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Title: Twice-told tales

Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Release date: October 11, 2004 [eBook #13707]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWICE-TOLD
TALES ***

T W I C E - T O L D TA L E S

by NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

PHILADELPHIA:
DAVID McKAY, PUBLISHER,
23 SOUTH NINTH STREET
1889

CONTENTS

THE GRAY CHAMPION
SUNDAY AT HOME
THE WEDDING-KNELL
THE MINISTER’S BLACK VEIL
THE MAYPOLE OF MERRY MOUNT
THE GENTLE BOY
MR. HIGGINBOTHAM’S CATASTROPHE
LITTLE ANNIE’S RAMBLE
WAKEFIELD
A RILL FROM THE TOWN PUMP
THE GREAT CARBUNCLE
THE PROPHETIC PICTURES
DAVID SWAN
SIGHTS FROM A STEEPLE
THE HOLLOW OF THE THREE HILLS
THE TOLL-GATHERER’S DAY
THE VISION OF THE FOUNTAIN
FANCY’S SHOW-BOX
DR. HEIDEGGER’S EXPERIMENT
LEGENDS OF THE PROVINCE HOUSE:
I. HOWE’S MASQUERADE
II. EDWARD RANDOLPH’S PORTRAIT
III. LADY ELEANORE’S MANTLE
IV. OLD ESTHER DUDLEY
THE HAUNTED MIND
THE VILLAGE UNCLE

THE AMBITIOUS GUEST
THE SISTER-YEARS
SNOWFLAKES
THE SEVEN VAGABONDS
THE WHITE OLD MAID
PETER GOLDTHWAITE’S TREASURE
CHIPPINGS WITH A CHISEL
THE SHAKER BRIDAL
NIGHT-SKETCHES
ENDICOTT AND THE RED CROSS
THE LILY’S QUEST
FOOTPRINTS ON THE SEASHORE
EDWARD FANE’S ROSEBUD
THE THREEFOLD DESTINY

Twice-Told Tales

THE GRAY CHAMPION

There was once a time when New England groaned under the actual
pressure of heavier wrongs than those threatened ones which brought on the
Revolution. James II., the bigoted successor of Charles the Voluptuous, had
annulled the charters of all the colonies and sent a harsh and unprincipled
soldier to take away our liberties and endanger our religion. The
administration of Sir Edmund Andros lacked scarcely a single characteristic
of tyranny—a governor and council holding office from the king and
wholly independent of the country; laws made and taxes levied without
concurrence of the people, immediate or by their representatives; the rights
of private citizens violated and the titles of all landed property declared
void; the voice of complaint stifled by restrictions on the press; and finally,
disaffection overawed by the first band of mercenary troops that ever
marched on our free soil. For two years our ancestors were kept in sullen
submission by that filial love which had invariably secured their allegiance
to the mother-country, whether its head chanced to be a Parliament,
Protector or popish monarch. Till these evil times, however, such allegiance
had been merely nominal, and the colonists had ruled themselves, enjoying
far more freedom than is even yet the privilege of the native subjects of
Great Britain.
At length a rumor reached our shores that the prince of Orange had
ventured on an enterprise the success of which would be the triumph of
civil and religious rights and the salvation of New England. It was but a
doubtful whisper; it might be false or the attempt might fail, and in either
case the man that stirred against King James would lose his head. Still, the
intelligence produced a marked effect. The people smiled mysteriously in
the streets and threw bold glances at their oppressors, while far and wide
there was a subdued and silent agitation, as if the slightest signal would
rouse the whole land from its sluggish despondency. Aware of their danger,

the rulers resolved to avert it by an imposing display of strength, and
perhaps to confirm their despotism by yet harsher measures.
One afternoon in April, 1689, Sir Edmund Andros and his favorite
councillors, being warm with wine, assembled the red-coats of the
governor’s guard and made their appearance in the streets of Boston. The
sun was near setting when the march commenced. The roll of the drum at
that unquiet crisis seemed to go through the streets less as the martial music
of the soldiers than as a muster-call to the inhabitants themselves. A
multitude by various avenues assembled in King street, which was destined
to be the scene, nearly a century afterward, of another encounter between
the troops of Britain and a people struggling against her tyranny.
Though more than sixty years had elapsed since the Pilgrims came, this
crowd of their descendants still showed the strong and sombre features of
their character perhaps more strikingly in such a stern emergency than on
happier occasions. There was the sober garb, the general severity of mien,
the gloomy but undismayed expression, the scriptural forms of speech and
the confidence in Heaven’s blessing on a righteous cause which would have
marked a band of the original Puritans when threatened by some peril of the
wilderness. Indeed, it was not yet time for the old spirit to be extinct, since
there were men in the street that day who had worshipped there beneath the
trees before a house was reared to the God for whom they had become
exiles. Old soldiers of the Parliament were here, too, smiling grimly at the
thought that their aged arms might strike another blow against the house of
Stuart. Here, also, were the veterans of King Philip’s war, who had burned
villages and slaughtered young and old with pious fierceness while the
godly souls throughout the land were helping them with prayer. Several
ministers were scattered among the crowd, which, unlike all other mobs,
regarded them with such reverence as if there were sanctity in their very
garments. These holy men exerted their influence to quiet the people, but
not to disperse them.
Meantime, the purpose of the governor in disturbing the peace of the
town at a period when the slightest commotion might throw the country into
a ferment was almost the Universal subject of inquiry, and variously
explained.
“Satan will strike his master-stroke presently,” cried some, “because he
knoweth that his time is short. All our godly pastors are to be dragged to

prison. We shall see them at a Smithfield fire in King street.”
Hereupon the people of each parish gathered closer round their minister,
who looked calmly upward and assumed a more apostolic dignity, as well
befitted a candidate for the highest honor of his profession—a crown of
martyrdom. It was actually fancied at that period that New England might
have a John Rogers of her own to take the place of that worthy in the
Primer.
“The pope of Rome has given orders for a new St. Bartholomew,” cried
others. “We are to be massacred, man and male-child.”
Neither was this rumor wholly discredited; although the wiser class
believed the governor’s object somewhat less atrocious. His predecessor
under the old charter, Bradstreet, a venerable companion of the first settlers,
was known to be in town. There were grounds for conjecturing that Sir
Edmund Andros intended at once to strike terror by a parade of military
force and to confound the opposite faction by possessing himself of their
chief.
“Stand firm for the old charter-governor!” shouted the crowd, seizing
upon the idea—“the good old Governor Bradstreet!”
While this cry was at the loudest the people were surprised by the well-
known figure of Governor Bradstreet himself, a patriarch of nearly ninety,
who appeared on the elevated steps of a door and with characteristic
mildness besought them to submit to the constituted authorities.
“My children,” concluded this venerable person, “do nothing rashly. Cry
not aloud, but pray for the welfare of New England and expect patiently
what the Lord will do in this matter.”
The event was soon to be decided. All this time the roll of the drum had
been approaching through Cornhill, louder and deeper, till with
reverberations from house to house and the regular tramp of martial
footsteps it burst into the street. A double rank of soldiers made their
appearance, occupying the whole breadth of the passage, with shouldered
matchlocks and matches burning, so as to present a row of fires in the dusk.
Their steady march was like the progress of a machine that would roll
irresistibly over everything in its way. Next, moving slowly, with a
confused clatter of hoofs on the pavement, rode a party of mounted
gentlemen, the central figure being Sir Edmund Andros, elderly, but erect
and soldier-like. Those around him were his favorite councillors and the

bitterest foes of New England. At his right hand rode Edward Randolph, our
arch-enemy, that “blasted wretch,” as Cotton Mather calls him, who
achieved the downfall of our ancient government and was followed with a
sensible curse-through life and to his grave. On the other side was
Bullivant, scattering jests and mockery as he rode along. Dudley came
behind with a downcast look, dreading, as well he might, to meet the
indignant gaze of the people, who beheld him, their only countryman by
birth, among the oppressors of his native land. The captain of a frigate in
the harbor and two or three civil officers under the Crown were also there.
But the figure which most attracted the public eye and stirred up the deepest
feeling was the Episcopal clergyman of King’s Chapel riding haughtily
among the magistrates in his priestly vestments, the fitting representative of
prelacy and persecution, the union of Church and State, and all those
abominations which had driven the Puritans to the wilderness. Another
guard of soldiers, in double rank, brought up the rear.
The whole scene was a picture of the condition of New England, and its
moral, the deformity of any government that does not grow out of the
nature of things and the character of the people—on one side the religious
multitude with their sad visages and dark attire, and on the other the group
of despotic rulers with the high churchman in the midst and here and there a
crucifix at their bosoms, all magnificently clad, flushed with wine, proud of
unjust authority and scoffing at the universal groan. And the mercenary
soldiers, waiting but the word to deluge the street with blood, showed the
only means by which obedience could be secured.
“O Lord of hosts,” cried a voice among the crowd, “provide a champion
for thy people!”
This ejaculation was loudly uttered, and served as a herald’s cry to
introduce a remarkable personage. The crowd had rolled back, and were
now huddled together nearly at the extremity of the street, while the soldiers
had advanced no more than a third of its length. The intervening space was
empty—a paved solitude between lofty edifices which threw almost a
twilight shadow over it. Suddenly there was seen the figure of an ancient
man who seemed to have emerged from among the people and was walking
by himself along the centre of the street to confront the armed band. He
wore the old Puritan dress—a dark cloak and a steeple-crowned hat in the

fashion of at least fifty years before, with a heavy sword upon his thigh, but
a staff in his hand to assist the tremulous gait of age.
When at some distance from the multitude, the old man turned slowly
round, displaying a face of antique majesty rendered doubly venerable by
the hoary beard that descended on his breast. He made a gesture at once of
encouragement and warning, then turned again and resumed his way.
“Who is this gray patriarch?” asked the young men of their sires.
“Who is this venerable brother?” asked the old men among themselves.
But none could make reply. The fathers of the people, those of fourscore
years and upward, were disturbed, deeming it strange that they should
forget one of such evident authority whom they must have known in their
early days, the associate of Winthrop and all the old councillors, giving
laws and making prayers and leading them against the savage. The elderly
men ought to have remembered him, too, with locks as gray in their youth
as their own were now. And the young! How could he have passed so
utterly from their memories—that hoary sire, the relic of long-departed
times, whose awful benediction had surely been bestowed on their
uncovered heads in childhood?
“Whence did he come? What is his purpose? Who can this old man be?”
whispered the wondering crowd.
Meanwhile, the venerable stranger, staff in hand, was pursuing his
solitary walk along the centre of the street. As he drew near the advancing
soldiers, and as the roll of their drum came full upon his ear, the old man
raised himself to a loftier mien, while the decrepitude of age seemed to fall
from his shoulders, leaving him in gray but unbroken dignity. Now he
marched onward with a warrior’s step, keeping time to the military music.
Thus the aged form advanced on one side and the whole parade of soldiers
and magistrates on the other, till, when scarcely twenty yards remained
between, the old man grasped his staff by the middle and held it before him
like a leader’s truncheon.
“Stand!” cried he.
The eye, the face and attitude of command, the solemn yet warlike peal
of that voice—fit either to rule a host in the battle-field or be raised to God
in prayer—were irresistible. At the old man’s word and outstretched arm the
roll of the drum was hushed at once and the advancing line stood still. A

tremulous enthusiasm seized upon the multitude. That stately form,
combining the leader and the saint, so gray, so dimly seen, in such an
ancient garb, could only belong to some old champion of the righteous
cause whom the oppressor’s drum had summoned from his grave. They
raised a shout of awe and exultation, and looked for the deliverance of New
England.
The governor and the gentlemen of his party, perceiving themselves
brought to an unexpected stand, rode hastily forward, as if they would have
pressed their snorting and affrighted horses right against the hoary
apparition. He, however, blenched not a step, but, glancing his severe eye
round the group, which half encompassed him, at last bent it sternly on Sir
Edmund Andros. One would have thought that the dark old man was chief
ruler there, and that the governor and council with soldiers at their back,
representing the whole power and authority of the Crown, had no
alternative but obedience.
“What does this old fellow here?” cried Edward Randolph, fiercely.
—“On, Sir Edmund! Bid the soldiers forward, and give the dotard the same
choice that you give all his countrymen—to stand aside or be trampled on.”
“Nay, nay! Let us show respect to the good grandsire,” said Bullivant,
laughing. “See you not he is some old round-headed dignitary who hath lain
asleep these thirty years and knows nothing of the change of times?
Doubtless he thinks to put us down with a proclamation in Old Noll’s
name.”
“Are you mad, old man?” demanded Sir Edmund Andros, in loud and
harsh tones. “How dare you stay the march of King James’s governor?”
“I have stayed the march of a king himself ere now,” replied the gray
figure, with stern composure. “I am here, Sir Governor, because the cry of
an oppressed people hath disturbed me in my secret place, and, beseeching
this favor earnestly of the Lord, it was vouchsafed me to appear once again
on earth in the good old cause of his saints. And what speak ye of James?
There is no longer a popish tyrant on the throne of England, and by to-
morrow noon his name shall be a by-word in this very street, where ye
would make it a word of terror. Back, thou that wast a governor, back! With
this night thy power is ended. To-morrow, the prison! Back, lest I foretell
the scaffold!”

The people had been drawing nearer and nearer and drinking in the
words of their champion, who spoke in accents long disused, like one
unaccustomed to converse except with the dead of many years ago. But his
voice stirred their souls. They confronted the soldiers, not wholly without
arms and ready to convert the very stones of the street into deadly weapons.
Sir Edmund Andros looked at the old man; then he cast his hard and cruel
eye over the multitude and beheld them burning with that lurid wrath so
difficult to kindle or to quench, and again he fixed his gaze on the aged
form which stood obscurely in an open space where neither friend nor foe
had thrust himself. What were his thoughts he uttered no word which might
discover, but, whether the oppressor were overawed by the Gray
Champion’s look or perceived his peril in the threatening attitude of the
people, it is certain that he gave back and ordered his soldiers to commence
a slow and guarded retreat. Before another sunset the governor and all that
rode so proudly with him were prisoners, and long ere it was known that
James had abdicated King William was proclaimed throughout New
England.
But where was the Gray Champion? Some reported that when the troops
had gone from King street and the people were thronging tumultuously in
their rear, Bradstreet, the aged governor, was seen to embrace a form more
aged than his own. Others soberly affirmed that while they marvelled at the
venerable grandeur of his aspect the old man had faded from their eyes,
melting slowly into the hues of twilight, till where he stood there was an
empty space. But all agreed that the hoary shape was gone. The men of that
generation watched for his reappearance in sunshine and in twilight, but
never saw him more, nor knew when his funeral passed nor where his
gravestone was.
And who was the Gray Champion? Perhaps his name might be found in
the records of that stern court of justice which passed a sentence too mighty
for the age, but glorious in all after-times for its humbling lesson to the
monarch and its high example to the subject. I have heard that whenever the
descendants of the Puritans are to show the spirit of their sires the old man
appears again. When eighty years had passed, he walked once more in King
street. Five years later, in the twilight of an April morning, he stood on the
green beside the meeting-house at Lexington where now the obelisk of
granite with a slab of slate inlaid commemorates the first-fallen of the
Revolution. And when our fathers were toiling at the breastwork on

Bunker’s Hill, all through that night the old warrior walked his rounds.
Long, long may it be ere he comes again! His hour is one of darkness and
adversity and peril. But should domestic tyranny oppress us or the invader’s
step pollute our soil, still may the Gray Champion come! for he is the type
of New England’s hereditary spirit, and his shadowy march on the eve of
danger must ever be the pledge that New England’s sons will vindicate their
ancestry.

SUNDAY AT HOME

Every Sabbath morning in the summer-time I thrust back the curtain to
watch the sunrise stealing down a steeple which stands opposite my
chamber window. First the weathercock begins to flash; then a fainter lustre
gives the spire an airy aspect; next it encroaches on the tower and causes
the index of the dial to glisten like gold as it points to the gilded figure of
the hour. Now the loftiest window gleams, and now the lower. The carved
framework of the portal is marked strongly out. At length the morning glory
in its descent from heaven comes down the stone steps one by one, and
there stands the steeple glowing with fresh radiance, while the shades of
twilight still hide themselves among the nooks of the adjacent buildings.
Methinks though the same sun brightens it every fair morning, yet the
steeple has a peculiar robe of brightness for the Sabbath.
By dwelling near a church a person soon contracts an attachment for the
edifice. We naturally personify it, and conceive its massy walls and its dim
emptiness to be instinct with a calm and meditative and somewhat
melancholy spirit. But the steeple stands foremost in our thoughts, as well
as locally. It impresses us as a giant with a mind comprehensive and
discriminating enough to care for the great and small concerns of all the
town. Hourly, while it speaks a moral to the few that think, it reminds
thousands of busy individuals of their separate and most secret affairs. It is
the steeple, too, that flings abroad the hurried and irregular accents of
general alarm; neither have gladness and festivity found a better utterance
than by its tongue; and when the dead are slowly passing to their home, the
steeple has a melancholy voice to bid them welcome. Yet, in spite of this
connection with human interests, what a moral loneliness on week-days
broods round about its stately height! It has no kindred with the houses
above which it towers; it looks down into the narrow thoroughfare—the
lonelier because the crowd are elbowing their passage at its base. A glance
at the body of the church deepens this impression. Within, by the light of

distant windows, amid refracted shadows we discern the vacant pews and
empty galleries, the silent organ, the voiceless pulpit and the clock which
tells to solitude how time is passing. Time—where man lives not—what is
it but eternity? And in the church, we might suppose, are garnered up
throughout the week all thoughts and feelings that have reference to
eternity, until the holy day comes round again to let them forth. Might not,
then, its more appropriate site be in the outskirts of the town, with space for
old trees to wave around it and throw their solemn shadows over a quiet
green? We will say more of this hereafter.
But on the Sabbath I watch the earliest sunshine and fancy that a holier
brightness marks the day when there shall be no buzz of voices on the
Exchange nor traffic in the shops, nor crowd nor business anywhere but at
church. Many have fancied so. For my own part, whether I see it scattered
down among tangled woods, or beaming broad across the fields, or hemmed
in between brick buildings, or tracing out the figure of the casement on my
chamber floor, still I recognize the Sabbath sunshine. And ever let me
recognize it! Some illusions—and this among them—are the shadows of
great truths. Doubts may flit around me or seem to close their evil wings
and settle down, but so long as I imagine that the earth is hallowed and the
light of heaven retains its sanctity on the Sabbath—while that blessed
sunshine lives within me—never can my soul have lost the instinct of its
faith. If it have gone astray, it will return again.
I love to spend such pleasant Sabbaths from morning till night behind the
curtain of my open window. Are they spent amiss? Every spot so near the
church as to be visited by the circling shadow of the steeple should be
deemed consecrated ground to-day. With stronger truth be it said that a
devout heart may consecrate a den of thieves, as an evil one may convert a
temple to the same. My heart, perhaps, has no such holy, nor, I would fain
trust, such impious, potency. It must suffice that, though my form be absent,
my inner man goes constantly to church, while many whose bodily
presence fills the accustomed seats have left their souls at home. But I am
there even before my friend the sexton. At length he comes—a man of
kindly but sombre aspect, in dark gray clothes, and hair of the same
mixture. He comes and applies his key to the wide portal. Now my thoughts
may go in among the dusty pews or ascend the pulpit without sacrilege, but
soon come forth again to enjoy the music of the bell. How glad, yet solemn
too! All the steeples in town are talking together aloft in the sunny air and

rejoicing among themselves while their spires point heavenward.
Meantime, here are the children assembling to the Sabbath-school, which is
kept somewhere within the church. Often, while looking at the arched
portal, I have been gladdened by the sight of a score of these little girls and
boys in pink, blue, yellow and crimson frocks bursting suddenly forth into
the sunshine like a swarm of gay butterflies that had been shut up in the
solemn gloom. Or I might compare them to cherubs haunting that holy
place.
About a quarter of an hour before the second ringing of the bell
individuals of the congregation begin to appear. The earliest is invariably an
old woman in black whose bent frame and rounded shoulders are evidently
laden with some heavy affliction which she is eager to rest upon the altar.
Would that the Sabbath came twice as often, for the sake of that sorrowful
old soul! There is an elderly man, also, who arrives in good season and
leans against the corner of the tower, just within the line of its shadow,
looking downward with a darksome brow. I sometimes fancy that the old
woman is the happier of the two. After these, others drop in singly and by
twos and threes, either disappearing through the doorway or taking their
stand in its vicinity. At last, and always with an unexpected sensation, the
bell turns in the steeple overhead and throws out an irregular clangor,
jarring the tower to its foundation. As if there were magic in the sound, the
sidewalks of the street, both up and down along, are immediately thronged
with two long lines of people, all converging hitherward and streaming into
the church. Perhaps the far-off roar of a coach draws nearer—a deeper
thunder by its contrast with the surrounding stillness—until it sets down the
wealthy worshippers at the portal among their humblest brethren. Beyond
that entrance—in theory, at least—there are no distinctions of earthly rank;
nor, indeed, by the goodly apparel which is flaunting in the sun would there
seem to be such on the hither side. Those pretty girls! Why will they disturb
my pious meditations? Of all days in the week, they should strive to look
least fascinating on the Sabbath, instead of heightening their mortal
loveliness, as if to rival the blessed angels and keep our thoughts from
heaven. Were I the minister himself, I must needs look. One girl is white
muslin from the waist upward and black silk downward to her slippers; a
second blushes from top-knot to shoe-tie, one universal scarlet; another
shines of a pervading yellow, as if she had made a garment of the sunshine.
The greater part, however, have adopted a milder cheerfulness of hue. Their

veils, especially when the wind raises them, give a lightness to the general
effect and make them appear like airy phantoms as they flit up the steps and
vanish into the sombre doorway. Nearly all—though it is very strange that I
should know it—wear white stockings, white as snow, and neat slippers
laced crosswise with black ribbon pretty high above the ankles. A white
stocking is infinitely more effective than a black one.
Here comes the clergyman, slow and solemn, in severe simplicity,
needing no black silk gown to denote his office. His aspect claims my
reverence, but cannot win my love. Were I to picture Saint Peter keeping
fast the gate of Heaven and frowning, more stern than pitiful, on the
wretched applicants, that face should be my study. By middle age, or
sooner, the creed has generally wrought upon the heart or been attempered
by it. As the minister passes into the church the bell holds its iron tongue
and all the low murmur of the congregation dies away. The gray sexton
looks up and down the street and then at my window-curtain, where through
the small peephole I half fancy that he has caught my eye. Now every
loiterer has gone in and the street lies asleep in the quiet sun, while a feeling
of loneliness comes over me, and brings also an uneasy sense of neglected
privileges and duties. Oh, I ought to have gone to church! The bustle of the
rising congregation reaches my ears. They are standing up to pray. Could I
bring my heart into unison with those who are praying in yonder church and
lift it heavenward with a fervor of supplication, but no distinct request,
would not that be the safest kind of prayer?—“Lord, look down upon me in
mercy!” With that sentiment gushing from my soul, might I not leave all the
rest to him?
Hark! the hymn! This, at least, is a portion of the service which I can
enjoy better than if I sat within the walls, where the full choir and the
massive melody of the organ would fall with a weight upon me. At this
distance it thrills through my frame and plays upon my heart-strings with a
pleasure both of the sense and spirit. Heaven be praised! I know nothing of
music as a science, and the most elaborate harmonies, if they please me,
please as simply as a nurse’s lullaby. The strain has ceased, but prolongs
itself in my mind with fanciful echoes till I start from my reverie and find
that the sermon has commenced. It is my misfortune seldom to fructify in a
regular way by any but printed sermons. The first strong idea which the
preacher utters gives birth to a train of thought and leads me onward step by
step quite out of hearing of the good man’s voice unless he be indeed a son

of thunder. At my open window, catching now and then a sentence of the
“parson’s saw,” I am as well situated as at the foot of the pulpit stairs. The
broken and scattered fragments of this one discourse will be the texts of
many sermons preached by those colleague pastors—colleagues, but often
disputants—my Mind and Heart. The former pretends to be a scholar and
perplexes me with doctrinal points; the latter takes me on the score of
feeling; and both, like several other preachers, spend their strength to very
little purpose. I, their sole auditor, cannot always understand them.
Suppose that a few hours have passed, and behold me still behind my
curtain just before the close of the afternoon service. The hour-hand on the
dial has passed beyond four o’clock. The declining sun is hidden behind the
steeple and throws its shadow straight across the street; so that my chamber
is darkened as with a cloud. Around the church door all is solitude, and an
impenetrable obscurity beyond the threshold. A commotion is heard. The
seats are slammed down and the pew doors thrown back; a multitude of feet
are trampling along the unseen aisles, and the congregation bursts suddenly
through the portal. Foremost scampers a rabble of boys, behind whom
moves a dense and dark phalanx of grown men, and lastly a crowd of
females with young children and a few scattered husbands. This
instantaneous outbreak of life into loneliness is one of the pleasantest
scenes of the day. Some of the good people are rubbing their eyes, thereby
intimating that they have been wrapped, as it were, in a sort of holy trance
by the fervor of their devotion. There is a young man, a third-rate coxcomb,
whose first care is always to flourish a white handkerchief and brush the
seat of a tight pair of black silk pantaloons which shine as if varnished.
They must have been made of the stuff called “everlasting,” or perhaps of
the same piece as Christian’s garments in the Pilgrim’s Progress, for he put
them on two summers ago and has not yet worn the gloss off. I have taken a
great liking to those black silk pantaloons. But now, with nods and
greetings among friends, each matron takes her husband’s arm and paces
gravely homeward, while the girls also flutter away after arranging sunset
walks with their favored bachelors. The Sabbath eve is the eve of love. At
length the whole congregation is dispersed. No; here, with faces as glossy
as black satin, come two sable ladies and a sable gentleman, and close in
their rear the minister, who softens his severe visage and bestows a kind
word on each. Poor souls! To them the most captivating picture of bliss in
heaven is “There we shall be white!”

All is solitude again. But hark! A broken warbling of voices, and now,
attuning its grandeur to their sweetness, a stately peal of the organ. Who are
the choristers? Let me dream that the angels who came down from heaven
this blessed morn to blend themselves with the worship of the truly good
are playing and singing their farewell to the earth. On the wings of that rich
melody they were borne upward.
This, gentle reader, is merely a flight of poetry. A few of the singing-men
and singing-women had lingered behind their fellows and raised their
voices fitfully and blew a careless note upon the organ. Yet it lifted my soul
higher than all their former strains. They are gone—the sons and daughters
of Music—and the gray sexton is just closing the portal. For six days more
there will be no face of man in the pews and aisles and galleries, nor a voice
in the pulpit, nor music in the choir. Was it worth while to rear this massive
edifice to be a desert in the heart of the town and populous only for a few
hours of each seventh day? Oh, but the church is a symbol of religion. May
its site, which was consecrated on the day when the first tree was felled, be
kept holy for ever, a spot of solitude and peace amid the trouble and vanity
of our week-day world! There is a moral, and a religion too, even in the
silent walls. And may the steeple still point heavenward and be decked with
the hallowed sunshine of the Sabbath morn!

