Tales of the Chesapeake Part 2

He told the story of the world's selfishness when Christ appeared; how the Jews, living in the straitest of sectarian aristocracies, inviting and receiving no accessions, had finally fallen under the dogmatism of the uncharitable Pharisees, who esteemed themselves the only righteous devotees and doctrinaires amongst the millions of people on the earth.

Jesus, a youth of good Jewish extraction, and honorable family, had been bold enough to denounce Phariseeism and make its votaries ridiculous. He was scorned by them, if for no other crime, for the cheap offence, in a bigoted age, denominated blasphemy. Here the preacher, looking toward the Jew, paid a tribute to the antiquity and loyalty of the better cla.s.s of Jews, and said that it was well known that one of his own forerunners in the Christian ministry, dying in penury from the consequences of a marital mistake, had been befriended in his death and in his posterity by a gallant follower of the House of Israel.

The congregation, facing about to look at the Jew in the gallery, amongst the negroes, were surprised to see tears on his gray eyelashes, and the colored elders, who loved Issachar exceedingly, exclaimed, in stentorian chorus:

"Praise G.o.d for dat Israelite, in whom dar is no guile! Hallelujah!"

Then, as if the Christmas frost had melted, these grateful exclamations made warmth at once in both races, and encouraged the orator in his extemporization. Issachar began to appreciate the possibility of the founder of a more liberal sect of Jews, whose charitable hand should be extended to Gentiles also, and whose heaven should comprehend all the posterity of Adam. Perhaps his son's portrait was in his mind--that loving son who had but just departed in the interests of the law of Moses and the restoration of the Temple.

At the end of the sermon alms were invited for the support of the minister and the propagation of such a gospel as he had preached. With a mixture of pride and humility old Issachar descended the gallery stairs and walked up the aisle, and, taking the crucifix from his breast, planted it upon the altar.

"There," he said, "if your sect a.s.serts the sentiments of this sermon, you are ent.i.tled to this rich image. I am repaid for its possession by a son of Gentile parentage whose obedience has been the delight of my old years, and for the gift G.o.d has given me in him, I tender you this counterfeit of Jesus nailed on the Roman scaffold."

The congregation gazed a minute at the golden cross. Ireful laughter broke forth, followed by rage.

"The pagan! The papist! The Turk! The idolater!" they exclaimed. "He mocks the memory of our Saviour on Christmas morning! Out with him!"

The Jew recovered the crucifix and put it beneath his mantle. He vouchsafed no reply except a scornful "Ha! ha! ha!" and with this he strode out of the Methodist meeting, rejoined his boatmen, and returned to the island of Chincoteague.

Years pa.s.sed, and the Jew grew very feeble. He had lasted his fourscore and ten years, and prosperity had attended him through all, and children loved him; but, true to his first and only fondness, his heart was ever across the sea, where gentle Abraham, studiously intent amongst the Rabbis, communicated with his father by every mail and raised the old man's mind to a height of serious appreciation which greed and commerce had never given him. Although hungering for his boy, Issachar forebore to disturb young Abraham's studies until a bitter illness came to him, and in his gloom and solitude his great want burst from his lips, and he said aloud:

"Almighty Father! What will it avail to these old bones if the Temple be rebuilded, and I die without placing my hands on the eyelids of my boy and blessing him in Thy name? I will pluck from this Christian image the last jewel and dispose of it, that he may return and place his hands in mine, and receive my benediction, and gladden me with his grat.i.tude."

The image was therefore wholly separated from the cross. Nothing remained but the figure in gold of that b.l.o.o.d.y Pillory on which He died on whom two hundred millions of human beings rely for intercession with their Creator and Destiny.

The days seemed months to the Jew of Chincoteague. The negroes gathered round his cabin to be of a.s.sistance if he should require it; for they also looked for young Abraham as the s.h.i.+loh of their race, and would have died for old Issachar, unredeemed as they thought him, except by his goodness to their prince and favorite.

