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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Seven Wives and Seven Prisons
+by L.A. Abbott
+
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+
+Title: Seven Wives and Seven Prisons
+
+Author: L.A. Abbott
+
+Release Date: November, 2003  [Etext #4667]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on February 26, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Seven Wives and Seven Prisons
+by L.A. Abbott
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+
+SEVEN WIVES AND SEVEN PRISONS:
+
+OR EXPERIENCES IN THE LIFE OF A
+MATRIMONIAL MANIAC. A TRUE STORY.
+
+WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.
+
+NEW YORK:
+
+PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR. 1870.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1. THE FIRST AND WORST WIFE My Early History. The First
+Marriage. Leaving Home to Prospect. Sending for My Wife. Her
+Mysterious Journey. Where I Found Her. Ten Dollars for Nothing. A
+Fascinating Hotel Clerk. My Wife's Confession. From Bad to Worse.
+Final Separation. Trial for Forgery. A Private Marriage. Summary
+Separation.
+
+CHAPTER II. MISERIES FROM MY SECOND MARRIAGE. Love-Making in
+Massachusetts. Arrest for Bigamy. Trial at Northampton. A Stunning
+Sentence. Sent to State Prison. Learning the Brush Business.
+Sharpening Picks. Prison Fare. In the Hospital. Kind Treatment.
+Successful Horse-Shoeing. The Warden my Friend. Efforts for my
+Release. A Full Pardon.
+
+CHAPTER III. THE SCHEIMER SENSATION. The Scheimer Family. In Love
+With Sarah. Attempt to Elope. How it was Prevented. Second Attempt.
+A Midnight Expedition. The Alarm. A Frightful Beating. Escape,
+Flogging the Devil out of Sarah. Return to New Jersey. "Boston
+Yankee." Plans to Secure Sarah.
+
+CHAPTER IV. SUCCESS WITH SARAH. Mary Smith as a Confederate. The
+Plot. Waiting in the Woods. The Spy Outwitted. Sarah Secured. The
+Pursuers Baffled. Night on the Road. Efforts to Get Married. "The
+Old Offender." Married at Last. A Constable after Sarah. He Gives it
+Up. An Ale Orgie. Return to "Boston Yankee's." A Home in Goshen.
+
+CHAPTER V. HOW THE SCHEIMERS MADE ME SUFFER. Return to Scheimer's.
+Peace, and then Pandemonium. Frightful Family Row. Running for
+Refuge. The Gang Again. Arrest at Midnight. Struggle with my
+Captors. In Jail Once More. Put in Irons. A Horrible Prison.
+Breaking Out. The Dungeon. Sarah's Baby. . Curious Compromises. Old
+Scheimer my Jailer. Signing a Bond. Free Again. Last Words from
+Sarah.
+
+CHAPTER VI. FREE LIFE AND FISHING. Taking Care of Crazy Men.
+Carrying off a Boy. Arrested for Stealing my Own Horse and Buggy.
+Fishing in Lake Winnepisiogee. An Odd Landlord. A Woman as Big as a
+Hogshead. Reducing the Hogshead to a Barrel. Wonderful Verification
+of a Dream. Successful Medical Practice. A Busy Winter in New
+Hampshire. Blandishments of Captain Brown. I go to Newark, New
+Jersey.
+
+CHAPTER VII. WEDDING A WIDOW AND THE CONSEQUENCES. I Marry a Widow.
+Six Weeks of Happiness. Confiding a Secret, and the Consequences.
+The Widow's Brother. Sudden Flight from Newark. In Hartford, Conn.
+My Wife's Sister Betrays Me. Trial for Bigamy. Sentenced to Ten
+Years' Imprisonment. I Become a "Bobbin Boy." A Good Friend.
+Governor Price Visits me in Prison. He Pardons Me. Ten Years'
+Sentence Fulfilled in Seven Months.
+
+CHAPTER VIII. ON THE KEEN SCENT. Good Resolutions. Enjoying Freedom.
+Going After a Crazy Man. The Old Tempter in a New Form. Mary Gordon.
+My New "Cousin." Engaged Again. Visit to the Old Folks at Home.
+Another Marriage. Starting for Ohio. Change of Plans. Domestic
+Quarrels. Unpleasant Stories about Mary. Bound Over to Keep the
+Peace. Another Arrest for Bigamy. A Sudden Flight. Secreted Three
+Weeks in a Farm House. Recaptured at Concord. Escaped Once More.
+Traveling on the Underground Railroad. In Canada.
+
+CHAPTER IX. MARRYING TWO MILLINERS. Back in Vermont. Fresh
+Temptations. Margaret Bradley. Wine and Women. A Mock Marriage in
+Troy. The False Certificate. Medicine and Millinery. Eliza Gurnsey.
+A Spree at Saratoga. Marrying Another Milliner. Again Arrested for
+Bigamy. In Jail Eleven Months. A Tedious Trial. Found Guilty. Appeal
+to Supreme Court. Trying to Break Out of Jail. A Governor's Promise.
+Second Trial. Sentenced to Three Years' Imprisonment.
+
+CHAPTER X. PRISON LIFE IN VERMONT. Entering Prison. The Scythe Snath
+Business. Blistered Hands. I Learn Nothing. Threaten to Kill the
+Shop Keeper. Locksmithing. Open Rebellion. Six Weeks in the Dungeon.
+Escape of a Prisoner. In the Dungeon Again. The Mad Man Hall. He
+Attempts to Murder the Deputy. I Save Morey's Life. Howling in the
+Black Hole. Taking Off Hall's Irons. A Ghastly Spectacle. A Prison
+Funeral. I am Let Alone. The Full Term of my Imprisonment.
+
+CHAPTER XI. ON THE TRAMP. The Day of my Deliverance. Out of Clothes.
+Sharing with a Beggar. A Good Friend. Tramping Through the Snow.
+Weary Walks. Trusting to Luck. Comfort at Concord. At Meredith
+Bridge. The Blaisdells. Last of the "Blossom" Business. Making Money
+at Portsmouth. Revisiting Windsor. An Astonished Warden. Making
+Friends of Enemies. Inspecting the Prison. Going to Port Jervis.
+
+CHAPTER XII. ATTEMPT TO KIDNAP SARAH SCHEIMER'S BOY. Starting to See
+Sarah. The Long Separation. What I Learned About Her. Her Drunken
+Husband. Change of Plan. A Suddenly-Formed Scheme. I Find Sarah's
+Son. The First Interview. Resolve to Kidnap the Boy. Remonstrance of
+my Son Henry. The Attempt. A Desperate Struggle. The Rescue. Arrest
+of Henry. My Flight into Pennsylvania. Sending Assistance to my Son.
+Return to Port Jervis. Bailing Henry. His Return to Belvidere. He is
+Bound Over to be Tried for Kidnapping. My folly.
+
+CHAPTER XIII. ANOTHER WIDOW. Waiting for the Verdict. My Son Sent to
+State Prison. What Sarah Would Have Done. Interview with my First
+Wife. Help for Henry. The Biddeford Widow. Her Effort to Marry Me.
+Our Visit to Boston. A Warning. A Generous Gift. Henry Pardoned.
+Close of the Scheimer Account. Visit to Ontario County. My Rich
+Cousins. What Might Have Been. My Birthplace Revisited.
+
+CHAPTER XIV. MY SON TRIES TO MURDER ME. Settling Down in Maine.
+Henry's Health. Tour Through the South. Secession Times. December in
+New Orleans. Up the Mississippi. Leaving Henry in Massachusetts.
+Back in Maine Again. Return to Boston, Profitable Horse-Trading.
+Plenty of Money. My First Wife's Children. How they Have Been
+Brought Up. A Barefaced Robbery. Attempt to Blackmail Me. My Son
+Tries to Rob and Kill Me. My Rescue Last of the Young Man.
+
+CHAPTER XV. A TRUE WIFE AND HOME AT LAST. Where Were All my Wives?
+Sense of Security. An Imprudent Acquaintance. Moving from Maine. My
+Property in Rensselaer County. How I Lived. Selling a Recipe. About
+Buying a Carpet. Nineteen Lawsuits. Sudden Departure for the West. A
+Vagabond Life for Two Years. Life in California. Return to the East.
+Divorce from any First Wife. A Genuine Marriage. My Farm. Home at
+Last.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SEVEN WIVES AND SEVEN PRISONS
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE FIRST AND WORST WIFE
+
+My Early History-THE FIRST MARRIAGE-LEAVING HOME TO PROSPECT-SENDING
+FOR MY WIFE-HER MYSTERIOUS JOURNEY-WHERE I FOUND HER-TEN DOLLARS FOR
+NOTHING-A FASCINATING HOTEL CLERK-MY WIFE'S CONFESSION-FROM BAD TO
+WORSE-FINAL SEPARATION-TRIAL FOR FORGERY-A PRIVATE MARRIAGE-SUMMARY
+SEPARATION.
+
+
+
+
+
+SOME one has said that if any man would faithfully write his
+autobiography, giving truly his own history and experiences, the
+ills and joys, the haps and mishaps that had fallen to his lot, he
+could not fail to make an interesting story; and Disraeli makes
+Sidonia say that there is romance in every life. How much romance,
+as well as sad reality, there is in the life of a man who, among
+other experiences, has married seven wives, and has been seven times
+in prison-solely on account of the seven wives, may be learned from
+the pages that follow.
+
+I was born in the town of Chatham, Columbia County, New York, in
+September, 1813. My father was a New Englander, who married three
+times, and I was the eldest son of his third wife, a woman of Dutch
+descent, or, as she would have boosted if she had been rich, one of
+the old Knickerbockers of New York. My parents were simply honest,
+hard-working, worthy people, who earned a good livelihood, brought
+up their children to work, behaved themselves, and were respected by
+their neighbors. They had a homestead and a small farm of thirty
+acres, and on the place was a blacksmith shop in which my father
+worked daily, shoeing horses and cattle for farmers and others who
+came to the shop from miles around.
+
+There were three young boys of us at home, and we had a chance to go
+to school in the winter, while during the summer we worked on the
+little farm and did the "chores" about the house and barn. But by
+the time I was twelve years old I began to blow and strike in the
+blacksmith shop, and when I was sixteen years old I could shoe
+horses well, and considered myself master of the trade. At the age
+of eighteen, I went into business with my father, and as I was now
+entitled to a share of the profits, I married the daughter of a
+well-to-do neighboring farmer, and we began our new life in part of
+my father's house, setting up for ourselves, and doing our own
+house-keeping.
+
+I ought to have known then that marrying thus early in life, and
+especially marrying the woman I did, was about the most foolish
+thing I could do. I found it out afterwards, and was frequently and
+painfully reminded of it through many long years. But all seemed
+bright enough at the start. My wife was a good-looking woman of just
+my own age; her family was most respectable; two of her brothers
+subsequently became ministers of the gospel; and all the children
+had been carefully brought up. I was thought to have made a good
+match; but a few years developed that had wedded a most unworthy
+woman.
+
+Seventeen months after our marriage, our oldest child, Henry, was
+born. Meanwhile we had gone to Sidney, Delaware County, where my
+father opened a shop. I still continued in business with him, and
+during our stay at Sidney, my daughter, Elizabeth, was born. From
+Sidney, my father wanted to go to Bainbridge, Chenango, County, N.Y.,
+and I went with him, leaving my wife and the children at Sidney,
+while we prospected. As usual my father started a blacksmith-shop;
+but I bought a hundred acres of timber land, went to lumbering, and
+made money. We had a house about four miles from the village, I
+living with my father, and as soon as found out that we were doing
+well in business, I sent to Sidney for my wife and children. They
+were to come by stage, and were due, after passing through
+Bainbridge, at our house at four o'clock in the morning. We were up
+early to meet the stage; but when it arrived, the driver told us
+that my wife had stopped at the public house in Bainbridge.
+
+Wondering what this could mean, I at once set out with my brother
+and walked over to the village. It was daylight when we arrived, and
+knocked loudly at the public house door. After considerable delay,
+the clerk came to the door and let us in. He also asked as to "take
+something," which we did. The clerk knew us well, and I inquired if
+my wife was in the house; he said she was, told us what room she was
+in, and we went up stairs and found her in bed with her children.
+Waking her, I asked her why she did not come home, in the stage? She
+replied that the clerk down stairs told her that the stage did not
+go beyond the house, and that she expected to walk over, as soon as
+it was daylight, or that possibly we might come for her.
+
+I declare, I was so young and unsophisticated that I suspected
+nothing, and blamed only the stupidity, as I supposed, of the clerk
+in telling her that the stage did not go beyond Bainbridge. My wife
+got up and dressed herself and the children, and then as it was
+broad daylight, after endeavoring, ineffectually, to get a
+conveyance, we started for home on foot, she leading the little boy,
+and I carrying the youngest child. We were not far on our way when
+she suddenly stopped, stooped down, and exclaimed:
+
+"O! see what I have found in the road."
+
+And she showed me a ten dollar bill. I was quite surprised, and
+verdantly enough, advised looking around for more money, which my
+wife, brother and I industriously did for some minutes. It was full
+four weeks before I found out where that ten dollar bill came from.
+Meanwhile, my wife was received and was living in her new home,
+being treated with great kindness by all of us. It was evident,
+however, that she had something on her mind which troubled her, and
+one morning, about a month after her arrival, I found her in tears.
+I asked her what was the matter? She said that she had been
+deceiving me; that she did not pick up the ten dollar bill in the
+road; but that it was given to her by the clerk in the public house
+in Bainbridge; only, however, for this: he had grossly insulted her;
+she had resented it, and he had given her the money, partly as a
+reparation, and partly to prevent her from speaking of the insult to
+me or to others.
+
+But by this time my hitherto blinded eyes were opened, and I charged
+her with being false to me. She protested she had not been; but
+finally confessed that she had been too intimate with the clerk at
+the hotel. I began a suit at law against the clerk; but finally, on
+account of my wife's family and for the sake of my children, I
+stopped proceedings, the clerk paying the costs of the suit as far
+as it had gone, and giving me what I should probably have got from
+him in the way of damages. My wife too, was apparently so penitent,
+and I was so much infatuated with her, that I forgave her, and even
+consented to continue to live with her. But I removed to Greenville,
+Greene County, N. Y., where I went into the black-smithing business,
+and was very successful. We lived here long enough to add two
+children to our little family; but as time went on, the woman became
+bad again, and displayed the worst depravity. I could no longer live
+with her, and we finally mutually agreed upon a life-long
+separation--she insisting upon keeping the children, and going to
+Rochester where she subsequently developed the full extent of her
+character.
+
+This, as nearly as I remember, was in the year 1838, and with this
+came a new trouble upon me. Just before the separation, I received
+from my brother's wife a note for one hundred dollars, and sold it.
+It proved to be a forgery. I was temporarily in Troy, N. Y., when
+the discovery was made, and as I made no secret of my whereabouts at
+any time, I was followed to Troy, was there arrested, and after
+lying in jail at Albany one night, was taken next morning to
+Coxsackie, Greene County, and front thence to Catskill. After one
+day in jail there, I was brought before a justice and examined on
+the charge of uttering a forged note. There was a most exciting
+trial of four days duration. I had two good lawyers who did their
+best to show that I did not know the note to be forged when I sold
+it, but the justice seemed determined to bind me over for trial, and
+he did so, putting me under five hundred dollars' bonds. My
+half-sister at Sidney was sent for, came to Catskill, and became
+bail for me. I was released, and my lawyers advised me to leave,
+which I did at once, and went to Pittsfield, and from there to
+Worthington, Mass., where I had another half-sister, who was married
+to Mr. Josiah Bartlett, and was well off.
+
+Here I settled down, for all that I knew to the contrary, for life.
+For some years past, I had devoted my leisure hours from the forge
+to the honest endeavor to make up for the deficiencies in my
+youthful education, and had acquired, among other things, a good
+knowledge of medicine. I did not however, believe in any of the
+"schools" particularly those schools that make use of mineral
+medicines in their practice. I favored purely vegetable remedies,
+and had been very successful in administering them. So I began life
+anew, in Worthington, as a Doctor, and aided by my half-sister and
+her friends, I soon secured a remunerative practice.
+
+I was beginning to be truly happy. I supposed that the final
+separation, mutually agreed upon between my wife and myself, was as
+effectual as all the courts in the country could make it, and I
+looked upon myself as a free man. Accordingly, after I had been in
+Worthington some months I began to pay attentions to the daughter of
+a flourishing farmer. She was a fine girl; she received my addresses
+favorably, and we were finally privately married. This was the
+beginning of my life-long troubles. In a few weeks her father found
+out that I had been previously married, and was not, so far as he
+knew, either a divorced man or a widower. And so it happened, that
+one day when I was at his house, and with his daughter, he suddenly
+came home with a posse of people and a warrant for my arrest. I was
+taken before a justice, and while we were waiting for proceedings to
+begin, or, possibly for the justice to arrive, I took the excited
+father aside and said:
+
+"You know I have a fine horse and buggy at the door. Get in with me,
+and ride down home. I will see your daughter and make everything
+right with her, and if you will let me run away, I'll give her her
+the horse and buggy."
+
+The offer was too tempting to be refused. The father had the warrant
+in his pocket, and he accepted my proposal. We rode to his house,
+and he went into the back-room by direction of his daughter while
+she and I talked in the hall. I explained matters as well as I
+could; I promised to see her again, and that very soon. My horse and
+buggy were at the door. Hastily bidding my new and young wife
+"good-bye," I sprang into the buggy and drove rapidly away. The
+father rushed to the door and raised a great hue and cry, and what
+was more, raised the neighbors; I had not driven five miles before
+all Worthington was after me. But I had the start, the best horse,
+and I led in the race. I drove to Hancock, N.Y., where my pursuers
+lost the trail; thence to Bennington, Vt., next to Brattleboro, Vt.,
+and from there to Templeton, Mass. What befel me at Templeton, shall
+be related in the next chapter.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+MISERIES FROM MY SECOND MARRIAGE.
+
+LOVE-MAKING IN MASSACHUSETTS-ARREST FOR BIGAMY-TRIAL AT
+NORTHAMPTON-A STUNNING SENTENCE-SENT TO STATE PRISON-LEARNING THE
+BRUSH BUSINESS-SHARPENING PICKS-PRISON FARE-IN THE HOSPITAL-KIND
+TREATMENT-SUCCESSFUL HORSE SHOEING-THE WARDEN MY FRIEND-EFFORTS FOR
+MY RELEASE-A FULL PARDON.
+
+
+
+
+
+At Templeton I speedily made known my profession, and soon had a
+very good medical practice which one or two "remarkable cures"
+materially increased. I was doing well and making money. I boarded
+in a respectable farmer's family, and after living there about six
+months there came another most unhappy occurrence. From the day,
+almost, when I began to board with this farmer there sprung up a
+strong attachment between myself and his youngest daughter which
+soon ripened into mutual love. She rode about with me when I went to
+see my patients, who were getting to be numerous, and we were much
+in each other's company.
+
+On one occasion she accompanied me to Worcester where I had some
+patients. We went to a public house where she and her family were
+well known, and when she was asked by the landlord how she happened
+to come there with the doctor, her prompt answer was:
+
+"Why, we are married; did'nt you know it?"
+
+She refused even to go to the table without my attendance, and when
+I was out visiting some patients, she waited for her meals till I
+came back. We stayed there but two days and returned together to
+Templeton.
+
+A month afterward her brother was in Worcester, and stopped at this
+house. The landlord, after some conversation about general matters,
+said:
+
+"So your sister is married to the Doctor?"
+
+"I know nothing about it," was the reply.
+
+This led to a full and altogether too free disclosure to the
+astonished brother about the particulars of our visit to the same
+house a month before, and his sister's representations that we were
+married. The brother immediately started for home, and repeated the
+story, as it was told to him, to his father and the family. Without
+seeing his daughter, the father at once procured a warrant, and had
+me arrested and brought before a justice on charge of seduction.
+The trial was brief; the daughter herself swore positively, that
+though she had been imprudent and indiscreet in going to Worcester
+with me, no improper communication had ever, there or elsewhere,
+taken place between us.
+
+Of course, there was nothing to do but to let me go and I was
+discharged. But out of this affair came the worst that had yet
+fallen to my lot in life. The story got into the papers, with
+particulars and names of the parties, and in this way the people at
+Worthington, who had chased me as far as Hancock and had there lost
+all trace of me, found out where I was. If I had been aware of it,
+they might have looked elsewhere for me; but while I was
+felicitating myself upon my escape from the latest difficulty, down
+came an officer from Worthington with a warrant for my arrest. This
+officer, the sheriff, was connected with the family into which I had
+married in Worthington, and with him came two or three more
+relatives, all bound, as they boasted, to "put me through." They
+were excessively irate against me and very much angered, especially
+that their race after me to Hancock had been fruitless. I had fallen
+into the worst possible hands.
+
+They took me to Northampton and brought me before a Justice, on a
+charge of bigamy: The sheriff who arrested me, and the relatives who
+accompanied him were willing to swear my life away, if they could,
+and the justice was ready enough to bind me over to take my trial in
+court, which was not to be in session for full six months to come.
+Those long, weary six months I passed in the county jail. Then came
+my trial. I had good counsel. There was not a particle of proof that
+I was guilty of bigamy; no attempt was made on the part of the
+prosecution to produce my first wife, from whom I had separated, or,
+indeed, to show that there was such a woman in existence. But,
+evidence or no evidence, with all Worthington against me, conviction
+was inevitable. The jury found me guilty. The judge promptly
+sentenced me to three years' imprisonment in the State Prison, at
+Charlestown, with hard labor, the first day to be passed in solitary
+confinement.
+
+This severe sentence fairly stunned me. I was taken back to jail,
+and the following day I was conveyed to Charlestown with heavy irons
+on my ankles and handcuffed. No murderer would have been more
+heavily ironed. We started early in the morning, and by noon I was
+duly delivered to the warden at Charlestown prison. I was taken into
+the office, measured, asked my name, age, and other particulars, and
+then if I had a trade. To this I at once answered, "no." I wanted my
+twenty-four hours' solitary confinement in which to reflect upon the
+kind of "hard labor," prescribed in my sentence, I was willing to
+follow for the next three years; and I also wanted information about
+the branches of labor pursued in that prison. The next words of the
+warden assured me that he was a kind and compassionate man.
+
+"Go," he said to an officer, "and instantly take off those irons
+when you take him inside the prison."
+
+I was taken in and the irons were taken off. I was then undressed,
+my clothes were removed to another room, and I was redressed in the
+prison uniform. This was a grotesque uniform indeed. The suit was
+red and blue, half and half, like a harlequin's, and to crown all
+came a hat or cap, like a fool's cap, a foot and a half high and
+running up to a peak. Miserable as I was, I could scarcely help
+smiling at the utterly absurd appearance I knew I then presented. I
+even ventured to remark upon it; but was suddenly and sternly
+checked with the command:
+
+"Silence! There's no talking allowed here."
+
+Then began my twenty-four hours' solitary confinement, and
+twenty-four wretched hours they were. I had only bread and water to
+eat and drink, and I need not say that my unhappy thoughts would not
+permit me to sleep. At noon next day I was taken from my cell, and
+brought again before the warden, Mr. Robinson, who kindly said:
+
+"You have no trade, you say; what do you want to go to work at?"
+
+"Anything light; I am not used to hard labor," I replied.
+
+So the warden directed that I should be put at work in the brush
+shop, where all kinds of brushes were made. Mr. Eddy was the officer
+in charge of this shop, and Mr. Knowles, the contractor for the
+labor employed in the brush business, was present. Both of these
+gentlemen took pains to instruct me in the work I was to begin upon,
+and were very kind in their manner towards me. I went to work in a
+bungling way and with a sad and heavy heart. At 12 o'clock we were
+marched from the shop to our cells, each man taking from a trap in
+the wall, as he went by, his pan containing his dinner, which
+consisted, that day, of boiled beef and potatoes. It was probably
+the worst dinner I had ever eaten, but I had yet to learn what
+prison fare was. From one o'clock to six I was in the shop again;
+then came Supper-mush and molasses that evening which was varied, as
+I learned afterwards, on different days by rye bread, or Indian
+bread and rye coffee. These things were also served for breakfast,
+and the dinners were varied on different days in the week. The fare
+was very coarse, always, but abundant and wholesome. After supper
+prisoners were expected to go to bed, as they were called out at six
+o'clock in the morning.
