HAWTHORNE
TWICE-TOLD
TALES
828
H4tw
1882
A 1,006,444

PROPERTY OF THE
University of
Michigan
Libraries
$817
ARTES SCIENTIA VERITAS
Wayside Edition
THE COMPLETE WORKS
OF
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
IN THIRTEEN VOLUMES
VOLUME I
1

TWICE-TOLD TALES
BY
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge

Copyright, 1851,
BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
Copyright, 1879,
BY ROSE HAWTHORNE LATHROP.
Copyright, 1882,
BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
All rights reserved.


CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
PREFACE
THE GRAY CHAMPION
SUNDAY AT HOME
HE WEDDING KNELL
'HE MINISTER'S BLACK VEIL
THE MAY-POLE OF 'MERRY MOUNT
HE GENTLE BOY .
i`R. HIGGINBOTHAM'S CATASTROPHE
TTLE ANNIE'S RAMBLE
LD
ROM THE TOWN PUMP.
CAT CARBUNCLE
OPHETIC PICTURES
SWAN
*S FROM A STEEPLE .
HOLLOW OF THE THREE HILLS
TOLL-GATHERER'S DAY
•
VISION OF THE FOUNTAIN
's SHOW Box.
Snow
\IDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT
S OF THE PROVINCE HOUSE.
we's Masquerade
vard Randolph's Portrait
y Eleanore's Mantle
Esther Dudley
PAGE
7
13
21人
​32

41
↓
Lo

250
258
272
291
:V.
307
328


CONTENTS.
NTEN
j
HE HAUNTED MIND
THE VILLAGE UNCLE
THE AMBITIOUS GUEST
THE SISTER YEARS
SNOWFLAKES
THE SEVEN VAGABONDS
THE WHITE OLD MAID
PETER GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE
/CHIPPINGS WITH A CHISEL
THE SHAKER BRIDAL
NIGHT SKETCHES
ENDICOTT AND THE RED CROSS
THE LILY'S QUEST.
OTPRINTS ON THE SEA-SHORE
ARD FANE'S ROSEBUD
THREEFOLD DESTINY
PAGE
343
349
364
375
385
392
414
428
•
455
469
477

485
495
504
517
527


INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
THE TWICE-TOLD TALES.
•
On his return to his native town, Salem, after grad
hating at Bowdoin College in 1825, Hawthorne de
voted himself to writing fiction. His first book was
the romance of "Fanshawe," 1 which, however, made
no impression on the public. He next produced a
volume of stories to which he gave the title "Seven
Tales of my Native Land"; but, after discouraging
search for a publisher, he destroyed the manuscript.
Whether any of the material composing that work was
embodied in his later short stories it impossible to
determine, on the evidence now remaining. Still, it
is not unlikely that he drew upon it, from memory,
for the foundation of some among the "Twice-Told
Tales." The sketches and stories now known collec-
tively under this title were written mainly in a little
room in the second story of a house on Herbert Street,
Salem, from the windows of which Hawthorne's birth-
place on the adjoining street (Union) is visible. "In
this dismal chamber fame was won: so runs a pas-
sage
in the "American Note-Books." Under another
date he says of it: "And here I sat a long, long time,
waiting patiently for the world to know me, and some-
times wondering why it did not know me sooner, or
whether it would ever know me at all."
1 See vol. 11 of this edition.

B
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
The Herbert Street house was habitually referre
to by the members of the Hawthorne family as bein
on Union Street, since the family residence and th
birthplace were connected by the lots of land attache
respectively to each. The mansion on Union Stree
has since undergone considerable alteration, a larg
part of it having been taken down some years ago
owing to its dilapidated condition. On Dearborn
Street there was another house, built for the mothe
of Hawthorne by her brother, Robert Manning, in
which Hawthorne lived for about four years, though
at what time precisely it is impossible to state. In
the Dearborn Street house, also, he had a study; but
the edifice has been removed to another site and al-
tered. The Herbert Street (or, as in the Note-Books,
Union Street) house was evidently the one which
Hawthorne most closely associated with the production
of his short stories.
""
The earlier pieces appeared in the "Salem Gazette ”
newspaper, and in the "New England Magazine
(published in Boston from 1831 to 1834). Some-
times they bore the author's real name, and sometimes
a pseudonym was attached. Several among them pur-
ported to have been written by "Ashley Allen Royce,"
or the "Rev. A. A. Royce." Another pen-name used
by the young romancer was "Oberon "; the choice of
which may be explained by the fact that, as the late
Henry W. Longfellow recalled, some of the college
friends of Hawthorne had nicknamed him Oberon, in
allusion to his personal beauty and the imaginative
tone of his conversation. But notwithstanding the va-
riety of names under which he thus disguised himself,
his writings revealed so clear an individuality that
many persons recognized them as being the work of
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
C.
ɔne mind. In 1836, he went to Boston to edit a mag-
azine for S. G. Goodrich, then known as a popular
compiler and publisher; and while thus engaged he
wrote a large part of "Peter Parley's Universal His-
tory," which passed for Goodrich's composition and
attained a wide popularity. At the same time he con-
tributed to the Boston "Token" several of the best of
his short stories, which received high praise in Lon-
don. It was not until their issue in book form that
they attracted similar encomiums in this country.
Hawthorne's original plan was to collect them in a
series joined by an introduction and chapters of con-
nected narrative; the whole to be called "The Story-
Teller." A part of this projected framework has been
preserved in the "Mosses from an Old Manse; "1 and
the Author there says:
With each specimen will be given a sketch of the cir-
cumstances in which the story was told. Thus my air-drawn
pictures will be set in a framework perhaps more valuable
than the pictures themselves, since they will be embossed
with groups of characteristic figures, amid the lake and
mountain scenery, the villages and fertile fields, of our na-
tive land.
The plan of "The Story-Teller" was, to represent a
young man of apostolical bent who set out to go from
town to town, giving a sermon every morning, while
a friend who accompanied him was to relate in pub-
lic, every afternoon, a story illustrating the text pre-
viously discoursed upon by the preacher; the whole
affair being announced in each place by posters, much
in the manner of a travelling show. It might be sup-
4.
1 See "Passages from a Relinquished Work," in the second vol
ume of the Mosses. It was intended to preface Mr. Higginbotham'
Catastrophe."
10
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
posed that the introduction of sermons in a book of
fiction would offer a stumbling-block to success; but
Hawthorne evaded this obvious difficulty by merely
mentioning the sermons and then giving the stories in
full. Mr. Goodrich gave the scheme no encourage
ment, but took the introductory portion describing the
preacher and the raconteur to a magazine. It is worth
recording as a curious fact in literary history that for
the accompanying stories which Goodrich used in his
annual he gave Hawthorne about three dollars apiece.
Finally, through the intervention of Mr. Horatio
Bridge, who privately became responsible to this more
than prudent publisher for the attendant expense, the
first series of stories was given to the world in per-
manent form, as a handful of disconnected composi-
tions, under the general heading of "Twice-Told
Tales." Possibly the title was suggested by that line,
given to Lewis, the Dauphin, in "King John
'Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale."
About eight years after the first volume, a second
one was issued; but even this did not include all the
productions of the early period, some of which have
since been brought to light. A few have perhaps es-
caped notice. The present writer discovered in a mu
tilated copy of the "Token," for 1835, this entry
among the contents: "Alice Doane's Appeal. By
the Author of The Gentle Boy.' Only two pages
of the story itself remained; but they sufficed to show
that the contribution was one which has hitherto
found no place in the collected works. A complete
copy having with some difficulty been obtained, the
sketch in question will be included in the 12th volume
of the present edition.
"The Gentle Boy" probably did more for the
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
11
author's reputation than any other of the "Twice
Told Tales." Furthermore, as the volume containing
it formed a link in his acquaintance with Miss Sophia
A. Peabody, the lady whom he afterwards married, so
that particular story itself was by her made the sub-
ject of a drawing, which now becomes a matter of lit
erary interest. A special edition of "The Gentie
Boy" was published in 1839: it was a thin, oblong
quarto in paper covers, accompanied by an illustration
engraved from Miss Peabody's outline drawing. This
edition, now so rare as almost to have passed out of
existence, contained a brief preface by Hawthorne,
in which he said: "The tale, of which a new edition
is now offered to the public, was among the earliest
efforts of its author's pen; and, little noticed on its
first appearance in one of the annuals, appears ulti-
mately to have awakened the interest of a larger num-
ber of readers than any of his subsequent produc-
tions; . . . there are several among the 'Twice-Told
Tales' which, on reperusal, affect him less painfully
with a sense of imperfect and ill-wrought conception
than The Gentle Boy.' But the opinion of many
compels him to the conclusion that nature here
led him deeper into the universal heart than art has
been able to follow." A letter from Hawthorne to
Longfellow, referring to the first volume of the tales,
contains another remark of general interest: "I have
another great difficulty in the lack of materials; for I
have seen so little of the world that I have nothing
but thin air to concoct my stories of. . . . Sometimes,
through a peep-hole, I have caught a glimpse of the
real world, and the two or three articles in which I
have portrayed these glimpses please me better than
the others."
6
12
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
"The Toll-Gatherer's Day," evidently derived from
minute observation of the traffic on a bridge near
Salem; and "Little Annie's Ramble," which is said
to have had for its heroine a child from real life, were
perhaps placed by the Author in this favored category.
""
The paper entitled "A Sunday at Home was
based on a meeting-house, near the birthplace in
Union Street, concerning which Hawthorne's surviving
sister writes to the editor: "It never had a steeple,
nor a clock, nor a bell, nor, of course, an organ.
But Hawthorne bestows all these incitements to devo-
tion to atone for his own personal withdrawal from
such influences. It was from the house on Herbert
Street that he saw what he describes." But, like
"The Seven Vagabonds" (founded on a trip which
the Author made through part of Connecticut), such
pieces as are most tinged with actuality have not in-
terested readers so much as the pure invention of
"David Swan," or the weird coloring of those half-
historic records, the "Legends of the Province
House."
Nevertheless, looked at closely, and with due knowl-
edge of the accompanying facts of Hawthorne's life at
the time,¹ the whole collection affords, besides the dis-
tinct imaginative pleasure to be got from it, valuable
intimations as to Hawthorne's development during the
first decade of his career as an author.
¹ See A Study of Hawthorne, Chapter IV.
G. P. I
PREFACE.
THE Author of "Twice-Told Tales
has a claim to
one distinction, which, as none of his literary breth-
ren will care about disputing it with him, he need
not be afraid to mention. He was, for a good many
years, the obscurest man of letters in America.
These stories were published in magazines and an-
nuals, extending over a period of ten or twelve years,
and comprising the whole of the writer's young man-
hood, without making (so far as he has ever been
aware) the slightest impression on the public. One
or two among them, the "Rill from the Town
Pump," in perhaps a greater degree than any other,
had a pretty wide newspaper circulation; as for the
rest, he had no grounds for supposing that, on their
first appearance, they met with the good or evil for-
tune to be read by anybody. Throughout the time
above specified, he had no incitement to literary effort
in a reasonable prospect of reputation or profit, noth-
ing but the pleasure itself of composition-an enjoy-
ment not at all amiss in its way, and perhaps essential
to the merit of the work in hand, but which, in the
long run, will hardly keep the chill out of a writer's
heart, or the numbness out of his fingers. To this
14
PREFACE.
total lack of sympathy, at the age when his mind
would naturally have been most effervescent, the
public owe it (and it is certainly an effect not to be
regretted on either part) that the Author can show
nothing for the thought and industry of that portion
of his life, save the forty sketches, or thereabouts, in-
cluded in these volumes.
Much more, indeed, he wrote; and some very small
part of it might yet be rummaged out (but it would
not be worth the trouble) among the dingy pages of
fifteen-or-twenty-year-old periodicals, or within the
shabby morocco covers of faded souvenirs. The re-
mainder of the works alluded to had a very brief ex
istence, but, on the score of brilliancy, enjoyed a fate
vastly superior to that of their brotherhood, which
succeeded in getting through the press. In a word,
the Author burned them without mercy or remorse,
and, moreover, without any subsequent regret, and had
more than one occasion to marvel that such very dull
stuff, as he knew his condemned manuscripts to be,
should yet have possessed inflammability enough to
set the chimney on fire!
After a long while the first collected volume of the
"Tales" was published. By this time, if the Author
had ever been greatly tormented by literary ambition
(which he does not remember or believe to have been
the case), it must have perished, beyond resuscitation,
in the dearth of nutriment. This was fortunate; for
the success of the volume was not such as would have
gratified a craving desire for notoriety. A moderate
PREFACE.
15
edition was "got rid of" (to use the publisher's very
significant phrase) within a reasonable time, but ap-
parently without rendering the writer or his produc-
tions much more generally known than before. The
great bulk of the reading public probably ignored the
book altogether. A few persons read it, and liked it
better than it deserved. At an interval of three or
four years, the second volume was published, and en-
countered much the same sort of kindly, but calm,
and very limited reception. The circulation of the
two volumes was chiefly confined to New England ;
nor was it until long after this period, if it even yet
be the case, that the Author could regard himself as
addressing the American public, or, indeed, any pub-
lic at all. He was merely writing to his known or
unknown friends.
As he glances over these long-forgotten pages, and
considers his way of life while composing them, the
Author can very clearly discern why all this was so.
After so many sober years, he would have reason to
be ashamed if he could not criticise his own work as
fairly as another man's; and, though it is little his
business, and perhaps still less his interest, he can
hardly resist a temptation to achieve something of the
sort. If writers were allowed to do so, and would
perform the task with perfect sincerity and unreserve,
their opinions of their own productions would often
be more valuable and instructive than the works them-
selves.
At all events, there can be no harm in the Author's
16
PREFACE.
remarking that he rather wonders how the "Twice
Told Tales" should have gained what vogue they did
than that it was so little and so gradual. They have
the pale tint of flowers that blossomed in too retired
a shade, the coolness of a meditative habit, which
diffuses itself through the feeling and observation of
every sketch. Instead of passion there is sentiment;
and, even in what purport to be pictures of actual
life, we have allegory, not always so warmly dressed
in its habiliments of flesh and blood as to be taken
into the reader's mind without a shiver. Whether
from lack of power, or an unconquerable reserve, the
Author's touches have often an effect of tameness; the
merriest man can hardly contrive to laugh at his
broadest humor; the tenderest woman, one would
suppose, will hardly shed warm tears at his deepest
pathos. The book, if you would see anything in it.
requires to be read in the clear, brown, twilight at
mosphere in which it was written; if opened in the
sunshine, it is apt to look exceedingly like a volume
of blank pages.
With the foregoing characteristics, proper to the
production of a person in retirement (which hap-
pened to be the Author's category at the time), the
book is devoid of others that we should quite as nat
urally look for. The sketches are not, it is hardly
necessary to say, profound; but it is rather more re-
markable that they so seldom, if ever, show any design
on the writer's part to make them so. They have
none of the abstruseness of idea, or obscurity of ex
PREFACE.
17
pression, which mark the written communications of a
solitary mind with itself. They never need translation.
It is, in fact, the style of a man of society. Every
sentence, so far as it embodies thought or sensibility,
may be understood and felt by anybody who will
give himself the trouble to read it, and will take up
the book in a proper mood.
This statement of apparently opposite peculiarities
leads us to a perception of what the sketches truly are.
They are not the talk of a secluded man with his own
mind and heart (had it been so, they could hardly
have failed to be more deeply and permanently valua-
ble), but his attempts, and very imperfectly successful
ones, to open an intercourse with the world.
The Author would regret to be understood as speak-
ing sourly or querulously of the slight mark made by
his earlier literary efforts on the Public at large. It
is so far the contrary, that he has been moved to write
this Preface chiefly as affording him an opportunity
to express how much enjoyment he has owed to these
volumes, both before and since their publication. They
are the memorials of very tranquil and not unhappy
years. They failed, it is true, nor could it have been
otherwise, — in winning an extensive popularity. Oc-
casionally, however, when he deemed them entirely
forgotten, a paragraph or an article, from a native oz
foreign critic, would gratify his instincts of authorship
with unexpected praise, too generous praise, indeed,
and too little alloyed with censure, which, therefore,
he learned the better to inflict upon himself. And
18
PREFACE.
by the by, it is a very suspicious symptom of a defi
ciency of the popular element in a book when it calls
forth no harsh criticism. This has been particularly
the fortune of the "TWICE-TOLD TALES." They
made no enemies, and were so little known and talked
about that those who read, and chanced to like them,
were apt to conceive the sort of kindness for the book
which a person naturally feels for a discovery of his
own.
This kindly feeling (in some cases, at least) ex-
´tended to the Author, who, on the internal evidence of
his sketches, came to be regarded as a mild, shy, gen-
tle, melancholic, exceedingly sensitive, and not very
forcible man, hiding his blushes under an assumed
name, the quaintness of which was supposed, some-
how or other, to symbolize his personal and literary
traits. He is by no means certain that some of his
subsequent productions have not been influenced and
modified by a natural desire to fill up so amiable an
outline, and to act in consonance with the character
assigned to him; nor, even now, could he forfeit it
without a few tears of tender sensibility. To con-
clude, however: these volumes have opened the way
to most agreeable associations, and to the formation of
imperishable friendships; and there are many golden
threads interwoven with his present happiness, which
he can follow up more or less directly, until he finds
their commencement here; so that his pleasant path-
way among realities seems to proceed out of the
Dreamland of his youth, and to be bordered with just
PREFACE.
19
enough of its shadowy foliage to shelter him from the
heat of the day. He is therefore satisfied with what
the "TWICE-TOLD TALES" have done for him, and
feels it to be far better than fame.
LENOX, January 11, 1851.
༣
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 Vo-
luptuous, 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 admin
istration of Sir Edmund Andros lacked scarcely a
single characteristic of tyranny: a Governor and
Council, holding office from the King, and wholly in-
dependent of the country; laws made and taxes lev-
ied 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 en
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 in-
variably secured their allegiance to the mother coun-
try, whether its head chanced to be a Parliament, Pro-
tector, or Popish Monarch. Till these evil times,
however, such allegiance had been merely nominal,
and the colonists had ruled themselves, enjoying far
22
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 Gov-
ernor'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, assem-
bled in King Street, which was destined to be the
scene, nearly a century afterwards, of another en-
counter 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 strik
THE GRAY CHAMPION.
23
ingly in such a stern emergency than on happier oc
casions. There were the sober garb, the general sever-
ity 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 Phil-
ip'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 influ-
ence 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 vari-
ously 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
24
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
1
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
St. Bartholomew !" cried others.
massacred, man and male child!"
orders for a new
"We are to be
Neither was this rumor wholly discredited, although
the wiser class believed the Governor's object some-
what 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 mili-
tary 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 Brad-
street himself, a patriarch of nearly ninety, who ap-
peared on the elevated steps of a door, and, with char-
acteristic mildness, besought them to submit to the
constituted authorities.
66
'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
THE GRAY CHAMPION.
25
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 prog-
ress 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 fol-
lowed 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 magis-
trates in his priestly vestments, the fitting representa-
tive 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.
26
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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.
66
"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 steeple-crowned 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
THE GRAY CHAMPION.
27
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 ut-
terly from their memories that hoary sire, the relic
of long-departed 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 ear, the
old man raised himself to a loftier mien, while the
lecrepitude of age seemed to fall from his shoulders,
feaving 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
28
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 be-
long 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, per-
ceiving 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 Gov-
ernor and Council, with soldiers at their back, repre-
senting the whole power and authority of the Crowr
had no alternative but obedience.
"What does this old fellow here?" cried Edward
Randolph, fiercely. "On, Sir Edmund! Bid the sol
diers forward, and give the dotard the same choice
that you give all his countrymen-to stand aside or
be trampled on!"

THE GRAY CHAMPION.
29
"Nay, nay, let us show respect to the good grand-
sire," said Bullivant, laughing. "See you not, he is
some old round-headed dignitary, who hath lain asleep
these thirty years, and knows nothing of 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 op-
pressed 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 that wast a Gov-
ernor, back! With this night thy power is ended--
to-morrow, the prison!-back, lest I foretell the scaf-
fold!"
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 con-
vert 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 où
BO
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 com
mence a slow and guarded retreat. Before anothe
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 re-
ported 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 ven-
erable grandeur of his aspect, the old man had faded
from their eyes, melting slowly into the hues of twi-
light, 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 hum-
bling lesson to the monarch and its high example to
the subject. I have heard, that whenever th descend
ants of the Puritans are to show the spirit of their
sires, the old man appears again. When eighty years
»
THE GRAY CHAMPION.
31
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 Lex-
ington, where now the obelisk of granite, with a slab
of slate inlaid, commemorates the first fallen of the
Revolution. 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 do-
mestic 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.
:
SUNDAY AT HOME.
EVERY Sabbath morning in the summer time, I
thrust back the curtain, to watch the sunrise stealing
down a steeple which stands opposite my chamber
window. First, the weather-cock begins to flash; then,
a fainter lustre gives the spire an airy aspect; next, it
encroaches on the tower, and causes the index of the
dial to glisten like gold as it points to the gilded figure
of the hour. Now, the loftiest window gleams, and
now the lower. The carved frame-work of the portal
is marked strongly out. At length, the morning glory,
in its descent from heaven, comes down the stone
steps, one by one; and there stands the steeple, glow-
ing with fresh radiance, while the shades of twilight
still hide themselves among the nooks of the adjacent
buildings. Methinks, though the same sun brightens
it every fair morning, yet the steeple has a peculiar
robe of brightness for the Sabbath.
By dwelling near a church, a person soon contracts
an attachment for the edifice. We naturally personify
it, and conceive its massy walls, and its dim emptiness,
to be instinct with a calm, and meditative, and some-
what melancholy spirit. But the steeple stands fore-
most, in our thoughts, as well as locally. It impresses
us as a giant, with a mind comprehensive and discrimi
nating enough to care for the great and small concerns
of all the town. Hourly, while it speaks a moral to
the few that think, it reminds thousands of busy indi-
viduals of their separate and most secret affairs. It
SUNDAY AT HOME.
33
4
is the steeple, too, that flings abroad the hurried and
irregular accents of general alarm; neither have glad-
ness and festivity found a better utterance than by its
tongue; and when the dead are slowly passing to their
home, the steeple has a melancholy voice to bid them
welcome. Yet, in spite of this connection with human
interests, what a moral loneliness, on week days, broods
round about its stately height! It has no kindred with
the houses above which it towers; it looks down into
the narrow thoroughfare, the lonelier, because the
crowd are elbowing their passage at its base. A
glance at the body of the church deepens this impres-
sion. Within, by the light of distant windows, amid
refracted shadows, we discern the vacant pews and
empty galleries, the silent organ, the voiceless pulpit,
and the clock, which tells to solitude how time is pass-
ing. Time-where man lives not what is it but
eternity? And in the church, we might suppose, are
garnered up, throughout the week, all thoughts and
feelings that have reference to eternity, until the holy
day comes round again, to let them forth. Might not,
then, its more appropriate site be in the outskirts of
the town, with space for old trees to wave around it,
and throw their solemn shadows over a quiet green?
We will say more of this, hereafter.
But, on the Sabbath, I watch the earliest sun
shine, and fancy that a holier brightness marks the
day, when there shall be no buzz of voices on the ex-
change, nor traffic in the shops, nor crowd, nor busi-
ness, anywhere but at church. Many have fancied so.
For my own part, whether I see it scattered down
among tangled woods, or beaming broad across the
fields, or hemmed in between brick buildings, or trac
ing out the figure of the casement on my chamber
VOL. I.
3
84
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
floor, still I recognize the Sabbath sunshine. And
ever let me recognize it! Some illusions, and this
among them, are the shadows of great truths. Doubts
may flit around me, or seem to close their evil wings,
and settle down; but, so long as I imagine that the
earth is hallowed, and the light of heaven retains its
sanctity, on the Sabbath-while that blessed sunshine
never can my soul have lost the in-
lives within me
stinct of its faith.
turn again.
If it have gone astray, it will re-
I love to spend such pleasant Sabbaths, from morn-
ing till night, behind the curtain of my open window.
Are they spent amiss? Every spot, so near the church
as to be visited by the circling shadow of the steeple,
should be deemed consecrated ground, to-day. With
stronger truth be it said, that a devout heart may con
secrate a den of thieves, as an evil one may convert a
temple to the same. My heart, perhaps, has not such
holy, nor, I would fain trust, such impious potency.
It must suffice, that, though my form be absent, my
inner man goes constantly to church, while many,
whose bodily presence fills the accustomed seats, have
left their souls at home. But I am there, even before
my friend, the sexton. At length, he comes a man
of kindly, but sombre aspect, in dark gray clothes, and
hair of the same mixture - he comes and applies his
key to the wide portal. Now, my thoughts may go in
among the dusty pews, or ascend the pulpit, without
sacrilege, but soon come forth again to enjoy the music
of the bell. How glad, yet solemn too! All the stee
ples in town are talking together, aloft in the sunny
air, and rejoicing among themselves, while their spires
point heavenward. Meantime, here are the children
assembling to the Sabbath-school, which is kept some-