THE WEDDING-KNELL

There is a certain church, in the city of New York which I have always
regarded with peculiar interest on account of a marriage there solemnized
under very singular circumstances in my grandmother’s girlhood. That
venerable lady chanced to be a spectator of the scene, and ever after made it
her favorite narrative. Whether the edifice now standing on the same site be
the identical one to which she referred I am not antiquarian enough to
know, nor would it be worth while to correct myself, perhaps, of an
agreeable error by reading the date of its erection on the tablet over the
door. It is a stately church surrounded by an enclosure of the loveliest green,
within which appear urns, pillars, obelisks, and other forms of monumental
marble, the tributes of private affection or more splendid memorials of
historic dust. With such a place, though the tumult of the city rolls beneath
its tower, one would be willing to connect some legendary interest.
The marriage might be considered as the result of an early engagement,
though there had been two intermediate weddings on the lady’s part and
forty years of celibacy on that of the gentleman. At sixty-five Mr.
Ellenwood was a shy but not quite a secluded man; selfish, like all men who
brood over their own hearts, yet manifesting on rare occasions a vein of
generous sentiment; a scholar throughout life, though always an indolent
one, because his studies had no definite object either of public advantage or
personal ambition; a gentleman, high-bred and fastidiously delicate, yet
sometimes requiring a considerable relaxation in his behalf of the common
rules of society. In truth, there were so many anomalies in his character,
and, though shrinking with diseased sensibility from public notice, it had
been his fatality so often to become the topic of the day by some wild
eccentricity of conduct, that people searched his lineage for a hereditary
taint of insanity. But there was no need of this. His caprices had their origin
in a mind that lacked the support of an engrossing purpose, and in feelings

that preyed upon themselves for want of other food. If he were mad, it was
the consequence, and not the cause, of an aimless and abortive life.
The widow was as complete a contrast to her third bridegroom in
everything but age as can well be conceived. Compelled to relinquish her
first engagement, she had been united to a man of twice her own years, to
whom she became an exemplary wife, and by whose death she was left in
possession of a splendid fortune. A Southern gentleman considerably
younger than herself succeeded to her hand and carried her to Charleston,
where after many uncomfortable years she found herself again a widow. It
would have been singular if any uncommon delicacy of feeling had
survived through such a life as Mrs. Dabney’s; it could not but be crushed
and killed by her early disappointment, the cold duty of her first marriage,
the dislocation of the heart’s principles consequent on a second union, and
the unkindness of her Southern husband, which had inevitably driven her to
connect the idea of his death with that of her comfort. To be brief, she was
that wisest but unloveliest variety of woman, a philosopher, bearing
troubles of the heart with equanimity, dispensing with all that should have
been her happiness and making the best of what remained. Sage in most
matters, the widow was perhaps the more amiable for the one frailty that
made her ridiculous. Being childless, she could not remain beautiful by
proxy in the person of a daughter; she therefore refused to grow old and
ugly on any consideration; she struggled with Time, and held fast her roses
in spite of him, till the venerable thief appeared to have relinquished the
spoil as not worth the trouble of acquiring it.
The approaching marriage of this woman of the world with such an
unworldly man as Mr. Ellenwood was announced soon after Mrs. Dabney’s
return to her native city. Superficial observers, and deeper ones, seemed to
concur in supposing that the lady must have borne no inactive part in
arranging the affair; there were considerations of expediency which she
would be far more likely to appreciate than Mr. Ellenwood, and there was
just the specious phantom of sentiment and romance in this late union of
two early lovers which sometimes makes a fool of a woman who has lost
her true feelings among the accidents of life. All the wonder was how the
gentleman, with his lack of worldly wisdom and agonizing consciousness of
ridicule, could have been induced to take a measure at once so prudent and
so laughable. But while people talked the wedding-day arrived. The
ceremony was to be solemnized according to the Episcopalian forms and in

open church, with a degree of publicity that attracted many spectators, who
occupied the front seats of the galleries and the pews near the altar and
along the broad aisle. It had been arranged, or possibly it was the custom of
the day, that the parties should proceed separately to church. By some
accident the bridegroom was a little less punctual than the widow and her
bridal attendants, with whose arrival, after this tedious but necessary
preface, the action of our tale may be said to commence.
The clumsy wheels of several old-fashioned coaches were heard, and the
gentlemen and ladies composing the bridal-party came through the church
door with the sudden and gladsome effect of a burst of sunshine. The whole
group, except the principal figure, was made up of youth and gayety. As
they streamed up the broad aisle, while the pews and pillars seemed to
brighten on either side, their steps were as buoyant as if they mistook the
church for a ball-room and were ready to dance hand in hand to the altar. So
brilliant was the spectacle that few took notice of a singular phenomenon
that had marked its entrance. At the moment when the bride’s foot touched
the threshold the bell swung heavily in the tower above her and sent forth
its deepest knell. The vibrations died away, and returned with prolonged
solemnity as she entered the body of the church.
“Good heavens! What an omen!” whispered a young lady to her lover.
“On my honor,” replied the gentleman, “I believe the bell has the good
taste to toll of its own accord. What has she to do with weddings? If you,
dearest Julia, were approaching the altar, the bell would ring out its merriest
peal. It has only a funeral-knell for her.”
The bride and most of her company had been too much occupied with the
bustle of entrance to hear the first boding stroke of the bell—or, at least, to
reflect on the singularity of such a welcome to the altar. They therefore
continued to advance with undiminished gayety. The gorgeous dresses of
the time—the crimson velvet coats, the gold-laced hats, the hoop-petticoats,
the silk, satin, brocade and embroidery, the buckles, canes and swords, all
displayed to the best advantage on persons suited to such finery—made the
group appear more like a bright-colored picture than anything real. But by
what perversity of taste had the artist represented his principal figure as so
wrinkled and decayed, while yet he had decked her out in the brightest
splendor of attire, as if the loveliest maiden had suddenly withered into age
and become a moral to the beautiful around her? On they went, however,

and had glittered along about a third of the aisle, when another stroke of the
bell seemed to fill the church with a visible gloom, dimming and obscuring
the bright-pageant till it shone forth again as from a mist.
This time the party wavered, stopped and huddled closer together, while a
slight scream was heard from some of the ladies and a confused whispering
among the gentlemen. Thus tossing to and fro, they might have been
fancifully compared to a splendid bunch of flowers suddenly shaken by a
puff of wind which threatened to scatter the leaves of an old brown,
withered rose on the same stalk with two dewy buds, such being the
emblem of the widow between her fair young bridemaids. But her heroism
was admirable. She had started with an irrepressible shudder, as if the
stroke of the bell had fallen directly on her heart; then, recovering herself,
while her attendants were yet in dismay, she took the lead and paced calmly
up the aisle. The bell continued to swing, strike and vibrate with the same
doleful regularity as when a corpse is on its way to the tomb.
“My young friends here have their nerves a little shaken,” said the
widow, with a smile, to the clergyman at the altar. “But so many weddings
have been ushered in with the merriest peal of the bells, and yet turned out
unhappily, that I shall hope for better fortune under such different
auspices.”
“Madam,” answered the rector, in great perplexity, “this strange
occurrence brings to my mind a marriage-sermon of the famous Bishop
Taylor wherein he mingles so many thoughts of mortality and future woe
that, to speak somewhat after his own rich style, he seems to hang the
bridal-chamber in black and cut the wedding-garment out of a coffin-pall.
And it has been the custom of divers nations to infuse something of sadness
into their marriage ceremonies, so to keep death in mind while contracting
that engagement which is life’s chiefest business. Thus we may draw a sad
but profitable moral from this funeral-knell.”
But, though the clergyman might have given his moral even a keener
point, he did not fail to despatch an attendant to inquire into the mystery
and stop those sounds so dismally appropriate to such a marriage. A brief
space elapsed, during which the silence was broken only by whispers and a
few suppressed titterings among the wedding-party and the spectators, who
after the first shock were disposed to draw an ill-natured merriment from
the affair. The young have less charity for aged follies than the old for those

of youth. The widow’s glance was observed to wander for an instant toward
a window of the church, as if searching for the time-worn marble that she
had dedicated to her first husband; then her eyelids dropped over their faded
orbs and her thoughts were drawn irresistibly to another grave. Two buried
men with a voice at her ear and a cry afar off were calling her to lie down
beside them. Perhaps, with momentary truth of feeling, she thought how
much happier had been her fate if, after years of bliss, the bell were now
tolling for her funeral and she were followed to the grave by the old
affection of her earliest lover, long her husband. But why had she returned
to him when their cold hearts shrank from each other’s embrace?
Still the death-bell tolled so mournfully that the sunshine seemed to fade
in the air. A whisper, communicated from those who stood nearest the
windows, now spread through the church: a hearse with a train of several
coaches was creeping along the street, conveying some dead man to the
churchyard, while the bride awaited a living one at the altar. Immediately
after, the footsteps of the bridegroom and his friends were heard at the door.
The widow looked down the aisle and clenched the arm of one of her
bridemaids in her bony hand with such unconscious violence that the fair
girl trembled.
“You frighten me, my dear madam,” cried she. “For heaven’s sake, what
is the matter?”
“Nothing, my dear—nothing,” said the widow; then, whispering close to
her ear, “There is a foolish fancy that I cannot get rid of. I am expecting my
bridegroom to come into the church with my two first husbands for
groomsmen.”
“Look! look!” screamed the bridemaid. “What is here? The funeral!”
As she spoke a dark procession paced into the church. First came an old
man and woman, like chief mourners at a funeral, attired from head to foot
in the deepest black, all but their pale features and hoary hair, he leaning on
a staff and supporting her decrepit form with his nerveless arm. Behind
appeared another and another pair, as aged, as black and mournful as the
first. As they drew near the widow recognized in every face some trait of
former friends long forgotten, but now returning as if from their old graves
to warn her to prepare a shroud, or, with purpose almost as unwelcome, to
exhibit their wrinkles and infirmity and claim her as their companion by the
tokens of her own decay. Many a merry night had she danced with them in

youth, and now in joyless age she felt that some withered partner should
request her hand and all unite in a dance of death to the music of the
funeral-bell.
While these aged mourners were passing up the aisle it was observed that
from pew to pew the spectators shuddered with irrepressible awe as some
object hitherto concealed by the intervening figures came full in sight.
Many turned away their faces; others kept a fixed and rigid stare, and a
young girl giggled hysterically and fainted with the laughter on her lips.
When the spectral procession approached the altar, each couple separated
and slowly diverged, till in the centre appeared a form that had been
worthily ushered in with all this gloomy pomp, the death-knell and the
funeral. It was the bridegroom in his shroud.
No garb but that of the grave could have befitted such a death-like aspect.
The eyes, indeed, had the wild gleam of a sepulchral lamp; all else was
fixed in the stern calmness which old men wear in the coffin. The corpse
stood motionless, but addressed the widow in accents that seemed to melt
into the clang of the bell, which fell heavily on the air while he spoke.
“Come, my bride!” said those pale lips. “The hearse is ready; the sexton
stands waiting for us at the door of the tomb. Let us be married, and then to
our coffins!”
How shall the widow’s horror be represented? It gave her the ghastliness
of a dead man’s bride. Her youthful friends stood apart, shuddering at the
mourners, the shrouded bridegroom and herself; the whole scene expressed
by the strongest imagery the vain struggle of the gilded vanities of this
world when opposed to age, infirmity, sorrow and death.
The awestruck silence was first broken by the clergyman.
“Mr. Ellenwood,” said he, soothingly, yet with somewhat of authority,
“you are not well. Your mind has been agitated by the unusual
circumstances in which you are placed. The ceremony must be deferred. As
an old friend, let me entreat you to return home.”
“Home—yes; but not without my bride,” answered he, in the same
hollow accents. “You deem this mockery—perhaps madness. Had I
bedizened my aged and broken frame with scarlet and embroidery, had I
forced my withered lips to smile at my dead heart, that might have been
mockery or madness; but now let young and old declare which of us has
come hither without a wedding-garment—the bridegroom or the bride.”

He stepped forward at a ghostly pace and stood beside the widow,
contrasting the awful simplicity of his shroud with the glare and glitter in
which she had arrayed herself for this unhappy scene. None that beheld
them could deny the terrible strength of the moral which his disordered
intellect had contrived to draw.
“Cruel! cruel!” groaned the heartstricken bride.
“Cruel?” repeated he; then, losing his deathlike composure in a wild
bitterness, “Heaven judge which of us has been cruel to the other! In youth
you deprived me of my happiness, my hopes, my aims; you took away all
the substance of my life and made it a dream without reality enough even to
grieve at—with only a pervading gloom, through which I walked wearily
and cared not whither. But after forty years, when I have built my tomb and
would not give up the thought of resting there—no, not for such a life as we
once pictured—you call me to the altar. At your summons I am here. But
other husbands have enjoyed your youth, your beauty, your warmth of heart
and all that could be termed your life. What is there for me but your decay
and death? And therefore I have bidden these funeral-friends, and bespoken
the sexton’s deepest knell, and am come in my shroud to wed you as with a
burial-service, that we may join our hands at the door of the sepulchre and
enter it together.”
It was not frenzy, it was not merely the drunkenness of strong emotion in
a heart unused to it, that now wrought upon the bride. The stern lesson of
the day had done its work; her worldliness was gone. She seized the
bridegroom’s hand.
“Yes!” cried she; “let us wed even at the door of the sepulchre. My life is
gone in vanity and emptiness, but at its close there is one true feeling. It has
made me what I was in youth: it makes me worthy of you. Time is no more
for both of us. Let us wed for eternity.”
With a long and deep regard the bridegroom looked into her eyes, while a
tear was gathering in his own. How strange that gush of human feeling from
the frozen bosom of a corpse! He wiped away the tear, even with his
shroud.
“Beloved of my youth,” said he, “I have been wild. The despair of my
whole lifetime had returned at once and maddened me. Forgive and be
forgiven. Yes; it is evening with us now, and we have realized none of our
morning dreams of happiness. But let us join our hands before the altar as

lovers whom adverse circumstances have separated through life, yet who
meet again as they are leaving it and find their earthly affection changed
into something holy as religion. And what is time to the married of
eternity?”
Amid the tears of many and a swell of exalted sentiment in those who felt
aright was solemnized the union of two immortal souls. The train of
withered mourners, the hoary bridegroom in his shroud, the pale features of
the aged bride and the death-bell tolling through the whole till its deep
voice overpowered the marriage-words,—all marked the funeral of earthly
hopes. But as the ceremony proceeded, the organ, as if stirred by the
sympathies of this impressive scene, poured forth an anthem, first mingling
with the dismal knell, then rising to a loftier strain, till the soul looked down
upon its woe. And when the awful rite was finished and with cold hand in
cold hand the married of eternity withdrew, the organ’s peal of solemn
triumph drowned the wedding-knell.

THE MINISTER’S BLACK VEIL

A PARABLE[1]
The sexton stood in the porch of Milford meeting-house pulling lustily at
the bell-rope. The old people of the village came stooping along the street.
Children with bright faces tripped merrily beside their parents or mimicked
a graver gait in the conscious dignity of their Sunday clothes. Spruce
bachelors looked sidelong at the pretty maidens, and fancied that the
Sabbath sunshine made them prettier than on week-days. When the throng
had mostly streamed into the porch, the sexton began to toll the bell,
keeping his eye on the Reverend Mr. Hooper’s door. The first glimpse of
the clergyman’s figure was the signal for the bell to cease its summons.
“But what has good Parson Hooper got upon his face?” cried the sexton,
in astonishment.
All within hearing immediately turned about and beheld the semblance of
Mr. Hooper pacing slowly his meditative way toward the meeting-house.
With one accord they started, expressing more wonder than if some strange
minister were coming to dust the cushions of Mr. Hooper’s pulpit.
“Are you sure it is our parson?” inquired Goodman Gray of the sexton.
“Of a certainty it is good Mr. Hooper,” replied the sexton. “He was to
have exchanged pulpits with Parson Shute of Westbury, but Parson Shute
sent to excuse himself yesterday, being to preach a funeral sermon.”
The cause of so much amazement may appear sufficiently slight. Mr.
Hooper, a gentlemanly person of about thirty, though still a bachelor, was
dressed with due clerical neatness, as if a careful wife had starched his band
and brushed the weekly dust from his Sunday’s garb. There was but one
thing remarkable in his appearance. Swathed about his forehead and
hanging down over his face, so low as to be shaken by his breath, Mr.
Hooper had on a black veil. On a nearer view it seemed to consist of two

folds of crape, which entirely concealed his features except the mouth and
chin, but probably did not intercept his sight further than to give a darkened
aspect to all living and inanimate things. With this gloomy shade before him
good Mr. Hooper walked onward at a slow and quiet pace, stooping
somewhat and looking on the ground, as is customary with abstracted men,
yet nodding kindly to those of his parishioners who still waited on the
meeting-house steps. But so wonder-struck were they that his greeting
hardly met with a return.
“I can’t really feel as if good Mr. Hooper’s face was behind that piece of
crape,” said the sexton.
“I don’t like it,” muttered an old woman as she hobbled into the meeting-
house. “He has changed himself into something awful only by hiding his
face.”
“Our parson has gone mad!” cried Goodman Gray, following him across
the threshold.
A rumor of some unaccountable phenomenon had preceded Mr. Hooper
into the meeting-house and set all the congregation astir. Few could refrain
from twisting their heads toward the door; many stood upright and turned
directly about; while several little boys clambered upon the seats, and came
down again with a terrible racket. There was a general bustle, a rustling of
the women’s gowns and shuffling of the men’s feet, greatly at variance with
that hushed repose which should attend the entrance of the minister. But Mr.
Hooper appeared not to notice the perturbation of his people. He entered
with an almost noiseless step, bent his head mildly to the pews on each side
and bowed as he passed his oldest parishioner, a white-haired great-
grandsire, who occupied an arm-chair in the centre of the aisle. It was
strange to observe how slowly this venerable man became conscious of
something singular in the appearance of his pastor. He seemed not fully to
partake of the prevailing wonder till Mr. Hooper had ascended the stairs and
showed himself in the pulpit, face to face with his congregation except for
the black veil. That mysterious emblem was never once withdrawn. It shook
with his measured breath as he gave out the psalm, it threw its obscurity
between him and the holy page as he read the Scriptures, and while he
prayed the veil lay heavily on his uplifted countenance. Did he seek to hide
it from the dread Being whom he was addressing?

Such was the effect of this simple piece of crape that more than one
woman of delicate nerves was forced to leave the meeting-house. Yet
perhaps the pale-faced congregation was almost as fearful a sight to the
minister as his black veil to them.
Mr. Hooper had the reputation of a good preacher, but not an energetic
one: he strove to win his people heavenward by mild, persuasive influences
rather than to drive them thither by the thunders of the word. The sermon
which he now delivered was marked by the same characteristics of style
and manner as the general series of his pulpit oratory, but there was
something either in the sentiment of the discourse itself or in the
imagination of the auditors which made it greatly the most powerful effort
that they had ever heard from their pastor’s lips. It was tinged rather more
darkly than usual with the gentle gloom of Mr. Hooper’s temperament. The
subject had reference to secret sin and those sad mysteries which we hide
from our nearest and dearest, and would fain conceal from our own
consciousness, even forgetting that the Omniscient can detect them. A
subtle power was breathed into his words. Each member of the
congregation, the most innocent girl and the man of hardened breast, felt as
if the preacher had crept upon them behind his awful veil and discovered
their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought. Many spread their clasped hands
on their bosoms. There was nothing terrible in what Mr. Hooper said—at
least, no violence; and yet with every tremor of his melancholy voice the
hearers quaked. An unsought pathos came hand in hand with awe. So
sensible were the audience of some unwonted attribute in their minister that
they longed for a breath of wind to blow aside the veil, almost believing
that a stranger’s visage would be discovered, though the form, gesture and
voice were those of Mr. Hooper.
At the close of the services the people hurried out with indecorous
confusion, eager to communicate their pent-up amazement, and conscious
of lighter spirits the moment they lost sight of the black veil. Some gathered
in little circles, huddled closely together, with their mouths all whispering
in the centre; some went homeward alone, wrapped in silent meditation;
some talked loudly and profaned the Sabbath-day with ostentatious
laughter. A few shook their sagacious heads, intimating that they could
penetrate the mystery, while one or two affirmed that there was no mystery
at all, but only that Mr. Hooper’s eyes were so weakened by the midnight
lamp as to require a shade.

After a brief interval forth came good Mr. Hooper also, in the rear of his
flock. Turning his veiled face from one group to another, he paid due
reverence to the hoary heads, saluted the middle-aged with kind dignity as
their friend and spiritual guide, greeted the young with mingled authority
and love, and laid his hands on the little children’s heads to bless them.
Such was always his custom on the Sabbath-day. Strange and bewildered
looks repaid him for his courtesy. None, as on former occasions, aspired to
the honor of walking by their pastor’s side. Old Squire Saunders—doubtless
by an accidental lapse of memory—neglected to invite Mr. Hooper to his
table, where the good clergyman had been wont to bless the food almost
every Sunday since his settlement. He returned, therefore, to the parsonage,
and at the moment of closing the door was observed to look back upon the
people, all of whom had their eyes fixed upon the minister. A sad smile
gleamed faintly from beneath the black veil and flickered about his mouth,
glimmering as he disappeared.
“How strange,” said a lady, “that a simple black veil, such as any woman
might wear on her bonnet, should become such a terrible thing on Mr.
Hooper’s face!”
“Something must surely be amiss with Mr. Hooper’s intellects,” observed
her husband, the physician of the village. “But the strangest part of the
affair is the effect of this vagary even on a sober-minded man like myself.
The black veil, though it covers only our pastor’s face, throws its influence
over his whole person and makes him ghost-like from head to foot. Do you
not feel it so?”
“Truly do I,” replied the lady; “and I would not be alone with him for the
world. I wonder he is not afraid to be alone with himself.”
“Men sometimes are so,” said her husband.
The afternoon service was attended with similar circumstances. At its
conclusion the bell tolled for the funeral of a young lady. The relatives and
friends were assembled in the house and the more distant acquaintances
stood about the door, speaking of the good qualities of the deceased, when
their talk was interrupted by the appearance of Mr. Hooper, still covered
with his black veil. It was now an appropriate emblem. The clergyman
stepped into the room where the corpse was laid, and bent over the coffin to
take a last farewell of his deceased parishioner. As he stooped the veil hung
straight down from his forehead, so that, if her eye-lids had not been closed

for ever, the dead maiden might have seen his face. Could Mr. Hooper be
fearful of her glance, that he so hastily caught back the black veil? A person
who watched the interview between the dead and living scrupled not to
affirm that at the instant when the clergyman’s features were disclosed the
corpse had slightly shuddered, rustling the shroud and muslin cap, though
the countenance retained the composure of death. A superstitious old
woman was the only witness of this prodigy.
From the coffin Mr. Hooper passed into the chamber of the mourners,
and thence to the head of the staircase, to make the funeral prayer. It was a
tender and heart-dissolving prayer, full of sorrow, yet so imbued with
celestial hopes that the music of a heavenly harp swept by the fingers of the
dead seemed faintly to be heard among the saddest accents of the minister.
The people trembled, though they but darkly understood him, when he
prayed that they and himself, and all of mortal race, might be ready, as he
trusted this young maiden had been, for the dreadful hour that should snatch
the veil from their faces. The bearers went heavily forth and the mourners
followed, saddening all the street, with the dead before them and Mr.
Hooper in his black veil behind.
“Why do you look back?” said one in the procession to his partner.
“I had a fancy,” replied she, “that the minister and the maiden’s spirit
were walking hand in hand.”
“And so had I at the same moment,” said the other.
That night the handsomest couple in Milford village were to be joined in
wedlock. Though reckoned a melancholy man, Mr. Hooper had a placid
cheerfulness for such occasions which often excited a sympathetic smile
where livelier merriment would have been thrown away. There was no
quality of his disposition which made him more beloved than this. The
company at the wedding awaited his arrival with impatience, trusting that
the strange awe which had gathered over him throughout the day would
now be dispelled. But such was not the result. When Mr. Hooper came, the
first thing that their eyes rested on was the same horrible black veil which
had added deeper gloom to the funeral and could portend nothing but evil to
the wedding. Such was its immediate effect on the guests that a cloud
seemed to have rolled duskily from beneath the black crape and dimmed the
light of the candles. The bridal pair stood up before the minister, but the
bride’s cold fingers quivered in the tremulous hand of the bridegroom, and

her death-like paleness caused a whisper that the maiden who had been
buried a few hours before was come from her grave to be married. If ever
another wedding were so dismal, it was that famous one where they tolled
the wedding-knell.
After performing the ceremony Mr. Hooper raised a glass of wine to his
lips, wishing happiness to the new-married couple in a strain of mild
pleasantry that ought to have brightened the features of the guests like a
cheerful gleam from the hearth. At that instant, catching a glimpse of his
figure in the looking-glass, the black veil involved his own spirit in the
horror with which it overwhelmed all others. His frame shuddered, his lips
grew white, he spilt the untasted wine upon the carpet and rushed forth into
the darkness, for the Earth too had on her black veil.
The next day the whole village of Milford talked of little else than Parson
Hooper’s black veil. That, and the mystery concealed behind it, supplied a
topic for discussion between acquaintances meeting in the street and good
women gossipping at their open windows. It was the first item of news that
the tavernkeeper told to his guests. The children babbled of it on their way
to school. One imitative little imp covered his face with an old black
handkerchief, thereby so affrighting his playmates that the panic seized
himself and he wellnigh lost his wits by his own waggery.
It was remarkable that, of all the busybodies and impertinent people in
the parish, not one ventured to put the plain question to Mr. Hooper
wherefore he did this thing. Hitherto, whenever there appeared the slightest
call for such interference, he had never lacked advisers nor shown himself
averse to be guided by their judgment. If he erred at all, it was by so painful
a degree of self-distrust that even the mildest censure would lead him to
consider an indifferent action as a crime. Yet, though so well acquainted
with this amiable weakness, no individual among his parishioners chose to
make the black veil a subject of friendly remonstrance. There was a feeling
of dread, neither plainly confessed nor carefully concealed, which caused
each to shift the responsibility upon another, till at length it was found
expedient to send a deputation of the church, in order to deal with Mr.
Hooper about the mystery before it should grow into a scandal. Never did
an embassy so ill discharge its duties. The minister received them with
friendly courtesy, but became silent after they were seated, leaving to his
visitors the whole burden of introducing their important business. The topic,

it might be supposed, was obvious enough. There was the black veil
swathed round Mr. Hooper’s forehead and concealing every feature above
his placid mouth, on which, at times, they could perceive the glimmering of
a melancholy smile. But that piece of crape, to their imagination, seemed to
hang down before his heart, the symbol of a fearful secret between him and
them. Were the veil but cast aside, they might speak freely of it, but not till
then. Thus they sat a considerable time, speechless, confused and shrinking
uneasily from Mr. Hooper’s eye, which they felt to be fixed upon them with
an invisible glance. Finally, the deputies returned abashed to their
constituents, pronouncing the matter too weighty to be handled except by a
council of the churches, if, indeed, it might not require a General Synod.
But there was one person in the village unappalled by the awe with which
the black veil had impressed all besides herself. When the deputies returned
without an explanation, or even venturing to demand one, she with the calm
energy of her character determined to chase away the strange cloud that
appeared to be settling round Mr. Hooper every moment more darkly than
before. As his plighted wife it should be her privilege to know what the
black veil concealed. At the minister’s first visit, therefore, she entered upon
the subject with a direct simplicity which made the task easier both for him
and her. After he had seated himself she fixed her eyes steadfastly upon the
veil, but could discern nothing of the dreadful gloom that had so overawed
the multitude; it was but a double fold of crape hanging down from his
forehead to his mouth and slightly stirring with his breath.
“No,” said she, aloud, and smiling, “there is nothing terrible in this piece
of crape, except that it hides a face which I am always glad to look upon.
Come, good sir; let the sun shine from behind the cloud. First lay aside your
black veil, then tell me why you put it on.”
Mr. Hooper’s smile glimmered faintly.
“There is an hour to come,” said he, “when all of us shall cast aside our
veils. Take it not amiss, beloved friend, if I wear this piece of crape till
then.”
“Your words are a mystery too,” returned the young lady. “Take away the
veil from them, at least.”
“Elizabeth, I will,” said he, “so far as my vow may suffer me. Know,
then, this veil is a type and a symbol, and I am bound to wear it ever, both
in light and darkness, in solitude and before the gaze of multitudes, and as

