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 K 
 
 THE 
 
 n0ttT-i[tttag: 
 
 OTHER TWICE-TOLD TALES. 
 
 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 
 
 Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields. Osgood, & Co. 
 1876. 
 
 v.
 
 Copyright, 1851. 
 BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co., 
 Cambridge.
 
 VKt 
 
 ■- 
 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 w 
 
 ^s 
 
 PRETACE. 
 
 TO HORATIO BRIDGE, ESQ., U. S. N. 
 
 Y DEAR BRIDGE: — Some of the more crab- 
 bed of my critics, I understand, have pro- 
 nounced your friend egotistical, indiscreet, and 
 even impertinent, on account of the Prefaces and Intro- 
 ductions witli wliich, on several occasions, he has seen fit 
 to pave tlic reader's way into the interior edifice of a book. 
 In the justice of tliis censure I do not exactly concur, for 
 tlie reasons, on tlie one hand, that the public generally 
 has negatived the idea of undue freedom on the author's 
 part, by evincing, it seems to me, rather more interest in 
 these aforesaid Introductions than in the stories which 
 followed; and that, on the otiicr hand, with whatever 
 appearance of confidential intimacy, I have been especially 
 careful to make no disclosures respecting myself which 
 the most indifferent observer might not have been ac- 
 quainted with, and which I M-as not perfectly willing that 
 my worst enemy should know. I might further justify 
 myself, on the plea that, ever since my youth, I have 
 been addressing a very limited circle of friendly rcad2rs.
 
 ^n PUEFACE. 
 
 without much clanger of being overheard by the pubUc 
 at large ; and that the habits thus acquired might par- 
 donably continue, although strangers may have begun to 
 mingle with my audience. 
 
 But the charge, I am bold to say, is not a reasonable 
 one, in any view which we can fairly take of it. There 
 is no harm, but, on the contrary, good, in arraying some 
 of the ordinary facts ■ of life in a slightly idealized and 
 artistic guise. I have taken facts which relate to myself, 
 because they chance to be nearest at hand, and likewise 
 are my own property. And, as for egotism, a person, 
 who has been burrowing, to his utmost ability, into the 
 depths of our common nature, for the purposes of psycho- 
 logical romance, — and who pursues his researches in 
 that dusky region, as he needs must, as well by the tact 
 of sympathy as by the light of observation, — will smile 
 at incurring such an imputation in virtue of a little 
 preliminary talk about his external habits, his abode, his 
 casual associates, and other matters entirely upon the 
 surface. These things hide the man, instead of display- 
 ing him. Ton must make quite another kind of inquest, 
 and look through the whole rauge of his fictitious charac- 
 ters, good and evil, in order to detect any of his essential 
 traits. 
 
 Be all this as it may, there can be no question as to 
 the propriety of my inscribing this volume of earlier and 
 later sketches to you, and pausing liere, a few moments, 
 to speak of them, as friend speaks to friend ; still being 
 cautious, however, that the public and the critics shall 
 overhear nothing which we care about concealing. On 
 you, if on no other person, I am entitled to rely, to
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 sustain the position of my Dedicatee. If anybody is re- 
 sponsible for my being at this day an author, it is your- 
 self. I know not whence your faith came; but, while 
 we were lads together at a country college, — gathering 
 blueberries, in study-hours, under those tall academic 
 pines ; or watching the great logs, as they tumbled along 
 the current of the Androscoggin; or shooting pigeons 
 and gray squirrels in the woods ; or bat-fowling in the 
 summer twiliglit; or catching trouts in that shadowy 
 little stream which, I suppose, is still wandering river- 
 ward through the forest, — though you and I wll never 
 cast a line in it again, — two idle lads, in short (as we 
 need not fear to acknowledge now), doing a hundred 
 things that the Faculty never heard of, or else it had 
 been the worse for us, — still it w^as your prognostic 
 of your friend's destiny, that he was to be a writer of 
 fiction. 
 
 And a fiction-monger, in due season, he became. But 
 was there ever such aweary delay in obtaining the slight- 
 est recognition from the public, as in my case ? I sat 
 down by the wayside of life, like a man under enchant- 
 ment, and a shrubbery sprung up around me, and the 
 bushes grew to be saplings, and the saplings became 
 trees, until no exit appeared possible, through the en- 
 tangling depths of my obscurity. And there, perhaps, I 
 sliould be sitting at this moment, with the moss on the 
 imprisoning tree-trunks, and the yellow leaves of more 
 than a score of autumns piled above me, if it had not 
 been for you. For it was through your interposition 
 — and that, moreover, unknown to himself — that j-our 
 early friend was brought before the public, somewhat
 
 Vlll PIJEFACE. 
 
 more prominently than theretofore, in the first volume of 
 Twice-told Tales. Not a publisher in America, I pre- 
 sume, would have thought well enough of my forgotten 
 or never-noticed stories to risk the expense of print and 
 paper; nor do I say this with any purpose of casting 
 odium on the respectable fraternity of booksellers, for 
 their blindness to my wonderful merit. To confess the 
 truth, I doubted of the public recognition quite as much 
 as they could do. So much the more generous was your 
 confidence ; and knowing, as I do, that it was founded 
 on old friendship rather than cold criticism, I value it 
 only the more for that. 
 
 So, now, when I turn back upon my path, lighted by 
 a transitory gleam of public ftivor, to pick up a few arti- 
 cles which were left out of my former collections, I take 
 pleasure in making thcni the memorial of our very long 
 and unbroken connection. Some of these sketches were 
 among the earliest that I wrote, and, after lying for 
 years in manuscript, they at last skulked into the An- 
 nuals or Magazines, and have hidden themselves there 
 ever since. Others were the productions of a later pe- 
 riod; others, again, were written recently. The com- 
 parison of these various trifles — the indices of intellec- 
 tual condition at far separate epochs — affects me with a 
 singular complexity of regrets. I am disposed to quar- 
 rel with the earlier sketches, both because a mature judg- 
 ment discerns so many faults, and still more because they 
 come so nearly up to the standard of the best that I can 
 achieve now. The ripened autumnal fruit tastes but lit- 
 tle better than the early windfalls. It would, indeed, 
 be mortifying to believe that the summer-time of life has
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 passed away, without any greater progress and improve- 
 ment than is indicated here. But — at least, so I 
 would fain hope — these things are scarcely to be de- 
 pended upon, as measures of the intellectual and moral 
 man. In youth, men are apt to write more wisely than 
 they really know or feel ; and the remainder of life may 
 be not idly spent in realizing and convincing themselves 
 of the wisdom which they uttered long ago. The truth 
 that was only in tho fancy then may have siuce become a 
 substance in the mind and heart. 
 
 1 have nothing further, I think, to say; unless it be 
 that the public need not dread my again trespassing on 
 its kindness, with any more of these musty and mouse- 
 nibbled leaves of old periodicals, transformed, by the 
 magic arts of my friendly publishers, into a new book. 
 These are the last. Or, if a few still remain,' they are 
 either such as no paternal partiality could induce the 
 author to think worth preserving, or else they have got 
 into some very dark and dusty hiding-place, quite out 
 of my own remembrance and whence no researches can 
 avail to unearth them. So there let them rest. 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 N. H. 
 Lenox, November 1, 1851.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 — « — 
 
 Page 
 
 The Snow-Image : a Childish Miracle . . 13 
 
 The Great Stone Face 34 
 
 Main Street • . 59 
 
 Ethan Brand 95 
 
 A Bell's Biography 117 
 
 Sylph Etheuege 126 
 
 The Canterbury Pilgrims 13fi 
 
 Old News. 1 149 
 
 II. The Old French War . 159 
 
 III. The Old Tory . . . 172 
 
 The Man of Adamant: an Apologue . . . 181 
 
 The Devil in Manuscript 191 
 
 John Inglefield's Thanksgiving .... 201
 
 Xn CONTEXTS. 
 
 Old Ticonderoga : a Picture of the Past . . 208 
 
 The Wives of the Dead 215 
 
 Little Daffydowndilly . . . . . . 223 
 
 My Kinsman, Major Molineux . . . 232
 
 THE SNOW-IMAGE: 
 
 A CHILDISH MIRACLE. 
 
 'g^g^'lNE afternoon of a cold winter's day, when the 
 ^1| sun shone forth with chilly brightness, after a 
 Sim long storm, two children asked leave of their 
 mother to run out and play in the new-fallen snow. The 
 elder child was a little girl, whom, because she Mas of a 
 tender and modest disposition, and was thought to be 
 very beautiful, her parents, and other people who were 
 familiar with her, used to call Violet. But her brother 
 was known by the style and title of Peony, on account of 
 the ruddiness of his broad and round little phiz, which 
 made everybody think of sunshine and great scarlet 
 flowers. The father of these two children, a certain Mr. 
 Lindsey, it is important to say, was an excellent but ex- 
 ceedingly matter-of-fact sort of man, a dealer in hardware, 
 and was sturdily accustomed to take what is called the 
 common-sense view of all matters that came under his 
 consideration. With a heart about as tender as other 
 people's, he had a head as hard and impenetral)le, and 
 therefore, perhaps, as empty, as one of the iron pots 
 which it was a part of his business to sell. The mother's 
 character, on the other hand, had a strain of poetry in it, 
 a trait of unworldly beauty, — a delicate and dewy flower,
 
 14 THE SXOW i:\[AGE : 
 
 as it were, that had survived out of her iniagiuative youth, 
 and still kept itself alive amid the dusty realities of mat- 
 rimony and motherhood. 
 
 So, Violet and Peony, as I began with saying, be- 
 sought their mother to let them run out and play in the 
 new snow ; for, though it had looked so dreary and dis- 
 mal, drifting downward out of the gray sky, it had a very 
 cheerful aspect, now that the sun was shining on it. The 
 children dwelt in a city, and had no wider play-])lace than 
 a little gardsn before ths house, divided by a white fence 
 from the street, and with a psar-tree and two or three 
 plum-trees overshadowing it, and some rose-bushes just 
 in front of the parlor-windows. The trees and shrubs, 
 however, were now leafless, and their twigs were envel- 
 oped in the hglit snow, which thus made a kind of win- 
 try foliage, with here and there a pendent icicle for the 
 fruit. 
 
 " Yes, Violet, — yes, my little Peony," said their kind 
 mother ; " you may go out and play in the new snow." 
 
 Accordingly,- the good lady bundled up her darlings in 
 woollen jackets and wadded sacks, and put comforters 
 round their necks, and a pair of striped gaiters on each 
 little pair of legs, and worsted mittens on their hands, 
 and gave them a kiss apiece, by way of a spell to keep 
 away Jack Frost. Forth salHed the two children, with a 
 hop-skip-and-jump, that carried them at once into the very 
 heart of a huge snow-drift, whence Violet emerged like a 
 snow-bunting, while little Peony floundered out with his 
 round face in full bloom. Then what a merry time had 
 they ! To look at them, frolicking in the wintry garden, 
 you would have thought that the dark and pitiless storm 
 liad been sent for no other purpose but to provide a new 
 plaything for Violet and Peony ; and that they themselves 
 had been created, as the snow-birds were, to take delight
 
 A CHILDISH MIRACLE. 15 
 
 only in the tciupsst, and in the white mantle wliicli it 
 spread over the earth. 
 
 At last, when they had frosted one another all over 
 with handfuls of snow, Violet, after laughing heartily at 
 little Peony's figure, was struck with a new idea. 
 
 " You look exactly like a snow-image, Peony," said 
 she, " if your cheeks were not so red. And that puts me 
 in mind ! Let us make an image out of snow, — an im- 
 age of a little girl, — and it shall be our sister, and shall 
 run about and play with us all winter long. Won't it be 
 nice? " 
 
 "0, yes ! " cried Peony, as plainly as he could speak, 
 for he was but a little boy. " That will be nice ! And 
 mamma shall see it ! " 
 
 "Yes," answered Violet; "mamma shall see the new 
 little girl. But she must not make her come into the 
 warm parlor ; for, you know, our little snow-sister will 
 not love the warmth." 
 
 And forthwith the children began this great business 
 of making a snow-image that should runabout; while 
 their mother, who was sitting at the window and over- 
 heard some of their talk, could not* help smiling at the 
 gravity with which they set about it. They really seemed 
 to imagine that there would be no difficulty whatever in 
 creating a live little girl out of the snow. And, to say 
 the truth, if miracles are ever to be wrought, it will be by 
 putting our hands to the work in precisely such a simple 
 and undoubting frame of mind as that in which Violet 
 and Peony now undertook to perform one, without so 
 much as knowing that it was a miracle. So thought the 
 mother; and thought, likewise, that the new snow, just 
 fallen from heaven, would be e.\cellent material to make 
 new beings of, if it v.-ere not so very cold. She gazed at 
 the children a moment longer, delighting to watch their
 
 16 THE SXOW-niAGE: 
 
 little figures, — the girl, tall for her age, graceful and 
 agile, and so delicately colored that she looked like a 
 cheerful thouglit, more than a physical reality; while 
 Peony expanded in breadth rather than height, and rolled 
 along"^ on his short and sturdy legs as substantial as an 
 elephant, though not quite so big. Than the mother re- 
 sumed her work. What it was I forget ; but she was 
 eitlier trimming a silken bonnet for Violet, or darning a 
 pair of stockings for little Peony's short legs. Again, 
 however, and again, and yet other agains, she could not 
 help turning her head to the window to see how the chil- 
 dren got on with their snow-image. 
 
 Indeed, it was an exceedingly ])leasant sight, those 
 bright little souls at their tasks ! Moreover, it was really 
 wonderful to observe how knowingly and skilfully they 
 managed the matter. Violet assumed the chief direction, 
 and told Peony what to do, while, with her own deHcate 
 fingers, she shaped out all the nicer parts of the snow- 
 figure. It seemed, in fact, not so much to be made by 
 the children, as to grow up under their hands, while they 
 were playing and prattling about it. Their mother was 
 quite surprised at this ; and the longer she looked, the 
 more and more surprised she grew. 
 
 " Wliat remarkable children mine are ! " thought slie, 
 smiling witli a mother's pride ; and, smiling at herself, 
 too, for being so proud of them. " What other children 
 could have made anything so like a little girl's figure 
 out of snow at the first trial? Well ; — but now I must 
 finish Peony's new frock, for his grandfather is coming 
 to-morrow, and I want the little fellow to look hand- 
 some." 
 
 So she took up the frock, and was soon as busily at 
 work again witli her needle as the two children with their 
 snow-image. But still, as the needle travelled hither and
 
 A CHILDISH MIRACLE. 17 
 
 thither througli the seams of the dress, tlie mother made 
 her toil light and happy by listening to the airy voices of 
 Violet and Peony. Tliey kept talking to one another all 
 the time, their tongues being quite as active as ihcir feet 
 and liands. Except at intervals, she could not distinctly 
 hear what was said, but had merely a sweet impression 
 that they were in a most loving mood, and were enjoying 
 themselves higlily, and that tlie business of making the 
 snow-image went prosperously on. Now and then, liow- 
 ever, when Violet and Peony happened to raise their 
 voices, the words were as audible as if they had been 
 spoken in the very parlor, where tlie mother sat. O, 
 how delightfully those words echoed in her heart, even 
 though they meant nothing so very Avise or wonderful, 
 after all ! 
 
 But you must know a mother listens with her heart, 
 much more than with her ears; and thus she is often 
 delighted with the trills of celestial music, when other 
 people can hear nothing of the kind. 
 
 "Peony, Peony ! " cried Violet to her brother, who had 
 gone to another part of the garden, " bring me some of 
 that fresh snow, Peony, from the very farthest corner, 
 where we have not been trampling. I want it to shape 
 our little snow-sister's bosom with. You know that part 
 must be quite pure, just as it came out of the sky ! " 
 
 " Here it is, Violet ! " answered Peony, in his blulF 
 tone, — but a very sweet tone, too, — as he came floun- 
 dering through the half-trodden drifts. "Here is the 
 snow for her little bosom. O Violet, how bcau-ti-ful she 
 begins to look ! " 
 
 "Yes," said Violet, thoughtfully and quietly; "our 
 snow-sister does look very lovely. I did not quite know, 
 Peony, that we could make such a sweet little girl as 
 this."
 
 18 THE SXOW-IMAGE: 
 
 The mother, as she hstened, tliought how fit and de- 
 Hghtful an incident it would be, if fairies, or, still better, 
 if angel-children were to come from paradise, and play 
 invisibly with her own darlings, and help them to make 
 their snow-image, giving it the features of celestial baby- 
 hood ! Yiolet and Peony would not be aware of their im- 
 mortal playmates, — only they would see that the image 
 grew very beautiful while they worked at it, and would 
 think that they themselves had done it all. 
 
 "My little girl and boy deserve such playmates, if 
 mortal children ever did!" said the mother to herself; 
 and then she smiled again at her own motherly pride. 
 
 Nevertheless, the idea seized upon her imagiiuitiou ; 
 and, ever and anon, she took a glimpse out of tlie win- 
 dow, half dreaming that she might see the golden-haired 
 children of paradise sporting with her own golden-haired 
 Violet and bright-cheeked Peony. 
 
 Now, for a few moments, there was a busy and ear- 
 nest, but indistinct hum of the two children's voices, as 
 Violet and Peony wrought together with one happy 
 consent. Violet still seemed to be the guiding spirit, 
 M'hile Peony acted rather as a laborer, and brought her 
 the snow from far and near. And yet the little urchin 
 evidently had a proper understanding of the matter, 
 too ! "^ 
 
 "Peony, Peony ! " cried Violet; for her brother was 
 again at the other side of the garden. " Bring me those 
 light wreaths of snow that have rested on the lower 
 branches of the pear-tree. You can clamber on the 
 snow-drift. Peony, and reach them easily. I must have 
 them to make some ringlets for our snow-sister's head ! " 
 
 " Here they are, Violet ! " answered the little boy. 
 " Take care you do not break them. Well done ! Well 
 done ! How pretty ! "
 
 A CHILDISH MIRACLE. 10 
 
 "Does she not look sweetly?" said Violet, witii a 
 very satisfied tone ; " and uow \vc must, have some little 
 shining bits of ice, to make the brightness of her eyes. 
 She is not finished yet. Mamma will see how very 
 beautiful she is ; but papa will say, ' Tush ! nonsense ! 
 — come in out of the cold ! ' " 
 
 " Let us call mamma to look out," said Peony ; and 
 then he shouted lustily, "Mamma! mamma!! mam- 
 ma ! ! ! Look out, and see what a nice 'ittle girl we 
 are making ! " 
 
 The mother put down her work, for an instant, and 
 looked out of the window. But it so happened that the 
 suu — for this was one of the shortest days of the whole 
 year — had sunken so nearly to the edge of the world, 
 that his setting shine came obliquely into the lady's eyes. 
 So she was dazzled, you must understand, and could not 
 very distinctly observe what was in the garden. Still, 
 however, through all that bright, blinding dazzle of the 
 sun and the new snow, she beheld a snudl white figure 
 in the garden, that seemed to have a wonderful deal of 
 human likeness about it. And she saw Violet and 
 Peony, — indeed, she looked more at them than at the 
 image, — she saw the two children still at work ; Peony 
 bringing fresh snow, and Violet applying it to the fig- 
 ure as scientifically as a sculptor adds clay to his model. 
 Lidistinctly as she discerned the snow-child, the mother 
 thought to herself that never before was there a snow- 
 figure so cunningly made, nor ever such a dear little 
 girl and boy to make it. 
 
 " They do everything better than other children," said 
 she, very complacently. " No wonder they make better 
 snow-images ! " 
 
 She sat down again to her work, and made as much 
 haste with it as possible ; because twilight would soon
 
 20 THE SXOW-niAGE: 
 
 come, and Peony's frock was not yet finished, and grand- 
 father was expected, by railroad, pretty early in the 
 morning. Faster and faster, therefore, went her flying 
 fingers. The children, likewise, kept busily at work in 
 the garden, and still the mother listened, whenever she 
 could catch a word. She was amused to observe how 
 their little imaginations had got mixed up with what 
 they were doing, and were carried away by it. They 
 seemed positively to think that the snow-child would run 
 about and play with them. 
 
 " What a nice playmate she will be for us, all winter 
 long ! " said Violet. " I hope papa will not be afraid 
 of her giving us a cold ! Slia' n't you love her dearly, 
 Peony ? " 
 
 "0 yes! " cried Peony. "And I will hug h:'r, and 
 she shall sit down close by me, and drink some of my 
 warm milk ! " 
 
 " no, Peony ! " answered Violet, with grave wisdom. 
 " That will not do at all. Warm milk will not be whole- 
 some for our little snow-sister. Little snow-people, like 
 her, eat nothing but icicles. No, no, Peony ; we must 
 not give her auytlung warm to drink ! " 
 
 There was a minute or two of silence ; for Peony, 
 whose short legs were never weary, had gone on a pil- 
 grimage again to the other side of the garden. All of 
 a sudden, Violet cried out, loudly and joyfully, — 
 
 " Look here. Peony ! Come quickly ! A light has 
 been shining on her cheek out of that rose-colored cloud I 
 and the color does not 2:0 awav ! Is not that beau- 
 tiful ! " 
 
 "Yes; it is beau-ti-ful," answered Peony, pronoun- 
 cing the three syllables with deliberate accuracy. " O 
 Violet, only look at her hair ! It is all like gold ! " 
 
 " O, certainly," said Violet, with tranquillity, as if it
 
 A CHILDISH MIRACLE. 21 
 
 were very mucli a matter of course, " That color, you 
 know, comes from the golden clouds, that we see up 
 there in the sky. She is almost finished now. But her 
 lips must he made very red, — redder than her cheeks. 
 Perhaps, Peony, it will make them red, if we both kiss 
 them ! " 
 
 Accordhigly, the mother heard two smart little smacks, 
 as if both her children were kissing the snow-image on 
 its frozen mouth. But, as this did not seem to make 
 the lips quite red enough, Violet next pro])Osed that 
 the snow-chiid should be invited to kiss Peony's scarlet 
 cheek. 
 
 "Come, 'ittle snow-sister, kiss me ! " cried Peony. 
 
 " There ! she has kissed you," added Violet, " and 
 now her lips are very red. And slie blushed a little, 
 too ! " 
 
 " 0, what a cold kiss ! " cried Peony. 
 
 Just then, there came a breeze of the pure west-wind, 
 sweeping through the garden and rattling the parlor- 
 windows. It sounded so wintry cold, that the mother 
 was about to tap on the window-pane with her thimbled 
 finger, to summon the two children in, Avhen they both 
 cried out to her with one voice, Thi tone was not a 
 tone of surprise, although they were evidently a good 
 deal excited; it appeared rather as if they M'ere very 
 much rejoiced at some event that had now happened, 
 but which tliey had been looking for, and had reckoned 
 upon all along. 
 
 " Mamma ! mamma ! We have finished our little snow- 
 sister, and she is running about the garden with us ! " 
 
 " Wliat imaginative little beings my children are ! " 
 thought the mother, putting the last few stitches into 
 Peony's frock. " And it is strange, too, that they make 
 me almost as much a child as they themselves arc ! I
 
 22 THE SXOW-IMAGE: 
 
 cau hardly help believing, now, that the snow-image has 
 really come to life ! " 
 
 " Dear mamma ! " cried Violet, " pray look out and 
 see what a sweet playmate we have ! " 
 
 The mother, being thus entreated, could no longer 
 delay to look forth from the window. The sun was now 
 gone out of the sky, leaving, however, a rich inheritance 
 of his brightness among those purple and golden clouds 
 which make the sunsets of winter so magnificent. But 
 there was not the slightest gleam or dazzle, either on 
 the window or on the snow; so that the good lady could 
 look all over the garden, and see everything and every- 
 body in it. And what do you think she saw there ? 
 Violet and Peony, of course, her own two darling chil- 
 dren. Ah, but whom or what did she besides ? Why, if 
 you will believe me, there was a small figure of a girl, 
 dressed all in white, with rose-tinged cheeks and ring- 
 lets of golden hue, playing about the garden with the 
 two children ! A stranger though she was, the child 
 seemed to be on as familiar terms with Violet and Peony, 
 and they with her, as if all the three had been play^ 
 mates during the whole of their little lives. The mother 
 thought to herself that it must certainly be the daughter 
 of one of the neighbors, and that, seeing Violet and 
 Peony in the garden, the child had run across the street 
 to play with them. So this kind lady went to the door, 
 intending to invite the little runaway into her comforta- 
 ble parlor; for, now that the sunshine was withdrawn, 
 the atmosphere, out of doors, was already growing very 
 cold. 
 
 But, after opening the house-door, she stood an instant 
 on the threshold, hesitating whether she ought to ask the 
 child to come in, or whether she should even speak to 
 her. Indeed, she almost doubted whether it were a real
 
 A CHILDISH MIRACLE. ^3 
 
 child, after all, or only a liglit wreath of the new-fallcu 
 snow, blown iiither and thither about the garden by the 
 intensely cold west-wind. There was certainly some- 
 thing very singular in the aspect of the little stranger. 
 Among all the children of the neighborhood, the lady 
 could remember no such face, with its pure wliite, and 
 delicate rose-color, and the golden ringlets tossing about 
 the forehead and cheejcs. And as for her dress, which 
 was entirely of white, and fluttering in the breeze, it was 
 such as no reasonable woman would put upon a little 
 girl, when sending her out to play, in the depth of win- 
 ter. It made tiiis kind and careful mother shiver only 
 to look at those small feet, with nothing in the world ou 
 them, except a very thin pair of white slippers. Never- 
 theless, airily as she was clad, the child seemed to feel 
 not the slightest inconvenience from the cold, but danced 
 so lightly over the snow that the tips of her toes left 
 hardly a print in its surface; while Violet could but just 
 keep pace with her, and Peony's short legs compelled 
 liim to lag behind. 
 
 Once, in the course of their play, the strange child 
 placed herself between Violet and Peony, and taking a 
 hand of each, ski])ped merrily forward, and they along 
 with her. Almost immediately, however. Peony pulled 
 away his little fist, and began to rub it as if the fingers 
 were tingling with cold; M^iiile Violet also released iier- 
 self, though with less abruptness, gravely remarking that 
 it was better not to take hold of hands. The Avhite- 
 robed damsel said not a word, but danced about, just as 
 merrily as before. If Violet and Peony did not choose 
 to play with her, she could make just as good a ])laymate 
 of the brisk and cold west-wind, which kept blowing her 
 all about the garden, and took such liberties with her, 
 that they seemed to have been friends for a long time.
 
 24 THE SNOW-IMAGE: 
 
 All this while, the mother stood oii the threshold, won- 
 dering how a little girl could look so much like a flying 
 snow-drift, or how a snow-drift could look so verv like a 
 little girl. 
 
 She called Violet, and whispered to her. 
 
 " Violet, my darling, what is this child's name ? " asked 
 she. " Does she live near us ? " 
 
 " Why, dearest mamma," answered Violet, laughing to 
 think that her mother did not comprehend so very plain 
 an affair, " this is our little snow-sister, whom we have 
 just been making ! " 
 
 " Yes, dear mamma," cried Peony, running to his 
 mother, and looking up simply into her face. " This is 
 our snow-image ! Is it not a nice 'ittle child ? " 
 
 At this instant a flock of snow-birds came flitting 
 through the air. As was very natural, they avoided 
 Violet and Peony. But, — and this looked strange, — 
 they flew at once to the white-robed child, fluttered 
 eagerly about her head, alighted on her shoulders, and 
 seemed to claim her as an old acquaintance. She, on 
 her part, was evidently as glad to see these little birds, , 
 old Winter's grandchildren, as they were to see her, and 
 welcomed them by holding out both her hands. Here- 
 upon, they each and all tried to alight on her two palms 
 and ten small fingers and thumbs, crowding one another 
 off, with an immense fluttering of their tiny wings. One 
 dear little bird nestled tenderly in her bosom ; another 
 put its bill to her lips. They were as joyous, all the 
 while, and seemed as much in their element, as you may 
 have seen them when sporting with a snow-storm. 
 
 Violet and Peony stood laughing at this pretty sight : 
 for they enjoyed the merry time which their new play- 
 mate was having with these small-winged visitants, al- 
 most as much as if they themselves took part in it.
 
 A CHILDISH MIRACLE. 25 
 
 "Violet," said her motlier, greatly perplexed, "tell 
 me the truth, without auj jest. "Who is this little 
 girl?" 
 
 " My darling mamma," ansM'ered Violet, looking seri- 
 ously into her mother's face, and apparently surprised 
 that she should need any further explanation, "I have 
 told you truly who she is. It is our little snow-image, 
 which Peony and I have been making. Peony will tell 
 you so, as well as I." 
 
 " Yes, mamma," asseverated Peony, with much grav- 
 ity in his crimson little phiz ; " this is 'itile snow-child. 
 Is not she a nice one ? But, mamma, her hand, is oh, 
 so very cold ! " 
 
 While mamma still hesitated what to think and what 
 to do, the street-gate was thrown open, and the father 
 of Violet and Peony appeared, wrapped in a pilot-cloth 
 sack, with a fur cap drawn down over his ears, and the 
 thickest of gloves upon his hands. Mr. Lindscy was a 
 middle-aged man, with a weary and yet a happy look in 
 his wind-flushed and frost-pinched face, as if he had 
 been busy all the day long, and was glad to get back to 
 liis quiet home. His eyes brightened at the sight of his 
 wife and children, although he could not help uttering a 
 word or two of surprise, at finding the whole family in 
 the open air, on so bleak a day, and after sunset too. 
 He soon perceived the little white stranger, sporting to 
 and fro in the garden, like a dancing snow-wreath, and 
 the flock of snow-birds fluttering about her head. 
 
 " Pray, what little girl may that be?" inquired this 
 very sensible man. " Surely her mother must be crazy, 
 to let her go out in such bitter weather as it has been 
 to-day, with only that flimsy white gown and those thin 
 slippers ! " 
 
 "My dear husband," said his wife, "I know no more 
 2
 
 26 THE SNOW-IMAGE: 
 
 about the little thing than you do. Some neighbor's 
 child, I suppose. Our Violet aud Peony," she added, 
 laughing at herself for repeating so absurd a story, " in- 
 sist that she is nothing but a snow-image, which they 
 have been busy about in the garden, almost all the after- 
 noon." 
 
 As she said this, the mother glanced her eyes to- 
 ward the spot where the children's snow-image had 
 been made. What was her surprise, on perceiving that 
 there was not the slightest trace of so much labor ! — no 
 image at all! — no piled up heap of snow! — nothing 
 whatever, save the prints of little footsteps around a 
 vacant space ! 
 
 " This is very strange ! " said she. 
 
 "What is strange, dear mother?" asked Violet. 
 " Dear father, do not vou see how it is ? This is our 
 snow-image, which Peony aud I have made, because we 
 w^anted another playmate. Did not we. Peony ? " 
 
 " Yes, papa," said crimson Peony. " This be our 
 'ittle snow-sister. Is she not beau-ti-ful ? But she gave 
 
 iss 
 
 I " 
 
 me such a cold k 
 
 " Poh, nonsense, children ! " cried their good, honest 
 father, who, as we have already intimated, had an ex- 
 ceedingly commou-sensible way of looking at matters. 
 *' Do not tell me of making live figures out of snow. 
 Come, wife ; this little stranger must not stay out in the 
 bleak air a moment longer. We will bring her into the 
 parlor ; and you shall give her a supper of warm bread 
 and milk, and make her as comfortable as you can. 
 Meanwhile, I will inquire among the neighbors ; or, if 
 necessary, send the city-crier about the streets, to give 
 notice of a lost child." 
 
 So saying, this honest and very kind-hearted man was 
 going toward the little white damsel, with the best in-
 
 A CHILDISH MIRACLE. 27 
 
 tentions in the world. But Violet ami Peony, each seiz- 
 ing their fatlier by the hand, earnestly besought him not 
 to make her come in. 
 
 " Dear father," cried Violet, putting herself before 
 him, " it is true what 1 have been telling you ! This is 
 our little snow-girl, and she cannot live any longer than 
 while she breathes the cold west-wind. Do not make 
 her come into the hot room ! " 
 
 "Yes, father," shouted Peony, stamping his little foot, 
 so mightily was he in earnest, " this be nothing but our 
 'ittle snow-child ! She will not love the hot fire ! " 
 
 *' Nonsense, children, nonsense, nonsense ! " cried the 
 father, half vexed, half laughing at what he considered 
 their foolish obstinacy. "Run into the house, this mo- 
 ment ! It is too late to play any longer, now. I must 
 take care of this little girl innnediately, or she Avill catch 
 her death-a-cold ! " 
 
 " Husband ! dear husband ! " said his wife, in a low 
 voice, — for she had been looking narrowly at the snow- 
 child, and was more perplexed than ever, — " there is 
 something very singular in all this. You will think me 
 foolish, — but — but — may it not be that some invisible 
 angel has been attracted by the simplicity and good faith 
 with which our children set about their undertaking? 
 May he not have spent an hour of his inmiortality in 
 playing with those dear little souls ? and so the result is 
 what we call a miracle. No, no ! Do not laugh at me ; 
 I see what a. foolish thought it is ! " 
 
 " My dear wife," replied the husband, laughing heart- 
 ily, " you are as much a child as Violet and Peony." 
 
 And in one sense so she was, for all tlirougii life she 
 had kept her lieart full of childlike simplicity and faith, 
 which was as pure and clear as crystal ; and, looking at all 
 matters through this transparent medium, she sometimes
 
 28 THE SXOW-IMAGE: 
 
 saw truths so profound, that other people laughed at 
 them as nonsense and absurdity. 
 
 But now kind Mr. Lindsey liad entered the j]^arden, 
 breaking away from his two children, who still sent their 
 shrill voices after him, beseeching him to let the snow- 
 cliild stay and enjoy herself in tlie cold west-wind. As 
 he approached, the snow-birds took to flight. The little 
 white damsel, also, fled backward, shaking her head, as 
 if to say, " Pray, do not touch me ! " and roguishly, as it 
 appeared, leading him through the deepest of the snow. 
 Once, the good man stumbled, and floundered down 
 upon his face, so that, gathering himself up again, with 
 the snow sticking to his rough pilot-cloth sack, he 
 looked as white and wintry as a snow-image of the 
 largest size. Some of the neighbors, meanwhile, seeing 
 him from their windows, wondered what could possess 
 poor Mr. Lindsey to be running about his garden in 
 pursuit of a snow-drift, which the west-wind was driving 
 hither and thither! At length, after a vast deal of 
 trouble, he chased the little stranger into a corner, where 
 she could not possibly escape him. His wife had been 
 looking on, and, it being nearly twilight, was wonder- 
 struck to observe how the snow-child gleamed and 
 sparkled, and how she seemed to shed a glow all round 
 about her ; and when driven into the corner, she posi- 
 tively glistened like a star ! It was a frosty kind of 
 brightness, too, like that of an icicle in the moonlight. 
 The wife thought it strange that good Mr. Lindsey 
 should see nothing remarkable in the snow-child's ap- 
 pearance. 
 
 " Come, yon odd little thing ! " cried the honest man, 
 seizing her by the hand, " I have caught you at last, 
 and M'ill make you comfortable in spite of yourself. We 
 Mill put a nice warm pair of worsted stockings on your
 
 A CHILDISH MIRACLE. 29 
 
 frozen little feet, and you shall have a good thick shawl 
 to wrap yourself in. Your poor white nose, I am afraid, 
 is actually frost-bitten. But we will make it all right. 
 Come along in." 
 
 And so, Avith a most benevolent smile on his sagacious 
 visage, all purple as it was with the cold, this very well- 
 meaning gentleman took the snow-child by the hand and 
 led her towards the house. She followed him, droop- 
 ingly and reluctant ; for all the glow and sparkle was 
 gone out of her figure ; and whereas just before she had 
 resembled a bright, frosty, star-gemuied evening, with a 
 crimson gleam on the cold horizon, she now looked as 
 dull and languid as a thaw. As kind Mr. Lindsey led 
 her up the steps of the door, Violet and Peony looked 
 into his face, — their eyes full of tears, whicli froze 
 before they could run down their cheeks, — and again 
 entreated him not to bring their snow-image into the 
 house. 
 
 "Not bring her in ! " exclaimed the kind-hearted man. 
 *•' Why, you are crazy, my little Violet ! — quite crazy, 
 my small Peony! She is so cold, already, that her 
 hand has almost frozen mine, in spite of my thick gloves. 
 Would you have her freeze to death ? " 
 
 His wife, as he came up the steps, had been taking 
 another long, earnest, almost awe-stricken gaze at the 
 little white stranger. She hardly knew whether it was 
 a dream or no ; l)ut she could not help fancying that she 
 saw the delicate print of Violet's fingers on the child's 
 neck. It looked just as if, while Violet was shaping out 
 the image, she had given it a gentle pat with her hand, 
 and had neglected to smooth the impression quite away. 
 
 "After all, husband," said the mother, recurring to 
 her idea that the angels would be as much delighted to 
 play with Violet and Peony as she herself was, — "after
 
 30 THE SNOW-IMAGE: 
 
 all, she does look strangely like a snow-image! I do 
 believe she is made of snow ! " 
 
 A puff of the west-wind blew against the snow-child, 
 and again she sparkled like a star. 
 
 " Snow ! " repeated good Mr. Lindsey, drawing the 
 reluctant guest over his hospitable threshold. " No 
 wonder she looks like snow. She is half frozen, poor 
 little thing ! But a good fire will put everything to 
 rights." 
 
 Without further talk, and always with the same best 
 intentions, this highly benevolent and common-sensible 
 individual led the little white damsel — drooping, droop- 
 ing, drooping, more and more — out of the frosty air, 
 and into his comfortable parlor. A Heidenberg stove, 
 filled to tlie brim with intensely burning anthracite, was 
 sending a bright gleam through the isinglass of its iron 
 door, and causing the vase of water ou its top to fume 
 and bubble with excitement. A warm, sultry smell was 
 diffused throughout the room. A thermometer on the 
 wall farthest from the stove stood at eighty degrees. 
 The parlor was hung with red curtains, and covered with 
 a red carpet, and looked just as warm as it felt. The 
 difference betwixt the atmosphere here and the cold, 
 wintry twilight out of doors, was like stepping at once 
 from Nova Zembla to the hottest part of India, or from 
 the North Pole into an oven. 0, this was a fine place 
 for the little white stranger ! 
 
 The common-sensible man placed the snow-child on 
 the hearth-rug, right in front of the hissing and fuming 
 stove. 
 
 " Now she will be comfortable ! " cried Mr. Lindsey, 
 rubbing his hands and looking about him, with the pleas- 
 antest smile you ever saw. "Make yourself at home, 
 my child."
 
 A CHILDISH MIRACLE. 31 
 
 Sad, sad and drooping, looked the little -white maiden, 
 as she stood on tlie hearth-rug, with the hot blast of the 
 stove striking through her like a pestilence. Once, she 
 threw a glance wistfully toward the windows, and caught 
 a glimpse, through its red curtains, of the snow-covered 
 roofs, and the stars glimmering frostily, and all the deli- 
 cious intensity of the cold night. The bleak wind rattled 
 the window-panes, as if it were summoning her to come 
 forth. But there stood the snow-child, drooping, before 
 the hot stove ! 
 
 But the common-sensible man saw nothing amiss. 
 
 "Come, wife," said he, "let her have a pair of thick 
 stockings and a woollen shawl or blanket directly ; and 
 tell Dora to give her some warm supper as soon as the 
 milk boils. You, Violet and Peony, amuse your little 
 friend. She is out of spirits, you see, at finding herself 
 in a strange place. For my part, I will go around among 
 the neighbors, and find out where she belongs." 
 
 The mother, meanwhile, had gone in search of the 
 shawl and stockings ; for her own view of the matter, 
 however subtle and delicate, had given way, as it always 
 did, to the stubborn materialism of her husband. With- 
 out hcedhig the remonstrances of his two children, who 
 still kept murmuring that their little snow-sister did not 
 love the warmth, good Mr. Lindsey took his departure, 
 shutting the parlor-door carefully behind him. Turning 
 up the collar of his sack over his ears, he emerged from 
 the house, and had barely reached the street-gate, when 
 he was recalled by the screams of Violet and Peony, 
 and the rapping of a thimbled finger against the parlor 
 window. 
 
 " Husband ! husband ! " cried his wife, showing her 
 horror-stricken face through the,window-pancs. "There 
 is no need of going for the child's parents ! "
 
 32 THE SNOW-niAGE: 
 
 "We told you so, father!" screamed Violet and 
 Peouy, as he re -entered the parlor. "You would bring 
 her in ; and now our poor — dear — beau-ti-ful little 
 snow-sister is thawed ! " 
 
 And their own sweet little faces were already dissolved 
 in tears ; so that their father, seeing what strange things 
 occasionally happen in this every-day world, felt not a 
 little anxious lest his children might be going to thaw 
 too ! In the utmost perplexity, he demanded an expla- 
 nation of his M'ife. She could only reply, that, being 
 summoned to the parlor by the cries of Violet and Peony, 
 she found no trace of the little white maiden, unless it 
 were the remains of a heap of snow, which, while she 
 was gazing at it, melted quite away upon the hearth-rug. 
 
 " And there you see all that is left of it ! " added she, 
 pointing to a pool of water, in front of the stoye. 
 
 " Yes, father," said Violet, looking reproachfully at 
 him, through her tears, " there is all that is left of our 
 dear little snow-sister I " 
 
 "Naughty father!" cried Peony, stamping his foot, 
 and — I shudder to say — shaking his little tist at the 
 common-sensible man. " We told you how it would be ! 
 What for did you bring her in ? " 
 
 And the Heidenberg stoye, through the isinglass of its 
 door, seemed to glare at good Mr. Lindsey, like a red- 
 eyed demon, triumphing in the mischief which it had 
 done ! 
 
 This, you will obserye, was one of those rare cases, 
 which yet will occasionally happen, where common-sense 
 finds itself at fault. The remarkable story of the snow- 
 image, though to that sagacious class of people to whom 
 good Mr. Lindsey belongs it may seem but a childish 
 affair, is, neyertheless, capable of being moralized in 
 various methods, greatly for tiieir edification. One of
 
 A CHILDISH MIRACLE. 33 
 
 its lessons, for instance, might be, that it beliooves men, 
 and especially men of benevolence, to consider well what 
 they are about, and, before acting on their philanthropic 
 purposes, to be quite sure that they comprehend the 
 nature and all the relations of the business in hand. 
 What has been established as an element of good to one 
 being may prove absolute mischief to another; even as 
 the warmth of tlie parlor was proper enougii for cliildrcn 
 of flesh and blood, like Violet and Peony, — though by 
 no means very wholesome, even for them, — but involved 
 nothing short of annihilation to the unfortunate snow- 
 image. 
 
 But, after all, there is no teaching anything to wise 
 men of good Mr. Lindsey's stamp. They know every- 
 thing, — oh, to be sure ! — everything that has been, and 
 everything that is, and everything that, by any future 
 possibility, can be. And, should some phenomenon of 
 nature or providence transcend their system, they will 
 not recognize it, even if it come to pass under their very 
 noses. 
 
 " Wife," said Mr. Llndsey, after a fit of silence, " see 
 what a quantity of snow the children have brouglit in on 
 titeir feet ! It has made quite a ])uddle here before tlie 
 stove. Pray tell Dora to bring some towels and sop it 
 up!"
 
 I^^q 
 
 ^WS. 
 
 1^ 
 
 ^^ 
 
 kS^ 
 
 K^M^ 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ^^iSd 
 
 5^^^ 
 
 ^Kt 
 
 
 ^k^ 
 
 ^1^ 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 ^^ 
 
 m&. 
 
 ^^^CvV "^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 !^^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 THE GREAT STONE FACE. 
 
 ^NE afternoon, when the sun was going down, a 
 mother and lier little boy sat at the door of their 
 cottage, talking about the Great Stone Face, 
 They had but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly 
 to be seen, though miles away, with the sunshine bright- 
 ening all its features. 
 
 And what was the Great Stone Face ? 
 
 Embosomed amongst a family of lofty mountains, there 
 was a valley so spacious that it contained many thousand 
 inhabitants. Some of these good people dwelt in log- 
 huts, with the black forest all around them, on the steep 
 and difficult hillsides. Others had their homes in com- 
 fortable farm-houses, and cultivated the rich soil on the 
 gentle slopes or level surfaces of the valley. Others, 
 again, were congregated into populous villages, Avhere 
 some wild, highland rivulet, tumbling down from its 
 birthplace in the upper mountain region, had been caught 
 and tamed by human cunning, and compelled to turn the 
 machinery of cotton-factories. The inhabitants of this 
 valley, in short, were numerous, and of many modes of life. 
 But all of them, grown people and children, had a kind 
 of familiarity with the Great Stone Face, although some 
 possessed the gift of distinguishing this grand natural 
 phenomenon more perfectly than many of their neighbors.
 
 THE GREAT STONE FACE. 35 
 
 The Great Stone Face, tlien, was a work of Nature in 
 her mood of majestic playfulness, formed on the perpen- 
 dicular side of a mountain by some immense rocks, which 
 liad been thrown together in such a position as, when 
 viewed at a proper distance, precisely to resemble the 
 features of the human countenance. It seemed as if an 
 enormous giant, or a Titan, had sculptured his own like- 
 ness on the precipice. There was the broad arch of the 
 foreliead, a hundred feet in height ; the nose, with its long 
 bridge ; and the vast lips, which, if they could have spoken, 
 would have rolled their thunder accents from one end of 
 the valley to the other. True it is, that if the spectator 
 approached too near, he lost the outline of the gigantic 
 visage, and could discern only a heap of ponderous and 
 gigantic rocks, piled in chaotic ruin one upon another. 
 Retracing his steps, however, the wondrous features 
 would again be seen ; and the farther lie withdrew from 
 them, the more like a human face, with all its original 
 divinity intact, did they appear ; until, as it grew dim in 
 the distance, with the clouds and glorified vapor of the 
 mountains clustering about it, the Great Stone Face 
 seemed positively to be alive. 
 
 It was a happy lot for children to grow up to man- 
 hood or womanhood with the Great Stone Face before 
 their eyes, for all the features were noble, and the ex- 
 pression was at once grand and sweet, as if it were the 
 glow of a vast, warm heart, that embraced all mankind in 
 its affections, and had room for more. It was an education 
 only to look at it. Accoiding to the belief of many peo- 
 ple, the valley owed much of its fertility to this benign 
 aspect that was continually beaming over it, illuminat- 
 ing the clouds, and infusing its tenderness into the sun- 
 shine. 
 
 As we began with saying, a mother and her little boy
 
 36 THE GREAT STOXE FACE. 
 
 sat at their cottage-door, gazing at tlis Great Stone Face, 
 and talking about it. The cliild's name T^as Ernest. 
 
 " Mother," said he, while the Titanic visage smiled on 
 him, " I wish that it could speak, for it looks so very 
 kindly that its voice must needs be pleasant. If I 
 were to see a man with such a face, I should love him 
 dearly." 
 
 " If an old prophecy should come to pass," answered 
 his mother, " we may see a man, some time or other, with 
 exactly such a face as that." 
 
 " What prophecy do you mean, dear mother ? " eagerly 
 inquired Ernest. " Pray tell me all about it ! " 
 
 So his mother told. him a story that her own mother 
 had told to her, when she herself was younger than little 
 Ernest ; a story, not of things that were past, but of what 
 was yet to came ; a story, nevertheless, so very old, that 
 even the Indians, who formerly inhabited this valley, had 
 heard it from their forefathers, to whom, as they affirmed, 
 it had been murmured by the mountain streams, and 
 whispered by the wind among the tree-tops. The pur- 
 port was, that, at some future day, a child should be born 
 hereabouts, who was destined to become the greatest and 
 noblest person£(ge of his time, and whose countenance, in 
 manhood, should bear an exact resemblance to the Great 
 Stone Face. Not a few old-fashioned people, and young 
 ones likewise, in the ardor of their hopes, still cherished 
 an enduring faith in this old prophecy. But others, who 
 had seen more of the world, had watched and waited till 
 they were weary, and had beheld no man with such a face, 
 nor any man that proved to be much greater or nobler 
 than his neighbors, concluded it to be nothing but an idle 
 tale. At all events, the great man of the propliecy liad 
 not yet appeared, 
 
 "0 mother, dear mother!" cried Ernest, clapping his
 
 THE GREAT STONE* FACE. 37 
 
 hands above liis head, " I do hope that I sliaU live to see 
 him ! " 
 
 His mother was an affeetionate and tlionglitful woman, 
 and i'elt that it was wisest not to disconragc the generous 
 liopes of her httle boy. So she only said to hin), " Per- 
 haps you may." 
 
 And Ernest never forgot the story that his mother told 
 him. It was always in his mind, whenever he looked 
 upon the Great Stone Face. He spent his childhood in 
 the log-cottage where he was born, and was dutiful to 
 his mother, and helpful to her in many things, assisting 
 her much with his little hands, and more with his loving 
 heart. In this manner, from a happy yet often j)ensi've 
 child, he grew up to be a mild, quiet, unobtrusive boy, 
 and sun-browned with labor in the fields, but Avith more 
 intelligence brightening his aspect than is seen in nuuiy 
 lads wjio have been taught at famous schools. Yet 
 Ernest had had no teacher, save only that the Great 
 Stone Face became one to him. Wlien the toil of the 
 day was over, he would gaze at it for hours, until he 
 began to imagine that those vast features recognized 
 him, and gave him a smile of kindness and encourage- 
 ment, responsive to his own look of veneration. We 
 must not take upon us to vMnn that this was a mistake, 
 although the Face may have looked no more kindly at 
 Ernest than at all the world besides. But the secret was, 
 that the boy's tender and confiding simplicity discerned 
 what other people could not see ; and thus the love, which 
 was meant for all, became his peculiar i)ortion. 
 
 About this time, there went a rumor throughout the 
 valley, that the great man, foretold from ages long ago, 
 who was to bear a resemblance to the Great Stone Face, 
 had appeared at last. It seems tliat, many years before, 
 a young man had migrated from the valley and settled at
 
 38 THE OllEAT STOXE FACE. 
 
 a distant seaport, where, after getting together a little 
 money, he had set up as a shopkeeper. His name — but 
 I could never learn whether it was his real one, or a 
 nickname that had grown out of his habits and success 
 in life — was Gathergold. Being shrewd and active, 
 and endowed by Providence with that inscrutable faculty 
 which develops itself in what the world calls luck, he be- 
 came an exceedingly rich merchant, and owner of a whole 
 fleet of bulky -bottomed ships. All the countries of the 
 globe appeared to join hands for the mere purpose of 
 adding heap after heap to the mountainous accumulation 
 of this one man's wealth. Tiie cold regions of the north, 
 almost within the gloom and shadow of the Arctic Circle, 
 sent him their tribute in the shape of furs ; hot Africa 
 sifted for him the golden sands of her rivers, and gathered 
 up the ivory tusks of her great elephants out of the for- 
 ests; the East came bringing him the rich shawls, and 
 spices, and teas, and the elfulgance of diamonds, and the 
 gleaming purity of large pearls. The ocean, not to be 
 behindhand with the earth, yielded up her mighty whales, 
 that Mr. Gathergold might sell their oil, and make a 
 profit on it. Be the original commodity what it might, 
 it was gold within his grasp. It might be said of him, 
 as of Midas in the fable, that whatever he touched with 
 his finger immediately glistened, and grew yellow, and 
 was changed at once into sterling metal, or, which suited 
 him still better, into piles of coin. And, when Mr. Gath- 
 ergold liad become so very rich that it would have taken 
 him a hundred years only to count his wealth, he be- 
 thought himself of his native valley, and resolved to go 
 back thither, and end his days where he was born. "With 
 this puri)ose in view, he sent a skilful architect to build 
 liim such a palace as should be fit for a man of his vast 
 wealth to live in.
 
 THE GUEAT STONE FACE. 39 
 
 As I liave said above, it liad already been* niniored in 
 the valley that Mr. Galherguld had turned out to be the 
 prophetic [)ersonage so long and vainly looked for, and 
 that his visage was the perfect and undeniable similitude 
 of the Great Stone Face. People were the more ready 
 to believe that this must needs be the fact, when they be- 
 held the splendid editice that rCse, as if by enchantment, 
 on the site of his father's old weather-beaten farm-house. 
 The exterior was of marble, so dazzlingly white that it 
 seemed as though the whole structure might melt away 
 in the sunshine, like those humbler ones which Mr. Gath- 
 ergold, in his young play-days, before his fingers were 
 gifted with the touch ^f transmutation, had been accus- 
 tomed to build of snow. It had a richly ornamented 
 })ortico, supported by tall pillars, beneath which was a 
 lofty door, studded with silver knobs, and made of a kind 
 of variegated wood that had been brought from beyond 
 the sea. Tlie windows, from the floor to the ceiling of 
 each stately apartment, were composed, respectively, of 
 but one enormous pane of glass, so transparently ])ure 
 that it was said to be a finer medium than even the va- 
 cant atmosphere. Hardly anybody had been permitted 
 to see the interior of tins palace ; but it was reported, 
 and with good semblance of truth, to be far more gor- 
 geous than the outside, insomuch that whatever was iron 
 or brass in other houses was silver or gold in this; and 
 jMr. Gathergold's bedchamber, especially, made such a 
 glittering aj)pcarance that no ordinary man would have 
 been able to close his eyes there. But, on the other 
 hand, Mr. Gathergold was now so inured to wealth, that 
 perhaps he could not have closed his eyes unless where 
 the gleam of it was certain to find its way beneath his 
 eyelids. 
 
