Robert Montgomery Bird

“ I had a sort of confused recollection of the place, though I had never seen it before in my life;—the dingy bricks and weather-stained marble, the rickety old iron railing on the steps, and the ugly, worn-out brass plate, with the "J. SNIGGLES" engraved thereon, rose on my memory like old acquaintances who had grown out of it. The house might have been a fashionable one in its day; nay, for the matter of that, it was not so humble in appearance but that a gentleman might have lived in it, if too poor to inhabit a better ”

“ Ah! how much torment a poor man has dreaming of riches! The dream made me very melancholy; and I went moping about all that day, wishing myself anybody or any thing but that I was, and hiding in the woods at the sight of any one who chanced to pass by, for I thought everybody was the sheriff. I went to bed the following night in great disorder of spirit, and had no sooner closed my eyes than I dreamed the same dream over again. The squire made his appearance as before, led me to the Owl-roost, and set the black pig hunting until the grave was found. ”

“ Crunch went every bone; crack went every sinew; and such a yell as I set up was never before heard in Chestnut-street.
"You see, gentlemen— (I'll take another glass of that port, Mr. Doolittle) —you see what we must all come to! This is one of the small penalties one must pay for being a gentleman; when one dances, one must pay the piper. Now would my friend Higginson there give a whole year of his best brewing, that all the pale ale and purple port that have passed his lips had been nothing better than elder-wine and bonny-clabber. ”

“ I perceived it all in a moment: the howling of the dogs, which they still kept up from among the bushes,—the fear of Turnbuckle and his family, all of whom, old and young, male and female, were now squeaking in the house, as if Old Nick had got among them,—my being in two places together, and a thousand other circumstances that now occurred to me, apprized me of the dreadful fact, which I had not before suspected: I was a dead man!—my body lay in the marsh under the beech-tree, and it was my spirit that was wandering about in search of assistance! ”

“ I shook them all by the hand, and contrasting for a moment in my mind the melancholy condition in which I had lived as Sheppard Lee, with my present glorious state, surrounded by friends, and conscious of possessing lands, houses, stocks, Schuylkill coal-mines, and the Lord knows what other goods beside, I fell into a rapture, danced about my cell, and hugged every person present, as well as the jailer, and my old friend Darling, the attorney, who happened at that moment to enter.
"Bravo!" said Tim Doolittle; "now you're the true Jack Higginson again; and I don't believe you are mad a bit." ”

“ I tumbled over an old rotten fence, and hurt my head, which was, in consequence, in a whiz all day yesterday; but now it is clear enough. I think I said some silly things about one thing and another; but that's neither here nor there."
"Ah!" said Tim Doolittle, touching his forehead and looking as grave as a bullfrog, "it's well it's no worse; for I always thought you had a turn for apoplexy. But I'm glad you are so well; it will be good news for poor Margaret."
"Margaret! who the deuse is she?" said I, feeling quite strange at the name.
"Why, my poor sister, your wife, to be sure," said he. ”

“ I was reduced to a mere automaton, conscious, indeed, of being in a horrible quandary, but incapable of seeing my way out of it; when I suddenly heard the voice, as I thought (or some one very like it) , of my cousin Sammy at the door.
This roused me at once; I remembered that at this moment my Alicia was waiting for me, and I fell into a rapture.
"Uncle Wilkins," said I, "you may say what you please; Jack Tickle, you are a rascal; Nora Magee, you are a jade; but it is all one to I. D. Dawkins. I will marry my Miss Skinner." ”

“ My last act as I. D. Dawkins was to chuckle over the prospect of spending Abram Skinner's money; my first as Abram Skinner was to take care it should be spent neither by myself nor by any one else. The desire to enjoy myself had vanished; the thoughts of fine clothes, horses and carriages, and so on, entered my mind no more. The only idea that possessed me was, "What am I worth? how much more can I make myself worth?" ”

“ I thought that my house had fallen down in a high wind, as, indeed, it was like enough to do, and that I was sitting on a broken chair before the ruins, when Squire Higginson made his appearance, looking, however, like a dead man; for his face was pale, and he was swathed about with a winding-sheet. Instead of a gun he carried a spade in his hand; and a great black pig followed at his heels in place of his dog. He came directly towards me, and looking me full in the face, said, "Sheppard Lee, what are you doing here?" ”

“ The passion of Abram Skinner destroyed every trait that had belonged to Sheppard Lee; and as for those I had taken from John H. Higginson and I. D. Dawkins, they were lost in like manner. I was Abram Skinner, and nothing but Abram Skinner. I scarce remembered that I had ever been any thing else. I am free now to confess, what I was not so certain of then, though I had my doubts on the matter at times,—namely, that in labouring so hard after lucre, I was only striving to sell my soul to the greatest advantage.
Idleness is said to be the root of all evil. ”

“ Here, cousin Ikey, do you run in here,"—pointing to her chamber,—"and don't let him see you."
"No," said I, thinking it proper to appear courageous, "I will face the faithless rascal, and punish his impertinence on the spot." I had no idea of doing any such thing, which, of course, must have alarmed my uncle, and I intended to yield to Pattie's fears and importunity, swallow my wrath for the present, and conceal myself, as she recommended. But my display of resistance awoke the indignation of Nora Magee, who cried, "Och, the divil take him thin; does he mane to rob us of our husbands?" ”

“ I found myself again digging at the beech-roots, and scraping up great wedges of gold and silver from the iron coffin. What was remarkable in this dream, however, was, that when I had picked up as much as I could carry, the squire nodded to me, and said, "Now, Sheppard Lee, you know the way to Captain Kid's treasure, and you can come to-morrow night by yourself." ”