A high tide, following a series of dreadful storms, arose on the coast of the peninsula, as if the Gulf Stream, like a vast ploughshare, had thrown the Atlantic up from its furrow and tossed it over the beach of a.s.sateague.

The st.u.r.dy ponies were all drowned. The sea was undivided from the bay. Pungy boats and canoes drifted helplessly along the coast, and the Eli alone was out of danger in the harbor of New York, waiting to receive young Abraham. At last the freshet crept over the house-tops, and nothing remained but the cottage of the Jew, planted on piles, which lifting it higher than the surrounding houses, yet threatened it the more if the water should float it from its pedestal and send it to sea. Every effort was made to induce the Jew to abandon it, but he was obdurate.

"By the tables of the law!" he said, "living or dead, here will I abide until my son returns."

The bravest negro left the island of Chincoteague at last, placing food beside old Issachar, and there he lay upon his pallet, with nothing to pierce the darkness of his lair except that sacred cross he had raised from the depths of the ocean. That object, like a sentient, overruling thing, still shed its l.u.s.tre upon the wretched interior of the deserted hut, and, day by day, repeated its story to the neglected occupant.

The mighty storm increased in power as Christmas approached, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty----. Wrecks came ash.o.r.e on the submerged shoal of Chincoteague, but there were now no wreckers to labor for salvage. The Eli, too, was overdue. One night a familiar gun was heard at sea, thrice, and twice thrice, and Issachar raised up and said, in anguish:

"It is my schooner. My son is at hand and in danger. Oh! for a day's strength, as I had it in my youth, to go to his relief through the surf. But, miserable object that I am! I cannot rise from my bed. What help, what hope, in the earth or in heaven can I implore?"

The naked cross beamed brightly all at once in the darkness of the cabin. Issachar felt the legend it conveyed, and with piety, not apostacy, he uttered:

"O Paschal Lamb! O Waif of G.o.d! Die Thou for me this night, and give me to look upon the countenance of my son!"

The Jew, intently gazing at the cross, pa.s.sed into such a stupor or ecstasy that he had no knowledge of the flight of time. He only knew that, after a certain dreamy interval, the door of his house yielded to a living man, and, nearly naked with breasting the surf and fighting for life, young Abraham staggered into the hut and recognized his father.

"O son!" cried Issachar, "I feel the news thou hast to tell. The Eli is wrecked and thou only hast survived. The moments are precious.

Hark! this house is yielding to the buoyant current. Stay not for me, whose sands are nearly run. I am too old to try for life or fear to die, but thou art full of youth and beauty, and Israel needs thee in the world behind me. Let me bless thee, Abraham, and commit thee to G.o.d."

The water entered the cracks of the cabin; a pitching motion, as if it were afloat, made the son of the negro cling closer to the Jew.

"Father," he said, "I have pa.s.sed the bitterness of death. When the vessel struck and threw me into the surf, I cried to G.o.d and fought for life. The waves rolled over me, and the agony of dying so young and happy grew into such a terror that I could not pray. In my despair a something seemed to grasp me, like tongs of iron, and my eyes were filled with light, bright as the face of the I AM. Behold! I am here, and that which saved me has made me content to die by thee."

The old man drew the dripping ringlets of the younger one to his venerable beard. The house rocked like a sailing vessel, and the strong sea-fogs seemed to close them round.

"We are sailing to sea," whispered the Jew. "It is too late to escape.

The next billow may fling us apart, and our bones shall descend amongst the oyster-sh.e.l.ls to build houses for the nutritious beings of the water. Thence, some day, my son, from the heavens G.o.d may drop His tongs and draw us up to Him, as on this night thy father and I drew the casket, many years ago. Look there! Look there!"

The heads of both were turned toward the spot where the finger of the old man pointed, and they saw the denuded cross s.h.i.+ning in the light of the agitated fire, so large and bright that it reduced all other objects to insignificance.

"It was a light like that," exclaimed Abraham, "which shone in my eyes through the darkness of the billows."

