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Title: Twice-Told Tales

Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Posting Date: April 11, 2013 [EBook #508]
Release Date: April, 1996
First Posted: March 11, 1996

Language: English

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TWICE-TOLD TALES

by

Nathaniel Hawthorne




CONTENTS

  The Gray Champion
  The Wedding Knell
  The Minister's Black Veil
  The May-Pole of Merry Mount
  The Gentle Boy
  Mr. Higginbotham's Catastrophe
  Wakefield
  The Great Carbuncle
  David Swan
  The Hollow of the Three Hills
  Dr. Heidegger's Experiment
  Legends of the Province House
      I. Howe's Masquerade
     II. Edward Randolph's Portrait
    III. Lady Eleanore's Mantle
     IV. Old Esther Dudley
  The Ambitious Guest
  Peter Goldthwaite's Treasure
  The Shaker Bridal
  Endicott and the Red Cross




FROM TWICE-TOLD TALES



THE GRAY CHAMPION

There was once a time when New England groaned under the actual
pressure of heavier wrongs than those threatened ones which
brought on the Revolution. James II, the bigoted successor of
Charles the Voluptuous, had annulled the charters of all the
colonies, and sent a harsh and unprincipled soldier to take away
our liberties and endanger our religion. The administration of
Sir Edmund Andros lacked scarcely a single characteristic of
tyranny: a Governor and Council, holding office from the King,
and wholly independent of the country; laws made and taxes levied
without concurrence of the people immediate or by their
representatives; the rights of private citizens violated, and the
titles of all landed property declared void; the voice of
complaint stifled by restrictions on the press; and, finally,
disaffection overawed by the first band of mercenary troops that
ever marched on our free soil. For two years our ancestors were
kept in sullen submission by that filial love which had
invariably secured their allegiance to the mother country,
whether its head chanced to be a Parliament, Protector, or Popish
Monarch. Till these evil times, however, such allegiance had been
merely nominal, and the colonists had ruled themselves, enjoying
far more freedom than is even yet the privilege of the native
subjects of Great Britain.

At length a rumor reached our shores that the Prince of Orange
had ventured on an enterprise, the success of which would be the
triumph of civil and religious rights and the salvation of New
England. It was but a doubtful whisper: it might be false, or the
attempt might fail; and, in either case, the man that stirred
against King James would lose his head. Still the intelligence
produced a marked effect. The people smiled mysteriously in the
streets, and threw bold glances at their oppressors; while far
and wide there was a subdued and silent agitation, as if the
slightest signal would rouse the whole land from its sluggish
despondency. Aware of their danger, the rulers resolved to avert
it by an imposing display of strength, and perhaps to confirm
their despotism by yet harsher measures. One afternoon in April,
1689, Sir Edmund Andros and his favorite councillors, being warm
with wine, assembled the red-coats of the Governor's Guard, and
made their appearance in the streets of Boston. The sun was near
setting when the march commenced.

The roll of the drum at that unquiet crisis seemed to go through
the streets, less as the martial music of the soldiers, than as a
muster-call to the inhabitants themselves. A multitude, by
various avenues, assembled in King Street, which was destined to
be the scene, nearly a century afterwards, of another encounter
between the troops of Britain, and a people struggling against
her tyranny. Though more than sixty years had elapsed since the
pilgrims came, this crowd of their descendants still showed the
strong and sombre features of their character perhaps more
strikingly in such a stern emergency than on happier occasions.
There were the sober garb, the general severity of mien, the
gloomy but undismayed expression, the scriptural forms of speech,
and the confidence in Heaven's blessing on a righteous cause,
which would have marked a band of the original Puritans, when
threatened by some peril of the wilderness. Indeed, it was not
yet time for the old spirit to be extinct; since there were men
in the street that day who had worshipped there beneath the
trees, before a house was reared to the God for whom they had
become exiles. Old soldiers of the Parliament were here, too,
smiling grimly at the thought that their aged arms might strike
another blow against the house of Stuart. Here, also, were the
veterans of King Philip's war, who had burned villages and
slaughtered young and old, with pious fierceness, while the godly
souls throughout the land were helping them with prayer. Several
ministers were scattered among the crowd, which, unlike all other
mobs, regarded them with such reverence, as if there were
sanctity in their very garments. These holy men exerted their
influence to quiet the people, but not to disperse them.
Meantime, the purpose of the Governor, in disturbing the peace of
the town at a period when the slightest commotion might throw the
country into a ferment, was almost the universal subject of
inquiry, and variously explained.

"Satan will strike his master-stroke presently," cried some,
"because he knoweth that his time is short. All our godly pastors
are to be dragged to prison! We shall see them at a Smithfield
fire in King Street!"

Hereupon the people of each parish gathered closer round their
minister, who looked calmly upwards and assumed a more apostolic
dignity, as well befitted a candidate for the highest honor of
his profession, the crown of martyrdom. It was actually fancied,
at that period, that New England might have a John Rogers of her
own to take the place of that worthy in the Primer.

"The Pope of Rome has given orders for a new St. Bartholomew!"
cried others. "We are to be massacred, man and male child!"

Neither was this rumor wholly discredited, although the wiser
class believed the Governor's object somewhat less atrocious. His
predecessor under the old charter, Bradstreet, a venerable
companion of the first settlers, was known to be in town. There
were grounds for conjecturing, that Sir Edmund Andros intended at
once to strike terror by a parade of military force, and to
confound the opposite faction by possessing himself of their
chief.

"Stand firm for the old charter Governor!" shouted the crowd,
seizing upon the idea. "The good old Governor Bradstreet!"

While this cry was at the loudest, the people were surprised by
the well-known figure of Governor Bradstreet himself, a patriarch
of nearly ninety, who appeared on the elevated steps of a door,
and, with characteristic mildness, besought them to submit to the
constituted authorities.

"My children," concluded this venerable person, "do nothing
rashly. Cry not aloud, but pray for the welfare of New England,
and expect patiently what the Lord will do in this matter!"

The event was soon to be decided. All this time, the roll of the
drum had been approaching through Cornhill, louder and deeper,
till with reverberations from house to house, and the regular
tramp of martial footsteps, it burst into the street. A double
rank of soldiers made their appearance, occupying the whole
breadth of the passage, with shouldered matchlocks, and matches
burning, so as to present a row of fires in the dusk. Their
steady march was like the progress of a machine, that would roll
irresistibly over everything in its way. Next, moving slowly,
with a confused clatter of hoofs on the pavement, rode a party of
mounted gentlemen, the central figure being Sir Edmund Andros,
elderly, but erect and soldier-like. Those around him were his
favorite councillors, and the bitterest foes of New England. At
his right hand rode Edward Randolph, our arch-enemy, that
"blasted wretch," as Cotton Mather calls him, who achieved the
downfall of our ancient government, and was followed with a
sensible curse, through life and to his grave. On the other side
was Bullivant, scattering jests and mockery as he rode along.
Dudley came behind, with a downcast look, dreading, as well he
might, to meet the indignant gaze of the people, who beheld him,
their only countryman by birth, among the oppressors of his
native land. The captain of a frigate in the harbor, and two or
three civil officers under the Crown, were also there. But the
figure which most attracted the public eye, and stirred up the
deepest feeling, was the Episcopal clergyman of King's Chapel,
riding haughtily among the magistrates in his priestly vestments,
the fitting representatives of prelacy and persecution, the union
of church and state, and all those abominations which had driven
the Puritans to the wilderness. Another guard of soldiers, in
double rank, brought up the rear.

The whole scene was a picture of the condition of New England,
and its moral, the deformity of any government that does not grow
out of the nature of things and the character of the people. On
one side the religious multitude, with their sad visages and dark
attire, and on the other, the group of despotic rulers, with the
high churchman in the midst, and here and there a crucifix at
their bosoms, all magnificently clad, flushed with wine, proud of
unjust authority, and scoffing at the universal groan. And the
mercenary soldiers, waiting but the word to deluge the street
with blood, showed the only means by which obedience could be
secured.

"O Lord of Hosts," cried a voice among the crowd, "provide a
Champion for thy people!"

This ejaculation was loudly uttered, and served as a herald's
cry, to introduce a remarkable personage. The crowd had rolled
back, and were now huddled together nearly at the extremity of
the street, while the soldiers had advanced no more than a third
of its length. The intervening space was empty--a paved solitude,
between lofty edifices, which threw almost a twilight shadow over
it. Suddenly, there was seen the figure of an ancient man, who
seemed to have emerged from among the people, and was walking by
himself along the centre of the street, to confront the armed
band. He wore the old Puritan dress, a dark cloak and a
steeplecrowned hat, in the fashion of at least fifty years
before, with a heavy sword upon his thigh, but a staff in his
hand to assist the tremulous gait of age.

When at some distance from the multitude, the old man turned
slowly round, displaying a face of antique majesty, rendered
doubly venerable by the hoary beard that descended on his breast.
He made a gesture at once of encouragement and warning, then
turned again, and resumed his way.

"Who is this gray patriarch?" asked the young men of their sires.

"Who is this venerable brother?" asked the old men among
themselves.

But none could make reply. The fathers of the people, those of
fourscore years and upwards, were disturbed, deeming it strange
that they should forget one of such evident authority, whom they
must have known in their early days, the associate of Winthrop,
and all the old councillors, giving laws, and making prayers, and
leading them against the savage. The elderly men ought to have
remembered him, too, with locks as gray in their youth, as their
own were now. And the young! How could he have passed so utterly
from their memories--that hoary sire, the relic of longdeparted
times, whose awful benediction had surely been bestowed on their
uncovered heads, in childhood?

"Whence did he come? What is his purpose? Who can this old man
be?" whispered the wondering crowd.

Meanwhile, the venerable stranger, staff in hand, was pursuing
his solitary walk along the centre of the street. As he drew near
the advancing soldiers, and as the roll of their drum came full
upon his ears, the old man raised himself to a loftier mien,
while the decrepitude of age seemed to fall from his shoulders,
leaving him in gray but unbroken dignity. Now, he marched onward
with a warrior's step, keeping time to the military music. Thus
the aged form advanced on one side, and the whole parade of
soldiers and magistrates on the other, till, when scarcely twenty
yards remained between, the old man grasped his staff by the
middle, and held it before him like a leader's truncheon.

"Stand!" cried he.

The eye, the face, and attitude of command; the solemn, yet
warlike peal of that voice, fit either to rule a host in the
battle-field or be raised to God in prayer, were irresistible. At
the old man's word and outstretched arm, the roll of the drum was
hushed at once, and the advancing line stood still. A tremulous
enthusiasm seized upon the multitude. That stately form,
combining the leader and the saint, so gray, so dimly seen, in
such an ancient garb, could only belong to some old champion of
the righteous cause, whom the oppressor's drum had summoned from
his grave. They raised a shout of awe and exultation, and looked
for the deliverance of New England.

The Governor, and the gentlemen of his party, perceiving
themselves brought to an unexpected stand, rode hastily forward,
as if they would have pressed their snorting and affrighted
horses right against the hoary apparition. He, however, blenched
not a step, but glancing his severe eye round the group, which
half encompassed him, at last bent it sternly on Sir Edmund
Andros. One would have thought that the dark old man was chief
ruler there, and that the Governor and Council, with soldiers at
their back, representing the whole power and authority of the
Crown, had no alternative but obedience.

"What does this old fellow here?" cried Edward Randolph,
fiercely. "On, Sir Edmund! Bid the soldiers forward, and give the
dotard the same choice that you give all his countrymen--to stand
aside or be trampled on!"

"Nay, nay, let us show respect to the good grandsire," said
Bullivant, laughing. "See you not, he is some old round-headed
dignitary, who hath lain asleep these thirty years, and knows
nothing o' the change of times? Doubtless, he thinks to put us
down with a proclamation in Old Noll's name!"

"Are you mad, old man?" demanded Sir Edmund Andros, in loud and
harsh tones. "How dare you stay the march of King James's
Governor?"

"I have stayed the march of a King himself, ere now," replied the
gray figure, with stern composure. "I am here, Sir Governor,
because the cry of an oppressed people hath disturbed me in my
secret place; and beseeching this favor earnestly of the Lord, it
was vouchsafed me to appear once again on earth, in the good old
cause of his saints. And what speak ye of James? There is no
longer a Popish tyrant on the throne of England, and by to-morrow
noon, his name shall be a byword in this very street, where ye
would make it a word of terror. Back, thou wast a Governor, back!
With this night thy power is ended--to-morrow, the prison!--back,
lest I foretell the scaffold!"

The people had been drawing nearer and nearer, and drinking in
the words of their champion, who spoke in accents long disused,
like one unaccustomed to converse, except with the dead of many
years ago. But his voice stirred their souls. They confronted the
soldiers, not wholly without arms, and ready to convert the very
stones of the street into deadly weapons. Sir Edmund Andros
looked at the old man; then he cast his hard and cruel eye over
the multitude, and beheld them burning with that lurid wrath, so
difficult to kindle or to quench; and again he fixed his gaze on
the aged form, which stood obscurely in an open space, where
neither friend nor foe had thrust himself. What were his
thoughts, he uttered no word which might discover. But whether
the oppressor were overawed by the Gray Champion's look, or
perceived his peril in the threatening attitude of the people, it
is certain that he gave back, and ordered his soldiers to
commence a slow and guarded retreat. Before another sunset, the
Governor, and all that rode so proudly with him, were prisoners,
and long ere it was known that James had abdicated, King William
was proclaimed throughout New England.

But where was the Gray Champion? Some reported that, when the
troops had gone from King Street, and the people were thronging
tumultuously in their rear, Bradstreet, the aged Governor, was
seen to embrace a form more aged than his own. Others soberly
affirmed, that while they marvelled at the venerable grandeur of
his aspect, the old man had faded from their eyes, melting slowly
into the hues of twilight, till, where he stood, there was an
empty space. But all agreed that the hoary shape was gone. The
men of that generation watched for his reappearance, in sunshine
and in twilight, but never saw him more, nor knew when his
funeral passed, nor where his gravestone was.

And who was the Gray Champion? Perhaps his name might be found in
the records of that stern Court of Justice, which passed a
sentence, too mighty for the age, but glorious in all
after-times, for its humbling lesson to the monarch and its high
example to the subject. I have heard, that whenever the
descendants of the Puritans are to show the spirit of their
sires, the old man appears again. When eighty years had passed,
he walked once more in King Street. Five years later, in the
twilight of an April morning, he stood on the green, beside the
meeting-house, at Lexington, where now the obelisk of granite,
with a slab of slate inlaid, commemorates the first fallen of the
Revolutions. And when our fathers were toiling at the breastwork
on Bunker's Hill, all through that night the old warrior walked
his rounds. Long, long may it be, ere he comes again! His hour is
one of darkness, and adversity, and peril. But should domestic
tyranny oppress us, or the invader's step pollute our soil, still
may the Gray Champion come, for he is the type of New England's
hereditary spirit; and his shadowy march, on the eve of danger,
must ever be the pledge, that New England's sons will vindicate
their ancestry.




THE WEDDING KNELL

There is a certain church in the city of New York which I have
always regarded with peculiar interest, on account of a marriage
there solemnized, under very singular circumstances, in my
grandmother's girlhood. That venerable lady chanced to be a
spectator of the scene, and ever after made it her favorite
narrative. Whether the edifice now standing on the same site be
the identical one to which she referred, I am not antiquarian
enough to know; nor would it be worth while to correct myself,
perhaps, of an agreeable error, by reading the date of its
erection on the tablet over the door. It is a stately church,
surrounded by an inclosure of the loveliest green, within which
appear urns, pillars, obelisks, and other forms of monumental
marble, the tributes of private affection, or more splendid
memorials of historic dust. With such a place, though the tumult
of the city rolls beneath its tower, one would be willing to
connect some legendary interest.

The marriage might be considered as the result of an early
engagement, though there had been two intermediate weddings on
the lady's part, and forty years of celibacy on that of the
gentleman. At sixty-five, Mr. Ellenwood was a shy, but not quite
a secluded man; selfish, like all men who brood over their own
hearts, yet manifesting on rare occasions a vein of generous
sentiment; a scholar throughout life, though always an indolent
one, because his studies had no definite object, either of public
advantage or personal ambition; a gentleman, high bred and
fastidiously delicate, yet sometimes requiring a considerable
relaxation, in his behalf, of the common rules of society. In
truth, there were so many anomalies in his character, and though
shrinking with diseased sensibility from public notice, it had
been his fatality so often to become the topic of the day, by
some wild eccentricity of conduct, that people searched his
lineage for an hereditary taint of insanity. But there was no
need of this. His caprices had their origin in a mind that lacked
the support of an engrossing purpose, and in feelings that preyed
upon themselves for want of other food. If he were mad, it was
the consequence, and not the cause, of an aimless and abortive
life.

The widow was as complete a contrast to her third bridegroom, in
everything but age, as can well be conceived. Compelled to
relinquish her first engagement, she had been united to a man of
twice her own years, to whom she became an exemplary wife, and by
whose death she was left in possession of a splendid fortune. A
southern gentleman, considerably younger than herself, succeeded
to her hand, and carried her to Charleston, where, after many
uncomfortable years, she found herself again a widow. It would
have been singular, if any uncommon delicacy of feeling had
survived through such a life as Mrs. Dabney's; it could not but
be crushed and killed by her early disappointment, the cold duty
of her first marriage, the dislocation of the heart's principles,
consequent on a second union, and the unkindness of her southern
husband, which had inevitably driven her to connect the idea of
his death with that of her comfort. To be brief, she was that
wisest, but unloveliest, variety of woman, a philosopher, bearing
troubles of the heart with equanimity, dispensing with all that
should have been her happiness, and making the best of what
remained. Sage in most matters, the widow was perhaps the more
amiable for the one frailty that made her ridiculous. Being
childless, she could not remain beautiful by proxy, in the person
of a daughter; she therefore refused to grow old and ugly, on any
consideration; she struggled with Time, and held fast her roses
in spite of him, till the venerable thief appeared to have
relinquished the spoil, as not worth the trouble of acquiring it.

The approaching marriage of this woman of the world with such an
unworldly man as Mr. Ellenwood was announced soon after Mrs.
Dabney's return to her native city. Superficial observers, and
deeper ones, seemed to concur in supposing that the lady must
have borne no inactive part in arranging the affair; there were
considerations of expediency which she would be far more likely
to appreciate than Mr. Ellenwood; and there was just the specious
phantom of sentiment and romance in this late union of two early
lovers which sometimes makes a fool of a woman who has lost her
true feelings among the accidents of life. All the wonder was,
how the gentleman, with his lack of worldly wisdom and agonizing
consciousness of ridicule, could have been induced to take a
measure at once so prudent and so laughable. But while people
talked the wedding-day arrived. The ceremony was to be solemnized
according to the Episcopalian forms, and in open church, with a
degree of publicity that attracted many spectators, who occupied
the front seats of the galleries, and the pews near the altar and
along the broad aisle. It had been arranged, or possibly it was
the custom of the day, that the parties should proceed separately
to church. By some accident the bridegroom was a little less
punctual than the widow and her bridal attendants; with whose
arrival, after this tedious, but necessary preface, the action of
our tale may be said to commence.

The clumsy wheels of several old-fashioned coaches were heard,
and the gentlemen and ladies composing the bridal party came
through the church door with the sudden and gladsome effect of a
burst of sunshine. The whole group, except the principal figure,
was made up of youth and gayety. As they streamed up the broad
aisle, while the pews and pillars seemed to brighten on either
side, their steps were as buoyant as if they mistook the church
for a ball-room, and were ready to dance hand in hand to the
altar. So brilliant was the spectacle that few took notice of a
singular phenomenon that had marked its entrance. At the moment
when the bride's foot touched the threshold the bell swung
heavily in the tower above her, and sent forth its deepest knell.
The vibrations died away and returned with prolonged solemnity,
as she entered the body of the church.

"Good heavens! what an omen," whispered a young lady to her
lover.

"On my honor," replied the gentleman, "I believe the bell has the
good taste to toll of its own accord. What has she to do with
weddings? If you, dearest Julia, were approaching the altar the
bell would ring out its merriest peal. It has only a funeral
knell for her."

The bride and most of her company had been too much occupied with
the bustle of entrance to hear the first boding stroke of the
bell, or at least to reflect on the singularity of such a welcome
to the altar. They therefore continued to advance with
undiminished gayety. The gorgeous dresses of the time, the
crimson velvet coats, the gold-laced hats, the hoop petticoats,
the silk, satin, brocade, and embroidery, the buckles, canes, and
swords, all displayed to the best advantage on persons suited to
such finery, made the group appear more like a bright-colored
picture than anything real. But by what perversity of taste had
the artist represented his principal figure as so wrinkled and
decayed, while yet he had decked her out in the brightest
splendor of attire, as if the loveliest maiden had suddenly
withered into age, and become a moral to the beautiful around
her! On they went, however, and had glittered along about a third
of the aisle, when another stroke of the bell seemed to fill the
church with a visible gloom, dimming and obscuring the bright
pageant, till it shone forth again as from a mist.

This time the party wavered, stopped, and huddled closer
together, while a slight scream was heard from some of the
ladies, and a confused whispering among the gentlemen. Thus
tossing to and fro, they might have been fancifully compared to a
splendid bunch of flowers, suddenly shaken by a puff of wind,
which threatened to scatter the leaves of an old, brown, withered
rose, on the same stalk with two dewy buds,--such being the
emblem of the widow between her fair young bridemaids. But her
heroism was admirable. She had started with an irrepressible
shudder, as if the stroke of the bell had fallen directly on her
heart; then, recovering herself, while her attendants were yet in
dismay, she took the lead, and paced calmly up the aisle. The
bell continued to swing, strike, and vibrate, with the same
doleful regularity as when a corpse is on its way to the tomb.

"My young friends here have their nerves a little shaken," said
the widow, with a smile, to the clergyman at the altar. "But so
many weddings have been ushered in with the merriest peal of the
bells, and yet turned out unhappily, that I shall hope for better
fortune under such different auspices."

"Madam," answered the rector, in great perplexity, "this strange
occurrence brings to my mind a marriage sermon of the famous
Bishop Taylor, wherein he mingles so many thoughts of mortality
and future woe, that, to speak somewhat after his own rich style,
he seems to hang the bridal chamber in black, and cut the wedding
garment out of a coffin pall. And it has been the custom of
divers nations to infuse something of sadness into their marriage
ceremonies, so to keep death in mind while contracting that
engagement which is life's chiefest business. Thus we may draw a
sad but profitable moral from this funeral knell."

But, though the clergyman might have given his moral even a
keener point, he did not fail to dispatch an attendant to inquire
into the mystery, and stop those sounds, so dismally appropriate
to such a marriage. A brief space elapsed, during which the
silence was broken only by whispers, and a few suppressed
titterings, among the wedding party and the spectators, who,
after the first shock, were disposed to draw an ill-natured
merriment from the affair. The young have less charity for aged
follies than the old for those of youth. The widow's glance was
observed to wander, for an instant, towards a window of the
church, as if searching for the time-worn marble that she had
dedicated to her first husband; then her eyelids dropped over
their faded orbs, and her thoughts were drawn irresistibly to
another grave. Two buried men, with a voice at her ear, and a cry
afar off, were calling her to lie down beside them. Perhaps, with
momentary truth of feeling, she thought how much happier had been
her fate, if, after years of bliss, the bell were now tolling for
her funeral, and she were followed to the grave by the old
affection of her earliest lover, long her husband. But why had
she returned to him, when their cold hearts shrank from each
other's embrace?

Still the death-bell tolled so mournfully, that the sunshine
seemed to fade in the air. A whisper, communicated from those who
stood nearest the windows, now spread through the church; a
hearse, with a train of several coaches, was creeping along the
street, conveying some dead man to the churchyard, while the
bride awaited a living one at the altar. Immediately after, the
footsteps of the bridegroom and his friends were heard at the
door. The widow looked down the aisle, and clinched the arm of
one of her bridemaids in her bony hand with such unconscious
violence, that the fair girl trembled.

"You frighten me, my dear madam!" cried she. "For Heaven's sake,
what is the matter?"

"Nothing, my dear, nothing," said the widow; then, whispering
close to her ear, "There is a foolish fancy that I cannot get rid
of. I am expecting my bridegroom to come into the church, with my
first two husbands for groomsmen!"

"Look, look!" screamed the bridemaid. "What is here? The
funeral!"

As she spoke, a dark procession paced into the church. First came
an old man and women, like chief mourners at a funeral, attired
from head to foot in the deepest black, all but their pale
features and hoary hair; he leaning on a staff, and supporting
her decrepit form with his nerveless arm. Behind appeared
another, and another pair, as aged, as black, and mournful as the
first. As they drew near, the widow recognized in every face some
trait of former friends, long forgotten, but now returning, as if
from their old graves, to warn her to prepare a shroud; or, with
purpose almost as unwelcome, to exhibit their wrinkles and
infirmity, and claim her as their companion by the tokens of her
own decay. Many a merry night had she danced with them, in youth.
And now, in joyless age, she felt that some withered partner
should request her hand, and all unite, in a dance of death, to
the music of the funeral bell.

While these aged mourners were passing up the aisle, it was
observed that, from pew to pew, the spectators shuddered with
irrepressible awe, as some object, hitherto concealed by the
intervening figures, came full in sight. Many turned away their
faces; others kept a fixed and rigid stare; and a young girl
giggled hysterically, and fainted with the laughter on her lips.
When the spectral procession approached the altar, each couple
separated, and slowly diverged, till, in the centre, appeared a
form, that had been worthily ushered in with all this gloomy
pomp, the death knell, and the funeral. It was the bridegroom in
his shroud!

No garb but that of the grave could have befitted such a
deathlike aspect; the eyes, indeed, had the wild gleam of a
sepulchral lamp; all else was fixed in the stern calmness which
old men wear in the coffin. The corpse stood motionless, but
addressed the widow in accents that seemed to melt into the clang
of the bell, which fell heavily on the air while he spoke.

"Come, my bride!" said those pale lips, "the hearse is ready. The
sexton stands waiting for us at the door of the tomb. Let us be
married; and then to our coffins!"

How shall the widow's horror be represented? It gave her the
ghastliness of a dead man's bride. Her youthful friends stood
apart, shuddering at the mourners, the shrouded bridegroom, and
herself; the whole scene expressed, by the strongest imagery, the
vain struggle of the gilded vanities of this world, when opposed
to age, infirmity, sorrow, and death. The awe-struck silence was
first broken by the clergyman.

"Mr. Ellenwood," said he, soothingly, yet with somewhat of
authority, "you are not well. Your mind has been agitated by the
unusual circumstances in which you are placed. The ceremony must
be deferred. As an old friend, let me entreat you to return
home."

"Home! yes, but not without my bride," answered he, in the same
hollow accents. "You deem this mockery; perhaps madness. Had I
bedizened my aged and broken frame with scarlet and
embroidery--had I forced my withered lips to smile at my dead
heart--that might have been mockery, or madness. But now, let
young and old declare, which of us has come hither without a
wedding garment, the bridegroom or the bride!"

He stepped forward at a ghostly pace, and stood beside the widow,
contrasting the awful simplicity of his shroud with the glare and
glitter in which she had arrayed herself for this unhappy scene.
None, that beheld them, could deny the terrible strength of the
moral which his disordered intellect had contrived to draw.

"Cruel! cruel!" groaned the heart-stricken bride.

"Cruel!" repeated he; then, losing his deathlike composure in a
wild bitterness: "Heaven judge which of us has been cruel to the
other! In youth you deprived me of my happiness, my hopes, my
aims; you took away all the substance of my life, and made it a
dream without reality enough even to grieve at--with only a
pervading gloom, through which I walked wearily, and cared not
whither. But after forty years, when I have built my tomb, and
would not give up the thought of resting there--nor not for such
a life as we once pictured--you call me to the altar. At your
summons I am here. But other husbands have enjoyed your youth,
your beauty, your warmth of heart, and all that could be termed
your life. What is there for me but your decay and death? And
therefore I have bidden these funeral friends, and bespoken the
sexton's deepest knell, and am come, in my shroud, to wed you, as
with a burial service, that we may join our hands at the door of
the sepulchre, and enter it together."

It was not frenzy; it was not merely the drunkenness of strong
emotion, in a heart unused to it, that now wrought upon the
bride. The stern lesson of the day had done its work; her
worldliness was gone. She seized the bridegroom's hand.

"Yes!" cried she. "Let us wed, even at the door of the sepulchre!
My life is gone in vanity and emptiness. But at its close there
is one true feeling. It has made me what I was in youth; it makes
me worthy of you. Time is no more for both of us. Let us wed for
Eternity!"

With a long and deep regard, the bridegroom looked into her eyes,
while a tear was gathering in his own. How strange that gush of
human feeling from the frozen bosom of a corpse! He wiped away
the tears even with his shroud.

"Beloved of my youth," said he, "I have been wild. The despair of
my whole lifetime had returned at once, and maddened me. Forgive;
and be forgiven. Yes; it is evening with us now; and we have
realized none of our morning dreams of happiness. But let us join
our hands before the altar as lovers whom adverse circumstances
have separated through life, yet who meet again as they are
leaving it, and find their earthly affection changed into
something holy as religion. And what is Time, to the married of
Eternity?"

Amid the tears of many, and a swell of exalted sentiment, in
those who felt aright, was solemnized the union of two immortal
souls. The train of withered mourners, the hoary bridegroom in
his shroud, the pale features of the aged bride, and the
death-bell tolling through the whole, till its deep voice
overpowered the marriage words, all marked the funeral of earthly
hopes. But as the ceremony proceeded, the organ, as if stirred by
the sympathies of this impressive scene, poured forth an anthem,
first mingling with the dismal knell, then rising to a loftier
strain, till the soul looked down upon its woe. And when the
awful rite was finished, and with cold hand in cold hand, the
Married of Eternity withdrew, the organ's peal of solemn triumph
drowned the Wedding Knell.




THE MINISTER'S BLACK VEIL A PARABLE[1]

[1] Another clergyman in New England, Mr. Joseph Moody, of York,
Maine, who died about eighty years since, made himself remarkable
by the same eccentricity that is here related of the Reverend Mr.
Hooper. In his case, however, the symbol had a different import.
In early life he had accidentally killed a beloved friend, and
from that day till the hour of his own death, he hid his face
from men.


The sexton stood in the porch of Milford meeting-house, pulling
busily at the bell-rope. The old people of the village came
stooping along the street. Children, with bright faces, tripped
merrily beside their parents, or mimicked a graver gait, in the
conscious dignity of their Sunday clothes. Spruce bachelors
looked sidelong at the pretty maidens, and fancied that the
Sabbath sunshine made them prettier than on week days. When the
throng had mostly streamed into the porch, the sexton began to
toll the bell, keeping his eye on the Reverend Mr. Hooper's door.
The first glimpse of the clergyman's figure was the signal for
the bell to cease its summons.

"But what has good Parson Hooper got upon his face?" cried the
sexton in astonishment.

All within hearing immediately turned about, and beheld the
semblance of Mr. Hooper, pacing slowly his meditative way towards
the meetinghouse. With one accord they started, expressing more
wonder than if some strange minister were coming to dust the
cushions of Mr. Hooper's pulpit.

"Are you sure it is our parson?" inquired Goodman Gray of the
sexton.

"Of a certainty it is good Mr. Hooper," replied the sexton. "He
was to have exchanged pulpits with Parson Shute, of Westbury; but
Parson Shute sent to excuse himself yesterday, being to preach a
funeral sermon."

The cause of so much amazement may appear sufficiently slight.
Mr. Hooper, a gentlemanly person, of about thirty, though still a
bachelor, was dressed with due clerical neatness, as if a careful
wife had starched his band, and brushed the weekly dust from his
Sunday's garb. There was but one thing remarkable in his
appearance. Swathed about his forehead, and hanging down over his
face, so low as to be shaken by his breath, Mr. Hooper had on a
black veil. On a nearer view it seemed to consist of two folds of
crape, which entirely concealed his features, except the mouth
and chin, but probably did not intercept his sight, further than
to give a darkened aspect to all living and inanimate things.
With this gloomy shade before him, good Mr. Hooper walked onward,
at a slow and quiet pace, stooping somewhat, and looking on the
ground, as is customary with abstracted men, yet nodding kindly
to those of his parishioners who still waited on the
meeting-house steps. But so wonder-struck were they that his
greeting hardly met with a return.

"I can't really feel as if good Mr. Hooper's face was behind that
piece of crape," said the sexton.

"I don't like it," muttered an old woman, as she hobbled into the
meeting-house. "He has changed himself into something awful, only
by hiding his face."

"Our parson has gone mad!" cried Goodman Gray, following him
across the threshold.

A rumor of some unaccountable phenomenon had preceded Mr. Hooper
into the meeting-house, and set all the congregation astir. Few
could refrain from twisting their heads towards the door; many
stood upright, and turned directly about; while several little
boys clambered upon the seats, and came down again with a
terrible racket. There was a general bustle, a rustling of the
women's gowns and shuffling of the men's feet, greatly at
variance with that hushed repose which should attend the entrance
of the minister. But Mr. Hooper appeared not to notice the
perturbation of his people. He entered with an almost noiseless
step, bent his head mildly to the pews on each side, and bowed as
he passed his oldest parishioner, a white-haired great grandsire,
who occupied an arm-chair in the centre of the aisle. It was
strange to observe how slowly this venerable man became conscious
of something singular in the appearance of his pastor. He seemed
not fully to partake of the prevailing wonder, till Mr. Hooper
had ascended the stairs, and showed himself in the pulpit, face
to face with his congregation, except for the black veil. That
mysterious emblem was never once withdrawn. It shook with his
measured breath, as he gave out the psalm; it threw its obscurity
between him and the holy page, as he read the Scriptures; and
while he prayed, the veil lay heavily on his uplifted
countenance. Did he seek to hide it from the dread Being whom he
was addressing?

Such was the effect of this simple piece of crape, that more than
one woman of delicate nerves was forced to leave the
meeting-house. Yet perhaps the pale-faced congregation was almost
as fearful a sight to the minister, as his black veil to them.

Mr. Hooper had the reputation of a good preacher, but not an
energetic one: he strove to win his people heavenward by mild,
persuasive influences, rather than to drive them thither by the
thunders of the Word. The sermon which he now delivered was
marked by the same characteristics of style and manner as the
general series of his pulpit oratory. But there was something,
either in the sentiment of the discourse itself, or in the
imagination of the auditors, which made it greatly the most
powerful effort that they had ever heard from their pastor's
lips. It was tinged, rather more darkly than usual, with the
gentle gloom of Mr. Hooper's temperament. The subject had
reference to secret sin, and those sad mysteries which we hide
from our nearest and dearest, and would fain conceal from our own
consciousness, even forgetting that the Omniscient can detect
them. A subtle power was breathed into his words. Each member of
the congregation, the most innocent girl, and the man of hardened
breast, felt as if the preacher had crept upon them, behind his
awful veil, and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or
thought. Many spread their clasped hands on their bosoms. There
was nothing terrible in what Mr. Hooper said, at least, no
violence; and yet, with every tremor of his melancholy voice, the
hearers quaked. An unsought pathos came hand in hand with awe. So
sensible were the audience of some unwonted attribute in their
minister, that they longed for a breath of wind to blow aside the
veil, almost believing that a stranger's visage would be
discovered, though the form, gesture, and voice were those of Mr.
Hooper.

At the close of the services, the people hurried out with
indecorous confusion, eager to communicate their pent-up
amazement, and conscious of lighter spirits the moment they lost
sight of the black veil. Some gathered in little circles, huddled
closely together, with their mouths all whispering in the centre;
some went homeward alone, wrapt in silent meditation; some talked
loudly, and profaned the Sabbath day with ostentatious laughter.
A few shook their sagacious heads, intimating that they could
penetrate the mystery; while one or two affirmed that there was
no mystery at all, but only that Mr. Hooper's eyes were so
weakened by the midnight lamp, as to require a shade. After a
brief interval, forth came good Mr. Hooper also, in the rear of
his flock. Turning his veiled face from one group to another, he
paid due reverence to the hoary heads, saluted the middle aged
with kind dignity as their friend and spiritual guide, greeted
the young with mingled authority and love, and laid his hands on
the little children's heads to bless them. Such was always his
custom on the Sabbath day. Strange and bewildered looks repaid
him for his courtesy. None, as on former occasions, aspired to
the honor of walking by their pastor's side. Old Squire Saunders,
doubtless by an accidental lapse of memory, neglected to invite
Mr. Hooper to his table, where the good clergyman had been wont
to bless the food, almost every Sunday since his settlement. He
returned, therefore, to the parsonage, and, at the moment of
closing the door, was observed to look back upon the people, all
of whom had their eyes fixed upon the minister. A sad smile
gleamed faintly from beneath the black veil, and flickered about
his mouth, glimmering as he disappeared.

"How strange," said a lady, "that a simple black veil, such as
any woman might wear on her bonnet, should become such a terrible
thing on Mr. Hooper's face!"

"Something must surely be amiss with Mr. Hooper's intellects,"
observed her husband, the physician of the village. "But the
strangest part of the affair is the effect of this vagary, even
on a sober-minded man like myself. The black veil, though it
covers only our pastor's face, throws its influence over his
whole person, and makes him ghostlike from head to foot. Do you
not feel it so?"

"Truly do I," replied the lady; "and I would not be alone with
him for the world. I wonder he is not afraid to be alone with
himself!"

"Men sometimes are so," said her husband.

The afternoon service was attended with similar circumstances. At
its conclusion, the bell tolled for the funeral of a young lady.
The relatives and friends were assembled in the house, and the
more distant acquaintances stood about the door, speaking of the
good qualities of the deceased, when their talk was interrupted
by the appearance of Mr. Hooper, still covered with his black
veil. It was now an appropriate emblem. The clergyman stepped
into the room where the corpse was laid, and bent over the
coffin, to take a last farewell of his deceased parishioner. As
he stooped, the veil hung straight down from his forehead, so
that, if her eyelids had not been closed forever, the dead maiden
might have seen his face. Could Mr. Hooper be fearful of her
glance, that he so hastily caught back the black veil? A person
who watched the interview between the dead and living, scrupled
not to affirm, that, at the instant when the clergyman's features
were disclosed, the corpse had slightly shuddered, rustling the
shroud and muslin cap, though the countenance retained the
composure of death. A superstitious old woman was the only
witness of this prodigy. From the coffin Mr. Hooper passed into
the chamber of the mourners, and thence to the head of the
staircase, to make the funeral prayer. It was a tender and
heart-dissolving prayer, full of sorrow, yet so imbued with
celestial hopes, that the music of a heavenly harp, swept by the
fingers of the dead, seemed faintly to be heard among the saddest
accents of the minister. The people trembled, though they but
darkly understood him when he prayed that they, and himself, and
all of mortal race, might be ready, as he trusted this young
maiden had been, for the dreadful hour that should snatch the
veil from their faces. The bearers went heavily forth, and the
mourners followed, saddening all the street, with the dead before
them, and Mr. Hooper in his black veil behind.

"Why do you look back?" said one in the procession to his
partner.

"I had a fancy," replied she, "that the minister and the maiden's
spirit were walking hand in hand."

"And so had I, at the same moment," said the other.

That night, the handsomest couple in Milford village were to be
joined in wedlock. Though reckoned a melancholy man, Mr. Hooper
had a placid cheerfulness for such occasions, which often excited
a sympathetic smile where livelier merriment would have been
thrown away. There was no quality of his disposition which made
him more beloved than this. The company at the wedding awaited
his arrival with impatience, trusting that the strange awe, which
had gathered over him throughout the day, would now be dispelled.
But such was not the result. When Mr. Hooper came, the first
thing that their eyes rested on was the same horrible black veil,
which had added deeper gloom to the funeral, and could portend
nothing but evil to the wedding. Such was its immediate effect on
the guests that a cloud seemed to have rolled duskily from
beneath the black crape, and dimmed the light of the candles. The
bridal pair stood up before the minister. But the bride's cold
fingers quivered in the tremulous hand of the bridegroom, and her
deathlike paleness caused a whisper that the maiden who had been
buried a few hours before was come from her grave to be married.
If ever another wedding were so dismal, it was that famous one
where they tolled the wedding knell. After performing the
ceremony, Mr. Hooper raised a glass of wine to his lips, wishing
happiness to the newmarried couple in a strain of mild pleasantry
that ought to have brightened the features of the guests, like a
cheerful gleam from the hearth. At that instant, catching a
glimpse of his figure in the looking-glass, the black veil
involved his own spirit in the horror with which it overwhelmed
all others. His frame shuddered, his lips grew white, he spilt
the untasted wine upon the carpet, and rushed forth into the
darkness. For the Earth, too, had on her Black Veil.

The next day, the whole village of Milford talked of little else
than Parson Hooper's black veil. That, and the mystery concealed
behind it, supplied a topic for discussion between acquaintances
meeting in the street, and good women gossiping at their open
windows. It was the first item of news that the tavern-keeper
told to his guests. The children babbled of it on their way to
school. One imitative little imp covered his face with an old
black handkerchief, thereby so affrighting his playmates that the
panic seized himself, and he well-nigh lost his wits by his own
waggery.

It was remarkable that all of the busybodies and impertinent
people in the parish, not one ventured to put the plain question
to Mr. Hooper, wherefore he did this thing. Hitherto, whenever
there appeared the slightest call for such interference, he had
never lacked advisers, nor shown himself averse to be guided by
their judgment. If he erred at all, it was by so painful a degree
of self-distrust, that even the mildest censure would lead him to
consider an indifferent action as a crime. Yet, though so well
acquainted with this amiable weakness, no individual among his
parishioners chose to make the black veil a subject of friendly
remonstrance. There was a feeling of dread, neither plainly
confessed nor carefully concealed, which caused each to shift the
responsibility upon another, till at length it was found
expedient to send a deputation of the church, in order to deal
with Mr. Hooper about the mystery, before it should grow into a
scandal. Never did an embassy so ill discharge its duties. The
minister received then with friendly courtesy, but became silent,
after they were seated, leaving to his visitors the whole burden
of introducing their important business. The topic, it might be
supposed, was obvious enough. There was the black veil swathed
round Mr. Hooper's forehead, and concealing every feature above
his placid mouth, on which, at times, they could perceive the
glimmering of a melancholy smile. But that piece of crape, to
their imagination, seemed to hang down before his heart, the
symbol of a fearful secret between him and them. Were the veil
but cast aside, they might speak freely of it, but not till then.
Thus they sat a considerable time, speechless, confused, and
shrinking uneasily from Mr. Hooper's eye, which they felt to be
fixed upon them with an invisible glance. Finally, the deputies
returned abashed to their constituents, pronouncing the matter
too weighty to be handled, except by a council of the churches,
if, indeed, it might not require a general synod.

But there was one person in the village unappalled by the awe
with which the black veil had impressed all beside herself. When
the deputies returned without an explanation, or even venturing
to demand one, she, with the calm energy of her character,
determined to chase away the strange cloud that appeared to be
settling round Mr. Hooper, every moment more darkly than before.
As his plighted wife, it should be her privilege to know what the
black veil concealed. At the minister's first visit, therefore,
she entered upon the subject with a direct simplicity, which made
the task easier both for him and her. After he had seated
himself, she fixed her eyes steadfastly upon the veil, but could
discern nothing of the dreadful gloom that had so overawed the
multitude: it was but a double fold of crape, hanging down from
his forehead to his mouth, and slightly stirring with his breath.

"No," said she aloud, and smiling, "there is nothing terrible in
this piece of crape, except that it hides a face which I am
always glad to look upon. Come, good sir, let the sun shine from
behind the cloud. First lay aside your black veil: then tell me
why you put it on."

Mr. Hooper's smile glimmered faintly.

"There is an hour to come," said he, "when all of us shall cast
aside our veils. Take it not amiss, beloved friend, if I wear
this piece of crape till then."

"Your words are a mystery, too," returned the young lady. "Take
away the veil from them, at least."

"Elizabeth, I will," said he, "so far as my vow may suffer me.
Know, then, this veil is a type and a symbol, and I am bound to
wear it ever, both in light and darkness, in solitude and before
the gaze of multitudes, and as with strangers, so with my
familiar friends. No mortal eye will see it withdrawn. This
dismal shade must separate me from the world: even you,
Elizabeth, can never come behind it!"

"What grievous affliction hath befallen you," she earnestly
inquired, "that you should thus darken your eyes forever?"

"If it be a sign of mourning," replied Mr. Hooper, "I, perhaps,
like most other mortals, have sorrows dark enough to be typified
by a black veil."

"But what if the world will not believe that it is the type of an
innocent sorrow?" urged Elizabeth. "Beloved and respected as you
are, there may be whispers that you hide your face under the
consciousness of secret sin. For the sake of your holy office, do
away this scandal!"

The color rose into her cheeks as she intimated the nature of the
rumors that were already abroad in the village. But Mr. Hooper's
mildness did not forsake him. He even smiled again--that same sad
smile, which always appeared like a faint glimmering of light,
proceeding from the obscurity beneath the veil.

"If I hide my face for sorrow, there is cause enough," he merely
replied; "and if I cover it for secret sin, what mortal might not
do the same?"

And with this gentle, but unconquerable obstinacy did he resist
all her entreaties. At length Elizabeth sat silent. For a few
moments she appeared lost in thought, considering, probably, what
new methods might be tried to withdraw her lover from so dark a
fantasy, which, if it had no other meaning, was perhaps a symptom
of mental disease. Though of a firmer character than his own, the
tears rolled down her cheeks. But, in an instant, as it were, a
new feeling took the place of sorrow: her eyes were fixed
insensibly on the black veil, when, like a sudden twilight in the
air, its terrors fell around her. She arose, and stood trembling
before him.

"And do you feel it then, at last?" said he mournfully.

She made no reply, but covered her eyes with her hand, and turned
to leave the room. He rushed forward and caught her arm.

"Have patience with me, Elizabeth!" cried he, passionately. "Do
not desert me, though this veil must be between us here on earth.
Be mine, and hereafter there shall be no veil over my face, no
darkness between our souls! It is but a mortal veil--it is not
for eternity!  O! you know not how lonely I am, and how
frightened, to be alone behind my black veil. Do not leave me in
this miserable obscurity forever!"

"Lift the veil but once, and look me in the face," said she.

"Never! It cannot be!" replied Mr. Hooper.

"Then farewell!" said Elizabeth.

She withdrew her arm from his grasp, and slowly departed, pausing
at the door, to give one long shuddering gaze, that seemed almost
to penetrate the mystery of the black veil. But, even amid his
grief, Mr. Hooper smiled to think that only a material emblem had
separated him from happiness, though the horrors, which it
shadowed forth, must be drawn darkly between the fondest of
lovers.

From that time no attempts were made to remove Mr. Hooper's black
veil, or, by a direct appeal, to discover the secret which it was
supposed to hide. By persons who claimed a superiority to popular
prejudice, it was reckoned merely an eccentric whim, such as
often mingles with the sober actions of men otherwise rational,
and tinges them all with its own semblance of insanity. But with
the multitude, good Mr. Hooper was irreparably a bugbear. He could
not walk the street with any peace of mind, so conscious was he
that the gentle and timid would turn aside to avoid him, and that
others would make it a point of hardihood to throw themselves in
his way. The impertinence of the latter class compelled him to
give up his customary walk at sunset to the burial ground; for
when he leaned pensively over the gate, there would always be
faces behind the gravestones, peeping at his black veil. A fable
went the rounds that the stare of the dead people drove him
thence. It grieved him, to the very depth of his kind heart, to
observe how the children fled from his approach, breaking up
their merriest sports, while his melancholy figure was yet afar
off. Their instinctive dread caused him to feel more strongly
than aught else, that a preternatural horror was interwoven with
the threads of the black crape. In truth, his own antipathy to
the veil was known to be so great, that he never willingly passed
before a mirror, nor stooped to drink at a still fountain, lest,
in its peaceful bosom, he should be affrighted by himself. This
was what gave plausibility to the whispers, that Mr. Hooper's
conscience tortured him for some great crime too horrible to be
entirely concealed, or otherwise than so obscurely intimated.
Thus, from beneath the black veil, there rolled a cloud into the
sunshine, an ambiguity of sin or sorrow, which enveloped the poor
minister, so that love or sympathy could never reach him. It was
said that ghost and fiend consorted with him there. With
self-shudderings and outward terrors, he walked continually in
its shadow, groping darkly within his own soul, or gazing through
a medium that saddened the whole world. Even the lawless wind, it
was believed, respected his dreadful secret, and never blew aside
the veil. But still good Mr. Hooper sadly smiled at the pale
visages of the worldly throng as he passed by.

Among all its bad influences, the black veil had the one
desirable effect, of making its wearer a very efficient
clergyman. By the aid of his mysterious emblem--for there was no
other apparent cause--he became a man of awful power over souls
that were in agony for sin. His converts always regarded him with
a dread peculiar to themselves, affirming, though but
figuratively, that, before he brought them to celestial light,
they had been with him behind the black veil. Its gloom, indeed,
enabled him to sympathize with all dark affections. Dying sinners
cried aloud for Mr. Hooper, and would not yield their breath till
he appeared; though ever, as he stooped to whisper consolation,
they shuddered at the veiled face so near their own. Such were
the terrors of the black veil, even when Death had bared his
visage! Strangers came long distances to attend service at his
church, with the mere idle purpose of gazing at his figure,
because it was forbidden them to behold his face. But many were
made to quake ere they departed! Once, during Governor Belcher's
administration, Mr. Hooper was appointed to preach the election
sermon. Covered with his black veil, he stood before the chief
magistrate, the council, and the representatives, and wrought so
deep an impression, that the legislative measures of that year
were characterized by all the gloom and piety of our earliest
ancestral sway.

In this manner Mr. Hooper spent a long life, irreproachable in
outward act, yet shrouded in dismal suspicions; kind and loving,
though unloved, and dimly feared; a man apart from men, shunned
in their health and joy, but ever summoned to their aid in mortal
anguish. As years wore on, shedding their snows above his sable
veil, he acquired a name throughout the New England churches, and
they called him Father Hooper. Nearly all his parishioners, who
were of mature age when he was settled, had been borne away by
many a funeral: he had one congregation in the church, and a more
crowded one in the churchyard; and having wrought so late into
the evening, and done his work so well, it was now good Father
Hooper's turn to rest.