 In due time, the mansion was finished ; next came the
 
 40 THE GREAT STONE FACE. 
 
 upholsterers, witli magnificent furniture ; then, a Avliob 
 troop of black and white servants, the harbingers of Mr. 
 Gathergold, who, in his own majestic person, was ex- 
 pected to arrive at sunset. Our friend Ernest, mean- 
 while, had been deeply stirred by the idea that the great 
 man, the noble man, the man of prophecy, after so many 
 ages of delay, was at length to be made manifest to his 
 native valley. He knew, boy as he was, that there were 
 a thousand ways in which Mr. Gathergold, w^ith his vast 
 wealth, might transform himself into an angel of benefi- 
 cence, and assume a control over human alfciirs as wide 
 and benignant as the smile of the Great Stone Eace. 
 Eull of faith and hope, Ernest douljted not that what the 
 people said was true, and that now he Avas to behold the 
 living likeness of those wondrous features on the moun- 
 tain-side. While the boy was still gazing up the valley, 
 and fancying, as he always did, that the Great Stone 
 Face returned his gaze and looked kindly at him, the 
 rumbling of wheels was heard, approacliing swiftly along 
 the winding road. 
 
 " Here he comes ! " cried a group of people who were 
 assembled to witness the arrival. " Here comes the 
 great Mr. Gathergold ! " 
 
 A carriage, drawn by four horses, dashed round the 
 turn of the road. Within it, thrust partly out of the 
 window, appeared the physiognomy of a little old man, 
 with a skin as yellow as if his own Midas-hand had 
 transmuted it. He had a low forehead, small, sharp 
 eyes, puckered about with innumerable wrinkles, and very 
 thin lips, which he made still thinner by pressing them 
 forcibly together. 
 
 " The very image of the Great Stone Eace ! " shouted 
 the people. " Sure enough, the old prophecy is true ; 
 and here we have the great man come, at last I "
 
 THE GREAT STOXE FACE. 41 
 
 And, wliat grcally perplexed Ernest, tliev seemed act- 
 ually to believe that here was the likeness Avhieh they 
 spoke of. By tlie roadside there chaneed to be an old 
 beggar-woman and two little beggar-children, stragglers 
 from some far-off region, who, as tlie carriage rolled on- 
 ward, held ont their hands and lifted up their doleful 
 voices, most piteously beseeching charity, A yellow 
 claw — the very same that had clawed together so much 
 wealth — poked itself out of the coach-window, and 
 dropt some copper coins upon the ground ; so that, 
 though the great man's name seems to have been Gath- 
 ergold, he might just as suitably have been nicknamed 
 Scattercopper. Still, nevertheless, with an earnest shout, 
 and evidently Avith as much good faith as ever, the peo- 
 ple bellowed, — 
 
 " He is the very image of the Great Stone Face ! " 
 
 But Ernest turned sadly from the wrinkled shrewd- 
 ness of that sordid visage, and gazed up the valley, 
 where, amid a gathering mist, gilded by the last sun- 
 beams, he could still distinguish those glorious features 
 which had impressed themselves into his soul. Their 
 aspect cheered him. What did the benign lips seem to 
 say ? 
 
 " He will come ! Fear not, Ernest ; the man will 
 come ! " 
 
 The years went on, and Ernest ceased to be a boy. 
 lie had grown to be a young man now. He attracted 
 little notice from the other inhabitants of the valley ; for 
 they saw nothing remarkable in his way of life, save 
 that, when the labor of the day was over, he still loved 
 to go apart and gaze and meditate upon the Great Stone 
 Face. According to their idea of the matter, it was a 
 folly, indeed, but pardonable, inasmuch as Ernest was 
 industrious, kind, and neighborlv, and neglceted no duty
 
 42 THE GREAT STOXE FACE. 
 
 for the sake of indulging this idle hahit. Tliey knew not 
 tiiat t he Great Stone Face had become a teacher to him, 
 and that the sentiment wiiich was expressed in it would 
 enlarge the young man's heart, and fill it with wider and 
 deeper sympathies than other hearts. They knew not 
 that thence would come a better wisdom than could be 
 learned from books, and a better life than could be 
 moulded on the defaced example of other human lives. 
 Neither did Ernest know that the thoughts and affec- 
 tions which came to him so naturally, in the fields and 
 ac the fireside, and wherever' he communed with himself, 
 were of a higher tone than those which all men shared 
 with him. A simple soul, — simple as when his mother 
 first taught him the old prophecy, — he beheld the mar- 
 vellous features beaming adown the valley, and still 
 wondered that their human counterpart was so long in 
 making his appearance. 
 
 By this time poor Mr. Gathergold was dead and bur- 
 ied ; and the oddest part of the matter was, that his 
 wealth, which was the body and spirit of his existence, 
 had disappeared before his death, leaving nothing of him 
 but a living skeleton, covered over with a wrinkled, yel- 
 low skin. Since the melting away of his gold, it had 
 been very generally conceded that there was no such 
 striking resemblance, after all, betwixt the ignoble fea- 
 tures of the ruined merchant and that majestic face upon 
 the mountain-side. So the people ceased to honor him 
 during his lifetime, and quietly consigned him to forget- 
 fulness after his decease. Once in a while, it is true, 
 his memory was brought up in connection with the mng- 
 niticent palace which he had built, and which had long 
 ago been turned into a hotel for the accommodation of 
 strangers, multitudes of whom came, every summer, to 
 visit that famous natural curiosity, the Great Stone Face.
 
 THE GEE AT STONE FACE. 43 
 
 Thus, Mr. Gathergold being discredited and throwTi into 
 the shade, the man of propliecy was yet to come. 
 
 It so happened that a native-born son of the valley, 
 many years before, had enlisted as a soldier, and, after 
 a great deal of hard figlitnig, had now become an illus- 
 trious commander. Whatever he may be called in his- 
 tory, he was known in camps and on the battle-field 
 under the nickname of Old Blood-and-Thunder. This 
 war-worn veteran, being now infirm with age and 
 wounds, and weary of the turmoil of a military life, 
 and of the roll of the drum and the clangor of the 
 trumpet, that had so long been ringing in his ears, 
 had lately signified a purpose of returning to his na- 
 tive valley, hoping to find repose where he remembered 
 to have left it. The inlial)itants, his old neighbors and 
 their grown-up children, were resolved to welcome the 
 renowned warrior with a salute of cannon and a public 
 dinner; and all the more enthusiastically, it being af. 
 firmed that now, at last, the likeness of the Great 
 Stone Face had actually appeared. An aid-de-camp of 
 Old Blood-and-Thunder, travelUng through the valley, 
 was said to have been struck with the resemblance. 
 Moreover the schoolmates and early acquaintances of 
 the general were ready to testify, on oath, that, to the 
 best of their recollection, the aforesaid general had been 
 exceedingly like the majestic image, even when a boy, 
 only that the idea had never occurred to them at that 
 period. Great, therefore, was the excitement through- 
 out the valley ; and many people, who had never once 
 thought of glancing at the Great Stone Face for years 
 before, now spent their time in gazing at it, for the sake 
 of knowing exactly how General Blood-and-Thunder 
 looked. 
 
 On the day of the great festival, Ernest, with all the
 
 44 THE GREAT STONE FACE. 
 
 other people of the valley, left their work, and proceeded 
 to the spot where the sylvan banquet was prepared. 
 As he approachsd, the loud voice of the Rev. Dr. 
 Battleblast was heard, beseeching a blessing on the good 
 things set before them, and on the distinguished friend 
 of peace in whose honor they were assembled. Tlie 
 tables were arranged in a cleared s])ace of the woods, 
 shut in by the surrounding trees, except where a vista 
 opened eastward, and afforded a distant view of the 
 Great Stone Face. Over the general's chair, wliicli 
 was a relic from the home of Washington, there was 
 an arch of verdant boughs, with the laurel profusely 
 intermixed, and surmounted by his country's banner, 
 beneath which he had won his victories. Our friend 
 Ernest raised himself on his tiptoes, in hopes to get a 
 glimpse of the celebrated guest ; but there was a mighty 
 crowd about the tables anxious to hear the toasts and 
 speeches, and to catch any word that might fall from the 
 general in reply ; and a volunteer company, doing duty 
 as a guard, pricked ruthlessly with their bayonets at any 
 particularly quiet person among the throng. So Ernest, 
 being of an unobtrusive character, was thrust quite into 
 the background, where he could see no more of Old 
 Blood-and-Thunder's physiognomy than if it had been 
 still blazing on the battle-field. To console himself, he 
 turned towards the Great Stone Eace, which, like a 
 faithful and long-remembered friend, looked back and 
 smiled upon him through the vista of the forest. Mean- 
 time, however, he could overhear the remarks of various 
 individuals, who were comparing the features of the hero 
 with the face on the distant mountain-side. 
 
 '"Tis the same face, to a hair!" cried one man, 
 cutting a caper for joy. 
 
 " Wonderfully like, that 's a fact ! " responded another.
 
 THE GREAT STOXE FACE. 45 
 
 " Like ! why, I call it Old Blood-aiid-Tliunder liim- 
 self, ill a monstrous looking-glass ! " cried a third. 
 "And why not? He's the greatest man of this or any 
 other age, beyond a doubt." 
 
 And then all three of the speakers gave a great shout, 
 which communicated electricity to the crowd, and called 
 forth a roar from a thousand voices, that went reverber- 
 ating for miles among the mountains, until you might 
 have supposed that the Great Stone Face had poured its 
 thunder-breath into the cry. All these comments, and 
 this vast enthusiasm, served the more to interest our 
 friend ; nor did he think of questioning that now, at 
 length, the mountain-visage had found its human coun- 
 terpart. It is true, Ernest had imagined that this long- 
 looked-for personage would appear in the character of 
 a man of peace, uttering wisdom, and doing good, and 
 making people happy. But, taking an habitual breadth 
 of view, with all his simplicity, he contended that Provi- 
 dence should choose its own method of blessing man- 
 kind, and could conceive that this great end might be 
 effected even by a warrior and a bloody sword, should 
 inscrutable wisdom see fit to order matters so. 
 
 " The general ! the general ! " was now the cry. 
 "Hush! silence! Old Blood-and-Thunder 's going to 
 make a speech." 
 
 Even so ; for, the cloth being removed, the general's 
 health had been drunk amid shouts of applause, and he 
 now stood upon his feet to thank the company. Ernest 
 saw him. There he was, over the shoulders of the crowd, 
 from the two glittering epaulets and embroidered col- 
 lar upward, beneath the arch of green boughs with in- 
 tertwined laurel, and the banner drooping as if to shade 
 his brow ! And there, too, visible in the same glance, 
 through the vista of the forest, appeared the Great Stone
 
 46 THE GREAT STONE FACE. 
 
 Face ! And was there, indeed, such a resemblance as 
 the crowd had testified ? Alas, Ernest could not recog- 
 nize it ! He beheld a war-worn and weather-beaten 
 countenance, full of energy, and expressive of an iron 
 will; but the gentle wisdom, the deep, broad, tender 
 sympathies, were altogether wanting in Old Blood-and- 
 TJiunder's visage ; and even if the G:eat Stone Face had 
 assumed his look of stern command, the milder traits 
 would still have tempered it. 
 
 " This is not the man of prophecy," sighed Ernest, to 
 himself, as he made his way out of the throng. " And 
 •must the world wait longer yet ? " 
 
 The mists had congregated about the distant moun- 
 tain-side, and there were seen the grand and awful 
 features of the Great Stone Face, awful but benignant, 
 as if a mighty angel were sitting among the hills, and 
 enrobing himself in a cloud-vesture of gold and purple. 
 As he looked, Ernest could hardly beUeve but that a 
 smile beamed over the whole visage, with a radiance 
 still brightening, although without motion of the lips. 
 It was probably the effect of the western sunshine, melt- 
 ing through the thinly diffused vapors that had swept 
 between him and the object that he gazed at. But — 
 as it always did — the aspect of his marvellous friend 
 made Ernest as hopeful as if he had never hoped in 
 vain. 
 
 "Fear not, Ernest," said his heart, even as if the 
 Great Face were whispering him, — " fear not, Ernest ; 
 he will come." 
 
 More years sped swiftly and tranquilly away. Ernest 
 still dwelt in his native valley, and was now a man of 
 middle age. By imperceptible degrees, he had become 
 known among the people. Now, as heretofore, he la- 
 bored for his broad, and was the same simple-hearted
 
 THE GREAT STOXE FACE. 47 
 
 man tliat lie liad always been. But he had thought and 
 felt so much, he had given so many of the best hours of 
 his life to unworldly hopes for some great good to man- 
 kind, that it seemed as though he had been talking wilh 
 the angels, and had imbibed a portion of their wisdom 
 unawares. It was visible in the calm and well-consid- 
 ered beneficence of his daily life, the quiet stream of 
 which had made a wide green margin all along its 
 course. Not a day passed by, that the world was not 
 the better because this man, humble as he was, had 
 lived. He never stepped aside from his own path, yet 
 would ahvays reach a blessing to his neighbor. Almost 
 involuntarily, too, he had become a preacher. The pure 
 and high simplicity of his thought, which, as one 'of 
 its manifestations, took shape in the good deeds that 
 dropped silently from his hand, flowed also forth in 
 speech. He uttered truths that w^rought upon and 
 moulded the lives of those who heard him. His audi- 
 tors, it may be, never suspected that Ernest, their own 
 neighbor and familiar friend, w^as more than an ordinary 
 man ; least of all did Ernest himself suspect it ; but, in- 
 evitably as the murmur of a rivulet, came thoughts out 
 of his mouth that no other human lips had spoken. 
 
 When the people's minds had had a little time to cool, 
 they w^ere ready enough to acknowledge their mistake in 
 imagining a similarity between General Blood-and-Thuu- 
 der's truculent physiognomy and the benign visage on 
 the mountain-side. But now, again, there were reports 
 and many paragraphs in the newspapers, affirming that 
 the likeness of the Great Stone Eace had appeared upon 
 the broad shoulders of a certain eminent statesman. He, 
 like Mr. Gathergold and Old Blood-and-Thunder, was a 
 iKitive of the valley, but had left it in liis early days, 
 and taken up the trades of law and politics. Instead of
 
 48 THE GREAT STOXE FACE. 
 
 tlie ricli man's MTnltli and tlis warrior's sword, lie had 
 l)ut a tongue, and it was mightier than both together. 
 So wonderfully eloquent was he, that whatever he might 
 choose to say, his auditors had no choice but to believe 
 him ; wrong looked like riglit, and right like wrong ; 
 for when it pleased him, he could make a kind of illu- 
 minated fog with his mere breath, and obscure the nat- 
 ural daylight with it. His tongue, indeed, was a magic 
 instrument : sometimes it rumbled like the thunder ; 
 sometimes it warbled like the sweetest music. It was 
 the blast of war, — the song of peace ; and it seemed to 
 have a heart in it, when there was no such matter. In 
 good truth, he was a wondrous man ; and when his 
 tongue had acquired him all other imaginable success, 
 
 — when it had been heard in halls of state, and in the 
 courts of princes and potentates, — after it had made 
 him known all over the world, even as a voice crying 
 from shore to shore, — it finally persuaded his country- 
 men to select him for the Presidency. Before this time, 
 
 — indeed, as soon as he began to grow celebrated, — 
 his admirers had found out the resemblance between him 
 and the Great Stone Face ; and so much were they 
 struck by it, that throughout the country this distin- 
 guished gentleman was known by the name of Old 
 Stony Phiz. The phrase was considered as giving a 
 highly favorable aspect to his political prospects ; for, 
 as is likewise the case with the Popedom, nobody ever 
 becomes President without taking a name other than his 
 own. 
 
 While his friends were doing their best to make him 
 President, Old Stony Phiz, as he was called, set out on a 
 visit to the valley where he was born. Of coui*se, he had 
 no other object that to shake hands with his fellow-citi- 
 zens, and neither thought nor cared about anv effect
 
 THE GllEAT STONE FACE. 49 
 
 wliicli his' progress tlirougli the country might have upon 
 the election. Magnificent preparations were made to 
 receive the illustrious statesman ; a cavalcade of horse- 
 men set forth to meet him at the boundary line of the 
 State, and all the people left their business and gatliered 
 along the wayside to see him pass. Among tliese was 
 Ernest. Though more than once disappointed, as we 
 have seen, he had such a hopeful and confiding nature, 
 that he was always ready to believe in whatever seemed 
 beautiful and good. He kept his heart continually open, 
 and thus was sure to catch the -blessing from on liigh, 
 wdien it should come. So now again, as buoyantly as 
 ever, he went forth to behold the likeness of the Great 
 Stone Face. 
 
 The cavalcade came prancing along the road, with a 
 great clattering of hoofs and a mighty cloud of dust, 
 which rose up so dense and high that the visage of the 
 mountain-side was completely hidden from Ernest's eyes. 
 All the great men of the neighborhood were there on 
 horseback : militia officers, in uniform ; the member of 
 Congress ; the shonfT of the county ; the editors of news- 
 papers ; and many a farmer, too, had mounted his pa- 
 tient steed, with his Sunday coat upon his back. It 
 really was a very brilliant spectacle, especially as tliere 
 were numerous banners flaunting over the cavalcade, on 
 some of which were gorgeous portraits of the iUuslrious 
 statesman and the Great Stone Face, smiling familiarly 
 at one another, like two brothers. If the pictures were 
 to be trusted, the nnitual resemblance, it must be con- 
 fessed, was marvellous. "We must not forget to mem- 
 tion that there was a band of music, which made tlie 
 echoes of the mountains ring and reverberate with the 
 loud triumph of its strains ; so that airy and soul-thrilling 
 melodies broke out among all the heights and hollows, 
 3 " D
 
 50 THE GHEAT STONE FACE. 
 
 as if every nook of liis native valley Lad found a voice, 
 to welcome the distiugaished guest. But the grandest 
 effect was when the far-off mountain precipice flung 
 back the music ; for then the Great Stone Face itself 
 seemed to be swelling the triumphant chorus, in ac- 
 knowledgment that, at length, the man of prophecy was 
 come. 
 
 All this while the people were throwing up their hats 
 and shouting, with enthusiasm so contagious that the 
 heart of Ernest kindled up, and he likewise threw up 
 liis hat, and shouted, as loudly as the loudest, " Huzza 
 for the great man ! Huzza for Old Stony Phiz ? " But 
 as yet he had not seen him. 
 
 " Here he is, now ! " cried those who stood near Er- 
 nest. " There ! There ! Look at Old Stony Phiz and 
 then at the Old Man of the Mountain, and see if they 
 are not as like as two twin-brothers ! " 
 
 In the midst of all this gallant array, came an open 
 barouche, drawn by four white horses ; and in the ba- 
 rouche, with his massive head uncovered, sat the illus- 
 trious statesman. Old Stony Phiz himself. 
 
 " Confess it," said one of Ernest's neighbors to him, 
 " the Great Stone Face has met its match at last ! " 
 
 Now, it must be owned that, at his first glimpse of the 
 countenance which was bowing and smiling from the 
 barouche, Ernest did fancy that there was a resemblance 
 between it and the old familiar face upon the mountain- 
 side. Tlie brow, with its massive depth and loftiness, 
 and all the other features, indeed, were boldly and strong- 
 ly hewn, as if in emulation of a more than heroic, of a 
 Titanic model. But the sublimity and stateliness, the 
 grand expression of a divine sympathy, that illuminated 
 the mountain visage, and etherealizjd its ponderous 
 granite substance into spirit, might here be sought iu
 
 THE GHEAT STOXE FACE. 51 
 
 vain. Something had been originally left out, or had 
 departed. And therefore the marvellously gifted states- 
 man had always a weary gloom in the deep caverns of 
 his eyes, as of a child that has outgrown its playthings, 
 or a man of mighty faculties and little aims, whose life, 
 with all its high performances, was vague and empty, 
 because no high purpose had endowed it with reality. 
 
 Still, Ernest's neighbor was thrusting his elbow into 
 his side, and pressing him for an answer. 
 
 "Confess! confess! Is not he the very picture of your 
 Old Man of the Mountain ? " 
 
 "No!" said Ernest, bluntly, "I see little or no like- 
 ness." 
 
 "Then so much the w^orse for the Great Stone Eace ! " 
 answered his neighbor; and again he set up a shout for 
 Old Stony Phiz. 
 
 But Ernest turned away, melancholy, and almost 
 despondent : for this was the saddest of his disappoint- 
 ments, to behold a man who might have fulfilled the 
 prophecy, and had not willed to do so. Meantime, the 
 cavalcade, the banners, the music, and the barouches 
 swept past him, with the vociferous crowd in the rear, 
 leaving the dust to settle down, and the Great Stone 
 Face to be revealed again, Avith the grandeur that it had 
 worn for untold centuries. 
 
 " Lo, here I am, Ernest ! " the benign lips seemed to 
 say. "I have waited longer than thou, and am not yet 
 weary. Fear not ; the man will come." 
 
 The years hurried onward, treading in their haste on 
 one another's heels. And now they began to bring white 
 hairs, and scatter them over the head of Ernest ; they 
 made reverend wrinkles across his forehead, and furrows 
 in his checks. He was an aged man. But not in vain 
 had he grown old : more than the white hairs on his head
 
 52 THE GREAT STOXE FACE. 
 
 ■were tli3 sage thoughts in his mind ; his wrinkles and 
 furrows were inscriptions that Time had graved, and in 
 which lie had written legends of wisdom that had been 
 tested by the tenor of a life. And Ernest had ceased to 
 be obscure. Unsought for, undesired, had come the fame 
 which so many seek, and made him known in the great 
 world, beyond the limits of the valley in which he had 
 dwelt so quietly. College professors, and even the active 
 men of cities, came from far to see and converse with 
 Ernest ; for the report had gone abroad that this simple 
 husbandman had ideas unlike those of other men, not 
 gained from books, but of a higher tone, — a tranquil 
 and familiar majesty, as if he had been talking with the 
 angels as his daily friends. Whether it were sage, 
 statesman, or philanthropist, Ernest received these visit- 
 ors with the gentle sincerity that had characterized hira 
 from boyhood, and spoke freely with them of whatever 
 came uppermost, or lay deepest in his heart or their own. 
 While they talked together, his face would kindle, un- 
 awares, and shine upon them, as with a mild evening 
 light. Pensive with the fulness of such discourse, his 
 guests took leave and went their way ; and passing up 
 the valley, paused to look at the Great Stone Eace, im- 
 agining that they had seen its likeness in a human coun- 
 tenance, but could not remember where. 
 
 While Ernest had been growing up and growing old, 
 a bountiful Providence had granted a new poet to this 
 earth. He, likewise, was a native of the valley, but had 
 spent the greater part of liis life at a distance from that 
 romantic region, pouring out his sweet music amid the 
 bustle and din of cities. Often, however, did the moun- 
 tains Avhich had been familiar to him in liis childhood 
 •lift their snowy peaks into the clear atmosphere of liis 
 poetry. Neither was the Great Stone Eacs forgotten,
 
 THE GREAT STONE FACE. 53 
 
 for the poet had celebrated it in an ode, w'hieh was grand 
 enough to have been uttered by its own majestic hps. 
 This man of genius, we may say, had come down from 
 heaven with wonderful endowments. If he sang of a 
 mountain, the eyes of all mankind beheld a mightier 
 grandeur reposing on its breast, or soaring to its summit, 
 than had before been seen there. If his theme were a 
 lovely lake, a celestial smile had now been thrown over 
 it, to gleam forever on its surface. If it were the vast 
 old sea, even the deep immensity of its dread bosom 
 seemed to swell tlie higher, as if moved by the emotions 
 of the song. Thus the world assumed another and a 
 better aspect from the hour that the poet blessed it with 
 his happy eyes. The Creator had bestowed him, as the 
 last best touch to his own handiwork. Creation was 
 not finished till the poet came to interpret, and so com- 
 plete it. 
 
 The effect was no less high and beautiful, when his 
 human brethren were the subject of liis verse. The man 
 or woman, sordid with the common dust of life, who 
 crossed his daily path, and the little cliild who played in 
 it, were glorified if he beheld them in his mood of poetic 
 faith. He showed the golden links of the great chain 
 that intertwined them with an augclic kindred ; he 
 brought out tlie hidden traits of a celestial birth that 
 made them wortliy of such kin. Some, indeed, there 
 were, who thought to show the soundness of their judg- 
 ment by affirming that all the beauty and dignity of the 
 natural world existed only in the poet's fancy. Let such 
 men speak for themselves, who undoubtedly appear to 
 have been spawned forth by Nature Avith a contemptuous 
 bitterness ; she having plastered them up out of her 
 refuse stuff, after all the swine were made. As respects 
 all things else, the poet's ideal was the truest truth.
 
 5tt THE GREAT STONE FACE. 
 
 The songs of tins poet found their way to Ernest. He 
 read tlieni after his customary toil, seated on the bench 
 before his cottage-door, where for such a length of time 
 he had filled his repose with thought, by gaznig at the 
 Great Stone Face. And now as he read stanzas that 
 caused the soul to thrill within him, he lifted his eyes 
 to the vast countenanc3 beaming on him so benignantly. 
 
 "O majestic friend," he murmured, addressing the 
 Great Stone Face, " is not this man worthy to resemble 
 thee ? " 
 
 The Face seemed to smile, but answered not a word. 
 
 'Sow it happened that the poet, though he dwelt so 
 far away, had not only heard of Ernest, but had medi- 
 tated much upon his character, until he deemed nothing 
 so desirable as to meet this man, whose untaught wis- 
 dom walked hand in hand with the noble simpLcity of 
 his life. One suunner morning, therefore, he took pas- 
 sage by the railroad, and, in the decline of the afternoon, 
 alighted from the cars at no great distance from Ernest's 
 cottage. The great hotel, which had formerly been the 
 palace of Mr. Gathergold, was close at hand, but the poet, 
 with his carpat-bag on his arm, inquired at once where 
 Ernest dwelt, and was resolved to be accepted as his 
 guest. 
 
 Approaching the door, he there found the good old 
 man, holding a volume in his hand, which alternately he 
 read, and then, with a finger betv.een the leaves, looked 
 lovingly at the Great Stone Face. 
 
 " Good evening," said the poet. " Can you give a 
 traveller a night's lodging ? " 
 
 " Willingly," answered Ernest ; and then he added, 
 smiling, " Methinks I never saw the Great Stone Face 
 look so hospitably at a stranger." 
 
 The poet sat down on the bench beside him, and he
 
 THE GREAT STONE FACE. 00 
 
 and Ernest' talked together. OHeii liad the poet held 
 intercourse with the wittiest and the wisest, but never 
 before with a man like Ernest, whose tlioug-Jits and feel- 
 ings gushed up with such a natural freedom, and who 
 made great truths so familiar by his simple utterance of 
 them. Angels, as had been so often said, seemed to 
 have wrouglit with him at his labor in the fields ; angels 
 seemed to have sat with him by the fireside; and, dwell- 
 ing Avith angels as friend with friends, he had imbibed 
 the subHmity of their ideas, and imbued it with the sweet 
 and lowly charm of household words. So thought the 
 poet. And Ernest, on the other hand, was moved and 
 agitated by the living images which the poet flung out 
 of his mind, and which peopled all the air about the 
 cottage-door with shapes of beauty, both gay and pensive. 
 The sympathies of these two men instructed them with 
 a profounder sense than either could have attained alone. 
 Their minds accorded into one strain, and made delight- 
 ful music which neither of them could have claimed as all 
 his own, nor distinguished his own share from the other's. 
 They led one another, as it were, into a high pavilion of 
 their thoughts, so remote, and hitherto so dim, that they 
 had never entered it before, and so beautiful that they 
 desired to be there always. 
 
 As Ernest listened to the poet, he imagined that tlie 
 Great Stone Eace was bending forward to listen too. lie 
 gazed earnestly into the poet's glowing c^^es. 
 
 "Who are you, my strangely gifted guest?" he 
 said. 
 
 The poet laid his finger on the volume that Ernest 
 Lad been reading. 
 
 " You have read these poems," said he. " You know 
 me, then, — for I wrote them." 
 
 Again, and still more earnestlv than before, Ernest
 
 56 THE GREAT STOXE FACE. 
 
 examined the poet's features ; then turned towards the 
 Great Stone Face ; then back, witli an uncertahi aspect, 
 to his guest. But his countenance fell; he shook his 
 head, and sighed. 
 
 " Wiierefore are you sad ? " inquired the poet. 
 
 " Because," replied Ernest, " all through life I have 
 awaited the fulfilment of a prophecy ; and, when I read 
 these poems, I hoped that it miglit be fulfilled in you." 
 
 " You hoped," auswered th3 ])oet, faintly smiling, " to 
 fiud in me the likeness of the Gi-eat Stone Face. And 
 you are disappointed, as formerly with Mr. Gat hergold, 
 aud Old Blood-aud-Tliunder, and Old Stony Phiz. Yes, 
 Ernest, it is. my doom. You must add my name to the 
 illustrious three, aud record another failure of your 
 hopes. For — in shame and sadness do I speak it, Er- 
 nest — I am not worthy to be typified by yonder benign 
 and majestic image." 
 
 " Aud why ? " asked Ernest. He pointed to the vol- 
 ume. " Are not those thoughts divine ? " 
 
 " They have a strain of the Divinity," replied the 
 poet. " You can hear in them the far-off echo of a heav- 
 enly song. But my life, dear Ernest, has not corre- 
 sponded with my thought. I have had graud dreams, 
 but they have been only dreams, because I have lived 
 — and that, too, by my own choice — among poor and 
 mean realities. Sometimes eveu — shall I dare to say 
 it ? — I lack faith in the grandeur, the beauty, and the 
 goodness, which my own works are said to have made 
 more evident in nature and in human life. Why, then, 
 pure seeker of the good and true, shouldst thou hope to 
 fiud uie, in yonder image of the diviue ? " 
 
 The poet spoke sadly, aud his eyes were dim with 
 tears. So, likewise, were those of Ernest. 
 
 At the hour of suuset, as had long been his frequent
 
 THE GREAT STOXE FACE. 57 
 
 custom, Enrcst M'as to discourse to an assemblage of ihe 
 iiKiprhboriug iuluibitants iu tlic open air. He and tlie 
 ])oet, arm in arm, still talking together as they went 
 along, proceeded to the spot. It Avas a small nook among 
 the hills, with a gray precipice behind, the stern front 
 of which was relieved by the pleasant foliage of many 
 creeping plants, that made a tapestry for the naked 
 rock, by hanging their festoons from all its rugged 
 angles. At a small elevation above the ground, set in 
 a rich framework of verdure, there appeared a niche, 
 spacious enough to admit a human figure, with freedom 
 for such gestures as spontaneously accompany earnest 
 thought and genuine emotion. Into this natural pulpit 
 Ernest ascended, and threw a look of familiar kindness 
 around upon his audience. They stood, or sat, or re- 
 clined upon the grass, as seemed good to each, with the 
 departing sunshine falling obliquely over them, and 
 mingling its subdued cheerfulness with the solemnity of 
 a grove of ancient trees, beneath and amid the boughs 
 of which the golden rays were constrained to pass. In 
 another direction was seen the Great Stone Face, with 
 the same cheer, combined with the same solemnity, iu 
 its benignant aspect, 
 
 Ernest began to speak, giving to the people of what 
 was in his heart and mind. Ilis words had power, be- 
 cause they accorded with his thoughts; and his thoughts 
 had reality and depth, because they harmonized with the 
 life which he had always lived. It was not mere breath 
 that this preacher uttered ; they were the words of life, 
 because a life of good deeds and holy love was melted 
 into them. Pearls, pure and rich, had been dissolved 
 into this precious draught. The poet, as he listened, 
 felt that the being and character of Ernest were a nobler 
 
 strain of poetry than he had ever written. His eyes 
 ■ 3*
 
 58 THE GREAT STOXE FACE. 
 
 glistening v\^ith tears, he gazed reverentially at the vener- 
 able man, and said within himself that never was there 
 an aspect so worthy of a propliet and a sage as that 
 mild, sweet, thoughtful countenance, with the glory of 
 white hair diifused about it. At a distance, but dis- 
 tinctly to be seen, high up in the golden light of the 
 setting sun, appeared the Great Stone Face, with hoary 
 mists around it, like the white hairs around the brow of 
 Ernest. Its look of grand beneficence seemed to eui- 
 brace the world. 
 
 At that moment, in sympathy with a thought whicii 
 he was about to utter, the face of Ernest assumed a 
 grandeur of expression, sj imbued with benevolence, that 
 the poet, by an irresistible impulse, threw his arms aloft, 
 and shouted, — 
 
 " Behold ! Behold ! Ernest is himself the likeness of 
 the Great Stone Eace ! " 
 
 Then all tlie people looked, and saw that what the deep- 
 sighted poet said was true. The prophecy was fultilled. 
 But Ernest, having finished what he had to say, took 
 the poet's arm, and walked slowly homeward, still hoping 
 that some wiser and better man than himself w^ould by 
 and by appear, bearing a resemblance to the Gkeat 
 Sto::e Eace. 
 
 rf>>' 
 
 I
 
 MAIN STREET. 
 
 1 
 
 RESPECTABLE-LOOKING indi\ iduul makes 
 his bow and addresses the public, hi my daily- 
 walks along the ])rincipal street of my native 
 town, It has often occurred to me, that, if its growth 
 from infancy upward, and the vicissitude of characteristic 
 scenes that liave passed along this thoroughfare duruig 
 the more than two centuries of its existence, could be 
 presented to the eye in a shifting panorama^ it> would be 
 an exceedingly effective method of illustrating the marcli 
 of time. Acting on this idea, I have contrived a certain 
 pictorial exhibition, somewhat in the nature of a puppet- 
 show^, by means of which I propose to call up the multi- 
 form and many-colored Past l)efore the spectator, and 
 show him the ghosts of his forefathers, amid a succession 
 of historic incidents, with no greater trouble than the 
 turning of a crank. Be pleased, therefore, my indulgent 
 patrons, to walk into the show-room, and take your seats 
 before yonder mysterious curtain. The little wheels and 
 springs of my machinery have been well oiled; a multi- 
 tude of puppets are dressed in character, representing all 
 varieties of fashion, from the Puritan cloak and jerkin to 
 the latest Oak Hall coat ; the lamps are trimmed, and 
 shall brighten into noontide sunshine, or fade away in 
 moonlight, or mullle their brilliancy in a November cloud,
 
 60 MAIN STREET. 
 
 as the nature of the scene may require; and, in short, 
 the exhibition is just ready to coninieuce. Unless some- 
 tliing should go wrong, — as, for instance, the misplacing 
 of a picture, whereby the people and events of one cen- 
 tury might be thrust into the middle of another; or the 
 breaking of a wire, which would bring the course of 
 time to a sudden period, — barring, I say, the casualties 
 to which such a complicated piece of mechanism is lia- 
 ble, — I flatter myself, ladies and gentlemen, that the 
 ])erformance will elicit your generous approbation. 
 
 Ting-a-ting-ting! goes the bell; the curtain rises; and 
 we behold — not, indeed, the Main Street — but tlie track 
 of leaf-strewn forest-laud over which its dusty pavement 
 is hereafter to extend. 
 
 You perceive, at a glance, that this is the ancient and 
 primitive wood, — the ever-youthful and venerably old, 
 — verdant with new twigs, yet hoary, as it were, with 
 the snowfall of innumerable years, that have accumulated 
 upon its intermingled branches. The white man's axe 
 lias never smitten a single tree ; his footstep has never 
 crumpled a single one of the withered leaves, which all 
 the autumns since the flood liave been harvesting be- 
 neath. Yet, see ! along through the vista of impending 
 boughs, there is already a faintly traced path, running 
 nearly east and west, as if a prophecy or foreboding of 
 the future street had stolen into the heart of the solemn 
 old wood. Onward goes this hardly perceptible track, 
 now ascending over a natural swell of land, now subsid- 
 ing gently into a hollow ; traversed here by a little 
 streamlet, which glitters like a snake through the gleam 
 of sunshine, and quickly hides itself among the under- 
 brush, in its quest for the neighboring cove ; and impeded 
 there by the massy corpse of a giant of the forest, which 
 had lived out its incalculable terui of life, and been over-
 
 MAIN STREET. 61 
 
 thrown bv, mere old age, and lies buried in tlie new 
 vegetation that is born of ils decay. AVhat footsteps can 
 have worn this half-seen path ? Hark ! Do we not hear 
 them now rnstling softly over the leaves? We discern 
 an Indian woman, — a majestic and queenly woman, or 
 else her spectral image does not represent her truly, — 
 for this is the great Squaw Sachem, whose rule, with 
 that of her sons, extends from Mystic to Agawam. That 
 red chief, who stalks by her side, is Wappacowet, her 
 second husband, the priest and magician, whose nican- 
 tations shall hereafter affright the pale-faced settlers with 
 grisly phantoms, dancing and shrieking in the woods, 
 at midnight. But greater would be the affright of the 
 Indian necromancer, if, mirrored in the pool of water at 
 his feet, he could catch a prophetic glimpse of the noon- 
 day marvels which the white man is destined to achieve ; 
 if he could see, as in a dream, the stone front of the 
 stately hall, wliich will cast its shadow over this very 
 spot; if he could be aware that the future edifice will 
 contain a noble Museum, where, among countless curi- 
 osities of earth and sea, a few Indian arrow-heads shall 
 be treasured up as memorials of a vanished race ! 
 
 No such forebodings disturb the Squaw Sachem and 
 "Wappacowet. They pass on, beneath the tangled shade, 
 holding high talk on matters of state and religion, and 
 imagine, doubtless, that their own system of affairs will 
 endure forever. Meanwhile, how full of its own proper 
 life is the scene that lies around them ! The gray 
 squirrel runs up the trees, and rustles among the u])pcr 
 branches. Was not that the lea]) of a deer ? And there 
 is the whirr of a partridge ! Methinks, too, I catch the 
 cruel and stealthy eye of a wolf, as he draws back into 
 yonder impervious density of underbrush. So, there, 
 amid the murmur of boughs, go the Indian queen and
 
 C)-Z ]\iAix stkj;i;t. 
 
 tlie Indian prinst ; mIhIc tlie gloom of the broad wilder- 
 ness impends over thorn, and its sombre mystery invests 
 them as with something preternatural ; and only mo- 
 mentary streaks of rpiivering sunlight, once in a great 
 while, find their way down, and glimmer among the feath- 
 ers in their dusky hair. Can it be that the thronged 
 street of a city will ever pass into this twilight solitude, 
 — over those soft heaps of the decaying tree-trunks, and 
 through the swampy places, green with water-moss, and 
 penetrate that iiopeless entanglement of great trees, which 
 iiave been uprooted and tossed together by a whirlwind ? 
 It has been a wilderness from the creation. Must it not 
 be a wilderness forever ? 
 
 Here an acidulous-looking gentleman in blue glasses, 
 with bows of Berlin steel, who has taken a seat at the 
 extremity of the front row, begins, at this early stage of 
 the exhibition, to criticise. 
 
 "The whole affair is a manifest catchpenny! " observes 
 he, scarcely under his breath. " The trees look more 
 like weeds in a garden than a primitive forest ; the 
 Scpiaw Sachem and VVappacowet are stiff in their paste- 
 board joints ; and the squirrels, the deer, and the wolf 
 move with all the grace of a child's wooden monkey, 
 sliding up and down a stick." 
 
 " I am obliged to you, sir, for the candor of your 
 remarks," replies the showman, with a bow. " Perhaps 
 they arc just. Human art has its limits, ami we must 
 now and then ask a little aid from the sp2ctator's imagi- 
 nation." 
 
 " You will get no such aid from mine," responds the 
 critic. " I make it a point to see things precisely as they 
 are. But come ! go ahead ! the stage is waiting ! " 
 
 The showman proceeds. 
 
 Casting our eyes again over the scene, we perceive
 
 MAIN STREET. 63 
 
 that strangers have tbuiid their way into the solitary 
 place. In more than one spot, among the trees, an up- 
 heaved axe is glittering in the sunshine. Roger Conaut, 
 the first settler in Naumkeag, has built his dwelling, 
 montiis ago, on the border of tlie forest-path; and at 
 this moment he comes eastward through the vista of 
 woods, with his gnu over his shoulder, bringing home 
 tlie choice portions of a deer. His stalwart ligure, clad 
 in a leathern jerkin and breeches of the same, strides 
 sturdily onward, with such an air of physical force and 
 energy that we might almost expect the very trees to 
 stand aside, and give him room to pass. And so, in- 
 deed, they must ; for, humble as is his name in history, 
 Koger Conant still is of that class of men who do not 
 merely find, but make, their place in the system of 
 human affairs ; a man of thoughtful strength, lie has 
 planted the germ of a cify. Tliere stands his habi- 
 tation, showing in its rough architecture some features 
 of the Indian wigwam, and some of the log-cabin, and 
 somewhat, too, of the straw-thatched cottage in Old 
 England, where this good yeoman had his birth and 
 breeding. The dwelling is surrounded by a cleared 
 space of a few acres, where Indian corn grows thriv- 
 ingly among the stumps of the trees ; while the dark 
 forest hems it in, and seems to gaze silently and solemn- 
 ly, as if wondering at the breadth of sunshine which the 
 Avhite man spreads around him. An Indian, half hidden 
 in the dusky shade, is gazing and wondering too. 
 
 "\A'ithin the door of the cottage you discern the wife, 
 with her ruddy English cheek.- Slie is singing, doubt- 
 less, a psalm tune, at her household work ; or, perhajjs 
 she sighs at the remembrance of the cheerful gossi)), and 
 all the merry social life, of her native village beyond the 
 vast and melancholv sea. Yet the next moment she
 
 64 MAIN STREET. 
 
 laughs, with sympathetic glee, at the sports of her little 
 tribe of children ; and soon turns round, with the home- 
 look in her face, as her husband's foot is heard approach- 
 ing the rough-hewn threshold. How sweet must it be 
 lor those who have an Eden in their hearts, like lloger 
 Conant and his wife, to find a new world to project it 
 into, as they have, instead of dwelling among old haunts 
 of men, where so many household fires have been kin- 
 dled and burnt out, that the very glow of happiness has 
 something dreary in it ! Not that this pair are alone in 
 their wild Eden, for here comes Goodwife Massey, the 
 young spouse of Jetfrey Massey, from her home hard by, 
 with an infant at her breast. Dame Conant has another 
 of like age ; and it shall hereafter be one of the disputed 
 points of history Avhich of these two babies was the first 
 town-born child. 
 
 But see ! lloger Conant has other neighbors within 
 view. Peter Palfrey likewise has built himself a house, 
 and so has Balch, and Norman, and Woodbury. Their 
 dwellings, indeed, — such is the ingenious contrivance of 
 this piece of pictorial mechanism, — -seem to have arisen, 
 at various points of the scene, even while we have been 
 looking at it. The forest-track, trodden more and more 
 by the hobnailed shoes of these sturdy and ponderous 
 Englishmen, has now a distinctness which it never could 
 have acquired from the light tread of a hundred times as 
 many Indian moccasins. It will be a street, anon. As 
 we observe it now, it goes onward from one clearing to 
 another, here plunging into a shadowy strip of woods, 
 there open to the sunshine, but everywhere showing a 
 decided line, along wJiich human interests have begun 
 to hold their career. Over yonder swampy spot, two 
 trees have been felled, and laid side by side to make a 
 causeway. In another place, the axe has cleared away a
 
 MAIN STREET. 65 
 
 confused intricacy of fallen trees and clustered bonglis, 
 ■wliich had been tossed together by a hurricane. So now 
 the little children, just beginning to run alone, may trip 
 along the path, and not often stumble over an impedi- 
 ment, unless they stray from it to gatlier wood-berries 
 beneath the trees. And, besides the feet of grown peo- 
 ple and children, there are the cloven hoofs of a small 
 herd of cows, who seek their subsistence from the native 
 grasses, and help to deepen the track of the future 
 thoroughfare. Goats also browse along it, and nibble 
 at the twigs that thrust themselves across the way. Not 
 seldom, in its more secluded portions, where the black 
 shadow of the forest strives to hide tlie trace of human 
 footsteps, etalks a gaunt wolf, on the watch for a kid or 
 a young calf; or fixes liis hungry gaze on the group of 
 cliildren gathering berries, and can hardly forbear to rush 
 upon them. And the Indians, coming from their distant 
 wigwams to view the white man's settlement, marvel at 
 the deep track which he makes, and perliaps are sad- 
 dened by a flitting presentiment that this heavy tread 
 will find its way over all the land ; and that the wild 
 woods, the wild wolf, and the wild Indian will alike be 
 trampled beneath it. Even so shall it be. The pave- 
 ments of the Main Street must b^ laid over the red 
 man's grave. 
 
 Behold ! here is a spectacle wliich should be ushered 
 in by the peal of trumpets, if Naumkeag had ever yet 
 lieard that cheery music, and by the roar of cannon, 
 echoing among the woods. A procession, — for, by its 
 dignity, as marking an epoch in the history of the street, 
 it deserves that name, — • a procession advances along the 
 pathway. The good ship Abigail has arrived fron) Eng- 
 land, bringing wares and merchandise, for the comfort of 
 the inhabitants, and tratTie with the Indians; brinirin?
 
 66 MAIN STREET. 
 
 passengers too, and, more important than all, a governor 
 for the new settlement. Roger Conant and Peter Pal- 
 frej, with their companions, have been to the shore to 
 welcome him ; and now, with such honor and triumph 
 as their rude way of life permits, are escorting the sea- 
 flushed voyagers to their habitations. At the point 
 where Endicott enters upon the scene, two venerable 
 trees unite their branches high above his head ; thus 
 forming a triumphal arch of living verdure, beneath 
 which he pauses, with his wife leaning on his arm, to 
 catch the first impression of their new-found home. The 
 old settlers gaze not less earnestly at him, than he at 
 the. hoary woods and the rough surface of the clearings. 
 They like his bearded face, under the shadow of the 
 broad-brimmed and steeple-crowned Puritan hat; — a 
 visage resolute, grave, and thoughtful, yet apt to kindle 
 with that glow of a cheerful spirit by which men of 
 strong character are enabled to go joyfully on their 
 proper tasks. His form, too, as you see it, in a doublet 
 and hose of sad-colored cloth, is of a manly make, fit for 
 toil and hardship, and fit to wield the heavy sword that 
 hangs from his leathern belt. His aspect is a better 
 warrant for the ruler's ofiics than the parchment com- 
 mission which he bears, however fortified it may be with 
 the broad seal of the London council. Peter Palfrey 
 nods to Roger Conant. " The worshipful Court of As- 
 sistants have done wisely," say they between themselves. 
 "They have chosen for our gov^ernor a man out of a 
 thousand." Then they toss up their hats, — they, and 
 all the uncouth figures of their company, most of whom 
 are clad in skins, inasmuch as their old kersey and lin- 
 sey-woolsey garments have been torn and tattered by 
 many a long month's wear, — they all toss up their hats, 
 and salute their new governor and captain with a hearty
 
 MAIN STllEET. 67 
 
 English sliout of welcome. We seem to hear it with our 
 own ears, so perfectly is the action represented in this 
 life-like, this almost magic picture ! 
 
 But have you observed the lady who leans upon the arm 
 of Endicott ? — a rose of beauty from an English garden, 
 now to be transplanted to a fresher soil. It may be that, 
 long years — centuries indeed — after this tair floAver 
 shall have decayed, other flowers of the same race will 
 appear in the same soil, and gladden other generations 
 with hereditary beauty. Does not the vision haunt us 
 yet? Has not Nature kept the mould unbroken, deem- 
 ing it a pity that the idea should vanish from mor- 
 tal sight forever, after only once assuming earthly sub- 
 stance ? Do we not recognize, in that fair woman's face, 
 the model of features which still beam, at happy mo- 
 ments, on what was then the woodland pathway, but lias 
 long since grown into a busy street? 
 
 " This is too ridiculous ! — positively insufferable ! " 
 mutters the same critic who had before expressed his dis- 
 approbation. " Here is a pasteboard figure, such as a 
 child would cut out of a card, with a pair of very dull scis- 
 sors; and the fellow modestly requests us to see in it the 
 prototype of hereditary beauty ! " 
 
 " But, sir, you have not the proper point of view," re- 
 marks the showman. " You sit altogether too near to 
 get the best effect of my pictorial exhibition. Pray, 
 oblige me by removing to this other bench, and I venture 
 to assure you the proper light and shadow will tran'sform 
 the spectacle into quite another thing." 
 
 " Pshaw ! " replies the critic ; " I want no other light 
 and shade. I have already told you that it is my business 
 to see things just as they are." 
 
 "I would suggest to the author of this ingenious ex- 
 hibition," observes a gontlenumly pei'sou, who has .shown
 
 68 MAIN STREET. 
 
 signs of being mncli interested, — "I^ould suggest that 
 Anna Gower, the first Avife of Governor Endicott, and who 
 came with him from Enghind, left no posterity ; and tliat, 
 consequently, we cannot he indebted to that honorable 
 lady for any specimens of feminine loveliness now extant 
 among us." 
 
 Having nothing to allege against this genealogical ob- 
 jection, the showman points again to the scene. 
 
 During this little interruption, you perceive that the 
 Anglo-Saxon energy — as the phrase now goes — has 
 been at work in the spectacle before us. Su many chim- 
 neys now send up their smoke, that it begins to have the 
 aspect of a village street ; ah hough everything is so inar- 
 tiiicial and inceptive, that it seems as if one returning 
 wave of the wild nature might overwhelm it all. But the 
 one edifice which gives the pledge of permanence to this 
 bold enterprise is seen at the central pohit of the picture. 
 There stands the meeting-house, a small structure, low- 
 roofed, without a spire, and built of rough timber, newly 
 hewn, with the sap still in the logs, and here and there 
 a strip of bark adhering to tliem. A meaner temple was 
 never consecrated to the worship of the Deity. With 
 tlie alternative of kneeling beneath the awful vault of the 
 firmament, it is strange that men should creep into this 
 pent-up nook, and expect God's ])resence there. Such, 
 at least, one would imagine, might be the feeling of these 
 forest-settlers, accustomed,- as they had been, to stand 
 under the dim arches of vast cathedrals, and to offer up 
 their hereditary worship in the old ivy-covered churches 
 of rural England, around which lay the bones of many 
 generations of their forefathers. How could they dis- 
 pense with the carved altar-work ? — how, with tlie pic- 
 tured windows, where the light of common day was 
 hallov.'ed bv beintjr transmitted throuu'h the o^lorificd fig-
 
 MAIN STREET. 69 
 
 ures of saints ? — liow, witli the lofty roof, imbued, as it 
 must hate been, with the prayers that had gone upward 
 for centuries ? — how, Avith the rich peal of the solemn 
 organ, rolling along the aisles, pervading the whole 
 church, and sweeping the soul away on a flood of audible 
 religion ? They needed nothing of all this. Their house 
 of worship, like their ceremonial, was naked, simple, and 
 severe. But the zeal of a recovered faith burned like a 
 lamp within their hearts, enriching everything around 
 them with its radiance ; making of these new walls, and 
 this narrow compass, its own cathedral ; and being, in 
 itself, that spiritual mystery and experience, of which 
 sacred architecture, pictured windows, and the organ's 
 grand solemnity are remote and imperfect symbols. All 
 was well, so long as their lamps were freshly kindled at 
 the heavenly flame. After a while, however, whether in 
 their time or their children's, these lamps began to burn 
 more dimly, or with a less genuine lustre; and then it 
 might be seen how hard, cold, and confined was their 
 system, ■ — ■ how like an iron cage was that which they 
 called Liberty. 
 
