character of the beverages and edibles; living in the woods like a wild
beast, but never angry; moaning, and sometimes howling, but never
uttering articulate sounds.
Such was “Old Shep” as the papers painted him. I felt that the story of
his life must be a sad one–a story of suffering, disappointment, and
exile–a story of man’s inhumanity to man in some shape or other–and I
longed to persuade the secret from him.
…………………
“Since you say you are a member of the press,” said the wild man, “I am
willing to tell you all you wish to know. Bye and bye you will
comprehend why it is that I wish to unbosom myself to a newspaper man
when I have so studiously avoided conversation with other people. I will
now unfold my strange story. I was born with the world we live upon,
almost. I am the son of Cain.”
“What?”
“I was present when the flood was announced.”
“Which?”
“I am the father of the Wandering Jew.”
“Sir?”
I moved out of range of his club, and went on taking notes, but keeping a
wary eye on him all the while. He smiled a melancholy smile and resumed:
“When I glance back over the dreary waste of ages, I see many a
glimmering and mark that is familiar to my memory. And oh, the leagues
I have travelled! the things I have seen! the events I have helped to
emphasise! I was at the assassination of Caesar. I marched upon Mecca
with Mahomet. I was in the Crusades, and stood with Godfrey when he
planted the banner of the cross on the battlements of Jerusalem. I–”
“One moment, please. Have you given these items to any other journal?
Can I–”
“Silence. I was in the Pinta’s shrouds with Columbus when America burst
upon his vision. I saw Charles I beheaded. I was in London when the
Gunpowder Plot was discovered. I was present at the trial of Warren
Hastings. I was on American soil when the battle of Lexington was fought
when the declaration was promulgated–when Cornwallis surrendered–
When Washington died. I entered Paris with Napoleon after Elba. I was
present when you mounted your guns and manned your fleets for the war of
1812–when the South fired upon Sumter–when Richmond fell–when the
President’s life was taken. In all the ages I have helped to celebrate
the triumphs of genius, the achievements of arms, the havoc of storm,
fire, pestilence, famine.”
“Your career has been a stirring one. Might I ask how you came to locate
in these dull Kansas woods, when you have been so accustomed to
excitement during what I might term so protracted a period, not to put
too fine a point on it?”
“Listen. Once I was the honoured servitor of the noble and illustrious”
(here he heaved a sigh, and passed his hairy hand across his eyes) “but
in these degenerate days I am become the slave of quack doctors and
newspapers. I am driven from pillar to post and hurried up and down,
sometimes with stencil-plate and paste-brush to defile the fences with
cabalistic legends, and sometimes in grotesque and extravagant character
at the behest of some driving journal. I attended to that Ocean Bank
robbery some weeks ago, when I was hardly rested from finishing up the
pow-wow about the completion of the Pacific Railroad; immediately I was
spirited off to do an atrocious, murder for the benefit of the New York
papers; next to attend the wedding of a patriarchal millionaire; next to
raise a hurrah about the great boat race; and then, just when I had begun
to hope that my old bones would have a rest, I am bundled off to this
howling wilderness to strip, and jibber, and be ugly and hairy, and pull
down fences and waylay sheep, and waltz around with a club, and play
‘Wild Man’ generally–and all to gratify the whim of a bedlam of crazy
newspaper scribblers? From one end of the continent to the other, I am
described as a gorilla, with a sort of human seeming about me–and all to
gratify this quill-driving scum of the earth!”
“Poor old carpet bagger!”