SUNDAY AT HOME.
35
where within the church. Often, while looking at the
arched portal, I have been gladdened by the sight of a
score of these little girls and boys, in pink, blue, yel-
low, and crimson frocks, bursting suddenly forth into
the sunshine, like a swarm of gay butterflies that had
been shut up in the solemn gloom. Or I might com-
pare them to cherubs, haunting that holy place.
About a quarter of an hour before the second ring-
ing of the bell, individuals of the congregation begin
to appear. The earliest is invariably an old woman
in black, whose bent frame and rounded shoulders are
evidently laden with some heavy affliction, which she is
eager to rest upon the altar. Would that the Sabbath
came twice as often, for the sake of that sorrowful old
soul! There is an elderly man, also, who arrives in
good season, and leans against the corner of the tower,
just within the line of its shadow, looking downward
with a darksome brow. I sometimes fancy that the
old woman is the happier of the two. After these,
others drop in singly, and by twos and threes, either
disappearing through the doorway, or taking their
stand in its vicinity. At last, and always with an un-
expected sensation, the bell turns in the steeple over-
head, and throws out an irregular clangor, jarring the
tower to its foundation. As if there were magic in
the sound, the sidewalks of the street, both up and
down along, are immediately thronged with two long
lines of people, all converging hitherward, and stream-
ing into the church. Perhaps the far-off roar of a
roach draws nearer a deeper thunder by its contrast
with the surrounding stillness -- until it sets down the
wealthy worshippers at the portal, among their hum-
Flest brethren. Beyond that entrance, in theory at
east. there are no distinctions of earthly rank; nor,
$6
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
indeed, by the goodly apparel which is flaunting in
the sun, would there seem to be such, on the hither
side. Those pretty girls! Why will they disturb my
pious meditations! Of all days in the week, they
should strive to look least fascinating on the Sabbath,
instead of heightening their mortal loveliness, as if to
rival the blessed angels, and keep our thoughts from
heaven. Were I the minister himself, I must needs
look. One girl is white muslin from the waist up-
wards, and black silk downwards to her slippers; a
second blushes from topknot to shoetie, one universal
scarlet; another shines of a pervading yellow, as if
she had made a garment of the sunshine. The greater
part, however, have adopted a milder cheerfulness of
hue. Their veils, especially when the wind raises them,
give a lightness to the general effect, and make them
appear like airy phantoms, as they flit up the steps,
and vanish into the sombre doorway. Nearly all
though it is very strange that I should know it wear
white stockings, white as snow, and neat slippers,
laced crosswise with black ribbon, pretty high above
the ankles. A white stocking is infinitely more effec-
tive than a black one.
Here comes the clergyman, slow and solemn, in se-
vere simplicity, needing no black silk gown to denote
his office. His aspect claims my reverence, but cannot
win my love. Were I to picture Saint Peter keeping
fast the gate of heaven, and frowning, more stern than
pitiful, on the wretched applicants, that face should be
my study. By middle age, or sooner, the creed has
generally wrought upon the heart, or been attempered
by it. As the minister passes into the church the bell
holds its iron tongue, and all the low murmur of the
rongregation dies away. The gray sexton looks up and
SUNDAY AT HOME.
37
down the street, and then at my window curtain,
where, through the small peephole, I half fancy that
he has caught my eye. Now every loiterer has gone
in, and the street lies asleep in the quiet sun, while a
feeling of loneliness comes over me, and brings also
an uneasy sense of neglected privileges and duties.
O, I ought to have gone to church! The bustle of the
rising congregation reaches my ears. They are stand-
ing up to pray. Could I bring my heart into unison.
with those who are praying in yonder church, and lift
it heavenward, with a fervor of supplication, but no
distinct request, would not that be the safest kind of
prayer? "Lord, look down upon me in mercy!"
With that sentiment gushing from my soul, might I
not leave all the rest to Him?
Hark! the hymn. This, at least, is a portion of
the service which I can enjoy better than if I sat
within the walls, where the full choir and the massive
melody of the organ would fall with a weight upon
me. At this distance it thrills through my frame and
plays upon my heartstrings with a pleasure both of
the sense and spirit. Heaven be praised, I know
nothing of music as a science; and the most elaborate
harmonies, if they please me, please as simply as a
nurse's lullaby. The strain has ceased, but prolongs
itself in my mind with fanciful echoes till I start from
my reverie, and find that the sermon has commenced.
It is my misfortune seldom to fructify, in a regular
way, by any but printed sermons. The first strong
idea which the preacher utters gives birth to a train
of thought, and leads me onward, step by step, quite
out of hearing of the good man's voice, unless he be
indeed a son of thunder. At my open window, catch-
ing now and then a sentence of the "parson's saw,"
38
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
I am as well situated as at the foot of the pulpit
stairs. The broken and scattered fragments of this
one discourse will be the texts of many sermons,
preached by those colleague pastors colleagues.
but often disputants - my Mind and Heart. The
former pretends to be a scholar, and perplexes me
with doctrinal points; the latter takes me on the score
of feeling; and both, like several other preachers,
spend their strength to very little purpose. I, their
sole auditor, cannot always understand them.
Suppose that a few hours have passed, and behold
me still behind my curtain, just before the close of
the afternoon service. The hour hand on the dial has
passed beyond four o'clock. The declining sun is hid-
den behind the steeple, and throws its shadow straight
across the street, so that my chamber is darkened as
with a cloud. Around the church-door all is solitude,
and an impenetrable obscurity beyond the thresh-
old. A commotion is heard. The seats are slammed
down, and the pew-doors thrown back a multitude
of feet are trampling along the unseen aisles-and
the congregation bursts suddenly through the portal.
Foremost, scampers a rabble of boys, behind whom
moves a dense and dark phalanx of grown men, and
lastly, a crowd of females, with young children, and a
few scattered husbands. This instantaneous outbreak
of life into loneliness is one of the pleasantest scenes
of the day. Some of the good people are rubbing
their eyes, thereby intimating that they have been
wrapped, as it were, in a sort of holy trance by the
fervor of their devotion. There is a young man, a
third rate coxcomb, whose first care is always to flour-
ish a white handkerchief, and brush the seat of a tight
pair of black silk pantaloons, which shine as if var
}
SUNDAY AT HOME.
39
nished. They must have been made of the stuff called
"everlasting," or perhaps of the same piece as Chris-
tian's garments in the "Pilgrim's Progress," for he
put them on two summers ago, and has not yet worn
the gloss off. I have taken a great liking to those
black silk pantaloons. But now, with nods and greet-
ings among friends, each matron takes her husband's
arm and paces gravely homeward, while the girls also
flutter away after arranging sunset walks with their
favored bachelors. The Sabbath eve is the eve of love.
At length the whole congregation is dispersed. No;
here, with faces as glossy as black satin, come two
sable ladies and a sable gentleman, and close in their
rear the minister, who softens his severe visage, and
bestows a kind word on each. Poor souls! To them
the most captivating picture of bliss in heaven is-
"There we shall be white!
""
All is solitude again. But, hark!-a broken warb-
ling of voices, and now, attuning its grandeur to their
sweetness, a stately peal of the organ. Who are the
choristers? Let me dream that the angels, who came
down from heaven, this blessed morn, to blend them-
selves with the worship of the truly good, are playing
and singing their farewell to the earth. On the wings
of that rich melody they were borne upward.
This, gentle reader, is merely a flight of poetry.
A few of the singing men and singing women had
lingered behind their fellows, and raised their voices.
fitfully, and blew a careless note upon the organ.
Yet, it lifted my soul higher than all their former
strains. They are gone the sons and daughters of
music and the gray sexton is just closing the portal.
For six days more, there will be no face of man in
the pews, and aisles, and galleries, nor a voice in the
40
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
pulpit, nor music in the choir. Was it worth while
to rear this massive edifice, to be a desert in the heart
of the town, and populous only for a few hours of
each seventh day? O, but the church is a symbol of
religion. May its site, which was consecrated on the
day when the first tree was felled, be kept holy for
ever, a spot of solitude and peace, amid the trouble
and vanity of our week-day world! There is a moral,
and a religion too, even in the silent walls. And may
the steeple still point heavenward, and be decked with
the hallowed sunshine of the Sabbath morn!
1
}
F
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 anti-
quarian 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 in-
closure of the loveliest green, within which appear
urns, pillars, obelisks, and other forms of monumental
marble, the tributes of private affection, or more splen-
did 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 in-
terest.
The marriage might be considered as the result of
an early engagement, though there had been two in-
termediate 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 se-
cluded 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
42
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
X
had no definite object, either of public advantage or
personal ambition; a gentleman, high bred and fas-
tidiously delicate, yet sometimes requiring a considera-
ble 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 sen-
sibility from public notice, it had been his fatality so
often to become the topic of the day, by some wild ec-
centricity 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 con-
ceived. 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 fortúne.
A southern gentleman, considerably younger than her-
self, succeeded to her hand, and carried her to Charles-
ton, 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 phi
THE WEDDING KNELL.
43
losopher, bearing troubles of the heart with equanimity,
dispensing with all that should have been her happi-
ness, and making the best of what remained. Sage in
most matters, the widow was perhaps the more amia-
ble for the one frailty that made her ridiculous. Be-
ing 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 strug-
gled with Time, and held fast her roses in spite of
him, till the venerable thief appeared to have relin-
quished the spoil, as not worth the trouble of acquir-
ing 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 conscious-
ness 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 Epis-
copalian 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,
11
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
→
or possibly it was the custom of the day, that the par-
ties should proceed separately to church. By some
accident the bridegroom was a little less punctual than
the widow and her bridal attendants; with whose ar-
rival, 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 WEDDING KNELL.
45
the singularity of such a welcome to the altar. They
therefore continued to advance with undiminished
gayety. The gorgeous dresses of the time, the crim-
son velvet coats, the gold-laced hats, the hoop petti-
coats, 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 wrin-
kled 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 obscur-
ing 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, with-
ered 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
10
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
vibrate, with the same doleful regularity as when a
corpse is on its way to the tomb.
66
"My young friends here have their nerves a little
shaken," said the widow, with a smile, to the clergy-
man 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 for-
tune under such different auspices."
"Madam," answered the rector, in great perplexity,
"this strange occurrence brings to my mind a mar-
riage sermon of the famous Bishop Taylor, whereir
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 en-
gagement 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 mar
riage. A brief space elapsed, during which the si-
lence was broken only by whispers, and a few sup-
pressed 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
THE WEDDING KNELL.
47
she had dedicated to her first husband; then her eye-
lids 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 ear-
liest lover, long her husband. But why had she re-
turned 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, com-
municated 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, con-
veying 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?
66
""
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.
is here? The funeral! "
"What
As she spoke, a dark procession paced into the
48.
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
church. First came an old man and woman, 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 de-
crepit 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 pur
pose 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 spec-
tators shuddered with irrepressible awe, as some ob-
ject, 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!
L
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 WEDDING KNELL.
49
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 mourn-
ers, the shrouded bridegroom, and herself; the whole
scene expressed, by the strongest imagery, the vain
struggle of the gilded vanities of this world, when op
posed to age, infirmity, sorrow, and death. The awe-
struck silence was first broken by the clergyman.
Your
Mr. Ellenwood," said he, soothingly, yet with
somewhat of authority, "you are not well.
mind has been agitated by the unusual circumstances
in which you are placed. The ceremony must be de-
ferred. As an old friend, let me entreat you to re-
turn 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 bride.
groom or the bride!"
He stepped forward at a ghostly pace, and stood be-
side 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
50
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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-no, not for such a life
we once pictured you call me to the altar.
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 be-
spoken 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."
At
It was not frenzy; it was not merely the drunken
ness 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.
66 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
as wed for Eternity!"
THE WEDDING KNELL.
51
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 for-
given. 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 with-
ered 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 over-
powered 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 im
pressive 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
THE sexton stood in the porch of Milford meeting
house, pulling busily at the bell-rope. The old peo-
ple of the village came stooping along the street.
Children, with bright faces, tripped merrily beside
their parents, or mimicked a graver gait, in the con-
scious dignity of their Sunday clothes. Spruce bach-
elors looked sidelong at the pretty maidens, and fan-
cied 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 meeting-house. With
one accord they started, expressing more wonder than
if some strange minister were coming to dust the
cushions of Mr. Hooper's pulpit.
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 MINISTER'S BLACK VEIL.
53
“Are you sure it is our parson?" inquired Good-
man 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 suffi-
ciently 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 Sun-
day'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 look-
ing 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.
54
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 lit-
tle 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 minis-
ter. But Mr. Hooper appeared not to notice the per-
turbation 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 parish-
ioner, 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 counte-
nance. 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.
THE MINISTER'S BLACK VEIL.
55
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 it-
self, 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 Omnis-
cient 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 in-
iquity 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, al-
most believing that a stranger's visage would be dis-
covered, 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
56
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 os-
tentatious laughter. A few shook their sagacious
heads, intimating that they could penetrate the mys-
tery; 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 Sab-
bath day. Strange and bewildered looks repaid him
for his courtesy. None, as on former occasions, as-
pired 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 ta-
ble, 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 be
neath 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
THE MINISTER'S BLACK VEIL.
57
should become such a terrible thing on Mr. Hooper's
face!"
"Something must surely be amiss with Mr. Hoop-
er'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 cir-
cumstances. 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 ac-
quaintances stood about the door, speaking of the good
qualities of the deceased, when their talk was inter-
rupted by the appearance of Mr. Hooper, still covered
with his black veil. It was now an appropriate em-
blem. 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 fore-
head, so that, if her eyelids had not been closed for-
ever, 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 clergy-
man's features were disclosed, the corpse had slightly
shuddered, rustling the shroud and muslin cap, though
58
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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.
66
Why do you look back?" said one in the proces-
sion 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 vil-
lage were to be joined in wedlock. Though reckoned
a melancholy man, Mr. Hooper had a placid cheerful-
ness for such occasions, which often excited a sympa-
thetic 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
THE MINISTER'S BLACK VEIL.
59
first thing that their eyes rested on was the same hor-
rible 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 be-
Leath 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 new-married 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 un-
tasted 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 win-
dows. 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 cov
ered his face with an old black handkerchief, thereby
60
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
so affrighting his playmates that the panic seized him
self, and he well-nigh lost his wits by his own waggery.
It was remarkable that of all 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 ac-
tion as a crime. Yet, though so well acquainted with
this amiable weakness, no individual among his pa
rishioners 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 deputa
tion of the church, in order to deal with Mr. Hooper
about the mystery, before it should grow into a scan-
dal. Never did an embassy so ill discharge its duties.
The minister received them with friendly courtesy, but
became silent, after they were seated, leaving to his vis-
itors the whole burden of introducing their important
business. The topic, it might be supposed, was obvi-
ous 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,
THE MINISTER'S BLACK VEIL.
61
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 with-
out 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.
66
No," said she aloud, and smiling, "there is noth-
ing 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, be-
oved friend, if I wear this piece of crape till then."
"Your words are a mystery, too," returned the
62
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 sym-
bol, 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 conscious-
ness 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
THE MINISTER'S BLACK VEIL.
63
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 per-
haps 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 feel-
ing took the place of sorrow: her eyes were fixed in-
sensibly 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 mourn-
fully.
She made no reply, but covered her eyes with her
hand, and turned to leave the room. He rushed for-
ward 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 dark-
ness 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 for-
ever!"
“Lift the veil but once, and look me in the face,”
said she.
66
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 shud-
dering gaze, that seemed almost to penetrate the mys
tery of the black veil. But, even amid his grief, Mr.
Hooper smiled to think that only a material emblem
bad separated him from happiness, though the hor
64
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
rors, 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 dis-
cover the secret which it was supposed to hide. By
persons who claimed a superiority to popular preju-
dice, it was reckoned merely an eccentric whim, such
as often mingles with the sober actions of men other-
wise rational, and tinges them all with its own sem.
blance 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 im
pertinence 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, peep-
ing 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 melan-
choly 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 will-
ingly 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 plausi
bility to the whispers, that Mr. Hooper's conscience
tortured him for some great crime too horrible to be
THE MINISTER'S BLACK VEIL.
65
t
entirely concealed, or otherwise than so obscurely in-
timated. 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 con-
tinually 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 effi-
cient 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 ap-
peared; though ever, as he stooped to whisper conso-
lation, 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
VOL. I.
5
!
66
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
appointed to preach the election sermon. Covered
with his black veil, he stood before the chief magis
trate, 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, irre-
proachable in outward act, yet shrouded in dismal sus
picions; 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 congrega
tion 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 candle-
light, 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 per
THE MINISTER'S BLACK VEIL.
67
ish, 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 con-
fused, 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 wild-
est 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 his 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 lift
ing of the veil that shuts in time from eternity?"
68
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
Father Hooper at first replied merely by a feeble
motion of his head; then, apprehensive, perhaps, that
his meaning might be doubtful, he exerted himself to
speak.
66
"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.
never!"
"On earth,
"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
THE MINISTER'S BLACK VEIL.
69
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 spec-
tators. "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 se-
cret of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the sym-
bol 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 pil-
low, 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
zurious 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 them-
gelves, almost spontaneously, into a sort of allegory. The masques,
mummeries, and festive customs, described in the text, are in accord
ance 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 triumph-
ant, 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
round at Merry
mirthful spirit, dwelt all the year
Mount, sporting with the Summer months, and revel-
ling with Autumn, and basking in the glow of Win-
ter'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
THE MAYPOLE OF MERRY MOUNT.
71
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. Gar-
den 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 termi-
nated, 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
There was the likeness
horns of a venerable he-goat.
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
72
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 Salvage Man, well known in her
aldry, hairy as a baboon, and girdled with green leaves.
By his side, a noble figure, but still a counterfeit, ap
peared an Indian hunter, with feathery crest and wam-
pum belt. Many of this strange company wore fools.
caps, and had little bells appended to their garments,
tinkling with a silvery sound, responsive to the inaudi-
ble 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 for-
est, heard their mirth, and stolen a half-affrighted
glance, he might have fancied them the crew of Co-
mus, some already transformed to brutes, some mid-
way
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, invis-
ible 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 air
iest 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 rain-
bow pattern crosswise on his breast. His right hand
held a gilded staff, the ensign of high dignity among
THE MAYPOLE OF MERRY MOUNT. 73
the revellers, and his left grasped the slender fingers
of a fair maiden, not less gayly decorated than him-
self. 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. Be-
hind 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 chap-
let of the native vine leaves. By the riot of his roll-
ing 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 fan-
tasy, 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
74
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 noth-
ing of futurity will be brighter than the mere remem-
brance of what is now passing."
"That was the very thought that saddened me!
How came it in your mind too?" said Edith, in a stili
lower tone than he, for it was high treason to be sad
at Merry Mount. "Therefore do I sigh amid this fes-
tive 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
THE MAYPOLE OF MERRY MOUNT. 75
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 presenti-
ment 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 em-
pires; 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 gath-
ered 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
76
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
of noblemen; mummers, rope-dancers, and mounte
banks, 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 Puritan-
ism. 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 de
spair; 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 en
THE MAYPOLE OF MERRY MOUNT. 77
riched 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 hom-
age 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 these 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 corn-
field till evening made it prayer time again. Their
weapons were always at hand to shoot down the strag
gling 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 whip
ping-post, which might be termed the Puritan May-
pole.
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; per-
haps teaching a bear to dance, or striving to communi
78
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
cate their mirth to the grave Indian; or masquerad
ing 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 over-
cast 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 May-
pole. The future complexion of New England was
involved in this important quarrel. Should the griz
zly 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
THE MAYPOLE OF MERRY MOUNT. 79
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 re-
turn 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 May
pole, 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 mas-
quers 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 char-
acteristic 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 fan-
tastic foolery could look him in the face. So stern
was the energy of his aspect, that the whole man, vis-
age, 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!
80
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
"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!"
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 Eng-
land! 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.
1 Did Governor Endicott speak less positively, we should suspec.
a mistake here. The Rev. Mr. Blackstone, though an eccentric, is
not known to have been an immoral man. We rather doubt his idea
tity with the priest of Merry Mount.
THE MAYPOLE OF MERRY MOUNT.
81
"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 lieu-
tenant.
"True, good Ancient," said the leader. "Where-
fore, 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 An-
cient 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 him-
self! 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
ΤΟΣΑ Σ
82
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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
THE MAYPOLE OF MERRY MOUNT.
83
hou, maid? Shall thy silken bridegroom suffer thy
share of the penalty, besides bis 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, in-
stead 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 love-
lock and long glossy curls of the young man.
66
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 fel
lows. 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 be-
come 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 dano
ing round a Maypole!"
84
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 proph-
ecy. 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 peo-
ple called Quakers, led, as they professed, by the in-
ward 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 en-
thusiasts 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 dis-
tributed by our pious forefathers; the popular antip-
athy, 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 re-
ward, 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
86
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 al-
most 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 com-
mand 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 mod-
erate 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 the 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 aw-
ful 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 uncompromis-
ing bigotry was made hot and mischievous by violent
and hasty passions; he exerted his influence indeco-
rously 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 GENTLE BOY.
87
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 persecu-
tors, 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 gov-
ernor.
On the evening of the autumn day that had wit-
nessed 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 pro-
portion 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 in-
strument. 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
88
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
that of the wind. It was like the wailing of some
one 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 con
science 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 sup
pressed tone, as if his grief might receive the punish
THE GENTLE BOY.
89
ment 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."
و,
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.
66
Nay, if I intended to do you harm, little lad, the
readiest way were to leave you here. What! you do
aot 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 sup
position. "The poor child is stricken in his intellect,"
thought he, "but verily his words are fearful in a
90
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 bad 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 loath-
some 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 per-
ish, 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?"
66
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."
THE GENTLE BOY.
91
66
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, how
ever, 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.
66
tan.
My poor boy, are you so feeble?" said the Puri.
"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 instru-
ments 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 wil-
derness. It was surrounded by a considerable extent
$2
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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, &
coarse-clad and dull-featured piece of humanity, who,
after ascertaining that his master was the applicant,
undid the door, and held a flaring pine-knot 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, To-
bias?" 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.”
THE GENTLE BOY.
93
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 in-
ward 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 ten-
derness 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 at-
tempted 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 unin
habited 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 beer
judged worthy of death. When the boy had fallen
asleep, she bent over his pale and spiritual counte
94
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
дance, 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 emi
grants 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 dra-
goons, under Cromwell. But when the ambitious de-
signs of his leader began to develop themselves, he
quitted the army of the Parliament, and sought a ref-
uge from the strife, which was no longer holy, among
the people of his persuasion in the colony of Massa
chusetts. 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 in
creasing family. To this supposed impurity of motive
the more bigoted Puritans were inclined to impute th
removal by death of all the children, for whose earthly
good the father had been over-thoughtful. They ha
left their native country blooming like roses, and like
roses they had perished in a foreign soil. Those ex-
pounders of the ways of Providence, who had thus
judged their brother, and attributed his domestic sor-
rows to his sin, were not more charitable when th
saw him and Dorothy endeavoring to fill up the voi
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 re.
ply, merely pointed at the little, quiet, lovely boy,
whose appearance and deportment were indeed as pow.
erful arguments as could possibly have been adduced
in his own favor. Even his beauty, however, and his
THE GENTLE BOY.
95
winning manners, sometimes produced an effect ulti
mately 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 in-
creased by the ill success of divers theological discus-
sions, 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 expe-
rience 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 in-
visible speaker; and it cried, "What shall be done tc
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 be
came imperceptible but powerful workers towards an
end which his most secret thought had not yet whis
pered.
On the second Sabbath after Librahim became a
96
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 sub-
sequent 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 Ilbra-
him, 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 ac
quaintance, 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 for
midable phalanx, including several of the oldest mem
bers 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 circum-
stanced, merely drew the boy closer to her, and fal-
tered not in her approach. As they entered the door,
they overheard the muttered sentiments of the assem-
blage, and when the reviling voices of the little chil
uren smote Ilbrahim's ear, he wept.
The interior aspect of the meeting-house was rude.
The low ceiling, he unplastered walls, the naked
wood work, and the undraperied pulpit, offered noth
THE GENTLE BOY.
97
mg to excite the devotion, which, without such exter
nal aids, often remains latent in the heart. The floor
of the building was occupied by rows of long, cushion-
less benches, supplying the place of pews, and the
broad aisle formed a sexual division, impassable ex-
cept 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 earth-soiled 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
himself 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, appar-
ently of trifling interest. A woman, having her face
ruffled in a hood, and a cloak drawn completely about
ber form, advanced slowly up the broad aisle and took
place upon the foremost bench. Ilbrahim's faint
color varied, his nerves fluttered, he was unable to
turn his eyes from the muffled female.
VOL. I.
Z
98
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 dis-
course. 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 perse-
cution from Archbishop Laud, and he was not now
disposed to forget the lesson against which he had
murmured then. Introducing the often discussed sub-
ject of the Quakers, he gave a history of that sect, and
a description of their tenets, in which error predomi
nated, and prejudice distorted the aspect of what was
true. He adverted to the recent measures in the prov-
ince, and cautioned his hearers of weaker parts against
calling in question the just severity which God-fear-
ing magistrates had at length been compelled to exer
cise. 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 chil
dren, the sucking babes, were hardened and desperate
heretics. He affirmed that no man, without Heaven's
especial warrant, 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
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99
themselves to sing, a scene occurred, which, though
not very unusual at that period in the province, hap
pened 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 pul-
pit 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 maledic-
tions had just been thundered. She then divested her-
self 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 dis
course gave evidence of an imagination hopelessly
entangled with her reason; it was a vague and in-
comprehensible rhapsody, which, however, seemed to
spread its own atmosphere round the hearer's soul,
and to move his feelings by some influence uncon-
nected with the words. As she proceeded, beautiful
but shadowy images would sometimes be seen, likę
100
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 be-
came 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 them-
selves 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 rot-
tenness of the grave, when the children's children shall
Revile the ashes of the fathers! Woe, woe, woe, at
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101
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 gen-
erally 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 vio-
lence. 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 in-
dignation 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 utter
ance,” 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."
وو
The weakness of exhausted passion caused her steps
to totter as she descended the pulpit stairs. The peo
[02
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
ple, 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 gen
tleman 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 the
to prison,” he exclaimed.
She gazed at him with a doubtful and almost fright
ened expression, for she knew that the boy had been
cast out to perish, and she had not hoped to see him
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 ir
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
THE GENTLE BOY.
103
while the joy that could find no words expressed itself
in broken accents, like the bubbles gushing up to van-
ish 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 mo-
ment. 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 dark-
ening onward, till now the end is death. Son, son, I
have borne thee in my arms when my limbs were tot-
tering, 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 inter-
rupted 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
104
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 in-
Auence 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. "Provi
dence 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 ma-
tronly 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 re-
spect 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 up-
ward to the same heaven with you. Doubt not that
your boy shall meet you there, if there be a blessing
THE GENTLE BOY.
105
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.
66 Can ye
teach him the enlightened faith which his father has
‹lied 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 comply-
ing with your wishes."
The mother looked down upon her boy with a
troubled countenance, and then turned her eyes up
ward 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 imper-
fect 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 mul
titude 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
106
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 strug-
gled 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 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 ene-
mies, 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,
THE GENTLE BOY.
107
who had stationed themselves to guard it, withdrew,
and suffered her to pass. A general sentiment of pity
overcame the virulence of religious hatred. Sancti-
fied 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 Puri-
tans. 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 hus-
band 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 birth-
place, 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 per-
secuted infant, the little wanderer from a remote and
heathen country, seemed native in the New England
rottage, and inseparable from the warmth and security
of its hearth. Under the influence of kind treatment,
108
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
and in the consciousness that he was loved, Ilbrahim*3
demeanor lost a premature manliness, which had re
sulted 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 un-
healthiness 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 Ilbra
him 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 tc moments
of deep depression. His sorrows could not always be
followed up to their original source, but most fre-
quently 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 house-
hold, and on these occasions he did not invariably
escape rebuke. But the slightest word of real bitter-
ness, 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 gen
erally accompanies a superfluity of sensitiveness, Ilbra
THE GENTLE BOY.
109
him 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 under-
gone 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, es-
pecially 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 unappro-
priated 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 individ-
ual 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
110
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 im-
mediately impressed a beholder disagreeably, but it
required some examination to discover that the cause
was a very slight distortion of the mouth, and the ir-
regular, broken line, and near approach of the eye-
brows. Analogous, perhaps, to these trifling deformi-
ties, 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 al-
most all its details. The disposition of the boy was
sullen and reserved, and the village schoolmaster stig-
matized him as obtuse in intellect; although, at a
later period of life, he evinced ambition and very pe-
culiar 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 perse-
cution 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 lan-
guished, were neglected; he nestled continually by the
bedside of the little stranger, and, with a fond jeal-
ousy, 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
THE GENTLE BOY.
111
birthplace. It was that of reciting imaginary adven
tures, 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 shrewd
ness above his years, mingled with a moral obliquity
which grated very harshly against Ilbrahim's instinc-
tive 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 de-
parture; 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 pleas-
ant summer afternoon, the children of the neighbor-
hood had assembled in the little forest-crowned amphi-
theatre 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, be-
ginning 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
nnocence. But it happened that an unexpected addi
112
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
tion 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 man-
hood.
""
The invalid, in the meanwhile, stood apart from the
tumult, crying out with a loud voice, "Fear not, Ilbra-
him, come hither and take my hand; and his un-
happy friend endeavored to obey him. After watch-
ing the victim's struggling approach with a calm smile
and unabashed eye, the foul-hearted little villain lifted
his staff and struck Ilbrahim on the mouth, so forci-
bly 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 per
secutors 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 en-
tered bleeding into heaven. The uproar, however,
attracted the notice of a few neighbors, who put them-
selves 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
THE GENTLE BOY.
113
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 overflow-
ing gladness; his countenance was heavier, and its
former play of expression, the dance of sunshine re-
flected 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 occa-
sion 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 mis-
erably 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 Il-
brahim was happy, admitted of no substitute in his ex-
treme 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
114
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
Ilbrahim, one of an earlier origin and of different
naracter 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 men-
tally 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 incip
ient 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 prac-
tical 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 enthusi-
asts, 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 mis-
fortune; 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 per-
secutors, nor the infatuation of their victims, had de
creased. The dungeons were never empty; the streets
of almost every village echoed daily with the lash; the
ife of a woman, whose mild and Christian spirit në
THE GENTLE BOY.
115
eruelty 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
" but
a "vein of blood was open in his dominions;
though the displeasure of the voluptuous king was
roused, his interference was not prompt. And now
the tale must stride forward over many months, leav
ing 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 rose-
bud; his mother to wander on a mistaken errand, neg-
lectful 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 apart-
ment was saddened in its aspect by the absence of
much of the homely wealth which had once adorned
t; 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 im-
plements of war had likewise disappeared; the sword
was broken, the helm and cuirass were cast away for-
ever; 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
116
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
master of the house, now emaciated in form, and al
tered as to the expression and healthiness of his coun
tenance; 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 ner-
vous agitation.
"Friend Tobias," inquired the old man, compas-
sionately, “hast thou found no comfort in these many
blessed passages of Scripture?"
(6
Thy voice has fallen on my ear like a sound afar
off and indistinct," replied Pearson without lifting his
THE GENTLE BOY.
117
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."
66
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!" ex-
claimed 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 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
my
no more."
"Thou sinnest, brother, but it is not for me to re-
buke thee; for I also have had my hours of darkness,
118
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 sor-
rows. "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 vil-
lage 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 mur-
mured?" interrupted Pearson impatiently.
66
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 for-
bid 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 fer-
tile 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 man-
hood, the altered faith of my declining years. I re-
membered how I had been moved to go forth a wan-
derer when my daughter, the youngest, the dearest of
my flock, lay on her dying bed, and”
"Couldst thou obey the command at such a mo
ment?" exclaimed Pearson, shuddering.
THE GENTLE BOY.
119
"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 whis-
per, '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, rais-
ing 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 suf-
fered 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, imag-
ining, perhaps, in its red embers new scenes of perse-
cution 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 spa-
cious chimney and hissed upon the hearth. A cautious
footstep might now and then be heard in a neighbor-
ing apartment, and the sound invariably drew the eyes
120
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
of both Quakers to the door which led thither. Wher
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.
66
"The men of blood have come to seek me,” he ob
served 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
THE GENTLE BOY.
121
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.
66
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 slum-
bering 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.
man,
"Catharine, blessed woman!" exclaimed the old
"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 triumph-
ant; but strengthen, strengthen now thy heart, Cath-
arine, 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
122
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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.
66
Sister," he began, in a softened yet perfectly calm
tone, "thou tellest us of His love, manifested in tem-
poral 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 con-
soled; 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
THE GENTLE BOY.
123
99
long shudder, "He hath spared me in this one thing.
She broke forth with sudden and irrepressible vio
lence. "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 recep-
tion in the world whither he goes, may at least sus-
tain him in bidding adieu to earth. But though Ilbra-
him uttered no complaint, he was disturbed by the
faces that looked upon him; so that Dorothy's entrea-
ties, 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
124
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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, com-
plaining 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 eter-
nity, 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.
66
Friend, she is come! Open unto her!" cried he
THE GENTLE BOY.
12
In a moment his mother was kneeling by the bed
side; 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 earnest-
ness, “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 per-
secutors was effectual in preventing further martyr-
doms; but the colonial authorities, trusting in the
remoteness of their situation, and perhaps in the sup
posed instability of the royal government, shortly re-
newed their severities in all other respects. Catha-
rine'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 her-
self 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 Pear-
son'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 vin
dictive nature was softened by the same griefs which
had once irritated it. When the course of years had
126
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 fol-
lowed 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 be-
loved by the pretty girls along the Connecticut, whose
favor he used to court by presents of the best smok-
ing tobacco in his stock; knowing well that the coun-
try lasses of New England are generally great per-
formers 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 trav-
elled 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 shop-
keeper to read the morning paper. An opportunity
seemed at hand when, after lighting a cigar with ◄
128
TWICE-TOL TALES.
sun-glass, he looked up, and perceived a man coming
over the brow of the hill, at the foot of which the ped-
lar 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 natu
rally 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 an-
swer."
I
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, mount-
ing 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
în his orchard, at eight o'clock last night, by an Irish-
man 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."
MR. HIGGINBOTHAM'S CATASTROPHE. 129
As soon as this horrible intelligence was commu-
nicated, 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 ped-
lar whistled to his mare and went up the hill, ponder-
ing 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. Kim-
ballton 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 discov-
ered 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 nar-
rator 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 in-
telligence, 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
rader; and a former clerk of his, to whom Dominicus
VOL. L
130
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 tav-
ern, about five miles short of Parker's Falls. After
supper, lighting one of his prime cigars, he seated him.
self 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 to-
bacco 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 hang
ing 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
ath that he was murdered exactly in that way."
MR. HIGGINBOTHAM'S CATASTROPHE. 131
“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 did n't
seem to know any more about his own murder than I
did."
"Why, then, it can't be a fact!" exclaimed Domini-
cus 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. Higgin-
botham! 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 de-
tested that his suspension would have pleased him bet-
ter 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 en-
couraged 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
132
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 ob-
serve, at first, that the stranger himself had a deep
tinge of negro blood. On hearing this sudden ques-
tion, 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."
Do-
Scarcely had the yellow man spoken, when he inter-
rupted 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.
minicus 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. Higgin
botham'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 un-
fortunate 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 hang
ing the nigger would n't unhang Mr. Higginbotham
Unhang the old gentleman! It's a sin, I know; but
MR. HIGGINBOTHAM'S CATASTROPHE, 133
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 un-
barred, 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 author-
ity, 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 pros-
perity interested in his fate. Such was the excite-
ment, 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
134
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
had been robbed; there was much pathos also abont
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 pock-
ets inside out. The village poet likewise commemo-
rated the young lady's grief in seventeen stanzas of a
ballad. The selectmen held a meeting, and, in con-
sideration of Mr. Higginbotham's claims on the town,
determined to issue handbills, offering a reward of
five hundred dollars for the apprehension of his mur
derers, 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 school boys, 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 Do-
minicus, in his vanity of heart, forgot his intended pre..
cautions, and mounting on the town pump, announced
himself as the bearer of the authentic intelligence
which had caused so wonderful a sensation. He in-
mediately 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
MR. HIGGINBOTHAM'S CATASTROPHE. 135
Deen 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 pro-
pounded 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. Higgin-
botham! 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 pro-
duce a large, red pocket-book. 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
136
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
have been informed of the murder had
any been per
petrated. 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 Con-
necticut 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 signa-
ture 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 forth-
coming. The young lady, after listening to the ped-
lar's explanation, merely seized a moment to smooth
her gown and put her curls in order, and then ap
peared at the tavern door, making a modest signal to
be heard.
"Good people," said she, "I am Mr. Higginbot-
ham'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
MR. HIGGINBOTHAM'S CATASTROPHE. 137
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 bed-
side, and gave me two dollars and fifty cents to pay
my stage fare, and another dollar for my extra ex-
penses. He then laid his pocket-book under his pil-
low, 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 be-
loved 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 every-
body 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 ab-
horrence 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 hon-
ors 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 pros-
ecuting him for a misdemeanor, in circulating un
founded 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
138
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
of town, under a discharge of artillery from the school
boys, who found plenty of ammunition in the neigh
boring clay-pits and mud holes. As he turned his
head to exchange a farewell glance with Mr. Higgin-
botham'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 ablu.
tion 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 select-
men 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. Higgin-
botham. 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 circum-
stances in his mind, and was astonished at the aspect
MR. HIGGINBOTHAM'S CATASTROPHE. 139
which the whole case assumed. Had nothing oc-
curred 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 dis-
mayed 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 circum-
stantial evidence appeared so strong that Dominicus
doubted whether the autograph produced by the law-
yer, 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 min-
ister 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.
140
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
"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. Hig-
ginbotham within a day or two?”
"He passed
"Yes," answered the toll-gatherer.
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 wher-
ever 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 ap-
peared 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
MR. HIGGINBOTHAM'S CATASTROPHE. 141
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 wood-lot, beyond which lay an orchard, farther
still, a mowing field, and last of all, a house. These
were the premises of Mr. Higginbotham, whose dwell-
ing stood beside the old highway, but had been left
in the background by the Kimballton turnpike. Do-
minicus knew the place; and the little mare stopped
short by instinct; for he was not conscious of tighten-
ing 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 peaceable occupation, nor could
he account for his valor on this awful emergency.
Certain it is, however, that he rushed forward, pros-
trated a sturdy Irishman with the butt end of his
whip, and found - not indeed hanging on the St. Mi-
chael's pear-tree, but trembling beneath it, with a halter
round his neck the old, identical Mr. Higginbotham!
142
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
66
it.
"Mr. Higginbotham," said Dominicus tremulously,
you're an honest man, and I'll take your word for
Have you been hanged or not?"
If the riddle be not already guessed, a few words.
will explain the simple machinery by which this "com-
ing 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 prop
erty on their children, allowing themselves the inter
est. 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 tobacea
manufactory in my native village.
LITTLE ANNIE'S RAMBLE.
DING-DONG! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!
The town crier has rung his bell at a distant corner,
and little Annie stands on her father's doorsteps, try
ing to hear what the man with the loud voice is talk
ing about. Let me listen too. Oh, he is telling the
people that an elephant, and a lion, and a royal tiger,
and a horse with horns, and other strange beasts from
foreign countries, have come to town, and will receive
all visitors who choose to wait upon them. Perhaps
little Annie would like to go. Yes; and I can see
that the pretty child is weary of this wide and pleasant
street, with the green trees flinging their shade across
the quiet sunshine, and the pavements and the side-
walks all as clean as if the housemaid had just swept
them with her broom. She feels that impulse to go
strolling away that longing after the mystery of the
great world—which many children feel, and which I
felt in my childhood. Little Annie shall take a ram-
ble with me. See! I do but hold out my hand, and,
like some bright bird in the sunny air, with her blue
silk frock fluttering upwards from her white pantalets,
she comes bounding on tiptoe across the street.
Smooth back your brown curls, Annie; and let me
tie on your bonnet, and we will set forth! What a
strange couple to go on their rambies together! One
walks in black attire, with a measured step, and a
heavy brow, and his thoughtful eyes bent down; while
the gay little girl trips lightly along, as if she were
144
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
forced to keep hold of my hand, lest her feet should
dance away from the earth. Yet there is sympathy
between us. If I pride myself on anything, it is be-
cause I have a smile that children love; and, on the
other hand, there are few grown ladies that could
entice me from the side of little Annie; for I delight
to let my mind go hand in hand with the mind of a
sinless child. So, come, Annie; but if I moralize as
we go, do not listen to me; only look about you, and
be merry!
Now we turn the corner. Here are hacks with two
horses, and stage-coaches with four, thundering to
meet each other, and trucks and carts moving at a
slower pace, being heavily laden with barrels from the
wharves, and here are rattling gigs, which perhaps will
be smashed to pieces before our eyes. Hitherward,
also, comes a man trundling a wheelbarrow along the
pavement. Is not little Annie afraid of such a tu-
mult? No; she does not even shrink closer to my
side, but passes on with fearless confidence, a happy
child amidst a great throng of grown people, who pay
the same reverence to her infancy that they would to
extreme old age. Nobody jostles her; all turn aside
to make way for little Annie; and what is most sin-
gular, she appears conscious of her claim to such re-
spect. Now her eyes brighten with pleasure! A street
musician has seated himself on the steps of yonder
church, and pours forth his strains to the busy town,
a melody that has gone astray among the tramp of
footsteps, the buzz of voices, and the war of passing
wheels. Who heeds the poor organ grinder? None
but myself and little Annie, whose feet begin to move
in unison with the lively tune, as if she were loath
that music should be wasted without a dance. But
LITTLE ANNIE'S RAMBLE.
145
where would Annie find a partner? Some have the
gout in their toes, or the rheumatism in their joints;
some are stiff with age; some feeble with disease;
some are so lean that their bones would rattle, and
others of such ponderous size that their agility would
crack the flagstones; but many, many have leaden
feet, because their hearts are far heavier than lead.
It is a sad thought that I have chanced upon. What
a company of dancers should we be! For I, too, am
a gentleman of sober footsteps, and therefore, little
Annie, let us walk sedately on.
It is a question with me, whether this giddy child
or my sage self have most pleasure in looking at the
shop windows. We love the silks of sunny hue, that
glow within the darkened premises of the spruce dry
goods' men; we are pleasantly dazzled by the bur-
nished silver and the chased gold, the rings of wed-
lock and the costly love ornaments, glistening at the
window of the jeweller; but Annie, more than I, seeks
for a glimpse of her passing figure in the dusty look-
ing-glasses at the hardware stores. All that is bright
and gay attracts us both.
Here is a shop to which the recollections of my boy-
hood, as well as present partialities, give a peculiar
magic. How delightful to let the fancy revel on the
dainties of a confectioner: those pies, with such white
and flaky paste, their contents being a mystery, whether
rich mince, with whole plums intermixed, or piquant
apple, delicately rose flavored; those cakes, heart-
shaped or round, piled in a lofty pyramid; those sweet
little circlets, sweetly named kisses; those dark majes-
tic masses, fit to be bridal loaves at the wedding of
an heiress, mountains in size, their summits deeply
snow-covered with sugar! Then the mighty treasures
VOL I
10
146
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
of sugar-plums, white and crimson and yellow, in
large glass vases; and candy of all varieties; and
those little cockles, or whatever they are called, much
prized by children for their sweetness, and more for
the mottoes which they inclose, by love-sick maids and
bachelors! Oh, my mouth waters, little Annie, and so
doth yours; but we will not be tempted, except to ar
imaginary feast; so let us hasten onward, devouring
the vision of a plum cake.
Here are pleasures, as some people would say, of a
more exalted kind, in the window of a bookseller. Is
Annie a literary lady? Yes; she is deeply read in
Peter Parley's tomes, and has an increasing love for
fairy tales, though seldom met with nowadays, and
she will subscribe, next year, to the Juvenile Miscel-
lany. But, truth to tell, she is apt to turn away from
the printed page, and keep gazing at the pretty pict
ures, such as the gay-colored ones which make this
shop window the continual loitering-place of children.
What would Annie think if, in the book which I
mean to send her on New Year's Day, she should find
her sweet little self, bound up in silk or morocco with
gilt edges, there to remain till she become a woman
grown, with children of her own to read about their
mother's childhood! That would be very queer.
Little Annie is weary of pictures, and pulls me on-
ward by the hand, till suddenly we pause at the most
wondrous shop in all the town. Oh, my stars! Is this
a toyshop, or is it fairyland? For here are gilded
chariots, in which the king and queen of the fairies
might ride side by side, while their courtiers, on these
small horses, should gallop in triumphal procession
before and behind the royal pair. Here, too, are
dishes of china ware, fit to be the dining set of those
LITTLE ANNIE'S RAMBLE.
147
same princely personages, when they make a regal
banquet in the stateliest hall of their palace, full five
feet high, and behold their nobles feasting adown the
long perspective of the table. Betwixt the king and
queen should sit my little Annie, the prettiest fairy of
them all. Here stands a turbaned turk, threatening
us with his sabre, like an ugly heathen as he is. And
next a Chinese mandarin, who nods his head at Annie
and myself. Here we may review a whole army of
horse and foot, in red and blue uniforms, with drums,
fifes, trumpets, and all kinds of noiseless music; they
have halted on the shelf of this window, after their
weary march from Liliput. But what cares Annie for
soldiers? No conquering queen is she, neither a Se-
miramis nor a Catharine; her whole heart is set upon
that doll, who gazes at us with such a fashionable stare.
This is the little girl's true plaything. Though made
of wood, a doll is a visionary and ethereal personage,
endowed by childish fancy with a peculiar life; the
mimic lady is a heroine of romance, an actor and a
sufferer in a thousand shadowy scenes, the chief inhab-
itant of that wild world with which children ape the
real one.
Little Annie does not understand what I
am saying, but looks wishfully at the proud lady in
the window. We will invite her home with us as we
return. Meantime, good-by, Dame Doll! A toy your
self, you look forth from your window upon many
ladies that are also toys, though they walk and speak,
and upon a crowd in pursuit of toys, though they wear
grave visages. Oh, with your never closing eyes, had
you but an intellect to moralize on all that flits before
them, what a wise doll would you be! Come, little
Annie, we shall find toys enough, go where we may.
Now we elbow our way among the throng again
148
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
It is curious, in the most crowded part of a town, to
meet with living creatures that had their birthplace in
some far solitude, but have acquired a second nature
in the wilderness of men. Look up, Annie, at that
canary bird, hanging out of the window in his cage.
Poor little fellow! His golden feathers are all tar
nished in this smoky sunshine; he would have glis-
tened twice as brightly among the summer islands;
but still he has become a citizen in all his tastes and
habits, and would not sing half so well without the up-
roar that drowns his music. What a pity that he does
not know how miserable he is! There is a parrot, too,
calling out, "Pretty Poll! Pretty Poll!"- as we pass
by. Foolish bird, to be talking about her prettiness.
to strangers, especially as she is not a pretty Poll,
though gaudily dressed in green and yellow. If she
had said "Pretty Annie," there would have been
some sense in it. See that gray squirrel, at the door
of the fruit shop, whirling round and round so merrily
within his wire wheel! Being condemned to the tread-
mill, he makes it an amusement. Admirable philos-
ophy!
Here comes a big, rough dog, a countryman's dog,
in search of his master; smelling at everybody's heels,
and touching little Annie's hand with his cold nose.
but hurrying away, though she would fain have patted
him. Success to your search, Fidelity! And there
sits a great yellow cat upon a window sill, a very cor-
pulent and comfortable cat, gazing at this transitory
world, with owl's eyes, and making pithy comments,
doubtless, or what appear such, to the silly beast. O,
sage puss, make room for me beside you, and we will
be a pair of philosophers!
Here we see something to remind us of the town
LITTLE ANNIE'S RAMBLE.
149
rrier, and his ding-dong bell! Look! look at that
great cloth spread out in the air, pictured all over
with wild beasts, as if they had met together to choose
a king, according to their custom in the days of Æsop.
But they are choosing neither a king nor a president,
else we should hear a most horrible snarling! They
have come from the deep woods, and the wild moun-
tains, and the desert sands, and the polar snows, only
to do homage to my little Annie. As we enter among
them, the great elephant makes us a bow, in the best
style of elephantine courtesy, bending lowly down his
mountain bulk, with trunk abased, and leg thrust out
behind. Annie returns the salute, much to the gratifi-
cation of the elephant, who is certainly the best-bred
monster in the caravan. The lion and the lioness are
busy with two beef bones. The royal tiger, the beauti-
ful, the untamable, keeps pacing his narrow cage with
a haughty step, unmindful of the spectators, or recall-
ing the fierce deeds of his former life, when he was
wont to leap forth upon such inferior animals from
the jungles of Bengal.
Here we see the very same wolf - do not go near
him, Annie! — the selfsame wolf that devoured little
Red Riding Hood and her grandmother. In the next
cage, a hyena from Egypt, who has doubtless howled
around the pyramids, and a black bear from our own
forests, are fellow-prisoners, and most excellent friends.
Are there any two living creatures who have so few
sympathies that they cannot possibly be friends?
Here sits a great white bear, whom common observers
would call a very stupid beast, though I perceive him
to be only absorbed in contemplation; he is thinking
of his voyages on an iceberg, and of his comfortable
home in the vicinity of the north pole, and of the lit
150
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
tle cubs whom he left rolling in the eternal snows
In fact, he is a bear of sentiment. But, oh, those un-
sentimental monkeys! the ugly, grinning, aping, chat
tering, ill-natured, mischievous, and queer little brutes.
Annie does not love the monkeys. Their ugliness
shocks her pure, instinctive delicacy of taste, and
makes her mind unquiet, because it bears a wild and
dark resemblance to humanity. But here is a little
pony, just big enough for Annie to ride, and round
and round he gallops in a circle, keeping time with
his trampling hoofs to a band of music. And here —
with a laced coat and a cocked hat, and a riding whip
in his hand-here comes a little gentleman, small
enough to be king of the fairies, and ugly enough to
be king of the gnomes, and takes a flying leap into the
saddle. Merrily, merrily plays the music, and mer-
rily gallops the pony, and merrily rides the little old
gentleman. Come, Annie, into the street again; per-
chance we may see monkeys on horseback there!
Mercy on us, what a noisy world we quiet people
live in! Did Annie ever read the Cries of London
City? With what lusty lungs doth yonder man pro-
claim that his wheelbarrow is full of lobsters! Here
comes another mounted on a cart, and blowing a
hoarse and dreadful blast from a tin horn, as much as
to say
"Fresh fish!" And hark! a voice on high,
like that of a muezzin from the summit of a mosque,
announcing that some chimney sweeper has emerged
from smoke and soot, and darksome caverns, into the
upper air. What cares the world for that? But,
welladay, we hear a shrill voice of affliction, the
scream of a little child, rising louder with every repe
tition of that smart, sharp, slapping sound, produced
by an open hand on tender flesh. Annie sympathizes,
LITTLE ANNIE'S RAMBLE.
151
though without experience of such direful woe.
Lo!
the town crier again, with some new secret for the
public ear. Will he tell us of an auction, or of a lost
pocket-book, or a show of beautiful wax figures, or of
some monstrous beast more horrible than any in the
caravan? I guess the latter. See how he uplifts the
bell in his right hand, and shakes it slowly at first,
then with a hurried motion, till the clapper seems to
strike both sides at once, and the sounds are scattered
forth in quick succession, far and near.
Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!
Now he raises his clear, loud voice, above all the
din of the town; it drowns the buzzing talk of many
tongues, and draws each man's mind from his own
business; it rolls up and down the echoing street,
and ascends to the hushed chamber of the sick, and
penetrates downward to the cellar kitchen, where the
hot cook turns from the fire to listen. Who, of all
that address the public ear, whether in church, or
court-house, or hall of state, has such an attentive
audience as the town crier? What said the people's
orator?
"Strayed from her home, a LITTLE GIRL, of five
years old, in a blue silk frock and white pantalets,
with brown curling hair and hazel eyes. Whoever
will bring her back to her afflicted mother
""
Stop, stop, town crier! The lost is found. O, my
pretty Annie, we forgot to tell your mother of our
camble, and she is in despair, and has sent the town
crier to bellow up and down the streets, affrighting
old and young, for the loss of a little girl who has not
once let go my hand! Well, let us hasten homeward;
and as we go, forget not to thank Heaven, my Annie,
that, after wandering a little way into the world, you
152
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
may return at the first summons, with an untainted
and unwearied heart, and be a happy child again.
But I have gone too far astray for the town crier to
call me back.
Sweet has been the charm of childhood on my spirit,
throughout my ramble with little Annie! Say not
that it has been a waste of precious moments, an idle
matter, a babble of childish talk, and a reverie of
childish imaginations, about topics unworthy of a
grown man's notice. Has it been merely this? Not
so; not so. They are not truly wise who would affirm
it. As the pure breath of children revives the life of
aged men, so is our moral nature revived by their free
and simple thoughts, their native feeling, their airy
mirth, for little cause or none, their grief, soon roused
and soon allayed. Their influence on us is at least
reciprocal with curs on them. When our infancy is
almost forgotten, and our boyhood long departed,
though it seems but as yesterday; when life settles
darkly down upon us, and we doubt whether to call
ourselves young any more, then it is good to steal
away from the society of bearded men, and even of
gentler woman, and spend an hour or two with chil-
dren.
After drinking from those fountains of still
fresh existence, we shall return into the crowd, as I
do now, to struggle onward and do our part in life,
perhaps as fervently as ever, but, for a time, with a
kinder and purer heart, and a spirit more lightly wise
All this by thy sweet magic, dear little Annie!
WAKEFIELD.
IN some old magazine or newspaper I recollect a
story, told as truth, of a man - let us call him Wake-
field — 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 cir-
cumstances to be condemned either as naughty or
nonsensical. Howbeit, this, though far from the most
aggravated, is perhaps the strangest, instance on rec-
ord, of marital delinquency; and, moreover, as re-
markable 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 be-
held 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 even-
ing, quietly, as from a day's absence, and became a
loving spouse till death.
But the inci-
This outline is all that I remember.
dent, though of the purest originality, unexampled,
and probably never to be repeated, is one, I think,
which appeals to the generous sympathies of mankind
154
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 re-
curred, 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 con-
densed 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 per-
plexed 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 Lon-
don the surest to perform nothing to-day which should
WAKEFIELD.
155
be remembered on the morrow, they would have
thought of Wakefield. Only the wife of his bosom
might have hesitated. She, without having analyzed
nis character, was partly aware of a quiet selfishness,
that had rusted into his inactive mind; of a peculiar
sort of vanity, the most uneasy attri ate about him;
of a disposition to craft, which had seldom produced
more positive effects than the keeping of petty se-
crets, 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-ex-
istent.
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 portinanteau 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 even-
ing. Wakefield himself, be it considered, has no sus-
picion 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 re
solved to perplex his good lady by a whole week's ab-
sence. 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
156
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
and gone in a moment. For the time, this little inci
dent is dismissed without a thought. But, long after
wards, when she has been more years a widow than a
wife, that smile recurs, and flickers across all her rem-
iniscences of Wakefield's visage. In her many mus-
ings, she surrounds the original smile with a multi-
tude 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 indi
viduality, 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 sev
eral superfluous turns and doublings, we find him com-
fortably established by the fireside of a small apart
ment, 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 unper-
ceived-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 nad 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 mor
WAKEFIELD.
157
row, if thou wilt be wise, get thee home to good Mrs.
Wakefield, and tell her the truth. Remove not thy-
self, 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,—‘▲
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 conscious-
ness 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 widow-
hood 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
58
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 di
lemma, 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 back-
ward 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 compar-
ison 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
、
WAKEFIELD.
159
limpse 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 mor-
tality, 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 whim
wham. 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 cus-
tomary 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 move-
ment to the old would be almost as difficult as the step
that placed him in his unparalleled position. Further-
more, he is rendered obstinate by a sulkiness occasion-
ally 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?
160
TWICE-TOLD TALES,
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 re-
strains 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 re-
turn soon or late, it will never be feverish for him
again. Such ideas glimmer through the mist of Wake-
field's mind, and render him indistinctly conscious
that an almost impassable gulf divides his hired apart-
ment 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 to-morrow — prob-
ably 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 con-
sequences into an iron tissue of necessity. Wakefield
is spell-bound. We must leave him, for ten years
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 re-
marked, he had lost the perception of singularity in
his conduct.
Now for a scene! Amid the throng of a London
street we distinguish a man, now waxing elderly, with
few characteristics to attract careless observers, yet
WAKEFIELD.
161
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 dis-
play 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 re-
markable 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 pro-
ceeding 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 di-
rectly 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. Af
ter 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 per-
plexed glance along the street. She passes in, how-
ever, opening her prayer-book as she goes. And the
man! with so wild a face that busy and selfish Lon-
don stands to gaze after him, he hurries to his lodgings,
bolts the door, and throws himself upon the bed. The
VOL. I.
11
162
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
latent feelings of years break out; his feeble mind ac
quires a brief energy from their strength; all the mis
erable 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 dis-
sever 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 influ-
ence 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 mo-
ment; 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 ap
pear, 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 inter
WAKEFIELD.
163
lude in the main business of his life. When, after a
little while more, he should deem it time to reënter his
parlor, his wife would clap her hands for joy, on be-
holding 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 ad-
mirable caricature, which dances, moreover, with the
up-flickering and down-sinking blaze, almost too mer-
rily for the shade of an elderly widow. At this instant
a shower chances to fall, and is driven, by the unman-
nerly 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 cham-
ber? 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
164
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
glimpse of his visage, and recognize the crafty smile,
which was the precursor of the little joke that he bas
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 Out
cast of the Universe.
A RILL FROM THE TOWN PUMP.
(SCENE the corner of two principal streets.¹ The Town PUMP
talking through its nose.)
NOON, by the North clock! Noon, by the east!
High noon, too, by these hot sunbeams which fall,
scarcely aslope, upon my head, and almost make the
water bubble and smoke in the trough under my nose.
Truly, we public characters have a tough time of it!
And, among all the town officers, chosen at March
meeting, where is he that sustains, for a single year,
the burden of such manifold duties as are imposed,
in perpetuity, upon the Town Pump? The title of
"town treasurer" is rightfully mine, as guardian of
the best treasure that the town has. The overseers of
the poor ought to make me their chairman, since I
provide bountifully for the pauper, without expense to
him that pays taxes. I am at the head of the fire de-
partment, and one of the physicians to the board of
health. As a keeper of the peace, all water drinkers
will confess me equal to the constable. I perform
some of the duties of the town clerk, by promulgating
public notices, when they are posted on my front. To
speak within bounds, I am the chief person of the
municipality, and exhibit, moreover, an admirable pat-
tern to my brother officers, by the cool, steady, up-
right, downright, and impartial discharge of my busi.
ness, and the constancy with which I stand to my post.
Summer or winter, nobody seeks me in vain; for, all
1 Essex and Washington Streets, Salem.
166
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
day long, I am seen at the busiest corner, just above
the market, stretching out my arms to rich and poor
alike; and at night, I hold a lantern over my head.
both to show where I am, and keep people out of the
gutters.
At this sultry noontide, I am cupbearer to the
parched populace, for whose benefit an iron goblet is
chained to my waist. Like a dram seller on the mall,
at muster day, I cry aloud to all and sundry, in my
plainest accents, and at the very tiptop of my voice:
Here it is, gentlemen! Here is the good liquor!
Walk up, walk up, gentlemen, walk up, walk up!
Here is the superior stuff! Here is the unadulterated
ale of father Adam - better than Cognac, Hollands,
Jamaica, strong beer, or wine of any price; here it is,
by the hogshead or the single glass, and not a cent to
pay! Walk up, gentlemen, walk up, and help your-
selves!
It were a pity if all this outcry should draw no
customers. Here they come. A hot day, gentlemen!
Quaff, and away again, so as to keep yourselves in a
nice cool sweat. You, my friend, will need another
cupful, to wash the dust out of your throat, if it be as
thick there as it is on your cowhide shoes. I see that
you have trudged half a score of miles to-day; and,
like a wise man, have passed by the taverns, and
stopped at the running brooks and well curbs. Other
wise, betwixt heat without and fire within, you would
have been burned to a cinder, or melted down to noth
ing at all, in the fashion of a jelly-fish. Drink, and
make room for that other fellow, who seeks my aid to
quench the fiery fever of last night's potations, which
he drained from no cup of mine. Welcome, most
rubicund sir! You and I have been great strangers
A RILL FROM THE TOWN PUMP.
167
hitherto; nor, to confess the truth, will my nose be
anxious for a closer intimacy, till the fumes of your
breath be a little less potent. Mercy on you, man! the
water absolutely hisses down your red-hot gullet, and
is converted quite to steam in the miniature tophet
which you mistake for a stomach. Fill again, and
tell me, on the word of an honest toper, did you ever,
in cellar, tavern, or any kind of a dram shop, spend
the price of your children's food for a swig half so
delicious? Now, for the first time these ten years,
you know the flavor of cold water. Good-by; and,
whenever you are thirsty, remember that I keep a
constant supply at the old stand. Who next? O,
my little friend, you are let loose from school, and
come hither to scrub your blooming face, and drown
the memory of certain taps of the ferule, and other
school-boy troubles, in a draught from the Town Pump.
Take it, pure as the current of your young life. Take
it, and may your heart and tongue never be scorched
with a fiercer thirst than now! There, my dear child,
put down the cup, and yield your place to this elderly
gentleman, who treads so tenderly over the paving.
stones, that I suspect he is afraid of breaking them.
What! he limps by, without so much as thanking me,
as if my hospitable offers were meant only for people
who have no wine cellars. Well, well, sir
Well, well, sir-no harm
done, I hope! Go draw the cork, tip the decanter;
but, when your great toe shall set you a-roaring, it
will be no affair of mine. If gentlemen love the pleas-
ant titillation of the gout, it is all one to the Town
Pump. This thirsty dog, with his red tongue lolling
out, does not scorn my hospitality, but stands on his
hind legs, and laps eagerly out of the trough. See
how lightly he capers away again! Jowler, did your
worship ever have the gout?
168
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
Are you all satisfied? Then wipe your mouths
my good friends; and, while my spout has a moment's
leisure, I will delight the town with a few historical
reminiscences. In far antiquity, beneath a darksome
shadow of venerable boughs, a spring bubbled out of
the leaf-strewn earth, in the very spot where you now
behold me, on the sunny pavement. The water was
as bright and clear, and deemed as precious, as liquid
diamonds. The Indian sagamores drank of it from
time immemorial, till the fatal deluge of the fire water
burst upon the red men, and swept their whole race
away from the cold fountains. Endicott and his fol-
lowers came next, and often knelt down to drink, dip-
ping their long beards in the spring. The richest
goblet, then, was of birch bark. Governor Winthrop,
after a journey afoot from Boston, drank here, out of
the hollow of his hand. The elder Higginson here
wet his palm, and laid it on the brow of the first town-
born child. For many years it was the watering-place,
and, as it were, the washbowl of the vicinity-whither
all decent folks resorted, to purify their visages and
gaze at them afterwards - at least the pretty maidens
did — in the mirror which it made. On Sabbath days,
whenever a babe was to be baptized, the sexton filled
his basin here, and placed it on the communion table
of the humble meeting-house, which partly covered the
site of yonder stately brick one. Thus, one generation
after another was consecrated to Heaven by its waters,
and cast their waxing and waning shadows into its
glassy bosom, and vanished from the earth, as if mor
tal life were but a flitting image in a fountain. Finally,
the fountain vanished also. Cellars were dug on all
sides, and cartloads of gravel flung upon its source,
whence oozed a turbid stream, forming a mud puddle
A RILL FROM THE TOWN PUMP. 169
at the corner of two streets. In the hot months, when
its refreshment was most needed, the dust flew in
louds over the forgotten birthplace of the waters, now
their grave. But, in the course of time, a Town Pump
was sunk into the source of the ancient spring; and
when the first decayed, another took its place- and
then another, and still another till here stand I,
gentlemen and ladies, to serve you with my iron goblet.
Drink, and be refreshed! The water is as pure and
cold as that which slaked the thirst of the red sagamore
beneath the aged boughs, though now the gem of the
wilderness is treasured under these hot stones, where
no shadow falls but from the brick buildings. And
be it the moral of my story, that, as this wasted_and___
long-lost fountain is now known and prized again, so
shall the virtues of cold water, too little valued since
your fathers' days, be recognized by all.
Your pardon, good people! I must interrupt my
stream of eloquence, and spout forth a stream of
water, to replenish the trough for this teamster and
his two yoke of oxen, who have come from Topsfield,
or somewhere along that way. No part of my busi-
ness is pleasanter than the watering of cattle. Look!
how rapidly they lower the watermark on the sides of
the trough, till their capacious stomachs are moistened
with a gallon or two apiece, and they can afford time
to breathe it in, with sighs of calm enjoyment. Now
they roll their quiet eyes around the brim of their
monstrous drinking vessel. An ox is your true toper.
But I perceive, my dear auditors, that you are im
patient for the remainder of my discourse. Impute it,
I beseech you, to no defect of modesty, if I insist a
little longer on so fruitful a topic as my own multifa
rious merits. It is altogether for your good. The

