The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 29, March, 1860

How long I slept thus I know not. Once I had a vague sense of the Mangouste gliding across me, but it was only part of a dream; and it was still night, black and awful, when I started up in good earnest, at a piercing shriek from the united family of white mice, whose cage stood upon a low stand, about two yards to the right of where I lay.

The sound which followed this was one which the man is not likely to forget who has once heard it,—whether beneath his foot, as he steps upon the moss-grown log in the rank cedar-swamp, or under his hand, when about to grasp with it a ledge of the rocks among which he is clambering, unknowing of the serpent's dens. With clenched teeth, and hair that rustled like the sedge-grass, I rose and woke up the obedient gas, which flashed tremulously on the scales of an enormous rattlesnake coiled round the mice's cage, tightening his folds as he whizzed his infernal warning, and darting out his lightning tongue with baffled fury at the trembling group in the middle of the cage. This I saw by the first flash. Grasping a sword from among the weapons with which the walls were studded, I made a pass to sever the monster; but the Mangouste was quicker than I, as he darted upon the coils of the serpent, which, in a moment, fell heavily to the floor, a writhing, headless mass.

In the heavy dreams which haunted me during the sleep from which I had just been roused, I had a vision of the planter of the balcony with a snake coiled round his naked arm. Who so dull as to require an interpreter for such plain speakings? Rushing down-stairs, I burst open the door of that person's room with one kick, and there, in the middle of the floor, half-dressed and bending over a censer of red-hot charcoal, knelt Mr. Désolé Arcubus, the poison-man of Mrs. Silvernails boarding-house. His features were collapsed and livid, and he held his left arm, which was much swollen and discolored, close over the red-hot coals, basting it wildly, the while, with ladlefuls of some hot liquid, while he crammed into his mouth, at intervals, a handful of herb-fodder of some kind from a salad-bowl on the floor beside him. He was rapidly growing faint and sinking, but indicated his wishes by signs, and one of several strangers who now entered the room continued the fomenting treatment, while another ran for medical assistance.

There was an open letter on the table, which I had no hesitation in reading, when I saw at a glance that it threw light on the matter. The following is an exact copy of it:—

"Hollow Rock–County. N. Y. 17 Jewly. 18—

MR. HARKABUS dear Sir.

a cording to promis i send the sneak by Xpress. He is the Largest and wust Sneak we have ketched In these parts. Bit a cow wich died in 2.40 likeways her calf of fright. Hope the sneak weed growed up strong and harty. By eting and drinking of that wede the greatest sneak has no power. Smeling of it a loan will cure a small sneak ader or the like. I go in upon the dens tomorough and if we find any Pufing Aders will Xpres them to you per Xpress.

Yr. oblgd. servt. SILENUS CLUCK."

Here was the whole story in a nutshell. For his experiments in septic poisons, Mr. Arcubus had hired this apartment, with its convenient balcony for the cultivation of his antidotes. Having prepared his decoctions, he had this night caused himself to be bitten by the snake, which, disgusted probably at its services being then rudely dispensed with, had followed its guiding instinct up to the room where the animals were, making its way through the holes nibbled by the Mangouste underneath the doors. A cold shudder seized me when I guessed the reality of the sense of something gliding over me in the night. The hunger of the reptile had steered him straight to the cage of the mice, whose cry of agony at the presence of the great enemy of mouse-kind had fortunately roused me from my lethargy,—for the rattle of the snake is but a drowsy sound, and will not awaken the sleeper. How the Mangouste came to appear on the scene at the nick of time, I know not. He might have come in at the open window, or possibly had been sleeping, since I missed him, among the trappings and traveller's gear with which the room was lumbered.

And these were the delights of lodgings,—of lodgings without board! And who could see the end of it all?—for, if snake-poison lurked on the stairs, probably hydrophobia was tied up in the cupboard. Brief time I expended in making my arrangements to quit, having first seen Mr. Arcubus carted away to a hospital, where by skilful treatment he slowly recovered. For the Mangouste and the mice, the parrots and the blasphemous macaw, I engaged temporary board and lodging with a bird-and-rabbit man in the neighborhood, telegraphing De Vonville that I had departed from lodgings forever,—lodgings for single gentlemen, without board.

But, on leaving the house, I did not forget the dust-colored old woman, whose last words to me, as I tipped her with a gratuity, were oracular:—"Forty long years and more have I lived in lodgin'-houses and never before seen a sarpint. It behooves all on us, now, to be watchful for what may be coming next, and wakeful. Circumspectangular."

I live in a hotel now, a very noisy life, and fearfully expensive. "But what do you wish, my friend?" as the French say, in their peculiar idiom. Believing in the ancient Egyptians, who worshipped the Nilotic ichneumon, I have privately canonized his cousin, the Mangouste, by the style and title of St. Mungo; and if ever surplus funds are discovered to my credit in any solvent bank, at present unknown to me, I will certainly devote a moiety of them to the foundation of a neat row of alms-cages, for the reception of decayed members of the family of White Mice.

FOR CHRISTIE'S SAKE

Upon us falls the shadow of night,
And darkened is our day:
My love will greet the morning light
Four hundred miles away.
God love her, torn so swift and far
From hearts so like to break!
And God love all who are good to her,
For Christie's sake!

I know, whatever spot of ground
In any land we tread,
I know the Eternal Arms are round,
That heaven is overhead;
And faith the mourning heart will heal,
But many fears will make
Our spirits faint, our fond hearts kneel,
For Christie's sake.

Good bye, dear! be they kind to you,
As though you were their ain!
My daisy opens to the dew,
But shuts against the rain.
Never will new moon glad our eyes
But offerings we shall make
To old God Wish, and prayers will rise
For Christie's sake.

Four years ago we struck our tent;
O'er homeless babes we yearned;
Our all—three darlings—with us went,
But only two returned!
While life yet bleeds into her grave,
Love ventures one more stake;
Hush, hush, poor hearts! if big, be brave,
For Christie's sake!

Like crown to most ambitious brows
Was Christie to us given,
To make our home a holy house
And nursery of heaven.
Oh, softer was her bed of rest
Than lily's on the lake!
Peace filled so deep each billowy breast,
For Christie's sake!

To music played by harps and hands
Invisible were we drawn
O'er charmèd seas, through faëry lands,
Under a clearer dawn:
We entered our new world of love
With blessings in our wake,
While prospering heavens smiled above,
For Christie's sake.

We gazed with proud eyes luminous
On such a gift of grace,—
All heaven narrowed down to us
In one dear little face!
And many a pang we felt, dear wife,
With hurt of heart and ache
All shut within like clasping knife,
For Christie's sake.

I would no tears might e'er run down
Her patient face, beside
Such happy pearls of heart as crown
Young mother, new-made bride!
For 'tis a face that, looking up
To passing heaven, might make
An angel stop, a blessing drop,
For Christie's sake.

If Love in that child's heart of hers
Should breathe and break its calm,