Several persons were visible by the shaded candlelight, in the
death chamber of the old clergyman. Natural connections he had
none. But there was the decorously grave, though unmoved
physician, seeking only to mitigate the last pangs of the patient
whom he could not save. There were the deacons, and other
eminently pious members of his church. There, also, was the
Reverend Mr. Clark, of Westbury, a young and zealous divine, who
had ridden in haste to pray by the bedside of the expiring
minister. There was the nurse, no hired handmaiden of death, but
one whose calm affection had endured thus long in secrecy, in
solitude, amid the chill of age, and would not perish, even at
the dying hour. Who, but Elizabeth! And there lay the hoary head
of good Father Hooper upon the death pillow, with the black veil
still swathed about his brow, and reaching down over his face, so
that each more difficult gasp of his faint breath caused it to
stir. All through life that piece of crape had hung between him
and the world: it had separated him from cheerful brotherhood and
woman's love, and kept him in that saddest of all prisons, his
own heart; and still it lay upon his face, as if to deepen the
gloom of his darksome chamber, and shade him from the sunshine of
eternity.

For some time previous, his mind had been confused, wavering
doubtfully between the past and the present, and hovering
forward, as it were, at intervals, into the indistinctness of the
world to come. There had been feverish turns, which tossed him
from side to side, and wore away what little strength he had. But
in his most convulsive struggles, and in the wildest vagaries of
his intellect, when no other thought retained its sober
influence, he still showed an awful solicitude lest the black
veil should slip aside. Even if his bewildered soul could have
forgotten, there was a faithful woman at this pillow, who, with
averted eyes, would have covered that aged face, which she had
last beheld in the comeliness of manhood. At length the
death-stricken old man lay quietly in the torpor of mental and
bodily exhaustion, with an imperceptible pulse, and breath that
grew fainter and fainter, except when a long, deep, and irregular
inspiration seemed to prelude the flight of his spirit.

The minister of Westbury approached the bedside.

"Venerable Father Hooper," said he, "the moment of your release
is at hand. Are you ready for the lifting of the veil that shuts
in time from eternity?"

Father Hooper at first replied merely by a feeble motion of his
head; then, apprehensive, perhaps, that his meaning might be
doubted, he exerted himself to speak.

"Yea," said he, in faint accents, "my soul hath a patient
weariness until that veil be lifted."

"And is it fitting," resumed the Reverend Mr. Clark, "that a man
so given to prayer, of such a blameless example, holy in deed and
thought, so far as mortal judgment may pronounce; is it fitting
that a father in the church should leave a shadow on his memory,
that may seem to blacken a life so pure? I pray you, my venerable
brother, let not this thing be! Suffer us to be gladdened by your
triumphant aspect as you go to your reward. Before the veil of
eternity be lifted, let me cast aside this black veil from your
face!"

And thus speaking, the Reverend Mr. Clark bent forward to reveal
the mystery of so many years. But, exerting a sudden energy, that
made all the beholders stand aghast, Father Hooper snatched both
his hands from beneath the bedclothes, and pressed them strongly
on the black veil, resolute to struggle, if the minister of
Westbury would contend with a dying man.

"Never!" cried the veiled clergyman. "On earth, never!"

"Dark old man!" exclaimed the affrighted minister, "with what
horrible crime upon your soul are you now passing to the
judgment?"

Father Hooper's breath heaved; it rattled in his throat; but,
with a mighty effort, grasping forward with his hands, he caught
hold of life, and held it back till he should speak. He even
raised himself in bed; and there he sat, shivering with the arms
of death around him, while the black veil hung down, awful, at
that last moment, in the gathered terrors of a lifetime. And yet
the faint, sad smile, so often there, now seemed to glimmer from
its obscurity, and linger on Father Hooper's lips.

"Why do you tremble at me alone?" cried he, turning his veiled
face round the circle of pale spectators. "Tremble also at each
other! Have men avoided me, and women shown no pity, and children
screamed and fled, only for my black veil? What, but the mystery
which it obscurely typifies, has made this piece of crape so
awful? When the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend; the
lover to his best beloved; when man does not vainly shrink from
the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of
his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which I
have lived, and die! I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a
Black Veil!"

While his auditors shrank from one another, in mutual affright,
Father Hooper fell back upon his pillow, a veiled corpse, with a
faint smile lingering on the lips. Still veiled, they laid him in
his coffin, and a veiled corpse they bore him to the grave. The
grass of many years has sprung up and withered on that grave, the
burial stone is moss-grown, and good Mr. Hooper's face is dust;
but awful is still the thought that it mouldered beneath the
Black Veil!




THE MAYPOLE OF MERRY MOUNT

There is an admirable foundation for a philosophic romance in the
curious history of the early settlement of Mount Wollaston, or
Merry Mount. In the slight sketch here attempted, the facts,
recorded on the grave pages of our New England annalists, have
wrought themselves, almost spontaneously, into a sort of
allegory. The masques, mummeries, and festive customs, described
in the text, are in accordance with the manners of the age.
Authority on these points may be found in Strutt's Book of
English Sports and Pastimes.


Bright were the days at Merry Mount, when the Maypole was the
banner staff of that gay colony! They who reared it, should their
banner be triumphant, were to pour sunshine over New England's
rugged hills, and scatter flower seeds throughout the soil.
Jollity and gloom were contending for an empire. Midsummer eve
had come, bringing deep verdure to the forest, and roses in her
lap, of a more vivid hue than the tender buds of Spring. But May,
or her mirthful spirit, dwelt all the year round at Merry Mount,
sporting with the Summer months, and revelling with Autumn, and
basking in the glow of Winter's fireside. Through a world of toil
and care she flitted with a dreamlike smile, and came hither to
find a home among the lightsome hearts of Merry Mount.

Never had the Maypole been so gayly decked as at sunset on
midsummer eve. This venerated emblem was a pine-tree, which had
preserved the slender grace of youth, while it equalled the
loftiest height of the old wood monarchs. From its top streamed a
silken banner, colored like the rainbow. Down nearly to the
ground the pole was dressed with birchen boughs, and others of
the liveliest green, and some with silvery leaves, fastened by
ribbons that fluttered in fantastic knots of twenty different
colors, but no sad ones. Garden flowers, and blossoms of the
wilderness, laughed gladly forth amid the verdure, so fresh and
dewy that they must have grown by magic on that happy pine-tree.
Where this green and flowery splendor terminated, the shaft of
the Maypole was stained with the seven brilliant hues of the
banner at its top. On the lowest green bough hung an abundant
wreath of roses, some that had been gathered in the sunniest
spots of the forest, and others, of still richer blush, which the
colonists had reared from English seed. O, people of the Golden
Age, the chief of your husbandry was to raise flowers!

But what was the wild throng that stood hand in hand about the
Maypole? It could not be that the fauns and nymphs, when driven
from their classic groves and homes of ancient fable, had sought
refuge, as all the persecuted did, in the fresh woods of the
West. These were Gothic monsters, though perhaps of Grecian
ancestry. On the shoulders of a comely youth uprose the head and
branching antlers of a stag; a second, human in all other points,
had the grim visage of a wolf; a third, still with the trunk and
limbs of a mortal man, showed the beard and horns of a venerable
he-goat. There was the likeness of a bear erect, brute in all but
his hind legs, which were adorned with pink silk stockings. And
here again, almost as wondrous, stood a real bear of the dark
forest, lending each of his fore paws to the grasp of a human
hand, and as ready for the dance as any in that circle. His
inferior nature rose half way, to meet his companions as they
stooped. Other faces wore the similitude of man or woman, but
distorted or extravagant, with red noses pendulous before their
mouths, which seemed of awful depth, and stretched from ear to
ear in an eternal fit of laughter. Here might be seen the Savage
Man, well known in heraldry, hairy as a baboon, and girdled with
green leaves. By his side a noble figure, but still a
counterfeit, appeared an Indian hunter, with feathery crest and
wampum belt. Many of this strange company wore foolscaps, and had
little bells appended to their garments, tinkling with a silvery
sound, responsive to the inaudible music of their gleesome
spirits. Some youths and maidens were of soberer garb, yet well
maintained their places in the irregular throng by the expression
of wild revelry upon their features. Such were the colonists of
Merry Mount, as they stood in the broad smile of sunset round
their venerated Maypole.

Had a wanderer, bewildered in the melancholy forest, heard their
mirth, and stolen a half-affrighted glance, he might have fancied
them the crew of Comus, some already transformed to brutes, some
midway between man and beast, and the others rioting in the flow
of tipsy jollity that foreran the change. But a band of Puritans,
who watched the scene, invisible themselves, compared the masques
to those devils and ruined souls with whom their superstition
peopled the black wilderness.

Within the ring of monsters appeared the two airiest forms that
had ever trodden on any more solid footing than a purple and
golden cloud. One was a youth in glistening apparel, with a scarf
of the rainbow pattern crosswise on his breast. His right hand
held a gilded staff, the ensign of high dignity among the
revellers, and his left grasped the slender fingers of a fair
maiden, not less gayly decorated than himself. Bright roses
glowed in contrast with the dark and glossy curls of each, and
were scattered round their feet, or had sprung up spontaneously
there. Behind this lightsome couple, so close to the Maypole that
its boughs shaded his jovial face, stood the figure of an English
priest, canonically dressed, yet decked with flowers, in heathen
fashion, and wearing a chaplet of the native vine leaves. By the
riot of his rolling eye, and the pagan decorations of his holy
garb, he seemed the wildest monster there, and the very Comus of
the crew.

"Votaries of the Maypole," cried the flower-decked priest,
"merrily, all day long, have the woods echoed to your mirth. But
be this your merriest hour, my hearts! Lo, here stand the Lord
and Lady of the May, whom I, a clerk of Oxford, and high priest
of Merry Mount, am presently to join in holy matrimony. Up with
your nimble spirits, ye morris-dancers, green men, and glee
maidens, bears and wolves, and horned gentlemen! Come; a chorus
now, rich with the old mirth of Merry England, and the wilder
glee of this fresh forest; and then a dance, to show the youthful
pair what life is made of, and how airily they should go through
it! All ye that love the Maypole, lend your voices to the nuptial
song of the Lord and Lady of the May!"

This wedlock was more serious than most affairs of Merry Mount,
where jest and delusion, trick and fantasy, kept up a continual
carnival. The Lord and Lady of the May, though their titles must
be laid down at sunset, were really and truly to be partners for
the dance of life, beginning the measure that same bright eve.
The wreath of roses, that hung from the lowest green bough of the
Maypole, had been twined for them, and would be thrown over both
their heads, in symbol of their flowery union. When the priest
had spoken, therefore, a riotous uproar burst from the rout of
monstrous figures.

"Begin you the stave, reverend Sir," cried they all; "and never
did the woods ring to such a merry peal as we of the Maypole
shall send up!"

Immediately a prelude of pipe, cithern, and viol, touched with
practised minstrelsy, began to play from a neighboring thicket,
in such a mirthful cadence that the boughs of the Maypole
quivered to the sound. But the May Lord, he of the gilded staff,
chancing to look into his Lady's eyes, was wonder struck at the
almost pensive glance that met his own.

"Edith, sweet Lady of the May," whispered he reproachfully, "is
yon wreath of roses a garland to hang above our graves, that you
look so sad? O, Edith, this is our golden time! Tarnish it not by
any pensive shadow of the mind; for it may be that nothing of
futurity will be brighter than the mere remembrance of what is
now passing."

"That was the very thought that saddened me! How came it in your
mind too?" said Edith, in a still lower tone than he, for it was
high treason to be sad at Merry Mount. "Therefore do I sigh amid
this festive music. And besides, dear Edgar, I struggle as with a
dream, and fancy that these shapes of our jovial friends are
visionary, and their mirth unreal, and that we are no true Lord
and Lady of the May. What is the mystery in my heart?"

Just then, as if a spell had loosened them, down came a little
shower of withering rose leaves from the Maypole. Alas, for the
young lovers! No sooner had their hearts glowed with real passion
than they were sensible of something vague and unsubstantial in
their former pleasures, and felt a dreary presentiment of
inevitable change. From the moment that they truly loved, they
had subjected themselves to earth's doom of care and sorrow, and
troubled joy, and had no more a home at Merry Mount. That was
Edith's mystery. Now leave we the priest to marry them, and the
masquers to sport round the Maypole, till the last sunbeam be
withdrawn from its summit, and the shadows of the forest mingle
gloomily in the dance. Meanwhile, we may discover who these gay
people were.

Two hundred years ago, and more, the old world and its
inhabitants became mutually weary of each other. Men voyaged by
thousands to the West: some to barter glass beads, and such like
jewels, for the furs of the Indian hunter; some to conquer virgin
empires; and one stern band to pray. But none of these motives
had much weight with the colonists of Merry Mount. Their leaders
were men who had sported so long with life, that when Thought and
Wisdom came, even these unwelcome guests were led astray by the
crowd of vanities which they should have put to flight. Erring
Thought and perverted Wisdom were made to put on masques, and
play the fool. The men of whom we speak, after losing the heart's
fresh gayety, imagined a wild philosophy of pleasure, and came
hither to act out their latest day-dream. They gathered followers
from all that giddy tribe whose whole life is like the festal
days of soberer men. In their train were minstrels, not unknown
in London streets; wandering players, whose theatres had been the
halls of noblemen; mummers, rope-dancers, and mountebanks, who
would long be missed at wakes, church ales, and fairs; in a word,
mirth makers of every sort, such as abounded in that age, but now
began to be discountenanced by the rapid growth of Puritanism.
Light had their footsteps been on land, and as lightly they came
across the sea. Many had been maddened by their previous troubles
into a gay despair; others were as madly gay in the flush of
youth, like the May Lord and his Lady; but whatever might be the
quality of their mirth, old and young were gay at Merry Mount.
The young deemed themselves happy. The elder spirits, if they
knew that mirth was but the counterfeit of happiness, yet
followed the false shadow wilfully, because at least her garments
glittered brightest. Sworn triflers of a lifetime, they would not
venture among the sober truths of life not even to be truly
blest.

All the hereditary pastimes of Old England were transplanted
hither. The King of Christmas was duly crowned, and the Lord of
Misrule bore potent sway. On the Eve of St. John, they felled
whole acres of the forest to make bonfires, and danced by the
blaze all night, crowned with garlands, and throwing flowers into
the flame. At harvest time, though their crop was of the
smallest, they made an image with the sheaves of Indian corn, and
wreathed it with autumnal garlands, and bore it home
triumphantly. But what chiefly characterized the colonists of
Merry Mount was their veneration for the Maypole. It has made
their true history a poet's tale. Spring decked the hallowed
emblem with young blossoms and fresh green boughs; Summer brought
roses of the deepest blush, and the perfected foliage of the
forest; Autumn enriched it with that red and yellow gorgeousness
which converts each wildwood leaf into a painted flower; and
Winter silvered it with sleet, and hung it round with icicles,
till it flashed in the cold sunshine, itself a frozen sunbeam.
Thus each alternate season did homage to the Maypole, and paid it
a tribute of its own richest splendor. Its votaries danced round
it, once, at least, in every month; sometimes they called it
their religion, or their altar; but always, it was the banner
staff of Merry Mount.

Unfortunately, there were men in the new world of a sterner faith
than those Maypole worshippers. Not far from Merry Mount was a
settlement of Puritans, most dismal wretches, who said their
prayers before daylight, and then wrought in the forest or the
cornfield till evening made it prayer time again. Their weapons
were always at hand to shoot down the straggling savage. When
they met in conclave, it was never to keep up the old English
mirth, but to hear sermons three hours long, or to proclaim
bounties on the heads of wolves and the scalps of Indians. Their
festivals were fast days, and their chief pastime the singing of
psalms. Woe to the youth or maiden who did but dream of a dance!
The selectman nodded to the constable; and there sat the
light-heeled reprobate in the stocks; or if he danced, it was
round the whipping-post, which might be termed the Puritan
Maypole.

A party of these grim Puritans, toiling through the difficult
woods, each with a horseload of iron armor to burden his
footsteps, would sometimes draw near the sunny precincts of Merry
Mount. There were the silken colonists, sporting round their
Maypole; perhaps teaching a bear to dance, or striving to
communicate their mirth to the grave Indian; or masquerading in
the skins of deer and wolves, which they had hunted for that
especial purpose. Often, the whole colony were playing at
blindman's buff, magistrates and all, with their eyes bandaged,
except a single scapegoat, whom the blinded sinners pursued by
the tinkling of the bells at his garments. Once, it is said, they
were seen following a flower-decked corpse, with merriment and
festive music, to his grave. But did the dead man laugh? In their
quietest times, they sang ballads and told tales, for the
edification of their pious visitors; or perplexed them with
juggling tricks; or grinned at them through horse collars; and
when sport itself grew wearisome, they made game of their own
stupidity, and began a yawning match. At the very least of these
enormities, the men of iron shook their heads and frowned so
darkly that the revellers looked up imagining that a momentary
cloud had overcast the sunshine, which was to be perpetual there.
On the other hand, the Puritans affirmed that, when a psalm was
pealing from their place of worship, the echo which the forest
sent them back seemed often like the chorus of a jolly catch,
closing with a roar of laughter. Who but the fiend, and his bond
slaves, the crew of Merry Mount, had thus disturbed them? In due
time, a feud arose, stern and bitter on one side, and as serious
on the other as anything could be among such light spirits as had
sworn allegiance to the Maypole. The future complexion of New
England was involved in this important quarrel. Should the
grizzly saints establish their jurisdiction over the gay sinners,
then would their spirits darken all the clime, and make it a land
of clouded visages, of hard toil, of sermon and psalm forever.
But should the banner staff of Merry Mount be fortunate, sunshine
would break upon the hills, and flowers would beautify the
forest, and late posterity do homage to the Maypole.

After these authentic passages from history, we return to the
nuptials of the Lord and Lady of the May. Alas! we have delayed
too long, and must darken our tale too suddenly. As we glance
again at the Maypole, a solitary sunbeam is fading from the
summit, and leaves only a faint, golden tinge blended with the
hues of the rainbow banner. Even that dim light is now withdrawn,
relinquishing the whole domain of Merry Mount to the evening
gloom, which has rushed so instantaneously from the black
surrounding woods. But some of these black shadows have rushed
forth in human shape.

Yes, with the setting sun, the last day of mirth had passed from
Merry Mount. The ring of gay masquers was disordered and broken;
the stag lowered his antlers in dismay; the wolf grew weaker than
a lamb; the bells of the morris-dancers tinkled with tremulous
affright. The Puritans had played a characteristic part in the
Maypole mummeries. Their darksome figures were intermixed with
the wild shapes of their foes, and made the scene a picture of
the moment, when waking thoughts start up amid the scattered
fantasies of a dream. The leader of the hostile party stood in
the centre of the circle, while the route of monsters cowered
around him, like evil spirits in the presence of a dread
magician. No fantastic foolery could look him in the face. So
stern was the energy of his aspect, that the whole man, visage,
frame, and soul, seemed wrought of iron, gifted with life and
thought, yet all of one substance with his headpiece and
breastplate. It was the Puritan of Puritans; it was Endicott
himself!

"Stand off, priest of Baal!" said he, with a grim frown, and
laying no reverent hand upon the surplice. "I know thee,
Blackstone![1] Thou art the man who couldst not abide the rule
even of thine own corrupted church, and hast come hither to
preach iniquity, and to give example of it in thy life. But now
shall it be seen that the Lord hath sanctified this wilderness
for his peculiar people. Woe unto them that would defile it! And
first, for this flower-decked abomination, the altar of thy
worship!"


[1] Did Governor Endicott speak less positively, we should
suspect a mistake here. The Rev. Mr. Blackstone, though an
eccentric, is not known to have been an immoral man. We rather
doubt his identity with the priest of Merry Mount.


And with his keen sword Endicott assaulted the hallowed Maypole.
Nor long did it resist his arm. It groaned with a dismal sound;
it showered leaves and rosebuds upon the remorseless enthusiast;
and finally, with all its green boughs and ribbons and flowers,
symbolic of departed pleasures, down fell the banner staff of
Merry Mount. As it sank, tradition says, the evening sky grew
darker, and the woods threw forth a more sombre shadow.

"There," cried Endicott, looking triumphantly on his work, "there
lies the only Maypole in New England! The thought is strong
within me that, by its fall, is shadowed forth the fate of light
and idle mirth makers, amongst us and our posterity. Amen, saith
John Endicott."

"Amen!" echoed his followers.

But the votaries of the Maypole gave one groan for their idol. At
the sound, the Puritan leader glanced at the crew of Comus, each
a figure of broad mirth, yet, at this moment, strangely
expressive of sorrow and dismay.

"Valiant captain," quoth Peter Palfrey, the Ancient of the band,
"what order shall be taken with the prisoners?"

"I thought not to repent me of cutting down a Maypole," replied
Endicott, "yet now I could find in my heart to plant it again,
and give each of these bestial pagans one other dance round their
idol. It would have served rarely for a whipping-post!"

"But there are pine-trees enow," suggested the lieutenant.

"True, good Ancient," said the leader. "Wherefore, bind the
heathen crew, and bestow on them a small matter of stripes
apiece, as earnest of our future justice. Set some of the rogues
in the stocks to rest themselves, so soon as Providence shall
bring us to one of our own well-ordered settlements where such
accommodations may be found. Further penalties, such as branding
and cropping of ears, shall be thought of hereafter."

"How many stripes for the priest?" inquired Ancient Palfrey.

"None as yet," answered Endicott, bending his iron frown upon the
culprit. "It must be for the Great and General Court to
determine, whether stripes and long imprisonment, and other
grievous penalty, may atone for his transgressions. Let him look
to himself! For such as violate our civil order, it may be
permitted us to show mercy. But woe to the wretch that troubleth
our religion."

"And this dancing bear," resumed the officer. "Must he share the
stripes of his fellows?"

"Shoot him through the head!" said the energetic Puritan. "I
suspect witchcraft in the beast."

"Here be a couple of shining ones," continued Peter Palfrey,
pointing his weapon at the Lord and Lady of the May. "They seem
to be of high station among these misdoers. Methinks their
dignity will not be fitted with less than a double share of
stripes."

Endicott rested on his sword, and closely surveyed the dress and
aspect of the hapless pair. There they stood, pale, downcast, and
apprehensive. Yet there was an air of mutual support and of pure
affection, seeking aid and giving it, that showed them to be man
and wife, with the sanction of a priest upon their love. The
youth, in the peril of the moment, had dropped his gilded staff,
and thrown his arm about the Lady of the May, who leaned against
his breast, too lightly to burden him, but with weight enough to
express that their destinies were linked together, for good or
evil. They looked first at each other, and then into the grim
captain's face. There they stood, in the first hour of wedlock,
while the idle pleasures, of which their companions were the
emblems, had given place to the sternest cares of life,
personified by the dark Puritans. But never had their youthful
beauty seemed so pure and high as when its glow was chastened by
adversity.

"Youth," said Endicott, "ye stand in an evil case thou and thy
maiden wife. Make ready presently, for I am minded that ye shall
both have a token to remember your wedding day!"

"Stern man," cried the May Lord, "how can I move thee? Were the
means at hand, I would resist to the death. Being powerless, I
entreat! Do with me as thou wilt, but let Edith go untouched!"

"Not so," replied the immitigable zealot. "We are not wont to
show an idle courtesy to that sex, which requireth the stricter
discipline. What sayest thou, maid? Shall thy silken bridegroom
suffer thy share of the penalty, besides his own?"

"Be it death," said Edith, "and lay it all on me!"

Truly, as Endicott had said, the poor lovers stood in a woful
case. Their foes were triumphant, their friends captive and
abased, their home desolate, the benighted wilderness around
them, and a rigorous destiny, in the shape of the Puritan leader,
their only guide. Yet the deepening twilight could not altogether
conceal that the iron man was softened; he smiled at the fair
spectacle of early love; he almost sighed for the inevitable
blight of early hopes.

"The troubles of life have come hastily on this young couple,"
observed Endicott. "We will see how they comport themselves under
their present trials ere we burden them with greater. If, among
the spoil, there be any garments of a more decent fashion, let
them be put upon this May Lord and his Lady, instead of their
glistening vanities. Look to it, some of you.

"And shall not the youth's hair be cut?" asked Peter Palfrey,
looking with abhorrence at the lovelock and long glossy curls of
the young man.

"Crop it forthwith, and that in the true pumpkin-shell fashion,"
answered the captain. "Then bring them along with us, but more
gently than their fellows. There be qualities in the youth, which
may make him valiant to fight, and sober to toil, and pious to
pray; and in the maiden, that may fit her to become a mother in
our Israel, bringing up babes in better nurture than her own hath
been. Nor think ye, young ones, that they are the happiest, even
in our lifetime of a moment, who misspend it in dancing round a
Maypole!"

And Endicott, the severest Puritan of all who laid the rock
foundation of New England, lifted the wreath of roses from the
ruin of the Maypole, and threw it, with his own gauntleted hand,
over the heads of the Lord and Lady of the May. It was a deed of
prophecy. As the moral gloom of the world overpowers all
systematic gayety, even so was their home of wild mirth made
desolate amid the sad forest. They returned to it no more. But as
their flowery garland was wreathed of the brightest roses that
had grown there, so, in the tie that united them, were
intertwined all the purest and best of their early joys. They
went heavenward, supporting each other along the difficult path
which it was their lot to tread, and never wasted one regretful
thought on the vanities of Merry Mount.




THE GENTLE BOY

In the course of the year 1656, several of the people called
Quakers, led, as they professed, by the inward movement of the
spirit, made their appearance in New England. Their reputation,
as holders of mystic and pernicious principles, having spread
before them, the Puritans early endeavored to banish, and to
prevent the further intrusion of the rising sect. But the
measures by which it was intended to purge the land of heresy,
though more than sufficiently vigorous, were entirely
unsuccessful. The Quakers, esteeming persecution as a divine call
to the post of danger, laid claim to a holy courage, unknown to
the Puritans themselves, who had shunned the cross, by providing
for the peaceable exercise of their religion in a distant
wilderness. Though it was the singular fact, that every nation of
the earth rejected the wandering enthusiasts who practised peace
towards all men, the place of greatest uneasiness and peril, and
therefore, in their eyes the most eligible, was the province of
Massachusetts Bay.

The fines, imprisonments, and stripes, liberally distributed by
our pious forefathers; the popular antipathy, so strong that it
endured nearly a hundred years after actual persecution had
ceased, were attractions as powerful for the Quakers, as peace,
honor, and reward, would have been for the worldly minded. Every
European vessel brought new cargoes of the sect, eager to testify
against the oppression which they hoped to share; and when
shipmasters were restrained by heavy fines from affording them
passage, they made long and circuitous journeys through the
Indian country, and appeared in the province as if conveyed by a
supernatural power. Their enthusiasm, heightened almost to
madness by the treatment which they received, produced actions
contrary to the rules of decency, as well as of rational
religion, and presented a singular contrast to the calm and staid
deportment of their sectarian successors of the present day. The
command of the spirit, inaudible except to the soul, and not to
be controverted on grounds of human wisdom, was made a plea for
most indecorous exhibitions, which, abstractedly considered, well
deserved the moderate chastisement of the rod. These
extravagances, and the persecution which was at once their cause
and consequence, continued to increase, till, in the year 1659,
the government of Massachusetts Bay indulged two members of the
Quaker sect with a crown of martyrdom.

An indelible stain of blood is upon the hands of all who
consented to this act, but a large share of the awful
responsibility must rest upon the person then at the head of the
government. He was a man of narrow mind and imperfect education,
and his uncompromising bigotry was made hot and mischievous by
violent and hasty passions; he exerted his influence indecorously
and unjustifiably to compass the death of the enthusiasts; and
his whole conduct, in respect to them, was marked by brutal
cruelty. The Quakers, whose revengeful feelings were not less
deep because they were inactive, remembered this man and his
associates in after times. The historian of the sect affirms
that, by the wrath of Heaven, a blight fell upon the land in the
vicinity of the "bloody town" of Boston, so that no wheat would
grow there; and he takes his stand, as it were, among the graves
of the ancient persecutors, and triumphantly recounts the
judgments that overtook them, in old age or at the parting hour.
He tells us that they died suddenly and violently and in madness;
but nothing can exceed the bitter mockery with which he records
the loathsome disease, and "death by rottenness," of the fierce
and cruel governor.

      .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

On the evening of the autumn day that had witnessed the martyrdom
of two men of the Quaker persuasion, a Puritan settler was
returning from the metropolis to the neighboring country town in
which he resided. The air was cool, the sky clear, and the
lingering twilight was made brighter by the rays of a young moon,
which had now nearly reached the verge of the horizon. The
traveller, a man of middle age, wrapped in a gray frieze cloak,
quickened his pace when he had reached the outskirts of the town,
for a gloomy extent of nearly four miles lay between him and his
home. The low, straw-thatched houses were scattered at
considerable intervals along the road, and the country having
been settled but about thirty years, the tracts of original
forest still bore no small proportion to the cultivated ground.
The autumn wind wandered among the branches, whirling away the
leaves from all except the pine-trees, and moaning as if it
lamented the desolation of which it was the instrument. The road
had penetrated the mass of woods that lay nearest to the town,
and was just emerging into an open space, when the traveller's
ears were saluted by a sound more mournful than even that of the
wind. It was like the wailing of someone in distress, and it
seemed to proceed from beneath a tall and lonely fir-tree, in the
centre of a cleared but uninclosed and uncultivated field. The
Puritan could not but remember that this was the very spot which
had been made accursed a few hours before by the execution of the
Quakers whose bodies had been thrown together into one hasty
grave, beneath the tree on which they suffered. He struggled
however, against the superstitious fears which belonged to the
age, and compelled himself to pause and listen.

"The voice is most likely mortal, nor have I cause to tremble if
it be otherwise," thought he, straining his eyes through the dim
moonlight. "Methinks it is like the wailing of a child; some
infant, it may be, which has strayed from its mother, and chanced
upon this place of death. For the ease of mine own conscience I
must search this matter out."

He therefore left the path, and walked somewhat fearfully across
the field. Though now so desolate, its soil was pressed down and
trampled by the thousand footsteps of those who had witnessed the
spectacle of that day, all of whom had now retired, leaving the
dead to their loneliness. The traveller, at length reached the
fir-tree, which from the middle upward was covered with living
branches, although a scaffold had been erected beneath, and other
preparations made for the work of death. Under this unhappy tree,
which in after times was believed to drop poison with its dew,
sat the one solitary mourner for innocent blood. It was a slender
and light clad little boy, who leaned his face upon a hillock of
fresh-turned and half-frozen earth, and wailed bitterly, yet in a
suppressed tone, as if his grief might receive the punishment of
crime. The Puritan, whose approach had been unperceived, laid his
hand upon the child's shoulder, and addressed him
compassionately.

"You have chosen a dreary lodging, my poor boy, and no wonder
that you weep," said he. "But dry your eyes, and tell me where
your mother dwells. I promise you, if the journey be not too far,
I will leave you in her arms to-night."

The boy had hushed his wailing at once, and turned his face
upward to the stranger. It was a pale, bright-eyed countenance,
certainly not more than six years old, but sorrow, fear, and want
had destroyed much of its infantile expression. The Puritan
seeing the boy's frightened gaze, and feeling that he trembled
under his hand, endeavored to reassure him.

"Nay, if I intended to do you harm, little lad, the readiest way
were to leave you here. What! you do not fear to sit beneath the
gallows on a new-made grave, and yet you tremble at a friend's
touch. Take heart, child, and tell me what is your name and where
is your home?"

"Friend," replied the little boy, in a sweet though faltering
voice, "they call me Ilbrahim, and my home is here."

The pale, spiritual face, the eyes that seemed to mingle with the
moonlight, the sweet, airy voice, and the outlandish name, almost
made the Puritan believe that the boy was in truth a being which
had sprung up out of the grave on which he sat. But perceiving
that the apparition stood the test of a short mental prayer, and
remembering that the arm which he had touched was lifelike, he
adopted a more rational supposition. "The poor child is stricken
in his intellect," thought he, "but verily his words are fearful
in a place like this." He then spoke soothingly, intending to
humor the boy's fantasy.

"Your home will scarce be comfortable, Ilbrahim, this cold autumn
night, and I fear you are ill-provided with food. I am hastening
to a warm supper and bed, and if you will go with me you shall
share them!"

"I thank thee, friend, but though I be hungry, and shivering with
cold, thou wilt not give me food nor lodging," replied the boy,
in the quiet tone which despair had taught him, even so young.
"My father was of the people whom all men hate. They have laid
him under this heap of earth, and here is my home."

The Puritan, who had laid hold of little Ilbrahim's hand,
relinquished it as if he were touching a loathsome reptile. But
he possessed a compassionate heart, which not even religious
prejudice could harden into stone.

"God forbid that I should leave this child to perish, though he
comes of the accursed sect," said he to himself. "Do we not all
spring from an evil root? Are we not all in darkness till the
light doth shine upon us? He shall not perish, neither in body,
nor, if prayer and instruction may avail for him, in soul." He
then spoke aloud and kindly to Ilbrahim, who had again hid his
face in the cold earth of the grave. "Was every door in the land
shut against you, my child, that you have wandered to this
unhallowed spot?"

"They drove me forth from the prison when they took my father
thence," said the boy, "and I stood afar off watching the crowd
of people, and when they were gone I came hither, and found only
his grave. I knew that my father was sleeping here, and I said
this shall be my home."

"No, child, no; not while I have a roof over my head, or a morsel
to share with you!" exclaimed the Puritan, whose sympathies were
now fully excited. "Rise up and come with me, and fear not any
harm."

The boy wept afresh, and clung to the heap of earth as if the
cold heart beneath it were warmer to him than any in a living
breast. The traveller, however, continued to entreat him
tenderly, and seeming to acquire some degree of confidence, he at
length arose. But his slender limbs tottered with weakness, his
little head grew dizzy, and he leaned against the tree of death
for support.

"My poor boy, are you so feeble?" said the Puritan. "When did you
taste food last?"

"I ate of bread and water with my father in the prison," replied
Ilbrahim, "but they brought him none neither yesterday nor
to-day, saying that he had eaten enough to bear him to his
journey's end. Trouble not thyself for my hunger, kind friend,
for I have lacked food many times ere now."

The traveller took the child in his arms and wrapped his cloak
about him, while his heart stirred with shame and anger against
the gratuitous cruelty of the instruments in this persecution. In
the awakened warmth of his feelings he resolved that, at whatever
risk, he would not forsake the poor little defenceless being whom
Heaven had confided to his care. With this determination he left
the accursed field, and resumed the homeward path from which the
wailing of the boy had called him. The light and motionless
burden scarcely impeded his progress, and he soon beheld the fire
rays from the windows of the cottage which he, a native of a
distant clime, had built in the western wilderness. It was
surrounded by a considerable extent of cultivated ground, and the
dwelling was situated in the nook of a wood-covered hill, whither
it seemed to have crept for protection.

"Look up, child," said the Puritan to Ilbrahim, whose faint head
had sunk upon his shoulder, "there is our home."

At the word "home," a thrill passed through the child's frame,
but he continued silent. A few moments brought them to a cottage
door, at which the owner knocked; for at that early period, when
savages were wandering everywhere among the settlers, bolt and
bar were indispensable to the security of a dwelling. The summons
was answered by a bond-servant, a coarse-clad and dull-featured
piece of humanity, who, after ascertaining that his master was
the applicant, undid the door, and held a flaring pineknot torch
to light him in. Farther back in the passage-way, the red blaze
discovered a matronly woman, but no little crowd of children came
bounding forth to greet their father's return. As the Puritan
entered, he thrust aside his cloak, and displayed Ilbrahim's face
to the female.

"Dorothy, here is a little outcast, whom Providence hath put into
our hands," observed he. "Be kind to him, even as if he were of
those dear ones who have departed from us."

"What pale and bright-eyed little boy is this, Tobias?" she
inquired. "Is he one whom the wilderness folk have ravished from
some Christian mother?"

"No, Dorothy, this poor child is no captive from the wilderness,"
he replied. "The heathen savage would have given him to eat of
his scanty morsel, and to drink of his birchen cup; but Christian
men, alas, had cast him out to die."

Then he told her how he had found him beneath the gallows, upon
his father's grave; and how his heart had prompted him, like the
speaking of an inward voice, to take the little outcast home, and
be kind unto him. He acknowledged his resolution to feed and
clothe him, as if he were his own child, and to afford him the
instruction which should counteract the pernicious errors
hitherto instilled into his infant mind. Dorothy was gifted with
even a quicker tenderness than her husband, and she approved of
all his doings and intentions.

"Have you a mother, dear child?" she inquired.

The tears burst forth from his full heart as he attempted to
reply; but Dorothy at length understood that he had a mother,
who, like the rest of her sect, was a persecuted wanderer. She
had been taken from the prison a short time before, carried into
the uninhabited wilderness, and left to perish there by hunger or
wild beasts. This was no uncommon method of disposing of the
Quakers, and they were accustomed to boast that the inhabitants
of the desert were more hospitable to them than civilized man.

"Fear not, little boy, you shall not need a mother, and a kind
one," said Dorothy, when she had gathered this information. "Dry
your tears, Ilbrahim, and be my child, as I will be your mother."

The good woman prepared the little bed, from which her own
children had successively been borne to another resting-place.
Before Ilbrahim would consent to occupy it, he knelt down, and as
Dorothy listened to his simple and affecting prayer, she
marvelled how the parents that had taught it to him could have
been judged worthy of death. When the boy had fallen asleep, she
bent over his pale and spiritual countenance, pressed a kiss upon
his white brow, drew the bedclothes up about his neck, and went
away with a pensive gladness in her heart.

Tobias Pearson was not among the earliest emigrants from the old
country. He had remained in England during the first years of the
civil war, in which he had borne some share as a cornet of
dragoons, under Cromwell. But when the ambitious designs of his
leader began to develop themselves, he quitted the army of the
Parliament, and sought a refuge from the strife, which was no
longer holy, among the people of his persuasion in the colony of
Massachusetts. A more worldly consideration had perhaps an
influence in drawing him thither; for New England offered
advantages to men of unprosperous fortunes, as well as to
dissatisfied religionists, and Pearson had hitherto found it
difficult to provide for a wife and increasing family. To this
supposed impurity of motive the more bigoted Puritans were
inclined to impute the removal by death of all the children, for
whose earthly good the father had been over-thoughtful. They had
left their native country blooming like roses, and like roses
they had perished in a foreign soil. Those expounders of the ways
of Providence, who had thus judged their brother, and attributed
his domestic sorrows to his sin, were not more charitable when
they saw him and Dorothy endeavoring to fill up the void in their
hearts by the adoption of an infant of the accursed sect. Nor did
they fail to communicate their disapprobation to Tobias; but the
latter, in reply, merely pointed at the little quiet, lovely boy,
whose appearance and deportment were indeed as powerful arguments
as could possibly have been adduced in his own favor. Even his
beauty, however, and his winning manners, sometimes produced an
effect ultimately unfavorable; for the bigots, when the outer
surfaces of their iron hearts had been softened and again grew
hard, affirmed that no merely natural cause could have so worked
upon them.

Their antipathy to the poor infant was also increased by the ill
success of divers theological discussions, in which it was
attempted to convince him of the errors of his sect. Ilbrahim, it
is true, was not a skilful controversialist; but the feeling of
his religion was strong as instinct in him, and he could neither
be enticed nor driven from the faith which his father had died
for. The odium of this stubbornness was shared in a great measure
by the child's protectors, insomuch that Tobias and Dorothy very
shortly began to experience a most bitter species of persecution,
in the cold regards of many a friend whom they had valued. The
common people manifested their opinions more openly. Pearson was
a man of some consideration, being a representative to the
General Court and an approved lieutenant in the trainbands, yet
within a week after his adoption of Ilbrahim he had been both
hissed and hooted. Once, also, when walking through a solitary
piece of woods, he heard a loud voice from some invisible
speaker; and it cried, "What shall be done to the backslider? Lo!
the scourge is knotted for him, even the whip of nine cords, and
every cord three knots!" These insults irritated Pearson's temper
for the moment; they entered also into his heart, and became
imperceptible but powerful workers towards an end which his most
secret thought had not yet whispered.

      .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

On the second Sabbath after Ilbrahim became a member of their
family, Pearson and his wife deemed it proper that he should
appear with them at public worship. They had anticipated some
opposition to this measure from the boy, but he prepared himself
in silence, and at the appointed hour was clad in the new
mourning suit which Dorothy had wrought for him. As the parish
was then, and during many subsequent years, unprovided with a
bell, the signal for the commencement of religious exercises was
the beat of a drum. At the first sound of that martial call to
the place of holy and quiet thoughts, Tobias and Dorothy set
forth, each holding a hand of little Ilbrahim, like two parents
linked together by the infant of their love. On their path
through the leafless woods they were overtaken by many persons of
their acquaintance, all of whom avoided them, and passed by on
the other side; but a severer trial awaited their constancy when
they had descended the hill, and drew near the pine-built and
undecorated house of prayer. Around the door, from which the
drummer still sent forth his thundering summons, was drawn up a
formidable phalanx, including several of the oldest members of
the congregation, many of the middle aged, and nearly all the
younger males. Pearson found it difficult to sustain their united
and disapproving gaze, but Dorothy, whose mind was differently
circumstanced, merely drew the boy closer to her, and faltered
not in her approach. As they entered the door, they overheard the
muttered sentiments of the assemblage, and when the reviling
voices of the little children smote Ilbrahim's ear, he wept.

The interior aspect of the meeting-house was rude. The low
ceiling, the unplastered walls, the naked wood work, and the
undraperied pulpit, offered nothing to excite the devotion,
which, without such external aids, often remains latent in the
heart. The floor of the building was occupied by rows of long,
cushionless benches, supplying the place of pews, and the broad
aisle formed a sexual division, impassable except by children
beneath a certain age.

Pearson and Dorothy separated at the door of the meeting-house,
and Ilbrahim, being within the years of infancy, was retained
under the care of the latter. The wrinkled beldams involved
themselves in their rusty cloaks as he passed by; even the
mild-featured maidens seemed to dread contamination; and many a
stern old man arose, and turned his repulsive and unheavenly
countenance upon the gentle boy, as if the sanctuary were
polluted by his presence. He was a sweet infant of the skies that
had strayed away from his home, and all the inhabitants of this
miserable world closed up their impure hearts against him, drew
back their earthsoiled garments from his touch, and said, "We are
holier than thou."

Ilbrahim, seated by the side of his adopted mother, and retaining
fast hold of her hand, assumed a grave and decorous demeanor,
such as might befit a person of matured taste and understanding,
who should find him self in a temple dedicated to some worship
which he did not recognize, but felt himself bound to respect.
The exercises had not yet commenced, however, when the boy's
attention was arrested by an event, apparently of trifling
interest. A woman, having her face muffled in a hood, and a cloak
drawn completely about her form, advanced slowly up the broad
aisle and took a place upon the foremost bench. Ilbrahim's faint
color varied, his nerves fluttered, he was unable to turn his
eyes from the muffled female.

When the preliminary prayer and hymn were over, the minister
arose, and having turned the hour-glass which stood by the great
Bible, commenced his discourse. He was now well stricken in
years, a man of pale, thin countenance, and his gray hairs were
closely covered by a black velvet skullcap. In his younger days
he had practically learned the meaning of persecution from
Archbishop Laud, and he was not now disposed to forget the lesson
against which he had murmured then. Introducing the often
discussed subject of the Quakers, he gave a history of that sect,
and a description of their tenets, in which error predominated,
and prejudice distorted the aspect of what was true. He adverted
to the recent measures in the province, and cautioned his hearers
of weaker parts against calling in question the just severity
which God-fearing magistrates had at length been compelled to
exercise. He spoke of the danger of pity, in some cases a
commendable and Christian virtue, but inapplicable to this
pernicious sect. He observed that such was their devilish
obstinacy in error, that even the little children, the sucking
babes, were hardened and desperate heretics. He affirmed that no
man, without Heaven's especial warrants should attempt their
conversion, lest while he lent his hand to draw them from the
slough, he should himself be precipitated into its lowest depths.

The sands of the second hour were principally in the lower half
of the glass when the sermon concluded. An approving murmur
followed, and the clergyman, having given out a hymn, took his
seat with much self-congratulation, and endeavored to read the
effect of his eloquence in the visages of the people. But while
voices from all parts of the house were tuning themselves to
sing, a scene occurred, which, though not very unusual at that
period in the province, happened to be without precedent in this
parish.

The muffled female, who had hitherto sat motionless in the front
rank of the audience, now arose, and with slow, stately, and
unwavering step, ascended the pulpit stairs. The quiverings of
incipient harmony were hushed, and the divine sat in speechless
and almost terrified astonishment, while she undid the door, and
stood up in the sacred desk from which his maledictions had just
been thundered. She then divested herself of the cloak and hood,
and appeared in a most singular array. A shapeless robe of
sackcloth was girded about her waist with a knotted cord; her
raven hair fell down upon her shoulders, and its blackness was
defiled by pale streaks of ashes, which she had strown upon her
head. Her eyebrows, dark and strongly defined, added to the
deathly whiteness of a countenance, which, emaciated with want,
and wild with enthusiasm and strange sorrows, retained no trace
of earlier beauty. This figure stood gazing earnestly on the
audience, and there was no sound, nor any movement, except a
faint shuddering which every man observed in his neighbor, but
was scarcely conscious of in himself. At length, when her fit of
inspiration came, she spoke, for the first few moments, in a low
voice, and not invariably distinct utterance. Her discourse gave
evidence of an imagination hopelessly entangled with her reason;
it was a vague and incomprehensible rhapsody, which, however,
seemed to spread its own atmosphere round the hearer's soul, and
to move his feelings by some influence unconnected with the
words. As she proceeded, beautiful but shadowy images would
sometimes be seen, like bright things moving in a turbid river;
or a strong and singularly-shaped idea leaped forth, and seized
at once on the understanding or the heart. But the course of her
unearthly eloquence soon led her to the persecutions of her sect,
and from thence the step was short to her own peculiar sorrows.
She was naturally a woman of mighty passions, and hatred and
revenge now wrapped themselves in the garb of piety; the
character of her speech was changed, her images became distinct
though wild, and her denunciations had an almost hellish
bitterness.

"The Governor and his mighty men," she said, "have gathered
together, taking counsel among themselves and saying, 'What shall
we do unto this people even unto the people that have come into
this land to put our iniquity to the blush?' And lo! the devil
entereth into the council chamber, like a lame man of low stature
and gravely apparelled, with a dark and twisted countenance, and
a bright, downcast eye. And he standeth up among the rulers; yea,
he goeth to and fro, whispering to each; and every man lends his
ear, for his word is 'Slay, slay!' But I say unto ye, Woe to them
that slay! Woe to them that shed the blood of saints! Woe to them
that have slain the husband, and cast forth the child, the tender
infant, to wander homeless and hungry and cold, till he die; and
have saved the mother alive, in the cruelty of their tender
mercies! Woe to them in their lifetime! cursed are they in the
delight and pleasure of their hearts! Woe to them in their death
hour, whether it come swiftly with blood and violence, or after
long and lingering pain! Woe, in the dark house, in the
rottenness of the grave, when the children's children shall
revile the ashes of the fathers! Woe, woe, woe, at the judgment,
when all the persecuted and all the slain in this bloody land,
and the father, the mother, and the child, shall await them in a
day that they cannot escape! Seed of the faith, seed of the
faith, ye whose hearts are moving with a power that ye know not,
arise, wash your hands of this innocent blood! Lift your voices,
chosen ones; cry aloud, and call down a woe and a judgment with
me!"

Having thus given vent to the flood of malignity which she
mistook for inspiration, the speaker was silent. Her voice was
succeeded by the hysteric shrieks of several women, but the
feelings of the audience generally had not been drawn onward in
the current with her own. They remained stupefied, stranded as it
were, in the midst of a torrent, which deafened them by its
roaring, but might not move them by its violence. The clergyman,
who could not hitherto have ejected the usurper of his pulpit
otherwise than by bodily force, now addressed her in the tone of
just indignation and legitimate authority.

"Get you down, woman, from the holy place which you profane," he
said. "Is it to the Lord's house that you come to pour forth the
foulness of your heart and the inspiration of the devil? Get you
down, and remember that the sentence of death is on you; yea, and
shall be executed, were it but for this day's work!"

"I go, friend, I go, for the voice hath had its utterance,"
replied she, in a depressed and even mild tone. "I have done my
mission unto thee and to thy people. Reward me with stripes,
imprisonment, or death, as ye shall be permitted."

The weakness of exhausted passion caused her steps to totter as
she descended the pulpit stairs. The people, in the mean while,
were stirring to and fro on the floor of the house, whispering
among themselves, and glancing towards the intruder. Many of them
now recognized her as the woman who had assaulted the Governor
with frightful language as he passed by the window of her prison;
they knew, also, that she was adjudged to suffer death, and had
been preserved only by an involuntary banishment into the
wilderness. The new outrage, by which she had provoked her fate,
seemed to render further lenity impossible; and a gentleman in
military dress, with a stout man of inferior rank, drew towards
the door of the meeting-house, and awaited her approach.

Scarcely did her feet press the floor, however, when an
unexpected scene occurred. In that moment of her peril, when
every eye frowned with death, a little timid boy pressed forth,
and threw his arms round his mother.

"I am here, mother; it is I, and I will go with thee to prison,"
he exclaimed.

She gazed at him with a doubtful and almost frightened
expression, for she knew that the boy had been cast out to
perish, and she had not hoped to see his face again. She feared,
perhaps, that it was but one of the happy visions with which her
excited fancy had often deceived her, in the solitude of the
desert or in prison. But when she felt his hand warm within her
own, and heard his little eloquence of childish love, she began
to know that she was yet a mother.

"Blessed art thou, my son," she sobbed. "My heart was withered;
yea, dead with thee and with thy father; and now it leaps as in
the first moment when I pressed thee to my bosom."

She knelt down and embraced him again and again, while the joy
that could find no words expressed itself in broken accents, like
the bubbles gushing up to vanish at the surface of a deep
fountain. The sorrows of past years, and the darker peril that
was nigh, cast not a shadow on the brightness of that fleeting
moment. Soon, however, the spectators saw a change upon her face,
as the consciousness of her sad estate returned, and grief
supplied the fount of tears which joy had opened. By the words
she uttered, it would seem that the indulgence of natural love
had given her mind a momentary sense of its errors, and made her
know how far she had strayed from duty in following the dictates
of a wild fanaticism.

"In a doleful hour art thou returned to me, poor boy," she said,
"for thy mother's path has gone darkening onward, till now the
end is death. Son, son, I have borne thee in my arms when my
limbs were tottering, and I have fed thee with the food that I
was fainting for; yet I have ill performed a mother's part by
thee in life, and now I leave thee no inheritance but woe and
shame. Thou wilt go seeking through the world, and find all
hearts closed against thee and their sweet affections turned to
bitterness for my sake. My child, my child, how many a pang
awaits thy gentle spirit, and I the cause of all!"

