Читать книгу Patience Worth: A Psychic Mystery - Casper S. Yost - Страница 6

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“Yea, I be me.”

Patience, as I have said, has given very little information about herself, and every effort to pin her to a definite time or locality has been without avail. When she first introduced herself to Mrs. Curran, she was asked where she came from, and she replied, “Across the sea.” Asked when she lived, the pointer groped among the figures as if struggling with memory, and finally, with much hesitation upon each digit, gave the date 1649. This seemed to be so in accord with her language, and the articles of dress and household use to which she referred, that it was accepted as a date that had some relation to her material existence. But Patience has since made it quite plain that she is not to be tied to any period.

“I be like to the wind,” she says, “and yea, like to it do blow me ever, yea, since time. Do ye to tether me unto today I blow me then tomorrow, and do ye to tether me unto tomorrow I blow me then today.”

Indeed, she at times seems to take a mischievous delight in baffling the seeker after personal information; and at other times, when she has a composition in hand, she expresses sharp displeasure at such inquiries. As this is not a speculative work, but a narrative, the attempt to fix a time and place for her will be left to those who may find interest in the task. All that can be said with definiteness is that she brings the speech and the atmosphere, as it were, of an age or ages long past; that she is thoroughly English, and that while she can and does project herself back into the mists of time, and speak of early medieval scenes as familiarly as of the English renaissance, she does not make use of any knowledge she may possess of modern developments or modern conditions. And yet, archaic in word and form as her compositions are, there is something very modern in her way of thought and in her attitude toward nature. An eminent philologist asked her how it was that she used the language of so many different periods, and she replied: “I do plod a twist of a path and it hath run from then till now.” And when he said that in her poetry there seemed to be echoes or intangible suggestions of comparatively recent poets, and asked her to explain, she said: “There be aneath the every stone a hidden voice. I but loose the stone and lo, the voice!”

But while the archaic form of her speech and writings is an evidence of her genuineness, and she so considers it, she does not approve of its analysis as a philological amusement. “I brew and fashion feasts,” she says, “and lo, do ye to tear asunder, thee wouldst have but grain dust and unfit to eat. I put not meaning to the tale, but source thereof.” That is to say, she does not wish to be measured by the form of her words, but by the thoughts they convey and the source from which they come. And she has put this admonition into strong and striking phrases.

“Put ye a value ’pon word? And weigh ye the line to measure, then, the gift o’ Him ’pon rod afashioned out by man?

“I tell thee, He hath spoke from out the lowliest, and man did put to measure, and lo, the lips astop!

“And He doth speak anew; yea, and He hath spoke from out the mighty, and man doth whine o’ track ashow ’pon path he knoweth not—and lo, the mighty be astopped!

“Yea, and He ashoweth wonders, and man findeth him a rule, and lo, the wonder shrinketh, and but the rule remaineth!

“Yea, the days do rock with word o’ Him, and man doth look but to the rod, and lo, the word o’ Him asinketh to a whispering, to die.

“And yet, in patience, He seeketh new days to speak to thee. And thou ne’er shalt see His working. Nay!

“Look ye unto the seed o’ the olive tree, aplanted. Doth the master, at its first burst athrough the sod, set up a rule and murmur him, ‘’Tis ne’er an olive tree! It hath but a pulp stem and winged leaves?’ Nay, he letteth it to grow, and nurtureth it thro’ days, and lo, at finish, there astandeth the olive tree!

“Ye’d uproot the very seed in quest o’ root! I bid thee nurture o’ its day astead.

“I tell thee more: He speaketh not by line or word; Nay, by love and giving.

“Do ye also this, in His name.”

But, aside from the meagerness of her history, there is no indefiniteness in her personality, and this clear-cut and unmistakable individuality, quite different from that of Mrs. Curran, is as strong an evidence of her genuineness as is the uniqueness of her literary productions. To speak of something which cannot be seen nor heard nor felt as a personality, would seem to be a misuse of the word, and yet personality is much more a matter of mental than of physical characteristics. The tongue and the eyes are merely instruments by means of which personality is revealed. The personality of Patience Worth is manifested through the instrumentality of a ouija board, and her striking individuality is thereby as vividly expressed as if she were present in the flesh. Indeed, it requires no effort of the imagination to visualize her. Whatever she may be, she is at hand. Nor does she have to be solicited. The moment the fingers are on the board she takes command. She seems fairly to jump at the opportunity to express herself.

