The Guardian Angel

O >> Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. >> The Guardian Angel


Before he left the house, Mr. Gridley repeated the statement is the most
precise manner,--some miles down the river--upset and nearly
drowned--rescued almost dead--brought to and cared for by kind women in
the house where he, Byles Gridley, found her. These were the facts, and
nothing more than this was to be told at present. They had better be
made known at once, and the shortest and best way would be to have it
announced by the minister at meeting that forenoon. With their
permission, he would himself write the note for Mr. Stoker to read, and
tell the other ministers that they might announce it to their people.

The bells rang for meeting, but the little household at The Poplars did
not add to the congregation that day. In the mean time Kitty Fagan had
gone down with Mr. Byles Gridley's note, to carry it to the Rev. Mr.
Stoker. But, on her way, she stopped at the house of one Mrs. Finnegan,
a particular friend of hers; and the great event of the morning
furnishing matter for large discourse, and various social allurements
adding to the fascination of having a story to tell, Kitty Fagan forgot
her note until meeting had begun and the minister had read the text of
his sermon. "Bless my soul! and sure I 've forgot ahl about the letter!"
she cried all at once, and away she tramped for the meeting-house. The
sexton took the note, which was folded, and said he would hand it up to
the pulpit after the sermon,--it would not do to interrupt the preacher.

The Rev. Mr. Stoker had, as was said, a somewhat remarkable gift in
prayer,--an endowment by no means confined to profoundly spiritual
persons,--in fact, not rarely owing much of its force to a strong animal
nature underlying the higher attributes. The sweet singer of Israel
would never have written such petitions and such hymns if his manhood had
been less complete; the flavor of remembered frailties could not help
giving a character to his most devout exercises, or they would not have
come quite home to our common humanity. But there is no gift more
dangerous to the humility and sincerity of a minister. While his spirit
ought to be on its knees before the throne of grace, it is too apt to be
on tiptoe, following with admiring look the flight of its own rhetoric.
The essentially intellectual character of an extemporaneous composition
spoken to the Creator with the consciousness that many of his creatures
are listening to criticise or to admire, is the great argument for set
forms of prayer.

The congregation on this particular Sunday was made up chiefly of women
and old men. The young men were hunting after Myrtle Hazard. Mr. Byles
Gridley was in his place, wondering why the minister did not read his
notice before the prayer. This prayer, was never reported, as is the
questionable custom with regard to some of these performances, but it was
wrought up with a good deal of rasping force and broad pathos. When he
came to pray for "our youthful sister, missing from her pious home,
perhaps nevermore to return to her afflicted relatives," and the women
and old men began crying, Byles Gridley was on the very point of getting
up and cutting short the whole matter by stating the simple fact that she
had got back, all right, and suggesting that he had better pray for some
of the older and tougher sinners before him. But on the whole it would
be more decorous to wait, and perhaps he was willing to hear what the
object of his favorite antipathy had to say about it. So he waited
through the prayer. He waited through the hymn, "Life is the time"--He
waited to hear the sermon.

The minister gave out his text from the Book of Esther, second chapter,
seventh verse: "For she had neither father nor mother, and the maid was
fair and beautiful." It was to be expected that the reverend gentleman,
who loved to produce a sensation, would avail himself of the excitable
state of his audience to sweep the key-board of their emotions, while, as
we may, say, all the stops were drawn out. His sermon was from notes;
for, though absolutely extemporaneous composition may be acceptable to
one's Maker, it is not considered quite the thing in speaking to one's
fellow-mortals. He discoursed for a time on the loss of parents, and on
the dangers to which the unfortunate orphan is exposed. Then he spoke of
the peculiar risks of the tender female child, left without its natural
guardians. Warming with his subject, he dilated with wonderful unction
on the temptations springing from personal attractions. He pictured the
"fair and beautiful" women of Holy Writ, lingering over their names with
lover-like devotion. He brought Esther before his audience, bathed and
perfumed for the royal presence of Ahasuerus. He showed them the sweet
young Ruth, lying down in her innocence at the feet of the lord of the
manor. He dwelt with special luxury on the charms which seduced the
royal psalmist,--the soldier's wife for whom he broke the commands of the
decalogue, and the maiden for whose attentions, in his cooler years, he
violated the dictates of prudence and propriety. All this time Byles
Gridley had his stern eyes on him. And while he kindled into passionate
eloquence on these inspiring themes, poor Bathsheba, whom her mother had
sent to church that she might get a little respite from her home duties,
felt her blood growing cold in her veins, as the pallid image of the
invalid wife, lying on her bed of suffering, rose in the midst of the
glowing pictures which borrowed such warmth from her husband's
imagination.