with strangers, so with my familiar friends. No mortal eye will see it
withdrawn. This dismal shade must separate me from the world; even you,
Elizabeth, can never come behind it.”
“What grievous affliction hath befallen you,” she earnestly inquired,
“that you should thus darken your eyes for ever?”
“If it be a sign of mourning,” replied Mr. Hooper, “I, perhaps, like most
other mortals, have sorrows dark enough to be typified by a black veil.”
“But what if the world will not believe that it is the type of an innocent
sorrow?” urged Elizabeth. “Beloved and respected as you are, there may be
whispers that you hide your face under the consciousness of secret sin. For
the sake of your holy office do away this scandal.”
The color rose into her cheeks as she intimated the nature of the rumors
that were already abroad in the village. But Mr. Hooper’s mildness did not
forsake him. He even smiled again—that same sad smile which always
appeared like a faint glimmering of light proceeding from the obscurity
beneath the veil.
“If I hide my face for sorrow, there is cause enough,” he merely replied;
“and if I cover it for secret sin, what mortal might not do the same?” And
with this gentle but unconquerable obstinacy did he resist all her entreaties.
At length Elizabeth sat silent. For a few moments she appeared lost in
thought, considering, probably, what new methods might be tried to
withdraw her lover from so dark a fantasy, which, if it had no other
meaning, was perhaps a symptom of mental disease. Though of a firmer
character than his own, the tears rolled down her cheeks. But in an instant,
as it were, a new feeling took the place of sorrow: her eyes were fixed
insensibly on the black veil, when like a sudden twilight in the air its terrors
fell around her. She arose and stood trembling before him.
“And do you feel it, then, at last?” said he, mournfully.
She made no reply, but covered her eyes with her hand and turned to
leave the room. He rushed forward and caught her arm.
“Have patience with me, Elizabeth!” cried he, passionately. “Do not
desert me though this veil must be between us here on earth. Be mine, and
hereafter there shall be no veil over my face, no darkness between our
souls. It is but a mortal veil; it is not for eternity. Oh, you know not how

lonely I am, and how frightened to be alone behind my black veil! Do not
leave me in this miserable obscurity for ever.”
“Lift the veil but once and look me in the face,” said she.
“Never! It cannot be!” replied Mr. Hooper.
“Then farewell!” said Elizabeth.
She withdrew her arm from his grasp and slowly departed, pausing at the
door to give one long, shuddering gaze that seemed almost to penetrate the
mystery of the black veil. But even amid his grief Mr. Hooper smiled to
think that only a material emblem had separated him from happiness,
though the horrors which it shadowed forth must be drawn darkly between
the fondest of lovers.
From that time no attempts were made to remove Mr. Hooper’s black veil
or by a direct appeal to discover the secret which it was supposed to hide.
By persons who claimed a superiority to popular prejudice it was reckoned
merely an eccentric whim, such as often mingles with the sober actions of
men otherwise rational and tinges them all with its own semblance of
insanity. But with the multitude good Mr. Hooper was irreparably a
bugbear. He could not walk the street with any peace of mind, so conscious
was he that the gentle and timid would turn aside to avoid him, and that
others would make it a point of hardihood to throw themselves in his way.
The impertinence of the latter class compelled him to give up his customary
walk at sunset to the burial-ground; for when he leaned pensively over the
gate, there would always be faces behind the gravestones peeping at his
black veil. A fable went the rounds that the stare of the dead people drove
him thence. It grieved him to the very depth of his kind heart to observe
how the children fled from his approach, breaking up their merriest sports
while his melancholy figure was yet afar off. Their instinctive dread caused
him to feel more strongly than aught else that a preternatural horror was
interwoven with the threads of the black crape. In truth, his own antipathy
to the veil was known to be so great that he never willingly passed before a
mirror nor stooped to drink at a still fountain lest in its peaceful bosom he
should be affrighted by himself. This was what gave plausibility to the
whispers that Mr. Hooper’s conscience tortured him for some great crime
too horrible to be entirely concealed or otherwise than so obscurely
intimated. Thus from beneath the black veil there rolled a cloud into the
sunshine, an ambiguity of sin or sorrow, which enveloped the poor minister,

so that love or sympathy could never reach him. It was said that ghost and
fiend consorted with him there. With self-shudderings and outward terrors
he walked continually in its shadow, groping darkly within his own soul or
gazing through a medium that saddened the whole world. Even the lawless
wind, it was believed, respected his dreadful secret and never blew aside the
veil. But still good Mr. Hooper sadly smiled at the pale visages of the
worldly throng as he passed by.
Among all its bad influences, the black veil had the one desirable effect
of making its wearer a very efficient clergyman. By the aid of his
mysterious emblem—for there was no other apparent cause—he became a
man of awful power over souls that were in agony for sin. His converts
always regarded him with a dread peculiar to themselves, affirming, though
but figuratively, that before he brought them to celestial light they had been
with him behind the black veil. Its gloom, indeed, enabled him to
sympathize with all dark affections. Dying sinners cried aloud for Mr.
Hooper and would not yield their breath till he appeared, though ever, as he
stooped to whisper consolation, they shuddered at the veiled face so near
their own. Such were the terrors of the black veil even when Death had
bared his visage. Strangers came long distances to attend service at his
church with the mere idle purpose of gazing at his figure because it was
forbidden them to behold his face. But many were made to quake ere they
departed. Once, during Governor Belcher’s administration, Mr. Hooper was
appointed to preach the election sermon. Covered with his black veil, he
stood before the chief magistrate, the council and the representatives, and
wrought so deep an impression that the legislative measures of that year
were characterized by all the gloom and piety of our earliest ancestral sway.
In this manner Mr. Hooper spent a long life, irreproachable in outward
act, yet shrouded in dismal suspicions; kind and loving, though unloved and
dimly feared; a man apart from men, shunned in their health and joy, but
ever summoned to their aid in mortal anguish. As years wore on, shedding
their snows above his sable veil, he acquired a name throughout the New
England churches, and they called him Father Hooper. Nearly all his
parishioners who were of mature age when he was settled had been borne
away by many a funeral: he had one congregation in the church and a more
crowded one in the churchyard; and, having wrought so late into the
evening and done his work so well, it was now good Father Hooper’s turn
to rest.

Several persons were visible by the shaded candlelight in the death-
chamber of the old clergyman. Natural connections he had none. But there
was the decorously grave though unmoved physician, seeking only to
mitigate the last pangs of the patient whom he could not save. There were
the deacons and other eminently pious members of his church. There, also,
was the Reverend Mr. Clark of Westbury, a young and zealous divine who
had ridden in haste to pray by the bedside of the expiring minister. There
was the nurse—no hired handmaiden of Death, but one whose calm
affection had endured thus long in secrecy, in solitude, amid the chill of age,
and would not perish even at the dying-hour. Who but Elizabeth! And there
lay the hoary head of good Father Hooper upon the death-pillow with the
black veil still swathed about his brow and reaching down over his face, so
that each more difficult gasp of his faint breath caused it to stir. All through
life that piece of crape had hung between him and the world; it had
separated him from cheerful brotherhood and woman’s love and kept him in
that saddest of all prisons his own heart; and still it lay upon his face, as if
to deepen the gloom of his darksome chamber and shade him from the
sunshine of eternity.
For some time previous his mind had been confused, wavering doubtfully
between the past and the present, and hovering forward, as it were, at
intervals, into the indistinctness of the world to come. There had been
feverish turns which tossed him from side to side and wore away what little
strength he had. But in his most convulsive struggles and in the wildest
vagaries of his intellect, when no other thought retained its sober influence,
he still showed an awful solicitude lest the black veil should slip aside.
Even if his bewildered soul could have forgotten, there was a faithful
woman at his pillow who with averted eyes would have covered that aged
face which she had last beheld in the comeliness of manhood.
At length the death-stricken old man lay quietly in the torpor of mental
and bodily exhaustion, with an imperceptible pulse and breath that grew
fainter and fainter except when a long, deep and irregular inspiration
seemed to prelude the flight of his spirit.
The minister of Westbury approached the bedside.
“Venerable Father Hooper,” said he, “the moment of your release is at
hand. Are you ready for the lifting of the veil that shuts in time from
eternity?”

Father Hooper at first replied merely by a feeble motion of his head; then
—apprehensive, perhaps, that his meaning might be doubtful—he exerted
himself to speak.
“Yea,” said he, in faint accents; “my soul hath a patient weariness until
that veil be lifted.”
“And is it fitting,” resumed the Reverend Mr. Clark, “that a man so given
to prayer, of such a blameless example, holy in deed and thought, so far as
mortal judgment may pronounce,—is it fitting that a father in the Church
should leave a shadow on his memory that may seem to blacken a life so
pure? I pray you, my venerable brother, let not this thing be! Suffer us to be
gladdened by your triumphant aspect as you go to your reward. Before the
veil of eternity be lifted let me cast aside this black veil from your face;”
and, thus speaking, the Reverend Mr. Clark bent forward to reveal the
mystery of so many years.
But, exerting a sudden energy that made all the beholders stand aghast,
Father Hooper snatched both his hands from beneath the bedclothes and
pressed them strongly on the black veil, resolute to struggle if the minister
of Westbury would contend with a dying man.
“Never!” cried the veiled clergyman. “On earth, never!”
“Dark old man,” exclaimed the affrighted minister, “with what horrible
crime upon your soul are you now passing to the judgment?”
Father Hooper’s breath heaved: it rattled in his throat; but, with a mighty
effort grasping forward with his hands, he caught hold of life and held it
back till he should speak. He even raised himself in bed, and there he sat
shivering with the arms of Death around him, while the black veil hung
down, awful at that last moment in the gathered terrors of a lifetime. And
yet the faint, sad smile so often there now seemed to glimmer from its
obscurity and linger on Father Hooper’s lips.
“Why do you tremble at me alone?” cried he, turning his veiled face
round the circle of pale spectators. “Tremble also at each other. Have men
avoided me and women shown no pity and children screamed and fled only
for my black veil? What but the mystery which it obscurely typifies has
made this piece of crape so awful? When the friend shows his inmost heart
to his friend, the lover to his best-beloved; when man does not vainly shrink
from the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin,

—then deem me a monster for the symbol beneath which I have lived and
die. I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a black veil!”
While his auditors shrank from one another in mutual affright, Father
Hooper fell back upon his pillow, a veiled corpse with a faint smile
lingering on the lips. Still veiled, they laid him in his coffin, and a veiled
corpse they bore him to the grave. The grass of many years has sprung up
and withered on that grave, the burial-stone is moss-grown, and good Mr.
Hooper’s face is dust; but awful is still the thought that it mouldered
beneath the black veil.

THE MAYPOLE OF MERRY MOUNT

There is an admirable foundation for a philosophic romance in the
curious history of the early settlement of Mount Wollaston, or
Merry Mount. In the slight sketch here attempted the facts
recorded on the grave pages of our New England annalists have
wrought themselves almost spontaneously into a sort of allegory.
The masques, mummeries and festive customs described in the
text are in accordance with the manners of the age. Authority on
these points may be found in Strutt’s Book of English Sports and
Pastimes.
Bright were the days at Merry Mount when the Maypole was the banner-
staff of that gay colony. They who reared it, should their banner be
triumphant, were to pour sunshine over New England’s rugged hills and
scatter flower-seeds throughout the soil. Jollity and gloom were contending
for an empire. Midsummer eve had come, bringing deep verdure to the
forest, and roses in her lap of a more vivid hue than the tender buds of
spring. But May, or her mirthful spirit, dwelt all the year round at Merry
Mount, sporting with the summer months and revelling with autumn and
basking in the glow of winter’s fireside. Through a world of toil and care
she flitted with a dream-like smile, and came hither to find a home among
the lightsome hearts of Merry Mount.
Never had the Maypole been so gayly decked as at sunset on Midsummer
eve. This venerated emblem was a pine tree which had preserved the
slender grace of youth, while it equalled the loftiest height of the old wood-
monarchs. From its top streamed a silken banner colored like the rainbow.
Down nearly to the ground the pole was dressed with birchen boughs, and
others of the liveliest green, and some with silvery leaves fastened by
ribbons that fluttered in fantastic knots of twenty different colors, but no sad
ones. Garden-flowers and blossoms of the wilderness laughed gladly forth
amid the verdure, so fresh and dewy that they must have grown by magic

on that happy pine tree. Where this green and flowery splendor terminated
the shaft of the Maypole was stained with the seven brilliant hues of the
banner at its top. On the lowest green bough hung an abundant wreath of
roses—some that had been gathered in the sunniest spots of the forest, and
others, of still richer blush, which the colonists had reared from English
seed. O people of the Golden Age, the chief of your husbandry was to raise
flowers!
But what was the wild throng that stood hand in hand about the
Maypole? It could not be that the fauns and nymphs, when driven from
their classic groves and homes of ancient fable, had sought refuge, as all the
persecuted did, in the fresh woods of the West. These were Gothic
monsters, though perhaps of Grecian ancestry. On the shoulders of a comely
youth uprose the head and branching antlers of a stag; a second, human in
all other points, had the grim visage of a wolf; a third, still with the trunk
and limbs of a mortal man, showed the beard and horns of a venerable he-
goat. There was the likeness of a bear erect, brute in all but his hind legs,
which were adorned with pink silk stockings. And here, again, almost as
wondrous, stood a real bear of the dark forest, lending each of his forepaws
to the grasp of a human hand and as ready for the dance as any in that
circle. His inferior nature rose halfway to meet his companions as they
stooped. Other faces wore the similitude of man or woman, but distorted or
extravagant, with red noses pendulous before their mouths, which seemed
of awful depth and stretched from ear to ear in an eternal fit of laughter.
Here might be seen the salvage man—well known in heraldry—hairy as a
baboon and girdled with green leaves. By his side—a nobler figure, but still
a counterfeit—appeared an Indian hunter with feathery crest and wampum-
belt. Many of this strange company wore foolscaps and had little bells
appended to their garments, tinkling with a silvery sound responsive to the
inaudible music of their gleesome spirits. Some youths and maidens were of
soberer garb, yet well maintained their places in the irregular throng by the
expression of wild revelry upon their features.
Such were the colonists of Merry Mount as they stood in the broad smile
of sunset round their venerated Maypole. Had a wanderer bewildered in the
melancholy forest heard their mirth and stolen a half-affrighted glance, he
might have fancied them the crew of Comus, some already transformed to
brutes, some midway between man and beast, and the others rioting in the
flow of tipsy jollity that foreran the change; but a band of Puritans who

watched the scene, invisible themselves, compared the masques to those
devils and ruined souls with whom their superstition peopled the black
wilderness.
Within the ring of monsters appeared the two airiest forms that had ever
trodden on any more solid footing than a purple-and-golden cloud. One was
a youth in glistening apparel with a scarf of the rainbow pattern crosswise
on his breast. His right hand held a gilded staff—the ensign of high dignity
among the revellers—and his left grasped the slender fingers of a fair
maiden not less gayly decorated than himself. Bright roses glowed in
contrast with the dark and glossy curls of each, and were scattered round
their feet or had sprung up spontaneously there. Behind this lightsome
couple, so close to the Maypole that its boughs shaded his jovial face, stood
the figure of an English priest, canonically dressed, yet decked with
flowers, in heathen fashion, and wearing a chaplet of the native vine leaves.
By the riot of his rolling eye and the pagan decorations of his holy garb, he
seemed the wildest monster there, and the very Comus of the crew.
“Votaries of the Maypole,” cried the flower-decked priest, “merrily all
day long have the woods echoed to your mirth. But be this your merriest
hour, my hearts! Lo! here stand the Lord and Lady of the May, whom I, a
clerk of Oxford and high priest of Merry Mount, am presently to join in
holy matrimony.—Up with your nimble spirits, ye morrice-dancers, green
men and glee-maidens, bears and wolves and horned gentlemen! Come! a
chorus now rich with the old mirth of Merry England and the wilder glee of
this fresh forest, and then a dance, to show the youthful pair what life is
made of and how airily they should go through it!—All ye that love the
Maypole, lend your voices to the nuptial song of the Lord and Lady of the
May!”
This wedlock was more serious than most affairs of Merry Mount, where
jest and delusion, trick and fantasy, kept up a continual carnival. The Lord
and Lady of the May, though their titles must be laid down at sunset, were
really and truly to be partners for the dance of life, beginning the measure
that same bright eve. The wreath of roses that hung from the lowest green
bough of the Maypole had been twined for them, and would be thrown over
both their heads in symbol of their flowery union. When the priest had
spoken, therefore, a riotous uproar burst from the rout of monstrous figures.

“Begin you the stave, reverend sir,” cried they all, “and never did the
woods ring to such a merry peal as we of the Maypole shall send up.”
Immediately a prelude of pipe, cittern and viol, touched with practised
minstrelsy, began to play from a neighboring thicket in such a mirthful
cadence that the boughs of the Maypole quivered to the sound. But the
May-lord—he of the gilded staff—chancing to look into his lady’s eyes,
was wonder-struck at the almost pensive glance that met his own.
“Edith, sweet Lady of the May,” whispered he, reproachfully, “is yon
wreath of roses a garland to hang above our graves that you look so sad?
Oh, Edith, this is our golden time. Tarnish it not by any pensive shadow of
the mind, for it may be that nothing of futurity will be brighter than the
mere remembrance of what is now passing.”
“That was the very thought that saddened me. How came it in your mind
too?” said Edith, in a still lower tone than he; for it was high treason to be
sad at Merry Mount. “Therefore do I sigh amid this festive music. And
besides, dear Edgar, I struggle as with a dream, and fancy that these shapes
of our jovial friends are visionary and their mirth unreal, and that we are no
true lord and lady of the May. What is the mystery in my heart?”
Just then, as if a spell had loosened them, down came a little shower of
withering rose-leaves from the Maypole. Alas for the young lovers! No
sooner had their hearts glowed with real passion than they were sensible of
something vague and unsubstantial in their former pleasures, and felt a
dreary presentiment of inevitable change. From the moment that they truly
loved they had subjected themselves to earth’s doom of care and sorrow and
troubled joy, and had no more a home at Merry Mount. That was Edith’s
mystery. Now leave we the priest to marry them, and the masquers to sport
round the Maypole till the last sunbeam be withdrawn from its summit and
the shadows of the forest mingle gloomily in the dance. Meanwhile, we
may discover who these gay people were.
Two hundred years ago, and more, the Old World and its inhabitants
became mutually weary of each other. Men voyaged by thousands to the
West—some to barter glass and such like jewels for the furs of the Indian
hunter, some to conquer virgin empires, and one stern band to pray. But
none of these motives had much weight with thecolonists of Merry Mount.
Their leaders were men who had sported so long with life, that when
Thought and Wisdom came, even these unwelcome guests were led astray

by the crowd of vanities which they should have put to flight. Erring
Thought and perverted Wisdom were made to put on masques, and play the
fool. The men of whom we speak, after losing the heart’s fresh gayety,
imagined a wild philosophy of pleasure, and came hither to act out their
latest day-dream. They gathered followers from all that giddy tribe whose
whole life is like the festal days of soberer men. In their train were
minstrels, not unknown in London streets; wandering players, whose
theatres had been the halls of noblemen; mummers, rope-dancers, and
mountebanks, who would long be missed at wakes, church ales, and fairs;
in a word, mirth makers of every sort, such as abounded in that age, but
now began to be discountenanced by the rapid growth of Puritanism. Light
had their footsteps been on land, and as lightly they came across the sea.
Many had been maddened by their previous troubles into a gay despair;
others were as madly gay in the flush of youth, like the May Lord and his
Lady; but whatever might be the quality of their mirth, old and young were
gay at Merry Mount. The young deemed themselves happy. The elder
spirits, if they knew that mirth was but the counterfeit of happiness, yet
followed the false shadow wilfully, because at least her garments glittered
brightest. Sworn triflers of a lifetime, they would not venture among the
sober truths of life not even to be truly blest.
All the hereditary pastimes of Old England were transplanted hither. The
King of Christmas was duly crowned, and the Lord of Misrule bore potent
sway. On the Eve of St. John, they felled whole acres of the forest to make
bonfires, and danced by the blaze all night, crowned with garlands, and
throwing flowers into the flame. At harvest time, though their crop was of
the smallest, they made an image with the sheaves of Indian corn, and
wreathed it with autumnal garlands, and bore it home triumphantly. But
what chiefly characterized the colonists of Merry Mount was their
veneration for the Maypole. It has made their true history a poet’s tale.
Spring decked the hallowed emblem with young blossoms and fresh green
boughs; Summer brought roses of the deepest blush, and the perfected
foliage of the forest; Autumn enriched it with that red and yellow
gorgeousness which converts each wildwood leaf into a painted flower; and
Winter silvered it with sleet, and hung it round with icicles, till it flashed in
the cold sunshine, itself a frozen sunbeam. Thus each alternate season did
homage to the Maypole, and paid it a tribute of its own richest splendor. Its
votaries danced round it, once, at least, in every month; sometimes they

called it their religion, or their altar; but always, it was the banner staff of
Merry Mount.
Unfortunately, there were men in the new world of a sterner faith than
those Maypole worshippers. Not far from Merry Mount was a settlement of
Puritans, most dismal wretches, who said their prayers before daylight, and
then wrought in the forest or the cornfield till evening made it prayer time
again. Their weapons were always at hand to shoot down the straggling
savage. When they met in conclave, it was never to keep up the old English
mirth, but to hear sermons three hours long, or to proclaim bounties on the
heads of wolves and the scalps of Indians. Their festivals were fast days,
and their chief pastime the singing of psalms. Woe to the youth or maiden
who did but dream of a dance! The selectman nodded to the constable; and
there sat the light-heeled reprobate in the stocks; or if he danced, it was
round the whipping-post, which might be termed the Puritan Maypole.
A party of these grim Puritans, toiling through the difficult woods, each
with a horseload of iron armor to burden his footsteps, would sometimes
draw near the sunny precincts of Merry Mount. There were the silken
colonists, sporting round their Maypole; perhaps teaching a bear to dance,
or striving to communicate their mirth to the grave Indian, or masquerading
in the skins of deer and wolves which they had hunted for that especial
purpose. Often the whole colony were playing at Blindman’s Buff,
magistrates and all with their eyes bandaged, except a single scapegoat,
whom the blinded sinners pursued by the tinkling of the bells at his
garments. Once, it is said, they were seen following a flower-decked corpse
with merriment and festive music to his grave. But did the dead man laugh?
In their quietest times they sang ballads and told tales for the edification of
their pious visitors, or perplexed them with juggling tricks, or grinned at
them through horse-collars; and when sport itself grew wearisome, they
made game of their own stupidity and began a yawning-match. At the very
least of these enormities the men of iron shook their heads and frowned so
darkly that the revellers looked up, imagining that a momentary cloud had
overcast the sunshine which was to be perpetual there. On the other hand,
the Puritans affirmed that when a psalm was pealing from their place of
worship the echo which the forest sent them back seemed often like the
chorus of a jolly catch, closing with a roar of laughter. Who but the fiend
and his bond-slaves the crew of Merry Mount had thus disturbed them? In
due time a feud arose, stern and bitter on one side, and as serious on the

other as anything could be among such light spirits as had sworn allegiance
to the Maypole. The future complexion of New England was involved in
this important quarrel. Should the grisly saints establish their jurisdiction
over the gay sinners, then would their spirits darken all the clime and make
it a land of clouded visages, of hard toil, of sermon and psalm for ever; but
should the banner-staff of Merry Mount be fortunate, sunshine would break
upon the hills, and flowers would beautify the forest and late posterity do
homage to the Maypole.
After these authentic passages from history we return to the nuptials of
the Lord and Lady of the May. Alas! we have delayed too long, and must
darken our tale too suddenly. As we glance again at the Maypole a solitary
sunbeam is fading from the summit, and leaves only a faint golden tinge
blended with the hues of the rainbow banner. Even that dim light is now
withdrawn, relinquishing the whole domain of Merry Mount to the evening
gloom which has rushed so instantaneously from the black surrounding
woods. But some of these black shadows have rushed forth in human shape.
Yes, with the setting sun the last day of mirth had passed from Merry
Mount. The ring of gay masquers was disordered and broken; the stag
lowered his antlers in dismay; the wolf grew weaker than a lamb; the bells
of the morrice-dancers tinkled with tremulous affright. The Puritans had
played a characteristic part in the Maypole mummeries. Their darksome
figures were intermixed with the wild shapes of their foes, and made the
scene a picture of the moment when waking thoughts start up amid the
scattered fantasies of a dream. The leader of the hostile party stood in the
centre of the circle, while the rout of monsters cowered around him like evil
spirits in the presence of a dread magician. No fantastic foolery could look
him in the face. So stern was the energy of his aspect that the whole man,
visage, frame and soul, seemed wrought of iron gifted with life and thought,
yet all of one substance with his headpiece and breastplate. It was the
Puritan of Puritans: it was Endicott himself.
“Stand off, priest of Baal!” said he, with a grim frown and laying no
reverent hand upon the surplice. “I know thee, Blackstone![2] Thou art the
man who couldst not abide the rule even of thine own corrupted Church,
and hast come hither to preach iniquity and to give example of it in thy life.
But now shall it be seen that the Lord hath sanctified this wilderness for his

peculiar people. Woe unto them that would defile it! And first for this
flower-decked abomination, the altar of thy worship!”
And with his keen sword Endicott assaulted the hallowed Maypole. Nor
long did it resist his arm. It groaned with a dismal sound, it showered leaves
and rosebuds upon the remorseless enthusiast, and finally, with all its green
boughs and ribbons and flowers, symbolic of departed pleasures, down fell
the banner-staff of Merry Mount. As it sank, tradition says, the evening sky
grew darker and the woods threw forth a more sombre shadow.
“There!” cried Endicott, looking triumphantly on his work; “there lies the
only Maypole in New England. The thought is strong within me that by its
fall is shadowed forth the fate of light and idle mirthmakers amongst us and
our posterity. Amen, saith John Endicott!”
“Amen!” echoed his followers.
But the votaries of the Maypole gave one groan for their idol. At the
sound the Puritan leader glanced at the crew of Comus, each a figure of
broad mirth, yet at this moment strangely expressive of sorrow and dismay.
“Valiant captain,” quoth Peter Palfrey, the ancient of the band, “what
order shall be taken with the prisoners?”
“I thought not to repent me of cutting down a Maypole,” replied
Endicott, “yet now I could find in my heart to plant it again and give each
of these bestial pagans one other dance round their idol. It would have
served rarely for a whipping-post.”
“But there are pine trees enow,” suggested the lieutenant.
“True, good ancient,” said the leader. “Wherefore bind the heathen crew
and bestow on them a small matter of stripes apiece as earnest of our future
justice. Set some of the rogues in the stocks to rest themselves so soon as
Providence shall bring us to one of our own well-ordered settlements where
such accommodations may be found. Further penalties, such as branding
and cropping of ears, shall be thought of hereafter.”
“How many stripes for the priest?” inquired Ancient Palfrey.
“None as yet,” answered Endicott, bending his iron frown upon the
culprit. “It must be for the Great and General Court to determine whether
stripes and long imprisonment, and other grievous penalty, may atone for
his transgressions. Let him look to himself. For such as violate our civil

order it may be permitted us to show mercy, but woe to the wretch that
troubleth our religion!”
“And this dancing bear?” resumed the officer. “Must he share the stripes
of his fellows?”
“Shoot him through the head!” said the energetic Puritan. “I suspect
witchcraft in the beast.”
“Here be a couple of shining ones,” continued Peter Palfrey, pointing his
weapon at the Lord and Lady of the May. “They seem to be of high station
among these misdoers. Methinks their dignity will not be fitted with less
than a double share of stripes.”
Endicott rested on his sword and closely surveyed the dress and aspect of
the hapless pair. There they stood, pale, downcast and apprehensive, yet
there was an air of mutual support and of pure affection seeking aid and
giving it that showed them to be man and wife with the sanction of a priest
upon their love. The youth in the peril of the moment, had dropped his
gilded staff and thrown his arm about the Lady of the May, who leaned
against his breast too lightly to burden him, but with weight enough to
express that their destinies were linked together for good or evil. They
looked first at each other and then into the grim captain’s face. There they
stood in the first hour of wedlock, while the idle pleasures of which their
companions were the emblems had given place to the sternest cares of life,
personified by the dark Puritans. But never had their youthful beauty
seemed so pure and high as when its glow was chastened by adversity.
“Youth,” said Endicott, “ye stand in an evil case—thou and thy maiden-
wife. Make ready presently, for I am minded that ye shall both have a token
to remember your wedding-day.”
“Stern man,” cried the May-lord, “how can I move thee? Were the means
at hand, I would resist to the death; being powerless, I entreat. Do with me
as thou wilt, but let Edith go untouched.”
“Not so,” replied the immitigable zealot. “We are not wont to show an
idle courtesy to that sex which requireth the stricter discipline.—What
sayest thou, maid? Shall thy silken bridegroom suffer thy share of the
penalty besides his own?”
“Be it death,” said Edith, “and lay it all on me.”

