The Man Who Called Himself Poe

by Sam Moskowitz

  rocks upon which I trod had been trodden never before by

  the foot of human being.”

  “Do you remember,” said the old man, “the tale that

  was told to us on that last spring-time night? See,” and in

  the same tone, low and earnest, he repeated those familiar

  lines—

  “ Over the lilies there that wave

  And weep above a nameless grave ”

  Slowly I turned, as he pointed, toward the center of the

  dell, and there my eyes fastened upon a green mound of

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  THE M AN WHO CALLED HIM SELF POE

  earth, grave-shaped, without a stone, only a bunch of lilies at

  the head, just coming into bloom. In truth, I had found it,

  and there it was before me, the nameless grave.

  There, seated beneath the same low-sweeping pines that

  had sheltered our party nearly fifty years before, and within

  sight of that grave-mound crowned with its early spring lilies,

  I listened to the plain and straightforward story of that

  ancient mountaineer, Gasper Conrad:

  “Five miles from this place, just on the other side of the

  mountain-top, I was bom. During the early years of my life

  I was a wood-cutter, full of ignorance and stupid happiness.

  Three times a week I hauled a load of wood into Char-

  lottesville. And that was all. It was my life. One morning

  about this time of the year I was chopping wood, just over

  yonder to the left of this spot. I heard a voice, loud, and then

  low. I rested on my ax and listened. In those days it was

  a rare thing to see or hear any body but our neighbors, rough,

  ignorant mountain people like myself. I came over this way

  and looked in through the wild undergrowth of the moun-

  tain. I saw a young man about eighteen or twenty years old

  walking rapidly up and down the open space. He walked in

  a hurried, jerky manner, repeating words clearly and

  distinctly, but words that I could not understand. I was

  rooted to the spot. My morning work was entirely forgot-

  ten. My heart while I listened seemed to beat with a new

  life and I seemed to hear a promise of better things. Sud-

  denly he wheeled about and quickly disappeared. After

  that he often came, and always alone; frequently several

  times a week. I always managed to be near by. There was

  in the mere sound of his voice a new charm to me. It was

  a charm that I could not resist. One day, bold with desire to

  hear every word, I ventured too near. He saw me. My eager-

  ness and my delight gained for me a ready forgiveness,

  and it gained for me something besides—his deep and gener-

  ous interest. For to him I owe all of the little knowledge I

  now possess. From that time on, which was early in the

  THE M AN WHO CALLED HIM SELF POE

  4

  spring, until late in the following December, he came almoi

  daily to this lonely valley up here in the mountains. Eac

  time he would bring a bundle of books for me to reac

  Each time he would patiently explain away that which I di

  not understand and gladly remove every difficulty. Th;

  opened up to me a new life full of hitherto unknown riche:

  My chief delight was to listen while he read poetry an

  stories which he had just written, often the very night be

  fore. I never knew his name. Once I asked him. He sai

  for his answer that he was a University student, and mor

  than that it was neither well nor necessary for me to knov

  Each time he came alone, except when he brought you

  crowd of young fellows, to find a safe hiding place from th

  search of the county sheriff. That was about the time whe

  I first knew him. I remember each detail of your stay in th

  mountain. Throughout the day you played your cards an

  drank your peach and honey. But with the coming of nig!

  you gathered around your bright fire, lit your torches, anc

  half laughing, half in earnest, told such queer things abor

  Witches, Wizards, and Goblins. So passed away your tim<

  It was on the last night that my friend told his story—and :

  was the last one told—of that nameless grave. Do you n

  member how you were startled to your feet, in the after-stil

  ness, when the story was ended? Do you remember the soun

  of retreating footsteps on the outer edge of your company

  They were mine. I had been concealed in the tangled unde]

  growth. I had heard the story. He alone, as he told his no>

  prophetic tale, discovered me in my place of hiding. Yo

  know how well he used my hasty retreat to make you fee

  even if you did not believe, that it was the departure of h:

  last Demon. He came here for the last time on a raי

  December day. He bade me a tender, reluctant farewel

  ‘On the morrow," he said, 1 leave forever this haunt of m

  youth. I will have no desire again to return. Solemn!

  faithfully promise that you will not leave the mountains, an

  go down into that Valley of Human Wretchedness, thi

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  t h e m a n w h o c a l l e d H IM SELF POE

  world about which you have read so much. Heaven knows it

  must be far better to read about it—aye, to even think and

  dream about it—than it is to know it, and alas! to love it, as I

  do. Stay here always. Do what good you may among your

  neighbors. Forget all that which I have taught you. Be

  ignorant; be happy. But remember, dear Gasper, some day/

  he said, pointing to what was then only a clump of new lilies

  in the early bloom, 'the clouds above will rapidly drift, un-

  moved by any wind,

  "O ver the lilies there that wave

  And weep above a nameless g ra ve” ’

 
  lily-crowned grave. Two people have known the manner of

  its making—my good wife and myself. But she is dead. I

  alone can give report of that grave-maker—the maker of his

  own grave, who lies at last in peace, I trust, beneath the

  evergreen sod of that nameless grave.

