Black Man, too, met him on the hill-top, and promised him an immediate release from his difficulties, provided he would kneel down and worship him, and sign his name in his book, an old, iron-clasped, much-worn volume, which he produced from his ample pockets, and showed him in it the 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 Aunt Keziah; 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.