The Haunted Quack, Page 2

  “As the Indians propitiate the favor of the devil, so had I, in my eagerness to acquire popularity, made a firm friend and ally, though rather a troublesome one, of this old woman. She was one of my best customers, and, provided it was something new, and had a high-sounding name to recommend it, would take my most nauseous compounds with the greatest relish. Indeed the more disgusting was the dose, the greater, in her opinion, was its virtue.

  “I had just corked the last bottle of my antidote, when a message came to tell me, that Granny Gordon had one of her old fits, and wanted some new doctor-stuff, as the old physic didn’t do her any more good. Not having yet given my new pharmaceutic preparation a trial, I felt a little doubtful about its effects; but trusting to the toughness of the old woman’s system, I ventured to send a potion, with directions to take it cautiously. Not many minutes had elapsed, before the messenger returned, in breathless haste, to say that Mrs. Gordon was much worse, and that though she had taken all the stuff, they believed she was dying. With a vague foreboding of evil, I seized my hat, and hastened to the blacksmith’s. On entering the chamber, my eyes were greeted with a sad spectacle. Granny Gordon, bolstered up in the bed, holding in her hand the bottle I had sent her, drained of its contents, sate gasping for breath, and occasionally agitated by strong convulsions. A cold sweat rested on her forehead; her eyes seemed dim and glazed; her nose, which was usually of a ruby hue, was purple and peaked; and her whole appearance evidently betokened approaching dissolution.

  “Around the bed were collected some half dozen withered beldames, who scowled upon me, as I entered, with ill-omened visages. Her husband, a drunken brute, who used to beat his better half six times a week, immediately began to load me with abuse, accusing me of having poisoned his dear, dear wife, and threatening to be the death of me, if she died.

  “My conscience smote me. I felt stupified and bewildered, and knew not which way to turn. At this moment, the patient, perceiving me, with a hideous contortion of countenance, the expression of which I shall carry to my dying hour, and a voice between a scream and a groan, held up the empty bottle, and exclaimed, ‘This is your doing, you villanous quack you;’ (here she was seized with hickup;)--‘you have poisoned me, you have;’ (here fearful spasms shook her whole frame;)--‘but I’ll be revenged; day and night my ghost shall haunt--’ Here her voice became inarticulate, and shaking her withered arm at me, she fell back, and to my extreme horror, gave up the ghost. This was too much for my nerves. I rushed from the house, and ran home with the dying curse ringing in my ears, fancying that I saw her hideous physiognomy, grinning from every bush and tree that I passed. Knowing that as soon as the noise of this affair should get abroad, the village would be too hot to hold me, I resolved to decamp as silently as possible. First throwing all my recently manufactured anodyne into the canal, that it should not rise in judgment against me, I made up a little bundle of clothes, and taking my seat in the mail-stage, which was passing at the time, and fortunately empty, in a couple of days I found myself in the great city of New York. Having a little money with me, I hired a mean apartment in an obscure part of the city, in the hope that I might remain concealed till all search after me should be over, when I might find some opportunity of getting employment, or of resuming my old profession, under happier auspices. By degrees the few dollars I brought with me were expended; and after pawning my watch and some of my clothes, I found myself reduced to the last shilling. But not the fear of impending starvation, nor the dread of a jail, are to be compared to the horrors I nightly suffer. Granny Gordon has been as good as her word. Every night, at the solemn hour of twelve,” (here he looked fearfully around,) “her ghost appears to me, wrapped in a red cloak, with her gray hairs streaming from beneath an old nightcap of the same color, brandishing the vial, and accusing me of having poisoned her. These visitations have at length become so insupportable, that I have resolved to return and give myself up to justice; for I feel that hanging itself is better than this state of torment.”

  Here the young man ceased. I plainly saw that he was a little disordered in his intellect. To comfort him, however, I told him, that if he had killed fifty old women, they could do nothing to him, if he had done it professionally. And as for the ghost, we would take means to have that put at rest, when we reached Utica.

  About the gray of the morning, we arrived at the place of our destination. My protégé, having unburdened his mind, seemed more at his ease, and taking a mint-julep, prepared to accompany me on shore. As we were leaving the boat, several persons in a wagon drove down to the wharf. As soon as my companion observed them, he exclaimed with a start of surprise, “Hang me! if there isn’t old Graham the sheriff, with lawyer Dickson and Bill Gordon, come to take me.” As he spoke, his foot slipping, he lost his balance, and fell backwards into the canal. We drew him from the water, and as soon as the persons in the wagon perceived him, they one and all sprang out, and ran up with the greatest expressions of joyful surprise. “Why, Hippy, my lad,” exclaimed the sheriff, “where have you been? All our town has been in a snarl about you. We all supposed you had been forcibly abducted. Judge Bates offered a reward of twenty dollars for your corpse. We have dragged the canal for more than a mile, and found a mess of bottles, which made us think you had been spirited away. Betsy Wilkins made her affidavit, that she heard Bill Gordon swear that he would take your life, and here you see we have brought him down to have his trial. But come, come, jump in the wagon; we’ll take you up to the tavern, to get your duds dried, and tell you all about it.”

  Here a brawny fellow, with a smutty face, who I found was Gordon the blacksmith, came up, and shaking Hippocrates by the hand, said, “By goles, doctor, I am glad to see you. If you hadn’t come back, I believe it would have gone hard with me. Come, man, you must forgive the hard words I gave you. My old woman soon got well of her fit, after you went away, and says she thinks the stuff did her a mortal sight o’ good.”

  It is impossible to describe the singular expression the countenance of the young man now exhibited. For some time he stood in mute amazement, shaking with cold, and gazing alternately at each of his friends as they addressed him; and it required their reiterated assurances to convince him, that Granny Gordon was still in the land of the living, and that he had not been haunted by a veritable ghost.

  Wishing to obtain a further explanation of this strange scene, I accompanied them to the tavern. A plain-looking man, in a farmer’s dress, who was of the party, confirmed what the blacksmith had said, as to the supposed death of his wife, and her subsequent recovery. “She was only in a swoond,” said he, “but came to, soon after the doctor had left her.” He added that it was his private opinion, that she would now last forever. He spoke of Hippocrates as a “nation smart doctor, who had a power of larning, but gave severe doses.”

  After discussing a good breakfast, my young friend thanked me for the sympathy and interest I had taken in his behalf. He told me he intended returning to the practice of his profession. I admonished him to be more careful in the exhibition of his patent medicines, telling him that all old women had not nine lives. He shook hands with me, and, gayly jumping into the wagon, rode off with his friends.