired a lazy lout of the village, when lie 
 might just as well have employed and paid wages to the 
 scarecrow which Aunt Keziah dressed out in ancient habili- 
 ments, and set up in the midst of the corn. Then came
 
 66 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 an old codger from the village, talking to Septimius about 
 the war, a theme of which he was weary : telling the 
 rumor of skirmishes that the next day would prove to be 
 false, of battles that were immediately to take place, of 
 encounters with the enemy in which our side showed the 
 valor of twenty-fold heroes, but had to retreat ; babbling 
 about shells and mortars, battalions, manoeuvres, angles, 
 fascines, and other items of military art; for war had 
 filled the whole brain of the people, and enveloped the 
 whole thought of man in a mist of gunpowder. 
 
 In this way, sitting on his doorstep, or in the very 
 study, haunted by such speculations, this wretched old 
 man would waste the better part of a summer after- 
 noon, while Septimius listened, returning abstracted 
 monosyllables, answering amiss, and wishing his per- 
 secutor jammed into one of the cannons he talked about, 
 and fired off, to end his interminable babble in one roar ; 
 [talking] of great officers coming from France and other 
 countries ; of overwhelming forces from England, to put 
 an end to the war at once ; of the unlikelihood that it 
 ever should be ended; of its hopelessness; of its cer- 
 tainty of a good and speedy end. 
 
 Then came limping along the lane a disabled soldier, 
 begging his way home from the field, which, a little while 
 ago, he had sought in the full vigor of rustic health he 
 was never to know again ; with whom Septimius had to 
 talk, and relieve his wants as far as he could (though not 
 from the poor young officer's deposit of English gold), 
 and send him on his way. 
 
 Then came the minister, to talk with his former pupil, 
 about whom he had latterly had much meditation, not
 
 8EPTIMIUS FELTON. 67 
 
 understanding what mood had taken possession of him ; 
 for the minister was a man of insight, and from conver- 
 sations witli Scptimius, as searching as he knew how to 
 make them, he had begun to doubt whethe/ he were 
 sufficiently sound in faith to adopt the clerical persua- 
 sion. Not that he supposed him to be anything like 
 a confirmed unbeliever; but he thought it probable that 
 these doubts, these strange, dark, disheartening sugges- 
 tions of the Devil, that so surely infect certain tempera- 
 ments and measures of intellect, were tormenting poor 
 Septimius, and pulling him back from the path in which 
 he was capable of doing so much good. So he came 
 this afternoon to talk seriously with him, and to advise 
 him, if the case were as he supposed, to get for a time 
 out of the track of the thought in which he had so long 
 been engaged ; to enter into active life ; and by and by, 
 when the morbid influences should have been overcome 
 by a change of mental and moral religion, he might re- 
 turn, fresh and healthy, to his original design. 
 
 " What can I do," asked Septimius, gloomily, " what 
 business take up, when the whole laud lies waste and 
 idle, except for this war ? " 
 
 " There is the very business, then," said the minister. 
 " Do you think God's work is not to be done in the field 
 as well as in the pulpit ? You are strong, Septimius, of 
 a bold character, and have a mien and bearing that gives 
 you a natural command among men. Go to the wars, 
 and do a valiant part for your country, and come back 
 to your peaceful mission when the enemy has vanished. 
 Or you might go as chaplain to a regiment, and use 
 either hand in battle, pray for success before a battle,
 
 68 SEPTIM1US FELTON. 
 
 help win it with sword or gun, and give thanks to God, 
 kneeling on the bloody field, at its close. You have 
 already stretched one foe on your native soil." 
 
 Septiniius could not but smile within himself at this 
 warlike and bloody counsel; and, joining it with some 
 similar exhortations from Aunt Keziah, he was inclined 
 to think that women and clergymen are, in matters of 
 war, the most uncompromising and bloodthirsty of the 
 community. However, he replied, coolly, that his moral 
 impulses and his feelings of duty did not exactly impel 
 him in this direction, and that he was of opinion that 
 war was a business in which a man could not engage 
 with safety to his conscience, unless his conscience actu- 
 ally drove him into it ; and that this made all the differ- 
 ence between heroic battle and murderous strife. The 
 good minister had nothing very effectual to answer to 
 this, and took his leave, with a still stronger opinion 
 than before that there was something amiss in his pupil's 
 mind. 
 
 By this time, this thwarting day had gone on through 
 its course of little aud great impediments to his pursuit, 
 the discouragements of trifling and earthly business, 
 of purely impertinent interruption, of severe and dis- 
 heartening opposition from the powerful counteraction 
 of different kinds of mind, until the hour had come at 
 which he had arranged to meet Rose Garfield. I am 
 afraid the poor thwarted youth did not go to his love- 
 tryst in any very amiable mood; but rather, perhaps, 
 reflecting how all things earthly and immortal, and love 
 among the rest, whichever category, of earth or heaven, 
 it may belong to, set themselves against man's progress
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 69 
 
 in any pursuit that be seeks to devote himself to. It 
 is one struggle, the moment he undertakes such a thing, 
 of everything else in the world to impede him. 
 
 However, as it turned out, it was a pleasant and happy 
 interview that he had with Rose that afternoon. The 
 girl herself was in a happy, tuneful mood, and met him 
 with such simplicity, threw such a light of sweetness 
 over his soul, that Septimius almost forgot all the wild 
 cares of the day, and walked by her side with a quiet 
 fulness of pleasure that was new to him. She recon- 
 ciled him, in some secret way, to life as it was, to 
 imperfection, to decay ; without any help from her in- 
 tellect, but througli the influence of her character, she 
 seemed, not to solve, but to smooth away, problems that 
 troubled him ; merely by being, by womanhood, by sim- 
 plicity, she' interpreted God's ways to him; she soft- 
 ened the stouiuess that was gathering about his heart. 
 And so they had a delightful time of talking, and laugh- 
 ing, and smelling to flowers ; and when they were part- 
 ing, Septimius said to her, 
 
 " Rose, you have convinced me that this is a most 
 happy world, and that Life has its two children, Birth 
 aud Death, and is bound to prize them equally ; and 
 that God is very kind to his earthly children ; and that 
 all will go well." 
 
 "And have I convinced you of all this?" replied 
 Rose, with a pretty laughter. " It is all true, no doubt, 
 but I should not have known how to argue for it. 
 But you are very sweet, and have not frightened me 
 to-day." 
 
 "Do I ever frighten you then, Rose?" asked Sep-
 
 70 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 timius, bending his black brow upon her with a look ol 
 surprise and displeasure. 
 
 " Yes, sometimes," said Rose, facing him with cour- 
 age, and smiling upon the cloud so as to drive it away ; 
 " when you frown upon me like that, I am a little afraid 
 you will beat me, all in good time." 
 
 "Now," said Septimius, laughing again, "you shall 
 have your choice, to be beaten on the spot, or suffer 
 another kind of punishment, which ? " 
 
 So saying, he snatched her to him, and strove to kiss 
 her, while Rose, laughing and struggling, cried out, 
 " The beating ! the beating ! " But Septimius relented 
 not, though it was only Rose's cheek that he succeeded 
 in touching. In truth, except for that first one, at the 
 moment of their plighted troths, I doubt whether Sep- 
 timius ever touched those soft, sweet lips', where the 
 smiles dwelt and the little pouts. He now returned to 
 his study, and questioned with himself whether he should 
 touch that weary, ugly, yellow, blurred, unintelligible, 
 bewitched, mysterious, bullet-penetrated, blood-stained 
 manuscript again. There was an undefinable reluctance 
 to do so, and at the same time an enticement (irresistible, 
 as it proved) drawing him towards it. He yielded, and 
 taking it from his desk, in which the precious, fatal treas- 
 ure was locked up, he plunged into it again, and this 
 time with a certain degree of success. He found the 
 line which had before gleamed out, and vanished again, 
 and which now started out in strong relief; even as 
 when sometimes we see a certain arrangement of stars in 
 the heavens, and again lose it, by not seeing its individ- 
 ual stars in the same relation as before ; even so, looking
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 71 
 
 at the manuscript in a different way, Septimius saw this 
 fragment of a sentence, and saw, moreover, what was 
 necessary to give it a certain meaning. " Set the root in 
 a grave, and wait for what shall blossom. It will be 
 very rich, and full of juice." Tlris was the purport, he 
 now felt sure, of the sentence he had lighted upon ; and 
 he took it to refer to the mode of producing something 
 that was essential to the thing to be concocted. It 
 might have only a moral being ; or, as is generally the 
 case, the moral and physical truth went hand in hand. 
 
 While Septimius was busying himself in this way, the 
 summer advanced, and with it there appeared a new 
 character, making her way into our pages. This was a 
 slender and pale girl, whom Septimius was once startled 
 to find, when he ascended his hill-top, to take his walk 
 to and fro upon the accustomed path, which lie had now 
 worn deep. 
 
 What was stranger, she sat down close beside the 
 grave, which none but he and the minister knew to be 
 a grave ; that little hillock, which he had levelled a little, 
 and had planted with various flowers and shrubs ; which 
 the summer had fostered into richness, the poor young 
 man below having contributed what he could, and tried 
 to render them as beautiful as he might, in remembrance 
 of his own beauty. Septimius wished to conceal the fact 
 of its being a grave : not that he was tormented with any 
 sense that he had done wrong in shooting the young 
 man, which had been done in fair battle ; but still it was 
 not the pleasantest of thoughts, that he had laid a beau- 
 tiful human creature, so fit for the enjoyment of life, there, 
 when his own dark brow, his own troubled breast, might
 
 72 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 better, he could not but acknowledge, have been covered 
 up there. [Perhaps there might sometimes be something 
 fantastically gay in the language and behavior of the 
 girl.-] - 
 
 Well; but then, on this flower and shrub-disguised 
 grave, sat this unknown form of a girl, with a slender, 
 pallid, melancholy grace about her, simply dressed in 
 a dark attire, which she drew loosely about her. At first 
 glimpse, Septimius fancied that it might be Rose ; but it 
 needed only a glance to undeceive him ; her figure was 
 of another character from the vigorous, though slight and 
 elastic beauty of Rose ; this was a drooping grace, and 
 when he came near enough to see her face, he saw that 
 those large, dark, melancholy eyes, with which she had 
 looked at him, had never met his gaze before. 
 
 " Good morrow, fair maiden," said Septimius, with 
 such courtesy as he knew how to use (which, to say 
 truth, was of a rustic order, his way of life having 
 brought him little into female society). "There is a 
 nice air here on the hill-top, this sultry morning below 
 the hill!" 
 
 As he spoke, he continued to look wonderingly at the 
 strange maiden, half fancying that she might be some- 
 thing that had grown up out of the grave ; so unex- 
 pected she was, so simply unlike anything that had 
 before come there. 
 
 The girl did not speak to him, but as she sat by the 
 grave she kept weeding out the little white blades of 
 faded autumn grass and yellow pine-spikes, peering into 
 the soil as if to see what it was all made of, and every- 
 thing that was growing there ; and in truth, whether by
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 73 
 
 Septimius's care or no, there seemed to be several kinds 
 of flowers, those little asters that abound everywhere, 
 and golden flowers, such as autumn supplies with abun- 
 dance. She seemed to be in quest of something, and 
 several times plucked a leaf and examined it carefully ; 
 then threw it down again, and shook her head. At last 
 she lifted up her pale face, and, fixing her eyes quietly on 
 Septimius, spoke : " It is not here ! " 
 
 A very sweet voice it was, plaintive, low, and she 
 spoke to Septimius as if she were familiar with him, and 
 had something to do with him. He was greatly inter- 
 ested, not being able to imagine who the strange girl 
 was, or whence she came, or what, of all things, could be 
 her reason for coming and sitting down by this grave, 
 and apparently botanizing upon it, in quest of some par- 
 ticular plant. 
 
 " Are you in search of flowers ? " asked Septimius. 
 " This is but a barren spot for them, and this is not a 
 good season. In the meadows, and along the margin of 
 the watercourses, you might find the fringed gentian at 
 this time. In the woods there are several pretty flowers, 
 the side-saddle flower, the anemone; violets are plen- 
 tiful in spring, and make the whole hillside blue. But 
 this hill-top, with its soil strewn over a heap of pebble- 
 stones, is no place for flowers." 
 
 "The soil is fit," said the maiden, "but the flower has 
 not sprung up." 
 
 "What flower do you speak of? " asked Septimius. 
 
 " One that is not here," said the pale girl. " No mat- 
 ter. I will look for it again next spring." 
 
 " Do you, then, dwell hereabout ? " inquired Septimius. 
 4
 
 74 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 " Surely," said the maiden, with a look of surprise ; 
 " where else should I dwell ? My home is on this hill- 
 top." 
 
 It not a little startled Septimius, as may be supposed, 
 to find his paternal inheritance, of which lie and his 
 forefathers had been the only owners since the world 
 began (for they held it by an Indian deed), claimed as a 
 home and abiding-place by this fair, pale, strange-acting 
 maiden, who spoke as if she had as much right there as 
 if she had grown up out of the soil like one of the wild, 
 indigenous flowers which she had been gazing at and 
 handling. However that might be, the maiden seemed 
 now about to depart, rising, giving a farewell toucli or 
 two to the little verdant hillock, which looked much the 
 neater for her ministrations. 
 
 " Are you going ? " said Septimius, looking at her in 
 wonder. 
 
 " For a time," said she. 
 
 " And shall I see you again ? " asked he. 
 
 " Surely," said the maiden, " this is my walk, along 
 the brow of the hill." 
 
 It again smote Septimius with a strange thrill of sur- 
 prise to find the walk which he himself had made, tread- 
 ing it, and smoothing it, and beating it down with the 
 pressure of his continual feet, from the time when the 
 tufted grass made the sides all uneven, until now, when 
 it was such a pathway as you may see through a wood, 
 or over a field, where many feet pass every day, to 
 find this track and exemplification of his own secret 
 thoughts and plans and emotions, this writing of his 
 body, impelled by the struggle and movement of his sold
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 75 
 
 claimed as her own by a strange girl -with melancholy 
 eyes and voice, who seemed to have such a sad familiarity 
 with him. 
 
 " You are welcome to come here," said he, endeavor- 
 ing at least to keep such hold on his own property as 
 was implied in making a hospitable surrender of it to 
 another. 
 
 " Yes," said the girl, " a person should always be wel- 
 come to his own." 
 
 A faint smile seemed to pass over her face as she said 
 this, vanishing, however, immediately into the melan- 
 choly of her usual expression. She went along Septim- 
 ius's path, while he stood gazing at her till she reached 
 the brow where it sloped towards Robert Hagburn's 
 house ; then she turned, and seemed to wave a slight 
 farewell towards the young man, and began to descend. 
 When her figure had entirely sunk behind the brow of 
 the hill, Septimius slowly followed along the ridge, mean- 
 ing lo watch from that elevated station the course she 
 would take ; although, indeed, he would not have been 
 surprised if he had seen nothing, no trace of her in the 
 whole nearness or distance ; in short, if she had been a 
 freak, an illusion, of a hard-working mind that had put 
 itself ajar by deeply brooding on abstruse matters, an illu- 
 sion of eyes that he had tried too much by poring over 
 the inscrutable manuscript, and of intellect that was mys- 
 tified and bewildered by trying to grasp things that could 
 not be grasped. A thing of witchcraft, a sort of fungus- 
 growtli out of the grave, an unsubstantially altogether ; 
 although, certainly, she had weeded the grave with bodily 
 fingers, at all events. Still he had so munli of the heredi-
 
 76 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 tary mysticism of his race in him, that he might have 
 held her supernatural, only that on reaching the brow of 
 the hill he saw her feet approach the dwelling of Robert 
 Hagburn's mother, who, moreover, appeared at the thresh- 
 old beckoning her to come, with a motherly, hospitable 
 air, that denoted she knew the strange girl, and recog- 
 nized her as human. 
 
 It did not lessen Septimius's surprise, however, to 
 think that such a singular being was established in the 
 neighborhood without his knowledge ; considered as a 
 real occurrence of this world, it seemed even more un- 
 accountable than if it had been a thing of ghostology and 
 witchcraft. Continually through the day the incident 
 kept introducing its recollection among his thoughts and 
 studies ; continually, as he paced along his path, this form 
 seemed to hurry along by his side on the track that she 
 had claimed for her own, and he thought of her singular 
 threat or promise, whichever it were to be held, that be 
 should have a companion there in future. In the decline 
 of the day, when he met the schoolmistress coming home 
 from her little seminary, he snatched the first opportunity 
 to mention the apparition of the morning, and ask Rose 
 if she knew anything of her. 
 
 " Very little," said Rose, "but she is flesh and blood, 
 of that you may be quite sure. She is a girl who has 
 been shut up in Boston by the siege ; perhaps a daughter 
 of one of the British officers, and her health being frail, 
 she requires better air than they have there, and so per- 
 mission was got for her, from General Washington, to 
 come and live in the country ; as any one may see, our 
 liberties have nothing to fear from this poor brain-stricken
 
 SEPTIM1US FELTOX. 77 
 
 girl. And Robert Hagburn, having to bring a message 
 from camp to the selectmen here, had it iu charge to 
 bring the girl, whom his mother has taken to board." 
 
 " Then the poor thing is crazy ? " asked Septimius. 
 
 "A little braiii-touched, that is all," replied Rose, 
 " owing to some grief that she has had ; but she is quite 
 harmless, Robert was told to say, and needs little or no 
 watching, and will get a kind of fantastic happiness for 
 herself, if only she is allowed to ramble about at her 
 pleasure. If thwarted, she might be very wild and mis- 
 erable." 
 
 " Have you spoken with her ? " asked Septimius. 
 
 " A word or two this morning, as I was going to my 
 school," suid Rose. " She took me by the hand, and 
 smiled, and suid we would be friends, and that I should 
 show her where the flowers grew ; for that she had a lit- 
 tle spot of her own that she wanted to plant with them. 
 And she asked me if the Sanguinea sanguinissima grew 
 hereabout. I should not have taken her to be ailing 
 in her wits, only for a kind of free-spokenness and famil- 
 iarity, as if we had been acquainted a long while ; or as if 
 she had lived in some country where there are no forms 
 and impediments in people's getting acquainted." 
 
 "Did you like her ? " inquired Septimius. 
 
 " Yes ; almost loved her at first sight," answered Rose, 
 "and I hope may do her some little good, poor thing, 
 being of her own age, and the only companion, here- 
 abouts, whom she is likely to find. But she has been 
 well educated, and is a lady, that is easy to see." 
 
 " It is very strange," said Septimius, " but I fear I 
 shall be a good deal interrupted in my thoughts and
 
 78 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 studies, if she insists on haunting my hill-top as much 
 as she tells me. My meditations are perhaps of a little 
 too much importance to be shoved aside for the sake of 
 gratifying a crazy girl's fantasies." 
 
 " Ah, that is a hard thing to say ! " exclaimed Rose, 
 shocked at her lover's cold egotism, though not giving 
 it that title. " Let the poor thing glide quietly along iu 
 the path, though it be yours. Perhaps, after a while, 
 she will help your thoughts." 
 
 "My thoughts," said Septimius, "are of a kind that 
 can have no help from any one ; if from any, it would 
 only be from some wise, long-studied, and experienced 
 scientific man, who could enlighten me as to the bases 
 and foundation of things, as to mystic writings, as to 
 chemical elements, as to the mysteries of language, as 
 to the principles and system on which we were created. 
 Methiuks these are not to be taught me by a girl touched 
 in the wits." 
 
 "I fear," replied Rose Garfield with gravity, and 
 drawing imperceptibly apart from him, " that no woman 
 can help you much. You despise woman's thought, and 
 have no need of her affection." 
 
 Septimius said something soft and sweet, and in a 
 measure true, in regard to the necessity he felt for the 
 affection and sympathy of one woman at least the one 
 now by his side to keep his life warm and to make 
 the empty chambers of his heart comfortable. But even 
 while he spoke, there was something that dragged upon 
 his tongue ; for he felt that the solitary pursuit in which 
 he was engaged carried him apart from the sympathy of 
 which he spoke, and that he was concentrating his efforts
 
 SEPTIM1US FELTON. 79 
 
 and interest entirely upon himself, and that the more he 
 succeeded the more remotely he should be carried away, 
 and that his final triumph would be the complete seclu- 
 sion of himself from all that breathed, the converting 
 him, from an interested actor, into a cold and discon- 
 nected spectator of all mankind's warm and sympathetic 
 life. So, as it turned out, this interview with Rose was 
 one of those in which, coming no one knows from 
 whence, a nameless cloud springs up between two lov- 
 ers, and keeps them apart from one another by a cold, 
 sullen spell. Usually, however, it requires only one 
 word, spoken out of the heart, to break that spell, and 
 compel the invisible, unsympathetic medium which the 
 enemy of love has stretched cunningly between them, to 
 vanish, and let them come closer together than ever ; but, 
 in this case, it might be that the love was the illusive state, 
 and the estrangement the real truth, the disenchanted 
 verity. At all events, when the feeling passed away, in 
 Rose's heart there was no reaction, no warmer love, as 
 is generally the case. As for Septimius, he had other 
 things to think about, and when he next met Rose Gar- 
 field, had forgotten that he had been sensible of a little 
 wounded feeling, on her part, at parting. 
 
 By dint of continued poring over the manuscript, Sep- 
 timius now began to comprehend that it was written in 
 a singular mixture of Latin and ancient English, with 
 constantly recurring paragraphs of what he was con- 
 vinced was a mystic writing ; and these recurring pas- 
 sages of complete unintelligibility seemed to be necessary 
 to the proper understanding of any part of the document. 
 What was discoverable was quaint, curious, but thwart-
 
 80 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 ing and perplexing, because it seemed to imply some 
 very great purpose, only to be brought out by what was 
 hidden. 
 
 Septimius had read, in the old college library during 
 his pupilage, a work on ciphers and cryptic writing, but 
 being drawn to it only by his curiosity respecting what- 
 ever was hidden, and not expecting ever to use his 
 knowledge, he had obtained only the barest idea of what 
 was necessary to the deciphering a secret passage. 
 Judging by what he could pick out, he would have 
 thought the whole essay was upon the moral conduct ; 
 all parts of that he could make out seeming to refer to a 
 certain ascetic rule of life ; to denial of pleasures ; these 
 topics being repeated and insisted on everywhere, al- 
 though without any discoverable reference to religious 
 or moral motives ; and always when the author seemed 
 verging towards a definite purpose, he took refuge in his 
 cipher. Yet withal, imperfectly (or not at all, rather) 
 as Septimius could comprehend its purport, this strange 
 writing had a mystic influence, that wrought upon his 
 imagination, and with the late singular incidents of his 
 life, his continual thought on this one subject, his walk 
 on the hill-top, lonely, or only interrupted by the pale 
 shadow of a girl, combined to set him outside of the 
 living world. Rose Garfield perceived it, knew and felt 
 that he was gliding away from her, and met him with a 
 reserve which she could not overcome. 
 
 It was a pity that his early friend, Robert Hagburn, 
 could not at present have any influence over him, having 
 now regularly joined the Continental Army, and being 
 engaged in the expedition of Arnold against Quebec.
 
 SEPTIM1US FELTON. 81 
 
 Indeed, this war, iu which the country was so earnestly 
 and enthusiastically engaged, had perhaps an influence 
 011 Septimius's state of mind, for it put everybody into 
 an exaggerated aud unnatural state, united enthusiasms 
 of all sorts, heightened everybody either into its own 
 heroism or into the peculiar madness to which each 
 person was inclined; and Septimius walked so much 
 the more wildly on his lonely course, because the people 
 were going enthusiastically ou another. Iu times of\ 
 revolution and public disturbance all absurdities are \ 
 more unrestrained ; the measure of calm sense, the j 
 habits, the orderly decency, are partially lost. More < 
 people become insane, I should suppose ; offences against 
 public morality, female license, are more numerous; 
 suicides, murders, all ungovernable outbreaks of men's 
 thoughts, embodying themselves in wild acts, take place 
 more frequently, and with less horror to the lookers-on. 
 So [with] Septimius ; there was not, as there would have 
 been at an ordinary time, the same calmness and truth 
 in the public observation, scrutinizing everything with 
 its keen criticism, in that time of seething opinions and 
 overturned principles; a new time was coming, and 
 Septimius's phase of novelty attracted less attention so 
 far as it was known. 
 
 So he continued to brood over the manuscript in his 
 study, and to hide it under lock aud key in a recess of 
 the wall, as if it were a secret of murder ; to walk, too, 
 on his hill-top, where at sunset always came the pale, 
 crazy maiden, who still seemed to watch the little hillock 
 with a pertinacious care that was strange to Septimius. 
 By and by came the winter and the deep snows ; and
 
 82 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 even then, unwilling to give up his habitual place of ex- 
 ercise, the monotonousness of which promoted his wish 
 to keep before his mind one subject of thought, Septimius 
 wore a path through the snow, and still walked there. 
 Here, however, he lost for a time the companionship of 
 the girl ; for when the first snow came, she shivered, and 
 looked at its white heap over the hillock, and said to Sep- 
 timius, " I will look for it again in spring." 
 
 [Septimius is at the point of despair for want of a guide 
 in his studies.] 
 
 The winter swept over, and spring was just beginning 
 to spread its green flush over the more favored exposures 
 of the landscape, although on the north side of stone- 
 walls, and the northern nooks of hills, there were still 
 the remnants of snow-drifts. Septimius's hill-top, which 
 was of a soil which quickly rid itself of moisture, now 
 began to be a genial place of resort to him, and he was 
 one morning taking his walk there", meditating upon the 
 still insurmountable difficulties which interposed them- 
 selves against the interpretation of the manuscript, yet 
 feeling the new gush of spring bring hope to him, and the 
 energy and elasticity for new effort. Thus pacing to and 
 fro, he was surprised, as he turned at the extremity of 
 his walk, to see a figure advancing towards him; not 
 that of the pale maiden whom he was accustomed to see 
 there, but a figure as widely different as possible. [He 
 sees a spider dangling from his web, and examines him 
 minutely] It was that of a short, broad, somewhat el- 
 derly man, dressed in a surtout that had a half-military 
 air, the cocked hat of the period, well worn, and having 
 a fresher spot in it, whence, perhaps, a cockade had been
 
 SEPTIM1US FELTON. 83 
 
 recently taken off; and this personage carried a well 
 blackened German pipe in his hand, which, as he walked, 
 he applied to his lips, and puffed out volumes of smoke, 
 filling the pleasant western breeze with the fragrance of 
 some excellent Virginia. He came slowly along, and Sep- 
 timius, slackening his pace a little, came as slowly to meet 
 him, feeling somewhat indignant, to be sure, that any- 
 body should intrude on his sacred hill ; until at last they 
 met, as it happened, close by the memorable little hillock, 
 on which the grass and flower-leaves also had begun to 
 sprout. The stranger looked keenly at Septimius, made 
 a careless salute by putting his hand up, and took the 
 pipe from his mouth. 
 
 "Mr. Septimius Felton, I suppose ? " said he. 
 
 "That is my name," replied Septimius. 
 
 " I am Doctor Jabez Portsoaken," said the stranger, 
 " late surgeon of his Majesty's sixteenth regiment, which 
 I quitted when his Majesty's army- quitted Boston, being 
 desirous of trying my fortunes in your country, and giv- 
 ing the people the benefit of my scientific knowledge ; 
 also to practise some new modes of medical science, 
 which I could not so well do in the army." 
 
 " I think you are quite right, Doctor Jabez Portsoak- 
 en," said Septimius, a little confused and bewildered, so 
 unused had lie become to the society of strangers. 
 
 " And as to you, sir," said the doctor, who had a 
 very rough, abrupt way of speaking, " I have to thank 
 you for a favor done me." 
 
 " Have you, sir ? " said Septimius, who was quite sure 
 that he had never seen the doctor's uncouth figure 
 before.
 
 84 SEPTIM1US FELTON. 
 
 " 0, ay, me," said the doctor, puffing coolly, " me, 
 in the person of my niece, a sickly, poor, nervous little 
 thing, who is very fond of walking on your hill-top, and 
 whom you do not send away." 
 
 " You are the uncle of Sibyl Dacy ? " said Septimius. 
 " Even so, her mother's brother," said the doctor, with 
 a grotesque bow. " So, being on a visit, the first that 
 the siege allowed me to pay, to see how the girl was get- 
 ting on, I take the opportunity to pay my respects to 
 you; the more that I understand you to be a young 
 man of some learning, and it is not often that one meets 
 with such in this country." 
 
 " No," said Septimius, abruptly, for indeed he had half 
 a suspicion that this queer Doctor Portsoaken was not 
 altogether sincere, that, in short, he was making game 
 of him. " You have been misinformed. I know noth- 
 ing whatever that is worth knowing." 
 
 " Oho ! " said the doctor, with a long puff of smoke 
 out of his pipe. " If you are convinced of that, you are 
 one of the wisest men I have met with, young as you are. 
 I must have been twice your age before I got so far ; 
 and even now, I am sometimes fool enough to doubt the 
 only thing I was ever sure of knowing. But come, you 
 make me only the more earnest to collogue with you. If 
 we put both our shortcomings together, they may make 
 up an item of positive knowledge." 
 
 " What use can one make of abortive thoughts ? " 
 said Septimius. 
 
 " Do your speculations take a scientific turn ? " said 
 Doctor Portsoaken. "There I can meet you with as 
 much false knowledge and empiricism as you can bring
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 85 
 
 for the life of you. Have you ever tried to study 
 spiders ? there is my strong point now ! I have hung 
 my whole interest in life on a spider's web." 
 
 "I know nothing of them, sir," said Septimius, "ex- 
 cept to crush them when I see them running across the 
 floor, or to brush away the festoons of their webs when 
 they have chanced to escape my Aunt Keziah's broom." 
 