The sermon, with its hinted application to the event of the past week,
was over at last. The shoulders of the nervous women were twitching with
sobs. The old men were crying in their vacant way. But all the while the
face of Byles Gridley, firm as a rock in the midst of this lachrymal
inundation, was kept steadily on the preacher, who had often felt the
look that came through the two round glasses searching into the very
marrow of his bones.

As the sermon was finished, the sexton marched up through the broad aisle
and handed the note over the door of the pulpit to the clergyman, who was
wiping his face after the exertion of delivering his discourse. Mr.
Stoker looked at it, started, changed color,--his vision of "The Dangers
of Beauty, a Sermon printed by Request," had vanished,--and passed the
note to Father Pemberton, who sat by him in the pulpit. With much pains
he deciphered its contents, for his eyes were dim with years, and, having
read it, bowed his head upon his hands in silent thanksgiving. Then he
rose in the beauty of his tranquil and noble old age, so touched with the
message he had to proclaim to his people, that the three deep furrows on
his forehead, which some said he owed to the three dogmas of original
sin, predestination, and endless torment, seemed smoothed for the moment,
and his face was as that of an angel while he spoke.

"Sisters and Brethren,--Rejoice with us, for we have found our lamb which
had strayed from the fold. This our daughter was dead and is alive
again; she was lost and is found. Myrtle Hazard, rescued from great
peril of the waters, and cared for by good Samaritans, is now in her
home. Thou, O Lord, who didst let the water-flood overflow her, didst
not let the deep swallow her up, nor the pit shut its mouth upon her.
Let us return our thanks to the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God
of Jacob, who is our God and Father, and who hath wrought this great
deliverance."

After his prayer, which it tried him sorely to utter in unbroken tones,
he gave out the hymn,

"Lord, thou hast heard thy servant cry,
And rescued from the grave;"

but it was hardly begun when the leading female voice trembled and
stopped,--and another,--and then a third,--and Father Pemberton, seeing
that they were all overcome, arose and stretched out his arms, and
breathed over them his holy benediction.

The village was soon alive with the news. The sexton forgot the
solemnity of the Sabbath, and the bell acted as if it was crazy, tumbling
heels over head at such a rate, and with such a clamor, that a good many
thought there was a fire, and, rushing out from every quarter, instantly
caught the great news with which the air was ablaze.

A few of the young men who had come back went even further in their
demonstrations. They got a small cannon in readiness, and without
waiting for the going down of the sun, began firing rapidly, upon which
the Rev. Mr. Stoker sallied forth to put a stop to this violation of the
Sabbath. But in the mean time it was heard on all the hills, far and
near. Some said they were firing in the hope of raising the corpse; but
many who heard the bells ringing their crazy peals guessed what had
happened. Before night the parties were all in, one detachment bearing
the body of the bob-tailed catamount swung over a pole, like the mighty
cluster of grapes from Eshcol, and another conveying with wise precaution
that monstrous snapping-turtle which those of our friends who wish to see
will find among the specimens marked Chelydra, Serpentine in the great
collection at Cantabridge.




CHAPTER XI.

VEXED WITH A DEVIL.

It was necessary at once to summon a physician to advise as to the
treatment of Myrtle, who had received a shock, bodily and mental, not
lightly to be got rid of, and very probably to be followed by serious and
varied disturbances. Her very tranquillity was suspicious, for there
must be something of exhaustion in it, and the reaction must come sooner
or later.

Old Dr. Lemuel Hurlbut, at the age of ninety-two, very deaf, very nearly
blind, very feeble, liable to odd lapses of memory, was yet a wise
counsellor in doubtful and difficult cases, and on rare occasions was
still called upon to exercise his ancient skill. Here was a case in
which a few words from him might soothe the patient and give confidence
to all who were interested in her. Miss Silence Withers went herself to
see him.

"Miss Withers, father, wants to talk with you about her niece, Miss
Hazard," said Dr. Fordyce Hurlbut.