She hid her face on Ilbrahim's head, and her long, raven hair,
discolored with the ashes of her mourning, fell down about him
like a veil. A low and interrupted moan was the voice of her
heart's anguish, and it did not fail to move the sympathies of
many who mistook their involuntary virtue for a sin. Sobs were
audible in the female section of the house, and every man who was
a father drew his hand across his eyes. Tobias Pearson was
agitated and uneasy, but a certain feeling like the consciousness
of guilt oppressed him, so that he could not go forth and offer
himself as the protector of the child. Dorothy, however, had
watched her husband's eye. Her mind was free from the influence
that had begun to work on his, and she drew near the Quaker
woman, and addressed her in the hearing of all the congregation.

"Stranger, trust this boy to me, and I will be his mother," she
said, taking Ilbrahim's hand. "Providence has signally marked out
my husband to protect him, and he has fed at our table and lodged
under our roof now many days, till our hearts have grown very
strongly unto him. Leave the tender child with us, and be at ease
concerning his welfare."

The Quaker rose from the ground, but drew the boy closer to her,
while she gazed earnestly in Dorothy's face. Her mild but
saddened features, and neat matronly attire, harmonized together,
and were like a verse of fireside poetry. Her very aspect proved
that she was blameless, so far as mortal could be so, in respect
to God and man; while the enthusiast, in her robe of sackcloth
and girdle of knotted cord, had as evidently violated the duties
of the present life and the future, by fixing her attention
wholly on the latter. The two females, as they held each a hand
of Ilbrahim, formed a practical allegory; it was rational piety
and unbridled fanaticism contending for the empire of a young
heart.

"Thou art not of our people," said the Quaker, mournfully.

"No, we are not of your people," replied Dorothy, with mildness,
"but we are Christians, looking upward to the same heaven with
you. Doubt not that your boy shall meet you there, if there be a
blessing on our tender and prayerful guidance of him. Thither, I
trust, my own children have gone before me, for I also have been
a mother; I am no longer so," she added, in a faltering tone,
"and your son will have all my care."

"But will ye lead him in the path which his parents have
trodden?" demanded the Quaker. "Can ye teach him the enlightened
faith which his father has died for, and for which I, even I, am
soon to become an unworthy martyr? The boy has been baptized in
blood; will ye keep the mark fresh and ruddy upon his forehead?"

"I will not deceive you," answered Dorothy. "If your child become
our child, we must breed him up in the instruction which Heaven
has imparted to us; we must pray for him the prayers of our own
faith; we must do towards him according to the dictates of our
own consciences, and not of yours. Were we to act otherwise, we
should abuse your trust, even in complying with your wishes."

The mother looked down upon her boy with a troubled countenance,
and then turned her eyes upward to heaven. She seemed to pray
internally, and the contention of her soul was evident.

"Friend," she said at length to Dorothy, "I doubt not that my son
shall receive all earthly tenderness at thy hands. Nay, I will
believe that even thy imperfect lights may guide him to a better
world, for surely thou art on the path thither. But thou hast
spoken of a husband. Doth he stand here among this multitude of
people? Let him come forth, for I must know to whom I commit this
most precious trust."

She turned her face upon the male auditors, and after a momentary
delay, Tobias Pearson came forth from among them. The Quaker saw
the dress which marked his military rank, and shook her head; but
then she noted the hesitating air, the eyes that struggled with
her own, and were vanquished; the color that went and came, and
could find no resting place. As she gazed, an unmirthful smile
spread over her features, like sunshine that grows melancholy in
some desolate spot. Her lips moved inaudibly, but at length she
spake.

"I hear it, I hear it. The voice speaketh within me and saith,
'Leave thy child, Catharine, for his place is here, and go hence,
for I have other work for thee. Break the bonds of natural
affection, martyr thy love, and know that in all these things
eternal wisdom hath its ends.' I go, friends; I go. Take ye my
boy, my precious jewel. I go hence, trusting that all shall be
well, and that even for his infant hands there is a labor in the
vineyard."

She knelt down and whispered to Ilbrahim, who at first struggled
and clung to his mother, with sobs and tears, but remained
passive when she had kissed his cheek and arisen from the ground.
Having held her hands over his head in mental prayer, she was
ready to depart.

"Farewell, friends in mine extremity," she said to Pearson and
his wife; "the good deed ye have done me is a treasure laid up in
heaven, to be returned a thousand-fold hereafter. And farewell
ye, mine enemies, to whom it is not permitted to harm so much as
a hair of my head, nor to stay my footsteps even for a moment.
The day is coming when ye shall call upon me to witness for ye to
this one sin uncommitted, and I will rise up and answer."

She turned her steps towards the door, and the men, who had
stationed themselves to guard it, withdrew, and suffered her to
pass. A general sentiment of pity overcame the virulence of
religious hatred. Sanctified by her love and her affliction, she
went forth, and all the people gazed after her till she had
journeyed up the hill, and was lost behind its brow. She went,
the apostle of her own unquiet heart, to renew the wanderings of
past years. For her voice had been already heard in many lands of
Christendom; and she had pined in the cells of a Catholic
Inquisition before she felt the lash and lay in the dungeons of
the Puritans. Her mission had extended also to the followers of
the Prophet, and from them she had received the courtesy and
kindness which all the contending sects of our purer religion
united to deny her. Her husband and herself had resided many
months in Turkey, where even the Sultan's countenance was
gracious to them; in that pagan land, too, was Ilbrahim's
birthplace, and his oriental name was a mark of gratitude for the
good deeds of an unbeliever.

      .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

When Pearson and his wife had thus acquired all the rights over
Ilbrahim that could be delegated, their affection for him became
like the memory of their native land, or their mild sorrow for
the dead, a piece of the immovable furniture of their hearts. The
boy, also, after a week or two of mental disquiet, began to
gratify his protectors by many inadvertent proofs that he
considered them as parents, and their house as home. Before the
winter snows were melted, the persecuted infant, the little
wanderer from a remote and heathen country, seemed native in the
New England cottage, and inseparable from the warmth and security
of its hearth. Under the influence of kind treatment, and in the
consciousness that he was loved, Ilbrahim's demeanor lost a
premature manliness, which had resulted from his earlier
situation; he became more childlike, and his natural character
displayed itself with freedom. It was in many respects a
beautiful one, yet the disordered imaginations of both his father
and mother had perhaps propagated a certain unhealthiness in the
mind of the boy. In his general state, Ilbrahim would derive
enjoyment from the most trifling events, and from every object
about him; he seemed to discover rich treasures of happiness, by
a faculty analogous to that of the witch hazel, which points to
hidden gold where all is barren to the eye. His airy gayety,
coming to him from a thousand sources, communicated itself to the
family, and Ilbrahim was like a domesticated sunbeam, brightening
moody countenances, and chasing away the gloom from the dark
corners of the cottage.

On the other hand, as the susceptibility of pleasure is also that
of pain, the exuberant cheerfulness of the boy's prevailing
temper sometimes yielded to moments of deep depression. His
sorrows could not always be followed up to their original source,
but most frequently they appeared to flow, though Ilbrahim was
young to be sad for such a cause, from wounded love. The
flightiness of his mirth rendered him often guilty of offences
against the decorum of a Puritan household, and on these
occasions he did not invariably escape rebuke. But the slightest
word of real bitterness, which he was infallible in
distinguishing from pretended anger, seemed to sink into his
heart and poison all his enjoyments, till he became sensible that
he was entirely forgiven. Of the malice, which generally
accompanies a superfluity of sensitiveness, Ilbrahim was
altogether destitute: when trodden upon, he would not turn; when
wounded, he could but die. His mind was wanting in the stamina
for self-support; it was a plant that would twine beautifully
round something stronger than itself, but if repulsed, or torn
away, it had no choice but to wither on the ground. Dorothy's
acuteness taught her that severity would crush the spirit of the
child, and she nurtured him with the gentle care of one who
handles a butterfly. Her husband manifested an equal affection,
although it grew daily less productive of familiar caresses.

The feelings of the neighboring people, in regard to the Quaker
infant and his protectors, had not undergone a favorable change,
in spite of the momentary triumph which the desolate mother had
obtained over their sympathies. The scorn and bitterness, of
which he was the object, were very grievous to Ilbrahim,
especially when any circumstance made him sensible that the
children, his equals in age, partook of the enmity of their
parents. His tender and social nature had already overflowed in
attachments to everything about him, and still there was a
residue of unappropriated love, which he yearned to bestow upon
the little ones who were taught to hate him. As the warm days of
spring came on, Ilbrahim was accustomed to remain for hours,
silent and inactive, within hearing of the children's voices at
their play; yet, with his usual delicacy of feeling, he avoided
their notice, and would flee and hide himself from the smallest
individual among them. Chance, however, at length seemed to open
a medium of communication between his heart and theirs; it was by
means of a boy about two years older than Ilbrahim, who was
injured by a fall from a tree in the vicinity of Pearson's
habitation. As the sufferer's own home was at some distance,
Dorothy willingly received him under her roof, and became his
tender and careful nurse.

Ilbrahim was the unconscious possessor of much skill in
physiognomy, and it would have deterred him, in other
circumstances, from attempting to make a friend of this boy. The
countenance of the latter immediately impressed a beholder
disagreeably, but it required some examination to discover that
the cause was a very slight distortion of the mouth, and the
irregular, broken line, and near approach of the eyebrows.
Analogous, perhaps, to these trifling deformities, was an almost
imperceptible twist of every joint, and the uneven prominence of
the breast; forming a body, regular in its general outline, but
faulty in almost all its details. The disposition of the boy was
sullen and reserved, and the village schoolmaster stigmatized him
as obtuse in intellect; although, at a later period of life, he
evinced ambition and very peculiar talents. But whatever might be
his personal or moral irregularities, Ilbrahim's heart seized
upon, and clung to him, from the moment that he was brought
wounded into the cottage; the child of persecution seemed to
compare his own fate with that of the sufferer, and to feel that
even different modes of misfortune had created a sort of
relationship between them. Food, rest, and the fresh air, for
which he languished, were neglected; he nestled continually by
the bedside of the little stranger, and, with a fond jealousy,
endeavored to be the medium of all the cares that were bestowed
upon him. As the boy became convalescent, Ilbrahim contrived
games suitable to his situation, or amused him by a faculty which
he had perhaps breathed in with the air of his barbaric
birthplace. It was that of reciting imaginary adventures, on the
spur of the moment, and apparently in inexhaustible succession.
His tales were of course monstrous, disjointed, and without aim;
but they were curious on account of a vein of human tenderness
which ran through them all, and was like a sweet, familiar face,
encountered in the midst of wild and unearthly scenery. The
auditor paid much attention to these romances, and sometimes
interrupted them by brief remarks upon the incidents, displaying
shrewdness above his years, mingled with a moral obliquity which
grated very harshly against Ilbrahim's instinctive rectitude.
Nothing, however, could arrest the progress of the latter's
affection, and there were many proofs that it met with a response
from the dark and stubborn nature on which it was lavished. The
boy's parents at length removed him, to complete his cure under
their own roof.

Ilbrahim did not visit his new friend after his departure; but he
made anxious and continual inquiries respecting him, and informed
himself of the day when he was to reappear among his playmates.
On a pleasant summer afternoon, the children of the neighborhood
had assembled in the little forest-crowned amphitheatre behind
the meeting-house, and the recovering invalid was there, leaning
on a staff. The glee of a score of untainted bosoms was heard in
light and airy voices, which danced among the trees like sunshine
become audible; the grown men of this weary world, as they
journeyed by the spot, marvelled why life, beginning in such
brightness, should proceed in gloom; and their hearts, or their
imaginations, answered them and said, that the bliss of childhood
gushes from its innocence. But it happened that an unexpected
addition was made to the heavenly little band. It was Ilbrahim,
who came towards the children with a look of sweet confidence on
his fair and spiritual face, as if, having manifested his love to
one of them, he had no longer to fear a repulse from their
society. A hush came over their mirth the moment they beheld him,
and they stood whispering to each other while he drew nigh; but,
all at once, the devil of their fathers entered into the
unbreeched fanatics, and sending up a fierce, shrill cry, they
rushed upon the poor Quaker child. In an instant, he was the
centre of a brood of baby-fiends, who lifted sticks against him,
pelted him with stones, and displayed an instinct of destruction
far more loathsome than the bloodthirstiness of manhood.

The invalid, in the meanwhile, stood apart from the tumult,
crying out with a loud voice, "Fear not, Ilbrahim, come hither
and take my hand;" and his unhappy friend endeavored to obey him.
After watching the victim's struggling approach with a calm smile
and unabashed eye, the foulhearted little villain lifted his
staff and struck Ilbrahim on the mouth, so forcibly that the
blood issued in a stream. The poor child's arms had been raised
to guard his head from the storm of blows; but now he dropped
them at once. His persecutors beat him down, trampled upon him,
dragged him by his long, fair locks, and Ilbrahim was on the
point of becoming as veritable a martyr as ever entered bleeding
into heaven. The uproar, however, attracted the notice of a few
neighbors, who put themselves to the trouble of rescuing the
little heretic, and of conveying him to Pearson's door.

Ilbrahim's bodily harm was severe, but long and careful nursing
accomplished his recovery; the injury done to his sensitive
spirit was more serious, though not so visible. Its signs were
principally of a negative character, and to be discovered only by
those who had previously known him. His gait was thenceforth
slow, even, and unvaried by the sudden bursts of sprightlier
motion, which had once corresponded to his overflowing gladness;
his countenance was heavier, and its former play of expression,
the dance of sunshine reflected from moving water, was destroyed
by the cloud over his existence; his notice was attracted in a
far less degree by passing events, and he appeared to find
greater difficulty in comprehending what was new to him than at a
happier period. A stranger, founding his judgment upon these
circumstances, would have said that the dulness of the child's
intellect widely contradicted the promise of his features, but
the secret was in the direction of Ilbrahim's thoughts, which
were brooding within him when they should naturally have been
wandering abroad. An attempt of Dorothy to revive his former
sportiveness was the single occasion on which his quiet demeanor
yielded to a violent display of grief; he burst into passionate
weeping, and ran and hid himself, for his heart had become so
miserably sore that even the hand of kindness tortured it like
fire. Sometimes, at night and probably in his dreams, he was
heard to cry "Mother! Mother!" as if her place, which a stranger
had supplied while Ilbrahim was happy, admitted of no substitute
in his extreme affliction. Perhaps, among the many life-weary
wretches then upon the earth, there was not one who combined
innocence and misery like this poor, broken-hearted infant, so
soon the victim of his own heavenly nature.

While this melancholy change had taken place in Ilbrahim, one of
an earlier origin and of different character had come to its
perfection in his adopted father. The incident with which this
tale commences found Pearson in a state of religious dulness, yet
mentally disquieted, and longing for a more fervid faith than he
possessed. The first effect of his kindness to Ilbrahim was to
produce a softened feeling, and incipient love for the child's
whole sect; but joined to this, and resulting perhaps from
self-suspicion, was a proud and ostentatious contempt of all
their tenets and practical extravagances. In the course of much
thought, however, for the subject struggled irresistibly into his
mind, the foolishness of the doctrine began to be less evident,
and the points which had particularly offended his reason assumed
another aspect, or vanished entirely away. The work within him
appeared to go on even while he slept, and that which had been a
doubt, when he lay down to rest, would often hold the place of a
truth, confirmed by some forgotten demonstration, when he
recalled his thoughts in the morning. But while he was thus
becoming assimilated to the enthusiasts, his contempt, in nowise
decreasing towards them, grew very fierce against himself; he
imagined, also, that every face of his acquaintance wore a sneer,
and that every word addressed to him was a gibe. Such was his
state of mind at the period of Ilbrahim's misfortune; and the
emotions consequent upon that event completed the change, of
which the child had been the original instrument.

In the mean time, neither the fierceness of the persecutors, nor
the infatuation of their victims, had decreased. The dungeons
were never empty; the streets of almost every village echoed
daily with the lash; the life of a woman, whose mild and
Christian spirit no cruelty could embitter, had been sacrificed;
and more innocent blood was yet to pollute the hands that were so
often raised in prayer. Early after the Restoration, the English
Quakers represented to Charles II that a "vein of blood was open
in his dominions;" but though the displeasure of the voluptuous
king was roused, his interference was not prompt. And now the
tale must stride forward over many months, leaving Pearson to
encounter ignominy and misfortune; his wife to a firm endurance
of a thousand sorrows; poor Ilbrahim to pine and droop like a
cankered rosebud; his mother to wander on a mistaken errand,
neglectful of the holiest trust which can be committed to a
woman.

      .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

A winter evening, a night of storm, had darkened over Pearson's
habitation, and there were no cheerful faces to drive the gloom
from his broad hearth. The fire, it is true, sent forth a glowing
heat and a ruddy light, and large logs, dripping with half-melted
snow, lay ready to be cast upon the embers. But the apartment was
saddened in its aspect by the absence of much of the homely
wealth which had once adorned it; for the exaction of repeated
fines, and his own neglect of temporal affairs, had greatly
impoverished the owner. And with the furniture of peace, the
implements of war had likewise disappeared; the sword was broken,
the helm and cuirass were cast away forever; the soldier had done
with battles, and might not lift so much as his naked hand to
guard his head. But the Holy Book remained, and the table on
which it rested was drawn before the fire, while two of the
persecuted sect sought comfort from its pages.

He who listened, while the other read, was the master of the
house, now emaciated in form, and altered as to the expression
and healthiness of his countenance; for his mind had dwelt too
long among visionary thoughts, and his body had been worn by
imprisonment and stripes. The hale and weather-beaten old man who
sat beside him had sustained less injury from a far longer course
of the same mode of life. In person he was tall and dignified,
and, which alone would have made him hateful to the Puritans, his
gray locks fell from beneath the broad-brimmed hat, and rested on
his shoulders. As the old man read the sacred page the snow
drifted against the windows, or eddied in at the crevices of the
door, while a blast kept laughing in the chimney, and the blaze
leaped fiercely up to seek it. And sometimes, when the wind
struck the hill at a certain angle, and swept down by the cottage
across the wintry plain, its voice was the most doleful that can
be conceived; it came as if the Past were speaking, as if the
Dead had contributed each a whisper, as if the Desolation of Ages
were breathed in that one lamenting sound.

The Quaker at length closed the book, retaining however his hand
between the pages which he had been reading, while he looked
steadfastly at Pearson. The attitude and features of the latter
might have indicated the endurance of bodily pain; he leaned his
forehead on his hands, his teeth were firmly closed, and his
frame was tremulous at intervals with a nervous agitation.

"Friend Tobias," inquired the old man, compassionately, "hast
thou found no comfort in these many blessed passages of
Scripture?"

"Thy voice has fallen on my ear like a sound afar off and
indistinct," replied Pearson without lifting his eyes. "Yea, and
when I have hearkened carefully the words seemed cold and
lifeless, and intended for another and a lesser grief than mine.
Remove the book," he added, in a tone of sullen bitterness. "I
have no part in its consolations, and they do but fret my sorrow
the more."

"Nay, feeble brother, be not as one who hath never known the
light," said the elder Quaker earnestly, but with mildness. "Art
thou he that wouldst be content to give all, and endure all, for
conscience' sake; desiring even peculiar trials, that thy faith
might be purified and thy heart weaned from worldly desires? And
wilt thou sink beneath an affliction which happens alike to them
that have their portion here below, and to them that lay up
treasure in heaven? Faint not, for thy burden is yet light."

"It is heavy! It is heavier than I can bear!" exclaimed Pearson,
with the impatience of a variable spirit. "From my youth upward I
have been a man marked out for wrath; and year by year, yea, day
after day, I have endured sorrows such as others know not in
their lifetime. And now I speak not of the love that has been
turned to hatred, the honor to ignominy, the ease and
plentifulness of all things to danger, want, and nakedness. All
this I could have borne, and counted myself blessed. But when my
heart was desolate with many losses I fixed it upon the child of
a stranger, and he became dearer to me than all my buried ones;
and now he too must die as if my love were poison. Verily, I am
an accursed man, and I will lay me down in the dust and lift up
my head no more."

"Thou sinnest, brother, but it is not for me to rebuke thee; for
I also have had my hours of darkness, wherein I have murmured
against the cross," said the old Quaker. He continued, perhaps in
the hope of distracting his companion's thoughts from his own
sorrows. "Even of late was the light obscured within me, when the
men of blood had banished me on pain of death, and the constables
led me onward from village to village towards the wilderness. A
strong and cruel hand was wielding the knotted cords; they sunk
deep into the flesh, and thou mightst have tracked every reel and
totter of my footsteps by the blood that followed. As we went
on--"

"Have I not borne all this; and have I murmured?" interrupted
Pearson impatiently.

"Nay, friend but hear me," continued the other. "As we journeyed
on, night darkened on our path, so that no man could see the rage
of the persecutors or the constancy of my endurance, though
Heaven forbid that I should glory therein. The lights began to
glimmer in the cottage windows, and I could discern the inmates
as they gathered in comfort and security every man with his wife
and children by their own evening hearth. At length we came to a
tract of fertile land; in the dim light, the forest was not
visible around it; and behold! there was a straw-thatched
dwelling which bore the very aspect of my home, far over the wild
ocean, far in our own England. Then came bitter thoughts upon me;
yea, remembrances that were like death to my soul. The happiness
of my early days was painted to me; the disquiet of my manhood,
the altered faith of my declining years. I remembered how I had
been moved to go forth a wanderer when my daughter, the youngest,
the dearest of my flock, lay on her dying bed, and--"

"Couldst thou obey the command at such a moment?" exclaimed
Pearson, shuddering.

"Yea, yea," replied the old man hurriedly. "I was kneeling by her
bedside when the voice spoke loud within me; but immediately I
rose, and took my staff, and gat me gone. Oh! that it were
permitted me to forget her woful look when I thus withdrew my
arm, and left her journeying through the dark valley alone! for
her soul was faint, and she had leaned upon my prayers. Now in
that night of horror I was assailed by the thought that I had
been an erring Christian and a cruel parent; yea, even my
daughter, with her pale, dying features, seemed to stand by me
and whisper, 'Father, you are deceived; go home and shelter your
gray head.' O Thou, to whom I have looked in my farthest
wanderings," continued the Quaker, raising his agitated eyes to
heaven, "inflict not upon the bloodiest of our persecutors the
unmitigated agony of my soul, when I believed that all I had done
and suffered for Thee was at the instigation of a mocking fiend!
But I yielded not; I knelt down and wrestled with the tempter,
while the scourge bit more fiercely into the flesh. My prayer was
heard, and I went on in peace and joy towards the wilderness."

The old man, though his fanaticism had generally all the calmness
of reason, was deeply moved while reciting this tale; and his
unwonted emotion seemed to rebuke and keep down that of his
companion. They sat in silence, with their faces to the fire,
imagining, perhaps, in its red embers new scenes of persecution
yet to be encountered. The snow still drifted hard against the
windows, and sometimes, as the blaze of the logs had gradually
sunk, came down the spacious chimney and hissed upon the hearth.
A cautious footstep might now and then be heard in a neighboring
apartment, and the sound invariably drew the eyes of both Quakers
to the door which led thither. When a fierce and riotous gust of
wind had led his thoughts, by a natural association, to homeless
travellers on such a night, Pearson resumed the conversation.

"I have well-nigh sunk under my own share of this trial,"
observed he, sighing heavily; "yet I would that it might be
doubled to me, if so the child's mother could be spared. Her
wounds have been deep and many, but this will be the sorest of
all."

"Fear not for Catharine," replied the old Quaker, "for I know
that valiant woman, and have seen how she can bear the cross. A
mother's heart, indeed, is strong in her, and may seem to contend
mightily with her faith; but soon she will stand up and give
thanks that her son has been thus early an accepted sacrifice.
The boy hath done his work, and she will feel that he is taken
hence in kindness both to him and her. Blessed, blessed are they
that with so little suffering can enter into peace!"

The fitful rush of the wind was now disturbed by a portentous
sound; it was a quick and heavy knocking at the outer door.
Pearson's wan countenance grew paler, for many a visit of
persecution had taught him what to dread; the old man, on the
other hand, stood up erect, and his glance was firm as that of
the tried soldier who awaits his enemy.

"The men of blood have come to seek me," he observed with
calmness. "They have heard how I was moved to return from
banishment; and now am I to be led to prison, and thence to
death. It is an end I have long looked for. I will open unto
them, lest they say, 'Lo, he feareth!'"

"Nay, I will present myself before them," said Pearson, with
recovered fortitude. "It may be that they seek me alone, and know
not that thou abidest with me."

"Let us go boldly, both one and the other," rejoined his
companion. "It is not fitting that thou or I should shrink."

They therefore proceeded through the entry to the door, which
they opened, bidding the applicant "Come in, in God's name!" A
furious blast of wind drove the storm into their faces, and
extinguished the lamp; they had barely time to discern a figure,
so white from head to foot with the drifted snow that it seemed
like Winter's self, come in human shape, to seek refuge from its
own desolation.

"Enter, friend, and do thy errand, be it what it may," said
Pearson. "It must needs be pressing, since thou comest on such a
bitter night."

"Peace be with this household," said the stranger, when they
stood on the floor of the inner apartment.

Pearson started, the elder Quaker stirred the slumbering embers
of the fire till they sent up a clear and lofty blaze; it was a
female voice that had spoken; it was a female form that shone
out, cold and wintry, in that comfortable light.

"Catharine, blessed woman!" exclaimed the old man, "art thou come
to this darkened land again? art thou come to bear a valiant
testimony as in former years? The scourge hath not prevailed
against thee, and from the dungeon hast thou come forth
triumphant; but strengthen, strengthen now thy heart, Catharine,
for Heaven will prove thee yet this once, ere thou go to thy
reward."

"Rejoice, friends!" she replied. "Thou who hast long been of our
people, and thou whom a little child hath led to us, rejoice! Lo!
I come, the messenger of glad tidings, for the day of persecution
is overpast. The heart of the king, even Charles, hath been moved
in gentleness towards us, and he hath sent forth his letters to
stay the hands of the men of blood. A ship's company of our
friends hath arrived at yonder town, and I also sailed joyfully
among them."

As Catharine spoke, her eyes were roaming about the room, in
search of him for whose sake security was dear to her. Pearson
made a silent appeal to the old man, nor did the latter shrink
from the painful task assigned him.

"Sister," he began, in a softened yet perfectly calm tone, "thou
tellest us of His love, manifested in temporal good; and now must
we speak to thee of that selfsame love, displayed in chastenings.
Hitherto, Catharine, thou hast been as one journeying in a
darksome and difficult path, and leading an infant by the hand;
fain wouldst thou have looked heavenward continually, but still
the cares of that little child have drawn thine eyes and thy
affections to the earth. Sister! go on rejoicing, for his
tottering footsteps shall impede thine own no more."

But the unhappy mother was not thus to be consoled; she shook
like a leaf, she turned white as the very snow that hung drifted
into her hair. The firm old man extended his hand and held her
up, keeping his eye upon hers, as if to repress any outbreak of
passion.

"I am a woman, I am but a woman; will He try me above my
strength?" said Catharine very quickly, and almost in a whisper.
"I have been wounded sore; I have suffered much; many things in
the body; many in the mind; crucified in myself, and in them that
were dearest to me. Surely," added she, with a long shudder, "He
hath spared me in this one thing." She broke forth with sudden
and irrepressible violence. "Tell me, man of cold heart, what has
God done to me? Hath He cast me down, never to rise again? Hath
He crushed my very heart in his hand? And thou, to whom I
committed my child, how hast thou fulfilled thy trust? Give me
back the boy, well, sound, alive, alive; or earth and Heaven
shall avenge me!"

The agonized shriek of Catharine was answered by the faint, the
very faint, voice of a child.

On this day it had become evident to Pearson, to his aged guest,
and to Dorothy, that Ilbrahim's brief and troubled pilgrimage
drew near its close. The two former would willingly have remained
by him, to make use of the prayers and pious discourses which
they deemed appropriate to the time, and which, if they be
impotent as to the departing traveller's reception in the world
whither he goes, may at least sustain him in bidding adieu to
earth. But though Ilbrahim uttered no complaint, he was disturbed
by the faces that looked upon him; so that Dorothy's entreaties,
and their own conviction that the child's feet might tread
heaven's pavement and not soil it, had induced the two Quakers to
remove. Ilbrahim then closed his eyes and grew calm, and, except
for now and then a kind and low word to his nurse, might have
been thought to slumber. As nightfall came on, however, and the
storm began to rise, something seemed to trouble the repose of
the boy's mind, and to render his sense of hearing active and
acute. If a passing wind lingered to shake the casement, he
strove to turn his head towards it; if the door jarred to and fro
upon its hinges, he looked long and anxiously thitherward; if the
heavy voice of the old man, as he read the Scriptures, rose but a
little higher, the child almost held his dying breath to listen;
if a snow-drift swept by the cottage, with a sound like the
trailing of a garment, Ilbrahim seemed to watch that some
visitant should enter.

But, after a little time, he relinquished whatever secret hope
had agitated him, and with one low, complaining whisper, turned
his cheek upon the pillow. He then addressed Dorothy with his
usual sweetness, and besought her to draw near him; she did so,
and Ilbrahim took her hand in both of his, grasping it with a
gentle pressure, as if to assure himself that he retained it. At
intervals, and without disturbing the repose of his countenance,
a very faint trembling passed over him from head to foot, as if a
mild but somewhat cool wind had breathed upon him, and made him
shiver. As the boy thus led her by the hand, in his quiet
progress over the borders of eternity, Dorothy almost imagined
that she could discern the near, though dim, delightfulness of
the home he was about to reach; she would not have enticed the
little wanderer back, though she bemoaned herself that she must
leave him and return. But just when Ilbrahim's feet were pressing
on the soil of Paradise he heard a voice behind him, and it
recalled him a few, few paces of the weary path which he had
travelled. As Dorothy looked upon his features, she perceived
that their placid expression was again disturbed; her own
thoughts had been so wrapped in him, that all sounds of the
storm, and of human speech, were lost to her; but when
Catharine's shriek pierced through the room, the boy strove to
raise himself.

"Friend, she is come! Open unto her!" cried he.

In a moment his mother was kneeling by the bedside; she drew
Ilbrahim to her bosom, and he nestled there, with no violence of
joy, but contentedly, as if he were hushing himself to sleep. He
looked into her face, and reading its agony, said, with feeble
earnestness, "Mourn not, dearest mother. I am happy now." And
with these words the gentle boy was dead.

      .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

The king's mandate to stay the New England persecutors was
effectual in preventing further martyrdoms; but the colonial
authorities, trusting in the remoteness of their situation, and
perhaps in the supposed instability of the royal government,
shortly renewed their severities in all other respects.
Catharine's fanaticism had become wilder by the sundering of all
human ties; and wherever a scourge was lifted there was she to
receive the blow, and whenever a dungeon was unbarred thither she
came, to cast herself upon the floor. But in process of time a
more Christian spirit--a spirit of forbearance, though not of
cordiality or approbation--began to pervade the land in regard to
the persecuted sect. And then, when the rigid old Pilgrims eyed
her rather in pity than in wrath; when the matrons fed her with
the fragments of their children's food, and offered her a lodging
on a hard and lowly bed; when no little crowd of schoolboys left
their sports to cast stones after the roving enthusiast; then did
Catharine return to Pearson's dwelling and made that her home.

As if Ilbrahim's sweetness yet lingered round his ashes; as if
his gentle spirit came down from heaven to teach his parent a
true religion, her fierce and vindictive nature was softened by
the same griefs which had once irritated it. When the course of
years had made the features of the unobtrusive mourner familiar
in the settlement, she became a subject of not deep, but general,
interest; a being on whom the otherwise superfluous sympathies of
all might be bestowed. Every one spoke of her with that degree of
pity which it is pleasant to experience; every one was ready to
do her the little kindnesses which are not costly, yet manifest
good will and when at last she died, a long train of her once
bitter persecutors followed her, with decent sadness and tears
that were not painful, to her place by Ilbrahim's green and
sunken grave.




MR. HIGGINBOTHAM'S CATASTROPHE

A young fellow, a tobacco pedlar by trade, was on his way from
Morristown, where he had dealt largely with the Deacon of the
Shaker settlement, to the village of Parker's Falls, on Salmon
River. He had a neat little cart, painted green, with a box of
cigars depicted on each side panel, and an Indian chief, holding
a pipe and a golden tobacco stalk, on the rear. The pedlar drove
a smart little mare, and was a young man of excellent character,
keen at a bargain, but none the worse liked by the Yankees; who,
as I have heard them say, would rather be shaved with a sharp
razor than a dull one. Especially was he beloved by the pretty
girls along the Connecticut, whose favor he used to court by
presents of the best smoking tobacco in his stock; knowing well
that the country lasses of New England are generally great
performers on pipes. Moreover, as will be seen in the course of
my story, the pedlar was inquisitive, and something of a tattler,
always itching to hear the news and anxious to tell it again.

After an early breakfast at Morristown, the tobacco pedlar, whose
name was Dominicus Pike, had travelled seven miles through a
solitary piece of woods, without speaking a word to anybody but
himself and his little gray mare. It being nearly seven o'clock,
he was as eager to hold a morning gossip as a city shopkeeper to
read the morning paper. An opportunity seemed at hand when, after
lighting a cigar with a sun-glass, he looked up, and perceived a
man coming over the brow of the hill, at the foot of which the
pedlar had stopped his green cart. Dominicus watched him as he
descended, and noticed that he carried a bundle over his shoulder
on the end of a stick, and travelled with a weary, yet determined
pace. He did not look as if he had started in the freshness of
the morning, but had footed it all night, and meant to do the
same all day.

"Good morning, mister," said Dominicus, when within speaking
distance. "You go a pretty good jog. What's the latest news at
Parker's Falls?"

The man pulled the broad brim of a gray hat over his eyes, and
answered, rather sullenly, that he did not come from Parker's
Falls, which, as being the limit of his own day's journey, the
pedlar had naturally mentioned in his inquiry.

"Well then," rejoined Dominicus Pike, "let's have the latest news
where you did come from. I'm not particular about Parker's Falls.
Any place will answer."

Being thus importuned, the traveller--who was as ill looking a
fellow as one would desire to meet in a solitary piece of
woods--appeared to hesitate a little, as if he was either
searching his memory for news, or weighing the expediency of
telling it. At last, mounting on the step of the cart, he
whispered in the ear of Dominicus, though he might have shouted
aloud and no other mortal would have heard him.

"I do remember one little trifle of news," said he. "Old Mr.
Higginbotham, of Kimballton, was murdered in his orchard, at
eight o'clock last night, by an Irishman and a nigger. They
strung him up to the branch of a St. Michael's pear-tree, where
nobody would find him till the morning."

As soon as this horrible intelligence was communicated, the
stranger betook himself to his journey again, with more speed
than ever, not even turning his head when Dominicus invited him
to smoke a Spanish cigar and relate all the particulars. The
pedlar whistled to his mare and went up the hill, pondering on
the doleful fate of Mr. Higginbotham whom he had known in the way
of trade, having sold him many a bunch of long nines, and a great
deal of pigtail, lady's twist, and fig tobacco. He was rather
astonished at the rapidity with which the news had spread.
Kimballton was nearly sixty miles distant in a straight line; the
murder had been perpetrated only at eight o'clock the preceding
night; yet Dominicus had heard of it at seven in the morning,
when, in all probability, poor Mr. Higginbotham's own family had
but just discovered his corpse, hanging on the St. Michael's
pear-tree. The stranger on foot must have worn seven-league boots
to travel at such a rate.

"Ill news flies fast, they say," thought Dominicus Pike; "but
this beats railroads. The fellow ought to be hired to go express
with the President's Message."

The difficulty was solved by supposing that the narrator had made
a mistake of one day in the date of the occurrence; so that our
friend did not hesitate to introduce the story at every tavern
and country store along the road, expending a whole bunch of
Spanish wrappers among at least twenty horrified audiences. He
found himself invariably the first bearer of the intelligence,
and was so pestered with questions that he could not avoid
filling up the outline, till it became quite a respectable
narrative. He met with one piece of corroborative evidence. Mr.
Higginbotham was a trader; and a former clerk of his, to whom
Dominicus related the facts, testified that the old gentleman was
accustomed to return home through the orchard about nightfall,
with the money and valuable papers of the store in his pocket.
The clerk manifested but little grief at Mr. Higginbotham's
catastrophe, hinting, what the pedlar had discovered in his own
dealings with him, that he was a crusty old fellow, as close as a
vice. His property would descend to a pretty niece who was now
keeping school in Kimballton.

What with telling the news for the public good, and driving
bargains for his own, Dominicus was so much delayed on the road
that he chose to put up at a tavern, about five miles short of
Parker's Falls. After supper, lighting one of his prime cigars,
he seated himself in the bar-room, and went through the story of
the murder, which had grown so fast that it took him half an hour
to tell. There were as many as twenty people in the room,
nineteen of whom received it all for gospel. But the twentieth
was an elderly farmer, who had arrived on horseback a short time
before, and was now seated in a corner smoking his pipe. When the
story was concluded, he rose up very deliberately, brought his
chair right in front of Dominicus, and stared him full in the
face, puffing out the vilest tobacco smoke the pedlar had ever
smelt.

"Will you make affidavit," demanded he, in the tone of a country
justice taking an examination, "that old Squire Higginbotham of
Kimballton was murdered in his orchard the night before last, and
found hanging on his great pear-tree yesterday morning?"

"I tell the story as I heard it, mister," answered Dominicus,
dropping his half-burnt cigar; "I don't say that I saw the thing
done. So I can't take my oath that he was murdered exactly in
that way."

"But I can take mine," said the farmer, "that if Squire
Higginbotham was murdered night before last, I drank a glass of
bitters with his ghost this morning. Being a neighbor of mine, he
called me into his store, as I was riding by, and treated me, and
then asked me to do a little business for him on the road. He
didn't seem to know any more about his own murder than I did."

"Why, then, it can't be a fact!" exclaimed Dominicus Pike.

"I guess he'd have mentioned, if it was," said the old farmer;
and he removed his chair back to the corner, leaving Dominicus
quite down in the mouth.

Here was a sad resurrection of old Mr. Higginbotham! The pedlar
had no heart to mingle in the conversation any more, but
comforted himself with a glass of gin and water, and went to bed
where, all night long, he dreamed of hanging on the St. Michael's
pear-tree. To avoid the old farmer (whom he so detested that his
suspension would have pleased him better than Mr.
Higginbotham's), Dominicus rose in the gray of the morning, put
the little mare into the green cart, and trotted swiftly away
towards Parker's Falls. The fresh breeze, the dewy road, and the
pleasant summer dawn, revived his spirits, and might have
encouraged him to repeat the old story had there been anybody
awake to hear it. But he met neither ox team, light wagon chaise,
horseman, nor foot traveller, till, just as he crossed Salmon
River, a man came trudging down to the bridge with a bundle over
his shoulder, on the end of a stick.

"Good morning, mister," said the pedlar, reining in his mare. "If
you come from Kimballton or that neighborhood, may be you can
tell me the real fact about this affair of old Mr. Higginbotham.
Was the old fellow actually murdered two or three nights ago, by
an Irishman and a nigger?"

Dominicus had spoken in too great a hurry to observe, at first,
that the stranger himself had a deep tinge of negro blood. On
hearing this sudden question, the Ethiopian appeared to change
his skin, its yellow hue becoming a ghastly white, while, shaking
and stammering, he thus replied: "No! no! There was no colored
man! It was an Irishman that hanged him last night, at eight
o'clock. I came away at seven! His folks can't have looked for
him in the orchard yet."

Scarcely had the yellow man spoken, when he interrupted himself,
and though he seemed weary enough before, continued his journey
at a pace which would have kept the pedlar's mare on a smart
trot. Dominicus stared after him in great perplexity. If the
murder had not been committed till Tuesday night, who was the
prophet that had foretold it, in all its circumstances, on
Tuesday morning? If Mr. Higginbotham's corpse were not yet
discovered by his own family, how came the mulatto, at above
thirty miles' distance, to know that he was hanging in the
orchard, especially as he had left Kimballton before the
unfortunate man was hanged at all? These ambiguous circumstances,
with the stranger's surprise and terror, made Dominicus think of
raising a hue and cry after him, as an accomplice in the murder;
since a murder, it seemed, had really been perpetrated.

"But let the poor devil go," thought the pedlar. "I don't want
his black blood on my head; and hanging the nigger wouldn't
unhang Mr. Higginbotham. Unhang the old gentleman; It's a sin, I
know; but I should hate to have him come to life a second time,
and give me the lie!"

With these meditations, Dominicus Pike drove into the street of
Parker's Falls, which, as everybody knows, is as thriving a
village as three cotton factories and a slitting mill can make
it. The machinery was not in motion, and but a few of the shop
doors unbarred, when he alighted in the stable yard of the
tavern, and made it his first business to order the mare four
quarts of oats. His second duty, of course, was to impart Mr.
Higginbotham's catastrophe to the hostler. He deemed it
advisable, however, not to be too positive as to the date of the
direful fact, and also to be uncertain whether it were
perpetrated by an Irishman and a mulatto, or by the son of Erin
alone. Neither did he profess to relate it on his own authority,
or that of any one person; but mentioned it as a report generally
diffused.

The story ran through the town like fire among girdled trees, and
became so much the universal talk that nobody could tell whence
it had originated. Mr. Higginbotham was as well known at Parker's
Falls as any citizen of the place, being part owner of the
slitting mill, and a considerable stockholder in the cotton
factories. The inhabitants felt their own prosperity interested
in his fate. Such was the excitement, that the Parker's Falls
Gazette anticipated its regular day of publication, and came out
with half a form of blank paper and a column of double pica
emphasized with capitals, and headed HORRID MURDER OF MR.
HIGGINBOTHAM! Among other dreadful details, the printed account
described the mark of the cord round the dead man's neck, and
stated the number of thousand dollars of which he had been
robbed; there was much pathos also about the affliction of his
niece, who had gone from one fainting fit to another, ever since
her uncle was found hanging on the St. Michael's pear-tree with
his pockets inside out. The village poet likewise commemorated
the young lady's grief in seventeen stanzas of a ballad. The
selectmen held a meeting, and, in consideration of Mr.
Higginbotham's claims on the town, determined to issue handbills,
offering a reward of five hundred dollars for the apprehension of
his murderers, and the recovery of the stolen property.

Meanwhile the whole population of Parker's Falls, consisting of
shopkeepers, mistresses of boarding-houses, factory girls,
millmen, and schoolboys, rushed into the street and kept up such
a terrible loquacity as more than compensated for the silence of
the cotton machines, which refrained from their usual din out of
respect to the deceased. Had Mr. Higginbotham cared about
posthumous renown, his untimely ghost would have exulted in this
tumult. Our friend Dominicus, in his vanity of heart, forgot his
intended precautions, and mounting on the town pump, announced
himself as the bearer of the authentic intelligence which had
caused so wonderful a sensation. He immediately became the great
man of the moment, and had just begun a new edition of the
narrative, with a voice like a field preacher, when the mail
stage drove into the village street. It had travelled all night,
and must have shifted horses at Kimballton, at three in the
morning.

"Now we shall hear all the particulars," shouted the crowd.

The coach rumbled up to the piazza of the tavern, followed by a
thousand people; for if any man had been minding his own business
till then, he now left it at sixes and sevens, to hear the news.
The pedlar, foremost in the race, discovered two passengers, both
of whom had been startled from a comfortable nap to find
themselves in the centre of a mob. Every man assailing them with
separate questions, all propounded at once, the couple were
struck speechless, though one was a lawyer and the other a young
lady.

"Mr. Higginbotham! Mr. Higginbotham! Tell us the particulars
about old Mr. Higginbotham!" bawled the mob. "What is the
coroner's verdict? Are the murderers apprehended? Is Mr.
Higginbotham's niece come out of her fainting fits? Mr.
Higginbotham! Mr. Higginbotham!!"

The coachman said not a word, except to swear awfully at the
hostler for not bringing him a fresh team of horses. The lawyer
inside had generally his wits about him even when asleep; the
first thing he did, after learning the cause of the excitement,
was to produce a large, red pocketbook. Meantime Dominicus Pike,
being an extremely polite young man, and also suspecting that a
female tongue would tell the story as glibly as a lawyer's, had
handed the lady out of the coach. She was a fine, smart girl, now
wide awake and bright as a button, and had such a sweet pretty
mouth, that Dominicus would almost as lief have heard a love tale
from it as a tale of murder.

"Gentlemen and ladies," said the lawyer to the shopkeepers, the
millmen, and the factory girls, "I can assure you that some
unaccountable mistake, or, more probably, a wilful falsehood,
maliciously contrived to injure Mr. Higginbotham's credit, has
excited this singular uproar. We passed through Kimballton at
three o'clock this morning, and most certainly should have been
informed of the murder had any been perpetrated. But I have proof
nearly as strong as Mr. Higginbotham's own oral testimony, in the
negative. Here is a note relating to a suit of his in the
Connecticut courts, which was delivered me from that gentleman
himself. I find it dated at ten o'clock last evening."

So saying, the lawyer exhibited the date and signature of the
note, which irrefragably proved, either that this perverse Mr.
Higginbotham was alive when he wrote it, or--as some deemed the
more probable case, of two doubtful ones--that he was so absorbed
in worldly business as to continue to transact it even after his
death. But unexpected evidence was forthcoming. The young lady,
after listening to the pedlar's explanation, merely seized a
moment to smooth her gown and put her curls in order, and then
appeared at the tavern door, making a modest signal to be heard.

"Good people," said she, "I am Mr. Higginbotham's niece."

A wondering murmur passed through the crowd on beholding her so
rosy and bright; that same unhappy niece, whom they had supposed,
on the authority of the Parker's Falls Gazette, to be lying at
death's door in a fainting fit. But some shrewd fellows had
doubted, all along, whether a young lady would be quite so
desperate at the hanging of a rich old uncle.

"You see," continued Miss Higginbotham, with a smile, "that this
strange story is quite unfounded as to myself; and I believe I
may affirm it to be equally so in regard to my dear uncle
Higginbotham. He has the kindness to give me a home in his house,
though I contribute to my own support by teaching a school. I
left Kimballton this morning to spend the vacation of
commencement week with a friend, about five miles from Parker's
Falls. My generous uncle, when he heard me on the stairs, called
me to his bedside, and gave me two dollars and fifty cents to pay
my stage fare, and another dollar for my extra expenses. He then
laid his pocketbook under his pillow, shook hands with me, and
advised me to take some biscuit in my bag, instead of
breakfasting on the road. I feel confident, therefore, that I
left my beloved relative alive, and trust that I shall find him
so on my return."

The young lady courtesied at the close of her speech, which was
so sensible and well worded, and delivered with such grace and
propriety, that everybody thought her fit to be preceptress of
the best academy in the State. But a stranger would have supposed
that Mr. Higginbotham was an object of abhorrence at Parker's
Falls, and that a thanksgiving had been proclaimed for his
murder; so excessive was the wrath of the inhabitants on learning
their mistake. The millmen resolved to bestow public honors on
Dominicus Pike, only hesitating whether to tar and feather him,
ride him on a rail, or refresh him with an ablution at the town
pump, on the top of which he had declared himself the bearer of
the news. The selectmen, by advice of the lawyer, spoke of
prosecuting him for a misdemeanor, in circulating unfounded
reports, to the great disturbance of the peace of the
Commonwealth. Nothing saved Dominicus, either from mob law or a
court of justice, but an eloquent appeal made by the young lady
in his behalf. Addressing a few words of heartfelt gratitude to
his benefactress, he mounted the green cart and rode out of town,
under a discharge of artillery from the school-boys, who found
plenty of ammunition in the neighboring clay-pits and mud holes.
As he turned his head to exchange a farewell glance with Mr.
Higginbotham's niece, a ball, of the consistence of hasty
pudding, hit him slap in the mouth, giving him a most grim
aspect. His whole person was so bespattered with the like filthy
missiles, that he had almost a mind to ride back, and supplicate
for the threatened ablution at the town pump; for, though not
meant in kindness, it would now have been a deed of charity.

However, the sun shone bright on poor Dominicus, and the mud, an
emblem of all stains of undeserved opprobrium, was easily brushed
off when dry. Being a funny rogue, his heart soon cheered up; nor
could he refrain from a hearty laugh at the uproar which his
story had excited. The handbills of the selectmen would cause the
commitment of all the vagabonds in the State; the paragraph in
the Parker's Falls Gazette would be reprinted from Maine to
Florida, and perhaps form an item in the London newspapers; and
many a miser would tremble for his money bags and life, on
learning the catastrophe of Mr. Higginbotham. The pedlar
meditated with much fervor on the charms of the young
schoolmistress, and swore that Daniel Webster never spoke nor
looked so like an angel as Miss Higginbotham, while defending him
from the wrathful populace at Parker's Falls.

Dominicus was now on the Kimballton turnpike, having all along
determined to visit that place, though business had drawn him out
of the most direct road from Morristown. As he approached the
scene of the supposed murder, he continued to revolve the
circumstances in his mind, and was astonished at the aspect which
the whole case assumed. Had nothing occurred to corroborate the
story of the first traveller, it might now have been considered
as a hoax; but the yellow man was evidently acquainted either
with the report or the fact; and there was a mystery in his
dismayed and guilty look on being abruptly questioned. When, to
this singular combination of incidents, it was added that the
rumor tallied exactly with Mr. Higginbotham's character and
habits of life; and that he had an orchard, and a St. Michael's
pear-tree, near which he always passed at nightfall: the
circumstantial evidence appeared so strong that Dominicus doubted
whether the autograph produced by the lawyer, or even the niece's
direct testimony, ought to be equivalent. Making cautious
inquiries along the road, the pedlar further learned that Mr.
Higginbotham had in his service an Irishman of doubtful
character, whom he had hired without a recommendation, on the
score of economy.

"May I be hanged myself," exclaimed Dominicus Pike aloud, on
reaching the top of a lonely hill, "if I'll believe old
Higginbotham is unhanged till I see him with my own eyes, and
hear it from his own mouth! And as he's a real shaver, I'll have
the minister or some other responsible man for an indorser."

It was growing dusk when he reached the toll-house on Kimballton
turnpike, about a quarter of a mile from the village of this
name. His little mare was fast bringing him up with a man on
horseback, who trotted through the gate a few rods in advance of
him, nodded to the toll-gatherer, and kept on towards the
village. Dominicus was acquainted with the tollman, and, while
making change, the usual remarks on the weather passed between
them.

"I suppose," said the pedlar, throwing back his whiplash, to
bring it down like a feather on the mare's flank, "you have not
seen anything of old Mr. Higginbotham within a day or two?"

"Yes," answered the toll-gatherer. "He passed the gate just
before you drove up, and yonder he rides now, if you can see him
through the dusk. He's been to Woodfield this afternoon,
attending a sheriff's sale there. The old man generally shakes
hands and has a little chat with me; but to-night, he nodded,--as
if to say, 'Charge my toll,' and jogged on; for wherever he goes,
he must always be at home by eight o'clock."