 " Crush them ! Brush away their webs ! " cried the 
 doctor, apparently in a rage, and shaking his pipe at 
 Septimius. " Sir, it is sacrilege ! Yes, it is worse than 
 murder. Every thread of a spider's web is worth more 
 than a thread of gold ; and before twenty years are 
 passed, a housemaid will be beaten to death with her 
 own broomstick if she disturbs one of these sacred 
 animals. But, come again. Shall we talk of botany, 
 the virtues of herbs ? " 
 
 "My Aunt Keziah should meet you there, doctor," 
 said Septimius. "She has a native and original ac- 
 quaintance with their virtues, and can save and kill with 
 any of the faculty. As for myself, my studies have not 
 turned that way." 
 
 " They ought ! they ought ! " said the doctor, looking' 
 meaningly at him. "The whole thing lies in the blos- 
 som of an herb. Now, you ought to begin with what 
 lies about you ; on this little hillock, for instance " ; 
 and looking at the grave beside which they were stand- 
 ing, he gave it a kick which went to Septimius's heart, 
 there seemed to be such a spite and scorn in it. " On 
 this hillock I see some specimens of plants which would 
 be worth your looking at." 
 
 Bending down towards the grave as he spoke, he
 
 gg SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 seemed to give closer attention to what he saw there ; 
 keeping in his stooping position till his face began to 
 get a purple aspect, for the erudite doctor was of that 
 make of man who has to be kept right side uppermost 
 with care. At length he raised himself, muttering, 
 " Very curious ! very curious ! " 
 
 " Do you see anything remarkable there ? " asked 
 Septimius, with some interest. 
 
 " Yes," said the doctor, bluntly. " No matter what ! 
 The time will come when you may like to know it." 
 
 " Will you come with me to my residence at the foot 
 of the hill, Doctor Portsoaken ? " asked Septimius. " I 
 am not a learned man, and have little or no title to con- 
 verse with one, except a sincere desire to be wiser than 
 I am. If you can be moved on such terms to give me 
 your companionship, I shall be thankful." 
 
 " Sir, I am with you," said Doctor Portsoaken. " I 
 will tell you what I know, in the sure belief (for I will 
 be frank with you) that it will add to the amount of 
 dangerous folly now in your mind, and help you on the 
 way to ruin. Take your choice, therefore, whether to 
 know me further or not." 
 
 "I neither shrink nor fear, neither hope much," 
 said Septimius, quietly. " Anything that you can com- 
 municate if anything you can I shall fearlessly re- 
 ceive, and return you such thanks as it may be found to 
 deserve." 
 
 So saying, he led the way down the hill, by the steep 
 path that descended abruptly upon the rear of his bare 
 and unadorned little dwelling ; the doctor following with 
 much foul language (for he had a terrible habit of swear-
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 87 
 
 ing) at the difficulties of the way, to which his short legs 
 were ill adapted. Aunt Keziah met them at the door, 
 and looked sharply at the doctor, who returned the gaze 
 with at least as much keenness, muttering between his 
 teetli, as he did so ; and to say the truth, Aunt Keziah 
 was as worthy of being sworn at as any woman could 
 well be, for whatever she might have been in her younger 
 days, she was at this time strange a mixture of an 
 Indian aquflw pnd herb doctrm. YVt* 1 *^* gyfrhed old 
 maid, and a mingling of the witch-aspect runiiint: through 
 all, as could well be imagined ; and she had aTTiandker- 
 chief over her head, and she was of hue a dusky yellow, 
 and she looked very cross. As Septimius ushered the 
 doctor into his study, and was about to follow him, Aunt 
 Keziah drew him back. 
 
 " Septimius, who is this you have brought here P " 
 asked she. 
 
 "A man I have met on the hill," answered her 
 nephew; "a Doctor Portsoaken he calls himself, from 
 the old country. He says he has knowledge of herbs 
 and other mysteries ; in your own line, it may be. If 
 you want to talk with him, give the man his dinner, 
 and find out what there is in him." 
 
 " And what do you want of him yourself, Septimius P '^ 
 asked she. 
 
 " I ? Nothing ! that is to say, I expect nothing," 
 said Septimius. "But I am astray, seeking everywhere, 
 and so I reject no hint, no promise, no faintest possi- 
 bility of aid that I may find anywhere. I judge this man 
 to be a quack, but 1 judge the same of the most learned 
 man of his profession, or any other; and there is a
 
 88 SEPTIMIUS FELTOX. 
 
 roughness about this man, that may indicate a little more 
 knowledge than if he were smoother. So, as he threw 
 himself in my way, I take him in." 
 
 "A grim, ugly -looking old wretch as ever I saw," 
 muttered Aunt. Keziah. " Well, he shall have his din- 
 ner ; and if he likes to talk about yarb-dishes, I 'm with 
 him." 
 
 So Septimius followed the doctor into his study, where 
 he found him with the sword in his hand, which he had 
 taken from over the mantel-piece, and was holding it 
 drawn, examining the hilt and blade with great minute- 
 ness ; the hilt being wrought in openwork, with certain 
 heraldic devices, doubtless belonging to the family of its 
 former wearer. 
 
 " I have seen this weapon before," said the doctor. 
 
 "It may well be," said Septimius. "It was once 
 worn by a person who served in the army of your 
 king." 
 
 " And you took it from him ? " said the doctor. 
 
 " If I did, it was in no way that I need be ashamed of, 
 or afraid to tell, though I choose rather not to speak of 
 it," answered Septimius. 
 
 "Have you, then, no desire nor interest to know 
 the family, the personal history, the prospects, of him 
 who once wore this sword, and who will never draw 
 sword again?" inquired Doctor Portsoaken. "Poor 
 Cyril Norton ! There was a singular story attached to 
 that young man, sir, and a singular mystery he carried 
 about with him, the end of which, perhaps is not yet." 
 
 Septimius would have been, indeed, well enough pleased 
 to learn the mystery which he himself had seen that
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 89 
 
 there was about the mail whom he slew; but he was 
 afraid that some question might be thereby started about 
 the secret document that he had kept possession of; and 
 he therefore would have wished to avoid the whole sub- 
 ject. 
 
 " I cannot be supposed to take much interest in Eng- 
 lish family history. It is a hundred and fifty years, at 
 least, since my own family ceased to be English," he an- 
 swered. " I care more for the present and future than for 
 the past." 
 
 " It is all one," said the doctor, sitting down, taking 
 out a pinch of tobacco, and refilling his pipe. 
 
 It is unnecessary to follow up the description of the 
 visit of the eccentric doctor through the day. Suffice it 
 to say that there was a sort of charm, or rather fascina- 
 tion, about the uncouth old fellow, in spite of his strange 
 ways; in spite of his constant puffing of tobacco; and in 
 spite, too, of a constant imbibing of strong liquor, which 
 he made inquiries for, and of which the best that could be 
 produced was a certain decoction, infusion, or distillation, 
 pertaining to Aunt Keziah, and of which the basis was 
 rum, be it said, done up with certain bitter herbs of the 
 old lady's own gathering, at proper times of the moon, 
 and which was a well-known drink to all who were favored 
 with Auut Keziah's friendship ; though there was a story 
 that it was the very drink which used to be passed round 
 at witch-meetings, being brewed from the Devil's own 
 recipe. And, in truth, judging from the taste (for I 
 once took a sip of a draught prepared from the same in- 
 gredients, and in the same way), I should think this hell- 
 ish origin might be the veritable one.
 
 90 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 [" / thought" quoth the doctor, " I could drink any- 
 thing, but "} 
 
 But the valiant doctor sipped, and sipped again, and 
 said with great blasphemy that it was the real stuff, and 
 only needed henbane to make it perfect. Then, taking 
 from his pocket a good-sized leathern-covered flask, with 
 a silver lip fastened on the muzzle, he offered it to Sep- 
 timius, who declined, and to Aunt Keziah, who preferred 
 her own decoction, and then drank it off himself, with a 
 loud smack of satisfaction, declaring it to be infernally 
 good brandy. 
 
 Well, after this Septimius and he talked ; and 1 know 
 not how it was, but there was a great deal of imagination 
 in this queer man, whether a bodily or spiritual influence 
 it might be hard to say. On the other hand, Septimius 
 had for a long while held little intercourse with men; 
 none whatever with men who could comprehend him ; the 
 doctor, too, seemed to bring the discourse singularly in 
 apposition with what his host was continually thinking 
 about, for he conversed on occult matters, on people who 
 had had the art of living long, and had only died at last 
 by accident, on the powers and qualities of common herbs, 
 which he believed to be so great, that all around our feet 
 growing in the wild forest, afar from man, or following 
 the footsteps of man wherever he fixes his residence, 
 across seas, from the old homesteads whence he migrated, 
 following him everywhere, and offering themselves sed- 
 ulously and continually to his notice, while he only plucks 
 them away from the comparatively worthless things 
 which he cultivates, and flings them aside, blaspheming 
 at them because Providence has sown them so thickly
 
 SEPTIMIUS FEtTON. 91 
 
 grow what we call weeds, only because all the gener- 
 ations, from the beginning of time till now, have failed 
 to discover their wondrous virtues, potent for the curing 
 of all diseases, potent for procuring length of days. 
 
 " Everything good," said the doctor, drinking another \ 
 dram of brandy, " lies right at our feet, and all we need / 
 is to gather it up." 
 
 " That 's true," quoth Keziah, taking just a little sup 
 of her hellish preparation ; " these herbs were all gath- 
 ered within a hundred yards of this very spot, though it 
 took a wise woman to find out their virtues." 
 
 The old woman went off about her household duties, 
 and then it was that Septimius submitted to the doctor 
 the list of herbs which he had picked out of the old docu- 
 ment, asking him, as something apposite to the subject of 
 their discourse, whether lie was acquainted with them, 
 for most of them had very queer names, some in Latin, 
 some in English. 
 
 The bluff doctor put on his spectacles, and looked over 
 the slip of yellow and worn paper scrutinizingly, puffing 
 tobacco-smoke upon it in great volumes, as if thereby to 
 make its hidden purport come out; he mumbled to him- 
 self, he took another sip from his flask ; and then, putting 
 it down on the table, appeared to meditate. 
 
 " This infernal old document," said he, at length, " is 
 one that I have never seen before, yet heard of, neverthe- 
 less ; for it was my folly in youth (and whether I am any 
 wiser now is more than I take upon me to say, but it was 
 my folly then) to be in quest of certain kinds of secret 
 knowledge, which the fathers of science thought attainable. 
 Now, in several quarters, amongst people with whom my
 
 92 SEPniHUS FELTOX. 
 
 pursuits brought me in contact, I heard of a certain 
 recipe which had been lost for a generation or two, but 
 which, if it could be recovered, would prove to have the 
 true life-giving potency in it. It is said that the ancestor 
 of a great old family in England was in possession of this 
 secret, being a man of science, and the friend of Friar 
 Bacon, who was said to have concocted it himself, partly 
 from the precepts of his master, partly from his own ex- 
 periments, and it is thought he might have been living to 
 this day, if he had' not unluckily been killed in the wars 
 of the Roses ; for you know no recipe for long life would 
 be proof against an old English arrow, or a leaden bullet 
 from one of our own firelocks." 
 
 " And what has been the history of the thing after his 
 death ? " asked Septimius. 
 
 " It was supposed to be preserved in the family," said 
 the doctor, " and it has always been said, that the head 
 and eldest son of that family had it at his option to live 
 forever, if he could only make up his mind to it. But 
 seemingly there were difficulties in the way. There was 
 probably a certain diet and regimen to be observed, cer- 
 tain strict rules of life to be kept, a certain asceticism to 
 be imposed on the person, which was not quite agreeable 
 to young men ; and after the period of youth was passed, 
 the human frame became incapable of being regenerated 
 from the seeds of decay and death, which, by that time, 
 had become strongly developed in it. In short, while 
 young, the possessor of the secret found the terms of im- 
 mortal life too hard to be accepted, since it implied the 
 giving up of most of the things that made life desirable 
 in his view ; and when he came to a more reasonable
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 93 
 
 mind, it was too late. And so, in all the generations 
 since Friar Bacon's time, the Nortons have been born, 
 and enjoyed their young days and worried through their 
 manhood, and tottered through their old age (unless 
 taken off sooner by sword, arrow, ball, fever, or what 
 not), and died in their beds, like men that had no such 
 option ; and so this old yellow paper has done not the 
 least good to any mortal. Neither do I see how it can 
 do any good to you, since you know not the rules, moral 
 or dietetic, that are essential to its effect. But how did 
 you come by it ? " 
 
 "It matters not how," said Septimius, gloomily. 
 " Enough that I am its rightful possessor and inheritor. 
 Can you read these old characters P " 
 
 "Most of them," said the doctor; "but let me tell 
 you, my young friend, I have no faith whatever in this 
 secret; and, having meddled with such things myself, I 
 ought to know. The old physicians and chemists had 
 strange ideas of the virtues of plants, drugs, and min- 
 erals, and equally strange fancies as to the way of get- 
 ting those virtues into action. They would throw a 
 hundred different potencies into a caldron together, and 
 put them on the fire, and expect to brew a potency con- 
 taining all their potencies, and having a different virtue 
 of its own. Whereas, the most likely result would be 
 that they would counteract one another, and the concoc- 
 tion be of no virtue at all ; or else some more powerful 
 ingredient would tincture the whole." 
 
 He read the paper again, and continued : 
 
 " I see nothing else so remarkable in this recipe, as \ 
 
 that it is chiefly made up of some of the commonest
 
 94 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 things that grow ; plants that you set your foot upon at 
 your very threshold, in your garden, in your wood-walks, 
 wherever you go. I doubt not old Aunt Keziah knows 
 them, and very likely she has brewed them up in that 
 hell-drink, the remembrance of which is still rankling in 
 my stomach. I thought I had swallowed the Devil him- 
 self, whom the old woman had been boiling down. It 
 would be curious enough if the hideous decoction was 
 the same as old Friar Bacon and his acolyte discovered 
 by their science ! One ingredient, however, one of those 
 plants, I scarcely think the old lady can have put into her 
 pot of Devil's elixir ; for it is a rare plant, that does not 
 grow in these parts." 
 
 "And what is that? " asked Septimius. 
 
 " Sanguined sanguinissima" said the doctor ; " it has 
 ho vulgar name ; but it produces a very beautiful flower, 
 which I have never seen, though some seeds of it were . 
 sent me by a learned friend in Siberia. The others, di- 
 vested of their Latin names, are as common as plantain, 
 pig-weed, and burdock ; and it stands to reason that, if 
 vegetable Nature has any such wonderfully efficacious 
 medicine in store for men, and means them to use it, she 
 would have strewn it everywhere plentifully within their 
 reach." 
 
 " But, after all, it would be a mockery on the old 
 dame's part," said the young man, somewhat bitterly, 
 " since she would thus hold the desired thing seemingly 
 within our reach ; but because she never tells us how to 
 prepare and obtain its efficacy, we miss it just as much as 
 if all the ingredients were hidden from sight and knowl- 
 edge in the centre of the earth. We are the playthings
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 95 
 
 and fools of Nature, which she amuses herself with 
 during our little lifetime, and then breaks for mere sport, 
 and laughs in our faces as she does so." 
 
 "Take care, my good fellow," said the doctor, with 
 his great coarse laugh. " I rather suspect that you have 
 already got beyond the age when the great medicine 
 could do you good ; that speech indicates a great tough- 
 ness and hardness and bitterness about the heart that 
 does not accumulate in our tender years." 
 
 Septimius took little or no notice of the raillery of the 
 grim old doctor, but employed the rest of the time in 
 getting as much information as he could out of his guest ; 
 and though he could not bring himself to show him the 
 precious and sacred manuscript, yet he questioned him as 
 closely as possible without betraying his secret, as to the 
 modes of finding out cryptic writings. The doctor was 
 not without the perception that his dark-browed, keen- 
 eyed acquaintance had some purpose not openly avowed 
 in all these pertinacious, distinct questions ; he discovered 
 a central reference in them all, and perhaps knew that 
 Septimius must have in his possession some writing in 
 hieroglyphics, cipher, or other secret mode, that con- 
 veyed instructions how to operate with the strange recipe 
 that he had shown him. 
 
 " You had better trust me fully, my good sir," said he. 
 " Not but what I will give you all the aid I can without 
 it ; for you have done me a greater benefit than you are 
 aware of, beforehand. No you will not ? Well, if 
 you can change your mind, seek me out in Boston, where 
 I have seen fit to settle in the practice of my profession, 
 and I will serve you according to your folly ; for folly it 
 is, I warn you."
 
 96 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 Nothing else worthy of record is known to have passed 
 during the doctor's visit ; and in due time he disappeared, 
 as it were, in a whiff of tobacco-smoke, leaving an odor 
 of brandy and tobacco behind him, and a traditionary 
 memory of a wizard that had been there. Septimius went 
 to work with what items of knowledge he had gathered 
 from him ; but the interview had at least made him aware 
 of one thing, which was, that he must provide himself 
 with all possible quantity of scientific knowledge of bot- 
 any, and perhaps more extensive knowledge, in order to 
 be able to concoct the recipe. It was the fruit of all the 
 scientific attainment of the age that produced it (so said 
 the legend, which seemed reasonable enough), a great 
 philosopher had wrought his learning into it ; and this 
 had been attempered, regulated, improved, by the quick, 
 bright intellect of his scholar. Perhaps, thought Sep- 
 timius, another deep and earnest intelligence added to 
 these two may bring the precious recipe to still greater 
 perfection. At least it shall be tried. So thinking, he 
 gathered together all the books that he could find relat- 
 ing to such studies; he spent one day, moreover, in a 
 walk to Cambridge, where he searched the alcoves of the 
 college library for such works as it contained ; and bor- 
 rowing them from the war-disturbed institution of learn- 
 ing, he betook himself homewards, and applied himself to 
 the study with an earnestness of zealous application that 
 perhaps has been seldom equalled in a study of so quiet 
 a character. A month or two of study, with practice 
 upon such plants as he found upon his hill-top, and along 
 the brook and in other neighboring localities, sufficed to 
 do a great deal for him. In this pursuit he was assisted
 
 SEPTIM1US FELTON. 97 
 
 by Sybil, who proved to have great knowledge in some 
 botanical departments, especially among flowers ; and in 
 her cold and quiet way, she met him on this subject and 
 glided by his side, as she had done so long, a companion, 
 a daily observer and observed of him, mixing herself up 
 with his pursuits, as if she were an attendant sprite upon 
 him. 
 
 But this pale girl was not the only associate of his 
 studies, the only instructress, whom Septimius found. 
 The observation which Doctor Portsoaken made about 
 the fantastic possibility that Aunt Keziah might have 
 inherited the same recipe from her Indian ancestry 
 which had been struck out by the science of Friar Bacon 
 and his pupil had not failed to impress Septimius, and 
 to remain on his memory. So, not long after the doc- 
 tor's departure, the young man took occasion one even- 
 ing to say to his aunt that he thought his stomach was 
 a little out of order with too much application, and that 
 perhaps she could give him some herb-drink or other 
 that, would be good for him. 
 
 " That I can, Seppy, my darling," said the old woman, 
 " and I 'm glad you have the sense to ask for it at 
 last. Here it is in this bottle ; and though that foolish, 
 blaspheming doctor turned up his old brandy nose at 
 it, I '11 drink with him any day and come off better than 
 he." 
 
 So saying, she took out of the closet her brown jug, 
 stopped with a cork that had a rag twisted round it to 
 make it tighter, filled a mug half full of the concoction, 
 and set it on the table before Septimius. 
 
 " There, child, smell of that ; the smell merely will do 
 5 O
 
 98 SEPTIAIIUS FELTON. 
 
 you good ; but drink it down, and you '11 live the longer 
 for it." 
 
 "Indeed, Aunt Keziah, is that so?" asked Septimius, 
 a little startled by a recommendation which in some meas- 
 ure tallied with what he wanted in a medicine. " That 's 
 a good quality." 
 
 He looked into the mug, and saw a turbid, yellow 
 concoction, not at all attractive to the eye ; he smelt of 
 it, and was partly of opinion that Aunt Keziah had 
 mixed a certain unfragrant vegetable, called skunk- 
 cabbage, with the other ingredients of her witch-drink. 
 He tasted it ; not a mere sip, but a good, genuine gulp, 
 being determined to have real proof of what the stuff 
 was in all respects. The draught seemed at first to 
 burn in his mouth, unaccustomed to any drink but 
 water, and to go scorching all the way down into his 
 stomach, making him sensible of the depth of his in- 
 wards by a track of fire, far, far down ; and then, worse 
 than the fire, came a taste of hideous bitterness and 
 nauseousness, which he had not previously conceived to 
 exist, and which threatened to stir up his bowels into 
 utter revolt; but knowing Aunt Keziah's touchiness 
 with regard to this concoction, and how sacred she held 
 it, he made an effort of real heroism, squelched down 
 his agony, and kept his face quiet, with the exception of 
 one strong convulsion, which he allowed to twist across 
 it for the sake of saving his life. 
 
 " It tastes as if it might have great potency in it, Aunt 
 Keziah," said this unfortunate young man ; " I wish you 
 would tell me what it is made of, and how you brew it ; 
 for I have observed you are very strict and secret about 
 it."
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 99 
 
 " Aha ! you have seen that, have you ? " said Aunt 
 Keziah, taking a sip of her beloved liquid, and grinning 
 at him with a face and eyes as yellow as that she was 
 drinking. In fact the idea struck him, that in temper, 
 and all appreciable qualities, Aunt Keziah was a good 
 deal like this drink of hers, having probably become satu- 
 rated by them while she drank of it. And then, having 
 drunk, she gloated over it, and tasted, and smelt of the 
 cup of this hellish wine, as a wine-bibber does of that 
 which is most fragrant and delicate. "And you want to 
 know how I make it ? But first, child, tell me honestly, 
 do you love this drink of mine? Otherwise, here, and at 
 once, we stop talking about it. 
 
 " I love it for its virtues," said Septimius, temporizing 
 with his conscience, "and would prefer it on that account 
 to the rarest wines." 
 
 " So far good," said Aunt Keziah, who could not well 
 conceive that her liquor should be otherwise than deli- 
 cious to the palate. " It is the most virtuous liquor that 
 ever was ; and therefore one need not fear drinking too 
 much of it. And you want to know what it is made of ? 
 Well ; I have often thought of telling you, Seppy, my 
 boy, when you should come to be old enough ; for I have 
 no other inheritance to leave you, and you are all of my 
 blood, unless I should happen to have some far-off uncle 
 among the Cape Indians. But first, you must know how 
 this good drink, and the faculty of making it, came down 
 to me from the chiefs, and sachems, and Peow-wows, that 
 were your ancestors and mine, Septimius, and from the 
 old wizard who was my great-grandfather and yours, and 
 who, they say, added the fire-water to the other ingredi-
 
 100 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 ents, and so gave it the only one thing that it wanted to 
 make it perfect." 
 
 And so Aunt Keziah, who had now put herself into a 
 most comfortable and jolly state by sipping again, and 
 after pressing Septimius to mind his draught (who de- 
 clined, on the plea that one dram at a time was enough 
 for a new beginner, its virtues being so strong, as well as 
 admirable), the old woman told him a legend strangely 
 wild and uncouth, and mixed up of savage and civilized 
 life, and of the superstitions of both, but which yet had a 
 certain analogy, that impressed Septimius much, to the 
 story that the doctor had told him. 
 
 She said that, many ages ago, there had been a wild 
 sachem in the forest, a king among the Indians, and from 
 whom, the old lady said, with a look of pride, she and 
 Septimius were lineally descended, and were probably 
 the very last who inherited one drop of that royal, wise, 
 and warlike blood. The sachem had lived very long, 
 longer than anybody knew, for the Indians kept no rec- 
 ord, and could only talk of a great number of moons ; 
 and they said he was as old, or older, than the oldest 
 trees; as old as the hills almost, and could remember 
 back to the days of godlike men, who had arts then for- 
 gotten. He was a wise and good man, and could fore- 
 tell as far into the future as he could remember into the 
 past ; and he continued to live on, till his people were 
 afraid that he would live forever, and so disturb the 
 whole order of nature ; and they thought it time that so 
 good a man, and so great a warrior and wizard, should 
 b* gone to the happy hunting-grounds, and that so wise 
 * Counsellor should go and tell his experience of life to
 
 SEPTIM1US FELTON. 101 
 
 the Great Father, and give him an account of matters 
 here, and perhaps lead him to make some changes in the 
 conduct of the lower world. And so, all these things 
 duly considered, they very reverently assassinated the 
 great, never-dying sachem ; for though safe against dis- 
 ease, and undecayuble by age, he was capable of being 
 killed by violence, though the hardness of his skull broke 
 to fragments the stone tomahawk with which they at first 
 tried to kill him. 
 
 So a deputation of the best and bravest of the tribe 
 went to the great sachem, and told him their thought, 
 and reverently desired his consent to be put out of the 
 world; and the undying one agreed with__them that it. 
 was better for liis own comfort that ho should die, and 
 that he had long been weary of the world, having learned 
 all that it could teach him, and having, chiefly, learned 
 to despair of ever making the red race much better than 
 they now were. So he cheerfully consented, and told 
 them to kill him if they could ; and first they tried the 
 stone hatchet, which was broken against his skull ; and 
 then they shot arrows at him, which could not pierce the 
 toughness of his skin ; and finally they plasterejl up his 
 nose and mouth (which kept uttering wisdom to the last) 
 with clay and set him to bake in the sun; so at last his 
 life burnt out of his breast, tearing his body to pieces, 
 and he died. 
 
 \_Ma&e this legend grotesque, and express the weariness 
 of the tribe at the inToleratle control Hie HMdptup one had 
 of them ; his always bringing u/j jj/wyj/x f/'om his own 
 experience, never consenting to anything new, and so im- 
 peding progress ; his habits hardening into him, his as-
 
 102 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 cribing to himself all wisdom, and depriving everybody of 
 his right to successive command ; his endless talk, and 
 dwelling on the past, so that the world could not bear him. 
 Describe his ascetic and severe habits, hit rigid calmness, 
 etc.] 
 
 But before the great sagamore died he imparted to 
 a chosen one of his tribe, the next wisest to himself, 
 the secret of a potent and delicious drink, the constant 
 imbibing of which, together with his abstinence from 
 luxury and passion, had kept him alive so long, and 
 would doubtless have compelled him to live forever. 
 This drink was compounded of many ingredients, all of 
 which were remembered and handed down in tradition, 
 save one, which, either because it was nowhere to be 
 found, or for some other reason, was forgotten ; so that 
 the drink ceased to give immortal life as before. They i 
 say it was a beautiful purple flower. [Perhaps the Devil\ 
 taught him thednjik^QrelseJhe Great Spirit, (lou^fjd\ 
 which.] But it still was a most excellent drink, and 
 conducive to health, and the cure of all diseases; and 
 the Indians had it at the time of the settlement by the 
 English,; and at one of those wizard meetings in the 
 forest, where the Black Man used to meet his red chil- 
 dren and his white ones, and be jolly with them, a great 
 Indian wizard taught the secret to Septimius's great- 
 grandfather, who was a wizard, and died for it; and he, 
 in return, taught the Indians to mix it with rum, think- 
 ing that this might be the very ingredient that was miss- 
 ing, and that by adding it he might give endless life to 
 himself and all his Indian friends, among whom he had 
 taken a wife.
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 103 
 
 " But your great-grandfather, you know, had not a 
 fair chance to test its virtues, having been hanged 
 for a wizard ; and as for the Indians, they probably 
 mixed too much fire-water with their liquid, so that it 
 burnt them up, and they all died ; and my mother, and 
 her mother, who taught the drink to me, and her 
 mother afore her, thought it a sin to try to live longer 
 than the Lord pleased, so they let themselves die. And 
 though the drink is good, Septimius, and toothsome, 
 as you see, yet I sometimes feel as if I were getting old, 
 like other people, and may die in the course of the next 
 half-century ; so perhaps the rum was not just the thing 
 that was wanting to make up the recipe. But it is very 
 good ! Take a drop more of it, dear." 
 
 " Not at present, I thank you, Aunt Keziah," said 
 Septimius, gravely ; " but will you tell me what the 
 ingredients are, and how you make it P " 
 
 " Yes, I will, my boy, and you shall write them 
 down," said the old woman ; " for it 's a good drink, 
 and none the worse, it may be, for not making you live 
 forever. I sometimes think I had as lief go to heaven 
 as keep on living here." 
 
 Accordingly, making Septimius take pen and ink, she 
 proceeded to tell him a list of plants and herbs, and 
 forest productions, and he was surprised to find that it 
 agreed most wonderfully with the recipe contained in the 
 old manuscript, as he had puzzled it out, and as it had 
 been explained by the doctor. There were a few varia- 
 tions, it is true ; but even here there was a close analogy, 
 plants indigenous to America being substituted for cog- 
 nate productions, the growth of Europe. .Then there
 
 104 SEPTIM1US FELTOX. 
 
 was another difference in the mode of preparation, Aunt 
 Keziah's nostrum being a concoction, whereas the old 
 manuscript gave a process of distillation. This simi- 
 larity had a strong effect on Septimius's imagination. 
 Here was, in one case, a drink suggested, as might be 
 supposed, to a primitive people by something similar to 
 that instinct by which the brute creation recognizes the 
 medicaments suited to its needs, so that they mixed up 
 fragrant herbs for reasons wiser than they knew, and 
 made them into a salutary potion ; and here, again, was 
 a drink contrived by the utmost skill of a great civilized 
 philosopher, searching the whole field of science for his 
 purpose; and these two drinks proved, in all essential 
 particulars, to be identically the same. 
 
 "O Aunt Keziah," said he, with a longing earnest- 
 ness, " are you sure that you cannot remember that one 
 ingredient ? " 
 
 " No, Septimius, I cannot possibly do it," said she. 
 " I have tried many things, skunk-cabbage, wormwood, 
 and a thousand things ; for it is truly a pity that the 
 chief benefit of the thing should be lost for so little. 
 . But the only effect was, to spoil the good taste of the 
 stuff, and, two or three times, to poison myself, so that 
 I broke out all over blotches, and once lost the use of 
 my left arm, and got a dizziness in the head, and a rheu- 
 matic twist in my knee, a hardness of hearing, and a 
 dimness of sight, and the trembles; all of which I cer- 
 tainly believe to have been caused by my putting some- 
 thing else into this blessed drink besides the good New 
 England rum. Stick to that, Seppy, my dear." 
 
