PETER STOTT’S DREAM.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5378, 22 June 1878, Page 2 (Supplement)

PETER STOTT’S DREAM.

(By Joan Middlemass, in the “Belgravia Annual.’’)

Bite Rip Van Winkle, Peter Stott fell asleep. He slept for fifty years. Comfortably seated in his large arm-chair, with a monycolored silk handkerchief thrown over his rubicund countenance, did this excellent and amiable paterfamilias compose himself for his post-prandial nap. The house was quiet; his numerous progeny, believing him to be at rest, were pursuing their various avocations, little suspecting the vicissitudes through which their respected parent was about to pass, or how far away from the daily calculation of his brewing accounts the very imbibing of the potent liquor made in his own vats was about to conduct him. . It is a darkened chamber, the gloom being made apparent by two mould candles, with sauffs-towering up into a sort of castle. On a bed at one end of the room there lies a woman ; she is very still—so still as almost to suggest the presence of death ; but an old, almost imbecile attendant, fussing about among the curtains of the huge four-post bedstead, feebly suggests the existence of life- Peter Btott is that room, he is gazing on the scene, believing in his own invisibility, till the quaint-looking, infirm nurec touches him with a cold, clammy hand. “ It’s ae yer ain wark, and it’s no a canny one," she says, in a broad North Country accent. It seems to sting and rouse him as though a wasp had fastened itself on his sensitive flesh. He puts out one hand with a rapid gesture, to brash off the importunate insect—but the old hag has been stinging for a lifetime, and she knows how powerful an attribute is pertinacity. Site turns down the bed-clothes and reveals the face of the motionless patient. It is white and rigid, but with wide-open eyes, which seem to gaze hopelessly into space. Peter Stott stands absoibed in contemplation. “ Will ye no speak to thepnir lassie 1 maybe the voice of ye will bring her to herself.” As under a spell he complies, and whispers : “Alice, Alice,” in a sepulchral tone that strikes terror into his own heart. The hag was right; it reaches the sleeper, for she moves restlessly, and holds out her hands as though seeking some object. Peter advances one step nearer the bed, but the old woman waves him back. “ Dinna touch her—yer tojich were death !” she says authoritatively ; “ye maun look and speak, but ye raannna feel.” A heavy footstep is heard on the stairs as he stands wavering whether he shall comply with or be disobedient to the old woman’s behests. An unmistakable Esculapius enters, wearing black silk stockings, knee-breeches, a swallow-tailed coat, and his hair in a queue ; he feels the patient’s pulse, using as he docs so a silver watch on such a scale of magnitude that it would be impossible for it to go wrong for want of room for the works to move.