170
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
better you think of me, the better men and women
will you find yourselves. I shall say nothing of my
all-important aid on washing days; though, on that
account alone, I might call myself the household god
of a hundred families. Far be it from me also to hint,
my respectable friends, at the show of dirty faces
which you would present, without my pains to keep
you clean. Nor will I remind you how often, when
the midnight bells make you tremble for your combus-
tible town, you have fled to the Town Pump, and
found me always at my post, firm amid the confusion,
and ready to drain my vital current in your behalf.
Neither is it worth while to lay much stress on my
claims to a medical diploma, as the physician whose
simple rule of practice is preferable to all the nauseous
lore which has found men sick or left them so, since
the days of Hippocrates. Let us take a broader view
my beneficial influence on mankind.
of
No; these are trifles compared with the merits
which wise men concede to me-if not in my single
self, yet as the representative of a class of being the
grand reformer of the age. From my spout, and such
spouts as mine, must flow the stream that shall cleanse
our earth of the vast portion of its crime and anguish,
which has gushed from the fiery fountains of the still.
In this mighty enterprise, the cow shall be my great
confederate. Milk and water! The TowN PUMP and
the Cow! Such is the glorious copartnership that
shall tear down the distilleries and brewhouses, uproot
the vineyards, shatter the cider presses, ruin the tea
and coffee trade, and, finally, monopolize the whole
business of quenching thirst. Blessed consummation!
Then, Poverty shall pass away from the land, finding
no hovel so wretched where her squalid form may
A RILL FROM THE TOWN PUMP.
171
shelter itself. Then Disease, for lack of other victims,
shall gnaw its own heart, and die. Then Sin, if she
do not die, shall lose half her strength. Until now,
the frenzy of hereditary fever has raged in the human
blood, transmitted from sire to son, and rekindled, in
every generation, by fresh draughts of liquid flame.
When that inward fire shall be extinguished, the heat
of passion cannot but grow cool, and war-the drunk
enness of nations—perhaps will cease. At least, there
will be no war of households. The husband and wife,
drinking deep of peaceful joy, a calm bliss of tem-
perate affections, shall pass hand in hand through
life, and lie down, not reluctantly, at its protracted
close. To them, the past will be no turmoil of mad
dreams, nor the future an eternity of such moments as
follow the delirium of the drunkard. Their dead faces
shall express what their spirits were, and are to be, by
a lingering smile of memory and hope.
Ahem! Dry work, this speechifying; especially to
an unpractised orator. I never conceived, till now,
what toil the temperance lecturers undergo for my sake.
Hereafter, they shall have the business to themselves.
Do, some kind Christian, pump a stroke or two, just
to wet my whistle. Thank you, sir! My dear hearers,
when the world shall have been regenerated by my
instrumentality, you will collect your useless vats and
liquor casks into one great pile, and make a bonfire
in honor of the Town Pump. And, when I shall
have decayed, like my predecessors, then, if you revere
my memory, let a marble fountain, richly sculptured,
take my place upon this spot. Such monuments should
be erected everywhere, and inscribed with the names
of the distinguished champions of my cause. Now
listen, for something very important is to come next
172
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
—
There are two or three honest friends of mine and
true friends, I know, they are who nevertheless, by
their fiery pugnacity in my behalf, do put me in fear-
ful hazard of a broken nose or even a total overthrow
upon the pavement, and the loss of the treasure which
I guard. I pray you, gentlemen, let this fault be
amended. Is it decent, think you, to get tipsy with
zeal for temperance, and take up the honorable cause
of the Town Pump in the style of a toper fighting for
his brandy bottle? Or, can the excellent qualities of
cold water be not otherwise exemplified than by plung-
ing, slapdash, into hot water, and wofully scalding
yourselves and other people? Trust me, they may. In
the moral warfare which you are to wage — and, in-
deed, in the whole conduct of your lives
you cannot
choose a better example than myself, who have never
permitted the dust and sultry atmosphere, the turbu-
lence and manifold disquietudes of the world around
me, to reach that deep, calm well of purity, which may
be called my soul. And whenever I pour out that
soul, it is to cool earth's fever or cleanse its stains.
One o'clock! Nay, then, if the dinner bell begins
to speak, I may as well hold my peace. Here comes
a pretty young girl of my acquaintance, with a large
stone pitcher for me to fill. May she draw a husband,
while drawing her water, as Rachel did of old.
out your vessel, my dear!
brim; so now run home,
in the pitcher as you go;
my own liquor, to drink -
PUMP!"
Hold
There it is, full to the
peeping at your sweet image
and forget not, in a glass of
"SUCCESS TO THE TOWN
THE GREAT CARBUNCLE.¹
A MYSTERY OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.
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 fruit-
less quest for the Great Carbuncle. They had come
thither, not as friends nor partners in the enterprise,
but each, save one youthfui 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 head-
long 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 wilder-
ness 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
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 Rev-
olution, remarks, that even then the existence of the Great Carbuncle
vas not entirely discredited.
174
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
or tower naked into the sky. The roar of the Amo.
noosuck 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 sup-
plies 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 un-
steady light that flickered over him, they came mutu-
ally 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.
«new him as the Seeker, and by no other name.
none could remember when he first took up the search,
there went a fable in the valley of the Saco, that for
As
THE GREAT CARBUNCLE.
175
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 misera
ble 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 in-
haling 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 Figsnort, a weighty merchant and selectman
of Boston, and an elder of the famous Mr. Norton's
church. His enemies had a ridiculous story that Mas-
ter Pigsnort was accustomed to spend a whole hour
after prayer time, every morning and evening, in wal-
lowing naked among an immense quantity of pine-tree
shillings, which were the earliest silver coinage of Mas-
sachusetts. 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
176
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
densest cloud within his reach, sauced with moonshine
whenever he could get it. Certain it is, that the po
etry 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, be
sides 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 whimsi-
cal 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 behold-
ing it as could only be quenched in its intensest
THE GREAT CARBUNCLE.
177
ustre. 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 mid-
night, and beheld the Great Carbuncle gleaming like
a meteor, so that the shadows of the trees fell back-
ward from it. They spoke of the innumerable at-
tempts which had been made to reach the spot, and of
the singular fatality which had hitherto withheld suc-
cess 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 ob
servable 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 adventur-
ers, 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
VOL. I.
178
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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. Me-
thinks, 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 seek-
ing, the Lord knows how long, among the Crystal
Hills?"
the energy of my soul,
"How enjoy it!" exclaimed the aged Seeker, bit-
terly. "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 pur-
suit alone is my strength,
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 indigna-
tion. “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
btaining it for I have a presentiment, good people
hat the prize is reserved to crown my scientific repu
-
THE GREAT CARBUNCLE.
179
tation --I shall return to Europe, and employ my re-
maining years in reducing it to its first elements. A
portion of the stone will I grind to impalpable pow
der; other parts shall be dissolved in acids, or what-
ever solvents will act upon so admirable a composi-
tion; and the remainder I design to melt in the cruci-
ble, or set on fire with the blow-pipe. By these varicus
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 coun-
terfeits, 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 Car-
buncle 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 es-
tate, 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,
180
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
4
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
any of ye have &
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 specta-
cles. "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 convey.
ing the Great Carbuncle to a garret in Grub Street:
Have not I resolved within myself that the whole
THE GREAT CARBUNCLE.
181
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 ol-
sequious 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 rus-
tic, who sat hand in hand with his bride, "the gentle-
man 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 cot-
tage 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!".
النا
182
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
There was a general smile among the adventurers
at the simplicity of the young couple's project in re-
gard 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 specta
cles, who had sneered at all the company in turn, now
twisted his visage into such an expression of ill-nat
ured mirth, that Matthew asked him, rather peevishly.
what he himself meant to do with the Great Car-
buncle.
"The Great Carbuncle!" answered the Cynic, with
ineffable scorn.
"Why, you blockhead, there is no
such thing in rerum natura. I have come three thou-
sand 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 thy
self 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 heaven-
ward, and who, could they but extinguish the lights
which God hath kindled for us, would count the mid-
night 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 sur
rounding 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
THE GREAT CARBUNCLE.
183
▸ame 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 sepa-
rated 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 beam-
ing 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
leserted.
"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 de-
serve 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 preci-
pices, 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
184
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
·
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 as-
cent, 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 Han-
nah's hair in a bough, they reached the upper verge of
the forest, and were now to pursue a more adventu
rous course. The innumerable trunks and heavy fo
liage 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 com-
fort 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.
66
Come, then," said Matthew, mustering his manly
courage and drawing her along with him, for she be
came 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
THE GREAT CARBUNCLE.
185
barely reached three feet in altitude. Next, they
came to masses and fragments of naked rock heaped
onfusedly 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 be-
neath 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
elimb as far and as high, between earth and heaven,
as they could find foothold, if Hannah's strength ha
186
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
not begun to fail, and with that, her courage also
Her breath grew short. She refused to burden het
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 cot-
tage!"
"Dear heart!we will yet be happy there," an
swered Matthew. "Look! In this direction, the sun-
shine 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 with-
drew, one object after another started out of its im
penetrable obscurity into sight, with precisely the ef
fect of a new creation, before the indistinctness of the
ɔld chaos had been completely swallowed up. As the
process went on, they saw the gleaming of water close
THE GREAT CARBUNCLE.
187
very
border
at their feet, and found themselves on the
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 impend-
ing over the enchanted lake. For the simple pair had
reached that lake of mystery, and found the long-
sought 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 up-
ward, 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 Mat-
thew, trembling violently. "Or, perhaps, the very
light of the Great Carbuncle was death!"
188
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
"The Great Carbuncle," cried a peevish voice be
hind 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 spec-
tacles, 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 phenom-
enon, striking upon his naked vision, had blinded him
for ver.
THE GREAT CARBUNCLE.
189
"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 reno
vate her courage.
66
"Yes, dearest!” cried Matthew, pressing her tremu
lous 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 win-
dow. 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 Car-
puncle, 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
190
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
mountains, a war party of Indians captured our un
lucky merchant, and carried him to Montreal, thers
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 re
sult 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, wan
dered about the world, a miserable object, and was
punished with an agonizing desire of light, for the wil
ful blindness of his former life. The whole night long,
ne would lift his splendor-blasted orbs to the moon
and stars; he turned his face eastward, at sunrise, as
duly as a Persian idolater; he made a pilgrimage to
་
THE GREAT CARBUNCLE.
191
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 him-
self, 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 Car-
Juncle. 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 youth-
ful pair departed, the gem was loosened from the fore-
head 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 blaz-
ing as of old, and say that they have caught its radi-
ance, 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 CAR
BUNCLE
but
THE PROPHETIC PICTURES.¹
"BUT this painter!" cried Walter Ludlow, with
animation. "He not only excels in his peculiar art,
possesses vast acquirements in all other learning
and science. He talks Hebrew with Dr. Mather, and
gives lectures in anatomy to Dr. Boylston. In a word
he will meet the best instructed man among us on his
own ground. Moreover, he is a polished gentleman
-a citizen of the world-yes, a true cosmopolite;
for he will speak like a native of each clime and coun
try of the globe except our own forests, whither he is
now going. Nor is all this what I most admire in
him."
"Indeed!" said Elinor, who had listened with a
woman's interest to the description of such a man.
"Yet this is admirable enough.”
66
Surely it is," replied her lover, "but far less so
than his natural gift of adapting himself to every
variety of character, insomuch that all men- and all
women too, Elinor shall find a mirror of themselves
in this wonderful painter. But the greatest wonder is
yet to be told."
66
Nay, if he have more wonderful attributes than
these,” said Elinor, laughing, "Boston is a perilous
abode for the poor gentleman. Are you telling me of
a painter or a wizard?”
1 This story was suggested by an anecdote of Stuart, related in Dun
lap's History of the Arts of Design, a most entertaining book to the
general reader, and a deeply interesting one, we should think, to the
artist.
THE PROPHETIC PICTURES.
193
"In truth," answered he, "that question might be
asked much more seriously than you suppose. They
say that he paints not merely a man's features, but his
mind and heart. He catches the secret sentiments and
passions, and throws them upon the canvas, like sun-
shine perhaps, in the portraits of dark-souled men,
like a gleam of infernal fire. It is an awful gift,"
added Walter, lowering his voice from its tone of en-
thusiasm. "I shall be almost afraid to sit to him."
"Walter, are you in earnest?" exclaimed Elinor.
"For Heaven's sake, dearest Elinor, do not let him
paint the look which you now wear," said her lover,
smiling, though rather perplexed. "There: it is pass-
ing away now, but when you spoke you seemed fright-
ened to death, and very sad besides.
What were you
thinking of?"
"Nothing, nothing," answered Elinor hastily. "You
paint my face with your own fantasies. Well, come
for me to-morrow, and we will visit this wonderful
artist."
But when the young man had departed, it cannot be
denied that a remarkable expression was again visible
on the fair and youthful face of his mistress. It was
a sad and anxious look, little in accordance with what
should have been the feelings of a maiden on the eve
of wedlock. Yet Walter Ludlow was the chosen of
her heart.
"A look!" said Elinor to herself. "No wonder
that it startled him, if it expressed what I sometimes
feel. I know, by my own experience, how frightful a
look may be. But it was all fancy. I thought noth-
ing of it at the time I have seen nothing of it since
--I did but dream it.”
-
And she busied herself about the embroidery of a
VOL I.
13
194
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
ruff, in which she meant that her portrait should be
taken.
The painter, of whom they had been speaking, was
not one of those native artists who, at a later period
than this, borrowed their colors from the Indians, and
manufactured their pencils of the furs of wild beasts.
Perhaps, if he could have revoked his life and prear-
ranged his destiny, he might have chosen to belong to
that school without a master, in the hope of being at
least original, since there were no works of art to imi-
tate nor rules to follow. But he had been born and
educated in Europe. People said that he had studied
the grandeur or beauty of conception, and every touch
of the master hand, in all the most famous pictures, in
cabinets and galleries, and on the walls of churches,
till there was nothing more for his powerful mind to
learn. Art could add nothing to its lessons, but Nat-
ure might. He had therefore visited a world whither
· none of his professional brethren had preceded him,
to feast his eyes on visible images that were noble
and picturesque, yet had never been transferred to
canvas. America was too poor to afford other temp-
tations to an artist of eminence, though many of the
colonial gentry, on the painter's arrival, had expressed
a wish to transmit their lineaments to posterity by
means of his skill. Whenever such proposals were
made, he fixed his piercing eyes on the applicant, and
seemed to look him through and through. If he be-
held only a sleek and comfortable visage, though there
were a gold-laced coat to adorn the picture and golden
guineas to pay for it, he civilly rejected the task and
the reward. But if the face were the index of any
thing uncommon, in thought, sentiment, or experience;
or if he met a beggar in the street, with a white beard
THE PROPHETIC PICTURES.
195
and a furrowed brow; or if sometimes a child hap
pened to look up and smile, he would exhaust all the
art on them that he denied to wealth.
Pictorial skill being so rare in the colonies, the
painter became an object of general curiosity. If few
or none could appreciate the technical merit of his
productions, yet there were points, in regard to which
the opinion of the crowd was as valuable as the refined
judgment. of the amateur. He watched the effect that
each picture produced on such untutored beholders, and
derived profit from their remarks, while they would
as soon have thought of instructing Nature herself as
him who seemed to rival her. Their admiration, it
must be owned, was tinctured with the prejudices of
the age and country. Some deemed it an offence
against the Mosaic law, and even a presumptuous
mockery of the Creator, to bring into existence such
lively images of his creatures. Others, frightened at
the art which could raise phantoms at will, and keep
the form of the dead among the living, were inclined
to consider the painter as a magician, or perhaps the
famous Black Man, of old witch times, plotting mis-
chief in a new guise. These foolish fancies were more
than half believed among the mob. Even in superior
circles his character was invested with a vague awe,
partly rising like smoke wreaths from the popular
superstitions, but chiefly caused by the varied knowl-
edge and talents which he made subservient to his
profession.
Being on the eve of marriage, Walter Ludlow and
Elinor were eager to obtain their portraits, as the first
of what, they doubtless hoped, would be a long series
of family pictures. The day after the conversation
above recorded they visited the painter's rooms.
A
196
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
servant ushered them into an apartment, where, though
the artist himself was not visible, there were person-
ages whom they could hardly forbear greeting with
reverence. They knew, indeed, that the whole assem-
bly were but pictures, yet felt it impossible to separate
the idea of life and intellect from such striking coun-
terfeits. Several of the portraits were known to them,
either as distinguished characters of the day or their
private acquaintances. There was Governor Burnet,
looking as if he had just received an undutiful com-
munication from the House of Representatives, and
were inditing a most sharp response. Mr. Cooke hung
beside the ruler whom he opposed, sturdy, and some-
what puritanical, as befitted a popular leader. The
ancient lady of Sir William Phipps eyed them from
the wall, in ruff and farthingale, - an imperious old
dame, not unsuspected of witchcraft. John Winslow,
then a very young man, wore the expression of war-
like enterprise, which long afterwards made him a dis-
tinguished general. Their personal friends were rec-
ognized at a glance. In most of the pictures, the
whole mind and character were brought out on the
countenance, and concentrated into a single look, so
that, to speak paradoxically, the originals hardly re-
sembled themselves so strikingly as the portraits did.
Among these modern worthies there were two old
bearded Saints, who had almost vanished into the dark-
ening canvas. There was also a pale, but unfaded
Madonna, who had perhaps been worshipped in Rome,
and now regarded the lovers with such a mild and
holy look that they longed to worship too.
"How singular a thought," observed Walter Lud
low, "that this beautiful face has been beautiful for
above two hundred years! Oh, if all beauty would en
lure so well! Do you not envy her, Elinor?"
THE PROPHETIC PICTURES.
197
"If earth were heaven, I might," she replied.
"But where all things fade, how miserable to be the
one that could not fade!
""
"This dark old St. Peter has a fierce and ugly
scowl, saint though he be," continued Walter.
"He
troubles me. But the Virgin looks kindly at us.
"Yes; but very sorrowfully, methinks," said Elinor.
The easel stood beneath these three old pictures,
sustaining one that had been recently commenced.
After a little inspection, they began to recognize the
features of their own minister, the Rev. Dr. Colman,
growing into shape and life, as it were, out of a cloud.
"Kind old man!" exclaimed Elinor.
“He gazes
at me as if he were about to utter a word of paternal
advice."
“And at me,” said Walter, "as if he were about to
shake his head and rebuke me for some suspected in-
iquity. But so does the original. I shall never feel
quite comfortable under his eye till we stand before
him to be married."
They now heard a footstep on the floor, and turning,
beheld the painter, who had been some moments in
the room, and had listened to a few of their remarks.
He was a middle-aged man, with a countenance well
worthy of his own pencil. Indeed, by the picturesque,
though careless arrangement of his rich dress, and,
perhaps, because his soul dwelt always among painted
shapes, he looked somewhat like a portrait himself.
His visitors were sensible of a kindred between the
artist and his works, and felt as if one of the pictures
had stepped from the canvas to salute them.
Walter Ludlow, who was slightly known to the
painter, explained the object of their visit. While he
spoke, a sunbeam was falling athwart his figure and
198
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
Elinor's, with so happy an effect that they also seemed
living pictures of youth and beauty, gladdened by
bright fortune. The artist was evidently struck.
"My easel is occupied for several ensuing days, and
my stay in Boston must be brief," said he, thought-
fully; then, after an observant glance, he added:
"but your wishes shall be gratified, though I disap-
point the Chief Justice and Madam Oliver. I must
not lose this opportunity, for the sake of painting a
few ells of broadcloth and brocade."
The painter expressed a desire to introduce both
their portraits into one picture, and represent them
engaged in some appropriate action. This plan would
have delighted the lovers, but was necessarily rejected,
because so large a space of canvas would have been
unfit for the room which it was intended to decorate.
Two half-length portraits were therefore fixed upon.
After they had taken leave, Walter Ludlow asked
Elinor, with a smile, whether she knew what an influ-
ence over their fates the painter was about to acquire.
"The old women of Boston affirin," continued he,
"that after he has once got possession of a person's
face and figure, he may paint him in any act or situa-
tion whatever and the picture will be prophetic. Do
you believe it?"
"Not quite," said Elinor, smiling. "Yet if he has
such magic, there is something so gentle in his man-
ner that I am sure he will use it well."
It was the painter's choice to proceed with both the
portraits at the same time, assigning as a reason, in
the mystical language which he sometimes used, that
the faces threw light upon each other. Accordingly
he gave now a touch to Walter, and now to Elinor,
and the features of one and the other began to start
THE PROPHETIC PICTURES.
199
forth so vividly that it appeared as if his triumphant
art would actually disengage them from the canvas.
Amid the rich light and deep shade, they beheld their
phantom selves. But, though the likeness promised
to be perfect, they were not quite satisfied with the
expression; it seemed more vague than in most of the
painter's works. He, however, was satisfied with the
prospect of success, and being much interested in the
lovers, employed his leisure moments, unknown to
them, in making a crayon sketch of their two figures.
During their sittings, he engaged them in conversation,
and kindled up their faces with characteristic traits,
which, though continually varying, it was his purpose
to combine and fix. At length he announced that at
their next visit both the portraits would be ready for
delivery.
"If my pencil will but be true to my conception, in
the few last touches which I meditate," observed he,
"these two pictures will be my very best performances.
Seldom, indeed, has an artist such subjects.”
While speaking, he still bent his penetrative eye
upon them, nor withdrew it till they had reached the
bottom of the stairs.
Nothing, in the whole circle of human vanities, takes
/ stronger hold of the imagination than this affair of
having a portrait painted. Yet why should it be so?
The looking-glass, the polished globes of the andirons,
the mirror-like water, and all other reflecting surfaces,
continually present us with portraits, or rather ghosts
of ourselves, which we glance at, and straightway for
get them. But we forget them only because they
vanish. It is the idea of duration of earthly im-
mortality — that gives such a mysterious interest to
our own portraits. Walter and Elinor were not in-
200
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
sensible to this feeling, and hastened to the painter's
room, punctually at the appointed hour, to meet those
pictured shapes which were to be their representatives
with posterity. The sunshine flashed after them into
the apartment, but left it somewhat gloomy as they
closed the door.
Their eyes were immediately attracted to their por-
traits, which rested against the farthest wall of the
room. At the first glance, through the dim light and
the distance, seeing themselves in precisely their nat-
ural attitudes, and with all the air that they recognized
so well, they uttered a simultaneous exclamation of
delight.
"There we stand," cried Walter, enthusiastically,
"fixed in sunshine forever! No dark passions can
gather on our faces ! ”
"No," said Elinor, more calmly; "no dreary
change can sadden us."
This was said while they were approaching, and
had yet gained only an imperfect view of the pictures.
The painter, after saluting them, busied himself at a
table in completing a crayon sketch, leaving his visit-
ors to form their own judgment as to his perfected.
labors. At intervals, he sent a glance from beneath
his deep eyebrows, watching their countenances in
profile, with his pencil suspended over the sketch.
They had now stood some moments, each in front of
the other's picture, contemplating it with entranced
attention, but without uttering a word. At length,
Walter stepped forward- then back-
viewing Eli-
nor's portrait in various lights, and finally spoke.
"Is there not a change?" said he, in a doubtful
and meditative tone. "Yes; the perception of it
grows more vivid the longer I look. It is certainly
1
THE PROPHETIC PICTURES.
201
the same picture that I saw yesterday; the dress
the features all are the same; and yet something is
altered."
"Is then the picture less like than it was yester-
day?" inquired the painter, now drawing near, with
irrepressible interest.
"The features are perfect, Elinor," answered Wal-
ter, "and, at the first glance, the expression seemed
also hers. But, I could fancy that the portrait has
changed countenance, while I have been looking at it.
The eyes are fixed on mine with a strangely sad and
anxious expression. Nay, it is grief and terror! Is
this like Elinor?"
66
Compare the living face with the pictured one,"
said the painter.
Walter glanced sidelong at his mistress, and started.
Motionless and absorbed — fascinated, as it were in
contemplation of Walter's portrait, Elinor's face had
assumed precisely the expression of which he had just
been complaining. Had she practised for whole hours
before a mirror, she could not have caught the look so
successfully. Had the picture itself been a mirror, it
could not have thrown back her present aspect with
stronger and more melancholy truth. She appeared
quite unconscious of the dialogue between the artist
and her lover.
"Elinor," exclaimed Walter, in amazement, "what
change has come over you?"
She did not hear him, nor desist from her fixed
gaze, till he seized her hand, and thus attracted her
notice; then, with a sudden tremor, she looked from
the picture to the face of the original.
"Do you see no change in your portrait?" asked
she.
202
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
"In mine?—None!" replied Walter, examining it.
“But let me see! Yes; there is a slight change — an
improvement, I think, in the picture, though none in
the likeness. It has a livelier expression than yester-
day, as if some bright thought were flashing from the
eyes, and about to be uttered from the lips. Now
that I have caught the look, it becomes very decided."
While he was intent on these observations, Elinor
turned to the painter. She regarded him with grief
and awe, and felt that he repaid her with sympathy
and commiseration, though wherefore, she could but
vaguely guess.
"That look!" whispered she, and shuddered.
"How came it there?"
Madam," said the painter, sadly, taking her hand,
and leading her apart, "in both these pictures, I have
painted what I saw. The artist the true artist
must look beneath the exterior. It is his gift — his
proudest, but often a melancholy one to see the in-
most soul, and, by a power indefinable even to him-
self, to make it glow or darken upon the canvas, in
glances that express the thought and sentiment of
years. Would that I might convince myself of error
in the present instance!"
They had now approached the table, on which were
heads in chalk, hands almost as expressive as ordinary
faces, ivied church towers, thatched cottages, old thun
der-stricken trees, Oriental and antique costume, and
all such picturesque vagaries of an artist's idle mo-
ments. Turning them over, with seeming careless-
ness, a crayon sketch of two figures was disclosed.
66
" if your heart
“If I have failed," continued he
does not see itself reflected in your own portrait — if
you have no secret cause to trust my delineation of the
THE PROPHETIC PICTURES.
203
other—it is not yet too late to alter them. I might
change the action of these figures too. But would it
influence the event?"
He directed her notice to the sketch. A thrill ran
through Elinor's frame; a shriek was upon her lips ;
but she stifled it, with the self-command that becomes
habitual to all who hide thoughts of fear and anguish
within their bosoms. Turning from the table, she
perceived that Walter had advanced near enough to
have seen the sketch, though she could not determine.
whether it had caught his eye.
"We will not have the pictures altered," said she,
hastily. "If mine is sad, I shall but look the gayer
for the contrast.'
""
"Be it so," answered the painter, bowing. "May
your griefs be such fanciful ones that only your pict-
ure may mourn for them! For your joys-
For your joys may they
be true and deep, and paint themselves upon this lovely
face till it quite belie my art!"
After the marriage of Walter and Elinor, the pict-
ures formed the two most splendid ornaments of their
abode. They hung side by side, separated by a nar-
row panel, appearing to eye each other constantly, yet
always returning the gaze of the spectator. Trav
elled gentlemen, who professed a knowledge of such
subjects, reckoned these among the most admirable
specimens of modern portraiture; while common ob-
servers compared them with the originals, feature by
feature, and were rapturous in praise of the likeness.
But it was on a third class neither travelled con-
noisseurs nor common observers, but people of natural
sensibility that the pictures wrought their strongest
effect. Such persons might gaze carelessly at first,
but, becoming interested, would return day after day,
204
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
and study these painted faces like the pages of a mys
tic volume. Walter Ludlow's portrait attracted their
earliest notice. In the absence of himself and his
bride, they sometimes disputed as to the expression
which the painter had intended to throw upon the
features; all agreeing that there was a look of earnest
import, though no two explained it alike. There was
less diversity of opinion in regard to Elinor's picture.
They differed, indeed, in their attempts to estimate
the nature and depth of the gloom that dwelt upon
her face, but agreed that it was gloom, and alien from
the natural temperament of their youthful friend. A
certain fanciful person announced, as the result of
much scrutiny, that both these pictures were parts of
one design, and that the melancholy strength of feel-
ing, in Elinor's countenance, bore reference to the
more vivid emotion, or, as he termed it, the wild pas
sion, in that of Walter. Though unskilled in the art,
he even began a sketch, in which the action of the two
figures was to correspond with their mutual expres
sion.
It was whispered among friends that, day by day,
Elinor's face was assuming a deeper shade of pensive-
ness, which threatened soon to render her too true a
counterpart of her melancholy picture. Walter, on the
other hand, instead of acquiring the vivid look which
the painter had given him on the canvas, became
reserved and downcast, with no outward flashes of
emotion, however it might be smouldering within. In
course of time, Elinor hung a gorgeous curtain of pur-
ple silk, wrought with flowers and fringed with heavy
golden tassels, before the pictures, under pretence that
the dust would tarnish their hues, or the light dim
them. It was enough. Her visitors felt, that the
THE PROPHETIC PICTURES.
205
massive folds of the silk must never be withdrawn, nor
the portraits mentioned in her presence.
Time wore on; and the painter came again. He
had been far enough to the north to see the silver cas-
cade of the Crystal Hills, and to look over the vast
round of cloud and forest from the summit of New
England's loftiest mountain. But he did not profane
that scene by the mockery of his art. He had also
lain in a canoe on the bosom of Lake George, making
his soul the mirror of its loveliness and grandeur, till
not a picture in the Vatican was more vivid than his
recollection. He had gone with the Indian hunters to
Niagara, and there, again, had flung his hopeless pencil
down the precipice, feeling that he could as soon paint
the roar, as aught else that goes to make up the won-
drous cataract. In truth, it was seldom his impulse to
copy natural scenery, except as a framework for the
delineations of the human form and face, instinct with
thought, passion, or suffering. With store of such his
adventurous ramble had enriched him: the stern dig-
ity of Indian chiefs; the dusky loveliness of In-
dian girls; the domestic life of wigwams; the stealthy
march; the battle beneath gloomy pine-trees; the
frontier fortress with its garrison; the anomaly of the
old French partisan, bred in courts, but grown gray in
shaggy deserts; such were the scenes and portraits
that he had sketched. The glow of perilous moments ;
flashes of wild feeling; struggles of fierce power, -
love, hate, grief, frenzy; in a word, all the worn-out
heart of the old earth had been revealed to him under
a new form. His portfolio was filled with graphic
illustrations of the volume of his memory, which genius
would transmute into its own substance, and imbue
with immortality. He felt that the deep wisdom in
his art, which he had sought so far, was found.
206
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
But amid stern or lovely nature, in the perils of the
forest or its overwhelming peacefulness, still there had
been two phantoms, the companions of his way. Like
all other men around whom an engrossing purpose
wreathes itself, he was insulated from the mass of
human kind. He had no aim-no pleasure-no
sympathies - but what were ultimately connected with
his art. Though gentle in manner and upright in in-
tent and action, he did not possess kindly feelings; his
heart was cold; no living creature could be brought
near enough to keep him warm. For these two beings,
however, he had felt, in its greatest intensity, the sort
of interest which always allied him to the subjects of
his pencil. He had pried into their souls with his
keenest insight, and pictured the result upon their
features with his utmost skill, so as barely to fall
short of that standard which no genius ever reached,
his own severe conception. He had caught from the
duskiness of the future at least, so he fancied
fearful secret, and had obscurely revealed it on the
portraits. So much of himself— of his imagination
and all other powers — had been lavished on the study
of Walter and Elinor, that he almost regarded them.
as creations of his own, like the thousands with which
he had peopled the realms of Picture. Therefore did
they flit through the twilight of the woods, hover on
the mist of waterfalls, look forth from the mirror of
the lake, nor melt away in the noontide sun. They
haunted his pictorial fancy, not as mockeries of life,
nor pale goblins of the dead, but in the guise of por
traits, each with the unalterable expression which his
magic had evoked from the caverns of the soul. He
could not recross the Atlantic till he had again beheld
the originals of those airy pictures.
a
THE PROPHETIC PICTURES.
207
"O glorious Art!" thus mused the enthusiastic
painter as he trod the street, "thou art the image
of the Creator's own. The innumerable forms, that
wander in nothingness, start into being at thy beck.
The dead live again. Thou recallest them to their old
scenes, and givest their gray shadows the lustre of a bet-
ter life, at once earthly and immortal. Thou snatchest
back the fleeting moments of History. With thee
there is no Past, for, at thy touch, all that is great
becomes forever present; and illustrious men live
through long ages, in the visible performance of the
very deeds which made them what they are. O potent
Art! as thou bringest the faintly revealed Past to
stand in that narrow strip of sunlight, which we call
Now, canst thou summon the shrouded Future to meet
her there? Have I not achieved it? Am I not thy
Prophet?"
Thus, with a proud, yet melancholy fervor, did he
almost cry aloud, as he passed through the toilsome
street, among people that knew not of his reveries, nor
could understand nor care for them. It is not good for
man to cherish a solitary ambition. Unless there be
those around him by whose example he may regulate
himself, his thoughts, desires, and hopes will become
extravagant, and he the semblance, perhaps the real-
ity, of a madman. Reading other bosoms with an
acuteness almost preternatural, the painter failed to
see the disorder of his own.
“And this should be the house," said he, looking up
and down the front, before he knocked. "Heaven
help my brains! That picture! Methinks it will
never vanish. Whether I look at the windows or the
door, there it is framed within them, painted strongly,
and glowing in the richest tints - the faces of the
portraits the figures and action of the sketch!"
208
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
He knocked.
“The Portraits! Are they within?" inquired he
of the domestic; then recollecting himself
master and mistress! Are they at home?”
"your
"They are, sir," said the servant, adding, as he no-
ticed that picturesque aspect of which the painter
could never divest himself, "and the Portraits too!"
The guest was admitted into a parlor, communi-
cating by a central door with an interior room of the
same size. As the first apartment was empty, he
passed to the entrance of the second, within which
his eyes were greeted by those living personages, as
well as their pictured representatives, who had long
been the objects of so singular an interest. He invol-
untarily paused on the threshold.
They had not perceived his approach. Walter and
Elinor were standing before the portraits, whence the
former had just flung back the rich and voluminous
folds of the silken curtain, holding its golden tassel
with one hand, while the other grasped that of his
bride. The pictures, concealed for months, gleamed
forth again in undiminished splendor, appearing to
throw a sombre light across the room, rather than to
be disclosed by a borrowed radiance. That of Elinor
had been almost prophetic. A pensiveness, and next
a gentle sorrow, had successively dwelt upon her coun-
tenance, deepening, with the lapse of time, into a quiet
anguish. A mixture of affright would now have made
it the very expression of the portrait. Walter's face
was moody and dull, or animated only by fitful flashes,
which left a heavier darkness for their momentary
illumination. He looked from Elinor to her portrait,
and thence to his own, in the contemplation of which
he finally stood absorbed.
THE PROPHETIC PICTURES.
209
The painter seemed to hear the step of Destiny
approaching behind him, on its progress towards its
victims. A strange thought darted into his mind.
Was not his own the form in which that destiny had
embodied itself, and he a chief agent of the coming
evil which he had foreshadowed?
Still, Walter remained silent before the picture,
communing with it as with his own heart, and aban-
doning himself to the spell of evil influence that the
painter had cast upon the features. Gradually his
eyes kindled; while as Elinor watched the increasing
wildness of his face, her own assumed a look of ter-
ror; and when at last he turned upon her, the resem-
blance of both to their portraits was complete.
"Our fate is upon us!" howled Walter.
"Die! "
Drawing a knife, he sustained her, as she was sink-
ing to the ground, and aimed it at her bosom. In the
action, and in the look and attitude of each, the painter
beheld the figures of his sketch. The picture, with all
its tremendous coloring, was finished.
66
Hold, madman!" cried he, sternly.
He had advanced from the door, and interposed
himself between the wretched beings, with the same
sense of power to regulate their destiny as to alter a
scene upon the canvas. He stood like a magician,
controlling the phantoms which he had evoked.
"What!" muttered Walter Ludlow, as he relapsed
from fierce excitement into silent gloom. "Does Fate
impede its own decree?"
"Wretched lady!" said the painter, "did I not
warn you?"
"You did," replied Elinor, calmly, as her terror
gave place to the quiet grief which it had disturbed.
"But I loved him!"
YOL. I.
11
210
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
Is there not a deep moral in the tale? Could the
result of one, or all our deeds, be shadowed forth and
set before us, some would call it Fate, and hurry on-
ward, others be swept along by their passionate de-
sires, and none be turned aside by the PROPHETIC
PICTURES.
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 be-
hind 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
212
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 sun-
beams 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 over
head; 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 peo
ple were wide awake, and passed to and fro, afoot, or
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 admit-
ting 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 middlę-
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 tem-
perance 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
DAVID SWAN.
213
easily along, and was brought to a stand-still 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 mo-
mentary 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 fount-
ain, and David Swan asleep beside it. Impressed
with the awe which the humblest sleeper 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 gen-
tleman. "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 in-
come; 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 hav
ing done this little act of kindness, she began to feel
like a mother to him.
"Providence seems to have laid him here," whis
214
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
pered 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 dis
tant 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 oc-
rupied 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
DAVID SWAN.
215
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 some-
times 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
maple shade. 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 beauti-
ful 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;
nim, only, could she receive into the depths of her
heart; and now her image was faintly blushing in the
216
TWICE-TULD TALES.
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 mer-
chant 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 for-
tunes 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.
DAVID SWAN.
217
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 ast
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 re
joicing. In a few hours they had forgotten the whole
affair, nor once imagined that the recording angel had
218
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 bur-
dened 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.
he.
"Halloo, driver!
Take a passenger?" shouted
"Room on top!" answered the driver.
all,
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
in the brief hour since he lay down to sleep. Sleep-
ing or waking, we hear not the airy footsteps of
the strange things that almost happen. Does it not
argue a superintending Providence that, while view.
less and unexpected events thrust themselves contin
ually athwart our path, there should still be regularity
enough in mortal life to render foresight even par
tially available?
-
SIGHTS FROM A STEEPLE.
So! I have climbed high, and my reward is small.
Here I stand, with wearied knees, earth, indeed, at a
dizzy depth below, but heaven far, far beyond me
still. Oh that I could soar up into the very zenith,
where man never breathed, nor eagle ever flew, and
where the ethereal azure melts away from the eye,
and appears only a deepened shade of nothingness!
And yet I shiver at that cold and solitary thought.
What clouds are gathering in the golden west, with
direful intent against the brightness and the warmth
of this summer afternoon! They are ponderous air
ships, black as death, and freighted with the tempest;
and at intervals their thunder, the signal guns of that
unearthly squadron, rolls distant along the deep of
heaven. These nearer heaps of fleecy vapor me-
thinks I could roll and toss upon them the whole day
long! seem scattered here and there for the repose
of tired pilgrims through the sky. Perhaps - for
who can tell? - beautiful spirits are disporting them-
selves there, and will bless my mortal eye with the
brief appearance of their curly locks of golden light,
and laughing faces, fair and faint as the people of a
rosy dream. Or, where the floating mass so imper-
fectly obstructs the color of the firmament, a slender
foot and fairy limb, resting too heavily upon the frail
support, may be thrust through, and suddenly with
drawn, while longing fancy follows them in vain
Yonder again is an airy archipelago, where the sun
220
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
beams love to linger in their journeyings through
space. Every one of those little clouds has been
dipped and steeped in radiance, which the slightest
pressure might disengage in silvery profusion, like
water wrung from a sea-maid's hair. Bright they are
as a young man's visions, and, like them, would be
realized in chillness, obscurity, and tears. I will look
on them no more.
In three parts of the visible circle, whose centre is
this spire, I discern cultivated fields, villages, white
country seats, the waving lines of rivulets, little placid
lakes, and here and there a rising ground, that would
fain be termed a hill. On the fourth side is the sea,
stretching away towards a viewless boundary, blue
and calm, except where the passing anger of a shadow
flits across its surface, and is gone. Hitherward, a
broad inlet penetrates far into the land; on the verge
of the harbor, formed by its extremity, is a town; and
over it am I, a watchman, all-heeding and unheeded.
Oh that the multitude of chimneys could speak, like
those of Madrid, and betray, in smoky whispers, the
secrets of all who, since their first foundation, have
assembled at the hearths within! Oh that the Limp-
ing Devil of Le Sage would perch beside me here,
extend his wand over this contiguity of roofs, uncover
every chamber, and make me familiar with their in-
habitants! The most desirable mode of existence
might be that of a spiritualized Paul Pry, hovering
invisible round man and woman, witnessing their deeds,
searching into their hearts, borrowing brightness from
their felicity and shade from their sorrow, and retain
ing no emotion peculiar to himself. But none of these
things are possible; and if I would know the interior
of brick walls, or the mystery of human bosoms, I can
but guess.
SIGHTS FROM A STEEPLE.
221
Yonder is a fair street, extending north and south.
The stately mansions are placed each on its carpet of
verdant grass, and a long flight of steps descends from
every door to the pavement. Ornamental trees -- the
broad-leafed horse-chestnut, the elm so lofty and bend-
ng, the graceful but infrequent willow, and others.
whereof I know not the names grow thrivingly
among brick and stone. The oblique rays of the sun
are intercepted by these green citizens, and by the
houses, so that one side of the street is a shaded and
pleasant walk. On its whole extent there is now but a
single passenger, advancing from the upper end; and
he, unless distance and the medium of a pocket spy-
glass do him more than justice, is a fine young man
of twenty. He saunters slowly forward, slapping his
left hand with his folded gloves, bending his eyes
upon the pavement, and sometimes raising them to
throw a glance before him. Certainly, he has a pen-
sive air. Is he in doubt, or in debt? Is he, if the
question be allowable, in love? Does he strive to be
melancholy and gentleman-like? Or, is he merely
overcome by the heat? But I bid him farewell for
the present. The door of one of the houses an aris-
tocratic edifice, with curtains of purple and gold wav-
ing from the windows, is now opened, and down the
steps come two ladies, swinging their parasols, and
lightly arrayed for a summer ramble. Both are young,
both are pretty, but methinks the left-hand lass is the
fairer of the twain; and, though she be so serious at
this moment, I could swear that there is a treasure of
gentle fun within her. They stand talking a little
while upon the steps, and finally proceed up the street.
Meantime, as their faces are now turned from me, I
may look elsewhere.
222
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
Upon that wharf, and down the corresponding
street, is a busy contrast to the quiet scene which I
have just noticed. Business evidently has its centre
there, and many a man is wasting the summer after
noon in labor and anxiety, in losing riches or in gain
ing them, when he would be wiser to flee away to some
pleasant country village, or shaded lake in the forest,
or wild and cool sea-beach. I see vessels unlading at
the wharf, and precious merchandise strewn upon the
ground, abundantly as at the bottom of the sea, that
market whence no goods return, and where there is
no captain nor supercargo to render an account of
sales. Here, the clerks are diligent with their paper
and pencils, and sailors ply the block and tackle that
hang over the hold, accompanying their toil with cries,
long drawn and roughly melodious, till the bales and
puncheons ascend to upper air. At a little distance a
group of gentlemen are assembled round the door of
a warehouse. Grave seniors be they, and I would
wager if it were safe in these times to be responsi-
ble for any one that the least eminent among them
might vie with old Vicentio, that incomparable traf-
ficker of Pisa. I can even select the wealthiest of the
company. It is the elderly personage, in somewhat
rusty black, with powdered hair, the superfluous white-
ness of which is visible upon the cape of his coat.
His twenty ships are wafted on some of their many
courses by every breeze that blows, and his name
will venture to say, though I know it not — is a famil-
lar sound among the far separated merchants of
Europe and the Indies.
I
But I bestow too much of my attention in this quar
ter. On looking again to the long and shady walk, I
perceive that the two fair girls have encountered the
SIGHTS FROM A STEEPLE.
223
young man. After a sort of shyness in the recognition,
he turns back with them. Moreover, he has sanctioned
my taste in regard to his companions by placing him-
self on the inner side of the pavement, nearest the
Venus to whom I-enacting, on a steeple top, the
part of Paris on the top of Ida — adjudged the golden
apple.
In two streets, converging at right angles towards
my watchtower, I distinguish three different proces
sions. One is a proud array of voluntary soldiers, in
bright uniform, resembling, from the height whence I
lock down, the painted veterans that garrison the win-
dows of a toyshop. And yet, it stirs my heart; their
regular advance, their nodding plumes, the sunflash on
their bayonets and musket barrels, the roll of their
drums ascending past me, and the fife ever and anon
piercing through these things have wakened a war-
like fire, peaceful though I be. Close to their rear
marches a battalion of school-boys, ranged in crooked
and irregular platoons, shouldering sticks, thumping a
harsh and unripe clatter from an instrument of tin,
and ridiculously aping the intricate manœuvres of the
foremost band. Nevertheless, as slight differences are
scarcely perceptible from a church spire, one might be
tempted to ask, "Which are the boys?"- or rather,
“Which the men?" But, leaving these, let us turn
to the third procession, which, though sadder in out-
ward show, may excite identical reflections in the
thoughtful mind. It is a funeral. A hearse, drawn
by a black and bony steed, and covered by a dusty
pall; two or three coaches rumbling over the stones,
their drivers half asleep; a dozen couple of careless
mourners in their every-day attire; such was not the
fashion of our fathers, when they carried a friend to
224
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
his grave.
There is now no doleful clang of the bell
to proclaim sorrow to the town. Was the King of
Terrors more awful in those days than in our own,
that wisdom and philosophy have been able to produce
this change? Not so. Here is a proof that he retains
his proper majesty. The military men and the mili-
tary boys are wheeling round the corner, and meet
the funeral full in the face. Immediately the drum is
silent, all but the tap that regulates each simultaneous
footfall. The soldiers yield the path to the dusty
hearse and unpretending train, and the children quit
their ranks, and cluster on the sidewalks, with timo-
rous and instinctive curiosity. The mourners enter the
churchyard at the base of the steeple, and pause by an
open grave among the burial stones; the lightning
glimmers on them as they lower down the coffin, and
the thunder rattles heavily while they throw the earth
upon its lid. Verily, the shower is near, and I trem-
ble for the young man and the girls, who have now
disappeared from the long and shady street.
How various are the situations of the people covered
by the roofs beneath me, and how diversified are the
events at this moment befalling them! The new born,
the aged, the dying, the strong in life, and the recent
dead, are in the chambers of these many mansions..
The full of hope, the happy, the miserable, and the
desperate, dwell together within the circle of my
glance. In some of the houses over which my eyes
roam so coldly, guilt is entering into hearts that are
still tenanted by a debased and trodden virtue,-
guilt is on the very edge of commission, and the im-
pending deed might be averted; guilt is done, and the
criminal wonders if it be irrevocable. There are broad
thoughts struggling in my mind, and, were I able to
SIGHTS FROM A STEEPLE.
225
give them distinctness, they would make their way in
eloquence. Lo! the raindrops are descending.
-
The clouds, within a little time, have gathered over
all the sky, hanging heavily, as if about to drop in
one unbroken mass upon the earth. At intervals, the
lightning flashes from their brooding hearts, quivers,
disappears, and then comes the thunder, travelling
slowly after its twin-born flame. A strong wind has
sprung up, howls through the darkened streets, and
raises the dust in dense bodies, to rebel against the ap-
proaching storm. The disbanded soldiers fly, the fu-
neral has already vanished like its dead, and all people
hurry homeward all that have a home; while a few
lounge by the corners, or trudge on desperately, at
their leisure. In a narrow lane, which communicates
with the shady street, I discern the rich old mer-
chant, putting himself to the top of his speed, lest the
rain should convert his hair powder to a paste. Un-
happy gentleman! By the slow vehemence and pain-
ful moderation wherewith he journeys, it is but too
evident that Podagra has left its thrilling tenderness
in his great toe. But yonder, at a far more rapid pace,
come three other of my acquaintance, the two pretty
girls and the young man, unseasonably interrupted in
their walk. Their footsteps are supported by the risen
dust, the wind lends them its velocity, they fly
like three sea-birds driven landward by the tempestu-
ous breeze. The ladies would not thus rival Atalanta
if they but knew that any one were at leisure to ob-
serve them. Ah! as they hasten onward, laughing i
the angry face of nature, a sudden catastrophe ha i
chanced. At the corner where the narrow lane enters
into the street, they come plump against the old mer-
hant, whose tortoise motion has just brought him to

