HAUNTED HEARTS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE LAMPLIGHTER."BOSTON: J. E. TILTON AND COMPANY.
1864.Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by MARIA S. CUMMINS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. ELECTROTYPED AT THE Boston Stereotype Foundry, No. 4 Spring Lane.
PREFACE.
"IF you could only write a book one day and publish it the next!" as a friend of mine lately exclaimed. Then, indeed, one could keep up with the times.
But, alas! my book, to-day offered to the public, was projected—let me see—five, six, yes, seven years ago, at the very least. The foundation of it—long since slipped away, the outline of it—lost in the filling in,—were suggested by some of the traditions of a New Jersey district, related to me, from time to time, by a venerable New Jersey farmer, my host, and the companion or instigator of my excursions, during a few weeks' sojourn at the farm. He was minute in his delineation of the historical localities and revolutionary associations of the neighborhood, and they were not a few. I trust I profited by the valuable information he imparted, and added something to my stock of positive, though unproductive, knowledge. But that the romantic incidents, the page: 4-5[View Page 4-5] traditionary events of the district, related by him with spirit, and listened to by me with eagerness, took fast hold of my imagination, and, though long in ripening, eventually bore fruit, the following pages furnish voluminous proof.
This little New Jersey graft, this germ destined to swell to such unforseen proportions, long lay dormant. Even when it started into life and vigor it promised only a miniature growth; but, as sometimes proves the case with buds of foreign stock, it took wonderfully to the soil, claimed room for its expansion, and grew and grew, until at last it assumed the form, and acquired the dimensions, which it wears to-day.
Meanwhile, busier fingers than mine, they tell me, and pens earlier in the field, have made the crime on which the incidents of my story hang (an unnatural and unusual crime in civilized communities), the basis and groundwork of more than one popular feast which fiction has served up to the public. Still, as I did not write my story for the sake of the crime, but have tolerated the crime for the sake of my story,—as details of material horrors have been subordinate in my mind, and will be, I trust, in my reader's, to the widespread and lasting influence which they exercised on innocent hearts and lives,—I venture to hope that this web of fancy, 'long drawn out,' may contain some threads of novelty, interest, and pathos. The will-o'-the-wisp that formerly beguiled the traveller, the ghosts that used to stalk through churchyards at midnight, the spectres that once haunted forsaken homes, have all been extinguished, laid to rest, or banished by knowledge, reason, and experience; but so long as individual hopes, and loves, and fears are merged in the universal lot, so long as each human heart is but a link in "that electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound," what hope is there that the will-o'-the-wisp of deceit, the ghost of buried joys, the spectre of withering fears, will cease to beguile, startle, and haunt the great heart of Humanity?
And because we all have within us such false lights, such hidden ghosts, such stalking spectres, I venture to believe that in probing life deep at one point, I may chance to reach to the common root, that haply I may awaken a respect and sympathy for truths buried in life's unfathomed wells, and may thus strike the secret spring of all charity, by suggesting the debt of love, compassion, forgiveness, sympathy which each owes to all, and all to each; since who is there who does not, may not, must not, carry in his breast that pitiful thing—A HAUNTED HEART?
page: 6-7 (Table of Contents) [View Page 6-7 (Table of Contents) ]CONTENTS.
- I. THE OLD DUTCH TAVERN, 9
- II. A COMFORT OR A CURSE—WHICH? 14
- III. OUTSTRIPPED IN THE RACE, 28
- IV. THE DOUBTFUL VALUE OF GEORGE'S FRIENDS, 47
- V. THE CHRISTMAS BALL, 60
- VI. TELLING WHAT HAD BECOME OF GEORDIE, 76
- VII. IN WHICH A SUDDEN STOP IS PUT TO THE MUSIC, 92
- VIII. TURNING THE TABLES, 117
- IX. SHRIFT AND ABSOLUTION, 135
- X. A CRIME AND A BIT OF PROOF, 146
- XI. BATTLING WITH FATE, 163
- XII. WEIGHING THE TESTIMONY, 183
- XIII. POLLY DEFIANT AND POLLY SUBDUED, 197
- XIV. A FRESH CATASTROPHE, 217
- XV. BREAKING THE NEWS, 235
- XVI. THE LONG WATCH OVER, 242
- XVII. A WINTER OF THE HEART, 256
- XVIII. THE DROP OF DEW, 267
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- XIX. THE VOICE OF PUBLIC OPINION, 284
- XX. A CLEW AT LAST, 307
- XXI. ON THE TRACK OF CRIME, 323
- XXII. A STRANGE COMPACT, 336
- XXIII. OVERWHELMED WITH SUCCESS, 361
- XXIV. A CONTENTION FOR PLACES, 374
- XXV. THE PRINCIPAL WITNESS, 392
- XXVI. THE DENUNCIATION, 409
- XXVII. SUPPER AT THE PIPE AND BOWL, 438
- XXVIII. CONGRATULATIONS, 461
- XXIX. QUIET DAYS, 483
- XXX. HAUNTED HEARTS EXORCISED AND BLEST, 496
- XXXI. THE DARK SIDE OF THE PICTURE, 517
- XXXII. A FAREWELL GLIMPSE, 532
- XXXIII. CONCLUSION, 549