“A feeble spark of vitality remains,” he says unctuously. “Try galvanism,” suggests Peter Stott, who shivers every time he hears his own voice. The man of medicine turns and looks at him with an expression partaking of wonder and contempt. “ Though it is true that Galvani invented a system by which electric shocks might he given in the year—say 1790 —yet you must be aware that it is utterly impossible-to carry about the immense machine necessary for the purpose.” “Pool!” thinks Stott; “ why, I cured myself of the toothache the other day by means of a galvanic battery no biggerthan a woman's workbox !” but he is too much impressed by the gravity of the situation to speak. “ Bleeding or blisters ?” murmars the doctor, as though querying with himself which were most likely to kill; the remark seems to have reached even the sick woman’s dulled senses, for the starts up in bed with a sudden shriek, and looks wildly round her. The spark of life burns more brightly as she recognises Peter, and she beckons to him. Looking utterly ashamed both of himself and the part he is enacting, with a measured step he approaches ; she throws her arras round him as though she would strangle him in a strong embrace. “ My father !” she cries ; “ go, bring my father here then with another fearful shriek she releases him and falls back ou the pillows. Beads of cold perspiration stand on Peter’s brow ; be shakes from head to foot as in the eamo awed whi-per, which never fails to scare himself as he hears it, he says to the doctor—- “ Try anesthetics—chloroform—anything to quiet her.” Esculapius regards him superciliously—he, being content with the lights of his day, has never looked into the mirror which shall reveal coming events ; what knows he of anaesthetics? H a deems Peter mad. “Go and send a messenger to the lady's father,” is the practical suggestion, “if you know where he is to be found.” " I will telegraph at once,” cries Peter as he rashes clown the stairs, while Esculapius, with a Burleigh shake, mutters sotto voce — “ Another patient—blister on the head—strait waistcoat—Bedlam !” Once in the street, Peter rushes heedlessly on ; it is dark, almost pitch-dark, yet he is in a well-known L mlon thoroughfare, but it is so dimly lighted by oil lamps that he fais to recognise it. A policeman will set him right. “ Half-past twelve, and a rainy night ?" croaks the hoarse voice of the watchman, as he emerges from his little sentry-box at the corner of a street. “Pool ! heim’t any use at all,” murmurs Peter ; “ I thought that race of idiots had become extinct. Where the deuce is the telegraph office ? Ah, the railway station—Victoria, that will be about the mark,” and on be strides, into space ns it appears. The Victoria Station is unreachable, for the very reason that it is non-existent f still the air seems peopled with demons urging him with all speed to find Alice’s father; and pursuing him unceasingly, he rushes on, on, on, without being any nearer the desired goal; altogether, he is travelling in a new country—what can it mean ? Surely he knows every street, every stone in London, and the Victoria Station is close to his own house. Gone—bodily gone—nothing hut open spaces—swamps, and bricks and mortar ; yet the old man must be communicated with. Great Heaven, what shall he do ? Ask an imbecile watchman—there is no one else about. “Coach for B starts from the ‘Green Man and Still’ about six in the morning or thereaway ; there ain’t no quicker means of communication as I knows on.” “Pooh, you beuighted idiot I who wants a coach when there are telegraphs and railways ? I have missed my way ; just tell me which is the turning to take to the station.” “Never heard of no station, nor no means of conveyance but coaches and posts.” “ Well, tell me at least where I shall find a cab.” “ Whatover’s that V “ The man is drunk, there is no doubt of it—why, a hired carriage, idiot !” “Oh, a hackney coach ; they don’t ply by night unless you or.lers ’em.” “Good Heaven, am I going mad?” and Peter Stott hurries on without waiting for further colloquy. He sees a light in the window of a public-house close by ; the twelve o’clock do ing regulation had evidently not come into effect. “ Pen, ink, and paper,” he demands excitedly. “I will write a scrawl and put it in the post; it will be delivered by the middle of the day—” It is quickly done. “ An envelope,” he asks. “ Now, that is a thing as I was never asked for before, and don't rightways know what it he ; if it’s sealing-wax, it’s welcome you are,” ears the landlord. Peter Stott is too angry to answer, bat bunglingly folds his missive and seals it; then, fumbling in his pocket-book, produces a penny stamp, which he places on the right-hand corner in prescribed form. The landlord takes up the letter, bursts into a great guffaw of laughing, and passes it round to several of the bystanders, who indulge in an equal amount of hilarity. “What the devil do you mean ?” asks Peter indignantly ; “it is my belief everyone has gone mad.” “ You are an escaped lunatic yourself,” remarks the jocose landlord ; “ wherever did you get that tniug ? Pintaga one penny, ami a woman’s head ; he’s an impostor, my mates, that’s what ho is. He is trying some devil’s wiles mi us, and wauts to get uj all in trouble.” “ Sorry a fear—wo’Jl hustle him, master,” and the small half-tipsy crowd surrounds Peter, brightened out of his life, ho assumes a bravery he in no wise feels. “ Leave hold of me I” he cries ; “ I am an influential man and a magistrate, and I ara not going to deny the Queen —God bless her—for such rabble as you.” But his words add fury to the tumult already at its commencement. They hiss, and shout, orul spit at him till ho is livid either from rage or fright, and the landlord is compelled to interfere. Quiet, quiet, mates; he has been drinking till ho is besotted. Pity when liquor takes the form of political rashness. Them as is better and wiser than you, young man, was locked up