VOL. I.
15
226
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
that point. He likes not the sweet encounter; the
darkness of the whole air gathers speedily upon his
visage, and there is a pause on both sides. Finally,
he thrusts aside the youth with little courtesy, seizes
an arm of each of the two girls, and plods onward,
like a magician with a prize of captive fairies. All
this is easy to be understood. How disconsolate the
poor lover stands! regardless of the rain that threatens
an exceeding damage to his well-fashioned habiliments,
till he catches a backward glance of mirth from a
bright eye, and turns away with whatever comfort it
conveys.
The old man and his daughters are safely housed,
and now the storm lets loose its fury. In every dwell-
ing I perceive the faces of the chambermaids as they
shut down the windows, excluding the impetuous
shower, and shrinking away from the quick fiery
glare. The large drops descend with force upon the
slated roofs, and rise again in smoke. There is a
rush and roar, as of a river through the air, and
muddy streams bubble majestically along the pave-
ment, whirl their dusky foam into the kennel, and
disappear beneath iron grates. Thus did Arethusa
sink. I love not my station here aloft, in the midst
of the tumult which I am powerless to direct or quell,
with the blue lightning wrinkling on my brow, and the
thunder muttering its first awful syllables in my ear.
I will descend. Yet let me give another glance to the
sea, where the foam breaks out in long white lines
upon a broad expanse of blackness, or boils up in far
distant points, like snowy mountain tops in the eddies
of a flood; and let me look once more at the green
plain, and little hills of the country, over which the
giant of the storm is striding in robes of mist, and at
SIGHTS FROM A STEEPLE.
227
the town, whose obscured and desolate streets might
beseem a city of the dead; and turning a single mo-
ment to the sky, now gloomy as an author's prospects,
I prepare to resume my station on lower earth.* But
stay! A little speck of azure has widened in the
western heavens; the sunbeams find a passage, and
go rejoicing through the tempest; and on yonder
darkest cloud, born, like hallowed hopes, of the glory
of another world and the trouble and tears of this,
brightens forth the Rainbow!
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 de-
crepit, 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
THE HOLLOW OF THE THREE HILLS. 229
er 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 glim-
mered 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 for-
ever. 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.
230
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
"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 in-
fancy, 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 con-
versation 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 reëchoed
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 al-
nost as vivid as if painted to the eye. By a melan-
THE HOLLOW OF THE THREE HILLS. 231
choly 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 afflic-
tion 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 au-
tumn 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 monoto-
nous words of a prayer that was not meant to be ac-
ceptable in heaven; and soon, in the pauses of her
breath, strange murmurings began to thicken, grad-
ually 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
232
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
dreamy accent of the love songs that died causelessly
into funeral hymns. She shuddered at the unpro-
voked wrath which blazed up like the spontaneous
kindling of flame, 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 per
fidy, 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 mad-house?" 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 HOLLOW OF THE THREE HILLS. 233
the hills, but deep shades obscured the hollow and the
pool, as if sombre night were rising thence to over-
spread 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 cot-
tage, 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
vn, as of mourners with a coffin, their garments trail-
ing 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 par-
ents, the wife who had betrayed the trusting fond-
ness 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
Beemed 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.
1
THE TOLL-GATHERER'S DAY.
A SKETCH OF TRANSITORY LIFE.
METHINKS, for a person whose instinct bids him
rather to pore over the current of life than to plunge
into its tumultuous waves, no undesirable retreat were
a toll-house beside some thronged thoroughfare of the
land. In youth, perhaps, it is good for the observer
to run about the earth — to leave the track of his foot-
steps far and wide- to mingle himself with the action
of numberless vicissitudes; and, finally, in some calm
solitude, to feed a musing spirit on all that he has seen
and felt. But there are natures too indolent, or too
sensitive, to endure the dust, the sunshine, or the rain,
the turmoil of moral and physical elements, to which
all the wayfarers of the world expose themselves. For
such a man, how pleasant a miracle, could life be
made to roll its variegated length by the threshold of
his own hermitage, and the great globe, as it were,
perform its revolutions and shift its thousand scenes
before his eyes without whirling him onward in its
course. If any mortal be favored with a lot analogous
to this, it is the toll-gatherer. So, at least, have I
often fancied, while lounging on a bench at the door
of a small square edifice, which stands between shore
and shore in the midst of a long bridge. Beneath the
timbers ebbs and flows an arm of the sea; while above,
like the life-blood through a great artery, the travel of
the north and east is continually throbbing. Sitting of
THE TOLL-GATHERER'S DAY.
235
the aforesaid bench I amuse myself with a conception,
illustrated by numerous pencil sketches in the air, of
the toll-gatherer's day.
In the morning- dim, gray, dewy summer's morn
-the distant roll of ponderous wheels begins to
mingle with my old friend's slumbers, creaking more
and more harshly through the midst of his dream, and
gradually replacing it with realities. Hardly con-
scious of the change from sleep to wakefulness, he
finds himself partly clad and throwing wide the toll-
gates for the passage of a fragrant load of hay. The
timbers groan beneath the slow-revolving wheels; one
sturdy yeoman stalks beside the oxen, and, peering
from the summit of the hay, by the glimmer of the
half-extinguished lantern over the toll-house, is seen
the drowsy visage of his comrade, who has enjoyed a
nap some ten miles long. The toll is paid-creak,
creak, again go the wheels, and the huge haymow van-
ishes into the morning mist. As yet, nature is but
half awake, and familiar objects appear visionary.
But yonder, dashing from the shore with a rattling
thunder of the wheels and a confused clatter of hoofs,
comes the never-tiring mail, which has hurried onward
at the same headlong, restless rate, all through the
quiet night. The bridge resounds in one continued
peal as the coach rolls on without a pause, merely af-
fording the toll-gatherer a glimpse at the sleepy pas-
sengers, who now bestir their torpid limbs and snuff
a cordial in the briny air. The morn breathes upon
them and blushes, and they forget how wearily the
larkness toiled away. And behold now the fervid
day, in his bright chariot, glittering aslant over the
waves, nor scorning to throw a tribute of his golden
beams on the toll-gatherer's little hermitage. The
256
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
old man looks eastward, and (for he is a moralizer)
frames a simile of the stage-coach and the sun.
While the world is rousing itself, we may glance
slightly at the scene of our sketch. It sits above the
bosom of the broad flood, a spot not of earth, but in
the midst of waters, which rush with a murmuring
sound among the massive beams beneath. Over the
door is a weather-beaten board, inscribed with the
rates of toll, in letters so nearly effaced that the gild-
ing of the sunshine can hardly make them legible.
Beneath the window is a wooden bench, on which a
long succession of weary wayfarers have reposed them
selves. Peeping within doors, we perceive the white-
washed walls bedecked with sundry lithographic prints
and advertisements of various import, and the immense
showbill of a wandering caravan. And there sits our
good old toll-gatherer, glorified by the early sunbeams.
He is a man, as his aspect may announce, of quiet
soul, and thoughtful, shrewd, yet simple mind, whê,
of the wisdom which the passing world scatters along
the wayside, has gathered a reasonable store.
Now the sun smiles upon the landscape, and earth
smiles back again upon the sky. Frequent, now, are
the travellers. The toll-gatherer's practised ear can
distinguish the weight of every vehicle, the number
of its wheels, and how many horses beat the resound-
ing timbers with their iron tramp. Here, in a sub-
stantial family chaise, setting forth betimes to take
advantage of the dewy road, come a gentleman and
his wife, with their rosy-cheeked little girl sitting glad-
somely between them. The bottom of the chaise is
heaped with multifarious band-boxes, and carpet-bags,
and beneath the axle swings a leathern trunk, dusty
with yesterday's journey. Next appears a four-wheeled
THE TOLL-GATHERER'S DAY.
237
earryall, peopled with a round half dozen of pretty
girls, all drawn by a single horse, and driven by a
single gentleman. Luckless wight, doomed, through
a whole summer day, to be the butt of mirth and mis-
chief among the frolicsome maidens! Bolt upright
in a sulky rides a thin, sour-visaged man, who, as he
pays his toll, hands the toll-gatherer a printed card
to stick upon the wall. The vinegar-faced traveller
proves to be a manufacturer of pickles. Now paces
slowly from timber to timber a horseman clad in
black, with a meditative brow, as of one who, whith-
ersoever his steed might bear him, would still journey
through a mist of brooding thought. He is a country
preacher, going to labor at a protracted meeting. The
next object passing townward is a butcher's cart, can-
opied with its arch of snow-white cotton. Behind
comes a sauceman," driving a wagon full of new po-
tatoes, green ears of corn, beets, carrots, turnips, and
summer squashes; and next, two wrinkled, withered,
witch-looking old gossips, in an antediluvian chaise,
drawn by a horse of former generations, and going to
peddle out a lot of huckleberries. See there, a man
trundling a wheelbarrow load of lobsters. And now
a milk cart rattles briskly onward, covered with green
canvas, and conveying the contributions of a whole
herd of cows in large tin canisters. But let all these
pay their toll and pass. Here comes a spectacle that
causes the old toll-gatherer to smile benignantly, as if
the travellers brought sunshine with them and lav-
ished its gladsome influence all along the road.
66
It is a barouche of the newest style, the varnished
panels of which reflect the whole moving panorama
of the landscape, and show a picture, likewise, of our
friend, with his visage broadened, so that his medita
!
238
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
tive smile is transformed to grotesque merriment.
Within, sits a youth, fresh as the summer morn, and
beside him a young lady in white, with white gloves
upon her slender hands, and a white veil flowing down
over her face. But methinks her blushing cheek burns
through the snowy veil. Another white-robed virgin
sits in front. And who are these, on whom, and on
all that appertains to them, the dust of earth seems
never to have settled? Two lovers, whom the priest
has blessed this blessed morn, and sent them forth,
with one of the bridemaids, on the matrimonial tour.
Take my blessing too, ye happy ones! May the sky
not frown upon you, nor clouds bedew you with their
chill and sullen rain! May the hot sun kindle no
fever in your hearts! May your whole life's pilgrim-
age be as blissful as this first day's journey, and its
close be gladdened with even brighter anticipations
than those which hallow your bridal night!
They pass; and ere the reflection of their joy has
faded from his face, another spectacle throws a melan-
choly shadow over the spirit of the observing man. In
a close carriage sits a fragile figure, muffled carefully,
and shrinking even from the mild breath of summer.
She leans against a manly form, and his arm enfolds
her, as if to guard his treasure from some enemy. Let
but a few weeks pass, and when he shall strive to em-
brace that loved one, he will press only desolation to
his heart.
And now has morning gathered up her dewy pearls
and fled away. The sun rolls blazing through the sky,
and cannot find a cloud to cool his face with. The
horses toil sluggishly along the bridge, and heave their
glistening sides in short quick pantings, when the reins
are tightened at the toll-house. Glisten, too, the faces
THE TOLL-GATHERER'S DAY.
239
of the travellers. Their garments are thickly bestrewn
with dust; their whiskers and hair look hoary; their
throats are choked with the dusty atmosphere which
they have left behind them. No air is stirring on the
road. Nature dares draw no breath, lest she should
inhale a stifling cloud of dust. "A hot and dusty
day!" cry the poor pilgrims, as they wipe their be
grimed foreheads, and woo the doubtful breeze which
the river bears along with it. "Awful hot! Dreadful
dusty!" answers the sympathetic toll-gatherer. They
start again to pass through the fiery furnace, while he
reënters his cool hermitage, and besprinkles it with a
pail of briny water from the stream beneath. He
thinks within himself that the sun is not so fierce here
as elsewhere, and that the gentle air does not forget
him in these sultry days. Yes, old friend; and a quiet
heart will make a dog-day temperate. He hears a
weary footstep, and perceives a traveller with pack and
staff, who sits down upon the hospitable bench, and re-
moves the hat from his wet brow. The toll-gatherer
administers a cup of cold water, and discovering lis
guest to be a man of homely sense, he engages him in
profitable talk, uttering the maxims of a philosophy
which he has found in his own soul, but knows not
how it came there. And as the wayfarer makes ready
to resume his journey, he tells him a sovereign remedy
for blistered feet.
Now comes the noontide hour of all the hours
nearest akin to midnight; for each has its own calm-
ness and repose. Soon, however, the world begins to
turn again upon its axis, and it seems the busiest
epoch of the day; when an accident impedes the march
of sublunary things. The draw being lifted to permit
the passage of a schooner, laden with wood from the
240
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
eastern forests, she sticks immovably, right athwart
the bridge! Meanwhile, on both sides of the chasm,
a throng of impatient travellers fret and fume. Here
are two sailors in a gig, with the top thrown back, both
puffing cigars, and swearing all sorts of forecastle
oaths; there, in a smart chaise, a dashingly dressed
gentleman and lady, he from a tailor's shopboard and
she from a milliner's back room the aristocrats of
a summer afternoon. And what are the haughtiest of
us but the ephemeral aristocrats of a summer's day?
Here is a tin pedlar, whose glittering ware bedazzles
all beholders, like a travelling meteor or opposition
sun; and on the other side a seller of spruce beer,
which brisk liquor is confined in several dozen of stone
bottles. Here comes a party of ladies on horseback,
in green riding habits, and gentlemen attendant; and
there a flock of sheep for the market, pattering over
the bridge with a multitudinous clatter of their little
hoofs. Here a Frenchman, with a hand organ on his
shoulder; and there an itinerant Swiss jeweller. On
this side, heralded by a blast of clarions and bugles,
appears a train of wagons, conveying all the wild beasts
of a caravan; and on that, a company of summer sol-
diers, marching from village to village on a festival
campaign, attended by the "Brass band." Now look
at the scene, and it presents an emblem of the myste-
rious confusion, the apparently insolvable riddle, in
which individuals, or the great world itself, seem often
to be involved. What 'miracle shall set all things
right again?
But see! the schooner has thrust her bulky carcass
through the chasm; the draw descends; horse and
foot pass onward, and leave the bridge vacant from
end to end. "And thus," muses the toll-gatherer
THE TOLL-GATHERER'S DAY.
241
“have I found it with all stoppages, even though the
universe seemed to be at a stand." The sage old man!
Far westward now the reddening sun throws a broad
sheet of splendor across the flood, and to the eyes of
distant boatmen gleams brightly among the timbers of
the bridge. Strollers come from the town to quaff the
freshening breeze. One or two let down long lines,
and haul up flapping flounders, or cunners, or small
cod, or perhaps an eel. Others, and fair girls among
them, with the flush of the hot day still on their
cheeks, bend over the railing and watch the heaps of
seaweed floating upward with the flowing tide. The
horses now tramp heavily along the bridge, and wist-
fully bethink them of their stables. Rest, rest, thou
weary world! for to-morrow's round of toil and pleas-
ure will be as wearisome as to-day's has been; yet
both shall bear thee onward a day's march of eternity.
Now the old toll-gatherer looks seaward, and discerns
the light-house kindling on a far island, and the stars,
too, kindling in the sky, as if but a little way beyond;
and mingling reveries of heaven with remembrances
of earth, the whole procession of mortal travellers, all
the dusty pilgrimage which he has witnessed, seems
like a flitting show of phantoms for his thoughtful soul
to muse upon.
VOL. I.
16
THE VISION OF THE FOUNTAIN.
Ar fifteen I became a resident in a country village,
more than a hundred miles from home. The morning
after my arrival- a September morning, but warm
and bright as any in July - I rambled into a wood of
oaks, with a few walnut-trees intermixed, forming the
closest shade above my head. The ground was rocky,
uneven, overgrown with bushes and clumps of young
saplings, and traversed only by cattle paths. The
track which I chanced to follow led me to a crystal
spring, with a border of grass as freshly green as on
May morning, and overshadowed by the limb of a
great oak. One solitary sunbeam found its way down,
and played like a goldfish in the water.
From my childhood I have loved to gaze into a
spring. The water filled a circular basin, small but
deep, and set round with stones, some of which were
covered with slimy moss, the others naked, and of
variegated hue, reddish, white, and brown. The bot
tom was covered with coarse sand, which sparkled
in the lonely sunbeam, and seemed to illuminate the
spring with an unborrowed light. In one spot the
gush of the water violently agitated the sand, but with-
aut obscuring the fountain, or breaking the glassiness
of its surface. It appeared as if some living creature
were about to emerge the Naiad of the spring, per-
haps in the shape of a beautiful young woman, with
a gown of filmy water moss, a belt of rainbow drops,
and a cold, pure, passionless countenance. How would
THE VISION OF THE FOUNTAIN.
243
the beholder shiver, pleasantly yet fearfully, to see
her sitting on one of the stones, paddling her white
feet in the ripples, and throwing up water to sparkle
in the sun! Wherever she laid her hands on grass
and flowers, they would immediately be moist as with
morning dew. Then would she set about her labors,
like a careful housewife, to clear the fountain of with-
ered leaves, and bits of slimy wood, and old acorns
from the oaks above, and grains of corn left by cattle
in drinking, till the bright sand, in the bright water,
was like a treasury of diamonds. But, should the in-
truder approach too near, he would find only the drops
of a summer shower glistening about the spot where he
had seen her.
Reclining on the border of grass, where the dewy
goddess should have been, I bent forward, and a pair
of eyes met mine within the watery mirror. They
were the reflection of my own. I looked again, and
lo! another face, deeper in the fountain than my own
image, more distinct in all the features, yet faint as
thought. The vision had the aspect of a fair young
girl, with locks of paly gold. A mirthful expression
laughed in the eyes and dimpled over the whole shad-
owy countenance, till it seemed just what a fountain
would be, if, while dancing merrily into the sunshine,
it should assume the shape of woman. Through the
dim rosiness of the cheeks I could see the brown
leaves, the slimy twigs, the acorns, and the sparkling
sand. The solitary sunbeam was diffused among the
golden hair, which melted into its faint brightness,
and became a glory round that head so beautiful!
My description can give no idea how suddenly the
fountain was thus tenanted, and how soon it was left
lesolate. I breathed, and there was the face! I held
244
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
my breath, and it was gone! Had it passed away,
or faded into nothing? I doubted whether it had ever
been.
My sweet readers, what a dreamy and delicious
hour did I spend, where that vision found and left
me! For a long time I sat perfectly still, waiting
till it should reappear, and fearful that the slightest
motion, or even the flutter of my breath, might
frighten it away. Thus have I often started from a
pleasant dream, and then kept quiet in hopes to wile
it back. Deep were my musings, as to the race and
attributes of that ethereal being. Had I created her?
Was she the daughter of my fancy, akin to those
strange shapes which peep under the lids of children's
eyes? And did her beauty gladden me, for that
one moment, and then die? Or was she a water
nymph within the fountain, or fairy, or woodland
goddess, peeping over my shoulder, or the ghost
of some forsaken maid who had drowned herself
for love? Or, in good truth, had a lovely girl, with
a warm heart and lips that would bear pressure, sto
len softly behind me, and thrown her image into the
spring?
I watched and waited, but no vision came again.
I departed, but with a spell upon me which drew me
back, that same afternoon, to the haunted spring
There was the water gushing, the sand sparkling,
and the sunbeam glimmering. There the vision was
not, but only a great frog, the hermit of that solitude,
who immediately withdrew his speckled snout and
made himself invisible, all except a pair of long
legs, beneath a stone. Methought he had a devilish
look! I could have slain him as an enchanter
who kept the mysterious beauty imprisoned in the
fountain.
THE VISION OF THE FOUNTAIN.
215
Sad and heavy, I was returning to the village.
Between me and the church spire rose a little hill,
and on its summit a group of trees, insulated from all
the rest of the wood, with their own share of radiance
hovering on them from the west, and their own solitary
shadow falling to the east. The afternoon being far
declined, the sunshine was almost pensive, and the
shade almost cheerful; glory and gloom were mingled
in the placid light; as if the spirits of the Day and
Evening had met in friendship under those trees, and
found themselves akin. I was admiring the picture,
when the shape of a young girl emerged from behind
the clump of oaks. My heart knew her; it was the
Vision; but so distant and ethereal did she seem, so
unmixed with earth, so imbued with the pensive glory
of the spot where she was standing, that my spirit
sunk within me, sadder than before. How could I
ever reach her?
While I gazed, a sudden shower came pattering
down upon the leaves. In a moment the air was full
of brightness, each raindrop catching a portion of
sunlight as it fell, and the whole gentle shower ap-
pearing like a mist, just substantial enough to bear the
burden of radiance. A rainbow, vivid as Niagara's,
was painted in the air. Its southern limb came down
before the group of trees, and enveloped the fair
Vision, as if the hues of heaven were the only gar-
ment for her beauty. When the rainbow vanished,
she, who had seemed a part of it, was no longer
there. Was her existence absorbed in nature's love-
liest phenomenon, and did her pure frame dissolve
away in the varied light? Yet, I would not despair
of her return; for, robed in the rainbow, she was the
emblem of Hope.
246
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
Thus did the vision leave me; and many a doleful
day succeeded to the parting moment. By the spring,
and in the wood, and on the hill, and through the vil
lage; at dewy sunrise, burning noon, and at that
magic hour of sunset when she had vanished from
my
sight, I sought her, but in vain. Weeks came and
went, months rolled away, and she appeared not in
them. I imparted my mystery to none, but wandered
to and fro, or sat in solitude, like one that had caught
a glimpse of heaven, and could take no more joy on
earth. I withdrew into an inner world, where my
thoughts lived and breathed, and the Vision in the
midst of them. Without intending it, I became at
once the author and hero of a romance, conjuring up
rivals, imagining events, the actions of others and my
own, and experiencing every change of passion, till
jealousy and despair had their end in bliss. Oh, had
I the burning fancy of my early youth, with man-
hood's colder gift, the power of expression, your
hearts, sweet ladies, should flutter at my tale!
In the middle of January I was summoned home.
The day before my departure, visiting the spots which
had been hallowed by the Vision, I found that the
spring had a frozen bosom, and nothing but the snow
and a glare of winter sunshine on the hill of the rain
bow. "Let me hope," thought I, "or my heart will be
as icy as the fountain, and the whole world as desolate
as this snowy hill." Most of the day was spent in
preparing for the journey, which was to commence at
four o'clock the next morning. About an hour after
supper, when all was in readiness, I descended from
my chamber to the sitting-room, to take leave of the
old clergyman and his family with whom I had been
an inmate. A gust of wind blew out my lamp as 1
passed through the entry.
THE VISION OF THE FOUNTAIN.
247
According to their invariable custom, so pleasant a
one when the fire blazes cheerfully, the family were
sitting in the parlor, with no other light than what
came from the hearth. As the good clergyman's
scanty stipend compelled him to use all sorts of econ-
omy, the foundation of his fires was always a large
heap of tan, or ground bark, which would smoulder
away, from morning till night, with a dull warmth
and no flame. This evening the heap of tan was
newly put on, and surmounted with three sticks of red
oak, full of moisture, and a few pieces of dry pine,
that had not yet kindled. There was no light, except
the little that came sullenly from two half-burned
brands, without even glimmering on the andirons.
But I knew the position of the old minister's arm-
chair, and also where his wife sat, with her knitting-
work, and how to avoid his two daughters, one a stout
country lass, and the other a consumptive girl. Grop-
ing through the gloom, I found my own place next to
that of the son, a learned collegian, who had come
home to keep school in the village during the winter
vacation. I noticed that there was less room than
usual, to-night, between the collegian's chair and
mine.
As people are always taciturn in the dark, not a
word was said for some time after my entrance. Noth-
ing broke the stillness but the regular click of the
matron's knitting-needles. At times, the fire threw
out a brief and dusky gleam, which twinkled on the
old man's glasses, and hovered doubtfully round our
circle, but was far too faint to portray the individuals
who composed it. Were we not like ghosts? Dreamy
as the scene was, might it not be a type of the mode
in which departed people, who had known and loved
248
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
each other here, would hold communion in eternity?
We were aware of each other's presence, not by sight,
nor sound, nor touch, but by an inward consciousness.
Would it not be so among the dead?
The silence was interrupted by the consumptive
daughter, addressing a remark to some one in the
circle whom she called Rachel. Her tremulous and
decayed accents were answered by a single word, but
in a voice that made me start, and bend towards the
spot whence it had proceeded. Had I ever heard that
sweet, low tone? If not, why did it rouse up so many
old recollections, or mockeries of such, the shadows of
things familiar, yet unknown, and fill my mind with
confused images of her features who had spoken,
though buried in the gloom of the parlor? Whom
had my heart recognized, that it throbbed so? I
listened to catch her gentle breathing, and strove, by
the intensity of my gaze, to picture forth a shape
where none was visible.
Suddenly the dry pine caught; the fire blazed up
with a ruddy glow; and where the darkness had been,
there was she the Vision of the Fountain! A spirit
of radiance only, she had vanished with the rainbow,
and appeared again in the firelight, perhaps to flicker
with the blaze, and be gone. Yet, her cheek was rosy
and life-like, and her features, in the bright warmth of
the room, were even sweeter and tenderer than my
recollection of them. She knew me! The mirthful
expression that had laughed in her eyes and dimpled
over her countenance, when I beheld her faint beauty
in the fountain, was laughing and dimpling there now.
One moment our glance mingled the next, down
rolled the heap of tan upon the kindled wood-and
darkness snatched away the Daughter of the Light-
and gave her back to me no more!
THE VISION OF THE FOUNTAIN.
249
Fair ladies, there is nothing more to tell. Must
the simple mystery be revealed, then, that Rachel was
the daughter of the village squire, and had left home
for a boarding-school, the morning after I arrived
and returned the day before my departure? If I
transformed her to an angel, it is wnat every youth-
ful lover does for his mistress. Therein consists the
essence of my story. But slight the change, sweet
maids, to make angels of yourselves!
FANCY'S SHOW BOX.
A MORALITY.
WHAT is Guilt? A stain upon the soul. And it
is a point of vast interest whether the soul may con-
tract such stains, in all their depth and flagrancy,
from deeds which may have been plotted and resolved
upon, but which, physically, have never had existence.
Must the fleshly hand and visible frame of man set
its seal to the evil designs of the soul, in order to give
them their entire validity against the sinner? Or,
while none but crimes perpetrated are cognizable be-
fore an earthly tribunal, will guilty thoughts-of
which guilty deeds are no more than shadows — will
these draw down the full weight of a condemning
sentence, in the supreme court of eternity? In the
solitude of a midnight chamber or in a desert, afar
from men or in a church, while the body is kneeling,
the soul may pollute itself even with those crimes
which we are accustomed to deem altogether carnal
If this be true, it is a fearful truth.
Let us illustrate the subject by an imaginary exam-
ple. A venerable gentleman, one Mr. Smith, who had
long been regarded as a pattern of moral excellence,
was warming his aged blood with a glass or two of
generous wine.
wine. His children being gone forth about
their worldly business, and his grandchildren at school,
he sat alone, in a deep, luxurious arm-chair, with his
feet beneath a richly-carved mahogany table. Some
FANCY'S SHOW BOX.
251
old people have a dread of solitude, and when better
company may not be had, rejoice even to hear the
quiet breathing of a babe, asleep upon the carpet.
But Mr. Smith, whose silver hair was the bright sym-
bol of a life unstained, except by such spots as are
inseparable from human nature, had no need of a
babe to protect him by its purity, nor of a grown per-
son to stand between him and his own soul. Never-
theless, either Manhood must converse with Age, or
Womanhood must soothe him with gentle cares, or
Infancy must sport around his chair, or his thoughts
will stray into the misty region of the past, and the
old man be chill and sad. Wine will not always cheer
him. Such might have been the case with Mr. Smith,
when, through the brilliant medium of his glass of old
Madeira, he beheld three figures entering the room.
These were Fancy, who had assumed the garb and as
pect of an itinerant showman, with a box of pictures
on her back; and Memory, in the likeness of a clerk,
with a pen behind her ear, an inkhorn at her button-
hole, and a huge manuscript volume beneath her arm ;
and lastly, behind the other two, a person shrouded in
a dusky mantle, which concealed both face and form.
But Mr. Smith had a shrewd idea that it was Con-
science.
How kind of Fancy, Memory, and Conscience to
visit the old gentleman, just as he was beginning to
imagine that the wine had neither so bright a sparkle
nor so excellent a flavor as when himself and the
liquor were less aged! Through the dim length of the
apartment, where crimson curtains muffled the glare
of sunshine and created a rich obscurity, the three
guests drew near the silver-haired old man. Memory,
with a finger between the leaves of her huge volume,
252
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
placed herself at his right hand. Conscience, with her
face still hidden in the dusky mantle, took her station
on the left, so as to be next his heart; while Fancy set
down her picture box upon the table, with the magni-
fying glass convenient to his eye. We can sketch
merely the outlines of two or three out of the many
pictures which, at the pulling of a string, successively
peopled the box with the semblances of living scenes.
One was a moonlight picture: in the sackground,
a lowly dwelling; and in front, partly shadowed by a
tree, yet besprinkled with flakes of radiance, two youth-
ful figures, male and female. The young man stood
with folded arms, a haughty smile upon his lip, and a
gleam of triumph in his eye, as he glanced downward
at the kneeling girl. She was almost prostrate at his
feet, evidently sinking under a weight of shame and
anguish, which hardly allowed her to lift her clasped
hands in supplication. Her eyes she could not lift.
But neither her agony, nor the lovely features on which
it was depicted, nor the slender grace of the form
which it convulsed, appeared to soften the obduracy of
the young man. He was the personification of trium-
phant scorn. Now, strange to say, as old Mr. Smith
peeped through the magnifying glass, which made the
objects start out from the canvas with magical decep-
tion, he began to recognize the farm-house, the tree,
and both the figures of the picture. The young man,
in times long past, had often met his gaze within the
looking-glass; the girl was the very image of his first
love his cottage love his Martha Burroughs! Mr.
Smith was scandalized. "O vile and slanderous pict
ure!" he exclaims. "When have I triumphed over
ruined innocence? Was not Martha wedded, in her
teens, to David Tomkins, who won her girlish love,
FANCY'S SHOW BOX.
253
and long enjoyed her affection as a wife? And ever
since his death she has lived a reputable widow!"
Meantime, Memory was turning over the leaves of her
volume, rustling them to and fro with uncertain fingers,
until, among the earlier pages, she found one which
had reference to this picture. She reads it, close to
the old gentleman's ear; it is a record merely of sin-
ful thought, which never was embodied in an act; but
while Memory is reading, Conscience unveils her face,
and strikes a dagger to the heart of Mr. Smith.
Though not a death-blow, the torture was extreme.
The exhibition proceeded. One after another,
Fancy displayed her pictures, all of which appeared
to have been painted by some malicious artist on pur-
pose to vex Mr. Smith. Not a shadow of proof could
have been adduced, in any earthly court, that he was
guilty of the slightest of those sins which were thus
made to stare him in the face. In one scene there
was a table set out, with several bottles, and glasses
half filled with wine, which threw back the dull ray of
an expiring lamp. There had been mirth and rev-
elry, until the hand of the clock stood just at mid-
night, when murder stepped between the boon com-
panions. A young man had fallen on the floor, and
lay stone dead, with a ghastly wound crushed into his
temple, while over him, with a delirium of mingled
rage and horror in his countenance, stood the youth-
ful likeness of Mr. Smith. The murdered youth wore
the features of Edward Spencer! "What does this
rascal of a painter mean?" cries Mr. Smith, pro-
voked beyond all patience. "Edward Spencer was
my earliest and dearest friend, true to me as I to him,
through more than half a century. Neither I, nor any
other, ever murdered him. Was he not alive within
254
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
five years, and did he not, in token of our long friend
ship, bequeath me his gold-headed cane and a mourn
ing ring?" Again had Memory been turning over
her volume, and fixed at length upon so confused a
page that she surely must have scribbled it when she
was tipsy. The purport was, however, that while Mr.
Smith and Edward Spencer were heating their young
blood with wine, a quarrel had flashed up between
them, and Mr. Smith, in deadly wrath, had flung a
bottle at Spencer's head. True, it missed its aim,
and merely smashed a looking-glass; and the next
morning, when the incident was imperfectly remem-
bered, they had shaken hands with a hearty laugh.
Yet, again, while Memory was reading, Conscience
unveiled her face, struck a dagger to the heart of Mr.
Smith, and quelled his remonstrance with her iron
frown. The pain was quite excruciating.
Some of the pictures had been painted with so
doubtful a touch, and in colors so faint and pale, that
the subjects could barely be conjectured. A dull,
semi-transparent mist had been thrown over the sur-
face of the canvas, into which the figures seemed to
vanish, while the eye sought most earnestly to fix
them. But in every scene, however dubiously por-
trayed, Mr. Smith was invariably haunted by his own
lineaments, at various ages, as in a dusty mirror. Af-
ter poring several minutes over one of these blurred
and almost indistinguishable pictures, he began to see
that the painter had intended to represent him, now
in the decline of life, as stripping the clothes from the
backs of three half-starved children. "Really, this
puzzles me!" quoth Mr. Smith, with the irony of
conscious rectitude. Asking pardon of the painter,
I pronounce him a fool, as well as a scandalous knave
[
66
FANCY'S SHOW BOX.
255
A man of my standing in the world to be robbing
little children of their clothes! Ridiculous!" But
while he spoke, Memory had searched her fatal vol-
ume, and found a page, which, with her sad, calm
voice, she poured into his ear. It was not altogether
inapplicable to the misty scene. It told how Mr.
Smith had been grievously tempted by many devilish
sophistries, on the ground of a legal quibble, to com-
mence a lawsuit against three orphan children, joint
heirs to a considerable estate. Fortunately, before he
was quite decided, his claims had turned out nearly
as devoid of law as justice. As Memory ceased to
read, Conscience again thrust aside her mantle, and
would have struck her victim with the envenomed
dagger, only that he struggled and clasped his hands
before his heart. Even then, however, he sustained
an ugly gash.
Why should we follow Fancy through the whole
series of those awful pictures? Painted by an artist
of wondrous power, and terrible acquaintance with
the secret soul, they embodied the ghosts of all the
never perpetrated sins that had glided through the
lifetime of Mr. Smith. And could such beings of
cloudy fantasy, so near akin to nothingness, give valid
evidence against him at the day of judgment? Be
that the case or not, there is reason to believe that
one truly penitential tear would have washed away
each hateful picture, and left the canvas white as
snow. But Mr. Smith, at a prick of Conscience too
keen to be endured, bellowed aloud, with impatient
agony, and suddenly discovered that his three guests
were gone. There he sat alone, a silver-haired and
highly-venerated old man, in the rich gloom of the
crimson-curtained room, with no box of pictures on
£56
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
the table, but only a decanter of most excellent Ma
deira. Yet his heart still seemed to fester with the
venom of the dagger.
Nevertheless, the unfortunate old gentleman might
have argued the matter with Conscience, and alleged
many reasons wherefore she should not smite him so
pitilessly. Were we to take up his cause, it should
be somewhat in the following fashion: A scheme of
guilt, till it be put in execution, greatly resembles a
train of incidents in a projected tale. The latter, in
order to produce a sense of reality in the reader's
mind, must be conceived with such proportionate
strength by the author as to seem, in the glow of
fancy, more like truth, past, present, or to come, than
purely fiction. The prospective sinner, on the other
hand, weaves his plot of crime, but seldom or never
feels a perfect certainty that it will be executed.
There is a dreaminess diffused about his thoughts;
in a dream, as it were, he strikes the death-blow
into his victim's heart, and starts to find an indelible
blood-stain on his hand. Thus a novel writer or a
dramatist, in creating a villain of romance and fitting
him with evil deeds, and the villain of actual life, in
projecting crimes that will be perpetrated, may almost
meet each other half-way between reality and fancy.
It is not until the crime is accomplished that guilt
clinches its gripe upon the guilty heart, and claims it
for its own. Then, and not before, sin is actually felt
and acknowledged, and, if unaccompanied by repent-
ance, grows a thousand-fold more virulent by its self-
consciousness. Be it considered, also, that men often
over-estimate their capacity for evil. At a distance,
while its attendant circumstances do not press upon
their notice, and its results are dimly seen, they can
FANCY'S SHOW BOX.
257
bear to contemplate it. They may take the steps
which lead to crime, impelled by the same sort of
mental action as in working out a mathematical prob
lem, yet be powerless with compunction at the final
moment. They knew not what deed it was that they
deemed themselves resolved to do. In truth, there is
no such thing in man's nature as a settled and full
resolve, either for good or evil, except at the very mo
ment of execution. Let us hope, therefore, that all
the dreadful consequences of sin will not be incurred,
unless the act have set its seal upon the thought.
Yet, with the slight fancy work which we have
framed, some sad and awful truths are interwoven.
Man must not disclaim his brotherhood, even with the
guiltiest, since, though his hand be clean, his heart
has surely been polluted by the flitting phantoms of
iniquity. He must feel that, when he shall knock at
the gate of heaven, no semblance of an unspotted life
can entitle him to entrance there. Penitence must
kneel, and Mercy come from the footstool of the
throne, or that golden gate will never open!
VOL. L
17

DR. HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT.
THAT very singular man, old Dr. Heidegger, ones
invited four venerable friends to meet him in his
study. There were three white-bearded gentlemen,
Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew, and Mr. Gas-
coigne, 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 bet
ter 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 in-
stead 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 townst
her. It is a circumstance worth mention
of these three old gentlemen, Mr. M
nel Killigrew, and Mr. Gascoigne
of the Widow Wycherly, and

DR. HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT.
259
point of cutting each other's throats for her sake. And,
befor ceeding further, I will merely hint that Dr.
Heider and all his four guests were sometimes
thought to be a little beside themselves, as is not
unfrequently the case with old people, when worried
ither by present troubles or woful recollections.
66
'My dear old friends," said Dr. Heidegger, motion
ing them to be seated, "I am desirous of your assist-
ance 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 be-
sprinkled 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
pacients dwelt within its verge, and would stare him
in the face whenever he looked thitherward. The op
posite 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

$

260
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
century ago, Dr. Heidegger had been on the point
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 even-
ing. 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, "For-

bear!
""
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 work-
manship. The sunshine came through the window-
between the heavy festoons of two faded damask cur
tains, and fell directly across this vase; so that a mild
splendor was reflected from it on the ashen visages of
the Ove old people who sat around. Four champagnę
glasses were also on the table.
66
'My dear old friends," repeated Dr. Heidegger,
"may I reckon on your aid in performing an exceed
ingly curious experiment?"
Now Dr. Heidegger was a very strange old gentle
man, 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
་
DR. HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT.
261
esent tale should startle the reader's faith, I must
e 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 vol-
ume. 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
wrinkled face could ever
whether an old woman's
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 im
bibe none of its moisture. Soon, however, a singulas
262
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
change began to be visible. The crushed and dried
petals stirred, and assumed a deepening tinge of crim
son, as if the flower were reviving from a deathlike
slumber; the slender stalk and twigs of foliage be-
came 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 centu
ries old, have been kept as fresh as violets by the vir-
tues 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,
{
DR. HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT.
263
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
øld, 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 Fount
ain of Youth. It was apparently impregnated with
an effervescent gas, for little bubbles were continually
ascending from the depths of the glasses, and burst-
ing in silvery spray at the surface. As the liquor dif-
fused 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 advan-
tages, 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 re
joice that I have so well selected the subjects of my
experiment.”
264
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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, sap-
less, 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 grow-
ing young again. They drank off the water, and re-
placed their glasses on the table.
Assuredly there was an almost immediate improve-
ment in the aspect of the party, not unlike what might
have been produced by a glass of generous wine, to-
gether with a sudden glow of cheerful sunshine bright-
ening 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 Wych-
erly adjusted her cap, for she felt almost like a woman
again.
"Give us more of this wondrous water!" cried
but we are still
they, eagerly. "We are younger
too old! Quick-give us more!"
"Patience, patience!" quoth Dr. Heidegger, who
sat watching the experiment with philosophic cool-
"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.'
ness.
1
""
Again he filled their glasses with the liquor of
DR. HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT.
265
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 sys-
tems. 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 Killi.
grew'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 gentle-
men behaved in such a manner as proved that the
water of the Fountain of Youth possessed some intoxi-
cating qualities; unless, indeed, their exhilaration of
spirits were merely a lightsome dizziness caused by
the sudden removal of the weight of years. Mr. Gas-
coigne'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 mut
tered some perilous stuff or other, in a sly and doubt
ful whisper, so cautiously that even his own conscience
266
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 well-turned
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 sup-
plying 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 ex
amined 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 or
DR. HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT.
267
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 pict-
ures, again threw its enchantment over all their pros-
pects. 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 ex-
uberant frolicsomeness of their years. The most sin-
gular 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 spec
tacles astride of his nose, and pretended to pore over
268
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 docter'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 part-
ner.'
""
“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
all mirror is said to have reflected the figures of

DR. HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT.
269

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 co-
quetry 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 an-
other's throats. As they struggled to and fro, the
table was overturned, and the vase dashed into a thou-
sand 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 flut
tered lightly through the chamber, and settled on the
snowy head of Dr. Heidegger.
66
Come, come, gentlemen! — come, Madam Wych-
erly," 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 cent-
ury, 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, be-
cause their violent exertions had wearied them, youth-
ful though they were.
66
My poor Sylvia's rose!" ejaculated Dr. Heideg
ger, 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
270
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 moist
ure which clung to its petals.
"I love it as well thus as in its dewy freshness,”
observed he, pressing the withered rose to his with-
ered 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 sc
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. Heideg-
ger, "and lo! the Water of Youth is all lavished on
the ground. Well-I bemoan it not; for if the fount
ain 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!"

DR. HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT.
271
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.
NOTE.
-In an English review, not long since, I have been accused
of plagiarizing the idea of this story from a chapter in one of the nov-
els of Alexandre Dumas. There has undoubtedly been a plagiarism
on one side or the other; but as my story was written a good deal
more than twenty years ago, and as the novel is of considerably more
recent date, I take pleasure in thinking that M. Dumas has done me
the honor to appropriate one of the fanciful conceptions of my earlier
days. He is heartily welcome to it; nor is it the only instance, by
many, in which the great French romancer has exercised the privi
iege of commanding genius by confiscating the intellectual property
of less famous people to his own use and behoof.
September, 1860.
LEGENDS OF THE PROVINCE HOUSE
I.
HOWE'S MASQUERADE.
ONE afternoon, last summer, while walking along
Washington Street, my eye was attracted by a sign
board protruding over a narrow archway, nearly oppo
bite 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 en
tertained, of visiting and rambling over the mansion
of the old royal governors of Massachusetts; and en
tering the arched passage, which penetrated through
the middle of a brick row of shops, a few steps trans
ported me from the busy heart of modern Boston
into a small and secluded court-yard. 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 Deacor
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
ight-colored paint. A flight of red freestone steps
HOWE'S MASQUERADE.
273
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 ex-
press the date of the edifice, with the initials of its
founder's name. A wide door with double leaves ad-
mited me into the hall or entry, on the right of whick
is the entrance to the bar-room.
It was in this apartment, I presume, that the an-
cient 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 orna-
mental 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 fire-place, and
told her children the story of each blue tile. A bar
in modern style, well replenished with decanters, bot
tles, cigar boxes, and net-work bags of lemons, and
provided with a beer pump and a soda fount, extends
ng one side of the room. At my entrance, an eld
rly person was smacking his lips with a zest which
TOL. I.
18
274
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
satisfied me that the cellars of the Province House
still hold good liquor, though doubtless of other vint
ages than were quaffed by the old governors. After
sipping a glass of port sangaree, prepared by the skil
ful hands of Mr. Thomas Waite, I besought that wor
thy 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 prob
ably spacious in former times, are now cut up by
partitions, and subdivided into little nooks, each af-
fording 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 land-
ing-place, whence the ascent is continued towards the
cupola. A carved balustrade, freshly painted in the
lower stories, but growing dingier as we ascend, bor-
ders the staircase with its quaintly twisted and inter-
twined 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
HOWE'S MASQUERA DE.
275
myself with imagining, Gage may have beheld his dis
astrous 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. De
scending 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 be-
neath 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
276
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
visitor of the house, who
and chatting and laughing, with now and then a care
less glance towards the balcony. Descending thence,
we again entered the bar-room, where the elderly gen-
tleman 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
might be supposed to have his regular score at the bar,
his summer seat at the open window, and his prescrip
tive corner at the winter's fireside. Being of a socia-
ble 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 de-
rivation, together with the lapse of time, must have
afforded opportunities for many variations of the nar-
rative; 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 satis-
factorily 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
HOWE'S MASQUERADE.
277
period, and the desperate aspect of the siege, under
an ostentation of festivity. The spectacle of this even-
ing, if the oldest members of the provincial court cir-
cle might be believed, was the most gay and gorgeous
affair that had occurred in the annals of the gov-
ernment. 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 pro-
totype; 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 Washing-
ton; 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
278
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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, eye-
ing 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 sus-
tained 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 com-
parison) — 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
HOWE'S MASQUERADE.
279
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 cler
ical wig and band."
"Not so, good Doctor Byles," answered Sir Wil
liam 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; per-
haps not so much. Honestly now, Doctor, have you
not stirred up the sober brains of some of your coun-
trymen to enact a scene in our masquerade?"
66
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 pres-
ent 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 inter-
ruption. 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 proces
sion of some great personage had halted in front of
the Province House, or that a corpse, in a velvet
280
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 regi
ments.
"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 masquer
ading antic. Let it pass."
A figure now presented itself, but among the many
fantastic masks that were dispersed through the apart
ments 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 do-
mestic in the household of a nobleman or great Eng-
lish 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 di
HOWE'S MASQUERADE.
281
rected to the staircase, there appeared, on the upper
most landing-place that was discernible from the bot
tom, 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 en-
thusiasm in his eye. His garb, like that of his prede-
cessors, 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 person-
ages who were accustomed to the gaze of the multitude.
I 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 pro-
ression of the regicide judges of King Charles the
martyr?"
66
These,” said Colonel Joliffe, breaking silence al
282
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
most for the first time that evening," these, if I in
terpret 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 Lev
erett."
"Why had that young man a stain of blood upon
his ruff?" asked Miss Joliffe.
"Because, in after years," answered her grand-
father, "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 de.
scended 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 breast-
plate, 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
HOWE'S MASQUERADE.
283
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 ad-
vancing 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 Puri-
tan 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-cap-
tain, 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,
284
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
"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 con
tinuance in high stations, he seemed not incapable of
cringing to a greater than himself. A few steps be-
hind came an officer in a scarlet and embroidered uni-
form, cut in a fashion old enough to have been worn
by the Duke of Marlborough. His nose had a rubi-
cund 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 to-
kens 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, shrewd-
ness, 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
gesture of anguish and despair, and vanished into
HOWE'S MASQUERADE.
285
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 dusk.
ily: 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 proto-
types. Their faces, indeed, were invariably kept in
deep shadow. But Doctor Byles, and other gentle
men who had long been familiar with the successive
286
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 con
fessing 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 shad-
ows toss their arms into the gloom of night, with a
dread expression of woe. Following the mimic repre-
sentative of Hutchinson came a military figure, hold-
ing 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.
66
"No, surely," cried Miss Joliffe, laughing hysteric-
ally; "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 Si
William Howe, fixing his eyes, with a very marked
expression, upon the immovable visage of her grand-
father. "I have long enough delayed to pay the cere
monies 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
HOWE'S MASQUERADE.
287
impulse, were turned upon Sir William Howe, as if
it were he whom the dreary music summoned to the
funeral of 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 mili-
tary cloak before, and even recognized the frayed em-
broidery 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 characteris-
tics of gait and bearing which impelled the wondering
guests to glance from the shrouded figure to Sir Wil-
liam 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
288
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 counte-
hance 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 after-
wards 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 mid-
night from the steeple of the Old South, and with the
roar of artillery, which announced that the beleaguer-
ing 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 him-
self 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 em
pire of Britain in this ancient province is at its last
HOWE'S MASQUERADE.
289
gasp to-night;
corpse;
almost while I speak it is a dead
and methinks the shadows of the old gov-
ernors are fit mourners at its funeral!'
99
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 obscur-
ity 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 won-
drous 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 gentle-
man 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
But my
grandeur over the realities of the scene.
nostrils snuffed up a scent of cigar smoke, clouds of
which the narrator had emitted by way of visible em-
blem, I suppose, of the nebulous obscurity of his tale
VOL. I
19
290
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
Moreover, my gorgeous fantasies were wofully dis
turbed by the rattling of the spoon in a tumbler of
whiskey punch, which Mr. Thomas Waite was min-
gling for a customer. Nor did it add to the pictur.
esque appearance of the panelled walls that the slate
of the Brookline stage was suspended against them,
instead of the armorial escutcheon of some far-de-
scended 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 Bos-
ton" seventy or a hundred years ago. On the win
dow 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 des-
perately 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 stair-
case down which the procession of the old governors
had descended, and as I emerged through the vener-
able 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 Janu-
ary. 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 gov-
ernors 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 pop-
alous quarters of the town. The buildings stood in-
sulated 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 irregular-
ity, the absence of which is hardly compensated by any
beauties of our modern architecture. Such a scene,
292
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 con-
trast 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 be-
tween 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 visi
ble 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 corpu-
lent 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 sprink-
ing of nutmeg strewn over all. As we touched our
EDWARD RANDOLPH'S PORTRAIT.
293
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 lul-
laby, 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 approach-
ing 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 tradi-
tion and fable and conjecture to say what had once.
been there portrayed. During the rule of many suc-
cessive 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 arm
294
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
thair, 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 Hutch-
inson 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 Lin-
coln, 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 ac-
quired a taste and enthusiasm for sculpture and paint-
ing 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 pen-
cil 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 ap-
peared 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
EDWARD RANDOLPH'S PORTRAIT.
295
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 con-
spicuous 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 Cas-
tle 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 impossi-
ble 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 origi-
nal 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 appari-
tion, 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
taught glimpses of a visage frowning down upon them
296
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 in-
habitant 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 him-
self 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 Mas-
sachusetts had allowed the obliterated picture to re-
main 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 al-
most 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 under
took the explanation of the mystery.
"I am sorry, Alice, to destroy your faith in the
egends of which you are so fond," remarked he; "but
EDWARD RANDOLPH'S PORTRAIT.
297
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 pro-
vincial charter, under which our forefathers had en-
joyed 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 Hutchin-
son, 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 fol-
lowed 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 bot-
tom," said the Lieutenant-Governor. "As regards
the life and character of Edward Randolph, too im-
plicit credence has been given to Dr. Cotton Mather,
who I must say it, though some of his blood runs
298
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 re-
minded 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.
66
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 Wil-
liam 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 gov-
ernment 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
EDWARD RANDOLPH'S PORTRAIT.
299
che 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 in-
structions for the disposal of the troops. Your pres-
ence 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 sensi-
bility 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 fa-
thers 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 Lieu-
300
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
tenant-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 super-
seded 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 chair-
man of the Selectmen was addressing to the Lieuten-
ant-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 per-
sist in bringing these mercenary sworders and mus-
keteers 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.
66
""
“I am not insensible, my good sir, to the natura
EDWARD RANDOLPH'S PORTRAIT.
301
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.”
"The
"Yes," said the British major, who was impatiently
expecting the Lieutenant-Governor's orders.
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.
66
Craving your pardon, young sir," said the ven-
erable Selectman, "let not an evil spirit enter into
We will strive against the oppressor
your words.
with prayer and fasting, as our forefathers would have
done. Like them, moreover, we will submit to what-
ever lot a wise Providence may send us,
ter our own best exertions to amend it.”
always, af-
"And there peep forth the devil's claws!" muttered
Hutchinson, who well understood the nature of Puri-
tan 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
302
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 sig-
nature 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 pict
ure, so as completely to conceal it. His thoughts im-
mediately recurred to the scene of the preceding af
ternoon; 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 sur-
prise burst from every beholder; but the Lieutenant-
Governor's voice had a tone of horror.
66
By Heaven!" said he, in a low,
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, sol-
emnly, “hath Providence scattered away the mist of
EDWARD RANDOLPH'S PORTRAIT.
303
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 visi-
ble 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 look-
ing 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 crush-
ing 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 imme-
morial years, had been all the time acquiring an in-
tenser 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 cred-
ited, was the portrait of Edward Randolph, as he ap-
peared 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 contempla-
tion of it.
"Be warned, then!" whispered Alice.
"He tram-
304
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
pled 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 con-
trivances? See here!"
66
Stay yet a while," said the Selectman, as Hutch-
inson again snatched the pen; "for if ever mortal
man received a warning from a tormented soul, your
Honor is that man!
6
"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 des-
peration, 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.
66
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
EDWARD RANDOLPH'S PORTRAIT.
305
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 ob-
scurity. 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 Ed-
ward 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 com-
plained 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 Peo-
ple's curse?
At the conclusion of this miraculous legend, I in-
quired of mine host whether the picture still remained
in the chamber over our heads; but Mr. Tiffany in-
formed me that it had long since been removed, and
was supposed to be hidden in some out-of-the-way cor-
ner of the New England Museum. Perchance some
curious antiquary may light upon it there, and, with
the assistance of Mr. Howorth, the picture cleaner,
VOL I.
20
806
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 rag-
ing and rattling so loudly in the upper regions of the
Province House, that it seemed as if all the old gov-
ernors 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 ob-
served, 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 lucubra-
tions had attracted to his establishment. Many a
cigar had been smoked within his premises — many
a glass of wine, or more potent aqua vitæ, 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.
308
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
Tiffany nor myself felt any scruple in doing full jus
tice 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 be-
wigged and powdered and embroided 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 inter-
esting 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 doubt-
ful 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 be-
fore 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 mel-
lower moments, he terms a usurpation. Yet prej-
udices 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
LADY ELEANORE'S MANTLE.
309
kindness with either Oliver Cromwell or John Han
cock, 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 Ma-
deira, 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 gov
ernment of Massachusetts Bay, now nearly a hundred
and twenty years ago, a young lady of rank and for
tune arrived from England, to claim his protection a
her guardian. He was her distant relative, but the
nearest who had survived the gradual extinction of he
family; so that no more eligible shelter could be found
for the rich and high-born Lady Eleanore Rochcliff
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 amið
B10
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 de-
volve the responsibility on other hands; since, with
some noble and splendid traits of character, Lady El-
eanore was remarkable for a harsh, unyielding pride,
a haughty consciousness of her hereditary and per-
sonal advantages, which made her almost incapable of
control. Judging from many traditionary anecdotes,
this peculiar temper was hardly less than a mono-
mania; 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 al-
most 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 embroid
ered mantle-which had been wrought