 Too much of this. Look again at the ])icture, and 
 observe how the aforesaid Anglo-Saxon energy is now 
 tram))ling along the street, and raising a positive cloud 
 of dust beneath its sturdy footsteps. For there the car- 
 penters are building a new house, the frame of which 
 was hewn and fitted in England, of English oak, and sent 
 hitiier on shipboard ; and here a blacksmith makes huge 
 clang and clatter on his anvil, shaping out tools and 
 weapons ; and yonder a M-heelwright, who boasts himself 
 a London workman, regularly bred to his handicraft, is 
 fashioning, a set of wagon-wheels, the track of which 
 shall soon be visible. The wild forest is shrinking back ; 
 the street has lost the aromatic odor of the pine-trees,
 
 70 MAIN STREET. 
 
 and of the sweet-fern that grew beneath them. The 
 tender and modest wild-flowers, those gentle children of 
 savage nature that grew pale beneath the ever-brooding 
 shade, have shrunk away and disappeared, like stars that 
 vanish in the breadth of light. Gardens are fenced in, 
 and display pumpkin-beds and rows of cabbages and 
 beans ; and, though the governor and the minister both 
 view them with a disapproving eye, plants of broad- 
 leaved tobacco, which the cultivators are enjoined to use 
 privily, or not at all. No wolf, for a year past, has been 
 heard to bark, or known to range among the dwelluigs, 
 except that single one, wdiose grisly head, with a plash 
 of blood beneath it, is now affixed to the portal of the 
 meeting-house. The partridge has ceased to run across 
 the too-frequented path. Of all the wild life that used 
 to throng here, only the Indians still come into the set- 
 tlement, bringing the skins of beaver and otter, bear and 
 elk, which they sell to Eudicott for the wares of England. 
 And there is little J.ohu Massey, the son of Jeffrey 
 Massey and first-born of Naumkeag, playing beside his 
 father's threshold, a child of six or seven years old. 
 Which is the better-grown infant, — the town or the boy ? 
 The red men have become aware that the street is no 
 longsr free to them, save by the sufferance and permis- 
 sion of the settlers. Often, to impress them with an awe 
 of English power, there is a muster and training of the 
 town-forces, and a stalely march of the mail-clad band, 
 like this which we now see advancing up the street. 
 There they come, fifty of them, or more ; all with their 
 iron breastplates and steel caps well burnished, and glhn- 
 mering bravely against the sun ; their ponderous muskets 
 on their shoulders, their bandaliers about their waists, 
 their lighted matches in their hands, and the drum and 
 life playing cheerily before them. Sje ! do they not step
 
 MAIN STREET. 71 
 
 like martial men ? Do tliej not manoeuvre like soldiers 
 who have seen stricken fields 'r' And Avell they may ; for 
 this band is composed of precisely such materials as 
 those with which Cromwell is preparing to beat down 
 the strength of a kingdom ; and his famous regiment of 
 Ironsides might be recruited from just such men. In 
 everything, at this period, New England was the essen- 
 tial spirit and flower of that which was about to become 
 uppermost in the mother-country. Many a bold and wise 
 man lost the fame which would have accrued to him in 
 English history, by crossing the Atlantic with our fore- 
 fathers. Many a valiant captain, who might have been 
 foremost at Marston Moor or Naseby, exhausted his mar- 
 tial ardor in the command of a log-built fortress, like 
 that which you observe on the gently rising ground at 
 the right of the pathway, — its banner fluttering in the 
 breeze, and the culverins and sakers showing their deadly 
 muzzles over the rampart. 
 
 A multitude of people were now" thronging to New 
 England : some, because the ancient and ponderous frame- 
 work of Church and State threatened to crumble down 
 upon their heads ; others, because they despaired of such 
 a downfall. Among those who came to Naumkeag were 
 men of history and legend, whose feet leave a track of 
 brightness along any pathway which they have trodden. 
 You shall behold their life-like images — their spectres, 
 if you choose so to call them — passing, encountering with 
 a familiar nod, stopping to converse together, praying, 
 bearing weapons, laboring or resting from their labors, in 
 the Main Street. Here, now, comes Hugh Peters, an 
 earnest, restless man, walking swiftly, as being impelled 
 by that fiery activity of nature which shall hereafter 
 thrust him into the conflict of dangerous allairs, make 
 him the chaplain and counsellor of Cromwell, and finally
 
 72 MAIN STREET. 
 
 briug him to a bloody end. He pauses, by the meeting- 
 liouse, to exchange a greeting with Roger Williams, whose 
 face indicates, methinks, a gentler spirit, kinder and more 
 expansive, than that of Peters; yet not less active for 
 what he discerns to be the will of God, or the welfare 
 of mankind. And look ! here is a guest for Endicott, 
 coming forth out of the forest, through which he has 
 been journeying from Boston, and which, with its rude 
 branches, has caught hold of his attire, and has wet his 
 feet with its swamps and streams. Still there is some- 
 thing in his mild and venerable, though not aged pres- 
 ence — a propriety, an equilibrium, in Governor Win- 
 throp's nature — that causes the disarray of his costume 
 to be unnoticed, and gives us the same impression as if 
 he were clad in such grave and rich attire as we may sup- 
 pose him to have worn in the Council Chamber of the 
 colony. Is not this characteristic wonderfully percepti- 
 ble in our spectral representative of his psrson ? But 
 what dignitary is this crossing from the other side to 
 greet the governor ? A stately personage, in a dark vel- 
 vet cloak, with a hoary beard, and a gold chain across his 
 breast ; he has the authoritative port of one who has 
 filled tiie highest civic station in the first of cities. Of 
 all men in the world, we should least expect to meet the 
 Lord Mayor of London — as Sir Richard Saltonstall has 
 been, once and again — in a forest-bordered settlement 
 of the western wilderness. 
 
 Farther down the street, we see Emanuel Downing, a 
 grave and worthy citizen, ^vitli his son George, a strip- 
 ling who has a career before him ; liis shrewd and quick 
 capacity and pliant conscience shall not only exalt him 
 high, but secure him from a downfall. Here is another 
 figure, on whose characteristic make and expressive ac- 
 tion I will stake the credit of my pictorial puppet-show.
 
 MAIN STREET. 73 
 
 Have you not already detected a quaint, sly liumor iu 
 that face, — an eccentricity in the manner, — a certain 
 indescribable waywardness, — all the marks, in short, of 
 an original man, unmistakably impressed, yet ke])t down 
 by a sense of clerical restraint ? That is Nathaniel Ward, 
 the minister of Ipswich, but better remembered as the 
 simple cobbler of Agawam. He hammered his sole so 
 faithfully, and stitched his upper-leather so well, that the 
 shoe is hardly yet worn out, though thrown aside for 
 some two centuries past. And next, among these Puritans 
 and Roundheads, we observe the very model of a Cava- 
 lier, with the curling lovelock, the fantastically trimmed 
 beard, the embroidery, the ornamented rapier, the gilded 
 dagger, and all other foppishnesses that distinguished the 
 wild gallants who rode headlong to their overthrow in 
 the cause of King Charles. This is Morton of Merry 
 Mount, who has come hither to hold a council with En- 
 dicott, but will shortly be his prisoner. Yonder pale, 
 decaying figure of a white-robed woman, who glides 
 slowly along the street, is the Lady Arabella, looking 
 for her own grave in the virgin soil. That other female 
 form, who seems to be talking — we might almost say 
 preaching or expounding — in the centre of a group of 
 profoundly attentive auditors, is Ann Hutchinson. And 
 here comes Vane — 
 
 " But, my dear sir," interrupts the same gentleman 
 who before questioned the showman's genealogical accu- 
 racy, "allow me to observe that these liistorical person- 
 ages could not possibly have met together in the Main 
 Street. They might, and probably did, all visit our old 
 town, at one time or another, but not simultaneously ; 
 and you have fallen into anachronisqis that I positively 
 shudder to think of! " 
 
 *' The fellow," adds the scarcely civil critic, " has 
 4
 
 74 MAIN STREET. 
 
 learned a bead-roll of historic names, wlioni lie lugs into 
 his pictorial puppet-show, as he calls it, helter-skelter, 
 without caring whether they were contemporaries or not, 
 
 — and sets them all by the ears together. But was 
 there ever such a fund of impudence ? To hear his 
 running commentary, you would suppose that these mis- 
 erable slips of painted pasteboard, with hardly the remot- 
 est outlines of the human figure, had all the character 
 and expression of j\Iichael Augelo's pictures. Well ! go 
 on, sir ! " 
 
 " Sir, you break the illusion of the scene," mildly 
 remonsl rates the showman. 
 
 " Illusion ! What illusion ? " rejoins the critic, with a 
 contemptuous snort. " On the word of a gentleman, I 
 see nothing illusive in the wretchedly bedaubed slieet of 
 canvas that forms your background, or in these paste- 
 board slips that hitch and jerk along the front. The 
 only illusion, permit me to say, is in the puppet-show- 
 man's tongue, — and that but a wretched one, into the 
 bargain ! " 
 
 " We public men," replies the showman, meekly, " must 
 lay our account, sometimes, to meet an uncandid severity 
 of criticism. But — merely for your own pleasure, sir 
 
 — let me entreat you to take another point of view. Sit 
 farther back, by that young lady, in whose face I have 
 watched the reflection of every changing scene ; only 
 oblige me by sitting there; and, take my word for it, 
 the slips of pasteboard shall assume spiritual life, and 
 the bedaubed canvas become an airy and changeable 
 reflex of what it purports to represent." 
 
 "I know better," retorts the critic, settling himself in 
 his seat, with sullen but self-complacent immovableness. 
 "And, as for my own pleasure, I shall best consult it by 
 remaining precisely where I am."
 
 MAIN STREET, 75 
 
 The showman bows, and waves his liand ; and, at the 
 sif^nal,- as if time and vicissitude had been awaiting his 
 permission to move onward, the mimic street becomes 
 alive again. 
 
 Years have rolled over our scene, and converted the 
 forest-track into a dusty thoroughfare, which, being 
 intersected with lanes and cross-paths, may fairly be 
 designated as the Main Street. On the ground-sites of 
 many of the log-built sheds, into which the first settlers 
 crept for shelter, houses of quaint architecture have now 
 risen. These later edifices are budt, as you see, in one 
 generally accordant style, though with such subordinate 
 variety as keeps the beholder's curiosity excited, and 
 causes each structure, like its owner's character, to pro- 
 duce its own peculiar impression. Most of them have 
 one huge chimney in the centre, with flues so vast that 
 it must have been easy for the witches to fly out of 
 tliera, as they were wont to do, when bound on an aerial 
 visit to the Black Man in the forest. Around this great 
 chimney the wooden house clusters itself, in a whole 
 community of gable-ends, each ascending into its oAvn 
 separate peak ; the second story, with its lattice-windows, 
 projecting over the first; and tiie door, whicli is perhaps 
 arclied, provided on the outside with an iron hannner, 
 wherewitii the visitor's hand may give a thundering rat- 
 a-tat. The timber fran>ework of these houses, as com- 
 pared with those of recent date, is like the skeleton of 
 an old giant, beside the frail bones of a modern man of 
 fashion. Many of them, by the vast strength and sound- 
 ness of their oaken substance, have been preserved 
 through a length of time whicli would have tried the sta- 
 bility of brick and stone; so that, in all the progressive 
 decay and continual reconstruction of the street, down 
 to our own davs, we shall still behold these old edifices
 
 76 MAIX STREET. 
 
 occupying their long-accustomed sites. For instance, 
 on the upper corner of that green lane which shall here- 
 after be Nortli Street, we see the Curwen House, newly 
 built, with the carpenters still at work on the roof nail- 
 ing down the last sheaf of shingles. On the lower cor- 
 ner stands another dwelhng, — destined, at some period 
 of its existence, to be the abode of an unsuccessful alche- 
 mist, — which shall likewise survive to our own genera- 
 tion, and perhaps long outlive it. Thus, tiirougli the 
 medium of these patriarchal edifices, we have now estab- 
 lished a sort of kindred and hereditary acquaintance 
 with the Main Street. 
 
 Great as is the transformation produced by a short 
 term of years, each single day creeps through the Puritan 
 settlement sluggishly enough. It shall pass before your 
 eyes, condensed into the space of a few moments. The 
 gray light of early morning is slowly diffusing itself over 
 the scene ; and the bellman, whose office it is to cry the 
 hour at the street-corners, rings the last peal upon his 
 hand bell, and goes wearily homewards, with the owls, 
 the bats, and other creatures of the night. Lattices are 
 thrust back on their hinges, as if the town were opening 
 its eyes, in the summer morning. Forth stumbles the 
 still drowsy cowherd, with his horn ; putting which to 
 his lips, it emits a bellowing bray, impossible to be rep- 
 resented in the picture, but which reaches the pricked-up 
 ears of every cow in the settlement, and tells her that the 
 dewy pasture-hour is come. House after house awakes, 
 and sends the smoke up curling from its chimney, like 
 frosty breath from living nostrils ; and as those white 
 wreaths of smoke, though impregnated with earthy ad- 
 mixtures, climb skyward, so, from each dwelling, does 
 tlie morning worship — its spiritual essence, bearing up 
 its hnman imp^^rfection — find its Avay to the heavenly 
 Father's throne.
 
 MAIN STREET. 77 
 
 The breakfast -Lour being passed, the inhahitaiits do 
 not, as usual, go to their fields or workshops, but remain 
 withindoors; or perhaps walk the street, with a grave 
 sobriety, yet a disengaged and unburdened aspect, that 
 belongs neither to a holiday nor a Sabbath. And, indeed, 
 this passing day is neither, nor is it a common week-day, 
 although partaking of all the three. It is the Thursday 
 Lecture ; an institution which New England has long ago 
 relinquished, and almost forgotten, yet which it would 
 have been better to retain, as bearing relations to both 
 the spiritual and ordinary life, and bringing each ac- 
 quainted with the other. The tokens of its observance, 
 however, which here meet our eyes, are of rather a ques- 
 tionable cast. It is, in one sense, a day of public shame ; 
 the day on which transgressors, who have made them- 
 selves liable to the minor severities of the Puritan law, 
 receive their reward of ignominy. At this very moment, 
 the constable has bound an idle fellow to the whipping- 
 post, and is giving him his deserts with a cat-o'-nine- 
 tails. Ever since sunrise, Daniel Eairfield has been 
 standing on the steps of the meeting-house, with a halter 
 about his neck, Mdiich he is condemned to wear visibly 
 throughout his lifetime ; Dorothy Talby is chained to a 
 post at the corner of Prison Lane, with the hot sun blazing 
 on her matronly face, and all for no other offence than 
 lifting her hand against her husband ; while, through the 
 bars of that great wooden cage, in the centre of the scene, 
 we discern either a human being or a wild beast, or both 
 in one, whom this public infamy causes to roar, and gnash 
 liis teeth, and shake the strong oaken bars, as if he would 
 break forth, and tear in pieces the little children who have 
 been peeping at him. Such are the profitable sights that 
 serve the good people to while away the earlier part of 
 lecture-day. Betimes in the forenoon, a traveller — the
 
 78 MAIN STREET. 
 
 first traveller that has come hitherward this mornmg — 
 rides slowly iuto the street ou his patient steed. He 
 seems a clergyiiiau ; and, as he draws near, we recognize 
 the minister of Lyun, who was pre-engaged to lecture 
 here, and has been revolving his discourse, as he rode 
 through the hoary wilderness. Behold, now, the whole 
 town thronging into the meeting-house, mostly with such 
 sombre visages that the sunshine becomes little better 
 than a shadow when it falls upon them. There go the 
 Thirteen Men, grim rulers of a grim community ! There 
 goes John Massey, the first town-born child, uow^ a youth 
 of twenty, whos3 eye wanders with peculiar interest to- 
 wards that buxom damssl who comes up the steps at the 
 same instant. There hobbles Goody Foster, a sour and 
 bitter old beldam, looking as if she went to curse, and 
 not to pray, and whom many of her neighbors suspect of 
 taking an occasional airing on a broomstick. There, too, 
 slinking shamefacedly in, you observe that same poor do- 
 nothing and good-for-nothing w4iom we saw castigated 
 just now at the whipping-post. Last of all, there goes 
 the tithing-mau, lugging in a couple of small boys, whom 
 he has caught at play beneath God's blessed sunshine, in 
 a back lane. What native of Naumkeag, whose recollec- 
 tions go back more than thirty years, does not still shud- 
 der at that dark ogre of his infancy, who perhaps had 
 long ceased to have an actual existence, but still lived in 
 his childish belief, in a horrible idea, and in tiie nurse's 
 threat, as the Tidy Man ! 
 
 It will be hardly worth our while to wait two, or it 
 may be three, turnings of the hour-ghiss, for the conclu- 
 sion of the lecture. Therefore, by my control over light 
 and darkness, I cause the dusk, and then the starless 
 night, to brood over the street ; and summon forth again 
 the bellman, with his lantern casting a gleam about his
 
 MAIN STREET. 79 
 
 footsteps, to pace wearily from corner to corner, and 
 shout drowsily the hour to drowsy or dreaming eais. 
 Happy are we, if for nothing else, yet because we did 
 not live hi those days. In truth, wlien the first novelty 
 and stir of spirit had subsided, — when the new settle- 
 ment, between the forest -border and ihe sea, had become 
 actually a little town, — ■ its daily life must have trudged 
 onward with hardly anything to diversify and enliven it, 
 while also its rigidity could not fail to cause miserable 
 distortions of the moral nature. Such a life was sinister 
 to the intellect, and sinister to the heart ; especially when 
 one generation had bequeathed its religious gloom, and 
 the counterfeit of its religious ardor, to the next; for 
 these characteristics, as was inevitable, assumed the form 
 both of hypocrisy and exaggeration, by being inherited 
 from the example and precept of other liuman beings, 
 and not from an original and spiritual source. The sons 
 and grandchildren of the first settlers were a race of 
 lower and narrower souls than their progenitors had been. 
 The latter were stern, severe, intolerant, but not super- 
 stitious, not even fanatical ; and endowed, if any men of 
 that age were, with a far-seeing worldly sagacity. But 
 it was impossible for the succeeding race to grow up, in 
 heaven's freedom, beneath the discipline which their 
 gloomy energy of character had established ; nor, it may 
 be, have we even yet thrown ofi' all the unfavorable influ- 
 ences which, among many good ones, were bequeathed to 
 us by our Puritan forefathers. Let us thank God for 
 having given us such ancestors ; and let each successive 
 generation thank him, not less fervently, for being one 
 step further from them in the march of ages. 
 
 " What is all this ? " cries the critic. " A sermon ? 
 If so, it is not in the bill." 
 
 " Very true," replies the shoMinan; "and I ask par- 
 don of th:? audience."
 
 80 MAIN STREET. 
 
 Look now at tlie street, and observe a strange people 
 entering it. Tlieir garments are torn and disordered, 
 their faces haggard, their figures emaciated; for they 
 have made thsir way hither through pathless deserts, 
 suffering hunger and hardship, with no other shelter 
 than a hollow tree, the lair of a wild beast, or an Indian 
 wigwam. Nor, in the most inhospitable and dangerous 
 of such lodging-places, was there half the peril that awaits 
 them in this thoroughfare of Christian men, with those 
 . secure dwellings and warm hearths on either side of it, and 
 yonder meeting-house as the central object of the scene. 
 These wanderers have received from Heaven a gift that, 
 in all epochs of the world, has brought with it the penal- 
 ties of mortal suffering and persecution, scorn, enmity, 
 and death itself; — a gift that, thus terrible to its pos- 
 sessors, has ever been most hateful to all other men, 
 since its very existence seems to threaten the overthrow 
 of whatever else the toilsome ages have built up ; — the 
 gift of a new idea. You can discern it in them, illumi- 
 nating their faces — their whole persons, indeed, how- 
 ever earthly and cloddish — with a light that inevitably 
 shines through, and makes the startled community aware 
 that these men are not as they themselves are, — not 
 brethren nor neighbors of their thought. Forthwith, it 
 is as if an earthquake rumbled through the town, making 
 its vibrations felt at every hearthstone, and especially 
 causing the spire of the meeting-house to totter. The 
 Quakers have come. We are in peril ! See ! they tram- 
 ple upon our wise and well-established laws in the person 
 of our chief magistrate ; for Governor Endicott is pass- 
 ing, now an aged man, and dignified with long habits of 
 authority, — and not one of the irreverent vagabonds 
 has moved his hat. Did you note the ominous frown of 
 the white-bearded Puritan governor, as he turned himself
 
 JIAIX STREET. 81 
 
 about, and, in his auger, lialf uplifted the staff that has 
 become a needful support to his old age ? Here comrs 
 old Mr. Norris, our venerable minister. Will they doff 
 their hats, and pay reverence to him ? INTo : their hats 
 stick fast to their ungracious heads, as if they grew there ; 
 and- — impious varlets that they are, and worse than the 
 heathen Indians ! — they eye our reverend paster with a 
 peculiar scorn, distrust, unbelief, and utter denial of his 
 sanctified pretensions, of which he himself immediately 
 becomes conscious ; the more bitterly conscious, as he 
 never knew nor dreamed of the like before. 
 
 But look yonder! Can we believe our eyes? A 
 Quaker woman, clad in sackcloth, and with ashes on her 
 head, has mounted the steps of the meeting-house. She 
 addresses the people in a wild, shrill voice, — wild and 
 shrill it must be to suit such a figure, - — which makes 
 them tremble and turn pale, although they crowd open- 
 mouthed to hear her. She is bold against established au- 
 thority ; she denounces the priest and his steeple-house. 
 Many of her hearers are appalled ; some weep ; and oth- 
 ers listen with a rapt attention, as if a living truth had 
 now, for the first time, forced its way through the crust 
 of habit, reached their hearts, and awakened them to 
 life. This matter must be looked to ; else we have brought 
 our faith across the seas with us in vain; and it had 
 been better that the old forest were still standing here, 
 waving its tangled boughs and murmuring to the sky 
 out of its desolate recesses, instead of this goodly street, 
 if such blasphemies be spoken in it. 
 
 So thought the old Puritans. What was their mode 
 of action may be partly judged from the spectacles 
 which now pass before your eyes. Joshua Buflum is 
 standiug in the pillory. Cassandra South wick is led to 
 prison. And there a woman, — it is Ann Coleman, — 
 
 4* F
 
 O-Z MAIX STREET. 
 
 naked from tlie waist upward, and bound to the tail of 
 a cart, is dragged through the Main Street at the pace 
 of a brisk walk, while the constable follows with a whip 
 of knotted cords. A strong-armed fellow is that con- 
 stable ; and each time that he flourishes his lash in the 
 air, you see a frown wrinkling and twisting his brow, 
 and, at the same instant, a smile upon his lips. He 
 loves his business, faithful oflicar that he is, and puts 
 his soul into every stroke, zealous to fulfil the injunc- 
 tion of Major Hawthorne's warrant, in the spirit and to 
 the letter. There came down a stroke that has drawn 
 blood ! Ten such stripes are to be given in Salem, ten 
 in Boston, and ten in Dedhara ; and, with those thirty 
 stripes of blood upon her, she is to be driven into the 
 forest. The crimson trail goes wavering along the Main 
 Street; but Heaven grant that, as the rain of -so many 
 years has wept upon it, time after time, and washed it 
 all away, so there may have been a dew of mercy, to 
 cleanse this cruel blood-stain out of the record of the 
 persecutor's Hfe ! 
 
 Pass on, thou spectral constable, and betake thee to 
 thine own place of torment. Meanwhile, by the silent 
 operation of the mechanism behind the scenes, a consid- 
 erable space of time would seem to have lapsed over 
 the street. The older dwellings now begin to look 
 weather-beaten, through the effect of the many eastern 
 storms that have moistened their unpainted shingles and 
 clapboards, for not less than forty years. Such is the 
 age we would assign to the town, judging by the aspect 
 of John Massey, the first town-born child, whom his 
 neighbors now call Goodman Massey, and whom we see 
 yonder, a grave, almost autumnal-looking man, with 
 children of his own about him. To the patriarchs of 
 the settlement, no doubt, the Main Street is still but an
 
 ]\rAIN STREET. 83 
 
 aifair of yesterday, liardly more antique, even if destined 
 to be more perniauent, than a patii shovelled through the 
 snow. But to the middle-aged and elderly men Avho 
 came hither in childhood or early youth, it presents tlie 
 aspect of a long and well-established work, on which 
 they have expended the strength and ardor of their life. 
 And the younger people, native to the street, Avhose 
 earliest rectjllections are of creeping over the paternal 
 threshold, and rolling on the grassy margin of the track, 
 look at it as one of the j)erdurable things of our mortal 
 state, — as old as the hills of the great pasture, or the 
 headland at the harbor's mouth. Their fathers and 
 grandsires tell them how, within a few years past, the 
 forest stood here, Avith but a lonely track beneath its 
 tangled shade. Vain legend ! They cannot make it 
 true and real to their conceptions. With them, more- 
 over, the Main Street is a street indeed, worthy to hold 
 its way with the thronged and stately avenues of cities 
 beyond the sea. The old Puritans tell them of the 
 croAvds that hurry along Cheapside and Fleet Street and 
 the Strand, and of the rush of tumultuous life at Temple 
 Bar. They describe London Bridge, itself a street, with 
 a row of houses on each side. They speak of the vast 
 structure of the Tower, and the solemn grandeur of 
 Westminster Abbey. The children hsten, and still in- 
 quire if the streets of London are longer and broader 
 than the one before their father's door; if the Tower is 
 bigger than the jail in Prison Lane ; if the old Abbey 
 will hold a larger congregation than our meeting-house. 
 Nothing impresses them, except their own experience. 
 
 It seems all a fable, too, that wolves have ever 
 prowled here ; and not less so, that the Squaw Sachem, 
 and the Sagamore her son, once ruled over this region, 
 and treated as sovereign potentates with the English
 
 84 MAIX STREET. 
 
 settlers, then so few and storm-beaten, now so powerful. 
 There stand some school-boys, you observe, in a little 
 group around a drunken Indian, himself a prince of the 
 Squaw Sachem's lineage. He brought hither some 
 beaver-skins for sale, and has already swallowed the 
 larger portion of their price, in deadly draughts of fire- 
 w^ater. Is there not a touch of pathos in that picture ? 
 and does it not go far towards telling the whole story of 
 the vast growth and prosperity of one race, and the fated 
 decay of another? — the children of the stranger making 
 game of the great Squaw Sachem's grandson ! 
 
 But the whole race of red men have not vanished 
 ■with that wild princess and her posterity. This march 
 of soldiers along the street betokens the breaking out of 
 King Philip's war ; and these young men, the flower of 
 Essex, are on their way to defend the villages on the 
 Connecticut; where, at Bloody Brook, a terrible blow 
 shall be smitten, and hardly one of that gallant band be 
 left alive. And there, at that stately mansion, with its 
 three peaks in front, and its two little peaked towers, 
 one on either side of the door, we see brave Captain 
 Gardner issuing forth, clad in his embroidered buff-coat, 
 and his pluuicd cap upon his head. His trusty sword, 
 in its steel scabbard, strikes clanking on the doorstep. 
 See how the people throng to their doors and windows, 
 as the cavalier rides past, reining his mettled steed so 
 gallantly, and looking so like the very soul and emblem 
 of martial achievement, — destined, too, to meet a war- 
 rior's fate, at the desperate assault on the fortress of the 
 NaiTagansetts ! 
 
 "The mettled steed looks like a pig," interrupts the 
 critic, " and Captain Gardner himself like the Devil, 
 though a very tame one, and on a most diminutive 
 scale."
 
 MAIN STREET. 85 
 
 " Sir, sir ! " cries the persecuted showman, losiiif^ all 
 patience, — for, indeed, he had ])articidarly prided himself 
 on these figures of Captain Gardner and his horse, — "I 
 see that there is no hope of pleasing you. Pray, sir, do 
 me the favor to take back your money, and withdraw ! " 
 
 " Not I ! " answers the unconscionable ciilic. " I am 
 just beginning to get interested in the matter. Come ! 
 turn your crank, and grind out a few more of these fool- 
 eries ! " 
 
 The showman rubs his brow impulsively, whisks the 
 little rod with which he points out the notabilities of the 
 scene, but, finally, with the inevitable acquiescence of all 
 public servants, resumes his composure and goes on. 
 
 Pass onward, ouward, Time ! Build up new houses 
 here, and tear down tliy works of yesterday, that have 
 already the rusty moss upon them! Summou forth the 
 minister to the abode of the young maiden, and bid him 
 unite her to the joyful bridegroom ! Let the youthful 
 parents carry their first-born to the meeting-house, to 
 receive the baptismal rite ! Knock at the door, whence 
 the sable line of the funeral is next to issue ! Provide 
 other successive generations of men, to trade, talk, quar- 
 rel, or walk in friendly intercourse along the street, as 
 their fathers did before them ! Do all thy daily and 
 accustomed business. Father Time, in this thoroughfare, 
 which thy footsteps, for so many years, have now made 
 dusty ! But here, at last, thou leadest along a proces- 
 sion which, once witnessed, shall appear no more, and 
 be remembered only as a hideous dream of thine, or a 
 frenzy of thy old brain. 
 
 " Turn your crank, I say," bellows the remorseless 
 critic, " and grind it out, whatever it be, without further 
 preface ! " 
 
 The showman deems it best to comply.
 
 86 MAIN STREET. 
 
 Then, liere comes the worshipful Captaiu Curwen, 
 slieriff of Essex, on horseback, at the head of au armed 
 guard, escorting a company of condemned prisoners from 
 the jail to their place of execution on Gallows Hill. 
 The witches ! There is no mistaking them ! The 
 witches ! As they approach up Prison Lane, and turn 
 into the Main Street, let us watch their faces, as if we 
 made a part of the pale crowd that presses so eagerly 
 about them, yet shrinks back with such shuddering 
 dread, leaving an open passage betwixt a dense throng 
 on either side. Listen to what the people say. 
 
 There is old George Jacobs, known hereabouts, these 
 sixty years, as a man whom we thought upright in all 
 his way of life, quiet, blameless, a good husband before 
 his pious wife was summoned from the evil to come, and 
 a good father to the children wliom she left him. Ah! 
 but when that blessed woman went to heaven, George 
 Jacobs's heart was empty, his hearth lonely, his life 
 broken up ; his children were married, and betook them- 
 selves to habitations of their own ; and Satan, in his 
 wanderings up and down, beheld this forlorn old man, to 
 whom life was a sameness and a weariness, and found 
 the way to tempt him. So the miserable simier was 
 prevailed with to mount into the air, and career among 
 the clouds ; and he is proved to have been present at a 
 witch-meeting as far off as Falmouth, on the very same 
 night that his next neighbors saw him, with his rheu- 
 matic stoop, going in at his own door. There is John 
 W'lUard, too ; an honest man we thought him, and so 
 shrewd and active in his business, so practical, so intent 
 on every-day affairs, so constant at his little place of 
 trad?, where he bartered English goods for Indian corn 
 and all kinds of country produce ! How could such a 
 man liad tiiu3y or what could put it into his mind, to
 
 MAIN STliEET. 87 
 
 leave liis proper calling, and become a wizard? It is 
 a mystery, unless the Black Man tempted liim with 
 great heaps of gold. See that aged couple, — a sad 
 sight, truly, — John Proctor, and his wife Elizabeth. If 
 there were two old people in all the county of Essex 
 W'lio seemed to have led a true Christian life, and to be 
 treading hopefully the little remnant of their earthly 
 path, it was this very pair. Yet have we heard it 
 sworn, to the satisfaction of the worshipful Chief-Justice 
 Sewell, and all the court and jury, that Proctor and his 
 Wife have shown their withered faces at children's bed- 
 sides, mocking, making mouths, and affrighting the poor 
 little innocents in the night-time. They, or their spec- 
 tral appearances, have stuck pins into the afflicted ones, 
 and thrown them into deadly fainthig-fits with a touch, or 
 but a look. And, while we sup])osed the old man to be 
 reading the Bible to his old wife, — she meanwhile knit- 
 ting in the chimney-corner, — the jiair of hoary reprobates 
 have whisked up the chimney, both on one broomstick, 
 and flown away to a witch-communion, far into the deptlis 
 of the chill, dark forest. How foolish ! Were it only 
 for fear of rheumatic pains in their old bones, they had 
 better liave stayed at home. But away they went ; and 
 the laughter of their decayed, cackling voices has been 
 heard at midnight, aloft in the air. Now, in the sunny 
 noontide, as they go tottering to the gallows, it is the 
 Devil's turn to laugh. 
 
 Beliind these two, — who help another along, and 
 seem to be comforting and encouraging each other, in a 
 manner truly pitiful, if it were not a sin to pity the old 
 witch and wizard, — behind them comes a woman, witii 
 a dark proud face that has been beautiful, and a figure 
 that is still majestic. Do you know her ? It is Martha 
 Carrier, whom the Devil ibund in a humble cottaire, and
 
 88 MAIN STREET. 
 
 looked into lier cUsconteiited heart, and saw pride tliere, 
 and tempted her with his promise that she sliould be 
 Queen of Hell. And now, with that lofty demeanor, 
 she is passing to her kingdom, and, by her unquenchable 
 pride, transforms this escort of shame into a triumphal 
 procession, that shall attend her to the gates of her infer- 
 nal palace, and seat her upon the fiery throne. Within 
 this hour, she shall assume her royal dignity. 
 
 Last of the miserable train comes a man clad in black, 
 of small stature and a dark complexion, with a clerical 
 band about his neck. Many a time, in the years gone 
 by, that face has been uplifted heavenward from the pul- 
 pit of the East Meeting-House, when the Rev. Mr. Bnr- 
 rouglis seemed to worship God. What! — he? The 
 holy man ! — the learned ! — the wise ! How has the 
 Devil tempted him ? His fellow-criminals, for the most 
 part, are obtuse, uncultivated creatures, some of them 
 scarcely half-witted by nature, and others greatly de- 
 cayed in their intellects through age. Tliey were an 
 easy prey for the destroyer. Not so with this George 
 Burroughs, as we judge by the inward light which glows 
 through his dark countenance, and, we might almost 
 say, glorifies his figure, in spite of the soil and haggard- 
 ness of long imprisonment, — in spite of the heavy 
 shadow that must fall on him, while death is walking 
 by his side. What bribe could Satan offer, rich enough 
 to tempt and overcome this man ? Alas ! it may have 
 been in the very strength of his high and searcliing 
 intellect, that the Tempter found the weakness which 
 betrayed him. He yearned for knowledge ; he went 
 groping onward into a world of mystery ; at first, as the 
 witnesses have sworn, lie summoned up the ghosts of liis 
 two dead wives, and talked with them of matters beyond 
 the grave; and, when their responses failed to satisfy the
 
 MAIN STREET. S9 
 
 intense and sinful craving of his spirit, be called on 
 Satan, and was heard. Yet — to look at liim — uho, 
 that had not known the proof, could believe him guilly 'i 
 Who would not say, while we see him offering comfort 
 4,0 the weak and aged partners of his horrible crime, — 
 while we hear his ejaculations of prayer, that seem to 
 bubble up out of the depths of his heart, and fly heaven- 
 ward, unawares, — while we behold a radiance brighten- 
 ing on his features as from the other world, AVhich is l)ut 
 a few steps off, — wlio would not say, that, over the 
 dusty track of the Main Street, a Christian saint is now 
 going to a martyr's death ? May not the Arch-Ficiid 
 have been too subtle for the court and jury, and betrayed 
 them — laughing in his sleeve, the wiiile — into the 
 awful error of pouring out sanctified blood as an accept- 
 able sacrifice upon God's altar ? Ah ! no ; for listen to 
 wise Cotton Mather, who, as he sits there on his liorse, 
 speaks comfortably to the perplexed multitude, and tells 
 them that all has been religiously and justly done, and 
 that Satan's power shall this day receive its death-blow 
 in New England. 
 
 Heaven grant it be so! — the great scholar must be 
 right; so lead the poor creatures to their death! Do 
 you see that group of children and half-grown girls, and, 
 among them, an old, liag-like Indian woman, Tituba by 
 name? Those are the Afflicted Ones. Behold, at this 
 very instant, a proof of Satan's power and malice ! 
 Mercy Parris, the minister's daughter, has been smitten 
 by a flash of Martha Carrier's eye, and falls down in 
 the street, writhing with horrible spasms and foaming at 
 the mouth, like the possessed one spoken of in Scripture. 
 Hurry on the accursed M^itches to the gallows, ere they 
 do more mischief! — ^ere they fling out their Avithcrcd 
 arms, and scatter pestilence by handfuls among the
 
 90 MAIN STREET. 
 
 crowd ! — ere, as their parting legac\', tliey cast a blight 
 over the land, so that henceforth it may bear no fruit 
 nor blade of grass, and be fit for nothing but a sepulchre 
 for their unhallowed carcasses ! So, on they go ; and 
 old George Jacobs has stumbled, by reason of his in- 
 firmity ; but Goodman Proctor and his wife lean on one 
 another, and walk at a reasonably steady pace, consider- 
 ing their age. Mr. Burrouglis seems to administer coun- 
 sel to Martha Carrier, whose face and mien, methinks, 
 are milder and humbler than they were. Among the 
 multitude, meanwhile, there is horror, fear, and distrust; 
 and friend looks askance at friend, and the husband at 
 his wife, and the ^vife at him, and even the mother at 
 her little child ; as if, in every creature that God has 
 made, they suspected a witch, or dreaded an accuser. 
 Never, never again, whether in this or any other shape, 
 may Universal Madness riot in the Main Street ! 
 
 I perceive in your eyes, my indulgent spectators, the 
 criticism which you are too kind to utter. These scenes, 
 you think, are all too sombre. So, indeed, they are ; 
 but the blame must rest on the sombre spirit of our 
 forefathers, who wove their web of life with hardly a 
 single thread of rose-color or gold, and not on me, who 
 have a tropic-love of sunshine, and would gladly gild all 
 the world with it, if I knew where to find so much. 
 That you may believe me, I will exhibit one of the only 
 class of scenes, so far as my investigation has taught me, 
 in which our ancestors were wont to steep their tough 
 old hearts in w^ine and strong drink, and indulge an out- 
 break of grisly jollity. 
 
 Here it comes, out of the same house whence "we saw 
 brave Captain Gardner go forth to the wars. What ! 
 A coffin, borne on men's shoulders, and six aged gentle- 
 men as pall-bearers, and a long train of mourners, with
 
 MAIN STREET. * 91 
 
 black gloves and black liat -bands, and everytliing black, 
 save a white liandkeicliief in each mourner's hand, to 
 wipe away his tears withal. Now, my kind patrons, 
 you are angry witli me. You were bidden to a bridal- 
 dance, and find yourselves walking in a funeral proces- 
 sion. Even so; but look back through all tlie social 
 customs of New England, in the first century of licr 
 existence, and read all her traits of character; and if 
 you find one occasion, other than a funeral feast, where 
 jollity was sanctioned by universal practice, 1 will set 
 tire to my puppet-show without another word. These 
 are tlie obserpues of old Governor Bradstreet, the patri- 
 arch and survivor of the first settlers, who, having inter- 
 married with the Widow Gardner, is now resting from 
 his labors, at the great age of ninety-four. The wlii'e- 
 bearded corpse, which was his spirit's earthly garniture, 
 now lies beneath yonder coffin-lid. Many a cask of ale 
 and cider is on tap, and many a draught of spiced wine 
 and aqua-vitae has been quafted. Else why sliould the 
 bearers stagger, as they tremulously uphold the coffin ? 
 — and the aged pall-bearers, too, as they strive to walk 
 solemnly beside it ? — and wherefore do the mourners 
 tread on one anotiier's heels? — and why, if we nuiy ask 
 without offence, should the nose of the Rev. Mr. TSoyes, 
 through which he has just been delivering the funeral 
 discourse, glow like a ruddy coal of fire ? Well, well, 
 old friends! Pass on, with your burden of mortahly, 
 and lay it in the tomb with jolly hearts. People sliould 
 be permitted to enjoy themselves in their own fashion ; 
 every man to his taste; but New England must have 
 been a dismal abode for the man of pleasure, when the 
 only boon-companion was Death ! 
 
 Under cover of a mist that has settled over the scene, 
 a few years flit by, and cscnpe our notice. As the atmos-
 
 92 . MAIX STREET. 
 
 pliere becomes transparent, we perc3ive a decrepit graud- 
 sire, hobbling along the street. Do you recognize him ? 
 We saw him, first, as the baby in Goodwife Massey's 
 arms, when the primeval trees were flinging their shadow 
 over Roger Conaut's cabin; we have seen him, as the 
 boy, the youth, the man, bearing his humble part iu 
 all the successive scenes, and forming the index-figure 
 whereby to note the age of his coeval town. And here 
 he is, old Goodman Massey, taking his last walk, — often 
 pausing, — often leaning over his stalf, — and calling to 
 mind whose dwelling stood at such and such a spot, and 
 whose field or garden occupied the site of those more 
 recent houses. He can render a reason for all the bends 
 and deviations of the thoroughfare, which, in its flexible 
 and plastic infancy, was made to swerve aside from a 
 straight line, iu order to visit every settler's door. Tlie 
 Main Street is still youthful ; the coeval man is in his 
 latest ag3. Soon he will be gone, a patriarch of four- 
 score, yet shall retain a sort of mfantine life in our local 
 history, as the first town-born child. 
 
 Behold here a change, wrought in the twinkling of an 
 eye, like an incident in a tale of magic, even while your 
 observation has been fixed upon the scene. The Main 
 Street has vanished out of sight. In its stead appears a 
 wintry waste of snow, with the sun just peeping over it, 
 cold and bright, and tingeing the white expanse with the 
 faintest and most ethereal rose-color. This is the Great 
 Snow of 1717, famous for the mountain-drifts iu which 
 it buried the whole country. It would seem as if the 
 street, the growth of which we have noted so attentively, 
 following it from its first phase, as an Indian track, until 
 it reached the dignity of sidewalks, were all at once 
 obliterated, and resolved into a drearier pathlessness 
 than when the forest covered it. The gigantic swells
 
 MAIN STllEET. 93 
 
 and billoTvs of tlie snow liave swept over eacli man's 
 metes and bounds, and anniliilated all the visible distinc- 
 tions of human property. So that now the traces of 
 former times and hitherto accomplished deeds being done 
 away, mankind should be at liberty to enter on new 
 paths, and guide themselves by other laws than hereto- 
 fore; if, indeed, the race be not extinct, and it be worth 
 our while to go on with the march of life, over the cold 
 and desolate expanse that lies before us. It may be, 
 however, that matters are not so desperate as they ap- 
 pear. That vast icicle, glittering so cheerlessly in the 
 sunshine, must be the spire of the meeting-house, in- 
 crusted with frozen sleet. Those great heaps, too, Avhieh 
 we mistook for drifts, are houses, buried up to their 
 eaves, and with their peaked roofs rounded by the depth 
 of snow upon fhem. There, now, comes a gush of smoke 
 from what I judge to he the chimney of the Ship Tavern ; 
 — and another — another — and another — from the chim- 
 neys of other dwellings, where fireside comfort, domestic 
 peace, the sports of children, and the quietude of age 
 are living yet, in spite of the frozen crust above them. 
 
 But it is time to change the scene. Its dreary monot- 
 ony shall not test your fortitude like one of our actual 
 New England winters, which leaves so large a blank — 
 so melancholy a death-spot — in lives so brief that they 
 ought to be all summer-time. Here, at least, I may 
 claim to be ruler of the seasons. One turn of the crank 
 shall melt away the snow from the Main Street, and show 
 the trees in their full foliage, the rose-bushes in bloom, 
 and a border of green grass along the sidewalk. There ! 
 But what ! How ! The scene will not move, A wire is 
 broken. The street continues buried beneath the snoAv, 
 and the fate of Hcrculaneum and Pompeii has its ])arallel 
 in this catastrophe.
 
 94 MAIN STREET. 
 
 Alas ! my kind and gentle audience, you know not the 
 extent of your niisforiune. The scenes to come were far 
 better than the past. The street itself would have beeu 
 more worthy of pictorial exhibition; the deeds of its 
 inhabitants not less so. And how would your interest 
 have deepened, as, passing out of the cold shadow of 
 antiquity, iu my long and weai-y course, I should arrive 
 withiu the limits of man's memory, and, leading you at 
 last mto the sunshine of the present, should give a reflex 
 of the very life that is flitting past us ! Your owu beauty, 
 my tair townswomeu, would have beamed upon you, out 
 of my scene. Not a gentleman that walks the street but 
 should have beheld his own face and figure, his gait, the 
 peculiar swing of his arm, and the coat that he put on 
 yesterday. Then, too, — and it is what I chiefly regret, 
 — I had expended a vast deal of light and brilliancy on 
 a representation of the street in its whole length, from 
 ButFum's Corner downward, on the night of the grand 
 illumination for General Taylor's triumph. Lastly, I 
 should have given the crank one other turn, and have 
 brought out the future, showing you who shall walk the 
 Main Street to-morrow, and, perchance, whose funeral 
 shall pass through it ! 
 
 But these, like most other human purposes, lie unac- 
 complished ; and I have only further to say, that any 
 lady or gentlemen who may feel dissatisfied with the 
 evening's entertainment shall receive back the admission 
 fee at the door. 
 
 " Then give me mine," cries the critic, stretching out 
 his palm. " I said that your exhibition would prove a 
 humbug, and so it has turned out. So, hand over my 
 quarter ! "
 
 ETHAN BRAND: 
 
 A CHAPTER FROM AN ABORTIVE ROMANCE. 
 
 AKTRAM the lime-burner, a rougb, lieavy-look- 
 iiig mail, begrimed with charcoal, sat watching 
 iiis kihi, at iiighttall, while his little son played 
 at building houses with the scattered fragments of mar- 
 ble, when, on the hillside below them, they heard a ro;ir 
 of laughter, not mirthful, but slow, and even solemn, like 
 a wind shaking the boughs of the forest. 
 
 " Father, what is that ? " asked the little boy, leaving 
 his play, and pressing betwixt his father's knees. 
 
 " O, some drunken man, I suppose," answered Ihe 
 lime-burner; " some merry feiloW from the bar-room in 
 the village, who dared not laugh loud enough within 
 doors lest he should blow the roof of the house off. So 
 here he is, shaking his jolly sides at the foot of Grav- 
 lock." 
 
 " But, father," said the child, more sensitive than the 
 obtuse, middle-aged clown, " he does not laugh like a 
 man that is glad. So the noise frightens me ! " 
 
 " Don't be a fool, child ! " cried his father, gruflly. 
 " You will never make a man, I do believe ; there is too 
 much of your mother in you. I have known the rustling 
 of a leaf startle you. Hark ! Here comes the merry fel- 
 low now. You shall see that there is no harm in him."
 
 D6 ETHAN BKAND. 
 
 Eartram and Lis little son, while they were talking 
 thus, sat watching the same lime-kiln that had been the 
 scene of Ethan Brand's solitary and meditative life, 
 before he began his searcli for the Unpardonable Sin. 
 Many years, as we have seen, had now elapsed, since 
 that portentous night when the Idea was first developed. 
 The kiln, however, on the mountain-side, stood unim- 
 paired, and was in nothing changed siuce he had thrown 
 his dark thoughts into the intense glow of its furnace, 
 and melted them, as it were, into the one thought that 
 took possession of his life. It was a rude, round, tower- 
 like structure, about twenty feet high, heavily built of 
 rougii stones, and with a hillock of earth heaped about 
 the larger part of its circumference ; so that the blocks 
 aud fragments of marble might be drawn by cart-loads, 
 and thrown in at the top. There was an opening at the 
 bottom of the tower, like an oven-mouth, but large 
 enough to admit a man in a stooping posture, and pro- 
 vided with a massive iron door. With the smoke and 
 jets of flame issuing from the chinks and crevices of this 
 door, which seemed to give admittance into the hillside, 
 it resembled nothing so much as the private entrance to 
 the infernal regions, which the shepherds of the Delecta- 
 ble Mountains were accustomed to show to pilgrims. 
 
 There are many such lime-kilns in that tract of coun- 
 try, for the purpose of burning the white marble which 
 composes a large part of the substance of the hills. 
 Some of them, buUt years ago, and long deserted, with 
 weeds growing iu the vacant round of the interior, wliich 
 is open to the sky, and grass and wild-flowers rooting 
 themselves into the chinks of the stones, look already 
 like relics of antiquity, and may yet be overspread witli 
 the lichens of centuries to come. Others, where the 
 lime-burner still feeds his daily and night-long fire.
 
 ETHAN BRAND. 97 
 
 afford points of interest to the wanderer among tlie hills, 
 who seats himself on a log of wood or a fragment of 
 marble, to liold a chat with the solitary man. It is a 
 lonesome, and, when the character is inclined to thought, 
 may be an intensely thoughtful occupation ; as it proved 
 in the case of Ethan Brand, who had mused to such 
 strange purpose, in days gone by, while the lire in this 
 very kiln was burning. 
 
 The man who now watched the fire was of a different 
 order, and troubled himself with no thoughts save the 
 very few that were requisite to his business. At frequent 
 intervals, he flung back the clashing weight of the iron 
 door, and, turning his face from the insufferable glare, 
 thrust in huge logs of oak, or stirred the immense brands 
 with a long j)olc. AVithin the furnace were seen the 
 curling and riotous flames, and the burning nuirblc, 
 almost molten with the intensity of heat ; while without, 
 the reflection of the fire quivered on the dark intricacy 
 of the surrounding forest, and showed in the foreground 
 a bright and ruddy little picture of the hut, the spring 
 beside its door, the athletic and coal-begrimed figure of 
 the lime-burner, and the half-frightened child, shrinking 
 into the protection of his father's shadow. And when 
 again the iron door was closed, then reaj)|)earcd the ten- 
 der light of the half-full moon, which vainly strove to 
 trace out the indistinct shapes of the neighboring moun- 
 tains; and, in the upper sky, there was a flitting con- 
 gregation of clouds, still faintly tinged with the rosy 
 sunset, though thus far down into the valley the sunshine 
 had vanished long and long ago. 
 
 The little boy now crept still closer to his father, as 
 footsteps were heard ascending the hillside, and a huuu'ai 
 form thrust aside the bushes that clustered beneath the 
 trees. 
 
 5 G
 
 98 ETHAN BRAND. 
 
 " Halloo I who is it '■ " cried the hme-buruer, vexed 
 at his son's timidity, yet half infected by it. "Come 
 forward, and show yourself, like a man, or I '11 fling this 
 chunk of marble at your head! " 
 
 " You offer me a rough welcome," said a gloomy 
 voice, as the unknown man drew nigh. " Yet I neither 
 claim nor desire a kinder one, even at my own fireside." 
 
 To obtain a distincter view, Bartram threw open the 
 iron door of the kiln, whence immediately issued a gush 
 of fierce light, that smote full upon the stranger's face 
 and figure. To a careless eye there appeared nothing 
 very remarkable in his aspect, which was that of a man 
 in a coarse, brown, countrj-made suit of clothes, tall and 
 thin, with the staff and heavy shoes of a wayfarer. As 
 he advanced, he fixed his eyes — whichwere very bright 
 — intently upon the brightness of the furnace, as if he 
 beheld, or expected to behold, some object worthy of 
 note within it. 
 
 "Good evening, stranger," said the lime-burner; 
 "whence come you, so late in the day?" 
 
 "I come from my search," answered the wayfarer; 
 "for, at last, it is finished." 
 
 "Drunk ! — or crazy ! " mattered Bartram to himsslf. 
 "I shall have trouble with the fellow. The sooner I 
 drive him away, the better." 
 
 The little boy, all in a tremble, whispered to liis fath3r, 
 and begged him to shut the door of the kiln, so that 
 there might not be so much light; for that there was 
 something in the man's face which he was afraid to look 
 at, yet could not look away from. And, indeed, even 
 the lime-burner's dull and torpid sense began to be im- 
 ])ressed by an indescribable something in that thin, 
 rugged, thoughtful visage, witli the grizzled hair hang- 
 ing wildly abjut it, and those deeply sunken eyes, which
 
 ETHAN BllAND. 99 
 
 gleamed like fires witliiu the entrance of a mysterious 
 cavern. But, as he closed the door, the stranger turned 
 towards him, and spoke in a quiet, familiar way, that 
 made Bartram feel as if he were a sane and sensible man, 
 after all. 
 
 " Your task draws to an end, I sec," said he. "This 
 marble has already been burning three days. A few 
 hours more will convert the stone to lime." 
 
 " Why, who are you ? " exclaimed the lime-burner. 
 " You seem as well acquainted wilh my business as 1 am 
 myself." 
 
 " And well I may be," said the stranger; " for I fol- 
 lowed the same craft many a long year, and here, too, 
 on this very spot. But you are a new-comer in these 
 parts. Did you never hear of Ethan Brand ? " 
 
 "The man that went in search of- the Unpardonable 
 Sin ? " asked Bartram, with a laugli. 
 
 "The same," answered the stranger. "He has found 
 what he souglit, and therefore he comes back again."" 
 
 " Wliat ! then you are Ethan Brand himself':'" cried 
 the lime-burner, in amazement. " I am a new-comer 
 here, as you say, and they call it eigliteen years since 
 you left the foot of Graylock. But, 1 can tell you, the 
 good folks still talk about Ellian Brand, iu the village 
 yonder, and what a strange errand took liim away from 
 his iinie-kiln. Well, and so you have found the Unpar- 
 donable Sin ? " 
 
 "Even so ! " said the stranger, calmly. 
 
 "If the question is a fair one," proceeded Bartram, 
 " where might it be ? " 
 
 Ethan Brand laid his finger on his own heart. 
 
 " Here ! " replied he. 
 
 And then, without mirth in his countenance, but as if 
 moved by an involuntary recognition of the inlinile
 
 100 ETHAN BRAND. 
 
 absurdity of seeking tliroiigliout the world for what was 
 the closest of all things to himself, and looking into every 
 lieart, save his own, for what was hidden in no other 
 breast, he broke into a laugh of scorn. It was the same 
 slow, heavy laugli, that had almost appalled the lime- 
 burner when it heralded the wayfarer's approach. 
 