Truly, as Endicott had said, the poor lovers stood in a woeful case. Their
foes were triumphant, their friends captive and abased, their home desolate,
the benighted wilderness around them, and a rigorous destiny in the shape
of the Puritan leader their only guide. Yet the deepening twilight could not
altogether conceal that the iron man was softened. He smiled at the fair
spectacle of early love; he almost sighed for the inevitable blight of early
hopes.
“The troubles of life have come hastily on this young couple,” observed
Endicott. “We will see how they comport themselves under their present
trials ere we burden them with greater. If among the spoil there be any
garments of a more decent fashion, let them be put upon this May-lord and
his Lady instead of their glistening vanities. Look to it, some of you.”
“And shall not the youth’s hair be cut?” asked Peter Palfrey, looking with
abhorrence at the lovelock and long glossy curls of the young man.
“Crop it forthwith, and that in the true pumpkin-shell fashion,” answered
the captain. “Then bring them along with us, but more gently than their
fellows. There be qualities in the youth which may make him valiant to
fight and sober to toil and pious to pray, and in the maiden that may fit her
to become a mother in our Israel, bringing up babes in better nurture than
her own hath been.—Nor think ye, young ones, that they are the happiest,
even in our lifetime of a moment, who misspend it in dancing round a
Maypole.”
And Endicott, the severest Puritan of all who laid the rock-foundation of
New England, lifted the wreath of roses from the ruin of the Maypole and
threw it with his own gauntleted hand over the heads of the Lord and Lady
of the May. It was a deed of prophecy. As the moral gloom of the world
overpowers all systematic gayety, even so was their home of wild mirth
made desolate amid the sad forest. They returned to it no more. But as their
flowery garland was wreathed of the brightest roses that had grown there,
so in the tie that united them were intertwined all the purest and best of their
early joys. They went heavenward supporting each other along the difficult
path which it was their lot to tread, and never wasted one regretful thought
on the vanities of Merry Mount.

THE GENTLE BOY

In the course of the year 1656 several of the people called Quakers—led,
as they professed, by the inward movement of the spirit—made their
appearance in New England. Their reputation as holders of mystic and
pernicious principles having spread before them, the Puritans early
endeavored to banish and to prevent the further intrusion of the rising sect.
But the measures by which it was intended to purge the land of heresy,
though more than sufficiently vigorous, were entirely unsuccessful. The
Quakers, esteeming persecution as a divine call to the post of danger, laid
claim to a holy courage unknown to the Puritans themselves, who had
shunned the cross by providing for the peaceable exercise of their religion
in a distant wilderness. Though it was the singular fact that every nation of
the earth rejected the wandering enthusiasts who practised peace toward all
men, the place of greatest uneasiness and peril, and therefore in their eyes
the most eligible, was the province of Massachusetts Bay.
The fines, imprisonments and stripes liberally distributed by our pious
forefathers, the popular antipathy, so strong that it endured nearly a hundred
years after actual persecution had ceased, were attractions as powerful for
the Quakers as peace, honor and reward would have been for the worldly-
minded. Every European vessel brought new cargoes of the sect, eager to
testify against the oppression which they hoped to share; and when
shipmasters were restrained by heavy fines from affording them passage,
they made long and circuitous journeys through the Indian country, and
appeared in the province as if conveyed by a supernatural power. Their
enthusiasm, heightened almost to madness by the treatment which they
received, produced actions contrary to the rules of decency as well as of
rational religion, and presented a singular contrast to the calm and staid
deportment of their sectarian successors of the present day. The command
of the Spirit, inaudible except to the soul and not to be controverted on
grounds of human wisdom, was made a plea for most indecorous

exhibitions which, abstractedly considered, well deserved the moderate
chastisement of the rod. These extravagances, and the persecution which
was at once their cause and consequence, continued to increase, till in the
year 1659 the government of Massachusetts Bay indulged two members of
the Quaker sect with the crown of martyrdom.
An indelible stain of blood is upon the hands of all who consented to this
act, but a large share of the awful responsibility must rest upon the person
then at the head of the government. He was a man of narrow mind and
imperfect education, and his uncompromising bigotry was made hot and
mischievous by violent and hasty passions; he exerted his influence
indecorously and unjustifiably to compass the death of the enthusiasts, and
his whole conduct in respect to them was marked by brutal cruelty. The
Quakers, whose revengeful feelings were not less deep because they were
inactive, remembered this man and his associates in after-times. The
historian of the sect affirms that by the wrath of Heaven a blight fell upon
the land in the vicinity of the “bloody town” of Boston, so that no wheat
would grow there; and he takes his stand, as it were, among the graves of
the ancient persecutors, and triumphantly recounts the judgments that
overtook them in old age or at the parting-hour. He tells us that they died
suddenly and violently and in madness, but nothing can exceed the bitter
mockery with which he records the loathsome disease and “death by
rottenness” of the fierce and cruel governor.

On the evening of the autumn day that had witnessed the martyrdom of
two men of the Quaker persuasion, a Puritan settler was returning from the
metropolis to the neighboring country-town in which he resided. The air
was cool, the sky clear, and the lingering twilight was made brighter by the
rays of a young moon which had now nearly reached the verge of the
horizon. The traveller, a man of middle age, wrapped in a gray frieze cloak,
quickened his pace when he had reached the outskirts of the town, for a
gloomy extent of nearly four miles lay between him and his home. The low
straw-thatched houses were scattered at considerable intervals along the
road, and, the country having been settled but about thirty years, the tracts
of original forest still bore no small proportion to the cultivated ground. The
autumn wind wandered among the branches, whirling away the leaves from

all except the pine trees and moaning as if it lamented the desolation of
which it was the instrument. The road had penetrated the mass of woods
that lay nearest to the town, and was just emerging into an open space,
when the traveller’s ears were saluted by a sound more mournful than even
that of the wind. It was like the wailing of some one in distress, and it
seemed to proceed from beneath a tall and lonely fir tree in the centre of a
cleared but unenclosed and uncultivated field. The Puritan could not but
remember that this was the very spot which had been made accursed a few
hours before by the execution of the Quakers, whose bodies had been
thrown together into one hasty grave beneath the tree on which they
suffered. He struggled, however, against the superstitious fears which
belonged to the age, and compelled himself to pause and listen.
“The voice is most likely mortal, nor have I cause to tremble if it be
otherwise,” thought he, straining his eyes through the dim moonlight.
“Methinks it is like the wailing of a child—some infant, it may be, which
has strayed from its mother and chanced upon this place of death. For the
ease of mine own conscience I must search this matter out.” He therefore
left the path and walked somewhat fearfully across the field. Though now
so desolate, its soil was pressed down and trampled by the thousand
footsteps of those who had witnessed the spectacle of that day, all of whom
had now retired, leaving the dead to their loneliness.
The traveller at length reached the fir tree, which from the middle upward
was covered with living branches, although a scaffold had been erected
beneath, and other preparations made for the work of death. Under this
unhappy tree—which in after-times was believed to drop poison with its
dew—sat the one solitary mourner for innocent blood. It was a slender and
light-clad little boy who leaned his face upon a hillock of fresh-turned and
half-frozen earth and wailed bitterly, yet in a suppressed tone, as if his grief
might receive the punishment of crime. The Puritan, whose approach had
been unperceived, laid his hand upon the child’s shoulder and addressed
him compassionately.
“You have chosen a dreary lodging, my poor boy, and no wonder that you
weep,” said he. “But dry your eyes and tell me where your mother dwells; I
promise you, if the journey be not too far, I will leave you in her arms
tonight.”

The boy had hushed his wailing at once, and turned his face upward to
the stranger. It was a pale, bright-eyed countenance, certainly not more than
six years old, but sorrow, fear and want had destroyed much of its infantile
expression. The Puritan, seeing the boy’s frightened gaze and feeling that he
trembled under his hand, endeavored to reassure him:
“Nay, if I intended to do you harm, little lad, the readiest way were to
leave you here. What! you do not fear to sit beneath the gallows on a new-
made grave, and yet you tremble at a friend’s touch? Take heart, child, and
tell me what is your name and where is your home.”
“Friend,” replied the little boy, in a sweet though faltering voice, “they
call me Ilbrahim, and my home is here.”
The pale, spiritual face, the eyes that seemed to mingle with the
moonlight, the sweet, airy voice and the outlandish name almost made the
Puritan believe that the boy was in truth a being which had sprung up out of
the grave on which he sat; but perceiving that the apparition stood the test
of a short mental prayer, and remembering that the arm which he had
touched was lifelike, he adopted a more rational supposition. “The poor
child is stricken in his intellect,” thought he, “but verily his words are
fearful in a place like this.” He then spoke soothingly, intending to humor
the boy’s fantasy:
“Your home will scarce be comfortable, Ilbrahim, this cold autumn night,
and I fear you are ill-provided with food. I am hastening to a warm supper
and bed; and if you will go with me, you shall share them.”
“I thank thee, friend, but, though I be hungry and shivering with cold,
thou wilt not give me food nor lodging,” replied the boy, in the quiet tone
which despair had taught him even so young. “My father was of the people
whom all men hate; they have laid him under this heap of earth, and here is
my home.”
The Puritan, who had laid hold of little Ilbrahim’s hand, relinquished it as
if he were touching a loathsome reptile. But he possessed a compassionate
heart which not even religious prejudice could harden into stone. “God
forbid that I should leave this child to perish, though he comes of the
accursed sect,” said he to himself. “Do we not all spring from an evil root?
Are we not all in darkness till the light doth shine upon us? He shall not
perish, neither in body nor, if prayer and instruction may avail for him, in

soul.” He then spoke aloud and kindly to Ilbrahim, who had again hid his
face in the cold earth of the grave:
“Was every door in the land shut against you, my child, that you have
wandered to this unhallowed spot?”
“They drove me forth from the prison when they took my father thence,”
said the boy, “and I stood afar off watching the crowd of people; and when
they were gone, I came hither, and found only this grave. I knew that my
father was sleeping here, and I said, ‘This shall be my home.’”
“No, child, no, not while I have a roof over my head or a morsel to share
with you,” exclaimed the Puritan, whose sympathies were now fully
excited. “Rise up and come with me, and fear not any harm.”
The boy wept afresh, and clung to the heap of earth as if the cold heart
beneath it were warmer to him than any in a living breast. The traveller,
however, continued to entreat him tenderly, and, seeming to acquire some
degree of confidence, he at length arose; but his slender limbs tottered with
weakness, his little head grew dizzy, and he leaned against the tree of death
for support.
“My poor boy, are you so feeble?” said the Puritan. “When did you taste
food last?”
“I ate of bread and water with my father in the prison,” replied Ilbrahim,
“but they brought him none neither yesterday nor to-day, saying that he had
eaten enough to bear him to his journey’s end. Trouble not thyself for my
hunger, kind friend, for I have lacked food many times ere now.”
The traveller took the child in his arms and wrapped his cloak about him,
while his heart stirred with shame and anger against the gratuitous cruelty
of the instruments in this persecution. In the awakened warmth of his
feelings he resolved that at whatever risk he would not forsake the poor
little defenceless being whom Heaven had confided to his care. With this
determination he left the accursed field and resumed the homeward path
from which the wailing of the boy had called him. The light and motionless
burden scarcely impeded his progress, and he soon beheld the fire-rays
from the windows of the cottage which he, a native of a distant clime, had
built in the Western wilderness. It was surrounded by a considerable extent
of cultivated ground, and the dwelling was situated in the nook of a wood-
covered hill, whither it seemed to have crept for protection.

“Look up, child,” said the Puritan to Ilbrahim, whose faint head had sunk
upon his shoulder; “there is our home.”
At the word “home” a thrill passed through the child’s frame, but he
continued silent. A few moments brought them to the cottage door, at which
the owner knocked; for at that early period, when savages were wandering
everywhere among the settlers, bolt and bar were indispensable to the
security of a dwelling. The summons was answered by a bond-servant, a
coarse-clad and dull-featured piece of humanity, who, after ascertaining that
his master was the applicant, undid the door and held a flaring pine-knot
torch to light him in. Farther back in the passageway the red blaze
discovered a matronly woman, but no little crowd of children came
bounding forth to greet their father’s return.
As the Puritan entered he thrust aside his cloak and displayed Ilbrahim’s
face to the female.
“Dorothy, here is a little outcast whom Providence hath put into our
hands,” observed he. “Be kind to him, even as if he were of those dear ones
who have departed from us.”
“What pale and bright-eyed little boy is this, Tobias?” she inquired. “Is
he one whom the wilderness-folk have ravished from some Christian
mother?”
“No, Dorothy; this poor child is no captive from the wilderness,” he
replied. “The heathen savage would have given him to eat of his scanty
morsel and to drink of his birchen cup, but Christian men, alas! had cast
him out to die.” Then he told her how he had found him beneath the
gallows, upon his father’s grave, and how his heart had prompted him like
the speaking of an inward voice to take the little outcast home and be kind
unto him. He acknowledged his resolution to feed and clothe him as if he
were his own child, and to afford him the instruction which should
counteract the pernicious errors hitherto instilled into his infant mind.
Dorothy was gifted with even a quicker tenderness than her husband, and
she approved of all his doings and intentions.
“Have you a mother, dear child?” she inquired.
The tears burst forth from his full heart as he attempted to reply, but
Dorothy at length understood that he had a mother, who like the rest of her
sect was a persecuted wanderer. She had been taken from the prison a short

time before, carried into the uninhabited wilderness and left to perish there
by hunger or wild beasts. This was no uncommon method of disposing of
the Quakers, and they were accustomed to boast that the inhabitants of the
desert were more hospitable to them than civilized man.
“Fear not, little boy; you shall not need a mother, and a kind one,” said
Dorothy, when she had gathered this information. “Dry your tears, Ilbrahim,
and be my child, as I will be your mother.”
The good woman prepared the little bed from which her own children
had successively been borne to another resting-place. Before Ilbrahim
would consent to occupy it he knelt down, and as Dorothy listed to his
simple and affecting prayer she marvelled how the parents that had taught it
to him could have been judged worthy of death. When the boy had fallen
asleep, she bent over his pale and spiritual countenance, pressed a kiss upon
his white brow, drew the bedclothes up about his neck, and went away with
a pensive gladness in her heart.
Tobias Pearson was not among the earliest emigrants from the old
country. He had remained in England during the first years of the Civil War,
in which he had borne some share as a cornet of dragoons under Cromwell.
But when the ambitious designs of his leader began to develop themselves,
he quitted the army of the Parliament and sought a refuge from the strife
which was no longer holy among the people of his persuasion in the colony
of Massachusetts. A more worldly consideration had perhaps an influence in
drawing him thither, for New England offered advantages to men of
unprosperous fortunes as well as to dissatisfied religionists, and Pearson
had hitherto found it difficult to provide for a wife and increasing family. To
this supposed impurity of motive the more bigoted Puritans were inclined to
impute the removal by death of all the children for whose earthly good the
father had been over-thoughtful. They had left their native country
blooming like roses, and like roses they had perished in a foreign soil.
Those expounders of the ways of Providence, who had thus judged their
brother and attributed his domestic sorrows to his sin, were not more
charitable when they saw him and Dorothy endeavoring to fill up the void
in their hearts by the adoption of an infant of the accursed sect. Nor did they
fail to communicate their disapprobation to Tobias, but the latter in reply
merely pointed at the little quiet, lovely boy, whose appearance and
deportment were indeed as powerful arguments as could possibly have been

adduced in his own favor. Even his beauty, however, and his winning
manners sometimes produced an effect ultimately unfavorable; for the
bigots, when the outer surfaces of their iron hearts had been softened and
again grew hard, affirmed that no merely natural cause could have so
worked upon them. Their antipathy to the poor infant was also increased by
the ill-success of divers theological discussions in which it was attempted to
convince him of the errors of his sect. Ilbrahim, it is true, was not a skilful
controversialist, but the feeling of his religion was strong as instinct in him,
and he could neither be enticed nor driven from the faith which his father
had died for.
The odium of this stubbornness was shared in a great measure by the
child’s protectors, insomuch that Tobias and Dorothy very shortly began to
experience a most bitter species of persecution in the cold regards of many
a friend whom they had valued. The common people manifested their
opinions more openly. Pearson was a man of some consideration, being a
representative to the General Court and an approved lieutenant in the train-
bands, yet within a week after his adoption of Ilbrahim he had been both
hissed and hooted. Once, also, when walking through a solitary piece of
woods, he heard a loud voice from some invisible speaker, and it cried,
“What shall be done to the backslider? Lo! the scourge is knotted for him,
even the whip of nine cords, and every cord three knots.” These insults
irritated Pearson’s temper for the moment; they entered also into his heart,
and became imperceptible but powerful workers toward an end which his
most secret thought had not yet whispered.

On the second Sabbath after Ilbrahim became a member of their family,
Pearson and his wife deemed it proper that he should appear with them at
public worship. They had anticipated some opposition to this measure from
the boy, but he prepared himself in silence, and at the appointed hour was
clad in the new mourning-suit which Dorothy had wrought for him. As the
parish was then, and during many subsequent years, unprovided with a bell,
the signal for the commencement of religious exercises was the beat of a
drum. At the first sound of that martial call to the place of holy and quiet
thoughts Tobias and Dorothy set forth, each holding a hand of little
Ilbrahim, like two parents linked together by the infant of their love. On

their path through the leafless woods they were overtaken by many persons
of their acquaintance, all of whom avoided them and passed by on the other
side; but a severer trial awaited their constancy when they had descended
the hill and drew near the pine-built and undecorated house of prayer.
Around the door, from which the drummer still sent forth his thundering
summons, was drawn up a formidable phalanx, including several of the
oldest members of the congregation, many of the middle-aged and nearly
all the younger males. Pearson found it difficult to sustain their united and
disapproving gaze, but Dorothy, whose mind was differently circumstanced,
merely drew the boy closer to her and faltered not in her approach. As they
entered the door they overheard the muttered sentiments of the assemblage;
and when the reviling voices of the little children smote Ilbrahim’s ear, he
wept.
The interior aspect of the meeting-house was rude. The low ceiling, the
unplastered walls, the naked woodwork and the undraperied pulpit offered
nothing to excite the devotion which without such external aids often
remains latent in the heart. The floor of the building was occupied by rows
of long cushionless benches, supplying the place of pews, and the broad
aisle formed a sexual division impassable except by children beneath a
certain age.
Pearson and Dorothy separated at the door of the meeting-house, and
Ilbrahim, being within the years of infancy, was retained under the care of
the latter. The wrinkled beldams involved themselves in their rusty cloaks
as he passed by; even the mild-featured maidens seemed to dread
contamination; and many a stern old man arose and turned his repulsive and
unheavenly countenance upon the gentle boy, as if the sanctuary were
polluted by his presence. He was a sweet infant of the skies that had strayed
away from his home, and all the inhabitants of this miserable world closed
up their impure hearts against him, drew back their earth-soiled garments
from his touch and said, “We are holier than thou.”
Ilbrahim, seated by the side of his adopted mother and retaining fast hold
of her hand, assumed a grave and decorous demeanor such as might befit a
person of matured taste and understanding who should find himself in a
temple dedicated to some worship which he did not recognize, but felt
himself bound to respect. The exercises had not yet commenced, however,
when the boy’s attention was arrested by an event apparently of trifling

interest. A woman having her face muffled in a hood and a cloak drawn
completely about her form advanced slowly up the broad aisle and took
place upon the foremost bench. Ilbrahim’s faint color varied, his nerves
fluttered; he was unable to turn his eyes from the muffled female.
When the preliminary prayer and hymn were over, the minister arose,
and, having turned the hour-glass which stood by the great Bible,
commenced his discourse. He was now well stricken in years, a man of
pale, thin countenance, and his gray hairs were closely covered by a black
velvet skull-cap. In his younger days he had practically learned the meaning
of persecution from Archbishop Laud, and he was not now disposed to
forget the lesson against which he had murmured then. Introducing the
often-discussed subject of the Quakers, he gave a history of that sect and a
description of their tenets in which error predominated and prejudice
distorted the aspect of what was true. He adverted to the recent measures in
the province, and cautioned his hearers of weaker parts against calling in
question the just severity which God-fearing magistrates had at length been
compelled to exercise. He spoke of the danger of pity—in some cases a
commendable and Christian virtue, but inapplicable to this pernicious sect.
He observed that such was their devilish obstinacy in error that even the
little children, the sucking babes, were hardened and desperate heretics. He
affirmed that no man without Heaven’s especial warrant should attempt
their conversion lest while he lent his hand to draw them from the slough he
should himself be precipitated into its lowest depths.
The sands of the second hour were principally in the lower half of the
glass when the sermon concluded. An approving murmur followed, and the
clergyman, having given out a hymn, took his seat with much self-
congratulation, and endeavored to read the effect of his eloquence in the
visages of the people. But while voices from all parts of the house were
tuning themselves to sing a scene occurred which, though not very unusual
at that period in the province, happened to be without precedent in this
parish.
The muffled female, who had hitherto sat motionless in the front rank of
the audience, now arose and with slow, stately and unwavering step
ascended the pulpit stairs. The quaverings of incipient harmony were
hushed and the divine sat in speechless and almost terrified astonishment
while she undid the door and stood up in the sacred desk from which his

maledictions had just been thundered. She then divested herself of the cloak
and hood, and appeared in a most singular array. A shapeless robe of
sackcloth was girded about her waist with a knotted cord; her raven hair fell
down upon her shoulders, and its blackness was defiled by pale streaks of
ashes, which she had strewn upon her head. Her eyebrows, dark and
strongly defined, added to the deathly whiteness of a countenance which,
emaciated with want and wild with enthusiasm and strange sorrows,
retained no trace of earlier beauty. This figure stood gazing earnestly on the
audience, and there was no sound nor any movement except a faint
shuddering which every man observed in his neighbor, but was scarcely
conscious of in himself. At length, when her fit of inspiration came, she
spoke for the first few moments in a low voice and not invariably distinct
utterance. Her discourse gave evidence of an imagination hopelessly
entangled with her reason; it was a vague and incomprehensible rhapsody,
which, however, seemed to spread its own atmosphere round the hearer’s
soul, and to move his feelings by some influence unconnected with the
words. As she proceeded beautiful but shadowy images would sometimes
be seen like bright things moving in a turbid river, or a strong and
singularly shaped idea leapt forth and seized at once on the understanding
or the heart. But the course of her unearthly eloquence soon led her to the
persecutions of her sect, and from thence the step was short to her own
peculiar sorrows. She was naturally a woman of mighty passions, and
hatred and revenge now wrapped themselves in the garb of piety. The
character of her speech was changed; her images became distinct though
wild, and her denunciations had an almost hellish bitterness.
“The governor and his mighty men,” she said, “have gathered together,
taking counsel among themselves and saying, ‘What shall we do unto this
people—even unto the people that have come into this land to put our
iniquity to the blush?’ And, lo! the devil entereth into the council-chamber
like a lame man of low stature and gravely apparelled, with a dark and
twisted countenance and a bright, downcast eye. And he standeth up among
the rulers; yea, he goeth to and fro, whispering to each; and every man
lends his ear, for his word is ‘Slay! Slay!rsquo; But I say unto ye, Woe to
them that slay! Woe to them that shed the blood of saints! Woe to them that
have slain the husband and cast forth the child, the tender infant, to wander
homeless and hungry and cold till he die, and have saved the mother alive
in the cruelty of their tender mercies! Woe to them in their lifetime! Cursed

are they in the delight and pleasure of their hearts! Woe to them in their
death-hour, whether it come swiftly with blood and violence or after long
and lingering pain! Woe in the dark house, in the rottenness of the grave,
when the children’s children shall revile the ashes of the fathers! Woe, woe,
woe, at the judgment, when all the persecuted and all the slain in this
bloody land, and the father, the mother and the child, shall await them in a
day that they cannot escape! Seed of the faith, seed of the faith, ye whose
hearts are moving with a power that ye know not, arise, wash your hands of
this innocent blood! Lift your voices, chosen ones, cry aloud, and call down
a woe and a judgment with me!”
Having thus given vent to the flood of malignity which she mistook for
inspiration, the speaker was silent. Her voice was succeeded by the hysteric
shrieks of several women, but the feelings of the audience generally had not
been drawn onward in the current with her own. They remained stupefied,
stranded, as it were, in the midst of a torrent which deafened them by its
roaring, but might not move them by its violence. The clergyman, who
could not hitherto have ejected the usurper of his pulpit otherwise than by
bodily force, now addressed her in the tone of just indignation and
legitimate authority.
“Get you down, woman, from the holy place which you profane,” he
said, “Is it to the Lord’s house that you come to pour forth the foulness of
your heart and the inspiration of the devil? Get you down, and remember
that the sentence of death is on you—yea, and shall be executed, were it but
for this day’s work.”
“I go, friend, I go, for the voice hath had its utterance,” replied she, in a
depressed, and even mild, tone. “I have done my mission unto thee and to
thy people; reward me with stripes, imprisonment or death, as ye shall be
permitted.” The weakness of exhausted passion caused her steps to totter as
she descended the pulpit stairs.
The people, in the mean while, were stirring to and fro on the floor of the
house, whispering among themselves and glancing toward the intruder.
Many of them now recognized her as the woman who had assaulted the
governor with frightful language as he passed by the window of her prison;
they knew, also, that she was adjudged to suffer death, and had been
preserved only by an involuntary banishment into the wilderness. The new
outrage by which she had provoked her fate seemed to render further lenity

impossible, and a gentleman in military dress, with a stout man of inferior
rank, drew toward the door of the meetinghouse and awaited her approach.
Scarcely did her feet press the floor, however, when an unexpected scene
occurred. In that moment of her peril, when every eye frowned with death,
a little timid boy threw his arms round his mother.
“I am here, mother; it is I, and I will go with thee to prison,” he
exclaimed.
She gazed at him with a doubtful and almost frightened expression, for
she knew that the boy had been cast out to perish, and she had not hoped to
see his face again. She feared, perhaps, that it was but one of the happy
visions with which her excited fancy had often deceived her in the solitude
of the desert or in prison; but when she felt his hand warm within her own
and heard his little eloquence of childish love, she began to know that she
was yet a mother.
“Blessed art thou, my son!” she sobbed. “My heart was withered—yea,
dead with thee and with thy father—and now it leaps as in the first moment
when I pressed thee to my bosom.”
She knelt down and embraced him again and again, while the joy that
could find no words expressed itself in broken accents, like the bubbles
gushing up to vanish at the surface of a deep fountain. The sorrows of past
years and the darker peril that was nigh cast not a shadow on the brightness
of that fleeting moment. Soon, however, the spectators saw a change upon
her face as the consciousness of her sad estate returned, and grief supplied
the fount of tears which joy had opened. By the words she uttered it would
seem that the indulgence of natural love had given her mind a momentary
sense of its errors, and made her know how far she had strayed from duty in
following the dictates of a wild fanaticism.
“In a doleful hour art thou returned to me, poor boy,” she said, “for thy
mother’s path has gone darkening onward, till now the end is death. Son,
son, I have borne thee in my arms when my limbs were tottering, and I have
fed thee with the food that I was fainting for; yet I have ill-performed a
mother’s part by thee in life, and now I leave thee no inheritance but woe
and shame. Thou wilt go seeking through the world, and find all hearts
closed against thee and their sweet affections turned to bitterness for my
sake. My child, my child, how many a pang awaits thy gentle spirit, and I
the cause of all!”

