Part I: Showing How He Built His House and His Wife Moved into It

My worthy friend, A. Gordon Knott,From business snug withdrawn,Was much contented with a lotThat would contain a Tudor cot'Twixt twelve feet square of garden-plot,And twelve feet more of lawn.

He had laid business on the shelfTo give his taste expansion,And, since no man, retired with pelf.The building mania can shun,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-potDown to the very grounsel;Here's a half-acre of good land;Just have it nicely mapped and plannedAnd 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 't would takeTo build a house of free-stone,But then it is not hard to makeWhat now-a-days is the stone;The cunning painter in a triceYour house's outside petrifies,And people think it very gneissWithout inquiring deeper;My money never shall be thrownAway on such a deal of stone,When stone of deal is cheaper."

And so the greenest of antiquesWas reared for Knott to dwell in;The architect worked hard for weeksIn venting all his private peaksUpon the roof, whose crop of leaksHad satisfied Fluellen;Whatever any body hadOut of the common, good or bad,Knott had it all worked well in,A donjon-keep, where clothes might dry,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 squareStuck on at random every where,--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,The whole among them seemed to tear,And all the oddities to spareWere set upon the stables.

Knott was delighted with a pileApproved 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 manIf he had put a downright banUpon the thing in limine;For, though to quit affairs his plan,Ere many days, poor Knott beganPerforce, accepting draughts that ranAll 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,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 sunWhose beams are never quite at oneWith our terrestrial lumber;So the wood shrank around the knots,And gaped in disconcerting spots,And there were lots of dots and rotsAnd crannies without number,Wherethrough, as you may well presume,The wind, like water through a flume,Came rushing in ecstatic,Leaving, in all three floors, no roomThat was not a rheumatic;And, what with points and squares and roundsGrown shaky on their poises,The house at night was full of pounds,Thumps, bumps, creaks, scratchings, raps--till--"Zounds!"Cried Knott, "this goes beyond all bounds,I do not deal in tongues and sounds,Nor have I let my house and groundsTo 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 theirsSuch vain, unsatisfying cares,And needed wives to sew their tears,In matrimony sought her;They vowed her gold they wanted not,Their faith would never falter,They longed to tie this single KnottIn the Hymenæal 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 twangAs set her nerves a-shivering.

Now Knott had quite made up his mindThat Colonel Jones should have her;No beauty he, but oft we findSweet kernels 'neath a roughish rind,So hoped his Jenny'd be resignedAnd make no more palaver;Glanced at the fact that love was blind,That girls were ratherish inclinedTo pet their little crosses,Then nosologically definedThe rate at which the system pinedIn those unfortunates who dinedUpon that metaphoric kindOf dish--their own proboscis.

But she, with many tears and moans,Besought him not to mock her,Said 'twas too much for flesh and bonesTo marry mortgages and loans,That fathers' hearts were stocks and stonesAnd that she'd go, when Mrs. Jones,To Davy Jones's locker;Then gave her head a little tossThat said as plain as ever was,If men are always at a lossMere womankind to bridle--To try the thing on woman cross,Were fifty times as idle;For she a strict resolve had madeAnd registered in private,That either she would die a maid,Or else be Mrs. Doctor Slade,If 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 eyesWere keenly on the watch, a stirBeginning slowly to ariseAbout those questions and replies,Those raps that unwrapped mysteriesSo rapidly at Rochester,And Knott, already nervous grownBy lying much awake alone,And listening, sometimes to a moan,And sometimes to a clatter,Whene'er the wind at night would rouseThe gingerbread-work on his house,Or when some hasty-tempered mouse,Behind the plastering, made a towseAbout 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 turnFor want of exorcising.

This thought, once nestled in his head,Ere long contagious grew, and spreadInfecting all his mind with dread,Until at last he lay in bedAnd 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)He heard the long-familiar clickOf slender needles flying quick,As if she knit a stocking;For whom?--he prayed that years might flitWith pains rheumatic shooting,Before those ghostly things she knitUpon his unfleshed sole might fit,He did not fancy it a bit,To stand upon that footing;At other times, his frightened hairsAbove 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 thrustingThe raked-up sea-coal's hardened crust--And--what! impossible! it must!He knew she had returned to dust,And yet could scarce his senses trust,Hearing her as she poked and fussedAbout the parlor, dusting!

Night after night he strove to sleepAnd 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 goesAnd tells his neighbors all his woes,Which did but their amount enhance;They made such mockery of his fearsThat 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'sQuite plain poor Knott is going mad--For how can he at once be sadAnd think he's full of spirits?"A third declared he knew a knifeWould 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 heardOur poor friend somewhat slantedTow'rd taking liquor over-much;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 aloofAnd, that the spirits 'neath his roofWere not entirely up to proof,Unanimously granted.

Knott knew that cocks and sprites were foes,And so bought up, Heaven only knowsHow many, though he wanted crowsTo give ghosts caws, as I suppose,To think that day was breaking;Moreover what he called his park,He turned into a kind of arkFor dogs, because a little barkIs a good tonic in the dark,If one is given to waking;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 scoffAnd would not think of going offIn 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,)By day or night were never still,But every thought of rest would killWith cacklings and with quorkings;Henry the Eighth of wives got freeBy a way he had of axing;But poor Knott's Tudor heneryWas not so fortunate, and heStill found his trouble waxing;As for the dogs, the rows they made,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 bratsTo worry cast-off shoes and hats,The bull-dogs settled private spats,All chased imaginary cats,Or raved behind the fence's slatsAt real ones, or, from their mats,With friends, miles off, held pleasant chats,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.