The Landlord At Lion's Head. William Dean Howells
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remaining letters. “Yes, I get one other word-broken.”
“Just what I done! But I wanted you to speak first. It's Broken Shaft. Jackson, she caught right onto what we was talkin' about. This life,” he turned to Westover, in solemn exegesis, “is a broken shaft when death comes. It rests upon the earth, but you got to look for the top of it in the skies. That's the way I look at it. What do you think, Jackson? Jombateeste?”
“I think anybody can't see that. Better go and get some heye-glass.”
Westover remained in a shameful minority. He said, meekly: “It suggests a beautiful hope.”
Jackson brought his chair-legs down again, and put his hand on the planchette.
“Feel that tinglin'?” asked. Whitwell, and Jackson made yes with silent lips. “After he's been workin' the plantchette for a spell, and then leaves off, and she wants to say something more,” Whitwell explained to Westover, “he seems to feel a kind of tinglin' in his arm, as if it was asleep, and then he's got to tackle her again. Writin' steady enough now, Jackson!” he cried, joyously. “Let's see.” He leaned over and read, “Thomas Jefferson—” The planchette stopped, “My, I didn't go to do that,” said Whitwell, apologetically. “You much acquainted with Jefferson's writin's?” he asked of Westover.
The painter had to own his ignorance of all except the diction that the government is best which governs least; but he was not in a position to deny that Jefferson had ever said anything about a broken shaft.
“It may have come to him on the other side,” said Whitwell.
“Perhaps,” Westover assented.
The planchette began to stir itself again. “She's goin' ahead!” cried Whitwell. He leaned over the table so as to get every letter as it was formed. “D—Yes! Death. Death is the Broken Shaft. Go on!” After a moment of faltering the planchette formed another letter. It was a U, and it was followed by an R, and so on, till Durgin had been spelled. “Thunder!” cried Whitwell. “If anything's happened to Jeff!”
Jackson lifted his hand from the planchette.
“Oh, go on, Jackson!” Whitwell entreated. “Don't leave it so!”
“I can't seem to go on,” Jackson whispered, and Westover could not resist the fear that suddenly rose among them. But he made the first struggle against it. “This is nonsense. Or, if there's any sense in it, it means that Jeff's ship has broken her shaft and put back.”
Whitwell gave a loud laugh of relief. “That's so! You've hit it, Mr. Westover.”
Jackson said, quietly: “He didn't mean to start home till tomorrow. And how could he send any message unless he was—”
“Easily!” cried Westover. “It's simply an instance of mental impression-of telepathy, as they call it.”
“That's so!” shouted Whitwell, with eager and instant conviction.
Westover could see that Jackson still doubted. “If you believe that a disembodied spirit can communicate with you, why not an embodied spirit? If anything has happened to your brother's ship, his mind would be strongly on you at home, and why couldn't it convey its thought to you?”
“Because he ha'n't started yet,” said Jackson.
Westover wanted to laugh; but they all heard voices without, which seemed to be coming nearer, and he listened with the rest. He made out Frank Whitwell's voice, and his sister's; and then another voice, louder and gayer, rose boisterously above them. Whitwell flung the door open and plunged out into the night. He came back, hauling Jeff Durgin in by the shoulder.
“Here, now,” he shouted to Jackson, “you just let this feller and plantchette fight it out together!”
“What's the matter with plantchette?” said Jeff, before he said to his brother, “Hello, Jackson!” and to the Canuck, “Hello, Jombateeste!” He shook hands conventionally with them both, and then with the painter, whom he greeted with greater interest. “Glad to see you here, Mr. Westover. Did I take you by surprise?” he asked of the company at large.
“No, sir,” said Whitwell. “Didn't surprise us any, if you are a fortnight ahead of time,” he added, with a wink at the others.
“Well, I took a notion I wouldn't wait for the cattle-ship, and I started back on a French boat. Thought I'd try it. They live well. But I hoped I should astonish you a little, too. I might as well waited.”
Whitwell laughed. “We heard from you—plantchette kept right round after you.”
“That so?” asked Jeff, carelessly.
“Fact. Have a good voyage?” Whitwell had the air of putting a casual question.
“First-rate,” said Jeff. “Plantchette say not?”
“No. Only about the broken shaft.”
“Broken shaft? We didn't have any broken shaft. Plantchette's got mixed a little. Got the wrong ship.”
After a moment of chop-fallenness, Whitwell said:
“Then somebody's been makin' free with your name. Curious how them devils cut up oftentimes.”
He explained, and Jeff laughed uproariously when he understood the whole case. “Plantchette's been havin' fun with you.”
Whitwell gave himself time for reflection. “No, sir, I don't look at it that way. I guess the wires got crossed some way. If there's such a thing as the spirits o' the livin' influencin' plantchette, accordin' to Mr. Westover's say, here, I don't see why it wa'n't. Jeff's being so near that got control of her and made her sign his name to somebody else's words. It shows there's something in it.”
“Well, I'm glad to come back alive, anyway,” said Jeff, with a joviality new to Westover. “I tell you, there a'n't many places finer than old Lion's Head, after all. Don't you think so, Mr. Westover? I want to get the daylight on it, but it does well by moonlight, even.” He looked round at the tall girl, who had been lingering to hear the talk of planchette; at the backward tilt he gave his head, to get her in range, she frowned as if she felt his words a betrayal, and slipped out of the room; the boy had already gone, and was making himself heard in the low room overhead.
“There's a lot of folks here this summer, mother says,” he appealed from the check he had got to Jackson. “Every room taken for the whole month, she says.”
“We've been pretty full all July, too,” said Jackson, blankly.
“Well, it's a great business; and I've picked up a lot of hints over there. We're not so smart as we think we are. The Swiss can teach us a thing or two. They know how to keep a hotel.”
“Go to Switzerland?” asked Whitwell.
“I slipped over into the edge of it.”
“I want to know! Well, now them Alps, now—they so much bigger 'n the White Hills, after all?”
“Well, I don't know about all of 'em,” said Jeff. “There may be some that would compare with our hills, but I should say that you could take Mount Washington up and set it in the lap of almost any one of the Alps I saw, and it would look like a baby on its mother's knee.”
“I want to know!” said Whitwell again. His tone expressed disappointment, but impartiality; he would do justice to foreign superiority if he must. “And about the ocean. What about waves runnin? mountains high?”
“Well, we didn't have it very rough. But I don't believe I saw any waves much higher than Lion's Head.” Jeff laughed to find Whitwell taking him seriously. “Won't that satisfy you?”
“Oh, it satisfies me. Truth always does. But, now, about London. You didn't seem to say so much about London in your letters, now. Is it so big as they let on? Big—that is, to the naked eye, as you may say?”
“There