William Atkinson - The Essential Works of William Walker Atkinson - 50+ Books in One Edition

“One night, in his seventy-second year, he awoke in bed, in such uneasiness of body and mind that he arose and dressed himself and went out to meditate in the arbor. It was pitch dark, without a star; the river was swollen, and the wet woods and meadows loaded the air with perfume. It had thundered during the day, and it promised more thunder for the morrow. A murky, stifling night for a man of seventy-two! Whether it was the weather or the wakefulness, or some little touch of fever in his old limbs, Will’s mind was besieged by tumultuous and crying memories. His boyhood, the night with the fat young man, the death of his adopted parents, the summer days with Marjory, and many of those small circumstances which seem nothing to another, and are yet the very gist of a man’s own life to himself,— things seen, words heard, looks misconstrued—arose from their forgotten corners and usurped his attention. The dead themselves were with him, not merely taking part in this thin show of memory that defiled before his brain, but revisiting his bodily senses as they do in profound and vivid dreams. The fat young man leaned his elbows on the table opposite; Marjory came and went with an apronful of flowers between the garden and the arbor; he could bear the old parson knocking out his pipe or blowing his resonant nose. The tide of his consciousness ebbed and flowed: He was sometimes half asleep and drowned in his recollections of the past; and sometimes he was broad awake, wondering at himself.

“But about the middle of the night he was startled by the voice of the dead miller calling to him out of the house as he used to do on the arrival of custom. The hallucination was so perfect that Will sprang from his seat and stood listening for the summons to be repeated; and as he listened he became conscious of another noise besides the brawling of the river and the ringing in his feverish ears. It was like the stir of the horses and the creaking of harness, as though a carriage with an impatient team had been brought up upon the road before the courtyard gate. At such an hour, upon this rough and dangerous pass, the supposition was no better than absurd; and Will dismissed it from his mind, and resumed his seat upon the arbor chair; and sleep closed over him again like running water. He was once again awakened by the dead miller’s call, thinner and more spectral than before; and once again he heard the noise of an equipage upon the road. And so thrice and four times the same dream, or the same fancy, presented itself to his senses, until at length, smiling to himself as when one humors a nervous child, he proceeded towards the gate to set his uncertainty at rest.

“From the arbor to the gate was no great distance, and yet it took Will some time; it seemed as if the dead thickened around him in the court, and crossed his path at every step. For, first, he was suddenly surprised by an overpowering sweetness of heliotropes; it was as if his garden had been planted with this flower from end to end, and the hot damp night had drawn forth all their perfumes in a breath. Now the heliotrope had been Marjory’s favorite flower, and since her death not one of them had ever been planted in Will’s ground. ‘I must be going crazy,’ he thought. ‘Poor Marjory and her heliotropes!’ And with that he raised his eyes towards the window that had once been hers. If he had been bewildered before, he was now almost terrified; for there was a light in the room; the window was an orange oblong as of yore; and the corner of the blind was lifted and let fall as on the night when he stood and shouted to the stars in his perplexity. The illusion only endured an instant; but it left him somewhat unmanned, rubbing his eyes, and staring at the outline of the house and the black night behind it. While he thus stood, and it seemed as if he must have stood there quite a long time, there came a renewal of the noises on the road; and he turned in time to meet a stranger, who was advancing to meet him across the court. There was something like the outline of a great carriage discernible on the road behind the stranger, and, above that, a few black pine-tops, like so many plumes. ‘Master Will?’ asked the newcomer in brief, military fashion. ‘That same, sir,’ answered Will. ‘Can I do anything to serve you?’ ‘I have heard you much spoken of, Master Will,’ returned the other; ‘much spoken of, and well. And, although I have both bands full of business. I wish to drink a bottle of wine with you in your arbor. Before I go I shall introduce myself.’

“Will led the way to the trellis, and got a lamp lighted, and a bottle uncorked. He was not altogether unused to such complimentary interviews, and hoped little enough from this one, being schooled in many disappointments. A sort of cloud had settled on his wits and prevented him from remembering the strangeness of the hour. He moved like a person in his sleep; and it seemed as if the lamp caught fire and the bottle came uncorked with the facility of thought. Still, he had some curiosity about the appearance of his visitor, and tried in vain to turn the light into his face; either he handled the light clumsily, or there was a dimness over his eyes; but he could make out little more than a shadow at table with him. He stared and stared at this shadow, as he wiped out the glasses, and began to feel cold and strange about the heart. The silence weighed upon him; for he could hear nothing now, not even the river, but the drumming of his own arteries in his ears.

‘“Here’s to you,’ said the stranger roughly. ‘Here is my service, sir,’ replied Will sipping his wine, which somehow tasted oddly. ‘I understand you are a very positive fellow,’ pursued the stranger. Will made answer with a smile of some satisfaction and a little nod. ‘So am I,’ continued the other, ‘and it is the delight of my heart to tramp on people’s corns. I will have nobody positive but myself; not one. I have crossed the whims, in my time, of kings and generals and great artists. And what would you say,’ he went on, ‘If I had come up here on purpose to cross yours.’ Will had it on his tongue to make a sharp rejoinder; but the politeness of the old innkeeper prevailed, and he held his peace and made answer with a civil gesture of the hand ‘I have,’ said the stranger. ‘And If I did not hold you in a particular esteem, I should make no words about the matter. It appears you pride yourself on staying where you are. You mean to stick by your inn. Now I mean you shall come for a turn with me in my barouche; and before this bottle’s empty, so you shall.’ ‘That would be an odd thing, to be sure,’ replied Will with a chuckle. ‘Why, sir, I have grown here like an old oak tree; the Devil himself could hardly root me up; and for all I perceive you are a very entertaining old gentleman, I would wager you another bottle you lose your pains with me.’ The dimness of Will’s eyesight had been increasing all this while; but he was somewhat conscious of a sharp and chilling scrutiny which irritated and yet overwhelmed him. ‘You need not think,’ he broke out suddenly, in an explosive, febrile manner which startled and alarmed himself, ‘that I am a stay-at-home, because I fear anything under God. God knows I am tired enough of it all; and when the time comes for a longer journey than ever you dream of, I reckon I shall find myself prepared.’ The stranger emptied his glass and pushed it away from him. He looked down for a little, and then, leaning over the table, tapped Will three times upon the forearm with a single finger. ‘The time has come,’ he said solemnly.

“An ugly thrill spread from the spot be touched. The tones of his voice were dull and startling, and echoed strangely in Will’s heart. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, with some discomposure. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Look at me, and you will find your eyesight swim. Raise your hand; it is dead-heavy. This is your last bottle of wine, Master Will, and your last night upon the earth.’ ‘You are a doctor?’ quavered Will. ‘The best that ever was,’ replied the other; ‘for I cure both mind and body with the same prescription. I take away all pain and I forgive all sins; and where my patients have gone wrong in life, I smooth out all complications and set them free again upon their feet.’ ‘I have no need of you,’ said Will. ‘A time comes for all men, Master Will,’ replied the doctor, ‘when the helm is taken out of their hands. For you, because you were prudent and quiet, it has been long of coming, and you have had long to discipline yourself for its reception. You have seen what is to be seen about your mill; you have sat close all your days like a hare in its form: but now that is at an end; and,’ added the doctor, getting on his feet, ‘you must arise and come with me.’ ‘You are a strange physician,’ said Will, looking steadfastly upon his guest. ‘I am a natural law,’ he replied, ‘and people call me Death.’