SHOWING HOW HE BUILT HIS HOUSE AND HIS WIFE MOVED INTO IT
James Russell Lowell
My worthy friend, A. Gordon Knott,
From business snug withdrawn,
Was much contented with a lot
That would contain a Tudor cot
'Twixt twelve feet square of garden-plot,
And twelve feet more of lawn.
He had laid business on the shelf
To give his taste expansion,
And, since no man, retired with pelf,
The building mania can shun, 10
Knott, being middle-aged himself,
Resolved to build (unhappy elf!)
A mediæval mansion.
He called an architect in counsel;
'I want,' said he, 'a--you know what,
(You are a builder, I am Knott)
A thing complete from chimney-pot
Down to the very grounsel;
Here's a half-acre of good land;
Just have it nicely mapped and planned 20
And make your workmen drive on;
Meadow there is, and upland too,
And I should like a water-view,
D'you think you could contrive one?
(Perhaps the pump and trough would do,
If painted a judicious blue?)
The woodland I've attended to;'
[He meant three pines stuck up askew,
Two dead ones and a live one.]
'A pocket-full of rocks 'twould take 30
To build a house of freestone,
But then it is not hard to make
What nowadays is _the_ stone;
The cunning painter in a trice
Your house's outside petrifies,
And people think it very gneiss
Without inquiring deeper;
_My_ money never shall be thrown
Away on such a deal of stone,
When stone of deal is cheaper.' 40
And so the greenest of antiques
Was reared for Knott to dwell in:
The architect worked hard for weeks
In venting all his private peaks
Upon the roof, whose crop of leaks
Had satisfied Fluellen;
Whatever anybody had
Out of the common, good or bad,
Knott had it all worked well in;
A donjon-keep, where clothes might dry, 50
A porter's lodge that was a sty,
A campanile slim and high,
Too small to hang a bell in;
All up and down and here and there,
With Lord-knows-whats of round and square
Stuck on at random everywhere,--
It was a house to make one stare,
All corners and all gables;
Like dogs let loose upon a bear,
Ten emulous styles _staboyed_ with care, 60
The whole among them seemed to tear,
And all the oddities to spare
Were set upon the stables.
Knott was delighted with a pile
Approved by fashion's leaders:
(Only he made the builder smile,
By asking every little while,
Why that was called the Twodoor style,
Which certainly had _three_ doors?)
Yet better for this luckless man 70
If he had put a downright ban
Upon the thing _in limine;_
For, though to quit affairs his plan,
Ere many days, poor Knott began
Perforce accepting draughts, that ran
All ways--except up chimney;
The house, though painted stone to mock,
With nice white lines round every block,
Some trepidation stood in,
When tempests (with petrific shock, 80
So to speak,) made it really rock,
Though not a whit less wooden;
And painted stone, howe'er well done,
Will not take in the prodigal sun
Whose beams are never quite at one
With our terrestrial lumber;
So the wood shrank around the knots,
And gaped in disconcerting spots,
And there were lots of dots and rots
And crannies without number, 90
Wherethrough, as you may well presume,
The wind, like water through a flume,
Came rushing in ecstatic,
Leaving, in all three floors, no room
That was not a rheumatic;
And, what with points and squares and rounds
Grown shaky on their poises,
The house at nights was full of pounds,
Thumps, bumps, creaks, scratchings, raps--till--'Zounds!'
Cried Knott, 'this goes beyond all bounds; 100
I do not deal in tongues and sounds,
Nor have I let my house and grounds
To a family of Noyeses!'
But, though Knott's house was full of airs,
_He_ had but one,--a daughter;
And, as he owned much stocks and shares,
Many who wished to render theirs
Such vain, unsatisfying cares,
And needed wives to sew their tears,
In matrimony sought her; 110
They vowed her gold they wanted not,
Their faith would never falter,
They longed to tie this single Knott
In the Hymeneal halter;
So daily at the door they rang,
Cards for the belle delivering,
Or in the choir at her they sang,
Achieving such a rapturous twang
As set her nerves ashivering.
Now Knott had quite made up his mind 120
That Colonel Jones should have her;
No beauty he, but oft we find
Sweet kernels 'neath a roughish rind,
So hoped his Jenny'd be resigned
And make no more palaver;
Glanced at the fact that love was blind,
That girls were ratherish inclined
To pet their little crosses,
Then nosologically defined
The rate at which the system pined 130
In those unfortunates who dined
Upon that metaphoric kind
Of dish--their own proboscis.
But she, with many tears and moans,
Besought him not to mock her.
Said 'twas too much for flesh and bones
To marry mortgages and loans,
That fathers' hearts were stocks and stones.
And that she'd go, when Mrs. Jones,
To Davy Jones's locker; 140
Then gave her head a little toss
That said as plain as ever was,
If men are always at a loss
Mere womankind to bridle--
To try the thing on woman cross
Were fifty times as idle;
For she a strict resolve had made
And registered in private,
That either she would die a maid,
Or else be Mrs. Doctor Slade, 150
If a woman could contrive it;
And, though the wedding-day was set,
Jenny was more so, rather,
Declaring, in a pretty pet,
That, howsoe'er they spread their net,
She would out-Jennyral them yet,
The colonel and her father.