+
+I stayed in the brush shop three or four months, but I made very
+little progress in learning the trade. I was willing enough to learn
+and did my best. From the day I entered the prison I made up my mind
+to behave as well as I could; to be docile and obedient, and to
+comply with every rule and order. Consequently I had no trouble, and
+the officers all treated me kindly. Warden Robinson was a model man
+for his position. He believed that prisoners could be reformed more
+easily by mild than by harsh measures--at least they would be more
+contented with their lot and would be subordinate. Every now and
+then he would ask prisoners if they were well treated by the
+officers; how they were getting on; if they had enough to eat, and
+so on. The officers seemed imbued with the warden's spirit; the
+chaplain of the prison, who conducted the Sunday, services and also
+held a Sunday school, was one of the finest men in the world, and
+took a personal interest in every prisoner. Altogether, it was a
+model institution. But in spite of good treatment I was intensely
+miserable; my mind was morbid; I was nearly, if not quite, insane;
+and one day during the dinner hour, I opened a vein in each arm in
+hopes that I should bleed to death. Bleed I did, till I fainted
+away, and as I did not come out when the other prisoners did, the
+officer came to my cell and discovered my condition. He at once sent
+for the Doctor who came and stopped the hemorrhage, and then sent me
+to the hospital where I remained two weeks.
+
+After I came out of the hospitals the Warden talked to me about my
+situation and feelings. He advised me to go into the blacksmith
+shop, of course not dreaming that I knew anything of the work; but
+he said I would have more liberty there; that the men moved about
+freely and could talk to each other; that the work mainly was
+sharpening picks and tools, and that I could at least blow and
+strike. So I went into the blacksmith shop, and remained their six
+weeks. But, debilitated as I was, the work was too hard for me, and
+so the warden put me in the yard to do what I could. I also swept
+the halls and assisted in the cook-room. One day when the warden
+spoke to me, I told him that I knew something about taking care of
+the sick, and after some conversation, he transferred me to the
+hospital as a nurse.
+
+Here, if there is such a things as contentment in prison, I was
+comparatively happy. I nursed the sick and administered medicines
+under direction of the doctor. I had too, with all easy position,
+more liberty than any other prisoner. I could go anywhere about the
+halls and yard, and in a few weeks I was frequently sent on an
+errand into the town. Everyone seemed to have the fullest confidence
+in me. The Warden talked to me whenever he saw me, and always had
+some kind word for me. One day I ventured to speak to him about his
+horse, of which he was very proud, and indeed the horse was a very
+fine one.
+
+Mr. Warden, said I "that's a noble horse of yours; but he interferes
+badly, and that is only because he is badly shod. If you will
+trust me, I can shoe him so as to prevent all that."
+
+"Can you?" exclaimed the Warden in great surprise; "Well, if you
+can, I'll give you a good piece of bread and butter, or, anything
+else you want."
+
+"I don't want your bread and butter," said I "but I will shoe your
+horse as he has never been shod before."
+
+"Well take the horse to the shop and see what you can do."
+
+Of course, I knew that by "bread and butter" the warden meant that
+if I could shoe his favorite horse so as to prevent him from
+interfering, he would gladly favor me as far as he could; and I
+knew, too, that I could make as good a shoe as any horse need wear.
+I gladly led the horse to the shop where I had so signally failed in
+pick and tool sharpening, and was received with jeers by my old
+comrades who wanted to know what I was going to do to that horse.
+
+"O, simply shoe him," I said.
+
+This greatly increased the mirth of my former shopmates; but their
+amusement speedily changed to amazement as they saw me make my
+nails, turn the shoes and neatly put them on. In due time the horse
+was shod, and I led him to the Warden for inspection; and before him
+and an officer who stood by him, I led the horse up and down to show
+that he did not interfere. The Warden's delight was unbounded; he
+never saw such a set of shoes; he declared that they fitted as if
+they had grown to the horse's hoofs. I need not say that from that
+day till the day I left the prison, I had everything I wanted from
+the Warden's own table; I fared as well as he did, and had favors
+innumerable.
+
+About once a month I shod that horse, little thinking that he was to
+carry me over my three years' imprisonment in just half that time.
+Yet so it was. For talking now almost daily, in the hospital or in
+the yard, with the Warden, he became interested in me, and in answer
+to his inquiries I told him the whole story of my persecution, as I
+considered it, my trial and my unjust and severe sentence. When he
+had heard all he said:
+
+"You ought not to be here another day; you ought to go out."
+
+The good chaplain also interested himself in my case, and after
+hearing the story, he and the Warden took a lawyer named Bemis, into
+their counsel, laid the whole matter before him and asked his
+opinion. Mr. Bemis, after hearing all the circumstances, expressed
+the belief that I might get a pardon. He entered into the matter
+with his whole heart. He sent for my son Henry and my first wife,
+and they came and corroborated my statement about the mutual
+agreement for separation, and told how long we had been parted. Mr.
+Bemis and they then went to Governor Briggs, and told him the story,
+and that I had served out half of my severe sentence, and pressed
+for a pardon. The Governor after due deliberation consented to their
+request. They came back to Charlestown with the joyful intelligence.
+Warden Robinson advised my son, that considering my present mental
+and physical condition, he had better break the intelligence
+gradually to me, and so Henry came to me and said, simply, that he
+thought he would soon have "good news" for me. The next day I was
+told that my pardon was certain. The day following, at 12 o'clock, I
+walked out, after eighteen months' imprisonment, a free man. I was
+in the streets of Charlestown with my own clothes on and five
+dollars, given to me by the Warden, in my pocket, I was poor, truly,
+but I was at liberty, and that for the day was enough.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE SCHEIMER SENSATION.
+
+THE SCHEIMER FAMILY-IN LOVE WITH SARAH-ATTEMPT TO ELOPE-HOW IT WAS
+PREVENTED-THE SECOND ATTEMPT-A MIDNIGHT EXPEDITION-THE ALARM-A
+FRIGHTFUL BEATING-ESCAPE-FLOGGING THE DEVIL OUT OF SARAH-WINTER IN
+NEW HAMPSHIRE-RETURN TO NEW JERSEY-"BOSTON YANKEE"-PLANS TO SECURE
+SARAH.
+
+
+
+
+
+I went at once to the Prisoners Home, where I was kindly received,
+and I stayed there two days. The superintendent then paid my passage
+to Pittsfield where I wished to go and meet my son. From Pittsfield
+I went to Albany, then New York, and from there to Newtown N. J.
+Here I went into practice, meeting with almost immediate success,
+and staid there two months. It was my habit to go from town to town
+to attend to cases of a certain class and to sell my vegetable
+preparations; and from Newtown I went to Belvidere, stopping at
+intermediate towns on the way, and from Belvidere I went to Harmony,
+a short distance below, to attend a case of white swelling, which I
+cured.
+
+Now just across the Delaware river, nine miles above Easton,
+Penn., lived a wealthy Dutch farmer, named Scheimer, who heard of
+the cure I had effected in Harmony, and as he had a son, sixteen
+years of age, afflicted in the same way, he sent for me to come and
+see him. I crossed the river, saw the boy, and at Scheimer's request
+took up my residence with him to attend to the case. He was to give
+me, with my board, five hundred dollars if I cured the boy; but
+though the boy recovered under my treatment, I never received my fee
+for reasons which will appear anon. I secured some other practice in
+the neighborhood, and frequently visited Easton, Belvidere, Harmony,
+Oxford, and other near by places, on either side of the river.
+
+The Scheimer family consisted of the "old folks" and four sons and
+four daughters, the children grown up, for my patient, sixteen years
+old, was the youngest. The youngest daughter, Sarah, eighteen years
+old, was an accomplished and beautiful girl. Now it would seem as if
+with my sad experience I ought by this time, to have turned my back
+on women forever. But I think I was a monomaniac on the subject of
+matrimony. My first wife had so misused me that it was always in my
+mind that some reparation was due me, and that I was fairly entitled
+to a good helpmate. The ill-success of my efforts, hitherto, to
+secure one, and my consequent sufferings were all lost upon
+me--experience, bitter experience, had taught me nothing.
+
+I had not been in the Scheimer family three months before I fell in
+love with the daughter Sarah and she returned my passion. She
+promised to marry me, but said there was no use in saying anything
+to her parents about it; they would never consent on account of the
+disparity in our ages, for I was then forty years old; but she would
+marry me nevertheless, if we had to run away together. Meanwhile,
+the old folks had seen enough of our intimacy to suspect that it
+might lead to something yet closer, and one day Mr. Scheimer invited
+me to leave his house and not to return. I asked for one last
+interview with Sarah, which was accorded, and we then arranged a
+plan by which she should meet me the next afternoon at four o'clock
+at the Jersey ferry, a mile below the house, when we proposed to
+quietly cross over to Belvidere and get married. I then took leave
+of her and the family and went away.
+
+The next day, at the appointed time, I was at the ferry--Sarah, as I
+learned afterwards, left the house at a much earlier hour to "take a
+walk" and while she was, foolishly I think, making a circuitous
+route to reach the ferry, her father, who suspected that she
+intended to run away, went to the ferryman and told him his
+suspicions, directing him if Sarah came there by no means to permit
+her to cross the river. Consequently when Sarah met me at the ferry,
+the ferryman flatly refused to let either of us go over. He knew all
+about it, he said, and it was "no go." I had two hundred dollars in
+my pocket and I offered him any reasonable sum, if he would only let
+us cross; but no, he knew the Scheimers better than he knew me, and
+their goodwill was worth more than mine. Here was a block to the
+game, indeed. I had sent my baggage forward in the morning to
+Belvidere; Sarah had nothing but the clothes she wore, for she was
+so carefully watched that she could carry or send nothing away; but
+she was ready to go if the obstinate ferryman had not prevented us.
+
+While we were pressing the ferryman to favor us, down came one of
+Sarah's brothers with a dozen neighbors, and told her she must
+return home or he would carry her back by force. I interfered and
+said she should not go. Whereupon one fellow took hold of me and I
+promptly knocked him down, and notified the crowd that the first who
+laid hands on me, or who attempted to take her home violently, would
+get a dose from my pistol which I then exhibited:
+
+"Sarah must go willingly or not at all," said I.
+
+The production of my pistol, the only weapon in the crowd, brought
+about a new state of affairs, and the brother and others tried
+persuasion; but Sarah stoutly insisted that she would not return.
+"Now hold on," boys, said I, "I am going to say something to her." I
+then took her aside and told her that there was no use in trying to
+run away then; that she had better go home quietly, and tell the
+folks that she was sorry for what she had done, that she had broken
+off with me, and would have nothing more to do with me; that I would
+surely see her to-morrow, and then we could make a new plan. So she
+announced her willingness to go quietly home with her brother and
+she did so. I went to a public house half a mile below the ferry.
+That night the gang came down to this house with the intention of
+driving me away from the place, or, possibly, of doing something
+worse; but while they were howling outside, the landlord sent me to
+my room and then went out and told the crowd I had gone away.
+
+The next morning I boldly walked up to Scheimer's house to get a few
+books and other things I had left there, and I saw Sarah. I told her
+to be ready on the following Thursday night and I would have a
+ladder against her window for her to escape by. She promised to be
+ready. Meantime, though I had been in the house but a few minutes,
+some one who had seen me go in gathered the crowd of the day before,
+and the first thing I knew the house was beseiged. Mrs. Scheimer had
+gone up stairs for my things. I went out and faced the little mob. I
+was told to leave the place or they would kill me. One of Sarah's
+brothers ran into the house, brought out a musket and aimed it at
+me; but it missed fire. I drew my pistol the crowd keeping well away
+then, and told him that if he did not instantly bring that musket to
+me I would shoot him. He brought it, and I threw it over the fence,
+Sarah crying out from the window, "good! good!" The mob then turned
+and abused and blackguarded her. Then the old lady came out,
+bringing a carpet bag containing my books and things, asking me to
+see if "it was all right." I had no disposition to stop and examine
+just then; I told the mob I had no other business there; that I was
+going away, and to my surprise, I confess, I was permitted to leave
+the place unmolested.
+
+It is quite certain the ferryman made no objection to my crossing,
+and I went to Belvidere where I remained quietly till the appointed
+Thursday night, when I started with a trusty man for Scheimer's. We
+timed our journey so as to arrive there at one o'clock in the
+morning. Ever since her attempt to elope, Sarah had been watched
+night and day, and to prevent her abduction by me, Mr. Scheimer had
+two or three men in the house to stand guard at night. Sarah was
+locked in her room, which is precisely what we had provided for, for
+no one in the house supposed that she could escape by the window.
+There was a big dog on the premises, but he and I were old friends,
+and he seemed very glad to see me when I came on the ground on this
+eventful night. Sarah was watching, and when I made the signal she
+opened the window and threw out her ready prepared bundle. Then my
+man and I set the ladder and she came safely to the ground. A moment
+more and we would have stolen away, when, as ill luck would have it,
+the ladder fell with a great crash, and the infernal dog, that a
+moment before seemed almost in our confidence, set up a howl and
+then barked loud enough to wake the dead.
+
+Forthwith issued from the house old Scheimer, two of his sons and
+his hired guard-a half dozen in all. There was a time then. The girl
+was instantly seized and taken into the house. Then all hands fell
+upon us two, and though I and my man fought our best they managed to
+pound us nearly to death. The dog, too, in revenge no doubt for the
+scare the ladder had given him, or perhaps to show his loyalty to
+his master, assisted in routing us, and put in a bite where he
+could. It is a wonder we were not killed. Sarah, meanwhile, was
+calling out from the house, and imploring them not to murder us. How
+we ever got away I hardly know now, but presently we found ourselves
+in the road running for our lives, and running also for the carriage
+we had concealed in the woods, half a mile above. We reached it, and
+hastily unhitching and getting in we drove rapidly for the bridge
+crossing over to Belvidere. That beautiful August night had very few
+charms for us. It would have been different indeed if I had
+succeeded in securing my Sarah; and to think of having the prize in
+my very grasp, and the losing all!
+
+We reached the hotel in Belvidere at about half-past two o'clock in
+the morning, wearied, worn, bruised and disheartened. My man had not
+suffered nearly as severely as I had; the bulk of their blows fell
+upon me, and I had the sorest body and the worst looking face I had
+ever exhibited. I rested one day and then hurried on to New York. Of
+course, I had no means of knowing the feelings or condition of the
+loved girl from whom I had been so suddenly and so violently parted.
+I only learned from an Easton man whom I knew and whom I met in the
+city, that "Sarah Scheimer was sick"-that was all; the man said he
+did'nt know the family very well, but he had heard that Miss
+Scheimer had been "out of her head, if not downright crazy."
+
+Crazy indeed! How mad and how miserable that poor girl was made by
+her own family, I did not know till months afterward, and then I had
+the terrible story from her own lips. It seems that when her father
+and his gang returned from pursuing me, as they did a little way up
+the road towards Belvidere, they found her almost frantic. They
+locked her up in her room that night with no one to say so much as a
+kind word to her. How she passed that night, after the scenes she
+had witnessed, and the abuse with which her father and brothers had
+loaded her before they thrust her into her prison, may be imagined.
+The next day she was wrought up to a frenzy. Her parents pronounced
+her insane, and called in a Dutch doctor who examined her and said
+she was "bewitched!" And this is the remedy he proposed as a cure;
+he advised that she should be soundly flogged, and the devil whipped
+out of her. Her family, intensely angered at her for the trouble she
+had made them, or rather had caused them to make for themselves,
+were only too glad to accept the advice. The old man and two sons
+carried a sore bruise or two apiece they got from me the night
+before, and seized the opportunity to pay them off upon her. So they
+stripped her bare, and flogged her till her back was a mass of welts
+and cuts, and then put her to bed. That bed she never left for two
+months, and then came out the shadow of her former self. But the
+Dutch doctor declared that the devil was whipped out of her, and
+that she was entirely cured. A few months afterward the family had
+the best of reasons for believing that they had whipped the devil
+into her, instead of out of her.
+
+After staying in New York a few days, I went to Dover, N.H., where I
+had some acquaintances, and where I hoped to get into a medical
+practice, which, with the help of my friends, I did very soon. I
+lived quietly in that place all winter, earning a good living and
+laying by some money. During the whole time I never heard a word
+from Sarah. I wrote at least fifty letters to her, but as I learned
+afterward, and, indeed, surmised at the time, every one of them was
+intercepted by her father or brothers, and she did not know where I
+was and so could not write to me. I left Dover in May and went down
+to New York. I had some business there which was soon transacted,
+and early in June I went over to New Jersey-to Oxford, a small place
+near Belvidere.
+
+This place I meant to make my base of operations for the new
+campaign I had been planning all winter. I "put up" at a public
+house kept by a man who was known in the region round about as the
+"Boston Yankee," for he migrated from Boston to New Jersey and was
+doing a thriving business at hotel keeping in Oxford. What a
+thorough good-fellow he was will presently appear. I had been in the
+hotel four days and had become pretty intimate with the landlord
+before I ventured to make inquiries about what I was most anxious to
+learn; but finally I asked him if he knew the Scheimers over the
+river? He looked at me in a very comical way, and then broke out:
+
+"Well, I declare, I thought I knew you, you're the chap that tried
+to run away with old Scheimer's daughter Sarah, last August; and
+you're down here to get her this time, if you can."
+
+I owned up to my identity, but warned Boston Yankee that if he told
+any one who I was, or that I was about there, I'd blow his brains
+out.
+
+"You keep cool," said he, "don't you be uneasy; I'm your friend and
+the gal's friend, and I'll help you both all I can; and if you want
+to carry off Sarah Scheimer and marry her, I'll tell you how to work
+it. You see she has been watched as closely as possible all winter,
+ever since she got well, for she was crazy-like, awhile. Well, you
+could'nt get nearer to her, first off, than you could to the North
+Pole; but do you remember Mary Smith who was servant gal, there when
+you boarded with Scheimer?" I remembered the girl well and told him
+so, and he continued: "Well, I saw her the other day, and she told
+me she was living in Easton, and where she could be found; now, I'll
+give you full directions and do you take my horse and buggy to-morrow
+morning early and go down and see her, and get her to go over and
+let Sarah know that you're round; meantime I'll keep dark; I know
+my business and you know yours."
+
+I need not say how overjoyed I was to find this new and most
+unexpected friend, and how gratefully I accepted his offer. He gave
+me the street, house and number where Mary Smith lived and during
+the evening we planned together exactly how the whole affair was to
+be managed, from beginning to end. I went to bed, but could scarcely
+sleep; and all night long I was agitated by alternate hopes and
+fears for the success of the scheme of to-morrow.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+SUCCESS WITH SARAH.
+
+MARY SMITH AS A CONFEDERATE-THE PLOT-WAITING IN THE WOODS-THE SPY
+OUTWITTED-SARAH SECURED-THE PURSUERS BAFFLED-NIGHT ON THE
+ROAD-EFFORTS TO GET MARRIED-THE "OLD OFFENDER" MARRIED AT LAST-A
+CONSTABLE AFTER SARAH-HE GIVES IT UP-AN ALE ORGIE-RETURN TO "BOSTON
+YANKEE'S"-A HOME IN GOSHEN.
+
+
+
+
+
+It was Saturday morning, and after an early breakfast I was on the
+road with Boston Yankee's fast horse; towards Easton. On my arrival
+there I had no difficulty in finding Mary Smith, who recognized me
+at once, and was very glad to see me. She knew I had come there to
+learn something about Sarah; she had seen her only a week ago; she
+was well again, and the girls had talked together about me. This was
+pleasant to hear, and I at once proposed to Mary to go to Scheimer's
+and tell Sarah that I was there; I would give her ten dollars if she
+would go. "O! she would gladly serve us both for nothing."
+
+So she made herself ready, got into the buggy, and we started for
+Scheimer's. When we were well on the road I said to her:
+
+"Now, Mary, attend carefully to what I say: you will need to be very
+cautious in breaking the news to Sarah that I am here; she has
+already suffered a great deal on my account, and may be very timid
+about my being in the neighborhood; but if she still loves me as you
+say she does, she will run any risk to see me, and, if I know her,
+she will be glad to go away with me. Now, this is what you must do;
+you must see her alone and tell her my plan; here, take this diamond
+ring; she knows it well; manage to let her see it on your finger;
+then tell her that if she is willing to leave home and marry me, I
+will be in the woods half a mile above her house to-morrow afternoon
+at 5 o'clock, with a horse and buggy ready to carry her to
+Belvidere. If she will not, or dare not come, give her the ring, and
+tell her we part, good friends, forever."
+
+It was a beautiful afternoon as we drove along the road. We talked
+about Sarah and old times, and I made her repeat my instructions
+over and over again and she promised to convey every word to Sarah.
+We neared Scheimer's house about six o'clock, and when we were a
+little way from there I told Mary to get out, so as to excite no
+suspicions as to who I was; she did so, and I waited till I saw her
+go into the house, and then drove rapidly by towards the Belvidere
+bridge, and was safely at Oxford by nightfall. I told my friend, the
+landlord, what I had done, and he said that everything was well
+planned. He also promised to go with me next day to assist me if
+necessary, and, said he:
+
+"If everything is all right, do you carry off the girl and I'll walk
+up to Belvidere; but don't bring Sarah this way-head toward Water
+Gap. When you're married fast and sure, you can come back here as
+leisurely as you're a mind to, and nobody can lay a hand upon you or
+her."
+
+We arranged some other minor details of our expedition and I went to
+bed.
+
+The next afternoon at four o'clock I was at the appointed place, and
+Boston Yankee was with me. I did not look for Sarah before five
+o'clock, so we tied our horse and kept a good watch upon the road.
+An hour went by and no Sarah appeared. I told Boston Yankee I did
+not believe she would come.
+
+"Don't be impatient; wait a little longer," said my friend.
+
+In twenty minutes we saw emerge, not from Scheimer's house, but from
+his eldest son's house, which was still nearer to the place where we
+were waiting, three women, two of whom I recognized as Sarah and
+Mary, and the third I did not know, nor could I imagine why she was
+with the other two; but as I saw them, leaving Boston Yankee in the
+woods, I drove the horse down into the road. As Sarah drew near she
+kissed her hand to me and came up to the wagon. "Are you ready to go
+with me?" I asked. "I am, indeed," was her reply, and I put out my
+hand to help her into the buggy. But the third woman caught hold of
+her dress, tried to prevent her from getting in, and began to scream
+so as to attract attention at Sarah's brother's house. I told the
+woman to let her go, and threatened her with my whip. "Get away,"
+shouted Boston Yankee, who had come upon the scene. "Drive as fast
+as you can; never mind if you kill the horse."
+
+We started; the woman still shouting for help, and I drove on as
+rapidly as the horse would go. When we had gone on a mile or two, I
+asked Sarah what all this meant? She told me that the woman was her
+brother's servant; that Mary and herself left her father's house a
+little after four o'clock to go over and call at her brother's; that
+just before five, when she was to meet me, she and Mary proposed to
+go out for a walk; that the whole family watched her constantly, and
+so her brother's wife told the servant woman to get on her things
+and go with them. "You, may be sure," she, added, "that the woman
+will arouse the whole neighborhood, and that they will all be after
+us." I needed no further hint to push on. We were going toward Water
+Gap, as Boston Yankee had advised, and when we were about eight
+miles on the way, I deemed it prudent to drive into the woods and to
+wait till night before going on. We drove in just off the road, and
+tied our horse. We were effectually concealed; our pursuers, if
+there were any, would be sure to go by us, and meantime we could
+talk over our plans for the future. Sarah told me that when Mary
+came to the house the night before, she was not at all surprised to
+see her, as she occasionally came up from Easton to make them a
+little visit, and to stay all night; that she went to the
+summer-house with Mary to sit down and talk, and almost immediately
+saw the ring on Mary's finger; that when she saw it she at once
+recognized it, and asked her: "O! Mary, where did you get that
+ring?" "Keep quiet," said Mary: "don't talk loud, or some one may
+hear you; don't be agitated; your lover is near, and has sent me to
+tell you." It was joyful news to Sarah, and how readily she had
+acquiesced in my plan for an elopement was manifest in the fact that
+she was then by my side.
+
+We bad not been in the woods an hour when, as I anticipated, we
+heard our pursuers, we did not know how many there were, drive
+rapidly by. "Now we can go on, I suppose," said Sarah. "Oh no, my
+dear," I replied, "now is just the time to wait quietly here;" and
+wait we did till eight o'clock, when our pursuers, having gone on a
+few miles, and having seen or learned nothing of the fugitives, came
+by again "on the back track." They must have thought we had turned
+off into some other road. I waited a while longer to let our
+friend's get a little nearer home and further away from us, and then
+took the road again toward Water Gap.
+
+We reached Water Gap at midnight, had some supper and fed the horse.