 The solitary mountain-side was made dismal by it. 
 Laughter, when out of place, mistimed, or bursting forth 
 from a disordered state of feeling, may be the most terri- 
 ble modulation of the human voice. The laughter of one 
 asleep, even if it be a little child, —the madman's laugh, 
 — the wild, screaming laugh of a born idiot, — are sounds 
 that we sometimes tremble to hear, and would always 
 willingly forget. Poets have imagined uo utterance of 
 fiends or hobgoblins so fearfully appropriate as a laugh. 
 And even the obtuse lime-burner felt his nerves shaken, 
 as this strange man looked inward at his own heart, and 
 burst into laughter that rolled away into the niglit, and 
 was indistinctly reverberated among the hills. 
 
 " Joe," said he to his little son, " scamper down to 
 the tavern in the village, and tell the jolly fellows there 
 that Ethan Brand has come back, and that he has found 
 the Unpardonable Sin ! " 
 
 The boy darted away on his errand, to which Ethan 
 Brand made no objection, nor seemed hardly to notice it. 
 He sat on a log of wood, looking steadfastly at the iron 
 door of the kiln. When the child was out of sight, and 
 liis swift, and light footsteps ceased to be heard treading 
 iirst on the fallen leaves and then on the rocky mountain- 
 path, the lime-burner began to regret his departure. He 
 felt that the little fellow's presence had been a barrier 
 between his guest and himself, and that he must now 
 deal, heart to heart, with a man who, on his own con- 
 fession, had committed the one onlv crime for which
 
 ETHAN BRAND. 101 
 
 Heaven could afford no mercy. That crime, in its indis- 
 tinct blackness, seemed to overshadow him. The lime- 
 burner's own sins rose up within iiim, and made his 
 memory riotous with a throng of evil shapes that asserted 
 their kindred with the Master Sin, whatever it might be, 
 which it was within the scope of man's corrupted nature 
 to conceive and cherish. They were all of one family ; 
 they went to and fro between his breast and Ethan 
 Brand's, and carried dark greetings from one to the other. 
 
 Then Bartram remembered the stories which had 
 grown traditionary in reference to this strange man, who 
 had come upon him like a shadow of the night, and was 
 makuig himself at home in his old place, after so long 
 absence that the dead people, dead and buried for years, 
 would have had more right to be at home, in any familiar 
 spot, than he. Ethan Brand, it was said, had conversed 
 with Satan himself in tlie lurid blaze of this very kiln. 
 The legend had been matter of mirth heretofore, but 
 looked grisly now. According to this tale, before Ethan 
 Brand departed on his search, he had been accustomed 
 to evoke a fiend from the liot furnace of the lime-kiln, 
 night after night, in order to confer with him about the 
 Unpardonable Sin ; the man and the fiend each laboring 
 to frame the image of some mode of guilt which could 
 neither be atoned for nor forgiven. And, with the first 
 gleam of light upon the mountain-top, the fiend crept in 
 at the iron door, there to abide the intcnsest element of 
 fire, until again summoned forth to share in the dreadful 
 task of extending nuin's possible guilt beyond the scope 
 of Heaven's else infinite merey. 
 
 While the lime-burner was struggUng with the horror 
 of these thoughts, Ethan Brand rose from the log, and 
 flung open the door of the kiln. The action was in such 
 accordance with the idea in Burtram's mind, that he
 
 102 ETIIAX BRAND. 
 
 almost expected to see the Evil One issue forth, red-hot 
 from the raging furnace. 
 
 " Hold ! hold ! " cried he, with a tremulous attempt to 
 laugh ; for he was ashamed of his fears, although tliey 
 overmastered him. "Don't, for mercy's sake, bring out 
 your Devil now ! " 
 
 "Man!" sternly replied Ethan Brand, " wliat need 
 have I of the Devil ? I have left him behind me, on my. 
 track. It is with such half-way sinners as you that he 
 busies himself. Fear not, because I open the door. I 
 do but act by old custom, and am going to trim your 
 tire, like a lime-burner, as I was once." 
 
 He stirred the vast coals, thrust in more wood, and 
 bent forward to gaze into the hollow prison-house of tlie 
 fire, regardless of the fierce glow that reddened upon his 
 face. The lime-burner sat watching him, and half sus- 
 pected his strange guest of a purpose, if not to evoke 
 a fiend, at least to plunge bodily into the flames, and 
 thus vanish from the sight of man. Etlian Brand, 
 however, drew quietlv back, and closed the door of the 
 kiln. 
 
 " I have looked," said he, " into many a human heart 
 that was seven times hotter wiUi sinful passions than 
 yonder furnace is with fire. But I found not there what 
 I sought. No, not the Unpardonable Sin ! " 
 
 " AV'hat is the Unpardonable Sin ? " asked the lime- 
 burner ; and then he shrank farther from his companion, 
 trembluig lest his question should be answered. 
 
 " It is a sin that grew within my own breast," replied 
 Ethan Brand, standing erect, with a pride that distin- 
 guishes all enthusiasts of his stamp. "A sin that grew 
 nowhere else ! The sin of an intellect that triumphed 
 over the sense of brotherhood witli man and reverence 
 for God, and sacrificed everythhig to its own mighty
 
 ETIIAX BRAND. 103 
 
 claims ! The only sin that deserves a recompense of 
 innnortal agony ! Freely, Mere it to do again, wonld I 
 incur the guilt. Unshrinkingly I accept the retribu- 
 tion ! " 
 
 "The man's head is turned," muttered the lime-bunier 
 to himself. *' He may be a sinner, like the rest of us, — 
 nothing more likely, — but, I '11 be sworn, he is a mad- 
 man too." 
 
 Nevertheless, he felt uncomfortable at his situation, 
 alone with Ethan Brand on the wild mountain-side, 
 and was right glad to hear the rough murmur of tongues, 
 and the footsteps of what seemed a pretty numerous 
 party, stumbling over the stones and rustling tlirough 
 tiie underbrush. Soon appeared the whole lazy ngi- 
 nient that was wont to infest the village tavern, com- 
 prehending three or four individuals who had drunk ilip 
 beside the bar-room fire througli all the winters, and 
 smoked their pipes beneath the stoop through all the 
 sunmiers, since Ethan Brand's departure. Laughing 
 boisterously, and mingling all their voices together in 
 unceremonious talk, thoy now burst into the moonshine 
 and narrow streaks of firelight that illuminated the open 
 space before the lime-kiln. Bart ram set the door ajar 
 again, flooding the spot with light, that the whole com- 
 pany might get a fair view of Elhan Brand, and he of 
 thorn. 
 
 Tliere, among other old acquaintances, was a once 
 ubiquitous man, now almost extinct, but whom we were 
 formerly sure to encounter at the hotel of every thriving 
 village throughout the country. It was the stage-agent. 
 The present specimen of the genus was a wilted and 
 smoke-dried man, wrinkled and red-nosed, in a smartly 
 cut, brown, bobtailed coat, with brass buttons, who, for 
 a length of time unknown, had kept his desk and corner
 
 104 ETHAN BRAXD. 
 
 in the bar-room, and was still puffing what seemed to be 
 the same cigar that he had lighted twenty years before. 
 He had great fame as a dry joker, though, perhaps, less 
 on account of any intrinsic humor than from a certain 
 flavor of brandy-toddy and tobacco-smoke, which im- 
 pregnated all his ideas and expressions, as well as his 
 person. Another well-remembered though strangely al- 
 tered face was that of Lawyer Giles, as people still called 
 bim in courtesy ; an elderly ragamuffin, in his soiled shirt- 
 sleeves and tow-cloth trousers. This poor fellow had 
 been an attorney, in what he called his better days, a 
 sharp practitioner, and in great vogue among the village 
 Htigants ; but flip, and sling, and toddy, and cocktails, 
 imbibed at all hours, morning, noon, and night, had 
 caused him to slide from intellectual to various kinds and 
 degrees of bodily la])or, till, at last, to adopt his own 
 phrase, he slid into a soap- vat. In other words, Giles 
 was now a soap-boiler, in a small way. He had come to 
 be but the fragment of a human being, a part of one foot 
 having been chopped off by an axe, and an entire hand 
 torn away by the devilish grip of a steam-engine. Yet, 
 though the corporeal hand was gone, a spiritual member 
 remained; for, stretching forth the stump, Giles stead- 
 fastly averred that he felt an invisible thumb and fingers 
 with as vivid a sensation as before the real ones were am- 
 putated. A maimed and miserable wretch he was ; but 
 one, nevertheless, whom the world could not trample ou, 
 and had no right to scorn, either in this or any previous 
 stage of his misfortunes, since he had still kept up the 
 courage and spirit of a man, asked nothing in charity, 
 and with his one hand — and that the left one — fought 
 a stern battle against want and hostile circumstances. 
 
 Among the throng, too, came another personage, who, 
 Mith certain points of similarity to Lawyer Giles, had
 
 ETHAN BRAXD. 105 
 
 many more of difference. It was ihe villaf^e doctor; a 
 man of some fii'tv years, wliom, at an earlier period of 
 liis life, Ave introduced as payinj^ a professional visit to 
 Ethan Brand during the lattcr's supposed, insanity. He 
 was now a purple-visaged, rude, and brutal, yet half- 
 f^cntlemanly figure, with something wild, ruined, and 
 desperate in his talk, and in all the details of his gesture 
 and manners. Brandy possessed this man like an evil 
 spirit, and made him as surly and savage as a wild beast, 
 and as miserable as a lost suul ; but there was supposed 
 to be in him such Avondcrful skill, such native gifts of 
 healing, beyond any which medical science could impart, 
 that society caught hold of him, and would not let him 
 sink out of its reach. So, swaying to and fro upon his 
 horse, and grumbling thick accents at the bedside, he 
 visited all the sick-chambers for miles about among the 
 mountain towns, and sometimes raised a dying man, as it 
 were, by miracle, or quite as often, no doubt, sent his 
 patient to a grave that was dug many a year too soon. 
 The doctor had an everlasting pipe in his mouth, and, as 
 somebody said, in allusion to his habit of swearing, it was 
 always alight with hcll-firc. 
 
 These three wortiiics pressed forward, and greeted 
 Ethan Brand each after his own fashion, earnestly in- 
 viting him to partake of the contents of a certain black 
 bottle, in which, as they averred, he would find some- 
 thing far better worth seeking for than the Unpardona- 
 ble Sin. No mind, whicli has wrought itself by intense 
 and solitary meditation into a high state of enthusiasm, 
 can endure the kind of contact with low and vulgar 
 modes of thought and feeling to which Ethan Brand was 
 now subjected. It made him doubt — and, strange to 
 say, it was a painful doubt — whether he had indeed 
 found the Unpardonable Sin, and found it within him- 
 5*
 
 106 ETHAN BRAND. 
 
 self. The vrhole question on wliicli lie had exhausted 
 life, and more than life, loolced like a delusion. 
 
 " Leave me," he said bitterly, " ye brute beasts, that 
 have made yourselves so, shrivelling up your souls with 
 fiery liquors ! I have done with you. Years and years 
 ago, I groped into your hearts, and found nothing there 
 for my purpose. Get ye gone ! " 
 
 " Why, you uncivil scoundrel," cried the fierce doctor, 
 "is that tlie way you respond to the kindness of your 
 best friends ? Then let me tell you the truth. You 
 have no more found the Unpardonable Sin than yonder 
 boy Joe has. You are but a crazy fellow, — I told you 
 so twenty years ago, — neither better nor worse tlian a 
 crazy fellow, and the fit companion of old Humphrey, 
 here ! " 
 
 He pointed to an old man, shabbily dressed, with long 
 white hair, tliin visage, and unsteady eyes. For some 
 years past this aged person had been wandering about 
 among the hills, inquiring of all travellers whom he met 
 for his daughter. The girl, it seemed, had gone off with 
 a company of circus-performers ; and occasionally tid- 
 ings of her came to the village, and fine stories were 
 told of her glittering appearance as she rode on horse- 
 back in the ring, or performed marvellous feats on the 
 tight-rope. 
 
 The white-haired father now approached Ethan Brand, 
 and gazed unsteadily into his faca. 
 
 " They tell me you have been all over the earth," said 
 he, wringing his hands with earnestness. " You must 
 have seen my daughter, for she makes a grand figure in 
 the world, and everybody goes to see her. Did she send 
 any word to her old father, or say when she was coming 
 back ? " 
 
 Ethan Brand's eye quailed beneath the old man's.
 
 ETHAN BUAND. 107 
 
 That daughter, from wliom he so earnestly desired a 
 word of greeting, was the Esther of our tale, the very 
 girl whom, with such cold and remorseless purpose, 
 Ethan Brand had made the subject of a psychological 
 •experiment, and wasted, absorbed, and pcrhnps annihi- 
 lated lier soul, ill the process. 
 
 " Yes," murmured he, turning away from the hoary 
 wanderer ; " it is no delusion. There is an Unpardon- 
 able Sin ! " 
 
 While these things M'cre passing, a merry scc^ne was 
 going forward in tiie area of cheerful light, beside the 
 spring and before the door of the hut. A number of llie 
 youth of the village, young men and girls, had hurried 
 up tiie hillside, impelled by curiosity to see Etiian Brand, 
 the hero of so many a legend familiar to their childhoc d. 
 Finding nothing, however, very remarkable in his aspect, 
 
 — notfiing but a sunburnt wayfarer, in plain garb and 
 dusty shoes, who sat looking into the fire, as if he fan- 
 cied pictures among the coals, — these young peoj)le 
 speedily grew tired of observing him. As it happened, 
 there was other amusement at hand. An old German 
 Jew, travellhig with a diorama on his back, was passing 
 down the mountain-road towards the village just as the 
 party turned aside from it, and, in hopes of eking out 
 the profits of the day, the showman had kept them 
 com))any to the lime-kiln. 
 
 " Come, old Dutchman," cried one of the young men, 
 "let us see your pictures, if you cau swear they are 
 worth looking at ! " 
 
 " O yes, Captain," answered the Jew, — whether as a 
 matter of courtesy or craft, he styled everybody Captain, 
 
 — "I shall show you, indeed, some verv superb ))ic- 
 tures ! " "^ 
 
 So, placing his box in a proper position, he invited the
 
 108 ETHAN BRAND. 
 
 young men and girls to look tlirougli tlie glass orifices 
 of tlie machine, and proceeded to exiiihit a series of the 
 most outrageous scratcliiugs and daubings, as specimens 
 of the fine arts, tiiat ever an itinerant showman had the 
 face to impose upon his circle of spectators. Tlie pic- 
 tures were worn out, moreover, tattered, full of cracks and 
 wa-inkles, ding.y with tobacco-smoke, and otherwise in a 
 most pitiable condition. Some jiurported to be cities, 
 public edifices, and ruined castles in •Europe ; others 
 represented Napoleon's battles and Nelson's sea-figbts ; 
 and in the midst of these would be seen a gigantic, 
 brow^l, hairy hand, — which might have been mistaken 
 for the Hand of Destiny, though, in truth, it was only 
 the showman's, — pointing its forefinger to various scenes 
 of the conflict, while its owner gave historical illustra- 
 tions. When, with much merriment at its abominable 
 deficiency of merit, the exhibition was concluded, the 
 German bade little Joe put his head into the box. 
 Viewed through the magnifying-glasses, the boy's round, 
 rosy visage assumed the strangest imaginable aspect of 
 an immense Titanic child, the mouth grinning broadly, 
 and the eyes and every other feature ovei-flowing with 
 fun at the joke. Suddenly, however, that merry face 
 turned pale, and its expression changed to horror, for 
 this easily impressed and excitable child had become 
 sensible that the eye of Ethan Brand was fixed upon 
 him through the glass. 
 
 " You make the little man to be afraid. Captain," said 
 the German Jew, turning up the dark and strong out- 
 line of his visage, from his stooping posture. " But 
 look again, and, by chance, I shall cause you to see 
 somewhat that is very fine, upon my word ! " 
 
 Ethan Brand gazed into the box for an instant, and 
 then starting back, looked fixedly at the German. What
 
 ETHAN BRAND. 109 
 
 liad he seen ? Kotliing, apparently ; for a curious youth, 
 who liad peeped in almost at the same moment, beheld 
 only a vaeant spaee of canvas. 
 
 "I remember you now," muttered Ethan Brand to the 
 showman. 
 
 "Ah, Captain," whispered the Jew of Nuremburg, 
 with a dark smile, " I find it to be a heavy matter in 
 my show-box, — this Unpardonable Sin! By my faith, 
 Captain, it has wearied my shoulders, this long day, to 
 carry it over the monntain." 
 
 "Peace," answered Ethan Brand, sternly, "or get 
 thee into the furnace yonder!" 
 
 The Jew's exhibition had scarcely concluded, when a 
 great, elderly dog — who seemed to be his own master, 
 as no person in the company laid claim to him — saw 
 fit to render himself the object of public notice. Hith- 
 erto, he had showai himself a very quiet, well-disposed 
 old dog, going round from one to another, and, by way 
 of being sociable, ofTering his rough head to be patted by 
 any kindly hand that woidd take so much trouble. But 
 now, all of a sudden, this grave and venerable rpiadru- 
 ped, of his own mere motion, and without the slightest 
 suggestion from anybody else, began to run round after 
 his tail, which, to heighten the absurdity of the proceed- 
 ing, was a great deal shorter than it should have been. 
 Never was seen such headlong eagerness in pursuit of 
 an object that could not possibly be attained ; never was 
 lieard such a tremendous outbreak of growling, snarling, 
 barking, and snapping, — as if one end of the ridiculous 
 brute's body were at deadly and most unforgivable en- 
 mity with the other. Faster and faster, round about 
 went the cur; and faster and still faster fled the unap- 
 proachable brevity of his tail ; and louder and fiercer 
 grew his yells of rage and animosity; until, utterly
 
 11-0 ETHAN BRAND. 
 
 exhausted, and as far from tlie goal as ever, the foolish 
 old dog ceased his performance as suddenly as he had 
 begun it. The next moment he m-rs as mild, quiet, sen- 
 sible, and respectable in his deportment, as when he first 
 scraped acquaintance with the company. 
 
 As may be supposed, the exhibition was greeted with 
 universal laughter, clapping of hands, and shouts of 
 encore, to which the canine performer responded by 
 wagging all that there was to wag of his tail, but ap- 
 peared totally unable to repeat his A^ery successful effort 
 to amuse the spectators. 
 
 Meanwhile, Ethan Brand had resumed his seat upon 
 ths log, and moved, it might be, by a perception of some 
 remote analogy between his own case and that of this 
 self-pursuing cur, he broke into the awful laugh, whicii, 
 more than any other token, expressed the condition of 
 his inward being. From that moment, the merriment 
 of the party was at an end ; they stood aghast, dreading 
 lest the inauspicious sound should be reverberated around 
 the horizon, and that mountain would thunder it to 
 mountain, and so the horror be prolonged upon their 
 ears. Then, whispering one to another that it was 
 late, — that the moon was almost down, — that the 
 August night was growing chill, — they hurried home- 
 wards, leaving the lime-burner and bttle Joe to deal as 
 they might with their unwelcome guest. Save for these 
 three human beings, the open space on tlie hillside was 
 a solitude, set in a vast gloom of forest. Beyond that 
 darksome verge, the firelight glimmered on the stately 
 trunks and almost black foliage of pines, intermixed with 
 the lighter verdure of sapling oaks, maples, and po])lars, 
 while here and there lay the gigantic corpses of dead 
 trees, decaying on the leaf-strewn soil. And it seemed 
 to little Joe — a timorous and imaarinative child. — that
 
 ETHAN BTIAND. Ill 
 
 the silent forest was holding its breath, until some fear- 
 ful thing should happen. 
 
 Etiian Brand thrust more wood into the fire, and 
 closed the door of the kiln ; then looking over his 
 shoulder at the lime-burner and his son, he bade, rather 
 tlian advised, them to retire to rest. 
 
 "For myself, 1 cannot sleep," said he. " I have mat- 
 ters that it concerns me to meditate upon. I will watch 
 the fire, as I used to do in the old time." 
 
 " And call the Devil out of the furnace to keep you 
 company, I su))pose," muttered Bartram, who had been 
 making intimate acquaintance with the bhick bottle 
 above mentioned. "But watch, if you like, and call as 
 many devils as you like ! For my part, I shall be all 
 the better for a snooze. Come, Joe ! " 
 
 As the boy followed his father into the hut, he looked 
 back at the wayfarer, and the tears came into his eyes, 
 for his tender spirit had an intuition of the bleak and 
 terrible loueUness in which this man had enveloped him- 
 self. 
 
 When they had gone, Ethan Brand sat listening to 
 the crackling of the kindled wood, and looking at the 
 little spirts of fire that issued through the chinks of 
 the door. These trifles, however, once so familiar, had 
 but the slightest hold of his attention, while deep within 
 his mind he was reviewing the gradual but marvellous 
 change that had been wrought upon him by the search 
 to which he had devoted himself. He remembered how 
 the night dew had lallen upon him, — how the dark forest 
 had whispered to him, — how the stars had gleamed iij)oii 
 him, — a simple and loving man, watching his lire in 
 the years gone by, and ever musing as it burned. He 
 remembered with what tenderness, with what love and 
 sympathy for mankind, and what pity for humau guilt
 
 11^ ETHAX BRAND. 
 
 and woe, he bad first begun to contemplate tbose ideas 
 which afterwards became tlie inspiration of his life; with 
 what reverence he had then looked into the heart of 
 man, viewing it as a temple originally divine, and, how- 
 ever desecrated, still to be held sacred by a brother; 
 with what awful fear he had deprecated the success of 
 his pnrsuit, and prayed that the Unpardonable Sin might 
 never be revealed to him. Tlien ensued that vast intel- 
 lectual development, wliich, in its progress, disturbed the 
 counterpoise between his mind and heart. The Idea 
 that possessed his life had operated as a means of edu- 
 cation ; it had gone on cultivating his powers to the 
 highest point of which they were susceptible; it had 
 raised him from the level of an unlettered laborer to 
 stand on- a star-lit eminence, whither the philosophers 
 of the earth, laden witli the lore of universities, might 
 vainly strive to clamber after him. So much for the 
 intellect ! But where was the heart ? That, indeed, had 
 withered, — had contracted, — had hardened, — had per- 
 ished ! It had ceased to partake of the universal throb. 
 He had lost his hold of the magnetic chain of humanity. 
 He was no longer a brother-man, opening the chambers 
 or the dungeons of our common nature by the key of 
 lioly sympathy, which gave him a right to share in all 
 its secrets ; he was now a cold observer, looking on man- 
 kind as the subject of his experiment, and, at length, 
 converting man and woman to be his puppets, and pull- 
 ing the Avires that moved them to such degrees of crime 
 as were demandsd for his study. 
 
 Tlius Ethan Brand became a fiend. He began to be 
 so from the moment tliat his moral nature had ceased to 
 keep the pace of improvement with liis intellect. And 
 now, as his highest effort and inevitable development, — 
 as the bright and gorgeous flower, and rich, delicious
 
 ETHAN BRAND. 118 
 
 fruit of his life's labor, — he had produced the Unpar- 
 donable Sill ! 
 
 "What more have I to seek? what more to acliicve?" 
 said Ethan Brand to himself. "My task is done, and^ 
 well done ! " 
 
 Starting from the log with a certain alacrity in his 
 gait and ascending the hillock of earth that was raised 
 against the stone circumference of the lime-kiln, he thus 
 reached the top of the structure. It was a space of per- 
 haps ten feet across, from edge to edge, presenting a 
 view of the upper surface of the immense mass of broken 
 marble with which the kiln was heaped. All these innu- 
 merable blocks and fragments of marble were red-hot 
 and vividly on fire, sending up great spouts of blue 
 flame, which quivered aloft and danced madly, as within 
 a magic circle, and sank and rose again, with continual 
 and multitudinous activity. As the lonely man bent 
 forward over this terrible body of fire,. the blasting heat 
 smote up against his person with a breath that, it miglit 
 be supposed, would have scorched and shrivelled him up 
 in a moment. 
 
 Ethan Brand stood erect, and raised his arms on higli. 
 The blue flames played upon his face, and impailed the 
 wild and ghastly light which alone could have suited its 
 expression ; it was that of a fiend on the verge of plung- 
 ing into his gulf of intensest torment. 
 
 "0 Mother Earth," cried he, "who art no more my 
 Mother, and into whose bosom this frame shall never be 
 resolved ! O mankind, whose brotherhood 1 have cast 
 off, and trampled thy great heart beneath my feet ! 
 stars of heaven, that shone on me of old, as if to light 
 me onward and upward! — farewell all, and forever. 
 Come, deadly element of Fire, — henceforth my familiar 
 friend ! Embrace me, as I do thee ! " 
 
 u
 
 114 ETHAN BllAXD. 
 
 That iiiglit the sound of a fearful peal of laughter 
 rolled heavily througli the sleep of the lime-burner and 
 his little son ; dim shapes of horror and anguish haunted 
 their dreams, and seemed still present in the rude hovel, 
 when they opened their eyes to the daylight. 
 
 " Up, boy, up ! " cried the lime-burner, staring about 
 him. "Thank Heaven, the night is gone, at last; and 
 rather than pass sucli another, 1 would watch my lime, 
 kiln, wide aMake, for a twelvemoii|li. This Ethan Brand, 
 with his humbug of an Unpardonable Sin, has done me 
 uo such mighty favor, in taking my place ! " 
 
 He issued from the hut, followed by little Joe, who 
 kept fast hold of his father's hand. The early sunshine 
 was already pouring its gold upon the mountain-tops; 
 and though the valleys were still in shadow, they smiled 
 cheerfully in the promise of the bright day that was 
 hastening onward. The village, comi)letely shut in Ijy 
 hills, which swelled away gently about it, looked as if 
 it had rested peacefully in the hollow of the great hand 
 of Providence. Every dwelling was distinctly visible; 
 tlie little spires of the two churches pohited upwards, and 
 cauglit a fore-glimmering of brightness from the sun-gilt 
 skies upon their gilded weathercocks. Tiie tavern was 
 astir, and the figure of the old, smoke-dried stage-agent, 
 cigar in mouth, was seen beneath the stoop. Old Gray- 
 lock was glorified witii a golden cloud upon his head. 
 Scattered likewise over the breasts of the surrounding 
 mountains, there were heaps of hoary mist, in fantastic 
 sliapes, some of them far down into the valley, others 
 Jiigh up towards the summits, and still others, of the 
 same family of mist or cloud, hovering in the gold radi- 
 ance of the upper atmosphere. Stepping from one to 
 another of the clouds that rested on the hills, and thence 
 to the loftier brotherhood that sailed in air, it seenjed.
 
 ETHAN BRAND. 115 
 
 almost as if a mortal man might thus ascend into the 
 heavenly regions. Earth was so mingled with sky that 
 it was a day-dream to look at it. 
 
 To suj)ply that cliarm of the familiar and homely, 
 wdiich Nature so readily adopts into a scene like this, tlie 
 stage-coach was rattling down the mountain-road, and 
 the driver sounded his horn, while echo caught up the 
 notes, and intertwined tiiem into a rich and varied and 
 elaborate harmony, of which the original perforuicr could 
 lay claim to little share. The great hills i)laycd a con- 
 cert among themselves, each contributing a strain of airy 
 sweetness. 
 
 Little Joe's face brightened at once. 
 
 " Dear father," cried he, skipjjing cheerily to and fro, 
 "that strange man is gone, and the sky and the moun- 
 tains all seem glad of it ! " 
 
 " Yes," growled the lime-burner, with an oath, " but 
 he has let the fire go down, and no thanks to him if five 
 hundred busliels of lime arc not spoiled. If I catch the 
 fellow hereabouts again, I shall feel like tossing him into 
 the furnace ! " 
 
 With his long ])olc in his hand, he ascended to the top 
 of the kiln. After a moment's pause, he called to his 
 son. 
 
 " Come np here, Joe ! " said he. 
 
 So little Joe ran ug the hillock, and stood by his 
 father's side. The marble was all burnt into perfect, 
 snow-white lime. But on its surface, in the midst of the 
 circle, — snow-white too, and thoroughly converted into 
 lime, — lay a human skeleton, in the attitude of a person 
 who, after long toil, lies down to long rcj)Osc. Within 
 the ribs — strange to say — was the shape of a human 
 heart. 
 
 " Was the fellow's heart made of marble ? " cried Bar-
 
 116 
 
 ETHxVN BRAND. 
 
 tram, iu some perplexity at this plieiioinenon. " At any 
 rate, it is burnt into wliat looks like special good lime ; 
 and, taking all the bones together, my kiln is half a 
 bushel the richer for him." 
 
 So saying, the rude lime-bunier lifted his pole, and, 
 letting it fall upon the skeleton, the relics of Ethan 
 Brand were crumbled into fragments.
 
 A BELL'S BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 EARKEN to our neiglibor with the iron tongue. 
 ^Vliile I sit musing over my sheet of foolscap, 
 he emphatically tells the hour, in tones loud 
 enough for all the town to hear, though doubtless in- 
 tended only as a gentle hhit to myself, that I nuiy begin 
 Iiis biography before the evening shall be further wasted. 
 Unqucstiona])ly, a personage in such an elevated posi- 
 tion, and making so great a noise in tlie world, has a fair 
 claim to the services of a biographer. He is the rej)rc- 
 sentative and most illustrious member of that innumer- 
 able class, whose characteristic feature is the tongue, and 
 whose sole business, to clamor for the public good. If 
 any of his uoisy brethren, in our tongue-governed de- 
 mocracy, be envious of the superiority which I have as- 
 signed him, they have my free consent to hang them- 
 selves as high as he. And, for his history, let not the 
 reader apprehend an empty repetition of ding-dong-bell. 
 He has been the passive hero of wonderful vicissiludes, 
 with which. I have chanced to become acquainted, possi- 
 bly from his own mouth; while the careless multitude 
 supposed him to be talking merely of the time of day, or 
 calling them to dinner or to church, or bidding drowsy 
 people go bedward, or the dead to their graves. ^Many 
 a revolution has it been his fate to go through, and inva-
 
 118 A BELL'S BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 riablj witli a prodigious uproar. And wlietlier or no lie 
 have told nie Lis reminiscences, this at least is true, that 
 the more I study his deep-toned language, the more 
 sense, and sentiment, and soul, do I discover in it. 
 
 This bell — for we may as well drop our quaint per- 
 sonification — is of antique French manufacture, and the 
 symbol of the cross betokens that it was meant to be sus- 
 p3nded in the balfry of a lloniisli place of worship. The 
 old people hereabout have a tradition, that a consider- 
 able part of the metal was supplied by a brass cannon, 
 captured in one of the victories of Louis tiie rourteenth 
 over the Spaniards, and that a Bourbon princess threw 
 her golden crucifix into the molten mass. It is said, 
 likewise, that a bishop baptized and blessed the bell, and 
 prayed that a heavenly influence might mingle M^ith its 
 tones. When all due ceremonies had been performed, 
 the Grand Monarque bestowed the gift — than which 
 none could resound his beneficence more loudly — on 
 the Jesuits, who were then converting the American 
 Indians to the spiritual dominion of the Pope. So the 
 bell, — our self-same bell, whose familiar voice we may 
 hear at all hours, in the streets, — this very bell sent 
 forth its first-born accents from the tower of a log-built 
 chapel, westward of Lake Champlain, and near the 
 miglity stream of the St. Lawrence. It was called Our 
 Lady's Chapel of the Forest. The peal went forth as if 
 to redeem and consecrate the heathen wilderness. Tlie 
 wolf growled at the sound, as he prowled stealthily 
 through the underbrush ; the grim bear turned his back, 
 and stalk.^d sullenly away ; the startled doe leaped up, 
 and led her fawn into a deeper solitude. The red men 
 wondered what awful voice was speaking amid the wind 
 that roared through the tree-tops ; and, following rever- 
 entially its summons, the dark-robed fathers blessed
 
 A BELLAS BIOGRAPHY. 119 
 
 them, as tliey drew near the cross-crowned chapel. In 
 a little time, there was a crucilix on every dusky bosom. 
 The Indians knelt beneath the lowly roof, worshipping in 
 the same forms that were observed under the vast d(jme 
 of St. Peter's, when the Pope performed high mass in 
 the presence of kneeling princes. All the religious festi- 
 vals, that awoke the chiming bells of lofty cathedrals, 
 called forth a peal from Our Lady's Chapel of the Porest. 
 Loudly rang the bell of the wilderness while the streets 
 of Paris echoed with rejoicings for the birthday of the 
 Bourbon, or whenever Prance had triumphed on some 
 European battle-field. And the solemn woods were sad- 
 dened with a melancholy knell, as often as the thick- 
 strewn leaves were swept away from the virgin soil, 
 for the burial of an Indian chief. 
 
 Meantime, the bells of a hostile people and a hostile 
 faith were ringing on Sabbaths and lecture-days, at 
 Boston and other Puritan towns. Their echoes died 
 away hundreds of miles southeastward of Our Lady's 
 Chapel. But scouts had threaded the pathless desert 
 that lay between, and, from behind the huge tree-trunks, 
 perceived the Indians assembling at the summons of the 
 bell. Some bore flaxen-haired scalps at their girdles, as 
 if to lay those bloody trophies on Our Lady's altar. It 
 was reported, and believed, all through New England, 
 that the Pope of Rome, and the King of Prance, had 
 established this little chapel in the forest, for the j)urposc 
 of stirring up the red men to a crusade against the 
 English settlers. The latter took energetic measures to 
 secure their religion and their lives. On the eve of an 
 especial fast of the Romish Church, while the bell tolled 
 dismally, and the priests were chanting a doleful stave, 
 a band of New England rangers rushed from the sur- 
 rounding woods. Pierce shouts, and the report of mus-
 
 120 A BELL'S BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ketry, pealed suddenly within tlie chapel. The minis- 
 tering priests threw themselves before the altar, and 
 were slain even on its steps. If, as antique traditions 
 tell us, no grass will grow where the blood of martyrs 
 has been shed, there should be a barren spot, to this 
 very day, on the site of that desecrated altar. 
 
 While the blood was still plashing from step to step, 
 tlie leader of tlie rangers seized a torch, and applied it to 
 the drapery of the shrine. The flame and smoke arose, 
 as from a burnt-sacrifice, at once illuminating and ob- 
 scuring the whole interior of the chapel, — now hiding 
 the dead priests in a sable shroud, now revealing them 
 and their slayers in one terrific glare. Some already 
 wished that the altar-smoke could cover the deed from 
 the sight of Heaven. But one of the rangers — a man 
 of sanctified aspect, though his hands were bloody — 
 approached the captain. 
 
 " Sir," said he, " our village meeting-house lacks a 
 bell, and hitherto we have been lain to summon the good 
 people to worship by beat of drum. Give me, I pray 
 you, the bell of this popish chapel, for the sake of the 
 godly ]\[r. Rogers, who doubtless hath remembered us in 
 the prayers of the cougregation, ever since Vv-e began our 
 march. Who can tell what share of this night's good 
 success we owe to that holy man's wrestling with the 
 Lord ? " 
 
 "Nay, then," answered the captain, "if good Mr. 
 Rogers hath holpen our enterprise, it is right that he 
 should share the spoil. Take the bell and w^elcome. 
 Deacon Lawson, if you will be at the trouble of carrying 
 it home. Hitherto it hath spoken nothing but papistry, 
 and that too in the French or Indian gibberish ; but I 
 warrant me, if Mr. Rogers consecrate it anew, it will 
 talk like a "rood Euo-lish and Protestant bell."
 
 A BELL'S BIOGRAPHY. 121 
 
 So Deacon Lawson aud lialf a score of liis townsmen 
 took down the bell, suspended it on a pole, and bore it 
 away on tlieir sturdy shoulders, meaning to carry it to 
 the shore of Lake Champlain, and thence homeward by 
 water. Far through the woods gleamed the flames of 
 Our Lady's Ciiapel, flinging fantastic shadows from the 
 clustered foliage, and glancing on brooks that had never 
 caught the sunlight. As the rangers traversed the mid- 
 night forest, staggering under their heavy burden, the 
 tongue of the bell gave many a tremendous stroke, — 
 clang, clang, clang ! — a most doleful sound, as if it were 
 tolling for the slaughter of the priests and the ruin of 
 the chapel. Little dreamed Deacon Lawson and his 
 townsmen that it was their own funeral knell. A war- 
 party of Indians had heard the report of musketry, and 
 seen the blaze of the chapel, and now were on the track 
 of the rangers, summoned to vengeance by the bell's 
 dismal murmurs. In the midst of a deep swamp, they 
 made a sudden onset on the retreating foe. Good Dea- 
 con Lawson battled stoutly, but had his skull cloven by 
 a tomahawk, and sank into the depths of the morass, 
 with the ponderous bell above him. And, for many a 
 year thereafter, our hero's voice was heard no more on 
 earth, neither at the hour of worship, nor at festivals 
 nor funerals. 
 
 And is he still buried in that nnknown grave? 
 Scarcely so, dear reader. Ilark ! How plainly we hear 
 him at this moment, the spokesman of Tinie, ))roclaim- 
 ing that it is nine o'clock at night ! We may therefore 
 safely conclude that some happy chance has restored 
 him to npper air. 
 
 But there lay the bell, for many silent years ; and the 
 wonder is, that he did not lie silent there a century, or 
 perhaps a dozen centuries, till the world should have for- 
 6
 
 122 A BELL'S BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 gotten not only his voice, but tlie voices of the whole 
 brotherhood of bells. How would the first accent of his 
 iron tongue have startled his resurrectionists ! But he 
 was not fated to be a subject of discussion among the 
 antiquaries of far posterity. Near the close of the Old 
 French AVar, a party of New England axe-men, who 
 preceded the uiarcli of Colonel Bradstreet toward Lake 
 Ontario, were building a bridge of logs through a swanij). 
 Plunging down a stake, one of these pioneers felt it 
 graze against some hard, smooth substance. He called 
 his couirades, and, by their united eit'orts, the top of tiie 
 bell was raised to the surface, a rope made fast to it, and 
 thence passed over the horizontal limb of a tree. Heave- 
 oh ! up they hoisted their prize, dripping with moisture, 
 and festooned with verdant water-moss. As the base of 
 the bell emerged from the swamp, the pioneers perceived 
 that a skeleton was clinging with its bony fingers to the 
 clapper, but immediately relaxing its nerveless grasp, 
 sank back into the stagnant water. The bell then gave 
 forth a sullen clang. No wonder that he was in haste 
 to speak, after holding his tongue for such a length of 
 time ! The pioneers shoved the bell to and fro, thus 
 ringing a loud and heavy peal, which echoed widely 
 through the forest, and reached the ears of Colonel 
 Bradstreet, and his three thousand men. The soldiers 
 paused on their march; a feeling of religion, mingled 
 with home-tenderness, overpowered their rude hearts ; 
 each seemed to hear the clangor of the old church-bell, 
 which had been familiar to him from infancy, and had 
 tolled at the funerals of all his forefathers. By what 
 magic had that holy sound strayed over the wide-mur- 
 muring ocean, and become audible amid the clash of 
 arms, the loud crashing of the artillery over the rough 
 wilderness-path, and the melancholy roar of the wind 
 anion": the boughs ?
 
 A BELL'S BIOGRAPHY. 123 
 
 The New-Eiiglanders hid tlieir prize in a sliudowy 
 nook, betwixt a large gray stone and the eartliy roots of 
 an overtiiroxA'ii tree ; and when the campaign was ended, 
 tliey conveyed our friend to Boston, and put him up at 
 auction on the sidewalk of King Street. He was sus- 
 pended, for tlie nonce, by a block and tackle, and being 
 swung backward and forward, gave such loud and clear 
 testimony to his own merits, that the auctioneer had no 
 need to say a word. The highest bidder was a rich old 
 representative from our town, who piously bestowed the 
 bell on the meeting-iiouse where he had been a worship- 
 per for half a century. The good man had his reward. 
 By a strange coincidence, the very first duty of the sex- 
 ton, after the bell had been hoisted into the belfry, was 
 to toll the funeral knell of the donor. Soon, however, 
 those doleful echoes were drowned by a triumphant peal 
 for the surrender of Quebec. 
 
 Ever since that period, our hero has occupied the 
 same elevated station, and has put in his word on all 
 matters of public importance, civil, military, or religious. 
 On the day when Independence was first proclaimed in 
 the street beneath, he uttered a peal which many deemed 
 ominous and fearful, rather than triumphant. But he 
 has told the same story these sixty years, and none mis- 
 take his meaning now. "When Washington, in the 
 fulness of his glory, rode through our llower-strcwn 
 streets, this was the tongue that bade the Father of his 
 Country welcome ! Again the same voice was heard, 
 when La Fayette came to gather in his half-century's 
 liarvest of gratitude. Meantime, vast changes have been 
 going on below. His voice, which once floated over a 
 little provincial seaport, is now reverberated between 
 brick edifices, and strikes the ear amid the buzz and 
 tumult of a citv. On the Sabbaths of olden time, the
 
 124 A BELL'S BIOGTIAPHY. 
 
 summons of tlie bell was obeyed by a picturesque and 
 varied throng; stately gentlemen in purple velvet coats, 
 embroidered waistcoats, wbite wigs, and gold-laced hats, 
 stepping with grave courtesy beside ladies in flowered 
 satin gowns, and hoop-petticoats of majestic circumfer- 
 ence ; while behind followed a liveried slave or bonds- 
 man, bearing the psalm-book, and a stove for his mis- 
 tress's feet. The commonalty, clad in homely garb, gave 
 precedence to their betters at the door of the meeting- 
 house, as if admitting that there were distinctions be- 
 tween them, even in the sight of God. Yet, as their 
 coffins were borne one after another througli the street, 
 the ball has tolled a requiem for all alike. What mat- 
 tered it, whether or no there were a silver scutcheon on 
 the coffin-lid ? " Open thy bosom, Mother Earth ! " 
 Thus spake the bell. " Another of thy children is com- 
 ing to his long rest. Take him to thy bosom, and let 
 him slumber in peace." Thus spake the bell, and 
 Mother Earth received her child. With the self-same 
 tones will the present generatit)n be ushered to the em- 
 braces of their mother ; and Mother Earth will still re- 
 ceive her children. Is not thy tongue a-weary, mourn- 
 ful talker of two centuries ? O funeral bell ! wilt thou 
 never be shattered with thine own melancholy strokes ? 
 Yea, and a trumpet-call shall arouse the sleepers, whom 
 thy heavy clang could awake no more ! 
 
 Again — again thy voice, reminding me that I am 
 wasting the " midnight oil." In my lonely fantasy, I 
 can scarce believe that other mortals have caught tlie 
 sound, or tiiat it vibrates elsewhere than in my secret 
 soul. But to many hast thou spoken. Anxious men 
 have heard thee on their sleepless pillows, and bethought 
 themselves anew of to-morrow's care. In a brief inter- 
 val of wakefulness, the sons of toil have heard thee, and
 
 A BELL'S BIOGRAPHY. 125 
 
 say, " Is so much of our quiet slumber speut ? — is llie 
 morning so near at hand ? " Crime has heard thee, and 
 mutters, " Now is tlie very hour ! " Despair answers 
 thee, " Thus much of tliis weary life is gone ! " The 
 young mother, on her bed of pain and ecstasy, lias 
 counted thy echoing strokes, and dates from them her 
 first-born's share of life and immortuhly. The bride- 
 groom and the bride have listened, and feel that their 
 night of rapture flits like a dream away. Thine accents 
 have fallen faintly on the ear of the dying man, and 
 warned him that, ere thou speakest again, his spirit shall 
 have passed whither no voice of time can ever reach. 
 Alas for the departing traveller, if thy voice — the voice 
 of fleeting time— have taught him no lessons for Eter- 
 nity!
 
 SYLPH ETHEREGE. 
 
 X a brii^lit summer eveuiug, two persons stood 
 among the shrubbery of a gard^u, steahhily 
 watching a young girl, who sat in tlie window- 
 seat of a neighboring mansion. One of tliese unseen ob- 
 servers, a gantleman, was youtliful, and had an air of 
 high breeding and refinement, and a face marked with 
 intellect, though otherwise of unprepossessing aspect. 
 His features wore even an ominous, though somewhat 
 mirthful expression, while he pointed his long forefingar 
 at the girl, and seemed to regard her as a creature com- 
 pletely within the scope of his influence, 
 
 "The charm works I " said he, in a low, but emphatic 
 whisper. 
 
 " Do you know, Edward Hamilton, — since so you 
 choose to be named, — do you know," said the- lady 
 beside him, " that I have almost a mind to break the 
 spell at once? What if the lesson should prove too 
 severe ! True, if my ward could be thus laughed out 
 of her fantastic nonsense, she might be the better for it 
 through life. But then, she is such a delicate creature ! 
 And, besides, are you not ruining your own chance, by 
 putting forward this shadow of a rival ? " 
 
 "But will he not vanish into thin air, at my bidding?" 
 rejoined Edward Hamilton. " Let the charm work ! "
 
 SYLPH ETIIEREGE. 127 
 
 Tlie girl's slender and 5yl[)h-like figure, tinged with 
 radiance from the sunset clouds, and overhung with tlie 
 rich drapery of tlie silken curtains, and set within the 
 deep frame of the window, was a perfect picture; or, 
 rather, it was like the original loveliness in a pahiter's 
 fancy, from whicii the most finislied picture is but an im- 
 perfect copy. Though iier occupation excited so much 
 interest in the two spectators, she was merely gazing at 
 a miniature which she held in her hand, encased in white 
 satin and red morocco; nor did there appear to be any 
 otiier cause for the smile of mockery and nudicc with 
 which Hamilton regarded her. 
 
 "The charm works!" muttered he, again. "Our 
 pretty Sylvia's scorn will have a dear retribution!" 
 
 At this moment the girl raised iier eyes, and, instead 
 of a life-like semblance of the miniature, beheld the ill- 
 omened shape of Edward Hamilton, who now stepped 
 forth from his concealment in the shrubbery. 
 
 Sylvia Etheregc was an orphan girl, who had spent 
 her life, till within a few months past, under the guar- 
 dianship, and in the secluded dwelling, of an old bachdor 
 nncle. While yet in her cradle, she had been the des- 
 tined bride of a cousin, who was no less passive in the 
 betrothal than herself. Their future union had been 
 projected, as the means of uniting two rich estates, and 
 was rendered highly expedient, if not indispensable, l)y 
 the testamentary dispositions of the parents on both 
 sides. Edgar Vaughan, the promised bridegroom, had 
 been bred from infancy in Europe, and had never seen 
 the beautiful girl whose heart lie was to claim as his in- 
 lieritance. But already, for several years, a eorres])ond- 
 ence had been kept up between the cousins, and had 
 produced an intellectual intimacy, though it could but 
 imperfectly acquaint ihcm with each other's character.
 
 128 SYLPII ETHEREGE. 
 
 Sylvia -was sliy, sensitive, and fanciful; and her guar- 
 dian's secluded habits had shut her out from even so much 
 of the world as is generally open to maidens of her age. 
 She had been left to seek associates and friends for hcr- 
 s?lf in the haunts of imagination, and to converse with 
 them, sometimes in the language of dead poets, oftener 
 in the poetry of her own mind. The companion whom 
 she chiefly summoned up was the cousin with whose idea 
 her earliest thoughts had been connected. She made a 
 vision of Edgar Vaughan, and tinted it with stronger 
 hues than a mere fancy-picture, yet graced it with so 
 many bright and delicate perfections, that her cousin 
 could nowhere have encountered so dangerous a rival. 
 To this shadow she cherished a romantic fidelity. With 
 its airy presence sitting by her side, or gliding along her 
 favorite paths, the loneliness of her young life was bliss- 
 ful; her heart was satisfied with love, while yet its virgin 
 purity was untainted by the earthliness that the touch of 
 a real lover would have left there, Edgar Yaughan 
 seemed to be conscious of her character ; for, in his 
 letters, he gave her a name that was happily appropriate 
 to the sensitiveness of her disposition, the delicate pe- 
 culiarity of her manners, and the ethereal beauty both of 
 her mind and person. Instead of Sylvia, he called her 
 Sylph, — with the prerogative of a cousin and a lover, — 
 his dear Sylph Etherege. 
 
 When Sylvia was seventeen, her guardian died, and 
 she passed under the care of Mrs. Grosvenor, a lady of 
 Avealth and fashion, and Sylvia's nearest relative, though 
 a distant one. While an himate of Mrs. Grosvenor's 
 family, she still preserved somewhat of her life -long habits 
 of seclusion, and shrank from a too familiar intercourse 
 witii those around licr. Still, too, she was faithful to her 
 cousin, or to the shadow wliich bore his name.
 
 SYLPII ETIIEREGE. 129 
 
 Tlie tiino now drew near wlien Edgar Vauglian, wliose 
 education liad been completed by an extensive ranpre of 
 travel, was to revisit the soil of his nativity. Edward 
 Hamilton, a young gentleman, who had been Yaughan's 
 companion, both in his studies and rambles, had already 
 recrossed the Atlantic, bringing letters to Mrs. Grosve- 
 nor and Sylvia Etherege. These credentials insured liim 
 an earnest welcome, which, however, on Sylvia's part, was 
 not followed by personal partiality, or even the regard 
 that seeuu'd due to her cousin's most intimate friend. 
 As she herself could have assigned no cause for her 
 repugnance, it might be tenucd histinctive. Hamilton's 
 person, it is true, was the reverse of attractive, especially 
 ■when beheld for the first time. Yet, in the eyes of the 
 most fastidious judges, the defect of natural grace was 
 compensated by the polish of his manners, and by the 
 intellect which so often gleamed through his dark fea- 
 tures. Mrs. Grosvenor, with whom he immediately be- 
 came a prodigious favorite, exerled herself to overcome 
 Sylvia's dislike. But, in this matter, her ward could 
 neither be reasoned with nor persuaded. The presence 
 of Edward Hamilton was sure to render her cold, shy, 
 and distant, abstracting all the vivacity from her deport- 
 ment, as if a cloud had come betwixt her and the sun- 
 shine. 
 
 The simplicity of Sylvia's demeanor rendered it easy 
 for so keen an observer as Hamilton to detect her feel- 
 ings. Whenever any slight circumstance made him sen- 
 sible of them, a smile might be seen to flit over the young 
 nan's sallow visage. None, that had once beheld this 
 smile, vi-evG in any danger of forgetting it ; whenever 
 they recalled to memory the features of Edward Hamil- 
 ton, they were always duskily illuminated by this expres- 
 sion of mockery and malice. 
 
 ., " 6^-^ I
 
 130 SYLPH ETHEREGE. 
 
 Ill a few weeks after H:i!iiilton's arrival, he presented 
 to Sylvia Etlicrego a miniature of her cousin, which, 
 as he informed her, would have been delivered sooner, 
 but was detained with a portion of his baggage. This 
 was the miniature in the contemplation of which we 
 bsheld Sylvia so absorbed, at the commencement of our 
 story. Such, in truth, was too often the habit of the 
 shy and musing girl. The beauty of the pictured coun- 
 tenance was almost too perfect to represent a human 
 creature, that had been born of a fallen and world- worn 
 race, and had lived to manhood amid ordinary troubles 
 and enjoyments, and must become wrinkled with age 
 and care. It seemed too bright for a thing formed of 
 dust, and doomed to crumble into dust again. Sylvia 
 feared that such a being would be too refined and deli- 
 cate to love a simple girl like her. Yet, even while her 
 spirit drooped with that apprehension, the picture was 
 but the masculine counterpart of Sylph Etherege's sylph- 
 like beauty. There was that resemblance between her 
 own face and the miniature which is said often to exist 
 between lovers whom Heaven has destined for each 
 other, and which, in this instance, might be owing to the 
 kindred blood of the two parties. Sylvia felt, indeed, 
 that there was something familiar in the countenance, so 
 like a friend did the eyes smile upon her, and seem to 
 imply a knowledge of her thoughts. She could account 
 for this impression only by supposing that, in some of 
 her day-dreams, imagination had conjured up the true 
 similitude of her distant and unseen lover. 
 
 But now could Sylvia give a brighter semblance of 
 reality to those day-dreams. Clasping the miniature to 
 her heart, she could summon forth, from that haunted 
 cell of pure and blissful fantasies, the life-like shadow, 
 to roam with her in the moonlight garden. Even at
 
 SYLPH etherp:ge. 1:31 
 
 noontide it sat with licr in tlic arl)or, wlioii tlic sunsliiue 
 threw its broken flakes of gold into tiie clusterinfr shade. 
 The effect upon licr mind was liardly less powerful than 
 if she had actually listened to, and reciprocated, the 
 vows of Edgar Yaughau ; for, though the illusion never 
 quite deceived her, yet the remembrance was as distinct 
 as of a remembered interview. Those heavenly eyes 
 gazed forever into her soul, which drank at them as at 
 a fountain, and was disquieted if reality threw a momen- 
 tary cloud between. She heard the niclody of a voice 
 breathing sentiments with which her own chimed in like 
 music. O happy, yet hapless girl ! Thus to create the 
 being whom she loves, to endow hiui with all the at- 
 tributes that were most fascinating to her heart, and 
 then to flit with the airy creature into the realm of fan- 
 tasy and moonlight, where dwelt his dreauiy kindred ! 
 For her lover wiled Sylvia away from earth, wliich 
 seemed strange, and dull, and darksome, and lured her 
 to a country where her spirit roamed in peaceful rap- 
 ture, deeming that it had found its home. Many, in 
 their youth, have visited that land of dreams, and wan- 
 dered so long in its enchanted groves, that, when ban- 
 ished thence, they feel like exiles everywhere. 
 
