Carolina Chansons | Page 9

seemed as if the Banshee storm?Knocked screaming for his withered form;?It shrieked and whistled like a parrot,?Clucking and stuttering through the garret.?With-out, the mailéd hands of hail?Battered the casements, and the gale?About his low roof shuddered, sighing,?As if it knew that he was dying.?It breathed like waiting beasts outside,?While soft feet made the shingles slide.
Then, like a blow upon the cheek,?The mummy's voice began to speak:
'Give me a priest! I'm going to die!'?The Banshee wind took up the cry:?'Give him a priest, he's going to die!'?The old house seemed to rock with laughter,?Shaking its sides and every rafter.
There was a terror in that room?Like faint light streaming from a tomb.?I tried three times before I spoke,?And then the bald words made me choke:?'Be quiet, man, for I am come?To bring you the viaticum!'--?I made the sign of holiness.?He rattled out a startled cry.?I whispered low, 'Confess, confess!'?His thin hands quivered with distress.?It is a bitter thing to die.
Just when a blast fell on the town,?I felt his lean claws clutch me down.?It seemed as if the hands of death?Were beating at my breast for breath;?His arms were like a twisted rope?Of rotten strands that tugged at hope.?'Listen, my father, listen well!'?The wind went tolling like a bell:
'She's lying fifty fathoms deep,?Where fishes like white birds go by?Through water-air in ocean-land;?She has a prayer-book in her hand--?Tonight she walks; tonight she spoke;?Her hair goes floating out and up,?Blown one way, with the water weeds,?Always one way, like amber smoke.
She asks the gift she gave to me--?This ring--I cannot get it off!'?His hand and hand fought like two claws--?'I hear her calling from the sea!'?His terror made my own heart pause.
His voice went moaning with the wind,?And groaned and rattled, 'I have sinned,'?And moaned and murmured at my ear?Of bat-winged angels standing near.
'The little schooner "Patriot"--?I can't forget the vessel's name;?We met her rounding Naggs Head Bank;?We made her people walk the plank,?Twelve men whose faces I forgot.
But there was one sweet lady there,?With lovely eyes and lovely hair,?Whose face has stayed like pain and care.?For every man she made a prayer;?And when the last had found the sea,?I cried to her to pray for me.
She prayed--and took this ring, and said:?"Wear this for me when I am dead."?She bowed her head, then steadfastly?She walked into the hungry sea.?But silent words were on her lips,?And there was comfort in her hand;?It was as if she walked a bridge?That led into a pleasant land.?All that was long and long ago,?So long ago this ring has grown?To be a very part of me,?One with my finger and the bone:'?His voice went trailing in a moan.
'This is her ring--?This is her ring!?I dare not die and wear the thing!'?His hand plucked at his finger thin?As if to ease him of his sin.?I gave a sudden gasping shout--?The wind that blew the window in?Had blown the candle out.
'Quick, father, quick!?The ring ... her name....'?There came a jagged spurt of flame;?The window seemed a furnace door?That gave upon a bed of ore;?The thunder rumbled out the muttered?Words that his failing tongue had uttered--?Another flash, a rending crack--?The old man crumpled like a sack;?I felt his stringy arms go slack.?How could he sit so dead, so still!?While wind snouts snuffed along the sill?
White shone his glimmering face, and dull?The sodden silence of the lull,?For when he died the wind had dropt;?And with his heart the storm had stopt,?All but a far-off mouthing sound?That seemed to sough from underground;?While silence paused to plan some ill,?Thwarted by thunder growling still.?All in the darkness of the place?With lightning playing on its face,?I fumbled with the corpse's ring?To which the dead hands seemed to cling;?The stiffening joints were loth to play--?After awhile it came away!
Out, like a sneak-thief through the gloom,?I tiptoed from the dead man's room;?The door behind me like a hatch?Banged--the white splash of my match?Made shadow shapes dance on the wall?As if the devil pulled the string.?The light ran melting round the ring;?Inside the worn script scrawled a-blur:?'J.A. to Theodosia Burr'?Confession is a sacred thing!?I'll keep his secret like the sea;?The ring goes to the grave with me."
H.A.
[5] See the note at the back of the book.
PALMETTO TOWN
Sea-island winds sweep through Palmetto Town,?Bringing with piney tang the old romance?Of Pirates and of smuggling gentlemen;?And tongues as languorous as southern France?Flow down her streets like water-talk at fords;?While through iron gates where pickaninnies sprawl,?The sound floats back, in rippled banjo chords,?From lush magnolia shade where mockers call.?Mornings, the flower-women hawk their wares--?Bronze caryatids of a genial race,?Bearing the bloom-heaped baskets on their heads;?Lithe, with their arms akimbo in wide grace,?Their jasmine nods jestingly at cares--?Turbaned they are, deep-chested, straight and tall,?Bandying old English words now seldom heard,?But sweet as Proven?al.?Dreams peer like prisoners through her harp-like gates, From molten gardens