  "In the autumn of 1835, near the close of the day, and in

  the midst of a frightful storm, there came about these parts

  a stranger. He was some fifty-five or six years of age. He

  sought shelter beneath my roof. He expressed to me while

  there the intention of building a small hut in which he in-

  tended to pass the winter. I liked the man. I liked his man-

  ner and his talk. So I tried to prevail upon him to live with

  us—share our poor quarters—because I knew they were far

  better than any he could provide for himself. He was kindly

  disposed toward me from the start. But he refused ab-

  solutely to have any thing to do with my neighbors. He

  would not accept from them a single offer of assistance, and

  would not even answer their questions. He was first regarded

  by the mountain people as a rough, surly fellow, and finally

  he was held in absolute dread—this partly on account of

  his manner toward them, and partly on account of his

  strange, uncouth appearance. He wore a great heavy beard,

  THE M AN WHO CALLED HIM SELF POE

  4
5

  and his long coarse, gray hair was always in a mass of ugly

  tangles. He was known by the somewhat appropriate name

  of Old Shaggy. The bare mention of his name was all-

  sufficient to quiet the noisy child or make the older and un-

  ruly ones creep off to their beds of straw in the low-swinging

  loft. Old women by the fireside told many a story of

  midnight murder and broad, open daylight crime. Old

  Shaggy was said to be, in each instance, the murderer or the

  criminal. If a child died suddenly, it was supposed that the

  curse of Old Shaggy rested on its little head. Even the death

  of our beasts of burden, our oxen and our few horses, was

  laid at the door of Old Shaggy. He was the terror of all this

  country side for twenty miles around. My continued in-

  timacy with the man cost me the love and the good will of

  many of these honest people. They believed that he was an

  Evil Spirit in flesh, and blood, sent to torture the few inhabit-

  ants of the Ragged Mountains for some wrong-doing, the

  nature of which they did not know. W hen I passed among

  them they would draw aside, and, whispering, point after

  me: ‘Gasper Conrad, poor fellow; Old Shaggy has sorely be-

  witched him, and his wife too. We ’uns will have nothin’

  mo’ to do wid ’em /

  “They faithfully kept their word for many years, even

  after Old Shaggy had mysteriously disappeared from among

  them. To this day there is not one, even those of a new gen-

  eration, no m atter how brave, who will draw near this fatal

  place. For yonder, on the edge of this clearing, used to

  stand the little hut of Old Shaggy.

  “He was a man of much information. He had rubbed up

  against the world and gotten from it much that was good

  and more that was bad. Yet it was all of the most intense

  interest, both the good and the bad. He had been every-

  where, in every known part of the world. He once told me

  that he had been a steady traveler for about twenty years;

  that he did not remain long in any one place; and that now,

  weary of the life, he had returned here in order that he

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  THE M AN WHO CALLED HIM SELF POE

  might die not far away from the place of his birth. For he

  said that he was born somewhere in Albemarle County,

  near the little town of Milton; that he was of a good family,

  always wayward, latterly profligate. His people thought him

  dead years before, killed in a drunken brawl; so they were

  told. He did not care for them to think otherwise, for he

  was indeed worse than dead to them.

  “He parted from me one night with these words: ‘And

  furthermore, dear Gasper, I know to the day, and even to

  the hour, the time appointed for my death. Years ago I de-

  termined that my grave should be in some unfrequented

  dell in the Ragged Mountains. For I love their lonely hoi-

  lows and their wooded peaks. Hereabouts I have so often

  wandered in the days of my boyhood with dog and gun.

  Some day I will sleep in peace beneath its perpetual shad-

  ows, and in a grave that shall be forever nameless!

  “Those words filled my soul with terror. Back with a new

  force and a new meaning came the lines—

  ‘Over the lilies there that wave

  And weep above a nameless g ra ve’

  But I was silent. My emotion did not betray me. After that

  he more frequently spoke of himself and of his eventful

  life. Yet he never told me any thing of his actual history.

  That he was filled with a remorse of some kind for some

  crime or wrong-doing, I am sure. It seemed to be a remorse

  unsatisfied, relentless.

  “A short while before his death he told me that he had

  been with Aaron Burr during his famous expedition, and

  that Burr was a brilliant man, fascinating, powerful, and

  that he had been the indirect cause of the one great evil in

  his miserable life. Somehow, stranger, I have always

  thought that evil was a foul but unintentional murder. I

  have gathered the idea more from the manner of Old

  Shaggy than from his guarded words.