+We rested awhile, and then drove leisurely on nine miles further,
+where we waited till daylight and crossed the river. We were in no
+great hurry now; we were comparatively safe from pursuit. We soon
+came to a public house, where we stopped and put out the horse,
+intending to take breakfast. While I was inquiring of the landlord
+if there was a justice of the peace in the neighborhood, the
+landlord's wife had elicited from Sarah the fact of our elopement,
+who she was, who her folks were, and so on. The well-meaning
+landlady advised Sarah to go back home and get her parents consent
+before she married. Sarah suggested that the very impossibility of
+getting such consent was the reason for her running away; nor did it
+appear how she was to go back home alone even if she desired to. We
+saw that we could get no help there, so I countermanded my order for
+breakfast, offering at the same time to pay for it as if we had
+eaten it, ordered out my horse and drove on. After riding some ten
+miles we arrived at another public house on the road, and as the
+landlord come out to the door I immediately asked him where I could
+find a justice of the peace? He laughed, for he at once comprehended
+the whole situation, and said:
+
+"Well, well! I am an old offender myself; I ran away with my wife;
+there is a justice of the peace two miles from here, and if you'll
+come in I'll have him here within an hour."
+
+We had reached the right place at last, for while the landlady was
+getting breakfast for us, and doing her best to make us comfortable
+and happy, the Old Offender himself took his horse and carriage and
+went for the justice. By the time we had finished our breakfast he
+was back with him, and Sarah and I were married in "less than no
+time," the Old Offender and his wife singing the certificate as
+witnesses. I never paid a fee more gladly. We were married now, and
+all the Scheimers in Pennsylvania were welcome to come and see us if
+they pleased.
+
+No Scheimers came that day; but the day following came a deputation
+from that family, some half dozen delegates, and with them a
+constable from Easton, with a warrant to arrest Sarah for
+something-I never knew what-but at any rate he was to take her home
+if necessary by force. The Old Offender declined to let these people
+into his house; Sarah told me to keep out of the way and she would
+see what was wanted. Whereupon she boldly went to the door and
+greeted those of her acquaintances who were in the party. The
+constable knew her, and told her he had come to take her home. "But
+what if I refuse to go?" "Well then, I have a warrant to take you;
+but if you are married, I have no power over you." Well married I
+am, said Sarah, and she produced the certificate, and the Old
+Offender and his wife came out and declared that they witnessed the
+ceremony.
+
+What was to be done? evidently nothing; only the constable ordered a
+whole barrel of ale to treat his posse and any one about tire town
+who chose to drink, and the barrel was rolled out on the grass,
+tapped, and for a half hour there was a great jollification, which
+was not exactly in honor of our wedding, but which afforded the
+greatest gratification to the constable, his retainers, and those
+who happened to gather to see what was going on. This ended, and the
+bill paid, the Easton delegation got into their wagons and turned
+their horses heads towards home.
+
+We passed three delightful days under the Old Offender's roof, and
+then thanking our host for his kindness to us, and paying our bill,
+we started on our return journey for Oxford. We arrived safely, and
+staid with Boston Yankee a fortnight. We were close by the Scheimer
+homestead, which was but a few miles away across the river; but we
+feared neither father nor brothers, nor even the woman who was so
+unwilling to let Sarah go with me. The constable, and the rest had
+carried home the news of our marriage, and the old folks made the
+best of it. Indeed, after they heard we had returned to Oxford,
+Sarah's mother sent a man over to tell her that if she would come
+home any day she could pack her clothes and other things, and take
+them away with her. The day after we received this invitation,
+Boston Yankee offered to take Sarah over home, and promised to bring
+her safely back. So she went, was treated tolerably well, at any
+rate, she secured her clothes and brought them home with her.
+
+It was now time to bid farewell to our staunch friend, Boston
+Yankee. I had inducements to go to Goshen, Orange County, N. Y.,
+where I had many acquaintances, and to Goshen we went. We found a
+good boarding place, and I began to practice medicine, After we had
+been there a while, Sarah wrote home to let her family know where
+she was, and that she was well and happy. Her father wrote in reply
+that we both might come there at any time, and that if she would
+come home he would do as well by her as he would by any of his
+children. This letter made Sarah uneasy. In spite of all the ill
+usage she had received from her parents and family, she was
+nevertheless homesick, and longed to get back again. I could see
+that this feeling grew upon her daily. We were pleasantly situated
+where we were; I had a good and growing practice, and we had made
+many friends; but this did not satisfy her; she had some property in
+her own right, but her father was trustee of it, and he had hitherto
+kept it away from her from spite at her love affair with me. But now
+she was to be taken into favor again, and she represented to me that
+we could go back and get her money, and that I could establish
+myself there as well as anywhere; we could live well and happily
+among her friends and old associations. These things were dinged in
+my ears day after day, till I was sick of the very sound. I could
+see that she was bound, or, as the Dutch doctor would have said,
+"bewitched" to go back, and at last, after five happy months in
+Goshen, in an evil hour I consented to go home with her.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+HOW THE SCHEIMERS MADE ME SUFFER.
+
+RETURN TO SCHEIMER-PEACE AND THEN PANDEMONIUM-FRIGHTFUL FAMILY
+ROW-RUNNING FOR REFUGE-THE GANG AGAIN-ARREST AT MIDNIGHT-STRUGGLE
+WITH MY CAPTORS-IN JAIL ONCE MORE-PUT IN IRONS-A HORRIBLE PRISON
+BREAKING OUT-THE DUNGEON-SARAH'S BABY-CURIOUS COMPROMISES-OLD
+SCHEIMER MY JAILER-SIGNING A BOND-FREE AGAIN-LAST WORDS FROM SARAH.
+
+
+
+
+
+We went back to the Scheimer homestead and were favorably received.
+There was no special enthusiasm over our return, no marked
+demonstrations of delight; but they seemed glad to see us, and all
+the unpleasant things of the past, if not forgotten, were tacitly
+ignored on all sides. We passed a pleasant evening together in what
+seemed a re-united family circle-one of the brothers only was
+absent-and next morning we met cordially around the breakfast table.
+I really began to think it was possible that all the old
+difficulties might be healed, and that the pleasant picture Sarah
+painted, at Goshen, about settling down happily in Pennsylvania,
+could be fully realized.
+
+After breakfast I took a conveyance to go three or four miles to see
+a man who owed me some money for medical services in his family, and
+was away from Scheimer's three or four hours. During this brief
+absence I could not help thinking with genuine satisfaction of the
+happiness Sarah was experiencing in the gratification of her longing
+to return home again. Surely, I thought, she must be happy now. No
+more homesickness, and a full and complete reconciliation with her
+family; all the anger, abuse, and blows forgotten or forgiven; she
+restored to her place in the family; and even her objectionable
+husband received with open arms.
+
+But what an enormous difference there is between fancy and fact.
+During this brief absence of mine, had come home the brother who had
+always seemed to concentrate the hatred of the whole family towards
+me for the wrong they assumed I had done to the youngest daughter
+who loved me. On my return I found the peaceful home I left in the
+morning a perfect pandemonium. Sarah was fairly frantic. The whole
+family were abusing her. The returned brother especially, was
+calling her all the vile names he could lay his tongue to. I learned
+afterwards that he had been doing it ever since he came into the
+house that day and found her at home and heard that I was with her.
+They had picked, wrenched rather, out of her the secret I had
+confided to her that I had another wife from whom I was "separated,"
+but not divorced. My sudden presence on this scene was not exactly
+oil on troubled waters; it was gunpowder to fire. As soon as Sarah
+saw me at the door she cried out:
+
+"O! husband, let us go away from here."
+
+Her mother turned and shouted at me that I had better fly at once or
+they would kill me. Meanwhile, that mob, which the Scheimer boys
+seemed always to have at hand, was gathering in the dooryard. I
+managed to get near enough to Sarah to tell her that I would send a
+man for her next day, and then if she was willing to come with me
+she must get away from her family if possible. I then made a rush
+through the crowd, and reached the road. I think the gang had an
+indistinct knowledge of the situation, or they would have mobbed me,
+and perhaps killed me. They knew something was "to pay" at
+Scheimer's, but did not know exactly what. Once on the road it was
+my intention to have gone over to Belvidere, and then on to Oxford,
+where I should have found a sure refuge with my friend Boston
+Yankee.
+
+Would that I had done so; but I was a fool; I thought I could be of
+service to Sarah by remaining near her; might see her next day; I
+might even be able to get her out of the house, and then we could
+once more elope together and go back again to Goshen where we had
+been so happy. So I went to a public house three miles above
+Scheimer's, and remained there quietly during the rest of the day,
+revolving plans for the deliverance of Sarah. I thought only of her.
+It is strange that I did not once realize what a perilous position I
+was in myself--that, firmly as I believed myself to be wedded to
+Sarah, I was in fact amenable to the law, and liable to arrest and
+punishment. All this never occurred to me. I saw one or two of the
+gang who were at Scheimer's about the hotel, but they did not offer
+to molest me, and I paid no particular attention to them. I did not
+know then that they were spies and were watching my movements. At
+nine o'clock I went to bed. At midnight, or thereabouts, I was
+roughly awakened and told to get up. Without waiting for me, to
+comply, five men who had entered my room pulled me out of bed, and
+almost before I could huddle on my clothes I was handcuffed. Then
+one of them, who said he was a constable from Easton, showed a
+warrant for my arrest. What the arrest was for I was not informed. I
+was taken down stairs, put into a wagon, the men followed, and the
+horses started in the direction of Easton. By Scheimer's on the way,
+and I could see a light in Sarah's window. I remembered how in, all
+the Bedlam in the house that morning she still cried out: "I will go
+with him." I remembered how, only a few months before, she had been
+brutally flogged in that very chamber, to "get the devil out of
+her." I remembered, too, the many happy, happy hours we had passed
+together. And here was I, handcuffed and dragged in a wagon, I knew
+not whither.
+
+This for thoughts-in the way of action, was all the while trying to
+get my handcuffs off, and at last I succeeded in getting one hand
+free. Waiting my opportunity till we came to a piece of woods, I
+suddenly jumped up and sprang from the wagon. It was a very dark
+night, and in running into the woods I struck against a tree with
+such force as to knock me down and nearly stun me. Two of the men
+were on me in an instant. After a brief struggle I managed to get
+away and ran again. I should have escaped, only a high rail fence
+brought me to a sudden stop, and I was too exhausted to climb over
+it. My pursuers who were hard at my heels the whole while now laid
+hold of me. In the subsequent struggle I got out my pocket knife,
+and stabbed one of them, cutting his arm badly. Then they
+overpowered me. They dragged me to the roadside, brought a rope out
+of the wagon, bound my arms and legs, and so at last carried me to
+Easton.
+
+It was nearly daylight when I was thrust into jail. There were no
+cells, only large rooms for a dozen or more men, and I was put, into
+one of these with several prisoners who were awaiting trial, or who
+had been tried and were there till they could be sent to prison. It
+was a day or two before I found out what I was there for. Then a
+Dutch Deputy Sheriff, who was also keeper of the jail, came and told
+me that I was held for bigamy, adding the consoling intelligence
+that it would be a very hard job for me, and that I would get five
+or six years in State prison sure. I was well acquainted in Easton,
+and I sent for lawyer Litgreave for assistance and advice. I sent
+also to my half-sister in Delaware County, N. Y., and in a day or
+two she came and saw me, and gave Mr. Litgreave one hundred dollars
+retaining fee. My lawyer went to see the Scheimers and when he
+returned he told me that he hoped to save me from State prison-at
+all events he would exercise the influence he had over the family to
+that end; but I must expect to remain in jail a long time. Precisely
+what this meant I did not know then; but I found out afterwards.
+
+Soon after this visit from the lawyer, the Deputy Sheriff came in
+and said that he was ordered "by the Judge" to iron me, and it was
+done. They were heavy leg-irons weighing full twelve pounds, and I
+may say here that I wore them during the whole term of my
+imprisonment in this jail, or rather they wore me--wearing their way
+in time almost into the bone. I had been here a week now, and was
+well acquainted with the character of the place. It was
+indescribably filthy; no pretence was made of cleansing it. The
+prisoners were half fed, and, at that, the food was oftentimes so
+vile that starving men rejected it. The deputy who kept the jail was
+cruel and malignant, and took delight in torturing his prisoners. He
+would come in sometimes under pretence of looking at my irons to see
+if they were safe, and would twist and turn them about so that I
+suffered intolerable pain, and blood flowed from my wounds made by
+these cruel irons. Such abuse as he could give with his tongue he
+dispensed freely. Of course he was a coward, and he never dared to
+come into one of the prisoner's rooms unless he was armed. This is a
+faithful photograph of the interior of the jail at Easton, Penn., as
+it was a few years ago; there may have been some improvement since
+that time; for the sake of humanity, I hope there has been.
+
+After I had been in this jail about six weeks, and had become well
+acquainted with my room-mates, I communicated to them one day, the
+result of my observation:
+
+"There," said I, showing them a certain place in the wall, "is a
+loose stone that with a little labor can be lifted out, and it will
+leave a hole large enough for us to get out of and go where we
+like."
+
+Examination elicited a unanimous verdict in favor of making the
+attempt. With no tools but a case knife we dug out the mortar on all
+sides of the stone doing the work by turns and covering the stone by
+hanging up an old blanket-which excited no suspicion, as it was at
+the head of one of the iron bedsteads--whenever the Deputy or any of
+his men were likely to visit us. In twelve days we completed the
+work, and could lift out the stone. The hole was large enough to let
+a man through, and there was nothing for us to do but to crawl out
+one after the other and drop down a few feet into the yard. This
+yard was surrounded by a board fence that could be easily
+surmounted. I intended to take the lead, after taking off my irons
+(which I had learned to do, and indeed, did every day, putting them
+on only when I was liable to be "inspected") and after leaving these
+irons at the Deputy's door, I intended to put myself on the Jersey
+side of the river as speedily as possible.
+
+Liberty was within reach of every man in that room, and the night
+was set for the escape. But one of the crowd turned traitor, and,
+under pretence, of speaking to the Deputy about some matter, managed
+to be called out of the room and disclosed the whole. The man was
+waiting transportation to prison to serve out a sentence of ten
+years, and, with the chance of escape before him, it seemed singular
+that he should reveal a plan which promised to give him liberty; but
+probably he feared a failure; or that he might be recaptured and his
+prison sentence increased; while on the other hand by disclosing the
+plot he could curry favor enough to get his term reduced, and
+perhaps he might gain a pardon. Any how, he betrayed us. The Deputy
+came in and found the stone in the condition described, and
+forthwith we were all removed to the dungeon, or dark room, and kept
+there on bread and water for twelve days. We heard afterwards that
+our betrayer did get five years less than his original sentence for
+subjecting his comrades in misery to twelve days of almost
+indescribable suffering. We were not only in a totally dark and
+frightfully filthy hole, but we were half starved, and the Deputy
+daily took delight in taunting us with our sufferings.
+
+At the end of the twelve days we were taken back to the old room
+where we found the stone securely fastened in with irons. Moreover,
+we were now under stricter observation, and at stated hours every
+day, an inspector came in and examined the walls. This soon wore
+off, however, and when the inspection was finally abandoned, about
+two months from the time of our first attempt, we managed to find
+another place in the old wall where we could dig out and we went to
+work. We were a fortnight at it, and had nearly completed our labor
+when we were discovered.
+
+This time we spent fourteen days in the dungeon for our pains.
+
+And now comes an extraordinary disclosure with regard to my
+imprisonment. A few days after my removal from the dungeon to the
+old quarters again, the Deputy, in one of his rare periods of what,
+with him, passed for good humor, informed me that Sarah had been
+confined, and had given birth to a fine boy; that she was crying for
+my release; that Lawyer Sitgreave was interceding for me; but that
+the old man Scheimer was still obstinate and would not let me out.
+Passing over my feelings with regard to the birth of my son, here
+was a revelation indeed! It will be remembered that I had only been
+told that I was under indictment for bigamy. I had never been
+brought before a justice for a preliminary examination; never bound
+over for trial; and now it transpired that old Scheimer, a
+Pennsylvania Dutch farmer, had the power to put me in jail, put me
+in irons, and subject me to long months, perhaps years of
+imprisonment. I had something to occupy my thoughts now, and for
+the remaining period of my jail life.
+
+Next came a new dodge of the Scheimers, the object of which was to
+show that Sarah's marriage to me was no marriage at all, thus
+leaving her free to marry any other man her family might force upon
+her. When I had been in jail seven months, one day the Deputy came
+in and said that he was going to take off my irons. I told him I
+wouldn't trouble him to do that, for though I had worn them when he
+and his subordinates were around till the irons had nearly killed
+me, yet at other times I had been in a habit of taking them off at
+pleasure; and to prove it, I sat down and in a few minutes handed
+him the irons. The man was amazed; but saying nothing about the
+irons, he approached me on another subject. He said he thought if I
+would sign an acknowledgment that I was a married man when I married
+Sarah Scheimer, and would leave the State forever, I could get out
+of jail; would I do it? I told him I would give no answer till I had
+seen my counsel.
+
+Well, the next day Lawyer Sitgreave came to me and told me I had
+better do it, and I consented. Shortly afterwards, I was taken to
+court, for the first time in this whole affair, and was informed by
+the judge that if I would sign a bond not to go near the Scheimer
+house or family he would discharge me. I signed such a bond, and the
+judge then told me I was discharged; but that I ought to have gone
+to State prison for ten years for destroying the peace and happiness
+of the Scheimer family. Truly the Scheimer family were a power,
+indeed, in that part of the country!
+
+My lawyer gave me five dollars and I went to Harmony and staid that
+night. The next day I went to an old friend of mine, a Methodist
+minister, and persuaded him to go over and see what Sarah Scheimer's
+feelings were towards me, and if she was willing to come to me with
+our child. He went over there, but the old Scheimers suspected his
+errand, and watched him closely to see that he held no communication
+with Sarah. He did, however, have an opportunity to speak to her,
+and she sent me word that if she could ever get her money and get
+away from her parents, she would certainly join me in any part of
+the world. I was warned, at the same time, not to come near the
+house, for fear that her father or some of her brothers would kill
+me.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+FREE LIFE AND FISHING.
+
+TAKING CARE OF CRAZY MEN-CARRYING OFF A BOY-ARRESTED FOR STEALING
+MY OWN HORSE AND BUGGY-FISHING IN LAKE WINNIPISEOGEE-AN ODD
+LANDLORD-A WOMAN AS BIG AS A HOGSHEAD-REDUCING THE HOGSHEAD TO A
+BARREL-WONDERFUL VERIFICATION OF A DREAM-SUCCESSFUL MEDICAL
+PRACTICE-A BUSY WINTER IN NEW HAMPSHIRE-BLANDISHMENTS OF CAPTAIN
+BROWN-I GO TO NEWARK, NEW JERSEY.
+
+
+
+
+
+The next day I left Harmony and walked to Port Jarvis, on the Erie
+Railroad, N. Y., arriving late at night, and entirely footsore,
+sick, and disheartened. I went to the hotel, and the next morning I
+found myself seriously sick. Asking advice, I was directed to the
+house of a widow, who promised to nurse and take care of me. I was
+ill for two weeks, and meantime, my half-sister in Delaware County,
+to whom I made known my condition, sent me money for my expenses,
+and when I had sufficiently recovered to travel, I went to this
+sister's house in Sidney, and there I remained several days, till I
+was quite well and strong again.
+
+Casting about for something to do, a friend told me that he knew of
+an opportunity for a good man at Newbury to take care of a young
+man, eighteen years of age, who was insane. I went there and saw his
+father, and he put him under my charge. I had the care of him four
+months, and during the last two months of the time I traveled about
+with him, and returned him, finally, to his friends in a materially
+improved condition. The friends of another insane man in Montgomery,
+near Newbury, hearing of my success with this young man, sent for me
+to come and see them. I went there and found a man who had been
+insane seven years, but who was quiet and well-behaved, only he was
+"out of his head." I engaged to do what I could for him. The father
+of my Newbury patient had paid me well, and with my medical practice
+and the sale of medicines in traveling about, I had accumulated
+several hundred dollars, and when I went to Montgomery I had a good
+horse and buggy which cost me five hundred dollars. So, when my new
+patient had been under my care and control two months, I proposed
+that he should travel about with me in my buggy, and visit various
+parts of the State in the immediate vicinity. His friends thought
+well of the suggestion, and we traveled in this way about four
+months, stopping a few days here and there, when I practiced where I
+could, and sold medicines, making some money. At the end of this
+time I went back to Montgomery with my patient, as I think, fully
+restored, and his father, besides, paying the actual expenses of our
+journey, gave me six hundred dollars.
+
+Returning to Sidney I learned that my first and worst wife was then
+living with the children at Unadilla, a few miles across the river
+in Otsego County. I had no desire to see her, but I heard at the
+same time that my youngest boy, a lad ten years old, had been sent
+to work on a farm three miles beyond, and that he was not well taken
+care of. I drove over to see about it, and after some inquiry I was
+told that the boy was then in school. Going to the schoolhouse and
+asking for him, the school-mistress, who knew me, denied that he was
+there, but I pushed in, and found him, and a ragged, miserable
+looking little wretch he was. I brought him out, put him into the
+carriage and took him with me on the journey which I was then
+contemplating to Amsterdam, N. Y., stopping at the first town to get
+him decently clothed. The boy went with me willingly, indeed he was
+glad to go, and in due time we arrived at Amsterdam, and from there
+we went to Troy.
+
+I had not been in Troy two hours before I was arrested for stealing
+my own horse and buggy! My turnout was taken from me, and I found
+myself in durance vile. I was not long in procuring bail, and I then
+set myself, to work to find out what this meant. I was shown a
+handbill describing my person, giving my name, giving a description
+of my horse, and offering a reward of fifty dollars for my arrest.
+This was signed by a certain Benson, of Kingston, Sullivan County,
+N.Y. I then remembered that while I was traveling with my insane
+patient from Montgomery through Sullivan County, I fell in with a
+Benson who was a very plausible fellow, and who scraped acquaintance
+with me, and while I was at Kingston he rode about with me on one or
+two occasions. One day he told me that he knew a girl just out of
+the place who was subject to fits, and wanted to know if I could do
+anything for her; that her father was rich and would pay a good
+price to have her cured. I went to see the girl and did at least
+enough to earn a fee of one hundred dollars, which her father gladly
+paid me. Benson also introduced me to some other people whom I found
+profitable patients. I thought he was a very good friend to me, but
+he was a cool, calculating rascal. He meant to rob me of my horse
+and buggy, and went deliberately to work about it. First, he issued
+the handbill which caused my arrest in Troy, where he knew I was
+going. Next, as appeared when he came up to Troy to prosecute the
+suit against me, he forged a bill of sale. The case was tried and
+decided in my favor. Benson appealed, and again it was decided that
+the horse belonged to me. I then had him indicted for perjury and
+forgery, and he was put under bonds of fourteen hundred dollars in
+each case to appear for trial. Some how or other he never appeared,
+and whether he forfeited his bonds, or otherwise slipped through the
+"meshes of the law," I never learned, nor have I ever seen him since
+he attempted to swindle me. But these proceedings kept me in Troy
+more than a month, and to pay my lawyer and other expenses, I
+actually sold the horse and buggy the scoundrel tried to steal from
+me.
+
+Taking my boy to Sidney and putting him under the care of my half
+sister, I went to Boston, where I met two friends of mine who were
+about going to Meredith Bridge, N.H., to fish through the ice on
+Lake Winnipiseogee. It was early in January, 1853, and good, clear,
+cold weather. They represented the sport to be capital, and said
+that plenty of superb lake trout and pickerel could be taken every
+day, and urged me to go with them. As I had nothing special to do
+for a few days, I went. When we reached Meredith we stopped at a
+tavern near the lake, kept by one of the oddest landlords I have
+ever met. After a good supper, as we were sitting in the barroom,
+the landlord came up to me and at once opened conversation in the
+following manner:
+
+"Waal, where do you come from, anyhow?"
+
+"From Boston," I replied.
+
+"Waal, what be you, anyhow?"
+
+"Well, I practice medicine, and take care of the sick."
+
+"Dew ye? Waal, do ye ever cure anybody?"
+
+"O, sometimes; quite frequently, in fact."
+
+"Dew ye! waal, there's a woman up here to Lake Village, 'Squire
+Blaisdell's wife, who has had the dropsy more'n twelve years; been
+filling' all the time till they tell me she's bigger'n a hogshead
+now, and she's had a hundred doctors, and the more doctors she has
+the bigger she gets; what d' ye think of that now?"