"So they tell me," said Dominicus.

"I never saw a man look so yellow and thin as the squire does,"
continued the toll-gatherer. "Says I to myself, to-night, he's
more like a ghost or an old mummy than good flesh and blood."

The pedlar strained his eyes through the twilight, and could just
discern the horseman now far ahead on the village road. He seemed
to recognize the rear of Mr. Higginbotham; but through the
evening shadows, and amid the dust from the horse's feet, the
figure appeared dim and unsubstantial; as if the shape of the
mysterious old man were faintly moulded of darkness and gray
light. Dominicus shivered.

"Mr. Higginbotham has come back from the other world, by way of
the Kimballton turnpike," thought he.

He shook the reins and rode forward, keeping about the same
distance in the rear of the gray old shadow, till the latter was
concealed by a bend of the road. On reaching this point, the
pedlar no longer saw the man on horseback, but found himself at
the head of the village street, not far from a number of stores
and two taverns, clustered round the meeting-house steeple. On
his left were a stone wall and a gate, the boundary of a woodlot,
beyond which lay an orchard, farther still, a mowing field, and
last of all, a house. These were the premises of Mr.
Higginbotham, whose dwelling stood beside the old highway, but
had been left in the background by the Kimballton turnpike.
Dominicus knew the place; and the little mare stopped short by
instinct; for he was not conscious of tightening the reins.

"For the soul of me, I cannot get by this gate!" said he,
trembling. "I never shall be my own man again, till I see whether
Mr. Higginbotham is hanging on the St. Michael's pear-tree!"

He leaped from the cart, gave the rein a turn round the gate
post, and ran along the green path of the wood-lot as if Old Nick
were chasing behind. Just then the village clock tolled eight,
and as each deep stroke fell, Dominicus gave a fresh bound and
flew faster than before, till, dim in the solitary centre of the
orchard, he saw the fated pear-tree. One great branch stretched
from the old contorted trunk across the path, and threw the
darkest shadow on that one spot. But something seemed to struggle
beneath the branch!

The pedlar had never pretended to more courage than befits a man
of peaceful occupation, nor could he account for his valor on
this awful emergency. Certain it is, however, that he rushed
forward, prostrated a sturdy Irishman with the butt end of his
whip, and found--not indeed hanging on the St. Michael's
pear-tree, but trembling beneath it, with a halter round his
neck--the old, identical Mr. Higginbotham!

"Mr. Higginbotham," said Dominicus tremulously, "you're an honest
man, and I'll take your word for it. Have you been hanged or
not?"

If the riddle be not already guessed, a few words will explain
the simple machinery by which this "coming event" was made to
"cast its shadow before." Three men had plotted the robbery and
murder of Mr. Higginbotham; two of them, successively, lost
courage and fled, each delaying the crime one night by their
disappearance; the third was in the act of perpetration, when a
champion, blindly obeying the call of fate, like the heroes of
old romance, appeared in the person of Dominicus Pike.

It only remains to say, that Mr. Higginbotham took the pedlar
into high favor, sanctioned his addresses to the pretty
schoolmistress, and settled his whole property on their children,
allowing themselves the interest. In due time, the old gentleman
capped the climax of his favors, by dying a Christian death, in
bed, since which melancholy event Dominicus Pike has removed from
Kimballton, and established a large tobacco manufactory in my
native village.




WAKEFIELD

In some old magazine or newspaper I recollect a story, told as
truth, of a man--let us call him Wakefield--who absented himself
for a long time from his wife. The fact, thus abstractedly
stated, is not very uncommon, nor--without a proper distinction
of circumstances--to be condemned either as naughty or
nonsensical. Howbeit, this, though far from the most aggravated,
is perhaps the strangest, instance on record, of marital
delinquency; and, moreover, as remarkable a freak as may be found
in the whole list of human oddities. The wedded couple lived in
London. The man, under pretence of going a journey, took lodgings
in the next street to his own house, and there, unheard of by his
wife or friends, and without the shadow of a reason for such
self-banishment, dwelt upwards of twenty years. During that
period, he beheld his home every day, and frequently the forlorn
Mrs. Wakefield. And after so great a gap in his matrimonial
felicity--when his death was reckoned certain, his estate
settled, his name dismissed from memory, and his wife, long, long
ago, resigned to her autumnal widowhood--he entered the door one
evening, quietly, as from a day's absence, and became a loving
spouse till death.

This outline is all that I remember. But the incident, though of
the purest originality, unexampled, and probably never to be
repeated, is one, I think, which appeals to the generous
sympathies of mankind. We know, each for himself, that none of us
would perpetrate such a folly, yet feel as if some other might.
To my own contemplations, at least, it has often recurred, always
exciting wonder, but with a sense that the story must be true,
and a conception of its hero's character. Whenever any subject so
forcibly affects the mind, time is well spent in thinking of it.
If the reader choose, let him do his own meditation; or if he
prefer to ramble with me through the twenty years of Wakefield's
vagary, I bid him welcome; trusting that there will be a
pervading spirit and a moral, even should we fail to find them,
done up neatly, and condensed into the final sentence. Thought
has always its efficacy, and every striking incident its moral.

What sort of a man was Wakefield? We are free to shape out our
own idea, and call it by his name. He was now in the meridian of
life; his matrimonial affections, never violent, were sobered
into a calm, habitual sentiment; of all husbands, he was likely
to be the most constant, because a certain sluggishness would
keep his heart at rest, wherever it might be placed. He was
intellectual, but not actively so; his mind occupied itself in
long and lazy musings, that ended to no purpose, or had not vigor
to attain it; his thoughts were seldom so energetic as to seize
hold of words. Imagination, in the proper meaning of the term,
made no part of Wakefield's gifts. With a cold but not depraved
nor wandering heart, and a mind never feverish with riotous
thoughts, nor perplexed with originality, who could have
anticipated that our friend would entitle himself to a foremost
place among the doers of eccentric deeds? Had his acquaintances
been asked, who was the man in London the surest to perform
nothing today which should be remembered on the morrow, they
would have thought of Wakefield. Only the wife of his bosom might
have hesitated. She, without having analyzed his character, was
partly aware of a quiet selfishness, that had rusted into his
inactive mind; of a peculiar sort of vanity, the most uneasy
attribute about him; of a disposition to craft which had seldom
produced more positive effects than the keeping of petty secrets,
hardly worth revealing; and, lastly, of what she called a little
strangeness, sometimes, in the good man. This latter quality is
indefinable, and perhaps non-existent.

Let us now imagine Wakefield bidding adieu to his wife. It is the
dusk of an October evening. His equipment is a drab great-coat, a
hat covered with an oilcloth, top-boots, an umbrella in one hand
and a small portmanteau in the other. He has informed Mrs.
Wakefield that he is to take the night coach into the country.
She would fain inquire the length of his journey, its object, and
the probable time of his return; but, indulgent to his harmless
love of mystery, interrogates him only by a look. He tells her
not to expect him positively by the return coach, nor to be
alarmed should he tarry three or four days; but, at all events,
to look for him at supper on Friday evening. Wakefield himself,
be it considered, has no suspicion of what is before him. He
holds out his hand, she gives her own, and meets his parting kiss
in the matter-of-course way of a ten years' matrimony; and forth
goes the middle-aged Mr. Wakefield, almost resolved to perplex
his good lady by a whole week's absence. After the door has
closed behind him, she perceives it thrust partly open, and a
vision of her husband's face, through the aperture, smiling on
her, and gone in a moment. For the time, this little incident is
dismissed without a thought. But, long afterwards, when she has
been more years a widow than a wife, that smile recurs, and
flickers across all her reminiscences of Wakefield's visage. In
her many musings, she surrounds the original smile with a
multitude of fantasies, which make it strange and awful: as, for
instance, if she imagines him in a coffin, that parting look is
frozen on his pale features; or, if she dreams of him in heaven,
still his blessed spirit wears a quiet and crafty smile. Yet, for
its sake, when all others have given him up for dead, she
sometimes doubts whether she is a widow.

But our business is with the husband. We must hurry after him
along the street, ere he lose his individuality, and melt into
the great mass of London life. It would be vain searching for him
there. Let us follow close at his heels, therefore, until, after
several superfluous turns and doublings, we find him comfortably
established by the fireside of a small apartment, previously
bespoken. He is in the next street to his own, and at his
journey's end. He can scarcely trust his good fortune, in having
got thither unperceived--recollecting that, at one time, he was
delayed by the throng, in the very focus of a lighted lantern;
and, again, there were footsteps that seemed to tread behind his
own, distinct from the multitudinous tramp around him; and, anon,
he heard a voice shouting afar, and fancied that it called his
name. Doubtless, a dozen busybodies had been watching him, and
told his wife the whole affair. Poor Wakefield! Little knowest
thou thine own insignificance in this great world! No mortal eye
but mine has traced thee. Go quietly to thy bed, foolish man:
and, on the morrow, if thou wilt be wise, get thee home to good
Mrs. Wakefield, and tell her the truth. Remove not thyself, even
for a little week, from thy place in her chaste bosom. Were she,
for a single moment, to deem thee dead, or lost, or lastingly
divided from her, thou wouldst be wofully conscious of a change
in thy true wife forever after. It is perilous to make a chasm in
human affections; not that they gape so long and wide--but so
quickly close again!

Almost repenting of his frolic, or whatever it may be termed,
Wakefield lies down betimes, and starting from his first nap,
spreads forth his arms into the wide and solitary waste of the
unaccustomed bed. "No,"-thinks he, gathering the bedclothes about
him,--"I will not sleep alone another night."

In the morning he rises earlier than usual, and sets himself to
consider what he really means to do. Such are his loose and
rambling modes of thought that he has taken this very singular
step with the consciousness of a purpose, indeed, but without
being able to define it sufficiently for his own contemplation.
The vagueness of the project, and the convulsive effort with
which he plunges into the execution of it, are equally
characteristic of a feeble-minded man. Wakefield sifts his ideas,
however, as minutely as he may, and finds himself curious to know
the progress of matters at home--how his exemplary wife will
endure her widowhood of a week; and, briefly, how the little
sphere of creatures and circumstances, in which he was a central
object, will be affected by his removal. A morbid vanity,
therefore, lies nearest the bottom of the affair. But, how is he
to attain his ends? Not, certainly, by keeping close in this
comfortable lodging, where, though he slept and awoke in the next
street to his home, he is as effectually abroad as if the
stage-coach had been whirling him away all night. Yet, should he
reappear, the whole project is knocked in the head. His poor
brains being hopelessly puzzled with this dilemma, he at length
ventures out, partly resolving to cross the head of the street,
and send one hasty glance towards his forsaken domicile.
Habit--for he is a man of habits--takes him by the hand, and
guides him, wholly unaware, to his own door, where, just at the
critical moment, he is aroused by the scraping of his foot upon
the step. Wakefield! whither are you going?

At that instant his fate was turning on the pivot. Little
dreaming of the doom to which his first backward step devotes
him, he hurries away, breathless with agitation hitherto unfelt,
and hardly dares turn his head at the distant corner. Can it be
that nobody caught sight of him? Will not the whole
household--the decent Mrs. Wakefield, the smart maid servant, and
the dirty little footboy--raise a hue and cry, through London
streets, in pursuit of their fugitive lord and master? Wonderful
escape! He gathers courage to pause and look homeward, but is
perplexed with a sense of change about the familiar edifice, such
as affects us all, when, after a separation of months or years,
we again see some hill or lake, or work of art, with which we
were friends of old. In ordinary cases, this indescribable
impression is caused by the comparison and contrast between our
imperfect reminiscences and the reality. In Wakefield, the magic
of a single night has wrought a similar transformation, because,
in that brief period, a great moral change has been effected. But
this is a secret from himself. Before leaving the spot, he
catches a far and momentary glimpse of his wife, passing athwart
the front window, with her face turned towards the head of the
street. The crafty nincompoop takes to his heels, scared with the
idea that, among a thousand such atoms of mortality, her eye must
have detected him. Right glad is his heart, though his brain be
somewhat dizzy, when he finds himself by the coal fire of his
lodgings.

So much for the commencement of this long whimwham. After the
initial conception, and the stirring up of the man's sluggish
temperament to put it in practice, the whole matter evolves
itself in a natural train. We may suppose him, as the result of
deep deliberation, buying a new wig, of reddish hair, and
selecting sundry garments, in a fashion unlike his customary suit
of brown, from a Jew's old-clothes bag. It is accomplished.
Wakefield is another man. The new system being now established, a
retrograde movement to the old would be almost as difficult as
the step that placed him in his unparalleled position.
Furthermore, he is rendered obstinate by a sulkiness occasionally
incident to his temper, and brought on at present by the
inadequate sensation which he conceives to have been produced in
the bosom of Mrs. Wakefield. He will not go back until she be
frightened half to death. Well; twice or thrice has she passed
before his sight, each time with a heavier step, a paler cheek,
and more anxious brow; and in the third week of his
non-appearance he detects a portent of evil entering the house,
in the guise of an apothecary. Next day the knocker is muffled.
Towards nightfall comes the chariot of a physician, and deposits
its big-wigged and solemn burden at Wakefield's door, whence,
after a quarter of an hour's visit, he emerges, perchance the
herald of a funeral. Dear woman! Will she die? By this time,
Wakefield is excited to something like energy of feeling, but
still lingers away from his wife's bedside, pleading with his
conscience that she must not be disturbed at such a juncture. If
aught else restrains him, he does not know it. In the course of a
few weeks she gradually recovers; the crisis is over; her heart
is sad, perhaps, but quiet; and, let him return soon or late, it
will never be feverish for him again. Such ideas glimmer through
the midst of Wakefield's mind, and render him indistinctly
conscious that an almost impassable gulf divides his hired
apartment from his former home. "It is but in the next street!"
he sometimes says. Fool! it is in another world. Hitherto, he has
put off his return from one particular day to another;
henceforward, he leaves the precise time undetermined. Not
tomorrow--probably next week--pretty soon. Poor man! The dead
have nearly as much chance of revisiting their earthly homes as
the self-banished Wakefield.

Would that I had a folio to write, instead of an article of a
dozen pages! Then might I exemplify how an influence beyond our
control lays its strong hand on every deed which we do, and
weaves its consequences into an iron tissue of necessity.
Wakefield is spell-bound. We must leave him for ten years or so,
to haunt around his house, without once crossing the threshold,
and to be faithful to his wife, with all the affection of which
his heart is capable, while he is slowly fading out of hers. Long
since, it must be remarked, he had lost the perception of
singularity in his conduct.

Now for a scene! Amind the throng of a London street we
distinguish a man, now waxing elderly, with few characteristics
to attract careless observers, yet bearing, in his whole aspect,
the handwriting of no common fate, for such as have the skill to
read it. He is meagre; his low and narrow forehead is deeply
wrinkled; his eyes, small and lustreless, sometimes wander
apprehensively about him, but oftener seem to look inward. He
bends his head, and moves with an indescribable obliquity of
gait, as if unwilling to display his full front to the world.
Watch him long enough to see what we have described, and you will
allow that circumstances--which often produce remarkable men from
nature's ordinary handiwork--have produced one such here. Next,
leaving him to sidle along the footwalk, cast your eyes in the
opposite direction, where a portly female, considerably in the
wane of life, with a prayer-book in her hand, is proceeding to
yonder church. She has the placid mien of settled widowhood. Her
regrets have either died away, or have become so essential to her
heart, that they would be poorly exchanged for joy. Just as the
lean man and well-conditioned woman are passing, a slight
obstruction occurs, and brings these two figures directly in
contact. Their hands touch; the pressure of the crowd forces her
bosom against his shoulder; they stand, face to face, staring
into each other's eyes. After a ten years' separation, thus
Wakefield meets his wife!

The throng eddies away, and carries them asunder. The sober
widow, resuming her former pace, proceeds to church, but pauses
in the portal, and throws a perplexed glance along the street.
She passes in, however, opening her prayer-book as she goes. And
the man! with so wild a face that busy and selfish London stands
to gaze after him, he hurries to his lodgings, bolts the door,
and throws himself upon the bed. The latent feelings of years
break out; his feeble mind acquires a brief energy from their
strength; all the miserable strangeness of his life is revealed
to him at a glance: and he cries out, passionately, "Wakefield!
Wakefield! You are mad!"

Perhaps he was so. The singularity of his situation must have so
moulded him to himself, that, considered in regard to his
fellow-creatures and the business of life, he could not be said
to possess his right mind. He had contrived, or rather he had
happened, to dissever himself from the world--to vanish--to give
up his place and privileges with living men, without being
admitted among the dead. The life of a hermit is nowise parallel
to his. He was in the bustle of the city, as of old; but the
crowd swept by and saw him not; he was, we may figuratively say,
always beside his wife and at his hearth, yet must never feel the
warmth of the one nor the affection of the other. It was
Wakefield's unprecedented fate to retain his original share of
human sympathies, and to be still involved in human interests,
while he had lost his reciprocal influence on them. It would be a
most curious speculation to trace out the effect of such
circumstances on his heart and intellect, separately, and in
unison. Yet, changed as he was, he would seldom be conscious of
it, but deem himself the same man as ever; glimpses of the truth
indeed would come, but only for the moment; and still he would
keep saying, "I shall soon go back!"--nor reflect that he had
been saying so for twenty years.

I conceive, also, that these twenty years would appear, in the
retrospect, scarcely longer than the week to which Wakefield had
at first limited his absence. He would look on the affair as no
more than an interlude in the main business of his life. When,
after a little while more, he should deem it time to reenter his
parlor, his wife would clap her hands for joy, on beholding the
middle-aged Mr. Wakefield. Alas, what a mistake! Would Time but
await the close of our favorite follies, we should be young men,
all of us, and till Doomsday.

One evening, in the twentieth year since he vanished, Wakefield
is taking his customary walk towards the dwelling which he still
calls his own. It is a gusty night of autumn, with frequent
showers that patter down upon the pavement, and are gone before a
man can put up his umbrella. Pausing near the house, Wakefield
discerns, through the parlor windows of the second floor, the red
glow and the glimmer and fitful flash of a comfortable fire. On
the ceiling appears a grotesque shadow of good Mrs. Wakefield.
The cap, the nose and chin, and the broad waist, form an
admirable caricature, which dances, moreover, with the
up-flickering and down-sinking blaze, almost too merrily for the
shade of an elderly widow. At this instant a shower chances to
fall, and is driven, by the unmannerly gust, full into
Wakefield's face and bosom. He is quite penetrated with its
autumnal chill. Shall he stand, wet and shivering here, when his
own hearth has a good fire to warm him, and his own wife will run
to fetch the gray coat and small-clothes, which, doubtless, she
has kept carefully in the closet of their bed chamber? No!
Wakefield is no such fool. He ascends the steps--heavily!--for
twenty years have stiffened his legs since he came down--but he
knows it not. Stay, Wakefield! Would you go to the sole home that
is left you? Then step into your grave! The door opens. As he
passes in, we have a parting glimpse of his visage, and recognize
the crafty smile, which was the precursor of the little joke that
he has ever since been playing off at his wife's expense. How
unmercifully has he quizzed the poor woman! Well, a good night's
rest to Wakefield!

This happy event--supposing it to be such--could only have
occurred at an unpremeditated moment. We will not follow our
friend across the threshold. He has left us much food for
thought, a portion of which shall lend its wisdom to a moral, and
be shaped into a figure. Amid the seeming confusion of our
mysterious world, individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system,
and systems to one another and to a whole, that, by stepping
aside for a moment, a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of
losing his place forever. Like Wakefield, he may become, as it
were, the Outcast of the Universe.




THE GREAT CARBUNCLE[1]

A MYSTERY OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS


[1] The Indian tradition, on which this somewhat extravagant tale
is founded, is both too wild and too beautiful to be adequately
wrought up in prose. Sullivan, in his History of Maine, written
since the Revolution, remarks, that even then the existence of
the Great Carbuncle was not entirely discredited.


At nightfall, once in the olden time, on the rugged side of one
of the Crystal Hills, a party of adventurers were refreshing
themselves, after a toilsome and fruitless quest for the Great
Carbuncle. They had come thither, not as friends nor partners in
the enterprise, but each, save one youthful pair, impelled by his
own selfish and solitary longing for this wondrous gem. Their
feeling of brotherhood, however, was strong enough to induce them
to contribute a mutual aid in building a rude hut of branches,
and kindling a great fire of shattered pines, that had drifted
down the headlong current of the Amonoosuck, on the lower bank of
which they were to pass the night. There was but one of their
number, perhaps, who had become so estranged from natural
sympathies, by the absorbing spell of the pursuit, as to
acknowledge no satisfaction at the sight of human faces, in the
remote and solitary region whither they had ascended. A vast
extent of wilderness lay between them and the nearest settlement,
while a scant mile above their heads was that black verge where
the hills throw off their shaggy mantle of forest trees, and
either robe themselves in clouds or tower naked into the sky. The
roar of the Amonoosuck would have been too awful for endurance if
only a solitary man had listened, while the mountain stream
talked with the wind.

The adventurers, therefore, exchanged hospitable greetings, and
welcomed one another to the hut, where each man was the host, and
all were the guests of the whole company. They spread their
individual supplies of food on the flat surface of a rock, and
partook of a general repast; at the close of which, a sentiment
of good fellowship was perceptible among the party, though
repressed by the idea, that the renewed search for the Great
Carbuncle must make them strangers again in the morning. Seven
men and one young woman, they warmed themselves together at the
fire, which extended its bright wall along the whole front of
their wigwam. As they observed the various and contrasted figures
that made up the assemblage, each man looking like a caricature
of himself, in the unsteady light that flickered over him, they
came mutually to the conclusion, that an odder society had never
met, in city or wilderness, on mountain or plain.

The eldest of the group, a tall, lean, weather-beaten man, some
sixty years of age, was clad in the skins of wild animals, whose
fashion of dress he did well to imitate, since the deer, the
wolf, and the bear, had long been his most intimate companions.
He was one of those ill-fated mortals, such as the Indians told
of, whom, in their early youth, the Great Carbuncle smote with a
peculiar madness, and became the passionate dream of their
existence. All who visited that region knew him as the Seeker,
and by no other name. As none could remember when he first took
up the search, there went a fable in the valley of the Saco, that
for his inordinate lust after the Great Carbuncle, he had been
condemned to wander among the mountains till the end of time,
still with the same feverish hopes at sunrise--the same despair
at eve. Near this miserable Seeker sat a little elderly
personage, wearing a high-crowned hat, shaped somewhat like a
crucible. He was from beyond the sea, a Doctor Cacaphodel, who
had wilted and dried himself into a mummy by continually stooping
over charcoal furnaces, and inhaling unwholesome fumes during his
researches in chemistry and alchemy. It was told of him, whether
truly or not, that at the commencement of his studies, he had
drained his body of all its richest blood, and wasted it, with
other inestimable ingredients, in an unsuccessful experiment--and
had never been a well man since. Another of the adventurers was
Master Ichabod Pigsnort, a weighty merchant and selectman of
Boston, and an elder of the famous Mr. Norton's church. His
enemies had a ridiculous story that Master Pigsnort was
accustomed to spend a whole hour after prayer time, every morning
and evening, in wallowing naked among an immense quantity of
pine-tree shillings, which were the earliest silver coinage of
Massachusetts. The fourth whom we shall notice had no name that
his companions knew of, and was chiefly distinguished by a sneer
that always contorted his thin visage, and by a prodigious pair
of spectacles, which were supposed to deform and discolor the
whole face of nature, to this gentleman's perception. The fifth
adventurer likewise lacked a name, which was the greater pity, as
he appeared to be a poet. He was a bright-eyed man, but wofully
pined away, which was no more than natural, if, as some people
affirmed, his ordinary diet was fog, morning mist, and a slice of
the densest cloud within his reach, sauced with moonshine,
whenever he could get it. Certain it is, that the poetry which
flowed from him had a smack of all these dainties The sixth of
the party was a young man of haughty mien, and sat somewhat apart
from the rest, wearing his plumed hat loftily among his elders,
while the fire glittered on the rich embroidery of his dress, and
gleamed intensely on the jewelled pommel of his sword. This was
the Lord de Vere, who, when at home, was said to spend much of
his time in the burial vault of his dead progenitors, rummaging
their mouldy coffins in search of all the earthly pride and
vainglory that was hidden among bones and dust; so that, besides
his own share, he had the collected haughtiness of his whole line
of ancestry.

Lastly, there was a handsome youth in rustic garb, and by his
side a blooming little person, in whom a delicate shade of maiden
reserve was just melting into the rich glow of a young wife's
affection. Her name was Hannah and her husband's Matthew; two
homely names, yet well enough adapted to the simple pair, who
seemed strangely out of place among the whimsical fraternity
whose wits had been set agog by the Great Carbuncle.

Beneath the shelter of one hut, in the bright blaze of the same
fire, sat this varied group of adventurers, all so intent upon a
single object, that, of whatever else they began to speak, their
closing words were sure to be illuminated with the Great
Carbuncle. Several related the circumstances that brought them
thither. One had listened to a traveller's tale of this
marvellous stone in his own distant country, and had immediately
been seized with such a thirst for beholding it as could only be
quenched in its intensest lustre. Another, so long ago as when
the famous Captain Smith visited these coasts, had seen it
blazing far at sea, and had felt no rest in all the intervening
years till now that he took up the search. A third, being
encamped on a hunting expedition full forty miles south of the
White Mountains, awoke at midnight, and beheld the Great
Carbuncle gleaming like a meteor, so that the shadows of the
trees fell backward from it. They spoke of the innumerable
attempts which had been made to reach the spot, and of the
singular fatality which had hitherto withheld success from all
adventurers, though it might seem so easy to follow to its source
a light that overpowered the moon, and almost matched the sun. It
was observable that each smiled scornfully at the madness of
every other in anticipating better fortune than the past, yet
nourished a scarcely hidden conviction that he would himself be
the favored one. As if to allay their too sanguine hopes, they
recurred to the Indian traditions that a spirit kept watch about
the gem, and bewildered those who sought it either by removing it
from peak to peak of the higher hills, or by calling up a mist
from the enchanted lake over which it hung. But these tales were
deemed unworthy of credit, all professing to believe that the
search had been baffled by want of sagacity or perseverance in
the adventurers, or such other causes as might naturally obstruct
the passage to any given point among the intricacies of forest,
valley, and mountain.

In a pause of the conversation the wearer of the prodigious
spectacles looked round upon the party, making each individual,
in turn, the object of the sneer which invariably dwelt upon his
countenance.

"So, fellow-pilgrims," said he, "here we are, seven wise men, and
one fair damsel--who, doubtless, is as wise as any graybeard of
the company: here we are, I say, all bound on the same goodly
enterprise. Methinks, now, it were not amiss that each of us
declare what he proposes to do with the Great Carbuncle, provided
he have the good hap to clutch it. What says our friend in the
bear skin? How mean you, good sir, to enjoy the prize which you
have been seeking, the Lord knows how long, among the Crystal
Hills?"

"How enjoy it!" exclaimed the aged Seeker, bitterly. "I hope for
no enjoyment from it; that folly has passed long ago! I keep up
the search for this accursed stone because the vain ambition of
my youth has become a fate upon me in old age. The pursuit alone
is my strength,--the energy of my soul,--the warmth of my
blood,--and the pith and marrow of my bones! Were I to turn my
back upon it I should fall down dead on the hither side of the
Notch, which is the gateway of this mountain region. Yet not to
have my wasted lifetime back again would I give up my hopes of
the Great Carbuncle! Having found it, I shall bear it to a
certain cavern that I wot of, and there, grasping it in my arms,
lie down and die, and keep it buried with me forever."

"O wretch, regardless of the interests of science!" cried Doctor
Cacaphodel, with philosophic indignation. "Thou art not worthy to
behold, even from afar off, the lustre of this most precious gem
that ever was concocted in the laboratory of Nature. Mine is the
sole purpose for which a wise man may desire the possession of
the Great Carbuncle. Immediately on obtaining it--for I have a
presentiment, good people that the prize is reserved to crown my
scientific reputation--I shall return to Europe, and employ my
remaining years in reducing it to its first elements. A portion
of the stone will I grind to impalpable powder; other parts shall
be dissolved in acids, or whatever solvents will act upon so
admirable a composition; and the remainder I design to melt in
the crucible, or set on fire with the blow-pipe. By these various
methods I shall gain an accurate analysis, and finally bestow the
result of my labors upon the world in a folio volume."

"Excellent!" quoth the man with the spectacles. "Nor need you
hesitate, learned sir, on account of the necessary destruction of
the gem; since the perusal of your folio may teach every mother's
son of us to concoct a Great Carbuncle of his own."

"But, verily," said Master Ichabod Pigsnort, "for mine own part I
object to the making of these counterfeits, as being calculated
to reduce the marketable value of the true gem. I tell ye
frankly, sirs, I have an interest in keeping up the price. Here
have I quitted my regular traffic, leaving my warehouse in the
care of my clerks, and putting my credit to great hazard, and,
furthermore, have put myself in peril of death or captivity by
the accursed heathen savages--and all this without daring to ask
the prayers of the congregation, because the quest for the Great
Carbuncle is deemed little better than a traffic with the Evil
One. Now think ye that I would have done this grievous wrong to
my soul, body, reputation, and estate, without a reasonable
chance of profit?"

"Not I, pious Master Pigsnort," said the man with the spectacles.
"I never laid such a great folly to thy charge."

"Truly, I hope not," said the merchant. "Now, as touching this
Great Carbuncle, I am free to own that I have never had a glimpse
of it; but be it only the hundredth part so bright as people
tell, it will surely outvalue the Great Mogul's best diamond,
which he holds at an incalculable sum. Wherefore, I am minded to
put the Great Carbuncle on shipboard, and voyage with it to
England, France, Spain, Italy, or into Heathendom, if Providence
should send me thither, and, in a word, dispose of the gem to the
best bidder among the potentates of the earth, that he may place
it among his crown jewels. If any of ye have a wiser plan, let
him expound it."

"That have I, thou sordid man!" exclaimed the poet. "Dost thou
desire nothing brighter than gold that thou wouldst transmute all
this ethereal lustre into such dross as thou wallowest in
already? For myself, hiding the jewel under my cloak, I shall hie
me back to my attic chamber, in one of the darksome alleys of
London. There, night and day, will I gaze upon it; my soul shall
drink its radiance; it shall be diffused throughout my
intellectual powers, and gleam brightly in every line of poesy
that I indite. Thus, long ages after I am gone, the splendor of
the Great Carbuncle will blaze around my name!"

"Well said, Master Poet!" cried he of the spectacles. "Hide it
under thy cloak, sayest thou? Why, it will gleam through the
holes, and make thee look like a jack-o'-lantern!"

"To think!" ejaculated the Lord de Vere, rather to himself than
his companions, the best of whom he held utterly unworthy of his
intercourse--"to think that a fellow in a tattered cloak should
talk of conveying the Great Carbuncle to a garret in Grub Street!
Have not I resolved within myself that the whole earth contains
no fitter ornament for the great hall of my ancestral castle?
There shall it flame for ages, making a noonday of midnight,
glittering on the suits of armor, the banners, and escutcheons,
that hang around the wall, and keeping bright the memory of
heroes. Wherefore have all other adventurers sought the prize in
vain but that I might win it, and make it a symbol of the glories
of our lofty line? And never, on the diadem of the White
Mountains, did the Great Carbuncle hold a place half so honored
as is reserved for it in the hall of the De Veres!"

"It is a noble thought," said the Cynic, with an obsequious
sneer. "Yet, might I presume to say so, the gem would make a rare
sepulchral lamp, and would display the glories of your lordship's
progenitors more truly in the ancestral vault than in the castle
hall."

"Nay, forsooth," observed Matthew, the young rustic, who sat hand
in hand with his bride, "the gentleman has bethought himself of a
profitable use for this bright stone. Hannah here and I are
seeking it for a like purpose."

"How, fellow!" exclaimed his lordship, in surprise. "What castle
hall hast thou to hang it in?"

"No castle," replied Matthew, "but as neat a cottage as any
within sight of the Crystal Hills. Ye must know, friends, that
Hannah and I, being wedded the last week, have taken up the
search of the Great Carbuncle, because we shall need its light in
the long winter evenings; and it will be such a pretty thing to
show the neighbors when they visit us. It will shine through the
house so that we may pick up a pin in any corner and will set all
the windows aglowing as if there were a great fire of pine knots
in the chimney. And then how pleasant, when we awake in the
night, to be able to see one another's faces!"

There was a general smile among the adventurers at the simplicity
of the young couple's project in regard to this wondrous and
invaluable stone, with which the greatest monarch on earth might
have been proud to adorn his palace. Especially the man with
spectacles, who had sneered at all the company in turn, now
twisted his visage into such an expression of ill-natured mirth,
that Matthew asked him, rather peevishly, what he himself meant
to do with the Great Carbuncle.

"The Great Carbuncle!" answered the Cynic, with ineffable scorn.
"Why, you blockhead, there is no such thing in rerum natura. I
have come three thousand miles, and am resolved to set my foot on
every peak of these mountains, and poke my head into every chasm,
for the sole purpose of demonstrating to the satisfaction of any
man one whit less an ass than thyself that the Great Carbuncle is
all a humbug!"

Vain and foolish were the motives that had brought most of the
adventurers to the Crystal Hills; but none so vain, so foolish,
and so impious too, as that of the scoffer with the prodigious
spectacles. He was one of those wretched and evil men whose
yearnings are downward to the darkness, instead of heavenward,
and who, could they but extinguish the lights which God hath
kindled for us, would count the midnight gloom their chiefest
glory. As the Cynic spoke, several of the party were startled by
a gleam of red splendor, that showed the huge shapes of the
surrounding mountains and the rock-bestrewn bed of the turbulent
river with an illumination unlike that of their fire on the
trunks and black boughs of the forest trees. They listened for
the roll of thunder, but heard nothing, and were glad that the
tempest came not near them. The stars, those dial points of
heaven, now warned the adventurers to close their eyes on the
blazing logs, and open them, in dreams, to the glow of the Great
Carbuncle.

The young married couple had taken their lodgings in the farthest
corner of the wigwam, and were separated from the rest of the
party by a curtain of curiously-woven twigs, such as might have
hung, in deep festoons, around the bridal-bower of Eve. The
modest little wife had wrought this piece of tapestry while the
other guests were talking. She and her husband fell asleep with
hands tenderly clasped, and awoke from visions of unearthly
radiance to meet the more blessed light of one another's eyes.
They awoke at the same instant, and with one happy smile beaming
over their two faces, which grew brighter with their
consciousness of the reality of life and love. But no sooner did
she recollect where they were, than the bride peeped through the
interstices of the leafy curtain, and saw that the outer room of
the hut was deserted.

"Up, dear Matthew!" cried she, in haste. "The strange folk are
all gone! Up, this very minute, or we shall lose the Great
Carbuncle!"

In truth, so little did these poor young people deserve the
mighty prize which had lured them thither, that they had slept
peacefully all night, and till the summits of the hills were
glittering with sunshine; while the other adventurers had tossed
their limbs in feverish wakefulness, or dreamed of climbing
precipices, and set off to realize their dreams with the earliest
peep of dawn. But Matthew and Hannah, after their calm rest, were
as light as two young deer, and merely stopped to say their
prayers and wash themselves in a cold pool of the Amonoosuck, and
then to taste a morsel of food, ere they turned their faces to
the mountain-side. It was a sweet emblem of conjugal affection,
as they toiled up the difficult ascent, gathering strength from
the mutual aid which they afforded. After several little
accidents, such as a torn robe, a lost shoe, and the entanglement
of Hannah's hair in a bough, they reached the upper verge of the
forest, and were now to pursue a more adventurous course. The
innumerable trunks and heavy foliage of the trees had hitherto
shut in their thoughts, which now shrank affrighted from the
region of wind and cloud and naked rocks and desolate sunshine,
that rose immeasurably above them. They gazed back at the obscure
wilderness which they had traversed, and longed to be buried
again in its depths rather than trust themselves to so vast and
visible a solitude.

"Shall we go on?" said Matthew, throwing his arm round Hannah's
waist, both to protect her and to comfort his heart by drawing
her close to it.

But the little bride, simple as she was, had a woman's love of
jewels, and could not forego the hope of possessing the very
brightest in the world, in spite of the perils with which it must
be won.

"Let us climb a little higher," whispered she, yet tremulously,
as she turned her face upward to the lonely sky.

"Come, then," said Matthew, mustering his manly courage and
drawing her along with him, for she became timid again the moment
that he grew bold.

And upward, accordingly, went the pilgrims of the Great
Carbuncle, now treading upon the tops and thickly-interwoven
branches of dwarf pines, which, by the growth of centuries,
though mossy with age, had barely reached three feet in altitude.
Next, they came to masses and fragments of naked rock heaped
confusedly together, like a cairn reared by giants in memory of a
giant chief. In this bleak realm of upper air nothing breathed,
nothing grew; there was no life but what was concentrated in
their two hearts; they had climbed so high that Nature herself
seemed no longer to keep them company. She lingered beneath them,
within the verge of the forest trees, and sent a farewell glance
after her children as they strayed where her own green footprints
had never been. But soon they were to be hidden from her eye
Densely and dark the mists began to gather below, casting black
spots of shadow on the vast landscape, and sailing heavily to one
centre, as if the loftiest mountain peak had summoned a council
of its kindred clouds. Finally, the vapors welded themselves, as
it were, into a mass, presenting the appearance of a pavement
over which the wanderers might have trodden, but where they would
vainly have sought an avenue to the blessed earth which they had
lost. And the lovers yearned to behold that green earth again,
more intensely, alas! than, beneath a clouded sky, they had ever
desired a glimpse of heaven. They even felt it a relief to their
desolation when the mists, creeping gradually up the mountain,
concealed its lonely peak, and thus annihilated, at least for
them, the whole region of visible space. But they drew closer
together, with a fond and melancholy gaze, dreading lest the
universal cloud should snatch them from each other's sight.

Still, perhaps, they would have been resolute to climb as far and
as high, between earth and heaven, as they could find foothold,
if Hannah's strength had not begun to fail, and with that, her
courage also. Her breath grew short. She refused to burden her
husband with her weight, but often tottered against his side, and
recovered herself each time by a feebler effort. At last, she
sank down on one of the rocky steps of the acclivity.

"We are lost, dear Matthew," said she, mournfully. "We shall
never find our way to the earth again. And oh how happy we might
have been in our cottage!"

"Dear heart!--we will yet be happy there," answered Matthew.
"Look! In this direction, the sunshine penetrates the dismal
mist. By its aid, I can direct our course to the passage of the
Notch. Let us go back, love, and dream no more of the Great
Carbuncle!"

"The sun cannot be yonder," said Hannah, with despondence. "By
this time it must be noon. If there could ever be any sunshine
here, it would come from above our heads."

"But look!" repeated Matthew, in a somewhat altered tone. "It is
brightening every moment. If not sunshine, what can it be?"

Nor could the young bride any longer deny that a radiance was
breaking through the mist, and changing its dim hue to a dusky
red, which continually grew more vivid, as if brilliant particles
were interfused with the gloom. Now, also, the cloud began to
roll away from the mountain, while, as it heavily withdrew, one
object after another started out of its impenetrable obscurity
into sight, with precisely the effect of a new creation, before
the indistinctness of the old chaos had been completely swallowed
up. As the process went on, they saw the gleaming of water close
at their feet, and found themselves on the very border of a
mountain lake, deep, bright, clear, and calmly beautiful,
spreading from brim to brim of a basin that had been scooped out
of the solid rock. A ray of glory flashed across its surface. The
pilgrims looked whence it should proceed, but closed their eyes
with a thrill of awful admiration, to exclude the fervid splendor
that glowed from the brow of a cliff impending over the enchanted
lake. For the simple pair had reached that lake of mystery, and
found the longsought shrine of the Great Carbuncle!

They threw their arms around each other, and trembled at their
own success; for, as the legends of this wondrous gem rushed
thick upon their memory, they felt themselves marked out by
fate--and the consciousness was fearful. Often, from childhood
upward, they had seen it shining like a distant star. And now
that star was throwing its intensest lustre on their hearts. They
seemed changed to one another's eyes, in the red brilliancy that
flamed upon their cheeks, while it lent the same fire to the
lake, the rocks, and sky, and to the mists which had rolled back
before its power. But, with their next glance, they beheld an
object that drew their attention even from the mighty stone. At
the base of the cliff, directly beneath the Great Carbuncle,
appeared the figure of a man, with his arms extended in the act
of climbing, and his face turned upward, as if to drink the full
gush of splendor. But he stirred not, no more than if changed to
marble.

"It is the Seeker," whispered Hannah, convulsively grasping her
husband's arm. "Matthew, he is dead."

"The joy of success has killed him," replied Matthew, trembling
violently. "Or, perhaps, the very light of the Great Carbuncle
was death!"

"The Great Carbuncle," cried a peevish voice behind them. "The
Great Humbug! If you have found it, prithee point it out to me."

They turned their heads, and there was the Cynic, with his
prodigious spectacles set carefully on his nose, staring now at
the lake, now at the rocks, now at the distant masses of vapor,
now right at the Great Carbuncle itself, yet seemingly as
unconscious of its light as if all the scattered clouds were
condensed about his person. Though its radiance actually threw
the shadow of the unbeliever at his own feet, as he turned his
back upon the glorious jewel, he would not be convinced that
there was the least glimmer there.

"Where is your Great Humbug?" he repeated. "I challenge you to
make me see it!"

"There," said Matthew, incensed at such perverse blindness, and
turning the Cynic round towards the illuminated cliff. "Take off
those abominable spectacles, and you cannot help seeing it!"

Now these colored spectacles probably darkened the Cynic's sight,
in at least as great a degree as the smoked glasses through which
people gaze at an eclipse. With resolute bravado, however, he
snatched them from his nose, and fixed a bold stare full upon the
ruddy blaze of the Great Carbuncle. But scarcely had he
encountered it, when, with a deep, shuddering groan, he dropped
his head, and pressed both hands across his miserable eyes.
Thenceforth there was, in very truth, no light of the Great
Carbuncle, nor any other light on earth, nor light of heaven
itself, for the poor Cynic. So long accustomed to view all
objects through a medium that deprived them of every glimpse of
brightness, a single flash of so glorious a phenomenon, striking
upon his naked vision, had blinded him forever.

"Matthew," said Hannah, clinging to him, "let us go hence!"

Matthew saw that she was faint, and kneeling down, supported her
in his arms, while he threw some of the thrillingly cold water of
the enchanted lake upon her face and bosom. It revived her, but
could not renovate her courage.

"Yes, dearest!" cried Matthew, pressing her tremulous form to his
breast,--"we will go hence, and return to our humble cottage. The
blessed sunshine and the quiet moonlight shall come through our
window. We will kindle the cheerful glow of our hearth, at
eventide, and be happy in its light. But never again will we
desire more light than all the world may share with us."

"No," said his bride, "for how could we live by day, or sleep by
night, in this awful blaze of the Great Carbuncle!"

Out of the hollow of their hands, they drank each a draught from
the lake, which presented them its waters uncontaminated by an
earthly lip. Then, lending their guidance to the blinded Cynic,
who uttered not a word, and even stifled his groans in his own
most wretched heart, they began to descend the mountain. Yet, as
they left the shore, till then untrodden, of the spirit's lake,
they threw a farewell glance towards the cliff, and beheld the
vapors gathering in dense volumes, through which the gem burned
duskily.

As touching the other pilgrims of the Great Carbuncle, the legend
goes on to tell, that the worshipful Master Ichabod Pigsnort soon
gave up the quest as a desperate speculation, and wisely resolved
to betake himself again to his warehouse, near the town dock, in
Boston. But, as he passed through the Notch of the mountains, a
war party of Indians captured our unlucky merchant, and carried
him to Montreal, there holding him in bondage, till, by the
payment of a heavy ransom, he had wofully subtracted from his
hoard of pine-tree shillings. By his long absence, moreover, his
affairs had become so disordered that, for the rest of his life,
instead of wallowing in silver, he had seldom a sixpence worth of
copper. Doctor Cacaphodel, the alchemist, returned to his
laboratory with a prodigious fragment of granite, which he ground
to powder, dissolved in acids, melted in the crucible, and burned
with the blow-pipe, and published the result of his experiments
in one of the heaviest folios of the day. And, for all these
purposes, the gem itself could not have answered better than the
granite. The poet, by a somewhat similar mistake, made prize of a
great piece of ice, which he found in a sunless chasm of the
mountains and swore that it corresponded, in all points, with his
idea of the Great Carbuncle. The critics say, that, if his poetry
lacked the splendor of the gem, it retained all the coldness of
the ice. The Lord de Vere went back to his ancestral hall, where
he contented himself with a wax-lighted chandelier, and filled,
in due course of time, another coffin in the ancestral vault. As
the funeral torches gleamed within that dark receptacle, there
was no need of the Great Carbuncle to show the vanity of earthly
pomp.

The Cynic, having cast aside his spectacles, wandered about the
world a miserable object, and was punished with an agonizing
desire of light, for the wilful blindness of his former life. The
whole night long, he would lift his splendor-blasted orbs to the
moon and stars; he turned his face eastward, at sunrise, as duly
as a Perisan idolater; he made a pilgrimage to Rome, to witness
the magnificent illumination of St. Peter's Church; and finally
perished in the great fire of London, into the midst of which he
had thrust himself, with the desperate idea of catching one
feeble ray from the blaze that was kindling earth and heaven.

Matthew and his bride spent many peaceful years, and were fond of
telling the legend of the Great Carbuncle. The tale, however,
towards the close of their lengthened lives, did not meet with
the full credence that had been accorded to it by those who
remembered the ancient lustre of the gem. For it is affirmed
that, from the hour when two mortals had shown themselves so
simply wise as to reject a jewel which would have dimmed all
earthly things, its splendor waned. When other pilgrims reached
the cliff, they found only an opaque stone, with particles of
mica glittering on its surface. There is also a tradition that,
as the youthful pair departed, the gem was loosened from the
forehead of the cliff, and fell into the enchanted lake, and
that, at noontide, the Seeker's form may still be seen to bend
over its quenchless gleam.

Some few believe that this inestimable stone is blazing as of
old, and say that they have caught its radiance, like a flash of
summer lightning, far down the valley of the Saco. And be it
owned that, many a mile from the Crystal Hills, I saw a wondrous
light around their summits, and was lured, by the faith of poesy,
to be the latest pilgrim of the GREAT CARBUNCLE.




DAVID SWAN

A FANTASY

We can be but partially acquainted even with the events which
actually influence our course through life, and our final
destiny. There are innumerable other events--if such they may be
called--which come close upon us, yet pass away without actual
results, or even betraying their near approach, by the reflection
of any light or shadow across our minds. Could we know all the
vicissitudes of our fortunes, life would be too full of hope and
fear, exultation or disappointment, to afford us a single hour of
true serenity. This idea may be illustrated by a page from the
secret history of David Swan.

We have nothing to do with David until we find him, at the age of
twenty, on the high road from his native place to the city of
Boston, where his uncle, a small dealer in the grocery line, was
to take him behind the counter. Be it enough to say that he was a
native of New Hampshire, born of respectable parents, and had
received an ordinary school education, with a classic finish by a
year at Gilmanton Academy. After journeying on foot from sunrise
till nearly noon of a summer's day, his weariness and the
increasing heat determined him to sit down in the first
convenient shade, and await the coming up of the stage-coach. As
if planted on purpose for him, there soon appeared a little tuft
of maples, with a delightful recess in the midst, and such a
fresh bubbling spring that it seemed never to have sparkled for
any wayfarer but David Swan. Virgin or not, he kissed it with his
thirsty lips, and then flung himself along the brink, pillowing
his head upon some shirts and a pair of pantaloons, tied up in a
striped cotton handkerchief. The sunbeams could not reach him;
the dust did not yet rise from the road after the heavy rain of
yesterday; and his grassy lair suited the young man better than a
bed of down. The spring murmured drowsily beside him; the
branches waved dreamily across the blue sky overhead; and a deep
sleep, perchance hiding dreams within its depths, fell upon David
Swan. But we are to relate events which he did not dream of.

While he lay sound asleep in the shade, other people were wide
awake, and passed to and fro, afoot, on horseback, and in all
sorts of vehicles, along the sunny road by his bedchamber. Some
looked neither to the right hand nor the left, and knew not that
he was there; some merely glanced that way, without admitting the
slumberer among their busy thoughts; some laughed to see how
soundly he slept; and several, whose hearts were brimming full of
scorn, ejected their venomous superfluity on David Swan. A
middle-aged widow, when nobody else was near, thrust her head a
little way into the recess, and vowed that the young fellow
looked charming in his sleep. A temperance lecturer saw him, and
wrought poor David into the texture of his evening's discourse,
as an awful instance of dead drunkenness by the roadside. But
censure, praise, merriment, scorn, and indifference were all one,
or rather all nothing, to David Swan.

He had slept only a few moments when a brown carriage, drawn by a
handsome pair of horses, bowled easily along, and was brought to
a standstill nearly in front of David's resting-place. A linchpin
had fallen out, and permitted one of the wheels to slide off. The
damage was slight, and occasioned merely a momentary alarm to an
elderly merchant and his wife, who were returning to Boston in
the carriage. While the coachman and a servant were replacing the
wheel, the lady and gentleman sheltered themselves beneath the
maple-trees, and there espied the bubbling fountain, and David
Swan asleep beside it. Impressed with the awe which the humblest
sleeped usually sheds around him, the merchant trod as lightly as
the gout would allow; and his spouse took good heed not to rustle
her silk gown, lest David should start up all of a sudden.

"How soundly he sleeps!" whispered the old gentleman. "From what
a depth he draws that easy breath! Such sleep as that, brought on
without an opiate, would be worth more to me than half my income;
for it would suppose health and an untroubled mind."

"And youth, besides," said the lady. "Healthy and quiet age does
not sleep thus. Our slumber is no more like his than our
wakefulness."

The longer they looked the more did this elderly couple feel
interested in the unknown youth, to whom the wayside and the
maple shade were as a secret chamber, with the rich gloom of
damask curtains brooding over him. Perceiving that a stray
sunbeam glimmered down upon his face, the lady contrived to twist
a branch aside, so as to intercept it. And having done this
little act of kindness, she began to feel like a mother to him.

"Providence seems to have laid him here," whispered she to her
husband, "and to have brought us hither to find him, after our
disappointment in our cousin's son. Methinks I can see a likeness
to our departed Henry. Shall we waken him?"

"To what purpose?" said the merchant, hesitating. "We know
nothing of the youth's character."

"That open countenance!" replied his wife, in the same hushed
voice, yet earnestly. "This innocent sleep!"