by the most
LADY ELEANORE'S MANTLE.
311
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 glad-
some peal with which it was customary to announce
the arrival of distinguished strangers, Lady Eleanore
Rochcliffe was ushered by a doleful clang, as if calam-
ity had come embodied in her beautiful person. ›
"A very great disrespect!" exclaimed Captain
Langford, an English officer, who had recently
"The fu-
brought dispatches to Governor Shute.
neral 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 beg-
gar must have precedence of a living queen. King
Death confers high privileges.
These remarks were interchanged while the speak-
ers 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 Gov-
ernor 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
312
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 ex-
tended 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 mo-
ment. Yet the spectators were so smitten with her
beauty, and so essential did pride seem to the exist
ence 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."
LADY ELEANORE'S MANTLE.
313
tor;
66
"His name is Jervase Helwyse," answered the Doc-
a youth of no birth or fortune, or other advan-
tages, save the mind and son 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 humili-
ation 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 mes-
sengers 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 bail. Without much extravagance of eu-
logy, the spectacle might even be termed splendid;
for, according to the fashion of the times, the ladies
314
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
shone in rich silks and satins, outspread over wide
projecting hoops; and the gentlemen glittered in gold
embroidery, laid unsparingly upon the purple, or scar-
let, 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 transi-
tory, 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 embroid-
ered mantle, which the gossips whispered was in-
vested 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 handi-
work of a dying woman, and, perchance, owed the fan-
tastic grace of its conception to the delirium of ap-
proaching death.
After the ceremonial greetings had been paid, Lady
Eleanore Rochcliffe stood apart from the mob
guests, insulating herself within a small and distin
LADY ELEANORE'S MANTLE.
315
L
guished 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 deform-
ity 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 it-
self 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 ob-
servers, indeed, detected a feverish flush and alternate
paleness of countenance, with a 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 character- M
istic in her manners and sentiments that it astonished
every right-minded listener, till looking in her face, a
lurking and incomprehensible glance and smile per-
plexed them with doubts both as to her seriousness
and sanity. Gradually, Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe's
circle grew smaller, till only four gentlemen remained
316
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 toler-
ance 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.
66
Why do you haunt me thus?" said she, in a lan-
guid tone, but with a kindlier feeling than she ordina-
rily permitted herself to express. They tell me that
I have done you harm."
66
"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
LADY ELEANORE'S MANTLE.
317
among the guests. And this shall be a symbol that
you have not sought to withdraw yourself from the
chain of human sympathies which whose 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 Gov-
ernor's secretary.
"Pour it down the villain's throat!" cried the Vir-
ginian fiercely.
“Turn him out of the house!" cried Captain Lang-
ford, 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."
66
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, sc
as almost to shroud herself within it.
$18
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
"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 tc
her beautiful face, which-half hidden, half revealed
seemed to belong to some being of mysterious char..
acter and purposes.
"Farewell, Jervase Helwyse!" said she.
"Keep
my image in your remembrance, as you behold it
now."
66
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 Lang-
ford, who had been very active in this affair, was re-
turning 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
LADY ELEANORE'S MANTLE.
319
smile; "and if you be wise you will put up the same
prayer for yourself. Woe to those who shall be smit-
ten by this beautiful Lady Eleanore But yonder
stands the Governor - and I have a word or two for
Good night!
his private ear.
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, al
though 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 un-
foreseen circumstance rendered it necessary to put a
premature close to the festival.
The ball 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 recollec-
tion. 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, in-
somuch 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
320
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 se-
cretary — who had been her most devoted attendants
on the evening of the ball, were the foremost on whom
the plague stroke fell. But the disease, pursuing its
onward progress, soon ceased to be exclusively a pre-
rogative of aristocracy. Its red brand was no longer
conferred like a noble's star, or an order of knight-
hood. 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 stalk-
ing 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 foot-
steps 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 depopu-
lated. There is no other fear so horrible and unhu-
manizing 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 pes-
tilence 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
LADY ELEANORE'S MANTLE.
321
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 wis-
dom might relinquish its devices, now that an un-
earthly 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 conqueror 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
VOL. I.
21
?
322
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
;
monstrous evil had been born. At times, their rage
and despair took the semblance of grinuing 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 mock-
ery: "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
fing abroad the contagion that it typified. At length,
climbing one of the pillars by means of the iron bal-
ustrade, he took down the flag and entered the man-
sion, 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?" ex-
claimed Shute, extending his cane to guard himself
from contact. "There is nothing here but Death.
Back or you will meet him!”
66
"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!
66
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 immedi
ately ascended the staircase, but, on the first landing
LADY ELEANORE'S MANTLE.
323
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 oppo-
nent, he found himself powerless beneath a calm, stern
eye, which possessed the mysterious property of quell-
ing 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.
he.
"Young man, what is your purpose?" demanded
"I seek the Lady Eleanore," answered Jervase
Helwyse, submissively.
66
"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?
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?"
that
"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 caus-
tic 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. Ap-
proach, then! Madness, as I have noted, has that
324
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 cher-
ished 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.
66
'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 distin-
guish 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
LADY ELEANORE'S MANTLE.
325
eurtains. "Whose voice hast thou stolen for thy mur
murs 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, be-
cause 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
Rocheliffe!"
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 intel-
lect, he snatched the fatal mantle and rushed from
the chamber and the house. That night a procession
passed, by torchlight, through the streets, bearing ir
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
326
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 uncer-
tainty 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 dis-
cerned, shrinking into the darkest corner and muf-
fling her face within an embroidered mantle. Suppos-
ing 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 scrupu-
lous is Mr. Tiffany to settle the foundation of his facts,
I could not have believed him one whit the more faith-
fully had he professed himself an eye-witness of the
doings and sufferings of poor Lady Eleanore. Some
sceptics, it is true, might demand documentary evi-
dence, 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
LADY ELEANORE'S MANTLE.
327
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 loyal-
ist 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 flu-
ency of speech. The generous liquid that he had im-
bibed, 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 pa-
thetic 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 ene
mies in those who felt very kindly towards the deso-
fate old soul. But ever and anon, sometimes in the
OLD ESTHER DUDLEY.
329
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 shad-
ows. 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 per-
chance more than slight, metamorphosis, in its trans-
mission to the reader through the medium of a thor-
ough-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 hu-
miliation 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 ser-
vants and military attendants go before him, and lin-
gered 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
Boil which the King had given him to defend. With
330
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 ex-
clamation.
"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 de-
scendant 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 nom
inal 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 an-
tique magnificence of attire. The claims of Esther
Dudley's gentle blood were acknowledged by all the
OLD ESTHER DUDLEY.
331
uccessive 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 super-
stition of the times to invest the old woman with at-
tributes of awe and mystery; fabling that she had en-
tered 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 Mis-
tress 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."
332
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
1
:
“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 gest
ure that expressed immovable resolve. "And when
your Excellency returns in triumph, I will totter inte
the porch to welcome you."
66
My poor old friend!" answered the British Gen-
eral, 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 påst who have seen Governor after Gov-
ernor, in stately pageantry, ascend these steps-whose
whole life has been an observance of majestic cere-
monies, 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 i
OLD ESTHER DUDLEY.
333
into the old lady's hands, drew his cloak around him
for departure. As the General glanced back at Es
ther 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 intc
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 de-
parture of the British troops did not drive the vener-
able 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, when-
ever she paused before it, looked indistinct and ghost-
ike. But it was the general belief that Esther could
334
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
cause the Governors of the overthrown dynasty, with
the beautiful ladies who had once adorned their festi
als, the Indian chiefs who had come up to the Prov-
ince 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 to
wards intruders, among whom she reckoned all per-
sons 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 em-
oire that had been wrested from him.
And did she dwell there in utter loneliness? Rumor
Whenever her chill and withered heart
said, not so.
1
OLD ESTHER DUDLEY.
335
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 punct-
ually as the clock of the Old South told twelve came
the shadows of the Olivers, the Hutchinsons, the Dud-
leys, 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 tradi-
tions, it is certain that Mistress Dudley sometimes as-
sembled 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, feel-
ing 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 an-
swered 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
336
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
with a royal crown, she tempted their sunny sportive
ness 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 loi-
tered such a weary while, and with whom they had
been at play, the children would talk of all the de-
parted worthies of the Province, as far back as Gov-
ernor Belcher and the haughty dame of Sir William
Phipps. It would seem as though they had been sit-
ting 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 rogu
ishly 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 fanev 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
OLD ESTHER DUDLEY.
337
partially crazed. It was found that she had no right
sense of the progress and true state of the Revolution-
ary 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 re-
joiced 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 colo-
nies 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 towns-people 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
veivets 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.
"Mis-
tress Dudley is keeping jubilee for the King of Eng-
land's birthday."
YOU L
22
838
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 apper-
tained.
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 towns-
people. 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, mur-
muring 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 Dud-
OLD ESTHER DUDLEY.
339
ley heard the tramp of many footsteps in the street,
and, looking out at the window, beheld what she con-
strued as the Royal Governor's arrival.
66
"O happy day! O blessed, blessed hour!" she ex-
claimed. 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 bright-
ened 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 gen-
tle 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.
340
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
"Receive my trust! take it quickly!" cried she.
“ for methinks Death is striving to snatch away mɩ
But he comes too late. Thank Heaven for
this blessed hour! God save King George!"
triumph.
66
"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 sud-
denly 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 Mas
sachusetts.
66
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 bid-
len a traitor welcome? Come, Death! come quickly!"
Alas, venerable lady!" said Governor Hancock
ending 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
66
OLD ESTHER DUDLEY.
341
around you. You have treasured up all that time has
rendered worthless the principles, feelings, man-
ners, modes of being and acting, which another gen-
eration 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 for-
ward 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 con-
tinued 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 an-
cestors; and then, my fellow-citizens, onward — on-
ward! We are no longer children of the Past!
""
As the old loyalist concluded his narrative, the en-
thusiasm 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 man-
tel-piece threw out a dying gleam, which vanished as
342
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 multitudi-
nous 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 mo-
tioned 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 re-
tired 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 HAUNTED MIND.
WHAT a singular moment is the first one, when you
have hardly begun to recollect yourself, after starting
from midnight slumber? By unclosing your eyes so
suddenly, you seem to have surprised the personages
of your dream in full convocation round your bed,
and catch one broad glance at them before they can
flit into obscurity. Or, to vary the metaphor, you find
yourself, for a single instant, wide awake in that realm
of illusions, whither sleep has been the passport, and
behold its ghostly inhabitants and wondrous scenery,
with a perception of their strangeness such as you
never attain while the dream is undisturbed. The
distant sound of a church clock is borne faintly on the
wind. You question with yourself, half seriously,
whether it has stolen to your waking ear from some
gray tower that stood within the precincts of your
dream. While yet in suspense, another clock flings
its heavy clang over the slumbering town, with so full
and distinct a sound, and such a long murmur in the
neighboring air, that you are certain it must proceed
from the steeple at the nearest corner. You count
the strokes
one two, and there they cease, with a
booming sound, like the gathering of a third stroke
within the bell.
—
If you could choose an hour of wakefulness out of
the whole night, it would be this. Since your sober
bedtime, at eleven, you have had rest enough to take
off the pressure of yesterday's fatigue; while before
844
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
you, till the sun comes from "far Cathay " to brighten
your window, there is almost the space of a summer
night; one hour to be spent in thought, with the
mind's eye half shut, and two in pleasant dreams,
and two in that strangest of enjoyments, the forget-
fulness alike of joy and woe. The moment of rising
belongs to another period of time, and appears so dis-
tant that the plunge out of a warm bed into the frosty
air cannot yet be anticipated with dismay. Yesterday
has already vanished among the shadows of the past;
to-morrow has not yet emerged from the future. You
have found an intermediate space, where the business
of life does not intrude; where the passing moment
lingers, and becomes truly the present; a spot where
Father Time, when he thinks nobody is watching him,
sits down by the wayside to take breath. Oh, that
he would fall asleep, and let mortals live on without
growing older!
Hitherto you have lain perfectly still, because the
slightest motion would dissipate the fragments of your
slumber. Now, being irrevocably awake, you peep
through the half-drawn window curtain, and observe
that the glass is ornamented with fanciful devices in
frostwork, and that each pane presents something like
a frozen dream. There will be time enough to trace
out the analogy while waiting the summons to break-
fast. Seen through the clear portion of the glass,
where the silvery mountain peaks of the frost scenery
do not ascend, the most conspicuous object is the stee-
ple; the white spire of which directs you to the wintry
lustre of the firmament. You may almost distinguish
the figures on the clock that has just told the hour.
Such a frosty sky, and the snow-covered roofs, and the
ong vista of the frozen street, all white, and the dis
THE HAUNTED MIND.
345
tant water hardened into rock, might make you shiver,
even under four blankets and a woollen comforter.
Yet look at that one glorious star! Its beams are dis-
tinguishable from all the rest, and actually cast the
shadow of the casement on the bed, with a radiance of
deeper hue than moonlight, though not so accurate an
outline.
You sink down and muffle your head in the clothes,
shivering all the while, but less from bodily chill than
the bare idea of a polar atmosphere. It is too cold
even for the thoughts to venture abroad. You specu-
late on the luxury of wearing out a whole existence in
bed, like an oyster in its shell, content with the slug-
gish ecstasy of inaction, and drowsily conscious of
nothing but delicious warmth, such as you now feel
again. Ah! that idea has brought a hideous one in
its train. You think how the dead are lying in their
cold shrouds and narrow coffins, through the drear
winter of the grave, and cannot persuade your fancy
that they neither shrink nor shiver, when the snow is
drifting over their little hillocks, and the bitter blast
howls against the door of the tomb. That gloomy
thought will collect a gloomy multitude, and throw its
complexion over your wakeful hour.
In the depths of every heart there is a tomb and
a dungeon, though the lights, the music, and revelry
above may cause us to forget their existence, and the
buried ones, or prisoners, whom they hide. But some-
times, and oftenest at midnight, these dark receptacles
are flung wide open. In an hour like this, when the
mind has a passive sensibility, but no active strength;
when the imagination is a mirror, imparting vividness
to all ideas, without the power of selecting or control-
ling them; then pray that your griefs may slumber,
}
!
346
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
and the brotherhood of remorse not break their chain.
It is too late! A funeral train comes gliding by your
bed, in which Passion and Feeling assume bodily
shape, and things of the mind become dim spectres to
the eye. There is your earliest Sorrow, a pale young
mourner, wearing a sister's likeness to first love, sadly
beautiful, with a hallowed sweetness in her melan-
choly features, and grace in the flow of her sable robe.
Next appears a shade of ruined loveliness, with dust
among her golden hair, and her bright garments all
faded and defaced, stealing from your glance with
drooping head, as fearful of reproach; she was your
fondest Hope, but a delusive one; so call her Disap-
pointment now. A sterner form succeeds, with a brow
of wrinkles, a look and gesture of iron authority;
there is no name for him unless it be Fatality, an em-
blem of the evil influence that rules your fortunes ; a
demon to whom you subjected yourself by some error
at the outset of life, and were bound his slave forever,
by once obeying him. See! those fiendish lineaments
graven on the darkness, the writhed lip of scorn, the
mockery of that living eye, the pointed finger, touch-
ing the sore place in your heart! Do you remember
any act of enormous folly at which you would blush,
even in the remotest cavern of the earth? Then rec-
ognize your Shame.
Pass, wretched band! Well for the wakeful one, if,
riotously miserable, a fiercer tribe do not surround
him, the devils of a guilty heart, that holds its hell
within itself. What if Remorse should assume the
features of an injured friend? What if the fiend
should come in woman's garments, with a pale beauty
amid sin and desolation, and lie down by your side?
What if he should stand at your bed's foot, in the
i
THE HAUNTED MIND.
347
likeness of a corpse, with a bloody stain upon the
shroud? Sufficient, without such guilt, is this night-
mare of the soul; this heavy, heavy sinking of the
spirits; this wintry gloom about the heart; this indis-
tinct horror of the mind, blending itself with the dark-
ness of the chamber.
By a desperate effort you start upright, breaking
from a sort of conscious sleep, and gazing wildly
round the bed, as if the fiends were anywhere but in
your haunted mind. At the same moment, the slum-
bering embers on the hearth send forth a gleam which
palely illuminates the whole outer room, and flickers
through the door of the bed-chamber, but cannot
quite dispel its obscurity. Your eye searches for
whatever may remind you of the living world. With
eager minuteness you take note of the table near the
fireplace, the book with an ivory knife between its
leaves, the unfolded letter, the hat, and the fallen
glove. Soon the flame vanishes, and with it the whole
scene is gone, though its image remains an instant in
your mind's eye, when darkness has swallowed the
reality. Throughout the chamber there is the same
obscurity as before, but not the same gloom within
your breast. As your head falls back upon the pil-
low, you think-in a whisper be it spoken-how
pleasant, in these night solitudes, would be the rise
and fall of a softer breathing than your own, the
slight pressure of a tenderer bosom, the quiet throb
of a purer heart, imparting its peacefulness to your
troubled one, as if the fond sleeper were involving
you in her dream.
Her influence is over you, though she have no exist-
ence but in that momentary image. You sink down in
a flowery spot, on the borders of sleep and wakeful-
348
TWICE-TOLD TALEs.
ness, while your thoughts rise before you in pictures,
all disconnected, yet all assimilated by a pervading
gladsomeness and beauty. The wheeling of gorgeous
squadrons that glitter in the sun is succeeded by the
merriment of children round the door of a school-
house, beneath the glimmering shadow of old trees, at
the corner of a rustic lane. You stand in the sunny
rain of a summer shower, and wander among the sunny
trees of an autumnal wood, and look upward at the
brightest of all rainbows, overarching the unbroken
sheet of snow, on the American side of Niagara. Your
mind struggles pleasantly between the dancing radi-
ance round the hearth of a young man and his recent
bride, and the twittering flight of birds in spring
about their new-made nest. You feel the merry bound-
ing of a ship before the breeze, and watch the tuneful
feet of rosy girls as they twine their last and merriest
dance in a splendid ball-room, and find yourself in the
brilliant circle of a crowded theatre as the curtain falls
over a light and airy scene.
With an involuntary start you seize hold on con-
sciousness, and prove yourself but half awake, by run-
ning a doubtful parallel between human life and the
hour which has now elapsed. In both you emerge from
mystery, pass through a vicissitude that you can but
imperfectly control, and are borne onward to another
mystery. Now comes the peal of the distant clock,
with fainter and fainter strokes as you plunge farther
into the wilderness of sleep. It is the knell of a tem-
porary death. Your spirit has departed, and strays,
like a free citizen, among the people of a shadowy
world, beholding strange sights, yet without wonder or
dismay. So calm, perhaps, will be the final change; so
undisturbed, as if among familiar things the entrance
of the soul to its Eternal home!
THE VILLAGE UNCLE.
AN IMAGINARY RETROSPECT.
COME! another log upon the hearth. True, our lit
dle parlor is comfortable, especially here, where the old
man sits in his old arm-chair; but on Thanksgiving
night the blaze should dance higher up the chimney,
and send a shower of sparks into the outer darkness.
Toss on an armful of those dry oak chips, the last rel-
ics of the Mermaid's knee timbers, the bones of your
namesake, Susan. Higher yet, and clearer be the
blaze, till our cottage windows glow the ruddiest in
the village, and the light of our household mirth flash
far across the bay to Nahant. And now, come, Susan,
come, my children, draw your chairs round me, all of
you. There is a dimness over your figures! You sit
quivering indistinctly with each motion of the blaze,
which eddies about you like a flood, so that you all
have the look of visions, or people that dwell only in the
firelight, and will vanish from existence as completely
as your own shadows when the flame shall sink among
the embers. Hark! let me listen for the swell of the
surf; it should be audible a mile inland on a nigh
like this. Yes; there I catch the sound, but only an
uncertain murmur, as if a good way down over the
beach; though, by the almanac, it is high tide at eight
o'clock, and the billows must now be dashing within
thirty yards of our door. Ah! the old man's ears are
failing him; and so is his eyesight, and perhaps his
350
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
mind; else you would not all be so shadowy in the
blaze of his Thanksgiving fire.
How strangely the past is peeping over the shoulders
of the present! To judge by my recollections, it is
but a few moments since I sat in another room; yonder
model of a vessel was not there, nor the old chest of
drawers, nor Susan's profile and mine, in that gilt
frame; nothing, in short, except this same fire, which
glimmered on books, papers, and a picture, and half
discovered my solitary figure in a looking-glass. But
it was paler than my rugged old self, and younger, too,
by almost half a century. Speak to me, Susan; speak,
my beloved ones; for the scene is glimmering on my
sight again, and as it brightens you fade away. Oh,
I should be loath to lose my treasure of past happiness,
and become once more what I was then; a hermit in
the depths of my own mind; sometimes yawning over
drowsy volumes, and anon a scribbler of wearier trash
than what I read; a man who had wandered out of the
real world and got into its shadow, where his troubles,
joys, and vicissitudes were of such slight stuff that he
hardly knew whether he lived, or only dreamed of liv-
ing. Thank Heaven, I am an old man now, and have
done with all such vanities.
Still this dimness of mine eyes! Come nearer, Susan,
and stand before the fullest blaze of the hearth. Now
I behold you illuminated from head to foot, in your
clean cap and decent gown, with the dear lock of gray
hair across your forehead, and a quiet smile about your
mouth, while the eyes alone are concealed by the red
gleam of the fire upon your spectacles. There, you
made me tremble again! When the flame quivered,
my sweet Susan, you quivered with it, and grew indis-
tinct, as if melting into the warm light, that my last
THE VILLAGE UNCLE.
351
glimpse of you might be as visionary as the first was,
full many a year since. Do you remember it? You
stood on the little bridge over the brook that runs
across King's Beach into the sea. It was twilight;
the waves rolling in, the wind sweeping by, the crim-
son clouds fading in the west, and the silver moon
brightening above the hill; and on the bridge were
you, fluttering in the breeze like a sea-bird that might
skim away at your pleasure. You seemed a daughter
of the viewless wind, a creature of the ocean foam and
the crimson light, whose merry life was spent in dan-
cing on the crests of the billows, that threw up their
spray to support your footsteps. As I drew nearer I
fancied you akin to the race of mermaids, and thought
how pleasant it would be to dwell with you among the
quiet coves, in the shadow of the cliffs, and to roam
along secluded beaches of the purest sand; and when
our northern shores grew bleak, to haunt the islands,
green and lonely, far amid summer seas.
And yet it
gladdened me, after all this nonsense, to find you noth-
ing but a pretty young girl, sadly perplexed with the
rude behavior of the wind about your petticoats.
Thus I did with Susan as with most other things in
my earlier days, dipping her image into my mind and
coloring it of a thousand fantastic hues, before I could
see her as she really was. Now, Susan, for a sober
picture of our village! It was a small collection of
dwellings that seemed to have been cast up by the sea,
with the rockweed and marine plants that it vomits
after a storm, or to have come ashore among the pipe
staves and other lumber which had been washed from
the deck of an eastern schooner. There was just
space for the narrow and sandy street, between the
beach in front and a precipitous hill that lifted its
352
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
rocky forehead in the rear, among a waste of juniper
bushes and the wild growth of a broken pasture. The
village was picturesque in the variety of its edifices,
though all were rude. Here stood a little old hovel,
built perhaps of driftwood; there a row of boat-houses;
and beyond them a two-story dwelling, of dark and
weather-beaten aspect, the whole intermixed with one
or two snug cottages, painted white, a sufficiency of
pigsties, and a shoemaker's shop. Two grocery stores
stood opposite each other, in the centre of the village.
These were the places of resort, at their idle hours, of
a hardy throng of fishermen, in red baize shirts, oil-
cloth trousers, and boots of brown leather covering the
whole leg; true seven-league boots, but fitter to wade
the ocean than walk the earth. The wearers seemed
amphibious, as if they did but creep out of salt water
to sun themselves; nor would it have been wonderful
to see their lower limbs covered with clusters of little
shell-fish, such as cling to rocks and old ship timber
over which the tide ebbs and flows. When their fleet
of boats was weather-bound, the butchers raised their
price, and the spit was busier than the frying-pan :
for this was a place of fish, and known as such, to all
the country round about; the very air was fishy, being
perfumed with dead sculpins, hardheads, and dogfish
strewn plentifully on the beach. You see, children,
the village is but little changed since your mother
and I were young.
How like a dream it was, when I bent over a pool
of water one pleasant morning, and saw that the ocean
had dashed its spray over me and made me a fisher
man! There were the tarpauling, the baize shirt, the
oil cloth trousers and seven-league boots, and there my
own features, but so reddened with sunburn and sea
THE VILLAGE UNCLE.
353
breezes, that methought I had another face, and on
other shoulders too. The sea-gulls and the loons and
I had now all one trade; we skimmed the crested
waves and sought our prey beneath them, the man
with as keen enjoyment as the birds. Always, when
the east grew purple, I launched my dory, my little
flat-bottomed skiff, and rowed cross-handed to Point
Ledge, the Middle Ledge, or, perhaps beyond Egg
Rock; often, too, did I anchor off Dread Ledge, a spot
of peril to ships unpiloted; and sometimes spread an
adventurous sail and tacked across the bay to South
Shore, casting my lines in sight of Scituate. Ere
nightfall, I hauled my skiff high and dry on the beach,
laden with red rock cod, or the white-bellied ones of
deep water; haddock, bearing the black marks of Saint
Peter's fingers near the gills; the long-bearded hake,
whose liver holds oil enough for a midnight lamp; and
now and then a mighty halibut, with a back broad as
my boat. In the autumn, I trolled and caught those
lovely fish, the mackerel. When the wind was high,
when the whale-boats, anchored off the Point,
nodded their slender masts at each other, and the do-
ries pitched and tossed in the surf, when Nahant
Beach was thundering three miles off, and the spray
broke a hundred feet in air round the distant base of
Egg Rock, when the brimful and boisterous sea
threatened to tumble over the street of our village,
then I made a holiday on shore.
Many such a day did I sit snugly in Mr. Bartlett's
store, attentive to the yarns of Uncle Parker; uncle to
the whole village by right of seniority, but of southern
blood, with no kindred in New England. His figure
is before me now, enthroned upon a mackerel barrel :
a lean old man, of great height, but bent with years,
VOL. I.
23
354
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
and twisted into an uncouth shape by seven broken
limbs; furrowed also, and weather-worn, as if every
gale, for the better part of a century, had caught him
somewhere on the sea. He looked like a harbinger
of tempest; a shipmate of the Flying Dutchman.
After innumerable voyages aboard men-of-war and
merchant-men, fishing schooners and chebacco boats,
the old salt had become master of a handcart, which
he daily trundled about the vicinity, and sometimes.
blew his fish-horn through the streets of Salem. One
of Uncle Parker's eyes had been blown out with gun-
powder, and the other did but glimmer in its socket.
Turning it upward as he spoke, it was his delight to
tell of cruises against the French, and battles with his
own shipmates, when he and an antagonist used to be
seated astride of a sailor's chest, each fastened down.
by a spike nail through his trousers, and there to
fight it out. Sometimes he expatiated on the delicious
flavor of the hagden, a greasy and goose-like fowl,
which the sailors catch with hook and line on the
Grand Banks. He dwelt with rapture on an inter-
minable winter at the Isle of Sables, where he had
gladdened himself, amid polar snows, with the rum
and sugar saved from the wreck of a West India
schooner. And wrathfully did he shake his fist, as
he related how a party of Cape Cod men had robbed
him and his companions of their lawful spoil, and
sailed away with every keg of old Jamaica, leaving
him not a drop to drown his sorrow.
Villains they
were, and of that wicked brotherhood who are said to
tie lanterns to horses' tails, to mislead the mariner
along the dangerous shores of the Cape.
Even now, I seem to see the group of fishermen,
with that old salt in the midst. One fellow sits on
THE VILLAGE UNCLE.
355
the counter, a second bestrides an oil barrel, a third
lolls at his length on a parcel of new cod lines, and
another has planted the tarry seat of his trousers on a
heap of salt, which will shortly be sprinkled over a lot
of fish. They are a likely set of men. Some have
voyaged to the East Indies or the Pacific, and most of
them have sailed in Marblehead schooners to New-
foundland; a few have been no farther than the Mid-
dle Banks, and one or two have always fished along
the shore; but, as Uncle Parker used to say, they have
all been christened in salt water, and know more than
men ever learn in the bushes. A curious figure, by
way of contrast, is a fish dealer from far-up country,
listening with eyes wide open to narratives that might
startle Sinbad the Sailor. Be it well with you, my
brethren! Ye are all gone, some to your graves ashore,
and others to the depths of ocean; but my faith is
strong that ye are happy; for whenever I behold your
forms, whether in dream or vision, each departed
friend is puffing his long nine, and a mug of the right
black strap goes round from lip to lip.
But where was the mermaid in those delightful
times? At a certain window near the centre of the
village appeared a pretty display of gingerbread men
and horses, picture-books and ballads, small fish-
hooks, pins, needles, sugar-plums, and brass thimbles,
articles on which the young fishermen used to expend
their money from pure gallantry. What a picture was
Susan behind the counter! A slender maiden, though
the child of rugged parents, she had the slimmest of
all waists, brown hair curling on her neck, and a com-
plexion rather pale, except when the sea-breeze flushed
it. A few freckles became beauty-spots beneath her
eyelids. How was it, Susan, that you talked and acted
356
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
so carelessly, yet always for the best, doing whatever
was right in your own eyes, and never once doing
wrong in mine, nor shocked a taste that had been mor-
bidly sensitive till now? And whence had you that
happiest gift of brightening every topic with an un-
sought gayety, quiet but irresistible, so that even
gloomy spirits felt your sunshine, and did not shrink
from it? Nature wrought the charm. She made you
a frank, simple, kind-hearted, sensible, and mirthful
girl. Obeying nature, you did free things without
indelicacy, displayed a maiden's thoughts to every eye,
and proved yourself as innocent as naked Eve.
It was beautiful to observe how her simple and
happy nature mingled itself with mine. She kindled a
domestic fire within my heart, and took up her dwell-
ing there, even in that chill and lonesome cavern,
hung round with glittering icicles of fancy. She gave
me warmth of feeling, while the influence of my mind.
made her contemplative. I taught her to love the
moonlight hour, when the expanse of the encircled
bay was smooth as a great mirror and slept in a trans-
parent shadow; while beyond Nahant the wind rippled
the dim ocean into a dreamy brightness, which grew
faint afar off without becoming gloomier. I held her
hand and pointed to the long surf wave, as it rolled
calmly on the beach, in an unbroken line of silver;
we were silent together till its deep and peaceful mur-
mur had swept by us. When the Sabbath sun shone
down into the recesses of the cliffs, I led the mermaid
thither, and told her that those huge, gray, shattered
rocks, and her native sea, that raged forever like a
storm against them, and her own slender beauty in
so stern a scene, were all combined into a strain of
poetry. But on the Sabbath eve, when her mother
THE VILLAGE UNCLE.
357
had gone early to bed, and her gentle sister had smiled
and left us, as we sat alone by the quiet hearth, with
household things around, it was her turn to make me
feel that here was a deeper poetry, and that this was
the dearest hour of all. Thus went on our wooing till
I had shot wild fowl enough to feather our bridal bed,
and the Daughter of the Sea was mine.
I built a cottage for Susan and myself, and made a
gateway in the form of a Gothic arch, by setting up a
whale's jaw-bones. We bought a heifer with her first
calf, and had a little garden on the hill-side, to supply
is with potatoes and green sauce for our fish. Our
parlor, small and neat, was ornamented with our two
profiles in one gilt frame, and with shells and pretty
pebbles on the mantel-piece, selected from the sea's
treasury of such things, on Nahant Beach. On the
desk, beneath the looking-glass, lay the Bible, which I
had begun to read aloud at the book of Genesis, and
the singing-book that Susan used for her evening
psalm. Except the almanac, we had no other litera-
ture. All that I heard of books was when an Indian
history, or tale of shipwreck, was sold by a pedlar or
wandering subscription man, to some one in the vil-
lage, and read through its owner's nose to a slumber-
ous auditory. Like my brother fishermen, I grew into
the belief that all human erudition was collected in
our pedagogue, whose green spectacles and solemn
phiz, as he passed to his little school-house amid a
waste of sand, might have gained him a diploma from
any college in New England. In truth I dreaded him.
When our children were old enough to claim his care,
you remember, Susan, how I frowned, though you
were pleased, at this learned man's encomiums on
their proficiency. I feared to trust them even with
the alphabet; it was the key to a fatal treasure.
358
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
But I loved to lead them by their little hands along
the beach, and point to nature in the vast and the
minute, the sky, the sea, the green earth, the pebbles,
and the shells. Then did I discourse of the mighty
works and coextensive goodness of the Deity, with the
simple wisdom of a man whose mind had profited by
lonely days upon the deep, and his heart by the strong
and pure affections of his evening home. Sometimes
my voice lost itself in a tremulous depth; for I felt
His eye upon me as I spoke. Once, while my wife
and all of us were gazing at ourselves, in the mirror
left by the tide in a hollow of the sand, I pointed to
the pictured heaven below, and bade her observe how
religion was strewn everywhere in our path; since
even a casual pool of water recalled the idea of that
home whither we were travelling, to rest forever with
our children. Suddenly, your image, Susan, and all
the little faces made up of yours and mine, seemed to
fade away and vanish around me, leaving a pale visage
like my own of former days within the frame of a
large looking-glass. Strange illusion!
My life glided on, the past appearing to mingle
with the present and absorb the future, till the whole
lies before me at a glance. My manhood has long
been waning with a stanch decay; my earlier contem-
poraries, after lives of unbroken health, are all at rest,
without having known the weariness of later age; and
now, with a wrinkled forehead and thin white hair as
badges of my dignity, I have become the patriarch,
the Uncle of the village. I love that name; it wid
ens the circle of my sympathies; it joins all the youth-
ful to my household in the kindred of affection.
Like Uncle Parker, whose rheumatic bones were
dashed against Egg Rock, full forty years ago, I am
THE VILLAGE UNCLE.
359
a spinner of long yarns. Seated on the gunwale of a
dory, or on the sunny side of a boat-house, where the
warmth is grateful to my limbs, or by my own hearth,
when a friend or two are there, I overflow with talk,
and yet am never tedious. With a broken voice I
give utterance to much wisdom. Such, Heaven be
praised! is the vigor of my faculties, that many a for-
gotten usage, and traditions ancient in my youth, and
early adventures of myself or others, hitherto effaced
by things more recent, acquire new distinctness in my
memory. I remember the happy days when the had-
dock were more numerous on all the fishing grounds
than sculpins in the surf; when the deep-water cod
swam close in shore, and the dogfish, with his poison-
ous horn, had not learned to take the hook. I can
number every equinoctial storm in which the sea has
overwhelmed the street, flooded the cellars of the vil-
lage, and hissed upon our kitchen hearth. I give the
history of the great whale that was landed on Whale
Beach, and whose jaws, being now my gateway, will
last for ages after my coffin shall have passed beneath
them. Thence it is an easy digression to the halibut,
scarcely smaller than the whale, which ran out six cod
lines, and hauled my dory to the mouth of Boston Har-
bor, before I could touch him with the gaff.
If melancholy accidents be the theme of conversa-
tion, I tell how a friend of mine was taken out of his
boat by an enormous shark; and the sad, true tale of
a young man on the eve of marriage, who had been
nine days missing, when his drowned body floated into
the very pathway, on Marblehead Neck, that had often
led him to the dwelling of his bride, as if the drip-
ping corpse would have come where the mourner was.
With such awful fidelity did that lover return to fulfil
360
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
his vows! Another favorite story is of a crazy maiden
who conversed with angels and had the gift of proph-
ecy, and whom all the village loved and pitied, though
she went from door to door accusing us of sin, exhort-
ing to repentance, and foretelling our destruction by
flood or earthquake. If the young men boast their
knowledge of the ledges and sunken rocks, I speak of
pilots who knew the wind by its scent and the wave
by its taste, and could have steered blindfold to any
port between Boston and Mount Desert, guided only
by the rote of the shore, the peculiar sound of the
surf on each island, beach, and line of rocks, along
the coast. Thus do I talk, and all my auditors grow
wise while they deem it pastime.
I recollect no happier portion of my life than this,
my calm old age. It is like the sunny and sheltered
slope of a valley, where, late in the autumn, the grass
is greener than in August, and intermixed with golden
dandelions that have not been seen till now, since the
first warmth of the year. But with me the verdure
and the flowers are not frost-bitten in the midst of win-
ter. A playfulness has revisited my mind; a sympa-
thy with the young and gay; an unpainful interest in
the business of others; a light and wandering curi-
osity; arising, perhaps, from the sense that my toil on
earth is ended, and the brief hour till bedtime may
be spent in play. Still I have fancied that there is a
depth of feeling and reflection under this superficial
levity peculiar to one who has lived long and is soon
to die.
Show me anything that would make an infant
smile, and you shall behold a gleam of mirth over the
hoary ruin of my visage. I can spend a pleasant hour
in the sun, watching the sports of the village children
THE VILLAGE UNCLE.
361
on the edge of the surf: now they chase the retreat-
ing wave far down over the wet sand; now it steals
softly up to kiss their naked feet; now it comes on-
ward with threatening front, and roars after the laugh-
ing crew, as they scamper beyond its reach. Why
should not an old man be merry too, when the great
sea is at play with those little children? I delight,
also, to follow in the wake of a pleasure party of young
men and girls, strolling along the beach after an early
supper at the Point. Here, with handkerchiefs at
nose, they bend over a heap of eel-grass, entangled in
which is a dead skate, so oddly accoutred with two
legs and a long tail that they mistake him for a
drowned animal. A few steps farther the ladies
scream, and the gentlemen make ready to protect
them against a young shark of the dogfish kind, roll-
ing with a lifelike motion in the tide that has thrown
him up. Next, they are smit with wonder at the black
shells of a wagon load of live lobsters, packed in rock-
weed for the country market. And when they reach
the fleet of dories, just hauled ashore after the day's
fishing, how do I laugh in my sleeve, and sometimes
roar outright, at the simplicity of these young folks
and the sly humor of the fishermen! In winter,
when our village is thrown into a bustle by the arrival
of perhaps a score of country dealers, bargaining for
frozen fish, to be transported hundreds of miles, and
eaten fresh in Vermont or Canada, I am a pleased but
idle spectator in the throng. For I launch my boat
no more.
When the shore was solitary I have found a pleas-
ure that seemed even to exalt my mind, in observing
the sports or contentions of two gulls, as they wheeled
and hovered about each other, with hoarse screams,
362
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
one moment flapping on the foam of the wave, and
then soaring aloft, till their white bosoms melted into
the upper sunshine. In the calm of the summer sun-
set I drag my aged limbs, with a little ostentation of
activity, because I am so old, up to the rocky brow of
the hill. There I see the white sails of many a ves-
sel, outward bound or homeward from afar, and th
black trail of a vapor behind the eastern steamboat;
there, too, is the sun going down, but not in gloom,
and there the illimitable ocean mingling with the sky,
to remind me of Eternity.
But sweetest of all is the hour of cheerful musing
and pleasant talk, that comes between the dusk and
the lighted candle, by my glowing fireside. And never,
even on the first Thanksgiving night, when Susan and
I sat alone with our hopes, nor the second, when a
stranger had been sent to gladden us, and be the visi
ble image of our affection, did I feel such joy as now.
All that belong to me are here; Death has taken none,
nor Disease kept them away, nor Strife divided them
from their parents or each other; with neither poverty
nor riches to disturb them, nor the misery of desires
beyond their lot, they have kept New England's festi-
val round the patriarch's board. For I am a patriarch!
Here I sit among my descendants, in my old arm-chair
and immemorial corner, while the firelight throws an
appropriate glory round my venerable frame. Susan!
My children! Something whispers me that this hap-
piest hour must be the final one, and that nothing re
mains but to bless you all, and depart with a treasure
of recollected joys to heaven. Will you meet me
there? Alas! your figures grow indistinct, fading into
pictures on the air, and now to fainter outlines, while
the fire is glimmering on the walls of a familiar room
THE VILLAGE UNcle.
363
and shows the book that I flung down, and the sheet
that I left half written, some fifty years ago. I lift
my eyes to the looking-glass and perceive myself alone,
unless those be the mermaid's features retiring into
the depths of the mirror with a tender and melancholy
smile.
Ah! one feels a chillness, not bodily, but about the
heart, and, moreover, a foolish dread of looking behind
him, after these pastimes. I can imagine precisely
how a magician would sit down in gloom and terror,
after dismissing the shadows that had personated dead
or distant people, and stripping his cavern of the un-
real splendor which had changed it to a palace. And
now for a moral to my reverie. Shall it be that, since
fancy can create so bright a dream of happiness, it
were better to dream on from youth to age, than to
awake and strive doubtfully for something real. Oh
the slight tissue of a dream can no more preserve us
from the stern reality of misfortune than a robe of
cobweb could repel the wintry blast. Be this the
moral then. In chaste and warm affections, humble
wishes, and honest toil for some useful end, there is
health for the mind, and quiet for the heart, the pros
pect of a happy life, and the fairest hope of heaven.
7
THE AMBITIOUS GUEST.
ONE September night a family had gathered round
their hearth, and piled it high with the driftwood or
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 grand
mother, 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 de-
scended on the valley of the Saco. They dwelt in a
cold spot and a dangerous one; for a mountain tow-
ered above their heads, so steep, that the stones would
often rumble down its sides and startle them at mid-
night.
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 lamen-
tation, 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
THE AMBITIOUS GUEST.
365
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.
The
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.
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 tav-
erns where the traveller pays only for food and lodg-
ing, 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 despond-
ency, 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
:
366
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
child that held out its arms to him. One glance and
smile placed the stranger on a footing of innocen*
familiarity with the eldest daughter.
"Ah, this fire is the right thing!" cried he; “espe
cially when there is such a pleasant circle round it. 1
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 knap-
sack off the young man's shoulders.
"Yes; to Burlington, and far enough beyond," re-
plied 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 kindlec
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 op
posite precipice. The family held their breath, be-
cause they knew the sound, and their guest held his by
instinct.
for
"The old mountain has thrown a stone at us,
fear we should forget him," said the landlord, recover
ing himself. "He sometimes nods his head and
threatens to come down; but we are old neighbors,
and agree together pretty well upon the whole. Be-
sides we have a sure place of refuge hard by if he
should be coming in good earnest."
THE AMBITIOUS GUEST.
367
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 kind-
ness 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 gath-
ered 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
30 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,
368
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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!
6
There was a continual flow of natural emotion, gush
ing forth amid abstracted reverie, which enabled the
family to understand this young man's sentiments,
though so foreign from their own. With quick sensi-
bility 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 my-
self 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."
THE AMBITIOUS GUEST.
369
I
"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,
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 re-
proachful 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 Little-
ton, or some other township round the White Mount-
ains; 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 cur
nature to desire a monument, be it slate or marble, or
a pillar of granite, or a glorious memory in the uni-
versal 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
VOL. I.
24
370
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
had been put to bed in another room, but with an
open door between, so that they could be heard talk-
ing 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 cheer-
ful 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 con-
tinue their journey or put up here for the night."
66
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.
THE AMBITIOUS GUEST.
371
"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
or 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 re-
press 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.
66
"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 com-
plains of lonesomeness at her mother's side. Shall I
put these feelings into words?"
66
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 often-
est 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
372
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 grave-clothes some years be-
fore, 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 supersti-
tion 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.
THE AMBITIOUS GUEST.
373
"Don't talk so, grandmother!" said the girl, shud
dering.
"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 monu
ments," murmured the stranger youth. "I wonder
how mariners feel when the ship is sinking, and they,
unknown and undistinguished, are to be buried to-
gether in the ocean that wide and nameless sep-
ulchre?"
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, with-
out 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 vic-
tims rushed from their cottage, and sought refuge in
what they deemed a safer spot-where, in contempla-
tion 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
374
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 steal-
ing 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 inhabit-
ants 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 sup-
pose 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 suffi-
cient grounds for such a conjecture. Woe for the
high-souled youth, with his dream of Earthly Immor-
tality! 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?

Ju18 1930
THE SISTER YEARS.
LAST night, between eleven and twelve o'clock,
when the Old Year was leaving her final footprints on
the borders of Time's empire, she found herself in
possession of a few spare moments, and sat down-
of all places in the world—on the steps of our new
City Hall. The wintry moonlight showed that she
looked weary of body and sad of heart, like many an-
other wayfarer of earth. Her garments, having been
exposed to much foul weather and rough usage, were
in very ill condition; and as the hurry of her journey
had never before allowed her to take an instant's rest,
her shoes were so worn as to be scarcely worth the
mending. But, after trudging only a little distance
farther, this poor Old Year was destined to enjoy a
long, long sleep. I forgot to mention that, when she
seated herself on the steps, she deposited by her side
a very capacious bandbox, in which, as is the custom
among travellers of her sex, she carried a great deal
of valuable property. Besides this luggage, there was
a folio book under her arm, very much resembling the
annual volume of a newspaper. Placing this volume
across her knees, and resting her elbows upon it, with
her forehead in her hands, the weary, bedraggled,
world-worn Old Year heaved a heavy sigh, and ap-
peared to be taking no very pleasant retrospect of her
past existence.
While she thus awaited the midnight knell that
was to summon her to the innumerable sisterhood of
376
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
departed Years, there came a young maiden treading
lightsomely on tiptoe along the street, from the direc-
tion of the Railroad Depot. She was evidently a
stranger, and perhaps had come to town by the even-
ing train of cars. There was a smiling cheerfulness
in this fair maiden's face, which bespoke her fully
confident of a kind reception from the multitude of
people with whom she was soon to form acquaintance.
Her dress was rather too airy for the season, and was
bedizened with fluttering ribbons and other vanities,
which were likely soon to be rent away by the fierce
storms or to fade in the hot sunshine, amid which she
was to pursue her changeful course. But still she was
a wonderfully pleasant looking figure, and had so much
promise and such an indescribable hopefulness in her
aspect, that hardly anybody could meet her without an-
ticipating some very desirable thing-the consumma-
tion of some long-sought good — from her kind offices.
A few dismal characters there may be, here and there
about the world, who have so often been trifled with
by young maidens as promising as she, that they have
now ceased to pin any faith upon the skirts of the
New Year. But, for my own part, I have great faith
in her; and should I live to see fifty more such, still,
from each of these successive sisters, I shall reckon
upon receiving something that will be worth living for.
The New Year for this young maiden was no less
a personage — carried all her goods and chattels in a
basket of no great size or weight, which hung upon
her arm.
She greeted the disconsolate Old Year with
great affection, and sat down beside her on the steps
of the City Hall, waiting for the signal to begin her
rambles through the world. The two were own sisters,
being both granddaughters of Time; and though one
THE SISTER YEARS.
377
looked so much older than the other, it was rather
owing to hardships and trouble than to age, since
there was but a twelvemonth's difference between
them.
"Well, my dear sister," said the New Year, after
the first salutations, "you look almost tired to death.
What have you been about during your sojourn in this
part of Infinite Space?"
66
Oh, I have it all recorded here in my Book of
Chronicles," answered the Old Year, in a heavy tone.
"There is nothing that would amuse you; and you
will soon get sufficient knowledge of such matters
from your own personal experience. It is but tire-
some reading."
Nevertheless, she turned over the leaves of the folio,
and glanced at them by the light of the moon, feeling
an irresistible spell of interest in her own biography,
although its incidents were remembered without pleas
ure. The volume, though she termed it her Book of
Chronicles, seemed to be neither more nor less than the
"Salem Gazette" for 1838; in the accuracy of which
journal this sagacious Old Year had so much confi-
dence that she deemed it needless to record her his-
tory with her own pen.
"What have you been doing in the political way?"
asked the New Year.
66
Why, my course here in the United States," said
the Old Year, "though perhaps I ought to blush at
the confession,- my political course, I must acknowl-
edge, has been rather vacillatory, sometimes inclining
towards the Whigs then causing the Administra-
tion party to shout for triumph-- and now again up-
lifting what seemed the almost prostrate banner of
the Opposition; so that historians will hardly know
378
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
what to make of me in this respect. But the Loco
Focos"
“I do not like these party nicknames," interrupted
her sister, who seemed remarkably touchy about some
points. "Perhaps we shall part in better humor if
we avoid any political discussion.'
""
"With all my heart," replied the Old Year, who
had already been tormented half to death with squab-
bles of this kind. "I care not if the names of Whig
or Tory, with their interminable brawls about Banks
and the Sub-Treasury, Abolition, Texas, the Florida
War, and a million of other topics which you will
learn soon enough for your own comfort-I care not,
I say, if no whisper of these matters ever reaches my
ears again. Yet they have occupied so large a share
of my attention that I scarcely know what else to tell
you. There has indeed been a curious sort of war on
the Canada border, where blood has streamed in the
names of Liberty and Patriotism; but it must remain
for some future, perhaps far distant Year, to tell
whether or no those holy names have been rightfully
invoked. Nothing so much depresses me, in my view
of mortal affairs, as to see high energies wasted, and
human life and happiness thrown away, for ends that
appear oftentimes unwise, and still oftener remain un-
accomplished. But the wisest people and the best
keep a steadfast faith that the progress of Mankind
is onward and upward, and that the toil and anguish
of the path serve to wear away the imperfections of
the Immortal Pilgrim, and will be felt no more when
they have done their office.'

