Wise Saws and Modern Instances Part 11

"'Od rabbet thee, and thy fizzlegig foolery!" she exclaimed, setting her teeth together, as she was wont when moved more strongly than usual, "what maggots hast thou got into thy star-gazing noddle, now? A witch, indeed! Who will take thee to be a wizard for saying so, thou dreaming old owl? Marry, come up! I say a witch, too!"--and then she shook poor Toby till his teeth chattered, and he would fain have uttered a loud alarm, but durst not speak, for the life of him.

The dame left him to recover his courage, and laughed heartily, in spite of some slight feeling of vexation, as she told the story to her customers during the day. A few hours served to bring a crowd round the tailor's dwelling, though none would enter it; and, till night-fall, Toby's ears were a.s.sailed with epithets which shook his nerves till he wished himself a thousand miles off, as he afterwards said to Joe.

During the evening, the elder and more influential members of the little population of Haxey went from house to house expressing their deep regret for Toby Lackpenny's lunacy,--for they decided that he _was_ lunatic,--and conjuringly besought the younger and more frivolous people to desist from persecution of one who had always been so good and kind-hearted a neighbour, and was now under a visitation of Providence that rendered him an object of commiseration rather than ridicule. And so the victim of imagination was delivered from the storm of persecution which he had foreboded would be renewed on the succeeding day.

Desirous, on her part, of making Toby feel the value of her neighbours.h.i.+p, Dame Deborah never crossed his threshold on that day.

Toby was thus left a solitary; and yet his mental disease had not yet reached a stage that would render solitude curative. On the contrary, it permitted his prurient imagination to become more mischievous in its influence.

A neat little dove-cote was a conspicuous rural adornment to the ancient gable of Dame Deborah's dwelling; and its cooing habitants were familiarly acquainted with the tailor's threshold, and even with his cottage-floor,--whither they were often attracted by the crumbs Toby spread upon it, when his favourite tabby had strayed forth from the cot, and so could give no alarm to these feathered visitants. Toby had been reading a full description, during that solitary morning, in one of his witchery-books, of the way in which the most powerful of all charms might be prepared for subjugating a witch or a wizard; and the entrance of one of Dame Deborah's pigeons, into his cottage, seemed to give him the opportunity he coveted of testing the efficacy of the prescribed charm. He wilily closed his door, and after a brief struggle, captured the bird,--which he, forthwith, secured, by shutting it up in the oaken corner cupboard, which served him for wardrobe, larder, and coal-cellar.

The day wore on, and the philosopher, with a struggle against his misgivings that whispered "cruelty and barbarity," reckoned mightily on the triumph his newly acquired knowledge was to give him over the powers of darkness as soon as night arrived, and the murky hour of twelve approached. He sharpened a knife till the edge was most deadly keen; he made up a good fire: he collected, at least, one hundred pins from the patches on his shop-board and in his drawers: he prepared the string by which the dove's heart was to be hung to roast; and he drove in the nail to which the string was to be tied.

And now the black midnight hour was near, and trembling with agitation that might almost be called horror, Toby Lackpenny took the poor fluttering pigeon out of its hiding-place, and took the fierce knife into his hand to be ready to dash into its breast as soon as the church clock struck the first stroke of twelve. Need he had for self-possession and preparedness of mind and act, in order to complete his necromantic feat like a true adept,--for although he was not to wound the bird till he heard the first stroke of twelve, yet he must have its heart out, alive, and have it stuck full of pins, and placed down at the fire to roast,--and all before the church clock had told the last stroke of twelve!

"Pshaw!--nonsense--what a chicken-hearted fool I am!" said poor Toby to himself, as he stood trying to confine the bird's wings with one hand, and holding his sharp knife in the other: "let me think of the victory I shall obtain over these agents of the Evil One,--and not give way in this childish manner!"

But Toby _did_ give way, and could not help it; as he said to Joe when he afterwards described this strange temptation to his beloved young friend. The faster the moments flew, and the more nearly the magical moment approached, the more Toby trembled, and the more loudly his heart beat against his ribs, and the more terrifically his conscience menaced his peace, till--as the last half minute was elapsing, he threw down the knife, and releasing the pigeon from his grasp, declared aloud, though out of the hearing of every human being, that he neither could nor would hurt the poor harmless dove, even if all the witches on earth, and all the fiends they dealt with in the other place, should, thenceforth, have power to torment him every minute of his remaining life.