 So saying, Aunt Keziah took yet another sip of the
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 105 
 
 beloved liquid, after vaiiily pressing Septimius to do the 
 like ; and tbeu lighting her old clay pipe, she sat down 
 in the chimney-corner, meditating, dreaming, muttering 
 pious prayers and ejaculations, and sometimes looking 
 up the wide flue of the chimney, with thoughts, perhaps, 
 how delightful it must have been to fly up there, in old 
 times, on excursions by midnight into the forest, where 
 was the Black Man, and the Puritan deacons and ladies, 
 and those wild Indian ancestors of hers ; 'and where the 
 wilduess of the forest was so grim and delightful, and so 
 unlike the commonplaceness in which she spent her life. 
 Tor thus did the savage strain of the womau, mixed up 
 as it was with the other weird and religious parts of her 
 composition, sometimes snatch lier back into barbarian 
 life and its instincts; and in Septimius, though further 
 diluted, and modified likewise by higher cultivation, there 
 was the same tendency. 
 
 Septimius escaped from the old woman, and was glad 
 to breathe the free air again; so much had he been 
 wrought upon by her wild legends and wild character, 
 the more powerful by its analogy with his own; and 
 perhaps, too, his brain had been a little bewildered by 
 the draught of her diabolical concoction which she had 
 compelled him to take. At any rate, he was glad to 
 escape to his hill-top, the free air of which had doubt- 
 less contributed to keep him in health through so long 
 a course of morbid thought and estranged study as he 
 had addicted himself to. 
 
 Here, as it happened, he found both Rose Garfield 
 and Sybil Dacy, whom the pleasant summer evening 
 had brought out They had formed a friendship, or at 
 5*
 
 106 SEPTIMIUS FELTOX. 
 
 least society ; and there could not well be a pair more 
 unlike, the one so natural, so healthy, so fil to live in 
 the world; the other such a morbid, pale thing. So 
 there they were, walking arm in arm, with one arm 
 round each other's waist, as girls love to do. They 
 greeted the young man in their several ways, and began 
 to walk to and fro together, looking at the sunset as it 
 came on, and talking of things on earth and in the clouds. 
 " When has Robert Hagburn been heard from ? " 
 asked Septimius, who, involved in his own pursuits, was 
 altogether behindhand in the matters of the war, 
 shame to him for it ! 
 
 " There came news, two days past," said Rose, blush- 
 ing. " He is on his way home with the remnant of Gen- 
 eral Arnold's command, and will be here soon." 
 
 "He is a brave fellow, Robert," said Septimius, 
 carelessly. " And I know not, since life is so short, that 
 anything better can be done with it than to risk it as he 
 does." 
 
 " I truly think not," said Rose Garfield, composedly. 
 " What a blessing it is to mortals," said Sybil Dacy, 
 " what a kindness of Providence, that life is made so 
 uncertain ; that death is thrown in among the possibili- 
 ties of our being ; that these awful mysteries are thrown 
 around us, into which we may vanish ! For, without it, 
 how would it be possible to be heroic, how should we 
 plod along in commonplaces forever, never dreaming high 
 things, never risking anything ? For my part, I think 
 man is more favored than the angels, and made capable of 
 higher heroism, greater virtue, and of a more excellent 
 spirit than they, because we have such a mystery of grief
 
 SEPT1MIUS FELTON. 107 
 
 and terror around us ; whereas tliey, being in a certainty 
 of God's light, seeing his goodness and his purposes more 
 perfectly than we, cannot be so brave as often poor weak 
 man, and weaker woman, lias the opportunity to be, and 
 sometimes makes use of it. God gave the whole world 
 to man, and if he is left alone with it, it will make a clod 
 of him at last; but, to remedy that, God gave man a 
 grave, and it redeems all, while it seems to destroy all, 
 and makes an immortal spirit of him in the end." 
 
 " Dear Sybil, you are inspired," said Rose, gazing in 
 her face. 
 
 " I think you ascribe a great deal too much potency to 
 the grave," said Septimius, pausing involuntarily alone 
 by the little hillock, whose contents he knew so well. 
 " The grave seems to me a vile pitfall, put right in our 
 pathway, and catching most of us, all of us, causing 
 us to tumble in at the most inconvenient opportunities, 
 so that all human life is a jest and a farce, just for the / 
 sake of this inopportune death ; for I observe it never 
 waits for us to accomplish anything : we may have the 
 salvation of a country in hand, but we are none the less 
 likely to die for that. So that, being a believer, on the 
 whole, in the wisdom and graciousness of Providence, I 
 am convinced that dying is a mistake, and that by and 
 by we shall overcome it. I say there is no use in the 
 grave." 
 
 " I still adhere to what I said," answered Sybil Dacy ; 
 " and besides, there is another use of a grave which I have 
 often observed in old English graveyards, where the moss 
 grows green, and embosses the letters of the gravestones ; 
 and also graves are very good for flower-beds."
 
 108 SEPTIMIUS FELTOX. 
 
 Nobody ever could tell when the strange girl was going 
 to say what was laughable, when what was melancholy ; 
 and neither of Sybil's auditors knew quite what to make 
 of this speech. Neither could Septimius fail to be a lit- 
 tle startled by seeing her, as she spoke of the grave as a 
 flower-bed, stoop down to the little hillock to examine 
 the flowers, which, indeed, seemed to prove her words by 
 growing there in strange abundance, and of many sorts ; 
 so that, if they could all have bloomed at once, the spot 
 would have looked like a bouquet by itself, or as if the 
 earth were richest in beauly there, or as if seeds had been 
 lavished by some florist. Septimius could not account 
 for it, for though the hillside did produce certain flowers, 
 the aster, the golden-rod, the violet, and other such 
 simple and common things, yet this seemed as if a 
 carpet of bright colors had been thrown down there and 
 covered the spot. 
 
 " This is very strange," said he. 
 
 " Yes," said Sybil Dacy, " there is some strange rich- 
 ness in this little spot of soil." 
 
 " Where could the seeds have come from ? that is 
 the greatest wonder," said Rose. " You might almost 
 teach me botany, methiuks, on this one spot." 
 
 " Do you know this plant ? " asked Sybil of Septimius, 
 pointing to one not yet in flower, but of singular leaf, 
 that was thrusting itself up out of the ground, on the 
 very centre of the grave, over where the breast of the 
 sleeper below might seem to be. " I think there is no 
 other here like it." 
 
 Septimius stooped down to examine it, and was con- 
 vinced that it was unlike anything he had seen of the
 
 SEPT1MIUS FELTON. 109 
 
 flower kind ; a leaf of a dark green, with purple veins 
 traversing it, it bad a sort of questionable aspect, as some 
 plants have, so that you would think it very likely to 
 be poison, and would not like to touch or smell very inti' 
 mately, without first inquiring who would be its guaran- 
 tee that it should do no mischief. That it had some rich- 
 ness or other, either baneful or beneficial, you could not 
 doubt. 
 
 " I think it poisonous," said Rose Garfield, shudder- 
 ing, for she was a person so natural she hated poisonous 
 things, or anything speckled especially, and did not, in- 
 deed, love strangeness. "Yet I should not wonder if 
 it bore a beautiful flower by and by. Nevertheless, if I 
 were to do just as I feel inclined, I should root it up and 
 fling it away." 
 
 " Shall she do so P " said Sybil to Septimius. 
 
 " Not for the world," said he, hastily. " Above all 
 things, I desire to see what will come of this plant." 
 
 "Be it as you please," said Sybil. "Meanwhile, if 
 you like to sit down here and listen to me, I will tell you 
 a story that happens to come into my mind just now, 
 I cannot tell why. It is a legend of an old hall that I 
 know well, and have known from my childhood, in one 
 of the northern counties of England, where I was born. 
 Would you like to hear it, Rose ? " 
 
 " Yes, of all things," said she. " I like all stories of 
 hall and cottage in the old country,' though now we must 
 not call it our country any more." 
 
 Sybil looked at Septimius, as if to inquire whether he, 
 too, chose to listen to her story, and he made answer : 
 
 " Yes, I shall like to hear the legend, if it is a genuine
 
 110 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 one that has been adopted into the popular belief, and 
 came down in chimney-corners with the smoke and soot 
 that gathers there ; and incrusted over with humanity, 
 by passing from one homely mind to another. Then, 
 such stories get to be true, in certain sense, and indeed 
 in that sense may be called true throughout, for the very 
 nucleus, the fiction in them, seems to have come out of 
 the heart of man in a way that cannot be imitated of 
 malice aforethought. Nobody can make a tradition ; it 
 takes a century to make it." 
 
 "I know not whether this legend has the character 
 you mean," said Sybil, " but it has lived much more than 
 a century ; and here it is. 
 
 " On the threshold of one of the doors of Hall 
 
 there is a bloody footstep impressed into the doorstep, 
 and ruddy as if the bloody foot had j ust trodden there ; 
 and it is averred that, on a certain night of the year, and 
 at a certain hour of the night, if you go and look at that 
 doorstep you will see the mark wet with fresh blood. 
 Some have pretended to say that this appearance of 
 blood was but dew ; but can dew redden a cambric hand- 
 kerchief ? Will it crimson the finger-tips when you touch 
 it ? And that is what the bloody footstep will surely do 
 when the appointed night and hour come round, this 
 very year, just as it would three hundred years ago. 
 
 " Well ; but how did it come there ? I know not pre- 
 cisely in what age it was, but long ago, when light was 
 beginning to shine into what were called the dark ages, 
 
 there was a lord of Hall who applied himself deeply 
 
 to knowledge and science, under the guidance of the
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. Ill 
 
 wisest man of that, age, a man so wise that he was 
 thought to be a wizard ; and, indeed, he may have been 
 one, if to be a wizard consists in having command over 
 secret powers of nature, that other men do not even sus- 
 pect the existence of, and the control of which enables 
 one to do feats that seem as wonderful as raising the 
 dead. It is needless to tell you all the strange stories 
 that have survived to this day about the old Hall ; and 
 how it is believed that the master of it, owing to his 
 ancient science, has still a sort of residence there, and 
 control of the place ; and how, in one of the chambers, 
 there is still his antique table, and his chair, and some 
 rude old instruments and machinery, and a book, and 
 everything in readiness, just as if he might still come 
 back to finish some experiment. What it is important 
 to say is, that one of the chief things to which the old 
 lord applied himself was to discover the means of pro- 
 longing his own life, so that its duration should be indefi- 
 nite, if not infinite ; and such was his science, that he 
 was believed to have attained this magnificent and awful 
 purpose. 
 
 "So, as you may suppose, the man of science had 
 great joy in having done this thing, both for the pride 
 of it, and because it was so delightful a thing to have 
 before him the prospect of endless time, which he might 
 spend in adding more and more to his science, and so 
 doing good to the world; for the chief obstruction to 
 the improvement of the world and the growth of knowl- 
 edge is, that mankind cannot go straightforward in it, 
 but continually there have to be new beginnings, and it 
 takes every new man half his life, if not the whole of it,
 
 112 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 to come up to the point where his predecessor left off. 
 Aud so this uoble man this mail of a noble purpose 
 spent many years in finding out this mighty secret ; and 
 at last, it is said, he succeeded. But on what terms F 
 
 "Well, it is said that the terms were dreadful and 
 horrible ; insomuch that the wise man hesitated whether 
 it were lawful and desirable to take advantage of them, 
 great as was the object in view. 
 
 " You see, the object of the lord of Hall was to 
 
 take a life from the course of Nature, and Nature did not 
 choose to be defrauded ; so that, great as was the power 
 of this scientific man over her, she would not consent 
 that he should escape the necessity of dying at his 
 proper time, except upon condition of sacrificing some 
 other life for his ; and this was to be done once for every 
 thirty years that he chose to live, thirty years being the 
 account of a generation of man ; and if in any way, in 
 that time, this lord could be the death of a human being, 
 that satisfied the requisition, and he might live on. 
 There is a form of the legend which says, that one of 
 the ingredients of the drink which the nobleman brewed 
 by his science was the heart's blood of a pure young boy 
 or girl. But this I reject, as too coarse an idea ; and, 
 indsed, I think it may be taken to mean symbolically, 
 that the person who desires to engross to himself more 
 than his share of human life must do it by sacrificing to 
 his selfishness some dearest interest of another person, 
 who has a good right to life, and may be as useful in it 
 as he. 
 
 "Now, this lord was a just man by nature, and if he 
 had gone astray, it was greatly by reason of his earnest
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 113 
 
 wish to do something for the poor, wicked, struggliug, 
 bloody, uncomfortable race of man, to which he belonged. 
 He bethought himself whether lie would have a right to 
 take the life of one of those creatures, without their own 
 consent, hi order to prolong his own ; and after much 
 arguing to and fro, he came to the conclusion that he 
 should not have the right, unless it were a life over 
 which he had control, aud which was the next to his 
 own. He looked round him ; he was a lonely and ab- 
 stracted man, secluded by his studies from human affec- 
 tions, and there was but one human being whom he 
 cared for ; that was a beautiful kinswoman, an orphan, 
 whom his father had brought up, and, dying, left her to 
 his care. There was great kindness and affection as 
 great as the abstracted nature of his pursuits would allow 
 on the part of this lord towards the beautiful young 
 girl ; but not what is called love, at least, he never ac- 
 knowledged it to himself. But, looking into his heart, he 
 saw that she, if any one, was to be the person whom the 
 sacrifice demanded, and that he might kill twenty others 
 without effect, but if he took the life of this one, it would 
 make the charm strong and good. 
 
 " My friends, I have meditated many a time on this 
 ugly feature of my legend, and am unwilling to take it in 
 the literal sense ; so I conceive its spiritual meaning (for 
 everything, you know, has its spiritual meaning, which 
 to the literal meaning is what the soul is to the body), 
 its spiritual meaning was, that to the deep pursuit of sci- 
 ence we must sacrifice great part of the joy of life ; that 
 nobody can be great, and do great things, without giving 
 up to death, so far as he regards his enjoyment of it,
 
 114 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 much that he would gladly enjoy ; and in that sense I 
 choose to take it. But the earthly old legend will have 
 it, that this mad, high-minded, heroic, murderous lord 
 did insist upon it with himself that he must murder this 
 poor, loving, and beloved child. 
 
 "I do not wish to delay upon this horrible matter, 
 and to tell you how he argued it with himself; and how, 
 the more and more he argued it, the more reasonable it 
 seemed, the more absolutely necessary, the more a duty 
 that the terrible sacrifice should be made. Here was 
 this great good to be done to mankind, and all that 
 stood in the way of it was one little delicate life, so frail 
 that it was likely enough to be blown out, any day, by 
 the mere rude blast that the rush of life creates, as it 
 streams along, or by any slightest accident; so good 
 and pure, too, that she was quite unfit for this world, 
 and not capable of any happiness in it ; and all that was 
 asked of her was to allow herself to be transported to a 
 place where she would be happy, and would find com- 
 panions fit for her, which he, her only present com- 
 panion, certainly was not. In fine, he resolved to shed 
 the sweet, fragrant blood of this little violet that loved 
 him so. 
 
 " Well ; let us hurry over this part of the story as 
 fast as we can. He did slay this pure young girl ; he 
 took her into the wood near the house, an old wood that 
 is standing yet, with some of its magnificent oaks ; and 
 then he plunged a dagger into her heart, after they had 
 had a very tender and loving talk together, in which he 
 had tried to open the matter tenderly to her, and make 
 her understand, that though he was to slay her, it was
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 115 
 
 really for the very reason that he loved her better than 
 anything else in the world, and that he would far rather 
 die himself, if that would answer the purpose at all. 
 Indeed, he is said to have oifered her the alternative of 
 slaying Ifim, and taking upon herself the burden of in- 
 definite life, and the studies and pursuits by which he 
 meant to benefit mankind. But she, it is said, this 
 noble, pure, loving child, she looked up into his face 
 and smiled sadly, and then snatching the dagger from 
 him, she plunged it into her own heart. I cannot tell 
 whether this be true or whether she waited to be killed 
 by him ; but this I know, that in the same circumstances 
 I think I should have saved my lover or my friend the 
 pain of killing me. There she lay dead, at any rate, and 
 he buried her in the wood, and returned to the house ; 
 and, as it happened, he had set his right foot in her 
 blood, and his shoe was wet in it, and by some miracu- 
 lous fate, it left a track all along the wood-path, and into 
 the house, and on the stone steps of the threshold, and 
 up into his chamber, all along ; and the servants saw it 
 the next day, and wondered, and whispered, and missed 
 the fair young girl, and looked askance at their lord's 
 right foot, and turned pale, all of them, as death. 
 
 "And next, the legend says, that Sir Forrester was 
 struck with horror at what he had done, and could not 
 bear the laboratory where he had toiled so long, and was 
 sick to death of the object that he had pursued, and was 
 most miserable, and fled from his old Hall, and was gone 
 full many a day. But all the while he was gone there 
 was the mark of a bloody footstep impressed upon the 
 stone doorstep of the Hall. The track had lain all along
 
 116 SEPTIMICS FELTON. 
 
 through the wood-path, and across the lawn, to the old 
 Gothic door of the Hall ; but the rain, the English rain 
 that is always falling, had come the next day, and 
 washed it all away. The track had lain, too, across the 
 broad hall, and up the stairs, and into the lord's study ; 
 but there it had lain on the rushes that were strewn 
 there, and these the servants had gathered carefully up, 
 and thrown them away, and spread fresh ones. So that 
 it was only on the threshold that the mark remained. 
 
 "But the legend says, that wherever Sir Forrester 
 went, in his wanderings about the world, he left a bloody 
 track behind him. It was wonderful, and very incon- 
 venient, this phenomenon. When he went into a church, 
 you would see the track up the broad aisle, and a little 
 red puddle in the place where he sat or knelt. Once he 
 went to the king's court, and there being a track up to 
 the very throne, the king frowned upon him, so that he 
 never came there any more. Nobody could tell how it 
 happened; his foot was not seen to bleed, only there 
 was the bloody track behind him, wherever he went; 
 and he was a horror-stricken man, always looking behind 
 him to see the track, and then hurrying onward, as if to 
 escape his own tracks ; but always they followed him as 
 fast. 
 
 " In the hall of feasting, there was the bloody track 
 to his chair. The learned men whom he consulted about 
 this strange difficulty conferred with one another, and 
 with him, who was equal to any of them, and pished and 
 pshawed, and said, 'O, there is nothing miraculous in 
 this ; it is only a natural infirmity, which can easily be 
 put an end to, though, perhaps, the stoppage of such
 
 SEPT1MIUS FKLTOX. 117 
 
 an evacuation will cause damage to other parts of tbe^ 
 frame.' Sir Forrester always said, ' Stop it, my learned 
 brethren, if you can ; no matter what the consequences.' 
 And they did their best, but without result ; so that he 
 was still compelled to leave his bloody track on their 
 college-rooms and combination-rooms, the same as else- 
 where ; and in street and in wilderness ; yes, and in the 
 battle-field, they say, his track looked freshest and red- 
 dest of all. So, at last, finding the notice he attracted 
 inconvenient, this unfortunate lord deemed it best to go 
 back to his own Hall, where, living among faithful old ^ 
 servants born in the family, he could hush the matter up 
 better than elsewhere, and not be stared at continually, 
 or, glancing round, see people holding up their hands in 
 terror at seeing a bloody track behind him. And so home 
 he came, and there he saw the bloody track on the door- 
 step, and dolefully went into the hall, and up the stairs, 
 an old servant ushering him into his chamber, and half 
 a dozen others following behind, gazing, shuddering, 
 pointing with quivering fingers, looking horror-stricken 
 in one another's pale faces, and the moment he had 
 passed, running to get fresh rushes, and to scour the 
 stairs. The next day, Sir Forrester went into the wood, 
 and by the aged oak he found a grave, and on the grave \/f 
 he beheld a beautiful crimson flower ; the most gorgeous 
 and beautiful, surely, that ever grew ; so rich it looked, 
 so full of potent juice. That flower he gathered; and 
 the spirit of his scientific pursuits coming upon him, he 
 knew that this was the flower, produced out of a human 
 life, that was essential to the perfection of his recipe for 
 immortality ; and he made the drink, and drank it, and
 
 118 SEPTIMIUS FELTOX. 
 
 became immortal in woe and agony, still studying, still 
 'growing wiser and more wretched in every age. By 
 and by he vanished from the old Hall, but not by death ; 
 for from generation to generation, they say that a bloody 
 track is seen around that house, and sometimes it is 
 tracked up into the chambers, so freshly that you see 
 he must have passed a short time before ; and he grows 
 wiser and wiser, and lonelier and lonelier, from age to 
 age. And this is the legend of the bloody footstep, 
 which I myself have seen at the Hall door. As to the 
 flower, the plant of it continued for several years to grow 
 out of the grave ; and after a while, perhaps a century 
 
 ago, it was transplanted into the garden of Hall, and 
 
 preserved with great care, and is so still. And as the 
 family attribute a kind of sacredness, or curseduess, to 
 the flower, they can hardly be prevailed upon to give 
 any of the seeds, or allow it to be propagated elsewhere, 
 though the king should send to ask it. It is said, too, 
 that there is still in the family the old lord's recipe for 
 immortality, and that several of his collateral descend- 
 ants have tried to concoct it, and instil the flower into 
 it, and so give indefinite life ; but unsuccessfully, because 
 the seeds of the flower must be planted in a fresh grave 
 of bloody death, in order to make it effectual." 
 
 So ended Sybil's legend; in which Septimius was 
 struck by a certain analogy to Aunt Keziah's Indian 
 legend, both referring to a flower growing out of a 
 grave ; and also he did not fail to be impressed with the 
 wild coincidence of this disappearance of an ancestor of 
 the family long ago, and the appearance, at about the
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 119 
 
 same epoch, of the first known ancestor of his own fam- 
 ily, the man with wizard's attributes, with the bloody foot- 
 step, and whose sudden disappearance became a myth, 
 under the idea that the Devil carried him away. Yet, 
 on the whole, this wild tradition, doubtless becoming 
 wilder in Sybil's wayward and morbid fancy, had the 
 effect to give him a sense of the fantasticalness of his 
 present pursuit, and that in adopting it, he had strayed 
 into a region long abandoned to superstition, and where 
 the shadows of forgotten dreams go when men are done 
 with them ; where past worships are ; where great Pan 
 went when he died to the outer world; a limbo into 
 which living men sometimes stray when they think them- 
 selves sensiblest and wisest, and whence they do not often 
 find their way back into the real world. Visions of 
 wealth, visions of fame, visions of philanthropy, all 
 visions find room here, and glide about without jostling. 
 When Septimius came to look at the matter in his pres- 
 ent mood, the thought occurred to him that he had per- 
 haps got into such a limbo, and that Sybil's legend, which 
 looked so wild, might be all of a piece with his own 
 present life ; for Sybil herself seemed an illusion, and 
 so, most strangely, did Aunt Keziah, whom he had 
 known all his life, with her homely and quaint charac- 
 teristics ; the grim doctor, with his brandy and his Ger- 
 man pipe, impressed him in the same way; and these, 
 altogether, made his homely cottage by the wayside seem 
 an unsubstantial edifice, such as castles in the air are 
 built of, and the ground he trod on unreal ; and that 
 grave, which he knew to contain the decay of a beautiful 
 young man, but a fictitious swell formed by the fantasy
 
 120 SEPT1MIUS FELTOX. 
 
 of his eyes. All unreal ; all illusion ! Was Rose Gar- 
 field a deception too, with her daily beauty, and daily 
 cheerfulness, and daily, worth ? In short, it was such 
 a moment as I suppose all men feel (at least, I can an- 
 swer for one), when the real scene and picture of life 
 swims, jars, shakes, seems about to be broken up and 
 dispersed, like the picture in a smooth pond, when we 
 disturb its tranquil mirror by throwing in a stone ; and 
 though the scene soon settles itself, and looks as real as 
 before, a haunting doubt keeps close at hand, as long as 
 we live, asking, " Is it stable ? Am I sure of it ? Am 
 I certainly not dreaming ? See ; it trembles again, ready 
 to dissolve." 
 
 Applying himself with earnest diligence to his attempt 
 to decipher and interpret the mysterious manuscript, 
 working with his whole mind and strength, Septimius 
 did not fail of some flattering degree of success. 
 
 A good deal of the manuscript, as has been said, was 
 in an ancient English script, although so uncouth and 
 shapeless were the characters, that it was not easy to 
 resolve them into letters, or to believe that they were 
 anything but arbitrary and dismal blots and scrawls upou 
 the yellow paper; without meaning, vague, like the misty 
 and undefined germs of thought as they exist in our 
 minds before clothing themselves in words. These, how- 
 ever, as he concentrated his mind upon them, took dis- 
 tiucter shape, like cloudy stars at the power of the tele- 
 scope, and became sometimes English, sometimes Latin, 
 strangely patched together, as if, so accustomed was the 
 writer to use that language in which all the science of
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 121 
 
 that age was usually embodied, that he really mixed it 
 unconsciously with the vernacular, or used both indis- 
 criminately. There was some Greek, too, but not much. 
 Then frequently came in the cipher, to the study of which 
 Septimius had applied himself for some time back, with 
 the aid of the books borrowed from the college library, 
 and not without success. Indeed, it appeared to him, 
 on close observation, that it had not been the intention 
 of the writer really to conceal what he had written from 
 any earnest student, but rather to lock it up for safety 
 in a sort of coffer, of which diligence and insight should 
 be the key, and the keen intelligence with which the 
 meaning was sought should be the test of the seeker's 
 being entitled to possess the secret treasure. 
 
 Amid a great deal of misty stuff, he found the docu- 
 ment to consist chiefly, contrary to his supposition be- 
 forehand, of certain rules of life; he would have taken 
 it, on a casual inspection, for an essay of counsel, ad- 
 dressed by some great and sagacious man to a youth in 
 whom he felt an interest, so secure and good a doc- 
 trine of life was propounded, such excellent maxims 
 there were, such wisdom in all matters that came within 
 the writer's purview. It was as much like a digested 
 synopsis of some old philosopher's wise rules of conduct, 
 as anything else. But on closer inspection, Septimius, 
 in his unsophisticated consideration of this matter, was 
 not so well satisfied. True, everything that was said 
 seemed not discordant with the rules of social morality ; 
 not unwise : it was shrewd, sagacious ; it did not appear 
 to infringe upon the rights of mankind ; but there was 
 something left out, something unsatisfactory, what was 
 6
 
 122 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 it ? There was certainly a cold spell in the document -, 
 a magic, not of fire, but of ice ; and Scptimius the more 
 exemplified its power, in that he soon began to be 
 insensible of it. It affected Mm as if it had been 
 written by some greatly wise and worldly-experienced 
 man, like the writer of Ecclesiastes ; for it was full of 
 truth. It was a truth that does not make men better, 
 though perhaps calmer ; and beneath which the buds of 
 happiness curl up like tender leaves in a frost. What 
 was the matter with this document, that the young man's 
 youth perished out of him as he read ? What icy hand 
 had written it, so that the heart was chilled out of the 
 reader ? Not that Septimius was sensible of this char- 
 acter ; at least, not long, for as he read, there grew 
 upon him a mood of calm satisfaction, such as he had 
 never felt before. His mind seemed to grow clearer; 
 his perceptions most acute ; his sense of the reality of 
 things grew to be such, that he felt as if he could touch 
 and handle all his thoughts, feel round about all their 
 outline and circumference, and know them with a cer- 
 tainty, as if they were material things. Not that all 
 this was in the document itself; but by studying it so 
 earnestly, and, as it were, creating its meaning anew for 
 himself, out of such illegible materials, he caught the 
 temper of the old writer's mind, after so many ages as 
 that tract had lain in the mouldy and musty manuscript. 
 He was magnetized with him ; a powerful intellect acted 
 powerfully upon him ; perhaps, even, there was a sort of 
 spell and mystic influence imbued into the paper, and 
 mingled with the yellow ink, that steamed forth by the 
 effort of this young man's earnest rubbing, as it were,
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 123 
 
 and by the action of his miud, applied to it as intently 
 as lie possibly could ; and even bis handling the paper, 
 his bending over it, and breathing upon it, had its 
 effect. 
 
 It is not in our power, nor in our wish, to produce the 
 original form, nor yet the spirit, of a production which 
 is better lost to the world : because it was the expres- 
 sion of a human intellect originally greatly gifted and 
 capable of high things, but gone utterly astray, partly by 
 its own subtlety, partly by yielding to the temptations 
 of the lower part of its nature, by yielding the spiritual 
 to a keen sagacity of lower things, until it was quite 
 fallen ; and yet fallen in such a way, that it seemed not 
 only to itself, but to mankind, not fallen at all, but 
 wise and good, and fulfilling all the ends of intellect hi 
 such a life as ours, and proving, moreover, that earthly 
 life was good, and all that the development of our na- 
 ture demanded. All this is better forgotten ; better 
 burnt; better never thought over again; and all the 
 more, because its aspect was so wise, and even praise- 
 worthy. But what we must preserve of it were certain 
 rules of life and moral diet, not exactly expressed in 
 the document, but which, as it were, on its being duly 
 received into Septimius's mind, were precipitated from 
 the rich solution, and crystallized into diamonds, and 
 which he found to be the moral dietetics, so to speak, by 
 observing which he was to achieve the end of earthly 
 immortality, whose physical nostrum was given in the 
 recipe which, with the help of Doctor Portsoaken and 
 his Aunt Keziah, he had already pretty satisfactorily 
 made out.
 
 124- SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 " Keep thy heart at seventy throbs in a minute ; all 
 more than that wears away life too quickly. If thy 
 respiration be too quick, think with thyself that thou 
 hast sinned against natural order and moderation. 
 