And she is essentially feminine. There are indubitable evidences of feminine tastes, emotions, habits of thought, and knowledge. She is, for example, profoundly versed in the methods of housekeeping of two centuries or more ago. She is familiar with all the domestic machinery and utensils of that olden time—the operation of the loom and the spinning wheel, the art of cooking at an open hearth, the sanding of floors; and this homely knowledge is the essence of many of her proverbs and epigrams.

“A good wife,” she says, “keepeth the floor well sanded and rushes in plenty to burn. The pewter should reflect the fire’s bright glow; but in thy day housewifery is a sorry trade.”

At another time she opened the evening thus:

“I have brought me some barley corn and a porridge pot. May I then sup?”

And the same evening she said to Mrs. Pollard:

“Thee’lt ever stuff the pot and wash the dishcloth in thine own way. Alackaday! Go brush thy hearth. Set pot aboiling. Thee’lt cook into the brew a stuff that tasteth full well unto thy guest.”

A collection of maxims for housekeepers might be made from the flashes of Patience’s conversation. For example:

“Too much sweet may spoil the short bread.”

“Weak yarn is not worth the knitting.”

“A pound for pound loaf was never known to fail.”

“A basting but toughens an old goose.”

These and many others like them were used by her in a figurative sense, but they reveal an intimate knowledge of the household arts and appliances of a forgotten time. If she knows anything of stoves or ranges, of fireless cookers, of refrigerators, of any of the thousand and one utensils which are familiar to the modern housewife, she has never once let slip a word to betray such knowledge.

At one time, after she had delivered a poem, the circle fell into a discussion of its meaning, and after a bit Patience declared they were “like treacle dripping,” and added, “thee’lt find the dishcloth may make a savory stew.”

“She’s roasting us,” cried Mrs. Hutchings.

“Nay,” said Patience, “boiling the pot.”

“You don’t understand our slang, Patience,” Mrs. Hutchings explained. “Roasting means criticising or rebuking.”

“Yea, basting,” said Patience.

Mrs. Pollard remarked: “I’ve heard my mother say, ‘He got a basting!’ ”

“An up-and-down turn to the hourglass does to a turn,” Patience observed dryly.

“I suppose she means,” said Mrs. Hutchings, “that two hours of basting or roasting would make us understand.”

“Would she be likely to know about hourglasses?” Mrs. Curran asked.

Patience answered the question.

“A dial beam on a sorry day would make a muck o’ basting.” Meaning that a sundial was of no use on a cloudy day.

But Patience is not usually as patient with lack of understanding as this bit of conversation would indicate.

“I dress and baste thy fowl,” she said once, “and thee wouldst have me eat for thee. If thou wouldst build the comb, then search thee for the honey.”

“Oh, we know we are stupid,” said one. “We admit it.”

“Saw drip would build thy head and fill thy crannies,” Patience went on, “yet ye feel smug in wisdom.”

And again: “I card and weave, and ye look a painful lot should I pass ye a bobbin to wind.”

A request to repeat a doubtful line drew forth this exclamation: “Bother! I fain would sew thy seam, not do thy patching.”

At another time she protested against a discussion that interrupted the delivery of a poem: “Who then doth hold the distaff from whence the thread doth wind? Thou art shuttling ’twixt the woof and warp but to mar the weaving.”

And once she exclaimed, “I sneeze on rust o’ wits!”

But it must not be understood that Patience is bad-tempered. These outbreaks are quoted to show one side of her personality, and they usually indicate impatience rather than anger: for, a moment after such caustic exclamations, she is likely to be talking quite genially or dictating the tenderest of poetry. She quite often, too, expresses affection for the family with which she has associated herself. At one time she said to Mrs. Curran, who had expressed impatience at some cryptic utterance of the board:

“Ah, weary, weary me, from trudging and tracking o’er the long road to thy heart! Wilt thou, then, not let me rest awhile therein?”