66
Perhaps," cried the hopeful New Year,-"per-
haps I shall see that happy day!”
"I doubt whether it be so close at hand," answered
THE SISTER YEARS.
379
the Old Year, gravely smiling. "You will soon grow
weary of looking for that blessed consummation, and
will turn for amusement (as has frequently been my
own practice) to the affairs of some sober little city,
like this of Salem. Here we sit on the steps of the
new City Hall, which has been completed under my
administration; and it would make you laugh to see
how the game of politics, of which the Capitol at
Washington is the great chess-board, is here played
in miniature. Burning Ambition finds its fuel here;
here Patriotism speaks boldly in the people's behalf,
and virtuous Economy demands retrenchment in the
emoluments of a lamplighter; here the Aldermen
range their senatorial dignity around the Mayor's
chair of state, and the Common Council feel that they
have liberty in charge. In short, human weakness
and strength, passion and policy, Man's tendencies,
his aims and modes of pursuing them, his individual
character and his character in the mass, may be
studied almost as well here as on the theatre of na-
tions: and with this great advantage, that, be the
lesson ever so disastrous, its Liliputian scope still
makes the beholder smile."
"Have you done much for the improvement of the
City?" asked the New Year. "Judging from what
little I have seen, it appears to be ancient and time-
worn."
"I have opened the Railroad," said the elder Year,
“and half a dozen times a day you will hear the bell
(which once summoned the Monks of a Spanish Con-
vent to their devotions) announcing the arrival or
departure of the cars. Old Salem now wears a much
livelier expression than when I first beheld her.
Strangers rumble down from Boston by hundreds
380
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
at a time. New faces throng in Essex Street. Rail-
road hacks and omnibuses rattle over the pavements.
There is a perceptible increase of oyster shops, and
other establishments for the accommodation of a tran-
sitory diurnal multitude. But a more important
change awaits the venerable town. An immense ac-
cu....ulation of musty prejudices will be carried off by
the free circulation of society. A peculiarity of char-
acter, of which the inhabitants themselves are hardly
sensible, will be rubbed down and worn away by the
attrition of foreign substances. Much of the result
will be good; there will likewise be a few things not
so good. Whether for better or worse, there will be
a probable diminution of the moral influence of
wealth, and the sway of an aristocratic class, which,
from an era far beyond my memory, has held firmer
dominion here than in any other New England town."
The Old Year having talked away nearly all of
her little remaining breath, now closed her Book of
Chronicles, and was about to take her departure. But
her sister detained her a while longer, by inquiring
the contents of the huge bandbox which she was so
painfully lugging along with her.
"These are merely a few trifles," replied the Old
Year, "which I have picked up in my rambles, and
am going to deposit in the receptacle of things past
and forgotten. We sisterhood of Years never carry
anything really valuable out of the world with us.
Here are patterns of most of the fashions which I
brought into vogue, and which have already lived out
their allotted term. You will supply their place with
others equally ephemeral. Here, put up in little
China pots, like rouge, is a considerable lot of beauti
ful women's bloom, which the disconsolate fair ones
THE SISTER YEARS.
381
owe me a bitter grudge for stealing. I have likewise
a quantity of men's dark hair, instead of which, I have
left gray locks, or none at all. The tears of widows
and other afflicted mortals, who have received com-
fort during the last twelve months, are preserved in
some dozens of essence bottles, well corked and sealed
I have several bundles of love-letters, eloquently
breathing an eternity of burning passion, which grew
cold and perished almost before the ink was dry.
Moreover, here is an assortment of many thousand
broken promises, and other broken ware, all very light
and packed into little space. The heaviest articles
in my possession are a large parcel of disappointed
hopes, which a little while ago were buoyant enough
to have inflated Mr. Lauriat's balloon."
"I have a fine lot of hopes here in my basket,"
remarked the New Year. "They are a sweet-smelling
flower a species of rose."
"They soon lose their perfume," replied the sombre
Old Year. "What else have you brought to insure a
welcome from the discontented race of mortals?
66
66
Why, to say the truth, little or nothing else," said
her sister, with a smile, save a few new Annuals
and Almanacs, and some New Year's gifts for the
children. But I heartily wish well to poor mortals,
and mean to do all I can for their improvement and
happiness."
It is a good resolution," rejoined the Old Year;
"and, by the way, I have a plentiful assortment of
good resolutions, which have now grown so stale and
musty that I am ashamed to carry them any farther.
Only for fear that the City authorities would send Con-
stable Mansfield with a warrant after me, I should toss
them into the street at once. Many other matters go
382
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
to make up the contents of my bandbox, but the whole
lot would not fetch a single bid, even at an auction of
worn-out furniture; and as they are worth nothing
either to you or anybody else, I need not trouble you
with a longer catalogue.'
>"
"And must I also pick up such worthless luggage in
ny travels?" asked the New Year.
"Most certainly and well, if you have no heavier
Load to bear," replied the other. “And now, my dear
sister, I must bid you farewell, earnestly advising and
exhorting you to expect no gratitude nor good-will from
this peevish, unreasonable, inconsiderate, ill-intending,
and worse-behaving world. However warmly its in-
habitants may seem to welcome you, yet, do what you
may, and lavish on them what means of happiness you
please, they will still be complaining, still craving what
is not in your power to give, still looking forward to
come other Year for the accomplishment of projects
which ought never to have been formed, and which, if
successful, would only provide new occasions of dis-
content. If these ridiculous people ever see anything
tolerable in you, it will be after you are gone for-
ever."
"But I," cried the fresh-hearted New Year, "I
shall try to leave men wiser than I find them. I will
offer them freely whatever good gifts Providence per-
mits me to distribute, and will tell them to be thankful
for what they have, and humbly hopeful for more; and
surely, if they are not absolute fools, they will conde-
scend to be happy, and will allow me to be a happy
Year. For my happiness must depend on them.”
"Alas for you, then, my poor sister!" said the Old
Year, sighing, as she uplifted her burden.
" We.
grandchildren of Time, are born to trouble.
Happi
THE SISTER YEARS.
383
ness, they say, dwells in the mansions of Eternity;
but we can only lead mortals thither, step by step, with
reluctant murmurings, and ourselves must perish or
the threshold. But hark! my task is done."
The clock in the tall steeple of Dr. Emerson's
church struck twelve; there was a response from Dr.
Flint's, in the opposite quarter of the city; and while
the strokes were yet dropping into the air, the Old
Year either flitted or faded away, - and not the wis
dom and might of Angels, to say nothing of the re-
morseful yearnings of the millions who had used her
ill, could have prevailed with that departed Year to
return one step. But she, in the company of Time
and all her kindred, must hereafter hold a reckoning
with Mankind. So shall it be, likewise, with the maid-
enly New Year, who, as the clock ceased to strike, arose
from the steps of the City Hall, and set out rather
timorously on her earthly course.
"A happy New Year!" cried a watchman, eying
her figure very questionably, but without the least
suspicion that he was addressing the New Year in
person.
"Thank you kindly! said the New Year; and she
gave the watchman one of the roses of hope from her
basket. "May this flower keep a sweet smell, long
after I have bidden you good-by."
Then she stepped on more briskly through the silent
streets; and such as were awake at the moment heard
her footfall, and said, "The New Year is come!"
Wherever there was a knot of midnight roisterers they
quaffed her health. She sighed, however, to perceive
that the air was tainted-as the atmosphere of this
world must continually be with the dying breaths of
mortals who had lingered just long enough for her to
384
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
bury them. But there were millions left alive to
rejoice at her coming; and so she pursued her way
with confidence, strewing emblematic flowers on the
doorstep of almost every dwelling, which some persons
will gather up and wear in their bosoms, and others
will trample under foot. The Carrier Boy can only
say further that, early this morning, she filled his bas-
ket with New Year's Addresses, assuring him that the
whole City, with our new Mayor, and the Aldermen
and Common Council at its head, would make a general
rush to secure copies. Kind Patrons, will not you
deem the pledge of the NEW YEAR?
SNOW-FLAKES.
THERE is snow in yonder cold gray sky of the
norning! — and, through the partially frosted win
dow panes, I love to watch the gradual beginning of
the storm. A few feathery flakes are scattered widely
through the air, and hover downward with uncertain
flight, now almost alighting on the earth, now whirled
again aloft into remote regions of the atmosphere.
These are not the big flakes, heavy with moisture,
which melt as they touch the ground, and are porten-
tous of a soaking rain. It is to be, in good earnest, a
wintry storm. The two or three people visible on the
sidewalks have an aspect of endurance, a blue-nosed,
frosty fortitude, which is evidently assumed in antici-
pation of a comfortless and blustering day. By night-
fall, or at least before the sun sheds another glimmer-
ing smile upon us, the street and our little garden will
be heaped with mountain snow-drifts. The soil, al-
ready frozen for weeks past, is prepared to sustain
whatever burden may be laid upon it; and, to a
northern eye, the landscape will lose its melancholy
bleakness and acquire a beauty of its own, when
Mother Earth, like her children, shall have put on
the fleecy garb of her winter's wear. The cloud
spirits are slowly weaving her white mantle. As yet,
indeed, there is barely a rime like hoarfrost over the
brown surface of the street; the withered grass of the
grass-plat is still discernible; and the slated roofs of
the houses do but begin to look gray instead of black,
VOL. I
25
386
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
All the snow that has yet fallen within the circumfer
ence of my view, were it heaped up together, would
hardly equal the hillock of a grave. Thus gradually,
by silent and stealthy influences, are great changes
wrought. These little snow particles, which the storm
spirit flings by handfuls through the air, will bury the
great earth under their accumulated mass, nor permit
her to behold her sister sky again for dreary months.
We, likewise, shall lose sight of our mother's familiar
visage, and must content ourselves with looking heaven.
ward the oftener.
Now, leaving the storm to do his appointed office,
let us sit down, pen in hand, by our fireside. Gloomy
as it may seem, there is an influence productive of
cheerfulness, and favorable to imaginative thought, in
the atmosphere of a snowy day. The native of a
southern clime may woo the muse beneath the heavy
shade of summer foliage, reclining on banks of turf,
while the sound of singing birds and warbling rivulets
chimes in with the music of his soul. In our brief
summer, I do not think, but only exist in the vague
enjoyment of a dream. My hour of inspiration-if
that hour ever comes is when the green log hisses
upon the hearth, and the bright flame, brighter for the
gloom of the chamber, rustles high up the chimney,
and the coals drop tinkling down among the glowing
heaps of ashes. When the casement rattles in the
gust, and the snow-flakes or the sleety raindrops pel
hard against the window panes, then I spread out my
sheet of paper, with the certainty that thoughts and
fancies will gleam forth upon it like stars at twilight,
or like violets in May, perhaps to fade as soon.
However transitory their glow, they at least shine
amid the darksome shadow which the clouds of the
SNOW-FLAKES.
387
outward sky fling through the room. Blessed, there
fore, and reverently welcomed by me, her true-born
son, be New England's winter, which makes us, one
and all, the nurslings of the storm, and sings a famil
iar lullaby even in the wildest shriek of the December
blast. Now look we forth again, and see how much of
his task the storm spirit has done.
•
Slow and sure! He has the day, perchance the
week, before him, and may take his own time to ac-
complish Nature's burial in snow. A smooth mantle
is scarcely yet thrown over the withered grass-plat,
and the dry stocks of annuals still thrust themselves
through the white surface in all parts of the garden.
The leafless rose-bushes stand shivering in a shallow
snow-drift, looking, poor things! as disconsolate as if
they possessed a human consciousness of the dreary
scene. This is a sad time for the shrubs that do not
perish with the summer; they neither live nor die;
what they retain of life seems but the chilling sense of
death. Very sad are the flower shrubs in midwinter!
The roofs of the houses are now all white, save where
the eddying wind has kept them bare at the bleak cor-
ners. To discern the real intensity of the storm, we
must fix upon some distant object, as yonder spire,
and observe how the riotous gust fights with the
descending snow throughout the intervening space.
Sometimes the entire prospect is obscured; then,
again, we have a distinct, but transient, glimpse of
the tall steeple, like a giant's ghost; and now the
dense wreaths sweep between, as if demons were fling-
ing snow-drifts at each other in mid-air. Look next
into the street, where we have an amusing parallel to
the combat of those fancied demons in the upper re-
gions. It is a snow battle of school-boys. What
388
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
pretty satire on war and military glory might be writ
ten, in the form of a child's story, by describing the
snow-ball fights of two rival schools, the alternate de-
feats and victories of each, and the final triumph of
one party, or perhaps of neither! What pitched bat-
tles, worthy to be chanted in Homeric strains! What
storming of fortresses, built all of massive snow blocks!
What feats of individual prowess, and embodied on-
sets of martial enthusiasm! And when some well-con-
tested and decisive victory had put a period to the
war, both armies should unite to build a lofty monu-
ment of snow upon the battle-field and crown it with
the victor's statue, hewn of the same frozen marble.
In a few days or weeks thereafter the passer-by would
observe a shapeless mound upon the level common;
and, unmindful of the famous victory, would ask,-
"How came it there? Who reared it? And what
means it?"
The shattered pedestal of many a battle
monument has provoked these questions when none
could answer.
C
Turn we again to the fireside, and sit musing there,
lending our ears to the wind, till perhaps it shall seem
like an articulate voice, and dictate wild and airy mat-
ter for the pen. Would it might inspire me to sketch
out the personification of a New England winter!
And that idea, if I can seize the snow-wreathed fig-
ures that flit before my fancy, shall be the theme of
the next page.
How does Winter herald his approach? By the
shrieking blast of latter autumn, which is Nature's cry
of lamentation, as the destroyer rushes among the
shivering groves where she has lingered, and scatters
the sear leaves upon the tempest. When that cry is
heard, the people wrap themselves in cloaks, and
SNOW-FLAKES.
389
shake their heads disconsolately, saying,— “Winter is
at hand!"
Then the axe of the woodcutter echoes
sharp and diligently in the forest; then the coal
merchants rejoice, because each shriek of Nature in
her agony adds something to the price of coal per ton;
then the peat smoke spreads its aromatic fragrance
through the atmosphere. A few days more; and at
eventide the children look out of the window, and
dimly perceive the flaunting of a snowy mantle in the
air. It is stern Winter's vesture. They crowd around
the hearth, and cling to their mother's gown, or press
between their father's knees, affrighted by the hollow
roaring voice that bellows adown the wide flue of the
chimney. It is the voice of Winter; and when par-
ents and children hear it, they shudder and exclaim,
-"Winter is come! Cold Winter has begun his
reign already!” Now, throughout New England, each
hearth becomes an altar, sending up the smoke of a
continued sacrifice to the immitigable deity who tyran-
nizes over forest, country side, and town. Wrapped
in his white mantle, his staff a huge icicle, his beard
and hair a wind-tossed snow-drift, he travels over the
land, in the midst of the northern blast; and woe to
the homeless wanderer whom he finds upon his path!
There he lies stark and stiff, a human shape of ice,
on the spot where Winter overtook him. On strides
the tyrant over the rushing rivers and broad lakes,
which turn to rock beneath his footsteps. His dreary
empire is established; all around stretches the deso-
lation of the Pole. Yet not ungrateful be his New
England children- for Winter is our sire, though a
stern and rough one not ungrateful even for the se-
verities which have nourished our unyielding strength
of character.
And let us thank him, too, for the
390
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
sleigh-rides, cheered by the music of merry bells
for the crackling and rustling hearth, when the ruddy
firelight gleams on hardy Manhood and the blooming
cheek of Woman for all the home enjoyments, and
the kindred virtues, which flourish in a frozen soil.
Not that we grieve, when, after some seven months of
storm and bitter frost, Spring, in the guise of a flower-
crowned virgin, is seen driving away the hoary despot,
pelting him with violets by the handful, and strewing
green grass on the path behind him. Often, ere he
will give up his empire, old Winter rushes fiercely
back, and hurls a snow-drift at the shrinking form of
Spring; yet, step by step, he is compelled to retreat
northward, and spends the summer months within the
Arctic circle.
Such fantasies, intermixed among graver toils of
mind, have made the winter's day pass pleasantly.
Meanwhile, the storm has raged without abatement,
and now, as the brief afternoon declines, is tossing
denser volumes to and fro about the atmosphere. On
the window-sill there is a layer of snow reaching
half way up the lowest pane of glass. The garden is
one unbroken bed. Along the street are two or three
spots of uncovered earth, where the gust has whirled
away the snow, heaping it elsewhere to the fence tops,
or piling huge banks against the doors of houses. A
solitary passenger is seen, now striding mid-leg deep
across a drift, now scudding over the bare ground,
while his cloak is swollen with the wind. And now
the jingling of bells, a sluggish sound, responsive to
the horse's toilsome progress through the unbroken
drifts, announces the passage of a sleigh, with a boy
clinging behind, and ducking his head to escape detec
tion by the driver. Next comes a sledge, laden with
SNOW-FLAKES.
391
wood for some unthrifty housekeeper, whom winter
has surprised at a cold hearth. But what dismal
equipage now struggles along the uneven street? A
sable hearse, bestrewn with snow, is bearing a dead
man through the storm to his frozen bed. Oh, how
dreary is a burial in winter, when the bosom of Mother
Earth has no warmth for her poor child!
Evening the early eve of December - begins to
spread its deepening veil over the comfortless scene,
the firelight gradually brightens, and throws my flick-
ering shadow upon the walls and ceiling of the cham-
ber; but still the storm rages and rattles against the
windows. Alas! I shiver, and think it time to be
disconsolate. But, taking a farewell glance at dead
nature in her shroud, I perceive a flock of snow-birds
skimming lightsomely through the tempest, and flit-
ting from drift to drift, as sportively as swallows in
the delightful prime of summer. Whence come they?
Where do they build their nests and seek their food?
Why, having airy wings, do they not follow summer
around the earth, instead of making themselves the
playmates of the storm, and fluttering on the dreary
verge of the winter's eve? I know not whence they
come, nor why; yet my spirit has been cheered by
that wandering flock of snow-birds.
1
THE SEVEN VAGABONDS.
RAMBLING on foot in the spring of my life and the
summer of the year, I came one afternoon to a point
which gave me the choice of three directions. Straight
before me the main road extended its dusty length to
Boston; on the left a branch went towards the sea,
and would have lengthened my journey a trifle of
twenty or thirty miles; while, by the right-hand path
I might have gone over hills and lakes to Canada,
visiting in my way the celebrated town of Stamford.
On a level spot of grass, at the foot of the guide-post,
appeared an object which, though locomotive on a dif-
ferent principle, reminded me of Gulliver's portable
mansion among the Brobdignags. It was a huge cov-
ered wagon, or, more properly, a small house on
wheels, with a door on one side and a window shaded
by green blinds on the other. Two horses, munching
provender out of the baskets which muzzled them,
were fastened near the vehicle: a delectable sound of
music proceeded from the interior; and I immediately
conjectured that this was some itinerant show halting
at the confluence of the roads to intercept such idle
travellers as myself. A shower had long been climb-
ing up the western sky, and now hung so blackly over
my onward path that it was a point of wisdom to seek
shelter here.
"Halloo! Who stands guard here? Is the door
keeper asleep?" cried I, approaching a ladder of two
or three steps which was let down from the wagon.
THE SEVEN VAGABONDS.
393
The music ceased at my summons, and there ap
peared at the door, not the sort of figure that I had
mentally assigned to the wandering showman, but a
most respectable old personage, whom I was sorry to
have addressed in so free a style. He wore a snuff-
colored coat and smallclothes, with white top-boots,
and exhibited the mild dignity of aspect and manner
which may often be noticed in aged schoolmasters,
and sometimes in deacons, selectmen, or other poten
tates of that kind. A small piece of silver was my
passport within his premises, where I found only one
other person, hereafter to be described.
“This is a dull day for business," said the old gen-
tleman, as he ushered me in, "but I merely tarry
here to refresh the cattle, being bound for the camp-
meeting at Stamford."
Perhaps the movable scene of this narrative is still
peregrinating New England, and may enable the
reader to test the accuracy of my description. The
spectacle for I will not use the unworthy term of
puppet show-consisted of a multitude of little peo-
ple assembled on a miniature stage. Among them
were artisans of every kind, in the attitudes of their
toil, and a group of fair ladies and gay gentlemen
standing ready for the dance; a company of foot-sol-
diers formed a line across the stage, looking stern,
grim, and terrible enough, to make it a pleasant con-
sideration that they were but three inches high; and
conspicuous above the whole was seen a Merry An-
drew, in the pointed cap and motley coat of his pro
fession. All the inhabitants of this mimic world were
motionless, like the figures in a picture, or like that
people who one moment were alive in the midst of
their business and delights, and the next were trans
894
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
formed to statues, preserving an eternal semblance of
labor that was ended, and pleasure that could be felt
no more. Anon, however, the old gentleman turned
the handle of a barrel organ, the first note of which
produced a most enlivening effect upon the figures,
and awoke them all to their proper occupations and
amusements. By the self-same impulse the tailor
plied his needle, the blacksmith's hammer descended
upon the anvil, and the dancers whirled away on
feathery tiptoes; the company of soldiers broke into
platoons, retreated from the stage, and were succeeded
by a troop of horse, who came prancing onward with
such a sound of trumpets and trampling of hoofs as
might have startled Don Quixote himself; while an old
toper, of inveterate ill habits, uplifted his black bottle
and took off a hearty swig. Meantime the Merry An-
drew began to caper and turn somersets, shaking his
sides, nodding his head, and winking his eyes in as
life-like a manner as if he were ridiculing the non-
sense of all human affairs, and making fun of the
whole multitude beneath him. At length the old
magician (for I compared the showman to Prospero
entertaining his guests with a mask of shadows)
paused that I might give utterance to my wonder.
“What an admirable piece of work is this!" ex-
claimed I, lifting up my hands in astonishment.
Indeed I liked the spectacle, and was tickled with
the old man's gravity as he presided at it, for I had
none of that foolish wisdom which reproves every
occupation that is not useful in this world of vanities.
If there be a faculty which I possess more perfectly
than most men, it is that of throwing myself mentally
into situations foreign to my own, and detecting, with
a cheerful eye, the desirable circumstances of each
THE SEVEN VAGABONDS.
395
I could have envied the life of this gray-headed show-
man, spent as it had been in a course of safe and
pleasurable adventure, in driving his huge vehicle
sometimes through the sands of Cape Cod, and some-
times over the rough forest roads of the north and
east, and halting now on the green before a village
meeting-house, and now in a paved square of the me
tropolis. How often must his heart have been glad
dened by the delight of children as they viewed these
animated figures! or his pride indulged by harangu-
ing learnedly to grown men on the mechanical powers
which produced such wonderful effects, or his ga
lantry brought into play (for this is an attribute
which such grave men do not lack) by the visits of
pretty maidens! And then with how fresh a feeling
must he return, at intervals, to his own peculiar home!
"I would I were assured of as happy a life as his,"
thought I.
Though the showman's wagon might have accom-
modated fifteen or twenty spectators, it now contained
only himself and me, and a third person at whom I
threw a glance on entering. He was a neat and thin
young man of two or three and twenty; his drab hat,
and green frock coat with velvet collar, were smart,
though no longer new; while a pair of green specta
cles that seemed needless to his brisk little eyes gave
him something of a scholar-like and literary air.
After allowing me a sufficient time to inspect the
puppets, he advanced with a bow, and drew my atten
tion to some books in a corner of the wagon. These
he forthwith began to extol with an amazing volubil-
ity of well-sounding words, and an ingenuity of praise
that won him my heart, as being myself one of the
most merciful of critics. Indeed his stock required
396
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
some considerable powers of commendation in the
salesman; there were several ancient friends of mine,
the novels of those happy days when my affections
wavered between the Scottish Chiefs and Thomas
Thumb; besides a few of later date, whose merits had.
not been acknowledged by the public. I was glad to
find that dear little venerable volume, the New Eng
land Primer, looking as antique as ever, though in its
thousandth new edition; a bundle of superannuated
gilt picture-books made such a child of me, that partly
for the glittering covers, and partly for the fairy
tales within, I bought the whole; and an assortment
of ballads and popular theatrical songs drew largely
on my purse. To balance these expenditures, I med
dled neither with sermons, nor science, nor morality,
though volumes of each were there; nor with a Life
of Franklin in the coarsest of paper, but so showily
bound that it was emblematical of the Doctor himself,
in the court-dress which he refused to wear at Paris;
nor with Webster's Spelling-Book, nor some of By-
ron's minor poems, nor half a dozen little Testaments
at twenty-five cents each.
Thus far the collection might have been swept from
some great bookstore, or picked up at an evening auc-
tion room; but there was one small blue-covered pam-
phlet, which the pedlar handed me with so peculiar an
air, that I purchased it immediately at his own price;
and then, for the first time, the thought struck me,
that I had spoken face to face with the veritable au
thor of a printed book. The literary man now evinced
a great kindness for me, and I ventured to inquire
which way he was travelling.
"Oh," said he, "I keep company with this old
gentleman here, and we are moving now towards the
camp-meeting at Stamford."
THE SEVEN VAGABONDS.
397
He then explained to me that for the present season
e had rented a corner of the wagon as a bookstore,
which, as he wittily observed, was a true Circulating
Library, since there were few parts of the country
where it had not gone its rounds. I approved of the
plan exceedingly, and began to sum up within my
mind the many uncommon felicities in the life of a
book pedlar, especially when his character resembled
that of the individual before me. At a high rate was
to be reckoned the daily and hourly enjoyment of such
interviews as the present, in which he seized upon
the admiration of a passing stranger, and made him
aware that a man of literary taste, and even of literary
achievement, was travelling the country in a show-
man's wagon. A more valuable, yet not infrequent,
triumph, might be won in his conversations with some
elderly clergyman, long vegetating in a rocky, woody,
watery back settlement of New England, who, as he
recruited his library from the pedlar's stock of ser-
mons, would exhort him to seek a college education
and become the first scholar in his class. Sweeter and
prouder yet would be his sensations when, talking po-
etry while he sold spelling-books, he should charm the
mind, and haply touch the heart, of a fair country
schoolmistress, herself an unhonored poetess, a wearer
of blue stockings which none but himself took pains
to look at. But the scene of his completest glory
would be when the wagon had halted for the night, and
his stock of books was transferred to some crowded
bar-room. Then would he recommend to the multi-
farious company, whether traveller from the city, or
teamster from the hills, or neighboring squire, or the
landlord himself, or his loutish hostler, works suited
to each particular taste and capacity; proving, all the
398
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
while, by acute criticism and profound remark, tha
the lore in his books was even exceeded by that in his
brain.
Thus happily would he traverse the land; some-
times a herald before the march of Mind; sometimes
walking arm in arm with awful Literature; and reap-
ing everywhere a harvest of real and sensible popular-
ity, which the secluded bookworms, by whose toil he
lived, could never hope for.
"If ever I meddle with literature," thought I, fix-
ing myself in adamantine resolution, "it shall be as a
travelling bookseller.”
Though it was still mid afternoon, the air had now
grown dark about us, and a few drops of rain came
down upon the roof of our vehicle, pattering like the
feet of birds that had flown thither to rest. A sound
of pleasant voices made us listen, and there soon ap
peared half-way up the ladder the pretty person of a
young damsel, whose rosy face was so cheerful that
even amid the gloomy light it seemed as if the sun-
beams were peeping under her bonnet. We next saw
the dark and handsome features of a young man, who,
with easier gallantry than might have been expected
in the heart of Yankee land, was assisting her into
the wagon.
It became immediately evident to us,
when the two strangers stood within the door, that
they were of a profession kindred to those of my com-
panions; and I was delighted with the more than hos-
pitable, the even paternal, kindness of the old show-
man's manner, as he welcomed them; while the man
of literature hastened to lead the merry-eyed girl to a
seat on the long bench.
"You are housed but just in time, my young
friends," said the master of the wagon.
"The sky.
would have been down upon you within five minutes.”
THE SEVEN VAGABONDS.
399
The young man's reply marked him as a foreigner,
not by any variation from the idiom and accent of
good English, but because he spoke with more caution
and accuracy than if perfectly familiar with the lan-
guage.
""
"We knew that a shower was hanging over us,'
said he, "and consulted whether it were best to enter
the house on the top of yonder hill, but seeing your
wagon in the road"
"We agreed to come hither," interrupted the girl,
with a smile, "because we should be more at home in
a wandering house like this."
I meanwhile, with many a wild and undetermined
fantasy, was narrowly inspecting these two doves that
had flown into our ark. The young man, tall, agile,
and athletic, wore a mass of black shining curls clus-
tering round a dark and vivacious countenance, which,
if it had not greater expression, was at least more act-
ive, and attracted readier notice, than the quiet faces
of our countrymen. At his first appearance he had
been laden with a neat mahogany box, of about two
feet square, but very light in proportion to its size,
which he had immediately unstrapped from his shoul-
ders and deposited on the floor of the wagon.
The girl had nearly as fair a complexion as our
own beauties, and a brighter one than most of them;
the lightness of her figure, which seemed calculated
to traverse the whole world without weariness, suited
well with the glowing cheerfulness of her face; and
her gay attire, combining the rainbow hues of crim
son, green, and a deep orange, was as proper to her
lightsome aspect as if she had been born in it. This
gay stranger was appropriately burdened with that
mirth-inspiring instrument, the fiddle, which her com
400
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
panion took from her hands, and shortly began the
process of tuning. Neither of us the previous com-
pany of the wagon-needed to inquire their trade;
for this could be no mystery to frequenters of brigade
musters, ordinations, cattle-shows, commencements, and
other festal meetings in our sober land; and there
is a dear friend of mine who will smile when this
page recalls to his memory a chivalrous deed per
formed by us, in rescuing the showbox of such a
couple from a mob of great double-fisted countrymen.
Come," said I to the damsel of gay attire, "shall
we visit all the wonders of the world together?"
66
She understood the metaphor at once; though in-
deed it would not much have troubled me if she had
assented to the literal meaning of my words. The
mahogany box was placed in a proper position, and I
peeped in through its small round magnifying win-
dow, while the girl sat by my side, and gave short
descriptive sketches, as one after another the pictures
were unfolded to my view. We visited together, at
least our imaginations did, full many a famous city,
in the streets of which I had long yearned to tread;
once, I remember, we were in the harbor of Barce-
lona, gazing townwards; next, she bore me through
the air to Sicily, and bade me look up at blazing
Ætna; then we took wing to Venice, and sat in a
gondola beneath the arch of the Rialto; and anon she
sat me down among the thronged spectators at the
coronation of Napoleon. But there was one scene, its
locality she could not tell, which charmed my attention
longer than all those gorgeous palaces and churche,
because the fancy haunted me that I myself, the pre-
veding summer, had beheld just such a humble meet-
ing-house, in just such a pine-surrounded nook, among
THE SEVEN VAGABONDS.
401
our own green mountains. All these pictures were
tolerably executed, though far inferior to the girl's
touches of description; nor was it easy to compre-
hend how, in so few sentences, and these, as I sup-
posed, in a language foreign to her, she contrived to
present an airy copy of each varied scene.
When we
had travelled through the vast extent of the mahogany
box I looked into my guide's face.
"Where are you going, my pretty maid?" in-
quired I, in the words of an old song.
66
To-
Ah," said the gay damsel, "you might as well
ask where the summer wind is going.
We are wan-
derers here, and there, and everywhere. Wherever
there is mirth, our merry hearts are drawn to it.
day, indeed, the people have told us of a great frolic
and festival in these parts; so perhaps we may be
needed at what you call the camp-meeting at Stam-
ford."
Then in my happy youth, and while her pleasant
voice yet sounded in my ears, I sighed; for none but
myself, I thought, should have been her companion in
a life which seemed to realize my own wild fancies,
cherished all through visionary boyhood to that hour.
To these two strangers the world was in its golden
age, not that indeed it was less dark and sad than
ever, but because its weariness and sorrow had no
community with their ethereal nature. Wherever they
might appear in their pilgrimage of bliss, Youth would
echo back their gladness, care-stricken Maturity would
est a moment from its toil, and Age, tottering among
che graves, would smile in withered joy for their sakes.
The lonely cot, the narrow and gloomy street, the
sombre shade, would catch a passing gleam like that
now shining on ourselves, as these bright spirits wan
VOL. 1.
28
402
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
dered by. Blessed pair, whose happy home was
throughout all the earth! I looked at my shoulders,
and thought them broad enough to sustain those pict-
ured towns and mountains; mine, too, was an elastic
foot, as tireless as the wing of the bird of paradise;
mine was then an untroubled heart, that would have
gone singing on its delightful way.
O maiden!" said I aloud, "why did you not come
hither alone?"
While the merry girl and myself were busy with
the showbox, the unceasing rain had driven another
wayfarer into the wagon. He seemed pretty nearly
of the old showman's age, but much smaller, leaner,
and more withered than he, and less respectably clad
in a patched suit of gray; withal, he had a thin,
shrewd countenance, and a pair of diminutive gray-
eyes, which peeped rather too keenly out of their
puckered sockets. This old fellow had been joking
with the showman, in a manner which intimated pre-
vious acquaintance; but perceiving that the damsel
and I had terminated our affairs, he drew forth a
folded document, and presented it to me. As I had
anticipated, it proved to be a circular, written in a
very fair and legible hand, and signed by several dis-
tinguished gentlemen whom I had never heard of, stat-
ing that the bearer had encountered every variety of
misfortune, and recommending him to the notice of
all charitable people. Previous disbursements had
left me no more than a five-dollar bill, out of which,
however, I offered to make the beggar a donation,
provided he would give me change for it. The object
of my beneficence looked keenly in my face, and dis-
cerned that I had none of that abominable spirit, char
acteristic though it be, of a full-blooded Yankee
THE SEVEN VAGABONDS.
403
which takes pleasure in detecting every little harmless
piece of knavery.
"Why, perhaps," said the ragged old mendicant,
"if the bank is in good standing, I can't say but I
may have enough about me to change your bill."
"It is a bill of the Suffolk Bank," said I, “and
better than the specie."
As the beggar had nothing to object, he now pro-
duced a small buff-leather bag, tied up carefully with
a shoestring. When this was opened, there appeared
a very comfortable treasure of silver coins, of all sorts
and sizes; and I even fancied that I saw, gleaming
among them, the golden plumage of that rare bird in
our currency, the American Eagle. In this precious
heap was my bank-note deposited, the rate of exchange
being considerably against me. His wants being thus
relieved, the destitute man pulled out of his pocket an
old pack of greasy cards, which had probably contrib
uted to fill the buff-leather bag in more ways than
one.
66
Come,” said he, "I spy a rare fortune in your
face, and for twenty-five cents more, I'll tell you what
it is."
I never refuse to take a glimpse into futurity; so,
after shuffling the cards, and when the fair damsel
had cut them, I dealt a portion to the prophetic beg-
gar. Like others of his profession, before predicting
the shadowy events that were moving on to meet me,
he gave proof of his preternatural science by describ
ing scenes through which I had already passed. Here
let me have credit for a sober fact. When the old
man had read a page in his book of fate, he bent his
keen gray eyes on mine, and proceeded to relate, in
all its minute particulars, what was then the most
404
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
singular event of my life. It was one which I had
no purpose to disclose till the general unfolding of all
secrets; nor would it be a much stranger instance of
inscrutable knowledge, or fortune conjecture, if the
beggar were to meet me in the street to-day, and re-
peat, word for word, the page which I have here writ-
ten. The fortune-teller, after predicting a destiny
which Time seems loath to make good, put up his
cards, secreted his treasure bag, and began to con-
verse with the other occupants of the wagon.
"Well, old friend," said the showman, "you have
not yet told us which way your face is turned this
afternoon."
66
""
'I am taking a trip northward, this warm weather,"
replied the conjurer, "across the Connecticut first,
and then up through Vermont, and may be into Can-
ada before the fall. But I must stop and see the
breaking up of the camp-meeting at Stamford."
I began to think that all the vagrants in New Eng-
land were converging to the camp-meeting, and had
made this wagon their rendezvous by the way. The
showman now proposed that, when the shower was
over, they should pursue the road to Stamford to-
gether, it being sometimes the policy of these people
to form a sort of league and confederacy.
“And the young lady too," observed the gallant
bibliopolist, bowing to her profoundly, "and this for-
eign gentleman, as I understand, are on a jaunt of
pleasure to the same spot. It would add incalculably
to my own enjoyment, and I presume to that of my
colleague and his friend, if they could be prevailed
upon to join our party."
This arrangement met with approbation on all
hands, nor were any of those concerned more sensi
THE SEVEN VAGABONDS.
405
ble of its advantages than myself, who had no title
to be included in it. Having already satisfied myself
as to the several modes in which the four others at-
tained felicity, I next set my mind at work to discover
what enjoyments were peculiar to the old "Straggler,"
as the people of the country would have termed the
wandering mendicant and prophet. As he pretended
to familiarity with the Devil, so I fancied that he was
fitted to pursue and take delight in his way of life, by
possessing some of the mental and moral character-
istics, the lighter and more comic ones, of the Devil in
popular stories. Among them might be reckoned a
love of deception for its own sake, a shrewd eye and
keen relish for human weakness and ridiculous infirm
ity, and the talent of petty fraud. Thus to this old
man there would be pleasure even in the conscious
ness so insupportable to some minds, that his whole
life was a cheat upon the world, and that, so far as he
was concerned with the public, his little cunning had
the upper hand of its united wisdom. Every day
would furnish him with a succession of minute and
pungent triumphs: as when, for instance, his impor
tunity wrung a pittance out of the heart of a miser; or
when my silly good nature transferred a part of my
slender purse to his plump leather bag; or when som、
ostentatious gentleman should throw a coin to the
ragged beggar who was richer than himself; or when.
though he would not always be so decidedly diabolical,
his pretended wants should make him a sharer in the
scanty living of real indigence. And then what an
inexhaustible field of enjoyment, both as enabling him
to discern so much folly and achieve such quantities.
of minor mischief, was opened to his sneering spirit by
his pretensions to prophetic knowledge.
406
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
All this was a sort of happiness which I could con-
ceive of, though I had little sympathy with it. Per-
haps, had I been then inclined to admit it, I might
have found that the roving life was more proper to
him than to either of his companions; for Satan, to
whom I had compared the poor man, has delighted,
ever since the time of Job, in "wandering up and
down upon the earth;" and indeed a crafty disposi-
tion which operates not in deep-laid plans, but in dis-
connected tricks, could not have an adequate scope,
unless naturally impelled to a continual change of
scene and society. My reflections were here inter-
rupted.
"Another visitor!" exclaimed the old showman.
The door of the wagon had been closed against the
tempest, which was roaring and blustering with pro-
digious fury and commotion, and beating violently
against our shelter, as if it claimed all those homeless
people for its lawful prey, while we, caring little for
the displeasure of the elements, sat comfortably talk-
ing. There was now an attempt to open the door,
succeeded by a voice uttering some strange, unintel-
ligible gibberish, which my companions mistook for
Greek, and I suspected to be thieves' Latin. How-
ever, the showman stepped forward, and gave admit-
tance to a figure which made me imagine, either that
our wagon had rolled back two hundred years into
past ages, or that the forest and its old inhabitants
had sprung up around us by enchantment.
It was a red Indian, armed with his bow and arrow.
His dress was a sort of cap, adorned with a single
feather of some wild bird, and a frock of blue cotton
girded tight about him; on his breast, like orders of
knighthood, hung a crescent and a circle, and other
THE SEVEN VAGABONDS.
407
ornaments of silver; while a small crucifix betokened
that our Father the Pope had interposed between the
Indian and the Great Spirit, whom he had worshipped
in his simplicity. This son of the wilderness and
pilgrim of the storm took his place silently in the
midst of us. When the first surprise was over, I
rightly conjectured him to be one of the Penobscot
tribe, parties of which I had often seen, in their
summer excursions down our Eastern rivers. There
they paddle their birch canoes among the coasting
schooners, and build their wigwam beside some roar-
ing mill-dam, and drive a little trade in basket work
where their fathers hunted deer. Our new visitor was
probably wandering through the country towards Bos-
ton, subsisting on the careless charity of the people,
while he turned his archery to profitable account by
shooting at cents, which were to be the prize of his
successful aim.
The Indian had not long been seated ere our merry
damsel sought to draw him into conversation. She,
indeed, seemed all made up of sunshine in the month
of May; for there was nothing so dark and dismal
that her pleasant mind could not cast a glow over it;
and the wild man, like a fir-tree in his native forest,
soon began to brighten into a sort of sombre cheerful-
At length, she inquired whether his journey
ness.
had any particular end or purpose.
"I go shoot at the camp-meeting at Stamford," re-
plied the Indian.
"And here are five more," said the girl, "all aim-
ing at the camp-meeting too. You shall be one of us,
for we travel with light hearts; and as for me, I sing
merry songs, and tell merry tales, and am full of
merry thoughts, and I dance merrily along the road,
408
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
so that there is never any sadness among them that
keep me company. But, oh, you would find it very
dull indeed to go all the way to Stamford alone!"
My ideas of the aboriginal character led me to fear
that the Indian would prefer his own solitary musings
to the gay society thus offered him; on the contrary,
the girl's proposal met with immediate acceptance, and
seemed to animate him with a misty expectation of en-
joyment. I now gave myself up to a course of thought
which, whether it flowed naturally from this combina-
tion of events, or was drawn forth by a wayward
fancy, caused my mind to thrill as if I were listening
to deep music. I saw mankind, in this weary old age
of the world, either enduring a sluggish existence amid
the smoke and dust of cities, or, if they breathed a
purer air, still lying down at night with no hope but
to wear out to-morrow, and all the to-morrows which
make up life, among the same dull scenes and in the
same wretched toil that had darkened the sunshine of
to-day. But there were some, full of the primeval in-
stinct, who preserved the freshness of youth to their
latest years by the continual excitement of new ob-
jects, new pursuits, and new associates; and cared
little, though their birthplace might have been here
in New England, if the grave should close over them
in Central Asia. Fate was summoning a parliament
of these free spirits; unconscious of the impulse which
directed them to a common centre, they had come
hither from far and near, and last of all appeared
the representative of those mighty vagrants who had
chased the deer during thousands of years, and were
chasing it now in the Spirit Land. Wandering down
through the waste of ages, the woods had vanished
around his path; his arm had lost somewhat of its
THE SEVEN VAGABONDS.
409
strength, his foot of its fleetness, his mien of its wild
regality, his heart and mind of their savage virtue and
uncultured force; but here, untamable to the routine
of artificial life, roving now along the dusty road as
of old over the forest leaves, here was the Indian still.
"Well," said the old showman, in the midst of my
meditations, "here is an honest company of us
two, three, four, five, six- all going to the camp-
meeting at Stamford. Now, hoping no offence, I
should like to know where this young gentleman may
be going?"
one,
I started. How came I among these wanderers ?
The free mind, that preferred its own folly to an-
other's wisdom; the open spirit, that found compan-
ions everywhere; above all, the restless impulse, that
had so often made me wretched in the midst of enjoy-
ments; these were my claims to be of their society.
"My friends!" cried I, stepping into the centre of
the wagon, “I am going with you to the camp-meet-
ing at Stamford."
"But in what capacity?" asked the old showman,
after a moment's silence. "All of us here can get our
bread in some creditable way. Every honest man
should have his livelihood. You, sir, as I take it, are
a mere strolling gentleman."
I proceeded to inform the company that, when Nat-
ure gave me a propensity to their way of life, she had
not left me altogether destitute of qualifications for it;
though I could not deny that my talent was less re-
spectable, and might be less profitable, than the mean-
est of theirs. My design, in short, was to imitate the
story-tellers of whom Oriental travellers have told us,
and become an itinerant novelist, reciting my own ex-
temporaneous fictions to such audiences as I could col
lect.
410
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
"Either this," said I, "is my vocation, or I have
been born in vain.”
The fortune-teller, with a sly wink to the company,
proposed to take me as an apprentice to one or other
of his professions, either of which, undoubtedly, would
have given full scope to whatever inventive talent I
might possess. The bibliopolist spoke a few words in
opposition to my plan, influenced partly, I suspect, by
the jealousy of authorship, and partly by an apprehen-
sion that the viva voce practice would become general
among novelists, to the infinite detriment of the book
trade. Dreading a rejection, I solicited the interest.
of the merry damsel.
"Mirth," cried I, most aptly appropriating the
words of L'Allegro, "to thee I sue! Mirth, admit
me of thy crew!"
"Let us indulge the poor youth," said Mirth, with a
kindness which made me love her dearly, though I was
no such coxcomb as to misinterpret her motives. "I
have espied much promise in him. True, a shadow
sometimes flits across his brow, but the sunshine is
sure to follow in a moment. He is never guilty of a
sad thought, but a merry one is twin born with it.
We will take him with us; and you shall see that he
will set us all a-laughing before we reach the camp-
meeting at Stamford."
Her voice silenced the scruples of the rest, and
gained me admittance into the league; according to
the terms of which, without a community of goods or
profits, we were to lend each other all the aid, and
avert all the harm, that might be in our power. This
affair settled, a marvellous jollity entered into the
whole tribe of us, manifesting itself characteristically
in each individual. The old showman, sitting down
THE SEVEN VAGABONDS.
411
to his barrel organ, stirred up the souls of the pygmy
people with one of the quickest tunes in the music
book; tailors, blacksmiths, gentlemen and ladies, all
seemed to share in the spirit of the occasion; and the
Merry Andrew played his part more facetiously thau
ever, nodding and winking particularly at me. The
young foreigner flourished his fiddle bow with a mas-
ter's hand, and gave an inspiring echo to the show-
man's melody. The bookish man and the merry dam-
sel started up simultaneously to dance; the former
enacting the double shuffle in a style which every-
body must have witnessed ere Election week was
blotted out of time; while the girl, setting her arms
akimbo with both hands at her slim waist, displayed
such light rapidity of foot, and harmony of varying
attitude and motion, that I could not conceive how she
ever was to stop; imagining, at the moment, that Nat-
ure had made her, as the old showman had made his
puppets, for no earthly purpose but to dance jigs.
The Indian bellowed forth a succession of most hid-
eous outcries, somewhat affrighting us till we inter-
preted them as the war-song, with which, in imitation
of his ancestors, he was prefacing the assault on Stam-
ford. The conjurer, meanwhile, sat demurely in a cor-
ner, extracting a sly enjoyment from the whole scene,
and, like the facetious Merry Andrew, directing his
queer glance particularly at me.
As for myself, with great exhilaration of fancy, I
began to arrange and color the incidents of a tale
wherewith I proposed to amuse an audience that very
evening; for I saw that my associates were a little
ashamed of me, and that no time was to be lost in ob-
taining a public acknowledgment of my abilities.
"Come, fellow-laborers," at last said the old show-
412
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
man, whom we had elected President; "the shower is
over, and we must be doing our duty by these poor
souls at Stamford."
We'll come among them in procession with music
and dancing,” cried the merry damsel.
Accordingly for it must be understood that our
pilgrimage was to be performed on foot-we sallied
joyously out of the wagon, each of us, even the old
gentleman in his white top-boots, giving a great skip
as we came down the ladder. Above our heads there
was such a glory of sunshine and splendor of clouds,
and such brightness of verdure below, that, as I mod-
estly remarked at the time, Nature seemed to have
washed her face, and put on the best of her jewelry
and a fresh green gown, in honor of our confederation.
Casting our eyes northward, we beheld a horseman ap-
proaching leisurely, and splashing through the little
puddles on the Stamford road. Onward he came,
sticking up in his saddle with rigid perpendicularity, a
tall, thin figure in rusty black, whom the showman and
the conjurer shortly recognized to be, what his aspect
sufficiently indicated, a iravelling preacher of great
fame among the Methodists. What puzzled us was
the fact that his face appeared turned from, instead of
to, the camp-meeting at Stamford. However, as this
new votary of the wandering life drew near the little
green space where the guide-post and our wagon were
situated, my six fellow-vagabonds and myself rushed
forward and surrounded him, crying out with united
voices,
"What news, what news from the camp-meeting at
Stamford?"
The missionary looked down in surprise at as singu
lar a knot of people as could have been selected from
THE SEVEN VAGABONDS.
413
all his heterogeneous auditors. Indeed, considering
that we might all be classified under the general head
of Vagabond, there was great diversity of character
among the grave old showman, the sly, prophetic beg-
gar, the fiddling foreigner and his merry damsel, the
smart bibliopolist, the sombre Indian, and myself, the
itinerant novelist, a slender youth of eighteen. I even
fancied that a smile was endeavoring to disturb the
iron gravity of the preacher's mouth.
"Good people," answered he, "the camp-meeting is
broke up."
So saying, the Methodist minister switched his steed
and rode westward. Our union being thus nullified
by the removal of its object, we were sundered at once
to the four winds of heaven. The fortune-teller giv-
ing a nod to all, and a peculiar wink to me, departed
on his northern tour, chuckling within himself as he
took the Stamford road. The old showman and his
literary coadjutor were already tackling their horses
to the wagon, with a design to peregrinate southwest
along the sea-coast. The foreigner and the merry
damsel took their laughing leave, and pursued the
eastern road, which I had that day trodden; as they
passed away, the young mar played a lively strain and
the girl's happy spirit broke into a dance and thus,
dissolving, as it were, into sunbeams and gay music,
that pleasant pair departed from my view. Finally,
with a pensive shadow thrown across my mind, yet en-
vious of the light philosophy of my late companions, I
joined myself to the Penobscot Indian and set forth
towards the distant city.
:

THE WHITE OLD MAID.
THE moonbeams came through two deep and nar
row windows, and showed a spacious chamber richly
furnished in an antique fashion. From one lattice
the shadow of the diamond panes was thrown upon
the floor; the ghostly light, through the other, slept
upon a bed, falling between the heavy silken curtains,
and illuminating the face of a young man. But, how
quietly the slumberer lay! how pale his features! and
how like a shroud the sheet was wound about his
frame! Yes; it was a corpse, in its burial clothes.
Suddenly, the fixed features seemed to move with
dark emotion. Strange fantasy! It was but the
shadow of the fringed curtain waving betwixt the dead
face and the moonlight, as the door of the chamber
opened and a girl stole softly to the bedside. Was
there delusion in the moonbeams, or did her gesture
and her eye betray a gleam of triumph, as she bent
over the pale corpse-pale as itself and pressed her
living lips to the cold ones of the dead? As she drew
back from that long kiss, her features writhed as if
a proud heart were fighting with its anguish. Again
it seemed that the features of the corpse had moved
responsive to her own. Still an illusion! The silken
curtain had waved, a second time, betwixt the dead
face and the moonlight, as another fair young girl un-
closed the door, and glided, ghost-like, to the bedside.
There the two maidens stood, both beautiful, with the
ale beauty of the dead between them. But she who


THE WHITE OLD MAID.
415
had first entered was proud and stately, and the other
a soft and fragile thing.
"Away!" cried the lofty one.
living! The dead is mine!"
"Thou hadst him
"Thine!" returned the other, shuddering. "Well
hast thou spoken! The dead is thine!"
The proud girl started, and stared into her face
with a ghastly look. But a wild and mournful ex-
pression passed across the features of the gentle one;
and weak and helpless, she sank down on the bed, her
head pillowed beside that of the corpse, and her hair
mingling with his dark locks. A creature of hope and
joy, the first draught of sorrow had bewildered her.
"Edith!" cried her rival.
Edith groaned, as with a sudden compression of the
heart; and removing her cheek from the dead youth's
pillow, she stood upright, fearfully encountering the
eyes of the lofty girl.
"Wilt thou betray me?" said the latter, calmly.
"Till the dead bid me speak, I will be silent," an-
swered Edith. "Leave us alone together! Go, and
live many years, and then return, and tell me of thy
life. He, too, will be here! Then, if thou tellest of
sufferings more than death, we will both forgive thee.”
"And what shall be the token?" asked the proud
girl, as if her heart acknowledged a meaning in these
wild words.
"This lock of hair," said Edith, lifting one of the
dark, clustering curls that lay heavily on the dead
man's brow.
The two maidens joined their hands over the bosom
of the corpse, and appointed a day and hour, far, far
in time to come, for their next meeting in that cham-

ber.
The statelier girl gave one deep look at the mo
416
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
tionless countenance, and departed yet turned again
and trembled ere she closed the door, almost believing
that her dead lover frowned upon her. And Edith,
too! Was not her white form fading into the moon-
light? Scorning her own weakness she went forth,
and perceived that a negro slave was waiting in the
passage with a wax-light, which he held between her
face and his own, and regarded her, as she thought,
with an ugly expression of merriment. Lifting his
torch on high, the slave lighted her down the stair-
case, and undid the portal of the mansion. The young
clergyman of the town had just ascended the steps,
and bowing to the lady, passed in without a word.
Years, many years, rolled on; the world seemed
new again, so much older was it grown since the night
when those pale girls had clasped their hands across
the bosom of the corpse. In the interval, a lonely
woman had passed from youth to extreme age, and
was known by all the town as the "Old Maid in the
Winding Sheet.” A taint of insanity had affected
her whole life, but so quiet, sad, and gentle, so utterly
free from violence, that she was suffered to pursue
her harmless fantasies, unmolested by the world, with
whose business or pleasures she had nought to do.
She dwelt alone, and never came into the daylight,
except to follow funerals. Whenever a corpse was
borne along the street in sunshine, rain, or snow:
whether a pompous train of the rich and proud
thronged after it, or few and humble were the mourn
ers, behind them came the lonely woman in a long
white garment which the people called her shroud.
She took no place among the kindred or the friends,
but stood at the door to hear the funeral prayer, and
walked in the rear of the procession, as one whose
THE WHITE OLD MAID.
417
earthly charge it was to haunt the house of mourning,
and be the shadow of affliction, and see that the dead
were duly buried. So long had this been her custom
that the inhabitants of the town deemed her a part of
every funeral, as much as the coffin pall, or the very
corpse itself, and augured ill of the sinner's destiny
unless the "Old Maid in the Winding Sheet" came
gliding, like a ghost, behind. Once, it is said, she
affrighted a bridal party with her pale presence, ap-
pearing suddenly in the illuminated hall, just as the
priest was uniting a false maid to a wealthy man, be-
fore her lover had been dead a year. Evil was the
omen to that' marriage! Sometimes she stole forth by
moonlight 'and visited the graves of venerable Integ-
rity, and wedded Love, and virgin Innocence, and
every spot where the ashes of a kind and faithful heart
were mouldering. Over the hillocks of those favored
dead would she stretch out her arms, with a gesture,
as if she were scattering seeds; and many believed
that she brought them from the garden of Paradise;
for the graves which she had visited were green be-
neath the snow, and covered with sweet flowers from
April to November. Her blessing was better than a
holy verse upon the tombstone. Thus wore away her
long, sad, peaceful, and fantastic life, till few were so
old as she, and the people of later generations won-
dered how the dead had ever been buried, or mourners
had endured their grief, without the "Old Maid in
the Winding Sheet."
Still years went on, and still she followed funerals,
and was not yet summoned to her own festival of
death. One afternoon the great street of the town
was all alive with business and bustle, though the sun
now gilded only the upper half of the church spire,
VOL. I.
27
418
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
having left the housetops and loftiest trees in shadow.
The scene was cheerful and animated, in spite of the
sombre shade between the high brick buildings. Here
were pompous merchants, in white wigs and laced
velvet; the bronzed faces of sea-captains; the foreign
garb and air of Spanish creoles; and the disdainful
port of natives of Old England; all contrasted with
the rough aspect of one or two back settlers, negoti-
ating sales of timber from forests where axe had never
sounded. Sometimes a lady passed, swelling roundly
forth in an embroidered petticoat, balancing her steps
in high-heeled shoes, and courtesying with lofty grace
to the punctilious obeisances of the gentlemen. The
life of the town seemed to have its very centre not
far from an old mansion that stood somewhat back
from the pavement, surrounded by neglected grass,
with a strange air of loneliness, rather deepened than
dispelled by the throng so near it. Its site would
have been suitably occupied by a magnificent Ex-
change or a brick block, lettered all over with various
signs; or the large house itself might have made a
noble tavern, with the "King's Arms" swinging be-
fore it, and guests in every chamber, instead of the
present solitude. But owing to some dispute about
the right of inheritance, the mansion had been long
without a tenant, decaying from year to year, and
throwing the stately gloom of its shadow over the
busiest part of the town. Such was the scene, and
such the time, when a figure unlike any that have
been described was observed at a distance down the
street.
"I espy a strange sail, yonder," remarked a Liver
pool captain; "that woman in the long white gar
ment!'
THE WHITE OLD MAID.
419
The sailor seemed much struck by the object, as
were several others who, at the same moment, caught
a glimpse of the figure that had attracted his notice.
Almost immediately the various topics of conversa
tion gave place to speculations, in an undertone, on
this unwonted occurrence.
"Can there be a funeral so late this afternoon?"
inquired some.
They looked for the signs of death at every door-
the sexton, the hearse, the assemblage of black-clad
relatives all that makes up the woful pomp of fu
nerals. They raised their eyes, also, to the sun-gilt
spire of the church, and wondered that no clang pro-
ceeded from its bell, which had always tolled till now
when this figure appeared in the light of day. But
none had heard that a corpse was to be borne to its
home that afternoon, nor was there any token of a
funeral, except the apparition of the "Old Maid in
the Winding Sheet."
"What may this portend?" asked each man of his
neighbor
All smiled as they put the question, yet with a cer-
tain trouble in their eyes, as if pestilence or some
other wide calamity were prognosticated by the un-
timely intrusion among the living of one whose pres-
ence had always been associated with death and woe.
What a comet is to the earth was that sad woman to
the town. Still she moved on, while the hum of sur-
prise was hushed at her approach, and the proud and
the humble stood aside, that her white garment might
not wave against them. It was a long, loose robe, of
spotless purity. Its wearer appeared very old, pale,
emaciated, and feeble, yet glided onward without the
unsteady pace of extreme age. At one point of her

420
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
course a little rosy boy burst forth from a door, and
ran, with open arms, towards the ghostly woman, seem-
ing to expect a kiss from her bloodless lips. She made
a slight pause, fixing her eye upon him with an expres-
sion of no earthly sweetness, so that the child shivered
and stood awe-struck, rather than affrighted, while the
Old Maid passed on. Perhaps her garment might
have been polluted even by an infant's touch; perhaps
her kiss would have been death to the sweet boy within
a year.
"She is but a shadow," whispered the superstitious.
"The child put forth his arms and could not grasp her
robe!"
The wonder was increased when the Old Maid
passed beneath the porch of the deserted mansion, as-
cended the moss-covered steps, lifted the iron knocker,
and gave three raps. The people could only conjec-
ture that some old remembrance, troubling her bewil-
dered brain, had impelled the poor woman hither to
visit the friends of her youth; all gone from their
home long since and forever, unless their ghosts still
haunted it—fit company for the "Old Maid in the
Winding Sheet." An elderly man approached the
steps, and, reverently uncovering his gray locks, es
sayed to explain the matter.
"None, Madam," said he, "have dwelt in this
house these fifteen years agone no, not since the
death of old Colonel Fenwicke, whose funeral you
may remember to have followed. His heirs, being
ill agreed among themselves, have let the mansion-
house go to ruin.”
The Old Maid looked slowly round with a slight
gesture of one hand, and a finger of the other upon
her lip, appearing more shadow-like than ever in the
THE WHITE OLD MAID.
421
obscurity of the porch. But again she lifted the ham-
mer, and gave, this time, a single rap. Could it be
that a footstep was now heard coming down the stair-
case of the old mansion, which all conceived to have
been so long untenanted? Slowly, feebly, yet heavily,
like the pace of an aged and infirm person, the step
approached, more distinct on every downward stair,
till it reached the portal. The bar fell on the inside;
the door was opened. One upward glance towards
the church spire, whence the sunshine had just faded,
was the last that the people saw of the "Old Maid in
the Winding Sheet.”
“Who undid the door?" asked many.
This question, owing to the depth of shadow be-
neath the porch, no one could satisfactorily answer.
Two or three aged men, while protesting against an
inference which might be drawn, affirmed that the
person within was a negro, and bore a singular resem-
blance to old Cæsar, formerly a slave in the house, but
freed by death some thirty years before.
"Her summons has waked up a servant of the old
family," said one, half seriously.
"More guests
But the gate of the
"Let us wait here," replied another.
will knock at the door, anon.
graveyard should be thrown open! "
Twilight had overspread the town before the crowd
began to separate, or the comments on this incident
were exhausted. One after another was wending his
way homeward, when a coach- no common spectacle
in those days drove slowly into the street.
It was
an old-fashioned equipage, hanging close to the ground,
with arms on the panels, a footman behind, and a
grave, corpulent coachman seated high in front — the
whole giving an idea of solemn state and dignity
422
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
There was something awful in the heavy rumbling of
the wheels. The coach rolled down the street, till,
coming to the gateway of the deserted mansion, it
drew up, and the footman sprang to the ground.
"Whose grand coach is this?" asked a very in-
quisitive body.
man,
66
de-lis
The footman made no reply, but ascended the steps
of the old house, gave three raps with the iron ham-
mer, and returned to open the coach door. An old
possessed of the heraldic lore so common in that
day, examined the shield of arms on the panel.eur-
Azure, a lion's head erased, between three flower-
de-luces," said he; then whispered the name of the
family to whom these bearings belonged. The last
inheritor of his honors was recently dead, after a long
residence amid the splendor of the British court, where
his birth and wealth had given him no mean station.
"He left no child," continued the herald, "and these
arms, being in a lozenge, betoken that the coach ap-
pertains to his widow."
Further disclosures, perhaps, might have been made,
had not the speaker suddenly been struck dumb by
the stern eye of an ancient lady who thrust forth her
head from the coach, preparing to descend. As she
emerged, the people saw that her dress was magnifi-
cent, and her figure dignified, in spite of age and in-
firmity a stately ruin but with a look, at once, of
pride and wretchedness. Her strong and rigid feat-
ures had an awe about them, unlike that of the white
Old Maid, but as of something evil. She passed up
the steps, leaning on a gold-headed cane; the door
swung open as she ascended - and the light of a
torch glittered on the embroidery of her dress, and
gleamed on the pillars of the porch. After a momen
THE WHITE OLD MAID.
423
tary pause
perate effort
a glarce backwards
and then a des-
she went in. The decipherer of the
coat of arms had ventured up the lowest step, and
shrinking back immediately, pale and tremulous, af-
firmed that the torch was held by the very image of
old Cæsar.
"But such a hideous grin," added he,
66 was never
seen on the face of mortal man, black or white! It
will haunt me till my dying day."
Meantime, the coach had wheeled round, with a
prodigious clatter on the pavement, and rumbled up
the street, disappearing in the twilight, while the ear
still tracked its course. Scarcely was it gone, when
the people began to question whether the coach and
attendants, the ancient lady, the spectre of old Cæsar,
and the Old Maid herself, were not all a strangely
combined delusion, with some dark purport in its mys-
tery. The whole town was astir, so that, instead of
dispersing, the crowd continually increased, and stood
gazing up at the windows of the mansion, now silvered
by the brightening moon. The elders, glad to indulge
the narrative propensity of age, told of the long-faded
splendor of the family, the entertainments they had
given, and the guests, the greatest of the land, and
even titled and noble ones from abroad, who had
passed beneath that portal. These graphic reminis
ences seemed to call up the ghosts of those to whom
they referred. So strong was the impression on some
of the more imaginative hearers, that two or three
were seized with trembling fits, at one and the same
moment, protesting that they had distinctly heard
three other raps of the iron knocker.
"Impossible!" exclaimed others. "See! The
moon shines beneath the porch, and shows every part
424
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
of it, except in the narrow shade of that pillar. There
is no one there!"
“Did not the door open?" whispered one of these
fanciful persons.
"Didst thou see it, too?" said his companion, in a
startled tone.
But the general sentiment was opposed to the idea
that a third visitant had made application at the door
of the deserted house. A few, however, adhered to
this new marvel, and even declared that a red gleam
like that of a torch had shone through the great front
window, as if the negro were lighting a guest up the
staircase. This, too, was pronounced a mere fantasy.
But at once the whole multitude started, and each
man beheld his own terror painted in the faces of all
the rest.
"What an awful thing is this!" cried they.
A shriek too fearfully distinct for doubt had been
heard within the mansion, breaking forth suddenly,
and succeeded by a deep stillness, as if a heart had
burst in giving it utterance. The people knew not
whether to fly from the very sight of the house, or to
rush trembling in, and search out the strange mys-
tery. Amid their confusion and affright, they were
somewhat reassured by the appearance of their cler-
gyman, a venerable patriarch, and equally a saint,
who had taught them and their fathers the way to
heaven for more than the space of an ordinary life-
time. He was a reverend figure, with long, white
hair upon his shoulders, a white beard upon his breast,
and a back so bent over his staff that he seemed to
be looking downward continually, as if to choose a
proper grave for his weary frame. It was some time
before the good old man, being deaf and of impaired