 The dark-browed Edward Hamilton, like the villain 
 of a tale, would often glide tiirough the romance wherein 
 poor Sylvia walked. Sometimes, at the most blissful 
 mon^ent of her ecstasy, when the features of the minia- 
 ture were pictured brightest in the air, they would sud- 
 denly change, and darken, and be transformed into his 
 visage. And always, when such change occurred, the 
 intrusive visage wore that peculiar smile with which 
 Hamilton had glanced at Sylvia. 
 
 Before the close of suumier, it was told Sylvia 
 Ethcrege that Yaughau had arrived from Erance, and
 
 132 SYLPH ETHEREGE. 
 
 tliat she would meet liim — would meet, for the first 
 time, the loved of years — that very evening. We will 
 not tell how often and how earnestly she gazed upon the 
 miniature, thus endeavoring to prepare herself for the 
 approaching interview, lest the throbbing of her timor- 
 ous heart should stifle the words of welcome. While 
 the twilight grew deeper and duskier, she sat with Mrs. 
 Grosvenor in an inner apartment, lighted only by the 
 softened gleam from an alabaster lamp, which was burn- 
 ing at a distance on the centre-table of the drawing- 
 room. Never before liad Sylph Etherege looked so 
 sylph-like. She had communed with a creature of im- 
 aginatiou, till her own loveliness seemed but the crea- 
 tion of a delicate and dreamy fancy. Every vibration 
 of her spirit was visible in her frame, as she listened to 
 the rattling of wheels and the tramp upon the pavement, 
 and deemed that even the breeze bore the sound of her 
 lover's footsteps, as if he trode upon the viewless air. 
 Mrs. Grosvenor, too, while she watched the tremulous 
 flow of Syh^ia's feelings, was deeply moved ; she looked 
 uneasily at the agitated girl, and was about to speak, 
 when the opening of the street-door arrested the words 
 upon her lips. 
 
 Footsteps ascended the staircase, with a confident and 
 familiar tread, and some one entered the drawing-room. 
 From the sofa where they sat, in the inner apartment, 
 Mrs. Grosvenor and Sylvia could not discern the visitor. 
 
 " Sylph !" cried a voice. " Dearest Sylph ! Where 
 are you, sweet Sylph Etherege ? Here is your Edgar 
 Yaughan ! " 
 
 But instead of answering, or rising to meet her lover, 
 — who had greeted her by the sweet and fanciful name, 
 which, appropriate as it was to her character, was known 
 only to him, — Sylvia grasped Mrs. Grosveuor's arm,
 
 SYLPH ETII£I{EGE. 133 
 
 wliilc her wliolc frame shook witli the throhhiiig of her 
 heart. 
 
 " Who is it ? " gasped slie. " "Who calls me Sylph ? " 
 
 Before Mrs. Grosvenor could reply, tlie stranger 
 entered the room, bearing the lamp in his hand. Ap- 
 proaching the sofa, he displayed to Sylvia the features 
 of Edward Hamilton, illuminated by that evil smile, 
 from which his face derived so marked an individuality. 
 
 "Is not the niiuiature an admirable likeness?" in- 
 quired he. 
 
 Sylvia shuddered, but had not power to turn away her 
 white face from his gaze. The miniature, which she had 
 been holding in her hand, fell down upon the floor, where 
 Hamilton, or Yaughan, set his foot upon it, and crushed 
 the ivory counterfeit to fragments. 
 
 " There, my sweet Sylph," he exclaimed. " It was 
 I that created your phantom -lover, and now I annihilate 
 him ! Your dream is rudely broken. Awake, Sylph 
 Ethcrege, awake to truth ! I am the only Edgar 
 Vaughan ! " 
 
 " We have gone too far, Edgar Yaughan." said Mrs. 
 Grosvenor, catching Sylvia in her arms. The revenge- 
 ful freak, whicli Yaughau's wound(jd vanity had sug- 
 gested, had l)eeu countenanced by this lady, in the hope 
 of curing Sylvia of her romantic notions, and reconcil- 
 ing her to the truths and realities of life. "Look at the 
 poor child ! " she contiuued. " I protest I tremble for 
 the consequences ! " 
 
 "Indeed, madam!" replied Yaughan, sneeriiigly, as 
 he threw the light of the lamp on Sylvia's closed eyes 
 and marble features. " Well, my conscience is clear. I 
 did but look into this delicate creature's heart ; nnd with 
 the pure fjiutnsies that I found there, I mnde what 
 seemed a man, — and the delusive shadow lias wiled her
 
 134 SYLPH ETHEREGE. 
 
 away to Shadow-land, and vanished tliere ! It is no 
 new tale. Many a sweet maid has shared the lot of 
 poor Sylph Etlierege ! " 
 
 " And now, Edgar Yaughau," said Mrs. Grosvenor, 
 as Sylvia's heart began faintly to throb again, " now try, 
 in good earnest, to win back her love from the phantom 
 which you conjured up. If you succeed, she will be the 
 better, her whole life long, for the lesson we have given 
 her." 
 
 Whether the result of the lesson corresponded with 
 Mrs. Grosvenor's hopes, may be gathered from the clos- 
 ing scene of our story. It had been made known to 
 the fashionable world that Edgar Vaughan had returned 
 from France, and, under the assumed name of Edward 
 Hamilton, had won the affections of the lovely girl to 
 "whom he had been affianced in his boyhood. The nup- 
 tials were to take place at an early date. One eveu- 
 mg, before the day of anticipated bliss arrived, Edgar 
 Vaughan entered Mrs. Grosvenor's drawing-room, where 
 he found that lady and Sylph Etherege. 
 
 " Only that Sylvia makes no complaint," remarked 
 Mrs. Grosvenor, " I sliould apprehend that the town air 
 is ill-suited to her constitution. She was always, indeed, 
 a delicate creature ; but now she is a mere gossamer. 
 Do but look at her ! Did you ever imagine anything so 
 fragile?" 
 
 Vaughan was already attentively observing his mis- 
 tress, who sat in a shadowy and moonlighted recess of 
 the room, with her dreamy eyes fixed steadfastly upon 
 his own. The bough of a tree was waving before the 
 window, and sometimes enveloped her in the gloom of 
 its shadow, into which she seemed to vanish. 
 
 "Yes," he said, to Mrs. Grosvenor. "I can scarcely 
 deem her 'of the earth, earthy,' No wonder that I call
 
 SYLPH ETHEREGE. 135 
 
 her Sylpli ! Metliinks slie will tud(r into the moonlight, 
 which falls upon her through the window. Or, in the 
 open air, slie might flit away upon the breeze, like a 
 wreath of mist ! " 
 
 Sylvia's eyes grew yet brighter. She waved her baud 
 to Edgar Vaughan, with a gesture of ethereal triumpii. 
 
 " Farewell ! " she said. " 1 will neither fade into the 
 moonhght, nor flit away upon the breeze. Yet you can- 
 not keep me here ! " 
 
 There was something in Sylvia's look and tones that 
 startled Mrs. Grosvenor with a terrible apprehension. 
 But, as she was rushing towards tlic girl, Vaughan held 
 her back. 
 
 " Stay ! " cried he, with a strange smile of mockery 
 and anguish. " Can our sweet Sylph be going to heaven, 
 to seek the original of the miniature ? "
 
 THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS. 
 
 IMS 
 
 into 
 
 TIE summer moon, wliicli sliiucs iii so many a 
 
 tale, was beamini^ over a broad extent of uneven 
 
 country. Some of its brightest rays Avere flung 
 
 spring of water, where no traveller, toiling, as the 
 
 writer has, up the hilly road beside which it gushes, ever 
 failed to quench his thirst. The work of neat hands and 
 considerate art was visible about this blessed fountain. 
 An open cistern, hewn and hollowed out of solid stone, 
 was placed above the waters, which filled it to the brim, 
 but, by some invisible outlet, were conveyed away with- 
 out dripping down its sides. Though the basin had not 
 room for another drop, and the continual gush of water 
 made a tremor on the surface, there vv'as a secret charm 
 that forbade it to overflow. I remember, that when I 
 had slaked my summer thirst, and sat panting by the 
 cistern, it was my fanciful theory, that Nature could not 
 afford to lavish so pure a liquid, as she does the waters 
 of all meaner fountains. 
 
 While the moon was hanging almost perpendicularly 
 over this spot, two figures appeared on the summit of the 
 hill, and came with noiseless footste])S down towards the 
 spring. They were then in the first freshness of youth ; 
 nor is there a wrinkle now on either of their brows, and 
 yet they wore a strange, old-fashioned garb. One, a
 
 THE CAXTERBURY PILGRIMS. l.'^? 
 
 Toung man wifli ruddy cheeks, walked beneatli tlie can- 
 opy of a broad-brimmed gray liat ; he seemed to liave 
 inherited his great-grandsire's square-skirted coat, and a 
 waistcoat that extended its iuiincnse fhips to liis knees; 
 his brown locks, also, hung down behind, in a mode 
 nnknown to our times. By his side was a sweet young 
 damsel, her fair fcatnres sheltered by a prim little bonnet, 
 within whicli appeared the vestal muslin of a cap ; her 
 close, long-waisted gown, and indeed her whole attire, 
 might liave been worn by some rustic beauty who had 
 faded half a century before. But that there was some- 
 tliing too warm and life-like in them, I would iiere have 
 compared this couple to the ghosts of two young lovers, 
 who had died long since in the glow of passion, and now 
 were straying out of their graves, to renew the old vows, 
 and shadow forth the unforgoiten kiss of their cart lily 
 lips, beside the moonlit spring. 
 
 " Tiiee and I will rest here a moment, Miriam," said 
 the 3'oung man, as they drew near the stone cistern, " for 
 there is no fear tliat the elders know what we have done ; 
 and this may be ths last time wc shall ever taste this 
 water." 
 
 Thus speaking, with a little sadness in his face, which 
 was also visible in that of his companion, he made her 
 sit down on a stone, and was about to place himself very 
 close to her side ; she, however, repelled him, though not 
 unkindly. 
 
 "Nay, Josiah," said she, giving him a timid push with 
 her maiden hand, " thee must sit farther off, on that other 
 stone, with the spring between us. What would the 
 sisters say, if thee were to sit so close to me ? " 
 
 " But wc are of the world's people now, Miriam," 
 answered Josiah. 
 
 The girl persisted in her prudery, nor did the youth,
 
 138 THE CAXTERBIRY PILGRIMS. 
 
 in fact, seem altogether free from a similar sort of shy- 
 ness; so they sat apart from each other, gazing up the 
 hilj, where the moonlight discovered the tops of a group 
 of buildings. While their attention was thus occupied, 
 a party of travellers, who had come wearily up the long 
 ascent, made a halt to retVesh themselves at the spring. 
 There were three men, a woman, and a little girl and 
 boy. Their attire was mean, covered with the dust of 
 the sunmier's day, and damp with the night-dew ; they 
 all looked woebegone, as if the cares and sorrows of the 
 world had made their steps heavier as they climbed the 
 hill ; even the two little children appeared older in evil 
 days than the young man and maiden who had first ap- 
 proached the sprhig. 
 
 "Good evening to you, young folks," was the saluta- 
 tion of the travellers ; and " Good evening, friends," re- 
 plied the youth and damsel. 
 
 "Is that white building the Shaker meeting-house?" 
 asked one of the strangers. " And are those the red 
 roofs of the Shaker village 'i " 
 
 "Friend, it is the Shaker village," answered Josiah, 
 after some hesitation. 
 
 The travellers, who, from the first, had looked suspi- 
 ciously at the garb of these young people, now taxed them 
 with an intention which all the circumstances, indeed, 
 rendered too obvious to be mistaken. 
 
 " It is true, friends," replied the young man, summon- 
 ing up his courage. " Miriam and I have a gift to love 
 each other, and we are going among the world's people, 
 to live after their fashion. And ye know that we do not 
 transgress the law of the land ; and neither ye, nor the 
 elders themselves, have a right to hinder us. 
 
 " Yet you think it expedient to depart without leave- 
 taking," remarked one of the travellers.
 
 THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS. 1:39 
 
 "Yea, ye-a," said Josiali, reluctantly, "because father 
 Job is a very awful man to speak with ; and being aged 
 himself, he lias but little charity for what he calls the 
 iniquities of the flesli." 
 
 " Well," said the stranger, "we will neither use force 
 to bring you back to the village, nor will we betray you 
 to the elders. But sit you here awhile, and when you 
 have heard what we shall tell you of the world which 
 we have left, and into which you are going, perhaps you 
 ■will turn back with us of your own accord. What say 
 you ? " added he, turning to his companions. " We have 
 travelled thus far without becoming known to each 
 other. Shall we tell our stories, here by this pleasant 
 spring, for our own pastime, and the benefit of these 
 misguided young lovers ? " 
 
 In accordance with this proposal, the whole party 
 stationed themselves round the stone cistern ; the two 
 children, being very weary, fell asleep upon the damp 
 earth, and the pretty Shaker girl, whose feelings were 
 those of a nun or a Turkish lady, crept as close as pos- 
 sible to the female traveller, and as far as she well could 
 from the unknown men. The same person who had 
 liitherto been the chief spokesman now stood up, waving 
 his hat in his hand, and suffered the moonlight to fall full 
 upon his front. 
 
 " In me," said he, with a certain majesty of utterance, 
 — " in me, you behold a poet." 
 
 Though a lithographic print of this gentleman is ex- 
 tant, it may be well to notice that he was noAV nearly 
 forty, a thin and stooping figure, in a black coat, out at 
 elbows; notwithstandhig the ill condition of his attire, 
 there were about him several tokens of a prciilii-.r sort of 
 foppery, unworthy of a mature man, parlicularly in the 
 arrangement of his hair, which was so disposed as to give
 
 140 THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS. 
 
 all possible loftiness mid breadth to lils forehead. How- 
 ever, he had an intelligent eye, and, on the whole, a 
 marked countenance. 
 
 " A poet ! " repeated the young Shaker, a little puzzled 
 how to understand such a designation, seldom heard in 
 the utilitarian community where he had spent his life. 
 " 0, ay, Miriam, he means a varse-maker, thee must 
 know." 
 
 This remark jarred upon the susceptible nerves of the 
 poet ; nor could he help wondering what strange fatality 
 iiad put into this young man's mouth an epithet, which 
 ill-natured people had affirmed to be more proper to his 
 merit than the one ass\imed by himself. 
 
 " True, I am a verse-maker," he resumed, " but my 
 verse is no more than the material body into which I 
 breathe the celestial soul of thought. Alas! how many 
 a pang has it cost me, this same insensibility to the 
 ethereal essence of poetry, with which you have here 
 tortured me again, at the moment when I am to relin- 
 quish my profession forever ! O Fate ! why hast thou 
 warred with Nature, turning all her higher and more 
 perfect gifts to the ruin of me, their possessor ? What 
 is the voice of song, when the world lacks the ear of 
 taste ? How can I rejoice in my strength and delicacy 
 of feeling, when they have but made great soitows out 
 of little ones ? Have I dreaded scorn like death, and 
 yearned for fame as others pant for vital air, only to 
 find myself in a middle state between obscurity and 
 infamy ? But I have my revenge ! I could have given 
 existence to a thousand briglit creations. I crush them 
 into my heart, and there let them putrefy ! I shake off 
 the dust of my feet against my countrymen ! But pos- 
 terity, tracing my footsteps up this weary hi^l, will cry 
 shame upon the uuAvorthy age that drove one of the
 
 THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS. Ill 
 
 fathers of American song to end his days in a Shaker 
 village ! " 
 
 During this harangue, the speaker gesticulated with 
 great energy ; and, as poetry is the natural language of 
 passion, there appeared reason to apprehend his linal 
 explosion into an ode extempore. The reader must 
 understand that, for all these bitter words, he was a khid, 
 gentle, harmless, poor fellow enough, whom Nature, toss- 
 ing her ingredients together without looking at her recipe, 
 had sent into the world with too much of one sort of 
 brain, and hardly any of another. 
 
 " Friend," said the young Shaker, in some perplexity, 
 "thee seemest to have met with great troubles; and, 
 doubtless, I should pity them, if — if I could but under- 
 stand M'liat they were." 
 
 " Happy in your ignorance ! " replied the poet, with 
 an air of sublime superiority. "To your coarser mind, 
 perliaps, I may seem to speak of more important griefs, 
 when I add, what I had wcllnigh forgotten, that I am 
 out at elbows, and almost starved to death. At any rate, 
 you have the advice and example of one individual to 
 warn you back ; for I am come hither, a disappointed 
 man, flinging aside the fragments of my hopes, and seek- 
 ing shelter in the calm retreat which you arc so anxious 
 to leave." 
 
 "I thank thee, friend," rejoined the youth, "but I do 
 not mean to be a poet, nor. Heaven be praised ! do I 
 think Miriam ever made a varse in her life. So we need 
 not fear thy disappointments. But, Miriam," he added, 
 wdtli real concern, "thee knowest that the elders admit 
 nobody that has not a gift to be useful. Now, what 
 under the sun can they do with this poor varse-maker ? " 
 
 " Nay, Josiali, do not thee discourage the poor man," 
 said the girl, in all simplicity and kindness. " Our hymns
 
 142 THE CANTEUBURY PILGRIMS. 
 
 are very rough, and perliaps tliey may trust lilm to 
 smootli them." 
 
 Without noticing this liint of professional employment, 
 the poet turned away, and gave himself u|) to a sort of 
 vague revery, which he called thought. Sometimes he 
 watched the moon, pouring a silvery liquid on the ch)uds, 
 through which it slowly melted till tliey became all 
 bright ; then he saw the same sweet tadiauce danciug 
 on the leafy trees which rustled as if to shake it olF, or 
 sleeping on the high tops of hills, or hovering down in 
 distant valleys, like the material of unshaped dreams ; 
 lastly, he looked into the spring, and there the light w^as 
 mingling with the water. In its crystal bosom, too, 
 beholding all heaven reflected thore, he found an emblem 
 of a pure and tranquil breast. He listened to that most 
 ethereal of all sounds, the song of crickets, coming in 
 full choir upon the wind, and fancied that, if moonlight 
 could be heard, it would sound just like that. Finally, 
 he took a draught at the Shaker spring, and, as if it 
 were the true Cast alia, was forthwith moved to compose 
 a lyric, a Farewell to his Harp, which he swore should 
 be its closing strain, the last verse that an ungrateful 
 world should have from him. This effusion, with two or 
 three other little pieces, subsequently written, he took 
 the first opportunity to send, by one of the Shaker breth- 
 ren, to Concord, where they were published in the New 
 Hampshire Patriot. 
 
 Meantime, another of the Canterbury pilgrims, one so 
 different from the poet that the delicate fancy of the 
 latter could hardly have conceived of him, began to re- 
 late his sad experience. He was a small man, of quick 
 and unquiet gestures, about fifty years old, with a narrow 
 forehead, all wrinkled and drawn together. He held in 
 his hand a pencil, and a card of some commission-mer-
 
 THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS. 143 
 
 chant in foreign parts, on the back of wliicli, for there 
 was light enough to read or write by, he seemed ready 
 to figure out a calculation. 
 
 "Young man," said lie, abruptly, "what quantity of 
 land do the Shakers own here, in Canterbury 'r " 
 
 "That is more than I can tell thee, friend," answered 
 Josiah, "but it is a very rich establishment, and for a 
 long way by the roadside thee may guess the laud to be 
 ours, by the neatness of tlie fences." 
 
 "And what may be the value of the whole," continued 
 the stranger, "witli all the buildings and improvenjents, 
 pretty nearly, in round numbers r " 
 
 "0, a monstrous sum, — more than I can reckon," 
 replied the young Shaker. 
 
 "Well, sir," said the pilgrim, "there was a day, and 
 not very long ago, neither, when I stood at my counting- 
 room window, and watched the signal flags of three of 
 my own ships entering the harbor, frouj the East Indies, 
 from Liverpool, and from up the Straits, and I would 
 not have given the invoice of the least of them for the 
 title-deeds of tliis whole Shaker settlement. You stare. 
 Perhaps, now, you won't believe that I could have put 
 more value on a little piece of paper, no bigger than the 
 palm of your hand, than all these solid acres of grain, 
 grass, and pasture-land would sell for ? " 
 
 "I won't dispute it, friend," answered Josiah, "but I 
 know I had rather have fifty acres of this good land than 
 a whole sheet of thy paper." , 
 
 " You may say so now," said the ruined merchant, 
 bitterly, "for my name would not be worth the pa])er 1 
 should write it on. Of course, you must have heard of 
 my failure ? " 
 
 And the stranger mentioned his name, wliich, however 
 mighty it might iiavc been in the commercial world, the
 
 144 THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS. 
 
 young Shaker had never heard of among the Canterbury 
 hills. 
 
 " Xot heard of my failure ! " exclaimed the merchant, 
 considerably piqued. " Why, it was spoken of on 'Change 
 in London, and from Boston to New Orleans men trem- 
 bled in their shoes. At all events, I did fail, and you 
 see me here on my road to the Shaker village, where,' 
 doubtless (for the Shakers are a shrewd sect), they will 
 have a due respect for my experience, and give me the 
 management of the trading part of the conc3rn, in which 
 case I think I can pledge myself to double their capital 
 in four or five years. Turn back with me, young man ; 
 for though you will never meet with my good luck, you 
 can hardly escape my bad." 
 
 " I will not turn back for this," replied Josiah, calmly, 
 '' any more than for the advice of the varse-maker, be- 
 tween whom and thee, friend, I see a sort of likeness, 
 though I can't justly say where it lies. But Miriam and 
 I can earn our daily bread among the world's people, 
 as well as in the Shaker village. And do we want any- 
 thing more, Miriam ? " 
 
 " Nothing more, Josiah," said the girl, quietly. 
 
 "Yea, Miriam, and daily bread for some other little 
 mouths, if God send them," observed the simple Shaker 
 lad. 
 
 Miriam did not reply, but looked down into the spring, 
 where she encountered the image of her own pretty face, 
 blushing within the prim .little bonnet. The third pil- 
 grim now took up the conversation. He was a sunburnt 
 countryman, of tall frame and bony strength, on whose 
 rude and manly face there appeared a darker, more sul- 
 len and obstinate despondency, than on those of either 
 the poet or the merchant. 
 
 " Well, now, youngster," he began, "these folks have
 
 THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS. 115 
 
 had tlieir say, so I '11 take my turn. ^My story will cut 
 but a poor figure by the side of theirs ; for I never sup- 
 posed that I could have a right to meat and drink, and 
 great praise besides, only for tagging rhymes together, 
 as it seems this man does; nor ever tried to get the sub- 
 stance of hundreds into my own hands, like the trader 
 there. When I was about of your years, I married me 
 a wife, — just such a neat and pretty young woman as 
 Miriam, if that 's her name, — and all I asked of Provi- 
 dence was an ordinary blessing on the sweat of my brow, 
 so that we might be decent and comfortable, and have 
 daily bread for ourselves, and for some other little mouths 
 that we soon had to feed. "We had no very great pros- 
 pects before us ; but I never wanted to be idle ; and I 
 thought it a matter of course that the Lord would help 
 mc, because I was willing to help myself." 
 
 "And didn't he help thee, friend':'" demanded Josiah, 
 with some eagerness. 
 
 " No," said the yeoman, sullt'n!y ; " for then you would 
 not have seen nie here. I have h.bored hard for years ; 
 and my means have been growing narrower, and my liv- 
 ing poorer, and my heart colder and heavier, all the time; 
 till at last I could bear it no longer. I set myself down 
 to calculate whether I had best go on the Oregon expedi- 
 tion, or come here to the Shaker village; but I had not 
 liope enough left in me to begin the world over again ; 
 and, to make my story short, here I am. And now, 
 youngster, take my advice, and turn back; or else, some 
 few years hence, you '11 have to climb this hill, with as 
 heavy a heart as mine." 
 
 This simple story had a strong effect on the young 
 
 fugitives. The misfortunes of the poet and merchant 
 
 liad won little sym])athy from their plain good sense and 
 
 unworldly feelings, qualities which made them such un- 
 
 7 J
 
 14t) THE CAXTEllBUllY PILGRIMS. 
 
 prejudiced and inflexible judges, tiiat few men -svould 
 iiave chosen to take tiie opinion of this youth and maiden 
 as to the wisdom or foll}^ of their pursuits. But here was 
 one whose simple wishes had resembled their own, and 
 who, after efforts which almost gave hiin a right to claim 
 success from fate, had failed in accomplishing them. 
 
 " But thy wife, friend ? " exclaimed the young man. 
 " What became of the pretty girl, like Miriam r O, I 
 am afraid she is dead ! " 
 
 "Yea, poor man, she must be dead, — she and tlie 
 children, too," sobbed Miriam. 
 
 The female pilgrim had been leaning over the spring, 
 wherein latterly a tear or two might have been seen to 
 fall, and form its little circle on the surface of the Avater. 
 She now looked up, disclosing features still comely, but 
 which had acquired an expression of IVet fulness, in the 
 same long course of evil fortune that had tiirown a sullen 
 gloom over the temper of tiie unprosperous yeoman. 
 
 " I am his wife," said she, a sliade of irritability just 
 perceptible in the sadness of her tone. "These poor 
 little things, asleep on the ground, are two of our chil- 
 dren. We had two more, but God lias provided better 
 for them than we could, by taking them to himself." 
 
 "And what would thee advise Josiah and me to do ? " 
 asked Mir.am, tliis being the first question which she had 
 put to either of the strangers. 
 
 " 'T is a tiling almost against nature for a woman to 
 try to part true lovers," answered the yeoman's wife, 
 after a pause ; " but I '11 speak as truly to you as if 
 tiiese were my dying words. Thougii my husband told 
 you some of our troubles, he did n't mention the greatest, 
 and that which makes all the rest so hard to bear. If 
 you and your sweetheart marry, you '11 be kind and 
 pleasant to each other for a year or two, and while that 's
 
 THE CANTERBLUY PlLGlllMS. 147 
 
 the cast', you never \viri repent; but, h\ and hy, he'll 
 grow gloomy, rougli, and hard to i)Iease, and you '11 be 
 peevish, and full of little angry lits, and aj)t to be coni- 
 plahiing by the fireside, -when he comes to rest himself 
 from liis troubles out of doors ; so your love will wear 
 away by little and little, and leave you miserable at last. 
 It has been so with us ; and yet my husband and 1 were 
 true lovers ouce, if ever two young folks were." 
 
 As she ceased, the yeomau and his wife exchanged a 
 glance, in which there was more and warmer atlection 
 than they had supposed to have escaped the frost of a 
 wintry fate, in either of their breasts. At that moment, 
 when they stood on the utmost verge of married life, one 
 word fitly spoken, or })erha])s one })eculiar look, had they 
 had mutual confidence enough to reciprocate it, might 
 have renewed all their old feelings, and sent them back, 
 resolved to sustain each other amid the struggles of the 
 world. But the crisis passed, and never came again. 
 Just then, also, the children, roused by their mother's 
 voice, looked up, and added their wailing accents to the 
 testimony borne by all the Canterbury pilgrims against 
 the world from winch they fled. 
 
 " We are tired and hungry ! " cried they. " Is it far 
 to the Shaker viUage ? " 
 
 The Shaker youth and maiden looked mournfully into 
 each other's, eyes. They had but stepped across the 
 threshold of their homes, when lo ! the dark array of 
 cares and sorrows that rose up to warn them ])ack. The 
 varied narratives of the strangers had arranged them- 
 selves into a parable ; they seemed not nierely instances 
 of woful fate that had befallen others, but shadowy 
 omens of disappohited hope and unavailing toil, domes- 
 tic grief and estranged ali'ection, that would cloud the 
 onward path of these poor fugitives. But after one in-
 
 148 THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS. 
 
 slant's hesitation, tliev opened tlieir arms, and sealed 
 tlieir resolve witli as pure and fond an embrace as ever 
 youthful love had hallowed. 
 
 " We will not go back," said they. "The -world never 
 can be dark to us, for we will always love one another." 
 
 Then the Canterbury pilgrims went up the iiill, while 
 the poet chanted a drear and desperate stanza of tha 
 Farewell to his Harp, titling music for that melancholy 
 band. They sought a liome where all former ties of 
 nature or society would be sundered, and all old distinc- 
 tions levelled, and a cold and passionless security be sub- 
 stituted for mortal hope and fear, as in that other refuge 
 of the world's weary outcasts, the grave. The lovers 
 drank at the Shaker spring, and then, with chastened 
 hopes, but more confiding atFections, went on to mingle 
 in an untried Ufe.
 
 
 PI 
 
 M 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ^Sl 
 
 
 ^g 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^fel 
 
 ^^1 
 
 OLD NEWS. 
 
 !?^ 
 
 ERE is a volume of what were once newspapers, 
 each on a small half-sheet, yellow and time- 
 stained, of a coarse fabric, and imprinted witii 
 a rude old type. Their aspect conveys a singular im- 
 pression of antiquity, in a species of literature which we 
 are accustomed to consider as connected only with the 
 present moment. Ephemeral as they were intended and 
 supposed to be, they have long outlived the ])rinter and 
 his whole sub.scription-list, and have proved more durable, 
 as to their pliysical existence, than most of the timber, 
 bricks, and stone of the town where they were issued. 
 These are but the least of their t-riuinphs. The govern- 
 ment, the interests, the opinions, in short, all the moral 
 circumstances that were contemporary with their publica- 
 tion, have passed away, and left no better record of what 
 they were timn may be found in these frail leaves. Happy 
 are the editors of newspapers ! Tiieir productions excel 
 all others in immediate popularity, and are certain to 
 acquire another sort of value with llu? lapse of time. 
 They scatter their leaves to the wind, as the sibyl did, 
 and posterity collects them, to be treasured nj) among 
 the best materials of its wisdom. With hasty pens they 
 write for innnortalitv.
 
 150 OLD NEWS. 
 
 It is pleasant to take one of these little clingy lialf- 
 slieets between the thumb and finger, and picture forth 
 the personage who, above ninety years ago, held it, wet 
 from the press, and steaming, before the fire. Many of 
 tha numb^^rs bear the name of an old colonial dignitary. 
 There he sits, a major, a member of the council, and a 
 weighty merchant, in his high-backed arm-chair, wearing 
 a solemn wig and grave attire, such as b^fiis his imposing 
 gravity of mien, and displaying but little finery, except a 
 huge pair of silver shoe-buckles, curiously carved. Ob- 
 serve the awful reverence of his visage, as he reads his 
 Majesty's most gracious speech ; and the deliberate wis- 
 dom with which he ponders over some paragraph of pro- 
 vincial politics, and the keener intelligence with which he 
 glances at the ship-news and commercial advertisements. 
 Observe, and smile ! He may have been a wise man in 
 his day; but, to us, the wisdom of the politician appears 
 like folly, because we can compare its prognostics with 
 actual results ; and the old merchant seems to have 
 busied himself about vanities, because we know that tlie 
 expected ships have been lost at sea, or mouldn-ed at the 
 wharves ; that his imported broadcloths were long ago 
 worn to tatters, and his cargoes of wine quaffed to the 
 lees ; and that the most precious leaves of his ledger have 
 become waste-paper. Yet, his avocations were not so vain 
 as our philosophic moralizing. In this world we are the 
 things of a moment, and are made to pursue momentary 
 things, with here and there a thought that stretches mist- 
 ily towards eternity, and perhaps may endure as long. 
 All philosophy that would abstract mankind from the 
 present is no more than words. 
 
 The first pages of most of these old papers are as so- 
 porific as a bed of poppies. Here we have an erudite 
 clergy uian, or perhaps a Cambridge professor, occupying
 
 OLD NEWS. 151 
 
 several successive weeks witli a criticism on Tate and 
 Brady, as compared witii tlie New England version of the 
 Psalms. Of course, tiie preference is given to the native 
 article. Here are doctors disagreeing about the treatment 
 of a putrid fev'cr then prevalent, and blackguarding each 
 other with a cliaracteristic virulence that renders the con- 
 troversy not altogether unreadable. Here are President 
 VVigglesworth and the Rev. Dr. Cohnan, endeavoring to 
 raise a fund for the support of missionaries among tiie 
 Indians of Massachusetts Bay. Easy would be tlie duties 
 of sucli a mission now ! Here — for there is nothing new 
 under the sun — are frequent complaints of the disor- 
 dered state of the currency, and the ])roject of a bank 
 with a capital of five hundred thousand jxmnds, secured 
 on lands. Here are literary essays, from the Gontlcman's 
 Magazine; and squibs against the Pretender, from the 
 London newspajjers. And here, occasionally, are speci- 
 mens of New England iiumor, laboriously light and la- 
 mentably mirthful, as if some very sober j)crson, in his 
 zeal to be merry, were dancing a jig to the tune of a 
 funeral-psalm. All this is wearisome, and we must turn 
 the leaf. 
 
 There is a good deal of amusement, and some profit, 
 in the perusal of those little items which characterize the 
 manners and circumstances of the country. New Eng- 
 land was then in a state incomparably more picturesque 
 than at present, or than it has been within the memory 
 of man ; there being, as yet, only a narrow strij) of civili- 
 zation along the edge of a vast forest, peopled with 
 enough of its original race to contrast the savage life 
 with the old customs of another world. The white pop- 
 ulation, also, was diversified by the influx of all sorts of 
 expatriated vagabonds, and by the continual importation 
 of bond-servants from Ireland and elsewhere, so that
 
 152 OLD NEWS. 
 
 there was a wild and unsettled multitude, forming a 
 strong minority to the sober descendants of the Puritans. 
 Then, there were the slaves, contributing their dark shade 
 to the picture of society. The consequence of all this 
 was a great variety and singularity of action and incident, 
 many instances of which might be selected from these 
 columns, where they are told with a simplicity and quaint- 
 ness of style that bring the striking points into very 
 strong relief. It is natural to suppose, too, that these 
 circumstances affected the body of the people, and made 
 their course of life generally less regular than tiiat of 
 their descendants. Tliere is no evidence that the moral 
 standard was higher then than now; or, indeed, that 
 morality was so well defined as it has since become. 
 There seem to have been quite as many frauds and rob- 
 beries, in proportion to the number of honest deeds ; 
 there were murders, in hot -blood and in malice ; and 
 bloody quarrels over liquor. Some of our fathers also 
 appear to have been yoked to unfaithful wives, if we may 
 trust the frequent notices of elopements from bed and 
 board. The pillory, the whipping-post, the prison, and 
 the gallows, each had their use in those old times ; and, 
 in short, as often as our imagination lives in the past, we 
 find it a ruder and rougher age than our own, with hardly 
 any perceptible advantages, and much that gave life a 
 gloomier tinge. 
 
 In vain we endeavor to throw a sunny and joyous air 
 over our picture of this period ; nothing passes before our 
 fancy but a crowd of sad-visaged people, moving duskily 
 through a dull gray atmosphere. It is certain that win- 
 ter rushed upon them with fiercer storms than now, 
 blocking up the narrow forest-paths, and overwhelming 
 the roads along the sea-coast with mountain snow- 
 drifts ; so that weeks elapsed before the newspaper could
 
 OLD NEWS. 153 
 
 announce how many travellers had perished, or what 
 wrecks had strewn the shore. The cold was more 
 piercing tlien, and lingered further into the spring, mak- 
 ing the chimney-corner a comfortable seat till long past 
 May-day. By the number of such accidents on record, 
 we might suppose that the thunder-stone, as they termed 
 it, fell oftener and deadlier on steeples, dwellings, and 
 unsheltered wretches. In fine, our fathers bore the brunt 
 of more raging and pitiless elements than we. Tliere 
 were forebodings, also, of a more fearful tempest than 
 those of the elements. At two or three dates, we have 
 stories of drums, trumpets, and all sorts of martial music, 
 passiiig athwart the midnight sky, accompanied witl\ the 
 roar of cannon and rattle of musketry, ])roplietic echoes 
 of the sounds that were soon to shake the land. Besides 
 these airy prognostics, there were rumors of French fleets 
 on the coast, and of the march of French and Indians 
 through the wilderness, along the borders of tlie settle- 
 ments. Tlie country was saddened, moreover, with 
 grievous sickness, Tiie small-pox raged in many of the 
 towns, and seems, tliough so familiar a scourge, to have 
 been regarded with as much affright as that wliich drove 
 the throng from Wall Street and Broadway at the ap- 
 proach of a new pestilence. There were autumnal fevers 
 too, and a contagious and destructive throat-distemper, — 
 diseases unwritten in medical books. The dark super- 
 stition of former days had not yet been so far dispelled 
 as not to heigliten the gloom of the present times. There 
 is an advertisement, indeed, by a committee of the Lcgis- 
 lattire, calling for information as to the circumstances of 
 sufferers in the "late calamity of 1092," with a view to 
 reparation for their losses and misfortunes. But the 
 tenderness with which, after above forty years, it Avas 
 tiiought expedient to allude to the witchcraft delusion, 
 7*
 
 154 OLD NEWS. 
 
 indicates a good deal of lingering error, as well as the 
 adrance of more enlightened opinions. The rigid hand 
 of Puritanism might vet be felt upon the reins of govern- 
 mant, while some of the ordinances intimate a disorderly 
 spirit on the part of the people. The SulFolk justices, 
 after a preamble that great disturbances have been com- 
 mitted bv parsons entering town and leaving it in coaches, 
 chaises, calashes, and other wheel-carriages, on the even- 
 ing before the Sabbath, give notice that a watch will 
 hereafter be set at the ''fortification-gate," to prevent 
 these outragas. It is amusing to see Boston assuming 
 the aspact of a walled city, guarded, probably, by a de- 
 tachment of church-membei-s, with a deacon at their 
 head. Governor Belchar makes proclamation against 
 certain " loose and dissolute people " who have been 
 wont to stop passengars in the streets, on the Fifth of 
 November, " otherwisa called Pope's Day," and levy con- 
 tributions for the building of bonfires. In this instance, 
 the populace are more puritanic than the magistrate, 
 
 Tlie elaborate solemnities of funerals were in accord- 
 ance with the sombre character of the times. In cases 
 of ordinary death, the printer seldom fails to notice that 
 the corpse was "very decently interred." But wlien 
 some mightier mortal has yielded to his fate, the decease 
 of the "worshipful" such-a-onc is announced, with all 
 his titles of deacon, justice, counsellor, and colonel; then 
 follows an heraldic sketch of his honorable ancestors, and 
 lastly an account of the black pomp of liis funeral, and 
 the liberal expenditure of scarfs, gloves, and mourning- 
 rings. The burial train glides slowly before us, as wc 
 have seen it represented in the woodcuts of that day, 
 the coffin, and the bearers, and the lamentable friends, 
 trailing their long black garments, while grim Death, a 
 most misshapen skeleton, with all kinds of doleful em-
 
 OLD ^■Ews. 155 
 
 blenis, stalks hideously in front. There was a coach- 
 maker at this period, one John Lucas, \vho seems to 
 have gained the chief of his living by letting out a sable 
 coach to funerals. 
 
 It would not be fair, however, to leave quite so dismal 
 an impression on the reader's mind ; nor should it be 
 forgotten that happiness nuiy walk soberly in dark atlirc, 
 as well as dance lightsomely in a gala-dress. And this 
 reminds us that there is an incidental notice of the 
 " dancing-school near the Orange-Tree," whence we may 
 infer that the saltatory art was occasionally practised, 
 though perhaps chastened into a characteristic gravity of 
 movement. This pastime was probably confined to the 
 aristocratic circle, of which the royal governor was the 
 centre. But we are scandalized at the attempt of Jona- 
 than Furness to introduce a more reprehensible amuse- 
 ment: he challenges the whole country to match his 
 black gelding in a race for a hundred pounds, to be 
 decided on Metonomy Common or Chelsea Beach. Noth- 
 ing as to the manners of the times can be inferred from 
 this freak of an individual. There were no daily and 
 continual opportunities of being merry; but sometimes 
 the people rejoiced, in their own peculiar fashion, oftcner 
 with a calm, religious smile than with a broad laugh, as 
 when they feasted, like one great family, at Thanksgiving 
 time, or indulged a livelier mirth throughout the pleasant 
 days of Election-week. This latter was the true holiday 
 season of New England. ^Military musters were too 
 seriously important in that warlike time to be classed 
 among amusements; but tliey stirred up and enlivened 
 the public mind, and were occasions of solemn festival 
 to the governor and great men of the province, at the 
 expense of the fiold-officers. The Revolution blotted a 
 feast-day out of our calendar ; for the anniversary of the
 
 156 OLD XEWS. 
 
 king's birtli appears to have beeu celebrated with most 
 imposing- pomp, by salutes from Cistle William, a miU- 
 tary parade, a grand dinner at the town-house, and a 
 brilliant illumination in the evening. There was nothing 
 forced nor feigned in these testimonials of loyalty to 
 Gsorge the Second. So long as they dreaded the re-es- 
 tablislunent of a popish dynasty, the people were fervent 
 for the house of Hanover : and, besides, the immediate 
 magistracy of the country was a barrier between the 
 monarch and the occasional discontents of the colonies ; 
 the waves of faction sometimes reached the governor's 
 chair, but never swelled against the throne. Thus, un- 
 til oppression was felt to proceed from the king's own 
 hand, Xew England rejoiced with her whole heart on his 
 Majesty's birthday. 
 
 But the slaves, we suspect, were the merriest part of 
 the population, since it was their gift to be merry iu 
 the worst of circumstances ; and they endured, compara- 
 tively, few hardships, under the domestic sway of our 
 fathers. There seems to have been a great trade in 
 these human commodities. No advertisements are more 
 frequent than those of " a negro fellow, fit for almost 
 any household work " ; "a negro wonmn, honest, healthy, 
 and capable " ; "a negro wench of many desirable quali- 
 ties " ; "a negro man, very fit for a taylor." We 
 know not in what this natural fitness for a taUor con- 
 sisted, unless it were some peculiarity of conformation 
 that enabled him to sit cross-legged. When the slaves 
 of a family were inconveniently prolific, — it being not 
 quite orthodox to dro\\m the superfluous offspring, like a 
 litter of kittens, — notice was promulgated of "a negro 
 child to be given away." Sometimes the slaves assumed 
 the property of their own persons, and made their escape ; 
 among many such instances, the governor raises a hue-
 
 OLD NEWS. 157 
 
 and-crv after liis negro Juba. But, without venturing a 
 word in extenuation of tlic general system, we confess 
 our opinion that Cffisar, Pompey, Scipio, and all such 
 great Roman namesakes, would have been better advised 
 had they stayed at home, foddering the cattle, cleaning 
 dishes, — in fine, performing tlieir moderate share of the 
 labors of life, Avithout being iiarassed by its cares. Tlie 
 sable inmates of the mansion were not excluded from the 
 domestic affections : in families of middling rank, they 
 had their places at the board ; and when tiie circle closed 
 round the evening hearth, its bkize glowed on their dark 
 sliining faces, intermixed familiarly with their master's 
 children. It must have contributed to reconcile tliem to 
 their lot, that they saw wliite men and women imimrted 
 from Europe as they had been from Africa, and sold, 
 though only for a term of years, yet as actual slaves to 
 the liighest bidder. Slave labor being but a suiall part 
 of the industry of the country, it did not change the 
 cliaracter of the people; the latter, on the contrary, 
 modified and softened the institution, nuiking it a patri- 
 archal, and almost a beautiful, peculiarity of the times. 
 
 Ah ! We had forgotten the good old merchant, over 
 whose shoulder we were peeping, while he read the 
 newspaper. Let us now suppose him putting on his 
 three-cornered gold -laced hat, grasping his cane, with a 
 head inlaid of ebony and mother-of-pearl, and setting 
 forth, through the crooked streets of 13oston, on various 
 errands, suggested by the advertisements of the day. 
 Thus he communes with himself: I must be mindful, 
 says he, to call at Captain Scut's, in Creek Lane, and 
 examine his rich velvet, whether it be fit for my apparel 
 on Election-day, — that I may wear a stately as|)ect in 
 presence of the governor and my brethren of the council. 
 I will look in, also, at the shop of Micliacl Cario, the
 
 158 OLD NEWS. 
 
 jeweller : he has silver buckles of a new fashion ; and 
 mine have lasted me some half-score years. My fair 
 daughter Miriam shall have an apron of gold brocade, 
 and a velvet mask, — though it would be a pity the 
 wench should hide her couiely visage ; and also a Erench 
 cap, from Robert Jenkins's, on the north side of the 
 town-house. He hath beads, too, and ear-riugs, aud 
 necklaces, of all sorts ; these are but vanities, neverthe- 
 less, they would please the silly maiden well. My dame 
 desireth another female in the kitchen; wherefore, I 
 must inspect the lot of Irish hisses, for sale by Sauiucl 
 Waldo, aboard the schooner Endeavor ; as also the Ukely 
 negro weuch, at Captain BuLfiuch's. It were not amiss 
 that I took my daughter Miriaui to see the royal wax- 
 work, near the town-dock, that she may learn to honor 
 our most gracious King and Queen, and their royal 
 progeny, even in their waxen images ; not that I would 
 approve of image-worship. The camel, too, that strange 
 beast from Africa, witli two great humps, to be seen near 
 the Comuion ; methinks I would fain go thither, and see 
 liow the old patriarchs were wont to ride. I will tarry 
 awhile in Queen Street, at the bookstore of my good 
 friends Kneeland & Green, and purchase Dr. Colman's 
 new sermon, and the volume of discourses by Mr. Hen it 
 Elynt; and look over the controversy on baptism, be- 
 tween the Rev. Peter Clarke and an unknown adversary ; 
 and see whether this George Whitefi3ld be as great in 
 print as he is famed to be in the pulpit. By that time, 
 the auction will have comtnenced at the Royal Exchange, 
 in King Street. Moreover, I must look to the dis])osul 
 of my last cargi of West India rum and nuiscovad.) 
 sugar; and also the lot of choice Cheshire cheese, lest 
 it grow mouldy. It were well that I ordered a cask of 
 good English beer, at the lower end of Milk Street.
 
 OLD NEWS. 159 
 
 Then am I to speak with certain dealers about the lot of 
 stout old Yidouia, rich Canary, and Oporto wines, which 
 I have now lying in the cellar of the Old South meeting- 
 house. But, a pipe or two of the rich Canary shall be 
 reserved, that it may grow mellow in mine own wine- 
 cellar, and gladden my heart when it begins to droop 
 with old age. 
 
 Provident old gentleman ! But, was he mindful of 
 his sepulchre ? Did he bethink him to call at the work- 
 shop of Timothy Sheafl'e, in Cold Lane, and select such 
 a gravestone as would best please him ? There wrought 
 the man whose handiwork, or that of his fellow-crafts- 
 men, was ultimately in demand by all the busy multi- 
 tude who have left a record of their earthly toil in these 
 old time-stained papers. And now, as we turn over the 
 volume, we seem to be wandering among the mossy 
 stones of a burial-ground. 
 
 II. THE OLD FRENCH AVAR. 
 
 At a period about twenty years subsequent to that 
 of our former sketch, we again attempt a delineation of 
 some of the characteristics of life and manners in New 
 England. Our text-book, as before, is a file of antique 
 newspapers. The volume which serves us for a writing- 
 desk is a folio of larger dimensions than the one befon; 
 described; and the papers are generally printed on a 
 whole sheet, sometimes with a supplemental leaf of news 
 and advertisements. Tliey have a venerable appearance, 
 being overspread with a duskiness of more than seventy 
 years, and discolored, here and there, with the deeper
 
 160 OLD NEWS. 
 
 stains of som:' liquid, as if tlie contents of a wineglass 
 had long since been splashed upon the page. Still, the 
 old book conveys an impression that, when the separate 
 numbers were flying about town, in the first day or two 
 of their respective existences, they might have been fit 
 reading for very stylish people. Such newspapers could 
 have been issued nowhere but in a metropolis the centre, 
 not only of public and private affairs, but of fashion and 
 gayety. Without any discredit to the colonial press, 
 these might have been, and probably were, spread out on 
 the tables of the British coffee-house, in King Street, for 
 the perusal of the throng of officers who then drank their 
 wine at that celebrated establishment. To interest these 
 military gentlemen, there were bulletins of the war 
 between Prussia and Austria; between England and 
 France, on the old battle-plains of Flanders ; and between 
 the same antagonists, in the newer fields of the East 
 Indies, — and in our own trackless woods, wdiere white 
 men never trod until they came to fight there. Or, 
 the travelled American, the petit-maitre of the colonies, 
 — the ape of Loudon foppery, as the newspaper was the 
 semblance of the London journals, — he, with his gray 
 powdered periwig, his embroidered coat, lace ruffles, 
 and glossy silk stockings, golden-clocked, — his buckles 
 of glittering paste, at knee-band and shoe-strap, — his 
 scented handkerchief, and chapeau beneath his arm, — 
 even such a dainty figure need not have disdained to 
 glance at these old yellow pages, while they were the 
 mirror of passing times. For his amusement, there were 
 essays of wit and humor, the light literature of the day, 
 which, for breadth and license, might have proceeded 
 from the pen of Fielding or Smollet; while, in other 
 columns, he would delight his imagination with the 
 enumerated items of all sorts of finery, and with the
 
 OLD KEWS. 161 
 
 rival advertisements of half a dozen porul;c-makcrs. In 
 short, newer manners and customs liad almost entirely 
 superseded those of the Puritans, even iu their own city 
 of refuge. 
 
 It was natural that, with the lapse of time and increase 
 of Avealth and population, the peculiarities of the early 
 settlers should have waxed fainter and fainter througli 
 the generations of their descendants, who also had been 
 alloyed by a continual accession of emigrants from many 
 countries and of all characters. It tended to assimilate 
 the colonial manners to those of the mother-country, 
 that the commercial intercourse was great, and that the 
 merchants often went thither in their ov.n ships. In- 
 deed, almost every man of adequate fortune felt a yearn- 
 ing desire, and even judged it a filial duty, at least once 
 in his life, to visit the home of his ancestors. They still 
 called it their own home, as if New England were to 
 them, what many of the old Puritans had considered it, 
 not a permanent abiding-place, but merely a lodge in 
 the wilderness, until the trouble of the times should be 
 pnssed. The example of the royal governors must have 
 liad much influence on the manners of the colonists; for 
 these rulers assumed a degree of state and splendor 
 which had never been practised by their predecessors, 
 who ditfered in nothing from republican chief-magistrates, 
 under the old charter. The officers of the crown, the 
 public characters in the interest of the administration, 
 and the gentlemen of wealth and good descent, generally 
 noted for their loyalty, would constitute a dignified circle, 
 with the governor in the centre, bearing a very passnble 
 reseinblance to a court. Tiieir ideas, tlieir habits, their 
 code of courtesv, and their dress would have all the 
 fresh glitter of fashions immediately derived from the 
 fountain-head, iu England. To prevent their modes of
 
 162 OLD NEWS. 
 
 life from becoming the standard with all who had the 
 ability to imitate them, there was no longer an undue 
 severity of religion, nor as yet any disaffection to Brit- 
 ish supremacy, nor democratic prejudices against pomp. 
 Thus, while the colonies were attaining that strength 
 which was soon to render them an independent republic, 
 it might have been supposed that the wealthier classes 
 were growing into an aristocracy, and ripening for hered- 
 itary rank, while the poor were to be stationary in their 
 abasement, and the country, perha{)S, to be a sister mon- 
 archy with England. Such, doubtless, were the plausi- 
 ble conjectures deduced from the superficial plienomena 
 of our connection with a monarchical government, until 
 the prospective nobility were levelled with the mob, by 
 the mere gathering of winds that preceded the storm 
 of the Revolution. The portents of that storm were not 
 yet visible in the air. A true picture of society, there- 
 fore, would have the rich effect produced by distinctions 
 of rank that seemed permanent, and by appropriate habits 
 of splendor on the part of the gentry. 
 
 Tiie people at large had been somewhat changed in 
 character, since the period of our last sketch, by their 
 great ex})loit, the conquest of Louisburg. After that 
 event, the New-Euglanders never settled into precisely 
 the same quiet race which all tlie world had imagined 
 them to be. They had done a deed of histor}^ and were 
 anxious to add new ones to the record. They had 
 proved themselves powerful enough to influence tlie 
 result of a war, and were thenceforth called upon, and 
 willmgly consented, to join their strength against the 
 enemies of England ; on those fields, at least, where vic- 
 tory would redound to their peculiar advantage. And 
 now, in the heat of tlie Old French "War, they might 
 well be termed a martial people. Every man was a sol-
 
 OLD NEWS. 163 
 
 dier, or the father or brother of a soldier ; and tlie whole 
 land literally echoed with the roll of the drum, either 
 beating up for recruits, among the towns and villages, or 
 striknig the march towards the frontiers. Besides the 
 provincial troops, there were twenty-three British regi- 
 ments in the northern colonies. The country has never 
 known a ])eriod of such excitement and warlike life, 
 except during the Revolution, — jjcrhaps scarcely then ; 
 for that was a lingering war, and this a stirring and 
 eventful one. 
 