And again: “Should thee let thy fire to ember I fain would cast fresh faggots.”

And at another time she said of Mrs. Curran: “She doth boil and seethe, and brew and taste, but I have a loving for the wench.”

But she seems to think that those with whom she is associated should take her love for granted, as home folks usually do, and she showers her most beautiful compliments upon the casual visitor who happens to win her favor. To one such she said:

“The heart o’ her hath suffered thorn, but bloomed a garland o’er the wounds.”

To a lady who is somewhat deaf she paid this charming tribute:

“She hath an ear upon her every finger’s tip, and ’pon her eye a thousand flecks o’ color for to spread upon a dreary tale and paint a leaden sky aflash. What need she o’ ears?”

And to another who, after a time at the board, said she did not want to weary Patience:

“Weary then at loving of a friend? Would I then had the garlanded bloom o’ love she hath woven and lighted, I do swear, with smiling washed brighter with her tears.”

And again: “I be weaving of a garland. Do leave me then a bit to tie its ends. I plucked but buds, and woe! they did spell but infant’s love. I cast ye, then, a blown bloom, wide petaled and rich o’ scent. Take thou and press atween thy heart throbs—my gift.”

Of still another she said: “She be a star-bloom blue that nestleth to the soft grasses of the spring, but ah, the brightness cast to him who seeketh field aweary!”

And yet again: “Fields hath she trod arugged, aye, and weed agrown. Aye, and e’en now, where she hath set abloom the blossoms o’ her very soul, weed aspringeth. And lo, she standeth head ahigh and eye to sky and faith astrong. And foot abruised still troddeth rugged field. But I do promise ye ’tis such an faith that layeth low the weed and putteth ’pon the rugged path asmoothe, and yet but bloom shalt show, and ever shalt she stand, head ahigh and eye unto the sky.”

Upon an evening after she had showered such compliments upon the ladies present she exclaimed:

“I be a wag atruth, and lo, my posey-wreath be stripped!”

She seldom favors the men in this way. She has referred to herself several times as a spinster, and this may account for a certain reluctance to saying complimentary things of the other sex. “A prosy spinster may but plash in love’s pool,” she remarked once, and at another time she said: “A wife shall brush her goodman’s blacks and polish o’ his buckles, but a maid may not dare e’en to blow the trifling dust from his knickerbockers.” With a few notable exceptions, her attitude toward men has been expressed in sarcasm, none the less cutting to those for whom she has an affection manifested in other ways. To one such she said:

“Thee’lt peg thy shoes, lad, to best their wearing, and eat too freely of the fowl. Thy belly needeth pegging sore, I wot.”

“Patience doesn’t mean that for me,” he protested.

“Nay,” she said, “the jackass ne’er can know his reflection in the pool. He deemeth the thrush hath stolen of his song. Buy thee a pushcart. ’Twill speak for thee.”

And of this same rotund friend she remarked, when he laughed at something she had said:

“He shaketh like a pot o’ goose jell!”

“I back up, Patience,” he cried.

“And thee’lt find the cart,” she said.

Of a visitor, a physician, she had this to say:

“He bindeth and asmears and looketh at a merry, and his eye doth lie. How doth he smite and stitch like to a wench, and brew o’er steam! Yea, ’tis atwist he be. He runneth whither, and, at a beconing, (beckoning) yon, and ever thus; but ’tis a blunder-mucker he he. His head like to a steel, yea, and heart a summer’s cloud athin (within), enough to show athrough the clear o’ blue.”

But it is upon the infant that Patience bestows her tenderest words. Her love of childhood is shown in many lines of rare and touching beauty.

“Ye seek to level unto her,” she said of a baby girl who was present one evening, “but thou art awry at reasoning. For he who putteth him to babe’s path doth track him high, and lo, the path leadeth unto the Door. Yea, and doth she knock, it doth ope.

“Cast ye wide thy soul’s doors and set within such love. For, brother, I do tell thee that though the soul o’ ye be torn, aye, and scarred, ’tis such an love that doth heal. The love o’ babe be the balm o’ earth.