 " Drink not wine nor strong drink ; and observe that 
 this rule is worthiest in its symbolic meaning. . 
 
 "Bask daily in the sunshine, and let it rest on thy 
 heart. 
 
 "Run not; leap not; walk at a steady pace, and 
 count thy paces per day. 
 
 "If thou feelest, at any time, a throb of the heart, 
 pause on the instant, and analyze it ; fix. thy mental eye 
 steadfastly upon it, and inquire why such commotion is. 
 
 " Hate not any man nor woman ; be not angry, unless 
 at any time thy blood seem a little cold and torpid ; cut 
 out all rankling feelings, they are poisonous to thee. If, 
 in thy waking moments, or in thy dreams, thou hast 
 thoughts of strife or unpleasantness with any man, strive 
 quietly with thyself to forget him. 
 
 " Have no friendships with an imperfect man, with a 
 man in bad health, of violent passions, of any character- 
 istic that evidently disturbs his own life, and so may 
 have disturbing influence on thine. Shake not any man 
 by the hand, because thereby, if there be any evil in the 
 man, it is likely to be communicated to thee. 
 
 " Kiss no woman if her lips be red ; look not upon her 
 if she be very fair. Touch not her hand if thy finger- 
 tips be found to thrill with hers ever so little. On the 
 whole, shun woman, for she is apt to be a disturbing 
 influence. If thou love her, all is over, and thy whole 
 past and remaining labor and pains will be in vaiu.
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 125 
 
 "Do some decent degree of good and kindness in 
 thy daily life, for the result is a slight pleasurable sense 
 that will seem to warm and delectate thee with felici- 
 tous self-laudiugs ; and all that brings thy thoughts 
 to thyself tends to invigorate that central principle by 
 the growth of which thou art to give thyself indefinite 
 life. 
 
 " Do not any act manifestly evil ; it may grow upon 
 thee, and corrode thee in after-years. Do not any fool- 
 ish good act; it may change thy wise habits. 
 
 "Eat no spiced meats. Young chickens, new-fallen 
 lambs, fruits, bread four days old, milk, freshest butter, 
 will make thy fleshy tabernacle youthful. 
 
 " From sick people, maimed wretches, afflicted people, 
 all of whom show themselves at variance with things 
 as they should be, from people beyond their wits, from 
 people in a melancholic mood, from people in extrava- 
 gant joy, from teething children, from dead corpses, turn 
 away thine eyes and depart elsewhere. 
 
 "If beggars haunt thee, let thy servants drive them 
 away, thou withdrawing out of ear-shot. 
 
 " Crying and sickly children, and teething children, as 
 aforesaid, carefully avoid. Drink the breath of whole- 
 some infants as often as thou conveniently canst, 
 it is good for thy purpose; also the breath of buxom 
 maids, if thou mayest without undue disturbance of the 
 flesh, drink it as a morning-draught, as medicine ; also 
 the breath of cows as they return from rich pasture at 
 eventide. 
 
 " If thou seest human poverty, or suffering, and it 
 trouble thee, strive moderately to relieve it, seeing that
 
 H6 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 thus thy mood will be changed to a pleasaut self-lauda- 
 tion. 
 
 " Practise thyself in a certain continual smile, for its 
 tendency will be to compose thy frame of being, and keep 
 thee from too much wear. 
 
 " Search not to see if thou hast a gray hair ; scruti- 
 nize not thy forehead to find a wrinkle ; nor the corners 
 of thy eyes to discover if they be corrugated. Such 
 things, being gazed at, daily take heart and grow. 
 
 "Desire nothing too fervently, not even life J yet 
 keep thy hold upon it mightily, quietly, unshakably, for 
 as long as thou really art resolved to live, Death, with 
 all his force, shall have no power against thee. 
 
 " Walk not beneath tottering ruins, nor houses being 
 put up, nor climb to the top of a mast, nor approach the 
 edge of a precipice, nor stand in the way of the lightning, 
 nor cross a swollen river, nor voyage at sea, nor ride a 
 skittish horse, nor be shot at by an arrow, nor confront 
 a sword, nor put thyself in the way of violent death ; for 
 this is hateful, and breaketh through all wise rules. 
 
 " Say thy prayers at bedtime, if thou deemest it will 
 give thee quieter sleep ; yet let it not trouble thee if 
 thou forgettest them. 
 
 " Change thy shirt daily ; thereby thou easiest off 
 yesterday's decay, and imbibest the freshness of the 
 morning's life, which enjoy with smelling to roses, and 
 other healthy and fragrant flowers, and live the longer 
 for it. Roses are made to that end. 
 
 " Read not great poets ; they stir up thy heart ; and 
 the human heart is a soil which, if deeply stirred, is apt 
 to give out noxious vapors."
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 127 
 
 Such were some of the precepts which Septimius gath- 
 ered and reduced to definite form out of this wonderful 
 document ; and he appreciated their wisdom, and saw 
 clearly that they must be absolutely essential to the 
 success of the medicine with which they were connected. 
 In themselves, almost, they seemed capable of prolong, 
 ing life to an indefinite period, so wisely were they con- 
 ceived, so well did they apply to the causes which almost 
 invariably wear away this poor short life of men, years 
 and years before even the shattered constitutions that 
 they received from their forefathers need compel them to 
 die. He deemed himself well rewarded for all his labor 
 and pains, should nothing else follow but his reception 
 and proper appreciation of these wise rules; but con- 
 tinually, as he read the manuscript, more truths, and, for 
 aught I know, profouuder and more practical ones, devel- 
 oped themselves ; and, indeed, small as the manuscript 
 looked, Septimius thought that he should find a volume 
 as big as the most ponderous folio in the college library 
 too small to contain its wisdom. It seemed to drip and 
 distil with precious fragrant drops, whenever he took it 
 out of his desk ; it diffused wisdom like those vials of 
 perfume which, small as they look, keep diffusing an 
 airy wealth of fragrance for years and years together, 
 scattering their virtue in incalculable volumes of invisi- 
 ble vapor, and yet are none the less in bulk for all they 
 give ; whenever he turned over the yellow leaves, bits 
 of gold, diamonds of good size, precious pearls, seemed 
 to drop out from between them. 
 
 And now ensued a surprise which, though of a happy 
 kind, was almost too much for him to bear ; for it made
 
 128 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 bis heart beat considerably faster tban tbe wise rules of 
 bis manuscript prescribed. Going up on his hill-top, as 
 summer wore away (he had not been there for some 
 time), and walking by the little flowery hillock, as so 
 many a hundred times before, what should he see there 
 but a new flower, that during the time he had been 
 poring over the manuscript so sedulously had developed 
 itself, blossomed, put forth its petals, bloomed into full 
 perfection, and now, with the dew of the morning upon 
 it, was waiting to offer itself to Septimius ? He trem- 
 bled as he looked at it, it was too much almost to bear ; 
 it was so very beautiful, so very stately, so very rich, 
 so very mysterious and wonderful. It was like a per- 
 son, like a life ! Whence did it come ? He stood apart 
 from it, gazing in wonder ; tremulously taking in its 
 aspect, and thinking of the legends he had heard from 
 Aunt Keziah and from Sybil Dacy ; and how that this 
 flower, like the one that their wild traditions told of, 
 had grown out of a grave, out of a grave in which he 
 had laid one slain by himself. 
 
 The flower was of the richest crimson, illuminated with 
 a golden centre of a perfect and stately beauty. From 
 the best descriptions that I have been able to gain of it, 
 it wfcs more like a dahlia than any other flower with 
 which I have acquaintance ; yet it does not satisfy me to 
 believe it really of that species, for the dahlia is not a 
 flower of any deep characteristics, either lively or malig- 
 nant, and this flower, which Septimius found so strangely, 
 seems to have had one or the other. If I have rightly 
 understood, it had a fragrance which the dahlia lacks ; 
 and there was something hidden in its centre, a mystery,
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 1*29 
 
 even in its fullest bloom, not developing itself so openly 
 as the heartless, yet not dishonest, dahlia. I remember 
 in England to have seen a flower at Eaton Hall, in Chesh- 
 ire, in those magnificent gardens, which may have been 
 like this, but my remembrance of it is not sufficiently dis- 
 tinct to enable me to describe it better than by saying 
 that it was crimson, with a gleam of gold in its centre, 
 which yet was partly hidden. It had many petals of 
 great richness. 
 
 Septimius, bending eagerly over the plant, saw that 
 this was not to be the only flower that it would pro- 
 duce that season; on the contrary, there was to be a 
 great abundance of them, a luxuriant harvest ; as if the 
 crimson offspring of this one plant would cover the whole 
 hillock, as if the dead youth beneath had burst into a 
 resurrection of many crimson flowers ! And in its veiled 
 heart, moreover, there was a mystery like death, although 
 it seemed to cover something bright and golden. 
 
 Day after day the strange crimson flower bloomed 
 more and more abundantly, until it seemed almost to 
 cover the little hillock, which became a mere bed of it, 
 apparently turning all its capacity of production to this 
 flower ; for the other plants, Septimius thought, seemed 
 to shrink away, and give place to it, as if they were un- 
 worthy to compare with the richness, glory, and worth 
 of this their queen. The fervent summer burned into it, 
 the dew and the rain ministered to it ; the soil was rich, 
 for it was a human heart contributing its juices, a heart 
 in its fiery youth sodden in its own blood, so that passion, 
 unsatisfied loves and longings, ambition that never won 
 its object, tender dreams and throbs, angers, lusts, hates, 
 6* i
 
 130 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 all concentrated by life, came sprouting in it, and its 
 mysterious being, and streaks and shadows had some 
 meaning in each of them. 
 
 The two girls, when they next ascended the hill, saw 
 the strange flower, and Rose admired it, and wondered 
 at it, but stood at a distance, without showing an attrac- 
 tion towards it, rather an undefined aversion, as if she 
 thought it might be a poison flower; at any rate she 
 would not be inclined to wear it in her bosom. Sybil 
 Dacy examined it closely, touched its leaves, smelt it, 
 looked at it with a botanist's eye, and at last remarked 
 to Rose, " Yes, it grows well in this new soil ; methiuks 
 it looks like a new human life." 
 
 " What is the strange flower ? " asked Rose. 
 
 " The Sanguined sanguinissima" said Sybil. 
 
 It so. happened about this time that poor Aunt Keziah, 
 in spite of her constant use of that bitter mixture of hers, 
 was in a very bad state of health. She looked all of an 
 unpleasant yellow, with bloodshot eyes ; she complained 
 terribly of her inwards. She had an ugly rheumatic 
 hitch in her motion from place to place, and was heard to 
 mutter many wishes that she had a broomstick to fly 
 about upon, and she used to bind up her head with a 
 dishclout, or what looked to be such, and would sit by 
 the kitchen fire even in the warm days, bent over it, 
 crouching as if she wanted to take the whole fire into her 
 poor cold heart or gizzard, groaning regularly with 
 each breath a spiteful and resentful groan, as if she 
 fought womanfully with her infirmities ; and she contin- 
 ually smoked her pipe, and sent out the breath of her
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 131 
 
 complaint visibly in that evil odor; and sometimes she 
 murmured a little prayer, but somehow or other the evil 
 and bitterness, acridity, pepperiuess, of her natural dispo- 
 sition overcame the acquired grace which compelled her 
 to pray, insomuch that, after all, you would have thought 
 the poor old woman was cursing with all her rheu- 
 matic might. All the time an old, broken-nosed, brown 
 earthen jug, covered with the lid of a black teapot, stood 
 on the edge of the embers, steaming forever, and some- 
 times bubbling a little, and giving a great puff, as if it 
 were sighing and groaning in sympathy with poor Aunt 
 Keziah, and when it sighed there came a great steam 
 of herby fragrance, not particularly pleasant, into the 
 kitchen. And ever and anon, half a dozen times it 
 might be, of an afternoon, Aunt Keziah took a certain 
 bottle from a private receptacle of hers, and also a tea- 
 cup, and likewise a little, old-fashioned silver teaspoon, 
 with which she measured three teaspooufuls of some 
 spirituous liquor into the teacup, half filled the cup with 
 the hot decoction, drank it off, gave a grunt of content, 
 and for the space of half an hour appeared to find life 
 tolerable. 
 
 But one day poor Aunt Keziah found herself unable, 
 partly from rheumatism, partly from other sickness or 
 weakness, and partly from dolorous ill-spirits, to keep 
 about any longer, so she betook herself to her bed ; and 
 betimes in the forenoon Septimius heard a tremendous 
 knocking on the floor of her bedchamber, which happened 
 to be the room above his own. He was the only person 
 in or about the house ; so, with great reluctance, he left 
 his studies, which were upon the recipe, in respect to
 
 132 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 which he was trying to make out the mode of concoction, 
 which was told in such a mysterious way that he could 
 not well tell either the quantity of the ingredients, the 
 mode of trituration, nor in what way their virtue was to 
 be extracted and combined. 
 
 Running hastily up stairs, he found Aunt Keziah lying 
 in bed, and groaning with great spite and bitterness ; so 
 that, indeed, it seemed not im providential that such an 
 inimical state of mind towards the human race was 
 accompanied with an almost inability of motion, else it 
 would not be safe to be within a considerable distance 
 of her. 
 
 " Seppy, you good-for-nothing, are you going to see me 
 lying here, dying, without trying to do anything for me ? " 
 
 " Dying, Auut Keziah ? " repeated the young man. " I 
 hope not ! What can I do for you ? Shall I go for 
 Rose ? or call a neighbor in ? or the doctor ? " 
 
 " No, no, you fool ! " said the afflicted person. " You 
 can do all that anybody can for me ; and that is to put 
 my mixture on the kitchen fire till it steams, and is just 
 ready to bubble ; then measure three teaspooufuls or 
 it may be four, as I am very bad of spirit into a tea- 
 cup, fill it half full, or it may be quite full, for I am 
 very bad, as I said afore ; six teaspoonfuls of spirit into 
 a cup of mixture, and let me have it as soon as may be j 
 and don't break the cup, nor spill the precious mixture, 
 for goodness knows when I can go into the woods to 
 gather any more. Ah me ! ah me ! it 's a wicked, mis- 
 erable world, and I am the most miserable creature in 
 it. Be quick, you good-for-nothing, and do as I say ! " 
 
 Septimius hastened down ; but as he went, a thought
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 133 
 
 I 
 
 came into his head, which it occurred to him might result 
 in great benefit to Auut Keziah, as well as to the great 
 cause of science aud human good, and to the promotion 
 of his own pui-pose, in the first place. A day or two 
 ago, he had gathered several of the beautiful flowers, 
 and laid them in the fervid sun to dry ; and they now 
 seemed to be in about the state in which the old woman 
 was accustomed to use her herbs, so far as Scptimius had 
 observed. Now, if these flowers were really, as there 
 was so much reason for supposing, the one ingredient 
 that had for hundreds of years been missing out of Aunt 
 Keziah's nostrum, if it was this which that strange 
 Indian sagamore had mingled with his drink with such 
 beneficial effect, why should not Septimius now re- 
 store it, and if it would not make his beloved aunt young 
 again, at least assuage the violent symptoms, aud perhaps 
 prolong her valuable life some years, for the solace and 
 delight of her numerous friends ? Septimius, like other 
 people of investigating aud active minds, had a great ten- 
 dency to experiment, aud so good an opportunity as the 
 present, where (perhaps he thought) there was so little 
 to be risked at worst, and so much to be gained, was not 
 to be neglected ; so, without more ado, he stirred three 
 of the crimson flowers into the earthen jug, set it on the 
 edge of the fire, stirred it well, and when it steamed, 
 threw up little scarlet bubbles, and was about to boil, he 
 measured out the spirits, as Aunt Keziah had bidden 
 him, and then filled the teacup. 
 
 " Ah, this will do her good ; little does she think, poor 
 old thing, what a rare and costly medicine is about to be 
 given her. This will set her on her feet again."
 
 13 t SEPTIM1US FELTON. 
 
 The hue was somewhat changed, he thought, from 
 what he had observed of Aunt Keziah's customary decoc- 
 tion ; instead of a turbid yellow, the crimson petals of 
 the flower had tinged it, and made it almost red ; not a 
 brilliant red, however, nor the least inviting in appear- 
 ance. Septimius smelt it, and thought he could distin- 
 guish a little of the rich odor of the flower, but was not 
 sure. He considered whether to taste it ; but the horri- 
 ble flavor of Aunt Keziah's decoction recurred strongly 
 to his remembrance, and he concluded, that were he evi- 
 dently at the point of death, he might possibly be bold 
 enough to taste it again ; but that nothing short of the 
 hope of a century's existence, at least, would repay 
 another taste of that' fierce and nauseous bitterness. 
 Aunt Keziah loved it ; and as she brewed, so let her 
 drink. 
 
 He went up stairs, careful not to spill a drop of the 
 brimming cup, and approached the old woman's bedside, 
 where she lay, groaning as before, and breaking out into 
 a spiteful croak the moment he was within ear-shot. 
 
 "You don't care whether I live or die," said she. 
 " You 've been waiting in hopes I shall die, and so save 
 yourself further trouble." 
 
 " By no means, Aunt Keziah," said Septimius. " Here 
 is the medicine, -which I have warmed, and measured out, 
 and mingled, as well as I knew how ; and I think it will 
 do you a great deal of good." 
 
 " Won't you taste it, Seppy, my dear ? " said Aunt 
 K"ziah, mollified by the praise of her beloved mixture. 
 "Drink first, dear, so that my sick old lips need not 
 iaint it. You look pale, Septimius ; it will do you good."
 
 SEPTIM1US FELTON. 135 
 
 " No, Aunt Keziah, I do not need it ; and it were a 
 pity to waste your precious drink," said he. 
 
 " It does not look quite the right color," said Aunt 
 Keziah, as she took the cup in her hand. " You must 
 have dropped some soot into it." Then as she raised it 
 to her lips, " It does not smell quite right. But, woe 's 
 me ! how can I expect anybody but myself to make this 
 precious drink as it should be ? " 
 
 She drank it off at two gulps ; for she appeared to 
 hurry it off faster than usual, as if not tempted by the 
 exquisiteness of its flavor to dwell upon it so long. 
 
 " You have not made it just right, Seppy," said she in 
 a milder tone than before, for she seemed to feel the cus- 
 tomary soothing influence of the draught, " but you '11 
 do better the next time. It had a queer taste, me- 
 thought ; or is it that my mouth is getting out of taste ? 
 Hard times it will be for poor Aunt Kezzy, if she 's to lose 
 her taste for the medicine that, under Providence, has 
 saved her life for so many years." 
 
 She gave back the cup to Septimius, after looking a 
 little curiously at the dregs. 
 
 "It looks like bloodroot, don't it?" said she. "Per- 
 haps it 's my own fault after all. I gathered a fresh 
 bunch of the yarbs yesterday afternoon, and put them to 
 steep, and it may be I was a little blind, for it was be- 
 tween daylight and dark, and the moon shone on me 
 before I had finished. I thought how the witches used 
 to gather their poisonous stuff at such times, and what 
 pleasant uses they made of it, but those are sinful 
 thoughts, Seppy, sinful thoughts ! so I '11 say a prayer 
 and try to go to sleep. I feel very noddy all at once."
 
 136 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 Septiraius drew the bedclothes up about her shoulders, 
 for she complained of being very chilly, and, carefully 
 putting her stick within reach, went down to his own 
 room, and resumed his studies, trying to make out from 
 those aged hieroglyphics, to which he was now so well 
 accustomed, what was the precise method of making the 
 elixir of immortality. Sometimes, as men in deep thought 
 do, he rose from his chair, and walked to and fro, the 
 four or five steps or so, that conveyed him from end to 
 end of his little room. At one of these times he chanced 
 to look in the little looking-glass that hung between the 
 windows, and was startled at the paleness of his face. 
 It was quite white, indeed. Septimius was not in the 
 least a foppish young man; careless he was in dress, 
 though often his apparel took an unsought picturesque- 
 ness that set off his slender, agile figure, perhaps from 
 some quality of spontaneous arrangement that he had 
 inherited from his Indian ancestry. Yet many women 
 might have found a charm in that dark, thoughtful face, 
 with its hidden fire and energy, although Septimius never 
 thought of its being handsome, and seldom looked at it. 
 Yet now he was drawn to it by seeing how strangely 
 white it was, and, gazing at it, he observed that since he 
 considered it last, a very deep furrow, or corrugation, or 
 fissure, it might almost be called, had indented his brow, 
 rising from the commencement of his nose towards the 
 centre of the forehead. And he knew it was his brood- 
 ing thought, his fierce, hard determination, his intense 
 concentrativeness for so many months, that had been 
 digging that furrow ; and it must prove indeed a potent 
 specific of the life-water that would smooth that away,
 
 SEPTIM1US FELTON. 137 
 
 and restore him all the youth and elasticity that he had 
 buried in that profound grave. 
 
 But why was he so pale? He could have supposed 
 himself startled by some ghastly thing that he had just 
 seen ; by a corpse in the next room, for instance ; or 
 .else by the foreboding that one would soon be there ; but 
 yet he was conscious of no tremor in his frame, no terror 
 in his heart ; as why should there be any ? Feeling his 
 own pulse, he found the strong, regular beat that should 
 be there. He was not ill, nor affrighted ; not expectant 
 of any pain. Then why so ghastly pale ? And why, 
 moreover, Septimius, did you listen so earnestly for any 
 sound in Aunt Keziah's chamber ? Why did you creep 
 on tiptoe, once, twice, three times, up to the old woman's 
 chamber, and put your ear to the keyhole, and listen 
 breathlessly ? Well ; it must have been that he was sub- 
 conscious that he was trying a bold experiment, and that 
 he had taken this poor old woman to be the medium of 
 it, in the hope, of course, that it would turn out well ; 
 yet with other views than her interest in the matter. 
 What was the harm of that ? Medical men, no doubt, 
 are always doing so, and he was a medical man for the 
 time. Then why was he so pale ? 
 
 He sat down and fell into a revery, which perhaps was 
 partly suggested by that chief furrow which he had seen, 
 and which we have spoken of, in his brow. He consid- 
 ered whether there was anything in this pursuit of his 
 that used up life particularly fast; so that, perhaps, 
 unless he were successful soon, he should be incapable 
 of renewal ; for, looking within himself, and considering 
 his mode of being, he had a singular fancy that his heart
 
 138 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 was gradually drying up, and that lie must continue to 
 get some moisture for it, or else it would soon be like 
 a withered leaf. Supposing his pursuit were vain, what 
 a waste he was making of that little treasure of golden 
 days, which was his all ! Could this be called life, which 
 he was leading now ? How unlike that of other young 
 men ! .How unlike that of Robert Hagburn, for exam- 
 ple ! There had come news yesterday of his having per- 
 formed a gallant part in the battle of Monmouth, and 
 being promoted to be a captain for his brave conduct. 
 Without thinking of long life, he really lived in heroic 
 -actions and emotions ; he got much life in a little, and 
 did not fear to sacrifice a lifetime of torpid breaths, if 
 necessary, to the ecstasy of a glorious death ! 
 
 [It appears from a written sketch by the author of this 
 story, that he changed his first plan of making Septimius 
 and Rose lovers, and she was to be represented as his half- 
 sister, and in the copy for publication this alteration 
 would have been made. ED.] 
 
 And then Robert loved, too, loved his sister Rose, and 
 felt, doubtless, an immortality in that passion. Why could 
 not Septimius love too ? It was forbidden ! Well, no 
 matter; whom could he have loved? Who, in all this 
 world, would have been suited to his secret, brooding 
 heart, that he could have let her into its mysterious 
 chambers, and walked with her from one cavernous 
 gloom to another, and said, "Here are my treasures. 
 I make thee mistress of all these ; with all these goods I 
 thee endow." And then, revealing to her his great secret 
 and purpose of gaining immortal life, have said : " This 
 shall be thine, too. Thou shalt share with me. We
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 189 
 
 will walk along the endless path together, and keep one 
 another's hearts warm, and so be content to live." 
 
 Ah, Septimius ! but now you are getting beyond those 
 rules of yours, which, cold as they are, have been 
 drawn out of a subtle philosophy, and might, were it 
 possible to follow them out, suffice to do all that you ask 
 of them ; but if you break them, you do it at the peril 
 of your earthly immortality. Each warmer and quicker 
 throb of the heart wears away so much of life. The 
 passions, the affections, are a wiue not to be indulged 
 in. Love, above all, being in its essence an immortal 
 thing, cannot be long contained in an earthly body, but 
 would wear it out with its own secret "power, softly 
 invigorating as it seems. You must be cold, therefore, 
 Septimius ; you must not even earnestly and passionately 
 desire this immortality that seems so necessary to you. 
 Else the very wish will prevent the possibility of its 
 fulfilment. 
 
 By and by, to call him out of these rhapsodies, came 
 Rose home ; and finding the kitchen hearth cold, and 
 Aunt Keziah missing, and no dinner by the fire, which 
 was smouldering, nothing but the portentous earthen 
 jug, which fumed, and sent out long, ill-flavored sighs, 
 she tapped at Septimius's door, and asked him what was 
 the matter. 
 
 "Aunt Keziah has had an ill turn," said Septimius, 
 " and has gone to bed." 
 
 " Poor auntie ! " said Rose, with her quick sympathy. 
 " I will this moment run up and see if she needs any- 
 thin?." 
 
 " No, Rose," said Septimius, " she has doubtless gone
 
 140 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 to sleep, and will awake as well as usual. It would dis- 
 please her much were you to miss your afternoon school; 
 so you had better set the table with whatever there is 
 left of yesterday's dinner, and leave ine to take care of 
 auntie." 
 
 " Well," said Rose, " she loves you best ; but if she be 
 really ill, I shall give up my school and nurse her." 
 
 " No doubt," said Septimius, " she will be about the 
 house again to-morrow." 
 
 So Rose ate her frugal dinner (consisting chiefly of 
 purslain, and some other garden herbs, which her thrifty 
 aunt had prepared for boiling), and went away as usual 
 to her school ; for Aunt Keziali, as aforesaid, had never 
 encouraged the tender ministrations of Rose, whose or- 
 derly, womanly character, with its well-defined orb of 
 daily and civilized duties, had always appeared to strike 
 her as tame; and she once said to her, "You arejiQ 
 squaw, child, and you '11 never make a witch." Nor 
 would she even so much as let Rose put her tea to steep, 
 or do anything whatever for herself personally ; though, 
 certainly, she was not backward in requiring of her a due 
 share of labor for the general housekeeping. 
 
 Septimius was sitting in his room, as the afternoon 
 wore away ; because, for some reason or other, or quite 
 as likely, for no reason at all, he did not air himself and 
 his thoughts, as usual, on the hill; so he was sitting 
 musing, thinking, looking into his mysterious manuscript, 
 when he heard Aunt Keziah moving in the chamber 
 above. First she seemed to rattle a chair ; then she be- 
 gan a slow, regular beat with the stick which Septimius 
 had left by her bedside, and which startled him strangely,
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 141 
 
 so tbat, indeed, his heart beat faster than the fi ve-and- 
 seventy throbs to which he was restricted by the wise 
 rules that he had digested. So he ran hastily up stairs, 
 and behold, Aunt Keziah was sitting up in bed, looking 
 very wild, so wild that you would have thought she 
 was going to fly up chimney the next minute ; her gray 
 hair all dishevelled, her eyes staring, her hands clutching 
 forward, while she gave a sort of howl, what with pain 
 and agitation. 
 
 " Seppy ! Seppy ! " said she, " Seppy, my darling ! 
 are you quite sure you remember how to make that pre- 
 cious drink ? " 
 
 " Quite well, Aunt Keziah," said Septimius, inwardly 
 much alarmed by her aspect, but preserving a true Indian 
 composure of outward mien. "I wrote it down, and 
 could say it by heart besides. Shall I make you a fresh 
 pot of it ? for I have thrown away the other." 
 
 "That was well, Seppy," said the poor old woman, 
 " for there is something wrong about it ; but I want no 
 more, for, Seppy dear, I am going fast out of this world, 
 where you and that precious drink were my only treas- 
 ures and comforts. I wanted to know if you remem- 
 bered the recipe ; it is all I have to leave you, and the 
 more you drink of it, Seppy, the better. Only see to 
 make it right ! " 
 
 " Dear auntie, what can I do for you ? " said Septim- 
 ius, in much consternation, but still calm. " Let me run 
 for the doctor, for the neighbors ? something must be 
 done ! " 
 
 The old woman contorted herself as if there were a 
 fearful time in her iusides ; and grinned, and twisted the
 
 l-t;J SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 yellow ugliness of her face, and groaned, and howled ; 
 and yet there was a tough and fierce kind of endurance 
 with which she fought with her anguish, and would not 
 yield to it a jot, though she allowed herself the relief of 
 shrieking savagely at it, much more like a defiance 
 than a cry for mercy. 
 
 " No doctor ! no woman ! " said she ; " if my drink 
 could not save me, what would a doctor's foolish pills 
 and powders do ? And a woman! If old Martha Denton, 
 the witch, were alive, I would be glad to see her. But 
 other women! Pah! Ah! Ai ! Oh! Phew! Ah, 
 Seppy, what a mercy it would be now if I could set to 
 and blaspheme a bit, and shake my fist at the sky ! But 
 I 'm a Christian woman, Seppy, a Christian woman." 
 
 " Shall I send for the minister, Aunt Keziah ? " asked 
 Septimius. " He is a good man, and a wise one." 
 
