names of many a man whose name has become historic, and above whose ashes
kept watch an inscription testifying to his virtues and devotion,--old
autographs,--for the Black Man was the original autograph collector.

But these, no doubt, were foolish stories, conceived andpropagated in
chimney-corners, while yet there were chimney-corners and firesides, and
smoky flues. There wasno truth in such things, I am sure; the Black Man
had changedhis tactics, and knew better than to lure the human soul thus
to come to him with his musty autograph-book. So Septimiusfought with his
difficulty by himself, as many a beginner inscience has done before him;
and to his efforts in this way arepopularly attributed many herb-drinks,
and some kinds ofspruce-beer, and nostrums used for rheumatism, sore
throat,and typhus fever; but I rather think they all came from AuntKeziah;
or perhaps, like jokes to Joe Miller, all sorts ofquack medicines,
flocking at large through the community, areassigned to him or her. The
people have a little mistaken thecharacter and purpose of poor Septimius,
and remember him as aquack doctor, instead of a seeker for a secret, not
the lesssublime and elevating because it happened to be unattainable.

I know not through what medium or by what means, but it got noised abroad
that Septimius was engaged in some mysterious work; and, indeed, his
seclusion, his absorption, his indifference to all that was going on in
that weary time of war, looked strange enough to indicate that it must be
some most important business that engrossed him. On the few occasions when
he came out from his immediate haunts into the village, he had a strange,
owl-like appearance, uncombed, unbrushed, his hair long and tangled; his
face, they said, darkened with smoke; his cheeks pale; the indentation of
his brow deeper than ever before; an earnest, haggard, sulking look; and
so he went hastily along the village street, feeling as if all eyes might
find out what he had in his mind from his appearance; taking by-ways where