 One would think that no very wonderful talent was 
 requisite for au historical novel, when the rough and hur- 
 ried paragraphs of these newspapers can recall the past 
 so magically. We seem to be waiting in the street for 
 the arrival of the post-rider — who is seldom more than 
 twelve hours beyond his time — with letters, by way of 
 Albany, from the various departments of the army. Or, 
 we may fancy ourselves in the circle of listeners, all with 
 necks stretched out towards an old gentleman in the 
 centre, Mho deliberately puts on his spectacles, unfolds 
 the wet newspaper, and gives us the details of tli:^ broken 
 and contradictory reports, which have been Hying from 
 mouth to mouth, ever since the courier alighted at Sec- 
 retary Oliver's office. Sometimes we have an account 
 of the Indian skirmishes near Lake George, and how a 
 ranging party of provincials were so closely pursued, that 
 they threw away their arms, and eke tiieir shoes, stock- 
 ings, and breeches, barely reaching the camp in their 
 shirts, which also were terribly tattered by the bushes. 
 Then, there is a journal of the siege of Port Niagara, so 
 minute that it almost numbers the cannon-shot and bombs, 
 and describes the elfeet of the latter missiles on the French 
 commandant's stone mansion, within the fortress. In the 
 letters of the provincial ollicers, it is amusing to observe
 
 16-i OLD NEWS. 
 
 how some of them endeavor to catch the careless and 
 jovial turn of old campaigners. One gentleman tells us 
 that he holds a brimming glass in, his hand, intending to 
 drink the liealtli of his correspondent, unless a cannon- 
 ball should dash the liquor from his lips ; in the midst of 
 his letter he hears the bells of the Frencli churches ring- 
 ing, in Quebec, and recollects that it is Sunday ; where- 
 upon, Hke a good Protestant, he resolves to disturb tiie 
 Catholic worsliip bv a few thirty-two pound shot. While 
 tliis Avicked man of war was thus making a jest of relig- 
 ion, his pious mother had probably put up a note, that 
 very Sabbath-day, desiring the " prayers of the congre- 
 gation for a son gone a soldiering." We trust, however, 
 that there were some stout old worthies who were not 
 ashanied to do as their fathers did, but went to prayer, 
 with tlieir soldiers, before leading them to battle; and 
 doubtless fought none the worse for that. If we had 
 enlisted in the Old Frencli War, it should have been 
 under such a captain ; for we love to see a man keep 
 the characteristics of his country.* 
 
 These letters, and other intelhgence from the army, 
 are pleasant and lively reading, and stir up the mind 
 like the music of a drum and fife. It is less agreeable 
 to meet with accounts of women slain and scalped, and 
 
 * The contemptuous jealousy of the British army, from the 
 general downwards, was very galUng to the provincial troops. 
 In one of the newspapers, there is an admirable letter of a New 
 England man, copied from the London Chronicle, defending 
 the provincials with an ability worthy of Franklin, and some- 
 what in his style. The letter is remarkable, also, because it takes 
 up the cause of the whole range of colonics, as if the writer 
 looked upon them all as constituting one country, and that his 
 own. Colonial patriotism had not hitherto been so broad a 
 sentiment.
 
 OLD NEWS. 1(35 
 
 infants dashed against trees, by the Indians on the fron- 
 tiers. It is a striicing circumstance, that innumerable 
 bears, driven from the woods, by the uproar of coutend- 
 ing armies in their accustomed haunts, broke into the 
 settlements, and committed great ravages among chil- 
 dren, as well as sheep and swine. Some of them prowled 
 ■where bears had never been for a century, penetrating 
 within a mile or two of Boston; a fact that gives a strong 
 and gloomy impression of something very terrific going 
 on in the forest, since these savage beasts fled townward 
 to avoid it. But it is impossible to moralize about such 
 trifles, when every newspaper contains tales of military 
 enterprise, and often a huzza for victory ; as, for in- 
 stance, the taking of Ticonderoga, long a place of awe 
 to the provincials, and one of the bloodiest spots in the 
 present war. Nor is it unpleasant, among whole pages 
 of exultation, to find a note of sorrow for the fall of !<omc 
 brave officer; it comes wailing in, like a funeral strain 
 amidst a peal of triumph, itself triumphant too. Such 
 was the lamentation over Wolfe. Somewhere, in this 
 volume of newspapers, though we cannot now lay our 
 finger upon the passage, we recollect a report that Gen- 
 eral AYolfe was slain, not by the enemy, but by a shot 
 from his own soldiers. 
 
 In the advertising columns, also, vrc are continually 
 reminded that the country was in a state of war. Gov- 
 ernor Pownall makes proclamation for the enlisting of 
 soldiers, and directs the militia colonels to attend to the 
 discipline of their regiments, and the selectmen of every 
 town to replenish their stocks of ammunition. The maga- 
 zine, by the way, was generally kept in the upper loft of 
 the village meeting-house. The provincial cajitains arc 
 drumming up for soldiers, in every newspai)or. Sir 
 Jefl^rey Amherst advertises for batteaux-mcn, to be em-
 
 166 OLD NEWS. 
 
 ployed on the lakes ; and gives uotice to the officers of 
 seven British regiuieuts, dispersed on the recruiting ser- 
 vice, to rendezvous in Boston. Captain Hallowell, of 
 the province ship-of-war Xing Geoi-ge, invites able-bodied 
 seamen to serve lus Majesty, lor lit'teen pounds, old tenor, 
 per month. By the rewards offered, tliere Mould appear 
 to have been frequent desertions from the New England 
 forces: we applaud their wisdom, if not their valor or 
 mtegrity. Cannon of all calibres, gunpowder and balls, 
 firelocks, pistols, swords, and hangers, were common 
 articles of merchandise. Daniel Jones, at the sign of 
 the hat and helmet, offers to supply officers with scarlet 
 broadcloth, gold-lace for hats and waistcoats, cockades, 
 and other military foppery, allowing credit until the pay- 
 rolls shall be made up. This advertisement gives us 
 quite a gorgeous idea of a provincial captain in full 
 dress. 
 
 At the commencement of the campaign of 1759, the 
 British general informs the farmers of New England 
 that a regular market will be established at Lake George, 
 whither they are invited to bring provisions and refresh- 
 ments of all sorts, for the use of the army. ' Hence, we 
 may form a singular picture of petty traffic, far away 
 from any permanent settlements, among the hills which 
 border that romantic lake, with the solemn woods over- 
 shadowing the scene. Carcasses of bullocks and fat 
 porkers are placed upright against the huge trunks of 
 the trees; fowls hang from the lower branches, bobbing 
 against the heads of those beneath ; butter-firkins, great 
 cheeses, and brown loaves of household bread, baked in 
 distant ovens, are collected under temporary shelters or 
 pine-boughs, with gingerbread, and pumpkin-pies, per- 
 haps, and other toothsome dainties. Barrels of cider 
 and spruce-beer are running freely into the wooden can-
 
 OLD NEWS. 1G7 
 
 teens of the soldiers. Imagine sucli a scene, beneath 
 the dark forest canopy, with here and there a few striiff- 
 gling sunbeuuis, to dissipate tiie gloom. See the shrewd 
 yeomen, hagghng with their scarlet-coated customers, 
 abating somewhat in their prices, but still dealing at 
 monstrous profit; and then complete the picture M'ith 
 circumstances that bespeak war and danger. A cannon 
 shall be seen to belch its smoke from among the trees, 
 against some distant canoes on the lake ; the traffickers 
 shall pause, and seem to hearken, at intervals, as if they 
 heard the rattle of musketry or the shout of Indians ; a 
 scout ing-i)arty shall be driven in, with two or three faint 
 and bloody men among them. And, in spite of these 
 disturbances, business goes on briskly in the market of 
 the wilderness. 
 
 It must not be supposed that the martial character of 
 the times interrupted all pursuits except those connected 
 with war. On the contrary, there appears to have been 
 a general vigor and vivacity diffused into the whole 
 round of colonial life. During the winter of 1759, it 
 was computed that about a thousand sled-loads of coun- 
 try produce were daily brought into Boston market. It 
 was a symptom of an irregular and unquiet course of 
 affairs, that innumerable lotteries were projected, ostcn- 
 sil)ly for the purpose of j)ublic improvements, such as 
 roads and bridges. Many females seized the opportunity 
 to engage in business : as, among others, Alice Quick, 
 who dealt in crockery and hosiery, next door to Deacon 
 Beautineau's; Mary Jackson, who sold butter, at the 
 Brazen-Head, in Cornhill ; Abigail Hiller, who taught 
 ornamental work, near the Orange-Tree, where also were 
 to be seen the King and Queen, in wax-work ; Sarah 
 Morehead, an instructor in glass-])ainting, drawing, and 
 japanning ; Mary Salmon, who shod horses, at the South
 
 168 OLD XEWS. 
 
 End; Harriet Pain, at the Buck and Glove, and Mrs. 
 Henrietta Maria Caine, at the Goldeu Fan, both fashion- 
 able iiiillincrs ; Anna Adams, who advertises Quebec 
 and Garrick bonnets, Prussian cloaks, and scarlet cardi- 
 nals, opposite the old brick meeting-house ; besides a 
 lady at the head of a wine and spirit establishment. 
 Little did these good dames expect to reappsar before the 
 ])ublic, so long after they had made their last courtesies 
 behind the counter. Our great-grandmothers were a 
 stirring sisterhood, and seem not to have been utterly 
 despised by the gentlemen at the British coffee-house; 
 at least, some gracious bachelor, there resident, gives 
 public notice of his willingness to take a wife, provided 
 she be not above twenty-three, and possess brown hair, 
 regular features, a brisk eye, and a fortune. Now, this 
 was great condescension towards the ladies of Massachu- 
 setts Bay, in a threadbare lieutenant of foot. 
 
 Polite literature was beginning to make its appearance. 
 Pew native works were advertised, it is true, except ser- 
 mons and treatises of controversial divinity ; nor were 
 the English authors of the day much known on this 
 side of the Atlantic. But catalogues were frequently 
 offered at auction or private sale, comprising the stand- 
 ard English books, history, essays, and poetry, of Queen 
 Anne's age, and the preceding century. We see nothing 
 in the nature of a novel, unless it be " The Two Mothers, 
 price four coppers." There was an American poet, how- 
 ever, of whom Mr. Kettell has preserved no specimen, 
 — the author of " War, an Heroic Poem " ; he publishes 
 by subscription, and threatens to prosecute his patrons 
 for not taking their books. We have discovered a peri- 
 odical, also, and one that has a peculiar claim to be re- 
 corded here, since it bore the title of " The New Eng- 
 land Magazine," a forgotten predecessor, for which.
 
 OLD XEWS. inO 
 
 we should have a filial respect, and take its excellence 
 on trust. The fine arts, too, were budding into exist- 
 ence. At the " old glass and picture shop," in Cornliill, 
 various maps, plates, and views are advertised, and 
 among tliem a " Prospect of Boston," a copperplate 
 engraving of Quebec, and the effigies of all the New 
 England ministers ever done in inozzotinto. All these 
 must have been very salable, articles. Oilier ornamental 
 wares were to be found at the same shop ; such as vio- 
 lins, flutes, hautboys, musical books, English and Dutch 
 toys, and London babies. About tliis period, Mr. Dip- 
 per gives notice of a concert of vocal and instrumental 
 music. There had already been an attempt at theatrical 
 exhibitions. 
 
 There are tokens, in every newspaper, of a style of 
 luxury and magnificence which we do not usually asso- 
 ciate with our ideas of the times. AVlien the property 
 of a deceased person was to be sold, we find, among the 
 household furniture, silk beds and hangings, damask 
 table-cloths, Turkey carpels, pictures, pier-glasses, mas- 
 sive plate, and all things ])ro])er for a noble mansion. 
 "Wine was more generally drunk than now, though by 
 no means to the neglect of ardent spirits. Eor the 
 apparel of both sexes, the mercers and milliners imported 
 good store of fine broadcloths, especially scarlet, crimson, 
 and sky-blue, silks, satins, lawns, and velvets, gold bro- 
 cade, and gold and silver lace, and silver tassels, and 
 silver spangles, until Cornhill shone and sparkled with 
 their merchandise. The gaudiest dress permissible by 
 modern taste fades into a Quaker-like sobriety, compared 
 with the deep, rich, glowing splendor of our ancestors. 
 Such figures were almost too fine to go about town on 
 foot; accordingly, carriages were so numerous as to 
 require a tax ; and it is recorded that, when Governor 
 8
 
 170 OLD XETVS. 
 
 Bernard came to the province, Le was met between 
 Dedham and Boston by a multitude of gentlemen iu 
 their coaches and chariots. 
 
 Take my arm, gentle reader, and come with me into 
 some street, perhaps trodden by your daily footsteps, but 
 which now has such an aspect of half-familiar strange- 
 ness, that you suspect yourself to be walking abroad in a 
 dream. Trne, there are some brick edifices which you 
 remember from childhood, and which your father and 
 grandfather remembered as well ; but you are perplexed 
 by the absence of many that were here only an hour or 
 two since ; and still more amazing is the presence of 
 whole rows of wooden and plastered houses, projecting 
 over the sidewalks, and bearing iron figures on their 
 fronts, which prove them to have stood on the same sites 
 above a century. "Where have your eyes been that you 
 never saw them before ? Along the ghostly street, — for, 
 at length, you conclude that all is unsubstantial, though 
 it be so good a mockery of an antique town, — along the 
 ghostly street, there are ghostly people too. Every 
 gentleman has his three-cornered hat, either on his head 
 or under his arm; and all wear wigs in infinite variety, 
 — the Tie, the Brigadier, the Spencer, the Albemarle, 
 the Major, the Ramillies, the grave Full-bottom, or the 
 giddy Feather-top. Look at the elaborate lace-ruffles, 
 and the square-skirted coats of gorgeous hues, bedizened 
 with silver and gold ! Make way for the phantom-ladies, 
 whose lioo])s require such breadth of passage, as they 
 pace majestically along, in silken gowns, blue, green, or 
 yellow, brilliantly embroidered, and with small satin hats 
 surmounting their powdered hair. Make way ; for the 
 whole spectral show will vanish, if your earthly garments 
 brush against their robes. Now that the scene is bright- 
 est, and the whole street glitters with imaginary sun-
 
 OLD NEWS. 171 
 
 sliine, — now bark to tlic bells of tbe Old South and the 
 Old Nortb, ringing out witli a sudden and merry peal, 
 while the cannon of Castle "William thunder below the 
 town, and those of the Diana frigate repeat the sound, 
 and the Charlestown batteries reply with a nearer roar ! 
 You see the crowd toss up their iiats in visionary joy. 
 You hear of illuminations and fire-works, and of bonfires, 
 built on scailolds, raised several stories above thegnmnd, 
 that are to blaze all night in King Street and on Beacon 
 Hill. And here come the trumpets and kettle-drums, 
 and the tramping hoofs of the Boston troop of horse- 
 guards, escorting the governor to King's Chapel, where 
 he is to return solemn thanks for the surrender of Quebec. 
 March on, thou shadowy troop! and vanish, giiostly 
 crowd! and change again, old street! for those stirring 
 times are gone. 
 
 Opportunely for the conclusion of our sketch, a fire 
 broke out, on the twentieth of March, 1700, at the 
 Bra/en-IIead, in Cornhill, and consumed nearly four 
 hundred buildings. Similar disasters have always been 
 epochs in the chronology of Boston. That of 1711 had 
 hitherto been termed the Great Fire, but now resigned 
 its baleful dignity to one which has ever since retained 
 it. Did we desire to move the reader's sympathies on 
 this subject, we would not be grandiloquent about the 
 sea of billowy flame, the glowing and crumbling streets, 
 the broad, black firmament of smoke, ami the blast of 
 wind that sprang up with the conflagration and roared 
 behind it. It would be more cfTeelivc to mark out a 
 single family at the moment when the Ihimes caught 
 upon an angle of tiieir dwelling: then would ensue the 
 removal of the bedridden grandmother, the cradle with 
 the sleeping infant, and, most dismal of all, the dying 
 man just at the extremity of a lingering disease. Do
 
 172 OLD XEWS. 
 
 but imagine the confused agony of one thus a"wfully 
 disturbed in his last hour ; liis fearful glance beliind 
 at the consuming fire raging after him, from house to 
 house, as its devoted victim ; and, finally, the almost 
 eagerness with which he would seize some calmer in- 
 terval to die ! The Great Fire must have realizsd many 
 such a scene. 
 
 Doubtless posterity has acqnired a better city by the 
 calamity of that generation. None will be inclined to 
 lament it at this late day, except the lover of antiquity, 
 who would have been glad to walk among those streets 
 of venerable houses, fancying the old inhabitants still 
 there, that he might connnune with their shadows, and 
 paint a more vivid picture of their times. 
 
 in. THE OLD TORY. 
 
 Again we take a leap of about twenty years, and 
 alight in the midst of the Revolution. Indeed, having 
 just closed a volume of colonial newspapers, which repre- 
 sented the period when monarchical aud aristocratic sen- 
 timents were at the highest, — and now opening another 
 volume printed in the same metropolis, after such senti- 
 ments had long been deemed a sin and shame, — we feel 
 as if the leap were more than figurative. Our late course 
 of reading has tinctured us, for the moment, with antique 
 prejudices ; aud we shrink from the strangely contrasted 
 times into which we emerge, like one of those immuta- 
 ble old Tories, who acknowledge no oppression in the 
 Stamp Act. It may be ihe most effective method of 
 going through the present file of papers, to follow out
 
 OLD NEWS. 173 
 
 tills idea, and transform oursclf, percliance, from a mod- 
 ern Tory into sucli a sturdy King-man as once wore 
 that pliable nickname. 
 
 Well, then, here we sit, an old, gray, -withered, sour- 
 visaged, threadbare sort of gentleman, erect enough, here 
 ill our solitude, but marked out by a depressed and dis- 
 trustful mien abroad, as one conscious of a stigma upon 
 his forehead, though for no crime. "We were already in 
 the decline of life when the first tremors of tlie eartii- 
 quake that has convulsed the continent Avere felt. Our 
 mind had grown too rigid to change any of its opinions, 
 when the voice of the people demanded that all should be 
 changed. We are an Episcopalian, and sat under the 
 Iligh-Church doctrines of Dr. Cancr; we have been a 
 captain of the provincial forces, and love our king tlie 
 better for the blood that we shed in his cause on the 
 Plains of Abraham. Among all the refugees, there is 
 not one more loyal to the backbone than we. Still we 
 lingered behind when the British army evacuated Boston, 
 sweeping in its train most of those with whom we held 
 communion; the old, loyal gentlemen, tlie aristocracy of 
 the colonies, the liereditary Englishman, imbued with 
 more than native zeal and admiration for the glorious 
 island and its monarch, because the far-intervening ocean 
 threw a dim reverence around them. When our breth- 
 ren departed, we could not tear our aged roots out of 
 the soil. We have remained, therefore, enduring to be 
 outwardly a freeman, but idolizing King George in se- 
 crecy and silence, — one true old lieart amongst a host 
 of enemies. We watch, with a M-cary hope, for the mo- 
 ment when all this turmoil shall subside, and the impious 
 novelty that has distracted our latter years, like a wild 
 dream, give place to the blessed quietude of royal sway, 
 with the king's name in every ordinance, his prayer in
 
 174 OLD NEWS. 
 
 the church, liis health at the board, and his love in the 
 people's heart. Meantime, our old age finds little honor. 
 Hustled have we been, till driven from town-meetings ; 
 dirty water has been cast upon our ruffles by a Wiiig 
 chambermaid; John Hancock's coachman seizes every 
 opportunity to bespatter us with mud; daily are we 
 hooted by the uubreeched rebel brats ; and narrowly, 
 once, did our gray hairs escape the ignominy of tar and 
 feathers. Alas ! only that we cannot bear to die till the 
 next royal governor comes over, we would fain be in our 
 quiet grave. 
 
 Such an old man among new tilings are we who now 
 hold at arm's-length the rebel newspaper of the day. 
 The very figure-head, for the thousandfh time, elicits a 
 groan of spiteful lamentation. Where are the united 
 heart and crown, the loyal emblem, that used to hallow 
 the sheet on which it was impressed, in our younger 
 days ? In its stead we find a continental officer, with 
 the Declaration of Independence in one hand, a drawn 
 sword in the other, and above his head a scroll, bearing 
 the motto, "We appeal to Heaven." Then say we, 
 with a prospective trium[)h, let Heaven judge, in its 
 own good time ! The material of the sheet attracts our 
 scorn. It is a fair specimen of rebel manufacture, thick 
 and coarse, like wrapping-paper, all overspread with lit- 
 tle knobs ; and of such a deep, dingy blue color, that 
 w^e wipe our spectacles thrice before we can distinguish 
 a letter of the wretched ])rint. Thus, in all points, the 
 newspaper is a type of the times, far more fit for the 
 rough hands of a democratic mob, than for our own 
 delicate, though bony fingers. Nay ; we will not handle 
 it without our gloves ! 
 
 Glancing down the page, our eyes are greeted every- 
 where by the offer of lands at auction, for sale or to be
 
 OLD NEWS. 175 
 
 leased, not by the rightful owners, but a rcl)cl commit- 
 tee; notices of the town constable, that he is autliorized 
 to receive tlie taxes on such an estate, iu default of 
 which, that also is to be knocked down to the liighest 
 bidder; and notifications of coinplainis filed by the at- 
 torney-general against certain traitorous absentees, and 
 of confiscations that are to ensue. And who are these 
 traitors ? Our own best friends ; names as old, once as 
 honored, as any in the land where they are no longer to 
 have a patrimony, nor to be remembered as good men 
 who have passed away. We are ashamed of not relin- 
 quisiiiug our little property, too ; but comfort ourselves 
 because we still keep our principles, without gratifying 
 the rebels with our plunder. Plunder, indeed, they are 
 seizing everywhere, — by the strong hand at sea, as well 
 as by legal forms on shore. Here are prize-vessels for 
 sale; no French nor Spanish merchantmen, whose wealth 
 is the birthright of British subjects, l)ut hulls of British 
 oak, from Liverpool, Bristol, and the Thames, laden with 
 the king's own stores, for his army in Xew York. And 
 what a fleet of privateers — pirates, say we — are fitting 
 out for new ravages, with rebellion in their very names ! 
 The Free Yankee, the General Green, the Saratoga, the 
 Lafayette, and the Grand Monarch ! Yes, the Grand 
 Monarch ; so is a French king styled, by the sons of 
 Englishmen. And here we have an ordinance from the 
 Court of Versailles, with the Bourbon's own signature 
 affixed, as if New England were already a French prov- 
 ince. Everything is French, — French soldiers, Frencli 
 sailors, French surgeons, and French diseases too, 1 
 trow ; besides French dancing-masters and French milli- 
 ners, to debauch our daughters with French fashions! 
 Everything in America is French, except the Canadas, 
 the loyal Canadas, which we helped to wrest from
 
 176 OLD NEWS. 
 
 France. And to tliat old Frencli province the English- 
 man of the colonies must go to find liis country ! 
 
 0, the misery of seeing the Avhole system of things 
 clianged in my old days, when I would be loath to change 
 even a pair of buckles ! The British coffee-house, wliere 
 oft we sat, brimful of wine and loyalty, with the gal- 
 lant gentlemen of Amherst's army, when we wore a red- 
 coat too, — the British coffee-house, forsooth, must now 
 be styled the American, with a golden eagle instead of 
 the royal arms above the door. Even the street it 
 stands in is no longer King Street ! Nothing is the 
 king's, except this heavy heart in my old bosom. Wher- 
 ever I glance my eyes, they meet something that pricks 
 them like a needle. This soap-maker, for instance, this 
 Hobert Hewes, has conspired against my peace, by no- 
 tifying that his shop is situated near Liberty Stump. 
 But when will their misnamed liberty have its true 
 emblem in that Stump, hewn down by British steel? 
 
 "Where shall we buy our next year's almanac? Not 
 this of Weatherwise's, certainly ; for it contains a like- 
 ness of George Washington, the upright rebel, whom we 
 most hate, though reverentially, as a fallen angel, with 
 his heavenly brightness undiminished, evincing pure 
 fame in an unhallowed cause. And here is a new book 
 for my evening's recreation, — a History of the War till 
 the close of the year 1779, with the heads of thirteen 
 distinguished officers, engraved on copperplate. A plague 
 upon their heads I We desire not to see them till they 
 grin at us from the balcony before the town-house, fixed 
 on spikes, as the heads of traitors. How bloody-minded 
 the villains make a peaceable old man! What next? 
 An Oration, on the Horrid Massacre of 1770. When 
 that blood was shed, — the first that the British soldier 
 ever drew from the bosoms of our countrymen, — we
 
 OLD NEWS. 177 
 
 turned sick at heart, and do so still, as often as they 
 make it reek anew IVoni among the stones in King 
 Street. The pool that we saw that night has swelled 
 into a lake, — English blood and American, — no ! all 
 British, all blood of my brethren. And here come down 
 tears. Shame on me, since half of them are shed for 
 rebels ! Who arc not rebels now ! Even the women 
 are thrusting their white hands into the war, and come 
 out in this very paper with proposals to form a society 
 — the lady of George Washington at their head — for 
 clothing the continental troops. They will strip off their 
 stiff petticoats to cover the ragged rascals, and then en- 
 list in the ranks themselves. 
 
 What have we here ? Burgoyne's proclamation turned 
 into Iludibrastic rhyme! And here, some verses against 
 the king, in which the scribbler leaves a blank for the 
 name of George, as if his doggerel might yet exalt him to 
 the pillory. Such, after years of rebellion, is tiie heart's 
 unconrpierable reverence for the Lord's anointed! In 
 the next column, we have scripture parodied in a squib 
 against his sacred Majesty. What would our Puritan- 
 great-grandsires have said to that ? They never laughed 
 at God's word, though they cut off a king's head. 
 
 Yes ; it was for us to prove how disloyalty goes hand 
 in hand with irreligion, and all other vices come trooping 
 in the train. Nowadays men commit robbery and sacri- 
 lege for the mere luxury of wickedness, as this advertise- 
 ment testifies. Three hundred ])0uuds reward for the 
 detection of the villains who stole and destroyed the 
 cushions and pulpit drapery of the Brattle Street and Old 
 South churches. Was it a crime ? I can scarcely think 
 our temples hallowed, since the king ceased to be prayed 
 for. But it is not temi)les only that they rob. Here a 
 man offers a thousand dollars — a thousand dollars, in 
 8* L
 
 178 OLD NEWS. 
 
 Coutineutal rags ! — for the recovery of liis stolen cloak, 
 and other articles of clothing. Horse-thieves are innu- 
 merable. Now is the day when every beggar gets on 
 horseback. And is not the whole land like a beggar on 
 horseback riding post to the Devil ? Ha ! here is a 
 murder, too. A woman slain at midniglit, by an un- 
 known rufiiin, and found cold, stiff, and bloody, in her 
 violated bed! Let the hue-and-cry follow hard after 
 the man in the uniform of blue and butf who last went 
 by that way. My life on it, he is the blood-stained rav- 
 isher ! These deserters whom we see proclaimed in every 
 column, — proof that the banditti are as false to their 
 Stars and Stripes as to the Holy Red Cross, — they bring 
 the crimes of a rebel camp into a soil well suited to 
 them ; the bosom of a people, without the heart that 
 kept them virtuous, — their king ! 
 
 Here, flaunting down a whole column, with official 
 seal and signature, here comes a proclamation. By 
 whose authority ? Ah ! the United States, — these thir- 
 teen little anarchies, assembled in that one grand an- 
 archy, their Congress. And what the import ? A 
 general Fast. By Heaven ! for once the traitorous 
 blockheads have legislated wisely ! Yea ; let a mis- 
 guided people kneel down in sackcloth and ashes, from 
 end to end, from border to border, of their wasted coun- 
 try. Well may they fast where there is no food, and cry 
 aloud for whatever remnant of God's mercy their sins 
 may not have exhausted. We too will fast, even at a 
 rebel summons. Pray others as they will, there shall be 
 at least an old man kneeling for the righteous cause. 
 Lord, put down the rebels ! God save the king ! 
 
 Peace to the good old Tory ! One of our objects lias 
 been to exemphfy, without softening a single prejudice 
 proper to the character which we assumed, that the
 
 OLD NEWS. 179 
 
 Americans who clung to tlie losing side in the Revolu- 
 tion were men greatly to be pitied and often worthy of 
 our synjpathy. It would be difficult to say whose lot 
 was most lamentable, that of the active Tories, who gave 
 up their patrimonies lor a pittance from the British pen- 
 sion-roll, and their native land for a cold reccjUion in 
 their miscalled home, or the passive ones who remained 
 behind to endure the coldness of former friends, and 
 the public opprobrium, as despised citizens, under a 
 government which they abhorred. In justice to the old 
 gentleman who has favored us with his discontented 
 musings, we must remark that the state of the country, 
 so far as can be gathered from these j)apers, was of dis- 
 mal augury for the tendencies of democratic rule. It 
 ■was pardonable in the conservative of that day to mis- 
 take the temporary evils of a change for permanent dis- 
 eases of the system which that change was to establish. 
 A revolution, or anything that interrupts social order, 
 may afi'ord opportunities for the individual display of 
 eminent virtues ; but its effects are pernicious to general 
 morality. Most people are so constituted that they can 
 be virtuous only in a certain routine ; and an irregular 
 course of public affairs demoralizes them. One great 
 source of disorder was the multitude of disbanded troops, 
 who were continually returning home, after terms of ser- 
 vice just long enough to give them a distaste to peaceable 
 occupations ; neither citizens nor soldiers, they were very 
 liable to become ruffians. Almost all our impressions iu 
 regard to this period are unpleasant, whether referring 
 to the state of civil society, or to the character of the 
 contest, which, especially where native Americans were 
 opposed to each other, was waged with the deadly hatred 
 of fraternal enemies. It is the beauty of war, for meu to 
 commit mutual havoc with undisturbed good-humor.
 
 180 OLD NEWS. 
 
 The present volume of newspapers contains fewer 
 characteristic traits than any wliich we have looked over. 
 Except for the peculiarities attendant on tlie passing 
 struggle, manners seem to have taken a modern cast. 
 Whatever antique fashions lingered into the War of the 
 Kevolution, or bevond it, they were not so strongly 
 marked as to leave their traces in the public journals. 
 Moreover, tiie old newspapers had an indescribable pic- 
 turesqueness, not to be found in the later ones. Whether 
 it be something in tlie Hterary execution, or the ancient 
 print and paper, and the idea that those same musty 
 pages have been handled by people once alive and bus- 
 tling amid the scenes there recorded, yet now in their 
 graves beyond the memory of man ; so it is, tliat in those 
 elder volumes we seeui to find the Ufe of a past age pre- 
 served between the leaves, like a dry specimen of foliage. 
 It is so difficult to discover Avhat touches are really p:c- 
 tiiresque, tliat we doubt whether our attempts have 
 produced any similar effect.
 
 THE MAN OF ADAMANT: 
 
 AN APOLOGUE. 
 
 N the old times of religious gloom and intoler- 
 auce lived Richard Digl)y, the gloomiest and 
 most intolerant of a stern brotherhood. Ilis 
 plan of salvation was so narrow, that, like a ])lank in a 
 tempestuous sea, it could avail no sinner but himself, 
 who bestrode it triumphantly, and hurled anathemas 
 against the wretches whom he saw struggling with the 
 billows of eternal death. In his view of the matter, it 
 was a most abominable crime — as, indeed, it is a great 
 folly — for men to trust to their own strength, or even 
 to grapple to any other fragment of the wreck, save this 
 narrow plank, which, moreover, he took special care to 
 keep out of their reach. In other words, as his creed 
 was like no man's else, and being well ))leased that 
 Providence had intrusted him alone, of mortals, with the 
 treasure of a true faith, Kichard Digby determined to 
 seclude himself to the sole and constant enjoyment of 
 his happy fortune. 
 
 "And verily," thought he, " T deem it a eliief condi- 
 tion of Heaven's mercy to myself, that I hold no com- 
 munion with those abominable myriads which it hath cast 
 off to perish. Perad venture, were I to tarry longer in
 
 182 THE MAN OF ADAMANT. 
 
 tli3 teuts of Kedar, the gracious boon would be revoked, 
 aud I also be swallowed up in the deluge of wrath, or 
 consumed in the storm of fire and brimstone, or involved 
 in whatever new kind of ruin is ordained for the horrible 
 perversity of this gsueratiou." 
 
 So Richard Digby took an axe, to hew space enough 
 for a tabernacle in the wilderness, aud some few other 
 necessaries, especially a sword and guji, to smite and 
 slay any intruder upon his hallowed seclusion; and 
 plunged into the dreariest depths of the forest. On its 
 verge, however, he paused a moment, to shake off the 
 dust of his feet against the village where he had dwelt, 
 and to invoke a curse on the meeting-house, which he 
 regarded as a temple of heathen idolatry. He felt a 
 curiosity, also, to see whether the fire and brimstone 
 would not rush down from Heaven at once, now that the 
 one righteous man had provided for his own safety. 
 But, as the sunshine continued to fall peacefully on the 
 cottages and fields, and the husbandmen labored and 
 children played, and as there were many tokens of 
 present happiness, and nothing ominous of a speedy 
 judgment, he turned away, somewhat disappointed. 
 The farther he went, however, and the lonelier he felt 
 himself, and the thicker the trees stood along his path, 
 and the darker the shadow overhead, so much the more 
 did Richard Digby exult. He talked to himself, as he 
 strode onward ; he read his Bible to himself, as he sat 
 beneath the trees; and, as the gloom of the forest hid 
 the blessed sky, I had almost added, that, at morning, 
 noon, and eventide, he prayed to himself. So congenicd 
 was this mode of life to his disposition, that he often 
 laughed to himself, but was displeased when an echo 
 tossed him back the long loud roar. 
 
 In this manner, he journeyed onward three days and
 
 THE MAN OF ADAMANT. 183 
 
 two niglits, and caine, on the third cvcniii!:^, to the mouth 
 of a cave, which, at first sii^ht, reminded him of Ehjah's 
 cave at Horeb, thougli perhaps it more resembled Abra- 
 ham's sepulchral cave at Machpehih. It entered into 
 the lieart of a rocicy hill. There was so dense a veil of 
 tangled foliage about it, that none but a sworn lover 
 of gloomy recesses would have discovered the low arch 
 of its entrance, or have dared to step within its vaulted 
 chamber, where the burning eyes of a panther might 
 encounter him. If Nature meant this remote and dismal 
 cavern for the use of man, it could only be to bury in its 
 gloom the victims of a pestilence, and then to block up 
 its mouth with stones, and avoid the spot forever after. 
 There was nothing bright nor cheerful near it, except 
 a bubbling fountain, some twenty paces olV, at which 
 Richard Digby hardly threw away a glance. But he 
 thrust his head into the cave, shivered, and congratulated 
 himself. 
 
 "The finger of Providence halh pointed my way!" 
 cried he, aloud, while the tomb-like den returned a 
 strange echo, as if some one within were mocking him. 
 " Here my soul will be at peace ; for the wicked will not 
 find me. Here I can read the Scriptures, and be no more 
 provoked with lying interpretations. Here I can offer 
 up acceptable })rayers, because my voice will not be min- 
 gled with the sinful supplications of the multitude. Of 
 a truth, the only way to heaven leudcth through the 
 narrow entrance of this cave, — and I alone have found 
 it!" 
 
 In regard to this cave it was observable that the roof, 
 so far as the imperfect light permitted it to be seen, was 
 hung with substances resembling opaque icicles ; for tlie 
 damps of unknown centuries, dripping down continually, 
 had become as hard as adamant ; and wherever that
 
 IS-i THE :HAX OF ADAMAXT. 
 
 moisture fell, it seemed to possess the power of convert- 
 ing what it bathed to stone. The fallen leaves and sprigs 
 of foliage, which the wind had swept into the cave, and 
 the little feathery shrubs, rooted near the threshold, were 
 not wet with a natural dew, but had been embalmed by 
 this wondrous process. And here I am put in mind 
 that Richard Digby, before he withdrew himself from the 
 world, was supposed by skilful physicians to have con- 
 tracted a disease for M'hich no remedy was written h\ 
 their medical books. It was a depysition of calculous 
 particles within his heart, caused by an obstructed circu- 
 lation of the blood ; and, unless a uiiracle should be 
 wrought for him, there was diingar that the malady might 
 act on the entire substance of the organ, and change his 
 fleshy heart to stone. Many, indeed, affirmed that the 
 process was already near its consummation. Richard 
 Digby, however, could never be couviuced that any such 
 direful work was going on within him ; nor when he saw 
 the sprigs of marble foliage, did his heart even throb the 
 quicker, at the similituda suggested by these once ten- 
 der herbs. It may be that this same insensibility was a 
 symptom of the disease. 
 
 Be that as it might, Richard Digby was well contented 
 with his sepulchral cave. So dearly did he love this con- 
 genial spot, that, instead of going a few paces to the 
 bubbling spring for water, he allayed his thirst with now 
 and then a drop of moisture from the roof, which, had it 
 fallen anywhere but on his tongue, would have been con- 
 gealed into a pebble. For a man predisposed to stoni- 
 ness of the heart, this surely was unwholesome liquor. 
 But there he dwelt, for three days more eating herbs 
 and roots, drinking his own destruction, sleeping, as it 
 were, in a tomb, and awaking to the solitude of death, 
 yet esteeming this horrible mode of life as hardly inferior
 
 THE MAX OF ADAMANT. 185 
 
 to celestial bliss. Perhaps superior ; for, above the sky, 
 there would be angels to disturb him. At the close of 
 the third day, lie sat iu the portal of his mansion, reading 
 the Bible aloud, because no other ear could profit bv it, 
 and reading it amiss, because the rays of tiie setting sun 
 did not penetrate the dismal depth of shadow round about 
 hiui, nor fall upon the sncred page. Suddenly, liowever, 
 a faint gleam of light was thrown over the volume, and, 
 raising his eyes, llichard Digby saw that a yoiing woman 
 stood before the mouth of the cave, and that the sun- 
 beams bathed her white garment, which thus seemed to 
 possess a radiance of its own. 
 
 " Good evening, llichard," said the girl ; " I have 
 come from afar to find thee." 
 
 The slender grace and gentle loveliness of this young 
 woman were at once recoguized by Richard Digby. Her 
 name was Mary GofTe. She had been a convert to his 
 preaching of the word in England, before he yielded hiui- 
 self to that exclusive bigotry which now eufolded him 
 with such an iron grasp that no other sentiment could 
 reach his bosom. When he came a pilgriui to America, 
 she had remained in her father's hall ; but now, as it 
 appeared, had crossed the ocean after him, impelled l)y 
 the same faith that led other exiles hither, and perhaps 
 by love almost as holy. What else but faith and love 
 united could have sustained so delicate a creature, wau- 
 dering thus far into the forest, with her golden hair 
 dishevelled by the boughs, and her feet wounded by the 
 thorns? Yet, weary and faint though she must have 
 been, and affrighted at the dreariuess of the cave, she 
 looked on the lonely man with a mild and pitving ex- 
 pression, such as might beaui from an angel's eyes, 
 towards an afflicted mortal. But the recluse, frowning 
 sternly upon her, and keeping his finger between the
 
 186 THE MAX OF ADAMANT. 
 
 leaves of his lialf-clused Bible, motioned ber away \ritb 
 his baud. 
 
 "Off!" cried he. "I am sauetified, and thou art 
 sinful. Away ! " 
 
 " O Richard," said she, earnestly, " I have come this 
 ■weary way because I heard tbat a grievous distemper 
 had seized upon thy heart; and a great Physician hath 
 given me the skill to cure it. There is no other remedy 
 than this which I have brought thee. Turn me not 
 away, therefore, nor refuse my medicine ; for then must 
 this dismal cave be thy sepulchre." 
 
 "Away!" replied Richard Digby, still with a dark 
 frown. " My heart is in better condition than thine 
 own. Leave me, earthly one ; for the sun is almost set ; 
 and when no hght reaches the door of the cave, then is 
 my prayer-time." 
 
 Now, great as was her need, Mary Goffe did not plead 
 ■with this stony-hearted man for shelter and protection, 
 nor ask anything whatever for her own sake. All her 
 zeal was for his welfare. 
 
 " Come back with me ! " she exclaimed, clasping her 
 hands, — " come back to thy fellow-men ; f(U- they need 
 thee, Richard, and thou hast tenfold need of them. 
 Stay not- in this evil den; for the air is chill, and the 
 damps are fatal ; nor will any that perish within it ever 
 find the path to heaven. Hasten hsnce, I entreat thee, 
 for thine own soul's sake ; for either the roof will fall 
 upon thv head, or some other speedy destruction is at 
 Land." ' 
 
 " Perverse woman ! " answered Richard Digby, laugh- 
 ing aloud, — for he was moved to bitter mirth by her 
 foolish vehemence, — "I tell thee that the path to heaven 
 leadeth straight through this narrow portal where I sit. 
 And, moreover, the destruction thou speakest of is
 
 THE MAN OF ADAMANT. 187 
 
 ordained, not for tliis blessed cave, but for all other liab- 
 itations of mankind, tlir()U£,'Iiont the earth. Get thee 
 hence speedily, that thou niayst have thy share ! " 
 
 So saying, he opened his Bible again, and fixed his 
 eyes intently on the page, being resolved to withdraw 
 his thoughts from this child of sin and wrath, and to 
 waste no more of liis holy breath upon her. The shadow 
 had now^ grown so deep, where he was sitting, that lie 
 made continual mistakes in what he read, converting all 
 that was gracious and merciful to denunciations of ven- 
 geance and unutterable woe on every created being but 
 himself. Mary Gaffe, meanwhile, was leaning against 
 a tree, beside the sepulchral cave, very sad, yet with 
 something heavenly and ethereal in her unselfish sorrow. 
 The light from the setting sun still glorified her form, 
 and was reflected a little way within the darksome den, 
 discovering so terrible a gloom that the maiden shud- 
 dered for its self-doomed inhabitant. Espying the bright 
 fountain near at hand, she hastened thither, and scooped 
 up a portion of its water, in a cup of birchen bark. A 
 few tears mingled with the draught, and jjcrhaps gave it 
 all its efficacy. She then returned to the mouth of the 
 cave, and knelt down at Richard Digby's feet. 
 
 " Richard," she said, w'ith passionate fervor, yet a 
 gentleness in all her passion, "1 pray thee, by thy hope 
 of heaven, and as thou wouldst not dwell in this tomb 
 forever, drink of this hallowed water, be it but a single 
 drop ! Then, make room for me by thy side, and let us 
 read together one page of that blessed volume; and, 
 lastly, kneel down with me and pray! Do this, and thy 
 stony heart shall become softer than a babe's, and all be 
 well." 
 
 But Richard Bigby, in utter abhorrence of the pro- 
 posal, cast the Bible at his kc\, and eyed her with such
 
 188 THE MAN OF ADAMANT. 
 
 a fixed and evil frown, that be looked less like a living 
 man than a marble statue, wrought by some dark-im- 
 agined sculptor to express the most repulsive mood that 
 human features couki assume. And, as liis look grew 
 even devihsh, so, with an equal change did Mary Goffe 
 become more sad, more mild, more pitiful, more like a 
 sorrowing angel. But, the more heavenly she was, the 
 more hateful did slie seem to Richard Digby, who at 
 length raised his hand, and smote down the cup of 
 hallowed water upon the threshold of the cave, thus 
 rejecting the only medicine that could have cured his 
 stony heart. A sweet perfume lingered in the air for a 
 moment, and then was gone. 
 
 " Tempt me no more, accursed woman," exclaimed he, 
 still AA-ith his marble frown, "lest I smite thee down 
 also! What hast thou to do with my Bible? — what 
 ■with my prayers ? — what with my heaven ? " 
 
 No sooner had he spoken these dreadful words, than 
 Richard Digby's heart ceased to beat; while — so the 
 legend says — the form of Mary Goife melted into the 
 last sunbeams, and returned from the sepulchral cave to 
 heaven. Tor Mary Goffe iiad been buried in an Eng- 
 hsh churchyard, months before ; and either it was her 
 ghost that haunted the wild forest, or else a dream-like 
 spirit, typifying pure Religion. 
 
 Above a century afterwards, when the trackless forest 
 of Richard Digby's day had long been interspersed with 
 settlenicnts, the children of a neighboring farmer were 
 playing at the foot of a hill. The trees, on account of 
 the rude and broken surface of this acclivity, had never 
 been felled, and were crowded so densely together as to 
 hide all but a few rocky prominences, wherever their 
 roots could grapple with the soil. A little boy and girl, 
 to conceal themselves from their playmates, had crept
 
 THE MAN OF ADAMANT. ISO 
 
 into the deepest sliacle, -wliere not only the darksome 
 pines, but a thick veil of creej)ing plants suspended from 
 an overhanging rock, combined to make a twilight at 
 noonday, and almost a midnight at all other seasons. 
 There the children hid themselves, and shouted, repeat- 
 ing the cry at intervals, till the whole party of pur- 
 suers were drawn thither, and pulling aside the mat- 
 ted foliage, let in a doubtful glimpse of daylight. But 
 scarcely was this accomplished, when the little group 
 uttered a simultaneous shriek, and tumbled headlong 
 down the hill, making the best of their way homeward, 
 without a second glance into the gloomy recess. Their 
 father, unable to comprehend what had so startled thrm, 
 took his axe, and, by felling one or two trees, and tear- 
 ing away the creeping ])lants, laid the mystery open to 
 the day. He had discovered the entrance of a cave, 
 closely resembling the mouth of a sepulchre, within 
 which sat the figure of a man, whose gesture and atti- 
 tude Avarned the father and children to stand back, while 
 his visage wore a most forbidding frown. This rcj)ul- 
 sive personage seemed to have been carved in the same 
 gray stone that formed the walls and portal of the cave. 
 On minuter inspection, indeed, such blemishes were ob- 
 served, as made it doubtful Avhether the figure were 
 really a statue, chiselled by human art, and somewhat 
 worn and defaced by the lapse of ages, or a freak of 
 Nature, who migiit have chosen to imitate, in stone, 
 her usual handiwork of flesh. Perhaps it Avas the least 
 unreasonable idea, suggested by this strange sj)cetacle, 
 that the moisture of the cave possessed a petrifying 
 quality, which had thus awfully embalmed a human 
 corpse. 
 
 There was something so frightful in the aspect of this 
 Man of Adamant, that tlic farmer, the moment that he
 
 190 THE MAX OF AD A:\rAXT. 
 
 recovered from the fascination of his first gaze, began to 
 heap stones into the mouth of the cavern. His wife, 
 who had followed iiim to the hill, assisted her husband's 
 efforts. The children, also, approached as near as they 
 durst, with their little hands full of pebbles, and cast 
 them on the pile. Eartli was then thrown into the 
 crevices, and the whole fabric overlaid with sods. Thus 
 all traces of the discovery were obliterated, leaving only 
 a marvellous legend, which grew wilder from one gen- 
 eration to another, as the children told it to their grand- 
 children, and they to their posterity, till few believed 
 that there had ever been a cavern or a statue, where 
 now they saw but a grassy patch on the shadowy hill- 
 side. Yet, grown people avoid the spot, nor do children 
 play there. Friendship, and Love, and Piety, all human 
 and celestial sympathies, should keep aloof from that 
 hidden cave; for there still sits, and, unless an earth- 
 quake crumble down the roof upon his head, shall sit 
 forever, the shape of Richard Digby, in the attitude of 
 repelling the whole race of mortals, — not from heaven, 
 — but from the horrible loneliness of his dark, cold 
 sepulchre !
 
 THE DEVIL IN MANUSCRIPT. 
 
 N a bitter evening of December, I arrived by 
 mail in a large town, wliich uas then tiie resi- 
 
 dence of an intimate friend, one of tli 
 
 irifted 
 
 youths who cultivate poetry and the belles-lettres, and 
 call themselves students at law. My first business, after 
 supper, was to visit bim at the office of his distinguished 
 instructor. As I have said, it was a bitter night, clear 
 starlight, but cold as Nova Zembla, — tlic shop-windows 
 along the street being frosted, so as almost to hide the 
 lights, while the wheels of coaclies thundered erpially 
 loud over frozen earth and paveuienls of stone. There 
 was no snow, either on tlie ground or the roofs of tlie 
 houses. The wind blew so violently, tliat I had but to 
 spread my cloak like a main-sail, and scud ah)ng the 
 street at the rate of ten knots, greatly envied i)y other 
 navigators,* who were beating slowly up, witli the gale 
 right in their teeth. One of these I capsized, but was 
 gone on the wings of the wind before he could even 
 vociferate an oatli. 
 
 After this picture of an inclement night, behold us 
 seated by a great blazing lire, which looked so condort- 
 able and delicious that I felt inclined to lie down aud 
 roll among the hot coals. The usual furniture of a 
 lawyer's ofliee was around us, — rows of volumes in
 
 192 THE DEVIL IN MANUSCRIPT. 
 
 sheep-skill, and a iiuiltitude of writs, summonses, and 
 other legal papers, scattered over the desks and tables. 
 But there were certain objects which seemed to intimate 
 that we had little dread of the intrusion of clients, or of 
 the learned counsellor himself, who, indeed, was attend- 
 ing court in a distant town. A tall, decanter-shaped 
 bottle stood on the table, between two tumblers, and 
 beside a pile of blotted manuscripts, altogether dissim- 
 ilar to aiiv law documents recognized in our courts. My 
 friend, whom I shall call Oberon, — it was a name of 
 fancy and friendship between him and me, — my friend 
 Oberon looked at these papers with a peculiar expression 
 of disquietude. 
 
 " I do believe," said he, soberly, " or, at least, I could 
 believe, if I chose, that there is a devil in this pile of 
 blotted papers. You have read them, and know what I 
 mean, — that conception in which I endeavored to em- 
 body the character of a iiend, as represented in our 
 traditions and the written records of witchcraft. O, I 
 have a horror of what was created in my own brain, and 
 shudder at the manuscripts in which I gave that dark 
 idea a sort of material existence ! TV'ould they were out 
 of my sight ! " 
 
 " And of mine, too," thouglit I. 
 
 " You remember," continued Oberon, " how the hell- 
 ish thing used to suck away the happiness of those who, 
 by a simple concession, that seemed almost innocent, 
 subjected themselves to his power. Just so my peace is 
 gone, and all by these accursed manuscripts. Have you 
 felt nothing of the same influence ? " 
 
 " Nothing," replied I, " unless the spell be hid in a 
 desire to turn novelist, after reading your delightful 
 tales." 
 
 " Novelist ! " exclaimed Oberon, half seriously. " Then^
 
 THE DEVIL IN MANUSCRIPT. 193 
 
 indeed, my devil lias his claw on you I You are gone ! 
 You cannot even pray for deliverance ! But we will be 
 the last and only victims ; for this uii^ht I mean to burn 
 tlie manuscripts, and commit the liend to his retribution 
 in tlie flames." 
 
 " Burn your tales ! " repeated I, startled at the des- 
 peration of the idea. 
 
 " Even so," said the author, despondin.^ly. " You 
 cannot conceive what an effect the composition of these 
 tales has had on me. I have become ambitious of a 
 bubble, and careless of solid re})utatiou. I am surround- 
 ing myself with shadows, which bewilder me, by aping 
 the realities of life. They have drawn me aside from 
 the beaten path of the world, and led me into a strange 
 sort of solitude, — a solitude in the midst of men, — 
 "wliere nobody wishes for wliat I do, nor tliinks nor feels 
 as I do. Tlie tales have done all this. AVhen they are 
 ashes, perhaps I shall be as I was before tiicy had exist- 
 ence. Moreover, the sacrifice is less than you may sup- 
 pose ; since nobody will publish them." 
 
 "That docs make a dillcrcnce, indeed," said I. 
 
 " Thoy have been offered, by letter," continued Obe- 
 ron, reddening with vexation, " to some seventeen book- 
 sellers. It would make you stare to read their answers; 
 and read them you should, only tiiat I burnt tiiem as fast 
 as they arrived. One man publishes nothing but school- 
 books ; another has five novels already under examina- 
 tion." 
 
 " What a voluminous mass the unpublished literature 
 of America must be ! " cried I. 
 
 " O, the Alexandrian manuscripts M'crc nothing to 
 
 it! " said my friend. " Well, another gentleman is just 
 
 giving up business, on purpose, 1 verily believe, to eseape 
 
 publishing my book. Several, however, would not abso- 
 
 9 M
 
 194 THE DEVIL IN MANUSCRIPT. 
 
 lately decline the agency, on ray advancing half the cost 
 of an edition, and giving bonds for the remainder, besides 
 a high percentage to themselves, whether the book sells 
 or not. Another advises a subscription." 
 
 " The villain ! " exclaimed I. 
 
 "A fact ! " said Oberon. " In short, of all the seven- 
 teen booksellers, only one has vouchsafed even to read 
 my tales; and he — a literary dabbler himself,! should 
 judge — has the impertinence to criticise them, proposing 
 what he calls vast improvements, and concludiug, after a 
 general sentence of condemnation, with the definitive as- 
 surance that he will not be concerned on any terms. 
 
 "It might not be amiss to pull that fellow's nose," 
 remarked I. 
 