 " No minister for me, Seppy," said Aunt Keziah, howl- 
 ing as if somebody were choking her. "He may be a 
 good man and a wise one, but he 's not wise enough to 
 know the way to my heart, and never a man as was ! 
 Eh, Seppy, I 'm a Christian woman, but I 'm not like other 
 Christian women ; and I 'm glad I 'm going away from 
 this stupid world. I 've not been a bad woman, and I 
 deserve credit for it, for it would have suited me a great 
 deal better to be bad. 0, what a delightful time a witch 
 must have had, starting off up chimney on her broom- 
 stick at midnight, and looking down from aloft in the sky 
 on the sleeping village far below, with its steeple point- 
 ing up at her, so that she might touch the golden weath- 
 ercock ! You, meanwhile, in such an ecstasy, and all 
 below you the dull, innocent, sober humankind ; the wife
 
 SEPTIMIU.' FELTON. 143 
 
 sleeping by her husband, or mother by her child, squall- 
 ing with wind in its stomach ; the goodman driving up his 
 cattle and his plough, all so innocent, all so stupid, with 
 their dull days just alike, one after another. And you 
 up in the air, sweeping away to some nook in the for- 
 est ! Ha ! What 's that ? A wizard ! Ha ! ha ! Known 
 below as a deacon ! There is Goody Chickeriug ! How 
 quietly she sent the young people to bed after prayers ! 
 There ij a" TndiqnjfliPrp a nigger ; they all have equal 
 rights and privileges ;it a witch-meeting. Phew ! the 
 wind blows cold up here ! Why does not the Black Man 
 have the meeting at his own kitchen hearth ? Ho ! ho ! 
 dear me ! But I 'm a Christian woman and no witch ; 
 but those must have been gallant times ! " 
 
 Doubtless it was a partial wandering of the mind that 
 took the poor old woman away on this old-witch flight ; 
 and it was very curious and pitiful to witness the com- 
 punction with which she returned to herself and took 
 herself to task for the preference which, in her wild 
 nature, she could not help giving to harum-scarum 
 wickedness over tame goodness. Now she tried to com- 
 pose herself, and talk reasonably and godly. 
 
 "Ah, Septimius, my dear child, never give way to^v 
 temptation, nor consent to be a wizard, though the \ 
 Black Man persuade you ever so hard. I know he will 
 try. He has tempted me, but I never yielded, never / 
 gave him his will; and never do you, my boy, though / 
 you, with your dark complexion, and your brooding 
 brow, and your eye veiled, only when it suddenly looks 
 out with a flash of fire in it, are the sort of man he seeks 
 most, and that afterwards serves him. But don't do it,
 
 144 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 Septimius. But if you could be an Indian, methinks it 
 would be better than this tame life we lead. 'T would 
 have been better for me, at all events. 0, how pleasant 
 't would have been to spend my life wandering in the 
 woods, smelling the pines and the hemlock all day, and 
 fresh things of all kinds, and no kitchen work to do, 
 not to rake up the fire, nor sweep the room, nor make 
 the beds, but to sleep on fresh boughs in a wigwam, 
 with the leaves still on the branches that made the roof! 
 And then to see the deer brought in by the red hunter, 
 and the blood streaming from the arrow-dart ! AbJ_ 
 and the fight too ! and the scalping ! and, perhaps, a 
 woman might creep into the battle, and steal the wounded 
 enemy away of her tribe and scalp him, and be praied__ 
 for it ! O Seppy, how I hate the thought of the dull 
 life women lead ! A white woman's life is so dull ! 
 Thank Heaven, I'm done with it ! If I'm ever to live 
 again, may I be whole Indian, please my Maker ! " 
 
 After this goodly outburst, Aunt Keziah lay quietly 
 for a few moments, and her skinny claws being clasped 
 together, and her yellow visage grinning, as pious an 
 aspect as was attainable by her harsh and pain-distorted 
 features, Septimius perceived that she was in prayer. 
 And so it proved by what followed, for the old woman 
 turned to him with a grim tenderness on her face, and 
 stretched out her hand to be taken in his own. He 
 clasped the bony talon hi both his hands. 
 
 " Seppy, my dear, I feel a great peace, and I don't 
 think there is so very much to trouble me in the other 
 world. It won't be all house-work, and keeping decent, 
 and doing like other people there. I suppose I need n't
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 145 
 
 expect to ride on a broomstick, tbat would be wrong 
 in any kind of a world, but there may be woods to 
 wander in, and a pipe to smoke in the air of heaven ; 
 trees to hear the wind in, and to smell of, and all such 
 natural, happy things ; and by and by I shall hope to see 
 you there, Seppy, my darling boy ! Come by and by ; 
 'tis n't worth your while to live forever, even if you 
 should find out what 's wanting in the drink I 've taught 
 you. I can see a little way into the next world now, and 
 I see it to be far better than this heavy and wretched old 
 place. You'll die when your time comes; won't you, 
 Seppy, my darling ? " 
 
 " Yes, dear auntie, when my time comes," said Sep- 
 timius. " Very likely I shall want to live no longer by 
 that time." 
 
 "Likely not," said the old woman. "I'm sure I 
 don't. It is like going to sleep on my mother's breast 
 to die. So good night, dear Seppy ! " 
 
 " Good night, and God bless you, aunty ! " said Sep- 
 timius, with a gush of tears blinding him, spite of his 
 Indian nature. 
 
 The old woman composed herself, and lay quite still 
 and decorous for a short time ; then, rousing herself a 
 little, " Septimius," said she, " is there just a little drop 
 of my drink left ? Not that I want to live any longer, 
 but if I could sip ever so little, I feel as if I should step 
 into the other world quite cheery, with it warm in my 
 heart, and not feel shy and bashful at going among 
 strangers." 
 
 " Not one drop, auntie." 
 
 " Ah, well, no matter ! It was not quite right, that 
 7 J
 
 146 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 last cup. It had a queer taste. What could you have 
 put into it, Seppy, darling ? But no matter, no matter ! 
 It 's a precious stuff, if you make it right. Don't forget 
 the herbs, Septimius. Something wrong had certainly 
 got into it." 
 
 These, except for some murmurings, some groanings 
 and unintelligible whisperings, were the last utterances 
 of poor Aunt Keziah, who did not live a great while 
 longer, and at last passed away in a great sigh, like a 
 gust of wind among the trees, she having just before 
 stretched out her hand again and grasped that of Sep- 
 timius; and he sat watching her and gazing at her, 
 wondering and horrified, touched, shocked by death, of 
 which he had so unusual a terror, and by the death of 
 this creature especially, with whom he felt a sympathy 
 that did not exist with any other person now living. So 
 long did he sit, holding her hand, that at last he was con- 
 scious that it was growing cold within his own, and that 
 the stiffening fingers clutched him, as if they were dis- 
 posed to keep their hold, and not forego the tie that had 
 been so peculiar. 
 
 Then rushing hastily forth, he told the nearest avail- 
 able neighbor, who was Robert Hagburn's mother; and 
 she summoned some of her gossips, and came to the 
 house, and took poor Aunt Keziah in charge. They 
 talked of her with no great respect, I fear, nor much sor- 
 row, nor sense that the community would suffer any 
 great deprivation in her loss ; for, in their view, she was a 
 dram-drinking, pipe-smoking, cross-grained old maid, and, 
 as some thought, a witch; and, at any rate, with too 
 much of the Indian blood in her to be of much use ; and
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 147 
 
 they hoped that now Rose Garfield would have a pleas- 
 anter life, and Septimius study to be a minister, and all 
 things go well, and the place be cheerfuller. They found 
 Aunt Keziah's bottle in the cupboard, and tasted and 
 smelt of it. 
 
 "Good West Indjy as ever I tasted," said Mrs. Hag- 
 burn; "and there stands her broken pitcher, on the 
 hearth. Ah, empty ! I never could bring my mind to 
 taste it; but now I'm sorry I never did, for I suppose 
 nobody in the world can make any more of it." 
 
 Septimius, meanwhile, had betaken himself to the hill- 
 top, which was his place of refuge on all occasions when 
 the house seemed too stifled to contain him ; and there 
 he walked to and fro, with a certain kind of calmness and 
 indifference that he wondered at ; for there is hardly any- 
 thing in this world so strange as the quiet surface that 
 spreads over a man's mind in his greatest emergencies : 
 so that he deems himself perfectly quiet, and upbraids 
 himself with not feeling anything, when indeed he is pas- 
 sion-stirred. As Septimius walked to and fro, he looked 
 at the rich crimson flowers, which seemed to be bloom- 
 ing in greater profusion and luxuriance than ever before. 
 He had made an experiment with these flowers, and lie 
 was curious to know whether that experiment had been 
 the cause of Aunt Keziah's death. Not that he felt 
 any remorse therefor, in any case, or believed himself to 
 have committed a crime, having really intended and de- 
 sired nothing but good. I suppose such things (and he 
 must be a lucky physician, methinks, who has no such 
 mischief within his own experience) never weigh with 
 deadly weight on any man's conscience. Something
 
 148 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 must be risked in the cause of science, and in desperate 
 cases something must be risked for the patient's self. 
 Septimius, much as he loved life, would not have hesi- 
 tated to put his own life to the same risk that he had 
 imposed on Aunt Keziah ; or if he did hesitate, it would 
 have been only because, if the experiment turned out 
 disastrously in his own person, he would not be in a 
 position to make another and more successful trial ; 
 whereas, by trying it on others, the man of science still 
 reserves himself for new efforts, and does not put all the 
 hopes of the world, so far as involved in his success, on 
 one cast of the die. 
 
 By and by he met Sybil Dacy, who had ascended the 
 hill, as was usual with her, at sunset, and came towards 
 him, gazing earnestly in his face. 
 
 "They tell me poor Aunt Keziah is no more," said 
 she. 
 
 " She is dead," said Septimius. 
 
 " The flower is a very famous medicine," said the 
 girl, " but everything depends on its being applied in 
 the proper way." 
 
 "Do you know the way, then?" asked Septimius. 
 
 "No; you should ask Doctor Portsoaken about that," 
 said Sybil. 
 
 Doctor Portsoaken ! And so he should consult him. 
 That eminent chemist and scieutiflc man had evidently 
 heard of the recipe, and at all events would be acquaint- 
 ed with the best methods of gettimg the virtues out of 
 flowers and herbs, some of which, Septimius had read 
 enough to know, were poison in one phase and shape 
 of preparation, and possessed of richest virtues in others ;
 
 SEPTIMIL'S FELTON. 
 
 their poison, as one may say, serving as a dark and ter- 
 rible safeguard, which Providence has set to watch over 
 their preciousuess ; even as a dragon, or some wild and 
 fiendish spectre, is set to watch and keep hidden gold and 
 heaped-up diamonds. A dragon always waits on every- 
 thing that is very good. And what would deserve the 
 watch and ward of danger of a dragon, or something 
 more fatal than a dragon, if not this treasure of which 
 Septimius was in quest, and the discovery and possession 
 of which would enable him to break down one of the 
 strongest barriers of nature ? It ought to be death, he 
 acknowledged it, to attempt such a thing; for how 
 changed would be life if he should succeed ; how ne- 
 cessary it was that mankind should be defended from 
 such attempts on the general rule on the part of all but 
 him. How could Death be spared? then the sire 
 would live forever, and the heir never come to his in- 
 heritance, and so he would at once hate his own father, 
 from the perception that he would never be out of his 
 way. Then the same class of powerful minds would al- 
 ways rule the state, and there would never be a change 
 of policy. 
 
 [Here several pages are missing. ED.] 
 
 Through such scenes Septimius sought out the direc- 
 tion that Doctor Portsoaken had given him, and came to 
 the door of a house in the olden part of the town. The 
 Boston of those days had very much the aspect of pro- 
 vincial towns in England, such as may still be seen 
 there, while our own city has undergone such wonderful 
 changes that little likeness to what our ancestors made it
 
 150 SEPTIMIUS VELTON. 
 
 can now be found. The streets, crooked and narrow ; 
 the houses, many gabled, projecting, with latticed win- 
 dows and diamond panes; without sidewalks; with 
 rough pavements. 
 
 Septimius knocked loudly at the door, nor had long 
 to wait before a serving-maid appeared, who seemed to 
 be of English nativity ; and in reply to his request for 
 Doctor Portsoaken bade him come in, and led him up a 
 staircase with broad landing-places ; then tapped at the 
 door of a room, and was responded to by a gruff voice 
 saying, " Come in ! " The woman held the door open, 
 and Septimius saw the veritable Doctor Portsoaken in 
 an old, faded morning-gown, and with a nightcap on his 
 head, his German pipe in his mouth, and a brandy-bottle, 
 to the best of our belief, on the table by his side. 
 
 "Come in, come in," said the gruff doctor, nodding 
 to Septimius. "I remember you. Come in, man, and 
 tell me your business." 
 
 Septimius did come in, but was so struck by the 
 aspect of Dr. Portsoaken's apartment, and his gown, 
 that he did not immediately tell his business. In the 
 first place, everything looked very dusty and dirty, so 
 that evidently no woman had ever been admitted into 
 this sanctity of a place ; a fact made all the more evi- 
 dent by the abundance of spiders, who had spun their 
 webs about the walls and ceiling in the wildest apparent 
 confusion, though doubtless each individual spider knew 
 the cordage which he had lengthened out of his own 
 miraculous bowels. But it was really strange. They 
 had festooned their cordage on whatever was stationary 
 in the room, making a sort of gray, dusky tapestry, that
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 151 
 
 waved portentously in the breeze, and flapped, heavy 
 and dismal, each with its spider in the centre of his own 
 system. And what was most marvellous was a spider 
 over the doctor's head ; a spider, I think, of some South 
 American breed, with a circumference of its many legs 
 as big, unless I am misinformed, as a teacup, and with 
 a body in the midst as large as a dollar; giving the 
 spectator horrible qualms as to what would be the conse- 
 quence if this spider should be crushed, and, at the same 
 time, suggesting the poisonous danger of suffering such 
 a monster to live. The monster, however, sat in the 
 midst of the stalwart cordage of his web, right over the 
 doctor's head ; and he looked, with all those complicated 
 lines, like the symbol of a conjurer or crafty politician in 
 the midst of the complexity of his scheme ; and Septim- 
 ius wondered if he were not the type of Dr. Portsoaken 
 himself, who, fat and bloated as the spider, seemed to 
 be the centre of some dark contrivance. And could it 
 be that poor Septimius was typified by the fascinated fly, 
 doomed to be entangled by the web ? 
 
 " Good day to you," said the gruff doctor, taking his 
 pipe from his mouth. "Here I am, with my brother 
 spiders, in the midst of my web. I told you, you 
 remember, the wonderful efficacy which I had discovered! 
 in spiders' webs ; and this is my laboratory, where I 
 have hundreds of workmen concocting my panacea for 
 me. Is it not a lovely sight ? " 
 
 " A wonderful one, at least," said Septimius. " That 
 one above your head, the monster, is calculated to give 
 a very favorable idea of your theory. What a quantity 
 of poison there must be in him ! "
 
 152 SEPTIMIUS FELTOtf. 
 
 " Poison, do you call it ? " quoth the grim doctor. 
 " That 's entirely as it may be used. Doubtless his bite 
 would send a man to kingdom come ; but, on the other 
 hand, no one need want a better life-line than that fel- 
 low's web. He and I are firm friends, and I believe he 
 would know my enemies by instinct. But come, sit 
 do\vn, and take a glass of brandy. No ? Well, I '11 
 drink it for you. And how is the old aunt yonder, with 
 her infernal nostrum, the bitterness and uauseousuess of 
 which my poor stomach has not yet forgotten ? " 
 
 " My Aunt Keziah is no more," said Septimius. 
 
 " No more ! Well, I trust in heaven she has carried her 
 secret with her," said the doctor. " If anything could 
 comfort you for her loss, it would be that. But what 
 brings you to Boston ? " 
 
 "Only a dried flower or two," said Septiraius, pro- 
 ducing some specimens of the strange growth of the 
 grave. "I want you to tell me about them." 
 
 The naturalist took the flowers in his hand, one of 
 which had the root appended, and examined them with 
 great minuteness and some surprise ; two or three times 
 looking in Septimius's face with a puzzled and inquiring 
 air ; then examined them again. 
 
 " Do you tell me," said he, " that the plant has been 
 found indigenous in this country, and in your part of 
 it ? And in what locality ? " 
 
 " Indigenous, so far as I know," answered Septimius. 
 " As to the locality," he hesitated a little, " it is on 
 a small hillock, scarcely bigger than a molehill, on the 
 hill-top behind my house." 
 
 The naturalist looked steadfastly at him with red, burn-
 
 SEPTIM1US FELTON. 153 
 
 ing eyes, under his deep, impending, shaggy brows ; theu 
 again at the flower. 
 
 " Flower, do you call it ? " said he, after a re-examina- 
 tion. " This is no flower, though it so closely resembles 
 one, and a beautiful o'ue, yes, most beautiful. But it 
 is no flower. It is a certain very rare fungus, so rare 
 as almost to be thought fabulous; and there are the 
 strangest superstitious, coming down from ancient times, 
 as to the mode of production. What sort of manure had 
 been put into that hillock ? Was it merely dried leaves, 
 the refuse of the forest, or something else ? " 
 
 Septimius hesitated a little ; but there was no reason 
 why he should not disclose the truth, as much of it as 
 Doctor Portsoaken cared to know. 
 
 "The hillock where it grew," answered he, "was a 
 grave." 
 
 "A grave! Strange! strange!" quoth Doctor Port- 
 soaken. "Now these old superstitions sometimes prove 
 to have a germ of truth in them, which some philosopher 
 has doubtless long ago, in forgotten ages, discovered and 
 made known ; but in process of time his learned memory 
 passes away, but the truth, undiscovered, survives him, 
 and the people get hold of it, and make it the nucleus of 
 all sorts of folly. So it grew out of a grave ! Yes, yes ; 
 and probably it would have grown out of any other dead 
 flesh, as well as that of a human being; a dog would have 
 answered the purpose as well as a man. You must know 
 that the seeds of fungi are scattered so universally over 
 the world that, only comply with the conditions, and you 
 will produce them everywhere. Prepare the bed it loves, 
 and a mushroom will spring up spontaneously, an excel- 
 7*
 
 154, SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 lent food, like manna from heaven. So superstition says, 
 kill your deadliest enemy, and plant him, and he will 
 come up in a delicious fungus, which I presume to be 
 this ; steep him, or distil him, and he will make an elixir 
 of life for you. I suppose there is some foolish symbol- 
 ism or other about the matter; but the fact I affirm to 
 be nonsense. Dead flesh under some certain conditions 
 of rain and sunshine, not at present ascertained by 
 science, will produce the fungus, whether the manure be 
 friend, or foe, or cattle." 
 
 " And as to its medical efficacy ? " asked Septimius. 
 
 "That may be great for aught I know," said Port- 
 soaken; "but I am content with my cobwebs. You 
 may seek it out for yourself. But if the poor fellow lost 
 his life in the supposition that he might be a useful in- 
 gredient in a recipe, you are rather an unscrupulous 
 practitioner." 
 
 " The person whose mortal relics fill that grave," said 
 Septimius, " was no enemy of mine (no private enemy, I 
 mean, though he stood among the enemies of my coun- 
 try), nor had I anything to gain by his death. I strove 
 to avoid aiming at his life* but he compelled me." 
 
 "Many a chance shot brings down the bird," said 
 Doctor Portsoaken. " You say you had no interest in 
 his death. We shall see that in the end." 
 
 Septimius did not try to follow the conversation among 
 the mysterious hints with which the doctor chose to in- 
 volve it ; but he now sought to gain some information 
 from him as to the mode of preparing the recipe, and 
 whether he thought it would be most efficacious as a de- 
 coction, or as a distillation. The learned chemist sup-
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 155 
 
 ported most decidedly the latter opinion, and showed 
 Septimius how he might make for himself a simpler appa- 
 ratus, with no better aids than Aunt Keziah's teakettle, 
 and one or two trifling things, which the doctor himself 
 supplied, by which all might be done with every neces- 
 sary scrupulousness. 
 
 " Let me look again at the formula," said he. " There 
 are a good many minute directions that appear trifling, 
 but it is not safe to neglect any minutiae in the prepara- 
 tion of an affair like this ; because, as it is all mysterious 
 and unknown ground together, we cannot tell which may 
 be the important and efficacious part. For instance, 
 when all else is done, the recipe is to be exposed seven 
 days to the sun at noon. That does not look very impor- 
 tant, but it may be. Then again, ' Steep it in moonlight 
 during the second quarter.' That 's all moonshine, one 
 would think ; but there 's no saying. It is singular, with 
 such preciseness, that no distinct directions are given 
 whether to infuse, decoct, distil, or what other way ; but 
 my advise is to distil." 
 
 " I will do it," said Septimius, " and not a direction 
 shall be neglected." 
 
 " I shall be curious to know the result," said Doctor 
 Portsoaken, " and am glad to see the zeal with which you 
 enter into the matter. A very valuable medicine may be 
 recovered to science through your agency, and you may 
 make your fortune by it ; though, for my part, I prefer 
 to trust to my cobwebs. This spider, now, is not he a 
 lovely object ? See, he is quite capable of knowledge and 
 affection." 
 
 There seemed, in fact, to be some mode of communica-
 
 156 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 tion between the doctor and bis spider, for on some sign 
 given by the former, imperceptible to Septimius, the 
 many-legged monster let himself down by a cord, which 
 he extemporized out of his own bowels, and came dang- 
 ling his huge bulk down before his master's face, while 
 the latter lavished many epithets of endearment upon 
 him, ludicrous, and not without horror, as applied to 
 such a hideous production of nature. 
 
 " I assure you," said Doctor Portsoaken, " I run some 
 risk from my intimacy with this lovely jewel, and if I 
 behave not all the more prudently, your countrymen 
 will hang me for a wizard, and annihilate this precious 
 spider as my familiar. There would be a loss to the 
 world ; not small in my own case, but enormous in the 
 case of the spider. Look at him now, and see if the 
 mere uuinstructed observation does not discover a won- 
 derful value in him." 
 
 In truth, when looked at closely, the spider really 
 showed that a care and art had been bestowed upon his 
 make, not merely as regards curiosity, but absolute 
 beauty, that seemed to indicate that he must be a rather 
 distinguished creature in the view of Providence; so 
 variegated was he with a thousand minute spots, spots 
 of color, glorious radiance, and such a brilliance was 
 attained by many conglomerated brilliancies ; and it was 
 very strange that all this care was bestowed on a crea- 
 ture that, probably, had never been carefully considered 
 except by the two pair of eyes that were now upon it ; 
 and that, in spite of its beauty and magnificence, could 
 only be looked at with an effort to overcome the mys- 
 terious repulsiveness of its presence; for all the time
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 157 
 
 that Septimius looked and admired, he still hated the 
 thing, and thought it wrong that it was ever born, and 
 wished that it could be annihilated. Whether the spider 
 was conscious of the wish, we are unable to say ; but 
 certainly Septimius felt as if he were hostile to him, and 
 had a mind to sting him ; and, in fact, Doctor Port- 
 soaken seemed of the same opinion. 
 
 " Aha, my friend," said he, " I would advise you not 
 to come too near Orontes ! He is a lovely beast, it is 
 true ; but iu a certain recess of this splendid form of 
 his he keeps a modest supply of a certain potent and 
 piercing poison, which would produce a wonderful effect 
 on any flesh to which he chose to apply it. A powerful 
 fellow is Orontes ; and he has a great sense of his own 
 dignity and importance, and will not allow it to be im- 
 posed on." 
 
 Septimius moved from the vicinity of the spider, who, 
 in fact, retreated, by climbing up his cord, and en- 
 sconced himself in the middle of his web, where he 
 remained waiting for his prey. Septimius wondered 
 whether the doctor were symbolized by the spider, and 
 was likewise waiting in the middle of his web for his 
 prey. As he saw no way, however, in which the doctor 
 could make a profit out of himself, or how he could be 
 victimized, the thought did not much disturb his equa- 
 nimity. He was about to take his leave, but the doctor, 
 in a derisive kind of way, bade him sit still, for he pur- 
 posed keeping him as a guest, that night, at least. 
 
 " I owe you a dinner," said he, " and will pay it with 
 a supper and knowledge ; and before we part I have 
 certain inquiries to make, of which you may not at 6rst
 
 158 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 see the object, but yet are not quite purposeless. My 
 familiar, up aloft there, has whispered me something 
 about you, and I rely greatly on his intimations." 
 
 Septimius, who was sufficiently common-sensible, and 
 invulnerable to superstitious influences on every point 
 except that to which he had surrendered himself, was 
 easily prevailed upon to stay ; for he found the sin- 
 gular, charlatanic, mysterious lore of the man curious, 
 and he had enough of real science to at least make him 
 an object of interest to one who knew nothing of the 
 matter; and Septimius's acuteness, too, was piqued in 
 trying to make out what manner of man he really was, 
 and how much in him was genuine science and self-belief, 
 and how much quackery and pretension and conscious 
 empiricism. So he stayed, and supped with the doctor 
 at a table heaped more bountifully, and with rarer dain- 
 ties, than Septimius had ever before conceived of; and 
 in his simpler cognizance, heretofore, of eating merely to 
 live, he could not but wonder to see a man of thought 
 caring to eat of more than one dish, so that most of the 
 meal, on his part, was spent in seeing the doctor feed and 
 hearing him discourse upon his food. 
 
 "If man lived only to eat," quoth the doctor, "one 
 life would not suffice, not merely to exhaust the pleasure 
 of it, but even to get the rudiments of it." 
 
 When this important business was over, the doctor and 
 his guest sat down again in his laboratory, where the 
 former took care to have his usual companion, the black 
 bottle, at his elbow, and filled his pipe, and seemed to 
 feel a certain sullen, genial, fierce, brutal, kindly mood 
 enough, and looked at Septimius with a sort of friend-
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 159 
 
 ship, as if he had as lief shake hands with him as knock 
 him down. 
 
 " Now for a talk about business," said he. 
 
 Septimius thought, however, that the doctor's talk 
 began, at least, at a sufficient remoteness from any prac- 
 tical business ; for he began to question about his remote 
 ancestry, what he knew, or what record had been pre- 
 served, of the first emigrant from England ; whence, 
 from what shire or part of England, that ancestor had 
 come ; whether there were any memorial of any kind re- 
 maining of him, any letters or written documents, wills, 
 deeds, or other legal paper ; in short, all about him. 
 
 Septimius could not satisfactorily see whether these 
 inquiries were made with any definite purpose, or from a 
 mere general curiosity to discover how a family of early 
 settlement in America might still be linked with the old 
 country ; whether there were any tendrils stretching 
 across the gulf of a hundred and fifty years by which 
 the American branch of the family was separated from 
 the trunk of the family tree in England. The doctor 
 partly explained this. 
 
 " You must know," said he, " that the name you bear, 
 Felton, is one formerly of much eminence and repute in 
 my part of England, and, indeed, very recently possessed 
 of wealth and station. I should like to know if you are 
 of that race." 
 
 Septimius answered with such facts and traditions as 
 had come to his knowledge respecting his family history ; 
 a sort of history that is quite as liable to be mythical, 
 in its early and distant stages, as that of Rome, and, in- 
 deed, seldom goes three or four generations back without
 
 160 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 getting iuto a mist really impenetrable, though great, 
 gloomy, and magnificent shapes of men often seem to 
 loom in it, who, if they could be brought close to the 
 naked eye, would turn out as commonplace as the de- 
 scendants who wonder at and admire them. He remem- 
 bered Aunt Keziah's legend, and said he had reason to 
 believe that his first ancestor came over aF~a somewhat 
 earlier date than the first Puritan settlers, and" dwelt 
 among the Indians, where (and here the young man cast 
 down his eyes, having the customary American abhor- 
 rence for any mixture of blood) he had intermarried 
 with the daughter of a sagamore, and succeeded to his 
 rule. This might have happened as early as the end of 
 Elizabeth's reign, perhaps later. It was impossible to 
 decide dates on such a matter. There had been a son 
 of this connection, perhaps more than one, but certainly 
 one son, who, on the arrival of the Puritans, was a 
 youth, his father appearing to have been slain in some 
 outbreak of the tribe, perhaps owing to the jealousy of 
 prominent chiefs, at seeing their natural authority ab- 
 rogated or absorbed by a man of different race. He 
 slightly alluded to the supernatural attributes that gath- 
 ered round this predecessor, but in a way to imply that 
 he put no faith in them ; for Septimius's natural keen 
 sense and perception kept him from betraying his weak- 
 nesses to the doctor, by the same instinctive and subtle 
 caution with which a madman can so well conceal his 
 infirmity. 
 
 On the arrival of the Puritans, they had found among 
 the Indians a youth partly of their own blood, able, 
 though imperfectly, to speak their language, having,
 
 sSEPTIMIUS FELTON. 161 
 
 at, least, some early recollections of it, inheriting, also, 
 a share of influence over the tribe on which his father 
 had grafted him. Jtjwas natural that they should pay 
 especial attention to this youth, consider it their duty to 
 give him religious instruction in the faith of his fathers, 
 and try to use him as a means of influencing his tribe. 
 They did so, but did not succeed in swaying the tribe 
 by his means, their success having been limited to win- 
 ning the half-Indian from the wild ways of his mother's 
 people, into a certain partial, but decent accommodation 
 to those of the English. A tendency to civilization was 
 brought out in his character by their rigid training ; at 
 least, his savage wildness was broken. He built a house 
 among them, with a good deal of the wigwam, no doubt, 
 in its style of architecture, but still a permanent house, 
 near which he established a corn-field, a pumpkin-garden, 
 a melon-patch, and became farmer enough to be entitled 
 to ask the hand of a Puritan maiden. There he spent his 
 life, with some few instances of temporary relapse into sav- 
 age wildness, when he fished in the river Musquehannah, 
 or in Walden, or strayed in the woods, when he should 
 have been planting or hoeing ; but, on the whole, the 
 race had been redeemed from barbarism in his person, 
 and in the succeeding generations had been tamed more 
 and more. The second generation had been distin- 
 guished in the Indian wars of the provinces, and then 
 intermarried with the stock of a distinguished Puritan 
 divine, by which means Septimius could reckon great 
 and learned men, scholars of old Cambridge, among his 
 ancestry on one side, while on the other it ran up to 
 the early emigrants, who seemed to have been remarka-
 
 162 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 He men, and to that strange wild lineage of Indian 
 chiefs, whose blood was like that of persons not quite 
 human, intermixed with civilized blood. 
 