There was an end of Toby's grand achievement of power over all the witches and wizards with whom he believed the Isle of Axholme to be infested! The hour had pa.s.sed over, and it was too late--perhaps, for ever--for him to perform the all-potent immolation,--since the sacrifice of the same pigeon would be of no efficacy, after it had been prepared, and yet remained unslaughtered. His better nature felt satisfaction at the thought of the pigeon being still alive, though his superst.i.tious ambition led him to experience a deep shade of regret that he had not had hardihood of spirit sufficient to enable him to grasp the grand ideal prize which was so nearly within his reach. Regrets were useless, however, he reflected; and so he quenched his blazing fire, and lay down to rest.

In the morning, a new temptation awaited the fanatical witch-finder.

Forgetting that Tabby could easily pounce upon the pigeon while left on the cottage-floor, though she could not get at it in the cupboard,--Toby had gone to bed without concerning himself about the safety of the bird, being so much absorbed with the feeling of satisfaction that he had spared its life. No sooner had her master fallen asleep, however, and the bird placed its bill under its wing for taking rest, than Tabby slily seized her prize and butchered it for a secret banquet. Her b.l.o.o.d.y mouth and glistening eyes, together with the scattered feathers, proclaimed her deed, most unmistakeably, as soon almost as Toby had opened his eyes and looked round his humble dwelling.

A new conviction sprang into his capricious brain: Tabby was a witch, self-transfigured into a cat! There could be no doubt of it--not the shadow of a doubt. How strange that he had not marked her particular habits before!--and yet, it was a fact, now he came to think of it,--that she purred and squinted, just like the transfigured cat-witches he had lately read of in his profound, mystical books. As for the pigeon, she hated it, of course, knowing the purpose for which it had been brought thither. It was as clear as the sun at noon,--though all cats liked pigeon flesh if they could get it,--that Tabby devoured this pigeon because she was a witch, and it had been secreted as a forthcoming sacrificial charm for overthrowing witch-power!

What, then, was the discerning Lackpenny to do, under this astounding discovery? He resolved to put an end to Tabby's life, by the peculiar and effectual mode in which alone a cat-witch could be destroyed: she must be hung up by the heels over his cottage-door to die a prolonged but irredeemable death! Toby shuddered; but he was convinced it was the only righteous and wise way to be taken,--and so he set about carrying it into effect. Tabby inflicted some vengeful wounds on her old master while he was in course of tying the cord round her hind feet, and then hoisting her up over the door,--but Toby fulfilled his office of executioner--thrust on him by fate and duty, he believed--very stoutly this time--in spite of the aversion he felt at taking away the life of a dumb creature which had sung "three-thrum" on his hearth so often, and borne him company through so many days of poverty, although days of content. He hung up his cat; but how was he to stop her cries?

A crowd again gathered round his house, and demanded that he should release his cat. But Toby was more resolute that he would not, the more they insisted on it. Dame Deborah, at length, stepped from her dwelling, and, cutting the poor animal loose, broke Toby's counter-enchantment at a stroke. Then throwing open the tailor's door, and fixing her eyes upon him very threateningly, she told him she would certainly help to hang him by the heels,--if ever he attempted again to treat his poor harmless cat in so barbarous a manner.

Toby spake not one word. His recollection of the fearful shake the aged dame had lately given him, rendered him apprehensive that she might renew it, and so he kept prudent silence.

The crowd gradually departed, and left the baffled philosopher-visionary, once more, to solitary reflection--but it was now _hungry_ reflection,--and proved to be most effectual in dispelling his wild fancies. Shame under the keen reproofs of his neighbours, and failure of his cupboard, contributed to weary him of his witch notions,--so that on the following morning he was fain to receive a little present from Dame Deborah, with thanks for her kindness.

Gradually, he became so entirely ashamed of his recent eccentricities that he made earnest apologies to all whom he had treated with rudeness,--and all were so ready to forgive, and so happy to see him restored to a neighbourly temper,--that Toby found it easy to recover his former ease of mind and habitual good humour.

The longer Toby lived the less likely was it for one so ardently imaginative by const.i.tution, to sink into the mere matter-of-fact quietude of thought that characterised the majority of his neighbours.

On the contrary, as he grew older, his brain became more and more prolific of imaginations; but, happily, they were increasingly of a more pleasing nature as he increased in years. In spite of all his life-long dreams and fancies, and in spite of straitness in his means of living, Toby was a happy old man; for, with all the startling activity of his imagination, Toby had never corrupted his bodily vigour by a single act of intemperance. When Joe returned to bury his aged foster-mother, Toby walked, by the help of two sticks, to the grave-side, declaring that he saw two lovely angels walking before the coffin, all the way from the dame's door, and he knew they would come for him next. Whether the yearning of his desire and imagination, or the great effort he made to attend the funeral, most a.s.sisted to hasten his end, cannot be said,--but he died the very next day,--with a heaven of smiles on his aged face,--and with the words "heaven" and "angels" on his tongue.

THE END.