 "If the whole 'trade' had one common nose, there 
 would be some satisfaction in pulling it," auswered the 
 author. " But, there does seem to be one honest man 
 among these seventeen unrighteous ones ; and he tells 
 me fairly, that no American publisher will meddle with 
 an American worlc, — seldom if by a known writer, and 
 never if by a new one, — unless at the writer's risk," 
 
 " The paltry rogues ! " cried I. " Will they live by 
 literature, and yet risk nothing for its sake ? But, after 
 all, you might publisii on your own account." 
 
 " And so I might," replied Oberon. " But the devil 
 of the business is this. These people have put me so 
 out of conceit with the tales, that I loathe the very 
 thought of them, and actually experience a physical sick- 
 ness of the stomach, whenever I glance at them on the 
 table. I tell you there is a demon in them ! I antici- 
 pate a wild enjoyment in seehig them in the blaze; such 
 as I should feel in taking vengeance on an enemy, or 
 destroying somethhig noxious." 
 
 I did not very strenuously oppose this determination.
 
 THE DKVIL IN .MAXL SCRIPT. lJ)5 
 
 being privately of opinion, in spite of my partiality for 
 the author, that his tales would make a more brilliant 
 appearance in the fire than anywhere else. Before pro- 
 ceeding to execution, we broached the bottle of cham- 
 pagne, which Oberon had provided for keeping up liis 
 spirits in this doleful business. We swallowed each a 
 tumblerful, in sparkling commotion; it went bubbling 
 down our throats, and brightened my eyes at once, but 
 left my friend sad and heavy as before. He drew the 
 tales towards him, with a mixture of natural ali'ection 
 and natural disgust, like a lather taking a deformed in- 
 fant into his arms. 
 
 "Pooh! Pish! Pshaw!" exclaimed he, holding them 
 at arm's-length. " It was Gray's idea of heaven, to 
 lounge on a sofa and read new novels. Now, what 
 more appropriate torture would Dante himself have con- 
 trived, for the sinner who perpetrates a bad book, than 
 to be continually turning over the manuscript ? " 
 
 "It would fail of eiJect," said I, "because a bad 
 author is always his own great admirer." 
 
 " I lack that one characteristic of my tribe, — the only 
 desirable one," observed Oberon. "But how many 
 recollect i(ms throng upon me, as I turn over these 
 leaves! This scene came into my fancy as I walked 
 along a hilly road, on a starlight October evening; in 
 the pure and bracing air, I became all soul, and felt as 
 if I could climb the sky, and run a race along the Milky- 
 Way. Here is another tale, in which I wrapt myself 
 during a dark and dreary night-ride in the month of 
 March, till the rattling of the wheels and the voices of 
 my companions seemed like faint sounds of a dream, and 
 my visions a bright reality. That scribbled page de- 
 scribes shadows which I summoned to my bedside at 
 midnight: they would not depart when 1 bade them;
 
 196 THE DEVIL IN MANUSCRIPT. 
 
 the gray dawn came, and found me wide awake and 
 feverish, the victim of my own enchantments ! " . 
 
 "There must liave been a sort of happiness in all 
 this," said I, smitten with a strange longing to make 
 proof of it. 
 
 " There may be happiness in a fever fit," replied the 
 author. " And then the various moods in wliich I wrote ! 
 Sometimes my ideas were like precious stones under the 
 earth, requiring toil to dig them up, and care to polish 
 and brighten them ; but often, a delicious stream of 
 thought would gush out upon the page at once, like 
 water sparkliug up suddenly in the desert; and when 
 it had passed, I gnawed my pen hopelessly, or blun- 
 dered on with cold and miserable toil, as if there were 
 a wall of ice between me and my subject." 
 
 "Do you now perceive a corresponding difference," 
 inquired I, " between the passages which you wrote so 
 coldly, and those fervid flashes of the mind ? " 
 
 "xso," said Oberon, tossing the manuscripts on the 
 table. "I find no traces of the golden pen, with which 
 I wrote in characters of fire. My treasure of fairy coin 
 is changed to worthless dross. My picture, pamted in 
 what seemed the loveliest hues, presents nothing but a 
 faded and indistinguishable surface. I have been elo- 
 quent and poetical and humorous in a dream, — and 
 behold ! it is all nonsense, now tliat I am awake." 
 
 My friend now threw sticks of wood and dry chips 
 upon the fire, and seeing it blaze like Nebuchadnezzar's 
 furnace, seized the champagne-bottle, and drank two or 
 three brimming bumpers, successively. The h.eady liquor 
 combined with his agitation to throw him into a species 
 of rage. He laid violent hands on the tales. In one 
 instant more, their faults and beauties would alike have 
 vanished in a glowing purgatory. But, all at once, I
 
 THE DEVIL IX :\IAXUSCRIPT. l\)7 
 
 remembered passages of high imagiuatiou, deep ])athos, 
 original tlioughts, and points of sucli varied excellence, 
 that the vastness of the sacrifice struck me most forcibly. 
 I caught his arm. 
 
 *' Surely, you do not mean to burn tlicm ! " I ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 "Let me alone ! " cried Obcron, his eyes Hashing fire. 
 "I will burn them! Kot a scorched syllable sliall 
 escape! "Would you have me a damned author? — To 
 undergo sneers, taunts, abuse, and cold neglect, and faint 
 praise, bestowed, for ))ity's sake, against the giver's con. 
 science ! A hissing and a laughing-stock to my own 
 traitorous thoughts ! An outlaw from the protection of 
 the grave, — one wliose ashes every careless foot might 
 spurn, unhonored in life, and remembered scornfully in 
 death ! Am I to bear all this, when yonder fire will 
 insure me from the wlK)le ? Ko ! Tliere go the tales ! 
 May my hand wilher when it would write another ! " 
 
 The deed was done. lie had thrown the manuscripts 
 into the hottest of the fire, whicli at first seemed to shrint 
 away, but soon curled around them, and made them a 
 part of its own fervent brightness. Obcron stood gazing 
 at the conflagration, and shortly began to soliloquize, in 
 the wildest strain, as if Fancy resisted and became riot- 
 ous, at the moment when lie would have com])elled her 
 to ascend that funeral pile. His words described objects 
 •which he appeared to discern in the fire, fed by his own 
 precious thoughts ; perhaps tlie thousand visions which 
 the writer's magic had incorporated with these pages 
 became visible to him in the dissolving heat, ])riglitcning 
 forth ere they vanished forever; while the smoke, the 
 A'ivid sheets of flame, the ruddy and whitening coals, 
 caught the aspect of a varied scenery. 
 
 " They blaze," said he, " as if 1 had steeped them iu
 
 198 THE DEVIL IN MAXUSCRIPT. 
 
 the iutensest spirit of gcDius. Tliere I see my lovers 
 clasped iu each other's arms. How pure the flame that 
 bursts from their glo^yiug hearts ! And yonder the 
 features of a villain writhing in the fire that shall tor- 
 ment him to eternity. My holy men, my pious and 
 angelic women, stand like martyrs amid the flames, their 
 mild eyes hfted heavenward, lling out the bells ! A 
 city is on fire. See! — destruction roars through my 
 dark forests, while the lakes boil up in steaming billows, 
 and the mountains are volcanoes, and the sky kindles 
 with a lurid brightness ! All elements are but one per- 
 vading flame ! Ha ! The fiend ! " 
 
 I was somewhat startled by this latter exclamation. 
 The tales were almost consumed, but just then threw 
 forth a broad sheet of fire, Avhich flickered as with laugh- 
 ter, makhig the whole room dance iu its brightness, and 
 then roared portentously up the chimney, 
 
 " You saw him ? You must have seen him ! " cried 
 Oberou. " How he glared at me and laughed, in that 
 last sheet of flame, with just the features that 1 imagined 
 for him ! "Well ! The tales are gone." 
 
 The papers were indeed reduced to a heap of black 
 cinders, with a multitude of sparks hurrying confusedly 
 among them, the traces of the pen behig now represented 
 by white lines, and the whole mass fluttering to and fro, 
 in the draughts of air. The destroyer knelt down to 
 look at them. 
 
 " What is more potent than fire ! '"' said he, in his 
 gloomiest tone. " Even thought, invisible and hicorpo- 
 real as it is, cannot escape it. In this little time, it has 
 annihilated the creations of long nights and days, which 
 I could no more reproduce, in their first glow and fresh- 
 ness, than cause ashes and whitened bones to rise up and 
 live. There, too, I sacrificed tlie unborn children of my
 
 THE DEVIL IN MANUSCRIPT. lUU 
 
 mind. All that I had acconiplislied — all that I planned 
 for future years — has perished by one common ruin, and 
 left only this heap of embers ! The deed has been my 
 fate. And what remains ? A -sveary and aimless life, — 
 a long repentanee of this hour, — and at last an obscure 
 grave, where they will bury and forget me ! " 
 
 As the author concluded his dolorous moan, the extin- 
 guished embers arose and settled down and arose again, 
 and finally Hew up the chimney, like a demon with sable 
 whigs. Just as they disappeared, there was a loud and 
 solitary cry in the street below us. "Tire! Pire!" 
 Other voices caught up that terrible word, and it speedily 
 became the shout of a mullilude. Obcron started to his 
 feet, in fresh excitement. 
 
 "A fire on such a night!" cried he. "Tiie wind 
 blows a gale, and wherever it whirls the flames, tiic roofs 
 will Hash up like gunpowder. Every pump is frozen up, 
 and boiling water would turn to ice the moment it was 
 flung from the engine. In an hour, this wooden town 
 will be one great bonfire ! AVliat a glorious scene for my 
 uext — Pshaw ! " 
 
 The street was now all alive with footsteps, and the 
 air full of voices. We heard one engine thundering 
 round a corner, and another rattling from a distance over 
 the pavements. The bells of three steeples clanged out 
 at once, spreading the alarm to many a neighboring 
 town, and expressing hurry, confusion, and terror, so 
 inimitably that I could almost distinguish in their peal 
 the burden of the universal cry, — " Pire ! Pire ! Pire ! " 
 
 "What is so ek)quent as their iron tongues!" ex- 
 claimed Oberon. " ^ly heart leaps and trembles, but 
 not with fear. And that other sound, too, — deep and 
 awful as a mighty organ, — the roar and thunder of the 
 multitude on the pavement below ! Come I We are
 
 200 THE DEVIL IN MANUSCRIPT. 
 
 losing time. I will cry out in tlie loudest of the uproar, 
 and mingle my spirit with the wildest of the confusion, 
 and be a bubble on the top of the ferment ! " 
 
 From tlie first outcry, my forebodings had warned nie 
 of the true object and centre of alarm. There was noth- 
 ing now but uproar, above, beneath, and around us ; foot- 
 steps stumbling pell-mell up the public staircase, eager 
 shouts and heavy thumps at the door, the whiz and dash 
 of water from the engines, and tlie crash of furniture 
 thrown upon the pavement. At once, the truth flashed 
 upon my friend. His frenzy took the hue of joy, and, 
 with a wild gesture of exultation, he leaped almost to the 
 ceiling of the chamber. 
 
 "My tales!" cried Oberon. "The chimney! The 
 roof ! Tlie Fiend has gone forth by night, and startled 
 thousands in fear and wonder from their beds ! Here I 
 stand, — a triumphant author! Huzza! Huzza! My 
 brain has set the town on fire ! Huzza ! "
 
 JOHN INGLEFIELD'S THANKSGIVING. 
 
 N the eveniiij^ of Thanksgiving day, Jolin Inglc- 
 field, the bhicksniitli, sat iu his elbow-cliair, 
 among those who had been keeping Testivul at 
 his board. Being the central figure of tlie domestic cir- 
 cle, the fire threw its strongest light on his massive and 
 sturdy frame, reddening his rough • visage, so that it 
 looked like the head of an iron statue, all aglow, from 
 his own forge, and with its features rudely fashioned ou 
 his own anvil. At John Inglefield's right hand was au 
 empty chair. Tlic other places round the hearth were 
 filled by the members of the family, who all sat quietly, 
 Mhile, wilh a semblance of fantastic merriment, their 
 shadows danced on the wall behind them. One of the 
 group was John Inglefield's son, Avho had been bred at 
 college, and was now a student of theology at Andover. 
 There was also a daughter of sixteen, whom nobody 
 could look at without thinking of a rosebud almost 
 bh)ssomed. The only other person at the fireside was 
 Kobert Moore, formerly an apprentice of the blacksmith, 
 but now his journeyman, and who seemed more like au 
 own son of John Inglefield than did the pale and slender 
 student. 
 
 Only these four had kept New England's festival be- 
 neath that roof. Tiie vacant chair at John Juijlefiehrs 
 9*
 
 20'Z JOHN TXGLEFTELD'S THANKSGl ViXG. 
 
 right hand was in memory of his wife, wliom dcatli had 
 snatched from him since tlie previous Thanksgiving. 
 "With a feeling that few woukl have looked for in his 
 rough nature, the bereaved husband had himself set the 
 chair in its place next his own ; and often did his eye 
 glance thitherward, as if he deemed it possible that the 
 cold grave might send back its tenant to the cheerful 
 fireside, at least for that one evening. Thus did lie 
 cherish the grief that was dear to him. But there was 
 another grief which he would fain have torn from his 
 heart ; or, since that could never be, have buried it too 
 deep for others to behold, or for his own remembrance. 
 Within the past year another member of his household 
 had gone from him, but not to the grave. Yet they kept 
 no vacant chair for her. 
 
 While John Ingle field and his family were sitting 
 round the hearth with the shadows dancing behind them 
 on the wall, the outer door was opened, and a light foot- 
 step came along the passage. Tiie latch of the inner 
 door was lifted by some familiar hand, and a young girl 
 came in, wearing a cloak and hood, which she took off, 
 and laid on the table beneath the looking-glass. Then, 
 after gazing a moment at the fireside circle, she ap- 
 proached, and took the seat at John luglefield's right 
 hand, as if it had been reserved on ^purpose for her. 
 
 " Here I am, at last, father," said she. " You ate 
 your Thanksgiving dinner without me, but I have come 
 back to spend the evening with you." 
 
 Yes, it was Prudence Inglefield. She wore the same 
 neat and maidenly attire which she had been accustomed 
 to put on when the household work was over for the 
 day, and her hair was parted from her brow, in the 
 simple and modest fashion that became her best of all. 
 If her cheek might otherwise have been pale, yet the
 
 JOHN IXGLEFIELD'S THAXKSGIVIXG. 203 
 
 glow of tlie fire suffused it witli a liealiliful bloom. If 
 she had spent the many montlis of her absence in guilt 
 and infamy, yet they seemed to have left no traces on 
 her gentle aspect. She could not have looked less 
 altered, had she merely stepped away from her father's 
 fireside for half an hour, and returned while the blaze 
 was quivering upwards from the same brands that were 
 burning at her departure. And to John Iiiglefield she 
 was the very image of his buried wife, such as lie 
 remembered lier on the first Thanksgiving which they 
 had passed under tiieir own roof. Therefore, though 
 naturally a stern and rugged man, he could not speak 
 unkindly to his sinful child, nor yet could he take h^r to 
 his bosom. 
 
 " You are welcome home, Prudence," said he, glancing 
 sideways at her, and ids voice faltered. " Your mother 
 would have rejoiced to see you, but she has been gone 
 from us these four months." 
 
 "I know it, father, 1 know it," replied Prudence, 
 quickly. "And yet, when 1 first came in, my eyes were 
 so dazzled by the firelight, that she seemed to be sitting 
 in this very chair ! " 
 
 By this time the other members of the family had 
 begun to recover from their surprise, and became sensible 
 that it was no ghost from the grave, nor vision of their 
 vivid recollections, but Prudence, her own self. Her 
 brother was the next that greeted her. He advanced 
 and held out his hand atlectionately, as a brother should ; 
 yet not entirely like a brother, for, with all his kindness, 
 he was still a clergyman, and speaking to a child of sin. 
 
 " Sister Prudence," said he, earnestly, " 1 rejoice that 
 a merciful Providence hath turned your steps homeward, 
 in time for me to bid you a last tarewell. In a few 
 weeks, sister, I am to sail as a missionarv to the far
 
 20-i JOHN IXGLEFIELD'S THANKSGIVING. 
 
 islands of the Pacific. There is not one of these beloved 
 faces that I shall ever hope to behold again on this earth. 
 O, may I see all of them — yours and all — beyond the 
 grave ! " 
 
 A shadow flitted across the girl's countenance. 
 
 "The grave is very dark, brother," answered she, 
 withdrawing her hand somewhat liastily from his grasp. 
 " You must look your last at me by the hght of this 
 fire." 
 
 While this was passing, the twin-girl — the rosebud 
 that had grown on the same stem with the castaway — ■ 
 stood gazing at her sister, longing to fling herself upon 
 her bosom, so that the tendrils of their hearts might in- 
 tertwine again. At first she was restrained by mingled 
 grief and shame, and by a dread that Prudence was too 
 much changed to respond to her aff'ection, or that her 
 own 'purity would be felt as a reproach by the lost one. 
 But, as she listened to the familiar voice, while the face 
 grew more and more familiar, she forgot everything save 
 that Prudence had come back. Springing forward, she 
 would have clasped her iu a close embrace. At that 
 very instant, however. Prudence started from her chair, 
 and held out both her hands, with a warning gesture. 
 
 "No, Mary, — no, my sister," cried she, "do not you 
 touch me. Your bosom must not be pressed to mine ! " 
 
 Mary shuddered and stood still, for she felt that some- 
 thing darker than the grave was between Prudence and 
 herself, though they seemed so near each other in the 
 light of their father's hearth, where they had grown up 
 together. Meanwliile Prudence threw her eyes around 
 the room, in search of one who had not yet bidden her 
 welcome. He had withdrawn horn his seat by the fire- 
 side, and was standing near the door, with his face 
 averted, so that his features could be discerned oulv by
 
 JOHN INGLEFIELD'S THANKSGIVING. 205 
 
 the flickering shadow of the proiile upon the wall. But 
 Prudence called to him, in a cheerful and kindly tone : — 
 
 " Come, Robert," said she, " won't you shake hands 
 with your old friend ? " 
 
 llobert Moore held back for a moment, but alTectioa 
 struggled powerfully, and overcame his pride and resent- 
 ment ; he rushed towards Prudence, seized her hand, 
 and pressed it to his bosom. 
 
 " There, there, Robert ! " said she, smiling sadly, as 
 she withdrew her hand, " you must not give me too 
 warm a welcome." 
 
 And now, having exchanged greetings with each mem- 
 ber of the family. Prudence again seated herself in the 
 chair at John Ingleheld's right hand. She was natu- 
 rally a girl of quick and tender sensibilities, gladsome 
 in her general mood, but with a bewitching pathos inter- 
 fused among her merriest words and deeds. It was 
 remarked of her, too, that she had a faculty, even from 
 childhood, of throwing her own feelings, like a spell, over 
 her companions. Such as she had been in her days of 
 innocence, so did she appear this evening. Her friends, 
 in the surprise and bewilderment of her return, almost 
 forgot that she had ever left them, or that she had for- 
 feited any of her claims to their affection. In the morn- 
 ing, perhaps, they might have looked at her with altered 
 eyes, but by the Thanksgiving fireside they felt only 
 that their own Prudence had come back to them, and 
 were thankful. John Inglelield's rough visage bright- 
 ened with the glow of his heart, as it grew warm and 
 merry within him ; once or twice, even, he laughed 
 till the room rang again, yet seemed startled by the 
 echo of his own mirth. The grave young minister 
 became as frolicsome as a school-boy. ^lary, too, tiie 
 rosebud, forgot that her twin-blossom had ever been
 
 206 JOHN IXGLEFIELD'S THANKSGIVING. 
 
 torn from the stem, and trampled in tlie dust. And as 
 for Robert Moore, he gazed at Prudence with the bash- 
 ful earnestness of love new-born, while she, with sweet 
 maiden coquetry, half smiled upon and half discouraged 
 him. 
 
 In short, it was one of those intervals when sorrow 
 vanishes in its own depth of siiadow, and joy starts forth 
 in transitory brightness. When the clock struck eight, 
 Prudence poured out her father's customary draught of 
 herb-tea, which had been steeping by the fireside ever 
 since twilight. 
 
 " God bless you, child ! " said John Inglefield, as he 
 took the cup from her hand ; " you have made your old 
 father happy again. But we miss your mother sadly, 
 Prudence, sadly. It seems as if she ought to be here 
 now." 
 
 " Xow, father, or never," replied Prudence. 
 
 It was now the hour for domestic worship. But while ■ 
 the family were making preparations for this duty, they 
 suddenly perceived that Prudence had put on her cloak 
 and hood, and was lifting the latch of the door. 
 
 " Prudence, Prudence ! where are you going ? " cried 
 they all, with one voice. 
 
 As Prudence passed out of the door, she turned to- 
 wards them, and flung back her hand with a gesture of 
 farewell. But her face was so changed that they hardly 
 recognized it. Sin and evil passions glowed through its 
 comeliness, and wrought a horrible deformity ; a smile 
 gleamed in her eyes, as of triunipliant mockery, at their 
 surprise and grief. 
 
 " Daughter," cried John Inglefield, between wrath and 
 sorrow, " stay and be your father's blessing, or take his 
 curse with you ! " 
 
 For an instant Prudence lingered and looked back into
 
 JOHN IXGLEFIELD'S THANKSGIVING. 207 
 
 the fire-lighted room, while her couiitenauee wore almost 
 the expression as if she were struggling with a fiend, 
 who had power to seize his vietim even whhin tlic hal- 
 lowed precincts of lier father's hearth. The fiend pre- 
 vailed ; and Prudence vanished into the outer darkness. 
 When the family rushed to the door, they could see 
 nothing, but heard the sound of wheels rattling over 
 the frozen ground. 
 
 That same night, among the painted beauties at the_ 
 theatre of a neighboring city, there was one whose dis- 
 solute mirth seemed inconsistent with any symi)athy for 
 pure affections, and for the joys and griefs whicli are 
 hallowed by them. Yet this was Prudence Inglefield. 
 Her visit to the Thanksgiving fireside was the realization 
 of one of those waking dreams in which tlic guilty soul 
 will sometimes stray back to its innocence. But Sin, 
 alas ! is carefid of her bond-slaves ; they hear lier voice, 
 perhaps, at the lioliest moment, and are constrained to 
 go whither she sunnnons them. The same dark power 
 that drew Prudence Inglefield from her father's heart li 
 — the same in its nature, though heightened then to a 
 dread necessity — would snatch a guilty soul from the 
 gate of heaven, and make its sin and its punishment 
 alike eternal.
 
 OLD TICONDSROGA. 
 
 A PICTURE OF THE PAST. 
 
 IE greatest attraction, in this vicinity, is the 
 famous old fortress of Ticonderoga, the remains 
 of "wliich are visible from the piazza of the 
 tavern, on a swell of land that shuts in the prospect of 
 tlie lake. Those celebrated heights, Mount Defiance and 
 Mount Independence, familiar to all Americans in history, 
 stand too prominent not to be recognized, though neither 
 of them precisely corresponds to the images excited by 
 their names. In truth, the whole scene, except the in- 
 terior of the fortress, disappointed me. Mount Defiance, 
 whicli one ])ictures as a steep, lofty, and rugged hill, of 
 most formidable aspect, frowning down with the grim 
 visage of a precipice on old Ticonderoga, is merely a long 
 and wooded ridge ; and bore, at some former period, the 
 gentle name of Sugar Hill. The brow is certainly diffi- 
 cult to climb, and high enough to look into every corner 
 of the fortress. St. Clair's most probable reason, how- 
 ever, for neglecting to occupy it, was the deficiency of 
 troops to man the works already constructed, rather than 
 th3 supposed inaccessibility of Mount Defiance. It is 
 singular that the French never fortified this height, 
 standing, as it does, in the quarter whence they must 
 have looked for the advance of a British army.
 
 OLD TICONDEROGA. 209 
 
 In my first view of tlie ruins, I was favored wiili tlic 
 scientific guidance of a young lieutenant of engineers, 
 recently from West Point, where he had gained credit for 
 great military genius. I saw nothing but confusion in 
 what chiefly interested him ; straight lines and zigzags, 
 defence within defence, wall opposed to wall, and ditch 
 intersecting ditch ; oblong squares of masonry l)elow the 
 surface of the earth, and huge mounds, or turf-covered 
 hills of stone, above it. On one of these artificial hil- 
 locks, a pine-tree has rooted itself, and grown tall and 
 strong, since the banner-stafl' was levelled. But where 
 my unniilitary glance could trace no regularity, the young 
 lieutenant was ])erfectly at home. lie fathomed the 
 meaning of every ditch, and formed an entire plan of the 
 fortress from its half-obliterated lines. His description 
 of Ticonderoga would be as accurate as a geometrical 
 theorem, and as barren of the poetry that has clustered 
 round its decay. I viewed Ticonderoga as a place of 
 ancient strength, in ruins for half a century: wliere the 
 flags of three nations had successively waved, and none 
 waved now; where armies had struggled, so long ago 
 that the bones of the slain were mouldered ; where Peace 
 liad found a heritage in the forsaken haunts of "War. 
 Now the young West-Pointer, with his lectures on rave- 
 lins, counterscarps, angles, and covered Avays, made it an 
 affair of brick and mortar and hewn stone, arranged on 
 certain regular principles, having a good deal to do with 
 mathematics, but nothing at all with poetry. 
 
 I should have been glad of a hoary veteran to totter 
 by my side, and tell me, perhaps, of the French garrisons 
 and their Indian allies, — of Abererombie, Lord Howe, 
 and Amherst, — of p]than Allen's triumj)h and St. Clair's 
 surrender. The old soldier and the old fortress would 
 be emblems of each other. Ilis reminiscences, though 
 
 N
 
 210 OLD TICOXDEROGA. 
 
 vivid as the imaga of Ticoiideroga in the lake, would 
 liarmouize with the gray influence of the scene. A sur- 
 vivor of the long-disbanded garrisons, though but a 
 private soldier, miglit have mustered his dead chiefs and 
 comrades, — some from Westminster Abbey, and Eng- 
 lish churchyards, and battle-fields in Europe, — others 
 from their graves here in America, — others, not a few, 
 who lie sleeping round the fortress ; he might have 
 mustered them all, and bid them march through the' 
 ruined g-iteway, turning their old historic faces on me, as 
 they passed. Xext to such a companion, the best is one's 
 own fancy. 
 
 At another visit I was alone, and, after rambling all 
 over the ramparts, sat down to rest myself in one of the 
 roofless barracks. These are old French structures, and 
 appear to have occupied three sides of a large area, now 
 overgrown with grass, nettles, and thistles. The one in 
 which I sat was long and narrow, as all the rest had 
 been, with peaked gables. The exterior walls were 
 nearly entire, constructed of gray, flat, unpicked stones, 
 the aged strength of which promised long to resist the 
 elements, if no otlier violence should precipitate their 
 fall. The roof, floors, partitions, and the rest of the 
 wood-work had probably been burnt, except some bars 
 of stanch old oak, which were blackened with fire, but 
 still remained imbedded into the window-sills and over 
 the doors. There were a few particles of plastering near 
 the chimney, scratched with rude figures, perhaps by a 
 soldier's hand. A most luxuriant crop of weeds had 
 sprung up within the edifice, and hid the scattered frag- 
 ments of the wall. Grass and weeds grew in the win- 
 dows, and in all the crevices of the stone, climbing, step 
 by step, till a tuft of yellow flowers was waving on the 
 highest peak of the gable. Sjme spicy herb defused a
 
 OLD TICOXDEROGA. 211 
 
 pleasant odor tlirougli the ruin. A verdant heap of 
 vegetation had covered tlie hearth of tlie second floor, 
 chistoring on tlie very spot where the huge logs had 
 mouldered to glowing coals, and flourished beneath the 
 broad flue, which had so often pufled the smoke over a 
 circle of French or English soldiers. I felt that there 
 was no other token of decay so impressive as that bed of 
 weeds in the place of the backlog. 
 
 Here I sat, with those roofless walls about me, the 
 clear sky over my bead, and the afternoon sunshine 
 falling gently bright througii the window-frames and 
 doorway. I heard the tinkling of a cow-bell, the twit- 
 tering of birds, and the ])lcasant hum of insects. Once 
 a gay butterfly, with four gold-speckled wings, came 
 and fluttered about my head, then flew up and lighted 
 on the highest tuft of yellow flowers, and at last took 
 wing across the lake. Next a bee buzzed througii the 
 sunshine, and found much sweetness among the weeds. 
 After watching him till he went ofl" to his distant hive, I 
 closed my eyes on Ticonderoga in ruins, and cast a 
 dream-like glance over pictures of the past, and scenes 
 of which this spot had been the theatre. 
 
 At first, my fancy saw only the stern hills, lonely 
 lakes, and venerable woods. Not a tree, since their 
 seeds were first scattered over the infant soil, had felt 
 the axe, but had grown up and flourished through its 
 long generation, had fallen beneath the weight of years, 
 b^en buried in green moss, and nourished the roots of 
 others as gigantic. Hark ! A light paddle dips into 
 the lake, a birch canoe glides round the ])oint, and an 
 Indian chief has passed, painted and feather-crested, 
 armed with a bow of hickory, a stone tomahawk, and 
 flint-headed arrows. But the ripple had hardly vanished 
 from the water, wheu a white flag caught the breeze.
 
 212 OLD TICOXDEROGA. 
 
 over a castle iu the wilderness, with frowning ramparts 
 and a hundred cannon. There stood a f rench chevalier, 
 commandant of the fortress, paying court to a copper- 
 colored lady, the princess of the land, and winning her 
 wdld love by the arts which had been successful with 
 Parisian dames. A war-party of French and Indians 
 were issuing from the gate to lay waste some village of 
 New England. Near the fortress there was a group of 
 dancers. The merry soldiers footing it with the swart 
 savage maids ; deeper in the wood, some red men were 
 growing frantic around a keg of the fire-water ; and else- 
 where a Jesuit preached the faith of high cathedrals 
 beneath a canopy of forest boughs, and distributed cruci- 
 fixes to be worn beside English scalps. 
 
 I tried to make a series of pictures from the old 
 French war, when fleets were on the lake and armies 
 in the woods, and especially of Absrcrombie's disastrous 
 repulse, where thousands of lives were utterly thrown 
 away ; but, being at a loss how to order the battle, I 
 cliose an evening scene in the barracks, after the fortress 
 had surrendered to Sir Jeffrey Amherst. What an im- 
 mense fire blazes on that hearth, gleaming on swords, 
 bayonets, and musket-barrels, and blending with the hue 
 of the scarlet coats till the whole barrack-room is quiver- 
 ing with ruddy light ! One soldier has thrown himself 
 down to rest, after a deer-hunt, or perhaps a long run 
 through the woods with Indians on his trail. Two 
 stand up to wrestle, and are on the point of coming to 
 blows. A fifer plays a shrill accompaniment to a drum- 
 mer's song, — a strain of light love and bloody war, with 
 a chorus thundered forth by tAventy voices. ^leantime, 
 a veteran in the corner is prosing aboiit Dettingen and 
 Fontenoye, and relates camp-traditions of ^Marlborough's 
 battles, till his pipe, having been roguishly charged with
 
 OLD TICONDEROGA. 213 
 
 gunpowder, makes a terrible explosion under his nose. 
 And now they all vanish in a pull' of smoke from the 
 chimney. 
 
 I merely glanced at the ensuing twenty years, which 
 glided peacefully over the frontier fortress, till Ethan 
 Allen's shout was heard, summoning it to surrender " in 
 the name of the great Jehovah and of the Continental 
 Congress." Strange allies ! thought tiie British captain. 
 Next came the hurried muster of tiie soldiers of liberty, 
 when the cannon of Bnrgoyne, pointing down uj)on their 
 stronghold fiom the brow of Mount Defiance, announced 
 a new conqueror of Tieondcroga. No virgin fortress, 
 this ! Forth rushed the motley throng from the bar- 
 racks, one man wearing the blue and buff of the Union, 
 another the red coat of Britain, a third a dragoon's jacket, 
 and a fourth a cotton frock ; here was a ])air of leather 
 breeches, and striped trousers there; a grenadier's cap 
 on one head, and a broad-brimmed hat, with a tall feather, 
 on the next ; this fellow shonlderiug a king's arm, that 
 might throw a bullet to Crown Point, and his comrade a 
 long fowling-piece, admirable to shoot ducks on the lake. 
 In the midst of the bustle, when the fortress was all alive 
 wdth its last warlike scene, the ringing of a bell on the 
 lake made me suddenly unclose my eyes, and behold only 
 the gray and weed-grown ruins. They were as peaceful 
 in the sun as a warrior's grave. 
 
 Hastening to the rampart, I perceived that the signal 
 had been given by the steamboat Franklin, which landed 
 a passenger from AViiitehall at the tavern, and resumed 
 its progress northward, to reach Canada the next morn- 
 ing. A sloop was pursuing the same track ; a little skilF 
 had just crossed the ferry ; while a scow, laden with lum- 
 ber, s|)read its huge square sail, and went up the lake. 
 The whole country was a cultivated farm, "Within nms-
 
 214 OLD TICOXDEROGA. 
 
 ket-shot of the ramparts lay the neat villa of Mr. Pell, 
 who, since the Revolution, has become proprietor of a 
 spot for which Trance, England, and America have so 
 often struggled. How forcibly the lapse of time and 
 change of circumstances came home to my apprehen- 
 sion. Banner would never wave again, nor cannon roar, 
 nor blood be shed, nor trumpet stir up a soldier's heart, 
 in this old fort of Ticonderoga. Tall trees have grown 
 upon its ramparts, since the last garrison marched out, 
 to return no more, or only at some dreamer's summons, 
 gliding from the twilight past to vanish among realites.
 
 THE WIVES OF THE DEAD. 
 
 HE following story, the simple and domestic in- 
 cidents of which may be deemed scarcely "Nvorlii 
 relating, after such a lapse of time, awakened 
 some degree of interest, a hundred years ago, in a princi- 
 pal seaport of the Bay Province. The rainy twilight of 
 an autumn day, — a parlor on the second floor of a small 
 Louse, plainly furnished, as beseemed the middling cir- 
 cumstances of its inhabitants, yet decorated with little 
 curiosities from beyond the sea, and a few delicate speci- 
 mens of Indian manufacture, — these are the only partic- 
 ulars to be ))remised in regard to scene and season. Two 
 young and comely women sat together hy tlie iircside, 
 nursing their mutual and peculiar sorrows. They were 
 the recent brides of two brothers, a sailor and a landsman, 
 and two successive days had brought tidings of the death 
 of each, by the chances of Canadian warfare and tiie tem- 
 pestuous Atlantic. The universal sympathy excited by 
 this bereavement drew numerous condoling guests to the 
 habitation of the widowed sisters. Several, among whom 
 was the minister, had remained till the verge of evening; 
 when, one hy one, whis])ering many comft)rtable ]):is- 
 sages of Scripture, that were answered by more abundant 
 tears, they took their leave, and departed to their own 
 happier jiomes. The mourners, though not insensible to
 
 216 THE AYIVES OF THE DEAD. 
 
 tlie kindiiess of their friends, had yearned to be left aloue. 
 United, as thej had been, by the rehitionship of the liv- 
 ing, and now more closely so by that of the dead, each 
 felt as if whatever consolation her grief admitted were to 
 be found in the bosom of the other. They joined tlieir 
 hearts, and wept together silently. But after an hour of 
 sucli indulgence, one of the sisters, all of whose emotions 
 were influenced by her mild, quiet, yet not feeble char- 
 acter, began to recollect the precepts of resignation and 
 endurance which piety had taught her, when she did not 
 think to need them. Her misfortune, besides, as earliest 
 known, should earliest cease to interfere with her regular 
 course of duties ; accordingly, having placed the table be- 
 fore the fire, and arranged a frugal meal, she took the 
 hand of her companion. 
 
 " Come, dearest sister ; you have eaten not a morsel 
 to-day," she said. ''Arise, I pray you, and let us ask a 
 blessing on that which is provided for us." 
 
 Her sister-in-law was of a lively and irritable tempera- 
 ment, and the first pangs of her sorrow had been ex- 
 pressed by shrieks and passionate lamentation. She now 
 shrunk from Mary's words, like a wounded sufferer from 
 a hand that revives the throb. 
 
 " There is no blessing left for me, neither will I ask 
 it ! " cried Margaret, "with a fresh burst of tears. " Would 
 it were His will that I might never taste food more ! " 
 
 Yet she trembled at these rebellious expressions, 
 almost as soon as they were uttered, and, by degrees, 
 Mary succeeded in bringing her sister's mind nearer to 
 the situation of her own. Time went on, and their usual 
 hour of repose arrived. The brothers and their brides, 
 entering the married state with no more than the slender 
 means which then, sanctioned such a step, had confeder- 
 ated themselves in one household, with equal rights to
 
 THE WIVES OF THE DEAD. 217 
 
 the parlor, and claiming exclusive privileges in two 
 sleeping-rooms contiguous to it, Tiiitlier the widowed 
 ones retired, after heaping ashes upon the dving embers 
 of their fire, and placing a lighted lamp upon the hearth. 
 The doors of both cliambcrs were left open, so that a part 
 of the interior of each, and the beds with their unclosed 
 curtains, w^ere reciprocally visible. Sleep did not steal 
 upon the sisters at one and the same time. Mary ex- 
 perienced the effect often consequent upon grief quietly 
 borne, and soon sunk into temporary forget fulness, 
 while Margaret became more disturbed and feverish, in 
 proportion as the night advanced with its deepest and 
 stillest hours. She lay listening to the drops of rain, 
 that came down in monotonous succession, unswayed by 
 a breath of wind; and a nervous impulse continually 
 caused her to lift her head from the pillow, and gaze into 
 Mary's chamber and the intermedL'itc apartment. The 
 cold light of the lamp threw the shadows of the furniture 
 up against the wall, stamping them immovably tiiere, 
 except when they were shaken by a sudden flicker of 
 the flame. Two vacant arm-chairs were in their old 
 positions on opposite sides of the hearth, where the 
 brothers had been wont to sit in young and laughing 
 dignity, as heads of families ; two humbler seats were 
 near them, the true thrones of that little empire, where 
 Mary and herself had exercised in love a power that love 
 had won. The cheerful radiance of the fire had shone 
 upon the happy circle, and the dead glimmer of the lamp 
 might have befitted their reunion now. While ^Margaret 
 groaned in bitterness, she heard a knock at the street- 
 door. 
 
 " How would my heart have leapt at that sound but 
 yesterday ! " thought she, remembering the anxiety with 
 which she had long awaited tidings from her husband. 
 10
 
 218 THE WIVES OF THE DEAD. 
 
 "I care not for it now; let them begone, for I will not 
 arise." 
 
 But even while a sort of childish fretfulness made her 
 thus resolve, she was breathing hurriedly, and straining 
 her ears to catch a repetition of the summons. It is 
 difficult to be convinced of the death of one whom we 
 have deemed another self. The knocking was now 
 renewed in slow and regular strokes, apparently given 
 with the soft end of a doubled fist, and was accompanied 
 by words, faintly heard through several thicknesses of 
 wall. Margaret looked to her sister's chamber, and 
 beheld her still lying in the depths of sleep. She arose, 
 placed her foot upon the floor, and slightly arrayed 
 herself, trembhng between fear and eagerness as she 
 did so. 
 
 " Heaven help me ! " sighed she. " I have nothing 
 left to fear, and methinks I am ten times more a coward 
 than ever." 
 
 Seizing the lamp from the hearth, she hastened to the 
 window that overlooked the street-door. It was a lattice, 
 tnrning upon hinges ; and havuig thrown it back, she 
 stretched her head a little way into the moist atmos- 
 pliere. A lantern was reddening the front of the house, 
 and melting its hght in the neighboring puddles, while a 
 deluge of darkness overwhelmed every other object. As 
 the Avindow grated on its hinges, a man in a broad- 
 brimmed hat and blanket-coat stepped from under the 
 shelter of the projecting story, and looked upward to 
 discover whom his application had aroused. Margaret 
 knew him as a friendly innkeeper of the town. 
 
 " What would you have, Goodman Parker ? " cried the 
 widow. 
 
 " Lackaday, is it you, Mistress Margaret ? " replied 
 the innkeeper. " I was afraid it might be your sister
 
 THE WIVES OF THE DEAD. 219 
 
 Mary ; for I liatc to see a young Avomaii in trouble, when 
 I have n't a word of comfort to wiiisper her." 
 
 "For Heaven's sake, what news do you bring?'* 
 screamed Margaret. 
 
 " Why, there has been an express through tlie town 
 within this half-hour," said Goodman Parker, " travelling 
 from the eastern jurisdiction witii letters from the gov- 
 ernor and council, lie tarried at my house to refresh 
 himself with a drop and a morsel, and I asked him what 
 tidings on the frontiers. He tells me we had the better 
 in the skirmish you wot of, and that thirteen men 
 reported slain arc well and sound, and your husband 
 among them. Besides, he is appointed of the escort to 
 bring the captivated Frenchers and Indians home to the 
 province jail. I judged you would n't mind being broke 
 of your rest, and so I stepped over to tell you. Good 
 night." 
 
 So saying, the honest man departed; and his lantern 
 gleamed along the street, bringing to view indistinct 
 shapes of things, and the fragments of a world, like order 
 glimmering through chaos, or memory roaming over the 
 past. But Margaret stayed not to watch these pictu- 
 resque effects. Joy Hashed into her heart, and lighted it 
 up at once ; and breathless, and with winged steps, she 
 flew to the bedside of her sister. She paused, however, 
 at the door of the chamber, while a thought of pain 
 broke in upon her. 
 
 •' Poor Mary ! " said she to herself. " Shall I waken 
 her, to feel her sorrow sharpened by my lun)piness ? No ; 
 1 will keep it within my own bosom till the morrow." 
 
 She approached the bed, to discover if Mary's sleep 
 were peaceful. Her face was turned partly inward to 
 the pillow, and had been hidden there to weep ; but a 
 look of motionless contentment was now visible upon it,
 
 220 THE WIVES OF THE DEAD. 
 
 as if her heart, like a deep lake, had grown calm because 
 its dead had sunk down so far within. Happy is it, and 
 strange, that the lighter sorrows are those from w^hich 
 dreams are chiefly fabricated. Margaret slirunk from 
 disturbing her sister-in-law, and felt as if her own better 
 fortune had rendered her involuntarily unfaithful, and 
 as if altered and diminished affection must be the con- 
 sequence of the disclosure she had to make. With a 
 sudden step she turned away. But joy could not long 
 be repressed, even by circumstances that would have 
 excited heavy grief at another moment. Her mind was 
 thronged with delightful thoughts, till sleep stole on, and 
 transformed them to visions, more delightful and more 
 Wild, like the breath of winter (but what a cold compari- 
 son !) working fantastic tracery upon a window. 
 
 When the night was far advanced, Mary awoke with 
 a sudden start. A vivid dream had latterly involved 
 her in its unreal life, of which, however, she could only 
 remember that it had been brokeu in upon at the most 
 interesting point. For a little time, slumber hung about 
 her like a morning mist, hindering her from perceiving 
 the distinct outline of her situation. She listened with 
 imperfect consciousness to two or three volleys of a rapid 
 and eager knocking; and first she deemed the noise a 
 matter of course, like the breath she drew ; next, it 
 appeared a thing in which she had no concern ; and 
 lastly, she became aware that it was a summons neces- 
 sary to be obeyed. At the same moment, the pang of 
 recollection darted into her mind ; the pall of sleep was 
 thrown back from the face of grief; the dim light of the 
 chamber, and the objects therein revealed, had retained 
 all her suspended ideas, and restored them as soon as 
 she unclosed her eyes. Again there was a quick peal 
 UMOu the street-door. FearinGr that her sister would also
 
 THE WIVES OF THE DEAD. 221 
 
 be disturbed, Mary wrapped herself in a cloak and hood, 
 took the lamp from the hearth, and hastened to the win- 
 dow. By some accident, it had been left unhaspcd, and 
 yielded easily to hor hand. 
 
 " Who 's there ? " asked ^Marv, trembling as she looked 
 forth. 
 
 The storm was over, and the moon was np ; it shone 
 upon broken clouds above, and below upon houses black 
 with moisture, and upon little lakes of the fallen rain, 
 curling into silver beneath the quick enchantment of a 
 breeze. A young man in a sailor's dress, wet as if he 
 had come out of the depths of the sea, stood alone under 
 the window. Mary recognized him as one whose liveli- 
 hood was gained by short voyages along the coast ; nor 
 did she forget that, previous to her marriage, he had 
 been an unsuccessful wooer of her own. 
 
 " What do you seek here, Stephen ? " .said she. 
 
 " Cheer up, Mary, for I seek to comfort you," an- 
 swered the rejected lover. " You must know I got home 
 not ten minutes ago, and the first thing my good mother 
 told me was the news about your husband. So, without 
 saying a word to the old woman, I chijtped on my hat, 
 and ran out of the house. I could n't have slept a wink 
 before speaking to you, ^lary, for the sake of old times." 
 
 "Stephen, I thought better of you!" exclaimed the 
 widow, with gushing tears and preparing to close tlie 
 lattice; for she was no whit inclined to imitate the first 
 wife of Zadig. 
 
 "But stop, and hear my story out," cried the young 
 sailor. " I tell you we spoke a brig yesterday afternoon, 
 bound in from Old England. And mMio do yon think I 
 saw standing on deek, well and hearty, only a bit thinner 
 than he was five months ago ? " 
 
 Mary leaned from the window, but could not speak.
 
 222 THE Wn'ES OF THE DEAD. 
 
 " Why, it Avas your Imsbaud himself," coutiuued the 
 generous seaman. "He aud three others saved them- 
 selves on a spar, when the Blessing turned bottom up- 
 wards. The brig will beat into the bay by daylight, with 
 this wind, and you '11 see him here to-morrow. There 's 
 the comfort I bring you, Mary, and so good night." 
 
 He hurried away, wliile Mary watched him with a 
 doubt of waking reality, that seemed stronger or weaker 
 as he alternately entered the shade of the houses, or 
 emerged into the broad streaks of moonliglit. Gradu- 
 ally, however, a blessed flood of -conviction swelled into 
 her heart, in strength enough to overwhelm her, had its 
 increase been more abrupt. Her first impulse was to 
 rouse her sister-in-law, and communicate the new-boru 
 gladness. She opened the chamber-door, Avhich had been 
 closed in the course of the night, though not latched, 
 advanced to the bedside, and was about to lay her hand 
 upon the slumberer's shoulder. But then she remem- 
 bered that Margaret would awake to thoughts of death 
 and woe, rendered not the less bitter by their contrast 
 with her own felicity. She suff'ered the rays of the lamp 
 to fall upon the unconscious form of the bereaved one. 
 Margaret lay in unquiet sleep, and the drapery was 
 displaced around her ; her young cheek was rosy-tinted, 
 and her lips half opened in a vivid smile ; an expression 
 of joy, debarred its passage by her sealed eyelids, strug- 
 gled fortli like incense from the whole countenance. 
 
 " My poor sister ! you will waken too soon from tLat 
 happy dream," thought Mary. 
 
 Before retiring, she set down tlie lamp, and endeavored 
 to arrange the bedclothes so that the chill air might 
 not do harm to the feverish slumberer. But her hand 
 trembled against Margaret's neck, a tear also fell upon 
 her cheek, and she suddenlv awoke.
 
 LITTLE DAFFYDOWNDILLY. 
 
 Wt 
 
 MTYDOAVXDILLY was so called Ixcauso in 
 liis nature lie resembled a flower, and loved to 
 do only what was beautiful and agreeable, and 
 took no delight in labor of any kind. But, while Daffy- 
 downdilly was yet a little boy, his mother sent him away 
 from his pleasant home, and put him under the care of 
 a very strict schoolmaster, who went by the name of Mr. 
 Toil. Those who knew him best affirmed that this Mr. 
 Toil was a very worthy character; and that he had done 
 more good, both to children and grown people, than any- 
 body else in the world. Certainly he had lived long 
 enough to do a great deal of good ; for, if all stories be 
 true, he had dwelt upon earth ever since Adam was 
 driven from the garden of Eden. 
 
 Nevertheless, Mr. Toil had a severe and ugly counte- 
 nance, especially for such little boys or big men as were 
 inclined to be idle ; liis voice, too, was harsh ; and all 
 liis ways and customs seemed very disagreeable to our 
 friend Daffydowndilly. The whole day long, this terri- 
 ble old schoolmaster sat at his desk overlooking the 
 scholars, or stalked about the school-rooui with a certain 
 awful birch rod in his hand. Now came a rap over the 
 shoulders of a boy whoui Mr. Toil had caught at play ; 
 now he punished a whole class who were behindhand
 
 224^ LITTLE DAFFYDOWNDILLY. 
 
 vrifh. their lessons ; and, in short, unless a lad chose to 
 attend quietly and constantly to his book, he had no 
 chance of enjoying a quiet moment in the school-room 
 of Mr. Toil. 
 
 "This will never do for me," thou^^ht DafFydowndilly. 
 
 Now, the whole of Da%downdilly's life had hitherto 
 been passed with his dear mother, who had a much 
 sweeter face than old Mr. Toil, and who had always 
 been very indulgent to her little boy. No wonder, 
 therefore, that poor Daffy downd illy found it a woful 
 cliange, to be sent away from the good lady's side, and 
 put under the care of this ugly-visaged schoolmaster, 
 Avho never gave him any apples or cakes, and seemed 
 to think that little boys were created only to get lessons. 
 
 " I can't bear it any longer," said Daffydowndilly to 
 himself, when he had been at school about a week. " I '11 
 run away, and try to find my dear mother ; and, at any 
 rate, I shall never find anybody half so disagreeable as 
 this old Mr. Toil ! " 
 
 So, the very next moniing, off started poor Daffydown- 
 dilly, and began his rambles about the world, with only 
 some bread and cheese for his breakfast, and very little 
 pocket-money to pay his expenses. But he had gone 
 only a short distance, when he overtook a man of grave 
 and sedate appearance, Avho was trudging at a moderate 
 pace along the road. 
 
 "Good morning, my fine lad," said the stranger; and 
 his voice seemed hard and severe, but yet had a sort 
 of kindness in it ; " whence do you come so early, and 
 whither are you going ? " 
 
 Little Daffydowndilly was a boy of very ingenuous dis- 
 position, and had never been known to tell a lie in all 
 his life. Nor did he tell one now. He hesitated a 
 moment or two, but finally confessed that he had run
 
 LITTLE DAFIYDOWXUILLY. 'ZZO 
 
 a'tt'ay from school, on account of liis prreat dislike to 
 Mr. Toil ; and that lie Mas resolved to find sonic place 
 in the world where he should never see or hear of the 
 old schoolmaster again. 
 
 "O, very well, my little friend ! " answered the stran- 
 ger. "Then we will go together; for T, likewise, have 
 liad a good deal to do with ^Ir. Toil, and should be glad 
 to find some place where he was never heard of." 
 
 Our friend Daftydowndilly would have been better 
 pleased with a comi)anion of his own age, with whom 
 lie might have gathered flowers along the roadside, or 
 have chased buttevflies, or have done many other things 
 to make the journey pleasant. But he had wisdom 
 enough to understand that he sliould get along tiinjiigh 
 the world much easier by having a man of experience 
 to show him the way. So he accepted the stranger's 
 proposal, and they walked on very sociably together. 
 
 They had not gone far, when the road passed by a 
 field where some haymakers were at work, mowing 
 down the tall grass, and spreading it out in the sun 
 to dry. Daffydowndilly was delighted with the sweet 
 smell of the new-mown grass, and thought how much 
 pleasanter it must be to make hay in the sunshine, under 
 the blue sky, and with the birds singing sweetly in the 
 neighboring trees and bushes, than to be shut up in a 
 dismal school-room, learning lessons all day long, and 
 continually scolded by old Mr. Toil. But, in the midst 
 of these thoughts, while he was stopping to peep over 
 the stone wall, he started back and caught hold of his 
 companion's hand. 
 
 "Quick, quick i " cried he. "Let us run away, or he 
 will catch us ! " 
 
 "Who will catch us?" asked the stranger. 
 
 "Mr. Toil, the old schoolmaster!" answered Dall'v- 
 10* o '
 
 226 LITTLE DAFFYDOWXDILLY. 
 
 downdillj. "Dou't you see him amongst the hay- 
 makers F " 
 
 Aiid Daffydo^vndilly pointed to an elderly man, who 
 seemed to be the owner of the field, and the employer 
 of the men at work there. He had stripped off his coat 
 and waistcoat, and was busily at work in his shirt-sleeves. 
 The drops of sweat stood upon his brow; but he gave 
 himself not a moment's rest, and kept crying out to the 
 haymakers to make hay wliile the sun shone. Now, 
 strange to say, the figure and features of this old farmer 
 were precisely the same as those of old Mr. Toil, who, 
 at that very moment, must have been just entering his 
 school-room. 
 
 "Don't be afraid," said the stranger. "This is not 
 Mr. Toil the schoolmaster, but a brother of his, who was 
 bred a farmer; and people say he is the most disagree- 
 able man of the two. However, he won't trouble you, 
 unless you become a laborer on the farm." 
 