 " I wonder," said the doctor, musingly, " whether 
 there are really no documents to ascertain the epoch at 
 which that old first emigrant came over, and whence he 
 came, and precisely from what English family. Often 
 the last heir of some respectable name dies in England, 
 and we say that the family is extinct; whereas, very 
 possibly, it may be abundantly flourishing in the New 
 World, revived by the rich infusion of new blood in a 
 new soil, instead of growing feebler, heavier, stupider, 
 each year by sticking to an old soil, intermarrying over 
 and over again with the same respectable families, till it 
 has made common stock of all their vices, weaknesses, 
 madnesses. Have you no documents, I say, no muni- 
 ment deed ? " 
 
 " None," said Septimius. 
 
 " No old furniture, desks, trunks, chests, cabinets ? " 
 
 "You must remember," said Septimius, "that my 
 Indian ancestor was not very likely to have brought 
 such things out of the forest with him. A wandering 
 Indian does not carry a chest of papers with him. I 
 do remember, in my childhood, a little old iron-bound 
 chest, or coffer, of which the key was lost, and which 
 my Aunt Keziah used to say came down from her great- 
 great-grandfather. I don't know what has become of it, 
 acd my poor old aunt kept it among her own treasures." 
 
 " Well, my friend, do you hunt up that old coffer, and, 
 just as a matter of curiosity, let me see the contents." 
 
 " I have other things to do," said Septimms.
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 163 
 
 " Perhaps so," quoth the doctor, " but no other, as it 
 fpny turn out, of quite so much importance as this. I '11 
 tell you fairly ; the heir of a great English house is 
 lately dead, and the estate lies open to any well-sus- 
 tained, perhaps to any plausible claimant. If it should 
 appear from the records of that family, as I have some 
 reason to suppose, that a member of it, who would now 
 represent the older branch, disappeared mysteriously and 
 unaccountably, at a date corresponding with what might 
 be ascertained as that of your ancestor's first appearance 
 in this country ; if any reasonable proof can be brought 
 forward, on the part of the representatives of that white 
 sagamore, that wizard pow-wow, or however you call 
 him, that he was the disappearing Englishman, why, a 
 good casp- i? midc out. Do you feel 110 interest in such 
 a prospect ? " 
 
 " Very little, I confess," said Septimius. 
 
 " Very little ! " said the grim doctor, impatiently. 
 " Do not you see that, if you make good your claim, 
 you establish for yourself a position among the English 
 aristocracy, and succeed to a noble English estate, an 
 ancient hall, where your forefathers have dwelt since 
 the Conqueror ; splendid gardens, hereditary woods and 
 parks, to which anything America can show is despi- 
 cable, all thoroughly cultivated and adorned, with the 
 care and ingenuity of centuries ; nd an income, a month 
 of which would be greater wealth than any of your 
 American ancestors, raking and sr r aping for his life 
 time, has ever got together, as the accumulated result o* 
 the toil and penury by which he has sacrificed body ud 
 soul?"
 
 164 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 " That strain of Indian blood is in me yet," said Sep. 
 timius, " and it makes me despise, no, not despise ; 
 for I can see their desirableness for other people, but 
 it makes me reject for myself what you think so valuable. 
 I do not care for these common aims. I have ambition, 
 but it is for prizes such as other men cannot gain, and 
 do not think of aspiring after. I could not live in the 
 habits of English life, as I conceive it to be, and would 
 not, for my part, be burdened with the great estate you 
 speak of. It might answer my purpose for a time. It 
 would suit me well enough to try that mode of life, as 
 well as a hundred others, but only for a time. It is of 
 no permanent importance." 
 
 " I '11 tell you what it is, young man," said the doctor, 
 testily, " you have something in your brain that makes 
 you talk very foolishly ; and I have partly a suspicion 
 what it is, only I can't think that a fellow who is really 
 gifted with respectable sense, in other directions, should 
 be such a confounded idiot in this." 
 
 Septimius blushed, but held his peace, and the conver- 
 sation languished after this ; the doctor grimly smoking 
 his pipe, and by no means increasing the milkiuess of his 
 mood by frequent applications to the black bottle, nntil 
 Septimius intimated that he would like to go to bed. 
 The old woman was summoned, and ushered him to his 
 chamber. 
 
 At breakfast, the doctor partially renewed the subject 
 which he seemed to consider most important in yester- 
 day's conversation. 
 
 " My young friend," said he, " I advise you to look in 
 cellar and garret, or wherever you consider the most
 
 SEPTIM1US FELTOX. 165 
 
 likely place, for that iron-bound coffer. There may be 
 nothing in it ; it may be full of musty love-letters, or old 
 sermons, or receipted bills of a hundred years ago ; but 
 it may contain what will be worth to you an estate of five 
 thousand pounds a year. It is a pity the old woman 
 with the damnable decoction is gone off. Look it up, 
 I say." 
 
 " Well, well," said Septimius, abstractedly, " when I 
 can find time." 
 
 So saying, he took his leave, and retraced his way 
 back to his home. He had not seemed like himself dur- 
 ing the time that elapsed since he left it, and it appeared 
 an infinite space that he had lived through and travelled 
 over, and he fancied h\ hardly possible that he could ever 
 get back again. But now, with every step that he took, 
 he found himself getting miserably back into the old 
 enchanted laud. The mist rose up about him, the pale 
 mist-bow of ghostly promise curved before him ; and he 
 trod back again, poor boy, out of the clime of real effort, 
 into the laud of his dreams and shadowy enterprise. 
 
 " How was it," said he, " that I can have been so un- 
 true to my convictions ? Whence came that dark and 
 dull despair that weighed upon me ? Why did I let the 
 mocking mood which I was conscious of in that brutal, 
 brandy-burnt sceptic have such an influence on me ? 
 Let him guzzle ! He shall not tempt me from my pur- 
 suit, with his lure of an estate and name among those 
 heavy English beef-eaters of whom he is a brother. My 
 destiny is one which kings might envy, and strive in vain 
 to buy with principalities and kingdoms." 
 
 So he trod on air almost, in the latter parts of his
 
 166 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 journey, and instead of being wearied, grew more airy 
 with the latter miles that brought him to his wayside 
 home. 
 
 So now Septimius sat down and began in earnest his 
 endeavors and experiments to prepare the medicine, ac- 
 cording to the mysterious terms of the recipe. It seemed 
 not possible to do it, so many rebuffs and disappointments 
 did he meet with. No effort would produce a combina- 
 tion answering to the description of the recipe, which 
 propounded a brilliant, gold-colored liquid, clear as the 
 air itself, with a certain fragrance which was peculiar to 
 it, and also, what was the more individual test of the 
 correctness of the mixture, a certain coldness of the feel- 
 ing, a chillness which was described as peculiarly re- 
 freshing and invigorating. With all his trials, he pro- 
 duced nothing but turbid results, clouded generally, or 
 lacking something in color, and never that fragrance, and 
 never that coldness which was to be the test of truth. 
 He studied all the books of chemistry which at that 
 period were attainable, a period when, in the world, it 
 was a science far unlike what it has since become ; and 
 when Septimius had no instruction in this country, nor 
 could obtain any beyond the dark, mysterious, charla- 
 tanic communications of Doctor Portsoaken. So that, in 
 fact, he seemed to be discovering for himself the science 
 through which he was to work. He seemed to do every- 
 thing that was stated in the recipe, and yet no results 
 came from it ; the liquid that he produced was nauseous 
 to the smell, to taste it he had a horrible repugnance, 
 turbid, nasty, reminding him in most respects of poot 
 Aunt Keziah's elixir ; and it was a body without a soul,
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 167 
 
 and that body dead. And so it went on ; and the poorK 
 half-maddened Septimius began to think that his immor- \ 
 tal life was preserved by the mere effort of seeking for it, () 
 but was to be spent in the quest, and was therefore to be / 
 made an eternity of abortive misery. He pored over the/ 
 document that had so possessed him, turning its crabbed 
 meanings every way, trying to get out of it some new 
 light, often tempted to fling it into the fire which he kept 
 under his retort, and let the whole thing go ; but then 
 again, soon rising out of that black depth of despair, into 
 a determination to do what he had so long striven for. 
 With such intense action of mind as he brought to bear 
 on this paper, it is wonderful that it was not spiritually 
 distilled ; that its essence did not arise, purified from all 
 alloy of falsehood, from all turbidness of obscurity and 
 ambiguity, and from a pure essence of truth and invigo- 
 rating motive, if of any it were capable. In this interval, 
 Septimius is said by tradition to have found out many 
 wonderful secrets that were almost beyond the scope of 
 science. It was said that old Aunt Keziah used to come 
 with a coal of fire from unknown furnaces, to light his 
 distilling apparatus ; it was said, too, that the ghost of 
 the old lord, whose ingenuity had propounded this puzzle 
 for his descendants, used to come at midnight and strive 
 to explain to him this manuscript ; that the Black Man, 
 too, met him on the hill-top, and promised him an imme- 
 diate release from his difficulties, provided he would 
 kneel down and worship him, and sign his name in his 
 book, an old, iron-clasped, much-worn volume, which he 
 produced from his ample pockets, and showed him in it 
 the names of many a man whose name has become his-
 
 168 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 toric, and above whose ashes kept watch au inscription 
 testifying to his virtues and devotion, old autographs, 
 for the Black Man was the original autograph col- 
 lector. 
 
 But these, no doubt, were foolish stories, conceived 
 and propagated in chimney-corners, while yet there were 
 chimney-corners and firesides, and smoky flues. There 
 was no truth in such things, I am sure ; the Black Man 
 had changed his tactics, and knew better than to lure 
 the human soul thus to come to him with his musty 
 autograph-book. So Septimius fought with his difficulty 
 by himself, as many a beginner in science has done 
 before him ; and to his efforts in this way are popularly 
 attributed many herb-drinks, and some kinds of spruce- 
 beer, and nostrums used for rheumatism, sore throat, 
 and typhus fever ; but I rather think they all came from 
 Aunt Keziah; or perhaps, like jokes to Joe Miller, all 
 sorts of quack medicines, flocking at large through the 
 community, are assigned to him or her. The people 
 have a little mistaken the character and purpose of poor 
 Septimius, and remember him as a quack doctor, instead 
 of a seeker for a secret, not the less sublime and ele- 
 vating because it happened to be unattainable. 
 
 I know not through what medium or by what means, 
 but it got noised abroad that Septimius was engaged in 
 some mysterious work; and, indeed, his seclusion, his 
 absorption, his indifference to all that was going on in 
 that weary time of war, looked strange enough to indi- 
 cate that it must be some most important business that 
 engrossed him. On the few occasions when he came out 
 from his immediate haunts into the village, he had a
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 169 
 
 strange, owl-like appearance, uncombed, uubrushed, his 
 Lair long and tangled ; his face, they said, darkened with 
 smoke ; his cheeks pale ; the indentation of his brow 
 deeper than ever before ; an earnest, haggard, sulking 
 look ; and so he went hastily along the village street, 
 feeling as if all eyes might find out what he had iu 
 his mind from his appearance ; taking by-ways where 
 they were to be found, going long distances through 
 woods and fields, rather than short ones where the way 
 lay through the frequented haunts of men. For he 
 shunned the glances of his fellow-men, probably because 
 he had learnt to consider them not as fellows, because he 
 was seeking to withdraw himself from the common bond 
 and destiny, because he felt, too, that on that account 
 his fellow-men would consider him as a traitor, an en- 
 emy, one who had deserted their cause, and tried to with- 
 draw his feeble shoulder from under that great burden 
 of death which is imposed on all men to bear, and which, 
 if one could escape, each other would feel his load pro- 
 portionably heavier. With these beings of a moment 
 he had no longer any common cause ; they must go their 
 separate ways, yet apparently the same, they on the 
 broad, dusty, beaten path, that seemed always full, but 
 from which continually they so strangely vanished into 
 invisibility, no one knowing, nor long inquiring, what 
 had become of them ; he on his lonely path, where he 
 should tread secure, with no trouble but the loneliness 
 which would be none to him. Tor a little while he 
 would seem to keep them company, but soon they would 
 all drop away, the minister, his accustomed townspeople, 
 Robert Hagburu, Rose, Sybil Dacy, all leaving him iu
 
 170 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 blessed unknownness to adopt new temporary relations, 
 and take a new course. 
 
 Sometimes, however, the prospect a little chilled him. 
 Could he give them all up, the sweet sister ; the friend 
 of his childhood ; the grave instructor of his youth ; the 
 homely, life-known faces ? Yes ; there were such rich 
 possibilities in the future : for he would seek out the 
 noblest minds, the deepest hearts in every age, and be 
 the friend of human time. Only it might be sweet to 
 have one unchangeable companion ; for, unless he strung 
 the pearls and diamonds of life upon one unbroken affec- 
 tion, he sometimes thought that his life would have noth- 
 ing to give it unity and identity ; and so the longest life 
 would be but an aggregate of insulated fragments, which 
 would have no relation to one another. And so it would 
 not be one life, but many unconnected ones. Unless he 
 could look into the same eyes, through the mornings of 
 future time, opening and blessing him with the fresh 
 gleam of love and joy ; unless the same sweet voice could 
 melt his thoughts together ; unless some sympathy of a 
 life side by side with his could knit them into one ; look- 
 ing back upon the same things, looking forward to the 
 same ; the long, thin thread of an individual life, stretch- 
 ing onward and onward, would cease to be visible, cease 
 to be felt, cease, by and by, to have any real bigness in 
 proportion to its length, and so be virtually non-existent, 
 except in the mere inconsiderable Now. If a group of 
 chosen friends, chosen out of all the world for their adapt- 
 edness, could go on in endless life together, keeping 
 themselves mutually warm on the high, desolate way, 
 then none of them need ever sigh to be comforted in the
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 171 
 
 pitiable snugness of the grave. If one especial soul might 
 be his companion, then how complete the fence of mutual 
 arms, the warmth of close-pressing breast to breast ! 
 Might there be one ! 0, Sybil Dacy ! 
 
 Perhaps it could not be. Who but himself could un- 
 dergo that great trial, and hardship, and self-denial, and 
 firm purpose, never wavering, never sinking for a mo- 
 ment, keeping his grasp on life like one who holds up by 
 main force a sinking and drowning friend ? how could 
 a woman do it ! He must then give up the thought. 
 There was a choice, friendship, and the love of woman, 
 
 the long life of immortality. There was something 
 heroic and ennobling in choosing the latter. And so he 
 walked witli the mysterious girl on the hill-top, and sat 
 down beside her 011 the grave, which still ceased not to 
 redden, portentously beautiful, with that unnatural flower, 
 
 and they talked together ; and Septirnius looked on her 
 weird beauty, and often said to himself, " This, too, will 
 pass away ; she is not capable of what 1 am, she is a wo- 
 man. It must be a manly and courageous and forcible 
 spirit, vastly rich in all three particulars, that has strength 
 enough to live ! Ah, is it surely so r 1 There is such a 
 dark sympathy between us, she knows me so well, she 
 touches my inmost so at unawares, that I could almost 
 think I had a companion here. Perhaps not so soon. At 
 the end of centuries I might wed one ; not now." 
 
 But once he said to Sybil Dacy, "Ah, how sweet it 
 would be sweet for me, at least if this intercourse 
 might last forever ! " 
 
 " That is an awful idea that you present," said Sybil, 
 with a hardly perceptible, involuntary shudder; "always
 
 172 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 on this bill-top, always passing and repassiug this little 
 hillock ; always smelling these flowers ! I always looking 
 at this deep chasm in your brow ; you always seeing my 
 bloodless cheek ! doing this till these trees crumble 
 away, till perhaps a new forest grew up wherever this 
 white race had planted, and a race of savages again pos- 
 sess the soil. I should not like it. My mission here is 
 but for a short time, and will soon be accomplished, and 
 then I go." 
 
 " You do not rightly estimate the way in which the 
 long time might be spent," said Septimius. " We would 
 find out a thousand uses of this world, uses and enjoy- 
 ments which now men never dream of, because the world 
 is just held to their mouths, and then snatched away 
 again, before they have time hardly to taste it, instead of 
 becoming acquainted with the deliciousuess of this great 
 world-fruit. But you speak of a mission, and as if you 
 were now in performance of it. Will you not tell me 
 what it is ? " 
 
 " No," said Sybil Dacy, smiling on him. " But one 
 day you shall know what it is, none sooner nor better 
 than you, so much I promise you." 
 
 " Are we friends ? " asked Septimius, somewhat puz- 
 zled by her look. 
 
 " We have an intimate relation to one another," replied 
 Sybil. 
 
 " And what is it ? " demanded Septimius. 
 
 "That will appear hereafter," answered Sybil, again 
 smiling on him. 
 
 He knew not what to make of this, nor whether to be 
 exalted or depressed ; but, at all events, there seemed to
 
 SEPTIM1US f ELTON. 173 
 
 be an accordance, a striking together, a mutual toucli of 
 tlicir two natures, as if, somehow or other, they were per- 
 forming the same part of solemn music ; so that he felt 
 his soul thrill, and at the same time shudder. Some sort 
 of sympathy there surely was, but of what nature he 
 could not tell ; though often he was impelled to ask him- 
 self the same question he asked Sybil, " Are we friends ? " 
 because of a sudden shock and repulsion that came be- 
 tween them, and passed away in a moment ; and there 
 would be Sybil, smiling askance on him. 
 
 And then he toiled away again at his chemical pur- 
 suits ; tried to mingle things harmoniously that appar- 
 ently were not born to be mingled ; discovering a science 
 for himself, and mixing it up with absurdities that other 
 chemists had long ago flung aside ; but still there would 
 be that turbid aspect, still that lack of fragrance, still 
 that want of the peculiar temperature, that was an- 
 nounced as the test of the matter. Over and over 
 again, he set the crystal vase in the sun, and let it 
 stay there the appointed time, hoping that it would 
 digest in such a manner as to bring about the desired 
 result. 
 
 One day, as it happened, his eyes fell upon the silver 
 key which he had taken from the breast of the dead young 
 man, and he thought within himself that this might have 
 something to do with the seemingly unattainable success 
 of his pursuit. He remembered, for the first time, the 
 grim doctor's emphatic injunction to search for the little 
 iron-bound box of which he had spoken, and which had 
 come down with such legends attached to it; as, for 
 instance, that it held the Devil's bond with his great-
 
 174 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 great-grandfather, now cancelled by the surrender of the 
 latter's soul ; that it held the golden key of Paradise ; 
 that it was full of old gold, or of the dry leaves of a 
 hundred years ago; that it had a familiar friend in it, 
 who would be exorcised by the turning of the lock, but 
 would otherwise remain a prisoner till the solid oak of 
 the box mouldered, or the iron rusted away ; so thaf 
 between fear and the loss of the key, this curious old 
 box had remained unopened, till itself was lost. 
 
 But now Septimius, putting together what Aunt Ke- 
 ziah had said in her dying moments, and what Doctor 
 Portsoaken had insisted upon, suddenly came to the 
 conclusion that the possession of the old iron box might 
 be of the greatest importance to him. So he set himself 
 at once to think where he had last seen it. Aunt Ke- 
 ziah, of course, had put it away in some safe place or 
 other, either in cellar or garret, no doubt ; so Septim- 
 ius, in the intervals of his other occupations, devoted 
 several days to the search ; and not to weary the reader 
 with the particulars of the quest for an old box, suffice 
 it to say that he at last found it, amongst various other 
 antique rubbish, in a corner of the garret. 
 
 It was a very rusty old thing, not more than a foot in 
 length, and half as much in height and breadth; but 
 most ponderously iron-bound, with bars, and corners, 
 and all sorts of fortification ; looking very much like an 
 ancient alms-box, such as are to be seen in the older 
 rural churches of England, and which seem to intimate 
 great distrust of those to whom the funds are com- 
 mitted. Indeed, there might be a shrewd suspicion that 
 some ancient church beadle among Septimius's forefa-
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 175 
 
 there, when emigrating from England, had taken the 
 opportunity of bringing the poor-box along with him. 
 On looking close, too, there were rude embellishments on 
 the lid and sides of the box in long-rusted steel, designs 
 such as the Middle Ages were rich in ; a representation 
 of Adam and Eve, or of Satan and a soul, nobody could 
 tell which ; but, at any rate, an illustration of great value 
 and interest. Septimius looked at this ugly, rusty, pon- 
 derous old box, so worn and battered with time, and recol- 
 lected with a scornful smile the legends of which it was 
 the object ; all of which he despised and discredited, just 
 as much as he did that story in the " Arabian Nights," 
 where a demon comes out of a copper vase, in a cloud of 
 smoke that covers the sea-shore ; for he was singularly 
 invulnerable to all modes of superstition, all nonsense, ex- 
 cept his own. But that one mode was ever in full force 
 and operation with him. He felt strongly convinced that 
 inside the old box was something that appertained to his 
 destiny ; the key that he had taken from the dead man's 
 breast, had that come down through time, and across the 
 sea, and had a man died to bring and deliver it to him, 
 merely for nothing ? It could not be. 
 
 He looked at the old, rusty, elaborated lock of the 
 little receptacle. It was much flourished about with 
 what was. once polished steel ; and certainly, when thus 
 polished, and the steel bright with which it was hooped, 
 defended, and inlaid, it must have been a thing fit to 
 appear in any cabinet ; though now the oak was worm- 
 eaten as an old cofim, and the rust of the iron came off 
 red on Septimius's fingers, after he had been fumbling 
 at it. He looked at the curious old silver key too, and
 
 176 SEPTIM1US FELTON. 
 
 fancied that lie discovered in its elaborate handle some 
 likeness to the ornaments about the box ; at any rate, 
 this he determined was the key of fate, and he was just 
 applying it to the lock, when somebody tapped famil- 
 iarly at the door, having opened the outer one, and 
 stepped in with a manly stride. Septimius, inwardly 
 blaspheming, as secluded men are apt to do when any 
 interruption comes, and especially when it comes at some 
 critical moment of projection, left the box as yet un- 
 broached, and said, " Come in." 
 
 The door opened, and Robert Hagburn entered ; look- 
 ing so tall and stately, that Septimius hardly knew him 
 for the youth with whom he had grown up familiarly. 
 He had on the Revolutionary dress of buff and blue, with 
 decorations that to the initiated eye denoted him an 
 officer, and certainly there was a kind of authority in 
 his look and manner, indicating that heavy responsi- 
 bilities, critical moments, had educated him, and turned 
 the ploughboy into a man. 
 
 " Is it you ? " exclaimed Septimius. " I scarcely 
 knew you. How war has altered you ! " 
 
 " And I may say, Is it you ? for you are much altered 
 likewise, my old friend. Study wears upon you terribly. 
 You will be an old man, at this rate, before you know 
 you are a young one. You will kill yourself, as sure as 
 a gun ! " 
 
 "Do you think so?" said Septimius, rather startled, 
 for the queer absurdity of the position struck him, if he 
 should so exhaust and wear himself as to die, just at the 
 moment when he should have found out the secret of 
 everlasting life. " But though I look pale, I am very
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 177 
 
 vigorous. Judging from that scar, slanting down from 
 your temple, you have been nearer death than you now 
 think me, though in another way." 
 
 " Yes," said Robert Hagburn ; " but in hot blood, and 
 for a good cause, who cares for death ? And yet I love 
 life ; none better, while it lasts, and I love it in all its 
 looks and turns and surprises ; there is so much to be 
 got out of it, in spite of all that people say. Youth is 
 sweet, with its fiery enterprise, and I suppose mature 
 manhood will be just as much so, though in a calmer 
 way, and age, quieter still, will have its own merits ; 
 the thing is only to do with life what we ought, and what 
 is suited to each of its stages ; do all, enjoy all, and I 
 suppose these two rules amount to the same thing. Only 
 catch real earnest hold of life, not play with it. and not 
 defer one part of it for the sake of another, taen each 
 part of life will do for us what was intended. People 
 talk of the hardships of military service, of the miseries 
 that we undergo fighting for our country. I have under- 
 gone my share, I believe, hard toil in the wilderness, 
 hunger, extreme weariness, pinching cold, the torture of 
 a wound, peril of death ; and really I have been as Lappy 
 through it as ever I was at my mother's cosey fireside of 
 a winter's evening. If I had died, I doubt not my last 
 moments would have been happy. There is no use of 
 life, but just to find out what is fit for us to do ; and, 
 doing it, it seems to be little matter whether ~we live or 
 die in it. God does not want our work, but only our 
 willingness to work ; at least, the last seems to answer 
 all his purposes." 
 
 "This is a comfortable philosophy of yours," said 
 8 L.
 
 178 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 Septimius, rather contemptuously, and yet enviously. 
 " Where did you get it, Robert ? " 
 
 " Where ? Nowhere ; it came to me on the march ; 
 and though I cau't say that I thought it when the bul- 
 lets pattered into the snow about me, in those narrow 
 streets of Quebec, yet, I suppose, it was in my mind 
 then; for, as I tell you, I was very cheerful and con- 
 tented. And you, Septimius ? I never saw such a dis- 
 contented, unhappy-looking fellow as you are. You have 
 had a harder time in peace than I in war. You have not 
 found what you seek, whatever that may be. Take my 
 advice. Give yourself to the next work that comes to 
 hand. The war offers place to all of us ; we ought to be 
 thankful, the most joyous of all the generations before 
 or after us, since Providence gives us such good work 
 to live for, or such a good opportunity to die. It is 
 worth living for, just to have the chance to die so well as 
 a man may in these days. Come, be a soldier. Be a 
 chaplain, since your education lies that way; and you 
 will find that nobody in peace prays so well as we do, we 
 soldiers; and you shall not be debarred from fighting, 
 too ; if war is holy work, a priest may lawfully do it, as 
 well as pray for it. Come with us, my old friend Sep- 
 timius, be my comrade, and, whether you live or die, you 
 will thank me for getting you out of the yellow forlorn- 
 ness in which you go on, neither living nor dying." 
 
 Septimius looked at Robert Hagburn in surprise ; so 
 much was he altered and improved by this brief expe- 
 rience of war, adventure, responsibility, which he had 
 passed through. Not less than the effect produced on 
 his loutish, rustic air and deportment, developing his fig-
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 179 
 
 ure, seeming to make him taller, setting free the manly 
 graces that lurked within his awkward frame, not less 
 was the effect on his mind and moral nature, giving free- 
 dom of ideas, simple perception of great thoughts, a free 
 natural chivalry ; so that the knight, the Homeric war- 
 rior, the hero, seemed to be here, or possible to be here, 
 in the young New England rustic ; and all that history 
 lias given, and hearts throbbed and sighed and gloried 
 over, of patriotism and heroic feeling and action, might 
 be repeated, perhaps, in the life and death of this familiar 
 friend and playmate of his, whom he had valued not over 
 highly, Robert Hagburn. He had merely followed 
 out his natural heart, boldly and singly, doing the first 
 good thing that came to hand, and here was a hero. 
 
 "You almost make me envy you, Robert," said he, 
 sighing. 
 
 " Then why not come with me ? " asked Robert. 
 
 " Because I have another destiny," said Septimius. 
 
 "Well, you are mistaken; be sure of that," said 
 Robert. " This is not a generation for study, and the 
 making of books ; that may come by and by. This 
 great fight has need of all men to carry it on, in one way 
 or another ; and no man will do well, even for himself, 
 who tries to avoid his share in it. But I have said my 
 say. And now, Septimius, the war takes much of a 
 man, but it does not take him all, and what it leaves is 
 all the more full of life and health thereby. I have 
 something to say to you about this." 
 
 " Say it then, Robert," said Septimius, who, having 
 got over the first excitement of the interview, and the 
 sort of exhilaration produced by the healthful glow of
 
 180 SEPT1MIUS FELTON. 
 
 Robert's spirit, began secretly to wish that it might 
 close, and to be permitted to return to his solitary 
 thoughts again. "What can I do for you?" 
 
 "Why, nothing," said Robert, looking rather con- 
 fused, " since all is settled. The fact is, my old friend, 
 as perhaps you have seen, I have very long had an eye 
 upon your sister Rose; yes, from the time we went 
 together to the old school-house, where she now teaches 
 children like what we were then. The war took me 
 away, and in good time, for I doubt if Rose would ever 
 have cared enough for me to be my wife, if I had stayed 
 at home, a country lout, as I was getting to be, in shirt- 
 sleeves and bare feet. But now, you see, I have come 
 back, and this whole great war, to her woman's heart, is 
 represented in me, and makes me heroic, so to speak, and 
 strange, and yet her old familiar lover. So I found her 
 heart tenderer for me than it was ; and, in short, Rose 
 has consented to be my wife, and we mean to be married 
 in a week ; my furlough permits little delay." 
 
 " You surprise me," said Septimius, who, immersed in 
 his own pursuits, had taken no notice of the growing af- 
 fection between Robert and his sister. " Do you think 
 it well to snatch this little lull that is allowed you in the 
 wild striving of war to try to make a peaceful home? 
 Shall you like to be summoned from it soon? Shall 
 you be as cheerful among dangers afterwards, when one 
 sword may cut down two happinesses?" 
 
 " There is something in what you say, and I have 
 thought of it," said Robert, sighing. " But I can't tell 
 how it is; but there is something in this uncertainty, 
 this peril, this cloud before us, that makes it sweeter to
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 181 . 
 
 \ove and to be loved than amid all seeming quiet and 
 serenity. Really, I think, if there were to be no death, 
 the beauty of life would be all tame. So we take our 
 chance, or our dispensation of Providence, and are going 
 to love, and to be married, just as confidently as if we 
 were sure of living forever." 
 
 "Well, old fellow," said Septimius, with more cordial- 
 ity and outgush of heart than he had felt for a long 
 while, " there is no man whom I should be happier to 
 call brother. Take Rose, and all happiness along with 
 her. She is a good girl, and not in the least like me. 
 May you live out your threescore years and ten, and 
 every one of them be happy." 
 