“ It is quite possible there may have been a crew of imps and disimbodied spirits jumping among the graves as before; but, as I had the good fortune to be frightened before I caught sight of them, I did not stop to look for them; and, for the same reason, I heard no more awful voices shrieking in my ears. I reached the Owl-roost and the memorable beech-tree, where the necessity of acting with all speed helped me to get rid of my terror. ”

“ And here she looked as meek, and quiet, and almost as sanctimonious, as any saint I ever saw of a Sunday.
"Very good," said I; "and the first lesson I will give you is, never to call me 'Ikey' again, for that's vulgar; but always 'Mr. Dawkins,' or just plain 'cousin;' or, as we are so nearly related, why, I don't care if you call me by my middle name, 'Dulmer.'"
"Wouldn't 'Dully' be better?" said she, as sweetly as could be: "it's more affectionate, and cousins ought to be affectionate." ”

“ From Tim's account it seemed that my young gentleman had a longer face than head; in other words, that nature had endowed him more bountifully with beard than brains: and, in truth, I judged, by the way he showed his teeth and rolled his eyes at the fair Miss Smith, and a thousand other little grimaces and affectations I was witness to, that he was neither more wise nor brilliant than the others of his tribe. But what of that? Wisdom and care go hand in hand, and wit makes us uncomfortable: fools are the only happy people. ”

“ I therefore began to fill my pockets, my hat, my handkerchief, and even my bosom; until the squire bade me cease, telling me I should visit the treasure at the same hour on the following night. I then replaced the iron cover, and threw the earth again into the grave, as the squire commanded; and then leaving him, and running home as hard as I could, in fear lest some one should see me, I fell into a miry place, where I was weighed down by the mass of gold I had about me, and smothered. In the midst of my dying agonies I awoke, and found that all was a dream. ”

“ I'm sure I don't know," said my cousin Pattie, turning so pale I thought she was going to fall down in a faint; "perhaps it is Mr. Tickle. Yes!" she cried, recovering her spirits, and almost jumping for joy,—"now we'll sort him! I'll show him how I serve fortune-hunters, I reckon! I'll lock him up in a closet, I will; and there he shall kick his heels till morning, and I don't care if the rats eat him, I don't.—Oh, goody gracious! he's coming up stairs!" she cried: "was there ever anybody so impudent? ”

“ As my evil luck would have it, I found the old gentleman on the point of setting out to pay me a fifth visit, and I had the satisfaction, just as I placed my foot on the porch of the hotel, in full view of some half a dozen respectable-looking people who were congregated there, to receive an embrace from Mr. Samuel Wilkins, with the old white fur hat, accompanied by a vocal salutation of, "Oho! Ikey, my boy, and so you have come, have you? Ods bobs, but I began to think you was ashamed of your relations.!"
"Not I," said I; "I am never ashamed of my relations." ”

“ Really, it seems to me as if I had only begun existence this morning; my recollection of all events (and even persons known) anterior to my sop in the river, is so imperfect, you can't conceive. Would you believe it, I really didn't know that rogue Sniggles, and had to ask him his name! The ladies, too, Jack—Miss Smith, Miss Small, and the rest that you were talking about—who the deuse are they? I have heard much talk of my uncle, too. Have I an uncle? and if so, who and what is he? for I swear, 'pon honour, Jack, I know no more than the man in the moon. ”

“ Such a pressure, however, may be said to please everybody, though it puts everybody in a passion. To the rich, who have money to lend, it is as great a season of jubilee as a rain-storm to ducks, or a high wind to the bristly herd in an apple-orchard, and they are in a passion because they fear it will be soon over; to the poor, who borrow their money at a higher rate than usual, it affords an opportunity to rail at the aristocracy, and the grinders of the poor ”

“ My resuscitation produced a hubbub of no ordinary character. My sons—for, wonderful to be said, I had sons, and I soon felt as if they were in reality mine—were confounded, and so, doubtless, was Barbara, the housekeeper; to the latter of whom it was perhaps owing that I ever recovered from my swoon; for my two boys, overcome with horror and despair, rushed out of the house, and it was a week before I saw their faces again.
What added to the confusion was the discovery of my late body, lying on the floor, no one being at all able to account for its appearance. ”

“ At last the squire, growing impatient, and finding fault with the animal's ill success, for he discovered nothing, took a whip from under his shroud, and fell to beating him; after which the pig hunted more to his liking; and, having coursed about us for a while, ran up to the beech-tree, under which I had sat the day before, and began with snout and hoof to tear up the earth at its roots. "Oho!" said Squire Higginson, "I never knew Black Pig to deceive me. We shall have fine sport now." ”

“ As for me—that is, I. D. Dawkins—being lugged into the tavern, along with my late tenement, the body of John H. Higginson, I was fallen foul of by all hands; and what with tweaking my nose, beating my arms, scorching my legs with hot bricks, flaying me with salt, whiskey, spirits, and such things, and filling my lungs with dust and ashes from an old fire-bellows, I was brought to life again, greatly to the triumph of my tormentors, before the appearance of a physician ”

“ Such were my secret ejaculations as we set out in my splendid barouche, followed by a train of gigs and carriages that contained my friends. I esteemed myself the happiest man in the world; and I gave my last sigh to the memory of Sheppard Lee.
What a glorious time we had of it on our way to Philadelphia! I found myself the richest man in the company—my pocketbook was full of bank-notes—and I resolved to give my friends a blow-out. ”

“ I found here that I knew everybody, or, what was the same thing, that everybody knew me; and, with Tickle's help, I soon found myself as much at home with Mr. I. D. Dawkins's fair acquaintances as if I had known them all my life. It was still, as it had been before, a virtue and peculiarity of my recollections, that they were always roused by a few words of conversation with any one known to my prototype; from which I infer, that the associations of the mind, as well as many of its other qualities, are more dependant upon causes in the body than metaphysicians are disposed to allow. ”