She hid her face on Ilbrahim’s head, and her long raven hair, discolored
with the ashes of her mourning, fell down about him like a veil. A low and
interrupted moan was the voice of her heart’s anguish, and it did not fail to
move the sympathies of many who mistook their involuntary virtue for a
sin. Sobs were audible in the female section of the house, and every man
who was a father drew his hand across his eyes.
Tobias Pearson was agitated and uneasy, but a certain feeling like the
consciousness of guilt oppressed him; so that he could not go forth and
offer himself as the protector of the child. Dorothy, however, had watched
her husband’s eye. Her mind was free from the influence that had begun to
work on his, and she drew near the Quaker woman and addressed her in the
hearing of all the congregation.
“Stranger, trust this boy to me, and I will be his mother,” she said, taking
Ilbrahim’s hand. “Providence has signally marked out my husband to
protect him, and he has fed at our table and lodged under our roof now
many days, till our hearts have grown very strongly unto him. Leave the
tender child with us, and be at ease concerning his welfare.”
The Quaker rose from the ground, but drew the boy closer to her, while
she gazed earnestly in Dorothy’s face. Her mild but saddened features and
neat matronly attire harmonized together and were like a verse of fireside
poetry. Her very aspect proved that she was blameless, so far as mortal
could be so, in respect to God and man, while the enthusiast, in her robe of
sackcloth and girdle of knotted cord, had as evidently violated the duties of
the present life and the future by fixing her attention wholly on the latter.
The two females, as they held each a hand of Ilbrahim, formed a practical
allegory: it was rational piety and unbridled fanaticism contending for the
empire of a young heart.
“Thou art not of our people,” said the Quaker, mournfully.
“No, we are not of your people,” replied Dorothy, with mildness, “but we
are Christians looking upward to the same heaven with you. Doubt not that
your boy shall meet you there, if there be a blessing on our tender and
prayerful guidance of him. Thither, I trust, my own children have gone
before me, for I also have been a mother. I am no longer so,” she added, in a
faltering tone, “and your son will have all my care.”
“But will ye lead him in the path which his parents have trodden?”
demanded the Quaker. “Can ye teach him the enlightened faith which his

father has died for, and for which I—even I—am soon to become an
unworthy martyr? The boy has been baptized in blood; will ye keep the
mark fresh and ruddy upon his forehead?”
“I will not deceive you,” answered Dorothy. “If your child become our
child, we must breed him up in the instruction which Heaven has imparted
to us; we must pray for him the prayers of our own faith; we must do
toward him according to the dictates of our own consciences, and not of
yours. Were we to act otherwise, we should abuse your trust, even in
complying with your wishes.”
The mother looked down upon her boy with a troubled countenance, and
then turned her eyes upward to heaven. She seemed to pray internally, and
the contention of her soul was evident.
“Friend,” she said, at length, to Dorothy, “I doubt not that my son shall
receive all earthly tenderness at thy hands. Nay, I will believe that even thy
imperfect lights may guide him to a better world, for surely thou art on the
path thither. But thou hast spoken of a husband. Doth he stand here among
this multitude of people? Let him come forth, for I must know to whom I
commit this most precious trust.”
She turned her face upon the male auditors, and after a momentary delay
Tobias Pearson came forth from among them. The Quaker saw the dress
which marked his military rank, and shook her head; but then she noted the
hesitating air, the eyes that struggled with her own and were vanquished,
the color that went and came and could find no resting-place. As she gazed
an unmirthful smile spread over her features, like sunshine that grows
melancholy in some desolate spot. Her lips moved inaudibly, but at length
she spake:
“I hear it, I hear it! The voice speaketh within me and saith, ‘Leave thy
child, Catharine, for his place is here, and go hence, for I have other work
for thee. Break the bonds of natural affection, martyr thy love, and know
that in all these things eternal wisdom hath its ends.’ I go, friends, I go. Take
ye my boy, my precious jewel. I go hence trusting that all shall be well, and
that even for his infant hands there is a labor in the vineyard.”
She knelt down and whispered to Ilbrahim, who at first struggled and
clung to his mother with sobs and tears, but remained passive when she had
kissed his cheek and arisen from the ground. Having held her hands over
his head in mental prayer, she was ready to depart.

“Farewell, friends in mine extremity,” she said to Pearson and his wife;
“the good deed ye have done me is a treasure laid up in heaven, to be
returned a thousandfold hereafter.—And farewell, ye mine enemies, to
whom it is not permitted to harm so much as a hair of my head, nor to stay
my footsteps even for a moment. The day is coming when ye shall call upon
me to witness for ye to this one sin uncommitted, and I will rise up and
answer.”
She turned her steps toward the door, and the men who had stationed
themselves to guard it withdrew and suffered her to pass. A general
sentiment of pity overcame the virulence of religious hatred. Sanctified by
her love and her affliction, she went forth, and all the people gazed after her
till she had journeyed up the hill and was lost behind its brow. She went, the
apostle of her own unquiet heart, to renew the wanderings of past years. For
her voice had been already heard in many lands of Christendom, and she
had pined in the cells of a Catholic Inquisition before she felt the lash and
lay in the dungeons of the Puritans. Her mission had extended also to the
followers of the Prophet, and from them she had received the courtesy and
kindness which all the contending sects of our purer religion united to deny
her. Her husband and herself had resided many months in Turkey, where
even the sultan’s countenance was gracious to them; in that pagan land, too,
was Ilbrahim’s birthplace, and his Oriental name was a mark of gratitude
for the good deeds of an unbeliever.

When Pearson and his wife had thus acquired all the rights over Ilbrahim
that could be delegated, their affection for him became, like the memory of
their native land or their mild sorrow for the dead, a piece of the immovable
furniture of their hearts. The boy, also, after a week or two of mental
disquiet, began to gratify his protectors by many inadvertent proofs that he
considered them as parents and their house as home. Before the winter
snows were melted the persecuted infant, the little wanderer from a remote
and heathen country, seemed native in the New England cottage and
inseparable from the warmth and security of its hearth. Under the influence
of kind treatment, and in the consciousness that he was loved, Ilbrahim’s
demeanor lost a premature manliness which had resulted from his earlier
situation; he became more childlike and his natural character displayed

itself with freedom. It was in many respects a beautiful one, yet the
disordered imaginations of both his father and mother had perhaps
propagated a certain unhealthiness in the mind of the boy. In his general
state Ilbrahim would derive enjoyment from the most trifling events and
from every object about him; he seemed to discover rich treasures of
happiness by a faculty analogous to that of the witch-hazel, which points to
hidden gold where all is barren to the eye. His airy gayety, coming to him
from a thousand sources, communicated itself to the family, and Ilbrahim
was like a domesticated sunbeam, brightening moody countenances and
chasing away the gloom from the dark corners of the cottage.
On the other hand, as the susceptibility of pleasure is also that of pain,
the exuberant cheerfulness of the boy’s prevailing temper sometimes
yielded to moments of deep depression. His sorrows could not always be
followed up to their original source, but most frequently they appeared to
flow—though Ilbrahim was young to be sad for such a cause—from
wounded love. The flightiness of his mirth rendered him often guilty of
offences against the decorum of a Puritan household, and on these
occasions he did not invariably escape rebuke. But the slightest word of real
bitterness, which he was infallible in distinguishing from pretended anger,
seemed to sink into his heart and poison all his enjoyments till he became
sensible that he was entirely forgiven. Of the malice which generally
accompanies a superfluity of sensitiveness Ilbrahim was altogether
destitute. When trodden upon, he would not turn; when wounded, he could
but die. His mind was wanting in the stamina of self-support. It was a plant
that would twine beautifully round something stronger than itself; but if
repulsed or torn away, it had no choice but to wither on the ground.
Dorothy’s acuteness taught her that severity would crush the spirit of the
child, and she nurtured him with the gentle care of one who handles a
butterfly. Her husband manifested an equal affection, although it grew daily
less productive of familiar caresses.
The feelings of the neighboring people in regard to the Quaker infant and
his protectors had not undergone a favorable change, in spite of the
momentary triumph which the desolate mother had obtained over their
sympathies. The scorn and bitterness of which he was the object were very
grievous to Ilbrahim, especially when any circumstance made him sensible
that the children his equals in age partook of the enmity of their parents. His
tender and social nature had already overflowed in attachments to

everything about him, and still there was a residue of unappropriated love
which he yearned to bestow upon the little ones who were taught to hate
him. As the warm days of spring came on Ilbrahim was accustomed to
remain for hours silent and inactive within hearing of the children’s voices
at their play, yet with his usual delicacy of feeling he avoided their notice,
and would flee and hide himself from the smallest individual among them.
Chance, however, at length seemed to open a medium of communication
between his heart and theirs; it was by means of a boy about two years older
than Ilbrahim, who was injured by a fall from a tree in the vicinity of
Pearson’s habitation. As the sufferer’s own home was at some distance,
Dorothy willingly received him under her roof and became his tender and
careful nurse.
Ilbrahim was the unconscious possessor of much skill in physiognomy,
and it would have deterred him in other circumstances from attempting to
make a friend of this boy. The countenance of the latter immediately
impressed a beholder disagreeably, but it required some examination to
discover that the cause was a very slight distortion of the mouth and the
irregular, broken line and near approach of the eyebrows. Analogous,
perhaps, to these trifling deformities was an almost imperceptible twist of
every joint and the uneven prominence of the breast, forming a body regular
in its general outline, but faulty in almost all its details. The disposition of
the boy was sullen and reserved, and the village schoolmaster stigmatized
him as obtuse in intellect, although at a later period of life he evinced
ambition and very peculiar talents. But, whatever might be his personal or
moral irregularities, Ilbrahim’s heart seized upon and clung to him from the
moment that he was brought wounded into the cottage; the child of
persecution seemed to compare his own fate with that of the sufferer, and to
feel that even different modes of misfortune had created a sort of
relationship between them. Food, rest and the fresh air for which he
languished were neglected; he nestled continually by the bedside of the
little stranger and with a fond jealousy endeavored to be the medium of all
the cares that were bestowed upon him. As the boy became convalescent
Ilbrahim contrived games suitable to his situation or amused him by a
faculty which he had perhaps breathed in with the air of his barbaric
birthplace. It was that of reciting imaginary adventures on the spur of the
moment, and apparently in inexhaustible succession. His tales were, of
course, monstrous, disjointed and without aim, but they were curious on

account of a vein of human tenderness which ran through them all and was
like a sweet familiar face encountered in the midst of wild and unearthly
scenery. The auditor paid much attention to these romances and sometimes
interrupted them by brief remarks upon the incidents, displaying
shrewdness above his years, mingled with a moral obliquity which grated
very harshly against Ilbrahim’s instinctive rectitude. Nothing, however,
could arrest the progress of the latter’s affection, and there were many
proofs that it met with a response from the dark and stubborn nature on
which it was lavished. The boy’s parents at length removed him to complete
his cure under their own roof.
Ilbrahim did not visit his new friend after his departure, but he made
anxious and continual inquiries respecting him and informed himself of the
day when he was to reappear among his playmates. On a pleasant summer
afternoon the children of the neighborhood had assembled in the little
forest-crowned amphitheatre behind the meeting-house, and the recovering
invalid was there, leaning on a staff. The glee of a score of untainted
bosoms was heard in light and airy voices, which danced among the trees
like sunshine become audible; the grown men of this weary world as they
journeyed by the spot marvelled why life, beginning in such brightness,
should proceed in gloom, and their hearts or their imaginations answered
them and said that the bliss of childhood gushes from its innocence. But it
happened that an unexpected addition was made to the heavenly little band.
It was Ilbrahim, who came toward the children with a look of sweet
confidence on his fair and spiritual face, as if, having manifested his love to
one of them, he had no longer to fear a repulse from their society. A hush
came over their mirth the moment they beheld him, and they stood
whispering to each other while he drew nigh; but all at once the devil of
their fathers entered into the unbreeched fanatics, and, sending up a fierce,
shrill cry, they rushed upon the poor Quaker child. In an instant he was the
centre of a brood of baby-fiends, who lifted sticks against him, pelted him
with stones and displayed an instinct of destruction far more loathsome than
the bloodthirstiness of manhood.
The invalid, in the mean while, stood apart from the tumult, crying out
with a loud voice, “Fear not, Ilbrahim; come hither and take my hand,” and
his unhappy friend endeavored to obey him. After watching the victim’s
struggling approach with a calm smile and unabashed eye, the foul-hearted
little villain lifted his staff and struck Ilbrahim on the mouth so forcibly that

the blood issued in a stream. The poor child’s arms had been raised to guard
his head from the storm of blows, but now he dropped them at once. His
persecutors beat him down, trampled upon him, dragged him by his long
fair locks, and Ilbrahim was on the point of becoming as veritable a martyr
as ever entered bleeding into heaven. The uproar, however, attracted the
notice of a few neighbors, who put themselves to the trouble of rescuing the
little heretic, and of conveying him to Pearson’s door.
Ilbrahim’s bodily harm was severe, but long and careful nursing
accomplished his recovery; the injury done to his sensitive spirit was more
serious, though not so visible. Its signs were principally of a negative
character, and to be discovered only by those who had previously known
him. His gait was thenceforth slow, even and unvaried by the sudden bursts
of sprightlier motion which had once corresponded to his overflowing
gladness; his countenance was heavier, and its former play of expression—
the dance of sunshine reflected from moving water—was destroyed by the
cloud over his existence; his notice was attracted in a far less degree by
passing events, and he appeared to find greater difficulty in comprehending
what was new to him than at a happier period. A stranger founding his
judgment upon these circumstances would have said that the dulness of the
child’s intellect widely contradicted the promise of his features, but the
secret was in the direction of Ilbrahim’s thoughts, which were brooding
within him when they should naturally have been wandering abroad. An
attempt of Dorothy to revive his former sportiveness was the single
occasion on which his quiet demeanor yielded to a violent display of grief;
he burst into passionate weeping and ran and hid himself, for his heart had
become so miserably sore that even the hand of kindness tortured it like
fire. Sometimes at night, and probably in his dreams, he was heard to cry,
“Mother! Mother!” as if her place, which a stranger had supplied while
Ilbrahim was happy, admitted of no substitute in his extreme affliction.
Perhaps among the many life-weary wretches then upon the earth there was
not one who combined innocence and misery like this poor broken-hearted
infant so soon the victim of his own heavenly nature.
While this melancholy change had taken place in Ilbrahim, one of an
earlier origin and of different character had come to its perfection in his
adopted father. The incident with which this tale commences found Pearson
in a state of religious dulness, yet mentally disquieted and longing for a
more fervid faith than he possessed. The first effect of his kindness to

Ilbrahim was to produce a softened feeling, an incipient love for the child’s
whole sect, but joined to this, and resulting, perhaps, from self-suspicion,
was a proud and ostentatious contempt of their tenets and practical
extravagances. In the course of much thought, however—for the subject
struggled irresistibly into his mind—the foolishness of the doctrine began to
be less evident, and the points which had particularly offended his reason
assumed another aspect or vanished entirely away. The work within him
appeared to go on even while he slept, and that which had been a doubt
when he laid down to rest would often hold the place of a truth confirmed
by some forgotten demonstration when he recalled his thoughts in the
morning. But, while he was thus becoming assimilated to the enthusiasts,
his contempt, in nowise decreasing toward them, grew very fierce against
himself; he imagined, also, that every face of his acquaintance wore a sneer,
and that every word addressed to him was a gibe. Such was his state of
mind at the period of Ilbrahim’s misfortune, and the emotions consequent
upon that event completed the change of which the child had been the
original instrument.
In the mean time, neither the fierceness of the persecutors nor the
infatuation of their victims had decreased. The dungeons were never empty;
the streets of almost every village echoed daily with the lash; the life of a
woman whose mild and Christian spirit no cruelty could embitter had been
sacrificed, and more innocent blood was yet to pollute the hands that were
so often raised in prayer. Early after the Restoration the English Quakers
represented to Charles II. that a “vein of blood was open in his dominions,”
but, though the displeasure of the voluptuous king was roused, his
interference was not prompt. And now the tale must stride forward over
many months, leaving Pearson to encounter ignominy and misfortune; his
wife, to a firm endurance of a thousand sorrows; poor Ilbrahim, to pine and
droop like a cankered rose-bud; his mother, to wander on a mistaken errand,
neglectful of the holiest trust which can be committed to a woman.

A winter evening, a night of storm, had darkened over Pearson’s
habitation, and there were no cheerful faces to drive the gloom from his
broad hearth. The fire, it is true, sent forth a glowing heat and a ruddy light,
and large logs dripping with half-melted snow lay ready to cast upon the

embers. But the apartment was saddened in its aspect by the absence of
much of the homely wealth which had once adorned it, for the exaction of
repeated fines and his own neglect of temporal affairs had greatly
impoverished the owner. And with the furniture of peace the implements of
war had likewise disappeared; the sword was broken, the helm and cuirass
were cast away for ever: the soldier had done with battles, and might not lift
so much as his naked hand to guard his head. But the Holy Book remained,
and the table on which it rested was drawn before the fire, while two of the
persecuted sect sought comfort from its pages.
He who listened while the other read was the master of the house, now
emaciated in form and altered as to the expression and healthiness of his
countenance, for his mind had dwelt too long among visionary thoughts and
his body had been worn by imprisonment and stripes. The hale and
weatherbeaten old man who sat beside him had sustained less injury from a
far longer course of the same mode of life. In person he was tall and
dignified, and, which alone would have made him hateful to the Puritans,
his gray locks fell from beneath the broad-brimmed hat and rested on his
shoulders. As the old man read the sacred page the snow drifted against the
windows or eddied in at the crevices of the door, while a blast kept laughing
in the chimney and the blaze leaped fiercely up to seek it. And sometimes,
when the wind struck the hill at a certain angle and swept down by the
cottage across the wintry plain, its voice was the most doleful that can be
conceived; it came as if the past were speaking, as if the dead had
contributed each a whisper, as if the desolation of ages were breathed in that
one lamenting sound.
The Quaker at length closed the book, retaining, however, his hand
between the pages which he had been reading, while he looked steadfastly
at Pearson. The attitude and features of the latter might have indicated the
endurance of bodily pain; he leaned his forehead on his hands, his teeth
were firmly closed and his frame was tremulous at intervals with a nervous
agitation.
“Friend Tobias,” inquired the old man, compassionately, “hast thou found
no comfort in these many blessed passages of Scripture?”
“Thy voice has fallen on my ear like a sound afar off and indistinct,”
replied Pearson, without lifting his eyes. “Yea; and when I have hearkened
carefully, the words seemed cold and lifeless and intended for another and a

lesser grief than mine. Remove the book,” he added, in a tone of sullen
bitterness; “I have no part in its consolations, and they do but fret my
sorrow the more.”
“Nay, feeble brother; be not as one who hath never known the light,” said
the elder Quaker, earnestly, but with mildness. “Art thou he that wouldst be
content to give all and endure all for conscience’ sake, desiring even
peculiar trials that thy faith might be purified and thy heart weaned from
worldly desires? And wilt thou sink beneath an affliction which happens
alike to them that have their portion here below and to them that lay up
treasure in heaven? Faint not, for thy burden is yet light.”
“It is heavy! It is heavier than I can bear!” exclaimed Pearson, with the
impatience of a variable spirit. “From my youth upward I have been a man
marked out for wrath, and year by year—yea, day after day—I have
endured sorrows such as others know not in their lifetime. And now I speak
not of the love that has been turned to hatred, the honor to ignominy, the
ease and plentifulness of all things to danger, want and nakedness. All this I
could have borne and counted myself blessed. But when my heart was
desolate with many losses, I fixed it upon the child of a stranger, and he
became dearer to me than all my buried ones; and now he too must die as if
my love were poison. Verily, I am an accursed man, and I will lay me down
in the dust and lift up my head no more.”
“Thou sinnest, brother, but it is not for me to rebuke thee, for I also have
had my hours of darkness wherein I have murmured against the cross,” said
the old Quaker. He continued, perhaps in the hope of distracting his
companion’s thoughts from his own sorrows: “Even of late was the light
obscured within me, when the men of blood had banished me on pain of
death and the constables led me onward from village to village toward the
wilderness. A strong and cruel hand was wielding the knotted cords; they
sunk deep into the flesh, and thou mightst have tracked every reel and totter
of my footsteps by the blood that followed. As we went on—”
“Have I not borne all this, and have I murmured?” interrupted Pearson,
impatiently.
“Nay, friend, but hear me,” continued the other. “As we journeyed on
night darkened on our path, so that no man could see the rage of the
persecutors or the constancy of my endurance, though Heaven forbid that I
should glory therein. The lights began to glimmer in the cottage windows,

and I could discern the inmates as they gathered in comfort and security,
every man with his wife and children by their own evening hearth. At
length we came to a tract of fertile land. In the dim light the forest was not
visible around it, and, behold, there was a straw-thatched dwelling which
bore the very aspect of my home far over the wild ocean—far in our own
England. Then came bitter thoughts upon me—yea, remembrances that
were like death to my soul. The happiness of my early days was painted to
me, the disquiet of my manhood, the altered faith of my declining years. I
remembered how I had been moved to go forth a wanderer when my
daughter, the youngest, the dearest of my flock, lay on her dying-bed, and
—”
“Couldst thou obey the command at such a moment?” exclaimed
Pearson, shuddering.
“Yea! yea!” replied the old man, hurriedly. “I was kneeling by her
bedside when the voice spoke loud within me, but immediately I rose and
took my staff and gat me gone. Oh that it were permitted me to forget her
woeful look when I thus withdrew my arm and left her journeying through
the dark valley alone! for her soul was faint and she had leaned upon my
prayers. Now in that night of horror I was assailed by the thought that I had
been an erring Christian and a cruel parent; yea, even my daughter with her
pale dying features seemed to stand by me and whisper, ‘Father, you are
deceived; go home and shelter your gray head.’—O Thou to whom I have
looked in my furthest wanderings,” continued the Quaker, raising his
agitated eyes to heaven, “inflict not upon the bloodiest of our persecutors
the unmitigated agony of my soul when I believed that all I had done and
suffered for thee was at the instigation of a mocking fiend!—But I yielded
not; I knelt down and wrestled with the tempter, while the scourge bit more
fiercely into the flesh. My prayer was heard, and I went on in peace and joy
toward the wilderness.”
The old man, though his fanaticism had generally all the calmness of
reason, was deeply moved while reciting this tale, and his unwonted
emotion seemed to rebuke and keep down that of his companion. They sat
in silence, with their faces to the fire, imagining, perhaps, in its red embers
new scenes of persecution yet to be encountered. The snow still drifted hard
against the windows, and sometimes, as the blaze of the logs had gradually
sunk, came down the spacious chimney and hissed upon the hearth. A

cautious footstep might now and then be heard in a neighboring apartment,
and the sound invariably drew the eyes of both Quakers to the door which
led thither. When a fierce and riotous gust of wind had led his thoughts by a
natural association to homeless travellers on such a night, Pearson resumed
the conversation.
“I have wellnigh sunk under my own share of this trial,” observed he,
sighing heavily; “yet I would that it might be doubled to me, if so the
child’s mother could be spared. Her wounds have been deep and many, but
this will be the sorest of all.”
“Fear not for Catharine,” replied the old Quaker, “for I know that valiant
woman and have seen how she can bear the cross. A mother’s heart, indeed,
is strong in her, and may seem to contend mightily with her faith; but soon
she will stand up and give thanks that her son has been thus early an
accepted sacrifice. The boy hath done his work, and she will feel that he is
taken hence in kindness both to him and her. Blessed, blessed are they that
with so little suffering can enter into peace!”
The fitful rush of the wind was now disturbed by a portentous sound: it
was a quick and heavy knocking at the outer door. Pearson’s wan
countenance grew paler, for many a visit of persecution had taught him
what to dread; the old man, on the other hand, stood up erect, and his glance
was firm as that of the tried soldier who awaits his enemy.
“The men of blood have come to seek me,” he observed, with calmness.
“They have heard how I was moved to return from banishment, and now
am I to be led to prison, and thence to death. It is an end I have long looked
for. I will open unto them lest they say, ‘Lo, he feareth!rsquo;”
“Nay; I will present myself before them,” said Pearson, with recovered
fortitude. “It may be that they seek me alone and know not that thou abidest
with me.”
“Let us go boldly, both one and the other,” rejoined his companion. “It is
not fitting that thou or I should shrink.”
They therefore proceeded through the entry to the door, which they
opened, bidding the applicant “Come in, in God’s name!” A furious blast of
wind drove the storm into their faces and extinguished the lamp; they had
barely time to discern a figure so white from head to foot with the drifted
snow that it seemed like Winter’s self come in human shape to seek refuge
from its own desolation.

“Enter, friend, and do thy errand, be it what it may,” said Pearson. “It
must needs be pressing, since thou comest on such a bitter night.”
“Peace be with this household!” said the stranger, when they stood on the
floor of the inner apartment.
Pearson started; the elder Quaker stirred the slumbering embers of the
fire till they sent up a clear and lofty blaze. It was a female voice that had
spoken; it was a female form that shone out, cold and wintry, in that
comfortable light.
“Catharine, blessed woman,” exclaimed the old man, “art thou come to
this darkened land again? Art thou come to bear a valiant testimony as in
former years? The scourge hath not prevailed against thee, and from the
dungeon hast thou come forth triumphant, but strengthen, strengthen now
thy heart, Catharine, for Heaven will prove thee yet this once ere thou go to
thy reward.”
“Rejoice, friends!” she replied. “Thou who hast long been of our people,
and thou whom a little child hath led to us, rejoice! Lo, I come, the
messenger of glad tidings, for the day of persecution is over-past. The heart
of the king, even Charles, hath been moved in gentleness toward us, and he
hath sent forth his letters to stay the hands of the men of blood. A ship’s
company of our friends hath arrived at yonder town, and I also sailed
joyfully among them.”
As Catharine spoke her eyes were roaming about the room in search of
him for whose sake security was dear to her. Pearson made a silent appeal
to the old man, nor did the latter shrink from the painful task assigned him.
“Sister,” he began, in a softened yet perfectly calm tone, “thou tellest us
of his love manifested in temporal good, and now must we speak to thee of
that selfsame love displayed in chastenings. Hitherto, Catharine, thou hast
been as one journeying in a darksome and difficult path and leading an
infant by the hand; fain wouldst thou have looked heavenward continually,
but still the cares of that little child have drawn thine eyes and thy affections
to the earth. Sister, go on rejoicing, for his tottering footsteps shall impede
thine own no more.”
But the unhappy mother was not thus to be consoled. She shook like a
leaf; she turned white as the very snow that hung drifted into her hair. The
firm old man extended his hand and held her up, keeping his eye upon hers
as if to repress any outbreak of passion.

“I am a woman—I am but a woman; will He try me above my strength?”
said Catharine, very quickly and almost in a whisper. “I have been wounded
sore; I have suffered much—many things in the body, many in the mind;
crucified in myself and in them that were dearest to me. Surely,” added she,
with a long shudder, “he hath spared me in this one thing.” She broke forth
with sudden and irrepressible violence: “Tell me, man of cold heart, what
has God done to me? Hath he cast me down never to rise again? Hath he
crushed my very heart in his hand?—And thou to whom I committed my
child, how hast thou fulfilled thy trust? Give me back the boy well, sound,
alive—alive—or earth and heaven shall avenge me!”
The agonized shriek of Catharine was answered by the faint—the very
faint—voice of a child.
On this day it had become evident to Pearson, to his aged guest and to
Dorothy that Ilbrahim’s brief and troubled pilgrimage drew near its close.
The two former would willingly have remained by him to make use of the
prayers and pious discourses which they deemed appropriate to the time,
and which, if they be impotent as to the departing traveller’s reception in
the world whither he goes, may at least sustain him in bidding adieu to
earth. But, though Ilbrahim uttered no complaint, he was disturbed by the
faces that looked upon him; so that Dorothy’s entreaties and their own
conviction that the child’s feet might tread heaven’s pavement and not soil
it had induced the two Quakers to remove. Ilbrahim then closed his eyes
and grew calm, and, except for now and then a kind and low word to his
nurse, might have been thought to slumber. As nightfall came on, however,
and the storm began to rise, something seemed to trouble the repose of the
boy’s mind and to render his sense of hearing active and acute. If a passing
wind lingered to shake the casement, he strove to turn his head toward it; if
the door jarred to and fro upon its hinges, he looked long and anxiously
thitherward; if the heavy voice of the old man as he read the Scriptures rose
but a little higher, the child almost held his dying-breath to listen; if a
snowdrift swept by the cottage with a sound like the trailing of a garment,
Ilbrahim seemed to watch that some visitant should enter. But after a little
time he relinquished whatever secret hope had agitated him and with one
low complaining whisper turned his cheek upon the pillow. He then
addressed Dorothy with his usual sweetness and besought her to draw near
him; she did so, and Ilbrahim took her hand in both of his, grasping it with a
gentle pressure, as if to assure himself that he retained it. At intervals, and

without disturbing the repose of his countenance, a very faint trembling
passed over him from head to foot, as if a mild but somewhat cool wind had
breathed upon him and made him shiver.
As the boy thus led her by the hand in his quiet progress over the borders
of eternity, Dorothy almost imagined that she could discern the near though
dim delightfulness of the home he was about to reach; she would not have
enticed the little wanderer back, though she bemoaned herself that she must
leave him and return. But just when Ilbrahim’s feet were pressing on the
soil of Paradise he heard a voice behind him, and it recalled him a few, few
paces of the weary path which he had travelled. As Dorothy looked upon
his features she perceived that their placid expression was again disturbed.
Her own thoughts had been so wrapped in him that all sounds of the storm
and of human speech were lost to her; but when Catharine’s shriek pierced
through the room, the boy strove to raise himself.
“Friend, she is come! Open unto her!” cried he.
In a moment his mother was kneeling by the bedside; she drew Ilbrahim
to her bosom, and he nestled there with no violence of joy, but contentedly
as if he were hushing himself to sleep. He looked into her face, and, reading
its agony, said with feeble earnestness,
“Mourn not, dearest mother. I am happy now;” and with these words the
gentle boy was dead.