+
+I answered that I thought it was quite likely, and then turned away
+from the landlord to talk to my friends about our proposed sport for
+to-morrow, mentally making note of 'Squire Blaisdell's wife in Lake
+Village.
+
+After breakfast next morning we went out on the lake, cut holes in
+the ice, set our lines, and before dinner we had taken several fine
+trout and pickerel, the largest and finest of which we put into a
+box with ice, and sent as a present to President Pierce, in
+Washington. We had agreed, the night before, to fish for him the
+first day, and to send him the best specimens we could from his
+native state. After dinner my friends started to go out on the ice
+again, and I told them "I guess'd I wouldn't go with them, I had
+fished enough for that day." They insisted I should go, but I told
+them I preferred to take a walk and explore the country. So they
+went to the lake and I walked up to Lake Village.
+
+I soon found Mr. Blaisdell's house, and as the servant who came to
+the door informed me that Mr. Blaisdell was not at home, I asked to
+see Mrs. Blaisdell, And was shown in to that lady. She was not quite
+the "hogshead" the landlord declared her to be, but she was one of
+the worst cases of dropsy I had ever seen. I introduced myself to
+her, told her my profession, and that I had called upon her in the
+hope of being able to afford her some relief; that I wanted nothing
+for my services unless I could really benefit her.
+
+"O, Doctor," said she, "you can do nothing for me; in the past
+twelve years I have had at least forty different doctors, and none
+of them have helped me."
+
+"But there can be no harm in trying the forty-first;" and as I said
+it I took from my vest pocket and held out in the palm of my hand
+some pills:
+
+"Here, madame, are some pills made from a simple blossom, which
+cannot possibly harm you, and which, I am sure, will do you a great
+deal of good."
+
+"O, Mary!" she exclaimed to her niece, who was in attendance upon
+her, "this is my dream! I dreamed last night that my father appeared
+to me and told me that a stranger would come with a blossom in his
+hand; that he would offer it to me, and that if I would take it I
+should recover. Go and get a glass of water and I will take these
+pills at once."
+
+"Surely," said Mary, "you are not going to take this stranger's
+medicine without knowing anything about it, or him?"
+
+"I am indeed; go and get the water."
+
+She took the medicine and then told me that her father, who had died
+two years ago, was a physician, and had carefully attended to her
+case as long as he lived; but that she had a will of her own, and
+had sent far and near for other doctors, though with no good result.
+
+"You have come to me," she continued, "and although I am not
+superstitious, your coming with a blossom in your hand, figuratively
+speaking, is so exactly in accordance with my dream, that I am going
+to put myself under your care."
+
+She then asked me if I lived in the neighborhood, and I told her no;
+that I had merely come up from Boston with two friends to try a few
+days' fishing through the ice on the lake.
+
+"You can fish to better purpose here, I think," she said; "you can
+get plenty of practice in the villages and farm houses about here:
+at any rate, stay for the present and undertake my case, and I will
+pay you liberally."
+
+I went back to Meredith Bridge-I believe it is now called
+Laconia-and had another day's fishing with my friends. When they
+were ready to pack up and return to Boston, I astonished them by
+informing them that I should stay where I was for the present,
+perhaps for months, and that I believed I could find a good practice
+in Meredith and adjoining places. So they left me and I went to Lake
+Village, and made that pleasant place my headquarters.
+
+The weeks wore on, and if Mrs. Blaisdell was a hogshead, as the
+Meredith landlord said, when I first saw her, she soon became a
+barrel under my treatment, and in four months she was entirely
+cured, and was as sound as any woman in the State. I had as much
+other business too as I could attend to, and was very busy and happy
+all the time.
+
+In May I went to Exeter, alternating between there and Portsmouth,
+and finding enough to do till the end of July. While I was in
+Portsmouth on one of my last visits to that place, I received a call
+from a sea-captain by the name of Brown, who told me that he had
+heard of my success in dropsical cases, and that I must go to
+Newark, N. J., and see his daughter. "Pay," he said, "was no object;
+I must go." I told him that I had early finished my business in that
+vicinity, and that when I went to New York, as I proposed to do
+shortly, I would go over to Newark and see his daughter. A few days
+afterward, when I had settled my business and collected my bills in
+Portsmouth and Exeter, I went to New York, and from there to Newark.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+WEDDING A WIDOW, AND THE CONSEQUENCES.
+
+I MARRY A WIDOW-SIX WEEKS OF HAPPINESS-CONFIDING A SECRET AND THE
+CONSEQUENCES-THE WIDOW'S BROTHER-SUDDEN FLIGHT FROM NEWARK-IN
+HARTFORD, CONN.-MY WIFE'S SISTER BETRAYS ME-TRIAL FOR BIGAMY-
+SENTENCED TO TEN YEARS IMPRISONMENT-I BECOME A "BOBBIN BOY"-A GOOD
+FRIEND-GOVERNOR PRICE VISITS ME IN PRISON-HE PARDONS ME-TEN YEARS'
+SENTENCE FULFILLED IN SEVEN MONTHS.
+
+
+
+
+
+Why in the world did Captain Brown ever tempt me with the prospect
+of a profitable patient in Newark? I had no thought of going to that
+city, and no business there except to see if I could cure Captain
+Brown's daughter. With my matrimonial monomania it was like putting
+my hand into the fire to go to a fresh place, where I should see
+fresh faces, and where fresh temptations would beset me. And when I
+went to Newark, I went only as I supposed, to see a single patient;
+but Captain Brown prevailed upon me to stay to take care of his
+daughter, and assured me that he and his friends would secure me a
+good practice. They did. In two months I was doing as well in my
+profession as I had ever done in any place where I had located. I
+might have attended strictly to my business, and in a few years have
+acquired a handsome competence. But, as ill luck, which, strangely
+enough, I then considered good luck, would have it, when I had been
+in Newark some two months, I became acquainted with a buxom,
+good-looking widow, Mrs. Elizabeth Roberts. I protest to-day that
+she courted me-not I her. She was fair, fascinating, and had a
+goodly share of property. I fell into the snare. She said she was
+lonely; she sighed; she smiled, and I was lost.
+
+Would that I had observed the elder Weller's injunction: "Bevare of
+vidders;" would that I had never seen the Widow Roberts, or rather
+that she had never seen me. Eight weeks after we first met we were
+married. We had a great wedding in her own house, and all her
+friends were present. I was in good practice with as many patients
+as I could attend to; she had a good home and we settled down to be
+very happy.
+
+For six weeks, only six weeks, I think we were so. We might have
+been so for six weeks, six months, six years longer; but alas! I was
+a fool I confided to her the secret of my first marriage, and
+separation, and she confided the same secret to her brother, a
+well-to-do wagon-maker in Newark. So far as Elizabeth was concerned,
+she said she didn't care; so long as the separation was mutual and
+final, since so many years had elapsed, and especially since I
+hadn't seen the woman for full six years, and was not supposed to
+know whether she was alive or dead, why, it was as good as a
+divorce; so reasoned Elizabeth, and it was precisely my own
+reasoning, and the reasoning which had got me into numberless
+difficulties, to say nothing of jails and prisons. But the brother
+had his doubts about it, and came and talked to me on the subject
+several times. We quarrelled about it. He threatened to have me
+arrested for bigamy. I told him that if he took a step in that
+direction I would flog him. Then he had me brought before a justice
+for threatening him, with a view to having me put under bonds to
+keep the peace. I employed a lawyer who managed my case so well that
+the justice concluded there was no cause of action against me.
+
+But this lawyer informed me that the brother was putting, even then,
+another rod in pickle for me, and that I had better clear out. I
+took his advice, I went to the widow's house, packed my trunk,
+gathered together what money I could readily lay hands upon, and
+with about $300 in my pocket, I started for New York, staying that
+night at a hotel in Courtland street.
+
+The following morning I went over to Jersey City, hired a
+saddle-horse, and rode to Newark. The precise object of my journey I
+do not think I knew myself; but I must have had some vague idea of
+persuading Elizabeth to leave Newark and join me in New York or
+elsewhere. I confess, too, that I was more or less under the
+influence of liquor, and considerably more than less. However, no
+one would have noticed this in my appearance or demeanor. I rode
+directly to Elizabeth's door, hitched my horse, and went into the
+house. The moment my wife saw me she cried out:
+
+"For God's sake get out of this house and out of town as soon as you
+can; they have been watching for you ever since yesterday; they've
+got a warrant for your arrest; don't stay here one moment."
+
+I asked her if she was willing to follow me, and she said she would
+do so if she only dared but her brother had made an awful row, and
+had sworn he would put me in prison anyhow; I had better go back to
+New York and await events. I started for the door, and was
+unhitching my horse, when the brother and a half dozen more were
+upon me. I sprang to the saddle. They tried to stop me; the
+over-eager brother even caught me by the foot; but I dashed through
+the crowd and rode like mad to Jersey City, returned the horse to
+the livery stable, crossed the ferry to New York, went to my hotel,
+got my trunk, and started for Hartford, Conn., where I arrived in
+the evening.
+
+This was in the month of June, 1854. I went to the old Exchange
+Hotel in State street, and very soon acquired a good practice.
+Indeed, it seems as if I was always successful enough in my medical
+business-my mishaps have been in the matrimonial line. When I had
+been in Hartford about three months, and was well settled, I thought
+I would go down to New York and see a married sister of Elizabeth's,
+who was living there, and try to find out how matters were going on
+over in Newark. That I found out fully, if not exactly to my
+satisfaction, will appear anon.
+
+When I called at the sister's house, the servant told me she was
+out, but would be back in an hour; so I left my name, promising to
+call again. I returned again at one o'clock in the afternoon, and
+the sister was in, but declined to see me. As I was coming down the
+steps, a policeman who seemed to be lounging on the opposite side of
+the street, beckoned to me, and suspecting nothing, I crossed over
+to see what he wanted. He simply wanted to know my name, and when I
+gave it to him he informed me that I was his prisoner. I asked for
+what? and he said "as a fugitive from justice in New Jersey."
+
+This was for taking the pains to come down from Hartford to inquire
+after the welfare of my wife! whose sister, the moment the servant
+told her I had been there, and would call again, had gone to the
+nearest police station and given information, or made statements,
+which led to the setting of this latest trap for me. The policeman
+took me before a justice who sent me to the Tombs. On my arrival
+there I managed to pick up a lawyer, or rather one of the sharks of
+the place picked me up, and said that for twenty-five dollars he
+would get me clear in three or four hours. I gave him the money, and
+from that day till now, I have never set eyes upon him. I lay in a
+cell all night, and next morning Elizabeth's brother, to whom the
+sister in New York had sent word that I was caged, came over from
+Newark to see me. He said he felt sorry for me, but that he was
+"bound to put me through." He then asked me if I would go over to
+Newark without a requisition from the Governor of New Jersey, and I
+told him I would not; whereupon he went away without saying another
+word, and I waited all day to hear from the lawyer to whom I had
+given twenty-five dollars, but he did not come.
+
+So next day when the brother came over and asked me the same
+question, I said I would go; wherein I was a fool; for I ought to
+have reflected that he had had twenty-four hours in which to get a
+requisition, and that he might in fact have made application for one
+already, without getting it, and every delay favored my chances of
+getting out. But I had no one to advise me, and so I went quietly
+with him and an officer to the ferry, where we crossed and went by
+cars to Newark. I was at once taken before a justice, who, after a
+hearing of the case, bound me over, under bonds of only one thousand
+dollars, to take my trial for bigamy.
+
+If I could have gone into the street I could have procured this
+comparatively trifling bail in half an hour; as it was, after I was
+in jail I sent for a man whom I knew, and gave him my gold watch and
+one hundred dollars, all the money I had, to procure me bail, which
+he promised to do; but he never did a thing for me, except to rob
+me.
+
+A lawyer came to me and offered to take my case in hand for one
+hundred dollars, but I had not the money to give him. I then sent to
+New York for a lawyer whom I knew, and when he came to see me he
+took the same view of the case that Elizabeth and I did; that is,
+that the long separation between my first wife and myself, and my
+presumed ignorance as to whether she was alive or dead, gave me full
+liberty to marry again. At least, he thought any court would
+consider it an extenuating circumstance, and he promised to be
+present at my trial and aid me all he could.
+
+I lay in Newark jail nine months, awaiting my trial. During that
+time I had almost daily quarrels with the jailor, who abused me
+shamefully, and told me I ought to go to State prison and stay there
+for life. Once he took hold of me and I struck him, for which I was
+put in the dark cell forty-eight hours. At last came my trial. The
+court appointed counsel for me, for I had no money to fee a lawyer,
+and my New York friend was on hand to advise and assist. I lad
+witnesses to show the length of time that had elapsed since my
+separation from my first wife, and we also raised the point as to
+whether the justice who married me, was really a legal justice of
+the peace or not. The trial occupied two days. I suppose all
+prisoners think so, but the Judge charged against me in every point;
+the jury was out two hours, and then came in for advice on a
+doubtful question; the judge gave them another blast against me, and
+an hour after they came in with a verdict of "guilty." I went back
+to jail and two days afterwards was brought up for sentence which
+was--"ten years at hard labor in the State prison at Trenton."
+
+Good heavens! All this for being courted and won by a widow!
+
+The day following, I was taken in irons to Trenton. The Warden of
+the prison, who wanted to console me, said that, for the offence, my
+sentence was an awful one, and that he didn't believe I would be
+obliged to serve out half of it. As I felt then, I did not believe I
+should live out one-third of it. After I had gone through the
+routine of questions, and had been put in the prison uniform, a cap
+was drawn down over my face, as if I was about to be hung, and I was
+led, thus blind-folded, around and around, evidently to confuse me,
+with regard to the interior of the prison-in case I might ever have
+any idea of breaking out. At last I was brought to a cell door and
+the cap was taken off. There were, properly no "cells" in this
+prison-at least I never saw any; but good sized rooms for two
+prisoners, not only to live in but to work in. I found myself in a
+room with a man who was weaving carpets, and I was at once
+instructed in the art of winding yarn on bobbins for him-in fact, I
+was to be his "bobbin-boy."
+
+I pursued this monotonous occupation for two months, when I told the
+keeper I did not like that business, and wanted to try something
+that had a little more variety in it. Whereupon he put me at the
+cane chair bottoming business, which gave me another room and
+another chum, and I remained at this work while I was in the prison.
+In three weeks I could bottom one chair, while my mate was bottoming
+nine or ten as his day's work; but I told the keeper I did not mean
+to work hard, or work at all, if I could help it. He was a very nice
+fellow and he only laughed and let me do as I pleased. Indeed, I
+could not complain of my treatment in any respect; I had a good
+clean room, good bed, and the fare was wholesome and abundant. But
+then, there was that terrible, terrible sentence of ten long years
+of this kind of life, if I should live through it.
+
+After I had been in prison nearly seven months, one day a merchant
+tailor whom I well knew in Newark, and who made my clothes,
+including my wedding suit when I married the Widow Roberts, came to
+see me. The legislature was in session and he was a member of the
+Senate. He knew all the circumstances of my case, and was present at
+my trial. After the first salutation, he laughingly said:
+
+"Well, Doctor, those are not quite as nice clothes as I used to
+furnish you with."
+
+"No," I replied, "but perhaps they are more durable."
+
+After some other chaff and chat, he made me tell him all about my
+first marriage and subsequent separation, and after talking awhile
+he went away, promising to see me soon. I looked upon this only as a
+friendly visit, for which I was grateful; and attached no great
+importance to it. But he came again in a few days, and after some
+general conversation, he told me that there was a movement on foot
+in my favor, which might bring the best of news to me; that he had
+not only talked with his friends in the legislature, and enlisted
+their sympathy and assistance, but he had laid the whole
+circumstances, from beginning to end, before Governor Price; that
+the Governor would visit the prison shortly, and then I must do my
+best in pleading my own cause.
+
+In a day or two the Governor came, and I had an opportunity to
+relate my story. I told him all about my first unfortunate marriage,
+and the separation. He said that he knew the facts, and also that he
+had lately received a letter from my oldest son on the subject, and
+had read it with great interest. I then appealed to the Governor for
+his clemency; my sentence was an outrageously severe one, and seemed
+almost prompted by private malice; I implored him to pardon me; I
+went down on my knees before him, and asked his mercy. He told me to
+be encouraged; that he would be in the prison again in a few days,
+and he would see me. He then went away.
+
+I at once drew up a petition which my friend in the Senate
+circulated in the legislature for signatures, and afterwards sent it
+to Newark, securing some of the best names in that city. It was then
+returned to me, and two weeks afterwards when the Governor came
+again to the prison I presented it to him, and he put it in his
+pocket.
+
+In two days' time, Governor Price sent my pardon into the prison.
+The Warden came and told me of it, and said he would let me out in
+an hour. Then came a keeper who once more put the cap over my face
+and led me around the interior-I was willingly led now-till he
+brought me to a room where he gave me my own clothes which I put on,
+and with a kind parting word, and five dollars from the Warden, I
+was soon in the street, once more a free man. My sentence of ten
+years had been fulfilled by an imprisonment of exactly seven months.
+
+I went and called on Governor Price to thank him for his great
+goodness towards me. He received me kindly, talked to me for some
+time, and gave me some good advice and a little money. With this and
+the five dollars I received from the Warden of the prison I started
+for New York.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+ON THE KEEN SCENT.
+
+GOOD RESOLUTIONS-ENJOYING FREEDOM-GOING AFTER A CRAZY MAN-THE OLD
+TEMPTER IN A NEW FORM-MARY GORDON-MY NEW "COUSIN"-ENGAGED
+AGAIN-VISIT TO THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME-ANOTHER MARRIAGE-STARTING FOR
+OHIO-CHANGE OF PLANS-DOMESTIC QUARRELS-UNPLEASANT STORIES ABOUT
+MARY-BOUND OVER TO KEEP THE PEACE-ANOTHER ARREST FOR BIGAMY-A SUDDEN
+FLIGHT-SECRETED THREE WEEKS IN A FARM HOUSE-RECAPTURED AT CONCORD
+-ESCAPED ONCE MORE-TRAVELING ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD-IN CANADA.
+
+
+
+
+
+It would seem as if, by this time, I had had enough of miscellaneous
+marrying and the imprisonment that almost invariably followed. I had
+told Governor Price, when I first implored him for pardon, that if
+he would release me I would begin a new life, and endeavor to be in
+all respects a better man. I honestly meant to make every effort to
+be so, and on my stay to New York I made numberless vows for my own
+future good behavior. I bound myself over, as it were, to keep the
+pace-my own peace and quiet especially-and became my own surety.
+That I could not have had a poorer bondsman, subsequent events
+proved to my sorrow. But I started fairly, and meant to let liquor
+alone; to attend strictly to my medical business, which I always
+managed to make profitable, and above all, to have nothing to do
+with women in the love-making or matrimonial way.
+
+With those good resolutions I arrived in New York and went to my old
+hotel in Courtland Street, where I was well known and was well
+received. My trunk, which I had left there sixteen months before,
+was safe, and I had a good suit of clothes on my back--the clothes I
+took off when I went to prison in Trenton--and which were returned
+to me when I came away. I went to a friend who loaned me some money,
+and I remained two or three days in town to try my new-found
+freedom, going about the city, visiting places of amusement,
+enjoying myself very much, and keeping, so far, the good resolutions
+I had formed.
+
+From New York I went to Troy, and at the hotel where I stopped I
+became acquainted with a woman who told me that her husband was in
+the Insane Asylum at Brattleboro, Vt. She was going to see him, and
+if he was fit to be removed, she proposed to take him home, with
+her. I told her of the success I had had in taking care of two men
+at Newbury and Montgomery; and how I had traveled about the country
+with them, and with the most beneficial results to my patients. She
+was much interested, inquired into the particulars, and finally
+thought the plan would be a favorable one for her husband. She asked
+me to go with her to see him, and said that if he was in condition
+to travel he should go about with me if he would; at any rate, if he
+came out of the Asylum she would put him under my care. We went
+together to Brattleboro, and the very day we arrived her husband was
+taken in an apoplectic fit from which he did not recover. She
+carried home his corpse, and I lost my expected patient.
+
+But I must have something to do for my daily support, and so I went
+to work and very soon sold some medicines and recipes, and secured a
+few patients. I also visited the adjoining villages, and in a few
+weeks I had a very good practice. I might have lived here quietly
+and made money. Nobody knew anything of my former history, my
+marriages or my misfortunes, and I was doing well, with a daily
+increasing business. And so I went on for nearly three months,
+gaining new acquaintances, and extending my practice every day.
+
+Then came the old tempter in a new form, and my matrimonial
+monomania, which I hoped was cured forever, broke out afresh. One
+day, at the public house where I lived, I saw a fine girl from New
+Hampshire, with whom I became acquainted--so easily, so far as she
+was concerned--that I ought to have been warned to have nothing to
+do with her; but, as usual, in such cases, my common sense left me,
+and I was infatuated enough to fancy that I was in love.
+
+Mary Gordon was the daughter of a farmer living near Keene, N. H.,
+and was a handsome girl about twenty years of age. She was going,
+she told me, to visit some friends in Bennington, and would be there
+about a month, during which time, if I was in that vicinity, she
+hoped I would come and see her. We parted very lovingly, and when
+she had been in Bennington a few days she wrote to me, setting a
+time for me to visit her; but in business in Brattleboro was too
+good to leave, and I so wrote to her. Whereupon, in another week,
+she came back to Brattleboro and proposed to finish the remainder of
+her visit there, thus blinding her friends at home who would think
+she was all the while at Bennington.
+
+Our brief acquaintance when she was at the house before, attracted
+no particular attention, and when she came now I told the landlord
+that she was my cousin, and he gave her a room and I paid her bills.
+The cousin business was a full cover to our intimacy; she sat next
+to me at the table, rode about with me to see my patients, and when
+I went to places near by to sell medicine, and we were almost
+constantly together. Of course, we were engaged to be married, and
+that very soon.
+
+In a fortnight after her arrival I went home with her to her
+father's farm near Keene, and she told her mother that we were
+"engaged." The old folks thought they would like to know me a little
+better, but she said we were old friends, she knew me thoroughly,
+and meant to marry me. There was no further objection on the part of
+her parents, and in the few days following she and her mother were
+busily engaged in preparing her clothes and outfit.
+
+I then announced my intention of returning to Brattleboro to settle
+up my business in that place, and she declared she would go with me;
+I was sure to be lonesome; she might help me about my bills, and so
+on. Strange as it may seem, her parents made no objection to her
+going, though I was to be absent a fortnight, and was not to be
+married till I came back. So we went together, and I and my "cousin"
+put up at the hotel we had lately left. For two weeks I was busy in
+making my final visits to my patients acquaintances, she generally
+going with me every day.
+
+At the end of that time we went back to Keene, and in three weeks we
+were married in her father's house, the old folks making a great
+wedding for us, which was attended by all the neighbors and friends
+of the family. We stayed at home two weeks, and meanwhile arranged
+our plans for the future. We proposed to go out to Ohio, where she
+had some relatives, and settle down. She had seven hundred dollars
+in bank in Keene which she drew, and we started on our journey. We
+went to Troy, where we stayed a few days, and during that time we
+both concluded that we would not go West, but return to Keene and
+live in the town instead of on the farm, so that I could open an
+office and practice there.
+
+So we went back to her home again, but before I completed my plans
+for settling down in Keene, Mary and I had several quarrels which
+were worse than mere ordinary matrimonial squabbles. Two or three
+young men in Keene, with whom I had become acquainted, twitted me
+with marrying Mary, and told me enough about her to convince me that
+her former life had not been altogether what it should have been. I
+had been too blinded by her beauty when I first saw her in
+Brattleboro, to notice how extremely easily she was won. Her
+parents, too, were wonderfully willing, if not eager, to marry her
+to me. All these things came to me now, and we had some very lively
+conversations on the subject, in which the old folks joined, siding
+with their daughter of course. By and by the girl went to Keene and
+made a complaint that she was afraid of her life, and I was brought
+before a magistrate and put under bonds of four hundred dollars to
+keep the peace. I gave a man fifty dollars to go bail for me, and
+then, instead of going out to the farm with Mary, I went to the
+hotel in Keene.
+
+The well-known character of the girl, my marriage to her, the brief
+honeymoon, the quarrels and the cause of the same, were all too
+tempting material not to be served up in a paragraph, and as I
+expected and feared, out came the whole story in the Keene paper.