 Little Dafi\-dowudilly believed what his companion 
 said, but was very glad, nevertheless, when they were 
 out of siglit of the old farmer, who bore such a suigidar 
 resemblance to Mr. Toil. The two travellers had gone 
 but little farther, when they came to a spot where some 
 carpenters were erecthig a house. Daffydowndilly beggad 
 his companion to stop a moment ; for it was a very pretty 
 sight to see how neatly the carpenters did their work, 
 with their broad-axes, and saws, and planes, and ham- 
 mers, shaping out the doors, and putting in the window- 
 sashes, and nailing on the clapboards ; and he could not 
 help thinking that he should like to take a broad-axe, a 
 saw, a plane, and a hammer, and build a little house for 
 himself. And then, when he should have a house of his 
 own, old Mr. Toil would never dare to molest him. 
 
 But, just while he was delighthig himself with this
 
 LITTLE DAFFYDOWXDILLY. 227 
 
 idea, little Daily dowudilly beheld sometliiiifr that made 
 liini eatcli hold of his coinpauion's hand, all in a fright. 
 
 " Make haste. Quick, quick ! " cried he. " Tiicre he 
 is again ! " 
 
 "Who?" asked the stranger, very quietly. 
 
 " Old Mr. Toil," said Uali'ydowndilly, trembling. 
 " Tliere ! he that is overseeing the carpenters. 'T is 
 my old schoolmaster, as sure as 1 'm alive ! " 
 
 The stranger cast his eyes where Daflydowndilly 
 pointed his linger ; and he saw an elderly man, with a 
 carpenter's rule and comj)asses in his hand. This per- 
 son went to and fro about the unfinished house, meas- 
 uring pieces of timber, and marking out the work that 
 was to be done, and continually exhorting the other 
 carpenters to be diligent. And wherever he turned ids 
 hard and wrinkled visage, the men seemed to feel that 
 they had a task-master over them, and sawed, and ham- 
 mered, and planed, as if for dear life. 
 
 " no! this is not Mr. Toil, the schoolmaster," said 
 the stranger. " It is another brother of his, who follows 
 the trade of carj)enter." 
 
 " I am very glad to hear it," quoth DafTydowndilly ; 
 " but if you please, sir, I should like to get out of his 
 way as soon as possible." 
 
 Then they went on a little farther, and soon heard 
 the sound of a drum and life. Daffydowndilly ])rieked 
 up his ears at this, and besought his companion to hurry 
 forward, that they might not miss seeing the soldiers. 
 Accordingly, they made what haste tiiey could, and soon 
 met a company of soldiers, gayly dressed, with beautiful 
 feathers in their ca])S, and bright muskets on their shoul- 
 ders. In front marched two drummers and two lilVrs, 
 beating on their drums and playing on their lifes with 
 might and main, and making sucli lively music that little
 
 22 S LITTLE DAFFYDOWXDILLY. 
 
 Daffydowndilly would gladly have followed tliem to tlie 
 end of the world. And if lie was only a soldier, then, 
 he said to himself, old Mr. Toil would never venture to 
 look him in the face. 
 
 "Quick step! Eorward march!" shouted a gruff 
 voice. 
 
 Little Daffydowndilly started, in great dismay; for 
 this voice which had spoken to the soldiers sounded 
 precisely the same as that which he had heard every 
 day in Mr. Toil's school-room, out of Mr. Toil's own 
 mouth. And, turning his eyes to the captain of the 
 company, what sliould he see but the very image of old 
 Mr. Toil himself, with a smart cap and feather on his 
 head, a pair of gold epaulets on his shoulders, a laced 
 coat on his back, a purple sash round his waist, and 
 a long sword, instead of a birch rod, in his hand. And 
 though he held his head so high, and strutted like a 
 turkey-cock, still he looked quite as ugly and disagree- 
 able as when he was hearing lessons in the school- 
 room. 
 
 " This is certainly old Mr. Toil," said Daffydowndilly, 
 in a trembling voice. " Let us run away, for fear he 
 should make us enlist in his company ! " 
 
 " You are mistaken again, my little friend," replied 
 the stranger, very composedly. "This is not Mr. Toil, 
 the schoolmaster, but a brother of his, who has served 
 in the army all his life. People say he 's a terribly 
 severe fellow ; but you and I need not be afraid of 
 him." 
 
 " Well, well," said little Daffydowndilly, " but, if you 
 please, sir, I don't went to see the soldiers any more." 
 
 So the child and the stranger resumed their journey ; 
 and, by and by, they came to a house by the roadside, 
 where a number of people were making merry. Young
 
 LITTLE DAFrVDOWXDlLLY. H'ZO 
 
 men and rosy-clicckcd giils, witli smiles on their faces, 
 were dancing to the sound of a fiddle. It was the |)leas- 
 antest sight that Dafrvdowndilly had yet met with, and 
 it comforted him for all his disappointments. 
 
 " O, let us stop here," cried he to his companion; 
 "for Mr. Toil will never dare to show his face wlure 
 there is a fiddler, and where people are dancing ai.d 
 making merry. We shall be qnile safe Ijcre ! " 
 
 But these last words .died away upon DafTydowndilly's 
 tongue; for, happening to east his eyes on the fiddU r, 
 whom shonld he behold again, bnt the likeness of ^Ir. 
 Toil, holding a liddle-bow instead of a birch rod, and 
 flonrishing it with as much ease and dexterity as if lie 
 liad been a fiddler all his life ! He had somewhat tiie 
 air of a Ffeuehman, bnt still looked exactly like the old 
 schoolmaster; and Daffydowndilly even fancied that ho 
 nodded and winked at him, and made signs for him to 
 join in the dance. 
 
 "O dear me!" whispered he, turning pale. "It 
 seems as if there Avas nobody but Mr. Toil in the 
 world. Who could have thought of his playing on a 
 fiddle ! " 
 
 "This is not your old schoolmaster," observed the 
 stranger, "but another brother of his, who was bred in 
 France, where he learned the profession of a fiddler. 
 He is ashamed of his family, and generally calls himself 
 Monsieur le Plaisir; but liis real name is Toil, and those 
 who have known him best think him still more disagree- 
 able than his brothers." 
 
 " Pray let us go a little farther," said D.'ifi'yduwndilly. 
 "I don't like the looks of tliis fiddler at all." 
 
 "Well, thus the stranger and little Dan;vdowndilIy 
 went wandering along the higliway, and in shady lanes, 
 and through pleasant villages ; and whithersoever they
 
 230 LITTLE DAFFYDOWNDILLY. 
 
 went, behold ! there was the image of old Mr. Toil. He 
 stood like a scarecrow in the cornfields. If they entered 
 a house, he sat in the parlor; if they peeped into the 
 kitchen, he was there. He made himself at home in 
 every cottage, and stole, under one disguise or another, 
 into the most splendid mansions. Everywhere there 
 was sure to be somebody wearing the likeness of Mr. 
 Toil, and who, as the stranger affirmed, was one of the 
 old schoolmaster's innumerable brethren. 
 
 Little Daffydowndilly was almost tired to death, when 
 he perceived some people reclining lazily in a shady 
 place, by the side of the road. The poor child entreated 
 his companion that they might sit down there, and take 
 some repose. 
 
 " Old Mr. Toil will never come here," said he ; " for 
 he hates to see people taking their ease." 
 
 But, even while he spoke, Daffy do wnd illy 's eyes fell 
 upon a person who seemed the laziest, and heaviest, and 
 most torpid of all those lazy and heavy and torpid 
 people who had lain down to sleep in the shade. Who 
 should it be, again, but the very image of Mr. Toil ! 
 
 "There is a large family of these Toils," remarked 
 the stranger. " This is anotlier of the old schoolmaster's 
 brothers, who was bred in Italy, where he acquired very 
 idle habits, and goes by the name of Signor Far Niente. 
 He pretends to lead an easy life, but is really the most 
 miserable fellow in the family." 
 
 " 0, take me back ! — take me back I " cried poor 
 little Daffydowndilly, bursting into tears. " If there is 
 nothing but Toil all the world over, I may just as well go 
 back to the school-house ! " 
 
 " Yonder it is, — there is the school-house ! " said the 
 stranger; for though he and little Daffydowndilly liad 
 taken a great many steps, they had travelled in a circle.
 
 LITTLE DAFFYDOWXDILLY. 2ol 
 
 instead of a strai^Mit line. " Come ; we will go ))ack to 
 school together." 
 
 There \yis something in his companion's voice that 
 little Dalfydowndilly now remembered; and it is sli-nnge 
 that he had not remembered it sooner. Looking up into 
 his face, behold! there again was the likeness of old Mr. 
 Toil; so that the poor ciiild had been in company with 
 ToU all day, even while he was doing his i)est to run 
 away from him. Some people, to whom I have told little 
 Datl'ydowndiliy's story, are of opinion tliat old Mr. Toil 
 was a magician, and possessed the power of multiplying 
 himself into as many shapes as he saw fit. 
 
 Be this as it may, little D.dlydowndilly had learned a 
 good lesson, and from that time forward was diligent at 
 his task, because he knew that diligence is not a whit 
 more toilsome than sj)ort or idleness. And when he 
 became better acquainted with Mr. Toil, he began to 
 think that his ways were not so very disagreeable, and 
 that the old schoolmaster's smile of approl)ation made 
 his face almost as pleasant as even that of Daflydowu- 
 dilly's mother.
 
 MY KINSMAN, MAJOR MOLINEUX. 
 
 PTER tlie kings of Great Britain had assumed 
 the right of appointing the colonial governors, 
 
 the measures of tlie latter seldom met with the 
 
 ready and general approbation which had been paid to 
 those of their predecessors, under the original charters. 
 The people looked witii most jealous scrutiny to the ex- 
 ercise of power which did not emanate from themselves, 
 and they usually rewarded their rulers with slender grat- 
 itude for the compliances by which, in softening their 
 instructions from beyond the sea, they had incurred tin 
 reprehension of those who gave them. The annals of 
 Massachusetts Bay will inform us, that of six governors 
 in the space of about forty years from the surrender of 
 the old charter, under James II., two were imprisoned 
 by a popular insurrection ; a third, as Hutchinson in- 
 clines to believe, was driven from the province by the 
 whizzing of a musket-ball ; a fourth, in the opinion of 
 the same liistorian, was hastened to his grave by contin- 
 ual bickerings with the House of Representatives ; and 
 the remaining two, as well as their successors, till the 
 Revolution, were favored with few and brief intervals of 
 peaceful sway. The inferior members of the court party, 
 in times of high political excitement, led scarcely a more 
 desirable life. Tliese remarks may serve as a preface to 
 the following adventures, which chanced upon a summer
 
 MY KINSMAX, MAJOR MOLIXEUX. :2.'3.3 
 
 night, not far from a hundred years ago. Tlie reader, in 
 order to avoid a long and dry detail of colonial all'airs, is 
 requested to dispense with an account of tiic train of 
 circumstances that had caused much temporary inflam- 
 mation of the popular mind. 
 
 It was near nine o'clock of a moonlight evening, wlion 
 a boat crossed the ferry with a single passenger, who had 
 obtained his conveyance at that unusual hour by the 
 promise of an extra fare. AVhile he stood on the land- 
 ing-place, searching in either pocket for the means of 
 fulfilHng his agreement, the ferryman lifted a lantern, by 
 the aid of which, and the newly risen moon, he took a 
 very accurate survey of the stranger's figure. He was a 
 youth of barely eighteen years, evidently country -bred, 
 and now, as it should seem, upon his first visit to town. 
 He was clad in a coarse gray coat, well worn, but in 
 excellent repair ; his under garments were durably con- 
 structed of leather, and fitted tight to a pair of service- 
 able and well-shaped limbs ; his stockings of blue yarn 
 were the incontrovertible work of a mother or a sister ; 
 and on his head was a three-cornered hat, wliich in its 
 better days had perhaps sheltered the graver brow of the 
 lad's father. L'nder his left arm was a heavy cudgel, 
 formed of an oak sapling, and retaining a i)art of the 
 hardened root ; and his equipment was completed by a 
 ■wallet, not so abundantly stocked as to incommode the 
 vigorous slioulders on which it hung. Brown, curly hair, 
 well-shaped features, and briglit, cheerfnl eyes were 
 nature's gifts, and worth all that art could have done for 
 his adornment. 
 
 The youth, one of whose names was Robin, finally 
 drew from his pocket the half of a little province bill of 
 five shillings, Avhieh, in the de])reciati()n of that sort of 
 currency, did but satisfy the ferryman's demand, with
 
 2.34 MY KIXSMAX, MAJOR MOLIXEUX. 
 
 the surplus of a scxangular piece of parchment, vahied at 
 three pence. He then walked forward into the town, 
 with as light a step as if his day's journey had not al- 
 ready exceeded thirty miles, and with as eager an eye as 
 if he were entering London city, instead of the httle 
 metropolis of a New England colony. Before Robin had 
 proceeded far, however, it occurred to him that he knew 
 not whither to direct his steps ; so he paused, and looked 
 up and down the narrow street, scrutinizing the small 
 and mean wooden buildings that were scattered on either 
 side. 
 
 "This low hovel cannot be my kinsman's dwelling," 
 thought he, " nor yonder old house, where the moonlight 
 enters at the broken casement ; and truly I see none 
 hereabouts that might be worthy of him. It would have 
 been wise to inquire my way of the ferryman, and doubt- 
 less he would have gone with me, and earned a shilling 
 from the ^lajor for his pains. But the next man I meet 
 will do as well." 
 
 He resumed his walk, and was glad to perceive that the 
 street now became wider, and the houses more respect- 
 able in their appearance. He soon discerned a figure 
 moving on moderately in advance, and hastened his steps 
 to overtake it. As Bobin drew nigh, he saw that the 
 passenger was a man in years, with a full periwig of gray 
 hair, a wide-skirted coat of dark cloth, and silk stockings 
 rolled above his knees. He carried a long and poUshed 
 cane, which he struck down perpendicularly before him, 
 at everwy step ; and at regular intervals he uttered two 
 successive hems, of a peculiarly solenni and sepulchral 
 intonation. Having made these observations, Robin laid 
 hold of the skirt of the old man's coat, just when the 
 light from the open door and windows of a barber's shop 
 fell upon both their figures.
 
 MY KIXSMAX, MAJOR MOLTXErX. 2.35 
 
 " Good evening to you, lionorcd sir, said he, making a 
 low bow, and still retaining liis hold of the skirt. " I 
 pray you tell me whereabouts is the dwelling of my kins- 
 man, Major Molineux." 
 
 The youth's question was uttered very loudly ; and 
 one of the barbers, whose razor was descending on a 
 well-soaped chin, and anotlier who was dressing a Raui- 
 illies wig, left their occupations, and came to tlie door. 
 The citizen, in the mean time, turned a long-favored coun- 
 tenance upon llobin, and answered him in a tone of ex- 
 cessive anger and annoyance. His two sepulchral hems, 
 however, broke into the very centre of his rebuke, with 
 most singular eflcct, like a thought of the cold grave ob- 
 truding among wrathful passions. 
 
 "Let go my garment, fellow ! I tell yon, I know not 
 the man you speak of. What! I have authority, I 
 have — hem, hem — authority ; and if this be the respect 
 you show for your betters, your feet shall be brought 
 acquainted with the stocks by daylight, to-morrow morn- 
 
 Robin released the old man's skirt, and hastened away, 
 pursued by an ill-mannered roar of laughter from the 
 barber's shop. He was at first considerably surprised 
 by the result of his question, but, being a shrewd youth, 
 soon thought himself able to account for the mystery. 
 
 "This is some country representative," was his con- 
 clusion, " who has never seen the inside of my kinsman's 
 door, and lacks the breeding to answer a stranger civ- 
 illy. The man is old, or verily — I might be tcm])ted to 
 turn back and smite him on the nose. All, U()l)in, 
 Robin ! even the barber's boys laugh at you for choos- 
 ing such a guide ! You will be wiser in time, friend 
 Robin." 
 
 He now became entan":led in a succession of crooked
 
 23G MY KINSMAN, MAJOR MOLINEUX. 
 
 and narrow streets, wliicli crossed eacli otlier, and mean- 
 dered at no great distance from the water-side. The 
 smell of tar was obvious to his nostrils', the masts of 
 vessels pierced the moonlight above the tops of tlie 
 buildings, and the numerous signs, which Robin paused 
 to read, mformed him that he was near the centre of 
 business. But the streets Avere empty, the shops were 
 closed, and lights were visible only in the second stories 
 of a few dwelling-houses. At length, on the corner of a 
 narrow lane, through which he was passing, he beheld 
 tlie broad countenance of a British hero swinging before 
 the door of an inn, whence proceeded the voices of many 
 guests. The casement of one of the lower windows was 
 thrown back, and a very thin curtain permitted llobin 
 to distinguish a party at supper, round a well-furnished 
 table. The fragrance of the good cheer steamed forth 
 into the outer air, and the youth could not fail to recol- 
 lect that the last remnant of his travelling stock of pro- 
 vision had yielded to his morning appetite, and that noon 
 had found and left him diunerless. 
 
 " O, that a parchment tln-ee-penny might give me a 
 riglit to sit down at yonder table ! " said Robin, with a 
 sigh. "But the Major will make me welcome to the 
 best of his victuals ; so I will even step boldly in, and 
 inquire my way to his dwelling." 
 
 lie entered tlie tavern, and was guided by the murmur 
 of voices and the fumes of tobacco to the public-room. 
 It was a long and low apartment, with oaken walls, grown 
 dark in the continual smoke, and a floor ^^'hich was 
 thickly sanded, but of no immaculate purity. A number 
 of persons — the larger part of whom appeared to be 
 mariners, or in some way connected with the sea — oc- 
 cupied the wooden benches, or leather-bottomed chairs, 
 conversing on various matters, and occasionally lending
 
 MY KIXSMAX, MAJOR MOLIXEUX. 'Zo7 
 
 ilicir attention to some topic of general interest, Tliree 
 or four little groups ■were draining as many bowls of 
 punch, which tlie West India trade had long since made 
 a familiar drink in the colony. Others^ who had the 
 appearance of men who lived by regular and laborious 
 handicraft, preferred the insulated bliss of an unshared 
 potation, and became more taciturn under its influence. 
 Nearly all, in short, envinceJ a predilection f(n- the Good 
 Creature in some of its various shapes, for this is a vic3 
 to which, as Fast-day sermons of a hundred years ago 
 will testify, we have a long hereditary claim. The only 
 guests to whom llobin's sympathies inclined him were 
 two or three sheepish countrymen, who were using the 
 inn somewhat after the fashion of a Turkish caravansary ; 
 they had gotten themselves into the darkest corner of 
 the room, and, heedless of the Nicotian atmosphere, were 
 supping on the bread of their own ovens, and the bacon 
 cured in their own chimney-smoke. But though Kobin 
 felt a sort of brotherhood with these strangers, his eyes 
 were attracted froui them to a person who stood near the 
 door, holding whispered conversation with a grouj) of ill- 
 dressed associates. His features were separately strikiug 
 almost to grotesqueness, and the whole face left a deej) 
 impression on the memory. The forehead bulged out 
 into a double prominence, with a vale between ; the nose 
 came boldly forth in an irregular curve, and its bridge was 
 of more than a finger's breadth ; the eyebrows were deep 
 and shaggy, and the eyes glowed beneath them like fiie 
 in a cave. 
 
 While Eobin doli])erated of whom to iiif(uirc respecting 
 his kinsman's dwelling, he was accosted by the innkeeper, 
 a little man in a stained white apron, who had come to 
 pay his professional welcome to the stranger. Being in 
 the second generation from a Trench Protestant, he
 
 238 MY KIXSMAX, MAJOU MOLIXEUX. 
 
 seemed to liave inherited the courtesy of his parent 
 nation ; but no variety of circumstances was ever known 
 to change his voice from the one shrill note in M'hich he 
 now addressed Robin. 
 
 " From the country, I presume, sir ? " said he, with a 
 profound bow. " Beg leave to congratulate you on your 
 arrival, and trust you intend a long stay with us. Fhie 
 town here, sir, beautiful buildings, and much that may 
 interest a stranger. May I hope for the honor of your 
 connnands in respect to supper!"' " 
 
 "The man sees a family likeness! the rogue has 
 guessed that I am related to the Major ! " thought 
 Robin, who had hitherto experienced little superfluous 
 civility. 
 
 All eyes were now turned on the country lad, standing 
 at the door, in his worn three-cornered hat, gray coat, 
 leather breeches, and blue yarn stockings, leaning on an 
 oaken cudgel, and bearing a wallet on his back. 
 
 Robin replied to the courteous innkeeper, with such an 
 assumption of confidence as befitted the Major's relative. 
 "My honest friend," he said, "I shall make it a point to 
 patronize your house on some occasion, when" — here 
 he could not help lowering his voice — "when I may 
 have more than a parchment three-pence in my pocket. 
 My present business," continued he, speaking with lofty 
 confidence, " is merely to inquire my way to the dwelling 
 of my kinsman. Major Molineux." 
 
 There was a sudden and general movement in the 
 room, which Robin interpreted as expressing the eager- 
 ness of each individual to become his guide. But the 
 innkeeper turned his eyes to a written paper on the wall, 
 which he read, or seemed to read, with occasional recur- 
 rences to the young man's tigure. 
 
 " What have we here ? " said he, breaking his speech
 
 MY KINSMAN, MAJOR MOLIXELX. 2o9 
 
 into little dry fragments. "'Left the house of the sub- 
 scriber, bouiiden servant, Ilezekiah Mudga, — had on, 
 when he went away, gray coat, leather breeches, master's 
 third-best hat. One pound currency reward to wlioso- 
 ever shall lodge him in any jail of the ])rovince.' 13ctter 
 trudge, boy, better trudge ! " 
 
 Robin had begun to draw his hand towards the lighter 
 end of the oak cudgel, but a strange hostility in every 
 countenance induced him to relinquish his purpose of 
 breaking the courteous innkeeper's head. As he turned 
 to leave the room, he encountered a sneering glance from 
 the bold-featured personage whom he had before noticed ; 
 and no sooner was he beyond the door, than he heard 
 a general langh, in which the innkeeper's voice niigjjt be 
 distinguished, like the dro])ping of small stones into a 
 kettle. 
 
 "Now, is it not strange," thought llobin, wilh his 
 usual shrewdness, — " is it not strange that the confession 
 of an empty pocket should outweigh tlie name of my 
 kinsman, Miijor Molineux? O, if I had one of tiiose 
 grinning rascals in the woods, where I and my oak sa|)- 
 ling grew up together, I would leaeh him that my arm 
 is heavy, though my purse be light ! " 
 
 On turning the corner of the narrow lane, Ilobin found 
 himself in a spacious street, with an unbroken line of 
 lofty houses on each side, and a steepled building at the 
 upper end, whence the ringing of a bell announced the 
 hour of nine. The light of the moon, and the lamps from 
 the numerous shop-windows, discovered })eople ])rome- 
 nading on the pavement, and amongst them Robin hoped 
 to recognize his hitherto inscrutable relative. The result 
 of his former inquiries made him unwilling to hazard 
 anotlier, in a scene of such pulilicity, and he determined 
 to walk slowly and silently up the street, thrusting his
 
 240 MY KIXSMAX, MAJOE. MOLIXEUX. 
 
 face close to tliat of every elderly gentleman, in search 
 of the Major's lineaments. In his progress, Robin en- 
 countered many gay and gallant figures. Emhroidered 
 garments of showy colors, enormous periwigs, gold-laced 
 hats, and silver-liilted swords glided past him and dazzled 
 liis optics. Travelled youths, imitators of the European 
 fine gentlemen of the period, trod jauntily along, half 
 dancing to the fashionable tunes wliicli they hummed, and 
 making poor Robin ashamed of his quiet and natural 
 gait. At length, after many pauses to examine the gor- 
 geous display of goods in the shop-windows, and after 
 suffering some rebukes for the impertinence of his scru-- 
 tiny into people's faces, the Major's kinsman found him- 
 self near the steepled building, still unsuccessful in his 
 search. As yet, however, he had seen only one side of 
 the thronged street ; so Robin crossed, and continued the 
 same sort of inquisition down the opposite pavement, with 
 stronger hopes than the philosopher seeking an honest 
 man, but with no better fortune. He had arrived about 
 midway tow^ards the lower end, from which his course 
 began, when he overheard the approach of some one who 
 struck down a cane on the flag-stones at every step, 
 uttering, at regular intervals, two sepulchral hems. 
 
 "Mercy on us I " quoth Robin, recognizing the sound. 
 
 Turning a corner, which chanced to be close at his 
 right hand, he hastened to pursue his researches in some 
 other part of the town. His patience now was wearing 
 low, and he seemed to feel more fatigue from his rambles 
 since he crossed the ferry, than from his journey of 
 several days on the other side. Hunger also pleaded 
 loudly within him, and Robin began to balance the pro- 
 priety of demanding, violently, and with lifted cudgel, 
 the necessary guidance from the first solitary passenger 
 whom he should meet. AYhile a resolution to this effect
 
 JIY KIXSMAX, MAJOR MOLIXEUX. 2il 
 
 was gaining strength, lie entered a street of mean appear- 
 ance, on either side of which a row of ill-built houses was 
 straggling towards the harbor. The moonlight fell upon 
 no passenger along the whole extent, but in the third 
 domicile which Robin- passed there was a half-opened 
 door, and his keen glance detected a woman's garment 
 within. 
 
 "]\ly luck may be better here," said he to himself. 
 
 Accordingly, he a[)proached the door, and beheld it 
 shut closer as he did so ; yet an open space remained, 
 sufficing for the fair occupant to observe the stranger, 
 AAithout' a corresponding display on her part. All that 
 Kobin could discern was a strip of scarlet petticoat, and 
 the occasional sparkle of an eye, as if the moonbeams 
 were trembling on some bright thing. 
 
 " Pretty mistress," for I may call her so with a good 
 conscience, thought the shrewd youth, since I know 
 nothing to the contrary, — " my sweet pretty mistress, 
 will you be kind enough to tell me whereabouts I must 
 seek the dwelling of my kinsman, Major Molineux ? " 
 
 liobin's voice was ])laintive and winning, and the 
 female, seeing notliiiig to be shunned in the handsome 
 country youth, thrust open the door, and came forth 
 into the moonlight. She was a dainty little figure, Avitli 
 a white neck, round arms, and a slender waist, at the 
 extremity of which her scarlet petticoat jutted out over 
 a hoop, as if she were standing in a balloon. Moreover, 
 her face was oval and pretty, her hair dark beneath the 
 little cap, and her bright eyes possessed a sly freedom, 
 which triumj)hed over those of Robin. 
 
 " Major Molineux dwells here," said this fair woman. 
 
 Now, her voice was the sweetest Robin had heard that 
 night, the airy countcrj)art of a stream of melted silver; 
 yet he could not help doubting whether that sweet voice 
 11 p
 
 242 MY KIXSMAX, MAJOR MOLINEUX. 
 
 spoke Gospel truth. He looked up and down the mean 
 street, and then surveyed tlie house before which they 
 stood. It w^as a small, dark edifice of two stories, the 
 second of which projected over the lower floor; and the 
 front apartment had the aspect of* a shop for petty com- 
 modities. 
 
 " Now, truly, I am in luck," replied Robin, cunningly, 
 " and so indeed is my kinsman, the Major, in having so 
 pretty a housekeeper. But I pritliee trouble hiui to step 
 to the door ; I will deliver him a message from his friends 
 in the country, and then go back to my lodgings at the 
 inn." 
 
 "Nay, the Major has been abed this hour or more," 
 said the lady of the scarlet petticoat ; " and it would be 
 to little purpose to disturb him to-night, seeing his even- 
 iug draught Avas of the strongest. But he is a kind- 
 hearted man, and it would be as much as my life's 
 worth to let a kinsman of his turn away from tlie door. 
 You are the good old gentleman's very picture, and I 
 could swear that was his rainy-weather hat. Also he 
 has garments very much resembhng those leather small- 
 clothes. But come in, I pray, for I bid you hearty wel- 
 come in his name." 
 
 So saying, the fair and liospitable dame took our hero 
 by the hand ; and the touch was light, and the force was 
 gentleness, and though llobin read in her eyes what he 
 did not hear in her words, yet the slender-waisted wo- 
 man in the scarlet petticoat proved stronger than the 
 atiiletic country youth. She had drawn his lialf- willing 
 footsteps nearly to the threshold, when the opening of 
 a door in the neighborhood startled the Major's house- 
 keeper, and, leaving the Major's kinsman, she vanished 
 speedily into her own domicile. A heavy yawn preceded 
 the appearance of a man, who, like the Moonshme of
 
 MY KIXSMAX, MAJOR MOLIXEUX. 243 
 
 Pyramus and Thisbe, carried a lantern, needlessly aid- 
 ing his sister luminary in the heavens. As he walked 
 sleepily up the street, he turned his broad, dull faee on 
 Robin, and displayed a long stall", si)iked at the end. 
 
 " Home, vagabond, home ! " said the watchman, in 
 accents that seemed to fall asleep as soon as thoy were 
 uttered. " Home, or we '11 set you in the stocks, by 
 peep of day ! " 
 
 "This is the second hint of the kind," thought llobin. 
 " I wish they would end my ditlicultics, by setthig me 
 there to-night." 
 
 Nevertheless, the youth felt an instinctive antipathy 
 towards the guardian of midnight order, which at first 
 prevented him from asking his usual question. But 
 just Avhen the man was about to vanish behind the cor- 
 ner, Robin resolved not to lose the opportunity, and 
 shouted lustily after him, — 
 
 " I say, friend ! will yo\i guide me to the house of my 
 kinsnum. Major Molineux ? " 
 
 The walclnnan made no reply, but turned the corner 
 and was gone ; yet Robin seemed to hear the sound of 
 drowsy laughter stealing along the solitary street. At 
 that moment, also, a pleasant titter saluted him from the 
 open wiiulow above his head ; he looked up, and caught 
 the sparkle of a saucy eye ; a round arm beckoned to 
 him, and next he heard light footsteps descending the 
 staircase within. But Robin, being of the household of 
 a New England clergyman, was a good youth, as well as 
 a shrewd one ; so he resisted temptation, and lied away. 
 
 He now roamed desperately, and at random, through 
 the town, almost ready to believe that a spell was on 
 liim, like that by which a wizard of his country had once 
 kept three pursuers Avandering, a whole winter night, 
 within twenty paces of the cottage which they sought.
 
 24-i MY KINSMAX, MAJOE MOLINEUX. 
 
 Tlie streets lay before him, strange and desolate, and the 
 liglits were extinguished in almost every house. Twico, 
 however, little parties of men, among whom Robin dis- 
 tinguished individuals in outlandish attire, came hurry- 
 ing along ; but though on both occasions they paused to 
 address him, such intercourse did not at all enlighten his 
 perplexity. They did but utter a few words in some 
 language of which Robin knew nothing, and perceiving 
 his inability to answer, bestowed a curse upon him in 
 plain English, and hastened away. Finally, the lad de- 
 termined to knock at the door of every mansion that 
 might appear worthy to fee occupied by his kinsman, 
 trusting that perseverance* would overcome the fatality 
 that had hitherto thwarted him. Firm in this resolve, he 
 was passing beneath the walls of a church, which formed 
 the corner of two streets, when, as he turned into the 
 shade of its steeple, he encountered a bulky stranger, 
 muffled in a cloak. The man was proceeding with the 
 speed of earnest business, but Robin planted himself full 
 before liiin, holding the oak cudgel with both hands 
 across his body as a bar to further passage. 
 
 "Halt, honest man, and answer me a question," said 
 lie, very resolutely. " Tell me, this instant, whereabouts 
 is the dwelling of my kinsman. Major Molineux ! " 
 
 " Keep your tongue between your teeth, fool, and let 
 me pass ! " said a deep, gruff voice, which Robin partly 
 remembered. " Let me pass, I say, or I '11 strike you to 
 the earth ! " 
 
 " Tvo, no, neighbor ! " cried Robin, flourishing liis 
 cudgel, and then thrusting its larger end close to the 
 man's muffled face. " No, no, I 'm not the fool you take 
 me for, nor do you pass till I have an answer to my 
 question. Whereabouts is the dwelling of my kinsman, 
 Major Molineux ? "
 
 MY KINSMAN, MAJOR MOLIXEUX. 245 
 
 The stranger, instead of attcmptini^ to force liis pas- 
 sage, stepped back into the moonlight, unniullled his 
 face, and stared full into that of Koljin. 
 
 " Watch here an hour, and Major Molineux will pass 
 by," said he. 
 
 Robin gazed with dismay and astonishment on the 
 unprecedented physiognomy of the speaker. The fore- 
 head with its double prominence, the broad hooked nose, 
 the shaggy eyebrows, and fiery eyes were tliose wliich 
 he had noticed at the inn, but the man's complexion 
 had undergone a singular, or, more properly, a twofold 
 change. One side of the face blazed an intense red, 
 while the other was black as midnight, the division line 
 being in the broad bridge of the nose ; and a mouth 
 which seemed to extend iVom ear to car was black or red, 
 in contrast to the color of the cheek. The etfect was as 
 if two individual devils, a fiend of fire and a fiend of 
 darkness, had united themselves to form tiiis infernal 
 visage. The stranger grinned in Kobin's face, muffled 
 his party-colored features, and was out of sight in a 
 momsnt. 
 
 " Strange things we travellers sec ! " ejaculated "Robin. 
 
 He seated himself, however, upon the steps of the 
 ehureh-door, resolving to wait the appointed time for his 
 kinsman. A few moments were consumed in philosoph- 
 ical speculations upon the species of man who had just 
 left him ; but having settled this point shrewdly, raticm- 
 ally, and satisfactorily, he was compelled to look else- 
 where for his amusement. And first he threw his eyes 
 along the street. It was of more respectable appearance 
 than most of those into which he liad wandered, and 
 the moon, creating, like the imaginative power, a beau- 
 tiful strangeness in familiar objects, gave something of 
 romance to a scene that might not have possessed it in
 
 24:6 MY KINSMAN, MAJOR MOLINEUX. 
 
 tlie light of day. The irregular and often quaint archi- 
 tecture of the houses, some of whose roofs were broken 
 into numerous little peaks, while others ascended, steep 
 and narrow, into a single point, and others again were 
 square ; the pure snow-white of some of their complex- 
 ions, the aged darkness of others, and the thousand sjiark- 
 lings, reflected from bright substances in the walls of 
 many; these matters engaged Robin's attention for a 
 w'hile, and then began to grow wearisome. Next he 
 endeavored to define the forms of distant objects, starting 
 away, with almost ghostly indistinctness, just as his eye 
 appeared to grasp them ; and finally he took a minute 
 survey of an edifice wliich stood on the opposite side of 
 the street, directly in front of the church-door, where lie 
 was stationed. It was a large, square mansion, distin- 
 guished from its neighbors by a balcony, w^hich rested on 
 tall pillars, and by an elaborate Gothic window, connnu- 
 nicating therewith. 
 
 "Perhaps this is the very house I have been seeking," 
 thought llobin. 
 
 Then he strove to speed away the time, by listening 
 to a murmur which swept continually along the street, 
 yet was scarcely audible, except to an unaccustomed ear 
 like his ; it was a low, dull, dreamy sound, compounded 
 of many noises, each of which was at too great a dis- 
 tance to be separately heard. Robin marvelled at this 
 snore of a sleeping town, and marvelled more whenever 
 its continuity was broken by now and tfien a distant 
 shout, apparently loud where it originated. But alto- 
 gether it was a sleep-inspiring sound, and, to shake off 
 its drowsy influence, Robin arose, and climbed a window- 
 frame, that he might view the interior of the church. 
 There the moonbeams came trembling in, and fell down 
 upon the deserted pews, and extended along the quiet
 
 MY KINSMAN, MAJOR MOLIXEUX. 217 
 
 aisles. A fainter yet more awful radiance was hover- 
 ing around the pulpit, and one solitary ray had dared 
 to rest upon the open page of the great Bible. Had 
 nature, in that deep hour, become a worshipper in the 
 house which man had builded? Or was that heavenly 
 light tlie visible sanctity of the place, — visible because 
 no earthly and impure feet were within the walls ? The 
 scene made Robin's heart shiver with a sensation of lone- 
 liness stronger than he had ever felt in the remotest 
 depths of his native woods ; so he turned away, and sat 
 down again before the door. There were graves around 
 the church, and now an uneasy thought obtruded into 
 llobin's breast. What if tiie object of his search, which 
 had been so often and so strangely thwarted, were all 
 the time mouldering in his shroud ? What if his kins- 
 man should glide through yonder gate, and nod and 
 smile to him in dimly passing by ? 
 
 " O that any breathing thing were here with me ! " 
 said Robin. 
 
 Recalling his thoughts from this uncomfortable track, 
 he sent them over forest, hill, and stream, and attempted 
 to imagine how that evening of ambiguity and weariness 
 had been spent by his father's household. He ])ietured 
 them assembled at the door, beneath the tree, tiie great 
 old tree, which had been spared for its huge twisted 
 trunk, and venerable shads, when a thousand leafy bretii- 
 ren fell. There, at the going down of the summer sun, 
 it was his father's custom to perform domestic worship, 
 that the neighbors might come and join with ium like 
 brothers of tiic family, and that the wayfaring man might 
 pause to drink at that fountain, and keep his heart pure 
 by freshening the memory of home. Robin distinguished 
 the seat of every individual of the little audience ; he saw 
 the good man in the midst, holding the Scriptures in the
 
 248 MY KINSMAN, MAJOU MOLIXEUX. 
 
 golden light that fell from the western clouds ; he belield 
 him close the book and all rise np to pray. He heard 
 the old thanksgivings for dail}' mercies, the old supplica- 
 tions for tlieir continuance, to which he had so often 
 hstened in weariness, but which were now among his 
 dear remembrances. He perceived the slight inequality 
 of his father's voice when he came to speak of the absent 
 one; he noted how his mother turned her face to tiie 
 broad and knotted trunk ; liow his elder brother scorned, 
 because the beard was rough upon his upper lip, to per- 
 mit his features to be moved ; how the younger sister 
 drew down a low hanging branch before her eyes ; and 
 how the little one of all, whose sports had hitherto 
 broken the decorum of the scene, understood the prayer 
 for her playmate, and burst into clamorous grief. Then 
 he saw tliem go m at the door ; and when Robin would 
 have entered also, the latch tinkled into its place, and he 
 was excluded from his home. 
 
 "Am I iiere, or there ?" cried Uobin, starting; for all 
 at once, when his thoughts had become visible and audi- 
 ble iit a dream, the long, M^ide, solitary street shone out 
 before him. 
 
 He aroused himself, and endeavored to fix his attention 
 steadily upon the large edifice which he had surveyed 
 before. But still his mind kept vibrating between fancy 
 and reality ; by turns, the pillars of the balcony length- 
 ened into the tall, bare stems of pines, dwindled down to 
 human figures, settled again into tlieir true shape and 
 size, and then commenced a new succession of changes. 
 For a single moment, when he deemed himself awake, 
 lie could have sworn that a visage — one which he seemed 
 to remember, yet could not absolutely name as his kins- 
 man's — was looking towards him from the Gothic win- 
 dow. A deeper sleep wrestled with and nearly overcame
 
 MY KINSMAN, MAJOR MOLIXEUX. 219 
 
 him, but. fled at the sound of footsteps along tlie opposite 
 pavement. llohin rubbed liis eves, discerned a man 
 passing at the foot of the balcony, and addressed liini in 
 a loud, peevish, and lamentable crv. 
 
 " Hallo, friend ! must I wait here all night for mv kins- 
 man, Major Molineux ? " 
 
 The sleeping echoes awoke, and answered the voice ; 
 and the passenger, barely able to discern a figure sitting 
 in the oblique shade of the steeple, traversed the street 
 to obtain a nearer view. He was himself a gentleman 
 in his prime, of open, intelligent, cheerful, and altogether 
 prepossessing countenance. Perceiving a country youth, 
 apjjarently homeless and without friends, he accosted him 
 in a tone of real kindness, which had become strange to 
 Robin's ears. 
 
 "Well, my good Ind, why are you sitting here?" 
 inquired he. " Can I be of service to you in any way ? " 
 
 " I am afraid not, sir," replied Robni, dcspoudingly ; 
 "yet I shall take it kindly, if you '11 answer me a single 
 question. I've been searching, half the night, for one 
 Major Molineux; now, sir, is there really such a person 
 in these parts, or am I dreaming?" 
 
 " Major Molineux ! The name is not altogether strange 
 to me," said the gentleman, smiling. " Have you any 
 objection to telling me the nature of your business with 
 him?" 
 
 Then Robin briefly related that his father was a cler- 
 gyman, .settled on a small salary, at a long distance back 
 in the country, and that he and M;ijor Molineux were 
 brothers' children. The Major, having inherited riches, 
 and acquired civil and military rank, had visited his 
 cousin, in great ])omp, a year or two before ; had mnni- 
 fested much interest in Robin and an elder brother, and, 
 being childless himself, had thrown out hints respecting 
 11 *
 
 250 MY KIXSMAX, MAJOR MOLINEUX. 
 
 the future establishmeut of one of them in life. The 
 elder brother was destined to succeed to the farm which 
 his father cultivated in the interval of sacred duties ; it 
 \ras therefore determined that Kobin should profit by his 
 kinsman's generous intentions, especially as he seemed 
 to be rather the favorite, and was thought to possess 
 other necessary endowments. 
 
 " For I have the name of being a shrewd youth," ob- 
 served Robin, in this part of his story. 
 
 " I doubt not you deserve it," replied his new friend, 
 good-naturedly ; " but pray proceed." 
 
 " Well, sir, being nearly eighteen years old, and well 
 grown, as you see," continued Robin, drawing himself 
 up to his full height, " I thought it high time to begin 
 the world. So my mother and sister put me in hand- 
 some trim, and my father gave me half the remnant of 
 his last year's salary, and five days ago I started for this 
 place, to pay the Major a visit. But, would you believe 
 it, sir ! I crossed the ferry a little after dark, and have 
 yet found nobody that would show me the way to his 
 dwelling ; only, an hour or two since, I was told to wait 
 here, and Major Molineux would pass by." 
 
 " Can you describe the man who told you this ? " in- 
 quired the gentleman. 
 
 " 0, he was a very ill-favored fellow, sir," replied 
 Robin, " with two great bumps on his forehead, a hook 
 nose, fiery eyes ; and, what struck me as the strangest, 
 his face was of two different colors. Do you happen to 
 know such a man, sir? " 
 
 " Not intimately," answered the stranger, " but I 
 chanced to meet him a little time previous to your 
 stopping me. I believe you may trust his word, and 
 that the Major will very shortly pass through this street. 
 In tha mean time, as I have a siim-ular curiositv to wit-
 
 MY KINSMAX, MAJOR MOLINEUX. 251 
 
 ness your meeting, I will sit down here upon the steps, 
 and bear you company." 
 
 He seated hiniseU" accordingly, and soon engaged Ills 
 companion in animated discourse. It was but of Ijrief 
 continuance, however, for a noise of sliouting, which had 
 long been remotely audible, drew so much nearer that 
 Robin inquired its cause. 
 
 " What may be the meaning of this uproar? " asked 
 he. "Truly, if your town be always as noisy, I shall 
 find tittle sleep, while I am an inhabitant." 
 
 " Why, indeed, friend Robin, there do appear to be 
 three or four riotous fellows abroad to-night," replied the 
 gentleman. " You must not ex})ect all the stillness of 
 your native woods, lierc in our streets. But the watch 
 will shortly be at the heels of these lads, and — " 
 
 " Ay, and set them in the stocks by peep of day," 
 interrupted liobin, recollecting his own encounter with 
 the dro^\^sy lantern-bearer. " But, dear sir, if I may 
 trust my ears, an army of watchmen would never make 
 head against such a multitude of rioters. There were at 
 least a thousand voices went up to make that one shout." 
 
 " May not a man have several voices, Robin, as well 
 as two complexions ? " said his friend. 
 
 " Perhaps a man may ; but Heaven forbid that a 
 w^oman shquld ! " responded the shrewd youth, thinking 
 of the seductive tones of the Major's housekeeper. 
 
 The sounds of a trumpet in sonic neighboring street 
 now became so evidenfand continual, that Robin's curi- 
 osity was strongly excited. In addition to the shouts, 
 liee hard frequent bursts from many instruments of 
 discord, and a wild and confused laughter filled up the 
 intervals. Robin rose from the steps, and looked wist- 
 fully towards a point whither several people seemed to 
 be hasteninfr.
 
 252 MY KIXSMAX, MAJOR MOLIXEUX. 
 
 " Surely some prodigious merry-makiug is going on," 
 exclaimed he. " I have laughed very little since I left 
 home, sir, and should be sorry to lose au opportunity. 
 Shall ^ve step round the corner by that darkish house, 
 and take our share of the fun ? " 
 
 " Sit down again, sit down, good Robin," replied the 
 gentleman, laying his haud on the skirt of the gray coat. 
 " You forget that we must wait here for your kinsman ; 
 and there is reason to believe lliat he will pass by, in tli3 
 course of a very few moments." 
 
 The near approach of the uproar had now disturbed 
 the neighborhood ; windows flew open on all sides ; and 
 many heads, in the attire of the pillow, and confused by 
 sleep suddenly broken, were protruded to the gaze of 
 whoever had leisure to observe them. Eager voices 
 hailed each other from house to house, all demanding 
 the explanation, which not a soul could give. Half- 
 dressed men hurried towards the unknown commotion, 
 stumbling as they went over the stone steps that thrust 
 themselves into the narrow foot-walk. The shouts, the 
 laughter, and the tuneless bray, the antipodes of music, 
 came onwards with increasing din, till scattered individu- 
 als, and then denser bodies, began to appear round a 
 corner at the distance of a hundred yards. 
 
 " Will you recognize your kinsman, if he passes in this 
 crowd ? " inquired the gentleman. 
 
 "Indeed, I can't warrant it, sir; but I'll take my 
 stand here, and keep a bright lookout," answered Robin, 
 descending to the outer edge of the pavement. 
 
 A mighty stream of people now emptied into the 
 street, and came rolling slowly towards the church. A 
 single horseman wheeled the corner in the midst of 
 them, and close behind him came a band of fearful 
 wind-instruments, sending forth a fresher discord, now
 
 MY KINSMAN, MAJOR MOLIXEUX. 253 
 
 that no intervening buildings kept it from the car. Then 
 a redder liglit dibturljcd llie nioonheanis, and a dense 
 muhitudc of torches shone along the street, concealing, 
 l)j their glare, whatever object they illinninated. The 
 single liorseman, clad in a military dress, and bearing a 
 drawn sword, rode onward as the leader, and, by his 
 fierce and variegated countenance, appeared like war 
 personified ; the red of one cheek was an emblem of fire 
 and sword; the blackness of the other betokened the 
 mourning that attends them. In his train were wild 
 figures in the Indian dress, and many fantastic shapes 
 without a model, giving the whole march a visionary 
 air, as if a dream had broken forth from some feverish 
 brain, and were sweeping visibly through the midnight 
 streets. A mass of people, inactive, exce))t as applaud- 
 ing spectators, hemmed the procession in ; and several 
 women ran along the sidewalk, piercing the confusion 
 of heavier sounds with their shrill voices of mirth or 
 terror. 
 
 " The double-faced fellow has his eye upon me," mut- 
 tered Robin, with an indefinite but an uncomfortable 
 idea that he was himself to bear a part in the pageantry. 
 
 The leader turned himself in the saddle, and fixed iiis 
 glance full upon the country youth, as the steed went 
 slowly by. When Robin had freed his eyes from those 
 fiery ones, the musicians were passing before him, and 
 the torches were close at hand ; but the unsteady bright- 
 ness of the latter formed a veil which he could not 
 penetrate. The rattling of wheels over the stones some- 
 times found its way to his car, and confused traces of a 
 human form appeared at intervals, and then melted into 
 the vivid light. A moment more, and the leader thun- 
 dered a command to halt : the trumpets vomited a 
 horrid breath, and then held their peace ; the shouts and
 
 254* MY KINSMAN, MAJOR MOLINEUX. 
 
 laugliter of the people died away, and there remained 
 only a universal Imin, allied to silence. Right before 
 Robin's eyes was an uncovered cart. There the torches 
 blazed the brightest, there the moon shone out like day, 
 and there, in tar-and-feathery dignity, sat his kinsman. 
 Major Molineux ! 
 
 He was an elderly man, of large and majestic person, 
 and strong, square features, betokening a steady soul ; but 
 steady as it was, his enemies had found means to shake 
 it. His face was pale as death, and far more ghastly ; 
 the broad forehead was contracted in his agony, so that 
 his eyebrows formed one grizzled line; his eyes were red 
 and wild, and the foam hung white upon his quiver- 
 ing lip. His whole frame was agitated by a quick and 
 continual tronor, which his pride strove to quell, even 
 in those circumstances of overwhelming humiliation. 
 But perhaps the bitterest pang of all was when his eyes 
 met those of Robin; for he evidently knew liim on the 
 instant, as the youth stood witnessing the foul disgrace" 
 of a head grown gray in 'honor. They stared at each 
 otiier in silence, and Robin's knees shook, and his hair 
 bristled, with a mixture of pity and terror. Soon, how- 
 ever, a bewildering excitement began to seize upon his 
 mind ; the preceding adventures of the night, the unex- 
 pected appearance of the crowd, the torches, the confused 
 din and the hush that followed, the spectre of his kins- 
 man reviled by that great multitude, — all th's, aud, more 
 than all, a perception of tremendous ridicule in the whole 
 scene, affected him with a sort of mental inebriety. At 
 that moment a voice of sluggish merriment saluted Rob- 
 in's ears; he turned instinctively, and just behind the 
 corner of the church stood the lantern-bearer, rubbing 
 his eyes, and drowsily enjoying the lad's amazement. 
 Then he heard a peal of laughter like the ringing of sil-
 
 MY KINSMAX, MAJOR MOLIXEUX. 'ZoiJ 
 
 very bells; a woman twitched his arm, a saucy eye met 
 his, and he saw the lady of the scarlet })etticoat. A 
 sharp, dry cachinnation appealed to his memory, and, 
 standing on tiptoe in tiie crowd, with iiis white apron 
 over his head, he beheld the courteous little innkeeper. 
 And lastly, there sailed over the heads of the multitude a 
 great, broad laugii, broken in the midst by two sepulchral 
 liems ; thus, " Haw, haw, haw, — hem, hem, — haw, haw, 
 haw, haw ! " 
 
 Tiie sound proceeded from the balcony of the opposite 
 edifice, and thither Robin turned iiis eyes. In front of 
 the Gothic window stood the old citizen, wra])j)ed hi a 
 wide gown, his gray periwig exchanged for a nightcap, 
 which was thrust back from his forehead, and his silk 
 stockings hanging about his legs. He supported him- 
 self on his polished cane in a fit of convulsive merri- 
 ment, which manifested itself on his solemn old features 
 like a funny inscription on a tombstone. Then llobin 
 seemed to hear the voices of the barbers, of the guesls 
 of the inn, and of all wiio had made sport of him that 
 night. The contagion was spreading among the multi- 
 tude, Avhen, all at once, it seized upon llobin, and he 
 sent forth a shout of laughter that echoed through the 
 street; — every man shook his sides, every man emptied 
 liis lungs, but llobin's shout was the loudest there. The 
 cloud-spirits peeped from their silvery islands, as the 
 congregated mirth went roaring up the sky I The Man 
 in the Moon heard the far bellow. " Oho," quoth he, 
 "the old earth is frolicsome to-night ! " 
 
 When there was a momentary calm in that tempestu- 
 ous sea of sound, the leader gave the sign, the proces- 
 sion resumed its march. On they went, like fiends that 
 throng in mockery around some dead potentate, mighty 
 no more, but majestic still in his agony. On they went.
 
 256 MY KIXSMAX, MAJOR MOLIXELX. 
 
 in counterfeited pomp, in senseless uproar, in frenzied 
 merriment, trampling all on an old man's heart. On 
 s^A■cpt the tumult, and left a silent street bcliiud. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 " Well, Robin, are you dreaming ? " inquired the gen- 
 tleman, laving his hand on the youth's shoulder. 
 
 Robin started, and withdrew his arm from the stone 
 post to which he had instinctively clung, as flie living 
 stream rolled by him. His cheek was somewhat pale, 
 and his eye not quite as lively as in the earlier part of the 
 evening. 
 
 " Will you be kind enough to show me the way to the 
 ferry ? " said he, after a moment's pause. 
 
 " You have, then, adopted a new subject of inquiry ? " 
 observed his companion, with a smile. 
 
 " Why, yes, sir," replied Robin, rather dryly. " Thanks 
 to you, and to my other friends, I have at last met my 
 kinsman, and he will scarce desire to see my face again. 
 I begin to grow weary of a town life, sir. Will you show 
 me the way to the ferry ? " 
 
 "No, my good friend Robin, —not to-night, at least," 
 said the gentleman. " Some few days hence, if you 
 wish it, I will speed you on your journey. Or, if you 
 prefer to remain with us, perhaps, as you are a shrewd 
 youth, you may rise in the world without the help of 
 your kinsman, Major Moliueux." 
 
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