"It was on that," whispered Issachar, "that I called for help, my son, when thou wert dying. From the hour I dipped it from the water my heart has been warmer to the world and man. Is there, in all the h.o.a.ry traditions of our church, a reason why we should not beseech its illumination again before it returns to the ocean with ourselves? Do thou decide, who art full of wisdom; for I am ignorant in thy eyes, and heavy with sins."

The cross, resplendent, seemed to wear a visible countenance. Wrapped in Issachar's arms, like a babe to its mother, young Abraham extended his hands to the effigy, and in its beams a wondrous consolation of love and rest returned to those poor companions, reconciling them to their helplessness in the presence of the Almighty awe.

"Child of G.o.d!" exclaimed the Jew, "thou beauty of the Gentiles, I gave thee life but for a span, and thou seemest to bring to me the life immortal."

The morning broke on the sh.o.r.e frosty and clear after the subsided storm, and the earliest wreckers, seeking in the drift for Christmas gifts to give their children, found well-remembered parts of the Eli and portions of the tenement of its proprietor. A wave rolled higher than the rest and cast upon the sh.o.r.e two bodies--a young man of the comely face and symmetry of a woman, without a sign of pain in his features and dark, oriental eyes, and an old man, venerable as an inhabitant of the ocean and mysterious as a being of some race anterior to the deluge. In his rugged face the marks of that antiquity which has something stately in the lowest types of the Jew, and in this one an almost Mosaic might, were softened to a magnanimity where death had nothing to contribute but its silence and respect. Laying them together, the fishermen and idlers looked at them with a superst.i.tion partly of remorse and mild remembrance, and the star of Christmas twinkled over them in the sky. None felt that they were other than father and son, and black men and white, indifferent that day to social prejudices, followed the child of Hagar and the Hebrew patriarch to the grave.

HAUNTED PUNGY.

They hewed the pines on Haunted Point To build the pungy boat, And other axes than their own Yet other echoes smote; They heard the phantom carpenters, But not a man could see; And every pine that crashed to earth Brought down a viewless tree.

They launched the pungy, not alone; Another vessel slipped Down in the water with their own, And ghostly sailors s.h.i.+pped; They heard the rigging flap and creak, And hollow orders cried.

But not a living man could seek, And not a boat beside.

They sailed away from Haunted Point, Convoyed by something more: A boatswain's whistle answered back, And oar replied to oar.

No matter where the anchor dropped, The fiends would not aroint, And every morn the pungy boat Still lay off Haunted Point.

They hailed; and voices as in fog Seemed half to speak again-- A devilish chuckling rolled afar, And mutiny of men.

The parson of the islands said It was the pirate band, Whose gold was lost on Haunted Point And hid with b.l.o.o.d.y hand.

Until what time a kidnapped boy, By ruffians whipped and stole, Should in the groves of Haunted Point Convert his stealer's soul!

They stole the island parson's child, He said a little prayer: Down sank the ground; a gliding sound Went whispering through the air.

And in the depths the pungy sank; And, as the divers told, They sought the wreck to lift again, And found the pirates' gold.

And in a chapel close at hand The pious freedmen toil; No slaves are left in all the land, Nor any pirates' spoil.

TICKING STONE.

People say that a certain tombstone in the London Tract "Hardsh.e.l.l"

Baptist graveyard, near Newark, Delaware, will give to the ear placed flat upon it the sound of a ticking like a watch. The London Tract Church, as its name implies, was the wors.h.i.+pping place of certain settlers who either came from London, or chose land owned by a London company. It is a quaint edifice of hard stone, with low-bent bevelled roof, and surrounded by a stone wall, which has a s.h.i.+ngle coping. The wall incloses many gravestones, their inscriptions showing that very many of the old wors.h.i.+ppers of the church were Welsh. Some large and healthy forest trees partly shade the graveyard and the gra.s.sy and sandy cross-roads where it stands, near the brink of the pretty White Clay Creek.