Beginning at the beginning, I read until past midnight. The contents, after all, were not remarkable. It was a collection of copies of papers relating to various matters of accounts and law, all pertaining to a certain Beardsley family, of high and ancient fame in the Colony, and afterwards in the State. Somewhat beyond the middle, however, I lighted upon a document which attracted my more particular attention. It was a transcript from the State Records, and, as the date showed, from a very early volume of them, now missing from the office of the Secretary of State. It immediately occurred to me that this volume was strongly suspected to have been purloined by one Isaac Beardsley, an unscrupulous man, of some influence, who used, for amusement, to potter about in various antiquarian enterprises of no moment, but who had now been dead for some fifteen years. I then also recollected that he had an only child, a graceless gallows-bird of a son, who broke his father's heart, then wasted his substance in riotous living, and, after being long a disgrace and nuisance at home, had sunk out of sight amid the lowest strata of vice and crime in New York.
The document was a complaint to the "Generall Court" against "Goodman Joab Brice"the complainant being designated by the honorable prefix of "Mr.""for y't hee, the s'd Goodman Brice, had sayd in y'e hearing of" various persons mentioned, "and to the verry face of y'e s'd Mr. Isaac Beardslie, y't y'e s'd Mr. Beardslie did grind y'e faces of the poor, and had served him, the s'd Brice, worse than anie Turk w'd serve his slaves; and this with fearfull and blasphemous curses, and prayres that God would return evill upon the heads of this complaynant and his children after him," etc.
The transcript was long, alleging various similar offences. Its perusal recalled to my mind several hints and obscure allusions, and one or two brief histories of the proceedings in this case, which may be found in ancient books relating to the Colony. These proceedings between Beardsley and Brice were famous in their day, and were thought little creditable to the head of the Beardsley family. That he himself partook of the general opinion is shown by the circumstance that the matter was diligently hushed up in that day; and those most familiar with the ancient records of the State averred, that upon the pages of the missing volume was spread matter amply sufficient to account for its theft and destruction by the late Col. Isaac Beardsley.
The details of this ancient quarrel have perished out of remembrance. The chief substance of it was, however, a lawsuit which ended in the rich man's obtaining possession of the poor man's land. Brice, a yeoman of vindictive, obstinate, and fearless character, had insulted his opponent, who was a magistrate, had threatened his life, and otherwise so bore himself that his oppressor procured him to be whipped at the cart's tail, and to be held to give large sureties for the peace, with the alternative penalty of banishment. The bitter vehemence of Brice's curses was remarkable even among the dry phrases of the complaint; and tradition relates that his fearful imprecations even caused his dignified opponent, the magistrate, to turn pale and tremble.
I was sure, too, that among the stores of the Library I had seen some memorial of Brice as well as of Beardsley; but could not at the time call up any remembrance more definite than an impression that this memorial was something which had belonged to a descendant of Joab Brice, who had been in his youth a soldier in the old French War, and later a subaltern in the "State line" during the Revolution.
The Library room, in which I was reading, is a large, lofty hall, fitted with dark bookcases, heavy and huge as if for giants, singularly perfect in point of inconvenience and inaccessibility, and good only in that they bore a certain architectural proportion to the great height and expanse of the dark room. My desk was so placed that my back was toward the entrance, which was the balustraded opening, in the Library floor, of a wide staircase; and close at my side and before me were racks with muskets and spears, cases of curiosities, and other appurtenances of the room. It being now past the middle of the night, when sleep is heaviest, the stillness was perfect. My two shaded lamps made a small sphere of dusky yellow light, which I felt to be surrounded and, as it were, compressed by the thick darkness, which I could easily fancy to be something tangible and heavy, settling noiselessly down from beneath the lofty arches of the roof. The ancient penmanship and curious contents of the faded pages before me carried my thoughts backward into the old Colonial times, with their rigid social distinctions, lofty manners, and ill-concealed superstition; and I mused upon grim old magistrates, wizened witches, stately dames, rugged Indian-fighters, and all their strange doings and sayings in the ancient days, until, between drowsiness and imagining, I fell into a tangled labyrinth of romance, history, and reverie.
Then all at once I seemed half to awake, and fell into one of those fits of foolish nervous apprehension to which many even of the coolest and bravest are liable in deep solitude and darkness,and if they, how much more an excitable person like myself! My heart throbbed for no reason, and, sitting with my head bowed down upon my hands, I fancied the most impossible dangers,of men taking aim at me with the antique firearms out of the far dark corners, or casting heavy weights upon me through the skylight overhead. How easily, I fancied, could it happen. Did not the cellar-door open just now?
I half arose, almost frightened. I believe I should have taken an old rapier and a light and gone to look, but for very shame. And besides, there were two thick floors between me and the door, and that itself was set in the heavy wall between the cellar of this wing of the building and that under its main body; so that if it had been opened, I could not have heard it. Accordingly I resumed my posture and my painful intense musing. But now I could have almost sworn that I heard soft steps coming up the staircase, and whispers floating upon the air of the great solitary room:I did!
But not soon enough. At the sound of a distinct, heavy footstep behind me, I sprang up and turned about, but only to find myself pinioned by one of the arms of a rough-looking, vicious-faced man, who pressed his other hand tightly over my mouth. A confederate was busy at the case of coins.
Although only a librarian, I have in my day been something of an athlete; much more than the person who had rushed into so sudden an intimacy reckoned upon. And I was pretty well strung up, too, with my nonsensical fancies.
Being face to face with me, therefore, my assailant had mastered my right arm, and was clasping my back with his left hand, while his right was over my month. So driving back my left elbow, I struck him a sharp and cruel blow in the right side, just above the hip-bone. It is a bad place to strike; I would not hit there, unless unfairly attacked. The sudden pain jerked a groan out of him, and surprised him into slackening his hold; so that I wrenched myself loose, and gave him a straight, heavy, right-hand hit in the nose, sending him reeling against the old chest that came over in the Mayflower, which saved him from a fall.
At one and the same moment, both the thieves drew knives and made at me together, and I, springing backwards, seized from the wooden rack of weapons the first which my hand reached. It was a musket. Instinctively, for there was no time to reason, I cocked, presented in a sort of charge-bayonet attitude, the only one possible, and pulled trigger. The old weapon went off with a deafening report, sending out a blinding sheet of flame in the darkness. One thief fell headlong at my very feet; the other, turning, fled blindly towards the staircase. I ought to have caught him; but, in the unreflecting anger of the moment, coming up with him at the stair-head, I struck at him with such good will and good effect, that he fell down stairs faster than I cared to chase him in the dark. Scrambling up at the bottom, he hurried out by the way he had come, and fled; while I returned to my prisoner.