+
+This was copied in other journals, and presently came letters to the
+family and to other persons in the place, giving some account of my
+former adventures and marriages. Of this however I knew nothing,
+till one day, while I was at the hotel, I was suddenly arrested for
+bigamy. But I was used to this kind of arrest by this time, and I
+went before the magistrate with my mind made up that I must suffer
+again for my matrimonial monomania.
+
+It was just after dinner when I was arrested, and the examination,
+which was a long one, continued till evening. Every one in the
+magistrate's office was tired out with it, I especially, and so I
+took a favorable opportunity to leave the premises. I bolted for the
+door, ran down stairs into the street, and was well out of town
+before the astonished magistrate, stunned constable, and amazed
+spectators realized that I had gone.
+
+Whether they than set out in pursuit of me I never knew, I only know
+they did not catch me. I ran till I came to the house of a farmer
+whom I had been attending for some ailment, and hurriedly narrating
+the situation, I offered him one hundred dollars if he would secrete
+me till the hue and cry was over and I could safely get away. I
+think he would have done it from good will, but the hundred dollar
+bill I offered him made the matter sure. He put my money into his
+pocket, and he put me into a dark closet, not more than five feet
+square, and locked me in.
+
+I stayed in that man's house, never going out of doors, for more
+than three weeks, and did my best to board out my hundred dollars.
+The day after my flight the whole neighborhood was searched, that
+is, the woods, roads, and adjacent villages. They never thought of
+looking in a house, particularly in a house so near the town; and,
+as I heard from my protector, they telegraphed and advertised far
+and near for me.
+
+I anticipated all this, and for this very reason I remained quietly
+where I was, in an unsuspected house, and with my dark closet to
+retire to whenever any one came in; and gossiping neighbors coming
+in almost every hour, kept me in that hole nearly half the time. I
+heard my own story told in that house at least fifty times, and in
+fifty different ways.
+
+At last, when I thought it was safe, one night my host harnessed up
+his horses and carried me some miles on my way to Concord. He drove
+as far as he dared, for he wanted to get back home by daylight, so
+that his expedition might excite no suspicion. Twenty miles away
+from Keene he set me down in the road, and, bidding him "good-bye,"
+I began my march toward Concord. When I arrived there, almost the
+first man I saw in the street was a doctor from Keene. I did not
+think he saw me, but he did, as I soon found out, for while I was
+waiting at the depot to take the cars to the north, I was arrested.
+
+The Keene doctor owed me a grudge for interfering, as he deemed it;
+with his regular practice, and the moment he saw me he put an
+officer on my trail. I thought it was safe here to take the cars,
+for I was footsore and weary, nor did I get away from Keene as fast
+and as far as I wanted to. I should have succeeded but for that
+doctor.
+
+When the officer brought me before a justice, the doctor was a
+willing witness to declare that I was a fugitive from justice, and
+he stated the circumstances of my escape. So I was sent back to
+Keene under charge of the very officer who arrested me at the depot.
+
+I would not give this officer's name if I could remember it, but he
+was a fine fellow, and was exceedingly impressible. For instance, on
+our arrival at Keene, he allowed me to go to the hotel and pack my
+trunk to be forwarded to Meredith Bridge by express. He then handed
+me over to the authorities, and I was immediately taken before the
+magistrate from whom I had previously escaped, the Concord officer
+accompanying the Keene officer who had charge of me.
+
+The examination was short; I was bound over in the sum of one
+thousand dollars to take my trial for bigamy. On my way to jail I
+persuaded the Concord officer-with a hundred dollar bill which I
+slipped into his hand-to induce the other officer to go with me to
+the hotel under pretense of looking after my things, and getting
+what would be necessary for my comfort in jail. My Concord friend
+kept the other officer down stairs--in the bar-room, I presume--while
+I went to my room. I put a single shirt in my pocket; the distance
+from my window to the ground was not more than twelve or fifteen
+feet, and I let myself down from the window sill and then dropped.
+
+I was out of the yard, into the street, and out of town in less than
+no time. It was already evening, and everything favored my escape. I
+had no idea of spending months in jail at Keene, and months more,
+perhaps years, in the New Hampshire State Prison. All my past bitter
+experiences of wretched prison life urged me to flight.
+
+And fly I did. No stopping at the friendly farmer's, my former
+refuge, this time; that would be too great a risk. No showing of
+myself in any town or villege where the telegraph might have
+conveyed a description of my person. I traveled night and day on
+foot, and more at night than during the day, taking by-roads, lying
+by in the woods, sleeping in barns, and getting my meals in
+out-of-the-way farm houses.
+
+I had plenty of money; but this kind of travelling is inexpensive,
+and, paying twenty-five cents for one or two meals a day, as I dared
+to get them, and sleeping in barns or under haystacks for nothing,
+my purse did not materially diminish. I was a good walker, and in
+the course of a week from the night when I left Keene, I found
+myself in Biddeford, Maine.
+
+There was some sense of security in being in another State, and here
+I ventured to take the cars for Portland, where I staid two days,
+sending in the meantime for my trunk from Meredith Bridge, and
+getting it by express. Of course it went to a fictitious address at
+Meredith, and it came to me under the same name which I had
+registered in my hotel at Portland.
+
+I did not mean to stay there long. My departure was hastened by the
+advice of a man who knew me, and told he also knew my New Hampshire
+scrape, and that I had better leave Portland as soon as possible.
+Half an hour after this good advice I was on my way by cars to
+Canada. In Canada I stayed in different small towns near the border,
+and "kept moving," till I thought the New Hampshire matter had blown
+over a little, or at least till they had given me up as a "gone
+case," and I then reappeared in Troy.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+MARRYING TWO MILLINERS.
+
+BACK IN VERMONT-FRESH TEMPTATIONS-MARGARET BRADLEY-WINE AND WOMEN-A
+MOCK MARRIAGE IN TROY-THE FALSE CERTIFICATE-MEDICINE AND
+MILLINERY-ELIZA GURNSEY-A SPREE AT SARATOGA-MARRYING ANOTHER
+MILLINER-AGAIN ARRESTED OR BIGAMY-IN JAIL ELEVEN MONTHS-A TEDIOUS
+TRIAL-FOUND GUILTY-APPEAL TO SUPREME COURT-TRYING TO BREAK OUT OF
+JAIL-A GOVERNOR'S PROMISE-SECOND TRIAL-SENTENCE TO THREE YEARS'
+IMPRISONMENT.
+
+
+
+
+
+From Troy I went, first to Newburyport, Mass., where I had some
+business, and where I remained a week, and then returned to Troy
+again. Next I went to Bennington, Vt., to sell medicines and
+practice, and I found enough to occupy me there for full two months.
+From Bennington to Rutland, selling medicines on the way, and at
+Rutland I intended to stay for some time. My oldest son was there
+well established in the medical business, and I thought that both of
+us together might extend a wide practice and make a great deal of
+money.
+
+No doubt we might have done so, if I had minded my medical business
+only, and had let matrimonial matters alone. I had just got rid of a
+worthless woman in New Hampshire with a very narrow escape from
+State prison. But, as my readers know by this time, all experience,
+even the bitterest, was utterly thrown away upon me; I seemed to get
+out of one scrape only to walk, with my eyes open, straight into
+another.
+
+At the hotel where I went to board, there was temporarily staying a
+woman, about thirty-two years old, Margaret Bradly, by name, who
+kept a large millinery establishment in town. I became acquainted
+with her, and she told me that she owned a house in the place, in
+which she and her mother lived; but her mother had gone away on a
+visit, and as she did not like to live alone she had come to the
+hotel to stay for a few days till her mother returned. Margaret was
+a fascinating woman; she knew it, and it was my miserable fate to
+become intimate, altogether too intimate with this designing
+milliner.
+
+I went to her store every day, sometimes two or three times a day,
+and she always had in her backroom, wine or something stronger to
+treat me with, and in the evening I saw her at the hotel. When her
+mother came back, and Margaret opened her house again, I was a
+constant visitor. I was once more caught; I was in love.
+
+Matters went on in this way for several weeks, when one evening I
+told her that I was going next day to Troy on business, and she said
+she wanted to go there to buy some goods, and that she would gladly
+take the opportunity to go with me, if I would let her. Of course, I
+was only too happy; and the next day I and my son, and she and one
+of the young women in her employ, who was to assist her in selecting
+goods, started for Troy. When I called for her, just as we were
+leaving the house, the old lady, her mother, called out:
+
+"Margaret, don't you get married before you come back."
+
+"I guess I will," was Margaret's answer, and we went, a very jovial
+party of four, to Troy and put up at the Girard House, where we had
+dinner together, and drank a good deal of wine. After dinner my son
+and myself went to attend to our business, she and her young woman
+going to make their purchases, and arranging to meet us at a
+restaurant at half past four o'clock, when we would lunch
+preparatory to returning to Rutland.
+
+We met at the appointed place and hour, and had a very lively lunch
+indeed, an orgie in fact, with not only enough to eat, but
+altogether too much to drink. I honestly think the two women could
+have laid me and my son under the table, and would have done it, if
+we had not looked out for ourselves; as it was, we all drank a great
+deal and were very merry. We were in a room by ourselves, and when
+we had been there nearly an hour, it occurred to Margaret that it
+would be a good idea to humor the old lady's dry joke about the
+danger of our getting married during this visit to Troy.
+
+"Henry," said she to my son; "Go out and ask the woman who keeps the
+saloon where you can get a blank marriage certificate, and then get
+one and bring it here, and we'll have some fun."
+
+We were all just drunk enough to see that there was a joke in it,
+and we urged the boy to go. He went to the woman, who directed him
+to a stationer's opposite, and presently he came in with a blank
+marriage certificate. We called for pen and ink and he sat down and
+filled out the blank form putting in my name and Margaret Bradley's,
+signing it with some odd name I have forgotten as that of the
+clergyman performing the ceremony. He then signed his own name as a
+witness to the marriage, and the young woman who was with us also
+witnessed it with her signature. We had a great deal of fun over it,
+then more wine, and then it was time for us to hurry to the depot to
+take the six o'clock train for Rutland.
+
+Reaching home at about eleven o'clock at night, we found the old
+lady up, and waiting for Margaret. We went in and Margaret's first
+words were:
+
+"Well, mother! I'm married; I told you, you know, I thought I should
+be; and here's my certificate."
+
+The mother expressed no surprise-she knew her daughter better than I
+did, then-but quietly congratulated her, while I said not a single
+word. My son went to see his companion home, and, as I had not
+achieved this latest greatness, but had it thrust upon me, I and my
+new found "wife" went to our room. The next day I removed from the
+hotel to Margaret's house and remained there during my residence in
+Rutland, she introducing me to her friends as her husband, and
+seeming to consider it an established fact.
+
+Three weeks after this mock marriage, however, I told Margaret that
+I was going to travel about the State a while to sell my medicines,
+and that I might be absent for some time. She made no objections,
+and as I was going with my own team she asked me to take some
+mantillas and a few other goods which were a little out of fashion,
+and see if I could not sell them for her. To be sure I would, and we
+parted on the best of terms.
+
+Behold rue now, not only a medical man and a marrying man, but also
+a man milliner. When I could not dispose of my medicines, I tried
+mantillas, and in the course of my tour I sold the whole of
+Margaret's wares, faithfully remitting to her the money for the
+same. I think she would have put her whole stock of goods on me to
+work off in the same way; but I never gave her the opportunity to do
+so.
+
+My journeying brought me at last to Montpelier where I proposed to
+stay awhile and see if I could establish a practice. I had disposed
+of my millinery goods and had nothing to attend to but my medicines
+-alas that my professional acquirements as a marrying man should
+again have been called in requisition. But it was to be. It was my
+fate to fall into the hands of another milliner.
+
+"Insatiate monster! would not one suffice?"
+
+It seems not. There was a milliner at Rutland whose family and,
+friends all believed to be my wife, though she knew she was not; and
+here in Montpelier, was ready waiting, like a spider for a fly,
+another milliner who was about to enmesh me in the matrimonial net.
+I had not been in the place a week before I became acquainted with
+Eliza Gurnsey. I could hardly help it, for she lived in the hotel
+where I stopped, and although she was full thirty-five years old,
+she was altogether the most attractive woman in the house. She was
+agreeable, good-looking, intelligent, and what the vernacular calls
+"smart." At all events, she was much too smart for me, as I soon
+found out.
+
+She had a considerable millinery establishment which she and her
+younger sister carried on, employing several women, and she was
+reputed to be well off. Strange as it may seem in the light of after
+events, she actually belonged to the church and was a regular
+attendant at the services. But no woman in town was more talked
+about, and precisely what sort of a woman she was may be estimated
+from the fact that I had known her but little more than a week, when
+she proposed that she, her sister and I should go to Saratoga
+together, and have a good time for a day or two.
+
+I was fairly fascinated with the woman and I consented. The younger
+sister was taken with us, I thought at first as a cover, I knew
+afterwards as a confederate, and Eliza paid all the bills, which
+were by no means small ones, of the entire trip. We stopped in
+Saratoga at a hotel, which is now in very different hands, but which
+was then kept by proprietors who, in addition to a most excellent
+table and accommodations, afforded their guests the opportunity, if
+they desired it, of attending prayers every night and morning in one
+of the parlors. This may have been the inducement which made Eliza
+insist upon going to this house, but I doubt it.
+
+For our stay at Saratoga, three or four days, was one wild revel. We
+rode about, got drunk, went to the Lake, came back to the hotel, and
+the second day we were there, Eliza sent her sister for a
+Presbyterian minister, whose address she had somehow secured, and
+this minister came to the hotel and married us. I presume I
+consented, I don't know, for I was too much under the effect of
+liquor to know much of anything. I have an indistinct recollection
+of some sort of a ceremony, and afterwards Eliza showed me a
+certificate-no Troy affair, but a genuine document signed by a
+minister residing in Saratoga, and witnessed by her sister and some
+one in the hotel who had been called in. But the whole was like a
+dream to me; it was the plot of an infamous woman to endeavor to
+make herself respectable by means of a marriage, no matter to whom
+or how that marriage was effected.
+
+Meanwhile, the Montpelier papers had the whole story, one of them
+publishing a glowing account of my elopement with Miss Gurnsey, and
+the facts of our marriage at Saratoga was duly chronicled. This
+paper fell into the hands of Miss Bradley, at Rutland, and as she
+claimed to be my wife, and had parted with me only a little while
+before, when I went out to peddle medicines and millinery, her
+feelings can be imagined. She read the story and then aroused all
+Rutland. I had not been back from Saratoga half an hour before I was
+arrested in the public house in Montpelier and taken before a
+magistrate, on complaint of Miss Bradley, of Rutland, that I was
+guilty of bigamy.
+
+The examination was a long one, and as the facts which were then
+shown appeared afterwards in my trial they need not be noted now. I
+had two first-rate lawyers, but for all that, and with the plainest
+showing that Margaret Bradley had no claim whatever to be considered
+my wife, I was bound over in the sum of three thousand dollars to
+appear for trial, and was sent to jail. There was a tremendous
+excitement about the matter, and the whole town seemed interested.
+
+To jail I went, Eliza going with me, and insisting upon staying; but
+the jailer would not let her, nor was she permitted to visit me
+during my entire stay there, at least she got in to see me but once.
+I made every effort to get bail, but was unsuccessful. Eight long
+weary months elapsed before my trial came on, and all this while I
+was in jail. My trial lasted a week. The Bradley woman knew she was
+no more married to me than she was to the man in the moon; but she
+swore stoutly that we were actually wedded according to the
+certificate. On the other hand, my son swore to all the facts about
+the Troy spree, and his buying and filling out the certificate,
+which showed for itself that, excepting the signature of the young
+woman who also witnessed it, it was entirely in Henry's handwriting.
+I should have got along well enough so far as the Bradley woman was
+concerned; but the prosecution had been put in possession of all the
+facts relative to my first and worst marriage, and the whole matter
+came up in this case. The District Attorney had sent everywhere, as
+far even as Illinois, for witness with regard to that marriage. It
+seemed as if all Vermont was against me. I have heard that with the
+cost of witnesses and other expenses, my trial cost the state more
+than five thousand dollars. My three lawyers could not save me.
+After a week's trial the case went to the jury, and in four hours
+they returned a verdict of "guilty."
+
+My counsel instantly appealed the case to the Supreme Court, and,
+meanwhile I went back to jail where I remained three months more. A
+few days after I returned to jail a friend of mine managed to
+furnish me with files and saws, and I went industriously to work at
+the gratings of my window to saw my way out. I could work only at
+night, when the keepers were away, and I covered the traces of my
+cuttings by filling in with tallow. In two months I had everything
+in readiness for my escape. An hour's more sawing at the bars would
+set me free. But just at that time the Governor of the State,
+Fletcher, made a visit to the jail. I told him all about my case. He
+assured me, after hearing all the circumstances, that if I should be
+convicted and sentenced, he would surely pardon me in the course of
+six or eight weeks. Trusting in this promise, I made no further
+effort to escape though I could have done so easily any night; but
+rather than run the risk of recapture, and a heavier sentence if I
+should be convicted, I awaited the chances of the court, and looked
+beyond for the clemency of the Governor.
+
+Well, finally my case came up in the Supreme Court. It only occupied
+a day, and the result was that I was sentenced for three years in
+the State prison. I was remanded to jail, and five days from that
+time I was taken from Montpelier to Windsor.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+PRISON-LIFE IN VERMONT.
+
+ENTERING PRISON-THE SCYTHE SNATH BUSINESS-BLISTERED HANDS-I LEARN
+NOTHING-THREAT TO KILL THE SHOP-KEEPER-LOCKSMITHING-OPEN
+REBELLION-SIX WEEKS IN THE DUNGEON-ESCAPE OF A PRISONER-IN THE
+DUNGEON AGAIN-THE MAD MAN, HALL-HE ATTEMPTS TO MURDER THE DEPUTY-I
+SAVE MOREY'S LIFE-HOWLING IN THE BLACK HOLE-TAKING OFF HALL'S
+IRONS-A GHASTLY SPECTACLE-A PRISON FUNERAL-I AM LET ALONE-BETTER
+TREATMENT-THE FULL TERM OF MY IMPRISONMENT.
+
+
+
+
+
+We arrived at Windsor and I was safely inside of the prison at three
+o'clock in the afternoon. Warden Harlow met me with a joke, to the
+effect that, had it not been for my handcuffs he should have taken
+the officer who brought me, to be the prisoner, I was so much the
+better dressed of the two. He then talked very seriously to me for a
+long time. He was sorry, and surprised, he said, to see a man of my
+appearance brought to such a place for such a crime; he could not
+understand how a person of my evident intelligence should get into
+such a scrape.
+
+I told him that he understood it as well as I did, at all events;
+that I could not conceive why I should get into these difficulties,
+one after the other; but that I believed I was a crazy man on this
+one subject-matrimonial monomania; that when I had gone through with
+one of these scrapes, and had suffered the severe punishment that
+was almost certain to follow, the whole was like a dream to me-a
+nightmare and nothing more. With regard to what was before me in
+this prison I should try and behave myself, and make the best of the
+situation; but I notified the Warden that I did not mean to do one
+bit of work if I could help it.
+
+He took me inside, where my fine clothes were taken away, and I. was
+dressed in the usual particolored prison uniform. I was told the
+rules, and was warned that if I did not observe them it would go
+hard with me. Then followed twenty-four hours solitary confinement,
+and the next afternoon I was taken from my cell to a shop in which
+scythe snaths were made.
+
+It had transpired during my trial at Montpelier, that when I was a
+young man, I was a blacksmith by trade. This information had been
+transmitted to prison and I was at once put to work making heel
+rings. It was some years since I had worked at a forge and handled a
+hammer. Consequently, in three or four days, my hands were terribly
+blistered, and as the Warden happened to come into the shop, I
+showed them to him, and quietly told him that I would do that work
+no longer. He told me that I must do it; he would make me do it. I
+answered that he might kill me, or punish me in any way he pleased,
+but he could not make me do that kind of labor, and I threw down my
+hammer and refused to work a moment longer.
+
+The Warden left me and sent Deputy Warden Morey to try me. He
+approached me in a kindly way, and I showed my blistered hands to
+him. He thought that was the way to "toughen" me. I thought not, and
+said so, and, moreover, told him I would never make another heel
+ring in that prison, and I never did.
+
+He sent me to my cell and I stayed there a week, till my hands were
+well. Then the Deputy came to me and asked me if I was willing to
+learn to hew out scythe snaths in the rough for the shavers, who
+finished them? I said I would try. I went into the shop and was
+shown how the work was to be done. Every man was expected to hew out
+fifty snaths in a day. In three or four days the shop-keeper came
+and overlooked me while I was working in my bungling way, and said
+if I couldn't do better than that I must clear out of his shop and
+do something else. My reply was that I did not understand the
+business, and had no desire or intention to learn it. He sent for
+the Deputy Warden, who came and expressed the opinion that I could
+not do anything. I said I was willing to do anything I could
+understand.
+
+"Do you understand anything?" asked the Deputy.
+
+"Well, some things, marrying for instance," was my answer.
+
+"I want no joking or blackguardism about this matter," said the
+Deputy; "them simple fact is, you've got to work; if you don't we'll
+make you."
+
+So I kept on at hewing, making no improvement, and in a day or two
+more the shopkeeper undertook to show me how the work should be
+done. I protested I never could learn it.
+
+"You don't try; and I have a good mind to punish you."
+
+The moment the shop-keeper said it I dropped the snath, raised my
+axe, and told him that if he came one step nearer to me I would make
+mincemeat of him. He thought it was advisable to stay where he was;
+but one of the prison-keepers was in the shop, and as he came toward
+me I warned him that he had better keep away.
+
+All the men in the shop were ready to break out in insubordination;
+when I threatened the shop keeper and the guard, they cheered; the
+Deputy Warden was soon on the ground; he stood in the doorway a
+moment, and then, in a kind tone called me to him. I had no
+immediate quarrel with him, and so I dropped my axe and went to him.
+He told me that there was no use of "making a muss" there, it
+incited the other prisoners to insubordination, and was sure to
+bring severe punishment upon myself. "Go and get your cap and coat,"
+said he "and come with me."
+
+"But if you are going to put me into that black hole of yours," I
+exclaimed, "I won't go; you'll have to draw me there or kill me on
+the way."
+
+He promised he would not put me in the dungeon, he was only going to
+put me in my cell, he said, and to my cell I went, willingly enough,
+and stayed there a week, during which time I suppose everyone of my
+shopmates thought I was in the dungeon, undergoing severe punishment
+for my rebellions conduct.
+
+I had learned now the worst lesson which a prisoner can learn-that
+is, that my keepers were afraid of me. To a limited extent, it is
+true, I was now my own master and keeper. In a few days Deputy Morey
+came to me and asked me if I was "willing" to come out and work. I
+was sick of solitary confinement, and longed to see the faces of
+men, even prisoners: so I told him if I could get any work I could
+do I was willing to try it, and would do as well as I knew how. He
+asked me if I knew anything of locksmithing? I told him I had some
+taste for it, and if he would show me his job I would let him see
+what I could do.
+
+The fact is, I was a very fair amateur locksmith, and had quite a
+fondness for fixing, picking, and fussing generally over locks.
+Accordingly, when he gave me a lock to work upon to make it "play
+easier," as he described it, I did the job so satisfactorily that I
+had nearly every lock in the prison to take off and operate upon, if
+it was nothing more than to clean and oil one. This business
+occupied my entire time and attention for nearly three months. Then
+I repaired iron bedsteads, did other iron work, and I was the
+general tinker of the prison.
+
+It came into my head, however, one day, that I might as well do
+nothing. The prison fare was indescribably bad, almost as bad as the
+jail fare at Easton. We lived upon the poorest possible salt beef
+for dinner, varied now and then with plucks and such stuff from the
+slaughter houses, with nothing but bread and rye coffee for
+breakfast and supper, and mush and molasses perhaps twice a week.
+
+I was daily abused, too, by the Warden, his Deputy, and his keepers.
+They looked upon me as an ugly, insubordinate, refractory,
+rebellious rascal, who was ready to kill any of them, and, worst of
+all, who would not work. I determined to confirm their minds in the
+latter supposition, and so one day I threw down my tools and refused
+to do another thing.
+
+They dragged me to the dungeon and thrust me in. It was a wretched
+dark hole, with a little dirty straw in one corner to lie upon. My
+entire food and drink was bread and water. The man who brought it
+never spoke to me. His face was the only one I saw during the
+livelong day. Day and night were alike to me; I lost the run of
+time; but at long intervals, once in eight or ten days, I suppose,
+the Deputy came to this hole and asked me if I would come out and
+work.