 Little more passed, and Robert Hagburn took his 
 leave with a hearty shake of Septimius's hand, too con- 
 scious of his own happiness to be quite sensible how 
 much the latter was self-involved, strange, anxious, sep- 
 arated from healthy life and interests ; and Septimius, as 
 soon as Robert had disappeared, locked the door behind 
 him, and proceeded at once to apply the silver key to the 
 lock of the old strong box. 
 
 The lock resisted somewhat, being rusty, as might well v 
 be supposed after so many years since it was opened; 
 but it finally allowed the key to turn, and Septimius, 
 with a good deal of flutter at his heart, opened the lid. 
 The interior had a very different aspect from that of the 
 exterior ; for, whereas the latter looked so old, this, hav- 
 ing been kept from the air, looked about as new as when 
 shut up from light and air two centuries ago, less or 
 more. It was lined with ivory, beautifully carved in fig- 
 ures, according to the art which the mediaeval people
 
 182 SEPTIMIUS FELTOtf. 
 
 possessed in great perfection ; and probably the box had 
 been a lady's jewel-casket formerly, and had glowed with 
 rich lustre and bright colors at former openings. But 
 now there was nothing iu it of that kind, nothing in 
 keeping with those figures carved in the ivory represent- 
 ing some mythical subjects, nothing but some papers 
 iu the bottom of the box written over in an ancient hand, 
 which Septimius at once fancied that he recognized as that 
 of the manuscript and recipe which he had found on the 
 breast of the young soldier. He eagerly seized them, 
 but was infinitely disappointed to find that they did not 
 seem to refer at all to the subjects treated by the former, 
 but related to pedigrees and genealogies, and were in refer- 
 ence to an English family and some member of it who, 
 two centuries before, had crossed the sea to America, 
 and who, in this way, had sought to preserve his connec- 
 tion with his native stock, so as to be able, perhaps, to 
 prove it for himself or his descendants ; and there was 
 reference to documents and records in England in con- 
 firmation of the genealogy. Septimius saw that this 
 paper had been drawn up by an ancestor of his own, the 
 unfortunate man who had been hanged for witchcraft ; 
 but so earnest had been his expectation of something 
 different, that he flung the old papers down with bitter 
 indifference. 
 
 Then again he snatched them up, and contemptuously 
 read them, those proofs of descent through genera- 
 tions of esquires and knights, who had been renowned 
 in war ; and there seemed, too, to be running through 
 the family a certain tendency to letters, for three were 
 designated as of the colleges of Oxford or Cambridge ;
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 183 
 
 and against one there was the note, " he that sold him- 
 self to Sathan " ; and another seemed to have been a fol- 
 lower of Wickliffe ; and they had murdered kings, and 
 been beheaded, and banished, and what not ; so that the 
 age-long life of this ancient family had not been after all 
 a happy or very prosperous one, though they had kept 
 their estate, in one or another descendant, since the Con- 
 quest. It was not wholly without interest that Septim- 
 ius saw that this ancient descent, this connection with 
 noble families, and intermarriages with names, some of 
 which he recognized as known in English history, all 
 referred to his own family, and seemed to centre in him- 
 self, the last of a poverty-stricken line, which had dwin- 
 dled down into obscurity, and into rustic labor and hu 
 ble toil, reviving in him a little ; yet how little, unless he 
 fulfilled his strange purpose. Was it not better worth 
 his while to take this English position here so strangely 
 offered him ? He had apparently slain unwittingly the 
 only person who could have contested his rights, the 
 young man who had so strangely brought him the hope 
 of unlimited life at the same time that he was making 
 room for him among his forefathers. What a change in 
 his lot would have been here, for there seemed to be 
 some pretensions to a title, too, from a barony which was 
 floating about and occasionally moving out of abeyancy ! 
 "Perhaps," said Septimius to himself, "I may here- 
 after think it worth while to assert my claim to these pos- 
 sessions, to this position amid an ancient aristocracy, and 
 try that mode of life for one generation. Yet there is 
 something in my destiny incompatible, of course, with 
 the continued possession of an estate. I must be, of
 
 184 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 / necessity, a wanderer on the face of the earth, changing 
 place at short intervals, disappearing suddenly and en- 
 tirely ; else the foolish, short-lived multitude and mob of 
 k mortals will be enraged with one who seems their brother, 
 \ yet whose countenance will never be furrowed with his 
 \ige, nor his knees totter, nor his force be abated ; their 
 hfctle brevity will be rebuked by his age-long endurance, 
 above whom the oaken roof-tree of a thousand years 
 would crumble, while still he would be hale and strong. 
 So that this house, or any other, would be but a resting- 
 place of a day, and then I must away into another ob- 
 scurity." 
 
 With almost a regret, he continued to look over the 
 documents until he reached one of the persons recorded 
 in the line of pedigree, a worthy, apparently, of the 
 reign of Elizabeth, to whom was attributed a title of 
 Doctor in Utriusque Juris ; and against his name was a 
 verse of Latin written, for what purpose Septimius knew 
 not, for on reading it, it appeared to have no discov- 
 erable appropriateness ; but suddenly he remembered 
 the blotted and imperfect hieroglyphical passage in the 
 recipe. He thought an instant, and was convinced this 
 was the full expression and outwritiiig of that crabbed 
 little mystery; and that here was part of that secret 
 waiting for which the Age of Elizabeth was so famous 
 ajid so dexterous. His mind had a flash of light upon it, 
 ahd from that moment he was enabled to read not only 
 the recipe but the rules, and all the rest of that mys- 
 terious document, in a way which he had never thought 
 of before ; to discern that it was not to be taken literally 
 and simply, but had a hidden process involved in it that
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 185 
 
 made the whole thing infinitely deeper than he had hith- 
 erto deemed it to be. His brain reeled, he seemed to 
 have taken a draught of some liquor that opened infinite 
 depths before him, he could scarcely refrain from giving 
 a shout of triumphant exultation, the house could not 
 contain him, he rushed up to his hill-top, and there, after 
 walking swiftly to and fro, at length flung himself on the 
 little hillock, and burst forth, as if addressing him who 
 slept beneath. 
 
 " O brother, friend ! " said he, " I thank thee for thy 
 matchless beneficence to me ; for all which I rewarded 
 thee with this little spot on my hill-top. Thou wast 
 very good, very kind. It would not have been well for 
 thee, a youth of fiery joys and passions, loving to laugh, 
 loving the lightness and sparkling brilliancy of life, to 
 take this boon to thyself; for, brother! I see, I see, 
 it requires a strong spirit, capable of much lonely en- 
 durance, able to be sufficient to itself, loving not too 
 much, dependent on no sweet ties of affection, to be ca- 
 pable of the mighty trial which now devolves on me. I 
 thank thee, -O kinsman ! Yet thou, I feel, hast the bet- 
 ter part, who didst so soon lie down to rest, who hast 
 done forever with this troublesome world, which it is 
 mine to contemplate from age to age, and to sum up the 
 meaning of it. Thou art disporting thyself in other 
 spheres. I enjoy the high, severe, fearful office of living 
 here, and of being the minister of Providence from one 
 age to many successive ones." 
 
 In this manner he raved, as never before, in a strain 
 of exalted enthusiasm, securely treading on air, and some- 
 times stopping to shout aloud, and feeling as if he should
 
 186 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 burst if he did not do so ; and his voice came back to 
 him again from the low lulls on the other side of the 
 broad, level valley, and out of the woods afar, mocking 
 /him ; or as if it were airy spirits, that knew how it was 
 I all to be, confirming his cry, saying " It shall be so," 
 I "Thou hast found it at last," "Thou art immortal." 
 \ And it seemed as if Nature were inclined to celebrate his 
 triumph over herself; for above the woods that crowned 
 the hill to the northward, there were shoots and streams 
 of radiance, a white, a red, a many-colored lustre, blazing 
 up high towards the zenith, dancing up, flitting down, 
 dancing up again; so that it seemed as if spirits were 
 keeping a revel there. The leaves of the trees on the 
 hillside, all except the evergreens, had now mostly fallen 
 with the autumn ; so that Septimius was seen by the few 
 passers-by, in the decline of the afternoon, passing to 
 and fro along his path, wildly gesticulating ; and heard 
 to shout so that the echoes came from all directions to 
 answer him. After nightfall, too, in the harvest moon- 
 light, a shadow was still seen passing there, waving its 
 arms in shadowy triumph ; so, the next day, there were 
 various goodly stories afloat and astir, coming out of 
 successive mouths, more wondrous at each birth ; the 
 simplest form of the story being, that Septimius Felton 
 had at last gone raving mad on the hill-top that he was 
 so fond of haunting ; and those who listened to his 
 shrieks said that he was calling to the Devil ; and some 
 said that by certain exorcisms he had caused the appear- 
 ance of a battle in the air, charging squadrons, cannon- 
 flashes, champions encountering ; all of which foreboded 
 some real battle to be fought with the enemies of the
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 187 
 
 country ; and as the battle of Monmouth chanced to 
 occur, either the very next day, or about that time, this 
 was supposed to be either caused or foretold by Sep- 
 timius's eccentricities ; and as the battle was not very 
 favorable to our arms, the patriotism of Septimius suf- 
 fered much in popular estimation. 
 
 But he knew nothing, thought nothing, cared nothing 
 about his country, or his country's battles ; he was as 
 sane as he had been for a year past, and was wise 
 enough, though merely by instinct, to throw off some of 
 his superfluous excitement by these wild gestures, with 
 wild shouts, and restless activity ; and when he had 
 partly accomplished this he returned to the house, and, 
 late as it was, kindled his fire, and began anew the pro- 
 cesses of chemistry, now enlightened by the late teach- 
 ings. A new agent seemed to him to mix itself up with 
 his toil and to forward his purpose ; something helped 
 him along ; everything became facile to his manipulation, 
 clear to his thought. In this way he spent the night, 
 and when at sunrise he let in the eastern light upon his 
 study, the thing was done. 
 
 Septimius had achieved it. That is to say, he had 
 succeeded in amalgamating his materials so that they 
 acted upon one another, and in accordance ; and had 
 produced a result that had a subsistence in itself, and 
 a right to be ; a something potent and substantial ; each 
 ingredient contributing its part to form a new essence, 
 which was as real and individual as anything it was 
 formed from. But in order to perfect it, there was 
 necessity that the powers of nature should act quietly 
 upon it through a month of sunshine; that the moon,
 
 188 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 too, should have its part in the production ; and so he 
 must wait patiently for this. Wait! surely he would! 
 Had he not time for waiting ? Were he to wait till old 
 age, it would not be too much ; for all future time would 
 have it in charge to repay him. 
 
 So he poured the inestimable liquor into a glass vase, 
 well secured from the air, and placed it in the sunshine, 
 shifting it from one sunny window to another, in order 
 that it might ripen ; moving it gently lest he should dis- 
 turb the living spirit that he knew to be in it. And he 
 watched it from day to day, watched the reflections in it, 
 watched its lustre, which seemed to him to grow greater 
 day by day, as if it imbibed the sunlight into it. Never 
 was there anything so bright as this. It changed its hue, 
 too, gradually, being now a rich purple, now a crimson, 
 now a violet, now a blue ; going through all these pris- 
 matic colors without losing any of its brilliance, and 
 never was there such a hue as the sunlight took in falling 
 through it and resting on his floor. And strange and 
 beautiful it was, too, to look through this medium at the 
 outer world, and see how it was glorified and made anew, 
 and did not look like the same world, although there 
 were all its familiar marks. And then, past his window, 
 seen through this, went the farmer and his wife, on sad- 
 dle and pillion, jogging to meeting-house or market ; and 
 the very dog, -the cow coming home from pasture, the old 
 familiar faces of his childhood, looked differently. And 
 so at last, at the end of the month, it settled into a most 
 deep and brilliant crimson, as if it were the essence of 
 the blood of the young man whom he had slain; the 
 flower being now triumphant, it had given its own hue to
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 189 
 
 the whole mass, and had grown brighter every day ; so 
 that it seemed to have inherent light, as if it were a 
 planet by itself, a heart of crimson fire burning within it. 
 And when this had been done, and there was no more 
 change, showing that the digestion was perfect, then he 
 took it and placed it where the changing moon would fall 
 upon it ; and then again he watched it, covering it in 
 darkness by day, revealing it to the moon by night ; and 
 watching it here, too, through more changes. And by 
 and by he perceived that the deep crimson hue was de- 
 parting, not fading ; we cannot say that, because of the 
 prodigious lustre which still pervaded it, and was not less 
 strong than ever ; but certainly the hue became fainter, 
 now a rose-color, now fainter, fainter still, till there was 
 only left the purest whiteness of the moon itself; a 
 change that somewhat disappointed and grieved Septim- 
 ius, though still it seemed fit that the water of life should 
 be of no one richness, because it must combine all. As 
 the absorbed young man gazed through the lonely nights 
 at his beloved liquor, he fancied sometimes that he could 
 see wonderful things in the crystal sphere of the vase ; as 
 in Doctor Dee's magic crystal used to be seen, which 
 now lies in the British Museum; representations, it 
 might be, of things in the far past, or in the further 
 future, scenes in which he himself was to act, persons 
 yet unborn, the beautiful and the wise, with whom he 
 was to be associated, palaces and towers, modes of hith- 
 erto unseen architecture, that old hall in England to 
 which he had a hereditary right, with its gables, and its 
 smooth lawn ; the witch-meetings in which his ancestor 
 used to take part ; Aunt Keziah on her death-bed ; and,
 
 190 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 flitting through all, the shade of Sybil Dacy, eying him 
 from secret nooks, or some remoteness, with her peculiar 
 mischievous smile, beckoning him into the sphere. All 
 such visions would he see, and then become aware that 
 he had been in a dream, superinduced by too much 
 watching, too intent thought; so that living among so 
 many dreams, he was almost afraid that he should find 
 himself waking out of yet another, and find that the vase 
 itself and the liquid it contained were also dream-stuff. 
 But no ; these were real. 
 
 There was one change that surprised him, although he 
 accepted it without doubt, and, indeed, it did imply a 
 wonderful efficacy, at least singularity, in the newly 
 converted liquid. It grew strangely cool in temperature 
 in the latter part of his watching it. It appeared to 
 imbibe its coldness from the cold, chaste moon, until it 
 seemed to Septimius that it was colder than ice itself ; 
 the mist gathered upon the crystal vase as upon a tum- 
 bler of iced water in a warm room. Some say it actu- 
 ally gathered thick with frost, crystallized into a thousand 
 fantastic and beautiful shapes, but this I do not know so 
 well. Only it was very cold. Septimius pondered upon 
 it, and thought he saw that life itself was cold, indi- 
 vidual in its being, a high, pure essence, chastened from 
 all heats ; cold, therefore, and therefore invigorating. 
 
 Thus much, inquiring deeply, and with painful re- 
 search into the liquid which Septimins concocted, have 
 I been able to learn about it, its aspect, its prop- 
 erties ; and now I suppose it to be quite perfect, and 
 that nothing remains but to put it to such use as he 
 had so long been laboring for. But this, somehow or
 
 SEPTIMIU3 FELTON. 191 
 
 other, he found in himself a strong reluctance to do ; 
 he paused, as it were, at the point where his pathway 
 separated itself from that of other men, and meditated 
 whether it were worth while to giye up everything that 
 Providence had provided, and take instead only this 
 lonely gift of immortal life. Not that he ever really had 
 any doubt about it ; no, indeed ; but it was his security, 
 his consciousness that he held the bright sphere of all 
 futurity in his hand, that made him dally a little, now 
 that he could quaff immortality as soon as he liked. 
 Besides, now that he looked forward from the ve 
 of mortal destiny, the path before him seemed so very 
 lonely. Might he not seek some one own friend one 
 single heart before he took the final step ? There was 
 Sybil Dacy ! O, what bliss, if that pale girl might set 
 out with him on his journey ! how sweet, how sweet, to 
 wander with her through the places else so desolate ! for 
 he could but half see, half know things, without her to 
 help him. And perhaps it might be so. She must 
 already know, or strongly suspect, that he was engaged 
 in some deep, mysterious research ; it might be that, 
 with her sources of mysterious knowledge among her 
 legendary lore, she knew of this. Then, O, to think of 
 those dreams which lovers have always had, when their 
 new love makes the old earth seem so happy and glo- 
 rious a place, that not a thousand nor an endless succes- 
 sion of years can exhaust it, all those realized for him 
 and her ! If this could not be, what should he do ? 
 Would he venture onward into such a wintry futurity, 
 symbolized, perhaps, by the coldness o! tne> crystal gob- 
 let? He shivered at the thought.
 
 192 SEPT1MIUS FELTON. 
 
 Now, what bad passed between Septimius and Sybil 
 Dacy is not upon record, only that one day tliey were 
 walking together on the hill-top, or sitting by the little 
 hillock, and talking earnestly together. Sybil's face was 
 a little flushed with some excitement, and really she 
 looked very beautiful; and Septimius's dark face, too, 
 had a solemn triumph in it that made him also beautiful ; 
 so rapt he was after all those watchings, and emaciations, 
 and the pure, unworldly, self-denying life that he had 
 spent. They talked as if there were some foregone con- 
 clusion on which they based what they said. 
 
 "Will you not be weary in the time that we shall 
 spend together ? " asked he. 
 
 " no," said Sybil, smiling, " I am sure that it will 
 be very full of enjoyment." 
 
 " Yes," said Septimius, " though now I must remould 
 my anticipations ; for I have only dared, hitherto, to map 
 out a solitary existence." 
 
 "And how did you do that ? " asked Sybil. 
 
 "O, there is nothing that would come amiss," an- 
 swered Septimius; "for, truly, as I have lived apart 
 from men, yet it is really not because I have no taste for 
 whatever humanity includes : but I would fain, if I might, 
 live everybody's life at once, or, since that may not be, 
 each in succession. I would try the life of power, ruling 
 men ; but that might come later, after I had had long expe- 
 rience of men, and had lived through much history, and 
 had seen, as a disinterested observer, how men might 
 best be influenced for their own good. I would be a 
 great traveller at first ; and as a man newly coming into 
 possession of an estate, goes over it, and views each sep-
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 193 
 
 arate field and wood-lot, and whatever features it con- 
 tains, so will I, whose the world is, because I possess it 
 forever ; whereas all others are but transitory guests. So 
 will I wander over this world of mine, and be acquainted 
 with all its shores, seas, rivers, mountains, fields, and the 
 various peoples who inhabit them, and to whom it is my 
 purpose to be a benefactor; for think not, dear Sybil, 
 that I suppose this great lot of mine to have devolved 
 upon me without great duties, heavy and difficult to 
 fulfil, though glorious in their adequate fulfilment. But 
 for all this there will be time. In a century I shall par- 
 tially have seen this earth, and known at least its boun- 
 daries, have gotten for myself the outline, to be filled 
 tip hereafter." 
 
 " And I, too," said Sybil, " will have my duties and 
 labors ; for while you are wandering about among men, 
 I will go among women, and observe and converse with 
 them, from the princess to the peasant-girl ; and will find 
 out what is the matter, that woman gets so large a share 
 of human misery laid on her weak shoulders. I will see 
 why it is that, whether she be a royal princess, she has 
 to be sacrificed to matters of state, or a cottage-girl, still 
 somehow the thing not fit for her is done ; and whether 
 there is or no some deadly curse on woman, so that she 
 has nothing to do, and nothing to enjoy, but only to be 
 wronged by man, and still to love him, aud despise her- 
 self for it, to be shaky in her revenges. And then if, 
 after all this investigation, it turns out as I suspect 
 that woman is not capable of being helped, that there is 
 something inherent in herself that makes it hopeless to 
 struggle for her redemption, then what shall I do ? Nay,
 
 194 SEPTIMIUS PELTON. 
 
 I know not, unless to preach to the sisterhood that they 
 all kill their female childr^i as fast as they are born, and 
 then let the generations of men manage as they can! 
 Woman, so feeble and crazy in body, fair enough some- 
 times, but full of infirmities ; not strong, with nerves 
 prone to every pain; ailing, full of little weaknesses, 
 more contemptible than great ones ! " 
 
 " That would be a dreary end, Sybil," said Septimius. 
 " But I trust that we shall be able to hush up this weary 
 and perpetual wail of womankind on easier terms than 
 that. Well, dearest Sybil, after we have spent a hun- 
 dred years in examining into the real state of mankind, 
 and another century in devising and putting in execution 
 remedies for his ills, until our-maturer thought has time 
 to perfect his cure, we shall then have earned a little 
 playtime, a century of pastime, in which we will search 
 out whatever joy can be had by thoughtful people, and 
 that childlike sportiveness which comes out of growing 
 wisdom, and enjoyment of every kind. We will gather 
 about us everything beautiful and stately, a great palace, 
 for we shall then be so experienced that all riches will 
 be easy for us to get ; with rich furniture, pictures, stat- 
 ues, and all royal ornaments ; and side by side with this 
 life we will have a little cottage, and see which is the 
 happiest, for this has always been a dispute. For this 
 century we will neither toil nor spin, nor think of any- 
 thing beyond the day that is passing over us. There is 
 time enough to do all that we have to do." 
 
 " A hundred years of play ! Will not that be tire- 
 some ? " said Sybil. 
 
 "If it is," said Septimius, "the next century shall
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 195 
 
 make up for it ; for then we will contrive deep philoso- 
 phies, take up one theory after another, and find out its 
 hollowness and inadequacy, and fling it aside, the rotten 
 rubbish that they all are, until we have strewn the whole 
 realm of human thought with the broken fragments, all 
 smashed up. And then, on this great mound of broken 
 potsherds (like that great Monte Testaccio, which we 
 will go to Rome to see), we will build a system that shall 
 stand, and by which mankind shall look far into the ways 
 of Providence, and find practical uses of the deepest kind 
 in what it has thought merely speculation. And then, 
 when the hundred years are over, and this great work 
 done, we will still be so free in mind, that we shall see 
 the emptiness of our own theory, though men see only its 
 truth. And so, if we like more of this pastime, then 
 shall another and another century, and as many more as 
 we like, be spent in the same way." 
 
 "And after that another play-day?" asked Sybil 
 Dacy. 
 
 " Yes," said Septimius, " only it shall not be called so ; 
 for the next century we will get ourselves made rulers of 
 the earth ; and knowing men so well, and having so 
 wrought our theories of government and what not, we 
 will proceed to execute them, which will be as easy to 
 us as a child's arrangement of its dolls. We will smile 
 superior, to see what a facile thing it is to make a people 
 happy. In our reign of a hundred years, we shall have 
 time to extinguish errors, and make the world see the ab- 
 surdity of them ; to substitute other methods of govern- 
 ment for the old, bad ones ; to fit the people to govern 
 itself, to do with little government, to do with none ; and
 
 196 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 when this is effected, we will vanish from our loving peo- 
 ple, and be seen no more, but be reverenced as gods, 
 we, meanwhile, being overlooked, and smiling to our- 
 selves, amid the very crowd that is looking for us." 
 
 " I intend," said Sybil, making this wild talk wilder by 
 that petulance which she so often showed, "I intend 
 to introduce a new fashion of dress when I am queen, 
 and that shall be my part of the great reform which you 
 are going to make. And for my crown, I intend to have 
 it of flowers, in which that strange crimson one shall be 
 the chief; and when I vanish, this flower shall remain 
 behind, and perhaps they shall have a glimpse of me 
 wearing it in the crowd. Well, what next,?" 
 
 "After this," said Septimius, "having seen so much 
 of affairs, and having lived so many hundred years, I will 
 sit down and write a history, such as histories ought to 
 be, and never have been. And it shall be so wise, aud so 
 vivid, and so self-evideiitly true, that people shall be con- 
 vinced from it that there is some undying one among 
 them, because only an eye-witness could have written it, 
 or could have gained so much wisdom as was needful for 
 it." 
 
 " And for my part in the history," said Sybil, " I will 
 record the various lengths of women's waists, and the 
 fashion of their sleeves. What next ? " 
 
 "By this time," said Septimius, "how many hun- 
 dred years have we now lived ? by this time, I shall 
 have pretty well prepared myself for what I have been 
 contemplating from the first. I will become a religious 
 teacher, and promulgate a faith, and prove it by prophe- 
 cies and miracles ; for my long experience will enable me
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 197 
 
 to do the first, and the acquaintance which I shall have 
 formed with the mysteries of science will put the latter at 
 my fingers' ends. So I will be a prophet, a greater than 
 Mahomet, and will put all man's hopes into my doctrine, 
 and make him good, holy, happy ; and he shall put up 
 his prayers to his Creator, and find them answered, be- 
 cause they shall be wise, and accompanied with effort. 
 This will be a great work, and may earn me another rest 
 and pastime." 
 
 [He would see, in one age, the column raised in memory 
 of some great deed of his in a former onel\ 
 
 "And what shall that be ? " asked Sybil Dacy. 
 
 " Why," said Septimius, looking askance at her, and 
 speaking with a certain hesitation, " I have learned, Sybil, 
 that it is a weary toil for a man to be always good, holy, 
 and upright. In my life as a sainted prophet, I shall 
 have somewhat too much of this ; it will be enervating 
 and sickening, and I shall need another kind of diet. So, 
 in the next hundred years, Sybil, in that one little 
 century, methiuks I would fain be what men call 
 wicked. How can I know my brethren, unless I do that 
 once? I would experience all. Imagination is only a 
 dream. 1 can imagine myself a murderer, and all other 
 modes of crime ; but it leaves no real impression on the 
 heart. I must live these things." 
 
 {The rampant unrestraint, which is the characteristic of 
 wicked ness. ~\ 
 
 " Good," said Sybil, quietly ; " and I too." 
 
 " And thou too ! " exclaimed Septimius. " Not so, 
 Sybil. I would reserve thee, good and pure, so that 
 there may be to me the means of redemption, some
 
 198 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 stable hold in the moral confusion that I will create 
 around myself, whereby I shall by and by get back into 
 order, virtue, and religion. Else all is lost, and I may 
 become a devil, and make my own hell around me ; so, 
 Sybil, do thou be good forever, and not fall nor slip a 
 moment. Promise me ! " 
 
 " We will consider about that in some other century," 
 replied Sybil, composedly. " There is time enough yet. 
 What next ? " 
 
 " Nay, this is enough for the present," said Septimius. 
 " New vistas will open themselves before us continually, 
 as we go onward. How idle to think that one little life- 
 time would exhaust the world ! After hundreds of cen- 
 turies, I feel as if we might still be on the threshold. 
 There is the material world, for instance, to perfect ; to 
 draw out the powers of nature, so that man shall, as it 
 were, give life to all modes of matter, and make them his 
 ministering servants. Swift ways of travel, by earth, sea, 
 and air ; machines for doing whatever the hand of man 
 now does, so that we shall do all but put souls into our 
 wheel-work and watch-work ; the modes of making night 
 into day : of getting control over the weather and the 
 seasons ; the virtues of plants ; these are some of the 
 easier things thou shalt help me do." 
 
 "I have no taste for that," said Sybil, "unless I 
 could make an embroidery worked of steel." 
 
 "And so, Sybil," continued Septimius, pursuing his 
 strain of solemn enthusiasm, intermingled as it was with 
 wild, excursive vagaries, " we will go on as many centu- 
 ries as we choose. Perhaps, yet I think not so, per. 
 haps, however, in the course of lengthened time, we may
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 199 
 
 find that the -world is the same always, and mankind the 
 same, and all possibilities of human fortune the same ; so 
 that by and by we shall discover that the same old scen- 
 ery serves the world's stage in all ages, and that the story 
 is always the same ; yes, and the actors always the same, 
 though none but we can be aware of it ; and that the 
 actors and spectators would grow weary of it, were they 
 not bathed in forgetful sleep, and so think themselves 
 new made in each successive lifetime. We may find that 
 the stuff of the world's drama, and the passions which 
 seem to play in it, have a monotony, when once we have 
 tried them ; that in only once trying them, and viewing 
 them, we find out their secret, and that afterwards the 
 show is too superficial to arrest our attention. As dram- 
 atists and novelists repeat their plots, so does man's 
 life repeat itself, and at length grows stale. This is 
 what, in my desponding moments, I have sometimes 
 suspected. What to do, if this be so ? " 
 
 " Nay, that is a serious consideration," replied Sybil, 
 assuming an air of -mock alarm, " if you really think we 
 shall be tired of life, whether or no." 
 
 " I do not think it, Sybil," replied Septimius. " By 
 much musing on this matter, I have convinced myself 
 that man is not capable of debarring himself utterly 
 from death, since it is evidently a remedy for many evils 
 that nothing else would cure. This means that we have 
 discovered of removing death to an indefinite distance is 
 iSot supernatural ; on the contrary, it is the most natural 
 thing in the world, the very perfection of the natural, 
 since it consists in applying the powers and processes of 
 Nature to the prolongation of the existence of man, her
 
 \ 
 
 200 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 most perfect handiwork ; and this could only be done by 
 entire accordance and co-effort with nature. Therefore 
 Nature is not changed, and death remains as one of her 
 steps, just as heretofore. Therefore, when we have ex- 
 hausted the world, whether by going through its appar- 
 ently vast variety, or by satisfying ourselves that it is all 
 a repetition of one thing, we will call death as the friend 
 to introduce us to something new." 
 
 [He would write a poem, or other great work, inappre- 
 ciable at first, and live to see it famous, himself among 
 his own posterity, ,] 
 
 " 0, insatiable love of life ! " exclaimed Sybil, looking 
 at him with strange pity. " Canst thou not conceive 
 that mortal brain and heart might at length be content 
 to sleep ? " 
 
 " Never, Sybil ! " replied Septimius, with horror. "My 
 spirit delights in the thought of an infinite eternity. 
 Does not thine ? " 
 
 " One little interval a few centuries only of 
 dreamless sleep," said Sybil, pleadingly. " Cannot you 
 allow me that ? " 
 
 " I fear," said Septimius, " our identity would change 
 in that repose ; it would be a Lethe between the two 
 parts of our being, and with such disconnection a con- 
 tinued life would be equivalent to a new one, and there- 
 fore valueless." 
 