“See ye! The sun tarrieth ’bout the lips o’ her; aye, and though the hand be but thy finger’s span, ’tis o’ a weight to tear away thy heart.”

And upon another occasion she revealed something of herself in these words:

Know ye; in my heart’s mansion

There be apart a place

Wherein I treasure my God’s gifts.

Think ye to peer therein? Nay.

And should thee by a chance

To catch a stolen glimpse,

Thee’dst laugh amerry, for hord (hoard)

Would show but dross to thee:

A friend’s regard, ashrunked and turned

To naught—but one bright memory is there;

A hope—now dead, but showeth gold hid there;

A host o’ nothings—dreams, hopes, fears;

Love throbs afluttered hence

Since first touch o’ baby hands

Caressed my heart’s store ahidden.

Returning to the femininity of Patience, it is also shown in her frequent references to dress. Upon an evening when the publication of her poems had been under discussion, when next the board was taken up she let them know that she had heard, in this manner:

“My pettieskirt hath a scallop,” she said. “Mayhap that will help thy history.”

“Oh,” cried Mrs. Curran, “we are discovered!”

“Yea,” laughed Patience—she must have laughed, “and tell thou of my buckled boots and add a cap-string.”

Further illustrative of her feminine characteristics and of her interest in dress, as well as of a certain fun-loving spirit which now and then seems to sway her, is this record of a sitting upon an evening when Mr. Curran and Mr. Hutchings had gone to the theater, and the ladies were alone:

Patience.—“Go ye to the lighted hall to search for learning? Nay, ’tis a piddle, not a stream, ye search. Mayhap thou sendest thy men for barleycorn. ’Twould then surprise thee should the asses eat it.”

Mrs. H.—“What is she driving at?”

Mrs. P.—“The men and the theater, I suppose.”

Mrs. H.—“Patience, what are they seeing up there?”

Patience.—“Ne’er a timid wench, I vum.”

Mrs. C.—“You don’t approve of their going, do you, Patience?”

Patience.—“Thee’lt find a hearth more profit. Better they cast the bit of paper.”

Mrs. C.—“What does she mean by paper? Their programmes?”

Patience.—“Painted parchment squares.”

Mrs. P.—“Oh, she means they’d better stay at home and play cards.”

Mrs. H.—“Are they likely to get their morals corrupted at that show?”

Patience.—“He who tickleth the ass to start a braying, fain would carol with his brother.”

Mrs. C.—“If the singing is as bad as it usually is at that place, I don’t wonder at her disapproval. But what about the girls, Patience?”

Patience.—“My pettieskirt ye may borrow for the brazens.”

Mrs. P.—“Now, what is a pettieskirt? Is it really a skirt or is it that ruff they used to wear around the neck?”

Patience.—“Nay, my bib covereth the neckband.”

Mrs. H.—“Then, where do you wear your pettieskirt?”

Patience.—“ ’Neath my kirtle.”

Mrs. C.—“Is that the same as girdle? Let’s look it up.”

Patience.—“Art fashioning thy new frock?”

Mrs. H.—“I predict that Patience will found a new style—Puritan.”

Patience.—“ ’Twere a virtue, egad!”

Mrs. H.—“You evidently don’t think much of our present style. In your day women dressed more modestly, didn’t they?”

Patience.—“Many’s the wench who pulled her points to pop. But ah, the locks were combed to satin! He who bent above might see himself reflected.”

Mrs. C.—“What were the young girls of your day like, Patience?”

Patience.—“A silly lot, as these of thine. Wait!”

There was no movement of the board for about three minutes, and then:

“ ’Tis a sorry lot, not harming but boresome!”

Mrs. H.—“Oh, Patience, have you been to the theater?”

Patience.—“A peep in good cause could surely ne’er harm the godly.”

Mrs. C.—“How do you think we ought to look after those men?”

Patience.—“Thine ale is drunk at the hearth. Surely he who stops to sip may bless the firelog belonging to thee.”

When the men returned home they agreed with the verdict of Patience before they had heard it, that it was a “tame” show, “not harming, but boresome.”