t’other day for saying as our good king was a fat Adonis of fifty,’ and you come flaunting a gay Queen in our faces—out upon you ! “I am neither mad nor drunk, and 1m as ready to swear that Victoria is Queen «£ England as I was ten minutes ago, says Peter stoutly. . . . These words bring. matters to a crisis, and the whole assembly sets upon Peter, who for dear life’s sake bolts out of the tavern, leaving the objectionable missive on the table. Bit they are not content with hunting him forth ; they pursuse him with shouting and execrations ; threaten him with a ducking in a horsepond ; but somehow he manages to'outstrip them, and now. thanking the dim lamps which he had abused bat a brief space ago, he sits down in ’a dark, slushy cotnor, grateful for a moment in which to breathe. But the demons who people the air around him do not leave him long: “Alice’s father, Alice's father—the only reparation you can make now is to find him !” they repeat in chorus, and Peter raises his weary limbs and walks a few paces slowly, as though clogs were bound about his ankles and impeded his progress. Where is be to go—what is he to do ? He does not know, for the world seems to be topsy-turvy. If it were only daylight the drunken folk might grow sober, and be able to give him rational answers. Even as he desires it, the black paraphernalia of night is drawn up like a mantle by an unseen hand, and he finds himself in Regent-street at noonday. “ Alice’s father,” still whisper his attendant demons. “Pooh, nonsense! why will they jibber? Nothing is easier now that it is light,” and he looks round askance, but there is still something wrong about the world—no omnibuses, no hansoms, nothing but heavy, anti-quated-looking conveyances. “Isit a bank holiday perchance, and so the usual traffic is stopped ? Of course nut ; why, it would be doubled. Such clothes, too, as the people wear ! Talk of legs —the women’s dresses are short enough in all conscience, and the men in their drab gaiters and swallow-tail coats look as if they had been on a visit to Noah.” He is standing near a large print shop, and he looks curiously into tlie window; not a photograph of a pretty actress to be seen—and the good paterfamilias is wont to regale himself with just that peep into a forbidden land which photograph shops reveal; nothing can be seen but large engravings, and some H.B. caricatures of Lord Melbourne, Sir Erancis Burdett, and such-like ; they do not interest him in the least, so he starts once more on his search for Alice’s father, bat every instant the object he has in view merges into a fresh phase of wonder. He turns down Wateriooplace, along Cockspur-street, walking very fast; he is evidently making for the Charing Cross Station. Arrived at the spot where it should be, he stands stock-still and looks round him utterly bewildered ; a very different building meets his eye, while an unmistakably fishy odour regales bis nostrils. Hungerford Market in all its busy prosperity is before him, as it was before railroads and steam with their resistless power knocked down houses and streets, and possessed themselves of many a timehonored edifice.

Bewildered by the noise of selling and bargaining, he turns disgusted away, and pursues his road along the Strand until he reaches Temple Bar. Ah, here he is quite at home ; “ the ruthless hand of innovation has not interfered with this remnant of antiquity”; and, as Peter stands and gazes while the demons about his brain are still whispering of Alice’s father, a man of cadaverous appearance in wig and gown passes him out of the Inns of Court close by. This man looks sage and staid ;he will accost him, and perhaps obtain the solution of all this mystery. “ Pardon me, sir, but did it ever happen to you to be lost in London ?” asks Peter mildly. “As a youth, when I first came up to read for the Bar, frequently; but now I am, I fancy, pretty well, versed in the intricacies of the great city,” says the stranger, smiling. “Don’t be too trustful. Yesterday I thought I knew every street, every court; to-day it seems to mo as if I were in another city.” “ Softening of the brain,” murmurs the barrister. Peter becomes instantly angry. “ Why should everyone imagine me to be mad or drank ?” he says ; “ I am as much in my sober senses as yon are, and I took you for a wine man. You wear the outward garb of knowledge, and I expected you to have informed me why no one knows aught of Telegraphy, Penny Postage, Hallways, and Hansom cabs.” The man of law shook his head as Esculapius had done. “ X see,” he says contemplatively, “ you are one of those visionaries who puzzle your brain over coming events. England in the future, young man, depend on it, will not be so very far in advance of the England of to-day. Because a tea-kettle boils till evaporation produces steam, is that any reason why steam in the future is to be our motive power ? It were not science but witchcraft that were necessary to produce such a result.” “ But I tell yon I have travelled on scores of railways ; it is absurd to say they are un-succ-ssful.” Still the barrister looks incredulous. “ To what a state of dementia will not fallacy conduct us !” he observes sadly. Peter Stott lost all patience. “You don’t believe in railways and the power of steam!” he cries indignantly; “you are as behind your time as the rest of the ignorant crowd I have met of late. What has happened to yon all ? Railways, telegraphy, penny postage, galvanism, anaesthetics —why, I ask you plainly, how could the great machinery of life work without them ? You might as well tell me there is no freedom of the press, no cheap literature, no free trade, no Ritualism, no Mormonism, no divorce I” A ghastly smile plays once more on the features of the man of law. “There is a method in your madness, my friend,” he says sadly ; these last named evils are the inevitable result of the first-named innovations. Let us hope that in our tirefe science will not make the rapid strides fanaticism leads some people to predict, eapeciaally as a vaster amount of civilisation will only be provocative of demoralisation.” “ This is past all permission,” cries Peter Stott, scratching his head ; “ is no impression to be made on anyone I” “ And all this while Alice lies dying I” murmur the demons in horrid chorus. “ Ay, yes, tell me, sir, which is the quickest way to communicate with a gentleman at B ? His daughter is dying.” “ Give the guard of the coach a donation — he will take a letter for you. It is cheaper than the post. B is fifty miles, and the nostage twopence halpenny a mile, unless yon happen to have a friend who will frank your letter.”