While these whispers were passing, the sleeper's heart did not
throb, nor his breath become agitated, nor his features betray
the least token of interest. Yet Fortune was bending over him,
just ready to let fall a burden of gold. The old merchant had
lost his only son, and had no heir to his wealth except a distant
relative, with whose conduct he was dissatisfied. In such cases,
people sometimes do stranger things than to act the magician, and
awaken a young man to splendor who fell asleep in poverty.

"Shall we not waken him?" repeated the lady persuasively.

"The coach is ready, sir," said the servant, behind.

The old couple started, reddened, and hurried away, mutually
wondering that they should ever have dreamed of doing anything so
very ridiculous. The merchant threw himself back in the carriage,
and occupied his mind with the plan of a magnificent asylum for
unfortunate men of business. Meanwhile, David Swan enjoyed his
nap.

The carriage could not have gone above a mile or two, when a
pretty young girl came along, with a tripping pace, which showed
precisely how her little heart was dancing in her bosom. Perhaps
it was this merry kind of motion that caused--is there any harm
in saying it?--her garter to slip its knot. Conscious that the
silken girth--if silk it were--was relaxing its hold, she turned
aside into the shelter of the maple-trees, and there found a
young man asleep by the spring! Blushing as red as any rose that
she should have intruded into a gentleman's bedchamber, and for
such a purpose, too, she was about to make her escape on tiptoe.
But there was peril near the sleeper. A monster of a bee had been
wandering overhead--buzz, buzz, buzz--now among the leaves, now
flashing through the strips of sunshine, and now lost in the dark
shade, till finally he appeared to be settling on the eyelid of
David Swan. The sting of a bee is sometimes deadly. As free
hearted as she was innocent, the girl attacked the intruder with
her handkerchief, brushed him soundly, and drove him from beneath
the mapleshade. How sweet a picture! This good deed accomplished,
with quickened breath, and a deeper blush, she stole a glance at
the youthful stranger for whom she had been battling with a
dragon in the air.

"He is handsome!" thought she, and blushed redder yet.

How could it be that no dream of bliss grew so strong within him,
that, shattered by its very strength, it should part asunder, and
allow him to perceive the girl among its phantoms? Why, at least,
did no smile of welcome brighten upon his face? She was come, the
maid whose soul, according to the old and beautiful idea, had
been severed from his own, and whom, in all his vague but
passionate desires, he yearned to meet. Her, only, could he love
with a perfect love; him, only, could she receive into the depths
of her heart; and now her image was faintly blushing in the
fountain, by his side; should it pass away, its happy lustre
would never gleam upon his life again.

"How sound he sleeps!" murmured the girl.

She departed, but did not trip along the road so lightly as when
she came.

Now, this girl's father was a thriving country merchant in the
neighborhood, and happened, at that identical time, to be looking
out for just such a young man as David Swan. Had David formed a
wayside acquaintance with the daughter, he would have become the
father's clerk, and all else in natural succession. So here,
again, had good fortune--the best of fortunes--stolen so near
that her garments brushed against him; and he knew nothing of the
matter.

The girl was hardly out of sight when two men turned aside
beneath the maple shade. Both had dark faces, set off by cloth
caps, which were drawn down aslant over their brows. Their
dresses were shabby, yet had a certain smartness. These were a
couple of rascals who got their living by whatever the devil sent
them, and now, in the interim of other business, had staked the
joint profits of their next piece of villany on a game of cards,
which was to have been decided here under the trees. But, finding
David asleep by the spring, one of the rogues whispered to his
fellow, "Hist!--Do you see that bundle under his head?"

The other villain nodded, winked, and leered.

"I'll bet you a horn of brandy," said the first, "that the chap
has either a pocket-book, or a snug little hoard of small change,
stowed away amongst his shirts. And if not there, we shall find
it in his pantaloons pocket."

"But how if he wakes?" said the other.

His companion thrust aside his waistcoat, pointed to the handle
of a dirk, and nodded.

"So be it!" muttered the second villain.

They approached the unconscious David, and, while one pointed the
dagger towards his heart, the other began to search the bundle
beneath his head. Their two faces, grim, wrinkled, and ghastly
with guilt and fear, bent over their victim, looking horrible
enough to be mistaken for fiends, should he suddenly awake. Nay,
had the villains glanced aside into the spring, even they would
hardly have known themselves as reflected there. But David Swan
had never worn a more tranquil aspect, even when asleep on his
mother's breast.

"I must take away the bundle," whispered one.

"If he stirs, I'll strike," muttered the other.

But, at this moment, a dog scenting along the ground, came in
beneath the maple-trees, and gazed alternately at each of these
wicked men, and then at the quiet sleeper. He then lapped out of
the fountain.

"Pshaw!" said one villain. "We can do nothing now. The dog's
master must be close behind."

"Let's take a drink and be off," said the other

The man with the dagger thrust back the weapon into his bosom,
and drew forth a pocket pistol, but not of that kind which kills
by a single discharge. It was a flask of liquor, with a block-tin
tumbler screwed upon the mouth. Each drank a comfortable dram,
and left the spot, with so many jests, and such laughter at their
unaccomplished wickedness, that they might be said to have gone
on their way rejoicing. In a few hours they had forgotten the
whole affair, nor once imagined that the recording angel had
written down the crime of murder against their souls, in letters
as durable as eternity. As for David Swan, he still slept
quietly, neither conscious of the shadow of death when it hung
over him, nor of the glow of renewed life when that shadow was
withdrawn.

He slept, but no longer so quietly as at first. An hour's repose
had snatched, from his elastic frame, the weariness with which
many hours of toil had burdened it. Now he stirred--now, moved
his lips, without a sound--now, talked, in an inward tone, to the
noonday spectres of his dream. But a noise of wheels came
rattling louder and louder along the road, until it dashed
through the dispersing mist of David's slumber-and there was the
stage-coach. He started up with all his ideas about him.

"Halloo, driver!--Take a passenger?" shouted he.

"Room on top!" answered the driver.

Up mounted David, and bowled away merrily towards Boston, without
so much as a parting glance at that fountain of dreamlike
vicissitude. He knew not that a phantom of Wealth had thrown a
golden hue upon its waters--nor that one of Love had sighed
softly to their murmur--nor that one of Death had threatened to
crimson them with his blood--all, in the brief hour since he lay
down to sleep. Sleeping or waking, we hear not the airy footsteps
of the strange things that almost happen. Does it not argue a
superintending Providence that, while viewless and unexpected
events thrust themselves continually athwart our path, there
should still be regularity enough in mortal life to render
foresight even partially available?




THE HOLLOW OF THE THREE HILLS

In those strange old times, when fantastic dreams and madmen's
reveries were realized among the actual circumstances of life,
two persons met together at an appointed hour and place. One was
a lady, graceful in form and fair of feature, though pale and
troubled, and smitten with an untimely blight in what should have
been the fullest bloom of her years; the other was an ancient and
meanly-dressed woman, of ill-favored aspect, and so withered,
shrunken, and decrepit, that even the space since she began to
decay must have exceeded the ordinary term of human existence. In
the spot where they encountered, no mortal could observe them.
Three little hills stood near each other, and down in the midst
of them sunk a hollow basin, almost mathematically circular, two
or three hundred feet in breadth, and of such depth that a
stately cedar might but just be visible above the sides. Dwarf
pines were numerous upon the hills, and partly fringed the outer
verge of the intermediate hollow, within which there was nothing
but the brown grass of October, and here and there a tree trunk
that had fallen long ago, and lay mouldering with no green
successor from its roots. One of these masses of decaying wood,
formerly a majestic oak, rested close beside a pool of green and
sluggish water at the bottom of the basin. Such scenes as this
(so gray tradition tells) were once the resort of the Power of
Evil and his plighted subjects; and here, at midnight or on the
dim verge of evening, they were said to stand round the mantling
pool, disturbing its putrid waters in the performance of an
impious baptismal rite. The chill beauty of an autumnal sunset
was now gilding the three hill-tops, whence a paler tint stole
down their sides into the hollow.

"Here is our pleasant meeting come to pass," said the aged crone,
"according as thou hast desired. Say quickly what thou wouldst
have of me, for there is but a short hour that we may tarry
here."

As the old withered woman spoke, a smile glimmered on her
countenance, like lamplight on the wall of a sepulchre. The lady
trembled, and cast her eyes upward to the verge of the basin, as
if meditating to return with her purpose unaccomplished. But it
was not so ordained.

"I am a stranger in this land, as you know," said she at length.
"Whence I come it matters not; but I have left those behind me
with whom my fate was intimately bound, and from whom I am cut
off forever. There is a weight in my bosom that I cannot away
with, and I have come hither to inquire of their welfare."

"And who is there by this green pool that can bring thee news
from the ends of the earth?" cried the old woman, peering into
the lady's face. "Not from my lips mayst thou hear these tidings;
yet, be thou bold, and the daylight shall not pass away from
yonder hill-top before thy wish be granted."

"I will do your bidding though I die," replied the lady
desperately.

The old woman seated herself on the trunk of the fallen tree,
threw aside the hood that shrouded her gray locks, and beckoned
her companion to draw near.

"Kneel down," she said, "and lay your forehead on my knees."

She hesitated a moment, but the anxiety that had long been
kindling burned fiercely up within her. As she knelt down, the
border of her garment was dipped into the pool; she laid her
forehead on the old woman's knees, and the latter drew a cloak
about the lady's face, so that she was in darkness. Then she
heard the muttered words of prayer, in the midst of which she
started, and would have arisen.

"Let me flee,--let me flee and hide myself, that they may not
look upon me!" she cried. But, with returning recollection, she
hushed herself, and was still as death.

For it seemed as if other voices--familiar in infancy, and
unforgotten through many wanderings, and in all the vicissitudes
of her heart and fortune--were mingling with the accents of the
prayer. At first the words were faint and indistinct, not
rendered so by distance, but rather resembling the dim pages of a
book which we strive to read by an imperfect and gradually
brightening light. In such a manner, as the prayer proceeded, did
those voices strengthen upon the ear; till at length the petition
ended, and the conversation of an aged man, and of a woman broken
and decayed like himself, became distinctly audible to the lady
as she knelt. But those strangers appeared not to stand in the
hollow depth between the three hills. Their voices were
encompassed and reechoed by the walls of a chamber, the windows
of which were rattling in the breeze; the regular vibration of a
clock, the crackling of a fire, and the tinkling of the embers as
they fell among the ashes, rendered the scene almost as vivid as
if painted to the eye. By a melancholy hearth sat these two old
people, the man calmly despondent, the woman querulous and
tearful, and their words were all of sorrow. They spoke of a
daughter, a wanderer they knew not where, bearing dishonor along
with her, and leaving shame and affliction to bring their gray
heads to the grave. They alluded also to other and more recent
woe, but in the midst of their talk their voices seemed to melt
into the sound of the wind sweeping mournfully among the autumn
leaves; and when the lady lifted her eyes, there was she kneeling
in the hollow between three hills.

"A weary and lonesome time yonder old couple have of it,"
remarked the old woman, smiling in the lady's face.

"And did you also hear them?" exclaimed she, a sense of
intolerable humiliation triumphing over her agony and fear.

"Yea; and we have yet more to hear," replied the old woman.
"Wherefore, cover thy face quickly."

Again the withered hag poured forth the monotonous words of a
prayer that was not meant to be acceptable in heaven; and soon,
in the pauses of her breath, strange murmurings began to thicken,
gradually increasing so as to drown and overpower the charm by
which they grew. Shrieks pierced through the obscurity of sound,
and were succeeded by the singing of sweet female voices, which,
in their turn, gave way to a wild roar of laughter, broken
suddenly by groanings and sobs, forming altogether a ghastly
confusion of terror and mourning and mirth. Chains were rattling,
fierce and stern voices uttered threats, and the scourge
resounded at their command. All these noises deepened and became
substantial to the listener's ear, till she could distinguish
every soft and dreamy accent of the love songs that died
causelessly into funeral hymns. She shuddered at the unprovoked
wrath which blazed up like the spontaneous kindling of flames and
she grew faint at the fearful merriment raging miserably around
her. In the midst of this wild scene, where unbound passions
jostled each other in a drunken career, there was one solemn
voice of a man, and a manly and melodious voice it might once
have been. He went to and fro continually, and his feet sounded
upon the floor. In each member of that frenzied company, whose
own burning thoughts had become their exclusive world, he sought
an auditor for the story of his individual wrong, and interpreted
their laughter and tears as his reward of scorn or pity. He spoke
of woman's perfidy, of a wife who had broken her holiest vows, of
a home and heart made desolate. Even as he went on, the shout,
the laugh, the shriek the sob, rose up in unison, till they
changed into the hollow, fitful, and uneven sound of the wind, as
it fought among the pine-trees on those three lonely hills. The
lady looked up, and there was the withered woman smiling in her
face.

"Couldst thou have thought there were such merry times in a
madhouse?" inquired the latter.

"True, true," said the lady to herself; "there is mirth within
its walls, but misery, misery without."

"Wouldst thou hear more?" demanded the old woman.

"There is one other voice I would fain listen to again," replied
the lady, faintly.

"Then, lay down thy head speedily upon my knees, that thou mayst
get thee hence before the hour be past."

The golden skirts of day were yet lingering upon the hills, but
deep shades obscured the hollow and the pool, as if sombre night
were rising thence to overspread the world. Again that evil woman
began to weave her spell. Long did it proceed unanswered, till
the knolling of a bell stole in among the intervals of her words,
like a clang that had travelled far over valley and rising
ground, and was just ready to die in the air. The lady shook upon
her companion's knees as she heard that boding sound. Stronger it
grew and sadder, and deepened into the tone of a death bell,
knolling dolefully from some ivy-mantled tower, and bearing
tidings of mortality and woe to the cottage, to the hall, and to
the solitary wayfarer that all might weep for the doom appointed
in turn to them. Then came a measured tread, passing slowly,
slowly on, as of mourners with a coffin, their garments trailing
on the ground, so that the ear could measure the length of their
melancholy array. Before them went the priest, reading the burial
service, while the leaves of his book were rustling in the
breeze. And though no voice but his was heard to speak aloud,
still there were revilings and anathemas, whispered but distinct,
from women and from men, breathed against the daughter who had
wrung the aged hearts of her parents,--the wife who had betrayed
the trusting fondness of her husband,--the mother who had sinned
against natural affection, and left her child to die. The
sweeping sound of the funeral train faded away like a thin vapor,
and the wind, that just before had seemed to shake the coffin
pall, moaned sadly round the verge of the Hollow between three
Hills. But when the old woman stirred the kneeling lady, she
lifted not her head.

"Here has been a sweet hour's sport!" said the withered crone,
chuckling to herself.




DR. HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT

That very singular man, old Dr. Heidegger, once invited four
venerable friends to meet him in his study. There were three
white-bearded gentlemen, Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew, and
Mr. Gascoigne, and a withered gentlewoman, whose name was the
Widow Wycherly. They were all melancholy old creatures, who had
been unfortunate in life, and whose greatest misfortune it was
that they were not long ago in their graves. Mr. Medbourne, in
the vigor of his age, had been a prosperous merchant, but had
lost his all by a frantic speculation, and was now little better
than a mendicant. Colonel Killigrew had wasted his best years,
and his health and substance, in the pursuit of sinful pleasures,
which had given birth to a brood of pains, such as the gout, and
divers other torments of soul and body. Mr. Gascoigne was a
ruined politician, a man of evil fame, or at least had been so
till time had buried him from the knowledge of the present
generation, and made him obscure instead of infamous. As for the
Widow Wycherly, tradition tells us that she was a great beauty in
her day; but, for a long while past, she had lived in deep
seclusion, on account of certain scandalous stories which had
prejudiced the gentry of the town against her. It is a
circumstance worth mentioning that each of these three old
gentlemen, Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew, and Mr. Gascoigne,
were early lovers of the Widow Wycherly, and had once been on the
point of cutting each other's throats for her sake. And, before
proceeding further, I will merely hint that Dr. Heidegger and all
his foul guests were sometimes thought to be a little beside
themselves,--as is not unfrequently the case with old people,
when worried either by present troubles or woful recollections.

"My dear old friends," said Dr. Heidegger, motioning them to be
seated, "I am desirous of your assistance in one of those little
experiments with which I amuse myself here in my study."

If all stories were true, Dr. Heidegger's study must have been a
very curious place. It was a dim, old-fashioned chamber,
festooned with cobwebs, and besprinkled with antique dust. Around
the walls stood several oaken bookcases, the lower shelves of
which were filled with rows of gigantic folios and black-letter
quartos, and the upper with little parchment-covered duodecimos.
Over the central bookcase was a bronze bust of Hippocrates, with
which, according to some authorities, Dr. Heidegger was
accustomed to hold consultations in all difficult cases of his
practice. In the obscurest corner of the room stood a tall and
narrow oaken closet, with its door ajar, within which doubtfully
appeared a skeleton. Between two of the bookcases hung a
looking-glass, presenting its high and dusty plate within a
tarnished gilt frame. Among many wonderful stories related of
this mirror, it was fabled that the spirits of all the doctor's
deceased patients dwelt within its verge, and would stare him in
the face whenever he looked thitherward. The opposite side of the
chamber was ornamented with the full-length portrait of a young
lady, arrayed in the faded magnificence of silk, satin, and
brocade, and with a visage as faded as her dress. Above half a
century ago, Dr. Heidegger had been on the point of marriage with
this young lady; but, being affected with some slight disorder,
she had swallowed one of her lover's prescriptions, and died on
the bridal evening. The greatest curiosity of the study remains
to be mentioned; it was a ponderous folio volume, bound in black
leather, with massive silver clasps. There were no letters on the
back, and nobody could tell the title of the book. But it was
well known to be a book of magic; and once, when a chambermaid
had lifted it, merely to brush away the dust, the skeleton had
rattled in its closet, the picture of the young lady had stepped
one foot upon the floor, and several ghastly faces had peeped
forth from the mirror; while the brazen head of Hippocrates
frowned, and said,--"Forbear!"

Such was Dr. Heidegger's study. On the summer afternoon of our
tale a small round table, as black as ebony, stood in the centre
of the room, sustaining a cut-glass vase of beautiful form and
elaborate workmanship. The sunshine came through the window,
between the heavy festoons of two faded damask curtains, and fell
directly across this vase; so that a mild splendor was reflected
from it on the ashen visages of the five old people who sat
around. Four champagne glasses were also on the table.

"My dear old friends," repeated Dr. Heidegger, "may I reckon on
your aid in performing an exceedingly curious experiment?"

Now Dr. Heidegger was a very strange old gentleman, whose
eccentricity had become the nucleus for a thousand fantastic
stories. Some of these fables, to my shame be it spoken, might
possibly be traced back to my own veracious self; and if any
passages of the present tale should startle the reader's faith, I
must be content to bear the stigma of a fiction monger.

When the doctor's four guests heard him talk of his proposed
experiment, they anticipated nothing more wonderful than the
murder of a mouse in an air pump, or the examination of a cobweb
by the microscope, or some similar nonsense, with which he was
constantly in the habit of pestering his intimates. But without
waiting for a reply, Dr. Heidegger hobbled across the chamber,
and returned with the same ponderous folio, bound in black
leather, which common report affirmed to be a book of magic.
Undoing the silver clasps, he opened the volume, and took from
among its black-letter pages a rose, or what was once a rose,
though now the green leaves and crimson petals had assumed one
brownish hue, and the ancient flower seemed ready to crumble to
dust in the doctor's hands.

"This rose," said Dr. Heidegger, with a sigh, "this same withered
and crumbling flower, blossomed five and fifty years ago. It was
given me by Sylvia Ward, whose portrait hangs yonder; and I meant
to wear it in my bosom at our wedding. Five and fifty years it
has been treasured between the leaves of this old volume. Now,
would you deem it possible that this rose of half a century could
ever bloom again?"

"Nonsense!" said the Widow Wycherly, with a peevish toss of her
head. "You might as well ask whether an old woman's wrinkled face
could ever bloom again."

"See!" answered Dr. Heidegger.

He uncovered the vase, and threw the faded rose into the water
which it contained. At first, it lay lightly on the surface of
the fluid, appearing to imbibe none of its moisture. Soon,
however, a singular change began to be visible. The crushed and
dried petals stirred, and assumed a deepening tinge of crimson,
as if the flower were reviving from a deathlike slumber; the
slender stalk and twigs of foliage became green; and there was
the rose of half a century, looking as fresh as when Sylvia Ward
had first given it to her lover. It was scarcely full blown; for
some of its delicate red leaves curled modestly around its moist
bosom, within which two or three dewdrops were sparkling.

"That is certainly a very pretty deception," said the doctor's
friends; carelessly, however, for they had witnessed greater
miracles at a conjurer's show; "pray how was it effected?"

"Did you never hear of the 'Fountain of Youth?'" asked Dr.
Heidegger, "which Ponce De Leon, the Spanish adventurer, went in
search of two or three centuries ago?"

"But did Ponce De Leon ever find it?" said the Widow Wycherly.

"No," answered Dr. Heidegger, "for he never sought it in the
right place. The famous Fountain of Youth, if I am rightly
informed, is situated in the southern part of the Floridian
peninsula, not far from Lake Macaco. Its source is overshadowed
by several gigantic magnolias, which, though numberless centuries
old, have been kept as fresh as violets by the virtues of this
wonderful water. An acquaintance of mine, knowing my curiosity in
such matters, has sent me what you see in the vase."

"Ahem!" said Colonel Killigrew, who believed not a word of the
doctor's story; "and what may be the effect of this fluid on the
human frame?"

"You shall judge for yourself, my dear colonel," replied Dr.
Heidegger; "and all of you, my respected friends, are welcome to
so much of this admirable fluid as may restore to you the bloom
of youth. For my own part, having had much trouble in growing
old, I am in no hurry to grow young again. With your permission,
therefore, I will merely watch the progress of the experiment."

While he spoke, Dr. Heidegger had been filling the four champagne
glasses with the water of the Fountain of Youth. It was
apparently impregnated with an effervescent gas, for little
bubbles were continually ascending from the depths of the
glasses, and bursting in silvery spray at the surface. As the
liquor diffused a pleasant perfume, the old people doubted not
that it possessed cordial and comfortable properties; and though
utter sceptics as to its rejuvenescent power, they were inclined
to swallow it at once. But Dr. Heidegger besought them to stay a
moment.

"Before you drink, my respectable old friends," said he, "it
would be well that, with the experience of a lifetime to direct
you, you should draw up a few general rules for your guidance, in
passing a second time through the perils of youth. Think what a
sin and shame it would be, if, with your peculiar advantages, you
should not become patterns of virtue and wisdom to all the young
people of the age!"

The doctor's four venerable friends made him no answer, except by
a feeble and tremulous laugh; so very ridiculous was the idea
that, knowing how closely repentance treads behind the steps of
error, they should ever go astray again.

"Drink, then," said the doctor, bowing: "I rejoice that I have so
well selected the subjects of my experiment."

With palsied hands, they raised the glasses to their lips. The
liquor, if it really possessed such virtues as Dr. Heidegger
imputed to it, could not have been bestowed on four human beings
who needed it more wofully. They looked as if they had never
known what youth or pleasure was, but had been the offspring of
Nature's dotage, and always the gray, decrepit, sapless,
miserable creatures, who now sat stooping round the doctor's
table, without life enough in their souls or bodies to be
animated even by the prospect of growing young again. They drank
off the water, and replaced their glasses on the table.

Assuredly there was an almost immediate improvement in the aspect
of the party, not unlike what might have been produced by a glass
of generous wine, together with a sudden glow of cheerful
sunshine brightening over all their visages at once. There was a
healthful suffusion on their cheeks, instead of the ashen hue
that had made them look so corpse-like. They gazed at one
another, and fancied that some magic power had really begun to
smooth away the deep and sad inscriptions which Father Time had
been so long engraving on their brows. The Widow Wycherly
adjusted her cap, for she felt almost like a woman again.

"Give us more of this wondrous water!" cried they, eagerly. "We
are younger--but we are still too old! Quick--give us more!"

"Patience, patience!" quoth Dr. Heidegger, who sat watching the
experiment with philosophic coolness. "You have been a long time
growing old. Surely, you might be content to grow young in half
an hour! But the water is at your service."

Again he filled their glasses with the liquor of youth, enough of
which still remained in the vase to turn half the old people in
the city to the age of their own grandchildren. While the bubbles
were yet sparkling on the brim, the doctor's four guests snatched
their glasses from the table, and swallowed the contents at a
single gulp. Was it delusion? even while the draught was passing
down their throats, it seemed to have wrought a change on their
whole systems. Their eyes grew clear and bright; a dark shade
deepened among their silvery locks, they sat around the table,
three gentlemen of middle age, and a woman, hardly beyond her
buxom prime.

"My dear widow, you are charming!" cried Colonel Killigrew, whose
eyes had been fixed upon her face, while the shadows of age were
flitting from it like darkness from the crimson daybreak.

The fair widow knew, of old, that Colonel Killigrew's compliments
were not always measured by sober truth; so she started up and
ran to the mirror, still dreading that the ugly visage of an old
woman would meet her gaze. Meanwhile, the three gentlemen behaved
in such a manner as proved that the water of the Fountain of
Youth possessed some intoxicating qualities; unless, indeed,
their exhilaration of spirits were merely a lightsome dizziness
caused by the sudden removal of the weight of years. Mr.
Gascoigne's mind seemed to run on political topics, but whether
relating to the past, present, or future, could not easily be
determined, since the same ideas and phrases have been in vogue
these fifty years. Now he rattled forth full-throated sentences
about patriotism, national glory, and the people's right; now he
muttered some perilous stuff or other, in a sly and doubtful
whisper, so cautiously that even his own conscience could
scarcely catch the secret; and now, again, he spoke in measured
accents, and a deeply deferential tone, as if a royal ear were
listening to his wellturned periods. Colonel Killigrew all this
time had been trolling forth a jolly bottle song, and ringing his
glass in symphony with the chorus, while his eyes wandered toward
the buxom figure of the Widow Wycherly. On the other side of the
table, Mr. Medbourne was involved in a calculation of dollars and
cents, with which was strangely intermingled a project for
supplying the East Indies with ice, by harnessing a team of
whales to the polar icebergs.

As for the Widow Wycherly, she stood before the mirror
courtesying and simpering to her own image, and greeting it as
the friend whom she loved better than all the world beside. She
thrust her face close to the glass, to see whether some
long-remembered wrinkle or crow's foot had indeed vanished. She
examined whether the snow had so entirely melted from her hair
that the venerable cap could be safely thrown aside. At last,
turning briskly away, she came with a sort of dancing step to the
table.

"My dear old doctor," cried she, "pray favor me with another
glass!"

"Certainly, my dear madam, certainly!" replied the complaisant
doctor; "see! I have already filled the glasses."

There, in fact, stood the four glasses, brimful of this wonderful
water, the delicate spray of which, as it effervesced from the
surface, resembled the tremulous glitter of diamonds. It was now
so nearly sunset that the chamber had grown duskier than ever;
but a mild and moonlike splendor gleamed from within the vase,
and rested alike on the four guests and on the doctor's venerable
figure. He sat in a high-backed, elaborately-carved, oaken
arm-chair, with a gray dignity of aspect that might have well
befitted that very Father Time, whose power had never been
disputed, save by this fortunate company. Even while quaffing the
third draught of the Fountain of Youth, they were almost awed by
the expression of his mysterious visage.

But, the next moment, the exhilarating gush of young life shot
through their veins. They were now in the happy prime of youth.
Age, with its miserable train of cares and sorrows and diseases,
was remembered only as the trouble of a dream, from which they
had joyously awoke. The fresh gloss of the soul, so early lost,
and without which the world's successive scenes had been but a
gallery of faded pictures, again threw its enchantment over all
their prospects. They felt like new-created beings in a
new-created universe.

"We are young! We are young!" they cried exultingly.

Youth, like the extremity of age, had effaced the strongly-marked
characteristics of middle life, and mutually assimilated them
all. They were a group of merry youngsters, almost maddened with
the exuberant frolicsomeness of their years. The most singular
effect of their gayety was an impulse to mock the infirmity and
decrepitude of which they had so lately been the victims. They
laughed loudly at their old-fashioned attire, the wide-skirted
coats and flapped waistcoats of the young men, and the ancient
cap and gown of the blooming girl. One limped across the floor
like a gouty grandfather; one set a pair of spectacles astride of
his nose, and pretended to pore over the black-letter pages of
the book of magic; a third seated himself in an arm-chair, and
strove to imitate the venerable dignity of Dr. Heidegger. Then
all shouted mirthfully, and leaped about the room. The Widow
Wycherly--if so fresh a damsel could be called a widow--tripped
up to the doctor's chair, with a mischievous merriment in her
rosy face.

"Doctor, you dear old soul," cried she, "get up and dance with
me!" And then the four young people laughed louder than ever, to
think what a queer figure the poor old doctor would cut.

"Pray excuse me," answered the doctor quietly. "I am old and
rheumatic, and my dancing days were over long ago. But either of
these gay young gentlemen will be glad of so pretty a partner."

"Dance with me, Clara!" cried Colonel Killigrew

"No, no, I will be her partner!" shouted Mr. Gascoigne.

"She promised me her hand, fifty years ago!" exclaimed Mr.
Medbourne.

They all gathered round her. One caught both her hands in his
passionate grasp another threw his arm about her waist--the third
buried his hand among the glossy curls that clustered beneath the
widow's cap. Blushing, panting, struggling, chiding, laughing,
her warm breath fanning each of their faces by turns, she strove
to disengage herself, yet still remained in their triple embrace.
Never was there a livelier picture of youthful rivalship, with
bewitching beauty for the prize. Yet, by a strange deception,
owing to the duskiness of the chamber, and the antique dresses
which they still wore, the tall mirror is said to have reflected
the figures of the three old, gray, withered grandsires,
ridiculously contending for the skinny ugliness of a shrivelled
grandam.

But they were young: their burning passions proved them so.
Inflamed to madness by the coquetry of the girl-widow, who
neither granted nor quite withheld her favors, the three rivals
began to interchange threatening glances. Still keeping hold of
the fair prize, they grappled fiercely at one another's throats.
As they struggled to and fro, the table was overturned, and the
vase dashed into a thousand fragments. The precious Water of
Youth flowed in a bright stream across the floor, moistening the
wings of a butterfly, which, grown old in the decline of summer,
had alighted there to die. The insect fluttered lightly through
the chamber, and settled on the snowy head of Dr. Heidegger.

"Come, come, gentlemen!--come, Madam Wycherly," exclaimed the
doctor, "I really must protest against this riot."

They stood still and shivered; for it seemed as if gray Time were
calling them back from their sunny youth, far down into the chill
and darksome vale of years. They looked at old Dr. Heidegger, who
sat in his carved arm-chair, holding the rose of half a century,
which he had rescued from among the fragments of the shattered
vase. At the motion of his hand, the four rioters resumed their
seats; the more readily, because their violent exertions had
wearied them, youthful though they were.

"My poor Sylvia's rose!" ejaculated Dr. Heidegger, holding it in
the light of the sunset clouds; "it appears to be fading again."

And so it was. Even while the party were looking at it, the
flower continued to shrivel up, till it became as dry and fragile
as when the doctor had first thrown it into the vase. He shook
off the few drops of moisture which clung to its petals.

"I love it as well thus as in its dewy freshness," observed he,
pressing the withered rose to his withered lips. While he spoke,
the butterfly fluttered down from the doctor's snowy head, and
fell upon the floor.

His guests shivered again. A strange chillness, whether of the
body or spirit they could not tell, was creeping gradually over
them all. They gazed at one another, and fancied that each
fleeting moment snatched away a charm, and left a deepening
furrow where none had been before. Was it an illusion? Had the
changes of a lifetime been crowded into so brief a space, and
were they now four aged people, sitting with their old friend,
Dr. Heidegger?

"Are we grown old again, so soon?" cried they, dolefully.

In truth they had. The Water of Youth possessed merely a virtue
more transient than that of wine. The delirium which it created
had effervesced away. Yes! they were old again. With a shuddering
impulse, that showed her a woman still, the widow clasped her
skinny hands before her face, and wished that the coffin lid were
over it, since it could be no longer beautiful.

"Yes, friends, ye are old again," said Dr. Heidegger, "and lo!
the Water of Youth is all lavished on the ground. Well--I bemoan
it not; for if the fountain gushed at my very doorstep, I would
not stoop to bathe my lips in it--no, though its delirium were
for years instead of moments. Such is the lesson ye have taught
me!"

But the doctor's four friends had taught no such lesson to
themselves. They resolved forthwith to make a pilgrimage to
Florida, and quaff at morning, noon, and night, from the Fountain
of Youth.




LEGENDS OF THE PROVINCE HOUSE

I

HOWE'S MASQUERADE

One afternoon, last summer, while walking along Washington
Street, my eye was attracted by a signboard protruding over a
narrow archway, nearly opposite the Old South Church. The sign
represented the front of a stately edifice, which was designated
as the "OLD PROVINCE HOUSE, kept by Thomas Waite." I was glad to
be thus reminded of a purpose, long entertained, of visiting and
rambling over the mansion of the old royal governors of
Massachusetts; and entering the arched passage, which penetrated
through the middle of a brick row of shops, a few steps
transported me from the busy heart of modern Boston into a small
and secluded courtyard. One side of this space was occupied by
the square front of the Province House, three stories high, and
surmounted by a cupola, on the top of which a gilded Indian was
discernible, with his bow bent and his arrow on the string, as if
aiming at the weathercock on the spire of the Old South. The
figure has kept this attitude for seventy years or more, ever
since good Deacon Drowne, a cunning carver of wood, first
stationed him on his long sentinel's watch over the city.

The Province House is constructed of brick, which seems recently
to have been overlaid with a coat of light-colored paint. A
flight of red freestone steps, fenced in by a balustrade of
curiously wrought iron, ascends from the court-yard to the
spacious porch, over which is a balcony, with an iron balustrade
of similar pattern and workmanship to that beneath. These letters
and figures--16 P.S. 79--are wrought into the iron work of the
balcony, and probably express the date of the edifice, with the
initials of its founder's name. A wide door with double leaves
admitted me into the hall or entry, on the right of which is the
entrance to the bar-room.

It was in this apartment, I presume, that the ancient governors
held their levees, with vice-regal pomp, surrounded by the
military men, the councillors, the judges, and other officers of
the crown, while all the loyalty of the province thronged to do
them honor. But the room, in its present condition, cannot boast
even of faded magnificence. The panelled wainscot is covered with
dingy paint, and acquires a duskier hue from the deep shadow into
which the Province House is thrown by the brick block that shuts
it in from Washington Street. A ray of sunshine never visits this
apartment any more than the glare of the festal torches, which
have been extinguished from the era of the Revolution. The most
venerable and ornamental object is a chimney-piece set round with
Dutch tiles of blue-figured China, representing scenes from
Scripture; and, for aught I know, the lady of Pownall or Bernard
may have sat beside this fireplace, and told her children the
story of each blue tile. A bar in modern style, well replenished
with decanters, bottles, cigar boxes, and net-work bags of
lemons, and provided with a beer pump, and a soda fount, extends
along one side of the room. At my entrance, an elderly person was
smacking his lips with a zest which satisfied me that the cellars
of the Province House still hold good liquor, though doubtless of
other vintages than were quaffed by the old governors. After
sipping a glass of port sangaree, prepared by the skilful hands
of Mr. Thomas Waite, I besought that worthy successor and
representative of so many historic personages to conduct me over
their time honored mansion.

He readily complied; but, to confess the truth, I was forced to
draw strenuously upon my imagination, in order to find aught that
was interesting in a house which, without its historic
associations, would have seemed merely such a tavern as is
usually favored by the custom of decent city boarders, and
old-fashioned country gentlemen. The chambers, which were
probably spacious in former times, are now cut up by partitions,
and subdivided into little nooks, each affording scanty room for
the narrow bed and chair and dressing-table of a single lodger.
The great staircase, however, may be termed, without much
hyperbole, a feature of grandeur and magnificence. It winds
through the midst of the house by flights of broad steps, each
flight terminating in a square landing-place, whence the ascent
is continued towards the cupola. A carved balustrade, freshly
painted in the lower stories, but growing dingier as we ascend,
borders the staircase with its quaintly twisted and intertwined
pillars, from top to bottom. Up these stairs the military boots,
or perchance the gouty shoes, of many a governor have trodden, as
the wearers mounted to the cupola, which afforded them so wide a
view over their metropolis and the surrounding country. The
cupola is an octagon, with several windows, and a door opening
upon the roof. From this station, as I pleased myself with
imagining, Gage may have beheld his disastrous victory on Bunker
Hill (unless one of the tri-mountains intervened), and Howe have
marked the approaches of Washington's besieging army; although
the buildings since erected in the vicinity have shut out almost
every object, save the steeple of the Old South, which seems
almost within arm's length. Descending from the cupola, I paused
in the garret to observe the ponderous white-oak framework, so
much more massive than the frames of modern houses, and thereby
resembling an antique skeleton. The brick walls, the materials of
which were imported from Holland, and the timbers of the mansion,
are still as sound as ever; but the floors and other interior
parts being greatly decayed, it is contemplated to gut the whole,
and build a new house within the ancient frame and brick work.
Among other inconveniences of the present edifice, mine host
mentioned that any jar or motion was apt to shake down the dust
of ages out of the ceiling of one chamber upon the floor of that
beneath it.

We stepped forth from the great front window into the balcony,
where, in old times, it was doubtless the custom of the king's
representative to Show himself to a loyal populace, requiting
their huzzas and tossed-up hats with stately bendings of his
dignified person. In those days the front of the Province House
looked upon the street; and the whole site now occupied by the
brick range of stores, as well as the present court-yard, was
laid out in grass plats, overshadowed by trees and bordered by a
wrought-iron fence. Now, the old aristocratic edifice hides its
time-worn visage behind an upstart modern building; at one of the
back windows I observed some pretty tailoresses, sewing and
chatting and laughing, with now and then a careless glance
towards the balcony. Descending thence, we again entered the
bar-room, where the elderly gentleman above mentioned, the smack
of whose lips had spoken so favorably for Mr. Waite's good
liquor, was still lounging in his chair. He seemed to be, if not
a lodger, at least a familiar visitor of the house, who might be
supposed to have his regular score at the bar, his summer seat at
the open window, and his prescriptive corner at the winter's
fireside. Being of a sociable aspect, I ventured to address him
with a remark calculated to draw forth his historical
reminiscences, if any such were in his mind; and it gratified me
to discover, that, between memory and tradition, the old
gentleman was really possessed of some very pleasant gossip about
the Province House. The portion of his talk which chiefly
interested me was the outline of the following legend. He
professed to have received it at one or two removes from an
eye-witness; but this derivation, together with the lapse of
time, must have afforded opportunities for many variations of the
narrative; so that despairing of literal and absolute truth, I
have not scrupled to make such further changes as seemed
conducive to the reader's profit and delight.

At one of the entertainments given at the Province
House, during the latter part of the siege of Boston, there
passed a scene which has never yet been satisfactorily explained.
The officers of the British army, and the loyal gentry of the
province, most of whom were collected within the beleaguered
town, had been invited to a masked ball; for it was the policy of
Sir William Howe to hide the distress and danger of the period,
and the desperate aspect of the siege, under an ostentation of
festivity. The spectacle of this evening, if the oldest members
of the provincial court circle might be believed, was the most
gay and gorgeous affair that had occurred in the annals of the
government. The brilliantly-lighted apartments were thronged with
figures that seemed to have stepped from the dark canvas of
historic portraits, or to have flitted forth from the magic pages
of romance, or at least to have flown hither from one of the
London theatres, without a change of garments. Steeled knights of
the Conquest, bearded statesmen of Queen Elizabeth, and
high-ruffled ladies of her court, were mingled with characters of
comedy, such as a party-colored Merry Andrew, jingling his cap
and bells; a Falstaff, almost as provocative of laughter as his
prototype; and a Don Quixote, with a bean pole for a lance, and a
pot lid for a shield.

But the broadest merriment was excited by a group of figures
ridiculously dressed in old regimentals, which seemed to have
been purchased at a military rag fair, or pilfered from some
receptacle of the cast-off clothes of both the French and British
armies. Portions of their attire had probably been worn at the
siege of Louisburg, and the coats of most recent cut might have
been rent and tattered by sword, ball, or bayonet, as long ago as
Wolfe's victory. One of these worthies--a tall, lank figure,
brandishing a rusty sword of immense longitude--purported to be
no less a personage than General George Washington; and the other
principal officers of the American army, such as Gates, Lee,
Putnam, Schuyler, Ward and Heath, were represented by similar
scarecrows. An interview in the mock heroic style, between the
rebel warriors and the British commander-in-chief, was received
with immense applause, which came loudest of all from the
loyalists of the colony. There was one of the guests, however,
who stood apart, eyeing these antics sternly and scornfully, at
once with a frown and a bitter smile.

It was an old man, formerly of high station and great repute in
the province, and who had been a very famous soldier in his day.
Some surprise had been expressed that a person of Colonel
Joliffe's known Whig principles, though now too old to take an
active part in the contest, should have remained in Boston during
the siege, and especially that he should consent to show himself
in the mansion of Sir William Howe. But thither he had come, with
a fair granddaughter under his arm; and there, amid all the mirth
and buffoonery, stood this stern old figure, the best sustained
character in the masquerade, because so well representing the
antique spirit of his native land. The other guests affirmed that
Colonel Joliffe's black puritanical scowl threw a shadow round
about him; although in spite of his sombre influence their gayety
continued to blaze higher, like--(an ominous comparison)--the
flickering brilliancy of a lamp which has but a little while to
burn. Eleven strokes, full half an hour ago, had pealed from the
clock of the Old South, when a rumor was circulated among the
company that some new spectacle or pageant was about to be
exhibited, which should put a fitting close to the splendid
festivities of the night.

"What new jest has your Excellency in hand?" asked the Rev.
Mather Byles, whose Presbyterian scruples had not kept him from
the entertainment. "Trust me, sir, I have already laughed more
than beseems my cloth at your Homeric confabulation with yonder
ragamuffin General of the rebels. One other such fit of
merriment, and I must throw off my clerical wig and band."

"Not so, good Doctor Byles," answered Sir William Howe; "if mirth
were a crime, you had never gained your doctorate in divinity. As
to this new foolery, I know no more about it than yourself;
perhaps not so much. Honestly now, Doctor, have you not stirred
up the sober brains of some of your countrymen to enact a scene
in our masquerade?"

"Perhaps," slyly remarked the granddaughter of Colonel Joliffe,
whose high spirit had been stung by many taunts against New
England,--"perhaps we are to have a mask of allegorical figures.
Victory, with trophies from Lexington and Bunker Hill--Plenty,
with her overflowing horn, to typify the present abundance in
this good town--and Glory, with a wreath for his Excellency's
brow."

Sir William Howe smiled at words which he would have answered
with one of his darkest frowns had they been uttered by lips that
wore a beard. He was spared the necessity of a retort, by a
singular interruption. A sound of music was heard without the
house, as if proceeding from a full band of military instruments
stationed in the street, playing not such a festal strain as was
suited to the occasion, but a slow funeral march. The drums
appeared to be muffled, and the trumpets poured forth a wailing
breath, which at once hushed the merriment of the auditors,
filling all with wonder, and some with apprehension. The idea
occurred to many that either the funeral procession of some great
personage had halted in front of the Province House, or that a
corpse, in a velvet-covered and gorgeously-decorated coffin, was
about to be borne from the portal. After listening a moment, Sir
William Howe called, in a stern voice, to the leader of the
musicians, who had hitherto enlivened the entertainment with gay
and lightsome melodies. The man was drum-major to one of the
British regiments.

"Dighton," demanded the general, "what means this foolery? Bid
your band silence that dead march--or, by my word, they shall
have sufficient cause for their lugubrious strains! Silence it,
sirrah!"

"Please your honor," answered the drum-major, whose rubicund
visage had lost all its color, "the fault is none of mine. I and
my band are all here together, and I question whether there be a
man of us that could play that march without book. I never heard
it but once before, and that was at the funeral of his late
Majesty, King George the Second."

"Well, well!" said Sir William Howe, recovering his
composure--"it is the prelude to some masquerading antic. Let it
pass."

A figure now presented itself, but among the many fantastic masks
that were dispersed through the apartments none could tell
precisely from whence it came. It was a man in an old-fashioned
dress of black serge and having the aspect of a steward or
principal domestic in the household of a nobleman or great
English landholder. This figure advanced to the outer door of the
mansion, and throwing both its leaves wide open, withdrew a
little to one side and looked back towards the grand staircase as
if expecting some person to descend. At the same time the music
in the street sounded a loud and doleful summons. The eyes of Sir
William Howe and his guests being directed to the staircase,
there appeared, on the uppermost landing-place that was
discernible from the bottom, several personages descending
towards the door. The foremost was a man of stern visage, wearing
a steeple-crowned hat and a skull-cap beneath it; a dark cloak,
and huge wrinkled boots that came half-way up his legs. Under his
arm was a rolled-up banner, which seemed to be the banner of
England, but strangely rent and torn; he had a sword in his right
hand, and grasped a Bible in his left. The next figure was of
milder aspect, yet full of dignity, wearing a broad ruff, over
which descended a beard, a gown of wrought velvet, and a doublet
and hose of black satin. He carried a roll of manuscript in his
hand. Close behind these two came a young man of very striking
countenance and demeanor, with deep thought and contemplation on
his brow, and perhaps a flash of enthusiasm in his eye. His
garb, like that of his predecessors, was of an antique fashion,
and there was a stain of blood upon his ruff. In the same group
with these were three or four others, all men of dignity and
evident command, and bearing themselves like personages who were
accustomed to the gaze of the multitude. It was the idea of the
beholders that these figures went to join the mysterious funeral
that had halted in front of the Province House; yet that
supposition seemed to be contradicted by the air of triumph with
which they waved their hands, as they crossed the threshold and
vanished through the portal.

"In the devil's name what is this?" muttered Sir William Howe to
a gentleman beside him; "a procession of the regicide judges of
King Charles the martyr?"

"These," said Colonel Joliffe, breaking silence almost for the
first time that evening,--"these, if I interpret them aright, are
the Puritan governors--the rulers of the old original Democracy
of Massachusetts. Endicott, with the banner from which he had
torn the symbol of subjection, and Winthrop, and Sir Henry Vane,
and Dudley, Haynes, Bellingham, and Leverett."

"Why had that young man a stain of blood upon his ruff?" asked
Miss Joliffe.

"Because, in after years," answered her grandfather, "he laid
down the wisest head in England upon the block for the principles
of liberty."

"Will not your Excellency order out the guard?" whispered Lord
Percy, who, with other British officers, had now assembled round
the General. "There may be a plot under this mummery."

"Tush! we have nothing to fear," carelessly replied Sir William
Howe. "There can be no worse treason in the matter than a jest,
and that somewhat of the dullest. Even were it a sharp and bitter
one, our best policy would be to laugh it off. See--here come
more of these gentry."

Another group of characters had now partly descended the
staircase. The first was a venerable and white-bearded patriarch,
who cautiously felt his way downward with a staff. Treading
hastily behind him, and stretching forth his gauntleted hand as
if to grasp the old man's shoulder, came a tall, soldier-like
figure, equipped with a plumed cap of steel, a bright
breastplate, and a long sword, which rattled against the stairs.
Next was seen a stout man, dressed in rich and courtly attire,
but not of courtly demeanor; his gait had the swinging motion of
a seaman's walk, and chancing to stumble on the staircase, he
suddenly grew wrathful, and was heard to mutter an oath. He was
followed by a noble-looking personage in a curled wig, such as
are represented in the portraits of Queen Anne's time and
earlier; and the breast of his coat was decorated with an
embroidered star. While advancing to the door, he bowed to the
right hand and to the left, in a very gracious and insinuating
style; but as he crossed the threshold, unlike the early Puritan
governors, he seemed to wring his hands with sorrow.

"Prithee, play the part of a chorus, good Doctor Byles," said Sir
William Howe. "What worthies are these?"

"If it please your Excellency they lived somewhat before my day,"
answered the doctor; "but doubtless our friend, the Colonel, has
been hand and glove with them."

"Their living faces I never looked upon," said Colonel Joliffe,
gravely; "although I have spoken face to face with many rulers of
this land, and shall greet yet another with an old man's blessing
ere I die. But we talk of these figures. I take the venerable
patriarch to be Bradstreet, the last of the Puritans, who was
governor at ninety, or thereabouts. The next is Sir Edmund
Andros, a tyrant, as any New England school-boy will tell you;
and therefore the people cast him down from his high seat into a
dungeon. Then comes Sir William Phipps, shepherd, cooper,
sea-captain, and governor--may many of his countrymen rise as
high from as low an origin! Lastly, you saw the gracious Earl of
Bellamont, who ruled us under King William."

"But what is the meaning of it all?" asked Lord Percy.

"Now, were I a rebel," said Miss Joliffe, half aloud, "I might
fancy that the ghosts of these ancient governors had been
summoned to form the funeral procession of royal authority in New
England."

Several other figures were now seen at the turn of the staircase.
The one in advance had a thoughtful, anxious, and somewhat crafty
expression of face, and in spite of his loftiness of manner,
which was evidently the result both of an ambitious spirit and of
long continuance in high stations, he seemed not incapable of
cringing to a greater than himself. A few steps behind came an
officer in a scarlet and embroidered uniform, cut in a fashion
old enough to have been worn by the Duke of Marlborough. His nose
had a rubicund tinge, which, together with the twinkle of his
eye, might have marked him as a lover of the wine cup and good
fellowship; notwithstanding which tokens he appeared ill at ease,
and often glanced around him as if apprehensive of some secret
mischief. Next came a portly gentleman, wearing a coat of shaggy
cloth, lined with silken velvet; he had sense, shrewdness, and
humor in his face, and a folio volume under his arm; but his
aspect was that of a man vexed and tormented beyond all patience,
and harassed almost to death. He went hastily down, and was
followed by a dignified person, dressed in a purple velvet suit
with very rich embroidery; his demeanor would have possessed much
stateliness, only that a grievous fit of the gout compelled him
to hobble from stair to stair, with contortions of face and body.
When Dr. Byles beheld this figure on the staircase, he shivered
as with an ague, but continued to watch him steadfastly, until
the gouty gentleman had reached the threshold, made a gesture of
anguish and despair, and vanished into the outer gloom, whither
the funeral music summoned him.

"Governor Belcher!--my old patron!--in his very shape and dress!"
gasped Doctor Byles. "This is an awful mockery!"

"A tedious foolery, rather," said Sir William Howe, with an air
of indifference. "But who were the three that preceded him?"

"Governor Dudley, a cunning politician--yet his craft once
brought him to a prison," replied Colonel Joliffe. "Governor
Shute, formerly a Colonel under Marlborough, and whom the people
frightened out of the province; and learned Governor Burnet, whom
the legislature tormented into a mortal fever."

