Five Acres Too Much. Robert Barnwell Roosevelt
Brewster & Co., of Bond Street, having engaged a clergyman in the city of New York. Time flew by, but he waited in vain. His lady-love had not failed of her promises, however, but, after her mother had retired, and by her loud snoring attested the profundity of her repose, she quietly descended the stairs, opened the front door silently as the expertest of thieves, and stepped upon the piazza. At that moment a heavy cloud passed across the moon, and a fierce gust slammed to the door; fearing that her mother might have been aroused, she groped her way hastily across the piazza, caught the balustrade of the steps, and—walked off on the wrong side. It was a fall of ten feet; with a wild shriek she pitched head foremost on the bricks of the area.
The lover waited and waited, fearing let suspicions might have been aroused, or resolution have failed; amid the noise of blustering winds and falling leaves he thought he heard a cry of distress, and, at last becoming uneasy, determined to visit his dulcinea’s window, and ask her how she did. Tying his horses, he crept quietly along the shady side of the hedge, which was that on the opposite side to her room, as he did not wish to be seen. As soon as he reached the piazza, he followed along under the edge of it till he came to the steps, where he waited for a friendly cloud to conceal his movements, when he was compelled to pass outside of them.
The opportunity soon offered, he slipped by, and the cloud cleared away just after he had stumbled on a bundle of clothes, as he supposed, beyond the steps; he turned to look; and there, lying upon her back, staring up to heaven with lack-lustre, wide-open eyes, the crimson stains upon her white forehead telling her fate, stiff, and stark, and cold, lay all that he held dearest in this world. Her lips would never again whisper words of love; her heart had ceased to feel that passion which had proved her destruction. The lover’s cries aroused the house, and brought out the trembling mother to behold her daughter still undisturbed, with the horror of sudden and cruel death upon her unmitigated. And amid the shrieks of the parent and the lamentations of the servants, the maddened lover, who had been attacked with a frenzy that never left him, heaped reproaches, and retaliated with curses on her whose curses seemed in his insanity to have caused this terrible calamity.
Of the parties to this tragedy there were none living in three months; they were buried in adjoining graves, at the request of the mother, who had it done apparently as an atonement. This palliation did not seem to answer, however, for on the seventh of every month, at the hour of eleven, a ghostly figure slips out of the front door, whether it is locked or not, and with a scream falls from the piazza; a male figure suddenly appears rent with agony at its side, and then another female wringing her hands in despair, while the male gesticulates fiercely at her. Such is this veritable history as I have it from the oldest inhabitant, and it is no wonder that people do not like living in a house with such associates.
I do not often use our horse; I am not fond of driving, and have a vivid recollection of the early accidents with horse-flesh heretofore mentioned; but when it became necessary to buy a pig, my judgment was indispensable, and I was compelled to drive to the place of his residence—which was the haunted house. I did not know that it was haunted, and, being well aware of the decorum that requires the master of the establishment to “tool” his coachman, no matter how much more competent the latter may be, I took the reins, and dashed in grand style along the entrance to the door. Leaving the coachman at the animal’s head, I walked to the pig-pen, which was in the rear of the house, and there was soon engrossed in admiring the beautiful little creature that I have already described. Many minutes were devoted to the contemplation of his innumerable fine points, and I was only aroused by the noise of a struggle, shouts for help, and a clatter of hoofs. Instantly running toward the front, I arrived just in time to see the heels of Dandy Jim—for such was the animal’s name—disappearing round the corner, and to help my groom, who was lying on his back in the road, upon his feet.
It seemed that the horse had stood perfectly quiet for several minutes, then became uneasy, began to tremble, and turn his head with a wild look over his shoulder. In spite of the efforts of the coachman, who was a powerful fellow, and had been severely bruised in the struggle, he reared and plunged violently, and finally, breaking away, dashed round the circle, out at the entrance, and away up the road. The man firmly believed that Dandy had seen the ghost, which was now mentioned for the first time, although my views inclined to accept the occurrence as an outcropping of the original sin of the horse family.
The pursuit of a runaway horse is a melancholy operation—his speed is so much greater than his pursuer’s; his means of flight so much better than the latter’s opportunities for stopping him; he has four feet to set against two, and knows so well how to use them; he has such unpleasant soundness of wind and limb, and such a raging devil inside of him, while the satisfaction of recovering ruined débris is so slight, and the mode of punishment so vague. I followed along as best I might, picking up a cushion here, a blanket there, the whip in one place, and the seat in another, inquiring of every one that I met whether they had seen a horse, and being invariably answered “that they guessed they had.” It is enough to say that, after smashing every thing to pieces, tearing the body of the wagon from the wheels, tossing out what was movable, and ruining his harness, Dandy Jim became satisfied, and allowed a rustic to catch him.
Here was a pretty family horse—afraid of a ghost when all respectable families teach their children that there are no such things as ghosts; running away under supernatural, and without even the excuse of mortal, terror. I felt like shooting or selling—probably the latter, on economical principles—Dandy Jim, but eventually concluded to repair, or, more properly, remake the wagon. I could only have sold out at a great loss—and I so rarely rode behind him.
Dandy had several peculiarities of temper besides his fear of ghosts. He did not like steam-engines—if he had known how many people they kill, he would have been entirely justifiable; so one day, when I was crossing the track after having been to make a visit to a friend—for no one visits on foot in the country—Dandy Jim saw the engine approaching. That was sufficient; he immediately rose on his hind legs and pawed the air. This might possibly have contented him, but the leather straps, which were not intended to stand such a strain, gave way, and the wagon came upon his heels. What then happened I do not precisely know; he seemed to fly; occasionally he would appear to rise above the trees, and then to descend into the bowels of the earth; he leaped from side to side of the road with an ease and rapidity that would have shamed a well-practiced kangaroo; the wagon bounded after him like the tail to a boy’s kite when the latter gets pitching about with the violence of the wind, while his heels played like flashes of lightning far over my head. Fortunately, a countryman ran to my assistance and held back the wagon, while another caught the horse by the head. I rewarded those men liberally. Now a family horse should not kick, nor plunge, nor rear.
Another of his peculiarities was a dislike to standing. He did not mind standing in the stable in the least, but when he was harnessed he expected to keep moving. I hardly drove him sufficiently to learn his eccentricities of temper, and on one occasion laid down the reins for a moment. He immediately started, and the reins slipped over the dash-board out of reach. Reader, have you ever experienced the feeling of being run away with—I mean, female reader—by a horse? If not, do not aspire to it. It is not pleasant. The motion is rapid, and perhaps exhilarating, but it is not smooth, and the mode of stopping is uncertain. There is little to do, and probably much to suffer, with a possibility of ceasing to be. Dandy, instead of being a family horse, ought to have been a race-horse; his speed was wonderful, though I forgot to time it. I held by the dash-board, and shouted “ho!” at the top of my voice. Evidently his knowledge of English was imperfect; he mistook “ho” for “go,” and the more I shouted the faster he went.
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