+
+"No, no!" I always answered, "never!" Then I paced the stone floor
+in the dark, or lay on my straw. I lay there till my hips were worn
+raw. No human being can conceive the agony, the suffering endured in
+this dungeon. At last I was nearly blind, and was scarcely able to
+stand up. I presume that the attendant who brought my daily dole of
+bread and my cup of water, reported my condition. One day the door
+opened and I was ordered out. They were obliged to bring me out; I
+was so reduced that I was but the shadow of myself. They meant to
+cure my obstinacy or to kill me, and had not quite succeeded in
+doing either.
+
+There was no use in asking me if I would go to work then; I was just
+alive. A few days in my own cell, in the daylight, and with
+something beside bread and water to eat, partially restored me. I
+was then taken into the shop where the snaths were finished by
+scraping and varnishing, the lightest part of the work, but I would
+not learn, would not do, would not try to do anything at all. They
+gave me up. The whole struggle nearly killed me, but I beat them. I
+was turned into the halls and told to do what I could, which, I knew
+well enough, meant what I would.
+
+After that I worked about the halls and yard, sometimes sweeping,
+and again carrying something, or doing errands for the keepers from
+one part of the prison to another. I was what theatrical managers
+call a general utility man, and, not at all strangely, for it is
+human nature, now that I could do what I pleased, I pleased to do a
+great deal, and was tolerably useful, and far more agreeable than I
+had been in the past.
+
+There was a young fellow, twenty-two years of age, in one of the
+cells, serving out a sentence of six years. When I was sweeping
+around I used to stop and talk to him every day. One day he was
+missing. He had been supposed to be sick or asleep for several
+hours, for apparently lie lay in bed, and was lying very still. But
+that was only an ingeniously constructed dummy. The young man
+himself had made a hole under his bed into an adjoining vacant cell,
+the door of which stood open. He had crawled through his hole, come
+out of the vacant cell door, and gone up to the prison garret, where
+he found some old pieces of rope. These he tied together, and
+getting out at the cupola upon the roof, he managed to let himself
+down on the outside of the building and got away. He was never
+recaptured. The Warden said that some one must have told him about
+the adjoining vacant cell, with its always open door, else how would
+the young man have known it?
+
+I was accused of imparting this valuable information, and I suffered
+four weeks' confinement in that horrible dungeon on the mere
+suspicion. This made ten weeks in all of my prison-life in a hole in
+which I suffered so that I hoped I should die there.
+
+One of the prisoners was a desperate man, named Hall. He was a
+convicted murderer, and was sentenced for life. He too, worked about
+in the prison and the yards, dragging or carrying a heavy ball and
+chain. When bundles of snaths were to be carried from one shop to
+the other in the various processes of finishing, Hall had to do it,
+and to carry his ball and chain as well, so that he was loaded like
+a pack-horse. No pack-horse was ever so abused.
+
+Of course he was ugly; the wardens and the keepers knew it, and
+generally kept away from him.
+
+I talked with him more than once, and he told me that with better
+treatment he should be a better man. "Look at the loads which are
+put on me every day," he would say; as if this ball and chain were
+not as much as I can carry; and this for life, for life!
+
+One day when Hall and I were working together in the prison, Deputy
+Warden Morey came in and said something to him, and in a moment the
+man sprung upon him. He had secured somehow, perhaps he had picked
+it up in the yard, a pocket knife, and with this he stabbed the
+Warden, striking him in the shoulder, arm, and where he could.
+
+Morey was a man sixty-five years of age, and he made such resistance
+as he could, crying out loudly for help. I turned, ran to Hall, and
+with one blow of my fist knocked him nearly senseless; then help
+came and we secured the mad man. Morey was profuse in protestations
+of gratitude to me for saving his life.
+
+There was a great excitement over this attempt to murder the Deputy,
+and for a few hours, with wardens and keepers, I was a hero. I had
+been in the prison more than a year, and was generally regarded as
+one of the worst prisoners, one of the "hardest cases;" a mere
+chance had suddenly made me one of the most commendable men within
+those dreary walls. As for Hall, he was taken to the dungeon and
+securely chained by the feet to a ring in the center of the stone
+floor. There is no doubt whatever that the man was a raving maniac.
+He howled night and day so that he could be heard everywhere in the
+prison-"Murder, murder! they are murdering me in this black hole;
+why don't they take me out and kill me?"
+
+The Warden said it could not be helped; that the man must be kept
+there; he was dangerous to himself and others; the dark cell was the
+only place for him. So Hall stayed there and howled, his cries
+growing weaker from day to day; by-and-by we heard him only at
+intervals, and after that not at all.
+
+One morning there was a little knot of men around the open dungeon
+door, the Deputy Warden and two or three keepers. Mr. Morey called
+to me to go and get the tools and come there and take off Hall's
+irons. I went into the cell and in a few minutes I unfastened his
+feet from the ring; then I took the shackles off his limbs. I
+thought he held his legs very stiff, but knew he was obstinate, and
+only wondered he was so quiet.
+
+Somebody brought in a candle and I looked at Hall's face. I never
+saw a more ghastly sight. The blood from his mouth and nostrils had
+clotted on the lower part of his face, and his wild eyes, fixed and
+glassy, were staring at the top wall of the dungeon. He must have
+been dead several hours. The Depu ty and the rest knew he was
+dead-the man who carried in the bread and water told them-me it came
+with a shock from which I did not soon recover.
+
+They buried Hall in the little graveyard which was in the yard of
+the prison. An Episcopal clergyman, who was chaplain of the prison,
+read the burial service over him. The prisoners were brought out to
+attend the homely funeral. The ball and chain, all the personal
+property left by Hall, were put aside for the next murderer
+sentenced for life, or for the next "ugly" prisoner. "If I were only
+treated better, and not abused so, I should be a better man." This
+is what Hall used to say to me whenever he had an opportunity. The
+last and worst and best in that prison had been done for him now.
+
+From the day when I rescued Morey from the hands of Hall, his whole
+manner changed towards me, and he treated me with great kindness,
+frequently bringing me a cup of tea or coffee, and something good to
+eat. He also promised to present the circumstances of the Hall
+affair to the Governor, and to urge my pardon, but I do not think he
+ever did so, at least I heard nothing of it. When I pressed the
+matter upon Morey's attention he said it would do no good till I had
+served out half my sentence, and then he would see what could be
+done.
+
+I served half my sentence, and then the other half, every day of it.
+But during the last two years I had very little to complain of
+except the loss of my liberty. I was put into the cook shop where I
+could get better food, and I did pretty much what I pleased. By
+general consent I was let alone. They had found out that ill usage
+only made me "ugly," while kindness made me at least behave myself.
+And so the three weary years of my confinement were on to an end.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+ON THE TRAMP.
+
+THE DAY OF MY DELIVERANCE-OUT OF CLOTHES-SHARING WITH A BEGGAR-A
+GOOD FRIEND-TRAMPING THROUGH THE SNOW-WEARY WALKS-TRUSTING TO LUCK-
+COMFORT AT CONCORD-AT MEREDITH BRIDGE-THE BLAISDELLS-LAST OF THE
+"BLOSSOM" BUSINESS-MAKING MONEY AT PORTSMOUTH-REVISITING WINDSOR-AN
+ASTONISHED WARDEN-MAKING FRIENDS OF OLD ENEMIES-INSPECTING THE
+PRISON-GOING TO PORT JERVIS.
+
+
+
+
+
+At last the happy day of my deliverance came. The penalty for
+pretending to marry one milliner and for being married by another
+milliner was paid. My sentence was fulfilled. I had looked forward
+to this day for months. Of all my jail and prison life in different
+States, this in Vermont was the hardest, the most severe. My
+obstinacy, no doubt, did much at first to enhance my sufferings, and
+it was the accident only of my saving Morey's life that made the
+last part of my imprisonment a little more tolerable. When I was
+preparing to go, it was discovered that the fine suit of clothes I
+wore into the prison had been given by mistake or design to some one
+else, and my silk hat and calf-skin boots had gone with the clothes.
+But never mind! I would have gone out into the world in rags-my
+liberty was all I wanted then. The Warden gave me one of his own old
+coats, a ragged pair of pantaloons, and a new pair of brogan shoes.
+He also gave me three dollars, which was precisely a dollar a year
+for my services, and this was more than I ever meant to earn there.
+Thus equipped and supplied I was sent out into the streets of
+Windsor.
+
+I had not gone half a mile before I met a poor old woman whom I had
+known very well in Rutland. She recognized me at once, though I know
+I was sadly changed for the worse. She was on her way to Fall River,
+where she had relatives, and where she hoped for help, but had no
+money to pay her fare, so I divided my small stock with her, and
+that left me just one dollar and a half with which to begin the
+world again. I went down to the bridge and the toll-gatherer gave me
+as much as I could eat, twenty five cents in money, and a
+pocket-full of food to carry with me. I was heading, footing rather,
+for Meredith Bridge in New Hampshire. It was in the month of
+December; and I was poorly clad and without an overcoat. I must
+have walked fifteen miles that afternoon, and just at nightfall I
+came to a wayside public house and ventured to go in. As I stood by
+the fire, the landlord stepped up and slapping me on the shoulder,
+said:
+
+"Friend, you look as if you were in trouble; step up and have
+something to drink."
+
+I gladly accepted the invitation to partake of the first glass of
+liquor I had tasted in three years. It was something, too,
+everything to be addressed thus kindly. I told this worthy landlord
+my whole story; how I had been trapped by the two milliners, and how
+I had subsequently suffered. He had read something about it in the
+papers; he felt as if he knew me; he certainly was sorry for me; and
+he proved his sympathy by giving me what then seemed to me the best
+supper I had ever eaten, a good bed, a good breakfast, a package of
+provisions to carry with me, and then sent me on my way with a
+comparatively light heart.
+
+It rained, snowed, and drizzled all day long. I tramped through the
+wet snow ankle deep, but made nearly forty miles before night, and
+then came to a public house which I knew well. When I was in the
+bar-room drying myself and warming my wet and half-frozen feet, I
+could not but think how, only a few years before, I had put up at
+that very house, with a fine horse and buggy of my own in the
+stable, and plenty of money in my pocket. The landlord's face was
+familiar enough, but he did not know me, nor, under my changed
+circumstances, did I desire that he should. Supper, lodging, and
+breakfast nearly exhausted my small money capital; I was worn and
+weary, too, and the next day was able to walk but twenty miles, all
+told. On the way, at noon I went into a farm house to warm myself.
+The woman had just baked a short-cake which stood on the hearth,
+toward which I must have cast longing eyes, for the farmer said:
+
+"Have you had your dinner, man?"
+
+"No, and I have no money to buy any."
+
+"Well, you don't need money here. Wife, put that short-cake and some
+butter on the table; now, my man, fall to and eat as much as you
+like."
+
+I was very hungry, and I declare I ate the whole of that short-cake.
+I told these people that I had been in better circumstances, and
+that I was not always the poor, ragged, hungry wretch I appeared
+then. They made we welcome to what I had eaten and when I went away
+filled my pockets with food. At night I was about thirty miles above
+Concord. I had no money, but trusting to luck, I got on the cars
+-the conductor came, and when he found I had no ticket, he said he
+must put me off. It was a bitter night and I told him I should be
+sure to freeze to death. A gentleman who heard the conversation at
+once paid my fare, for which I expressed my grateful thanks, and I
+went to Concord.
+
+On my arrival I went to a hotel and told the landlord I wanted to
+stay there till the next day, when a conductor whom I knew would be
+going to Meredith Bridge; that I was going with him, and that he
+would probably pay my bill at the hotel. "All right," said the
+landlord, and he gave me my supper and a room. The next noon my
+friend, the conductor, came and when I first spoke to him he did not
+recognize me; I told him who I was, but to ask me no questions as to
+how I came to appear in those old clothes, and to be so poor; I
+wanted to borrow five dollars, and to go with him to Meredith
+Bridge. He greeted me very cordially, handed me a ten-dollar
+Bill--twice as much as I asked for--said he was not going to the
+Bridge till next day, and told me meanwhile, to go to the hotel and
+make myself comfortable.
+
+I went back to the hotel, paid my bill, stayed there that day and
+night, and the next morning "deadheaded," with my friend the
+conductor to Meredith Bridge. Everybody knew me there. The
+hotel-keeper made me welcome to his house, and said I could stay as
+long as I liked.
+
+"Say, dew ye ever cure anybody, Doctor?" asked my old friend, the
+landlord, and he laughed and nudged me in the ribs, and asked me to
+take some of his medicine from the bar, which I immediately did.
+
+I was at home now. But the object of my visit was to see if I could
+not collect some of my old bills in that neighborhood, amounting in
+the aggregate to several hundred dollars. They were indeed old bills
+of five or six years' standing, and I had very little hope of
+collecting much money. I went first to Lake Village, and called on
+Mr. John Blaisdell, the husband of the woman whom I had cured of the
+dropsy, in accordance, as she believed at the time, with her
+prophetic dream. Blaisdell didn't know me at first; then he wanted
+to know what my bill was; I told him one hundred dollars, to say
+nothing of six years' interest; he said he had no money, though he
+was regarded as a rich man, and in fact was.
+
+"But sir," said I, "you see me and how poor I am. Give me something
+on account. I am so poor that I even borrowed this overcoat from the
+tailor in the village, that I might present a little more
+respectable appearance when I called on my old patients to try to
+collect some of my old bills. Please to give me something."
+
+But he had no money. He would pay for the overcoat; I might tell the
+tailor so; and afterwards he gave me a pair of boots and an old
+shirt. This was the fruit which my "blossom" of years before brought
+at last. I saw Mrs. Blaisdell, but she said she could do nothing for
+me. She had forgotten what I had done for her.
+
+Of all my bills in that vicinity, with a week's dunning, I collected
+only three dollars; but a good friend of mine, Sheriff Hill, went
+around and succeeded in making up a purse of twenty dollars which he
+put into my hands just as I was going away. My old landlord wanted
+nothing for my week's board; all he wanted was to know "if I ever
+cured anybody;" and when I told him I did, "sometimes" he insisted
+upon my taking more of his medicine, and he put up a good bottle of
+it for me to carry with me on my journey.
+
+With my twenty dollars I went to Portsmouth, where I speedily felt
+that I was among old and true friends. I had not been there a day
+before I was called upon to take care of a young man who was sick,
+and after a few weeks charge of him I received in addition to my
+board and expenses, three hundred dollars. I was now enabled to
+clothe myself handsomely, and I did so and went to Newburyport,
+where I remained several weeks and made a great deal of money.
+
+In the spring I went to White River Junction, and while I was in the
+hotel taking a drink with some friends, who should come into the
+bar-room but the Lake Village tailor from whom I had borrowed the
+overcoat which I had even then on my back. I was about to thank him
+for his kindness to me when he took me aside and said reproachfully:
+
+"Doctor, you wore away my overcoat and this is it, I think."
+
+"Good heavens! didn't John Blaisdell pay you for the coat? He told
+me he would; its little enough out of what he owes me."
+
+"He never said a word to me about it," was the reply. I told the
+tailor the circumstances; I did not like to let him to know that I
+had then about seven hundred dollars in my pocket; I wished to
+appear poor as long as there was a chance to collect any of my
+Meredith and Lake Village bills; so I offered him three dollars to
+take back the coat. He willingly consented and that was the last of
+the "Blossom" business with the Blaisdells.
+
+I was bound not to leave this part of the country without revisiting
+Windsor, and I went there, stopping at the best house in the town,
+and, I fear, "putting on airs" a little. I had suffered so much in
+this place that I wanted to see if there was any enjoyment to be had
+there. Satisfaction there was, certainly-the satisfaction one feels
+in going back under the most favorable circumstances, to a spot
+where he has endured the very depths of misery. After a good dinner
+I set out to visit the prison. Here was the very spot in the street
+where, only a few months before, I, a ragged beggar, had divided my
+mere morsel of money with the poor woman from Rutland. What change
+in my circumstances those few months had wrought. I had recovered my
+health which bad food, ill usage, and imprisonment had broken down,
+and was in the best physical condition. The warden's old coat and
+pantaloons had been exchanged for the finest clothes that money
+would buy. I had a good gold watch and several hundred dollars in my
+pocket. I had seen many of my old friends, and knew that they were
+still my friends, and I was fully restored to my old position. My
+three years' imprisonment was only a blank in my existence; I had
+begun life again and afresh, precisely where I left off before I
+fell into the hands of the two Vermont milliners.
+
+All this was very pleasant to reflect upon; but do not believe I
+thought even then, that the reason for this change in my
+circumstances, and changes for the better, was simply because I had
+minded my business and had let women alone.
+
+When I called on Warden Harlow, and courteously asked to be shown
+about the prison, he got up and was ready to comply with my request,
+when he looked me full in the face and started back in amazement:
+
+"Well, I declare! Is this you?"
+
+"Yes, Warden Harlow; but I want you to understand that while I am
+here I do not intend to do a bit of work, and you can't make me. You
+may as well give it up first as last; I won't work anyhow."
+
+The Warden laughed heartily, and sent for Deputy Morey who came in
+to "see a gentleman," and was much astonished to find the prisoner,
+who, two years before, had saved his life from the hands and knife
+of the madman Hall. I spent a very pleasant hour with my old
+enemies, and I took occasion to give them a hint or two with regard
+to the proper treatment of prisoners. I then made the rounds of the
+prison, and went into the dungeon where I had passed so many
+wretched hours for weeks at a time. The warden and his deputy
+congratulated me upon my improved appearance and prospects, and
+hoped that my whole future career would be equally prosperous.
+
+Nor did I forget to call up my friend in need and friend indeed in
+the toll-house at the bridge. I stayed three or four days in
+Windsor, finding it really a charming place, and I was almost sorry
+to leave it. But my only purpose in going there, that is to revisit
+the prison, was accomplished, and I started for New York, and went
+from there to Port Jervis, where I met my eldest son.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+ATTEMPT TO KIDNAP SARAH SCHEIMER'S BOY.
+
+STARTING TO SEE SARAH-THE LONG SEPARATION-WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT
+HER-HER DRUNKEN HUSBAND-CHANGE OF PLAN-A SUDDENLY-FORMED SCHEME-I
+FIND SARAH'S SON-THE FIRST INTERVIEW-RESOLVE TO KIDNAP THE BOY-
+REMONSTRANCES OF MY SON HENRY-THE ATTEMPT-A DESPERATE STRUGGLE-THE
+RESCUE-ARREST OF HENRY-MY FLIGHT INTO PENNSYLVANIA-SENDING
+ASSISTANCE TO MY SON-RETURN TO PORT JERVIS-BAILING HENRY-HIS RETURN
+TO BELVIDERE-HE IS BOUND OVER TO BE TRIED FOR KIDNAPPING-MY FOLLY.
+
+
+
+
+
+After I had been in Port Jervis three or four days I matured a plan
+that had long been forcing in my mind, and that was, to try and see
+Sarah Scheimer once more, or at least to find out something about
+her and about our son. The boy, if he was living, must be about ten
+years of age. I had never seen him; nor, since the night when I was
+taken out of bed and carried to the Easton jail had I ever seen
+Sarah, or even heard from her, except by the message the Methodist
+minister brought to me from her the day after I was released from
+jail. In the long interval I had married the Newark widow, and had
+served a brief term in the New Jersey State prison for doing it; I
+had married Mary Gordon, in New Hampshire, and had run away, not
+only from her, but from constables and the prison in that state; the
+mock marriage with the Rutland woman at Troy, and the altogether too
+real marriage with the Montpelier milliner had followed; I had spent
+three wretched years in the Vermont prison at Windsor; and numerous
+other exciting adventures had checkered my career. What had happened
+to Sarah and her son during all this while? There was not a week in
+the whole time since our sudden separation when I had not thought of
+Sarah; and now I was near her old home, with means at my command,
+leisure on my hands, and I was determined to know something about
+her and the child.
+
+So long a time had elapsed and I was so changed in my personal
+appearance that I had little fear of being recognized by any one in
+Pennsylvania or the adjoining part of New Jersey, who would molest
+me. The old matters must have been pretty much forgotten by all but
+the very few who were immediately interested in them. It was safe to
+make the venture at all events, and, I resolved to make the venture
+to see and learn what I could.
+
+I had the idea in my mind that if Sarah was alive and well, and
+free, I should be able to induce her to fulfil her promise to come
+to me, and that we might go somewhere and settle down and live
+happily together. At any rate, I would try to see her and our child.
+
+I did not communicate a word of all this to my son Henry. I told him
+I was going to New Jersey to visit some friends, to look for
+business, and I would like to have him accompany me. He consented;
+I hired a horse and carriage, and one bright morning we started. I
+had no friends to visit, no business to do, except to see Sarah-the
+dearest and best-loved of all my wives.
+
+When we reached Water Gap I found an old acquaintance in the
+landlord of the hotel, and I told him where I was going, and what I
+hoped to do. He knew the Scheimers, knew all that had happened
+eleven years before, and he told me that Sarah had married again,
+seven years ago, and was the mother of two more children. She lived
+on a farm, half a mile from Oxford, and her husband who had married
+her for her money, and had been urged upon her by her parents, was a
+shiftless, worthless, drunken fellow. The boy-my boy-was alive and
+well, and was with his mother.
+
+This intelligence changed, or rather made definite my plan. Sarah
+was nothing to me now. The boy was everything. I must see him, and
+if he was what he was represented to be, a bright little fellow, I
+determined that he should no longer remain in the hands and under
+the control of his drunken step-father, but I would carry him away
+with me if I could. It was nearly noon when we arrived at Oxford,
+and going to my old quarters, I found that "Boston Yankee," had long
+since left the place. There was a new landlord, and I saw no
+familiar faces about the house; all was new and strange to me. I
+made inquiries, and soon found out that Sarah's boy went to a school
+in town not far from the hotel, and I went there to "prospect,"
+leaving Henry at the public house.
+
+It was noon now, and fifty or more boys were trooping out of school.
+I carefully scanned the throng. The old proverb has it that it is a
+wise child who knows its own father; but it is not so difficult for
+a father to know his own children. The moment I put my eyes on
+Sarah's son, I knew him; he was the very image of me; I could have
+picked him out of a thousand. I beckoned to the boy and he came to
+me. He was barefoot; and his very toes betrayed him, for they
+"overrode" just as mine did; but his face was enough and would have
+been evidence of his identity as my son in any court in Christendom.
+
+"Do you know me, my little man?" said I.
+
+"No, sir, I do not."
+
+"Do you know what was your mother's name before she was married?"
+
+"Yes Sir, it was Sarah Scheimer."
+
+"Do you know that the man with whom you live is not your rather?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Sir, I know that; mother always told me so; but she never
+told me who my father was."
+
+"My son," said I taking him in my arms, "I am your father; wait
+about here a few minutes till I can go and get my horse and
+carriage, and I will take you to ride."
+
+I ran over to the hotel; ordered my horse to be brought to the door
+at once, got into the wagon with Henry and told him that Sarah
+Scheimer's boy was just across the way, and that I was going to
+carry him off with us. Henry implored me not to do it, and said it
+was dangerous. I never stopped to think of danger when my will
+impelled me. I did not know that at that moment, men who had noticed
+my excited manner, and who knew I was "up to something," were
+watching me from the hotel piazza. I drove over where the boy was
+waiting, called him to me, and Henry held the reins while I put out
+my hands to pull the boy into the carriage. Two of the men who were
+watching me came at once, one of them taking the horse by the head,
+and the other coming to me and demanding:
+
+"What are you going to do with that boy?"
+
+"Take him with me; he is my son."
+
+"No you don't," said the man, and he laid hold of the boy and
+attempted to pull him out of the wagon. I also seized the lad who
+began to scream. In the struggle for possession, I caught up the
+whip and struck the man with the handle, felling him to the ground.
+All the while the other man was shouting for assistance. The crowd
+gathered. The boy was roughly torn from me, in spite of my efforts
+to retain him. Henry was thoroughly alarmed; and while the mob were
+trying to pull us also out of the carriage he whipped the horse till
+he sprang through the crowd and was well off in a moment.
+
+"Get out of town as fast as you can drive," said I to Henry.
+
+We were not half an hour in reaching Belvidere. There I stopped to
+breathe the horse a few minutes, and Henry insisted that he was
+starving, and must have something to eat; he would go into the hotel
+he said, and get some dinner. I told him it was madness to do it;
+but he would not move an inch further on the road till he had some
+dinner. He went into the dining room, and I paced up and down the
+piazza, nervous, anxious, fearing pursuit, dreading capture, well
+knowing what would happen when those Jerseymen should get hold of me
+and find out who I was. At that moment I saw the pursuers coming
+rapidly up the road. I called to my son:
+
+"Henry, Henry! for God's sake come out here, quick!"