"Methinks they were miserable men, these royal governors of
Massachusetts," observed Miss Joliffe. "Heavens, how dim the
light grows!"

It was certainly a fact that the large lamp which illuminated the
staircase now burned dim and duskily: so that several figures,
which passed hastily down the stairs and went forth from the
porch, appeared rather like shadows than persons of fleshly
substance. Sir William Howe and his guests stood at the doors of
the contiguous apartments, watching the progress of this singular
pageant, with various emotions of anger, contempt, or
half-acknowledged fear, but still with an anxious curiosity. The
shapes which now seemed hastening to join the mysterious
procession were recognized rather by striking peculiarities of
dress, or broad characteristics of manner, than by any
perceptible resemblance of features to their prototypes. Their
faces, indeed, were invariably kept in deep shadow. But Doctor
Byles, and other gentlemen who had long been familiar with the
successive rulers of the province, were heard to whisper the
names of Shirley, of Pownall, of Sir Francis Bernard, and of the
well-remembered Hutchinson; thereby confessing that the actors,
whoever they might be, in this spectral march of governors, had
succeeded in putting on some distant portraiture of the real
personages. As they vanished from the door, still did these
shadows toss their arms into the gloom of night, with a dread
expression of woe. Following the mimic representative of
Hutchinson came a military figure, holding before his face the
cocked hat which he had taken from his powdered head; but his
epaulettes and other insignia of rank were those of a general
officer, and something in his mien reminded the beholders of one
who had recently been master of the Province House, and chief of
all the land.

"The shape of Gage, as true as in a looking-glass," exclaimed
Lord Percy, turning pale.

"No, surely," cried Miss Joliffe, laughing hysterically; "it
could not be Gage, or Sir William would have greeted his old
comrade in arms! Perhaps he will not suffer the next to pass
unchallenged."

"Of that be assured, young lady," answered Sir William Howe,
fixing his eyes, with a very marked expression, upon the
immovable visage of her grandfather. "I have long enough delayed
to pay the ceremonies of a host to these departing guests. The
next that takes his leave shall receive due courtesy."

A wild and dreary burst of music came through the open door. It
seemed as if the procession, which had been gradually filling up
its ranks, were now about to move, and that this loud peal of the
wailing trumpets, and roll of the muffled drums, were a call to
some loiterer to make haste. Many eyes, by an irresistible
impulse, were turned upon Sir William Howe, as if it were he whom
the dreary music summoned to the funeral or departed power.

"See!--here comes the last!" whispered Miss Joliffe, pointing her
tremulous finger to the staircase.

A figure had come into view as if descending the stairs; although
so dusky was the region whence it emerged, some of the spectators
fancied that they had seen this human shape suddenly moulding
itself amid the gloom. Downward the figure came, with a stately
and martial tread, and reaching the lowest stair was observed to
be a tall man, booted and wrapped in a military cloak, which was
drawn up around the face so as to meet the flapped brim of a
laced hat. The features, therefore, were completely hidden. But
the British officers deemed that they had seen that military
cloak before, and even recognized the frayed embroidery on the
collar, as well as the gilded scabbard of a sword which protruded
from the folds of the cloak, and glittered in a vivid gleam of
light. Apart from these trifling particulars, there were
characteristics of gait and bearing which impelled the wondering
guests to glance from the shrouded figure to Sir William Howe, as
if to satisfy themselves that their host had not suddenly
vanished from the midst of them.

With a dark flush of wrath upon his brow they saw the General
draw his sword and advance to meet the figure in the cloak before
the latter had stepped one pace upon the floor.

"Villain, unmuffle yourself!" cried he. "You pass no farther!"

The figure, without blenching a hair's breadth from the sword
which was pointed at his breast, made a solemn pause and lowered
the cape of the cloak from about his face, yet not sufficiently
for the spectators to catch a glimpse of it. But Sir William Howe
had evidently seen enough. The sternness of his countenance gave
place to a look of wild amazement, if not horror, while he
recoiled several steps from the figure and let fall his sword
upon the floor. The martial shape again drew the cloak about his,
features and passed on; but reaching the threshold, with his back
towards the spectators, he was seen to stamp his foot and shake
his clinched hands in the air. It was afterwards affirmed that
Sir William Howe had repeated that selfsame gesture of rage and
sorrow, when, for the last time, and as the last royal governor,
he passed through the portal of the Province House.

"Hark!--the procession moves," said Miss Joliffe.

The music was dying away along the street, and its dismal strains
were mingled with the knell of midnight from the steeple of the
Old South, and with the roar of artillery, which announced that
the beleaguering army of Washington had intrenched itself upon a
nearer height than before. As the deep boom of the cannon smote
upon his ear, Colonel Joliffe raised himself to the full height
of his aged form, and smiled sternly on the British General.

"Would your Excellency inquire further into the mystery of the
pageant?" said he.

"Take care of your gray head!" cried Sir William Howe, fiercely,
though with a quivering lip. "It has stood too long on a
traitor's shoulders!"

"You must make haste to chop it off, then," calmly replied the
Colonel; "for a few hours longer, and not all the power of Sir
William Howe, nor of his master, shall cause one of these gray
hairs to fall. The empire of Britain in this ancient province is
at its last gasp to-night;--almost while I speak it is a dead
corpse;--and methinks the shadows of the old governors are fit
mourners at its funeral!"

With these words Colonel Joliffe threw on his cloak, and drawing
his granddaughter's arm within his own, retired from the last
festival that a British ruler ever held in the old province of
Massachusetts Bay. It was supposed that the Colonel and the young
lady possessed some secret intelligence in regard to the
mysterious pageant of that night. However this might be, such
knowledge has never become general. The actors in the scene have
vanished into deeper obscurity than even that wild Indian band
who scattered the cargoes of the tea ships on the waves, and
gained a place in history, yet left no names. But superstition,
among other legends of this mansion, repeats the wondrous tale,
that on the anniversary night of Britain's discomfiture the
ghosts of the ancient governors of Massachusetts still glide
through the portal of the Province House. And, last of all, comes
a figure shrouded in a military cloak, tossing his clinched hands
into the air, and stamping his iron-shod boots upon the broad
freestone steps, with a semblance of feverish despair, but
without the sound of a foot-tramp.


When the truth-telling accents of the elderly
gentleman were hushed, I drew a long breath and looked round the
room, striving, with the best energy of my imagination, to throw
a tinge of romance and historic grandeur over the realities of
the scene. But my nostrils snuffed up a scent of cigar smoke,
clouds of which the narrator had emitted by way of visible
emblem, I suppose, of the nebulous obscurity of his tale.
Moreover, my gorgeous fantasies were wofully disturbed by the
rattling of the spoon in a tumbler of whiskey punch, which Mr.
Thomas Waite was mingling for a customer. Nor did it add to the
picturesque appearance of the panelled walls that the slate of
the Brookline stage was suspended against them, instead of the
armorial escutcheon of some far-descended governor. A
stage-driver sat at one of the windows, reading a penny paper of
the day--the Boston Times--and presenting a figure which could
nowise be brought into any picture of "Times in Boston" seventy
or a hundred years ago. On the window seat lay a bundle, neatly
done up in brown paper, the direction of which I had the idle
curiosity to read. "MISS SUSAN HUGGINS, at the PROVINCE HOUSE." A
pretty chambermaid, no doubt. In truth, it is desperately hard
work, when we attempt to throw the spell of hoar antiquity over
localities with which the living world, and the day that is
passing over us, have aught to do. Yet, as I glanced at the
stately staircase down which the procession of the old governors
had descended, and as I emerged through the venerable portal
whence their figures had preceded me, it gladdened me to be
conscious of a thrill of awe. Then, diving through the narrow
archway, a few strides transported me into the densest throng of
Washington Street.




LEGENDS OF THE PROVINCE HOUSE

II

EDWARD RANDOLPH'S PORTRAIT

The old legendary guest of the Province House abode in my
remembrance from midsummer till January. One idle evening last
winter, confident that he would be found in the snuggest corner
of the bar-room, I resolved to pay him another visit, hoping to
deserve well of my country by snatching from oblivion some else
unheard-of fact of history. The night was chill and raw, and
rendered boisterous by almost a gale of wind, which whistled
along Washington Street, causing the gas-lights to flare and
flicker within the lamps. As I hurried onward, my fancy was busy
with a comparison between the present aspect of the street and
that which it probably wore when the British governors inhabited
the mansion whither I was now going. Brick edifices in those
times were few, till a succession of destructive fires had swept,
and swept again, the wooden dwellings and warehouses from the
most populous quarters of the town. The buildings stood insulated
and independent, not, as now, merging their separate existences
into connected ranges, with a front of tiresome identity,--but
each possessing features of its own, as if the owner's individual
taste had shaped it,--and the whole presenting a picturesque
irregularity, the absence of which is hardly compensated by any
beauties of our modern architecture. Such a scene, dimly
vanishing from the eye by the ray of here and there a tallow
candle, glimmering through the small panes of scattered windows,
would form a sombre contrast to the street as I beheld it, with
the gas-lights blazing from corner to corner, flaming within the
shops, and throwing a noonday brightness through the huge plates
of glass.

But the black, lowering sky, as I turned my eyes upward, wore,
doubtless, the same visage as when it frowned upon the
ante-revolutionary New Englanders. The wintry blast had the same
shriek that was familiar to their ears. The Old South Church,
too, still pointed its antique spire into the darkness, and was
lost between earth and heaven; and as I passed, its clock, which
had warned so many generations how transitory was their lifetime,
spoke heavily and slow the same unregarded moral to myself. "Only
seven o'clock," thought I. "My old friend's legends will scarcely
kill the hours 'twixt this and bedtime."

Passing through the narrow arch, I crossed the court-yard, the
confined precincts of which were made visible by a lantern over
the portal of the Province House. On entering the bar-room, I
found, as I expected, the old tradition monger seated by a
special good fire of anthracite, compelling clouds of smoke from
a corpulent cigar. He recognized me with evident pleasure; for my
rare properties as a patient listener invariably make me a
favorite with elderly gentlemen and ladies of narrative
propensities. Drawing a chair to the fire, I desired mine host to
favor us with a glass apiece of whiskey punch, which was speedily
prepared, steaming hot, with a slice of lemon at the bottom, a
dark-red stratum of port wine upon the surface, and a sprinkling
of nutmeg strewn over all. As we touched our glasses together, my
legendary friend made himself known to me as Mr. Bela Tiffany;
and I rejoiced at the oddity of the name, because it gave his
image and character a sort of individuality in my conception. The
old gentleman's draught acted as a solvent upon his memory, so
that it overflowed with tales, traditions, anecdotes of famous
dead people, and traits of ancient manners, some of which were
childish as a nurse's lullaby, while others might have been worth
the notice of the grave historian. Nothing impressed me more than
a story of a black mysterious picture, which used to hang in one
of the chambers of the Province House, directly above the room
where we were now sitting. The following is as correct a version
of the fact as the reader would be likely to obtain from any
other source, although, assuredly, it has a tinge of romance
approaching to the marvellous.


In one of the apartments of the Province House
there was long preserved an ancient picture, the frame of which
was as black as ebony, and the canvas itself so dark with age,
damp, and smoke, that not a touch of the painter's art could be
discerned. Time had thrown an impenetrable veil over it, and left
to tradition and fable and conjecture to say what had once been
there portrayed. During the rule of many successive governors, it
had hung, by prescriptive and undisputed right, over the
mantel-piece of the same chamber; and it still kept its place
when Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson assumed the administration of
the province, on the departure of Sir Francis Bernard.

The Lieutenant-Governor sat, one afternoon, resting his head
against the carved back of his stately armchair, and gazing up
thoughtfully at the void blackness of the picture. It was
scarcely a time for such inactive musing, when affairs of the
deepest moment required the ruler's decision, for within that
very hour Hutchinson had received intelligence of the arrival of
a British fleet, bringing three regiments from Halifax to overawe
the insubordination of the people. These troops awaited his
permission to occupy the fortress of Castle William, and the town
itself. Yet, instead of affixing his signature to an official
order, there sat the Lieutenant-Governor, so carefully
scrutinizing the black waste of canvas that his demeanor
attracted the notice of two young persons who attended him. One,
wearing a military dress of buff, was his kinsman, Francis
Lincoln, the Provincial Captain of Castle William; the other, who
sat on a low stool beside his chair, was Alice Vane, his favorite
niece.

She was clad entirely in white, a pale, ethereal creature, who,
though a native of New England, had been educated abroad, and
seemed not merely a stranger from another clime, but almost a
being from another world. For several years, until left an
orphan, she had dwelt with her father in sunny Italy, and there
had acquired a taste and enthusiasm for sculpture and painting
which she found few opportunities of gratifying in the
undecorated dwellings of the colonial gentry. It was said that
the early productions of her own pencil exhibited no inferior
genius, though, perhaps, the rude atmosphere of New England had
cramped her hand, and dimmed the glowing colors of her fancy. But
observing her uncle's steadfast gaze, which appeared to search
through the mist of years to discover the subject of the picture,
her curiosity was excited.

"Is it known, my dear uncle," inquired she, "what this old
picture once represented? Possibly, could it be made visible, it
might prove a masterpiece of some great artist--else, why has it
so long held such a conspicuous place?"

As her uncle, contrary to his usual custom (for he was as
attentive to all the humors and caprices of Alice as if she had
been his own best-beloved child), did not immediately reply, the
young Captain of Castle William took that office upon himself.

"This dark old square of canvas, my fair cousin," said he, "has
been an heirloom in the Province House from time immemorial. As
to the painter, I can tell you nothing; but, if half the stories
told of it be true, not one of the great Italian masters has ever
produced so marvellous a piece of work as that before you."

Captain Lincoln proceeded to relate some of the strange fables
and fantasies which, as it was impossible to refute them by
ocular demonstration, had grown to be articles of popular belief,
in reference to this old picture. One of the wildest, and at the
same time the best accredited, accounts, stated it to be an
original and authentic portrait of the Evil One, taken at a witch
meeting near Salem; and that its strong and terrible resemblance
had been confirmed by several of the confessing wizards and
witches, at their trial, in open court. It was likewise affirmed
that a familiar spirit or demon abode behind the blackness of the
picture, and had shown himself, at seasons of public calamity, to
more than one of the royal governors. Shirley, for instance, had
beheld this ominous apparition, on the eve of General
Abercrombie's shameful and bloody defeat under the walls of
Ticonderoga. Many of the servants of the Province House had
caught glimpses of a visage frowning down upon them, at morning
or evening twilight,--or in the depths of night, while raking up
the fire that glimmered on the hearth beneath; although, if any
were bold enough to hold a torch before the picture, it would
appear as black and undistinguishable as ever. The oldest
inhabitant of Boston recollected that his father, in whose days
the portrait had not wholly faded out of sight, had once looked
upon it, but would never suffer himself to be questioned as to
the face which was there represented. In connection with such
stories, it was remarkable that over the top of the frame there
were some ragged remnants of black silk, indicating that a veil
had formerly hung down before the picture, until the duskiness of
time had so effectually concealed it. But, after all, it was the
most singular part of the affair that so many of the pompous
governors of Massachusetts had allowed the obliterated picture to
remain in the state chamber of the Province House.

"Some of these fables are really awful," observed Alice Vane, who
had occasionally shuddered, as well as smiled, while her cousin
spoke. "It would be almost worth while to wipe away the black
surface of the canvas, since the original picture can hardly be
so formidable as those which fancy paints instead of it."

"But would it be possible," inquired her cousin, "to restore this
dark picture to its pristine hues?"

"Such arts are known in Italy," said Alice.

The Lieutenant-Governor had roused himself from his abstracted
mood, and listened with a smile to the conversation of his young
relatives. Yet his voice had something peculiar in its tones when
he undertook the explanation of the mystery.

"I am sorry, Alice, to destroy your faith in the legends of which
you are so fond," remarked he; "but my antiquarian researches
have long since made me acquainted with the subject of this
picture--if picture it can be called--which is no more visible,
nor ever will be, than the face of the long buried man whom it
once represented. It was the portrait of Edward Randolph, the
founder of this house, a person famous in the history of New
England."

"Of that Edward Randolph," exclaimed Captain Lincoln, "who
obtained the repeal of the first provincial charter, under which
our forefathers had enjoyed almost democratic privileges! He that
was styled the arch-enemy of New England, and whose memory is
still held in detestation as the destroyer of our liberties!"

"It was the same Randolph," answered Hutchinson, moving uneasily
in his chair. "It was his lot to taste the bitterness of popular
odium."

"Our annals tell us," continued the Captain of Castle William,
"that the curse of the people followed this Randolph where he
went, and wrought evil in all the subsequent events of his life,
and that its effect was seen likewise in the manner of his death.
They say, too, that the inward misery of that curse worked itself
outward, and was visible on the wretched man's countenance,
making it too horrible to be looked upon. If so, and if this
picture truly represented his aspect, it was in mercy that the
cloud of blackness has gathered over it."

"These traditions are folly to one who has proved, as I have, how
little of historic truth lies at the bottom," said the
Lieutenant-Governor. "As regards the life and character of Edward
Randolph, too implicit credence has been given to Dr. Cotton
Mather, who--I must say it, though some of his blood runs in my
veins--has filled our early history with old women's tales, as
fanciful and extravagant as those of Greece or Rome."

"And yet," whispered Alice Vane, "may not such fables have a
moral? And, methinks, if the visage of this portrait be so
dreadful, it is not without a cause that it has hung so long in a
chamber of the Province House. When the rulers feel themselves
irresponsible, it were well that they should be reminded of the
awful weight of a people's curse."

The Lieutenant-Governor started, and gazed for a moment at his
niece, as if her girlish fantasies had struck upon some feeling
in his own breast, which all his policy or principles could not
entirely subdue. He knew, indeed, that Alice, in spite of her
foreign education, retained the native sympathies of a New
England girl.

"Peace, silly child," cried he, at last, more harshly than he had
ever before addressed the gentle Alice. "The rebuke of a king is
more to be dreaded than the clamor of a wild, misguided
multitude. Captain Lincoln, it is decided. The fortress of Castle
William must be occupied by the royal troops. The two remaining
regiments shall be billeted in the town, or encamped upon the
Common. It is time, after years of tumult, and almost rebellion,
that his majesty's government should have a wall of strength
about it."

"Trust, sir--trust yet awhile to the loyalty of the people," said
Captain Lincoln; "nor teach them that they can ever be on other
terms with British soldiers than those of brotherhood, as when
they fought side by side through the French War. Do not convert
the streets of your native town into a camp. Think twice before
you give up old Castle William, the key of the province, into
other keeping than that of true-born New Englanders."

"Young man, it is decided," repeated Hutchinson, rising from his
chair. "A British officer will be in attendance this evening, to
receive the necessary instructions for the disposal of the
troops. Your presence also will be required. Till then,
farewell."

With these words the Lieutenant-Governor hastily left the room,
while Alice and her cousin more slowly followed, whispering
together, and once pausing to glance back at the mysterious
picture. The Captain of Castle William fancied that the girl's
air and mien were such as might have belonged to one of those
spirits of fable-fairies, or creatures of a more antique
mythology--who sometimes mingled their agency with mortal
affairs, half in caprice, yet with a sensibility to human weal or
woe. As he held the door for her to pass, Alice beckoned to the
picture and smiled.

"Come forth, dark and evil Shape!" cried she. "It is thine hour!"

In the evening, Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson sat in the same
chamber where the foregoing scene had occurred, surrounded by
several persons whose various interests had summoned them
together. There were the selectmen of Boston, plain, patriarchal
fathers of the people, excellent representatives of the old
puritanical founders, whose sombre strength had stamped so deep
an impress upon the New England character. Contrasting with these
were one or two members of Council, richly dressed in the white
wigs, the embroidered waistcoats and other magnificence of the
time, and making a somewhat ostentatious display of courtier-like
ceremonial. In attendance, likewise, was a major of the British
army, awaiting the Lieutenant-Governor's orders for the landing
of the troops, which still remained on board the transports. The
Captain of Castle William stood beside Hutchinson's chair with
folded arms, glancing rather haughtily at the British officer, by
whom he was soon to be superseded in his command. On a table, in
the centre of the chamber, stood a branched silver candlestick,
throwing down the glow of half a dozen wax-lights upon a paper
apparently ready for the Lieutenant-Governor's signature.

Partly shrouded in the voluminous folds of one of the window
curtains, which fell from the ceiling to the floor, was seen the
white drapery of a lady's robe. It may appear strange that Alice
Vane should have been there at such a time; but there was
something so childlike, so wayward, in her singular character, so
apart from ordinary rules, that her presence did not surprise the
few who noticed it. Meantime, the chairman of the Selectmen was
addressing to the Lieutenant-Governor a long and solemn protest
against the reception of the British troops into the town.

"And if your Honor," concluded this excellent but somewhat prosy
old gentleman, "shall see fit to persist in bringing these
mercenary sworders and musketeers into our quiet streets, not on
our heads be the responsibility. Think, sir, while there is yet
time, that if one drop of blood be shed, that blood shall be an
eternal stain upon your Honor's memory. You, sir, have written
with an able pen the deeds of our forefathers. The more to be
desired is it, therefore, that yourself should deserve honorable
mention, as a true patriot and upright ruler, when your own
doings shall be written down in history."

"I am not insensible, my good sir, to the natural desire to stand
well in the annals of my country," replied Hutchinson,
controlling his impatience into courtesy, "nor know I any better
method of attaining that end than by withstanding the merely
temporary spirit of mischief, which, with your pardon, seems to
have infected elder men than myself. Would you have me wait till
the mob shall sack the Province House, as they did my private
mansion? Trust me, sir, the time may come when you will be glad
to flee for protection to the king's banner, the raising of which
is now so distasteful to you."

"Yes," said the British major, who was impatiently expecting the
Lieutenant-Governor's orders. "The demagogues of this Province
have raised the devil and cannot lay him again. We will exorcise
him, in God's name and the king's."

"If you meddle with the devil, take care of his claws!" answered
the Captain of Castle William, stirred by the taunt against his
countrymen.

"Craving your pardon, young sir," said the venerable Selectman,
"let not an evil spirit enter into your words. We will strive
against the oppressor with prayer and fasting, as our forefathers
would have done. Like them, moreover, we will submit to whatever
lot a wise Providence may send us,--always, after our own best
exertions to amend it."

"And there peep forth the devil's claws!" muttered Hutchinson,
who well understood the nature of Puritan submission. "This
matter shall be expedited forthwith. When there shall be a
sentinel at every corner, and a court of guard before the town
house, a loyal gentleman may venture to walk abroad. What to me
is the outcry of a mob, in this remote province of the realm? The
king is my master, and England is my country! Upheld by their
armed strength, I set my foot upon the rabble, and defy them!"

He snatched a pen, and was about to affix his signature to the
paper that lay on the table, when the Captain of Castle William
placed his hand upon his shoulder. The freedom of the action, so
contrary to the ceremonious respect which was then considered due
to rank and dignity, awakened general surprise, and in none more
than in the Lieutenant-Governor himself. Looking angrily up, he
perceived that his young relative was pointing his finger to the
opposite wall. Hutchinson's eye followed the signal; and he saw,
what had hitherto been unobserved, that a black silk curtain was
suspended before the mysterious picture, so as completely to
conceal it. His thoughts immediately recurred to the scene of the
preceding afternoon; and, in his surprise, confused by indistinct
emotions, yet sensible that his niece must have had an agency in
this phenomenon, he called loudly upon her.

"Alice!--come hither, Alice!"

No sooner had he spoken than Alice Vane glided from her station,
and pressing one hand across her eyes, with the other snatched
away the sable curtain that concealed the portrait. An
exclamation of surprise burst from every beholder; but the
Lieutenant-Governor's voice had a tone of horror.

"By Heaven!" said he, in a low, inward murmur, speaking rather to
himself than to those around him, "if the spirit of Edward
Randolph were to appear among us from the place of torment, he
could not wear more of the terrors of hell upon his face!"

"For some wise end," said the aged Selectman, solemnly, "hath
Providence scattered away the mist of years that had so long hid
this dreadful effigy. Until this hour no living man hath seen
what we behold!"

Within the antique frame, which so recently had inclosed a sable
waste of canvas, now appeared a visible picture, still dark,
indeed, in its hues and shadings, but thrown forward in strong
relief. It was a half-length figure of a gentleman in a rich but
very old-fashioned dress of embroidered velvet, with a broad ruff
and a beard, and wearing a hat, the brim of which overshadowed
his forehead. Beneath this cloud the eyes had a peculiar glare,
which was almost lifelike. The whole portrait started so
distinctly out of the background, that it had the effect of a
person looking down from the wall at the astonished and
awe-stricken spectators. The expression of the face, if any words
can convey an idea of it, was that of a wretch detected in some
hideous guilt, and exposed to the bitter hatred and laughter and
withering scorn of a vast surrounding multitude. There was the
struggle of defiance, beaten down and overwhelmed by the crushing
weight of ignominy. The torture of the soul had come forth upon
the countenance. It seemed as if the picture, while hidden behind
the cloud of immemorial years, had been all the time acquiring an
intenser depth and darkness of expression, till now it gloomed
forth again, and threw its evil omen over the present hour. Such,
if the wild legend may be credited, was the portrait of Edward
Randolph, as he appeared when a people's curse had wrought its
influence upon his nature.

"'T would drive me mad--that awful face!" said Hutchinson, who
seemed fascinated by the contemplation of it.

"Be warned, then!" whispered Alice. "He trampled on a people's
rights. Behold his punishment--and avoid a crime like his!"

The Lieutenant-Governor actually trembled for an instant; but,
exerting his energy--which was not, however, his most
characteristic feature--he strove to shake off the spell of
Randolph's countenance.

"Girl!" cried he, laughing bitterly as he turned to Alice, "have
you brought hither your painter's art--your Italian spirit of
intrigue--your tricks of stage effect--and think to influence the
councils of rulers and the affairs of nations by such shallow
contrivances? See here!"

"Stay yet a while," said the Selectman, as Hutchinson again
snatched the pen; "for if ever mortal man received a warning from
a tormented soul, your Honor is that man!"

"Away!" answered Hutchinson fiercely. "Though yonder senseless
picture cried 'Forbear!'--it should not move me!"

Casting a scowl of defiance at the pictured face (which seemed at
that moment to intensify the horror of its miserable and wicked
look), he scrawled on the paper, in characters that betokened it
a deed of desperation, the name of Thomas Hutchinson. Then, it is
said, he shuddered, as if that signature had granted away his
salvation.

"It is done," said he; and placed his hand upon his brow.

"May Heaven forgive the deed," said the soft, sad accents of
Alice Vane, like the voice of a good spirit flitting away.

When morning came there was a stifled whisper through the
household, and spreading thence about the town, that the dark,
mysterious picture had started from the wall, and spoken face to
face with Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson. If such a miracle had
been wrought, however, no traces of it remained behind, for
within the antique frame nothing could be discerned save the
impenetrable cloud, which had covered the canvas since the memory
of man. If the figure had, indeed, stepped forth, it had fled
back, spirit-like, at the daydawn, and hidden itself behind a
century's obscurity. The truth probably was, that Alice Vane's
secret for restoring the hues of the picture had merely effected
a temporary renovation. But those who, in that brief interval,
had beheld the awful visage of Edward Randolph, desired no second
glance, and ever afterwards trembled at the recollection of the
scene, as if an evil spirit had appeared visibly among them. And
as for Hutchinson, when, far over the ocean, his dying hour drew
on, he gasped for breath, and complained that he was choking with
the blood of the Boston Massacre; and Francis Lincoln, the former
Captain of Castle William, who was standing at his bedside,
perceived a likeness in his frenzied look to that of Edward
Randolph. Did his broken spirit feel, at that dread hour, the
tremendous burden of a People's curse?



At the conclusion of this miraculous legend, I
inquired of mine host whether the picture still remained in the
chamber over our heads; but Mr. Tiffany informed me that it had
long since been removed, and was supposed to be hidden in some
out-of-the-way corner of the New England Museum. Perchance some
curious antiquary may light upon it there, and, with the
assistance of Mr. Howorth, the picture cleaner, may supply a not
unnecessary proof of the authenticity of the facts here set down.
During the progress of the story a storm had been gathering
abroad, and raging and rattling so loudly in the upper regions of
the Province House, that it seemed as if all the old governors
and great men were running riot above stairs while Mr. Bela
Tiffany babbled of them below. In the course of generations, when
many people have lived and died in an ancient house, the
whistling of the wind through its crannies, and the creaking of
its beams and rafters, become strangely like the tones of the
human voice, or thundering laughter, or heavy footsteps treading
the deserted chambers. It is as if the echoes of half a century
were revived. Such were the ghostly sounds that roared and
murmured in our ears when I took leave of the circle round the
fireside of the Province House, and plunging down the door steps,
fought my way homeward against a drifting snow-storm.




LEGENDS OF THE PROVINCE HOUSE

III

LADY ELEANORE'S MANTLE

Mine excellent friend, the landlord of the Province House, was
pleased, the other evening, to invite Mr. Tiffany and myself to
an oyster supper. This slight mark of respect and gratitude, as
he handsomely observed, was far less than the ingenious
tale-teller, and I, the humble note-taker of his narratives, had
fairly earned, by the public notice which our joint lucubrations
had attracted to his establishment. Many a cigar had been smoked
within his premises--many a glass of wine, or more potent aqua
vitae, had been quaffed--many a dinner had been eaten by curious
strangers, who, save for the fortunate conjunction of Mr. Tiffany
and me, would never have ventured through that darksome avenue
which gives access to the historic precincts of the Province
House. In short, if any credit be due to the courteous assurances
of Mr. Thomas Waite, we had brought his forgotten mansion almost
as effectually into public view as if we had thrown down the
vulgar range of shoe shops and dry goods stores, which hides its
aristocratic front from Washington Street. It may be unadvisable,
however, to speak too loudly of the increased custom of the
house, lest Mr. Waite should find it difficult to renew the lease
on so favorable terms as heretofore.

Being thus welcomed as benefactors, neither Mr. Tiffany nor
myself felt any scruple in doing full justice to the good things
that were set before us. If the feast were less magnificent than
those same panelled walls had witnessed in a by-gone century,--if
mine host presided with somewhat less of state than might have
befitted a successor of the royal Governors,--if the guests made
a less imposing show than the bewigged and powdered and
embroidered dignitaries, who erst banqueted at the gubernatorial
table, and now sleep, within their armorial tombs on Copp's Hill,
or round King's Chapel,--yet never, I may boldly say, did a more
comfortable little party assemble in the Province House, from
Queen Anne's days to the Revolution. The occasion was rendered
more interesting by the presence of a venerable personage, whose
own actual reminiscences went back to the epoch of Gage and Howe,
and even supplied him with a doubtful anecdote or two of
Hutchinson. He was one of that small, and now all but
extinguished, class, whose attachment to royalty, and to the
colonial institutions and customs that were connected with it,
had never yielded to the democratic heresies of after times. The
young queen of Britain has not a more loyal subject in her
realm--perhaps not one who would kneel before her throne with
such reverential love--as this old grandsire, whose head has
whitened beneath the mild sway of the Republic, which still, in
his mellower moments, he terms a usurpation. Yet prejudices so
obstinate have not made him an ungentle or impracticable
companion. If the truth must be told, the life of the aged
loyalist has been of such a scrambling and unsettled
character,--he has had so little choice of friends and been so
often destitute of any,--that I doubt whether he would refuse a
cup of kindness with either Oliver Cromwell or John Hancock,--to
say nothing of any democrat now upon the stage. In another paper
of this series I may perhaps give the reader a closer glimpse of
his portrait.

Our host, in due season, uncorked a bottle of Madeira, of such
exquisite perfume and admirable flavor that he surely must have
discovered it in an ancient bin, down deep beneath the deepest
cellar, where some jolly  old butler stored away the Governor's
choicest wine, and forgot to reveal the secret on his death-bed.
Peace to his red-nosed ghost, and a libation to his memory! This
precious liquor was imbibed by Mr. Tiffany with peculiar zest;
and after sipping the third glass, it was his pleasure to give us
one of the oddest legends which he had yet raked from the
storehouse where he keeps such matters. With some suitable
adornments from my own fancy, it ran pretty much as follows.


Not long after Colonel Shute had assumed the
government of Massachusetts Bay, now nearly a hundred and twenty
years ago, a young lady of rank and fortune arrived from England,
to claim his protection as her guardian. He was her distant
relative, but the nearest who had survived the gradual extinction
of her family; so that no more eligible shelter could be found
for the rich and high-born Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe than within
the Province House of a transatlantic colony. The consort of
Governor Shute, moreover, had been as a mother to her childhood,
and was now anxious to receive her, in the hope that a beautiful
young woman would be exposed to infinitely less peril from the
primitive society of New England than amid the artifices and
corruptions of a court. If either the Governor or his lady had
especially consulted their own comfort, they would probably have
sought to devolve the responsibility on other hands; since, with
some noble and splendid traits of character, Lady Eleanore was
remarkable for a harsh, unyielding pride, a haughty consciousness
of her hereditary and personal advantages, which made her almost
incapable of control. Judging from many traditionary anecdotes,
this peculiar temper was hardly less than a monomania; or, if the
acts which it inspired were those of a sane person, it seemed due
from Providence that pride so sinful should be followed by as
severe a retribution. That tinge of the marvellous, which is
thrown over so many of these half-forgotten legends, has probably
imparted an additional wildness to the strange story of Lady
Eleanore Rochcliffe.

The ship in which she came passenger had arrived at Newport,
whence Lady Eleanore was conveyed to Boston in the Governor's
coach, attended by a small escort of gentlemen on horseback. The
ponderous equipage with its four black horses, attracted much
notice as it rumbled through Cornhill, surrounded by the prancing
steeds of half a dozen cavaliers, with swords dangling to their
stirrups and pistols at their holsters. Through the large glass
windows of the coach, as it rolled along, the people could
discern the figure of Lady Eleanore, strangely combining an
almost queenly stateliness with the grace and beauty of a maiden
in her teens. A singular tale had gone abroad among the ladies of
the province, that their fair rival was indebted for much of the
irresistible charm of her appearance to a certain article of
dress--an embroidered mantle--which had been wrought by the most
skilful artist in London, and possessed even magical properties
of adornment. On the present occasion, however, she owed nothing
to the witchery of dress, being clad in a riding habit of velvet,
which would have appeared stiff and ungraceful on any other form.

The coachman reined in his four black steeds, and the whole
cavalcade came to a pause in front of the contorted iron
balustrade that fenced the Province House from the public street.
It was an awkward coincidence that the bell of the Old South was
just then tolling for a funeral; so that, instead of a gladsome
peal with which it was customary to announce the arrival of
distinguished strangers, Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe was ushered by
a doleful clang, as if calamity had come embodied in her
beautiful person.

"A very great disrespect!" exclaimed Captain Langford, an English
officer, who had recently brought dispatches to Governor Shute.
"The funeral should have been deferred, lest Lady Eleanore's
spirits be affected by such a dismal welcome."

"With your pardon, sir," replied Doctor Clarke, a physician, and
a famous champion of the popular party, "whatever the heralds may
pretend, a dead beggar must have precedence of a living queen.
King Death confers high privileges."

These remarks were interchanged while the speakers waited a
passage through the crowd, which had gathered on each side of the
gateway, leaving an open avenue to the portal of the Province
House. A black slave in livery now leaped from behind the coach,
and threw open the door; while at the same moment Governor Shute
descended the flight of steps from his mansion, to assist Lady
Eleanore in alighting. But the Governor's stately approach was
anticipated in a manner that excited general astonishment. A pale
young man, with his black hair all in disorder, rushed from the
throng, and prostrated himself beside the coach, thus offering
his person as a footstool for Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe to tread
upon. She held back an instant, yet with an expression as if
doubting whether the young man were worthy to bear the weight of
her footstep, rather than dissatisfied to receive such awful
reverence from a fellow-mortal.

"Up, sir," said the Governor, sternly, at the same time lifting
his cane over the intruder. "What means the Bedlamite by this
freak?"

"Nay," answered Lady Eleanore playfully, but with more scorn than
pity in her tone, "your Excellency shall not strike him. When men
seek only to be trampled upon, it were a pity to deny them a
favor so easily granted--and so well deserved!"

Then, though as lightly as a sunbeam on a cloud, she placed her
foot upon the cowering form, and extended her hand to meet that
of the Governor. There was a brief interval, during which Lady
Eleanore retained this attitude; and never, surely, was there an
apter emblem of aristocracy and hereditary pride trampling on
human sympathies and the kindred of nature, than these two
figures presented at that moment. Yet the spectators were so
smitten with her beauty, and so essential did pride seem to the
existence of such a creature, that they gave a simultaneous
acclamation of applause.

"Who is this insolent young fellow?" inquired Captain Langford,
who still remained beside Doctor Clarke. "If he be in his senses,
his impertinence demands the bastinado. If mad, Lady Eleanore
should be secured from further inconvenience, by his
confinement."

"His name is Jervase Helwyse," answered the Doctor; "a youth of
no birth or fortune, or other advantages, save the mind and soul
that nature gave him; and being secretary to our colonial agent
in London, it was his misfortune to meet this Lady Eleanore
Rochcliffe. He loved her--and her scorn has driven him mad."

"He was mad so to aspire," observed the English officer.

"It may be so," said Doctor Clarke, frowning as he spoke. "But I
tell you, sir, I could well-nigh doubt the justice of the Heaven
above us if no signal humiliation overtake this lady, who now
treads so haughtily into yonder mansion. She seeks to place
herself above the sympathies of our common nature, which envelops
all human souls. See, if that nature do not assert its claim over
her in some mode that shall bring her level with the lowest!"

"Never!" cried Captain Langford indignantly--"neither in life,
nor when they lay her with her ancestors."

Not many days afterwards the Governor gave a ball in honor of
Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe. The principal gentry of the colony
received invitations, which were distributed to their residences,
far and near, by messengers on horseback, bearing missives sealed
with all the formality of official dispatches. In obedience to
the summons, there was a general gathering of rank, wealth, and
beauty; and the wide door of the Province House had seldom given
admittance to more numerous and honorable guests than on the
evening of Lady Eleanore's ball. Without much extravagance of
eulogy, the spectacle might even be termed splendid; for,
according to the fashion of the times, the ladies shone in rich
silks and satins, outspread over wide-projecting hoops; and the
gentlemen glittered in gold embroidery, laid unsparingly upon the
purple, or scarlet, or sky-blue velvet, which was the material of
their coats and waistcoats. The latter article of dress was of
great importance, since it enveloped the wearer's body nearly to
the knees, and was perhaps bedizened with the amount of his whole
year's income, in golden flowers and foliage. The altered taste
of the present day--a taste symbolic of a deep change in the
whole system of society--would look upon almost any of those
gorgeous figures as ridiculous; although that evening the guests
sought their reflections in the pier-glasses, and rejoiced to
catch their own glitter amid the glittering crowd. What a pity
that one of the stately mirrors has not preserved a picture of
the scene, which, by the very traits that were so transitory,
might have taught us much that would be worth knowing and
remembering!

Would, at least, that either painter or mirror could convey to us
some faint idea of a garment, already noticed in this
legend,--the Lady Eleanore's embroidered mantle,--which the
gossips whispered was invested with magic properties, so as to
lend a new and untried grace to her figure each time that she put
it on! Idle fancy as it is, this mysterious mantle has thrown an
awe around my image of her, partly from its fabled virtues, and
partly because it was the handiwork of a dying woman, and,
perchance, owed the fantastic grace of its conception to the
delirium of approaching death.

After the ceremonial greetings had been paid, Lady Eleanore
Rochcliffe stood apart from the mob of guests, insulating herself
within a small and distinguished circle, to whom she accorded a
more cordial favor than to the general throng. The waxen torches
threw their radiance vividly over the scene, bringing out its
brilliant points in strong relief; but she gazed carelessly, and
with now and then an expression of weariness or scorn, tempered
with such feminine grace that her auditors scarcely perceived the
moral deformity of which it was the utterance. She beheld the
spectacle not with vulgar ridicule, as disdaining to be pleased
with the provincial mockery of a court festival, but with the
deeper scorn of one whose spirit held itself too high to
participate in the enjoyment of other human souls. Whether or no
the recollections of those who saw her that evening were
influenced by the strange events with which she was subsequently
connected, so it was that her figure ever after recurred to them
as marked by something wild and unnatural,--although, at the
time, the general whisper was of her exceeding beauty, and of the
indescribable charm which her mantle threw around her. Some close
observers, indeed, detected a feverish flush and alternate
paleness of countenance, with corresponding flow and revulsion of
spirits, and once or twice a painful and helpless betrayal of
lassitude, as if she were on the point of sinking to the ground.
Then, with a nervous shudder, she seemed to arouse her energies
and threw some bright and playful yet half-wicked sarcasm into
the conversation. There was so strange a characteristic in her
manners and sentiments that it astonished every right-minded
listener; till looking in her face, a lurking and
incomprehensible glance and smile perplexed them with doubts both
as to her seriousness and sanity. Gradually, Lady Eleanore
Rochcliffe's circle grew smaller, till only four gentlemen
remained in it. These were Captain Langford, the English officer
before mentioned; a Virginian planter, who had come to
Massachusetts on some political errand; a young Episcopal
clergyman, the grandson of a British earl; and, lastly, the
private secretary of Governor Shute, whose obsequiousness had won
a sort of tolerance from Lady Eleanore.

At different periods of the evening the liveried servants of the
Province House passed among the guests, bearing huge trays of
refreshments and French and Spanish wines. Lady Eleanore
Rochcliffe, who refused to wet her beautiful lips even with a
bubble of Champagne, had sunk back into a large damask chair,
apparently overwearied either with the excitement of the scene or
its tedium, and while, for an instant, she was unconscious of
voices, laughter and music, a young man stole forward, and knelt
down at her feet. He bore a salver in his hand, on which was a
chased silver goblet, filled to the brim with wine, which he
offered as reverentially as to a crowned queen, or rather with
the awful devotion of a priest doing sacrifice to his idol.
Conscious that some one touched her robe, Lady Eleanore started,
and unclosed her eyes upon the pale, wild features and
dishevelled hair of Jervase Helwyse.

"Why do you haunt me thus?" said she, in a languid tone, but with
a kindlier feeling than she ordinarily permitted herself to
express. "They tell me that I have done you harm."

"Heaven knows if that be so," replied the young man solemnly.
"But, Lady Eleanore, in requital of that harm, if such there be,
and for your own earthly and heavenly welfare, I pray you to take
one sip of this holy wine, and then to pass the goblet round
among the guests. And this shall be a symbol that you have not
sought to withdraw yourself from the chain of human
sympathies--which whoso would shake off must keep company with
fallen angels."

"Where has this mad fellow stolen that sacramental vessel?"
exclaimed the Episcopal clergyman.

This question drew the notice of the guests to the silver cup,
which was recognized as appertaining to the communion plate of
the Old South Church; and, for aught that could be known, it was
brimming over with the consecrated wine.

"Perhaps it is poisoned," half whispered the Governor's
secretary.

"Pour it down the villain's throat!" cried the Virginian
fiercely.

"Turn him out of the house!" cried Captain Langford, seizing
Jervase Helwyse so roughly by the shoulder that the sacramental
cup was overturned, and its contents sprinkled upon Lady
Eleanore's mantle. "Whether knave, fool, or Bedlamite, it is
intolerable that the fellow should go at large."

"Pray, gentlemen, do my poor admirer no harm," said Lady Eleanore
with a faint and weary smile. "Take him out of my sight, if such
be your pleasure; for I can find in my heart to do nothing but
laugh at him; whereas, in all decency and conscience, it would
become me to weep for the mischief I have wrought!"

But while the by-standers were attempting to lead away the
unfortunate young man, he broke from them, and with a wild,
impassioned earnestness, offered a new and equally strange
petition to Lady Eleanore. It was no other than that she should
throw off the mantle, which, while he pressed the silver cup of
wine upon her, she had drawn more closely around her form, so as
almost to shroud herself within it.

"Cast it from you!" exclaimed Jervase Helwyse, clasping his hands
in an agony of entreaty. "It may not yet be too late! Give the
accursed garment to the flames!"

But Lady Eleanore, with a laugh of scorn, drew the rich folds of
the embroidered mantle over her head, in such a fashion as to
give a completely new aspect to her beautiful face, which--half
hidden, half revealed--seemed to belong to some being of
mysterious character and purposes.

"Farewell, Jervase Helwyse!" said she. "Keep my image in your
remembrance, as you behold it now."

"Alas, lady!" he replied, in a tone no longer wild, but sad as a
funeral bell. "We must meet shortly, when your face may wear
another aspect--and that shall be the image that must abide
within me."

He made no more resistance to the violent efforts of the
gentlemen and servants, who almost dragged him out of the
apartment, and dismissed him roughly from the iron gate of the
Province House. Captain Langford, who had been very active in
this affair, was returning to the presence of Lady Eleanore
Rochcliffe, when he encountered the physician, Doctor Clarke,
with whom he had held some casual talk on the day of her arrival.
The Doctor stood apart, separated from Lady Eleanore by the width
of the room, but eying her with such keen sagacity that Captain
Langford involuntarily gave him credit for the discovery of some
deep secret.

"You appear to be smitten, after all, with the charms of this
queenly maiden," said he, hoping thus to draw forth the
physician's hidden knowledge.

"God forbid!" answered Doctor Clarke, with a grave smile; "and if
you be wise you will put up the same prayer for yourself. Woe to
those who shall be smitten by this beautiful Lady Eleanore! But
yonder stands the Governor--and I have a word or two for his
private ear. Good night!"

He accordingly advanced to Governor Shute, and addressed him in
so low a tone that none of the by-standers could catch a word of
what he said, although the sudden change of his Excellency's
hitherto cheerful visage betokened that the communication could
be of no agreeable import. A very few moments afterwards it was
announced to the guests that an unforeseen circumstance rendered
it necessary to put a premature close to the festival.

The hall at the Province House supplied a topic of conversation
for the colonial metropolis for some days after its occurrence,
and might still longer have been the general theme, only that a
subject of all-engrossing interest thrust it, for a time, from
the public recollection. This was the appearance of a dreadful
epidemic, which, in that age and long before and afterwards, was
wont to slay its hundreds and thousands on both sides of the
Atlantic. On the occasion of which we speak, it was distinguished
by a peculiar virulence, insomuch that it has left its
traces--its pit-marks, to use an appropriate figure--on the
history of the country, the affairs of which were thrown into
confusion by its ravages. At first, unlike its ordinary course,
the disease seemed to confine itself to the higher circles of
society, selecting its victims from among the proud, the
well-born, and the wealthy, entering unabashed into stately
chambers, and lying down with the slumberers in silken beds. Some
of the most distinguished guests of the Province House even those
whom the haughty Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe had deemed not unworthy
of her favor--were stricken by this fatal scourge. It was
noticed, with an ungenerous bitterness of feeling, that the four
gentlemen--the Virginian, the British officer, the young
clergyman, and the Governor's secretary--who had been her most
devoted attendants on the evening of the ball, were the foremost
of whom the plague stroke fell. But the disease, pursuing its
onward progress, soon ceased to be exclusively a prerogative of
aristocracy. Its red brand was no longer conferred like a noble's
star, or an order of knighthood. It threaded its way through the
narrow and crooked streets, and entered the low, mean, darksome
dwellings, and laid its hand of death upon the artisans and
laboring classes of the town. It compelled rich and poor to feel
themselves brethren then; and stalking to and fro across the
Three Hills, with a fierceness which made it almost a new
pestilence, there was that mighty conqueror--that scourge and
horror of our forefathers--the Small-Pox!

We cannot estimate the affright which this plague inspired of
yore, by contemplating it as the fangless monster of the present
day. We must remember, rather, with what awe we watched the
gigantic footsteps of the Asiatic cholera, striding from shore to
shore of the Atlantic, and marching like destiny upon cities far
remote which flight had already half depopulated. There is no
other fear so horrible and unhumanizing as that which makes man
dread to breathe heaven's vital air lest it be poison, or to
grasp the hand of a brother or friend lest the gripe of the
pestilence should clutch him. Such was the dismay that now
followed in the track of the disease, or ran before it throughout
the town. Graves were hastily dug, and the pestilential relics as
hastily covered, because the dead were enemies of the living, and
strove to draw them headlong, as it were, into their own dismal
pit. The public councils were suspended, as if mortal wisdom
might relinquish its devices, now that an unearthly usurper had
found his way into the ruler's mansion. Had an enemy's fleet been
hovering on the coast, or his armies trampling on our soil, the
people would probably have committed their defence to that same
direful conqueror who had wrought their own calamity, and would
permit no interference with his sway. This conquerer had a symbol
of his triumphs. It was a blood-red flag, that fluttered in the
tainted air, over the door of every dwelling into which the
Small-Pox had entered.

Such a banner was long since waving over the portal of the
Province House; for thence, as was proved by tracking its
footsteps back, had all this dreadful mischief issued. It had
been traced back to a lady's luxurious chamber--to the proudest
of the proud--to her that was so delicate, and hardly owned
herself of earthly mould--to the haughty one, who took her stand
above human sympathies--to Lady Eleanore! There remained no room
for doubt that the contagion had lurked in that gorgeous mantle,
which threw so strange a grace around her at the festival. Its
fantastic splendor had been conceived in the delirious brain of a
woman on her death-bed, and was the last toil of her stiffening
fingers, which had interwoven fate and misery with its golden
threads. This dark tale, whispered at first, was now bruited far
and wide. The people raved against the Lady Eleanore, and cried
out that her pride and scorn had evoked a fiend, and that,
between them both, this monstrous evil had been born. At times,
their rage and despair took the semblance of grinning mirth; and
whenever the red flag of the pestilence was hoisted over another
and yet another door, they clapped their hands and shouted
through the streets, in bitter mockery: "Behold a new triumph for
the Lady Eleanore!"

One day, in the midst of these dismal times, a wild figure
approached the portal of the Province House, and folding his
arms, stood contemplating the scarlet banner which a passing
breeze shook fitfully, as if to fling abroad the contagion that
it typified. At length, climbing one of the pillars by means of
the iron balustrade, he took down the flag and entered the
mansion, waving it above his head. At the foot of the staircase
he met the Governor, booted and spurred, with his cloak drawn
around him, evidently on the point of setting forth upon a
journey.

"Wretched lunatic, what do you seek here?" exclaimed Shute,
extending his cane to guard himself from contact. "There is
nothing here but Death. Back--or you will meet him!"

"Death will not touch me, the banner-bearer of the pestilence!"
cried Jervase Helwyse, shaking the red flag aloft. "Death, and
the Pestilence, who wears the aspect of the Lady Eleanore, will
walk through the streets to-night, and I must march before them
with this banner!"