He evidently deems Stott to be at the least in a state of bewilderment, and ho instructs him ns though he were a child. “Franks bo hanged!” shouts perplexed Peter, and, leaving the stranger in utter astonmcnt, he starts off once more in his vain search for Alice’s father. It is useless —ho cannot find a single individual who will agree with him or even listen to him; he tramps and tramps till his feet swell and his shoes pinch, but utterly in vain; not one of the oft-frequented railway stations or telegraph offices can he see. “ There ho is, there’s the poor maniac !” shouts a stentorian voice close to him, and Peter finds himself once more in close proximity to his persecutors of the previous night. These words act as a note of call, and Peter is at once surrounded by his opponents, among whom the landlord of the tavern is conspicuously present. Wretched Stott ! ho takes to his heels to run, but all agility is gone from his tired limbs; he falls, picks himself up, falls and rises again, always with this unruly band close upon bim; they have not touched him yet, but their coarse features and loud voices accompany bim in whatever direction he guides his steps, and do what he may ho cannot escape from them. “ Alice’s father —find Alice’s father,” is the demoniac refrain, and to Peter Stott’s harassed mind it seems as if this tipsy tavern crow, who gibe and torture him, were his mental persecutors, who have assumed bodily form. But they don’t allow him time to think. To go on for over is obviously the punishment which he has been ordained for some reason to undergo, and forwards, ever forwards, ho is urged--now down in a pitfall, now up again to scramble along a difficult stony way—still it is always on, going on with that band of miscreants behind him. Into a narrow alley do they at last hunt him, where it would seem »they must overpower and seize him, but still his flagging footsteps lead him to the end ; he turns the corner, and with a cry of relief falls on his own doorstep. “ Eh, what ? God have mercy upon me !—it can’t be possible I Alice, poor Alice I she died fifty years ago ;” —and the brewer, awakening from his siesta, starts hurriedly to his feet. Fifty years ago—ay, did she; and the recollection, even when it forces itself upon his mind in his waking moments, brings more remorse than grief. “Conscience makes cowards of us all.” So it would seem with Peter Stott, to judge from the convulsion of feeling which overcomes him before he returns slowly to the actual relations of his life after his experiences in that fearful dream ; well could ho say, with Clarence—

“ I would not spend another such a niglit, Though ’twere to buy a world of happy days, So full of dismal terrorwas the time. Ay, she had passed to her rest full fifty years ; a buxom wife and many olive branches have sat round his well-spread board since then, to whom the name of Alice is never uttered. But the god of dreams has brougbt the old slumbering past back once more vividly before his mind ; and, as Peter Stott stands in troubled agitation on his hearthrug, he makes no answer to the conscience which has awakened within him, save to murmur feebly with his old pinched lips—- ” I have done these things, That now give evldmce avainst my soul 1"