"Miss Withers, Miss Withers?--Oh, Silence Withers,--lives up at The
Poplars. How's the Deacon, Miss Withers?" [Ob. 1810.]

"My grandfather is not living, Dr. Hurlbut," she screamed into his ear.

"Dead, is he? Well, it isn't long since he was with us; and they come
and go,--they come and go. I remember his father, Major Gideon Withers.
He had a great red feather on training-days,--that was what made me
remember him. Who did you say was sick and wanted to see me, Fordyce?"

"Myrtle Hazard, father,--she has had a narrow escape from drowning, and
it has left her in a rather nervous state. They would like to have you
go up to The Poplars and take a look at her. You remember Myrtle Hazard?
She is the great-granddaughter of your old friend the Deacon."

He had to wait a minute before his thoughts would come to order; with a
little time, the proper answer would be evolved by the slow automatic
movement of the rusted mental machinery.

After the silent moment: "Myrtle Hazard, Myrtle Hazard,--yes, yes, to be
sure! The old Withers stock,--good constitutions,--a little apt to be
nervous, one or two of 'em. I've given 'em a good deal of valerian and
assafoetida,--not quite so much since the new blood came in. There is
n't the change in folks people think,--same thing over and over again.
I've seen six fingers on a child that had a six-fingered great-uncle, and
I've seen that child's grandchild born with six fingers. Does this girl
like to have her own way pretty well, like the rest of the family?"

"A little too well, I suspect, father. You will remember all about her
when you come to see her and talk with her. She would like to talk with
you, and her aunt wants to see you too; they think there's nobody like
the 'old Doctor'."

He was not too old to be pleased with this preference, and said he was
willing to go when they were ready. With no small labor of preparation
he was at last got to the house, and crept with his son's aid up to the
little room over the water, where his patient was still lying.

There was a little too much color in Myrtle's cheeks and a glistening
lustre in her eyes that told of unnatural excitement. It gave a strange
brilliancy to her beauty, and might have deceived an unpractised
observer. The old man looked at her long and curiously, his imperfect
sight excusing the closeness of his scrutiny.

He laid his trembling hand upon her forehead, and then felt her pulse
with his shriveled fingers. He asked her various questions about
herself, which she answered with a tone not quite so calm as natural, but
willingly and intelligently. They thought she seemed to the old Doctor
to be doing very well, for he spoke cheerfully to her, and treated her in
such a way that neither she nor any of those around her could be alarmed.
The younger physician was disposed to think she was only suffering from
temporary excitement, and that it would soon pass off.

They left the room to talk it over.

"It does not amount to much, I suppose, father," said Dr. Fordyce
Hurlbut. "You made the pulse about ninety,--a little hard,--did n't you;
as I did? Rest, and low diet for a day or two, and all will be right,
won't it?"

Was it the feeling of sympathy, or was it the pride of superior sagacity,
that changed the look of the old man's wrinkled features? "Not so
fast,--not so fast, Fordyce," he said. "I've seen that look on another
face of the same blood,--it 's a great many years ago, and she was dead
before you were born, my boy,--but I've seen that look, and it meant
trouble then, and I'm afraid it means trouble now. I see some danger of
a brain fever. And if she doesn't have that, then look out for some
hysteric fits that will make mischief. Take that handkerchief off of her
head, and cut her hair close, and keep her temples cool, and put some
drawing plasters to the soles of her feet, and give her some of my
pilulae compositae, and follow them with some doses of sal polychrest.
I've been through it all before--in that same house. Live folks are only
dead folks warmed over. I can see 'em all in that girl's face, Handsome
Judith, to begin with. And that queer woman, the Deacon's mother,--there
's where she gets that hystericky look. Yes, and the black-eyed woman
with the Indian blood in her,--look out for that,--look out for that.
And--and--my son, do you remember Major Gideon Withers?" [Ob. 1780.]

"Why no, father, I can't say that I remember the Major; but I know the
picture very well. Does she remind you of him?"

He paused again, until the thoughts came slowly straggling, up to the
point where the question left him. He shook his head solemnly, and
turned his dim eyes on his son's face.