"Why do I waste words on the fellow?" muttered the Governor,
drawing his cloak across his mouth. "What matters his miserable
life, when none of us are sure of twelve hours' breath? On, fool,
to your own destruction!"

He made way for Jervase Helwyse, who immediately ascended the
staircase, but, on the first landing place, was arrested by the
firm grasp of a hand upon his shoulder. Looking fiercely up, with
a madman's impulse to struggle with and rend asunder his
opponent, he found himself powerless beneath a calm, stern eye,
which possessed the mysterious property of quelling frenzy at its
height. The person whom he had now encountered was the physician,
Doctor Clarke, the duties of whose sad profession had led him to
the Province House, where he was an infrequent guest in more
prosperous times.

"Young man, what is your purpose?" demanded he.

"I seek the Lady Eleanore," answered Jervase Helwyse,
submissively.

"All have fled from her," said the physician. "Why do you seek
her now? I tell you, youth, her nurse fell death-stricken on the
threshold of that fatal chamber. Know ye not, that never came
such a curse to our shores as this lovely Lady Eleanore?--that
her breath has filled the air with poison?--that she has shaken
pestilence and death upon the land, from the folds of her
accursed mantle?"

"Let me look upon her!" rejoined the mad youth, more wildly. "Let
me behold her, in her awful beauty, clad in the regal garments of
the pestilence! She and Death sit on a throne together. Let me
kneel down before them!"

"Poor youth!" said Doctor Clarke; and, moved by a deep sense of
human weakness, a smile of caustic humor curled his lip even
then. "Wilt thou still worship the destroyer and surround her
image with fantasies the more magnificent, the more evil she has
wrought? Thus man doth ever to his tyrants. Approach, then!
Madness, as I have noted, has that good efficacy, that it will
guard you from contagion--and perchance its own cure may be found
in yonder chamber."

Ascending another flight of stairs, he threw open a door and
signed to Jervase Helwyse that he should enter. The poor lunatic,
it seems probable, had cherished a delusion that his haughty
mistress sat in state, unharmed herself by the pestilential
influence, which, as by enchantment, she scattered round about
her. He dreamed, no doubt, that her beauty was not dimmed, but
brightened into superhuman splendor. With such anticipations, he
stole reverentially to the door at which the physician stood, but
paused upon the threshold, gazing fearfully into the gloom of the
darkened chamber.

"Where is the Lady Eleanore?" whispered he.

"Call her," replied the physician.

"Lady Eleanore!--Princess!--Queen of Death!" cried Jervase
Helwyse, advancing three steps into the chamber. "She is not
here! There on yonder table, I behold the sparkle of a diamond
which once she wore upon her bosom. There"--and he
shuddered--"there hangs her mantle, on which a dead woman
embroidered a spell of dreadful potency. But where is the Lady
Eleanore?"

Something stirred within the silken curtains of a canopied bed;
and a low moan was uttered, which, listening intently, Jervase
Helwyse began to distinguish as a woman's voice, complaining
dolefully of thirst. He fancied, even, that he recognized its
tones.

"My throat!--my throat is scorched," murmured the voice. "A drop
of water!"

"What thing art thou?" said the brain-stricken youth, drawing
near the bed and tearing asunder its curtains. "Whose voice hast
thou stolen for thy murmurs and miserable petitions, as if Lady
Eleanore could be conscious of mortal infirmity? Fie! Heap of
diseased mortality, why lurkest thou in my lady's chamber?"

"O Jervase Helwyse," said the voice--and as it spoke the figure
contorted itself, struggling to hide its blasted face--"look not
now on the woman you once loved! The curse of Heaven hath
stricken me, because I would not call man my brother, nor woman
sister. I wrapped myself in PRIDE as in a MANTLE, and scorned the
sympathies of nature; and therefore has nature made this wretched
body the medium of a dreadful sympathy. You are avenged--they are
all avenged--Nature is avenged--for I am Eleanore Rochcliffe!"

The malice of his mental disease, the bitterness lurking at the
bottom of his heart, mad as he was, for a blighted and ruined
life, and love that had been paid with cruel scorn, awoke within
the breast of Jervase Helwyse. He shook his finger at the
wretched girl, and the chamber echoed, the curtains of the bed
were shaken, with his outburst of insane merriment.

"Another triumph for the Lady Eleanore!" he cried. "All have been
her victims! Who so worthy to be the final victim as herself?"

Impelled by some new fantasy of his crazed intellect, he snatched
the fatal mantle and rushed from the chamber and the house. That
night a procession passed, by torchlight, through the streets,
bearing in the midst the figure of a woman, enveloped with a
richly embroidered mantle; while in advance stalked Jervase
Helwyse, waving the red flag of the pestilence. Arriving opposite
the Province House, the mob burned the effigy, and a strong wind
came and swept away the ashes. It was said that, from that very
hour, the pestilence abated, as if its sway had some mysterious
connection, from the first plague stroke to the last, with Lady
Eleanore's Mantle. A remarkable uncertainty broods over that
unhappy lady's fate. There is a belief, however, that in a
certain chamber of this mansion a female form may sometimes be
duskily discerned, shrinking into the darkest corner and
muffling her face within an embroidered mantle. Supposing the
legend true, can this be other than the once proud Lady Eleanore?


Mine host and the old loyalist and I bestowed no
little warmth of applause upon this narrative, in which we had
all been deeply interested; for the reader can scarcely conceive
how unspeakably the effect of such a tale is heightened when, as
in the present case, we may repose perfect confidence in the
veracity of him who tells it. For my own part, knowing how
scrupulous is Mr. Tiffany to settle the foundation of his facts,
I could not have believed him one whit the more faithfully had he
professed himself an eye-witness of the doings and sufferings of
poor Lady Eleanore. Some sceptics, it is true, might demand
documentary evidence, or even require him to produce the
embroidered mantle, forgetting that--Heaven be praised--it was
consumed to ashes. But now the old loyalist, whose blood was
warmed by the good cheer, began to talk, in his turn, about the
traditions of the Province House, and hinted that he, if it were
agreeable, might add a few reminiscences to our legendary stock.
Mr. Tiffany, having no cause to dread a rival, immediately
besought him to favor us with a specimen; my own entreaties, of
course, were urged to the same effect; and our venerable guest,
well pleased to find willing auditors, awaited only the return of
Mr. Thomas Waite, who had been summoned forth to provide
accommodations for several new arrivals. Perchance the public-but
be this as its own caprice and ours shall settle the matter--may
read the result in another Tale of the Province House.




LEGENDS OF THE PROVINCE HOUSE

IV

OLD ESTHER DUDLEY

Our host having resumed the chair, he, as well as Mr. Tiffany and
myself; expressed much eagerness to be made acquainted with the
story to which the loyalist had alluded. That venerable man first
of all saw fit to moisten his throat with another glass of wine,
and then, turning his face towards our coal fire, looked
steadfastly for a few moments into the depths of its cheerful
glow. Finally, he poured forth a great fluency of speech. The
generous liquid that he had imbibed, while it warmed his
age-chilled blood, likewise took off the chill from his heart and
mind, and gave him an energy to think and feel, which we could
hardly have expected to find beneath the snows of fourscore
winters. His feelings, indeed, appeared to me more excitable than
those of a younger man; or at least, the same degree of feeling
manifested itself by more visible effects than if his judgment
and will had possessed the potency of meridian life. At the
pathetic passages of his narrative he readily melted into tears.
When a breath of indignation swept across his spirit the blood
flushed his withered visage even to the roots of his white hair;
and he shook his clinched fist at the trio of peaceful auditors,
seeming to fancy enemies in those who felt very kindly towards
the desolate old soul. But ever and anon, sometimes in the midst
of his most earnest talk, this ancient person's intellect would
wander vaguely, losing its hold of the matter in hand, and
groping for it amid misty shadows. Then would he cackle forth a
feeble laugh, and express a doubt whether his wits--for by that
phrase it pleased our ancient friend to signify his mental
powers--were not getting a little the worse for wear.

Under these disadvantages, the old loyalist's story required more
revision to render it fit for the public eye than those of the
series which have preceded it; nor should it be concealed that
the sentiment and tone of the affair may have undergone some
slight, or perchance more than slight, metamorphosis, in its
transmission to the reader through the medium of a thorough-going
democrat. The tale itself is a mere sketch, with no involution of
plot, nor any great interest of events, yet possessing, if I have
rehearsed it aright, that pensive influence over the mind which
the shadow of the old Province House flings upon the loiterer in
its court-yard.


The hour had come--the hour of defeat and
humiliation--when Sir William Howe was to pass over the threshold
of the Province House, and embark, with no such triumphal
ceremonies as he once promised himself, on board the British
fleet. He bade his servants and military attendants go before
him, and lingered a moment in the loneliness of the mansion, to
quell the fierce emotions that struggled in his bosom as with a
death throb. Preferable, then, would he have deemed his fate, had
a warrior's death left him a claim to the narrow territory of a
grave within the soil which the King had given him to defend.
With an ominous perception that, as his departing footsteps
echoed adown the staircase, the sway of Britain was passing
forever from New England, he smote his clinched hand on his brow,
and cursed the destiny that had flung the shame of a dismembered
empire upon him.

"Would to God," cried he, hardly repressing his tears of rage,
"that the rebels were even now at the doorstep! A blood-stain
upon the floor should then bear testimony that the last British
ruler was faithful to his trust."

The tremulous voice of a woman replied to his exclamation.

"Heaven's cause and the King's are one," it said. "Go forth, Sir
William Howe, and trust in Heaven to bring back a Royal Governor
in triumph."

Subduing, at once, the passion to which he had yielded only in
the faith that it was unwitnessed, Sir William Howe became
conscious that an aged woman, leaning on a gold-headed staff, was
standing betwixt him and the door. It was old Esther Dudley, who
had dwelt almost immemorial years in this mansion, until her
presence seemed as inseparable from it as the recollections of
its history. She was the daughter of an ancient and once eminent
family, which had fallen into poverty and decay, and left its
last descendant no resource save the bounty of the King, nor any
shelter except within the walls of the Province House. An office
in the household, with merely nominal duties, had been assigned
to her as a pretext for the payment of a small pension, the
greater part of which she expended in adorning herself with an
antique magnificence of attire. The claims of Esther Dudley's
gentle blood were acknowledged by all the successive Governors;
and they treated her with the punctilious courtesy which it was
her foible to demand, not always with success, from a neglectful
world. The only actual share which she assumed in the business of
the mansion was to glide through its passages and public
chambers, late at night, to see that the servants had dropped no
fire from their flaring torches, nor left embers crackling and
blazing on the hearths. Perhaps it was this invariable custom of
walking her rounds in the hush of midnight that caused the
superstition of the times to invest the old woman with attributes
of awe and mystery; fabling that she had entered the portal of
the Province House, none knew whence, in the train of the first
Royal Governor, and that it was her fate to dwell there till the
last should have departed. But Sir William Howe, if he ever heard
this legend, had forgotten it.

"Mistress Dudley, why are you loitering here?" asked he, with
some severity of tone. "It is my pleasure to be the last in this
mansion of the King."

"Not so, if it please your Excellency," answered the
time-stricken woman. "This roof has sheltered me long. I will not
pass from it until they bear me to the tomb of my forefathers.
What other shelter is there for old Esther Dudley, save the
Province House or the grave?"

"Now Heaven forgive me!" said Sir William Howe to himself. "I was
about to leave this wretched old creature to starve or beg. Take
this, good Mistress Dudley," he added, putting a purse into her
hands. "King George's head on these golden guineas is sterling
yet, and will continue so, I warrant you, even should the rebels
crown John Hancock their king. That purse will buy a better
shelter than the Province House can now afford."

"While the burden of life remains upon me, I will have no other
shelter than this roof," persisted Esther Dudley, striking her
staff upon the floor with a gesture that expressed immovable
resolve. "And when your Excellency returns in triumph, I will
totter into the porch to welcome you."

"My poor old friend!" answered the British General,--and all his
manly and martial pride could no longer restrain a gush of bitter
tears. "This is an evil hour for you and me. The Province which
the King intrusted to my charge is lost. I go hence in
misfortune--perchance in disgrace--to return no more. And you,
whose present being is incorporated with the past--who have seen
Governor after Governor, in stately pageantry, ascend these
steps--whose whole life has been an observance of majestic
ceremonies, and a worship of the King--how will you endure the
change? Come with us! Bid farewell to a land that has shaken off
its allegiance, and live still under a royal government, at
Halifax."

"Never, never!" said the pertinacious old dame. "Here will I
abide; and King George shall still have one true subject in his
disloyal Province."

"Beshrew the old fool!" muttered Sir William Howe, growing
impatient of her obstinacy, and ashamed of the emotion into which
he had been betrayed. "She is the very moral of old-fashioned
prejudice, and could exist nowhere but in this musty edifice.
Well, then, Mistress Dudley, since you will needs tarry, I give
the Province House in charge to you. Take this key, and keep it
safe until myself, or some other Royal Governor, shall demand it
of you."

Smiling bitterly at himself and her, he took the heavy key of the
Province House, and delivering it into the old lady's hands, drew
his cloak around him for departure. As the General glanced back
at Esther Dudley's antique figure, he deemed her well fitted for
such a charge, as being so perfect a representative of the
decayed past--of an age gone by, with its manners, opinions,
faith and feelings, all fallen into oblivion or scorn--of what
had once been a reality, but was now merely a vision of faded
magnificence. Then Sir William Howe strode forth, smiting his
clinched hands together, in the fierce anguish of his spirit; and
old Esther Dudley was left to keep watch in the lonely Province
House, dwelling there with memory; and if Hope ever seemed to
flit around her, still was it Memory in disguise.

The total change of affairs that ensued on the departure of the
British troops did not drive the venerable lady from her
stronghold. There was not, for many years afterwards, a Governor
of Massachusetts; and the magistrates, who had charge of such
matters, saw no objection to Esther Dudley's residence in the
Province House, especially as they must otherwise have paid a
hireling for taking care of the premises, which with her was a
labor of love. And so they left her the undisturbed mistress of
the old historic edifice. Many and strange were the fables which
the gossips whispered about her, in all the chimney corners of
the town. Among the time-worn articles of furniture that had been
left in the mansion there was a tall, antique mirror, which was
well worthy of a tale by itself, and perhaps may hereafter be the
theme of one. The gold of its heavily-wrought frame was
tarnished, and its surface so blurred, that the old woman's
figure, whenever she paused before it, looked indistinct and
ghost-like. But it was the general belief that Esther could cause
the Governors of the overthrown dynasty, with the beautiful
ladies who had once adorned their festivals, the Indian chiefs
who had come up to the Province House to hold council or swear
allegiance, the grim Provincial warriors, the severe
clergymen--in short, all the pageantry of gone days--all the
figures that ever swept across the broad plate of glass in former
times--she could cause the whole to reappear, and people the
inner world of the mirror with shadows of old life. Such legends
as these, together with the singularity of her isolated
existence, her age, and the infirmity that each added winter
flung upon her, made Mistress Dudley the object both of fear and
pity; and it was partly the result of either sentiment that, amid
all the angry license of the times, neither wrong nor insult ever
fell upon her unprotected head. Indeed, there was so much
haughtiness in her demeanor towards intruders, among whom she
reckoned all persons acting under the new authorities, that it
was really an affair of no small nerve to look her in the face.
And to do the people justice, stern republicans as they had now
become, they were well content that the old gentlewoman, in her
hoop petticoat and faded embroidery, should still haunt the
palace of ruined pride and overthrown power, the symbol of a
departed system, embodying a history in her person. So Esther
Dudley dwelt year after year in the Province House, still
reverencing all that others had flung aside, still faithful to
her King, who, so long as the venerable dame yet held her post,
might be said to retain one true subject in New England, and one
spot of the empire that had been wrested from him.

And did she dwell there in utter loneliness? Rumor said, not so.
Whenever her chill and withered heart desired warmth, she was
wont to summon a black slave of Governor Shirley's from the
blurred mirror, and send him in search of guests who had long ago
been familiar in those deserted chambers. Forth went the sable
messenger, with the starlight or the moonshine gleaming through
him, and did his errand in the burial ground, knocking at the
iron doors of tombs, or upon the marble slabs that covered them,
and whispering to those within: "My mistress, old Esther Dudley,
bids you to the Province House at midnight." And punctually as
the clock of the Old South told twelve came the shadows of the
Olivers, the Hutchinsons, the Dudleys, all the grandees of a
by-gone generation, gliding beneath the portal into the
well-known mansion, where Esther mingled with them as if she
likewise were a shade. Without vouching for the truth of such
traditions, it is certain that Mistress Dudley sometimes
assembled a few of the stanch, though crestfallen, old Tories,
who had lingered in the rebel town during those days of wrath and
tribulation. Out of a cobwebbed bottle, containing liquor that a
royal Governor might have smacked his lips over, they quaffed
healths to the King, and babbled treason to the Republic, feeling
as if the protecting shadow of the throne were still flung around
them. But, draining the last drops of their liquor, they stole
timorously homeward, and answered not again if the rude mob
reviled them in the street.

Yet Esther Dudley's most frequent and favored guests were the
children of the town. Towards them she was never stern. A kindly
and loving nature, hindered elsewhere from its free course by a
thousand rocky prejudices, lavished itself upon these little
ones. By bribes of gingerbread of her own making, stamped with a
royal crown, she tempted their sunny sportiveness beneath the
gloomy portal of the Province House, and would often beguile them
to spend a whole play-day there, sitting in a circle round the
verge of her hoop petticoat, greedily attentive to her stories of
a dead world. And when these little boys and girls stole forth
again from the dark, mysterious mansion, they went bewildered,
full of old feelings that graver people had long ago forgotten,
rubbing their eyes at the world around them as if they had gone
astray into ancient times, and become children of the past. At
home, when their parents asked where they had loitered such a
weary while, and with whom they had been at play, the children
would talk of all the departed worthies of the Province, as far
back as Governor Belcher and the haughty dame of Sir William
Phipps. It would seem as though they had been sitting on the
knees of these famous personages, whom the grave had hidden for
half a century, and had toyed with the embroidery of their rich
waistcoats, or roguishly pulled the long curls of their flowing
wigs. "But Governor Belcher has been dead this many a year,"
would the mother say to her little boy. "And did you really see
him at the Province House?" "Oh yes, dear mother! yes!" the
half-dreaming child would answer. "But when old Esther had done
speaking about him he faded away out of his chair." Thus, without
affrighting her little guests, she led them by the hand into the
chambers of her own desolate heart, and made childhood's fancy
discern the ghosts that haunted there.

Living so continually in her own circle of ideas, and never
regulating her mind by a proper reference to present things,
Esther Dudley appears to have grown partially crazed. It was
found that she had no right sense of the progress and true state
of the Revolutionary War, but held a constant faith that the
armies of Britain were victorious on every field, and destined to
be ultimately triumphant. Whenever the town rejoiced for a battle
won by Washington, or Gates, or Morgan or Greene, the news, in
passing through the door of the Province House, as through the
ivory gate of dreams, became metamorphosed into a strange tale of
the prowess of Howe, Clinton, or Cornwallis. Sooner or later it
was her invincible belief the colonies would be prostrate at the
footstool of the King. Sometimes she seemed to take for granted
that such was already the case. On one occasion, she startled the
townspeople by a brilliant illumination of the Province House,
with candles at every pane of glass, and a transparency of the
King's initials and a crown of light in the great balcony window.
The figure of the aged woman in the most gorgeous of her mildewed
velvets and brocades was seen passing from casement to casement,
until she paused before the balcony, and flourished a huge key
above her head. Her wrinkled visage actually gleamed with
triumph, as if the soul within her were a festal lamp.

"What means this blaze of light? What does old Esther's joy
portend?" whispered a spectator. "It is frightful to see her
gliding about the chambers, and rejoicing there without a soul to
bear her company."

"It is as if she were making merry in a tomb," said another.

"Pshaw! It is no such mystery," observed an old man, after some
brief exercise of memory. "Mistress Dudley is keeping jubilee for
the King of England's birthday."

Then the people laughed aloud, and would have thrown mud against
the blazing transparency of the King's crown and initials, only
that they pitied the poor old dame, who was so dismally
triumphant amid the wreck and ruin of the system to which she
appertained.

Oftentimes it was her custom to climb the weary staircase that
wound upward to the cupola, and thence strain her dimmed eyesight
seaward and countryward, watching for a British fleet, or for the
march of a grand procession, with the King's banner floating over
it. The passengers in the street below would discern her anxious
visage, and send up a shout, "When the golden Indian on the
Province House shall shoot his arrow, and when the cock on the
Old South spire shall crow, then look for a Royal Governor
again!"--for this had grown a byword through the town. And at
last, after long, long years, old Esther Dudley knew, or
perchance she only dreamed, that a Royal Governor was on the eve
of returning to the Province House, to receive the heavy key
which Sir William Howe had committed to her charge. Now it was
the fact that intelligence bearing some faint analogy to Esther's
version of it was current among the townspeople. She set the
mansion in the best order that her means allowed, and, arraying
herself in silks and tarnished gold, stood long before the
blurred mirror to admire her own magnificence. As she gazed, the
gray and withered lady moved her ashen lips, murmuring half
aloud, talking to shapes that she saw within the mirror, to
shadows of her own fantasies, to the household friends of memory,
and bidding them rejoice with her and come forth to meet the
Governor. And while absorbed in this communion, Mistress Dudley
heard the tramp of many footsteps in the street, and, looking out
at the window, beheld what she construed as the Royal Governor's
arrival.

"O happy day! O blessed, blessed hour!" she exclaimed. "Let me
but bid him welcome within the portal, and my task in the
Province House, and on earth, is done!"

Then with tottering feet, which age and tremulous joy caused to
tread amiss, she hurried down the grand staircase, her silks
sweeping and rustling as she went, so that the sound was as if a
train of spectral courtiers were thronging from the dim mirror.
And Esther Dudley fancied that as soon as the wide door should be
flung open, all the pomp and splendor of by-gone times would pace
majestically into the Province House, and the gilded tapestry of
the past would be brightened by the sunshine of the present. She
turned the key--withdrew it from the lock--unclosed the door--and
stepped across the threshold. Advancing up the court-yard
appeared a person of most dignified mien, with tokens, as Esther
interpreted them, of gentle blood, high rank, and long-accustomed
authority, even in his walk and every gesture. He was richly
dressed, but wore a gouty shoe which, however, did not lessen the
stateliness of his gait. Around and behind him were people in
plain civic dresses, and two or three war-worn veterans,
evidently officers of rank, arrayed in a uniform of blue and
buff. But Esther Dudley, firm in the belief that had fastened its
roots about her heart, beheld only the principal personage, and
never doubted that this was the long-looked-for Governor, to whom
she was to surrender up her charge. As he approached, she
involuntary sank down on her knees and tremblingly held forth the
heavy key.

"Receive my trust! take it quickly!" cried she, "for methinks
Death is striving to snatch away my triumph. But he comes too
late. Thank Heaven for this blessed hour! God save King George!"

"That, Madam, is a strange prayer to be offered up at such a
moment," replied the unknown guest of the Province House, and
courteously removing his hat, he offered his arm to raise the
aged woman. "Yet, in reverence for your gray hairs and long-kept
faith, Heaven forbid that any here should say you nay. Over the
realms which still acknowledge his sceptre, God save King
George!"

Esther Dudley started to her feet, and hastily clutching back the
key gazed with fearful earnestness at the stranger; and dimly and
doubtfully, as if suddenly awakened from a dream, her bewildered
eyes half recognized his face. Years ago she had known him among
the gentry of the province. But the ban of the King had fallen
upon him! How, then, came the doomed victim here? Proscribed,
excluded from mercy, the monarch's most dreaded and hated foe,
this New England merchant had stood triumphantly against a
kingdom's strength; and his foot now trod upon humbled Royalty,
as he ascended the steps of the Province House, the people's
chosen Governor of Massachusetts.

"Wretch, wretch that I am!" muttered the old woman, with such a
heart-broken expression that the tears gushed from the stranger's
eyes "Have I bidden a traitor welcome? Come, Death! come
quickly!"

"Alas, venerable lady!" said Governor Hancock, tending her his
support with all the reverence that a courtier would have shown
to a queen.

"Your life has been prolonged until the world has changed around
you. You have treasured up all that time has rendered
worthless--the principles, feelings, manners, modes of being and
acting, which another generation has flung aside--and you are a
symbol of the past. And I, and these around me--we represent a
new race of men--living no longer in the past, scarcely in the
present--but projecting our lives forward into the future.
Ceasing to model ourselves on ancestral superstitions, it is our
faith and principle to press onward, onward! Yet," continued he,
turning to his attendants, "let us reverence, for the last time,
the stately and gorgeous prejudices of the tottering Past!"

While the Republican Governor spoke, he had continued to support
the helpless form of Esther Dudley; her weight grew heavier
against his arm; but at last, with a sudden effort to free
herself, the ancient woman sank down beside one of the pillars of
the portal. The key of the Province House fell from her grasp,
and clanked against the stone.

"I have been faithful unto death," murmured she. "God save the King!"

"She hath done her office!" said Hancock solemnly. "We will follow
her reverently to the tomb of her ancestors; and then, my fellow-citizens,
onward--onward! We are no longer children of the Past!"


As the old loyalist concluded his narrative, the
enthusiasm which had been fitfully flashing within his sunken
eyes, and quivering across his wrinkled visage, faded away, as if
all the lingering fire of his soul were extinguished. Just then,
too, a lamp upon the mantel-piece threw out a dying gleam, which
vanished as speedily as it shot upward, compelling our eyes to
grope for one another's features by the dim glow of the hearth.
With such a lingering fire, methought, with such a dying gleam,
had the glory of the ancient system vanished from the Province
House, when the spirit of old Esther Dudley took its flight. And
now, again, the clock of the Old South threw its voice of ages on
the breeze, knolling the hourly knell of the Past, crying out far
and wide through the multitudinous city, and filling our ears, as
we sat in the dusky chamber, with its reverberating depth of
tone. In that same mansion--in that very chamber--what a volume
of history had been told off into hours, by the same voice that
was now trembling in the air. Many a Governor had heard those
midnight accents, and longed to exchange his stately cares for
slumber. And as for mine host and Mr. Bela Tiffany and the old
loyalist and me, we had babbled about dreams of the past, until
we almost fancied that the clock was still striking in a bygone
century. Neither of us would have wondered, had a
hoop-petticoated phantom of Esther Dudley tottered into the
chamber, walking her rounds in the hush of midnight, as of yore,
and motioned us to quench the fading embers of the fire, and
leave the historic precincts to herself and her kindred shades.
But as no such vision was vouchsafed, I retired unbidden, and
would advise Mr. Tiffany to lay hold of another auditor, being
resolved not to show my face in the Province House for a good
while hence--if ever.




THE AMBITIOUS GUEST

One September night a family had gathered round their hearth,
and piled it high with the driftwood of mountain streams, the dry
cones of the pine, and the splintered ruins of great trees that
had come crashing down the precipice. Up the chimney roared the
fire, and brightened the room with its broad blaze. The faces of
the father and mother had a sober gladness; the children laughed;
the eldest daughter was the image of Happiness at seventeen; and
the aged grandmother, who sat knitting in the warmest place, was
the image of Happiness grown old. They had found the "herb,
heart's-ease," in the bleakest spot of all New England. This
family were situated in the Notch of the White Hills, where the
wind was sharp throughout the year, and pitilessly cold in the
winter,--giving their cottage all its fresh inclemency before it
descended on the valley of the Saco. They dwelt in a cold spot
and a dangerous one; for a mountain towered above their heads, so
steep, that the stones would often rumble down its sides and
startle them at midnight.

The daughter had just uttered some simple jest that filled them
all with mirth, when the wind came through the Notch and seemed
to pause before their cottage--rattling the door, with a sound of
wailing and lamentation, before it passed into the valley. For a
moment it saddened them, though there was nothing unusual in the
tones. But the family were glad again when they perceived that
the latch was lifted by some traveller, whose footsteps had been
unheard amid the dreary blast which heralded his approach, and
wailed as he was entering, and went moaning away from the door.

Though they dwelt in such a solitude, these people held daily
converse with the world. The romantic pass of the Notch is a
great artery, through which the life-blood of internal commerce
is continually throbbing between Maine, on one side, and the
Green Mountains and the shores of the St. Lawrence, on the other.
The stage-coach always drew up before the door of the cottage.
The wayfarer, with no companion but his staff, paused here to
exchange a word, that the sense of loneliness might not utterly
overcome him ere he could pass through the cleft of the mountain,
or reach the first house in the valley. And here the teamster, on
his way to Portland market, would put up for the night; and, if a
bachelor, might sit an hour beyond the usual bedtime, and steal a
kiss from the mountain maid at parting. It was one of those
primitive taverns where the traveller pays only for food and
lodging, but meets with a homely kindness beyond all price. When
the footsteps were heard, therefore, between the outer door and
the inner one, the whole family rose up, grandmother, children
and all, as if about to welcome some one who belonged to them,
and whose fate was linked with theirs.

The door was opened by a young man. His face at first wore the
melancholy expression, almost despondency, of one who travels a
wild and bleak road, at nightfall and alone, but soon brightened
up when he saw the kindly warmth of his reception. He felt his
heart spring forward to meet them all, from the old woman, who
wiped a chair with her apron, to the little child that held out
its arms to him. One glance and smile placed the stranger on a
footing of innocent familiarity with the eldest daughter.

"Ah, this fire is the right thing!" cried he; "especially when
there is such a pleasant circle round it. I am quite benumbed;
for the Notch is just like the pipe of a great pair of bellows;
it has blown a terrible blast in my face all the way from
Bartlett."

"Then you are going towards Vermont?" said the master of the
house, as he helped to take a light knapsack off the young man's
shoulders.

"Yes; to Burlington, and far enough beyond," replied he. "I meant
to have been at Ethan Crawford's to-night; but a pedestrian
lingers along such a road as this. It is no matter; for, when I
saw this good fire, and all your cheerful faces, I felt as if you
had kindled it on purpose for me, and were waiting my arrival. So
I shall sit down among you, and make myself at home."

The frank-hearted stranger had just drawn his chair to the fire
when something like a heavy footstep was heard without, rushing
down the steep side of the mountain, as with long and rapid
strides, and taking such a leap in passing the cottage as to
strike the opposite precipice. The family held their breath,
because they knew the sound, and their guest held his by
instinct.

"The old mountain has thrown a stone at us, for fear we should
forget him," said the landlord, recovering himself. "He sometimes
nods his head and threatens to come down; but we are old
neighbors, and agree together pretty well upon the whole. Besides
we have a sure place of refuge hard by if he should be coming in
good earnest."

Let us now suppose the stranger to have finished his supper of
bear's meat; and, by his natural felicity of manner, to have
placed himself on a footing of kindness with the whole family, so
that they talked as freely together as if he belonged to their
mountain brood. He was of a proud, yet gentle spirit--haughty and
reserved among the rich and great; but ever ready to stoop his
head to the lowly cottage door, and be like a brother or a son at
the poor man's fireside. In the household of the Notch he found
warmth and simplicity of feeling, the pervading intelligence of
New England, and a poetry of native growth, which they had
gathered when they little thought of it from the mountain peaks
and chasms, and at the very threshold of their romantic and
dangerous abode. He had travelled far and alone; his whole life,
indeed, had been a solitary path; for, with the lofty caution of
his nature, he had kept himself apart from those who might
otherwise have been his companions. The family, too, though so
kind and hospitable, had that consciousness of unity among
themselves, and separation from the world at large, which, in
every domestic circle, should still keep a holy place where no
stranger may intrude. But this evening a prophetic sympathy
impelled the refined and educated youth to pour out his heart
before the simple mountaineers, and constrained them to answer
him with the same free confidence. And thus it should have been.
Is not the kindred of a common fate a closer tie than that of
birth?

The secret of the young man's character was a high and abstracted
ambition. He could have borne to live an undistinguished life,
but not to be forgotten in the grave. Yearning desire had been
transformed to hope; and hope, long cherished, had become like
certainty, that, obscurely as he journeyed now, a glory was to
beam on all his pathway,--though not, perhaps, while he was
treading it. But when posterity should gaze back into the gloom
of what was now the present, they would trace the brightness of
his footsteps, brightening as meaner glories faded, and confess
that a gifted one had passed from his cradle to his tomb with
none to recognize him.

"As yet," cried the stranger--his cheek glowing and his eye
flashing with enthusiasm--"as yet, I have done nothing. Were I to
vanish from the earth to-morrow, none would know so much of me as
you: that a nameless youth came up at nightfall from the valley
of the Saco, and opened his heart to you in the evening, and
passed through the Notch by sunrise, and was seen no more. Not a
soul would ask, 'Who was he? Whither did the wanderer go?' But I
cannot die till I have achieved my destiny. Then, let Death come!
I shall have built my monument!"

There was a continual flow of natural emotion, gushing forth amid
abstracted reverie, which enabled the family to understand this
young man's sentiments, though so foreign from their own. With
quick sensibility of the ludicrous, he blushed at the ardor into
which he had been betrayed.

"You laugh at me," said he, taking the eldest daughter's hand,
and laughing himself. "You think my ambition as nonsensical as if
I were to freeze myself to death on the top of Mount Washington,
only that people might spy at me from the country round about.
And, truly, that would be a noble pedestal for a man's statue!"

"It is better to sit here by this fire," answered the girl,
blushing, "and be comfortable and contented, though nobody thinks
about us."

"I suppose," said her father, after a fit of musing, "there is
something natural in what the young man says; and if my mind had
been turned that way, I might have felt just the same. It is
strange, wife, how his talk has set my head running on things
that are pretty certain never to come to pass."

"Perhaps they may," observed the wife. "Is the man thinking what
he will do when he is a widower?"

"No, no!" cried he, repelling the idea with reproachful kindness.
"When I think of your death, Esther, I think of mine, too. But I
was wishing we had a good farm in Bartlett, or Bethlehem, or
Littleton, or some other township round the White Mountains; but
not where they could tumble on our heads. I should want to stand
well with my neighbors and be called Squire, and sent to General
Court for a term or two; for a plain, honest man may do as much
good there as a lawyer. And when I should be grown quite an old
man, and you an old woman, so as not to be long apart, I might
die happy enough in my bed, and leave you all crying around me. A
slate gravestone would suit me as well as a marble one--with just
my name and age, and a verse of a hymn, and something to let
people know that I lived an honest man and died a Christian."

"There now!" exclaimed the stranger; "it is our nature to desire
a monument, be it slate or marble, or a pillar of granite, or a
glorious memory in the universal heart of man."

"We're in a strange way, to-night," said the wife, with tears in
her eyes. "They say it's a sign of something, when folks' minds
go a wandering so. Hark to the children!"

They listened accordingly. The younger children had been put to
bed in another room, but with an open door between, so that they
could be heard talking busily among themselves. One and all
seemed to have caught the infection from the fireside circle, and
were outvying each other in wild wishes, and childish projects of
what they would do when they came to be men and women. At length
a little boy, instead of addressing his brothers and sisters,
called out to his mother.

"I'll tell you what I wish, mother," cried he. "I want you and
father and grandma'm, and all of us, and the stranger too, to
start right away, and go and take a drink out of the basin of the
Flume!"

Nobody could help laughing at the child's notion of leaving a
warm bed, and dragging them from a cheerful fire, to visit the
basin of the Flume,--a brook, which tumbles over the precipice,
deep within the Notch. The boy had hardly spoken when a wagon
rattled along the road, and stopped a moment before the door. It
appeared to contain two or three men, who were cheering their
hearts with the rough chorus of a song, which resounded, in
broken notes, between the cliffs, while the singers hesitated
whether to continue their journey or put up here for the night.

"Father," said the girl, "they are calling you by name."

But the good man doubted whether they had really called him, and
was unwilling to show himself too solicitous of gain by inviting
people to patronize his house. He therefore did not hurry to the
door; and the lash being soon applied, the travellers plunged
into the Notch, still singing and laughing, though their music
and mirth came back drearily from the heart of the mountain.

"There, mother!" cried the boy, again. "They'd have given us a
ride to the Flume."

Again they laughed at the child's pertinacious fancy for a night
ramble. But it happened that a light cloud passed over the
daughter's spirit; she looked gravely into the fire, and drew a
breath that was almost a sigh. It forced its way, in spite of a
little struggle to repress it. Then starting and blushing, she
looked quickly round the circle, as if they had caught a glimpse
into her bosom. The stranger asked what she had been thinking of.

"Nothing," answered she, with a downcast smile. "Only I felt
lonesome just then."

"Oh, I have always had a gift of feeling what is in other
people's hearts," said he, half seriously. "Shall I tell the
secrets of yours? For I know what to think when a young girl
shivers by a warm hearth, and complains of lonesomeness at her
mother's side. Shall I put these feelings into words?"

"They would not be a girl's feelings any longer if they could be
put into words," replied the mountain nymph, laughing, but
avoiding his eye.

All this was said apart. Perhaps a germ of love was springing in
their hearts, so pure that it might blossom in Paradise, since it
could not be matured on earth; for women worship such gentle
dignity as his; and the proud, contemplative, yet kindly soul is
oftenest captivated by simplicity like hers. But while they spoke
softly, and he was watching the happy sadness, the lightsome
shadows, the shy yearnings of a maiden's nature, the wind through
the Notch took a deeper and drearier sound. It seemed, as the
fanciful stranger said, like the choral strain of the spirits of
the blast, who in old Indian times had their dwelling among these
mountains, and made their heights and recesses a sacred region.
There was a wail along the road, as if a funeral were passing. To
chase away the gloom, the family threw pine branches on their
fire, till the dry leaves crackled and the flame arose,
discovering once again a scene of peace and humble happiness. The
light hovered about them fondly, and caressed them all. There
were the little faces of the children, peeping from their bed
apart and here the father's frame of strength, the mother's
subdued and careful mien, the high-browed youth, the budding
girl, and the good old grandam, still knitting in the warmest
place. The aged woman looked up from her task, and, with fingers
ever busy, was the next to speak.

"Old folks have their notions," said she, "as well as young ones.
You've been wishing and planning; and letting your heads run on
one thing and another, till you've set my mind a wandering too.
Now what should an old woman wish for, when she can go but a step
or two before she comes to her grave? Children, it will haunt me
night and day till I tell you."

"What is it, mother?" cried the husband and wife at once.

Then the old woman, with an air of mystery which drew the circle
closer round the fire, informed them that she had provided her
graveclothes some years before,--a nice linen shroud, a cap with
a muslin ruff, and everything of a finer sort than she had worn
since her wedding day. But this evening an old superstition had
strangely recurred to her. It used to be said, in her younger
days, that if anything were amiss with a corpse, if only the ruff
were not smooth, or the cap did not set right, the corpse in the
coffin and beneath the clods would strive to put up its cold
hands and arrange it. The bare thought made her nervous.

"Don't talk so, grandmother!" said the girl, shuddering.

"Now,"--continued the old woman, with singular earnestness, yet
smiling strangely at her own folly,--"I want one of you, my
children--when your mother is dressed and in the coffin--I want
one of you to hold a looking-glass over my face. Who knows but I
may take a glimpse at myself, and see whether all's right?"

"Old and young, we dream of graves and monuments," murmured the
stranger youth. "I wonder how mariners feel when the ship is
sinking, and they, unknown and undistinguished, are to be buried
together in the ocean--that wide and nameless sepulchre?"

For a moment, the old woman's ghastly conception so engrossed the
minds of her hearers that a sound abroad in the night, rising
like the roar of a blast, had grown broad, deep, and terrible,
before the fated group were conscious of it. The house and all
within it trembled; the foundations of the earth seemed to be
shaken, as if this awful sound were the peal of the last trump.
Young and old exchanged one wild glance, and remained an instant,
pale, affrighted, without utterance, or power to move. Then the
same shriek burst simultaneously from all their lips.

"The Slide! The Slide!"

The simplest words must intimate, but not portray, the
unutterable horror of the catastrophe. The victims rushed from
their cottage, and sought refuge in what they deemed a safer
spot--where, in contemplation of such an emergency, a sort of
barrier had been reared. Alas! they had quitted their security,
and fled right into the pathway of destruction. Down came the
whole side of the mountain, in a cataract of ruin. Just before it
reached the house, the stream broke into two branches--shivered
not a window there, but overwhelmed the whole vicinity, blocked
up the road, and annihilated everything in its dreadful course.
Long ere the thunder of the great Slide had ceased to roar among
the mountains, the mortal agony had been endured, and the victims
were at peace. Their bodies were never found.

The next morning, the light smoke was seen stealing from the
cottage chimney up the mountain side. Within, the fire was yet
smouldering on the hearth, and the chairs in a circle round it,
as if the inhabitants had but gone forth to view the devastation
of the Slide, and would shortly return, to thank Heaven for their
miraculous escape. All had left separate tokens, by which those
who had known the family were made to shed a tear for each. Who
has not heard their name? The story has been told far and wide,
and will forever be a legend of these mountains. Poets have sung
their fate.

There were circumstances which led some to suppose that a
stranger had been received into the cottage on this awful night,
and had shared the catastrophe of all its inmates. Others denied
that there were sufficient grounds for such a conjecture. Woe for
the high-souled youth, with his dream of Earthly Immortality! His
name and person utterly unknown; his history, his way of life,
his plans, a mystery never to be solved, his death and his
existence equally a doubt! Whose was the agony of that death
moment?




PETER GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE

"And so, Peter, you won't even consider of the business?" said
Mr. John Brown, buttoning his surtout over the snug rotundity of
his person, and drawing on his gloves. "You positively refuse to
let me have this crazy old house, and the land under and
adjoining, at the price named?"

"Neither at that, nor treble the sum," responded the gaunt,
grizzled, and threadbare Peter Goldthwaite. "The fact is, Mr.
Brown, you must find another site for your brick block, and be
content to leave my estate with the present owner. Next summer, I
intend to put a splendid new mansion over the cellar of the old
house."

"Pho, Peter!" cried Mr. Brown, as he opened the kitchen door;
"content yourself with building castles in the air, where
house-lots are cheaper than on earth, to say nothing of the cost
of bricks and mortar. Such foundations are solid enough for your
edifices, while this underneath us is just the thing for mine;
and so we may both be suited. What say you again?"

"Precisely what I said before, Mr. Brown," answered Peter
Goldthwaite. "And as for castles in the air, mine may not be as
magnificent as that sort of architecture, but perhaps as
substantial, Mr. Brown, as the very respectable brick block with
dry goods stores, tailors' shops, and banking rooms on the lower
floor, and lawyers' offices in the second story, which you are so
anxious to substitute."

"And the cost, Peter, eh?" said Mr. Brown, as he withdrew, in
something of a pet. "That, I suppose, will be provided for,
off-hand, by drawing a check on Bubble Bank!"

John Brown and Peter Goldthwaite had been jointly known to the
commercial world between twenty and thirty years before, under
the firm of Goldthwaite & Brown; which co-partnership, however,
was speedily dissolved by the natural incongruity of its
constituent parts. Since that event, John Brown, with exactly the
qualities of a thousand other John Browns, and by just such
plodding methods as they used, had prospered wonderfully, and
become one of the wealthiest John Browns on earth. Peter
Goldthwaite, on the contrary, after innumerable schemes, which
ought to have collected all the coin and paper currency of the
country into his coffers, was as needy a gentleman as ever wore a
patch upon his elbow. The contrast between him and his former
partner may be briefly marked; for Brown never reckoned upon
luck, yet always had it; while Peter made luck the main condition
of his projects, and always missed it. While the means held out,
his speculations had been magnificent, but were chiefly confined,
of late years, to such small business as adventures in the
lottery. Once he had gone on a gold-gathering expedition
somewhere to the South, and ingeniously contrived to empty his
pockets more thoroughly than ever; while others, doubtless, were
filling theirs with native bullion by the handful. More recently
he had expended a legacy of a thousand or two of dollars in
purchasing Mexican scrip, and thereby became the proprietor of a
province; which, however, so far as Peter could find out, was
situated where he might have had an empire for the same
money,--in the clouds. From a search after this valuable real
estate Peter returned so gaunt and threadbare that, on reaching
New England, the scarecrows in the cornfields beckoned to him, as
he passed by. "They did but flutter in the wind," quoth Peter
Goldthwaite. No, Peter, they beckoned, for the scarecrows knew
their brother!

At the period of our story his whole visible income would not
have paid the tax of the old mansion in which we find him. It was
one of those rusty, moss-grown, many-peaked wooden houses, which
are scattered about the streets of our elder towns, with a
beetle-browed second story projecting over the foundation, as if
it frowned at the novelty around it. This old paternal edifice,
needy as he was, and though, being centrally situated on the
principal street of the town, it would have brought him a
handsome sum, the sagacious Peter had his own reasons for never
parting with, either by auction or private sale. There seemed,
indeed, to be a fatality that connected him with his birthplace;
for, often as he had stood on the verge of ruin, and standing
there even now, he had not yet taken the step beyond it which
would have compelled him to surrender the house to his creditors.
So here he dwelt with bad luck till good should come.

Here then in his kitchen, the only room where a spark of fire
took off the chill of a November evening, poor Peter Goldthwaite
had just been visited by his rich old partner. At the close of
their interview, Peter, with rather a mortified look, glanced
downwards at his dress, parts of which appeared as ancient as the
days of Goldthwaite & Brown. His upper garment was a mixed
surtout, wofully faded, and patched with newer stuff on each
elbow; beneath this he wore a threadbare black coat, some of the
silk buttons of which had been replaced with others of a
different pattern; and lastly, though he lacked not a pair of
gray pantaloons, they were very shabby ones, and had been
partially turned brown by the frequent toasting of Peter's shins
before a scanty fire. Peter's person was in keeping with his
goodly apparel. Gray-headed, hollow-eyed, pale-cheeked, and
lean-bodied, he was the perfect picture of a man who had fed on
windy schemes and empty hopes, till he could neither live on such
unwholesome trash, nor stomach more substantial food. But,
withal, this Peter Goldthwaite, crack-brained simpleton as,
perhaps, he was, might have cut a very brilliant figure in the
world, had he employed his imagination in the airy business of
poetry, instead of making it a demon of mischief in mercantile
pursuits. After all, he was no bad fellow, but as harmless as a
child, and as honest and honorable, and as much of the gentleman
which nature meant him for, as an irregular life and depressed
circumstances will permit any man to be.

As Peter stood on the uneven bricks of his hearth, looking round
at the disconsolate old kitchen, his eyes began to kindle with
the illumination of an enthusiasm that never long deserted him.
He raised his hand, clinched it, and smote it energetically
against the smoky panel over the fireplace.

"The time is come!" said he. "With such a treasure at command, it
were folly to be a poor man any longer. To-morrow morning I will
begin with the garret, nor desist till I have torn the house
down!"

Deep in the chimney-corner, like a witch in a dark cavern, sat a
little old woman, mending one of the two pairs of stockings
wherewith Peter Goldthwaite kept his toes from being frostbitten.
As the feet were ragged past all darning, she had cut pieces out
of a cast-off flannel petticoat, to make new soles. Tabitha
Porter was an old maid, upwards of sixty years of age, fifty-five
of which she had sat in that same chimney-corner, such being the
length of time since Peter's grandfather had taken her from the
almshouse. She had no friend but Peter, nor Peter any friend but
Tabitha; so long as Peter might have a shelter for his own head,
Tabitha would know where to shelter hers; or, being homeless
elsewhere, she would take her master by the hand and bring him to
her native home, the almshouse. Should it ever be necessary, she
loved him well enough to feed him with her last morsel, and
clothe him with her under petticoat. But Tabitha was a queer old
woman, and, though never infected with Peter's flightiness, had
become so accustomed to his freaks and follies that she viewed
them all as matters of course. Hearing him threaten to tear the
house down, she looked quietly up from her work.

"Best leave the kitchen till the last, Mr. Peter," said she.

"The sooner we have it all down the better," said Peter
Goldthwaite. "I am tired to death of living in this cold, dark,
windy, smoky, creaking, groaning, dismal old house. I shall feel
like a younger man when we get into my splendid brick mansion,
as, please Heaven, we shall by this time next autumn. You shall
have a room on the sunny side, old Tabby, finished and furnished
as best may suit your own notions."

"I should like it pretty much such a room as this kitchen,"
answered Tabitha. "It will never be like home to me till the
chimney-corner gets as black with smoke as this; and that won't
be these hundred years. How much do you mean to lay out on the
house, Mr. Peter?"

"What is that to the purpose?" exclaimed Peter, loftily. "Did not
my great-granduncle, Peter Goldthwaite, who died seventy years
ago, and whose namesake I am, leave treasure enough to build
twenty such?"

"I can't say but he did, Mr. Peter," said Tabitha, threading her
needle.

Tabitha well understood that Peter had reference to an immense
hoard of the precious metals, which was said to exist somewhere
in the cellar or walls, or under the floors, or in some concealed
closet, or other out-of-the-way nook of the house. This wealth,
according to tradition, had been accumulated by a former Peter
Goldthwaite, whose character seems to have borne a remarkable
similitude to that of the Peter of our story. Like him he was a
wild projector, seeking to heap up gold by the bushel and the
cartload, instead of scraping it together, coin by coin. Like
Peter the second, too, his projects had almost invariably failed,
and, but for the magnificent success of the final one, would have
left him with hardly a coat and pair of breeches to his gaunt and
grizzled person. Reports were various as to the nature of his
fortunate speculation: one intimating that the ancient Peter had
made the gold by alchemy; another, that he had conjured it out of
people's pockets by the black art; and a third, still more
unaccountable, that the devil had given him free access to the
old provincial treasury. It was affirmed, however, that some
secret impediment had debarred him from the enjoyment of his
riches, and that he had a motive for concealing them from his
heir, or at any rate had died without disclosing the place of
deposit. The present Peter's father had faith enough in the story
to cause the cellar to be dug over. Peter himself chose to
consider the legend as an indisputable truth, and, amid his many
troubles, had this one consolation that, should all other
resources fail, he might build up his fortunes by tearing his
house down. Yet, unless he felt a lurking distrust of the golden
tale, it is difficult to account for his permitting the paternal
roof to stand so long, since he had never yet seen the moment
when his predecessor's treasure would not have found plenty of
room in his own strong box. But now was the crisis. Should he
delay the search a little longer, the house would pass from the
lineal heir, and with it the vast heap of gold, to remain in its
burial-place, till the ruin of the aged walls should discover it
to strangers of a future generation.

"Yes!" cried Peter Goldthwaite, again, "to-morrow I will set
about it."