  THE M AN WHO CALLED HIM SELF POE

  4 7

  “It was after dark, on the night of September 14, 1836.

  There was a loud knock at my door. Old Shaggy stood out-

  side in the darkness; he refused to come in. ‘No, n o / he

  said; ‘there is not a moment to lose; every thing is ready;

  come, and come quickly!’ I made a fresh torch, and fol-

  lowed after his rapid strides into the lonely valley. I felt

  that I was with a madman. I made no question. I was alone

  with Old Shaggy and with the Silence and the Shadows. By

  the light of the torch I discovered that he had tom down his

  hut, and cut the rough boards into short pieces, and placed

  them in a regular pile on the edge of an open grave. ‘Made

  with my own hands/ he said. It was ten or twelve feet deep,

  and there was in the broad bottom a rough-made coffin; an

  ill-shaped lid near by on the outside. W ithout any emotion

  in either his manner or his voice, he turned to me and said:

  ‘It is about over now, this ugly dream called life. I am grate-

  ful to you for all your kindness. Do not let it fail me now,

  when I need it the most and for the last tim e/ Speechless,

  powerless, I stood by his side. He turned away and flipped

  down into the grave. He deliberately placed himself in the

  coffin which he had made. He closed his eyes. He folded

  his strong arms across his great breast. One moment thus.

  Then he sprang up into a sitting posture, and in a loud

  voice, full of pitiful entreaty, exclaimed: ‘Don’t! don’t! I am

  Albert Pike Carr/’ He fell back into the coffin exhausted, as

  I thought, after this strange and unusual excitement. But it

  was the exhaustion that only death itself can bring.

  “I made new torches and worked until the early dawn

  and afterward. The sunlight found the valley just as it used

  to be before the coming of Old Shaggy. For I had buried

  everything with him, even the rough boards of his hut.

  Nothing remained.

  “But here in the center was the grave. And it was then,

  and even now is, as our friend predicted and as Old Shaggy

  wished it to be—nameless.

  “Stranger, you have heard the story of that mount with

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  THE M AN WHO CALLED HIM SELF POE

  its pretty lilies. I have told you all that I know about the

  man who lies beneath. I do not think his name was Albert

  Pike Carr. That must have been the name of the man he

  murdered. And Old Shaggy died with the same words on

  his own lips that formed the death-cry of his victim—‘Don’t!

  don’t! I am Albert Pike Carr!’ ”

  The old man’s story was ended. He was weary and out of

  breath. Yet he was full of nervous excitement. “Look!” and

  he seized my hand; “there is not a breath of wind, yet the

  trees are trembling as if in a storm, and the clouds overhead

  rush madly through the heavens.

  "Over the lilies
there that wave

  And weep above a nameless g ra ve”

  I left the old man standing by that lonely grave in that

  lonely dell. I reluctantly passed down the mountain-side.

  The evening wind, new risen, from out of those low-

  sweeping and mournful pines, made echo—laughing, mock-

  ing echo —“nameless grave, nameless grave.”

  Thereafter, a short time, and while still at the Univer-

  sity, a bundle of old family letters was placed at my dis-

  posal. They were written by a Virginia woman. She was the

  rarest wit of her day. I had known and liked her while a

  student. So each letter was to me full of interest; each page

  brought back a memory. Several sentences in a letter to her

  brother, a prominent Richmond lawyer, instantly attracted

  my attention. This was the excerpt:

  “By the way, have you heard the latest news? I am told

  that one of the Carrs— Albert, I think; at all events the one

  inclined to be wild, and who is a lover of the venturesome—

  has run away from home, and in company with a dissolute

  companion gone to join that dreadful expedition of Col.

  Aaron Burr. The name of his comrade is unknown.”

  That was all—a mere dainty bit of a fair maiden’s gossip.

  But it is enough to furnish the missing point in that story of

  THE M AN WHO CALLED HIM SELF POE

  49

  the nameless grave. Now, given a number of facts, and a

  certain conclusion is inevitable. With the facts already

  brought forth, this is my theory— my conclusion:

  Young Carr and his dissolute companion together go forth

  to join the expedition of the brilliant Burr. One of their

  number weakens in his devotion. Something must be done.

  Burr sends for this dissolute companion. “He will be on duty

  near the marsh to-night; do it quicklyl do it welll” said Col.

  Burr. But the sides of a tent, like the walls of a house, have

  ears. Somebody crouching near, lost in the darkness.

  “I am sick to-night; take my place on duty near the marsh;

  won’t you, please?״ said a soldier to young Carr. And “I

  will” was the brief and generous answer.

  Later on, a man hurries across the corner of the marsh

  and goes far beyond the camp. He is a deserter, and he had

  made good his escape. Brave young Carr stands watchful

  duty in his place near the marsh. A footstep. “Who goes