+
+But he thought I was only trying to frighten him so as to hurry him
+away from his dinner, and get him on the road, and he paid no
+attention to my summons. I knew that I was the man who was wanted,
+and, without waiting for Henry, I jumped into my wagon and drove
+off. I just escaped, that's all. The moment I left, my pursuers were
+at the door. I looked back and saw them drag my son out of the
+house, and take him away with them. I turned my horse's head towards
+the Belvidere Bridge. All the country about there was as familiar to
+me as the county I was born in. I knew every road, and I had no fear
+of being caught. Once across the bridge and in Pennsylvania, and I
+was comparatively safe, unless I myself should be kidnapped as I was
+at midnight, only a little way from this very spot, eleven years
+before. Here was an opportunity now to rest and reflect. Confound
+those Scheimers and all their blood! Was I never to see the end of
+the scrapes that family would get me into, or which I was to get
+myself into, on account of the Scheimers?
+
+Surely they could not harm Henry. They might have taken him merely
+in the hope of drawing me back to try to clear him, or rescue him,
+and then they would get hold of the man they wanted. My son had done
+nothing. He did not even know of the contemplated abduction till
+five minutes before it was attempted, and then he protested against
+it. He only held the horse when I pulled the lad into the wagon.
+
+Nothing showed so completely the consciousness of his own entire
+innocence in the matter, as the coolness with which he sat down to
+his dinner in Belvidere, and insisted upon remaining when I warned
+him of our danger. These facts shown, any magistrate before whom
+he might be taken, must let him go at once. I thought, perhaps, if I
+waited a few hours where I was, he would be sure to rejoin me, and
+we could then return to Port Jervis without Sarah's son to be sure;
+but, otherwise, no worse off than we were when we set out on this
+ill-starred expedition in the morning.
+
+All this seemed so plain to me that I sent over to Belvidere for a
+lawyer, who soon came across the bridge to see me, and to him I
+narrated the whole circumstances of the case from, beginning to end.
+I asked him if I had not a right to carry off the boy whom I knew to
+be my own? His reply was that he would not stop to discuss that
+question; all he knew was that there was a great hue and cry after
+me for kidnapping the boy; that my son was seized and held for
+aiding and abetting in the attempted abduction; and he advised me,
+as a friend, to leave that part of the country as soon as possible.
+I gave him fifty dollars to look after Henry's case. He thought,
+considering how little, and that little involuntarily, my son had to
+do with the matter, be might be got off; he would do all he could
+for him anyhow. He then returned to Belvidere, and I took the road
+north.
+
+When I arrived at Port Jervis I detailed to my landlord the whole
+occurrences of the day--what I had tried to do, and how miserably I
+had failed, and asked him what was to be done next. He said
+"nothing;" we could only wait and see what happened.
+
+The day following I received a letter from the Belvidere lawyer
+informing me that Henry had been examined, had been bound over in
+the sum of three hundred dollars to take his trial on a charge of
+kidnapping, and he was then in the county jail. I at once showed
+this letter to the landlord, and he offered to go down with another
+man to Belvidere and see about the bail. I gave him three hundred
+dollars, which he took with him and put into the bands of a resident
+there who became bail, and in a day or two Henry came back with them
+to Port Jervis.
+
+My son was frantic; he had been roughly treated; and to think, he
+said, that he should be thrust into the common jail and kept there
+two days with all sorts of scoundrels, when he had done actually
+nothing! He would go back there, stand his trial, and prove his
+innocence, if he died for it. He reproached me for attempting to
+carry off the boy against his advice and warning; he knew we should
+into trouble; but he would show them that he had nothing to do with
+it; that's what he would do.
+
+Now this was precisely what I did not wish to have him do. A trial
+of this case, even if Henry should come off scott free, would be
+certain to revive the whole of the old Scheimer story, which had
+nearly died away, and which I had no desire to have brought before
+the public again in any way whatever. The bail bond I was willing,
+eager even to forfeit, if that would end the matter. But Henry was
+sure they couldn't touch him, and he meant to have the three hundred
+dollars returned to me.
+
+Seeing how sensitive the boy was on the subject, and how bent he was
+on proving his innocence, I thought it best to draw him away from
+the immediate locality, and so, in the course of a week, I persuaded
+him to go to New York with me, and we afterward went to Maine for a
+few weeks to sell my medicines. This Maine trip was a most lucrative
+one, which was very fortunate, for the money I made there, to the
+amount of several hundred dollars, was shortly needed for purposes
+which I did not anticipate when I put the money by.
+
+We returned to New York, and I supposed that Henry had given up all
+idea of attempting to "prove his innocence;" indeed we had no
+conversation about the kidnapping affair for several weeks. But he
+slipped away from me. One day I came back to the hotel, and,
+inquiring for him, was told at the office he had left word for me
+that he had gone to Belvidere. A letter from him a day or two
+afterward confirmed this, to me, unhappy intelligence. The time was
+near at hand for his trial, and he had gone and given himself up to
+the authorities. He wrote to me again that he had sent word about
+his situation to his mother-my first and worst wife-and she and his
+sister were already with him.
+
+Of course it was impossible for me to go there, if there were no
+other reasons, I was too immediately interested in this affair to be
+present, and I had no idea of undergoing a trial and a certain
+conviction for myself. But I sent down a New York lawyer with one
+hundred dollars, directing him to employ council there, and to
+advise and assist as much as he could. Meanwhile, I remained in New
+York, anxious, it is true, yet almost certain that it would be
+impossible, under the circumstances, to convict Henry of the
+kidnapping for which he was indicted. He had not even assisted in
+the affair, and was sure his counsel would be able to so convince
+the court and jury.
+
+And reviewing the whole matter, now in my cooler moments, this
+scheme of trying to carry away Sarah's son, seemed to be as foolish,
+useless, and mad, as any one of my marrying adventures. Till I
+picked him out from among his schoolmates, I had never seen the
+child at all. When I started from Port Jervis to go down, as I
+supposed, into Pennsylvania, I had no more idea of kidnapping the
+boy than I had of robbing a sheep-fold. It was only when the
+landlord at Water Gap told me that Sarah had remarried, and was
+wedded to a worthless, drunken husband, that I conceived the plan of
+removing the boy from such associations. I was going to bring him up
+in a respectable manner. Alas! I did not succeed even in bringing
+him away.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+ANOTHER WIDOW.
+
+WAITING FOR THE VERDICT-MY SON SENT TO STATE PRISON-WHAT SARAH WOULD
+HAVE DONE-INTERVIEW WITH MY FIRST WIFE-HELP FOR HENRY-THE BIDDEFORD
+WIDOW-HER EFFORT TO MARRY ME-OUR VISIT TO BOSTON-A WARNING-A
+GENEROUS GIFT-HENRY PARDONED-CLOSE OF THE SCHEIMER ACCOUNT-VISIT TO
+ONTARIO COUNTY-MY RICH COUSINS-WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN-MY BIRTH-PLACE
+REVISITED.
+
+
+
+
+
+I waited with nervous impatience for the close of the trial in New
+Jersey, when I hoped to welcome my son Henry to New York. It was so
+plain a case, as it seemed to me, and must appear, I thought, to
+everybody, that I hardly doubted his instant acquittal. But very
+shortly the New York lawyer whom I had sent to Belvidere, came back
+and brought terrible news. Henry had been tried, and notwithstanding
+the fairest showing in his favor, he was convicted and sentenced to
+eighteen months imprisonment at Trenton.
+
+As it appeared, it was I really, and not Henry, who was on trial.
+The circumstances of the desperate struggle, and my knocking down
+one of the men with the butt of my whip, were conspicuous in the
+case. Even the little boy was put on the stand, and was made to
+testify against his older half-brother. Henry himself was astounded
+at the result of the trial, and was firmly convinced that instead of
+"proving his innocence" to Jersey jurymen, he had better have let
+his innocence go by default. We never even got back again the three
+hundred dollars which had been put into the hands of the man who
+went bail for Henry when he was bound over for trial. For us, it was
+bad business from beginning to end.
+
+Henry wrote a letter to me, that just before his trial, before he
+had delivered himself up, and while he was still under bail, he had
+gone to see Sarah Scheimer on the little farm which was bought with
+her money, and was worked, so far as it was worked at all, by her
+drunken husband. The family were even poorer than the landlord at
+Water Gap had reported. Sarah herself was miserable and unhappy. She
+told Henry, when he informed her who he was, that if I had wanted to
+see her or her son, I should have been welcome. She would have been
+very glad to have had me take the boy and clothe him decently; but
+she could not part with him, and would not have let me take him
+away; still, I could see him at any time, and as often as I liked,
+and the boy should grow up to know and to look upon me as his
+father.
+
+And this, really, was all I desired, all I wanted; and it was all
+easily within my grasp, ready in fact to be put into my hands, and I
+had gone ahead in my usual mad, blundering way, acting, not only
+without advice, but against such advice as came from Henry at the
+last moment, and had alienated the mother from me, lost the boy, and
+had sent Henry, who was wholly innocent, to state prison for
+eighteen months.
+
+The poor fellow was take to Trenton and was put into the prison
+where I had spent seven months. He was almost crazy when he got
+there. His mother and sister went with him, and took lodgings in the
+place so as to be near him, to render him any assistance that might
+be in their power.
+
+I had been idle now for some weeks in New York, and I went back to
+Maine, to Biddeford, where I lad a good practice. I picked up a good
+deal of money, and in two months I returned to New York to make a
+brief visit, and to see if something could not be done for the
+release of Henry from prison. At my solicitation a friend of mine
+wrote to Trenton to Henry's mother to come on to New York, and meet
+me at the Metropolitan Hotel on a specified day, to transact some
+business. She came, and we met for the first time in several years.
+We met now simply on business, and there was no expression of
+sentiment or feeling on either side. We cared nothing for each
+other. I commended her for her devotion to Henry, and then told her
+I believed, if the proper efforts were made, he could be pardoned
+out of prison. I told her what lawyer and other persons to see, and
+how to proceed in the matter. I gave her the most minute
+instructions, and then handed her five hundred dollars with which to
+fee her lawyer, and to pay her and her daughter's living expenses in
+Trenton. She was grateful for the money, and was only too glad to go
+to work for Henry; she would have done it long ago if she had only
+known what to do. We then parted, and I have never seen the woman,
+since that day.
+
+This business transacted, I at once returned to my practice at
+Biddeford. Among my patients was a wealthy widow, "fat, fair, and
+forty," and I had not attended her long before a warm affection
+sprung up between us, and in time, when the widow recovered, we
+began to think we were in love with each other. I confess that I
+agreed to marry her; but it was to be at some distant day-a very
+distant day as I intended--for, strange as it may seem, and as it
+did seem to me, I had at last learned the lesson that I had better
+let matrimony alone. I had married too many wives, widows,
+milliners, and what not, already, and had suffered too severely for
+so doing. I meant that my Vermont imprisonment, the worst of all,
+should be the last.
+
+So I only "courted" the widow, calling upon her almost every day,
+and I was received and presented to her acquaintances as her
+affianced husband. Her family and immediate friends were violently
+opposed to the match, thereby showing their good sense. I was also
+informed that they knew something of my previous history, and I was
+warned that I had better not undertake to marry the widow. Bless
+their innocent hearts! I had no idea of doing it. I was daily amazed
+at my own common sense. My memory was active now; all my matrimonial
+mishaps of the past, with all the consequences, were ever present to
+my mind, and never more present than when was in the company of the
+fascinating widow. As for her, the more her relatives opposed the
+match, the more she was bent upon marrying me. Her family, she,
+said, were afraid they were going to lose her property, but she
+would never give them a cent of it, anyhow, and she would marry when
+and whom she pleased.
+
+Not "when," exactly; because, as she protested she would marry me, I
+had something to say about it; I had been run away with by a
+milliner in Vermont, and I had no idea of beings forcibly wedded by
+a widow in Maine. I pleaded that my business was not sufficiently
+established; I was liable to be called away from time to time; I
+had affairs to arrange in New York and elsewhere before I could
+settle down; and so the happy day was put off to an indefinite
+future time.
+
+By-and-by I had business in Boston, and the widow declared that she
+would go with me; she wanted to visit her friend's there and do some
+shopping; and without making particular mention of her intention to
+her relatives, she went with me, and we were in Boston together more
+than two weeks. At the end of that time she returned to Biddeford
+and notified her friends treat she was married to the doctor, though
+she had no certificate, not even a Troy one, to show for it.
+
+I deemed it advisable not to go back with her, but went to Worcester
+for a while. In a few days I went to Biddeford, keeping somewhat
+close, for I did not care to meet any of the relatives, and at night
+I called upon the widow. She told me that her family had raised a
+tremendous fuss about me, and had learned as much as they, and
+indeed she, wanted to know about my adventures in Vermont and New
+Hampshire. They had not gone back of that, but that was enough. It
+was dangerous, she told me, for me to stay there; I was sure to be
+arrested; I had better get away from the place as soon as possible.
+We might meet again by-and-by, but unless I wanted to be arrested I
+must leave, the place that very night. She gave me seven hundred
+dollars, pressed the money upon me, and I parted from her, returning
+to Worcester, and going from there to Boston. Besides what the widow
+bad given me, I had made more than one thousand dollars in Maine,
+and was comparatively well off.
+
+Then came the joyful intelligence that Henry was released. His
+mother had worked for him night and day. She bad drawn up a
+petition, secured a large number of sterling signatures, had gone
+with her counsel to see the Governor, had presented the petition and
+all the facts in the case, and the Governor had granted a pardon.
+Henry served only six months of the eighteen for which he was
+sentenced, and very soon after I received word that he was free, he
+came to me in Boston, stayed a few days, and then went home to his
+mother in Unadilla.
+
+With the release of my son, I considered the Scheimer account
+closed, and I have never made any effort to see Sarah or our boy
+since that time.
+
+From Boston I went to Pittsford, Ontario County, N. Y., where I had
+many friends, who knew nothing about any of my marriages or
+misfortunes, my arrests or imprisonments. I went visiting merely,
+and enjoyed myself so much that I stayed there nearly three months,
+going about the country, and practicing a little among my friends. I
+was never happier than I was during this time. I was free from
+prisons, free from my wives, and free from care. As a matrimonial
+monomaniac I now looked upon myself as cured.
+
+Among the friends whom I visited in Ontario County, and with whom I
+passed several pleasant weeks, were two cousins of mine whom I had
+not seen for many years, since we were children in fact, but who
+gave me a most cordial welcome, and made much of me while I was
+there. They knew absolutely nothing of my unhappy history-no
+unpleasant rumor even respecting me, had ever penetrated that quiet
+quarter of the State. I told them what I pleased of my past career,
+from boyhood to the present time, and to them I was only a tolerably
+successful doctor, who made money enough to live decently and dress
+well, and who was then suffering from overwork and badly in need of
+recuperation. This, indeed, was the ostensible reason for my visit
+to Ontario. I was somewhat shattered; my old prison trials and
+troubles began to tell upon me. I used to think sometimes that I was
+a little "out of my head;" I certainly was so whenever I entered
+upon one of my matrimonial schemes, and I must have been as mad as a
+March hare when I attempted to kidnap Sarah Scheimer's boy. After
+all the excitement and suffering of the past few years, I needed
+rest, and here I found it.
+
+My cousins were more than well-to-do farmers; they were enormously
+rich in lands and money. Just after the war of 1812, their father,
+my uncle, and my own father, had come to this, then wild and almost
+uninhabited, section of the State to settle. Soon after they arrived
+there my father's wife died, and this loss, with the general
+loneliness of the region, to say nothing of the fever and ague, soon
+drove my father back to Delaware County to his forge for a living,
+and to the day of his death he was nothing more than a hard-working,
+hand-to-mouth-living, common blacksmith.
+
+But my uncle stayed there, and, as time went on, he bought hundreds
+of acres of land for a mere song, which were now immensely valuable,
+and had made his children almost the richest people in that region.
+My Cousins were great farmers, extensive raisers of stock,
+wool-growers, and everything else that could make them prosperous.
+There seemed to be no end to their wealth, and their fiat farms,
+spread out on every side as far as the eye could see.
+
+And if my father had only stayed there, I could not help but think
+what a different life mine might have been. Instead of being the
+adventurer I was, and had been ever since I separated from my first
+and worst wife-doing well, perhaps, for a few weeks or a few months,
+and then blundering into a mad marriage or other difficulty which
+got me into prison; well-to-do to-day and to-morrow a beggar--I,
+too, might have been rich and respectable, and should have, saved
+myself a world of suffering. This was but a passing thought which
+did not mar my visit, or make it less pleasant to me. I went there
+to be happy, not to be miserable, and for three months I was happy
+indeed.
+
+From there I went to my birthplace in Columbia County, revisiting
+old scenes and the very few old friends and acquaintances who
+survived, or who had not moved away. I spent a month there and
+thereabouts, and at the end of that time I felt full restored to my
+usual good health, and was ready to go to work again, not in the
+matrimonial way, but in my medical business, that was enough for me
+now.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+MY OWN SON TRIES TO MURDER ME.
+
+SETTLING DOWN IN MAINE-HENRY'S HEALTH-TOUR THROUGH THE
+SOUTH-SECESSION TIMES-DECEMBER IN NEW ORLEANS-UP THE
+MISSISSIPPI-LEAVING HENRY IN MASSACHUSETTS-BACK IN MAINE
+AGAIN-RETURN TO BOSTON-PROFITABLE HORSE TRADING-PLENTY OF MONEY-MY
+FIRST WIFE'S CHILDREN-HOW THEY HAD BEEN BROUGHT UP-A BAREFACED
+ROBBERY-ATTEMPT TO BLACKMAIL ME-MY SON TRIES TO ROB AND KILL ME-MY
+RESCUE-LAST OF THE YOUNG MAN.
+
+
+
+
+
+Where to go, not what to do, was the next question. Wherever I might
+go and establish myself, if only for a few days, or a few weeks, I
+was sure to have almost immediately plenty of patients and customers
+enough for my medicines-this had been my experience always-and
+unfortunately for me, I was almost equally sure to get into some
+difficulty from which escape was not always easy. Looking over the
+whole ground for a fresh start in business, it seemed to me that
+Maine was the most favorable place. Whenever I had been there I had
+done well; it was one of the very few States I had lived in where I
+had not been in jail or in prison; nor had I been married there,
+though the Biddeford widow did her best to wed me, and it is not her
+fault that she did not succeed in doing it.
+
+To Maine, then, I went, settling down in Augusta, and remaining
+there four months, during which time I had as much as I could
+possibly attend to, and laid by a very considerable sum of money.
+While I was there I heard the most unfavorable reports with regard
+to the health of my eldest son Henry. Prison life at Trenton had
+broken him down in body as well as in spirit, and he had been ill,
+some of the time seriously, nearly all the time since he went to
+Unadilla. The fact that he was entirely innocent of the offence for
+which he was imprisoned, preyed upon his mind, and with the worst
+results. As these stories reached me from week to week, I became
+anxious and even alarmed about him, and at last I left my lucrative
+business in Augusta and went to New York. I could not well go to
+Unadilla to visit Henry without seeing his mother, whom I had no
+desire to see; so I sent for him to come to me in the city if was
+able to do so. I knew that if medicine or medical attendance would
+benefit him, I should be able to help him.
+
+In a few days he came to me in a most deplorable physical condition.
+He was a mere wreck of his former self. Almost immediately he began
+to talk about the attempt to abduct the boy from Oxford; how
+innocent he was in the matter, and how terribly he had suffered
+merely because he happened to be with me when I rashly endeavored to
+kidnap the lad. All this went through me like a sharp sword. It
+seemed as if I was the cause, not only of great unhappiness to
+myself, but of pain and misery to all who were associated or brought
+in contact with me. For this poor boy, who had endured and suffered
+so much on my account, I could not do enough. My means and time must
+now be devoted to his recovery, if recovery, was possible.
+
+He was weak, but was still able to walk about, and he enjoyed riding
+very much. I kept him with me in the city a week or two, taking
+daily rides to the Park and into the country, and when he felt like
+going out in the evening I made him go to some place of amusement
+with me. I had no other business, and meant to have none, but to
+take care of Henry, and I devoted myself wholly to his comfort and
+happiness. In a few days he had much improved in health and spirits,
+so much so, that I meditated making a long tour with him to the
+South, hoping that the journey there and back again would fully
+restore him.
+
+Fortunately, my recent Maine business had put me in possession of
+abundant funds, and when I had matured my scheme, and saw that Henry
+was in tolerable condition to travel, I proposed the trip to him,
+and he joyfully assented to my plan. I wanted to get him far away,
+for awhile, from a part of the country which was associated in his
+mind, more than in mine, with so much misery, and he seemed quite as
+eager to go. Change of air and scene I knew would do wonders for him
+bodily, and would build him up again.
+
+We made our preparations and started for the South, going first to
+Baltimore and then on through the Southern States by railroad to New
+Orleans. It was late in the fall of 1860, just before the rebellion,
+when the south was seceding or talking secession, and was already
+preparing for war. Henry's physical condition compelled us to rest
+frequently on the way, and we stopped sometimes for two or three
+days at a time, at nearly every large town or city on the entire
+route. Everywhere there was a great deal of excitement; meetings
+were held nearly every night secession was at fever heat, and there
+was an unbounded expression and manifestation of ill-feeling against
+the north and against northern men. Nevertheless, I was never in any
+part of the Union where I was treated with so much courtesy,
+consideration and genuine kindness as I was there and then. I was
+going south, simply to benefit the invalid who accompanied me;
+everybody seemed to know it; and everybody expressed the tenderest
+sympathy for my son. Wherever we stopped, it seemed as if the people
+at the hotels, from the landlord to the lowest servant, could not do
+enough for us. At Atlanta, Augusta, Mobile, and other places, where
+we made our stay long enough to get a little acquainted, my son and
+myself were daily taken out to ride, and were shown everything of
+interest that was to be seen. Henry did not enjoy this journey more
+than I did-to me as well as to him, the trip was one prolonged
+pleasure, and by the time we reached New Orleans nearly a month
+after we left New York, my son had so recuperated that I had every
+hope of his speedy and full restoration.
+
+It was the beginnings of winter when we reached New Orleans; but
+during the whole month of December while we remained in that city,
+winter, if indeed it was winter, which we could hardly believe, was
+only a prolongation of the last beautiful autumn days we had left at
+the north. Now Orleans was then at the very height of prosperity;
+business was brisk, money was plenty, the ships of all nations and
+countless steamboats from St. Louis, Cincinnati, Louisville and all
+points up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers lay at the levee. The
+levee itself, from end to end, for miles along the river front, was
+one mass of merchandise which had come to the city, or was awaiting
+shipment. I had never seen a livelier city. Indescribably gay, too,
+was New Orleans that winter. The city was full of strangers; the
+hotels were thronged; there were balls every night; the theatres
+were crowded, and everybody seemed bent on having a good time. With
+all the rest, there was an extraordinary military furor, and militia
+companies and regiments paraded the streets every day, while
+secession meetings were held in various halls, or in the public
+squares, nearly ever night.
+
+From the St. Charles hotel where we stopped, St. Charles street
+seemed ablaze and alive all night, and densely thronged all day.
+Sunday brought no rest, for Sunday, so far as military parades,
+amusement and general gaiety were concerned, was the liveliest day
+in the week; and Sunday night the theatres were sure to present
+their best performances and to draw their largest audiences. And so,
+from morning till night, and from night till morning again, all was
+whirl, stir, bustle, business, enjoyment, and excitement. To me,
+unaccustomed as I was to such scenes, New York even seemed tame and
+dull, and slow in comparison with New Orleans.
+
+This is a picture of the Crescent City as it presented itself to me
+and to my son in the early part of the winter before the war. No one
+knew or even dreamed of the terrible times that were to come. No one
+believed that war was probable, or even possible; it was well
+enough, perhaps, to prepare for it; but secession was to be an
+accomplished fact, and the North and all the world would quietly
+acknowledge it. This was the general sentiment in the city; though
+secession, and what would, or what might come of it, was the general
+topic of talk in the hotels, in the restaurants, at the theatres, in
+the streets, everywhere. Now and then some southerner with whom I
+had become acquainted would try to draw me out to ascertain my
+sentiments on the subject, but I always laughed, and said good
+naturedly:
+
+"My dear sir, I didn't come down here to talk about secession, but
+to see if the southern climate would benefit my sick son."