The king’s mandate to stay the New England persecutors was effectual in
preventing further martyrdoms, but the colonial authorities, trusting in the
remoteness of their situation, and perhaps in the supposed instability of the
royal government, shortly renewed their severities in all other respects.
Catharine’s fanaticism had become wilder by the sundering of all human
ties; and wherever a scourge was lifted, there was she to receive the blow;
and whenever a dungeon was unbarred, thither she came to cast herself
upon the floor. But in process of time a more Christian spirit—a spirit of
forbearance, though not of cordiality or approbation—began to pervade the
land in regard to the persecuted sect. And then, when the rigid old Pilgrims
eyed her rather in pity than in wrath, when the matrons fed her with the
fragments of their children’s food and offered her a lodging on a hard and

lowly bed, when no little crowd of schoolboys left their sports to cast stones
after the roving enthusiast,—then did Catharine return to Pearson’s
dwelling, and made that her home.
As if Ilbrahim’s sweetness yet lingered round his ashes, as if his gentle
spirit came down from heaven to teach his parent a true religion, her fierce
and vindictive nature was softened by the same griefs which had once
irritated it. When the course of years had made the features of the
unobtrusive mourner familiar in the settlement, she became a subject of not
deep but general interest—a being on whom the otherwise superfluous
sympathies of all might be bestowed. Every one spoke of her with that
degree of pity which it is pleasant to experience; every one was ready to do
her the little kindnesses which are not costly, yet manifest good-will; and
when at last she died, a long train of her once bitter persecutors followed
her with decent sadness and tears that were not painful to her place by
Ilbrahim’s green and sunken grave.

MR. HIGGINBOTHAM’S CATASTROPHE

A young fellow, a tobacco-pedler by trade, was on his way from
Morristown, where he had dealt largely with the deacon of the Shaker
settlement, to the village of Parker’s Falls, on Salmon River. He had a neat
little cart painted green, with a box of cigars depicted on each side-panel,
and an Indian chief holding a pipe and a golden tobacco-stalk on the rear.
The pedler drove a smart little mare and was a young man of excellent
character, keen at a bargain, but none the worse liked by the Yankees, who,
as I have heard them say, would rather be shaved with a sharp razor than a
dull one. Especially was he beloved by the pretty girls along the
Connecticut, whose favor he used to court by presents of the best smoking-
tobacco in his stock, knowing well that the country-lasses of New England
are generally great performers on pipes. Moreover, as will be seen in the
course of my story, the pedler was inquisitive and something of a tattler,
always itching to hear the news and anxious to tell it again.
After an early breakfast at Morristown the tobacco-pedler—whose name
was Dominicus Pike—had travelled seven miles through a solitary piece of
woods without speaking a word to anybody but himself and his little gray
mare. It being nearly seven o’clock, he was as eager to hold a morning
gossip as a city shopkeeper to read the morning paper. An opportunity
seemed at hand when, after lighting a cigar with a sun-glass, he looked up
and perceived a man coming over the brow of the hill at the foot of which
the pedler had stopped his green cart. Dominicus watched him as he
descended, and noticed that he carried a bundle over his shoulder on the end
of a stick and travelled with a weary yet determined pace. He did not look
as if he had started in the freshness of the morning, but had footed it all
night, and meant to do the same all day.
“Good-morning, mister,” said Dominicus, when within speaking-
distance. “You go a pretty good jog. What’s the latest news at Parker’s
Falls?”

The man pulled the broad brim of a gray hat over his eyes, and answered,
rather sullenly, that he did not come from Parker’s Falls, which, as being the
limit of his own day’s journey, the pedler had naturally mentioned in his
inquiry.
“Well, then,” rejoined Dominicus Pike, “let’s have the latest news where
you did come from. I’m not particular about Parker’s Falls. Any place will
answer.”
Being thus importuned, the traveller—who was as ill-looking a fellow as
one would desire to meet in a solitary piece of woods—appeared to hesitate
a little, as if he was either searching his memory for news or weighing the
expediency of telling it. At last, mounting on the step of the cart, he
whispered in the ear of Dominicus, though he might have shouted aloud and
no other mortal would have heard him.
“I do remember one little trifle of news,” said he. “Old Mr.
Higginbotham of Kimballton was murdered in his orchard at eight o’clock
last night by an Irishman and a nigger. They strung him up to the branch of
a St. Michael’s pear tree where nobody would find him till the morning.”
As soon as this horrible intelligence was communicated the stranger
betook himself to his journey again with more speed than ever, not even
turning his head when Dominicus invited him to smoke a Spanish cigar and
relate all the particulars. The pedler whistled to his mare and went up the
hill, pondering on the doleful fate of Mr. Higginbotham, whom he had
known in the way of trade, having sold him many a bunch of long nines and
a great deal of pig-tail, lady’s twist and fig tobacco. He was rather
astonished at the rapidity with which the news had spread. Kimballton was
nearly sixty miles distant in a straight line; the murder had been perpetrated
only at eight o’clock the preceding night, yet Dominicus had heard of it at
seven in the morning, when, in all probability, poor Mr. Higginbotham’s
own family had but just discovered his corpse hanging on the St. Michael’s
pear tree. The stranger on foot must have worn seven-league boots, to travel
at such a rate.
“Ill-news flies fast, they say,” thought Dominicus Pike, “but this beats
railroads. The fellow ought to be hired to go express with the President’s
message.”
The difficulty was solved by supposing that the narrator had made a
mistake of one day in the date of the occurrence; so that our friend did not

hesitate to introduce the story at every tavern and country-store along the
road, expending a whole bunch of Spanish wrappers among at least twenty
horrified audiences. He found himself invariably the first bearer of the
intelligence, and was so pestered with questions that he could not avoid
filling up the outline till it became quite a respectable narrative. He met
with one piece of corroborative evidence. Mr. Higginbotham was a trader,
and a former clerk of his to whom Dominicus related the facts testified that
the old gentleman was accustomed to return home through the orchard
about nightfall with the money and valuable papers of the store in his
pocket. The clerk manifested but little grief at Mr. Higginbotham’s
catastrophe, hinting—what the pedler had discovered in his own dealings
with him—that he was a crusty old fellow as close as a vise. His property
would descend to a pretty niece who was now keeping school in
Kimballton.
What with telling the news for the public good and driving bargains for
his own, Dominicus was so much delayed on the road that he chose to put
up at a tavern about five miles short of Parker’s Falls. After supper, lighting
one of his prime cigars, he seated himself in the bar-room and went through
the story of the murder, which had grown so fast that it took him half an
hour to tell. There were as many as twenty people in the room, nineteen of
whom received it all for gospel. But the twentieth was an elderly farmer
who had arrived on horseback a short time before and was now seated in a
corner, smoking his pipe. When the story was concluded, he rose up very
deliberately, brought his chair right in front of Dominicus and stared him
full in the face, puffing out the vilest tobacco-smoke the pedler had ever
smelt.
“Will you make affidavit,” demanded he, in the tone of a country-justice
taking an examination, “that old Squire Higginbotham of Kimballton was
murdered in his orchard the night before last and found hanging on his great
pear tree yesterday morning?”
“I tell the story as I heard it, mister,” answered Dominicus, dropping his
half-burnt cigar. “I don’t say that I saw the thing done, so I can’t take my
oath that he was murdered exactly in that way.”
“But I can take mine,” said the farmer, “that if Squire Higginbotham was
murdered night before last I drank a glass of bitters with his ghost this
morning. Being a neighbor of mine, he called me into his store as I was

riding by, and treated me, and then asked me to do a little business for him
on the road. He didn’t seem to know any more about his own murder than I
did.”
“Why, then it can’t be a fact!” exclaimed Dominicus Pike.
“I guess he’d have mentioned, if it was,” said the old farmer; and he
removed his chair back to the corner, leaving Dominicus quite down in the
mouth.
Here was a sad resurrection of old Mr. Higginbotham! The pedler had no
heart to mingle in the conversation any more, but comforted himself with a
glass of gin and water and went to bed, where all night long he dreamed of
hanging on the St. Michael’s pear tree.
To avoid the old farmer (whom he so detested that his suspension would
have pleased him better than Mr. Higginbotham’s), Dominicus rose in the
gray of the morning, put the little mare into the green cart and trotted
swiftly away toward Parker’s Falls. The fresh breeze, the dewy road and the
pleasant summer dawn revived his spirits, and might have encouraged him
to repeat the old story had there been anybody awake to bear it, but he met
neither ox-team, light wagon, chaise, horseman nor foot-traveller till, just as
he crossed Salmon River, a man came trudging down to the bridge with a
bundle over his shoulder, on the end of a stick.
“Good-morning, mister,” said the pedler, reining in his mare. “If you
come from Kimballton or that neighborhood, maybe you can tell me the
real fact about this affair of old Mr. Higginbotham. Was the old fellow
actually murdered two or three nights ago by an Irishman and a nigger?”
Dominicus had spoken in too great a hurry to observe at first that the
stranger himself had a deep tinge of negro blood. On hearing this sudden
question the Ethiopian appeared to change his skin, its yellow hue
becoming a ghastly white, while, shaking and stammering, he thus replied:
“No, no! There was no colored man. It was an Irishman that hanged him
last night at eight o’clock; I came away at seven. His folks can’t have
looked for him in the orchard yet.”
Scarcely had the yellow man spoken, when he interrupted himself and,
though he seemed weary enough before, continued his journey at a pace
which would have kept the pedler’s mare on a smart trot. Dominicus stared
after him in great perplexity. If the murder had not been committed till

Tuesday night, who was the prophet that had foretold it in all its
circumstances on Tuesday morning? If Mr. Higginbotham’s corpse were not
yet discovered by his own family, how came the mulatto, at above thirty
miles’ distance, to know that he was hanging in the orchard, especially as he
had left Kimballton before the unfortunate man was hanged at all? These
ambiguous circumstances, with the stranger’s surprise and terror, made
Dominicus think of raising a hue-and-cry after him as an accomplice in the
murder, since a murder, it seemed, had really been perpetrated.
“But let the poor devil go,” thought the pedler. “I don’t want his black
blood on my head, and hanging the nigger wouldn’t unhang Mr.
Higginbotham. Unhang the old gentleman? It’s a sin, I know, but I should
hate to have him come to life a second time and give me the lie.”
With these meditations Dominicus Pike drove into the street of Parker’s
Falls, which, as everybody knows, is as thriving a village as three cotton-
factories and a slitting-mill can make it. The machinery was not in motion
and but a few of the shop doors unbarred when he alighted in the stable-
yard of the tavern and made it his first business to order the mare four
quarts of oats. His second duty, of course, was to impart Mr.
Higginbotham’s catastrophe to the hostler. He deemed it advisable,
however, not to be too positive as to the date of the direful fact, and also to
be uncertain whether it were perpetrated by an Irishman and a mulatto or by
the son of Erin alone. Neither did he profess to relate it on his own authority
or that of any one person, but mentioned it as a report generally diffused.
The story ran through the town like fire among girdled trees, and became
so much the universal talk that nobody could tell whence it had originated.
Mr. Higginbotham was as well known at Parker’s Falls as any citizen of the
place, being part-owner of the slitting-mill and a considerable stockholder
in the cotton-factories. The inhabitants felt their own prosperity interested
in his fate. Such was the excitement that the Parker’s Falls Gazette
anticipated its regular day of publication, and came out with half a form of
blank paper and a column of double pica emphasized with capitals and
headed “HORRID MURDER OF MR. HIGGINBOTHAM!” Among other
dreadful details, the printed account described the mark of the cord round
the dead man’s neck and stated the number of thousand dollars of which he
had been robbed; there was much pathos, also, about the affliction of his
niece, who had gone from one fainting-fit to another ever since her uncle

was found hanging on the St. Michael’s pear tree with his pockets inside
out. The village poet likewise commemorated the young lady’s grief in
seventeen stanzas of a ballad. The selectmen held a meeting, and in
consideration of Mr. Higginbotham’s claims on the town determined to
issue handbills offering a reward of five hundred dollars for the
apprehension of his murderers and the recovery of the stolen property.
Meanwhile, the whole population of Parker’s Falls, consisting of
shopkeepers, mistresses of boarding-houses, factory-girls, mill-men and
schoolboys, rushed into the street and kept up such a terrible loquacity as
more than compensated for the silence of the cotton-machines, which
refrained from their usual din out of respect to the deceased. Had Mr.
Higginbotham cared about posthumous renown, his untimely ghost would
have exulted in this tumult.
Our friend Dominicus in his vanity of heart forgot his intended
precautions, and, mounting on the town-pump, announced himself as the
bearer of the authentic intelligence which had caused so wonderful a
sensation. He immediately became the great man of the moment, and had
just begun a new edition of the narrative with a voice like a field-preacher
when the mail-stage drove into the village street. It had travelled all night,
and must have shifted horses at Kimballton at three in the morning.
“Now we shall hear all the particulars!” shouted the crowd.
The coach rumbled up to the piazza of the tavern followed by a thousand
people; for if any man had been minding his own business till then, he now
left it at sixes and sevens to hear the news. The pedler, foremost in the race,
discovered two passengers, both of whom had been startled from a
comfortable nap to find themselves in the centre of a mob. Every man
assailing them with separate questions, all propounded at once, the couple
were struck speechless, though one was a lawyer and the other a young
lady.
“Mr. Higginbotham! Mr. Higginbotham! Tell us the particulars about old
Mr. Higginbotham!” bawled the mob. “What is the coroner’s verdict? Are
the murderers apprehended? Is Mr. Higginbotham’s niece come out of her
fainting-fits? Mr. Higginbotham! Mr. Higginbotham!”
The coachman said not a word except to swear awfully at the hostler for
not bringing him a fresh team of horses. The lawyer inside had generally his
wits about him even when asleep; the first thing he did after learning the

cause of the excitement was to produce a large red pocketbook. Meantime,
Dominicus Pike, being an extremely polite young man, and also suspecting
that a female tongue would tell the story as glibly as a lawyer’s, had handed
the lady out of the coach. She was a fine, smart girl, now wide awake and
bright as a button, and had such a sweet, pretty mouth that Dominicus
would almost as lief have heard a love-tale from it as a tale of murder.
“Gentlemen and ladies,” said the lawyer to the shopkeepers, the mill-men
and the factory-girls, “I can assure you that some unaccountable mistake—
or, more probably, a wilful falsehood maliciously contrived to injure Mr.
Higginbotham’s credit—has excited this singular uproar. We passed through
Kimballton at three o’clock this morning, and most certainly should have
been informed of the murder had any been perpetrated. But I have proof
nearly as strong as Mr. Higginbotham’s own oral testimony in the negative.
Here is a note relating to a suit of his in the Connecticut courts which was
delivered me from that gentleman himself. I find it dated at ten o’clock last
evening.”
So saying, the lawyer, exhibited the date and signature of the note, which
irrefragably proved either that this perverse Mr. Higginbotham was alive
when he wrote it, or, as some deemed the more probable case of two
doubtful ones, that he was so absorbed in worldly business as to continue to
transact it even after his death. But unexpected evidence was forthcoming.
The young lady, after listening to the pedler’s explanation, merely seized a
moment to smooth her gown and put her curls in order, and then appeared at
the tavern door, making a modest signal to be heard.
“Good people,” said she, “I am Mr. Higginbotham’s niece.”
A wondering murmur passed through the crowd on beholding her so rosy
and bright—that same unhappy niece whom they had supposed, on the
authority of the Parker’s Falls Gazette, to be lying at death’s door in a
fainting-fit. But some shrewd fellows had doubted all along whether a
young lady would be quite so desperate at the hanging of a rich old uncle.
“You see,” continued Miss Higginbotham, with a smile, “that this strange
story is quite unfounded as to myself, and I believe I may affirm it to be
equally so in regard to my dear uncle Higginbotham. He has the kindness to
give me a home in his house, though I contribute to my own support by
teaching a school. I left Kimballton this morning to spend the vacation of
commencement-week with a friend about five miles from Parker’s Falls.

My generous uncle, when he heard me on the stairs, called me to his
bedside and gave me two dollars and fifty cents to pay my stage-fare, and
another dollar for my extra expenses. He then laid his pocketbook under his
pillow, shook hands with me, and advised me to take some biscuit in my
bag instead of breakfasting on the road. I feel confident, therefore, that I left
my beloved relative alive, and trust that I shall find him so on my return.”
The young lady courtesied at the close of her speech, which was so
sensible and well worded, and delivered with such grace and propriety, that
everybody thought her fit to be preceptress of the best academy in the State.
But a stranger would have supposed that Mr. Higginbotham was an object
of abhorrence at Parker’s Falls and that a thanksgiving had been proclaimed
for his murder, so excessive was the wrath of the inhabitants on learning
their mistake. The mill-men resolved to bestow public honors on Dominicus
Pike, only hesitating whether to tar and feather him, ride him on a rail or
refresh him with an ablution at the town-pump, on the top of which he had
declared himself the bearer of the news. The selectmen, by advice of the
lawyer, spoke of prosecuting him for a misdemeanor in circulating
unfounded reports, to the great disturbance of the peace of the
commonwealth. Nothing saved Dominicus either from mob-law or a court
of justice but an eloquent appeal made by the young lady in his behalf.
Addressing a few words of heartfelt gratitude to his benefactress, he
mounted the green cart and rode out of town under a discharge of artillery
from the schoolboys, who found plenty of ammunition in the neighboring
clay-pits and mud-holes. As he turned his head to exchange a farewell
glance with Mr. Higginbotham’s niece a ball of the consistence of hasty-
pudding hit him slap in the mouth, giving him a most grim aspect. His
whole person was so bespattered with the like filthy missiles that he had
almost a mind to ride back and supplicate for the threatened ablution at the
town-pump; for, though not meant in kindness, it would now have been a
deed of charity.
However, the sun shone bright on poor Dominicus, and the mud—an
emblem of all stains of undeserved opprobrium—was easily brushed off
when dry. Being a funny rogue, his heart soon cheered up; nor could he
refrain from a hearty laugh at the uproar which his story had excited. The
handbills of the selectmen would cause the commitment of all the
vagabonds in the State, the paragraph in the Parker’s Falls Gazette would be
reprinted from Maine to Florida, and perhaps form an item in the London

newspapers, and many a miser would tremble for his moneybags and life on
learning the catastrophe of Mr. Higginbotham. The pedler meditated with
much fervor on the charms of the young schoolmistress, and swore that
Daniel Webster never spoke nor looked so like an angel as Miss
Higginbotham while defending him from the wrathful populace at Parker’s
Falls.
Dominicus was now on the Kimballton turnpike, having all along
determined to visit that place, though business had drawn, him out of the
most direct road from Morristown. As he approached the scene of the
supposed murder he continued to revolve the circumstances in his mind,
and was astonished at the aspect which the whole case assumed. Had
nothing occurred to corroborate the story of the first traveller, it might now
have been considered as a hoax; but the yellow man was evidently
acquainted either with the report or the fact, and there was a mystery in his
dismayed and guilty look on being abruptly questioned. When to this
singular combination of incidents it was added that the rumor tallied exactly
with Mr. Higginbotham’s character and habits of life, and that he had an
orchard and a St. Michael’s pear tree, near which he always passed at
nightfall, the circumstantial evidence appeared so strong that Dominicus
doubted whether the autograph produced by the lawyer, or even the niece’s
direct testimony, ought to be equivalent. Making cautious inquiries along
the road, the pedler further learned that Mr. Higginbotham had in his
service an Irishman of doubtful character whom he had hired without a
recommendation, on the score of economy.
“May I be hanged myself,” exclaimed Dominicus Pike, aloud, on
reaching the top of a lonely hill, “if I’ll believe old Higginbotham is
unhanged till I see him with my own eyes and hear it from his own mouth.
And, as he’s a real shaver, I’ll have the minister, or some other responsible
man, for an endorser.”
It was growing dusk when he reached the toll-house on Kimballton
turnpike, about a quarter of a mile from the village of this name. His little
mare was fast bringing him up with a man on horseback who trotted
through the gate a few rods in advance of him, nodded to the toll-gatherer
and kept on towards the village. Dominicus was acquainted with the toll-
man, and while making change the usual remarks on the weather passed
between them.

“I suppose,” said the pedler, throwing back his whiplash to bring it down
like a feather on the mare’s flank, “you have not seen anything of old Mr.
Higginbotham within a day or two?”
“Yes,” answered the toll-gatherer; “he passed the gate just before you
drove up, and yonder he rides now, if you can see him through the dusk.
He’s been to Woodfield this afternoon, attending a sheriff’s sale there. The
old man generally shakes hands and has a little chat with me, but to-night
he nodded, as if to say, ‘Charge my toll,’ and jogged on; for, wherever he
goes, he must always be at home by eight o’clock.”
“So they tell me,” said Dominicus.
“I never saw a man look so yellow and thin as the squire does,”
continued the toll-gatherer. “Says I to myself tonight, ‘He’s more like a
ghost or an old mummy than good flesh and blood.’”
The pedler strained his eyes through the twilight, and could just discern
the horseman now far ahead on the village road. He seemed to recognize
the rear of Mr. Higginbotham, but through the evening shadows and amid
the dust from the horse’s feet the figure appeared dim and unsubstantial, as
if the shape of the mysterious old man were faintly moulded of darkness
and gray light.
Dominicus shivered. “Mr. Higginbotham has come back from the other
world by way of the Kimballton turnpike,” thought he. He shook the reins
and rode forward, keeping about the same distance in the rear of the gray
old shadow till the latter was concealed by a bend of the road. On reaching
this point the pedler no longer saw the man on horseback, but found himself
at the head of the village street, not far from a number of stores and two
taverns clustered round the meeting-house steeple. On his left was a stone
wall and a gate, the boundary of a wood-lot beyond which lay an orchard,
farther still a mowing-field, and last of all a house. These were the premises
of Mr. Higginbotham, whose dwelling stood beside the old highway, but
had been left in the background by the Kimballton turnpike.
Dominicus knew the place, and the little mare stopped short by instinct,
for he was not conscious of tightening the reins. “For the soul of me, I
cannot get by this gate!” said he, trembling. “I never shall be my own man
again till I see whether Mr. Higginbotham is hanging on the St. Michael’s
pear tree.” He leaped from the cart, gave the rein a turn round the gate-post,
and ran along the green path of the wood-lot as if Old Nick were chasing

behind. Just then the village clock tolled eight, and as each deep stroke fell
Dominicus gave a fresh bound and flew faster than before, till, dim in the
solitary centre of the orchard, he saw the fated pear tree. One great branch
stretched from the old contorted trunk across the path and threw the darkest
shadow on that one spot. But something seemed to struggle beneath the
branch.
The pedler had never pretended to more courage than befits a man of
peaceable occupation, nor could he account for his valor on this awful
emergency. Certain it is, however, that he rushed forward, prostrated a
sturdy Irishman with the butt-end of his whip, and found—not, indeed,
hanging on the St. Michael’s pear tree, but trembling beneath it with a halter
round his neck—the old identical Mr. Higginbotham.
“Mr. Higginbotham,” said Dominicus, tremulously, “you’re an honest
man, and I’ll take your word for it. Have you been hanged, or not?”
If the riddle be not already guessed, a few words will explain the simple
machinery by which this “coming event” was made to cast its “shadow
before.” Three men had plotted the robbery and murder of Mr.
Higginbotham; two of them successively lost courage and fled, each
delaying the crime one night by their disappearance; the third was in the act
of perpetration, when a champion, blindly obeying the call of fate, like the
heroes of old romance, appeared in the person of Dominicus Pike.
It only remains to say that Mr. Higginbotham took the pedler into high
favor, sanctioned his addresses to the pretty schoolmistress and settled his
whole property on their children, allowing themselves the interest. In due
time the old gentleman capped the climax of his favors by dying a Christian
death in bed; since which melancholy event, Dominicus Pike has removed
from Kimballton and established a large tobacco-manufactory in my native
village.