The exclamation of Mrs. Curran, “Let’s look it up,” in the extract just quoted from the record, has been a frequent one in this circle since Patience came. So many of her words are obsolete that her friends are often compelled to search through the dictionaries and glossaries for their meaning. Her reference to articles of dress—wimple, kirtle, pettieskirt, points and so on, had all to be “looked up.” Once Patience began an evening with this remark:

“The cockshut finds ye still peering to find the other land.”

“What is cock’s hut?” asked Mrs. H.

“Nay,” said Patience, “Cock-shut. Thee needeth light, but cockshut bringeth dark.”

“Cockshut must mean shutting up the cock at night,” suggested a visitor.

“Aye, and geese, too, then could be put to quiet,” Patience exclaimed. “Wouldst thou wish for cockshut?”

Search revealed that cockshut was a term anciently applied to a net used for catching woodcock, and it was spread at nightfall, hence cockshut acquired also the meaning of early evening. Shakespeare uses the term once, in Richard III., in the phrase, “Much about cockshut time,” but it is a very rare word in literature, and probably has not been used, even colloquially, for centuries.

There are many such words used by Patience—relics of an age long past. The writer was present at a sitting when part of a romantic story-play of medieval days was being received on the board. One of the characters in the story spoke of herself as “playing the jane-o’-apes.” No one present had ever heard or seen the word. Patience was asked if it had been correctly received, and she repeated it. Upon investigation it was found that it is a feminine form of the familiar jackanapes, meaning a silly girl. Massinger used it in one of his plays in the seventeenth century, but that appears to be the only instance of its use in literature.

These words may be not unknown to many people, but the point is that they were totally strange to those at the board, including Mrs. Curran—words that could not possibly have come out of the consciousness or subconsciousness of any one of them. The frequent use of such words helps to give verity to the archaic tongue in which she expresses her thoughts, and the consistent and unerring use of this obsolete form of speech is, next to the character of her literary production, the strongest evidence of her genuineness. It will be noticed, too, that the language she uses in conversation is quite different from that in her literary compositions, although there are definite similarities which seem to prove that they come from the same source. In this also she is wholly consistent: for it is unquestionably true that no poet ever talked as he wrote. Every writer uses colloquial words and idioms in conversation that he would never employ in literature. No matter what his skill or genius as a writer may be, he talks “just like other people.” Patience Worth in this, as in other things, is true to her character.

It may be repeated that in all this matter—and it is but a skimming of the mass—one may readily discern a distinct and striking personality; not a wraith-like, formless, evanescent shadow, but a personality that can be clearly visualized. One can easily imagine Patience Worth to be a woman of the Puritan period, with, however, none of the severe and gloomy beliefs of the Puritan—a woman of a past age stepped out of an old picture and leaving behind her the material artificialities of paint and canvas. From her speech and her writings one may conceive her to be a woman of Northern England, possibly: for she uses a number of ancient words that are found to have been peculiar to the Scottish border; a country woman, perhaps, for in all of her communications there are only two or three references to the city, although her knowledge and love of the drama may be a point against this assumption; a woman who had read much in an age when books were scarce, and women who could read rarer still: for although she frequently expresses disdain of book learning, she betrays a large accumulation of such learning, and a copious vocabulary, as well as a degree of skill in its use, that could only have been acquired from much study of books. “I have bought beads from a pack,” she says, “but ne’er yet have I found a peddler of words.”

And then, after we have mentally materialized this woman, and given her a habitation and a time, Patience speaks again, and all has vanished. “Not so,” she said to one who questioned her, “I be abirthed awhither and abide me where.” And again she likened herself to the wind. “I be like the wind,” she said, “who leaveth not track, but ever ’bout, and yet like to the rain who groweth grain for thee to reap.” At other times she has indicated that she has never had a physical existence. I have quoted her saying: “I do plod a twist o’ a path and it hath run from then till now.” At a later time she was asked what she meant by that. She answered:

“Didst e’er to crack a stone, and lo, a worm aharded? (a fossil). ’Tis so, for list ye, I speak like ye since time began.”

It is thus she reveals herself clearly to the mind, but when one attempts to approach too closely, to lay a hand upon her, as it were, she invariably recedes into the unfathomable deeps of mysticism.