+
+The fact was that I minded my own business, and minded it so well
+that while I was in New Orleans I managed to find a few patients and
+sold recipes and medicines enough to pay the entire expenses of our
+journey thus far, from the North.
+
+Almost every day my son and I drove somewhere up to Carrolton, down
+to the battle-ground, or on the shell road to Lake Ponchartrain. It
+was a month of genuine enjoyment to us both; of profit to me
+pecuniarily; and of the best possible benefit to Henry's health.
+
+Early in January we took passage on one of the finest of the
+Mississippi steamboats for St. Louis. The boat was crowded, and
+among the passengers were a good many merchants, Northern men long
+resident in New Orleans, who thought they saw trouble coming, and
+accordingly had closed up their business in the Crescent City, and
+were now going North to stay there. We had on board, too, the usual
+complement of gamblers and amateur or professional poker-players,
+who kept the forward saloon near the bar, and known in the river
+vernacular as the "Texas" of the boat, lively all day long and well
+into the night, or rather the next morning. It was ten or eleven
+days before we reached St. Louis. Nothing notable occurred on the
+trip; but day after day, as we proceeded northward, and left the
+soft, sunny south behind us, with the daily increasing coldness and
+wintry weather, Henry seemed to decline by degrees, and gradually to
+lose nearly all that he had gained since we left New York. When we
+reached St. Louis he was seriously sick. I was very sorry we had
+come away so soon in the season, and proposed that we should return
+and stay in the south till spring; but Henry would not consent.
+There was nothing to be done, then, but to hurry on to the east, and
+when we arrived in New York Henry would not go home to his mother in
+Unadilla, but insisted upon accompanying me to Boston. I was willing
+enough that he should go with me, for then I could have him under my
+exclusive care; but when we arrived in Boston he was so overcome by
+the excitement of travel, and was so feeble from fatigue as well as
+disease, that instead of having him go with me to Augusta, as I
+intended, by the advice of a friend I took him into the country
+where he could be nursed, be quiet, and be well taken care of till
+spring. I left him in good hands, promising to come and see him as
+soon as I could, and then went back to my old business in Augusta.
+
+It required a little time to knot the new end of that business to
+the end where I had broken off three months before; but I was soon
+in full practice again and was once more making and saving money. I
+had no matrimonial affair in hand, no temptation in fact, and none
+but strictly professional engagements to fulfil. In Augusta and in
+several other towns which I visited, for the whole of the rest of
+the winter, I was as busy as I could be. Early in the spring I made
+up my mind to run away for a week or two, and arranged my business
+so that I could go down into Massachusetts and visit Henry, hoping,
+if he was better, to bring him back with me to Maine.
+
+Two of my patients in Paris, Maine, had each given me a good horse
+in payment for my attendance upon them and their families, and for
+what medicines I had furnished, and I took these horses with me to
+sell in Boston. I drove them down, putting a good supply of
+medicines in my wagon to sell in towns on the way, and when I
+arrived in Boston sold out the establishment, getting one hundred
+and twenty-five dollars for the wagon, three hundred dollars for one
+horse, and four hundred dollars for the other-a pretty good profit
+on my time and medicine for the two patients-and I brought with me
+besides about eighteen hundred dollars, the net result, above my
+living expenses, of about three months' business in Maine, and what
+I had done on the way down through Massachusetts. I am thus minute
+about this money because it now devolves upon me to show what sort
+of a family of children my first and worst wife had brought up.
+
+Of these children by my first marriage, my eldest son Henry, since
+he had grown up, had been with me nearly as much as he had been with
+his mother, and I loved him as I did my life. Since he became of
+age, at such times when I was not in prison, or otherwise
+unavoidably separated from him, we had been associated in business,
+and had traveled and lived together. I knew all about him; but of
+the rest of the children I knew next to nothing. Shortly after I
+sold my horses, one day I was in my room at the hotel, when word was
+brought to me that some one in the parlor wanted to see me.
+
+I went down and found a young man, about twenty-one years of age,
+who immediately came to me addressing me as "father," and he then
+presented a young woman, about two years older than he was, as his
+sister and my daughter. I had not seen this young gentleman since
+the time when I had carried him off from school and from the farmer
+to whom he was bound, and had clothed him and taken him with me to
+Amsterdam and Troy, subsequently sending him to my half-sister at
+Sidney. The ragged little lad, as I found him, had grown up into a
+stout, good-looking young man; but I had no difficulty in
+recognizing him, though I was much at loss to know the precise
+object of this visit; so after shaking hands with them, and asking
+then how they were, I next inquired what they wanted?
+
+Well, they had been to see Henry, and he was a great deal better.
+
+I told them I was very glad to hear it, and that I was then on my
+way to visit him, and hoped to see him in a few days, as soon as I
+could finish my business in Boston; if Henry was as well as they
+reported I should bring him away with me.
+
+"But if you are busy here," said my young man, "we can save you both
+time and trouble. We will go to Henry again and settle his bills for
+board and other expenses, and will bring him with us to you at this
+hotel."
+
+This, at the time, really seemed to me a kindly offer; it would
+enable me to stay in Boston and attend to business I had to do, and
+Henry would come there with his brother and sister in a day or two.
+I at once assented to the plan, and taking my well-filled
+pocket-book from the inside breast pocket of my coat, I counted out
+two hundred and fifty dollars and gave them to the young man to pay
+Henry's board, doctor's and other bills, and the necessary car fares
+for the party. They then left me and started, as I supposed, to go
+after Henry.
+
+But a few days went on and I saw and heard nothing of Henry. At last
+word came to me one day that some one down stairs wanted to see me
+and I told the servant to send him to my room, hoping that it might
+be Henry. But no; it was my young man, of whom I instantly demanded:
+
+"Where is your brother, whom you were to bring to me a week ago?
+What have you done with the money I gave you for his bills?"
+
+"I hadn't been near Henry; sister has gone home; and I've spent the
+money on a spree, every cent of it, here in Boston, and I want
+more."
+
+"Want more!" I exclaimed in blank amazement:
+
+"Yes, more; and if you don't give it to me, I'll follow you wherever
+you go, and tell people all I know about you."
+
+"You scoundrel," said I, "you come here and rob, not me, but your
+poor, sick brother, and then return and attempt to black-mail me.
+Get out of my sight this instant."
+
+He sprung on me, and made a desperate effort to get my money out of
+my pocket. We had a terrible struggle. He was younger and stronger
+than I was, and as I felt that I was growing weaker I called out
+loudly for help and shouted "Murder!"
+
+The landlord himself came running into the room; I succeeded in
+tearing myself away, from the grasp of my assailant, and the
+landlord felled him to the floor with a chair. He then ran to the
+door and called to a servant to bring a policeman.
+
+"No, don't!" I exclaimed; "Don't arrest the villain, for I can make
+no complaint against him--he is my son!"
+
+But the landlord was bound to have some satisfaction out of the
+affair; so he dragged the young man into the hall and kicked him
+from the top of the stairs to the bottom, where, as soon as he had
+picked himself up, a convenient servant kicked him out into the
+street. I have never set eyes on my young man since his somewhat
+sudden departure from that hotel.
+
+And when I went to visit my poor Henry a day or two afterwards, I
+can hardly say that I was surprised, though I was indignant to learn
+that his brother and sister had never been near him at all since he
+had been in Massachusetts. They knew where and how he was from his
+letter's to his mother; they knew, too, from the same letters-for I
+had notified Henry-at what time I would be in Boston, and with this
+information they had come on to swindle me. I have no doubt, when
+the young man came the second time to rob me, he would have murdered
+me, if the landlord had not come to my assistance. And this was the
+youngest son of my first and worst wife!!
+
+I found Henry in better condition than I expected, and I took him
+back with me to Augusta. I did not tell him of his brother's attempt
+to rob and kill. Me-it would have been too great a shock for him. He
+stayed with me only a few days and then, complaining of being
+homesick, he went to visit his mother again.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+A TRUE WIFE AND HOME, AT LAST.
+
+WHERE WERE ALL MY WIVES?-SENSE OF SECURITY-AN IMPRUDENT
+ACQUAINTANCE-MOVING FROM MAINE-MY PROPERTY IN RENSSELAER COUNTY-HOW
+I LIVED-SELLING A RECIPE-ABOUT BUYING A CARPET-NINETEEN LAW-SUITS-
+SUDDEN DEPARTURE FOR THE WEST-A VAGABOND FOR TWO YEARS-LIFE IN
+CALIFORNIA-RETURN TO THE EAST-DIVORCE FROM MY FIRST WIFE-A GENUINE
+MARRIAGE-MY FARM-HOME AT LAST.
+
+
+
+
+
+I remained in Maine nearly two years, hardly ever going out of the
+State, except occasionally to Boston on business. Making Augusta my
+residence and headquarters, I practiced in Portland and in nearly
+all the towns and cities in the eastern part of the State. During
+all this time, I behaved myself, in all respects better than I had
+ever before done in any period of my life. I began to look upon
+myself as a reformed man; I had learned to let liquor alone, and was
+consequently in far less, indeed, next to no danger of stepping into
+the traps in which my feet had been so often caught. I may as well
+confess it--it was intoxicating liquor, and that mainly, which had
+led me into my various mad marrying schemes and made me the
+matrimonial monomaniac and lunatic lover that I was for years. What
+my folly, my insanity caused me to suffer, these pages have
+attempted to portray. I had grown older, wiser, and certainly
+better. I now only devoted myself strictly to my business, and I
+found profit as well as pleasure in doing it.
+
+What had become of all my wives in the meantime, I scarcely knew and
+hardly cared. Of course from time to time I had heard more or less
+about them-at least, a rumor of some sort now and then reached me.
+About my first and worst wife, at intervals I heard something from
+Henry, who was still with her, and who frequently wrote to me when
+he was well enough to do so. Margaret Bradley and Eliza Gurnsey were
+still carrying on the millinery business in Rutland, and in
+Montpelier, and were no doubt weaving other and new webs in hopes of
+catching fresh flies. Mary Gordon, as I learned soon afterwards, was
+married almost before I had fairly escaped from New Hampshire in my
+flight to Canada, and she had gone to California with her new
+husband. Of the Newark widow I knew nothing; but two years of peace,
+quiet, and freedom from molestation in Maine had made me feel quite
+secure against any present or future trouble from my past
+matrimonial misadventures.
+
+I was living in Maine, prudently I think under an assumed name, and
+as the respectable, and, to my patients and customers, well-known
+Doctor Blank, I was scarcely liable to be recognized at any time or
+by any one as the man who had married so many wives, been in so many
+jails and prisons, and whose exploits had been detailed from time to
+time in the papers.
+
+Nor, all this while, did I have the slightest fear of detection. I
+looked upon myself as a victim rather than as a criminal, and for
+what I had done, and much that I had not done, I had more than paid
+the penalty. So far as all my business transactions were concerned,
+my course had always been honorable, and in my profession, for my
+cures and for my medicines, I enjoyed a good reputation which all my
+efforts were directed to deserve.
+
+Of course, now and then, I met people in Portland, and especially in
+Boston, who had known me in former years, and who knew something of
+my past life; but these were generally my friends who sympathized
+with my sufferings, or who, at least, were willing to blot out the
+past in my better behavior of the present. One day in Boston a young
+man came up to me and said:
+
+"How do you do, Doctor?"
+
+"Quite well," I replied; "but you have the advantage of me; I am
+sure I do not remember you, if I ever knew you."
+
+"You don't remember me! Why, I am the son of the jailer in Montpelier
+with whom you spent so many months before you went to Windsor; I
+knew you in a minute, and Doctor, I've been in Boston a week and
+have got 'strapped;' how to get back to Montpelier I don't know,
+unless you will lend me five or six dollars which I will send back
+to you the moment I get home."
+
+"I remember you well, now," said I; "you are the little rascal who
+wouldn't even go and buy me a cigar unless I gave you a dime for
+doing it; and then, sometimes, you cheated me out of my money; I
+wouldn't lend you a dollar now if it would save you from six month's
+imprisonment in your father's filthy jail. Good morning."
+
+And that was the last I saw of him.
+
+I was getting tired of Maine. I had been there longer than I had
+stayed in any place, except in the Vermont State Prison, for the
+past fifteen years, and I began to long for fresh scenes and a fresh
+field for practice. I had accumulated some means, and thought I
+might take life a little easier-make a home for myself somewhere,
+practicing my profession when I wanted to, and at other times
+enjoying the leisure I loved and really needed. So I closed up my
+business in Augusta and Portland, put my money in my pocket, and
+once more went out into the world on a prospecting tour. My first
+idea was to go to the far West, and I went to Troy with the
+intention of staying there a few days, and then bidding farewell to
+the East forever. The New England States presented no attractions to
+me; I had exhausted Maine, or rather it had exhausted me; New
+Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts had too many unpleasant
+associations, if indeed they were safe states for me, with my record
+to live in, and Connecticut I knew very little about. Certainly I
+had no intention of trying to settle in New Jersey or Pennsylvania.
+The west was the place; anywhere in the west.
+
+Here was I in Troy, revolving plans in my own mind for migrating to
+the west, just as Mary Gordon and I had done in the very same hotel,
+only a few years before; and in the course of a week I came to
+exactly the same conclusion that Mary and I did--not to go. I heard
+of a small farm--it was a very small one of only twelve acres-which
+could be bought in Rensselaer County, not more than sixteen miles
+from Albany and Troy. I went to see the place, liked it, and bought
+it for sixteen hundred dollars. There was a small but good house and
+a barn on the place, and altogether it was a cheap and desirable
+property. I got a good housekeeper, hired a man, and began to carry
+on this little farm, raising garden vegetables and fruit mainly, and
+sending them to market in Albany and Troy. Generally I took my own
+stuff to market, and sold medicines and recipes as well, and in
+Albany I had a first rate practice which I went to that city to
+attend to once or twice a week. While my man was selling vegetables
+and fruit--I remember I sold a hundred dollars worth of cherries from
+my farm the first summer--in the market, I was Doctor Blank
+receiving my patients at Stanwix Hall, or calling upon them at their
+residences; and when the day's work was over, my man and I rode home
+in the wagon which had brought us and the garden truck early in the
+morning. On the whole, this kind of life was exceedingly
+satisfactory, and I liked it.
+
+I made frequent expeditions to Saratoga and to other places not far
+from home to attend to cases to which I was called, and to sell
+medicines; and considering that the main object I had in settling in
+Rensselaer County was rest and more leisure than I had enjoyed for
+some years, I had a great deal more to do than I desired.
+Nevertheless, I might have continued to live on my little farm,
+raising vegetables, picking cherries, and practicing medicine in the
+neighborhood, had not the fate, which seemed to insist that I should
+every little while come before a court of justice for something or
+other, followed me even here. A certain hardware dealer in Albany,
+with whom I had become acquainted, proposed to buy one of my
+recipes, and to go into an extensive manufacture of the medicine. He
+had read and heard of the fortunes that had been made in patent
+medicines, by those who understand the business, and he thought he
+would see if he could not get rich in a year or less in the same
+way.
+
+After some solicitation I sold him the recipe for one thousand
+dollars, receiving six hundred dollars down, and a promise of the
+balance when the first returns from sales of the medicine came in. I
+also entered into a contract to show the man how to make the
+medicine, and to give him such advice and assistance in his new
+business as I could. My hardware friend understood his legitimate
+business better than he did that which he had undertaken, and
+although be learned how to manufacture the medicine he did not know
+how to sell it; and after trying it a few weeks, and doing next to
+nothing, he turned upon me as the author of his misfortunes and sued
+me for damages.
+
+Incidental to this, and only incidental, is the following: Shortly
+after I purchased my property, as I was very fond of calling my
+little farm, in Rensselaer County, I was in Albany one day when it
+occurred to me that I wanted a carpet for my parlor. I went to the
+store of a well-known carpet-dealer, and asked to be shown some of
+his goods. While I was going through the establishment I came across
+a man who was industriously sewing together the lengths of a cut
+carpet, and I recognized in him one of my fellow convicts at
+Windsor. He, however, did not know me, and I doubt if he could have
+been convinced of my identity as the wretch who plied the broom in
+the halls of the prison. To him, as he glanced at me, I was only a
+well-dressed gentleman whom the proprietor was courteously showing
+through the establishment in the hope of securing a good customer.
+It was this little circumstance, I think-my chance meeting with my
+old fellow-prisoner, and my changed circumstances and appearance
+which put me beyond recognition by him-that prompted me to the
+somewhat brazen business that followed:
+
+"I only came in to look to-day," I said to the carpet-dealer; "for
+the precise sum of money in my pocket at present is eighteen pence,
+and no more; but if you will cut me off forty yards of that piece of
+carpeting, and trust me for it, I will pay your bill in a few days,
+as sure as I live."
+
+My frank statement with regard to my finances seemed to attract the
+attention of the merchant who laughed and said:
+
+"Well, who are you, anyhow? Where do you live?"
+
+I told him that I was Doctor Blank; that I lived in Rensselaer
+county on a small place of my own; I raised fruit and vegetables for
+market; I cured cancers, dropsy, and other diseases when I could;
+sold medicines readily almost where I would; and was in Albany once
+or twice a week.
+
+"Measure and cut off the carpet," said he to the clerk who was
+following us, "and put it in the Doctor's wagon"
+
+The bill was about a hundred dollars, and I drove home with the
+carpet. It was nearly six weeks afterwards when I went into the
+store again, and greeted the proprietor. He had seen me but once
+before and had totally forgotten me. I told him I was Doctor Blank,
+small farmer and large medical practitioner of Rensselaer County.
+
+"The devil you are! Why, you're the man that bought a carpet of me a
+few weeks ago; I was wondering what had become of you."
+
+"I'm the man, and I must tell you that the carpet doesn't look well;
+but never mind-here's a hundred dollars, and I want you to receipt
+the bill."
+
+"Now," said I, when he returned the bill to me receipted, "the
+carpet looks firstrate; I never saw a handsomer one in my life."
+
+"Well, you are an odd chap, any how," said the carpet-dealer,
+laughing, and shaking me by the hand. Almost from that moment we
+were more than mere acquaintances, we were fast friends. In the
+course of the long conversation that followed, I told him of my
+trouble with the hardware man-how I had sold him the recipe; that he
+had failed, from ignorance to conduct the business properly, and had
+sued me for damages.
+
+"I know the man," said my new friend; "let him go ahead and sue and
+be-benefited, if he can; meanwhile, do you keep easy; I'll stand by
+you."
+
+And stand by me he did through thick and thin. The hardware man sued
+me no less than nineteen times, and for pretty much
+everything-damages, debt, breach of contract, and what not. With the
+assistance of a lawyer whom my friend recommended to me, I beat my
+opponent in eighteen successive suits; but as fast as one suit was
+decided he brought another, almost before I could get out of the
+court room. At last he carried the case to the Supreme Court, and
+from there it went to a referee. The matter from beginning to end,
+must have cost him a mint of money; but he went on regardless of the
+costs which he hoped and expected to get out of me at last.
+
+My long and painful experience, covering many years, had given me a
+pretty thorough knowledge of the law's uncertainty, as well as the
+law's delay, and very early in the course of the present suit, I had
+quietly disposed of my property in Rensselaer County. I sold the
+little farm, which cost me sixteen hundred dollars, for twenty-one
+hundred dollars, and I had had, besides, the profits of nearly two
+years' farming and a good living from and on the place. I also
+arranged all my money matters in a manner that I felt assured would
+be satisfactory to me, if not to my opponent, and then, following
+the advice of my friend, the carpet-dealer, I let the hardware man
+sue and be-"benefited if he could." When, however, the case went
+finally to a referee who was certain, I felt sure, to decide against
+me, I took no further personal interest in the matter, nor have I
+ever troubled myself to learn the filial decision. I made up my mind
+in a moment and decided that the time had come, at last, when it was
+advisable for me to go to the West.
+
+Westward I went, towards sunset almost, and for the two following
+years I led, I fear, what would be considered a very vagabond life.
+I went to Utah, thinking while I was in Salt Lake City, if they only
+knew my history there I was sure to be elected an apostle, or should
+be, at any rate, a shining light in Mormondom-only I had taken my
+wives in regular succession, and had not assembled the throng
+together. I pushed across the plains, and went to California,
+remaining a long time in San Francisco. This may have been
+vagabondism, but it was profitable vagabondism to me. During this
+long wandering I held no communication with my friends in the East;
+friends and foes alike had an opportunity to forget me, or if they
+thought of me they did not know whether I was dead or alive; they
+certainly never knew, all the time, where I was; and while I was
+journeying I never once met a man or woman who had been acquainted
+with me in the past. All the time, too, I had plenty of money;
+indeed, when, I returned at last I was richer far than I was when I
+left Albany, and left as the common saying graphically expresses it,
+"between two days." I had my old resources of recipes, medicines and
+my profession, and these I used, and had plenty of opportunity to
+use, to the best advantage. I could have settled in San Francisco
+for life with the certainty of securing a handsome annual income. I
+never feared coming to want. If I had lost my money and all other
+resources had failed, I was not afraid to make a horse-nail or turn
+a horse-shoe with the best blacksmith in California, and I could
+have got my living, as I did for many a year, at the forge and
+anvil.
+
+But I made more money in other and easier ways, and I made friends.
+In every conceivable way my two years' wandering was of far more
+benefit to me than I dreamed of when I wildly set out for the West
+without knowing exactly where, or for what, I was going. The new
+country, too, had given me, not only a fresh fund of ideas, but a
+new stock of health--morally and physically I was in better
+condition than I ever was before in my life. I had a clear head; a
+keen sense of my past follies; a vivid consciousness of the
+consequences which such follies, crimes they may be called, are
+almost certain to bring. I flattered myself that I was not only a
+reformed prisoner, but a reformed drunkard, and a thoroughly
+restored matrimonial monomaniac.
+
+And when I returned, at last, to the East, and went once more to
+visit my near and dear friends in Ontario County, I was received as
+one who had come back from the dead. When I had been here a few
+weeks, and had communicated to my cousins so much of the story of my
+life as I then thought advisable, I took good counsel and finally
+did what I ought to have done long years before. I commenced proper
+legal proceedings for a divorce from my first and worst wife. I do
+not need to dwell upon the particulars; it is enough to say, that
+the woman, who was then living, so far from opposing me, aided me
+all she could, even making affidavit to her adultery with the hotel
+clerk at Bainbridge, long ago, and I easily secured my full and
+complete divorce. Now I was, indeed, a free man-all the other wives
+whom I had married, or who had married me, whether I would or no,
+were as nothing; some were dead and others were again married. It
+may be that this new, and to me strange sense of freedom, legitimate
+freedom, set me to thinking that I might now secure a genuine and
+true wife, who would make a new home happy to me as long as we both
+should live.
+
+Fortune, not fate now, followed me, led me rather and guided my
+footsteps. It was not many months before I met a woman who seemed to
+me in every way calculated to fill the first place in that home
+which I had pictured as a final rest after all my woes and
+wanderings. From mutual esteem our acquaintance soon ripened into
+mutual love. She was all that my heart could desire. I was tolerably
+well off; my position was reputable; my connections were
+respectable. To us, and to our friends, the match seemed a most
+desirable one. It was no hasty courtship; we knew each other for
+months and learned to know each other well; and with true love for
+each other, we had for each other a genuine respect. I frankly told
+her the whole story of my life as I have now written it. She only
+pitied my misfortunes, pardoned my errors, and, one bright, golden,
+happy autumn day, we were married.
+
+In the northeastern part of the State of New York on the banks of a
+broad and beautiful river, spread out far and near the fertile acres
+of one of the finest farms in the country. It is well stocked and
+well tilled. The surrounding country is charming--game in the woods,
+and fish in the streams afford abundant sport, and the region is far
+away from large cities, and remote even from railroads. I do not
+know of a more delightful place in the whole world to live in. On
+the farm I speak of, a cottage roof covers a peaceful, happy family,
+where content and comfort always seem to reign supreme. A noble
+woman, a most worthy wife is mistress of that house; joyous children
+move and play among the trees that shade the lawns; and the head
+of the household, the father of the family, is the happiest of thee
+group.
+
+That farm, that family, that cottage, that wife, that happy home are
+mine-all mine. I have found a true wife and a real home at last.
+
+My story is told; and if it should suggest to the reader the moral
+which is too obvious to need rehearsal, one object I had in telling
+the story will have been accomplished.
+
+THE END.
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Seven Wives and Seven Prisons
+by L.A. Abbott
+
+
+******This file should be named svnwv10.txt or svnwv10.zip******
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+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Seven Wives and Seven Prisons
+by L.A. Abbott
+
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