LITTLE ANNIE’S RAMBLE

Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!
The town-crier has rung his bell at a distant corner, and little Annie
stands on her father’s doorsteps trying to hear what the man with the loud
voice is talking about. Let me listen too. Oh, he is telling the people that an
elephant and a lion and a royal tiger and a horse with horns, and other
strange beasts from foreign countries, have come to town and will receive
all visitors who choose to wait upon them. Perhaps little Annie would like
to go? Yes, and I can see that the pretty child is weary of this wide and
pleasant street with the green trees flinging their shade across the quiet
sunshine and the pavements and the sidewalks all as clean as if the
housemaid had just swept them with her broom. She feels that impulse to
go strolling away—that longing after the mystery of the great world—
which many children feel, and which I felt in my childhood. Little Annie
shall take a ramble with me. See! I do but hold out my hand, and like some
bright bird in the sunny air, with her blue silk frock fluttering upward from
her white pantalets, she comes bounding on tiptoe across the street.
Smooth back your brown curls, Annie, and let me tie on your bonnet, and
we will set forth. What a strange couple to go on their rambles together!
One walks in black attire, with a measured step and a heavy brow and his
thoughtful eyes bent down, while the gay little girl trips lightly along as if
she were forced to keep hold of my hand lest her feet should dance away
from the earth. Yet there is sympathy between us. If I pride myself on
anything, it is because I have a smile that children love; and, on the other
hand, there are few grown ladies that could entice me from the side of little
Annie, for I delight to let my mind go hand in hand with the mind of a
sinless child. So come, Annie; but if I moralize as we go, do not listen to
me: only look about you and be merry.
Now we turn the corner. Here are hacks with two horses and stage-
coaches with four thundering to meet each other, and trucks and carts

moving at a slower pace, being heavily laden with barrels from the
wharves; and here are rattling gigs which perhaps will be smashed to pieces
before our eyes. Hitherward, also, comes a man trundling a wheelbarrow
along the pavement. Is not little Annie afraid of such a tumult? No; she does
not even shrink closer to my side, but passes on with fearless confidence, a
happy child amidst a great throng of grown people who pay the same
reverence to her infancy that they would to extreme old age. Nobody jostles
her: all turn aside to make way for little Annie; and, what is most singular,
she appears conscious of her claim to such respect. Now her eyes brighten
with pleasure. A street-musician has seated himself on the steps of yonder
church and pours forth his strains to the busy town—a melody that has gone
astray among the tramp of footsteps, the buzz of voices and the war of
passing wheels. Who heeds the poor organ-grinder? None but myself and
little Annie, whose feet begin to move in unison with the lively tune, as if
she were loth that music should be wasted without a dance. But where
would Annie find a partner? Some have the gout in their toes or the
rheumatism in their joints; some are stiff with age, some feeble with
disease; some are so lean that their bones would rattle, and others of such
ponderous size that their agility would crack the flagstones; but many, many
have leaden feet because their hearts are far heavier than lead. It is a sad
thought that I have chanced upon. What a company of dancers should we
be! For I too am a gentleman of sober footsteps, and therefore, little Annie,
let us walk sedately on.
It is a question with me whether this giddy child or my sage self have
most pleasure in looking at the shop-windows. We love the silks of sunny
hue that glow within the darkened premises of the spruce dry-goods men;
we are pleasantly dazzled by the burnished silver and the chased gold, the
rings of wedlock and the costly love-ornaments, glistening at the window of
the jeweller; but Annie, more than I, seeks for a glimpse of her passing
figure in the dusty looking-glasses at the hardware-stores. All that is bright
and gay attracts us both.
Here is a shop to which the recollections of my boyhood as well as
present partialities give a peculiar magic. How delightful to let the fancy
revel on the dainties of a confectioner—those pies with such white and
flaky paste, their contents being a mystery, whether rich mince with whole
plums intermixed, or piquant apple delicately rose-flavored; those cakes,
heart-shaped or round, piled in a lofty pyramid; those sweet little circlets

sweetly named kisses; those dark majestic masses fit to be bridal-loaves at
the wedding of an heiress, mountains in size, their summits deeply snow-
covered with sugar! Then the mighty treasures of sugarplums, white and
crimson and yellow, in large glass vases, and candy of all varieties, and
those little cockles—or whatever they are called—much prized by children
for their sweetness, and more for the mottoes which they enclose, by love-
sick maids and bachelors! Oh, my mouth waters, little Annie, and so doth
yours, but we will not be tempted except to an imaginary feast; so let us
hasten onward devouring the vision of a plum-cake.
Here are pleasures, as some people would say, of a more exalted kind, in
the window of a bookseller. Is Annie a literary lady? Yes; she is deeply read
in Peter Parley’s tomes and has an increasing love for fairy-tales, though
seldom met with nowadays, and she will subscribe next year to the Juvenile
Miscellany. But, truth to tell, she is apt to turn away from the printed page
and keep gazing at the pretty pictures, such as the gay-colored ones which
make this shop-window the continual loitering-place of children. What
would Annie think if, in the book which I mean to send her on New Year’s
day, she should find her sweet little self bound up in silk or morocco with
gilt edges, there to remain till she become a woman grown with children of
her own to read about their mother’s childhood? That would be very queer.
Little Annie is weary of pictures and pulls me onward by the hand, till
suddenly we pause at the most wondrous shop in all the town. Oh, my stars!
Is this a toyshop, or is it fairy-land? For here are gilded chariots in which
the king and queen of the fairies might ride side by side, while their
courtiers on these small horses should gallop in triumphal procession before
and behind the royal pair. Here, too, are dishes of chinaware fit to be the
dining-set of those same princely personages when they make a regal
banquet in the stateliest hall of their palace—full five feet high—and behold
their nobles feasting adown the long perspective of the table. Betwixt the
king and queen should sit my little Annie, the prettiest fairy of them all.
Here stands a turbaned Turk threatening us with his sabre, like an ugly
heathen as he is, and next a Chinese mandarin who nods his head at Annie
and myself. Here we may review a whole army of horse and foot in red-
and-blue uniforms, with drums, fifes, trumpets, and all kinds of noiseless
music; they have halted on the shelf of this window after their weary march
from Liliput. But what cares Annie for soldiers? No conquering queen is
she—neither a Semiramis nor a Catharine; her whole heart is set upon that

doll who gazes at us with such a fashionable stare. This is the little girl’s
true plaything. Though made of wood, a doll is a visionary and ethereal
personage endowed by childish fancy with a peculiar life; the mimic lady is
a heroine of romance, an actor and a sufferer in a thousand shadowy scenes,
the chief inhabitant of that wild world with which children ape the real one.
Little Annie does not understand what I am saying, but looks wishfully at
the proud lady in the window. We will invite her home with us as we return.
—Meantime, good-bye, Dame Doll! A toy yourself, you look forth from
your window upon many ladies that are also toys, though they walk and
speak, and upon a crowd in pursuit of toys, though they wear grave visages.
Oh, with your never-closing eyes, had you but an intellect to moralize on all
that flits before them, what a wise doll would you be!—Come, little Annie,
we shall find toys enough, go where we may.
Now we elbow our way among the throng again. It is curious in the most
crowded part of a town to meet with living creatures that had their
birthplace in some far solitude, but have acquired a second nature in the
wilderness of men. Look up, Annie, at that canary-bird hanging out of the
window in his cage. Poor little fellow! His golden feathers are all tarnished
in this smoky sunshine; he would have glistened twice as brightly among
the summer islands, but still he has become a citizen in all his tastes and
habits, and would not sing half so well without the uproar that drowns his
music. What a pity that he does not know how miserable he is! There is a
parrot, too, calling out, “Pretty Poll! Pretty Poll!” as we pass by. Foolish
bird, to be talking about her prettiness to strangers, especially as she is not a
pretty Poll, though gaudily dressed in green and yellow! If she had said
“Pretty Annie!” there would have been some sense in it. See that gray
squirrel at the door of the fruit-shop whirling round and round so merrily
within his wire wheel! Being condemned to the treadmill, he makes it an
amusement. Admirable philosophy!
Here comes a big, rough dog—a countryman’s dog—in search of his
master, smelling at everybody’s heels and touching little Annie’s hand with
his cold nose, but hurrying away, though she would fain have patted him.—
Success to your search, Fidelity!—And there sits a great yellow cat upon a
window-sill, a very corpulent and comfortable cat, gazing at this transitory
world with owl’s eyes, and making pithy comments, doubtless, or what
appear such, to the silly beast.—Oh, sage puss, make room for me beside
you, and we will be a pair of philosophers.

Here we see something to remind us of the town-crier and his ding-dong-
bell. Look! look at that great cloth spread out in the air, pictured all over
with wild beasts, as if they had met together to choose a king, according to
their custom in the days of Æsop. But they are choosing neither a king nor a
President, else we should hear a most horrible snarling! They have come
from the deep woods and the wild mountains and the desert sands and the
polar snows only to do homage to my little Annie. As we enter among them
the great elephant makes us a bow in the best style of elephantine courtesy,
bending lowly down his mountain bulk, with trunk abased and leg thrust out
behind. Annie returns the salute, much to the gratification of the elephant,
who is certainly the best-bred monster in the caravan. The lion and the
lioness are busy with two beef-bones. The royal tiger, the beautiful, the
untamable, keeps pacing his narrow cage with a haughty step, unmindful of
the spectators or recalling the fierce deeds of his former life, when he was
wont to leap forth upon such inferior animals from the jungles of Bengal.
Here we see the very same wolf—do not go near him, Annie!—the
selfsame wolf that devoured little Red Riding-Hood and her grandmother.
In the next cage a hyena from Egypt who has doubtless howled around the
pyramids and a black bear from our own forests are fellow-prisoners and
most excellent friends. Are there any two living creatures who have so few
sympathies that they cannot possibly be friends? Here sits a great white
bear whom common observers would call a very stupid beast, though I
perceive him to be only absorbed in contemplation; he is thinking of his
voyages on an iceberg, and of his comfortable home in the vicinity of the
north pole, and of the little cubs whom he left rolling in the eternal snows.
In fact, he is a bear of sentiment. But oh those unsentimental monkeys! The
ugly, grinning, aping, chattering, ill-natured, mischievous and queer little
brutes! Annie does not love the monkeys; their ugliness shocks her pure,
instinctive delicacy of taste and makes her mind unquiet because it bears a
wild and dark resemblance to humanity. But here is a little pony just big
enough for Annie to ride, and round and round he gallops in a circle,
keeping time with his trampling hoofs to a band of music. And here, with a
laced coat and a cocked hat, and a riding-whip in his hand—here comes a
little gentleman small enough to be king of the fairies and ugly enough to
be king of the gnomes, and takes a flying leap into the saddle. Merrily,
merrily plays the music, and merrily gallops the pony, and merrily rides the

little old gentleman.—Come, Annie, into the street again; perchance we
may see monkeys on horseback there.
Mercy on us! What a noisy world we quiet people live in! Did Annie ever
read the cries of London city? With what lusty lungs doth yonder man
proclaim that his wheelbarrow is full of lobsters! Here comes another,
mounted on a cart and blowing a hoarse and dreadful blast from a tin horn,
as much as to say, “Fresh fish!” And hark! a voice on high, like that of a
muezzin from the summit of a mosque, announcing that some chimney-
sweeper has emerged from smoke and soot and darksome caverns into the
upper air. What cares the world for that? But, well-a-day, we hear a shrill
voice of affliction—the scream of a little child, rising louder with every
repetition of that smart, sharp, slapping sound produced by an open hand on
tender flesh. Annie sympathizes, though without experience of such direful
woe.
Lo! the town-crier again, with some new secret for the public ear. Will he
tell us of an auction, or of a lost pocket-book or a show of beautiful wax
figures, or of some monstrous beast more horrible than any in the caravan?
I guess the latter. See how he uplifts the bell in his right hand and shakes it
slowly at first, then with a hurried motion, till the clapper seems to strike
both sides at once, and the sounds are scattered forth in quick succession far
and near.
Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!
Now he raises his clear loud voice above all the din of the town. It
drowns the buzzing talk of many tongues and draws each man’s mind from
his own business; it rolls up and down the echoing street, and ascends to the
hushed chamber of the sick, and penetrates downward to the cellar kitchen
where the hot cook turns from the fire to listen. Who of all that address the
public ear, whether in church or court-house or hall of state, has such an
attentive audience as the town-crier! What saith the people’s orator?
“Strayed from her home, a LITTLE GIRL of five years old, in a blue silk
frock and white pantalets, with brown curling hair and hazel eyes. Whoever
will bring her back to her afflicted mother—”
Stop, stop, town-crier! The lost is found.—Oh, my pretty Annie, we
forgot to tell your mother of our ramble, and she is in despair and has sent
the town-crier to bellow up and down the streets, affrighting old and young,
for the loss of a little girl who has not once let go my hand? Well, let us

hasten homeward; and as we go forget not to thank Heaven, my Annie, that
after wandering a little way into the world you may return at the first
summons with an untainted and unwearied heart, and be a happy child
again. But I have gone too far astray for the town-crier to call me back.
Sweet has been the charm of childhood on my spirit throughout my
ramble with little Annie. Say not that it has been a waste of precious
moments, an idle matter, a babble of childish talk and a reverie of childish
imaginations about topics unworthy of a grown man’s notice. Has it been
merely this? Not so—not so. They are not truly wise who would affirm it.
As the pure breath of children revives the life of aged men, so is our moral
nature revived by their free and simple thoughts, their native feeling, their
airy mirth for little cause or none, their grief soon roused and soon allayed.
Their influence on us is at least reciprocal with ours on them. When our
infancy is almost forgotten and our boyhood long departed, though it seems
but as yesterday, when life settles darkly down upon us and we doubt
whether to call ourselves young any more,—then it is good to steal away
from the society of bearded men, and even of gentler woman, and spend an
hour or two with children. After drinking from those fountains of still fresh
existence we shall return into the crowd, as I do now, to struggle onward
and do our part in life—perhaps as fervently as ever, but for a time with a
kinder and purer heart and a spirit more lightly wise. All this by thy sweet
magic, dear little Annie!

WAKEFIELD

In some old magazine or newspaper I recollect a story, told as truth, of a
man—let us call him Wakefield—who absented himself for a long time
from his wife. The fact, thus abstractedly stated, is not very uncommon, nor,
without a proper distinction of circumstances, to be condemned either as
naughty or nonsensical. Howbeit, this, though far from the most aggravated,
is perhaps the strangest instance on record of marital delinquency, and,
moreover, as remarkable a freak as may be found in the whole list of human
oddities. The wedded couple lived in London. The man, under pretence of
going a journey, took lodgings in the next street to his own house, and there,
unheard of by his wife or friends and without the shadow of a reason for
such self-banishment, dwelt upward of twenty years. During that period he
beheld his home every day, and frequently the forlorn Mrs. Wakefield. And
after so great a gap in his matrimonial felicity—when his death was
reckoned certain, his estate settled, his name dismissed from memory and
his wife long, long ago resigned to her autumnal widowhood—he entered
the door one evening quietly as from a day’s absence, and became a loving
spouse till death.
This outline is all that I remember. But the incident, though of the purest
originality, unexampled, and probably never to be repeated, is one, I think,
which appeals to the general sympathies of mankind. We know, each for
himself, that none of us would perpetrate such a folly, yet feel as if some
other might. To my own contemplations, at least, it has often recurred,
always exciting wonder, but with a sense that the story must be true and a
conception of its hero’s character. Whenever any subject so forcibly affects
the mind, time is well spent in thinking of it. If the reader choose, let him do
his own meditation; or if he prefer to ramble with me through the twenty
years of Wakefield’s vagary, I bid him welcome, trusting that there will be a
pervading spirit and a moral, even should we fail to find them, done up

neatly and condensed into the final sentence. Thought has always its
efficacy and every striking incident its moral.
What sort of a man was Wakefield? We are free to shape out our own
idea and call it by his name. He was now in the meridian of life; his
matrimonial affections, never violent, were sobered into a calm, habitual
sentiment; of all husbands, he was likely to be the most constant, because a
certain sluggishness would keep his heart at rest wherever it might be
placed. He was intellectual, but not actively so; his mind occupied itself in
long and lazy musings that tended to no purpose or had not vigor to attain
it; his thoughts were seldom so energetic as to seize hold of words.
Imagination, in the proper meaning of the term, made no part of
Wakefield’s gifts. With a cold but not depraved nor wandering heart, and a
mind never feverish with riotous thoughts nor perplexed with originality,
who could have anticipated that our friend would entitle himself to a
foremost place among the doers of eccentric deeds? Had his acquaintances
been asked who was the man in London the surest to perform nothing to-
day which should be remembered on the morrow, they would have thought
of Wakefield. Only the wife of his bosom might have hesitated. She,
without having analyzed his character, was partly aware of a quiet
selfishness that had rusted into his inactive mind; of a peculiar sort of
vanity, the most uneasy attribute about him; of a disposition to craft which
had seldom produced more positive effects than the keeping of petty secrets
hardly worth revealing; and, lastly, of what she called a little strangeness
sometimes in the good man. This latter quality is indefinable, and perhaps
non-existent.
Let us now imagine Wakefield bidding adieu to his wife. It is the dusk of
an October evening. His equipment is a drab greatcoat, a hat covered with
an oil-cloth, top-boots, an umbrella in one hand and a small portmanteau in
the other. He has informed Mrs. Wakefield that he is to take the night-coach
into the country. She would fain inquire the length of his journey, its object
and the probable time of his return, but, indulgent to his harmless love of
mystery, interrogates him only by a look. He tells her not to expect him
positively by the return-coach nor to be alarmed should he tarry three or
four days, but, at all events, to look for him at supper on Friday evening.
Wakefield, himself, be it considered, has no suspicion of what is before
him. He holds out his hand; she gives her own and meets his parting kiss in
the matter-of-course way of a ten years’ matrimony, and forth goes the

middle-aged Mr. Wakefield, almost resolved to perplex his good lady by a
whole week’s absence. After the door has closed behind him, she perceives
it thrust partly open and a vision of her husband’s face through the aperture,
smiling on her and gone in a moment. For the time this little incident is
dismissed without a thought, but long afterward, when she has been more
years a widow than a wife, that smile recurs and flickers across all her
reminiscences of Wakefield’s visage. In her many musings she surrounds
the original smile with a multitude of fantasies which make it strange and
awful; as, for instance, if she imagines him in a coffin, that parting look is
frozen on his pale features; or if she dreams of him in heaven, still his
blessed spirit wears a quiet and crafty smile. Yet for its sake, when all others
have given him up for dead, she sometimes doubts whether she is a widow.
But our business is with the husband. We must hurry after him along the
street ere he lose his individuality and melt into the great mass of London
life. It would be vain searching for him there. Let us follow close at his
heels, therefore, until, after several superfluous turns and doublings, we find
him comfortably established by the fireside of a small apartment previously
bespoken. He is in the next street to his own and at his journey’s end. He
can scarcely trust his good-fortune in having got thither unperceived,
recollecting that at one time he was delayed by the throng in the very focus
of a lighted lantern, and again there were footsteps that seemed to tread
behind his own, distinct from the multitudinous tramp around him, and
anon he heard a voice shouting afar and fancied that it called his name.
Doubtless a dozen busybodies had been watching him and told his wife the
whole affair.
Poor Wakefield! little knowest thou thine own insignificance in this great
world. No mortal eye but mine has traced thee. Go quietly to thy bed,
foolish man, and on the morrow, if thou wilt be wise, get thee home to good
Mrs. Wakefield and tell her the truth. Remove not thyself even for a little
week from thy place in her chaste bosom. Were she for a single moment to
deem thee dead or lost or lastingly divided from her, thou wouldst be
woefully conscious of a change in thy true wife for ever after. It is perilous
to make a chasm in human affections—not that they gape so long and wide,
but so quickly close again.
Almost repenting of his frolic, or whatever it may be termed, Wakefield
lies down betimes, and, starting from his first nap, spreads forth his arms

into the wide and solitary waste of the unaccustomed bed, “No,” thinks he,
gathering the bedclothes about him; “I will not sleep alone another night.”
In the morning he rises earlier than usual and sets himself to consider what
he really means to do. Such are his loose and rambling modes of thought
that he has taken this very singular step with the consciousness of a
purpose, indeed, but without being able to define it sufficiently for his own
contemplation. The vagueness of the project and the convulsive effort with
which he plunges into the execution of it are equally characteristic of a
feeble-minded man. Wakefield sifts his ideas, however, as minutely as he
may, and finds himself curious to know the progress of matters at home—
how his exemplary wife will endure her widowhood of a week, and, briefly,
how the little sphere of creatures and circumstances in which he was a
central object will be affected by his removal. A morbid vanity, therefore,
lies nearest the bottom of the affair. But how is he to attain his ends? Not,
certainly, by keeping close in this comfortable lodging, where, though he
slept and awoke in the next street to his home, he is as effectually abroad as
if the stage-coach had been whirling him away all night. Yet should he
reappear, the whole project is knocked in the head. His poor brains being
hopelessly puzzled with this dilemma, he at length ventures out, partly
resolving to cross the head of the street and send one hasty glance toward
his forsaken domicile. Habit—for he is a man of habits—takes him by the
hand and guides him, wholly unaware, to his own door, where, just at the
critical moment, he is aroused by the scraping of his foot upon the step.—
Wakefield, whither are you going?
At that instant his fate was turning on the pivot. Little dreaming of the
doom to which his first backward step devotes him, he hurries away,
breathless with agitation hitherto unfelt, and hardly dares turn his head at
the distant corner. Can it be that nobody caught sight of him? Will not the
whole household—the decent Mrs. Wakefield, the smart maid-servant and
the dirty little footboy—raise a hue-and-cry through London streets in
pursuit of their fugitive lord and master? Wonderful escape! He gathers
courage to pause and look homeward, but is perplexed with a sense of
change about the familiar edifice such as affects us all when, after a
separation of months or years, we again see some hill or lake or work of art
with which we were friends of old. In ordinary cases this indescribable
impression is caused by the comparison and contrast between our imperfect
reminiscences and the reality. In Wakefield the magic of a single night has

wrought a similar transformation, because in that brief period a great moral
change has been effected. But this is a secret from himself. Before leaving
the spot he catches a far and momentary glimpse of his wife passing athwart
the front window with her face turned toward the head of the street. The
crafty nincompoop takes to his heels, scared with the idea that among a
thousand such atoms of mortality her eye must have detected him. Right
glad is his heart, though his brain be somewhat dizzy, when he finds himself
by the coal-fire of his lodgings.
So much for the commencement of this long whim-wham. After the
initial conception and the stirring up of the man’s sluggish temperament to
put it in practice, the whole matter evolves itself in a natural train. We may
suppose him, as the result of deep deliberation, buying a new wig of reddish
hair and selecting sundry garments, in a fashion unlike his customary suit of
brown, from a Jew’s old-clothes bag. It is accomplished: Wakefield is
another man. The new system being now established, a retrograde
movement to the old would be almost as difficult as the step that placed him
in his unparalleled position. Furthermore, he is rendered obstinate by a
sulkiness occasionally incident to his temper and brought on at present by
the inadequate sensation which he conceives to have been produced in the
bosom of Mrs. Wakefield. He will not go back until she be frightened half
to death. Well, twice or thrice has she passed before his sight, each time
with a heavier step, a paler cheek and more anxious brow, and in the third
week of his non-appearance he detects a portent of evil entering the house
in the guise of an apothecary. Next day the knocker is muffled. Toward
nightfall comes the chariot of a physician and deposits its big-wigged and
solemn burden at Wakefield’s door, whence after a quarter of an hour’s visit
he emerges, perchance the herald of a funeral. Dear woman! will she die?
By this time Wakefield is excited to something like energy of feeling, but
still lingers away from his wife’s bedside, pleading with his conscience that
she must not be disturbed at such a juncture. If aught else restrains him, he
does not know it. In the course of a few weeks she gradually recovers. The
crisis is over; her heart is sad, perhaps, but quiet, and, let him return soon or
late, it will never be feverish for him again. Such ideas glimmer through the
mist of Wakefield’s mind and render him indistinctly conscious that an
almost impassable gulf divides his hired apartment from his former home.
“It is but in the next street,” he sometimes says. Fool! it is in another world.
Hitherto he has put off’ his return from one particular day to another;

henceforward he leaves the precise time undetermined—not to-morrow;
probably next week; pretty soon. Poor man! The dead have nearly as much
chance of revisiting their earthly homes as the self-banished Wakefield.
Would that I had a folio to write, instead of an article of a dozen pages!
Then might I exemplify how an influence beyond our control lays its strong
hand on every deed which we do and weaves its consequences into an iron
tissue of necessity.
Wakefield is spellbound. We must leave him for ten years or so to haunt
around his house without once crossing the threshold, and to be faithful to
his wife with all the affection of which his heart is capable, while he is
slowly fading out of hers. Long since, it must be remarked, he has lost the
perception of singularity in his conduct.
Now for a scene. Amid the throng of a London street we distinguish a
man, now waxing elderly, with few characteristics to attract careless
observers, yet bearing in his whole aspect the handwriting of no common
fate for such as have the skill to read it. He is meagre; his low and narrow
forehead is deeply wrinkled; his eyes, small and lustreless, sometimes
wander apprehensively about him, but oftener seem to look inward. He
bends his head and moves with an indescribable obliquity of gait, as if
unwilling to display his full front to the world. Watch him long enough to
see what we have described, and you will allow that circumstances—which
often produce remarkable men from Nature’s ordinary handiwork—have
produced one such here. Next, leaving him to sidle along the footwalk, cast
your eyes in the opposite direction, where a portly female considerably in
the wane of life, with a prayer-book in her hand, is proceeding to yonder
church. She has the placid mien of settled widowhood. Her regrets have
either died away or have become so essential to her heart that they would be
poorly exchanged for joy. Just as the lean man and well-conditioned woman
are passing a slight obstruction occurs and brings these two figures directly
in contact. Their hands touch; the pressure of the crowd forces her bosom
against his shoulder; they stand face to face, staring into each other’s eyes.
After a ten years’ separation thus Wakefield meets his wife. The throng
eddies away and carries them asunder. The sober widow, resuming her
former pace, proceeds to church, but pauses in the portal and throws a
perplexed glance along the street. She passes in, however, opening her
prayer-book as she goes.

And the man? With so wild a face that busy and selfish London stands to
gaze after him he hurries to his lodgings, bolts the door and throws himself
upon the bed. The latent feelings of years break out; his feeble mind
acquires a brief energy from their strength; all the miserable strangeness of
his life is revealed to him at a glance, and he cries out passionately,
“Wakefield, Wakefield! You are mad!” Perhaps he was so. The singularity
of his situation must have so moulded him to itself that, considered in
regard to his fellow-creatures and the business of life, he could not be said
to possess his right mind. He had contrived—or, rather, he had happened—
to dissever himself from the world, to vanish, to give up his place and
privileges with living men without being admitted among the dead. The life
of a hermit is nowise parallel to his. He was in the bustle of the city as of
old, but the crowd swept by and saw him not; he was, we may figuratively
say, always beside his wife and at his hearth, yet must never feel the
warmth of the one nor the affection of the other. It was Wakefield’s
unprecedented fate to retain his original share of human sympathies and to
be still involved in human interests, while he had lost his reciprocal
influence on them. It would be a most curious speculation to trace out the
effect of such circumstances on his heart and intellect separately and in
unison. Yet, changed as he was, he would seldom be conscious of it, but
deem himself the same man as ever; glimpses of the truth, indeed, would
come, but only for the moment, and still he would keep saying, “I shall
soon go back,” nor reflect that he had been saying so for twenty years.
I conceive, also, that these twenty years would appear in the retrospect
scarcely longer than the week to which Wakefield had at first limited his
absence. He would look on the affair as no more than an interlude in the
main business of his life. When, after a little while more, he should deem it
time to re-enter his parlor, his wife would clap her hands for joy on
beholding the middle-aged Mr. Wakefield. Alas, what a mistake! Would
Time but await the close of our favorite follies, we should be young men—
all of us—and till Doomsday.
One evening, in the twentieth year since he vanished, Wakefield is taking
his customary walk toward the dwelling which he still calls his own. It is a
gusty night of autumn, with frequent showers that patter down upon the
pavement and are gone before a man can put up his umbrella. Pausing near
the house, Wakefield discerns through the parlor-windows of the second
floor the red glow and the glimmer and fitful flash of a comfortable fire. On

the ceiling appears a grotesque shadow of good Mrs. Wakefield. The cap,
the nose and chin and the broad waist form an admirable caricature, which
dances, moreover, with the up-flickering and down-sinking blaze almost too
merrily for the shade of an elderly widow. At this instant a shower chances
to fall, and is driven by the unmannerly gust full into Wakefield’s face and
bosom. He is quite penetrated with its autumnal chill. Shall he stand wet
and shivering here, when his own hearth has a good fire to warm him and
his own wife will run to fetch the gray coat and small-clothes which
doubtless she has kept carefully in the closet of their bedchamber? No;
Wakefield is no such fool. He ascends the steps—heavily, for twenty years
have stiffened his legs since he came down, but he knows it not.—Stay,
Wakefield! Would you go to the sole home that is left you? Then step into
your grave.—The door opens. As he passes in we have a parting glimpse of
his visage, and recognize the crafty smile which was the precursor of the
little joke that he has ever since been playing off at his wife’s expense. How
unmercifully has he quizzed the poor woman! Well, a good night’s rest to
Wakefield!
This happy event—supposing it to be such—could only have occurred at
an unpremeditated moment. We will not follow our friend across the
threshold. He has left us much food for thought, a portion of which shall
lend its wisdom to a moral and be shaped into a figure. Amid the seeming
confusion of our mysterious world individuals are so nicely adjusted to a
system, and systems to one another and to a whole, that by stepping aside
for a moment a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place for
ever. Like Wakefield, he may become, as it were, the outcast of the
universe.