Four generations--four generations; man and wife,--yes, five generations,
for old Selah Withers took me in his arms when I was a child, and called
me 'little gal,' for I was in girl's clothes,--five generations before
this Hazard child I 've looked on with these old eyes. And it seems to
me that I can see something of almost every one of 'em in this child's
face, it's the forehead of this one, and it's the eyes of that one, and
it's that other's mouth, and the look that I remember in another, and
when she speaks, why, I've heard that same voice before--yes, yes as long
ago as when I was first married; for I remember Rachel used to think I
praised Handsome Judith's voice more than it deserved,--and her face too,
for that matter. You remember Rachel, my first wife,--don't you,
Fordyce?"

"No, father, I don't remember her, but I know her portrait." (As he was
the son of the old Doctor's second wife, he could hardly be expected to
remember her predecessor.)

The old Doctor's sagacity was not in fault about the somewhat threatening
aspect of Myrtle's condition. His directions were followed implicitly;
for with the exception of the fact of sluggishness rather than loss of
memory, and of that confusion of dates which in slighter degrees is often
felt as early as middle-life, and increases in most persons from year to
year, his mind was still penetrating, and his advice almost as
trustworthy, as in his best days.

It was very fortunate that the old Doctor ordered Myrtle's hair to be
cut, and Miss Silence took the scissors and trimmed it at once. So,
whenever she got well and was seen about, there would be no mystery about
the loss of her locks,--the Doctor had been afraid of brain fever, and
ordered them to cut her hair.

Many things are uncertain in this world, and among them the effect of a
large proportion of the remedies prescribed by physicians. Whether it
was by the use of the means ordered by the old Doctor, or by the efforts
of nature, or by both together, at any rate the first danger was averted,
and the immediate risk from brain fever soon passed over. But the
impression upon her mind and body had been too profound to be dissipated
by a few days' rest. The hysteric stage which the wise old man had
apprehended began to manifest itself by its usual signs, if anything can
be called usual in a condition the natural order of which is disorder and
anomaly.

And now the reader, if such there be, who believes in the absolute
independence and self-determination of the will, and the consequent total
responsibility of every human being for every irregular nervous action
and ill-governed muscular contraction, may as well lay down this
narrative, or he may lose all faith in poor Myrtle Hazard, and all
patience with the writer who tells her story.

The mental excitement so long sustained, followed by a violent shock to
the system, coming just at the period of rapid development, gave rise to
that morbid condition, accompanied with a series of mental and moral
perversions, which in ignorant ages and communities is attributed to the
influence of evil spirits, but for the better-instructed is the malady
which they call hysteria. Few households have ripened a growth of
womanhood without witnessing some of its manifestations, and its
phenomena are largely traded in by scientific pretenders and religious
fanatics. Into this cloud, with all its risks and all its humiliations,
Myrtle Hazard is about to enter. Will she pass through it unharmed, or
wander from her path, and fall over one of those fearful precipices which
lie before her?

After the ancient physician had settled the general plan of treatment,
its details and practical application were left to the care of his son.
Dr. Fordyce Hurlbut was a widower, not yet forty years old, a man of a
fine masculine aspect and a vigorous nature. He was a favorite with his
female patients,--perhaps many of them would have said because he was
good-looking and pleasant in his manners, but some thought in virtue of a
special magnetic power to which certain temperaments were impressible,
though there was no explaining it. But he himself never claimed any such
personal gift, and never attempted any of the exploits which some thought
were in his power if he chose to exercise his faculty in that direction.
This girl was, as it were, a child to him, for he had seen her grow up
from infancy, and had often held her on his knee in her early years. The
first thing he did was to get her a nurse, for he saw that neither of the
two women about her exercised a quieting influence upon her nerves. So
he got her old friend, Nurse Byloe, to come and take care of her.

The old nurse looked calm enough at one or two of his first visits, but
the next morning her face showed that something had been going wrong.
"Well, what has been the trouble, Nurse?" the Doctor said, as soon as he
could get her out of the room.

"She's been attackted, Doctor, sence you been here, dreadful. It's them
high stirricks, Doctor, 'n' I never see 'em higher, nor more of 'em.
Laughin' as ef she would bust. Cryin' as ef she'd lost all her friends,
'n' was a follerin' their corpse to their graves. And spassums,--sech
spassums! And ketchin' at her throat, 'n' sayin' there was a great ball
a risin' into it from her stommick. One time she had a kind o' lockjaw
like. And one time she stretched herself out 'n' laid jest as stiff as
ef she was dead. And she says now that her head feels as ef a nail had
been driv' into it,--into the left temple, she says, and that's what
makes her look so distressed now."