 In such talk, snatching in the fog at the fragments of 
 philosophy, they continued fitfully ; Septimius calming 
 down his enthusiasm thus, which otherwise might have 
 burst forth in madness, affrighting the quiet little village 
 with the marvellous things about which they mused.
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 201 
 
 Seplimius could not quite satisfy himself whether Sybil 
 Dacy shared iu his belief of the success of his experi- 
 ment, and was confident, as he was, that he held in his 
 control the means of unlimited life ; neither was he sure 
 that she loved him, loved him well enough to under- 
 take with him the long march that he propounded to 
 her, making a union an affair of so vastly more impor- 
 tance than it is in the brief lifetime of other mortals. 
 But he determined to let her drink the invaluable draught 
 along with him, and to trust- to the long future, and the 
 better opportunities that time would give him, and his 
 outliving all rivals, and the loneliness which an undying 
 life would throw around her, without him, as the pledges 
 of his success. 
 
 And now the happy day had come for the celebration 
 of Robert Hagburn's marriage with pretty Rose Gar- 
 field, the brave with the fair ; and, as usual, the cere- 
 mony was to take place in the evening, and at the house 
 of the bride : and preparations were inade accordingly ; 
 the wedding-cake, which the bride's own fair hands had 
 mingled with her tender hopes, and seasoned it with 
 maiden fears, so that its composition was as much ethe- 
 real as sensual; and the neighbors and friends were 
 invited, and came with their best wishes and good-will. 
 For Rose shared not at all the distrust, the suspicion, 
 or whatever it was, that had waited on the true branch 
 of Septimius's family, in one shape or another, ever 
 since the memory of inan; and all except, it might 
 be, some disappointed damsels whe had hoped to win 
 Robert Hagburn for themselves rejoiced at the ap- 
 .9*
 
 202 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 preaching union of this fit, couple, and wished them 
 happiness. 
 
 Septimius, too, accorded his gracious consent to the 
 union, and while he thought within himself that such a 
 brief union was not worth the trouble and feeling which 
 his sister and her lover wasted on it, still he wished them 
 happiness. As he compared their brevity with his long 
 duration, he smiled at their little fancies of loves, of 
 which he seemed to see the end ; the flower of a brief 
 summer, blooming beautifully enough, and shedding its 
 leaves, the fragrance of which would linger a little while 
 in his memory, and then be gone. He wondered how 
 far in the coming centuries he should remember this 
 wedding of his sister Rose ; perhaps he would meet, five 
 hundred years hence, some descendant of the marriage, 
 a fair girl, bearing the traits of his sister's fresh 
 beauty ; a young man, recalling the strength and manly 
 comeliness of Robert Hagburn, and could claim ac- 
 quaintance and kindred. He would be the guardian, 
 from generation to generation, of this race ; their ever- 
 reappearing friend at times of need ; and meeting them 
 from age to age, would find traditions of himself grow- 
 ing poetical in the lapse of time ; so that he would smile 
 at seeing his features look so much more majestic in 
 their fancies than in reality. So all along their course, 
 in the history of the family, he would trace himself, and 
 by his traditions he would make them acquainted with 
 all their ancestors, and so still be warmed by kindred 
 blood. 
 
 And Robert Hagburn, full of the life of the moment, 
 warm with generous blood, came in a new uniform,
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 203 
 
 looking fit to be the founder of a race who should look 
 back to a hero sire. He greeted Septimius as a brother. 
 The minister, too, came, of course, and mingled with 
 the throng, with decorous aspect, and greeted Septimius 
 with more formality than he had been wont ; for Sep- 
 timius had insensibly withdrawn himself from the min- 
 ister's intimacy, as he got deeper and deeper into the 
 enthusiasm of his own cause. Besides, the minister did 
 not fail to see that his once devoted scholar had con- 
 tracted habits of study into the secrets of which he 
 himself was not admitted, and that he no longer alluded 
 to studies for the ministry ; and he was inclined to sus- 
 pect that Septimius had unfortunately allowed infidel 
 ideas to assail, at least, if not to overcome, that fortress of 
 firm faith, which he had striven to found and strengthen 
 in his mind, a misfortune frequently befalling specula- 
 tive and imaginative and melancholic persons, like Sep- 
 timius, whom the Devil is all the time planning to 
 assault, because he feels confident of having a traitor iu 
 the garrison.- The minister had heard that this was the 
 fashion of Septimius's family, and that even the famous 
 divine, who, in his eyes, was the glory of it, had had 
 his season of wild infidelity in his youth, before grace 
 touched him ; and had always thereafter, throughout his 
 long and pious life, been subject to seasons of black and 
 sulphurous despondency, during which he disbelieved the 
 faith which, at other times, he preached so powerfully. 
 
 " Septimius, my young friend," said he, " are you yet 
 ready to be a preacher of the truth ? " 
 
 "Not yet, reverend pastor," said Septimius, smiling 
 at the thought of the day before, that the career of a
 
 204 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 prophet would be one that he should some time assume, 
 " There will be time enough to preach the truth wheu I 
 better know it." 
 
 " You do not look as if you knew it so well as for- 
 merly, instead of better," said his reverend friend, look- 
 ing into the deep furrows of his brow, and into his wild 
 and troubled eyes. 
 
 " Perhaps not," said Septimius. " There is time yet." 
 These few words passed amid the bustle and murmur 
 of the evening, while the guests were assembling, and all 
 were awaiting the marriage with that interest which the 
 event continually brings with it, common as it is, so that 
 nothing but death is commoner. Everybody congratu- 
 lated the modest Rose, who looked quiet and happy ; and 
 so she stood up at the proper time, and the minister mar- 
 ried them with a certain fervor and individual applica- 
 tion, that made them feel they were married indeed. 
 Then there ensued a salutation of the bride, the first to 
 kiss her being the minister, and then some respectable 
 old justices and farmers, each with his friendly smile and 
 joke. Then went round the cake and wine, and other 
 good cheer, and the hereditary jokes with which brides 
 used to be assailed in those days. I think, too, there 
 was a dance, thougli how the couples in the reel found 
 space to foot it in the little room, I cannot imagine ; at 
 any rate, there was a bright light out of the windows, 
 gleaming across the road, and such a sound of the babble 
 of numerous voices and merriment, that travellers pass- 
 ing by, on the lonely Lexington road, wished they were 
 of the party ; and one or two of them stopped and went 
 in, and saw the new-made bride, drank to her health,
 
 SEPT1MIUS FELTON. 205 
 
 and took a piece of the wedding-cake home to dream 
 upon. 
 
 \lt is to be observed that Rose had requested of her 
 friend, Sybil Dacy, to act as one of her bridesmaids, of 
 whom she had only the modest number of two ; and the 
 strange girl declined, saying that her intermeddling would 
 bring ill-fortune to the marriage.} 
 
 " Why do you talk such nonsense, Sybil ? " asked 
 Rose. " You love me, I am sure, and wish me well ; 
 and your smile, such as it is, \vill be the promise of pros- 
 perity, and I wish for it on my wedding-day." 
 
 " I am an ill-fate, a sinister demon, Rose ; a thing 
 that has sprung out of a grave ; and you had better not 
 entreat me to twine my poison tendrils round your des- 
 tinies. You would repent it." 
 
 " O, hush, hush ! " said Rose, putting her hand over 
 her friend's mouth. " Naughty one ! you can bless me, 
 if you will, only you are wayward." 
 
 " Bless you, then, dearest Rose, and all happiness on 
 your marriage ! " 
 
 Septimius had been duly present at the marriage, and 
 kissed his sister with moist eyes, it is said, and a solemn 
 smile, as he gave her into the keeping of Robert Hag- 
 burn ; and there was something in the words he then 
 used that afterwards dwelt on her mind, as if they had 
 a meaning in them that asked to be sought into, and 
 needed reply. 
 
 " There, Rose," he had said, " I have made myself ready 
 for my destiny. I have no ties any more, and may set 
 forth on my path without scruple." 
 
 " Am I not your sister still, Septimius ? " said she, 
 shedding a tear or two.
 
 206 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 " A married woman is no sister ; nothing but a mar- 
 ried woman till she becomes a mother ; and then what 
 shall I have to do with you ? " 
 
 He spoke with a certain eagerness to prove his case, 
 which Rose could not understand, but which was prob- 
 ably to justify himself in severing, as he was about to do, 
 the link that connected him with his race, and making 
 for himself an exceptional destiny, which, if it did not 
 entirely insulate him, would at least create new relations 
 with all. There he stood, poor fellow, looking on the 
 mirthful throng, not in exultation, as might have been 
 supposed, but with a strange sadness upon him. It 
 seemed to him, at that final moment, as if it were Death 
 that linked together all ; yes, and so gave the warmth to 
 all. Wedlock itself seemed a brother of Death; wed- 
 lock, and its sweetest hopes, its holy companionship, its 
 mysteries, and all that warm mysterious brotherhood that 
 is between men; passing as they do from mystery to 
 mystery in a little gleam of light ; that wild, sweet charm 
 of uncertainty and temporariness, how lovely it made 
 them all, how innocent, even the worst of them; how 
 hard and prosaic was his own situation in comparison 
 to theirs. He felt a gushing tenderness for them, as 
 if he would have flung aside his endless life, and rushed 
 among them, saying, 
 
 " Embrace me ! I am still one of you, and will not 
 leave you ! Hold me fast ! " 
 
 After this it was not particularly observed that both 
 Septimius and Sybil Dacy had disappeared from the 
 party, which, however, went on no less merrily without 
 them. In truth, the habits of Sybil Dacy were so way-
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 207 
 
 ward, arifl little squared by general rules, that nobody 
 wondered or tried to account for them ; and as for Sep- 
 timius, lie was such a studious man, so little accustomed 
 to mingle with his fellow-citizens on any occasion, that 
 it was rather wondered at that he should have spent so 
 large a part of a sociable evening with them, than that 
 he should now retire. 
 
 After they were gone the party received an unexpected 
 addition, being no other than the excellent Doctor Port- 
 soaken, who came to the door, announcing that he had 
 just arrived on horseback from Boston, and that, his object 
 being to have an interview with Sybil Dacy, he had been 
 to Robert Hagburn's house in quest of her ; but, learn- 
 ing from the old grandmother that she was here, he had 
 followed. 
 
 Not finding her, he evinced no alarm, but was easily 
 induced to sit down among the merry company, and par- 
 take of some brandy, which, with other liquors, Robert 
 had provided in sufficient abundance ; and that being 
 a day when man had not learned to fear the glass, the 
 doctor found them all in a state of hilarious chat. Tak- 
 ing out his German pipe, he joined the group of smokers 
 in the great chimney-corner, and entered into conversa- 
 tion with them, laughing and joking, and mixing up 
 his jests with that mysterious suspicion which gave so 
 strange a character to his intercourse. 
 
 "It is good fortune, Mr. Hagburn," quoth he, "that 
 brings me here on this auspicious day. And how has 
 been my learned young friend Dr. Septimius, for so he 
 should be called, and how have flourished his studies 
 of late ? The scientific world may look for great fruits 
 from that decoction of his."
 
 203 SBPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 "He'll never equal Aunt Keziah for herfcdrinks," 
 said an old woman, smoking her pipe in the corner, 
 though I think likely he '11 make a good doctor enough 
 by and by. Poor Kezzy, she took a drop too much of 
 St mixture, after all. I used to tell her how it would 
 be for Kezzy and I ever were pretty good friends once, 
 before the Indian in her came out so strongly, - 
 squaw and the witch, for she had them both in her blood, 
 poor yellow Kezzy ! " 
 
 "Yes! had she indeed?" quoth the doctor; and 
 I have heard an odd story, that if the Feltons chose to 
 go back to the old country, they 'd find a home and 
 estate there ready for them." 
 
 The old woman mused, and puffed at her pipe. Ah 
 ves " muttered she, at length, I remember to have heard 
 something about that; and how, if Felton chose to 
 strike into the woods, he'd find a tribe of wild Indians 
 there ready to take him for their sagamore, and conquer 
 the whites ; and how, if he chose to go to England, tb 
 was a great old house all ready for him, and a fire burn- 
 ing in the hall, and a dinner-table spread, and the tall- 
 potted bed ready, with clean sheets, in the best chamber, 
 and a man waiting at the gate to show him in. Only 
 there was a spell of a bloody footstep left on the thresh- 
 old by the last that came out, so that none of his poster- 
 ity could ever cross it again. But that was all non- 
 sense ! " 
 
 " Strange old things one dreams in a chimney-corner, 
 quoth the doctor. " Do you remember any more of 
 
 " No, no ; I 'm so forgetful nowadays," said old Mrs.
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 209 
 
 Hagburn ; " only it seems as if I had my memories iii my 
 pipe, and they curl up in smoke. I 've known these Fel- 
 tons all along, or it seems as if I had ; for I 'm nigh 
 ninety years old now, and I was two year old in the 
 witch's time, and I have seen a piece of the halter that 
 old Felton was hung with." 
 
 Some of the company laughed. 
 
 "That must have been a curious sight," quoth the 
 doctor. 
 
 " It is not well," said the minister seriously to the doc- 
 tor, " to stir up these old remembrances, making the poor 
 old lady appear absurd. I know not that she need to be 
 ashamed of showing the weaknesses of the generation to 
 which she belonged ; but I do not like to see old age put 
 at this disadvantage among the young." 
 
 " Nay, my good and reverend sir," returned the doc- 
 tor, " I mean no such disrespect as you seem to think. 
 Forbid it, ye upper powers, that I should cast any ridi- 
 cule on beliefs, superstitions, do you call them ? 
 that are as worthy of faith, for aught I know, as any that 
 are preached in the pulpit. If the old lady would tell 
 me any secret of the old Feltou's science, I shall treasure 
 it sacredly ; for I interpret these stories about his mirac- 
 ulous gifts as meaning that he had a great command 
 over natural science, the virtues ol plants, the capacities 
 of the human body." 
 
 While these things were passing, or before they passed, 
 or some time in that eventful night, Septimius had with- 
 drawn to his study, when there was a low tap heard at 
 the door, and, opening it, Sybil Dacy stood before him. 
 It seemed as if there had been a previous arrangement
 
 210 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 between them ; for Septimius evinced no surprise, only 
 took her hand, and drew her in. 
 
 " How cold your hand is ! " he exclaimed. " Nothing 
 is so cold, except it be the potent medicine. It makes 
 me shiver." 
 
 " Never mind that," said Sybil. " You look frightened 
 at me." 
 
 " Do I ? " said Septin)ius. " No, not that ; but this 
 is such a crisis ; and methinks it is not yourself. Your 
 eyes glare on me strangely." 
 
 " Ah, yes ; and you are not frightened at me ? Well, 
 I will try not to be frightened at myself. Time was, 
 however, when I should have been." 
 
 She looked round at Septimius's study, with its few 
 old books, its implements of science, crucibles, retorts, 
 and electrical machines ; all these she noticed little ; but 
 on the table drawn before the fire, there was something 
 that attracted her attention ; it was a vase that seemed 
 of crystal, made in that old fashion in which the Vene- 
 tians made their glasses, a most pure kind of glass, 
 with a long stalk, within which was a curved elaboration 
 of fancy-work, wreathed and twisted. This old glass was 
 an heirloom of the Feltons, a relic that had come down 
 with many traditions, bringing its frail fabric safely 
 through all the perils of time, that had shattered empires ; 
 and, if space sufficed, I could tell many stories of this 
 curious vase, which was said, in its time, to have been 
 the instrument both of the Devil's sacrament in the for- 
 est, and of the Christian in the village meeting-house. 
 But, at any rate, it had been a part of the choice house- 
 hold gear of one of Septimius's ancestors, and was en- 
 graved with his arms, artistically done.
 
 SEPTIMIUS PELTON. 211 
 
 " Is that the drink of immortality ? " said Sybil. 
 
 "Yes, Sybil," said Septimius. "Do but touch the 
 goblet ; see how cold it is." 
 
 She put her slender, pallid fingers on the side of the 
 goblet, and shuddered, just as Septimius did when he 
 touched her hand. 
 
 " Why should it be so cold ? " said she, looking at 
 Septimius. 
 
 " Nay, I know not, unless because endless life goes 
 round the circle and meets death, and is just the same 
 with it. O Sybil, it is a fearful thing that I have accom- 
 plished ! Do you not feel it so ? What if this shiver 
 should last us through eternity ? " 
 
 " Have you pursued this object so long," said Sybil, 
 " to have these fears respecting it now ? In that case, 
 methinks I could be bold enough to drink it alone, and 
 look down upon you, as I did so, smiling at your fear to 
 take the life offered you." 
 
 " I do not fear," said Septimius ; " but yet I acknowl- 
 edge there is a strange, powerful abhorrence in me 
 towards this draught, which I know not how to account 
 for, except as the reaction, the revulsion of feeling conse- 
 quent upon its being too long overstrained in one direc- 
 tion. I cannot help it. The meannesses, the littlenesses, 
 the perplexities, the general irksomeness of life, weigh 
 upon me strangely. Thou didst refuse to drink with me. 
 That being the case, methinks I could break the jewelled 
 goblet now, untasted, and choose the grave as the wiser 
 part." 
 
 " The beautiful goblet ! What a pity to break it ! " 
 said Sybil, with her characteristic malign and myste-
 
 212 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 rious smile. " You cannot find it in your heart to do 
 it." 
 
 " I could, I can. So thou wilt not drink with 
 me ? " 
 
 " Do you know what you ask ? " said Sybil. " I am 
 a being that sprung up, like this flower, out of a grave ; 
 or, at least, I took root in a grave, and, growing there, 
 have twined about your life, uutil you cannot possibly 
 escape from me. Ah, Septimius ! you know me not. 
 You know not what is in my heart towards you. Do 
 you remember this broken miniature ? would you wish to 
 see the features that were destroyed when that bullet 
 passed ? Then look at mine ! " 
 
 " Sybil ! what do you tell me? Was it you were 
 they your features which that young soldier kissed as 
 he lay dying ? " 
 
 "They were," said Sybil. "I loved him, and gave 
 him that miniature, and the face they represented. I 
 had given him all, and you slew him." 
 
 " Then you hate me," whispered Septimius. 
 
 "Do you call it hatred?" asked Sybil, smiling. 
 " Have I not aided you, thought with you, encouraged 
 you, heard all your wild ravings when you dared to tell 
 no one else ? kept up your hopes ; suggested ; helped 
 you with my legendary lore to useful hints ; helped you, 
 also, in other ways, which you do not suspect ? And 
 now you ask me if I hate you. Does this look like 
 it?" 
 
 " No," said Septimius. " And yet, since first I knew 
 you, there has been something whispering me of harm, 
 as if I sat near some mischief. There is in me the wild,
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 213 
 
 natural blood of the Indian, the instinctive, the animal 
 nature, which has ways of warning that civilized life 
 polishes away and cuts out j and so, Sybil, never did I 
 approach you, but there were reluctances, drawings back, 
 and, at the same time, a strong impulse to come closest 
 to you ; and to that I yielded. But why, then, knowing 
 that in this grave lay the man you loved, laid there by 
 my hand, why did you aid me in an object which you 
 must have seen was the breath of my life P " 
 
 " Ah, my friend, my enemy, if you will have it so, 
 are you yet to learn that the wish of a man's inmost 
 heart is oftenest that by which he is ruined and made 
 miserable? But listen to me, Septimius. No matter 
 for my earlier life ; there is no reason why I should tell 
 you the story, and confess to you its weakness, its shame. 
 It may be, I had more cause to hate the tenant of that 
 grave, than to hate you who unconsciously avenged my 
 cause ; nevertheless, I came here in hatred, and desire of 
 revenge, meaning to lie in wait, and turn your dearest 
 desire against you, to eat into your life, and distil poison 
 into it, I sitting on this grave, and drawing fresh hatred 
 from it; and at last, in the hour of your triumph, I 
 meant to make the triumph mine." 
 
 " Is this still so ? " asked Septimius, with pale lips ; 
 " or did your fell purpose change ? " 
 
 " Septimius, I am weak, a weak, weak girl, only 
 a girl, Septimius ; only eighteen yet," exclaimed Sybil. 
 " It is young, is it not ? I might be forgiven much. 
 You know not how bitter my purpose was to you. But 
 look, Septimius, could it be worse than this ? Hush, 
 be still ! Do not stir ! "
 
 214 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 She lifted the beautiful goblet from the table, put it to 
 her lips, and drank a deep draught from it ; then, smiling 
 mockingly, she held it towards him. 
 
 " See ; I have made myself immortal before you. Will 
 you drink ? " 
 
 He eagerly held out his hand to receive the goblet, bu 
 Sybil, holding it beyond his reach a moment, deliberately 
 let it fall upon the hearth, where it shivered into frag- 
 ments, and the bright, cold water of immortality was all 
 spilt, shedding its strange fragrance around. 
 
 " Sybil, what have you done ? " cried Septimius in rage 
 and horror. 
 
 " Be quiet ! See what sort of immortality 1 1 by it, 
 then, if you like, distil your drink of eternity again, 
 and quaff it." 
 
 " It is too late, Sybil ; it was a happiness that may 
 never come again in a lifetime. I shall perish as a dog 
 does. It is too late ! " 
 
 Septimius," said Sybil, who looked strangely beauti- 
 ful, as if the drink, giving her immortal life, had likewise 
 the potency to give immortal beauty answering to it. 
 " Listen to me. You have not learned all the secrets 
 that lay in those old legends, about which we have talked 
 so much. There were two recipes, discovered or learned 
 by the art of the studious old Gaspar Pelton. One was 
 said to be that secret of immortal life which so many old 
 sages sought for, and which some were said to h; 
 found; though, if that were the case, it is strange some 
 of them have not lived till our day. Its essence lay in 
 a certain rare flower, which, mingled properly with othe 
 ingredients of great potency in themselves, though still
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 215 
 
 lacking the crowning virtue till the flower was supplied, 
 produced the drink of immortality." 
 
 " Yes, and I had the flower, which I found in a grave," 
 said Septimius, " and distilled the drink which you have 
 spilt." 
 
 " You had a flower or what you called a flower," said 
 the girl. " But, Septimius, there was yet another drink, 
 in which the same potent ingredients were used ; all but 
 the last. In this, instead of the beautiful flower, was 
 mingled the semblance of a flower, but really a baneful 
 growth out of a grave. This I sowed there, and it con- 
 verted the drink into a poison, famous in old science, 
 a poison which the Borgias used, and Mary de Medicis, 
 and which has brought to death many a famous person, 
 when it was desirable to his enemies. This is the drink 
 I helped you to distil. It brings on death with pleasant 
 and delightful thrills of the nerves. O Septimius, Sep- 
 timius, it is worth while to die, to be so blest, so exhil- 
 arated as I am now." 
 
 " Good God, Sybil, is this possible P " 
 
 "Even so, Septimius. I was helped by that old 
 physician, Doctor Portsoaken, who, with some private 
 purpose of his own, taught me what to do ; for he was 
 skilled in all the mysteries of those old physicians, and 
 knew that their poisons at least were efficacious, what- 
 ever their drinks of immortality might be. But the end 
 has not turned out as I meant. A girl's fancy is so 
 shifting, Septimius. I thought I loved that youth in the 
 grave yonder ; but it was you I loved, and I am 
 dying. Forgive me for my evil purposes, for I am 
 dying."
 
 216 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 
 
 "Wliy hast thou spilt the drink?" said Septimius, 
 bending his dark brows upon her, and frowning over 
 her. " We might have died together." 
 
 "No, live, Septimius," said the girl, whose face ap- 
 peared to grow bright and joyous, as if the drink of 
 death exhilarated her like an intoxicating fluid. "I 
 would not let you have it, not one drop. But to think," 
 and here she laughed, " what a penance, what months 
 of wearisome labor thou hast had, and what thoughts, 
 what dreams, and how I laughed in my sleeve at them 
 all the time ! Ha, ha, ha ! Then thou didst plan out 
 future ages, and talk poetry and prose to me. Did I 
 not take it very demurely, and answer thee in the same 
 style ? and so thou didst love me, and kindly didst wish 
 to take me with thee in thy immortality. Septimius, 
 I should have liked it well ! Yes, latterly, only, I knew 
 how the case stood. 0, how I surrounded the6 with 
 dreams, and instead of giving thee immortal life, so 
 kneaded up the little life allotted thee with dreams and 
 vaporing stuff, that thou didst not really live ven that. 
 Ah, it was a pleasant pastime, and pleasant is now the 
 end of it. Kiss me, thou poor Septimius, one kiss ! " 
 
 [SAe gives the ridiculous aspect to his scheme, in an 
 airy way.} 
 
 But as Septimius, who seemed stunned, instinctively 
 bent forward to obey her, she drew back. " No, there 
 shall be no kiss ! There may a little poison linger on 
 my lips. Farewell! Dost thou mean still to seek for 
 thy liquor of immortality ? ah, ah ! It was a good 
 jest. We will laugh at it when we meet in the other 
 world."
 
 SEPTIMIUS PELTON. 217 
 
 And here poor Sybil Dacy's laugh grew fainter, and 
 dying away, she seemed to die with it; for there she was, 
 with that mirthful, half-malign expression still on her 
 face, but motionless ; so that however long Septimius's 
 life was likely to be, whether a few years or many cen- 
 turies, he would still have her image in his memory so. 
 And here she lay among his broken hopes, now shattered 
 as completely as the goblet which held his draught, and 
 as incapable of being formed again. 
 
 The next day, as Septimius did not appear, there was 
 research for him on the part of Doctor Portsoaken. His 
 room was found empty, the bed untouched. Then they 
 sought him on his favorite hill-top ; but neither was he 
 found there, although something was found that added 
 to the wonder and alarm of his disappearance. It was 
 the cold form of Sybil Dacy, which was extended on 
 the hillock so often mentioned, with her arms thrown 
 over it ; but, looking in the dead face, the beholders 
 were astonished to see a certain malign and mirthful ex- 
 pression, as if some airy part had been played out, 
 some surprise, some practical joke of a peculiarly airy 
 kind had burst with fairy shoots of fire among the com- 
 pany. 
 
 " Ah, she is dead ! Poor Sybil Dacy ! " exclaimed 
 Doctor Portsoaken. " Her scheme, then, has turned 
 out amiss." 
 
 This exclamation seemed to imply some knowledge of 
 
 the mystery; and it so impressed the auditors, among 
 
 whom was Robert Hagburn, that they thought it not 
 
 inexpedient to have an investigation; so the learned 
 
 10
 
 218 SEPTIMITJS FELTON. 
 
 doctor was not uncivilly taken into custody and exam- 
 ined. Several interesting particulars, some of which 
 throw a certain degree of light on our narrative, were 
 discovered. For instance, that Sybil Dacy, who was a 
 niece of the doctor, had been beguiled from her home 
 and led over the sea by Cyril Norton, and that the 
 doctor, arriving in Boston with another regiment, had 
 found her there, after her lover's death. Here there 
 was some discrepancy or darkness in the doctor's narra- 
 tive. He appeared to have consented to, or instigated 
 (for it was not quite evident how far his concurrence had 
 gone) this poor girl's scheme of going and brooding over 
 her lover's grave, and living in close contiguity with the 
 man who had slain him. The doctor had not much to 
 say for himself on this point ; but there was found rea- 
 son to believe that he was acting in the interest of some 
 English claimant of a great estate that was left without 
 an apparent heir by the death of Cyril Norton, and there 
 was even a suspicion that he, with his fantastic science 
 and antiquated empiricism, had been at the bottom of 
 the scheme of poisoning, which was so strangely inter- 
 twined with Septimius's notion, in which he went so 
 nearly crazed, of a drink of immortality. It was ob- 
 servable, however, that the doctor such a humbug in 
 scientific matters, that he had perhaps bewildered him- 
 selfseemed to have a sort of faith in the efficacy of 
 the recipe which had so strangely come to light, provided 
 the true flower could be discovered; but that flower, 
 according to Doctor Portsoaken, had not been seen on 
 earth for many centuries, and was banished probably 
 forever. The flower, or fungus, which Septimius had
 
 SEPTIMIUS FELTON. 219 
 
 mistaken for it, was a sort of earthly or devilish coun- 
 terpart of it, and was greatly in request among the 
 old poisoners for its admirable uses in their art. In 
 fine, no tangible evidence being found against the 
 worthy doctor, he was permitted to depart, and disap- 
 peared from the neighborhood, to the scandal of many 
 people, unhanged; leaving behind him few available ef- 
 fects beyond the web and empty skin of an enormous 
 spider. 
 
 As to Septimius, he returned no more to his cottage 
 by the wayside, and none undertook to tell what had be- 
 come of him ; crushed and annihilated, as it were, by the 
 failure of his magnificent and most absurd dreams. Ru- 
 mors there have been, however, at various times, that 
 there had appeared an American claimant, who had made 
 out his right to the great estate of Smithell's Hall, and 
 had dwelt there, and left posterity, and that in the subse- 
 quent generation an ancient baronial title had been re- 
 vived in favor of the son and heir of the American. 
 Whether this was our Septimius, I cannot tell; but I 
 should be rather sorry to believe that after such splen- 
 did schemes as he had entertained, he should have been 
 content to settle down into the fat substance and reality 
 of English life, and die in his due time, and be buried 
 like any other man. 
 
 A few years ago, while in England, I visited Smith- 
 ell's Hall, and was entertained there, not knowing at the 
 time that I could claim its owner as my countryman by 
 descent ; though, as I now remember, I was struck by 
 the thin, sallow, American cast of his face, and the lithe 
 slenderness of his figure, and seem now (but this may be
 
 220 SEPTIMltJS FELTON. 
 
 my fancy) to recollect a certain Indian glitter of the eye, 
 and cast of feature. 
 
 As for the Bloody Footstep, I saw it with my own 
 eyes, and will venture to suggest that it was a mere nat- 
 ural reddish stain in the stone, converted by superstition 
 into a Bloody Footstep.
 
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