THE WHITE OLD MAID.
425
intellect, could be made to comprehend such portions
of the affair as were comprehensible at all. But,
when possessed of the facts, his energies assumed un-
expected vigor.
66
Verily," said the old gentleman, "it will be fitting
that I enter the mansion-house of the worthy Colonel
Fenwicke, lest any harm should have befallen that
true Christian woman whom ye call the Old Maid
in the Winding Sheet.
6
Behold, then, the venerable clergyman ascending the
steps of the mansion, with a torch-bearer behind him.
It was the elderly man who had spoken to the Old
Maid, and the same who had afterwards explained the
shield of arms and recognized the features of the ne-
gro. Like their predecessors, they gave three raps
with the iron hammer.
"Old Cæsar cometh not," observed the priest.
“Well I wot he no longer doth service in this man-
sion."
66
Assuredly, then, it was something worse, in old
Cæsar's likeness!" said the other adventurer.
"Be it as God wills," answered the clergyman.
"See! my strength, though it be much decayed, hath
sufficed to open this heavy door. Let us enter and
pass up the staircase.”
Here occurred a singular exemplification of the
dreamy state of a very old man's mind. As they
ascended the wide flight of stairs, the aged clergy-
man appeared to move with caution, occasionally
standing aside, and oftener bending his head, as it
were in salutation, thus practising all the gestures of
one who makes his way through a throng. Reaching
the head of the staircase, he looked around with sad
and solemn benignity, laid aside his staff, bared his
426
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
hoary locks, and was evidently on the point of com
mencing a prayer.
"Reverend Sir," said his attendant, who conceived
this a very suitable prelude to their further search,
"would it not be well that the people join with us in
prayer?"
66
Welladay!" cried the old clergyman, staring
strangely around him. "Art thou here with me,
and none other? Verily, past times were present
to me, and I deemed that I was to make a funeral
prayer, as many a time heretofore, from the head of
this staircase. Of a truth, I saw the shades of many
that are gone. Yea, I have prayed at their burials,
one after another, and the Old Maid in the Winding
Sheet' hath seen them to their graves!"
6
Being now more thoroughly awake to their present
purpose, he took his staff and struck forcibly on the
floor, till there came an echo from each deserted cham-
ber, but no menial to answer their summons. They
therefore walked along the passage, and again paused,
opposite to the great front window through which was
seen the crowd, in the shadow and partial moonlight of
the street beneath. On their right hand was the open
door of a chamber, and a closed one on their left. The
clergyman pointed his cane to the carved oak panel of
the latter.
"Within that chamber," observed he, "a whole
life-time since, did I sit by the death-bed of a goodly
young man, who, being now at the last gasp
دو
Apparently there was some powerful excitement in
the ideas which had now flashed across his mind. He
snatched the torch from his companion's hand, and
threw open the door with such sudden violence that
the flame was extinguished, leaving them no other
THE WHITE OLD MAID.
427
•
light than the moonbeams, which fell through two
windows into the spacious chamber. It was sufficient
to discover all that could be known. In a high-backed
oaken arm-chair, upright, with her hands clasped
across her breast, and her head thrown back, sat the
"Old Maid in the Winding Sheet." The stately
dame had fallen on her knees, with her forehead on
the holy knees of the Old Maid, one hand upon the
floor and the other pressed convulsively against her
heart. It clutched a lock of hair, once sable, now dis-
colored with a greenish mould. As the priest and lay-
man advanced into the chamber, the Old Maid's feat-
ures assumed such a semblance of shifting expression
that they trusted to hear the whole mystery explained
by a single word. But it was only the shadow of a
tattered curtain waving betwixt the dead face and the
moonlight.
"Then
"Both dead!" said the venerable man.
who shall divulge the secret? Methinks it glimmers
to and fro in my mind, like the light and shadow
across the Old Maid's face. And now 't is gone! '
99
PETER GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE.
“AND so, Peter, you won't even consider of the
business?" said Mr. John Brown, buttoning his sur
tout over the snug rotundity of his person, and draw
ing on his gloves. "You positively refuse to let me
have this crazy old house, and the land under and ad-
joining, 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 es-
tate 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?"
66
before, Mr. Brown," an-
"And as for castles in
Precisely what I said
swered Peter Goldthwaite.
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.”
PETER GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE. 429
"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 copartnership, 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 pros-
pered wonderfully, and become one of the wealthiest
John Browns on earth. Peter Goldthwaite, on the con-
trary, after innumerable schemes, which ought to have
collected all the coin and paper currency of the coun-
try 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
430
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
money, in the clouds. From a search after this val
uable real estate Peter returned so gaunt and thread
bare 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 scare-
crows knew their brother!
66
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 scat-
tered about the streets of our elder towns, with a
beetle-browed second story projecting over the foun-
dation, 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 even-
ing, 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 down-
wards at his dress, parts of which appeared as ancient
as the days of Goldthwaite & Brown. His upper gar-
ment was a mixed surtout, wofully faded, and patched
with newer stuff on each elbow; beneath this he wore
PETER GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE. 431
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 pur-
suits. After all, he was no bad fellow, but as harm-
less 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 enthusi-
asm that never long deserted him. He raised his
hand, clinched it, and smote it energetically against
the smoky panel over the fireplace.
"With such a
"The time is come!" said he.
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
432
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 chim-
ney-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 accus-
tomed 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 no-
tions."
“I should like it pretty much such a room as this
kitchen," answered Tabitha. "It will never be like
PETER GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE. 433
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 Gold-
thwaite, who died seventy years ago, and whose name-
sake 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, accord-
ing 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, in-
stead of scraping it together, coin by coin. Like
Peter the second, too, his projects had almost invaria-
bly 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 con-
jured 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,
YOL L.
28
A
434
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 indis
putable 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 re-
main 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-mor
row I will set about it."
The deeper he looked at the matter the more cer-
tain of success grew Peter. His spirits were natur
ally 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 Tab-
itha'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
PETER GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE.
435
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.
66
"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 Tab-
itha, puffing and panting with her late gymnastics,
as fast as you tear the house down, I 'll make a fire
with the pieces."
66
Gorgeous that night were the dreams of Peter
Goldthwaite! At one time he was turning a ponder-
ous 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, incalcu-
lably rich, though tarnished with the damps of the
vault; for, of all the wealth that was irrevocably lost
to man, whether buried in the earth or sunken in the
sea, Peter Goldthwaite had found it in this one treas-
ure-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, with-
out 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 win-
dow 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
436
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
bedsteads, with blankets of woven gold, and sheets of
silver tissue. The house had evidently been trans-
muted 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 mag-
nificence 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 valu-
able 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 parch-
ment 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 gar-
ments 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 na
gold-headed ones, and shoe-buckles of various patterr
PETER GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE. 437
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 mul-
titude 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 inven-
tory 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 pict
ure 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
unacountably 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 tear-
438
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
ing 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 hap
pier than now. Perhaps, after all, there was some-
thing in Peter Goldthwaite's turn of mind, which
brought him an inward recompense for all the exter-
nal evil that it caused. If he were poor, ill-clad, even
hungry, and exposed, as it were, to be utterly annihi-
lated 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 fu-
turity. 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 disagree-
ably 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 him-
self from his former lounging-places, at insurance offi-
ces, 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
PETER GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE.
439
kitchen hearth. This was always heaped plentifully
with the rubbish of his day's labor. As the founda
tion 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 ex-
cept 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 visi-
ble almost to the chimney-top. Meantime, the gleam
of the old kitchen would be chased out of the cob
webbed 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 de-
struction 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 excite-
ment. But, when the brief blaze and uproar were suc-
ceeded by the dark-red glow, the substantial heat, and
the deep singing sound, which were to last through-
out 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
440
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
"Did not you
a tradition about him," said Peter.
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 spug, 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 GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE. 441
Peter in great wrath.
66
"They were as good golden
guineas as ever bore the effigies of the king of Eng-
land. It seems as if I could recollect the whole cir-
cumstance, 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 for-
tunate 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 re-
turn 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 em-
ployed! 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
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 re
strike this blow before?"
442
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
markable 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 al-
ways 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 treas-
ure!
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, how-
ever, and that the best one, affected him differently.
It represented a ragged man, partly supporting him-
self on a spade, and bending his lean body over a hole
in the earth, with one hand extended to grasp some-
thing 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.
have his gold!"
"The man shall
Uplifting his axe, he hit the horned gentleman such
a blow on the head as not only demolished him, but
PETER GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE. 443
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 quarreling 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 spec-
tacles. 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 Gold-
thwaite'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 refer-
ence to the place of concealment. But the ink has
444
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
either faded or peeled off, so that it is absolutely illeg
ible. What a pity!"
66
Well, this lamp is as good as new.
comfort," said Tabitha.
That's some
"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 dissolv-
ing into millions of water-drops, which sparkled down-
wards through the sunshine, with the noise of a sum-
mer 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
-
PETER GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE. 445
porkers, or sheep, and perhaps a deer or two; some
times 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 cheer
ful multitude, the variety of rapid vehicles, and the
jingle jangle of merry bells which made the heart
lance to their music. Nothing dismal was to be seen,
446
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
except that peaked piece of antiquity, Peter Gold-
thwaite'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 comforta
ble, 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," re-
plied Peter. "If I make it new, it will be new in-
side 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 pre-
cisely 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
PETER GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE. 447
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 ad-
vantage of a gregarious mode of life that each person
rectifies his mind by other minds, and squares his con-
duct to that of his neighbors, so as seldom to be lost
in eccentricity. Peter Goldthwaite had exposed him-
self 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 grand-
father, a jovial officer in the old French War, had set
aside many dozens of the precious liquor for the ben-
efit of topers then unborn. Peter needed no cordial to
sustain his hopes, and therefore kept the wine to glad
448
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
den 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 six-
pence, 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 fied
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
Thus the whole house might
economy was nonsense.
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
PETER GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE. 449
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 rest-
less 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 Pe-
ter, close beside the old brass lamp, which had like-
wise been the prize of his researches. Peter held it
before his eyes, and, looking through the liquid me-
dium, 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
VOL. I.
29
450
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 mis-
fortunes 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 acquaint
PETER GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE. 451
ance' 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 im-
pulse 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 be-
nevolence, 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 be-
neath 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 pas-
sage 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, with
out 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
452
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 in-
serting 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."
66
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,
PETER GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE. 453
no sane man would have given a solid sixpence for.
What then, in sober earnest, were the delusive treas-
ures 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 treas-
ure!" 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 thou-
sands 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 build-
ing 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.
66
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 reviv
454
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
ing spirits, "have a plan for laying out the cash to
great advantage."
"Why, as to that," muttered John Brown to him-
self, "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."
CHIPPINGS WITH A CHISEL.
PASSING a summer, several years since, at Edgar
town, on the island of Martha's Vineyard, I became
acquainted with a certain carver of tombstones, who
had travelled and voyaged thither from the interior of
Massachusetts, in search of professional employment.
The speculation had turned out so successful that my
friend expected to transmute slate and marble into
silver and gold, to the amount of at least a thousand
dollars, during the few months of his sojourn at Nan-
tucket and the Vineyard. The secluded life, and the
simple and primitive spirit which still characterizes
the inhabitants of those islands, especially of Martha's
Vineyard, insure their dead friends a longer and dearer
remembrance than the daily novelty and revolving bus-
tle of the world can elsewhere afford to beings of the
past. Yet while every family is anxious to erect a me-
morial to its departed members, the untainted breath
of ocean bestows such health and length of days upon
the people of the isles, as would cause a melancholy
dearth of business to a resident artist in that line.
His own monument, recording his death by starva-
tion, would probably be an early specimen of his skill.
Gravestones, therefore, have generally been an article
of imported merchandise.
In my walks through the burial-ground of Edgar-
town - where the dead have lain so long that the soil,
once enriched by their decay, has returned to its orig-
inal barrenness-in that ancient burial-ground I no
456
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
ticed much variety of monumental sculpture. The
elder stones, dated a century back or more, have bor
ders elaborately carved with flowers, and are adorned
with a multiplicity of death's heads, cross-bones, scythes,
hour-glasses, and other lugubrious emblems of mortal-
ity, with here and there a winged cherub to direct the
mourner's spirit upward. These productions of Gothic
taste must have been quite beyond the colonial skill
of the day, and were probably carved in London, and
brought across the ocean to commemorate the defunct
worthies of this lonely isle. The more recent monu-
ments are mere slabs of slate, in the ordinary style,
without any superfluous flourishes to set off the bald
inscriptions. But others—and those far the most im-
pressive both to my taste and feelings were roughly
hewn from the gray rocks of the island, evidently by
the unskilled hands of surviving friends and relatives.
On some there were merely the initials of a name;
some were inscribed with misspelt prose or rhyme, in
deep letters, which the moss and wintry rain of many
years had not been able to obliterate. These, these
were graves where loved ones slept! It is an old
theme of satire, the falsehood and vanity of monu-
mental eulogies; but when affection and sorrow grave
the letters with their own painful labor, then we may
be sure that they copy from the record on their hearts.
My acquaintance, the sculptor,- he may share that
title with Greenough, since the dauber of signs is a
painter as well as Raphael, — had found a ready mar-
ket for all his blank slabs of marble, and full occupa
tion in lettering and ornamenting them. He was an
elderly man, a descendant of the old Puritan family
of Wigglesworth, with a certain simplicity and single-
ness both of heart and mind, which, methinks, is more
CHIPPINGS WITH A CHISEL.
457
rarely found among us Yankees than in any other
community of people. In spite of his gray head and
wrinkled brow, he was quite like a child in all matters.
save what had some reference to his own business; he
seemed, unless my fancy misled me, to view mankind
in no other relation than as people in want of tomb-
stones; and his literary attainments evidently compre-
hended very little, either of prose or poetry, which
had not, at one time or other, been inscribed on
slate or marble. His sole task and office among the
immortal pilgrims of the tomb - the duty for which
Providence had sent the old man into the world as it
were with a chisel in his hand was to label the dead
bodies, lest their names should be forgotten at the
resurrection. Yet he had not failed, within a narrow
scope, to gather a few sprigs of earthly, and more than
earthly, wisdom, the harvest of many a grave.
And lugubrious as his calling might appear, he was
as cheerful an old soul as health and integrity and
lack of care could make him, and used to set to work
upon one sorrowful inscription or another with that
sort of spirit which impels a man to sing at his labor.
On the whole I found Mr. Wigglesworth an entertain-
ing, and often instructive, if not an interesting, char-
acter; and partly for the charm of his society, and
still more because his work has an invariable attrac-
tion for " man that is born of woman," I was accus-
tomed to spend some hours a day at his workshop.
The quaintness of his remarks, and their not infre-
quent truth-a truth condensed and pointed by the
limited sphere of his view-gave a raciness to his
talk, which mere worldliness and general cultivation
would at once have destroyed.
Sometimes we would discuss the respective merits.
458
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
of the various qualities of marble, numerous slabs of
which were resting against the walls of the shop; or
sometimes an hour or two would pass quietly, without
a word on either side, while I watched how neatly his
chisel struck out letter after letter of the names of the
Nortons, the Mayhews, the Luces, the Daggets, and
other immemorial families of the Vineyard. Often,
with an artist's pride, the good old sculptor would
speak of favorite productions of his skill which were
scattered throughout the village graveyards of New
England. But my chief and most instructive amuse-
ment was to witness his interviews with his customers,
who held interminable consultations about the form
and fashion of the desired monuments, the buried ex-
cellence to be commemorated, the anguish to be ex-
pressed, and finally, the lowest price in dollars and
cents for which a marble transcript of their feelings
might be obtained. Really, my mind received many
fresh ideas which, perhaps, may remain in it even
longer than Mr. Wigglesworth's hardest marble will
retain the deepest strokes of his chisel.
An elderly lady came to bespeak a monument for
her first love who had been killed by a whale in the
Pacific Ocean no less than forty years before. It was
singular that so strong an impression of early feeling
should have survived through the changes of her sub-
sequent life, in the course of which she had been a
wife and a mother, and, so far as I could judge, a com-
fortable and happy woman. Reflecting within myself,
it appeared to me that this lifelong sorrow
as, in all
good faith, she deemed it was one of the most for-
tunate circumstances of her history. It had given an
ideality to her mind; it had kept her purer and less
earthly than she would otherwise have been, by draw
CHIPPINGS WITH A CHISEL.
459
ing a portion of her sympathies apart from earth.
Amid the throng of enjoyments and the pressure of
worldly care, and all the warm materialism of this life,
she had communed with a vision, and had been the
better for such intercourse. Faithful to the husband
of her maturity, and loving him with a far more real
affection than she ever could have felt for this dream
of her girlhood, there had still been an imaginative
faith to the ocean-buried, so that an ordinary character
had thus been elevated and refined. Her sighs had
been the breath of heaven to her soul. The good
lady earnestly desired that the proposed monument
should be ornamented with a carved border of marine
plants, intertwined with twisted sea-shells, such as
were probably waving over her lover's skeleton, or
strewn around it in the far depths of the Pacific.
But Mr. Wigglesworth's chisel being inadequate to
the task, she was forced to content herself with a rose
hanging its head from a broken stem. After her de-
parture, I remarked that the symbol was none of the
most apt.
“And yet,” said my friend the sculptor, embodying
in this image the thoughts that had been passing
through my own mind, "that broken rose has shed its
sweet smell through forty years of the good woman's
life."
It was seldom that I could find such pleasant food
for contemplation as in the above instance. None of
the applicants, I think, affected me more disagreeably
than an old man who came, with his fourth wife hang-
ing on his arm, to bespeak gravestones for the three
former occupants of his marriage-bed. I watched
with some anxiety to see whether his remembrance of
either were more affectionate than of the other two
460
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
ment.
but could discover no symptom of the kind. The
three monuments were all to be of the same material
and form, and each decorated, in bass-relief, with two
weeping willows, one of these sympathetic trees bend-
ing over its fellow, which was to be broken in the midst
and rest upon a sepulchral urn. This, indeed, was Mr.
Wigglesworth's standing emblem of conjugal bereave-
I shuddered at the gray polygamist who had
so utterly lost the holy sense of individuality in wed-
lock, that methought he was fain to reckon upon his
fingers how many women, who had once slept by his
side, were now sleeping in their graves. There was
even if I wrong him it is no great matter.— a glance
sidelong at his living spouse, as if he were inclined to
drive a thriftier bargain by bespeaking four grave-
stones in a lot. I was better pleased with a rough old
whaling captain, who gave directions for a broad mar-
ble slab, divided into two compartments, one of which
was to contain an epitaph on his deceased wife, and
the other to be left vacant, till death should engrave
his own name there. As is frequently the case among
the whalers of Martha's Vineyard, so much of this
storm-beaten widower's life had been tossed away on
distant seas, that out of twenty years of matrimony
he had spent scarce three, and those at scattered in-
tervals, beneath his own roof. Thus the wife of his
youth, though she died in his and her declining age,
retained the bridal dew-drops fresh around her memory.
My observations gave me the idea, and Mr. Wiggles-
worth confirmed it, that husbands were more faithful
in setting up memorials to their dead wives than wid-
ows to their dead husbands. I was not ill-natured
enough to fancy that women, less than men, feel so
sure of their constancy as to be willing to give a
CHIPPINGS WITH A CHISEL.
461
pledge of it in marble. It is more probably the fact
that while men are able to reflect upon their lost
companions as remembrances apart from themselves,
women, on the other hand, are conscious that a por-
tion of their being has gone with the departed whith
ersoever he has gone. Soul clings to soul; the living
dust has a sympathy with the dust of the grave; and,
by the very strength of that sympathy, the wife of the
dead shrinks the more sensitively from reminding the
world of its existence. The link is already strong
enough; it needs no visible symbol. And though a
shadow walks ever by her side, and the touch of a chill
hand is on her bosom, yet life, and perchance its nat-
ural yearnings, may still be warm within her, and in-
spire her with new hopes of happiness. Then would
she mark out the grave, the scent of which would be
perceptible on the pillow of the second bridal? No-
but rather level its green mound with the surrounding
earth, as if, when she dug up again her buried heart,
the spot had ceased to be a grave. Yet, in spite of
these sentimentalities, I was prodigiously amused by
an incident, of which I had not the good fortune to be
a witness, but which Mr. Wigglesworth related with
considerable humor. A gentlewoman of the town,
receiving news of her husband's loss at sea, had be-
spoken a handsome slab of marble, and came daily to
watch the progress of my friend's chisel. One after-
noon, when the good lady and the sculptor were in the
very midst of the epitaph, which the departed spirit
might have been greatly comforted to read, who
should walk into the workshop but the deceased him-
self, in substance as well as spirit! He had been
picked up at sea, and stood in no present need of
tombstone or epitaph.
462
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
"And how," inquired I, "did his wife bear the
shock of joyful surprise?”
66
Why," said the old man, deepening the grin of a
death's-head, on which his chisel was just then em-
ployed, "I really felt for the poor woman; it was one
of my best pieces of marble and to be thrown away
ɔn a living man !”
A comely woman, with a pretty rosebud of a
daughter, came to select a gravestone for a twin
daughter, who had died a month before.
I was im-
pressed with the different nature of their feelings for
the dead; the mother was calm and wofully resigned,
fully conscious of her loss, as of a treasure which she
had not always possessed, and, therefore, had been
aware that it might be taken from her; but the daugh-
ter evidently had no real knowledge of what death's
doings were. Her thoughts knew, but not her heart.
It seemed to me, that by the print and pressure which
the dead sister had left upon the survivor's spirit, her
feelings were almost the same as if she still stood side
by side and arm in arm with the departed, looking at
the slabs of marble; and once or twice she glanced
around with a sunny smile, which, as its sister smile
had faded forever, soon grew confusedly overshad
owed.
Perchance her consciousness was truer than
her reflection—perchance her dead sister was a close
companion than in life. The mother and daughter
talked a long while with Mr. Wigglesworth about a
suitable epitaph, and finally chose an ordinary verse of
ill-matched rhymes, which had already been inscribed
upon innumerable tombstones. But when we ridicule
the triteness of monumental verses, we forget that
Sorrow reads far deeper in them than we can, and
finds a profound and individual purport in what seems
CHIPPINGS WITH A CHISEL.
463
so vague and inexpressive, unless interpreted by her.
She makes the epitaph anew, though the selfsame
words may have served for a thousand graves.
“And yet,” said I afterwards to Mr. Wigglesworth,
"they might have made a better choice than this.
While you were discussing the subject, I was struck
by at least a dozen simple and natural expressions
from the lips of both mother and daughter. One of
these would have formed an inscription equally orig-
inal and appropriate."
66
No, no," replied the sculptor, shaking his head ;
"there is a good deal of comfort to be gathered from
these little old scraps of poetry; and so I always
recommend them in preference to any new-fangled
ones.
And somehow, they seem to stretch to suit a
great grief, and shrink to fit a small one.
It was not seldom that ludicrous images were excited
by what took place between Mr. Wigglesworth and
his customers. A shrewd gentlewoman, who kept a
tavern in the town, was anxious to obtain two or three
gravestones for the deceased members of her family,
and to pay for these solemn commodities by taking
the sculptor to board. Hereupon a fantasy arose in
my mind of good Mr. Wigglesworth sitting down to
dinner at a broad, flat tombstone, carving one of his
own plump little marble cherubs, gnawing a pair of
cross-bones, and drinking out of a hollow death's-head,
or perhaps a lachrymatory vase, or sepulchral urn,
while his hostess's dead children waited on him at the
ghastly banquet. On communicating this nonsensical
picture to the old man he laughed heartily, and pro-
nounced my humor to be of the right sort.
"I have lived at such a table all my days," said he,
"and eaten no small quantity of slate and marble.”
464
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
"Hard fare!" rejoined I, smiling; "but
"but you seemed
to have found it excellent of digestion, too."
A man of fifty, or thereabouts, with a harsh, un-
pleasant countenance, ordered a stone for the grave
of his bittter enemy, with whom he had waged warfare
half a lifetime, to their mutual misery and ruin. The
secret of this phenomenon was, that hatred had become
the sustenance and enjoyment of the poor wretch's
soul; it had supplied the place of all kindly affections;
it had been really a bond of sympathy between himself
and the man who shared the passion; and when its
object died the unappeasable foe was the only mourner
for the dead. He expressed a purpose of being buried
side by side with his enemy.
"I doubt whether their dust will mingle," remarked
the old sculptor to me; for often there was an earthli-
ness in his conceptions.
Oh yes," replied I, who had mused long upon the
incident; "and when they rise again, these bitter foes
may find themselves dear friends. Methinks what they
mistook for hatred was but love under a mask.”
A gentleman of antiquarian propensities provided a
memorial for an Indian of Chabbiquidick, one of the
few of untainted blood remaining in that region, and
said to be an hereditary chieftain, descended from the
sachem who welcomed Governor Mayhew to the Vine-
yard. Mr. Wigglesworth exerted his best skill to carve
a broken bow and scattered sheaf of arrows, in mem-
ory of the hunters and warriors whose race was ended
here; but he likewise sculptured a cherub, to denote
that the poor Indian had shared the Christian's hope
of immortality.
66
Why," observed I, taking a perverse view of the
winged boy and the bow and arrows, "it looks more
like Cupid's tomb than an Indian chief's!"
CHIPPINGS WITH A CHISEL.
465
"You talk nonsense," said the sculptor, with the
offended pride of art; he then added with his usual
good nature, "How can Cupid die when there are such
pretty maidens in the Vineyard?”
66
Very true," answered I—and for the rest of the
day I thought of other matters than tombstones.
At our next meeting I found him chiselling an open
book upon a marble headstone, and concluded that it
was meant to express the erudition of some black-
letter clergyman of the Cotton Mather school. It
turned out, however, to be emblematical of the script-
ural knowledge of an old woman who had never read
anything but her Bible: and the monument was a trib-
ute to her piety and good works from the Orthodox
church, of which she had been a member. In strange
contrast with this Christian woman's memorial was
that of an infidel, whose gravestone, by his own di-
rection, bore an avowal of his belief that the spirit
within him would be extinguished like a flame, and
that the nothingness whence he sprang would receive
him again. Mr. Wigglesworth consulted me as to the
propriety of enabling a dead man's dust to utter this
dreadful creed.
"If I thought," said he, "that a single mortal
would read the inscription without a shudder, my
chisel should never cut a letter of it. But when the
grave speaks such falsehoods, the soul of man wil
know the truth by its own horror."
"the poor
"So it will," said I, struck by the idea;
infidel may strive to preach blasphemies from his
grave; but it will be only another method of impress-
ing the soul with a consciousness of immortality."
There was an old man by the name of Norton,
noted throughout the island for his greath wealth,
VOL. I.
30
466
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
which he had accumulated by the exercise of strong
and shrewd faculties, combined with a most penurious
disposition. This wretched miser, conscious that he
had not a friend to be mindful of him in his grave, had
himself taken the needful precautions for posthumous
remembrance, by bespeaking an immense slab of
white marble, with a long epitaph 'in raised letters,
the whole to be as magnificent as Mr. Wigglesworth's
skill could make it. There was something very char-
acteristic in this contrivance to have his money's
worth even from his own tombstone, which, indeed,
afforded him more enjoyment in the few months that
he lived thereafter, than it probably will in a whole
century, now that it is laid over his bones. This inci-
dent reminds me of a young girl,-a pale, slender, fee-
ble creature, most unlike the other rosy and healthful
damsels of the Vineyard, amid whose brightness she
was fading away. Day after day did the poor maiden
come to the sculptor's shop, and pass from one piece.
of marble to another, till at last she pencilled her
name upon a slender slab, which, I think, was of a
more spotless white than all the rest. I saw her no
more, but soon afterwards found Mr. Wigglesworth
cutting her virgin name into the stone which she had
chosen.
"She is dead-poor girl," said he, interrupting the
tune which he was whistling, "and she chose a good
piece of stuff for her headstone. Now which of these
slabs would you like best to see your own name
upon?"
"Why, to tell you the truth, my good Mr. Wiggles-
worth," replied I, after a moment's pause, for the
abruptness of the question had somewhat startled me,
"to be quite sincere with you, I care little or noth
CHIPPINGS WITH A CHISEL.
467
ing about a stone for my own grave, and am somewhat
inclined to scepticism as to the propriety of erecting
monuments at all over the dust that once was human.
The weight of these heavy marbles, though unfelt
by the dead corpse of the enfranchised soul, presses
drearily upon the spirit of the survivor, and causes
him to connect the idea of death with the dungeon-
like imprisonment of the tomb, instead of with the
freedom of the skies. Every gravestone that you ever
made is the visible symbol of a mistaken system. Our
thoughts should soar upward with the butterfly-not
linger with the exuviæ that confined him. In truth
and reason, neither those whom we call the living, and
still less the departed, have anything to do with the
grave.
""
"I never heard anything so heathenish!" said Mr.
Wigglesworth, perplexed and displeased at sentiments
which controverted all his notions and feelings, and
implied the utter waste, and worse, of his whole life's
labor; "would you forget your dead friends, the
moment they are under the sod?”
66
They are not under the sod," I rejoined; "then
why should I mark the spot where there is no treasure
hidden! Forget them? No! But to remember them
aright, I would forget what they have cast off. And
to gain the truer conception of DEATH, I would forget
the GRAVE!"
But still the good old sculptor murmured, and stum-
bled, as it were, over the gravestones amid which he
had walked through life. Whether he were right or
wrong, I had grown the wiser from our companionship,
and from my observations of nature and character as
displayed by those who came, with their old griefs or
their new ones, to get them recorded upon his slabs of
468
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
marble. And yet, with my gain of wisdom, I had
likewise gained perplexity; for there was a strange
doubt in my mind, whether the dark shadowing of this
life, the sorrows and regrets, have not as much real
comfort in them leaving religious influences out of
the question--as what we term life's joys.
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 vil
lage 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 be
lieved to alienate the enthusiast from earth, and bear
him onward to heavenly purity and bliss. His breth
ren 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 pecul-
iarly 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 evi-
dent, 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 sur
470
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
rounding 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 candi-
dates 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 some-
thing 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 de-
sires 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
THE SHAKER BRIDAL.
471
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 pre-
side 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 neighbor-
ing 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 advan-
tages which a single man possesses for raising himself
in the world. Year after year, therefore, their mar-
riage 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 vil
lage 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
472
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 de-
sired 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 accom-
panied 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
THE SHAKER BRIDAL.
473
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 consti-
tute them such, was now to be performed.
Son Adam, and daughter Martha," said the vener-
able 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 calm-
ness of his character, "I came to your village a disap-
pointed man, weary of the world, worn out with con-
tinual 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 affec-
tion 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 Fa-
ther. "God will bless thee in the office which I am
about to resign.”
But our sister!" observed the elder from Har-
vard, “hath she not likewise a gift to declare her
sentiments?"
Martha started, and moved her lips, as if she would
474
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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 wom-
anhood, might have gushed from her heart, in words
that it would have been profanation to utter there.
“Adam has spoken," said she hurriedly; "his sen-
timents 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 some-
thing 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 ex-
alted and famous throughout the sect as these were.
They had overcome their natural sympathy with hu-
man 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 forti-
tude 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 fra-
ternal 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.
THE SHAKER BRIDAL.
475
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
rasped 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 otners the faith which ye have re-
ceived. 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 misera-
ble 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 sur-
rounding elders deemed, with good reason, that the
176
TWICE TOLD TALES.
hour was come when the new heads of the village
must enter on their patriarchal duties. In their atten-
tion 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 Mar-
tha 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.
NIGHT SKETCHES.
BENEATH AN UMBRELLA.
PLEASANT is a rainy winter's day, within doors!
The best study for such a day, or the best amusement,
-call it which you will, is a book of travels, de-
scribing scenes the most unlike that sombre one which
is mistily presented through the windows. I have
experienced that fancy is then most successful in im-
parting distinct shapes and vivid colors to the objects
which the author has spread upon his page, and that
his words become magic spells to summon up a thou-
sand varied pictures. Strange landscapes glimmer
through the familiar walls of the room, and outlandish
figures thrust themselves almost within the sacred pre-
cincts of the hearth. Small as my chamber is, it has
space enough to contain the ocean-like circumference
of an Arabian desert, its parched sands tracked by the
long line of a caravan, with the camels patiently jour-
neying through the heavy sunshine. Though my ceil-
ing be not lofty, yet I can pile up the mountains of
Central Asia beneath it, till their summits shine far
above the clouds of the middle atmosphere. And with
my
humble means, a wealth that is not taxable, I can
transport hither the magnificent merchandise of an
Oriental bazaar, and call a crowd of purchasers from
distant countries to pay a fair profit for the precious
articles which are displayed on all sides. True it is,
however, that amid the bustle of traffic, or whatever
478
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
else may seem to be going on around me, the rain-drops
will occasionally be heard to patter against my window
panes, which look forth upon one of the quietest streets
in a New England town. After a time, too, the vis
ions vanish, and will not appear again at my bidding.
Then, it being nightfall, a gloomy sense of unreality
depresses my spirits, and impels me to venture out,
before the clock shall strike bedtime, to satisfy myself
that the world is not entirely made up of such shad-
owy materials as have busied me throughout the day.
A dreamer may dwell so long among fantasies, that
the things without him will seem as unreal as those
within.
When eve has fairly set in, therefore, I sally forth,
tightly buttoning my shaggy overcoat, and hoisting
my umbrella, the silken dome of which immediately
resounds with the heavy drumming of the invisible
rain-drops. Pausing on the lowest doorstep, I contrast
the warmth and cheerfulness of my deserted fireside
with the drear obscurity and chill discomfort into
which I am about to plunge. Now come fearful augu-
ries, innumerable as the drops of rain. Did not my
manhood cry shame upon me I should turn back within
doors, resume my elbow-chair, my slippers, and my
book, pass such an evening of sluggish enjoyment as
the day has been, and go to bed inglorious. The
same shivering reluctance, no doubt, has quelled, for
a moment, the adventurous spirit of many a traveller,
when his feet, which were destined to measure the
earth around, were leaving their last tracks in the
home paths.
In my own case poor human nature may be allowed
a few misgivings. I look upward, and discern no sky,
not even an unfathomable void, but only a black, im-
NIGHT SKETCHES.
479
penetrable nothingness, as though heaven and all its
lights were blotted from the system of the universe.
It is as if Nature were dead, and the world had put on
black, and the clouds were weeping for her. With
their tears upon my cheek, I turn my eyes earthward,
but find little consolation here below. A lamp is
burning dimly at the distant corner, and throws just
enough of light along the street to show and exag-
gerate by so faintly showing the perils and difficulties
which beset my path. Yonder dingily white remnant
of a huge snow-bank, which will yet cumber the
sidewalk till the latter days of March, over or
through that wintry waste must I stride onward.
Beyond lies a certain Slough of Despond, a concoc-
tion of mud and liquid filth, ankle-deep, leg-deep,
neck-deep, in a word, of unknown bottom, — on
which the lamplight does not even glimmer, but which
I have occasionally watched in the gradual growth of
its horrors from morn till nightfall. Should I flounder
into its depths, farewell to upper earth! And hark!
how roughly resounds the roaring of a stream, the
turbulent career of which is partially reddened by the
gleam of the lamp, but elsewhere brawls noisily
through the densest gloom. Oh, should I be swept
away in fording that impetuous and unclean torrent,
the coroner will have a job with an unfortunate gen-
tleman who would fain end his troubles anywhere
but in a mud puddle !
Pshaw! I will linger not another instant at arm's-
length from these dim terrors, which grow more ob-
scurely formidable the longer I delay to grapple with
them. Now for the onset! And lo! with little dam-
age, save a dash of rain in the face and breast, a
splash of mud high up the pantaloons, and the left
180
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
boot full of ice-cold water, behold me at the corner
of the street. The lamp throws down a circle of red
light around me: and twinkling onward from corner
to corner I discern other beacons marshalling my way
to a brighter scene. But this is a lonesome and dreary
spot. The tall edifices bid gloomy defiance to the
storm, with their blinds all closed, even as a man
winks when he faces a spattering gust. How loudly
tinkles the collected rain down the tin spouts! The
puffs of wind are boisterous, and seem to assail me
from various quarters at once. I have often observed
that this corner is a haunt and loitering-place for those
winds which have no work to do upon the deep, dash-
ing ships against our iron-bound shores; nor in the
forest, tearing up the sylvan giants with half a rood of
soil at their vast roots. Here they amuse themselves
with lesser freaks of mischief. See, at this moment,
how they assail yonder poor woman, who is passing
just within the verge of the lamplight! One blast
struggles for her umbrella, and turns it wrong side
outward; another whisks the cape of her cloak across
her eyes; while a third takes most unwarrantable lib-
erties with the lower part of her attire. Happily the
good dame is no gossamer, but a figure of rotundity
and fleshly substance; else would these aerial tor-
mentors whirl her aloft, like a witch upon a broom-
stick, and set her down, doubtless, in the filthiest ken-
nel hereabout.
From hence I tread upon firm pavements into the
centre of the town. Here there is almost as brilliant
an illumination as when some great victory has been
won, either on the battle-field or at the polls. Two
rows of shops, with windows down nearly to the
ground, cast a glow from side to side, while the black
NIGHT SKETCHES.
481
night hangs overhead like a canopy, and thus keeps
the splendor from diffusing itself away. The wet
sidewalks gleam with a broad sheet of red light. The
rain-drops glitter, as if the sky were pouring down
rubies. The spouts gush with fire. Methinks the
scene is an emblem of the deceptive glare which mor-
tals throw around their footsteps in the moral world,
thus bedazzling themselves till they forget the impen
etrable obscurity that hems them in, and that can be
dispelled only by radiance from above. And after all
it is a cheerless scene, and cheerless are the wanderers
in it. Here comes one who has so long been familiar
with tempestuous weather that he takes the bluster of
the storm for a friendly greeting, as if it should say,
"How fare ye, brother?" He is a retired sea-cap-
tain, wrapped in some nameless garment of the pea-
jacket order, and is now laying his course towards the
Marine Insurance Office, there to spin yarns of gale
and shipwreck with a crew of old sea-dogs like him-
self. The blast will put in its word among their
hoarse voices, and be understood by all of them.
Next 1 meet an unhappy slipshod gentleman, with a
cloak flung hastily over his shoulders, running a race
with boisterous winds, and striving to glide between
the drops of rain. Some domestic emergency or other
has blown this miserable man from his warm fireside
in quest of a doctor! See that little vagabond-how
carelessly he has taken his stand right underneath a
spout, while staring at some object of curiosity in a
shop-window! Surely the rain is his native element;
he must have fallen with it from the clouds, as frogs
are supposed to do.
Here is a picture, and a pretty one. A young man
and a girl, both enveloped in cloaks, and huddled be
VOL. I.
31
482
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
neath the scanty protection of a cotton umbrella. She
wears rubber overshoes, but he is in his dancing
pumps; and they are on their way, no doubt, to some
cotillon party, or subscription ball at a dollar a head,
refreshments included. Thus they struggle against
the gloomy tempest, lured onward by a vision of fes-
tal splendor. But, ah! a most lamentable disaster.
Bewildered by the red, blue, and yellow meteors, in
an apothecary's window, they have stepped upon a
slippery remnant of ice, and are precipitated into a
confluence of swollen floods, at the corner of two
streets. Luckless lovers! Were it my nature to be
other than a looker-on in life, I would attempt your
Since that may not be, I vow, should you be
drowned, to weave such a pathetic story of
pathetic story of your fate
as shall call forth tears enough to drown you both
anew. Do ye touch bottom, my young friends? Yes;
they emerge like a water nymph and a river deity,
and paddle hand in hand out of the depths of the
dark pool. They hurry homeward, dripping, discon-
solate, abashed, but with love too warm to be chilled
by the cold water. They have stood a test which
proves too strong for many. Faithful, though over
head and ears in trouble!
rescue.
Onward I go, deriving a sympathetic joy or sorrow
from the varied aspect of mortal affairs, even as my
figure catches a gleam from the lighted windows, or
is blackened by an interval of darkness. Not that
mine is altogether a chameleon spirit, with no hue of
its own. Now I pass into a more retired street, where
the dwellings of wealth and poverty are intermingled,
presenting a range of strongly contrasted pictures.
Here, too, may be found the golden mean. Through
yonder casement I discern a family circle, the grand
NIGHT SKETCHES.
483
all flicker-
mother, the parents, and the children,
ing, shadow-like, in the glow of a wood fire. Bluster,
fierce blast, and beat, thou wintry rain, against the
window panes! Ye cannot damp the enjoyment of
that fireside. Surely my fate is hard that I should
be wandering homeless here, taking to my bosom
night and storm and solitude, instead of wife and
children. Peace, murmurer! Doubt not that darker
guests are sitting round the hearth, though the warm
blaze hides all but blissful images. Well; here is
still a brighter scene. A stately mansion illuminated
for a ball, with cut-glass chandeliers and alabaster
lamps in every room, and sunny landscapes hanging
round the walls. See! a coach has stopped, whence
emerges a slender beauty, who, canopied by two um-
brellas, glides within the portal, and vanishes amid
lightsome thrills of music. Will she ever feel the
night wind and the rain? Perhaps,-perhaps! And
will Death and Sorrow ever enter that proud man-
sion? As surely as the dancers will be gay within its
halls to-night. Such thoughts sadden, yet satisfy my
heart; for they teach me that the poor man in this
mean, weather-beaten hovel, without a fire to cheer
him, may call the rich his brother, brethren by Sor-
row, who must be an inmate of both their households,
-brethren by Death, who will lead them both to other
homes.
Onward, still onward, I plunge into the night.
Now have I reached the utmost limits of the town,
where the last lamp struggles feebly with the dark-
ness, like the farthest star that stands sentinel on the
borders of uncreated space. It is strange what sen-
sations of sublimity may spring from a very humble
source.
Such are suggested by this hollow roar of a
484
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
subterranean cataract, where the mighty stream of a
kennel precipitates itself beneath an iron grate, and is
seen no more on earth.
mystery, and fancy will
smile at the illusion.
Listen awhile to its voice of
magnify it till you start and
And now another sound, - the
rumbling of wheels, as the mail-coach, outward
bound, rolls heavily off the pavement, and splashes
through the mud and water of the road. All night
long the poor passengers will be tossed to and fro be-
tween drowsy watch and troubled sleep, and will dream
of their own quiet beds, and awake to find them-
selves still jolting onward. Happier my lot, who will
straightway hie me to my familiar room, and toast
myself comfortably before the fire, musing and fit-
fully dozing, and fancying a strangeness in such sights
as all may see. But first let me gaze at this solitary
figure who comes hitherward with a tin lantern, which
throws the circular pattern of its punched holes on the
ground about him. He passes fearlessly into the un-
known gloom, whither I will not follow him.
This figure shall supply me with a moral, where-
with, for lack of a more appropriate one, I may wind
up my sketch.
He fears not to tread the dreary path
before him, because his lantern, which was kindled at
the fireside of his home, will light him back to that
same fireside again. And thus we, night wanderers
through a stormy and dismal world, if we bear the
lamp of Faith, enkindled at a celestial fire, it will
surely lead us home to that heaven whence its radi
ance was borrowed.
ENDICOTT AND THE RED CROSS.
い
​AT noon of an autumnal day, more than two cen
turies 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 pros-
pects 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 min-
istry were rendered more tyrannically violent by an
opposition, which had not yet acquired sufficient confi-
dence 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 Massachu-
setts. There is evidence on record that our fore-
fathers 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
486
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
leader, the famous Endicott, was a man of stern and
resolute countenance, the effect of which was height
ened 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 archi-
tecture 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 breast-
plate 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 ma-
chine; 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 ɛ
tall, lean, haggard personification of fanaticism, bear
ing on his breast this label,- A WANTON GOSPELLER,
ENDICOTT AND THE RED CROSS. 487
- which betokened that he had dared to give inter-
pretations 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 evi
488
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
dences 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.
A
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.
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
ENDICOTT AND THE RED CROSS. 489
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 wilder-
ness. His aspect was perfectly that of a pilgrim,
heightened also by an apostolic dignity. Just as Endi-
cott 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 Endi-
cott. "You are welcome back again to our town of
peace. How does our worthy Governor Winthrop?
And what news from Boston?'
66
"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 con-
tains tidings of much import; for a ship arrived
terday from England."
yes-
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
490
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
The blood glowed through it, till it seemed to be kind
ling with an internal heat; nor was it unnatural te
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 chil
dren to look Endicott in the face. A few taps of the
drum gave signal for silence and attention.
ENDICOTT AND THE RED CROSS. 491
"Fellow-soldiers, - fellow-exiles," began Endicott,
speaking under strong excitement, yet powerfully re-
straining it, "wherefore did ye leave your native coun-
try? 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 wilder-
ness? A howling wilderness it is! The wolf and the
bear meet us within halloo of our dwellings. The sav-
age 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 gest-
ure 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 to-morrow! 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
492
TWICE-TÖLD TALES.
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
66
66
""
Nay, brother, nay," interposed Mr. Williams;
thy words are not meet for a secret chamber, far less
for a public street.'
""
66
"Hold thy peace, Roger Williams!" answered En-
dicott, 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 per-
secutor, arch-priest of Canterbury, are resolute to pur-
sue 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 idola-
trous 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 intel-
ligence.
"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
ENDICOTT AND THE RED CROSS. 493
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 Eng-
land?"
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.
66
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 sanc-
tion to one of the boldest exploits which our history
records. And forever honored be the name of Endi-
sott! We look back through the mist of ages, and
494
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
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.
THE LILY'S QUEST.
AN APOLOGUE.
Two lovers, once upon a time, had planned a little
summer-house, in the form of an antique temple, which
it was their purpose to consecrate to all manner of re-
fined and innocent enjoyments. There they would hold
pleasant intercourse with one another and the circle of
their familiar friends; there they would give festivals
of delicious fruit; there they would hear lightsome
music, intermingled with the strains of pathos which
make joy more sweet; there they would read poetry
and fiction, and permit their own minds to flit away
in day-dreams and romance; there, in short-for why
should we shape out the vague sunshine of their hopes?
there all pure delights were to cluster like roses
among the pillars of the edifice, and blossom ever new
and spontaneously. So, one breezy and cloudless after-
noon, Adam Forrester and Lilias Fay set out upon a
ramble over the wide estate which they were to possess
together, seeking a proper site for their Temple of
Happiness. They were themselves a fair and happy
spectacle, fit priest and priestess for such a shrine;
although, making poetry of the pretty name of Lilias,
Adam Forrester was wont to call her LILY, because
her form was as fragile, and her cheek almost as pale.
As they passed hand in hand down the avenue of
drooping elms that led from the portal of Lilias Fay's
paternal mansion, they seemed to glance like winged
496
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
creatures through the strips of sunshine, and to scatter
brightness where the deep shadows fell. But setting
forth at the same time with this youthful pair, there
was a dismal figure, wrapped in a black velvet cloak
that might have been made of a coffin pall, and with a
sombre hat such as mourners wear drooping its broad
brim over his heavy brows. Glancing behind them,
the lovers well knew who it was that followed, but
wished from their hearts that he had been elsewhere,
as being a companion so strangely unsuited to their
joyous errand. It was a near relative of Lilias Fay,
an old man by the name of Walter Gascoigne, who
had long labored under the burden of a melancholy
spirit, which was sometimes maddened into absolute
´insanity, and always had a tinge of it. What a con-
trast between the young pilgrims of bliss and their
unbidden associate! They looked as if moulded of
heaven's sunshine, and he of earth's gloomiest shade;
they flitted along like Hope and Joy roaming hand in
hand through life; while his darksome figure stalked
behind, a type of all the woful influences which life
could fling upon them. But the three had not gone
far when they reached a spot that pleased the gentle
Lily, and she paused.
"What sweeter place shall we find than this?" said
she. 66
Why should we seek farther for the site of our
Temple?"
It was indeed a delightful spot of earth, though
undistinguished by any very prominent beauties, be-
ing merely a nook in the shelter of a hill, with the
prospect of a distant lake in one direction, and of a
church spire in another. There were vistas and path-
ways leading onward and onward into the green wood
lands, and vanishing away in the glimmering shade
THE LILY'S QUEST.
497
The Temple, if erected here, would look towards the
west: so that the lovers could shape all sorts of mag-
nificent dreams out of the purple, violet, and gold of
the sunset sky; and few of their anticipated pleasures
were dearer than this sport of fantasy.
66
"Yes," said Adam Forrester, "we might seek all
day and find no lovelier spot. We will build our
Temple here."
But their sad old companion, who had taken his
stand on the very site which they proposed to cover
with a marble floor, shook his head and frowned; and
the young man and the Lily deemed it almost enough
to blight the spot, and desecrate it for their airy Tem-
ple, that his dismal figure had thrown its shadow there.
He pointed to some scattered stones, the remnants of
a former structure, and to flowers such as young girls
delight to nurse in their gardens, but which had now
relapsed into the wild simplicity of nature.
"Here,
"Not here!” cried old Walter Gascoigne.
long ago, other mortals built their Temple of Happi-
Seek another site for yours!"
ness.
"What!" exclaimed Lilias Fay. "Have any ever
planned such a Temple save ourselves?"
66 In
"Poor child!" said her gloomy kinsman.
one shape or other, every mortal has dreamed your
dream."
Then he told the lovers how, not, indeed, an antique
Temple, but a dwelling, had once stood there, and that
a dark-clad guest had dwelt among its inmates, sitting
forever at the fireside, and poisoning all their house-
hold mirth. Under this type, Adam Forrester and
Lilias saw that the old man spake of Sorrow. He told
of nothing that might not be recorded in the history
of almost every household; and yet his hearers felt
498
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
as if no sunshine ought to fall upon a spot where
human grief had left so deep a stain; or, at least,
that no joyous Temple should be built there.
"This is very sad," said the Lily, sighing.
"Well, there are lovelier spots than this," said
Adam Forrester, soothingly, "spots which sorrow
has not blighted."
So they hastened away, and the melancholy Gas-
coigne followed them, looking as if he had gathered
up all the gloom of the deserted spot, and was bearing
it as a burden of inestimable treasure. But still they
rambled on, and soon found themselves in a rocky
dell through the midst of which ran a streamlet with
ripple and foam, and a continual voice of inarticulate
joy. It was a wild retreat, walled on either side with
gray precipices, which would have frowned somewhat
too sternly, had not a profusion of green shrubbery
rooted itself into their crevices, and wreathed glad-
some foliage around their solemn brows. But the
chief joy of the dell was in the little stream, which
seemed like the presence of a blissful child, with noth-
ing earthly to do save to babble merrily and disport
itself, and make every living soul its playfellow, and
throw the sunny gleams of its spirit upon all.
"Here, here is the spot!" cried the two lovers with
one voice as they reached a level space on the brink of
a small cascade. "This glen was made on purpose
for our Temple!"
"And the glad song of the brook will be always in
our ears," said Lilias Fay.
"And its long melody shall sing the bliss of our
lifetime," said Adam Forrester,