The Doctor came once more to her bedside. He saw that her forehead was
contracted, and that she was evidently suffering from severe pain
somewhere.

"Where is your uneasiness, Myrtle?" he asked.

She moved her hand very slowly, and pressed it on her left temple. He
laid his hand upon the same spot, kept it there a moment, and then
removed it. She took it gently with her own, and placed it on her temple
again. As he sat watching her, he saw that her features were growing
easier, and in a short time her deep, even breathing showed that she was
asleep.

"It beats all," the old nurse said. "Why, she's been a complainin' ever
sence daylight, and she hain't slep' not a wink afore, sence twelve
o'clock las' night! It's j es' like them magnetizers,--I never heerd you
was one o' them kind, Dr. Hurlbut."

"I can't say how it is, Nurse,--I have heard people say my hand was
magnetic, but I never thought of its quieting her so quickly. No sleep
since twelve o'clock last night, you say?"

"Not a wink, 'n' actin' as ef she was possessed a good deal o' the time.
You read your Bible, Doctor, don't you? You're pious? Do you remember
about that woman in Scriptur' out of whom the Lord cast seven devils?
Well, I should ha' thought there was seventy devils in that gal last
night, from the way she carr'd on. And now she lays there jest as
peaceful as a new-born babe,--that is, accordin' to the sayin' about 'em;
for as to peaceful new-born babes, I never see one that come t' anything,
that did n't screech as ef the haouse was afire 'n' it wanted to call all
the fire-ingines within ten mild."

The Doctor smiled, but he became thoughtful in a moment. Did he possess
a hitherto unexercised personal power, which put the key of this young
girl's nervous system into his hands? The remarkable tranquillizing
effect of the contact of his hand with her forehead looked like an
immediate physical action.

It might have been a mere coincidence, however. He would not form an
opinion until his next visit.

At that next visit it did seem as if some of Nurse Byloe's seventy devils
had possession of the girl. All the strange spasmodic movements, the
chokings, the odd sounds, the wild talk, the laughing and crying, were in
full blast. All the remedies which had been ordered seemed to have been
of no avail. The Doctor could hardly refuse trying his quasi magnetic
influence, and placed the tips of his fingers on her forehead. The
result was the same that had followed the similar proceeding the day
before,--the storm was soon calmed, and after a little time she fell into
a quiet sleep, as in the first instance.

Here was an awkward affair for the physician, to be sure! He held this
power in his hands, which no remedy and no other person seemed to
possess. How long would he be chained to her; and she to him, and what
would be the consequence of the mysterious relation which must
necessarily spring up between a man like him, in the plenitude of vital
force, of strongly attractive personality, and a young girl organized for
victory over the calmest blood and the steadiest resistance?

Every day after this made matters worse. There was something almost
partaking of the miraculous in the influence he was acquiring over her.
His "Peace, be still!" was obeyed by the stormy elements of this young
soul, as if it had been a supernatural command. How could he resist the
dictate of humanity which called him to make his visits more frequent,
that her intervals of rest might be more numerous? How could he refuse to
sit at her bedside for a while in the evening, that she might be quieted,
instead of beginning the night sleepless and agitated?

The Doctor was a man of refined feeling as well as of principle, and he
had besides a sacred memory in the deepest heart of his affections. It
was the common belief in the village that he would never marry again, but
that his first and only love was buried in the grave of the wife of his
youth. It did not easily occur to him to suspect himself of any weakness
with regard to this patient of his, little more than a child in years.
It did not at once suggest itself to him that she, in her strange,
excited condition, might fasten her wandering thoughts upon him, too far
removed by his age, as it seemed, to strike the fancy of a young girl
under almost any conceivable conditions.

Thus it was that many of those beautiful summer evenings found him
sitting by his patient, the river rippling and singing beneath them, the
moon shining over them, sweet odors from the thickets on the banks of the
stream stealing in on the soft air that came through the open window, and
every time they were thus together, the subtile influence which bound
them to each other bringing them more and more into inexplicable
harmonies and almost spiritual identity.