Just at this time the Public's eyes
Were keenly on the watch, a stir
Beginning slowly to arise 160
About those questions and replies.
Those raps that unwrapped mysteries
So rapidly at Rochester,
And Knott, already nervous grown
By lying much awake alone.
And listening, sometimes to a moan,
And sometimes to a clatter,
Whene'er the wind at night would rouse
The gingerbread-work on his house,
Or when some, hasty-tempered mouse, 170
Behind the plastering, made a towse
About a family matter,
Began to wonder if his wife,
A paralytic half her life.
Which made it more surprising,
Might not, to rule him from her urn,
Have taken a peripatetic turn
For want of exorcising.
This thought, once nestled in his head,
Erelong contagious grew, and spread 180
Infecting all his mind with dread,
Until at last he lay in bed
And heard his wife, with well-known tread,
Entering the kitchen through the shed,
(Or was't his fancy, mocking?)
Opening the pantry, cutting bread,
And then (she'd been some ten years dead)
Closets and drawers unlocking;
Or, in his room (his breath grew thick) 189
He heard the long-familiar click
Of slender needles flying quick,
As if she knit a stocking;
For whom?--he prayed that years might flit
With pains rheumatic shooting,
Before those ghostly things she knit
Upon his unfleshed sole might fit,
He did not fancy it a bit,
To stand upon that footing:
At other times, his frightened hairs 199
Above the bedclothes trusting,
He heard her, full of household cares,
(No dream entrapped in supper's snares,
The foal of horrible nightmares,
But broad awake, as he declares),
Go bustling up and down the stairs,
Or setting back last evening's chairs,
Or with the poker thrusting
The raked-up sea-coal's hardened crust--
And--what! impossible! it must!
He knew she had returned to dust, 210
And yet could scarce his senses trust,
Hearing her as she poked and fussed
About the parlor, dusting!
Night after night he strove to sleep
And take his ease in spite of it;
But still his flesh would chill and creep,
And, though two night-lamps he might keep,
He could not so make light of it.
At last, quite desperate, he goes
And tells his neighbors all his woes, 220
Which did but their amount enhance;
They made such mockery of his fears
That soon his days were of all jeers.
His nights of the rueful countenance;
'I thought most folks,' one neighbor said,
'Gave up the ghost when they were dead?'
Another gravely shook his head,
Adding, 'From all we hear, it's
Quite plain poor Knott is going mad--
For how can he at once be sad 230
And think he's full of spirits?'
A third declared he knew a knife
Would cut this Knott much quicker,
'The surest way to end all strife,
And lay the spirit of a wife,
Is just to take and lick her!'
A temperance man caught up the word,
'Ah yes,' he groaned, 'I've always heard
Our poor friend somewhat slanted 239
Tow'rd taking liquor overmuch;
I fear these spirits may be Dutch,
(A sort of gins, or something such,)
With which his house is haunted;
I see the thing as clear as light,--
If Knott would give up getting tight,
Naught farther would be wanted:'
So all his neighbors stood aloof
And, that the spirits 'neath his roof
Were not entirely up to proof,
Unanimously granted. 250
Knott knew that cocks and sprites were foes,
And so bought up, Heaven only knows
How many, for he wanted crows
To give ghosts caws, as I suppose,
To think that day was breaking;
Moreover what he called his park,
He turned into a kind of ark
For dogs, because a little bark
Is a good tonic in the dark,
If one is given to waking; 260
But things went on from bad to worse,
His curs were nothing but a curse,
And, what was still more shocking,
Foul ghosts of living fowl made scoff
And would not think of going off
In spite of all his cocking.
Shanghais, Bucks-counties, Dominiques,
Malays (that didn't lay for weeks),
Polanders, Bantams, Dorkings,
(Waiving the cost, no trifling ill,
Since each brought in his little bill,) 271
By day or night were never still,
But every thought of rest would kill
With cacklings and with quorkings;
Henry the Eighth of wives got free
By a way he had of axing;
But poor Knott's Tudor henery
Was not so fortunate, and he
Still found his trouble waxing;
As for the dogs, the rows they made, 280
And how they howled, snarled, barked and bayed,
Beyond all human knowledge is;
All night, as wide awake as gnats,
The terriers rumpused after rats,
Or, just for practice, taught their brats
To worry cast-off shoes and hats,
The bull-dogs settled private spats,
All chased imaginary cats,
Or raved behind the fence's slats
At real ones, or, from their mats,
With friends, miles off, held pleasant chats, 291
Or, like some folks in white cravats,
Contemptuous of sharps and flats,
Sat up and sang dogsologies.
Meanwhile the cats set up a squall,
And, safe upon the garden-wall,
All night kept cat-a-walling,
As if the feline race were all.
In one wild cataleptic sprawl,
Into love's tortures falling. 300