“Ye must build no Temple here!" murmured their
dismal companion.
THE LILY'S QUEST.
499
And there again was the old lunatic, standing just
on the spot where they meant to rear their lightsome
dome, and looking like the embodied symbol of some
great woe, that, in forgotten days, had happened there.
And, alas! there had been woe, nor that alone. A
young man, more than a hundred years before, had
lured hither a girl that loved him, and on this spot
had murdered her, and washed his bloody hands in
the stream which sung so merrily. And ever since
the victim's death shrieks were often heard to echo
between the cliffs.
"And see!” cried old Gascoigne, "is the stream
yet pure from the stain of the murderer's hands ? "
"Methinks it has a tinge of blood," faintly an-
swered the Lily; and being as slight as the gossamer,
she trembled and clung to her lover's arm, whispering,
Let us flee from this dreadful vale!'
66
Come, then," said Adam Forrester, as cheerily as
he could, "we shall soon find a happier spot."
They set forth again, young Pilgrims on that quest
which millions which every child of Earth has
tried in turn. And were the Lily and her lover to be
more fortunate than all those millions? For a long
time it seemed not so. The dismal shape of the old
lunatic still glided behind them; and for every spot
that looked lovely in their eyes, he had some legend
of human wrong or suffering, so miserably sad that
his auditors could never afterwards connect the idea
of joy with the place where it had happened. Here,
a heart-broken woman, kneeling to her child, had been
spurned from his feet; here, a desolate old creature
had prayed to the evil one, and had received a fiend-
ish malignity of soul in answer to her prayer; here,
a new-born infant, sweet blossom of life, had been
500
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
found dead, with the impress of its mother's fingers
round its throat; and here, under a shattered oak, two
lovers had been stricken by lightning, and fell black-
ened corpses in each other's arms. The dreary Gas-
coigne had a gift to know whatever evil and lament-
able thing had stained the bosom of Mother Earth;
and when his funereal voice had told the tale, it ap-
peared like a prophecy of future woe as well as a tra-
dition of the past. And now, by their sad demeanor,
you would have fancied that the pilgrim lovers were
seeking, not a temple of earthly joy, but a tomb for
themselves and their posterity.
"Where in this world," exclaimed Adam Forrester,
despondingly, "shall we build our Temple of Happi-
ness?"
"Where in this world, indeed!" repeated Lilias
Fay; and being faint and weary, the more so by the
heaviness of her heart, the Lily drooped her head and
sat down on the summit of a knoll, repeating, "Where
in this world shall we build our Temple?"
"Ah! have you already asked yourselves that ques-
tion?" said their companion, his shaded features grow-
ing even gloomier with the smile that dwelt on them;
"yet there is a place, even in this world, where ye
may build it."
While the old man spoke, Adam Forrester and
Lilias had carelessly thrown their eyes around, and
perceived that the spot where they had chanced to
pause possessed a quiet charm, which was well enough
adapted to their present mood of mind. It was a
small rise of ground, with a certain regularity of
shape, that had perhaps been bestowed by art; and a
group of trees, which almost surrounded it, threw their
pensive shadows across and far beyond, although some
*
THE LILY'S QUEST.
501
softened glory of the sunshine found its way there.
The ancestral mansion, wherein the lovers would dwell
together, appeared on one side, and the ivied church,
where they were to worship, on another. Happening
to cast their eyes on the ground they smiled, yet with
a sense of wonder, to see that a pale lily was growing
at their feet.
"We will build our Temple here," said they, simul
taneously, and with an indescribable conviction that
They had at last found the very spot.
Yet, while they uttered this exclamation, the young
man and the Lily turned an apprehensive glance at
their dreary associate, deeming it hardly possible that
some tale of earthly affliction should not make those
precincts loathsome, as in every former case. The
old man stood just behind them, so as to form the
chief figure in the group, with his sable cloak muffling
the lower part of his visage, and his sombre hat over-
shadowing his brows. But he gave no word of dissent
from their purpose; and an inscrutable smile was ac-
cepted by the lovers as a token that here had been no
footprint of guilt or sorrow to desecrate the site of
their Temple of Happiness.
In a little time longer, while summer was still in
its prime, the fairy structure of the Temple arose on
the summit of the knoll, amid the solemn shadows of
the trees, yet often gladdened with bright sunshine.
It was built of white marble, with slender and grace-
ful pillars supporting a vaulted dome; and beneath
the centre of this dome, upon a pedestal, was a slab of
dark-veined marble, on which books and music might
be strewn. But there was a fantasy among the people
of the neighborhood that the edifice was planned after
an ancient mausoleum and was intended for a tomb,
502
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
and that the central slab of dark-veined marble was
to be inscribed with the names of buried ones. They
doubted, too, whether the form of Lilias Fay could
appertain to a creature of this earth, being so very
delicate, and growing every day more fragile, so that
she looked as if the summer breeze should snatch her
up and waft her heavenward. But still she watched
the daily growth of the Temple; and so did old Wal-
ter Gascoigne, who now made that spot his continual
haunt, leaning whole hours together on his staff, and
giving as deep attention to the work as though it had
been indeed a tomb. In due time it was finished, and
a day appointed for a simple rite of dedication.
On the preceding evening, after Adam Forrester
had taken leave of his mistress, he looked back to-
wards the portal of her dwelling, and felt a strange
thrill of fear; for he imagined that, as the setting
sunbeams faded from her figure, she was exhaling
away, and that something of her ethereal substance
was withdrawn with each lessening gleam of light.
With his farewell glance a shadow had fallen over
the portal and Lilias was invisible. His foreboding
spirit deemed it an omen at the time, and so it proved;
for the sweet earthly form, by which the Lily had
been manifested to the world, was found lifeless the
next morning in the Temple, with her head resting
on her arms, which were folded upon the slab of dark-
veined marble. The chill winds of the earth had long
since breathed a blight into this beautiful flower, so
that a loving hand had now transplanted it, to blos-
som brightly in the garden of Paradise.
But alas, for the Temple of Happiness! In his un
utterable grief, Adam Forrester had no purpose more
at heart than to convert this Temple of many delight
THE LILY'S QUEST.
503
ful hopes into a tomb, and bury his dead mistress
there. And lo! a wonder! Digging a grave beneath
the Temple's marble floor, the sexton found no virgin
earth, such as was meet to receive the maiden's dust,
but an ancient sepulchre, in which were treasured up
the bones of generations that had died long ago.
Among those forgotten ancestors was the Lily to be
laid. And when the funeral procession brought Lilias
thither in her coffin, they beheld old Walter Gascoigne
standing beneath the dome of the Temple, with his
cloak of pall and face of darkest gloom; and where-
ever that figure might take its stand the spot would
seem a sepulchre. He watched the mourners as they
lowered the coffin down.
"And so," said he to Adam Forrester, with the
strange smile in which his insanity was wont to gleam
forth, "you have found no better foundation for your
happiness than on a grave!'
""
But as the Shadow of Affliction spoke, a vision of
Hope and Joy had its birth in Adam's mind, even
from the old man's taunting words; for then he knew
what was betokened by the parable in which the Lily
and himself had acted; and the mystery of Life and
Death was opened to him.
66
Joy! joy!" he cried, throwing his arms towards
heaven, "on a grave be the site of our Temple; and
now our happiness is for Eternity!"
With those words, a ray of sunshine broke through
the dismal sky, and glimmered down into the sepul-
chre; while, at the same moment, the shape of old
Walter Gascoigne stalked drearily away, because his
gloom, symbolic of all earthly sorrow, might no longer
abide there, now that the darkest riddle of humanity
was read.
FOOTPRINTS ON THE SEA-SHORE.
Ir must be a spirit much unlike my own which can
keep itself in health and vigor without sometimes
stealing from the sultry sunshine of the world, to
plunge into the cool bath of solitude. At intervals,
and not unfrequent ones, the forest and the ocean sum-
mon me one with the roar of its waves, the other
with the murmur of its boughs forth from the
haunts of men. But I must wander many a mile ere
I could stand beneath the shadow of even one prime-
val tree, much less be lost among the multitude of
hoary trunks, and hidden from earth and sky by the
mystery of darksome foliage. Nothing is within my
daily reach more like a forest than the acre or two of
woodland near some suburban farm-house. When,
therefore, the yearning for seclusion becomes a neces-
sity within me, I am drawn to the sea-shore, which
extends its line of rude rocks and seldom trodden
sands for leagues around our bay. Setting forth at
my last ramble on a September morning, I bound my-
self with a hermit's vow to interchange no thoughts
with man or woman, to share no social pleasure, but
to derive all that day's enjoyment from shore and sea
and sky, from my soul's communion with these, and
from fantasies and recollections, or anticipated reali-
ties. Surely here is enough to feed a human spirit
for a single day. Farewell, then, busy world! Ti!l
your evening lights shall shine along the street, -till
they gleam upon my sea-flushed face as I tread home-
FOOTPRINTS ON THE SEA-SHORE.
505
ward, free me from your ties, and let me be a
peaceful outlaw.
Highways and cross paths are hastily traversed,
and, clambering down a crag, I find myself at the
extremity of a long beach. How gladly does the
spirit leap forth and suddenly enlarge its sense of
being to the full extent of the broad, blue, sunny
deep! A greeting and a homage to the Sea! I de
scend over its margin and dip my hand into the wave
that meets me, and bathe my brow. That far-resound-
ing roar is Ocean's voice of welcome. His salt breath
brings a blessing along with it. Now let us pace to-
gether the reader's fancy arm-in-arm with mine-
this noble beach, which extends a mile or more from
that craggy promontory to yonder rampart of broken
rocks. In front, the sea; in the rear, a precipitous
bank, the grassy verge of which is breaking away,
year after year, and flings down its tufts of verdure
upon the barrenness below. The beach itself is a
broad space of sand, brown and sparkling, with hardly
any pebbles intermixed. Near the water's edge there
is a wet margin, which glistens brightly in the sun-
shine, and reflects objects like a mirror; and as we
tread along the glistening border, a dry spot flashes
around each footstep, but grows moist again as we lift
our feet. In some spots the sand receives a complete
impression of the sole square toe and all; else-
where it is of such marble firmness that we must
stamp heavily to leave a print even of the iron-shod
heel. Along the whole of this extensive beach gam-
bols the surf wave; now it makes a feint of dashing
onward in a fury, yet dies away with a meek murmur,
and does but kiss the strand; now, after many such
abortive efforts, it rears itself up in an unbroken line,
-
506
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
heightening as it advances, without a speck of foam
on its green crest. With how fierce a roar it flings
itself forward, and rushes far up the beach!
As I threw my eyes along the edge of the surf I
remember that I was startled, as Robinson Crusoe
might have been, by the sense that human life was
within the magic circle of my solitude. Afar off in
the remote distance of the beach, appearing like sea-
nymphs or some airier things such as might tread
upon the feathery spray, was a group of girls. Hardly
had I beheld them when they passed into the shadow
of the rocks and vanished. To comfort myself for
truly I would fain have gazed a while longer-I made
acquaintance with a flock of beach birds. These little
citizens of the sea and air preceded me by about a
stone's throw along the strand, seeking, I suppose, for
food upon its margin. Yet, with a philosophy which
mankind would do well to imitate, they drew a con-
tinual pleasure from their toil for a subsistence. The
sea was each little bird's great playmate. They
chased it downward as it swept back, and again ran
up swiftly before the impending wave, which some-
times overtook them and bore them off their feet.
But they floated as lightly as one of their own feathers
on the breaking crest. In their airy flutterings they
seemed to rest on the evanescent spray. Their images
-long-legged little figures, with gray backs and snowy
bosoms were seen as distinctly as the realities in
the mirror of the glistening strand. As I advanced
they flew a score or two of yards, and, again alighting,
recommenced their dalliance with the surf wave; and
thus they bore me company along the beach, the types
of pleasant fantasies, till, at its extremity, they took
wing over the ocean and were gone. After forming a
FOOTPRINTS ON THE SEA-SHORE.
507
friendship with these small surf spirits, it is really
worth a sigh to find no memorial of them save their
multitudinous little tracks in the sand.
When we have paced the length of the beach it is
pleasant and not unprofitable to retrace our steps, and
recall the whole mood and occupation of the mind
during the former passage. Our tracks being all dis-
cernible will guide us with an observing consciousness
through every unconscious wandering of thought and
fancy. Here we followed the surf in its reflux to
pick up a shell which the sea seemed loath to relin-
quish. Here we found a sea-weed, with an immense
brown leaf, and trailed it behind us by its long snake-
like stalk. Here we seized a live horseshoe by the tail,
and counted the many claws of the queer monster.
Here we dug into the sand for pebbles, and skipped
them upon the surface of the water. Here we wet
our feet while examining a jelly-fish which the waves,
having just tossed it up, now sought to snatch away
again. Here we trod along the brink of a fresh-water
brooklet which flows across the beach, becoming shal-
lower and more shallow, till at last it sinks into the
sand and perishes in the effort to bear its little tribute
to the main. Here some vagary appears to have be-
wildered us; for our tracks go round and round and
are confusedly intermingled, as if we had found a
labyrinth upon the level beach. And here, amid our
idle pastime, we sat down upon almost the only stone
that breaks the surface of the sand, and were lost in
an unlooked-for and overpowering conception of the
majesty and awfulness of the great deep. Thus, by
tracking our footprints in the sand, we track our own
nature in its wayward course, and steal a glance upon
it, when it never dreams of being so observed. Such
glances always make us wiser.
508
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
This extensive beach affords room for another pleas
ant pastime. With
your staff
you may write verses
love verses, if they please you best-and consecrate
them with a woman's name. Here, too, may be in-
scribed thoughts, feelings, desires, warm outgushings
from the heart's secret places, which you would not
pour upon the sand without the certainty that, almost
ere the sky has looked upon them, the sea will wash
them out. Stir not hence till the record be effaced.
Now for there is room enough on your canvas
draw huge faces-huge as that of the Sphinx on
Egyptian sands-and fit them with bodies of cor
responding immensity, and legs which might stride
half-way to yonder island. Child's play becomes mag-
nificent on so grand a scale. But, after all, the most
fascinating employment is simply to write your name
in the sand. Draw the letters gigantic, so that two
strides may barely measure them, and three for the
long strokes! Cut deep that the record may be per-
manent! Statesmen and warriors and poets have
spent their strength in no better cause than this. Is
it accomplished? Return then in an hour or two and
seek for this mighty record of a name.
The sea will
have swept over it, even as time rolls its effacing waves
over the names of statesmen and warriors and poets.
Hark, the surf wave laughs at you!
Passing from the beach I begin to clamber over the
crags, making my difficult way among the ruins of a
rampart shattered and broken by the assaults of a
fierce enemy. The rocks rise in every variety of atti-
tude: some of them have their feet in the foam, and
are shagged half-way upward with sea-weed; some
have been hollowed almost into caverns by the un
wearied toil of the sea, which can afford to spend cen
FOOTPRINTS ON THE SEA-SHORE.
509
´´ries in wearing away a rock, or even polishing a
pebble. One huge rock ascends in monumental shape,
with a face like a giant's tombstone, on which the veins
resemble inscriptions, but in an unknown tongue. We
will fancy them the forgotten characters of an antedi-
luvian race; or else that Nature's own hand has here
recorded a mystery, which, could I read her language,
would make mankind the wiser and the happier. How
many a thing has troubled me with that same idea!
Pass on and leave it unexplained. Here is a narrow
avenue, which might seem to have been hewn through
the very heart of an enormous crag, affording passage
for the rising sea to thunder back and forth, filling it
with tumultuous foam, and then leaving its floor of
black pebbles bare and glistening. In this chasm
there was once an intersecting vein of softer stone,
which the waves have gnawed away piecemeal, while
the granite walls remain entire on either side. How
sharply, and with what harsh clamor, does the sea rake
back the pebbles, as it momentarily withdraws into its
own depths! At intervals the floor of the chasm is
left nearly dry; but anon, at the outlet, two or three
great waves are seen struggling to get in at once;
two hit the walls athwart, while one rushes straight
through, and all three thunder as if with rage and
triumph. They heap the chasm with a snow-drift of
foam and spray. While watching this scene, I can
never rid myself of the idea that a monster, endowed
with life and fierce energy, is striving to burst his
way through the narrow pass.
And what a contrast,
to look through the stormy chasm, and catch a glimpse
of the calm bright sea beyond!
Many interesting discoveries may be made among
these broken cliffs. Once, for example, I found a
510
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
dead seal, which a recent tempest had tossed into the
nook of the rocks, where his shaggy carcass lay rolled
in a heap of eel-grass, as if the sea-monster sought to
hide himself from my eye. Another time, a shark
seemed on the point of leaping from the surf to swal-
low me; nor did I, wholly without dread, approach
near enough to ascertain that the man-eater had al-
ready met his own death from some fisherman in the
bay. In the same ramble I encountered a bird-a
large gray bird - but whether a loon, or a wild goose,
or the identical albatross of the Ancient Mariner, was
beyond my ornithology to decide. It reposed so natur-
ally on a bed of dry sea-weed, with its head beside its
wing, that I almost fancied it alive, and trod softly
lest it should suddenly spread its wings skyward. But
the sea-bird would soar among the clouds no more, nor
ride upon its native waves, so I drew near and pulled
out one of its mottled tail-feathers for a remembrance.
Another day, I discovered an immense bone wedged
into a chasm of the rocks; it was at least ten feet
long, curved like a cimeter, bejewelled with barnacles
and small shell-fish, and partly covered with a growth
of sea-weed. Some leviathan of former ages had used
this ponderous mass as a jawbone. Curiosities of a
minuter order may be observed in a deep reservoir,
which is replenished with water at every tide, but be-
comes a lake among the crags, save when the sea is at
its height. At the bottom of this rocky basin grow
marine plants, some of which tower high beneath the
water and cast a shadow in the sunshine. Small fishes
dart to and fro, and hide themselves among the sea-
weed; there is also a solitary crab, who appears to
lead the life of a hermit, communing with none of the
other denizens of the place; and likewise several five
FOOTPRINTS ON THE SEA-SHORE.
511
fingers for I know no other name than that which
children give them. If your imagination be at all ac-
customed to such freaks, you may look down into the
depths of this pool, and fancy it the mysterious depth
of ocean.
But where are the hulks and scattered tim-
bers of sunken ships?—where the treasures that old
Ocean hoards? where the corroded cannon? — where
the corpses and skeletons of seamen who went down in
storm and battle ?
On the day of my last ramble (it was a September
day, yet as warm as summer), what should I behold
as I approached the above described basin but three
girls sitting on its margin, and yes, it is veritably so
-laving their snowy feet in the sunny water! These,
these are the warm realities of those three visionary
shapes that flitted from me on the beach. Hark! their
merry voices as they toss up the water with their feet!
They have not seen me. I must shrink behind this
rock and steal away again.
In honest truth, vowed to solitude as I am, there.
is something in this encounter that makes the heart
flutter with a strangely pleasant sensation. I know
these girls to be realities of flesh and blood, yet,
glancing at them so briefly, they mingle like kindred
creatures with the ideal beings of my mind. It is
pleasant, likewise, to gaze down from some high crag,
and watch a group of children, gathering pebbles and
pearly shells, and playing with the surf, as with old
Ocean's hoary beard. Nor does it infringe upon my
seclusion to see yonder boat at anchor off the shore,
swinging dreamily to and fro, and rising and sinking
with the alternate swell; while the crew
four gen
tlemen, in roundabout jackets are busy with their
fishing-lines. But, with an inward antipathy and a
-
512
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
headlong flight, do I eschew the presence of any medi
tative stroller like myself, known by his pilgrim staff,
his sauntering step, his shy demeanor, his observant
yet abstracted eye. From such a man, as if another
self had scared me, I scramble hastily over the rocks,
and take refuge in a nook which many a secret hour
has given me a right to call my own. I would do
battle for it even with the churl that should produce
the title deeds. Have not my musings melted into its
rocky walls and sandy floor, and made them a portion
of myself?
It is a recess in the line of cliffs, walled round by a
rough, high precipice, which almost encircles and shuts
in a little space of sand. In front, the sea appears as
between the pillars of a portal. In the rear, the preci-
pice is broken and intermixed with earth, which gives
nourishment not only to clinging and twining shrubs,
but to trees, that gripe the rock with their naked roots,
and seem to struggle hard for footing and for soil
enough to live upon. These are fir-trees; but oaks
hang their heavy branches from above, and throw
down acorns on the beach, and shed their withering
foliage upon the waves. At this autumnal season the
precipice is decked with variegated splendor; trailing
wreaths of scarlet flaunt from the summit downward 09
tufts of yellow-flowering shrubs, and rose-bushes, with
their reddened leaves and glossy seed berries, sprout
from each crevice; at every glance, I detect some new
light or shade of beauty, all contrasting with the stern,
gray rock. A rill of water trickles down the cliff
and fills a little cistern near the base. I drain it at a
draught, and find it fresh and pure. This recess shall
be my dining hall. And what the feast? A few bis-
зuits made savory by soaking them in sea-water, a tuft
FOOTPRINTS ON THE SEA-SIIORE.
513
of samphire gathered from the beach, and an apple for
the dessert. By this time the little rill has filled its
reservoir again; and, as I quaff it, I thank God more
heartily than for a civic banquet, that He gives me
the healthful appetite to make a feast of bread and
water.
Dinner being over, I throw myself at length upon
the sand, and, basking in the sunshine, let my mind
disport itself at will. The walls of this my hermitage
have no tongue to tell my follies, though I sometimes
fancy that they have ears to hear them, and a soul to
sympathize. There is a magic in this spot. Dreams
haunt its precincts and flit around me in broad sun-
light, nor require that sleep shall blindfold me to real
objects ere these be visible. Here can I frame a story
of two lovers, and make their shadows live before me
and be mirrored in the tranquil water, as they tread
along the sand, leaving no footprints. Here, should I
will it, I can summon up a single shade, and be myself
her lover. Yes, dreamer, but your lonely heart will
be the colder for such fancies. Sometimes, too, the
Past comes back and finds me here, and in her train
come faces which were gladsome when I knew them,
yet seem not gladsome now. Would that my hiding-
place were lonelier, so that the past might not find
me! Get ye all gone, old friends, and let me listen
to the murmur of the sea, a melancholy voice, but
less sad than yours. Of what mysteries is it telling?
Of sunken ships and whereabouts they lie? Of isl-
ands afar and undiscovered, whose tawny children are
unconscious of other islands and of continents, and
deem the stars of heaven their nearest neighbors?
Nothing of all this. What then? Has it talked for
so many ages and meant nothing all the while? No:
VOL. L.
33
514
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
for those ages find utterance in the sea's unchanging
voice, and warn the listener to withdraw his interest
from mortal vicissitudes, and let the infinite idea of
eternity pervade his soul. This is wisdom; and, there
fore, will I spend the next half hour in shaping little
boats of driftwood, and launching them on voyages
across the cove, with a feather of a sea-gull for a sail.
If the voice of ages tell me true, this is as wise an oc-
cupation as to build ships of five hundred tons, and
launch them forth upon the main, bound to "far
Cathay." Yet, how would the merchant sneer at me?
And, after all, can such philosophy be true? Me-
thinks, I could find a thousand arguments against it.
Well, then, let yonder shaggy rock, mid-deep in the
surf― see! he is somewhat wrathful, he rages and
roars and foams- let that tall rock be my antagonist,
and let me exercise my oratory like him of Athens,
who bandied words with an angry sea and got the
victory. My maiden speech is a triumphant one; for
the gentleman in sea-weed has nothing to offer in re-
ply, save an immitigable roaring. His voice, indeed,
will be heard a long while after mine is hushed. Once
more I shout and the cliffs reverberate the sound. Oh,
what joy for a shy man to feel himself so solitary, that
he may lift his voice to its highest pitch without haz-
ard of a listener! But, hush!-be silent, my good
friend! whence comes that stifled laughter? It was
musical, but how should there be such music in my
solitude? Looking upwards, I catch a glimpse of
three faces, peeping from the summit of the cliff, like
angels between me and their native sky. Ah, fair
girls, you may make yourselves merry at my eloquence,
but it was my turn to smile when I saw your white
feet in the pool! Let us keep each other's secrets.
FOOTPRINTS ON THE SEA-SHORE.
515
F
The sunshine has now passed from my hermitage,
except a gleam upon the sand just where it meets the
sea. A crowd of gloomy fantasies will come and
haunt me if I tarry longer here in the darkening
twilight of these gray rocks. This is a dismal place
in some moods of the mind. Climb we, therefore, the
precipice, and pause a moment on the brink, gazing
down into that hollow chamber by the deep where we
have been, what few can be, sufficient to our own pas-
time—yes, say the word outright! - self-sufficient to
our own happiness. How lonesome looks the recess
now, and dreary too-like all other spots where hap-
piness has been! There lies my shadow in the depart-
ing sunshine with its head upon the sea.
I will pelt
it with pebbles. A hit! a hit! I clap my hands
in triumph, and see! my shadow clapping its unreal
hands, and claiming the triumph for itself. What a
simpleton must I have been all day, since my own
shadow makes a mock of my fooleries!
Homeward! homeward! It is time to hasten home.
It is time; it is time; for as the sun sinks over the
western wave, the sea grows melancholy, and the surf
has a saddened tone. The distant sails appear astray,
and not of earth, in their remoteness amid the desolate
waste. My spirit wanders forth afar, but finds no
resting-place and comes shivering back. It is time
that I were hence. But grudge me not the day that
has been spent in seclusion, which yet was not solitude,
since the great sea has been my companion, and the
little sea-birds my friends, and the wind has told me
his secrets, and airy shapes have flitted around me
in my hermitage. Such companionship works an
effect upon a man's character, as if he had been
admitted to the society of creatures that are not
516
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
mortal. And when, at noontide, I tread the crowded
streets, the influence of this day will still be felt; so
that I shall walk among men kindly and as a brother,
with affection and sympathy, but yet shall not melt
into the indistinguishable mass of human-kind. I shall
think my own thoughts, and feel my own emotions,
and possess my individuality unviolated.
But it is good, at the eve of such a day, to feel and
know that there are men and women in the world.
That feeling and that knowledge are mine at this
moment; for, on the shore far below me, the fishing
party have landed from their skiff, and are cooking
their scaly prey by a fire of driftwood, kindled in the
angle of two rude rocks. The three visionary girls
are likewise there. In the deepening twilight, while
the surf is dashed near their hearth, the ruddy gleam
of the fire throws a strange air of comfort over the
wild cove, bestrewn as it is with pebbles and sea-weed,
and exposed to the "melancholy main." Moreover,
as the smoke climbs up the precipice, it brings with it
a savory smell from a pan of fried fish and a black
kettle of chowder, and reminds me that my dinner was
nothing but bread and water, and a tuft of samphire
and an apple. Methinks the party might find room
for another guest at that flat rock which serves them
for a table; and if spoons be scarce, I could pick up
a clamshell on the beach. They see me now; and
the blessing of a hungry man upon him!-one of
them sends up a hospitable shout-halloo, Sir Soli-
tary! come down and sup with us! The ladies wave
their handkerchiefs. Can I decline? No; and be it
owned, after all my solitary joys, that this is the sweet-
est moment of a Day by the Sea-Shore.
EDWARD FANE'S ROSEBUD.
THERE is hardly a more difficult exercise of fancy
than, while gazing at a figure of melancholy age, to
recreate its youth, and, without entirely obliterating
the identity of form and features, to restore those
graces which time has snatched away. Some old
people, especially women, so age-worn and woful are
they, seem never to have been young and gay. It is
easier to conceive that such gloomy phantoms were
sent into the world as withered and decrepit as we
behold them now, with sympathies only for pain and
grief, to watch at death-beds and weep at funerals.
Even the sable garments of their widowhood appear
essential to their existence; all their attributes com-
bine to render them darksome shadows, creeping
strangely amid the sunshine of human life. Yet it is
no unprofitable task to take one of these doleful creat-
ures, and set fancy resolutely at work to brighten the
dim eye, and darken the silvery locks, and paint the
ashen cheek with rose color, and repair the shrunken
and crazy form, till a dewy maiden shall be seen in
the old matron's elbow-chair. The miracle being
wrought, then let the years roll back again, each sad-
der than the last, and the whole weight of age and
sorrow settle down upon the youthful figure. Wrin-
kles and furrows, the handwriting of Time, may thus
be deciphered, and found to contain deep lessons of
thought and feeling. Such profit might be derived
by a skilful observer from my much-respected friend,
518
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
瓷
​the Widow Toothaker, a nurse of great repute, who
has breathed the atmosphere of sick-chambers and
dying breaths these forty years.
See! she sits cowering over her lonesome hearth,
with her gown and upper petticoat drawn upward,
gathering thriftly into her person the whole warmth
of the fire, which, now at nightfall, begins to dissi-
pate the autumnal chill of her chamber. The blaze
quivers capriciously in front, alternately glimmering
into the deepest chasms of her wrinkled visage, and
then permitting a ghostly dimness to mar the outlines
of her venerable figure. And Nurse Toothaker holds
a teaspoon in her right hand, with which to stir up
the contents of a tumbler in her left, whence steams
a vapory fragrance, abhorred of temperance societies.
Now she sips now stirs now sips again. Her sad
old heart has need to be revived by the rich infusion of
Geneva, which is mixed half and half with hot water,
in the tumbler. All day long she has been sitting
by a death-pillow, and quitted it for her home only
when the spirit of her patient left the clay and went
homeward too. But now are her melancholy medita-
tions cheered, and her torpid blood warmed, and her
shoulders lightened of at least twenty ponderous years,
by a draught from the true Fountain of Youth in a
case bottle. It is strange that men should deem that
fount a fable, when its liquor fills more bottles than
the congress water! Sip it again, good nurse, and see
whether a second draught will not take off another
score of years, and perhaps ten more, and show us,
in your high-backed chair, the blooming damsel who
plighted troths with Edward Fane. Get you gone,
Age and Widowhood! Come back, unwedded Youth!
But, alas! the charm will not work. In spite of fancy's
EDWARD FANE'S ROSEBUD.
519
most potent spell, I can see only an old dame cower-
ing over the fire, a picture of decay and desolation,
while the November blast roars at her in the chimney,
and fitful showers rush suddenly against the window.
Yet there was a time when Rose Grafton — such
was the pretty maiden name of Nurse Toothaker
possessed beauty that would have gladdened this dim
and dismal chamber as with sunshine. It won for her
the heart of Edward Fane, who has since made so
great a figure in the world and is now a grand old
gentleman, with powdered hair, and as gouty as a
lord. These early lovers thought to have walked hand
in hand through life. They had wept together for
Edward's little sister Mary, whom Rose tended in her
sickness, partly because she was the sweetest child
that ever lived or died, but more for love of him. She
was but three years old. Being such an infant, Death
could not embody his terrors in her little corpse; nor
did Rose fear to touch the dead child's brow, though
chill, as she curled the silken hair around it, nor to
take her tiny hand and clasp a flower within its fin-
gers. Afterward, when she looked through the pane
of glass in the coffin lid, and beheld Mary's face, it
seemed not so much like death, or life, as like a wax-
work, wrought into the perfect image of a child asleep,
and dreaming of its mother's smile. Rose thought
her too fair a thing to be hidden in the grave, and
wondered that an angel did not snatch up little Mary's
coffin, and bear the slumbering babe to heaven, and
bid her wake immortal. But when the sods were laid
on little Mary, the heart of Rose was troubled. She
shuddered at the fantasy, that, in grasping the child's
cold fingers, her virgin hand had exchanged a first
greeting with mortality, and could never lose the
520
TWICE-TOLD TALES
earthly taint. How many a greeting since! But as
yet, she was a fair young girl, with the dew-drops of
fresh feeling in her bosom; and instead of Rose, which
seemed too mature a name for her half-opened beauty,
her lover called her Rosebud.
The rosebud was destined never to bloom for Ed-
ward Fane. His mother was a rich and haughty dame
with all the aristocratic prejudices of colonial times.
She scorned Rose Grafton's humble parentage, and
caused her son to break his faith, though, had she let
him choose, he would have prized his Rosebud above
the richest diamond. The lovers parted, and have
seldom met again. Both may have visited the same
mansions, but not at the same time; for one was bid-
den to the festal hall, and the other to the sick-cham-
ber; he was the guest of Pleasure and Prosperity, and
she of Anguish. Rose, after their separation, was
long secluded within the dwelling of Mr. Toothaker,
whom she married with the revengeful hope of break-
ing her false lover's heart. She went to her bride-
groom's arms with bitterer tears, they say, than young
girls ought to shed at the threshold of the bridal
chamber. Yet, though her husband's head was getting
gray, and his heart had been chilled with an autumnal
frost, Rose soon began to love him, and wondered at
her own conjugal affection. He was all she had to
love; there were no children.
In a year or two, poor Mr. Toothaker was visited
with a wearisome infirmity, which settled in his joints,
and made him weaker than a child. He crept forth
about his business, and came home at dinner time and
eventide, not with the manly tread that gladdens a
wife's heart, but slowly, feebly, jotting down each dull
footstep with a melancholy dub of his staff. We must
EDWARD FANE'S ROSEBUD.
521
pardon his pretty wife, if she sometimes blushed to
own him. Her visitors, when they heard him coming,
looked for the appearance of some old, old man; but
he dragged his nerveless limbs into the parlor and
there was Mr. Toothaker! The disease increasing,
he never went into the sunshine, save with a staff in
his right hand and his left on his wife's shoulder,
bearing heavily downward, like a dead man's hand.
Thus, a slender woman, still looking maiden-like, she
supported his tall, broad-chested frame along the path-
way of their little garden, and plucked the roses for
her gray-haired husband, and spoke soothingly, as to
an infant. His mind was palsied with his body; its
utmost energy was peevishness. In a few months.
more, she helped him up the staircase, with a pause at
every step, and a longer one upon the landing-place,
and a heavy glance behind, as he crossed the threshold
of his chamber. He knew, poor man, that the pre-
cincts of those four walls would thenceforth be his
world his world, his home, his tomb at once a
dwelling and a burial-place, till he were borne to a
darker and a narrower one. But Rose was with him
in the tomb. He leaned upon her in his daily passage
from the bed to the chair by the fireside, and back
again from the weary chair to the joyless bed his
bed and hers- their marriage-bed; till even this
short journey ceased, and his head lay all day upon
the pillow, and hers all night beside it. How long
poor Mr. Toothaker was kept in misery! Death
seemed to draw near the door, and often to lift the
latch, and sometimes to thrust his ugly skull into the
chamber, nodding to Rose, and pointing at her hus
band, but still delayed to enter. "This bedridden
wretch cannot escape me!" quoth Death. "I will ge
522
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
forth and run a race with the swift, and fight a battle
with the strong, and come back for Toothaker at my
leisure!” Oh, when the deliverer came so near, in the
dull anguish of her worn-out sympathies, did she never
long to cry, "Death, come in!'
But, no! We have no right to ascribe such a wish
to our friend Rose. She never failed in a wife's duty
to her poor sick husband. She murmured not, though
a glimpse of the sunny sky was as strange to her as
him, nor answered peevishly, though his complaining
accents roused her from her sweetest dream, only to
share his wretchedness. He knew her faith, yet nour-
ished a cankered jealousy; and when the slow disease
had chilled all his heart, save one lukewarm spot,
which Death's frozen fingers were searching for, his
last words were: "What would my Rose have done
for her first love, if she has been so true and kind to
a sick old man like me!" And then his poor soul
crept away, and left the body lifeless, though hardly
more so than for years before, and Rose a widow,
though in truth it was the wedding-night that wid-
owed her. She felt glad, it must be owned, when Mr.
Toothaker was buried, because his corpse had retained
such a likeness to the man half alive, that she heark-
ened for the sad murmur of his voice, bidding her
shift his pillow. But all through the next winter,
though the grave had held him many a month, she
fancied him calling from that cold bed, "Rose! Rose !
come put a blanket on my feet!"
So now the Rosebud was the Widow Toothaker.
Her troubles had come early, and, tedious as they
seemed, had passed before all her bloom was fled
She was still fair enough to captivate a bachelor, or
with a widow's cheerful gravity, she might have wor
EDWARD FANE'S ROSEBUD.
523
a widower, stealing into his heart in the very guise of
his dead wife. But the Widow Toothaker had no
such projects. By her watchings and continual cares.
her heart had become knit to her first husband with
a constancy which changed its very nature, and made
her love him for his infirmities, and infirmity for his
sake. When the palsied old man was gone, even her
early lover could not have supplied his place. She
had dwelt in a sick-chamber, and been the companion
of a half-dead wretch, till she could scarcely breathe in
a free air, and felt ill at ease with the healthy and
the happy. She missed the fragrance of the doctor's
stuff. She walked the chamber with a noiseless foot-
fall. If visitors came in she spoke in soft and sooth-
ing accents, and was startled and shocked by their
loud voices. Often, in the lonesome evening, she
looked timorously from the fireside to the bed, with al-
most a hope of recognizing a ghastly face upon the pil-
low. Then went her thoughts sadly to her husband's
grave. If one impatient throb had wronged him in
his lifetime, if she had secretly repined because
her buoyant youth was imprisoned with his torpid age,
-- if ever, while slumbering beside him, a treacherous
dream had admitted another into her heart, yet the
sick man had been preparing a revenge which the
dead now claimed. On his painful pillow he had cast
a spell around her; his groans and misery had proved
more captivating charms than gayety and youthful
grace; in his semblance Disease itself had won the
Rosebud for a bride; nor could his death dissolve the
nuptials. By that indissoluble bond she had gained a
home in every sick-chamber, and nowhere else: there
i were her brethren and sisters; thither her husband
summoned her with that voice which had seemed to
524
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
issue from the grave of Toothaker. At length she
recognized her destiny.
We have beheld her as the maid, the wife, the
widow; now we see her in a separate and insulated
character; she was, in all her attributes, Nurse Tooth-
aker. And Nurse Toothaker alone, with her own
shrivelled lips, could make known her experience in
that capacity. What a history might she record of
the great sicknesses in which she has gone hand in
hand with the exterminating angel! She remembers
when the small-pox hoisted a red banner on almost
every house along the street. She has witnessed when
the typhus fever swept off a whole household, young
and old, all but a lonely mother, who vainly shrieked
to follow her last loved one. Where would be Death's
triumph, if none lived to weep? She can speak of
strange maladies that have broken out, as if sponta-
neously, but were found to have been imported from
foreign lands, with rich silks and other merchandise,
the costliest portion of the cargo. And once, she rec-
ollects, the people died of what was considered a new
pestilence, till the doctors traced it to the ancient
grave of a young girl, who thus caused many deaths
a hundred years after her own burial. Strange, that
such black mischief should lurk in a maiden's grave!
She loves to tell how strong men fight with fiery
fevers, utterly refusing to give up their breath; and
how consumptive virgins fade out of the world,
scarcely reluctant, as if their lovers were wooing
them to a far country. Tell us, thou fearful woman!
tell us the death secrets! Fain would I search out the
meaning of words, faintly gasped with intermingled
sobs and broken sentences, half audibly spoken be
tween earth and the judgment seat!
EDWARD FANE'S ROSEBUD.
525
In
An awful woman! She is the patron saint of young
physicians, and the bosom friend of old ones.
the mansions where she enters, the inmates provide
themselves black garments; the coffin maker follows.
her; and the bell tolls as she comes away from the
threshold. Death himself has met her at so many a
bedside, that he puts forth his bony hand to greet
Nurse Toothaker. She is an awful woman! And,
oh is it conceivable, that this handmaid of human
infirmity and affliction so darkly stained, so thor-
oughly imbued with all that is saddest in the doom of
mortals can ever again be bright and gladsome,
even though bathed in the sunshine of eternity? By
her long communion with woe has she not forfeited
her inheritance of immortal joy? Does any germ
bliss survive within her?
of
Hark! --- an eager knocking at Nurse Toothaker's
door. She starts from her drowsy reverie, sets aside
the empty tumbler and teaspoon, and lights a lamp
at the dim embers of the fire. Rap, rap, rap! again;
and she hurries adown the staircase, wondering which
of her friends can be at death's door now, since there
is such an earnest messenger at Nurse Toothaker's.
Again the peal resounds, just as her hand is on the
lock. "Be quick, Nurse Toothaker!" cries a man on
the doorsteps; "old General Fane is taken with the
gout in his stomach, and has sent for you to watch by
his death-bed. Make haste, for there is no time to
lose!" "Fane! Edward Fane! And has he sent for
me at last? I am ready! I will get on my cloak
and begone. So," adds the sable-gowned, ashen-vis-
aged, funereal old figure, "Edward Fane remembers
his Rosebud !
""
Our question is answered. There is a germ of bliss
526
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
within her. Her long-hoarded constancy - her mem
ory of the bliss that was remaining amid the gloom
of her after life like a sweet-smelling flower in a cof-
fin, is a symbol that all may be renewed. In some
happier clime the Rosebud may revive again with all
the dewdrops in its bosom.
THE THREEFOLD DESTINY.
A FAIRY LEGEND.
In
I HAVE Sometimes produced a singular and not un-
pleasing effect, so far as my own mind was concerned,
by imagining a train of incidents in which the spirit
and mechanism of the fairy legend should be combined
with the characters and manners of familiar life.
the little tale which follows, a subdued tinge of the
wild and wonderful is thrown over a sketch of New
England personages and scenery, yet, it is hoped,
without entirely obliterating the sober hues of nature.
Rather than a story of events claiming to be real, it
may be considered as an allegory, such as the writers
of the last century would have expressed in the shape
of an Eastern tale, but to which I have endeavored to
give a more life-like warmth than could be infused into
those fanciful productions.
In the twilight of a summer eve, a tall, dark figure,
over which long and remote travel had thrown an out-
landish aspect, was entering a village, not in "Fairy
Londe," but within our own familiar boundaries. The
staff on which this traveller leaned had been his com-
panion from the spot where it grew, in the jungles of
Hindostan; the hat that overshadowed his sombre.
brow had shielded him from the suns of Spain: but
his cheek had been blackened by the red-hot wind of
an Arabian desert, and had felt the frozen breath of
an Arctic region. Long sojourning amid wild and
528
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
dangerous men, he still wore beneath his vest the ata
ghan which he had once struck into the throat of a
Turkish robber. In every foreign clime he had lost
something of his New England characteristics; and,
perhaps, from every people he had unconsciously bor-
rowed a new peculiarity; so that when the world-wan
derer again trod the street of his native village it is
no wonder that he passed unrecognized, though excit-
ing the gaze and curiosity of all. Yet, as his arm
casually touched that of a young woman who was
wending her way to an evening lecture she started,
and almost uttered a cry.
66
Ralph Cranfield!" was the name that she half
articulated.
"Can that be my old playmate, Faith Egerton ?”
thought the traveller, looking round at her figure, but
without pausing.
Ralph Cranfield, from his youth upward, had felt
himself marked out for a high destiny. He had im-
bibed the idea we say not whether it were revealed
to him by witchcraft, or in a dream of prophecy, or
that his brooding fancy had palmed its own dictates
upon him as the oracles of a Sibyl! but he had im-
bibed the idea, and held it firmest among his articles
of faith, that three marvellous events of his life were
to be confirmed to him by three signs.
The first of these three fatalities, and perhaps the
one on which his youthful imagination had dwelt most
fondly, was the discovery of the maid who alone, of all
the maids on earth, could make him happy by her love.
He was to roam around the world till he should meet
a beautiful woman wearing on her bosom a jewel in
the shape of a heart; whether of pearl, or ruby, or
emerald, or carbuncle, or a changeful opal, or perhaps
o1
THE THREEFOLD DESTINY.
529
a priceless diamond, Ralph Cranfield little cared, so
long as it were a heart of one peculiar shape. On
encountering this lovely stranger, he was bound to
address her thus: "Maiden, I have brought you a
heavy heart. May I rest its weight on you?" And
if she were his fated bride if their kindred souls
were destined to form a union here below, which all
eternity should only bind more closely-she would
reply, with her finger on the heart-shaped jewel,
“This token, which I have worn so long, is the assur-
ance that you may!"
And, secondly, Ralph Cranfield had a firm belief
that there was a mighty treasure hidden somewhere in
the earth, of which the burial-place would be revealed
to none but him. When his feet should press upon
the mysterious spot, there would be a hand before him
pointing downward — whether carved of marble, or
hewn in gigantic dimensions on the side of a rocky
precipice, or perchance a hand of flame in empty air,
he could not tell; but, at least, he would discern a
hand, the forefinger pointing downward, and beneath
it the Latin word EFFODE- Dig! and digging there-
abouts, the gold in coin or ingots, the precious stones,
or of whatever else the treasure might consist, would
be certain to reward his toil.
The third and last of the miraculous events in the
life of this high-destined man was to be the attainment
of extensive influence and sway over his fellow-crea-
tures. Whether he were to be a king and founder of
an hereditary throne, or the victorious leader of a peo-
ple contending for their freedom, or the apostle of a
purified and regenerated faith, was left for futurity to
show. As messengers of the sign by which Ralph
Cranfield might recognize the summons, three vener-
VOL. I.
34
530
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
able men were to claim audience of him. The chief
among them, a dignified and majestic person, arrayed,
it may be supposed, in the flowing garments of an an-
cient sage, would be the bearer of a wand or prophet's
rod. With this wand, or rod, or staff, the venerable
sage would trace a certain figure in the air, and then
proceed to make known his heaven-instructed message:
which, if obeyed, must lead to glorious results.
With this proud fate before him, in the flush of his
imaginative youth, Ralph Cranfield had set forth to
seek the maid, the treasure, and the venerable sage
with his gift of extended empire. And had he found
them? Alas! it was not with the aspect of a triumph-
ant man, who had achieved a nobler destiny than all
his fellows, but rather with the gloom of one strug-
gling against peculiar and continual adversity, that he
now passed homeward to his mother's cottage. He
had come back, but only for a time, to lay aside the
pilgrim's staff, trusting that his weary manhood would
regain somewhat of the elasticity of youth, in the spot
where his threefold fate had been foreshown him.
There had been few changes in the village; for it
was not one of those thriving places where a year's
prosperity makes more than the havoc of a century's
decay; but like a gray hair in a young man's head,
an antiquated little town, full of old maids, and aged
elms, and moss-grown dwellings. Few seemed to be
the changes here. The drooping elms, indeed, had a
more majestic spread; the weather-blackened houses
were adorned with a denser thatch of verdant moss ;
and doubtless there were a few more gravestones in
the burial ground, inscribed with names that had once
been familiar in the village street. Yet, summing up
all the mischief that ten years had wrought, it seemed
THE THREEFOLD DESTINY.
531
scarcely more than if Ralph Cranfield had gone forth
that very morning, and dreamed a day-dream till the
twilight, and then turned back again. But his heart
grew cold because the village did not remember him
as he remembered the village.
"Here is the change!" sighed he, striking his hand
upon his breast.
"Who is this man of thought and
care, weary with world-wandering and heavy with dis-
appointed hopes? The youth returns not, who went
forth so joyously!"
And now Ralph Cranfield was at his mother's gate,
in front of the small house where the old lady, with
slender but sufficient means, had kept herself com-
fortable during her son's long absence. Admitting
himself within the enclosure, he leaned against a
great, old tree, trifling with his own impatience, as
people often do in those intervals when years are
summed into a moment. He took a minute survey
of the dwelling-its windows brightened with the
sky gleam, its doorway, with the half of a millstone
for a step, and the faintly-traced path waving thence to
the gate. He made friends again with his childhood's
friend, the old tree against which he leaned; and
glancing his eye adown its trunk, beheld something
that excited a melancholy smile. It was a half oblit-
erated inscription - the Latin word EFFODE — which
he remembered to have carved in the bark of the tree,
with a whole day's toil, when he had first begun to
muse about his exalted destiny. It might be accounted
a rather singular coincidence, that the bark just above
the inscription, had put forth an excrescence, shaped
not unlike a hand, with the forefinger pointing ob-
liquely at the word of fate. Such, at least, was its
appearance in the dusky light.
532
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
"Now a credulous man," said Ralph Cranfield care
lessly to himself, "might suppose that the treasure
which I have sought round the world lies buried, after
all, at the very door of my mother's dwelling. That
would be a jest indeed!
More he thought not about the matter; for now the
door was opened, and an elderly woman appeared on
the threshold, peering into the dusk to discover who it
might be that had intruded on her premises, and was
standing in the shadow of her tree. It was Ralph
Cranfield's mother. Pass we over their greeting, and
leave the one to her joy and the other to his rest,
if quiet rest be found.
But when morning broke, he arose with a troubled
brow; for his sleep and his wakefulness had alike been
full of dreams. All the fervor was rekindled with
which he had burned of yore to unravel the threefold
mystery of his fate. The crowd of his early visions
seemed to have awaited him beneath his mother's roof,
and thronged riotously around to welcome his return.
In the well-remembered chamber, on the pillow where
his infancy had slumbered, he had passed a wilder
night than ever in an Arab tent, or when he had re-
posed his head in the ghastly shades of a haunted for-
est. A shadowy maid had stolen to his bedside, and
laid her finger on the scintillating heart; a hand of
flame had glowed amid the darkness, pointing down-
ward to a mystery within the earth; a hoary sage had
waved his prophetic wand, and beckoned the dreamer
onward to a chair of state. The same phantoms,
though fainter in the daylight, still flitted about the
cottage, and mingled among the crowd of familiar faces
that were drawn thither by the news of Ralph Cran-
field's return, to bid him welcome for his mother's
THE THREEFOLD DESTINY.
533
2
sake.
There they found him, a tall, dark, stately man
of foreign aspect, courteous in demeanor and mild of
speech, yet with an abstracted eye, which seemed often
to snatch a glance at the invisible.
Meantime the widow Cranfield went bustling about
the house, full of joy that she again had somebody to
love, and be careful of, and for whom she might vex
and tease herself with the petty troubles of daily life.
It was nearly noon when she looked forth from the
door, and descried three personages of note coming
along the street, through the hot sunshine and the
masses of elm-tree shade. At length they reached her
gate and undid the latch.
"See, Ralph!" exclaimed she, with maternal pride,
"here is Squire Hawkwood and the two other select-
men, coming on purpose to see you! Now do tell them
a good long story about what you have seen in foreign
parts."
The foremost of the three visitors, Squire Hawk-
wood, was a very pompous, but excellent old gentle-
man, the head and prime mover in all the affairs of
the village, and universally acknowledged to be one
of the sagest men on earth. He wore, according to
a fashion even then becoming antiquated, a three-
cornered hat, and carried a silver-headed cane, the use
of which seemed to be rather for flourishing in the air
than for assisting the progress of his legs. His two
companions were elderly and respectable yeomen, who,
retaining an ante-revolutionary reverence for rank and
hereditary wealth, kept a little in the Squire's rear.
As they approached along the pathway, Ralph Cran
field sat in an oaken elbow chair, half unconsciously
gazing at the three visitors, and enveloping their
homely figures in the misty romance that pervaded
his mental world.
534
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
66
Here," thought he, smiling at the conceit, "here
come three elderly personages, and the first of the
three is a venerable sage with a staff. What if this
embassy should bring me the message of my fate!"
While Squire Hawkwood and his colleagues entered,
Ralph rose from his seat and advanced a few steps to
receive them, and his stately figure and dark coun-
tenance, as he bent courteously towards his guests, had
a natural dignity, contrasting well with the bustling
importance of the Squire. The old gentleman, accord-
ing to invariable custom, gave an elaborate prelim-
inary flourish with his cane in the air, then removed
his three-cornered hat in order to wipe his brow, and
finally proceeded to make known his errand.
"My colleagues and myself," began the Squire,
"are burdened with momentous duties, being jointly
selectmen of this village. Our minds, for the space
of three days past, have been laboriously bent on the
selection of a suitable person to fill a most important
office, and take upon himself a charge and rule which,
wisely considered, may be ranked no lower than those
of kings and potentates. And whereas you, our
native townsman, are of good natural intellect, and
well cultivated by foreign travel, and that certain va-
garies and fantasies of your youth are doubtless long
ago corrected; taking all these matters, I say, into
due consideration, we are of opinion that Providence
hath sent you hither, at this juncture, for our very
purpose.
""
During this harangue, Cranfield gazed fixedly at
the speaker, as if he beheld something mysterious and
unearthly in his pompous little figure, and as if the
Squire had worn the flowing robes of an ancient sage,
instead of a square-skirted coat, flapped waistcoat
THE THREEFOLD DESTINY
535
velvet breeches and silk stockings. Nor was his won-
der without sufficient cause; for the flourish of the
Squire's staff, marvellous to relate, had described pre-
cisely the signal in the air which was to ratify the
message of the prophetic Sage whom Cranfield had
sought around the world.
"And what," inquired Ralph Cranfield, with a
tremor in his voice, "what may this office be, which
is to equal me with kings and potentates?"
"No less than instructor of our village school," an-
swered Squire Hawkwood; "the office being now
vacant by the death of the venerable Master Whita-
ker, after a fifty years' incumbency."
"I will consider of your proposal," replied Ralph
Cranfield, hurriedly, "and will make known my de-
cision within three days."
After a few more words the village dignitary and
his companions took their leave. But to Cranfield's
fancy their images were still present, and became
more and more invested with the dim awfulness of
figures which had first appeared to him in a dream,
and afterwards had shown themselves in his waking
moments, assuming homely aspects among familiar
things. His mind dwelt upon the features of the
Squire, till they grew confused with those of the vis-
ionary Sage, and one appeared but the shadow of the
other. The same visage, he now thought, had looked
forth upon him from the Pyramid of Cheops; the
same form had beckoned to him among the colon-
nades of the Alhambra; the same figure had mistily
revealed itself through the ascending steam of the
Great Geyser. At every effort of his memory he rec-
ognized some trait of the dreamy Messenger of Des-
tiny in this pompous, bustling, self-important, little
536
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
great man of the village. Amid such musings Ralph
Cranfield sat all day in the cottage, scarcely hearing
and vaguely answering his mother's thousand ques-
tions about his travels and adventures. At sunset
he roused himself to take a stroll, and, passing the
aged elm-tree, his eye was again caught by the sem-
blance of a hand pointing downward at the half-ob-
literated inscription.
As Cranfield walked down the street of the village,
the level sunbeams threw his shadow far before him;
and he fancied that as his shadow walked among dis
tant objects, so had there been a presentiment stalking
in advance of him throughout his life. And when he
drew near each object, over which his tall shadow had
preceded him, still it proved to be one of the familiar
recollections of his infancy and youth. Every crook
in the pathway was remembered. Even the more tran-
sitory characteristics of the scene were the same as in
by-gone days. A company of cows were grazing on
the grassy roadside, and refreshed him with their fra
grant breath. "It is sweeter," thought he, "than
the perfume which was wafted to our ship from the
Spice Islands." The round little figure of a child
rolled from a doorway, and lay laughing almost be-
neath Cranfield's feet. The dark and stately man
stooped down and, lifting the infant, restored him to
his mother's arms. "The children," said he to him-
self
and sighed and smiled "the children are to
be my charge!" And while a flow of natural feeling
gushed like a well-spring in his heart, he came to a
dwelling which he could nowise forbear to enter.
sweet voice, which seemed to come from a deep and
tender soul, was warbling a plaintive little air within.
A
He bent his head and passed through the lowly
THE THREEFOLD DESTINY.
537
door. As his foot sounded upon the threshold, a
young woman advanced from the dusky interior of
the house, at first hastily, and then with a more uncer-
tain step, till they met face to face. There was a
singular contrast in their two figures: he dark and
picturesque one who had battled with the world,
whom all suns had shone upon, and whom all winds
had blown on a varied course; she neat, comely, and
quiet-quiet even in her agitation, as if all her
emotions had been subdued to the peaceful tenor of
her life. Yet their faces, all unlike as they were, had
an expression that seemed not so alien, a glow of
kindred feeling flashing upward anew from half-extin-
guished embers.
“You are welcome home!" said Faith Egerton.
But Cranfield did not immediately answer; for his
eye had been caught by an ornament in the shape of
a Heart which Faith wore as a brooch upon her
bosom. The material was the ordinary white quartz;
and he recollected having himself shaped it out of
one of those Indian arrowheads which are so often
found in the ancient haunts of the red men.
It was
precisely on the pattern of that worn by the visionary
Maid. When Cranfield departed on his shadowy
search he had bestowed this brooch, in a gold setting,
as a parting gift to Faith Egerton.
"So, Faith, you have kept the Heart!" said he at
length.
"Yes," said she, blushing deeply; then more gayly,
"and what else have you brought me from beyond the
sea?"
Faith!" replied Ralph Cranfield, uttering the
fated words by an uncontrollable impulse, "I have
br ught you nothing but a heavy heart! May I rest
it weight on you?"
538
TWICE-TOLD TALES.
"This token which I have worn so long," said
Faith, laying her tremulous finger on the Heart, "is
the assurance that you may!”
"Faith! Faith!" cried Cranfield, clasping her in
his arms, "you have interpreted my wild and weary
dream!"
Yes, the wild dreamer was awake at last. To find
the mysterious treasure, he was to till the earth around
his mother's dwelling, and reap its products! Instead
of warlike command, or regal or religious sway, he
was to rule over the village children! And now the
visionary Maid had faded from his fancy, and in her
place he saw the playmate of his childhood! Would
all who cherish such wild wishes but look around
them, they would oftenest find their sphere of duty,
of prosperity, and happiness, within those precincts
and in that station where Providence itself has cast
their lot. Happy they who read the riddle without a
weary world search, or a lifetime spent in vain!
THE END.
་
DI

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