The deeper he looked at the matter the more certain of success
grew Peter. His spirits were naturally so elastic that even now,
in the blasted autumn of his age, he could often compete with the
spring-time gayety of other people. Enlivened by his brightening
prospects, he began to caper about the kitchen like a hobgoblin,
with the queerest antics of his lean limbs, and gesticulations of
his starved features. Nay, in the exuberance of his feelings, he
seized both of Tabitha's hands, and danced the old lady across
the floor, till the oddity of her rheumatic motions set him into
a roar of laughter, which was echoed back from the rooms and
chambers, as if Peter Goldthwaite were laughing in every one.
Finally he bounded upward almost out of sight, into the smoke
that clouded the roof of the kitchen, and, alighting safely on
the floor again, endeavored to resume his customary gravity.

"To-morrow, at sunrise," he repeated, taking his lamp to retire
to bed, "I'll see whether this treasure be hid in the wall of the
garret."

"And as we're out of wood, Mr. Peter," said Tabitha, puffing and
panting with her late gymnastics, "as fast as you tear the house
down, I'll make a fire with the pieces."

Gorgeous that night were the dreams of Peter Goldthwaite! At one
time he was turning a ponderous key in an iron door not unlike
the door of a sepulchre, but which, being opened, disclosed a
vault heaped up with gold coin, as plentifully as golden corn in
a granary. There were chased goblets, also, and tureens, salvers,
dinner dishes, and dish covers of gold, or silver gilt, besides
chains and other jewels, incalculably rich, though tarnished with
the damps of the vault; for, of all the wealth that was
irrevocably lost to the man, whether buried in the earth or
sunken in the sea, Peter Goldthwaite had found it in this one
treasure-place. Anon, he had returned to the old house as poor as
ever, and was received at the door by the gaunt and grizzled
figure of a man whom he might have mistaken for himself, only
that his garments were of a much elder fashion. But the house,
without losing its former aspect, had been changed into a palace
of the precious metals. The floors, walls, and ceiling were of
burnished silver; the doors, the window frames, the cornices, the
balustrades and the steps of the staircase, of pure gold; and
silver, with gold bottoms, were the chairs, and gold, standing on
silver legs, the high chests of drawers, and silver the
bedsteads, with blankets of woven gold, and sheets of silver
tissue. The house had evidently been transmuted by a single
touch; for it retained all the marks that Peter remembered, but
in gold or silver instead of wood; and the initials of his name,
which, when a boy, he had cut in the wooden door-post, remained
as deep in the pillar of gold. A happy man would have been Peter
Goldthwaite except for a certain ocular deception, which,
whenever he glanced backwards, caused the house to darken from
its glittering magnificence into the sordid gloom of yesterday.

Up, betimes, rose Peter, seized an axe, hammer, and saw, which he
had placed by his bedside, and hied him to the garret. It was but
scantily lighted up, as yet, by the frosty fragments of a
sunbeam, which began to glimmer through the almost opaque
bull's-eyes of the window. A moralizer might find abundant themes
for his speculative and impracticable wisdom in a garret. There
is the limbo of departed fashions, aged trifles. Of a day, and
whatever was valuable only to one generation of men, and which
passed to the garret when that generation passed to the grave,
not for safe keeping, but to be out of the way. Peter saw piles
of yellow and musty account-books, in parchment covers, wherein
creditors, long dead and buried, had written the names of dead
and buried debtors in ink now so faded that their moss-grown
tombstones were more legible. He found old moth-eaten garments
all in rags and tatters, or Peter would have put them on. Here
was a naked and rusty sword, not a sword of service, but a
gentleman's small French rapier, which had never left its
scabbard till it lost it. Here were canes of twenty different
sorts, but no gold-headed ones, and shoe-buckles of various
pattern and material, but not silver nor set with precious
stones. Here was a large box full of shoes, with high heels and
peaked toes. Here, on a shelf, were a multitude of phials,
half-filled with old apothecaries' stuff, which, when the other
half had done its business on Peter's ancestors, had been brought
hither from the death chamber. Here--not to give a longer
inventory of articles that will never be put up at auction--was
the fragment of a full-length looking-glass, which, by the dust
and dimness of its surface, made the picture of these old things
look older than the reality. When Peter not knowing that there
was a mirror there, caught the faint traces of his own figure, he
partly imagined that the former Peter Goldthwaite had come back,
either to assist or impede his search for the hidden wealth. And
at that moment a strange notion glimmered through his brain that
he was the identical Peter who had concealed the gold, and ought
to know whereabout it lay. This, however, he had unaccountably
forgotten.

"Well, Mr. Peter!" cried Tabitha, on the garret stairs. "Have you
torn the house down enough to heat the teakettle?"

"Not yet, old Tabby," answered Peter; "but that's soon done--as
you shall see."

With the word in his mouth, he uplifted the axe, and laid about
him so vigorously that the dust flew, the boards crashed, and, in
a twinkling, the old woman had an apron full of broken rubbish.

"We shall get our winter's wood cheap," quoth Tabitha.

The good work being thus commenced, Peter beat down all before
him, smiting and hewing at the joists and timbers, unclinching
spike-nails, ripping and tearing away boards, with a tremendous
racket, from morning till night. He took care, however, to leave
the outside shell of the house untouched, so that the neighbors
might not suspect what was going on.

Never, in any of his vagaries, though each had made him happy
while it lasted, had Peter been happier than now. Perhaps, after
all, there was something in Peter Goldthwaite's turn of mind,
which brought him an inward recompense for all the external evil
that it caused. If he were poor, ill-clad, even hungry, and
exposed, as it were, to be utterly annihilated by a precipice of
impending ruin, yet only his body remained in these miserable
circumstances, while his aspiring soul enjoyed the sunshine of a
bright futurity. It was his nature to be always young, and the
tendency of his mode of life to keep him so. Gray hairs were
nothing, no, nor wrinkles, nor infirmity; he might look old,
indeed, and be somewhat disagreeably connected with a gaunt old
figure, much the worse for wear; but the true, the essential
Peter was a young man of high hopes, just entering on the world.
At the kindling of each new fire, his burnt-out youth rose afresh
from the old embers and ashes. It rose exulting now. Having lived
thus long--not too long, but just to the right age--a susceptible
bachelor, with warm and tender dreams, he resolved, so soon as
the hidden gold should flash to light, to go a-wooing, and win
the love of the fairest maid in town. What heart could resist
him? Happy Peter Goldthwaite!

Every evening--as Peter had long absented himself from his former
lounging-places, at insurance offices, news-rooms, and
bookstores, and as the honor of his company was seldom requested
in private circles--he and Tabitha used to sit down sociably by
the kitchen hearth. This was always heaped plentifully with the
rubbish of his day's labor. As the foundation of the fire, there
would be a goodly-sized backlog of red oak, which, after being
sheltered from rain or damp above a century, still hissed with
the heat, and distilled streams of water from each end, as if the
tree had been cut down within a week or two. Next these were
large sticks, sound, black, and heavy, which had lost the
principle of decay, and were indestructible except by fire,
wherein they glowed like red-hot bars of iron. On this solid
basis, Tabitha would rear a lighter structure, composed of the
splinters of door panels, ornamented mouldings, and such quick
combustibles, which caught like straw, and threw a brilliant
blaze high up the spacious flue, making its sooty sides visible
almost to the chimney-top. Meantime, the gleam of the old kitchen
would be chased out of the cobwebbed corners and away from the
dusky cross-beams overhead, and driven nobody could tell whither,
while Peter smiled like a gladsome man, and Tabitha seemed a
picture of comfortable age. All this, of course, was but an
emblem of the bright fortune which the destruction of the house
would shed upon its occupants.

While the dry pine was flaming and crackling, like an irregular
discharge of fairy musketry, Peter sat looking and listening, in
a pleasant state of excitement. But, when the brief blaze and
uproar were succeeded by the dark-red glow, the substantial heat,
and the deep singing sound, which were to last throughout the
evening, his humor became talkative. One night, the hundredth
time, he teased Tabitha to tell him something new about his
great-granduncle.

"You have been sitting in that chimney-corner fifty-five years,
old Tabby, and must have heard many a tradition about him," said
Peter. "Did not you tell me that, when you first came to the
house, there was an old woman sitting where you sit now, who had
been housekeeper to the famous Peter Goldthwaite?"

"So there was, Mr. Peter," answered Tabitha, "and she was near
about a hundred years old. She used to say that she and old Peter
Goldthwaite had often spent a sociable evening by the kitchen
fire--pretty much as you and I are doing now, Mr. Peter."

"The old fellow must have resembled me in more points than one,"
said Peter, complacently, "or he never would have grown so rich.
But, methinks, he might have invested the money better than he
did--no interest!--nothing but good security!--and the house to
be torn down to come at it! What made him hide it so snug,
Tabby?"

"Because he could not spend it," said Tabitha; "for as often as
he went to unlock the chest, the Old Scratch came behind and
caught his arm. The money, they say, was paid Peter out of his
purse; and he wanted Peter to give him a deed of this house and
land, which Peter swore he would not do."

"Just as I swore to John Brown, my old partner," remarked Peter.
"But this is all nonsense, Tabby! I don't believe the story."

"Well, it may not be just the truth," said Tabitha; "for some
folks say that Peter did make over the house to the Old Scratch,
and that's the reason it has always been so unlucky to them that
lived in it. And as soon as Peter had given him the deed, the
chest flew open, and Peter caught up a handful of the gold. But,
lo and behold!--there was nothing in his fist but a parcel of old
rags."

"Hold your tongue, you silly old Tabby!" cried Peter in great
wrath. "They were as good golden guineas as ever bore the
effigies of the king of England. It seems as if I could recollect
the whole circumstance, and how I, or old Peter, or whoever it
was, thrust in my hand, or his hand, and drew it out all of a
blaze with gold. Old rags, indeed!"

But it was not an old woman's legend that would discourage Peter
Goldthwaite. All night long he slept among pleasant dreams, and
awoke at daylight with a joyous throb of the heart, which few are
fortunate enough to feel beyond their boyhood. Day after day he
labored hard without wasting a moment, except at meal times, when
Tabitha summoned him to the pork and cabbage, or such other
sustenance as she had picked up, or Providence had sent them.
Being a truly pious man, Peter never failed to ask a blessing; if
the food were none of the best, then so much the more earnestly,
as it was more needed;--nor to return thanks, if the dinner had
been scanty, yet for the good appetite, which was better than a
sick stomach at a feast. Then did he hurry back to his toil, and,
in a moment, was lost to sight in a cloud of dust from the old
walls, though sufficiently perceptible to the ear by the clatter
which he raised in the midst of it. How enviable is the
consciousness of being usefully employed! Nothing troubled Peter;
or nothing but those phantoms of the mind which seem like vague
recollections, yet have also the aspect of presentiments. He
often paused, with his axe uplifted in the air, and said to
himself,--"Peter Goldthwaite, did you never strike this blow
before?" or, "Peter, what need of tearing the whole house down?
Think a little while, and you will remember where the gold is
hidden." Days and weeks passed on, however, without any
remarkable discovery. Sometimes, indeed, a lean, gray rat peeped
forth at the lean, gray man, wondering what devil had got into
the old house, which had always been so peaceable till now. And,
occasionally, Peter sympathized with the sorrows of a female
mouse, who had brought five or six pretty, little, soft and
delicate young ones into the world just in time to see them
crushed by its ruin. But, as yet, no treasure!

By this time, Peter, being as determined as Fate and as diligent
as Time, had made an end with the uppermost regions, and got down
to the second story, where he was busy in one of the front
chambers. It had formerly been the state bed-chamber, and was
honored by tradition as the sleeping apartment of Governor
Dudley, and many other eminent guests. The furniture was gone.
There were remnants of faded and tattered paper-hangings, but
larger spaces of bare wall ornamented with charcoal sketches,
chiefly of people's heads in profile. These being specimens of
Peter's youthful genius, it went more to his heart to obliterate
them than if they had been pictures on a church wall by Michael
Angelo. One sketch, however, and that the best one, affected him
differently. It represented a ragged man, partly supporting
himself on a spade, and bending his lean body over a hole in the
earth, with one hand extended to grasp something that he had
found. But close behind him, with a fiendish laugh on his
features, appeared a figure with horns, a tufted tail, and a
cloven hoof.

"Avaunt, Satan!" cried Peter. "The man shall have his gold!"

Uplifting his axe, he hit the horned gentleman such a blow on the
head as not only demolished him, but the treasure-seeker also,
and caused the whole scene to vanish like magic. Moreover, his
axe broke quite through the plaster and laths, and discovered a
cavity.

"Mercy on us, Mr. Peter, are you quarrelling with the Old
Scratch?" said Tabitha, who was seeking some fuel to put under
the pot.

Without answering the old woman, Peter broke down a further space
of the wall, and laid open a small closet or cupboard, on one
side of the fireplace, about breast high from the ground. It
contained nothing but a brass lamp, covered with verdigris, and a
dusty piece of parchment. While Peter inspected the latter,
Tabitha seized the lamp, and began to rub it with her apron.

"There is no use in rubbing it, Tabitha," said Peter. "It is not
Aladdin's lamp, though I take it to be a token of as much luck.
Look here Tabby!"

Tabitha took the parchment and held it close to her nose, which
was saddled with a pair of iron-bound spectacles. But no sooner
had she began to puzzle over it than she burst into a chuckling
laugh, holding both her hands against her sides.

"You can't make a fool of the old woman!" cried she. "This is
your own handwriting, Mr. Peter! the same as in the letter you
sent me from Mexico."

"There is certainly a considerable resemblance," said Peter,
again examining the parchment. "But you know yourself, Tabby,
that this closet must have been plastered up before you came to
the house, or I came into the world. No, this is old Peter
Goldthwaite's writing; these columns of pounds, shillings, and
pence are his figures, denoting the amount of the treasure; and
this at the bottom is, doubtless, a reference to the place of
concealment. But the ink has either faded or peeled off, so that
it is absolutely illegible. What a pity!"

"Well, this lamp is as good as new. That's some comfort," said
Tabitha.

"A lamp!" thought Peter. "That indicates light on my researches."

For the present, Peter felt more inclined to ponder on this
discovery than to resume his labors. After Tabitha had gone down
stairs, he stood poring over the parchment, at one of the front
windows, which was so obscured with dust that the sun could
barely throw an uncertain shadow of the casement across the
floor. Peter forced it open, and looked out upon the great street
of the town, while the sun looked in at his old house. The air,
though mild, and even warm, thrilled Peter as with a dash of
water.

It was the first day of the January thaw. The snow lay deep upon
the house-tops, but was rapidly dissolving into millions of
water-drops, which sparkled downwards through the sunshine, with
the noise of a summer shower beneath the eaves. Along the street,
the trodden snow was as hard and solid as a pavement of white
marble, and had not yet grown moist in the spring-like
temperature. But when Peter thrust forth his head, he saw that
the inhabitants, if not the town, were already thawed out by this
warm day, after two or three weeks of winter weather. It
gladdened him--a gladness with a sigh breathing through it--to
see the stream of ladies, gliding along the slippery sidewalks,
with their red cheeks set off by quilted hoods, boas, and sable
capes, like roses amidst a new kind of foliage. The sleigh-bells
jingled to and fro continually: sometimes announcing the arrival
of a sleigh from Vermont, laden with the frozen bodies of
porkers, or sheep, and perhaps a deer or two; sometimes of a
regular market-man, with chickens, geese, and turkeys, comprising
the whole colony of a barn yard; and sometimes of a farmer and
his dame, who had come to town partly for the ride, partly to go
a-shopping, and partly for the sale of some eggs and butter. This
couple rode in an old-fashioned square sleigh, which had served
them twenty winters, and stood twenty summers in the sun beside
their door. Now, a gentleman and lady skimmed the snow in an
elegant car, shaped somewhat like a cockle-shell. Now, a
stage-sleigh, with its cloth curtains thrust aside to admit the
sun, dashed rapidly down the street, whirling in and out among
the vehicles that obstructed its passage. Now came, round a
corner, the similitude of Noah's ark on runners, being an immense
open sleigh with seats for fifty people, and drawn by a dozen
horses. This spacious receptacle was populous with merry maids
and merry bachelors, merry girls and boys, and merry old folks,
all alive with fun, and grinning to the full width of their
mouths. They kept up a buzz of babbling voices and low laughter,
and sometimes burst into a deep, joyous shout, which the
spectators answered with three cheers, while a gang of roguish
boys let drive their snowballs right among the pleasure party.
The sleigh passed on, and, when concealed by a bend of the
street, was still audible by a distant cry of merriment.

Never had Peter beheld a livelier scene than was constituted by
all these accessories: the bright sun, the flashing water-drops,
the gleaming snow, the cheerful multitude, the variety of rapid
vehicles, and the jingle jangle of merry bells which made the
heart dance to their music. Nothing dismal was to be seen, except
that peaked piece of antiquity, Peter Goldthwaite's house, which
might well look sad externally, since such a terrible consumption
was preying on its insides. And Peter's gaunt figure, half
visible in the projecting second story, was worthy of his house.

"Peter! How goes it, friend Peter?" cried a voice across the
street, as Peter was drawing in his head. "Look out here, Peter!"

Peter looked, and saw his old partner, Mr. John Brown, on the
opposite sidewalk, portly and comfortable, with his furred cloak
thrown open, disclosing a handsome surtout beneath. His voice had
directed the attention of the whole town to Peter Goldthwaite's
window, and to the dusty scarecrow which appeared at it.

"I say, Peter," cried Mr. Brown again, "what the devil are you
about there, that I hear such a racket whenever I pass by? You
are repairing the old house, I suppose,--making a new one of it,
eh?"

"Too late for that, I am afraid, Mr. Brown," replied Peter. "If I
make it new, it will be new inside and out, from the cellar
upwards."

"Had not you better let me take the job?" said Mr. Brown,
significantly.

"Not yet!" answered Peter, hastily shutting the window; for, ever
since he had been in search of the treasure, he hated to have
people stare at him.

As he drew back, ashamed of his outward poverty, yet proud of the
secret wealth within his grasp, a haughty smile shone out on
Peter's visage, with precisely the effect of the dim sunbeams in
the squalid chamber. He endeavored to assume such a mien as his
ancestor had probably worn, when he gloried in the building of a
strong house for a home to many generations of his posterity. But
the chamber was very dark to his snow-dazzled eyes, and very
dismal too, in contrast with the living scene that he had just
looked upon. His brief glimpse into the street had given him a
forcible impression of the manner in which the world kept itself
cheerful and prosperous, by social pleasures and an intercourse
of business, while he, in seclusion, was pursuing an object that
might possibly be a phantasm, by a method which most people would
call madness. It is one great advantage of a gregarious mode of
life that each person rectifies his mind by other minds, and
squares his conduct to that of his neighbors, so as seldom to be
lost in eccentricity. Peter Goldthwaite had exposed himself to
this influence by merely looking out of the window. For a while,
he doubted whether there were any hidden chest of gold, and, in
that case, whether he was so exceedingly wise to tear the house
down, only to be convinced of its non-existence.

But this was momentary. Peter, the Destroyer, resumed the task
which fate had assigned him, nor faltered again till it was
accomplished. In the course of his search, he met with many
things that are usually found in the ruins of an old house, and
also with some that are not. What seemed most to the purpose was
a rusty key, which had been thrust into a chink of the wall, with
a wooden label appended to the handle, bearing the initials, P.
G. Another singular discovery was that of a bottle of wine,
walled up in an old oven. A tradition ran in the family, that
Peter's grandfather, a jovial officer in the old French War, had
set aside many dozens of the precious liquor for the benefit of
topers then unborn. Peter needed no cordial to sustain his hopes,
and therefore kept the wine to gladden his success. Many
halfpence did he pick up, that had been lost through the cracks
of the floor, and some few Spanish coins, and the half of a
broken sixpence, which had doubtless been a love token. There was
likewise a silver coronation medal of George the Third. But old
Peter Goldthwaite's strong box fled from one dark corner to
another, or otherwise eluded the second Peter's clutches, till,
should he seek much farther, he must burrow into the earth.

We will not follow him in his triumphant progress, step by step.
Suffice it that Peter worked like a steam-engine, and finished,
in that one winter, the job which all the former inhabitants of
the house, with time and the elements to aid them, had only half
done in a century. Except the kitchen, every room and chamber was
now gutted. The house was nothing but a shell,--the apparition of
a house,--as unreal as the painted edifices of a theatre. It was
like the perfect rind of a great cheese, in which a mouse had
dwelt and nibbled till it was a cheese no more. And Peter was the
mouse.

What Peter had torn down, Tabitha had burned up; for she wisely
considered that, without a house, they should need no wood to
warm it; and therefore economy was nonsense. Thus the whole house
might be said to have dissolved in smoke, and flown up among the
clouds, through the great black flue of the kitchen chimney. It
was an admirable parallel to the feat of the man who jumped down
his own throat.

On the night between the last day of winter and the first of
spring, every chink and cranny had been ransacked, except within
the precincts of the kitchen. This fated evening was an ugly one.
A snow-storm had set in some hours before, and was still driven
and tossed about the atmosphere by a real hurricane, which fought
against the house as if the prince of the air, in person, were
putting the final stroke to Peter's labors. The framework being
so much weakened, and the inward props removed, it would have
been no marvel if, in some stronger wrestle of the blast, the
rotten walls of the edifice, and all the peaked roofs, had come
crushing down upon the owner's head. He, however, was careless of
the peril, but as wild and restless as the night itself, or as
the flame that quivered up the chimney at each roar of the
tempestuous wind.

"The wine, Tabitha!" he cried. "My grandfather's rich old wine!
We will drink it now!"

Tabitha arose from her smoke-blackened bench in the
chimney-corner, and placed the bottle before Peter, close beside
the old brass lamp, which had likewise been the prize of his
researches. Peter held it before his eyes, and, looking through
the liquid medium, beheld the kitchen illuminated with a golden
glory, which also enveloped Tabitha and gilded her silver hair,
and converted her mean garments into robes of queenly splendor.
It reminded him of his golden dream.

"Mr. Peter," remarked Tabitha, "must the wine be drunk before the
money is found?"

"The money IS found!" exclaimed Peter, with a sort of fierceness.
"The chest is within my reach. I will not sleep, till I have
turned this key in the rusty lock. But, first of all, let us
drink!"

There being no corkscrew in the house, he smote the neck of the
bottle with old Peter Goldthwaite's rusty key, and decapitated
the sealed cork at a single blow. He then filled two little china
teacups, which Tabitha had brought from the cupboard. So clear
and brilliant was this aged wine that it shone within the cups,
and rendered the sprig of scarlet flowers, at the bottom of each,
more distinctly visible than when there had been no wine there.
Its rich and delicate perfume wasted itself round the kitchen.

"Drink, Tabitha!" cried Peter. "Blessings on the honest old
fellow who set aside this good liquor for you and me! And here's
to Peter Goldthwaite's memory!"

"And good cause have we to remember him," quoth Tabitha, as she
drank.

How many years, and through what changes of fortune and various
calamity, had that bottle hoarded up its effervescent joy, to be
quaffed at last by two such boon companions! A portion of the
happiness of the former age had been kept for them, and was now
set free, in a crowd of rejoicing visions, to sport amid the
storm and desolation of the present time. Until they have
finished the bottle, we must turn our eyes elsewhere.

It so chanced that, on this stormy night, Mr. John Brown found
himself ill at ease in his wire-cushioned arm-chair, by the
glowing grate of anthracite which heated his handsome parlor. He
was naturally a good sort of a man, and kind and pitiful whenever
the misfortunes of others happened to reach his heart through the
padded vest of his own prosperity. This evening he had thought
much about his old partner, Peter Goldthwaite, his strange
vagaries, and continual ill luck, the poverty of his dwelling, at
Mr. Brown's last visit, and Peter's crazed and haggard aspect
when he had talked with him at the window.

"Poor fellow!" thought Mr. John Brown. "Poor, crackbrained Peter
Goldthwaite! For old acquaintance' sake, I ought to have taken
care that he was comfortable this rough winter."

These feelings grew so powerful that, in spite of the inclement
weather, he resolved to visit Peter Goldthwaite immediately. The
strength of the impulse was really singular. Every shriek of the
blast seemed a summons, or would have seemed so, had Mr. Brown
been accustomed to hear the echoes of his own fancy in the wind.
Much amazed at such active benevolence, he huddled himself in his
cloak, muffled his throat and ears in comforters and
handkerchiefs, and, thus fortified, bade defiance to the tempest.
But the powers of the air had rather the best of the battle. Mr.
Brown was just weathering the corner, by Peter Goldthwaite's
house, when the hurricane caught him off his feet, tossed him
face downward into a snow bank, and proceeded to bury his
protuberant part beneath fresh drifts. There seemed little hope
of his reappearance earlier than the next thaw. At the same
moment his hat was snatched away, and whirled aloft into some far
distant region, whence no tidings have as yet returned.

Nevertheless Mr. Brown contrived to burrow a passage through the
snow-drift, and, with his bare head bent against the storm,
floundered onward to Peter's door. There was such a creaking and
groaning and rattling, and such an ominous shaking throughout the
crazy edifice, that the loudest rap would have been inaudible to
those within. He therefore entered, without ceremony, and groped
his way to the kitchen.

His intrusion, even there, was unnoticed. Peter and Tabitha stood
with their backs to the door, stooping over a large chest, which,
apparently, they had just dragged from a cavity, or concealed
closet, on the left side of the chimney. By the lamp in the old
woman's hand, Mr. Brown saw that the chest was barred and clamped
with iron, strengthened with iron plates and studded with iron
nails, so as to be a fit receptacle in which the wealth of one
century might be hoarded up for the wants of another. Peter
Goldthwaite was inserting a key into the lock.

"O Tabitha!" cried he, with tremulous rapture, "how shall I
endure the effulgence? The gold!--the bright, bright gold!
Methinks I can remember my last glance at it, just as the
iron-plated lid fell down. And ever since, being seventy years,
it has been blazing in secret, and gathering its splendor against
this glorious moment! It will flash upon us like the noonday
sun!"

"Then shade your eyes, Mr. Peter!" said Tabitha, with somewhat
less patience than usual. "But, for mercy's sake, do turn the
key!"

And, with a strong effort of both hands, Peter did force the
rusty key through the intricacies of the rusty lock. Mr. Brown,
in the mean time, had drawn near, and thrust his eager visage
between those of the other two, at the instant that Peter threw
up the lid. No sudden blaze illuminated the kitchen.

"What's here?" exclaimed Tabitha, adjusting her spectacles, and
holding the lamp over the open chest. "Old Peter Goldthwaite's
hoard of old rags."

"Pretty much so, Tabby," said Mr. Brown, lifting a handful of the
treasure.

Oh, what a ghost of dead and buried wealth had Peter Goldthwaite
raised, to scare himself out of his scanty wits withal! Here was
the semblance of an incalculable sum, enough to purchase the
whole town, and build every street anew, but which, vast as it
was, no sane man would have given a solid sixpence for. What
then, in sober earnest, were the delusive treasures of the chest?
Why, here were old provincial bills of credit, and treasury
notes, and bills of land, banks, and all other bubbles of the
sort, from the first issue, above a century and a half ago, down
nearly to the Revolution. Bills of a thousand pounds were
intermixed with parchment pennies, and worth no more than they.

"And this, then, is old Peter Goldthwaite's treasure!" said John
Brown. "Your namesake, Peter, was something like yourself; and,
when the provincial currency had depreciated fifty or
seventy-five per cent., he bought it up in expectation of a rise.
I have heard my grandfather say that old Peter gave his father a
mortgage of this very house and land, to raise cash for his silly
project. But the currency kept sinking, till nobody would take it
as a gift; and there was old Peter Goldthwaite, like Peter the
second, with thousands in his strong box and hardly a coat to his
back. He went mad upon the strength of it. But, never mind,
Peter! It is just the sort of capital for building castles in the
air."

"The house will be down about our ears!" cried Tabitha, as the
wind shook it with increasing violence.

"Let it fall!" said Peter, folding his arms, as he seated himself
upon the chest.

"No, no, my old friend Peter," said John Brown. "I have house
room for you and Tabby, and a safe vault for the chest of
treasure. To-morrow we will try to come to an agreement about the
sale of this old house. Real estate is well up, and I could
afford you a pretty handsome price."

"And I," observed Peter Goldthwaite, with reviving spirits, "have
a plan for laying out the cash to great advantage."

"Why, as to that," muttered John Brown to himself, "we must apply
to the next court for a guardian to take care of the solid cash;
and if Peter insists upon speculating, he may do it, to his
heart's content, with old PETER GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE."




THE SHAKER BRIDAL

One day, in the sick chamber of Father Ephraim, who had been
forty years the presiding elder over the Shaker settlement at
Goshen, there was an assemblage of several of the chief men of
the sect. Individuals had come from the rich establishment at
Lebanon, from Canterbury, Harvard, and Alfred, and from all the
other localities where this strange people have fertilized the
rugged hills of New England by their systematic industry. An
elder was likewise there, who had made a pilgrimage of a thousand
miles from a village of the faithful in Kentucky, to visit his
spiritual kindred, the children of the sainted mother Ann. He had
partaken of the homely abundance of their tables, had quaffed the
far-famed Shaker cider, and had joined in the sacred dance, every
step of which is believed to alienate the enthusiast from earth,
and bear him onward to heavenly purity and bliss. His brethren of
the north had now courteously invited him to be present on an
occasion, when the concurrence of every eminent member of their
community was peculiarly desirable.

The venerable Father Ephraim sat in his easy chair, not only
hoary headed and infirm with age, but worn down by a lingering
disease, which, it was evident, would very soon transfer his
patriarchal staff to other hands. At his footstool stood a man
and woman, both clad in the Shaker garb.

"My brethren," said Father Ephraim to the surrounding elders,
feebly exerting himself to utter these few words, "here are the
son and daughter to whom I would commit the trust of which
Providence is about to lighten my weary shoulders. Read their
faces, I pray you, and say whether the inward movement of the
spirit hath guided my choice aright."

Accordingly, each elder looked at the two candidates with a most
scrutinizing gaze. The man, whose name was Adam Colburn, had a
face sunburnt with labor in the fields, yet intelligent,
thoughtful, and traced with cares enough for a whole lifetime,
though he had barely reached middle age. There was something
severe in his aspect, and a rigidity throughout his person,
characteristics that caused him generally to be taken for a
school-master, which vocation, in fact, he had formerly exercised
for several years. The woman, Martha Pierson, was somewhat above
thirty, thin and pale, as a Shaker sister almost invariably is,
and not entirely free from that corpse-like appearance which the
garb of the sisterhood is so well calculated to impart.

"This pair are still in the summer of their years," observed the
elder from Harvard, a shrewd old man. "I would like better to see
the hoar-frost of autumn on their heads. Methinks, also, they
will
be exposed to peculiar temptations, on account of the carnal
desires which have heretofore subsisted between them."

"Nay, brother," said the elder from Canterbury, "the hoar-frost
and the black-frost hath done its work on Brother Adam and Sister
Martha, even as we sometimes discern its traces in our
cornfields, while they are yet green. And why should we question
the wisdom of our venerable Father's purpose although this pair,
in their early youth, have loved one another as the world's
people love? Are there not many brethren and sisters among us,
who have lived long together in wedlock, yet, adopting our faith,
find their hearts purified from all but spiritual affection?"

Whether or no the early loves of Adam and Martha had rendered it
inexpedient that they should now preside together over a Shaker
village, it was certainly most singular that such should be the
final result of many warm and tender hopes. Children of
neighboring families, their affection was older even than their
school-days; it seemed an innate principle, interfused among all
their sentiments and feelings, and not so much a distinct
remembrance, as connected with their whole volume of
remembrances. But, just as they reached a proper age for their
union, misfortunes had fallen heavily on both, and made it
necessary that they should resort to personal labor for a bare
subsistence. Even under these circumstances, Martha Pierson would
probably have consented to unite her fate with Adam Colburn's,
and, secure of the bliss of mutual love, would patiently have
awaited the less important gifts of fortune. But Adam, being of a
calm and cautious character, was loath to relinquish the
advantages which a single man possesses for raising himself in
the world. Year after year, therefore, their marriage had been
deferred. Adam Colburn had followed many vocations, had travelled
far, and seen much of the world and of life. Martha had earned
her bread sometimes as a seamstress, sometimes as help to a
farmer's wife, sometimes as school-mistress of the village
children, sometimes as a nurse or watcher of the sick, thus
acquiring a varied experience, the ultimate use of which she
little anticipated. But nothing had gone prosperously with either
of the lovers; at no subsequent moment would matrimony have been
so prudent a measure as when they had first parted, in the
opening bloom of life, to seek a better fortune. Still they had
held fast their mutual faith. Martha might have been the wife of
a man who sat among the senators of his native state, and Adam
could have won the hand, as he had unintentionally won the heart,
of a rich and comely widow. But neither of them desired good
fortune save to share it with the other.

At length that calm despair which occurs only in a strong and
somewhat stubborn character, and yields to no second spring of
hope, settled down on the spirit of Adam Colburn. He sought an
interview with Martha, and proposed that they should join the
Society of Shakers. The converts of this sect are oftener driven
within its hospitable gates by worldly misfortune than drawn
thither by fanaticism and are received without inquisition as to
their motives. Martha, faithful still, had placed her hand in
that of her lover, and accompanied him to the Shaker village.
Here the natural capacity of each, cultivated and strengthened by
the difficulties of their previous lives, had soon gained them an
important rank in the Society, whose members are generally below
the ordinary standard of intelligence. Their faith and feelings
had, in some degree, become assimilated to those of their
fellow-worshippers. Adam Colburn gradually acquired reputation,
not only in the management of the temporal affairs of the
Society, but as a clear and efficient preacher of their
doctrines. Martha was not less distinguished in the duties proper
to her sex. Finally, when the infirmities of Father Ephraim had
admonished him to seek a successor in his patriarchal office, he
thought of Adam and Martha, and proposed to renew, in their
persons, the primitive form of Shaker government, as established
by Mother Ann. They were to be the Father and Mother of the
village. The simple ceremony, which would constitute them such,
was now to be performed.

"Son Adam, and daughter Martha," said the venerable Father
Ephraim, fixing his aged eyes piercingly upon them, "if ye can
conscientiously undertake this charge, speak, that the brethren
may not doubt of your fitness."

"Father," replied Adam, speaking with the calmness of his
character, "I came to your village a disappointed man, weary of
the world, worn out with continual trouble, seeking only a
security against evil fortune, as I had no hope of good. Even my
wishes of worldly success were almost dead within me. I came
hither as a man might come to a tomb, willing to lie down in its
gloom and coldness, for the sake of its peace and quiet. There
was but one earthly affection in my breast, and it had grown
calmer since my youth; so that I was satisfied to bring Martha to
be my sister, in our new abode. We are brother and sister; nor
would I have it otherwise. And in this peaceful village I have
found all that I hoped for,--all that I desire. I will strive,
with my best strength, for the spiritual and temporal good of our
community. My conscience is not doubtful in this matter. I am
ready to receive the trust."

"Thou hast spoken well, son Adam," said the Father. "God will
bless thee in the office which I am about to resign."

"But our sister!" observed the elder from Harvard, "hath she not
likewise a gift to declare her sentiments?"

Martha started, and moved her lips, as if she would have made a
formal reply to this appeal. But, had she attempted it, perhaps
the old recollections, the long-repressed feelings of childhood,
youth, and womanhood, might have gushed from her heart, in words
that it would have been profanation to utter there.

"Adam has spoken," said she hurriedly; "his sentiments are
likewise mine."

But while speaking these few words, Martha grew so pale that she
looked fitter to be laid in her coffin than to stand in the
presence of Father Ephraim and the elders; she shuddered, also,
as if there were something awful or horrible in her situation and
destiny. It required, indeed, a more than feminine strength of
nerve, to sustain the fixed observance of men so exalted and
famous throughout the sect as these were. They had overcome their
natural sympathy with human frailties and affections. One, when
he joined the Society, had brought with him his wife and
children, but never, from that hour, had spoken a fond word to
the former, or taken his best-loved child upon his knee. Another,
whose family refused to follow him, had been enabled--such was
his gift of holy fortitude--to leave them to the mercy of the
world. The youngest of the elders, a man of about fifty, had been
bred from infancy in a Shaker village, and was said never to have
clasped a woman's hand in his own, and to have no conception of a
closer tie than the cold fraternal one of the sect. Old Father
Ephraim was the most awful character of all. In his youth he had
been a dissolute libertine, but was converted by Mother Ann
herself, and had partaken of the wild fanaticism of the early
Shakers. Tradition whispered, at the firesides of the village,
that Mother Ann had been compelled to sear his heart of flesh
with a red-hot iron before it could be purified from earthly
passions.

However that might be, poor Martha had a woman's heart, and a
tender one, and it quailed within her, as she looked round at
those strange old men, and from them to the calm features of Adam
Colburn. But perceiving that the elders eyed her doubtfully, she
gasped for breath, and again spoke.

"With what strength is left me by my many troubles," said she, "I
am ready to undertake this charge, and to do my best in it."

"My children, join your hands," said Father Ephraim.

They did so. The elders stood up around, and the Father feebly
raised himself to a more erect position, but continued sitting in
his great chair.

"I have bidden you to join your hands," said he, "not in earthly
affection, for ye have cast off its chains forever; but as
brother and sister in spiritual love, and helpers of one another
in your allotted task. Teach unto others the faith which ye have
received. Open wide your gates,--I deliver you the keys
thereof,--open them wide to all who will give up the iniquities
of the world, and come hither to lead lives of purity and peace.
Receive the weary ones, who have known the vanity of
earth,--receive the little children, that they may never learn
that miserable lesson. And a blessing be upon your labors; so
that the time may hasten on, when the mission of Mother Ann shall
have wrought its full effect,--when children shall no more be
born and die, and the last survivor of mortal race, some old and
weary man like me, shall see the sun go down, nevermore to rise
on a world of sin and sorrow!"

The aged Father sank back exhausted, and the surrounding elders
deemed, with good reason, that the hour was come when the new
heads of the village must enter on their patriarchal duties. In
their attention to Father Ephraim, their eyes were turned from
Martha Pierson, who grew paler and paler, unnoticed even by Adam
Colburn. He, indeed, had withdrawn his hand from hers, and folded
his arms with a sense of satisfied ambition. But paler and paler
grew Martha by his side, till, like a corpse in its burial
clothes, she sank down at the feet of her early lover; for, after
many trials firmly borne, her heart could endure the weight of
its desolate agony no longer.




ENDICOTT AND THE RED CROSS

At noon of on autumnal day, more than two centuries ago, the
English colors were displayed by the standard-bearer of the Salem
trainband, which had mustered for martial exercise under the
orders of John Endicott. It was a period when the religious
exiles were accustomed often to buckle on their armor, and
practise the handling of their weapons of war. Since the first
settlement of New England, its prospects had never been so
dismal. The dissensions between Charles the First and his
subjects were then, and for several years afterwards, confined to
the floor of Parliament. The measures of the King and ministry
were rendered more tyrannically violent by an opposition, which
had not yet acquired sufficient confidence in its own strength to
resist royal injustice with the sword. The bigoted and haughty
primate, Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, controlled the religious
affairs of the realm, and was consequently invested with powers
which might have wrought the utter ruin of the two Puritan
colonies, Plymouth and Massachusetts. There is evidence on record
that our forefathers perceived their danger, but were resolved
that their infant country should not fall without a struggle,
even beneath the giant strength of the King's right arm.

Such was the aspect of the times when the folds of the English
banner, with the Red Cross in its field, were flung out over a
company of Puritans. Their leader, the famous Endicott, was a man
of stern and resolute countenance, the effect of which was
heightened by a grizzled beard that swept the upper portion of
his breastplate. This piece of armor was so highly polished that
the whole surrounding scene had its image in the glittering
steel. The central object in the mirrored picture was an edifice
of humble architecture with neither steeple nor bell to proclaim
it--what nevertheless it was--the house of prayer. A token of the
perils of the wilderness was seen in the grim head of a wolf,
which had just been slain within the precincts of the town, and
according to the regular mode of claiming the bounty, was nailed
on the porch of the meeting-house. The blood was still plashing
on the doorstep. There happened to be visible, at the same
noontide hour, so many other characteristics of the times and
manners of the Puritans, that we must endeavor to represent them
in a sketch, though far less vividly than they were reflected in
the polished breastplate of John Endicott.

In close vicinity to the sacred edifice appeared that important
engine of Puritanic authority, the whipping-post--with the soil
around it well trodden by the feet of evil doers, who had there
been disciplined. At one corner of the meeting-house was the
pillory, and at the other the stocks; and, by a singular good
fortune for our sketch, the head of an Episcopalian and suspected
Catholic was grotesquely incased in the former machine while a
fellow-criminal, who had boisterously quaffed a health to the
king, was confined by the legs in the latter. Side by side, on
the meeting-house steps, stood a male and a female figure. The
man was a tall, lean, haggard personification of fanaticism,
bearing on his breast this label,--A WANTON GOSPELLER,--which
betokened that he had dared to give interpretations of Holy Writ
unsanctioned by the infallible judgment of the civil and
religious rulers. His aspect showed no lack of zeal to maintain
his heterodoxies, even at the stake. The woman wore a cleft stick
on her tongue, in appropriate retribution for having wagged that
unruly member against the elders of the church; and her
countenance and gestures gave much cause to apprehend that, the
moment the stick should be removed, a repetition of the offence
would demand new ingenuity in chastising it.

The above-mentioned individuals had been sentenced to undergo
their various modes of ignominy, for the space of one hour at
noonday. But among the crowd were several whose punishment would
be life-long; some, whose ears had been cropped, like those of
puppy dogs; others, whose cheeks had been branded with the
initials of their misdemeanors; one, with his nostrils slit and
seared; and another, with a halter about his neck, which he was
forbidden ever to take off, or to conceal beneath his garments.
Methinks he must have been grievously tempted to affix the other
end of the rope to some convenient beam or bough. There was
likewise a young woman, with no mean share of beauty, whose doom
it was to wear the letter A on the breast of her gown, in the
eyes of all the world and her own children. And even her own
children knew what that initial signified. Sporting with her
infamy, the lost and desperate creature had embroidered the fatal
token in scarlet cloth, with golden thread and the nicest art of
needlework; so that the capital A might have been thought to mean
Admirable, or anything rather than Adulteress.

Let not the reader argue, from any of these evidences of
iniquity, that the times of the Puritans were more vicious than
our own, when, as we pass along the very street of this sketch,
we discern no badge of infamy on man or woman. It was the policy
of our ancestors to search out even the most secret sins, and
expose them to shame, without fear or favor, in the broadest
light of the noonday sun. Were such the custom now, perchance we
might find materials for a no less piquant sketch than the above.

Except the malefactors whom we have described, and the diseased
or infirm persons, the whole male population of the town, between
sixteen years and sixty, were seen in the ranks of the trainband.
A few stately savages, in all the pomp and dignity of the
primeval Indian, stood gazing at the spectacle. Their
flint-headed arrows were but childish weapons compared with the
matchlocks of the Puritans, and would have rattled harmlessly
against the steel caps and hammered iron breastplates which
inclosed each soldier in an individual fortress. The valiant John
Endicott glanced with an eye of pride at his sturdy followers,
and prepared to renew the martial toils of the day.

"Come, my stout hearts!" quoth he, drawing his sword. "Let us
show these poor heathen that we can handle our weapons like men
of might. Well for them, if they put us not to prove it in
earnest!"

The iron-breasted company straightened their line, and each man
drew the heavy butt of his matchlock close to his left foot, thus
awaiting the orders of the captain. But, as Endicott glanced
right and left along the front, he discovered a personage at some
little distance with whom it behooved him to hold a parley. It
was an elderly gentleman, wearing a black cloak and band, and a
high-crowned hat, beneath which was a velvet skull-cap, the whole
being the garb of a Puritan minister. This reverend person bore a
staff which seemed to have been recently cut in the forest, and
his shoes were bemired as if he had been travelling on foot
through the swamps of the wilderness. His aspect was perfectly
that of a pilgrim, heightened also by an apostolic dignity. Just
as Endicott perceived him he laid aside his staff, and stooped to
drink at a bubbling fountain which gushed into the sunshine about
a score of yards from the corner of the meeting-house. But, ere
the good man drank, he turned his face heavenward in
thankfulness, and then, holding back his gray beard with one
hand, he scooped up his simple draught in the hollow of the
other.

"What, ho! good Mr. Williams," shouted Endicott. "You are welcome
back again to our town of peace. How does our worthy Governor
Winthrop? And what news from Boston?"

"The Governor hath his health, worshipful Sir," answered Roger
Williams, now resuming his staff, and drawing near. "And for the
news, here is a letter, which, knowing I was to travel hitherward
to-day, his Excellency committed to my charge. Belike it contains
tidings of much import; for a ship arrived yesterday from
England."

Mr. Williams, the minister of Salem and of course known to all
the spectators, had now reached the spot where Endicott was
standing under the banner of his company, and put the Governor's
epistle into his hand. The broad seal was impressed with
Winthrop's coat of arms. Endicott hastily unclosed the letter and
began to read, while, as his eye passed down the page, a wrathful
change came over his manly countenance. The blood glowed through
it, till it seemed to be kindling with an internal heat, nor was
it unnatural to suppose that his breastplate would likewise
become red-hot with the angry fire of the bosom which it covered.
Arriving at the conclusion, he shook the letter fiercely in his
hand, so that it rustled as loud as the flag above his head.

"Black tidings these, Mr. Williams," said he; "blacker never came
to New England. Doubtless you know their purport?"

"Yea, truly," replied Roger Williams; "for the Governor
consulted, respecting this matter, with my brethren in the
ministry at Boston; and my opinion was likewise asked. And his
Excellency entreats you by me, that the news be not suddenly
noised abroad, lest the people be stirred up unto some outbreak,
and thereby give the King and the Archbishop a handle against
us."

"The Governor is a wise man--a wise man, and a meek and
moderate," said Endicott, setting his teeth grimly.
"Nevertheless, I must do according to my own best judgment. There
is neither man, woman, nor child in New England, but has a
concern as dear as life in these tidings; and if John Endicott's
voice be loud enough, man, woman, and child shall hear them.
Soldiers, wheel into a hollow square! Ho, good people! Here are
news for one and all of you."

The soldiers closed in around their captain; and he and Roger
Williams stood together under the banner of the Red Cross; while
the women and the aged men pressed forward, and the mothers held
up their children to look Endicott in the face. A few taps of the
drum gave signal for silence and attention.

"Fellow-soldiers--fellow-exiles," began Endicott, speaking under
strong excitement, yet powerfully restraining it, "wherefore did
ye leave your native country? Wherefore, I say, have we left the
green and fertile fields, the cottages, or, perchance, the old
gray halls, where we were born and bred, the churchyards where
our forefathers lie buried? Wherefore have we come hither to set
up our own tombstones in a wilderness? A howling wilderness it
is! The wolf and the bear meet us within halloo of our dwellings.
The savage lieth in wait for us in the dismal shadow of the
woods. The stubborn roots of the trees break our ploughshares,
when we would till the earth. Our children cry for bread, and we
must dig in the sands of the sea-shore to satisfy them.
Wherefore, I say again, have we sought this country of a rugged
soil and wintry sky? Was it not for the enjoyment of our civil
rights? Was it not for liberty to worship God according to our
conscience?"

"Call you this liberty of conscience?" interrupted a voice on the
steps of the meeting-house.

It was the Wanton Gospeller. A sad and quiet smile flitted across
the mild visage of Roger Williams. But Endicott, in the
excitement of the moment, shook his sword wrathfully at the
culprit--an ominous gesture from a man like him.

"What hast thou to do with conscience, thou knave?" cried he. "I
said liberty to worship God, not license to profane and ridicule
him. Break not in upon my speech, or I will lay thee neck and
heels till this time tomorrow! Hearken to me, friends, nor heed
that accursed rhapsodist. As I was saying, we have sacrificed all
things, and have come to a land whereof the old world hath
scarcely heard, that we might make a new world unto ourselves,
and painfully seek a path from hence to heaven. But what think ye
now? This son of a Scotch tyrant--this grandson of a Papistical
and adulterous Scotch woman, whose death proved that a golden
crown doth not always save an anointed head from the block--"

"Nay, brother, nay," interposed Mr. Williams; "thy words are not
meet for a secret chamber, far less for a public street."

"Hold thy peace, Roger Williams!" answered Endicott, imperiously.
"My spirit is wiser than thine for the business now in hand. I
tell ye, fellow-exiles, that Charles of England, and Laud, our
bitterest persecutor, arch-priest of Canterbury, are resolute to
pursue us even hither. They are taking counsel, saith this
letter, to send over a governor-general, in whose breast shall be
deposited all the law and equity of the land. They are minded,
also, to establish the idolatrous forms of English Episcopacy; so
that, when Laud shall kiss the Pope's toe, as cardinal of Rome,
he may deliver New England, bound hand and foot, into the power
of his master!"

A deep groan from the auditors,--a sound of wrath, as well as
fear and sorrow,--responded to this intelligence.

"Look ye to it, brethren," resumed Endicott, with increasing
energy. "If this king and this arch-prelate have their will, we
shall briefly behold a cross on the spire of this tabernacle
which we have builded, and a high altar within its walls, with
wax tapers burning round it at noonday. We shall hear the sacring
bell, and the voices of the Romish priests saying the mass. But
think ye, Christian men, that these abominations may be suffered
without a sword drawn? without a shot fired? without blood spilt,
yea, on the very stairs of the pulpit? No,--be ye strong of hand
and stout of heart! Here we stand on our own soil, which we have
bought with our goods, which we have won with our swords, which
we have cleared with our axes, which we have tilled with the
sweat of our brows, which we have sanctified with our prayers to
the God that brought us hither! Who shall enslave us here? What
have we to do with this mitred prelate,--with this crowned king?
What have we to do with England?"

Endicott gazed round at the excited countenances of the people,
now full of his own spirit, and then turned suddenly to the
standard-bearer, who stood close behind him.

"Officer, lower your banner!" said he.

The officer obeyed; and, brandishing his sword, Endicott thrust
it through the cloth, and, with his left hand, rent the Red Cross
completely out of the banner. He then waved the tattered ensign
above his head.

"Sacrilegious wretch!" cried the high-churchman in the pillory,
unable longer to restrain himself, "thou hast rejected the symbol
of our holy religion!"

"Treason, treason!" roared the royalist in the stocks. "He hath
defaced the King's banner!"

"Before God and man, I will avouch the deed," answered Endicott.
"Beat a flourish, drummer!--shout, soldiers and people!--in honor
of the ensign of New England. Neither Pope nor Tyrant hath part
in it now!"

With a cry of triumph, the people gave their sanction to one of
the boldest exploits which our history records. And forever
honored be the name of Endicott! We look back through the mist of
ages, and recognize in the rending of the Red Cross from New
England's banner the first omen of that deliverance which our
fathers consummated after the bones of the stern Puritan had lain
more than a century in the dust.








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