A RILL FROM THE TOWN-PUMP

(SCENE, the corner of two principal streets,[3] the TOWN-PUMP talking
through its nose.)
Noon by the north clock! Noon by the east! High noon, too, by these hot
sunbeams, which full, scarcely aslope, upon my head and almost make the
water bubble and smoke in the trough under my nose. Truly, we public
characters have a tough time of it! And among all the town-officers chosen
at March meeting, where is he that sustains for a single year the burden of
such manifold duties as are imposed in perpetuity upon the town-pump?
The title of “town-treasurer” is rightfully mine, as guardian of the best
treasure that the town has. The overseers of the poor ought to make me their
chairman, since I provide bountifully for the pauper without expense to him
that pays taxes. I am at the head of the fire department and one of the
physicians to the board of health. As a keeper of the peace all water-
drinkers will confess me equal to the constable. I perform some of the
duties of the town-clerk by promulgating public notices when they are
posted on my front. To speak within bounds, I am the chief person of the
municipality, and exhibit, moreover, an admirable pattern to my brother-
officers by the cool, steady, upright, downright and impartial discharge of
my business and the constancy with which I stand to my post. Summer or
winter, nobody seeks me in vain, for all day long I am seen at the busiest
corner, just above the market, stretching out my arms to rich and poor alike,
and at night I hold a lantern over my head both to show where I am and
keep people out of the gutters. At this sultry noontide I am cupbearer to the
parched populace, for whose benefit an iron goblet is chained to my waist.
Like a dramseller on the mall at muster-day, I cry aloud to all and sundry in
my plainest accents and at the very tiptop of my voice.
Here it is, gentlemen! Here is the good liquor! Walk up, walk up,
gentlemen! Walk up, walk up! Here is the superior stuff! Here is the
unadulterated ale of Father Adam—better than Cognac, Hollands, Jamaica,

strong beer or wine of any price; here it is by the hogshead or the single
glass, and not a cent to pay! Walk up, gentlemen, walk up, and help
yourselves!
It were a pity if all this outcry should draw no customers. Here they
come.—A hot day, gentlemen! Quaff and away again, so as to keep
yourselves in a nice cool sweat.—You, my friend, will need another cupful
to wash the dust out of your throat, if it be as thick there as it is on your
cowhide shoes. I see that you have trudged half a score of miles to-day, and
like a wise man have passed by the taverns and stopped at the running
brooks and well-curbs. Otherwise, betwixt heat without and fire within, you
would have been burnt to a cinder or melted down to nothing at all, in the
fashion of a jelly-fish. Drink and make room for that other fellow, who
seeks my aid to quench the fiery fever of last night’s potations, which he
drained from no cup of mine.—Welcome, most rubicund sir! You and I
have been great strangers hitherto; nor, to confess the truth, will my nose be
anxious for a closer intimacy till the fumes of your breath be a little less
potent. Mercy on you, man! the water absolutely hisses down your red-hot
gullet and is converted quite to steam in the miniature Tophet which you
mistake for a stomach. Fill again, and tell me, on the word of an honest
toper, did you ever, in cellar, tavern, or any kind of a dram-shop, spend the
price of your children’s food for a swig half so delicious? Now, for the first
time these ten years, you know the flavor of cold water. Good-bye; and
whenever you are thirsty, remember that I keep a constant supply at the old
stand.—Who next?—Oh, my little friend, you are let loose from school and
come hither to scrub your blooming face and drown the memory of certain
taps of the ferule, and other schoolboy troubles, in a draught from the town-
pump? Take it, pure as the current of your young life. Take it, and may your
heart and tongue never be scorched with a fiercer thirst than now! There,
my dear child! put down the cup and yield your place to this elderly
gentleman who treads so tenderly over the paving-stones that I suspect he is
afraid of breaking them. What! he limps by without so much as thanking
me, as if my hospitable offers were meant only for people who have no
wine-cellars.—Well, well, sir, no harm done, I hope? Go draw the cork, tip
the decanter; but when your great toe shall set you a-roaring, it will be no
affair of mine. If gentlemen love the pleasant titillation of the gout, it is all
one to the town-pump. This thirsty dog with his red tongue lolling out does
not scorn my hospitality, but stands on his hind legs and laps eagerly out of

the trough. See how lightly he capers away again!—Jowler, did your
worship ever have the gout?
Are you all satisfied? Then wipe your mouths, my good friends, and
while my spout has a moment’s leisure I will delight the town with a few
historical remniscences. In far antiquity, beneath a darksome shadow of
venerable boughs, a spring bubbled out of the leaf-strewn earth in the very
spot where you now behold me on the sunny pavement. The water was as
bright and clear and deemed as precious as liquid diamonds. The Indian
sagamores drank of it from time immemorial till the fatal deluge of the
firewater burst upon the red men and swept their whole race away from the
cold fountains. Endicott and his followers came next, and often knelt down
to drink, dipping their long beards in the spring. The richest goblet then was
of birch-bark. Governor Winthrop, after a journey afoot from Boston, drank
here out of the hollow of his hand. The elder Higginson here wet his palm
and laid it on the brow of the first town-born child. For many years it was
the watering-place, and, as it were, the washbowl, of the vicinity, whither
all decent folks resorted to purify their visages and gaze at them afterward
—at least, the pretty maidens did—in the mirror which it made. On
Sabbath-days, whenever a babe was to be baptized, the sexton filled his
basin here and placed it on the communion-table of the humble meeting-
house, which partly covered the site of yonder stately brick one. Thus one
generation after another was consecrated to Heaven by its waters, and cast
their waxing and waning shadows into its glassy bosom, and vanished from
the earth, as if mortal life were but a flitting image in a fountain. Finally the
fountain vanished also. Cellars were dug on all sides and cart-loads of
gravel flung upon its source, whence oozed a turbid stream, forming a mud-
puddle at the corner of two streets. In the hot months, when its refreshment
was most needed, the dust flew in clouds over the forgotten birthplace of
the waters, now their grave. But in the course of time a town-pump was
sunk into the source of the ancient spring; and when the first decayed,
another took its place, and then another, and still another, till here stand I,
gentlemen and ladies, to serve you with my iron goblet. Drink and be
refreshed. The water is as pure and cold as that which slaked the thirst of
the red sagamore beneath the aged boughs, though now the gem of the
wilderness is treasured under these hot stones, where no shadow falls but
from the brick buildings. And be it the moral of my story that, as this
wasted and long-lost fountain is now known and prized again, so shall the

virtues of cold water—too little valued since your fathers’ days—be
recognized by all.
Your pardon, good people! I must interrupt my stream of eloquence and
spout forth a stream of water to replenish the trough for this teamster and
his two yoke of oxen, who have come from Topsfield, or somewhere along
that way. No part of my business is pleasanter than the watering of cattle.
Look! how rapidly they lower the water-mark on the sides of the trough, till
their capacious stomachs are moistened with a gallon or two apiece and
they can afford time to breathe it in with sighs of calm enjoyment. Now
they roll their quiet eyes around the brim of their monstrous drinking-
vessel. An ox is your true toper.
But I perceive, my dear auditors, that you are impatient for the remainder
of my discourse. Impute it, I beseech you, to no defect of modesty if I insist
a little longer on so fruitful a topic as my own multifarious merits. It is
altogether for your good. The better you think of me, the better men and
women you will find yourselves. I shall say nothing of my all-important aid
on washing-days, though on that account alone I might call myself the
household god of a hundred families. Far be it from me, also, to hint, my
respectable friends, at the show of dirty faces which you would present
without my pains to keep you clean. Nor will I remind you how often, when
the midnight bells make you tremble for your combustible town, you have
fled to the town-pump and found me always at my post firm amid the
confusion and ready to drain my vital current in your behalf. Neither is it
worth while to lay much stress on my claims to a medical diploma as the
physician whose simple rule of practice is preferable to all the nauseous
lore which has found men sick, or left them so, since the days of
Hippocrates. Let us take a broader view of my beneficial influence on
mankind.
No; these are trifles, compared with the merits which wise men concede
to me—if not in my single self, yet as the representative of a class—of
being the grand reformer of the age. From my spout, and such spouts as
mine, must flow the stream that shall cleanse our earth of the vast portion of
its crime and anguish which has gushed from the fiery fountains of the still.
In this mighty enterprise the cow shall be my great confederate. Milk and
water—the TOWN-PUMP and the Cow! Such is the glorious copartnership
that shall tear down the distilleries and brewhouses, uproot the vineyards,

shatter the cider-presses, ruin the tea and coffee trade, and finally
monopolize the whole business of quenching thirst. Blessed consummation!
Then Poverty shall pass away from the land, finding no hovel so wretched
where her squalid form may shelter herself. Then Disease, for lack of other
victims, shall gnaw its own heart and die. Then Sin, if she do not die, shall
lose half her strength. Until now the frenzy of hereditary fever has raged in
the human blood, transmitted from sire to son and rekindled in every
generation by fresh draughts of liquid flame. When that inward fire shall be
extinguished, the heat of passion cannot but grow cool, and war—the
drunkenness of nations—perhaps will cease. At least, there will be no war
of households. The husband and wife, drinking deep of peaceful joy—a
calm bliss of temperate affections—shall pass hand in hand through life and
lie down not reluctantly at its protracted close. To them the past will be no
turmoil of mad dreams, nor the future an eternity of such moments as
follow the delirium of the drunkard. Their dead faces shall express what
their spirits were and are to be by a lingering smile of memory and hope.
Ahem! Dry work, this speechifying, especially to an unpractised orator. I
never conceived till now what toil the temperance lecturers undergo for my
sake; hereafter they shall have the business to themselves.—Do, some kind
Christian, pump a stroke or two, just to wet my whistle.—Thank you, sir!—
My dear hearers, when the world shall have been regenerated by my
instrumentality, you will collect your useless vats and liquor-casks into one
great pile and make a bonfire in honor of the town-pump. And when I shall
have decayed like my predecessors, then, if you revere my memory, let a
marble fountain richly sculptured take my place upon this spot. Such
monuments should be erected everywhere and inscribed with the names of
the distinguished champions of my cause. Now, listen, for something very
important is to come next.
There are two or three honest friends of mine—and true friends I know
they are—who nevertheless by their fiery pugnacity in my behalf do put me
in fearful hazard of a broken nose, or even a total overthrow upon the
pavement and the loss of the treasure which I guard.—I pray you,
gentlemen, let this fault be amended. Is it decent, think you, to get tipsy
with zeal for temperance and take up the honorable cause of the town-pump
in the style of a toper fighting for his brandy-bottle? Or can the excellent
qualities of cold water be no otherwise exemplified than by plunging
slapdash into hot water and woefully scalding yourselves and other people?

Trust me, they may. In the moral warfare which you are to wage—and,
indeed, in the whole conduct of your lives—you cannot choose a better
example than myself, who have never permitted the dust and sultry
atmosphere, the turbulence and manifold disquietudes, of the world around
me to reach that deep, calm well of purity which may be called my soul.
And whenever I pour out that soul, it is to cool earth’s fever or cleanse its
stains.
One o’clock! Nay, then, if the dinner-bell begins to speak, I may as well
hold my peace. Here comes a pretty young girl of my acquaintance with a
large stone pitcher for me to fill. May she draw a husband while drawing
her water, as Rachel did of old!—Hold out your vessel, my dear! There it is,
full to the brim; so now run home, peeping at your sweet image in the
pitcher as you go, and forget not in a glass of my own liquor to drink
“SUCCESS TO THE TOWN-PUMP.”

[4]
THE GREAT CARBUNCLE

A MYSTERY OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS
At nightfall once in the olden time, on the rugged side of one of the
Crystal Hills, a party of adventurers were refreshing themselves after a
toilsome and fruitless quest for the Great Carbuncle. They had come thither,
not as friends nor partners in the enterprise, but each, save one youthful
pair, impelled by his own selfish and solitary longing for this wondrous
gem. Their feeling of brotherhood, however, was strong enough to induce
them to contribute a mutual aid in building a rude hut of branches and
kindling a great fire of shattered pines that had drifted down the headlong
current of the Amonoosuck, on the lower bank of which they were to pass
the night. There was but one of their number, perhaps, who had become so
estranged from natural sympathies by the absorbing spell of the pursuit as
to acknowledge no satisfaction at the sight of human faces in the remote
and solitary region whither they had ascended. A vast extent of wilderness
lay between them and the nearest settlement, while scant a mile above their
heads was that bleak verge where the hills throw off their shaggy mantle of
forest-trees and either robe themselves in clouds or tower naked into the
sky. The roar of the Amonoosuck would have been too awful for endurance
if only a solitary man had listened while the mountain-stream talked with
the wind.
The adventurers, therefore, exchanged hospitable greetings and
welcomed one another to the hut where each man was the host and all were
the guests of the whole company. They spread their individual supplies of
food on the flat surface of a rock and partook of a general repast; at the
close of which a sentiment of good-fellowship was perceptible among the
party, though repressed by the idea that the renewed search for the Great
Carbuncle must make them strangers again in the morning. Seven men and
one young woman, they warmed themselves together at the fire, which

extended its bright wall along the whole front of their wigwam. As they
observed the various and contrasted figures that made up the assemblage,
each man looking like a caricature of himself in the unsteady light that
flickered over him, they came mutually to the conclusion that an odder
society had never met in city or wilderness, on mountain or plain.
The eldest of the group—a tall, lean, weatherbeaten man some sixty
years of age—was clad in the skins of wild animals whose fashion of dress
he did well to imitate, since the deer, the wolf and the bear had long been
his most intimate companions. He was one of those ill-fated mortals, such
as the Indians told of, whom in their early youth the Great Carbuncle smote
with a peculiar madness and became the passionate dream of their
existence. All who visited that region knew him as “the Seeker,” and by no
other name. As none could remember when he first took up the search, there
went a fable in the valley of the Saco that for his inordinate lust after the
Great Carbuncle he had been condemned to wander among the mountains
till the end of time, still with the same feverish hopes at sunrise, the same
despair at eve. Near this miserable Seeker sat a little elderly personage
wearing a high-crowned hat shaped somewhat like a crucible. He was from
beyond the sea—a Doctor Cacaphodel, who had wilted and dried himself
into a mummy by continually stooping over charcoal-furnaces and inhaling
unwholesome fumes during his researches in chemistry and alchemy. It was
told of him—whether truly or not—that at the commencement of his studies
he had drained his body of all its richest blood and wasted it, with other
inestimable ingredients, in an unsuccessful experiment, and had never been
a well man since. Another of the adventurers was Master Ichabod Pigsnort,
a weighty merchant and selectman of Boston, and an elder of the famous
Mr. Norton’s church. His enemies had a ridiculous story that Master
Pigsnort was accustomed to spend a whole hour after prayer-time every
morning and evening in wallowing naked among an immense quantity of
pine-tree shillings, which were the earliest silver coinage of Massachusetts.
The fourth whom we shall notice had no name that his companions knew
of, and was chiefly distinguished by a sneer that always contorted his thin
visage, and by a prodigious pair of spectacles which were supposed to
deform and discolor the whole face of nature to this gentleman’s perception.
The fifth adventurer likewise lacked a name, which was the greater pity, as
he appeared to be a poet. He was a bright-eyed man, but woefully pined
away, which was no more than natural if, as some people affirmed, his

ordinary diet was fog, morning mist and a slice of the densest cloud within
his reach, sauced with moonshine whenever he could get it. Certain it is that
the poetry which flowed from him had a smack of all these dainties. The
sixth of the party was a young man of haughty mien and sat somewhat apart
from the rest, wearing his plumed hat loftily among his elders, while the fire
glittered on the rich embroidery of his dress and gleamed intensely on the
jewelled pommel of his sword. This was the lord De Vere, who when at
home was said to spend much of his time in the burial-vault of his dead
progenitors rummaging their mouldy coffins in search of all the earthly
pride and vainglory that was hidden among bones and dust; so that, besides
his own share, he had the collected haughtiness of his whole line of
ancestry. Lastly, there was a handsome youth in rustic garb, and by his side
a blooming little person in whom a delicate shade of maiden reserve was
just melting into the rich glow of a young wife’s affection. Her name was
Hannah, and her husband’s Matthew—two homely names, yet well enough
adapted to the simple pair who seemed strangely out of place among the
whimsical fraternity whose wits had been set agog by the Great Carbuncle.
Beneath the shelter of one hut, in the bright blaze of the same fire, sat this
varied group of adventurers, all so intent upon a single object that of
whatever else they began to speak their closing words were sure to be
illuminated with the Great Carbuncle. Several related the circumstances that
brought them thither. One had listened to a traveller’s tale of this
marvellous stone in his own distant country, and had immediately been
seized with such a thirst for beholding it as could only be quenched in its
intensest lustre. Another, so long ago as when the famous Captain Smith
visited these coasts, had seen it blazing far at sea, and had felt no rest in all
the intervening years till now that he took up the search. A third, being
encamped on a hunting-expedition full forty miles south of the White
Mountains, awoke at midnight and beheld the Great Carbuncle gleaming
like a meteor, so that the shadows of the trees fell backward from it. They
spoke of the innumerable attempts which had been made to reach the spot,
and of the singular fatality which had hitherto withheld success from all
adventurers, though it might seem so easy to follow to its source a light that
overpowered the moon and almost matched the sun. It was observable that
each smiled scornfully at the madness of every other in anticipating better
fortune than the past, yet nourished a scarcely-hidden conviction that he
would himself be the favored one. As if to allay their too sanguine hopes,

they recurred to the Indian traditions that a spirit kept watch about the gem
and bewildered those who sought it either by removing it from peak to peak
of the higher hills or by calling up a mist from the enchanted lake over
which it hung. But these tales were deemed unworthy of credit, all
professing to believe that the search had been baffled by want of sagacity or
perseverance in the adventurers, or such other causes as might naturally
obstruct the passage to any given point among the intricacies of forest,
valley and mountain.
In a pause of the conversation the wearer of the prodigious spectacles
looked round upon the party, making each individual in turn the object of
the sneer which invariably dwelt upon his countenance.
“So, fellow-pilgrims,” said he, “here we are, seven wise men and one fair
damsel, who doubtless is as wise as any graybeard of the company. Here we
are, I say, all bound on the same goodly enterprise. Methinks, now, it were
not amiss that each of us declare what he proposes to do with the Great
Carbuncle, provided he have the good hap to clutch it.—What says our
friend in the bearskin? How mean you, good sir, to enjoy the prize which
you have been seeking the Lord knows how long among the Crystal Hills?”
“How enjoy it!” exclaimed the aged Seeker, bitterly. “I hope for no
enjoyment from it--that folly has past, long ago! I keep up the search for
this accursed stone, because the vain ambition of my youth has become a
fate upon me, in old age. The pursuit alone is my strength--the energy of my
soul--the warmth of my blood, and the pith and marrow of my bones! Were
I to turn my back upon it, I should fall down dead, on the hither side of the
Notch, which is the gate-way of this mountain region. Yet, not to have my
wasted life time back again, would I give up my hopes of the Great
Carbuncle! Having found it, I shall bear it to a certain cavern that I wot of,
and there, grasping it in my arms, lie down and die, and keep it buried with
me for ever.”
“Oh, wretch, regardless of the interests of science!” cried Doctor
Cacaphodel, with philosophic indignation. “Thou art not worthy to behold,
even from afar off, the lustre of this most precious gem that ever was
concocted in the laboratory of Nature. Mine is the sole purpose for which a
wise man may desire the possession of the Great Carbuncle. Immediately
on obtaining it--for I have a presentiment, good people, that the prize is
reserved to crown my scientific reputation--I shall return to Europe, and

employ my remaining years in reducing it to its first elements. A portion of
the stone will I grind to impalpable powder; other parts shall be dissolved in
acids, or whatever solvents will act upon so admirable a composition; and
the remainder I design to melt in the crucible, or set on fire with the blow-
pipe. By these various methods, I shall gain an accurate analysis, and finally
bestow the result of my labours upon the world, in a folio volume.”
“Excellent!” quoth the man with the spectacles. “Nor need you hesitate,
learned Sir, on account of the necessary destruction of the gem; since the
perusal of your folio may teach every mother’s son of us to concoct a Great
Carbuncle of his own.”
“But, verily,” said Master Ichabod Pigsnort, “for mine own part, I object
to the making of these counterfeits, as being calculated to reduce the
marketable value of the true gem. I tell ye frankly, Sirs, I have an interest in
keeping up the price. Here have I quitted my regular traffic, leaving my
warehouse in the care of my clerks, and putting my credit to great hazard,
and furthermore, have put myself to peril of death or captivity by the
accursed heathen savages--and all this without daring to ask the prayers of
the congregation, because the quest for the Great Carbuncle is deemed little
better than a traffic with the evil one. Now think ye that I would have done
this grievous wrong to my soul, body, reputation and estate, without a
reasonable chance of profit?”
“Not I, pious Master Pigsnort,” said the man with the spectacles. “I never
laid such a great folly to thy charge.”
“Truly, I hope not,” said the merchant. “Now, as touching this Great
Carbuncle, I am free to own that I have never had a glimpse of it, but, be it
only the hundredth part so bright as people tell, it will surely outvalue the
Great Mogul’s best diamond, which he holds at an incalculable sum;
wherefore I am minded to put the Great Carbuncle on shipboard and voyage
with it to England, France, Spain, Italy, or into heathendom if Providence
should send me thither, and, in a word, dispose of the gem to the best bidder
among the potentates of the earth, that he may place it among his crown-
jewels. If any of ye have a wiser plan, let him expound it.”
“That have I, thou sordid man!” exclaimed the poet. “Dost thou desire
nothing brighter than gold, that thou wouldst transmute all this ethereal
lustre into such dross as thou wallowest in already? For myself, hiding the
jewel under my cloak, I shall hie me back to my attic-chamber in one of the

darksome alleys of London. There night and day will I gaze upon it. My
soul shall drink its radiance; it shall be diffused throughout my intellectual
powers and gleam brightly in every line of poesy that I indite. Thus long
ages after I am gone the splendor of the Great Carbuncle will blaze around
my name.”
“Well said, Master Poet!” cried he of the spectacles. “Hide it under thy
cloak, sayest thou? Why, it will gleam through the holes and make thee look
like a jack-o’-lantern!”
“To think,” ejaculated the lord De Vere, rather to himself than his
companions, the best of whom he held utterly unworthy of his intercourse
—“to think that a fellow in a tattered cloak should talk of conveying the
Great Carbuncle to a garret in Grubb street! Have not I resolved within
myself that the whole earth contains no fitter ornament for the great hall of
my ancestral castle? There shall it flame for ages, making a noonday of
midnight, glittering on the suits of armor, the banners and escutcheons, that
hang around the wall, and keeping bright the memory of heroes. Wherefore
have all other adventurers sought the prize in vain but that I might win it
and make it a symbol of the glories of our lofty line? And never on the
diadem of the White Mountains did the Great Carbuncle hold a place half
so honored as is reserved for it in the hall of the De Veres.”
“It is a noble thought,” said the cynic, with an obsequious sneer. “Yet,
might I presume to say so, the gem would make a rare sepulchral lamp, and
would display the glories of Your Lordship’s progenitors more truly in the
ancestral vault than in the castle-hall.”
“Nay, forsooth,” observed Matthew, the young rustic, who sat hand in
hand with his bride, “the gentleman has bethought himself of a profitable
use for this bright stone. Hannah here and I are seeking it for a like
purpose.”
“How, fellow?” exclaimed His Lordship, in surprise. “What castle-hall
hast thou to hang it in?”
“No castle,” replied Matthew, “but as neat a cottage as any within sight
of the Crystal Hills. Ye must know, friends, that Hannah and I, being
wedded the last week, have taken up the search of the Great Carbuncle
because we shall need its light in the long winter evenings and it will be
such a pretty thing to show the neighbors when they visit us! It will shine
through the house, so that we may pick up a pin in any corner, and will set

all the windows a-glowing as if there were a great fire of pine-knots in the
chimney. And then how pleasant, when we awake in the night, to be able to
see one another’s faces!”
There was a general smile among the adventurers at the simplicity of the
young couple’s project in regard to this wondrous and invaluable stone,
with which the greatest monarch on earth might have been proud to adorn
his palace. Especially the man with spectacles, who had sneered at all the
company in turn, now twisted his visage into such an expression of ill-
natured mirth that Matthew asked him rather peevishly what he himself
meant to do with the Great Carbuncle.
“The Great Carbuncle!” answered the cynic, with ineffable scorn. “Why,
you blockhead, there is no such thing in rerum naturâ. I have come three
thousand miles, and am resolved to set my foot on every peak of these
mountains and poke my head into every chasm for the sole purpose of
demonstrating to the satisfaction of any man one whit less an ass than
thyself that the Great Carbuncle is all a humbug.”
Vain and foolish were the motives that had brought most of the
adventurers to the Crystal Hills, but none so vain, so foolish, and so
impious too, as that of the scoffer with the prodigious spectacles. He was
one of those wretched and evil men whose yearnings are downward to the
darkness instead of heavenward, and who, could they but extinguish the
lights which God hath kindled for us, would count the midnight gloom their
chiefest glory.
As the cynic spoke several of the party were startled by a gleam of red
splendor that showed the huge shapes of the surrounding mountains and the
rock-bestrewn bed of the turbulent river, with an illumination unlike that of
their fire, on the trunks and black boughs of the forest-trees. They listened
for the roll of thunder, but heard nothing, and were glad that the tempest
came not near them. The stars—those dial-points of heaven—now warned
the adventurers to close their eyes on the blazing logs and open them in
dreams to the glow of the Great Carbuncle.
The young married couple had taken their lodgings in the farthest corner
of the wigwam, and were separated from the rest of the party by a curtain of
curiously-woven twigs such as might have hung in deep festoons around the
bridal-bower of Eve. The modest little wife had wrought this piece of
tapestry while the other guests were talking. She and her husband fell asleep

with hands tenderly clasped, and awoke from visions of unearthly radiance
to meet the more blessed light of one another’s eyes. They awoke at the
same instant and with one happy smile beaming over their two faces, which
grew brighter with their consciousness of the reality of life and love. But no
sooner did she recollect where they were than the bride peeped through the
interstices of the leafy curtain and saw that the outer room of the hut was
deserted.
“Up, dear Matthew!” cried she, in haste. “The strange folk are all gone.
Up this very minute, or we shall lose the Great Carbuncle!”
In truth, so little did these poor young people deserve the mighty prize
which had lured them thither that they had slept peacefully all night and till
the summits of the hills were glittering with sunshine, while the other
adventurers had tossed their limbs in feverish wakefulness or dreamed of
climbing precipices, and set off to realize their dreams with the curliest
peep of dawn. But Matthew and Hannah after their calm rest were as light
as two young deer, and merely stopped to say their prayers and wash
themselves in a cold pool of the Amonoosuck, and then to taste a morsel of
food ere they turned their faces to the mountain-side. It was a sweet
emblem of conjugal affection as they toiled up the difficult ascent gathering
strength from the mutual aid which they afforded.
After several little accidents, such as a torn robe, a lost shoe and the
entanglement of Hannah’s hair in a bough, they reached the upper verge of
the forest and were now to pursue a more adventurous course. The
innumerable trunks and heavy foliage of the trees had hitherto shut in their
thoughts, which now shrank affrighted from the region of wind and cloud
and naked rocks and desolate sunshine that rose immeasurably above them.
They gazed back at the obscure wilderness which they had traversed, and
longed to be buried again in its depths rather than trust themselves to so
vast and visible a solitude.
“Shall we go on?” said Matthew, throwing his arm round Hannah’s waist
both to protect her and to comfort his heart by drawing her close to it.
But the little bride, simple as she was, had a woman’s love of jewels, and
could not forego the hope of possessing the very brightest in the world, in
spite of the perils with which it must be won.
“Let us climb a little higher,” whispered she, yet tremulously, as she
turned her face upward to the lonely sky.

“Come, then,” said Matthew, mustering his manly courage and drawing
her along with him; for she became timid again the moment that he grew
bold.
And upward, accordingly, went the pilgrims of the Great Carbuncle, now
treading upon the tops and thickly-interwoven branches of dwarf pines
which by the growth of centuries, though mossy with age, had barely
reached three feet in altitude. Next they came to masses and fragments of
naked rock heaped confusedly together like a cairn reared by giants in
memory of a giant chief. In this bleak realm of upper air nothing breathed,
nothing grew; there was no life but what was concentred in their two hearts;
they had climbed so high that Nature herself seemed no longer to keep them
company. She lingered beneath them within the verge of the forest-trees,
and sent a farewell glance after her children as they strayed where her own
green footprints had never been. But soon they were to be hidden from her
eye. Densely and dark the mists began to gather below, casting black spots
of shadow on the vast landscape and sailing heavily to one centre, as if the
loftiest mountain-peak had summoned a council of its kindred clouds.
Finally the vapors welded themselves, as it were, into a mass, presenting the
appearance of a pavement over which the wanderers might have trodden,
but where they would vainly have sought an avenue to the blessed earth
which they had lost. And the lovers yearned to behold that green earth again
—more intensely, alas! than beneath a clouded sky they had ever desired a
glimpse of heaven. They even felt it a relief to their desolation when the
mists, creeping gradually up the mountain, concealed its lonely peak, and
thus annihilated—at least, for them—the whole region of visible space. But
they drew closer together with a fond and melancholy gaze, dreading lest
the universal cloud should snatch them from each other’s sight. Still,
perhaps, they would have been resolute to climb as far and as high between
earth and heaven as they could find foothold if Hannah’s strength had not
begun to fail, and with that her courage also. Her breath grew short. She
refused to burden her husband with her weight, but often tottered against his
side, and recovered herself each time by a feebler effort. At last she sank
down on one of the rocky steps of the acclivity.
“We are lost, dear Matthew,” said she, mournfully; “we shall never find
our way to the earth again. And oh how happy we might have been in our
cottage!”

“Dear heart, we will yet be happy there,” answered Matthew. “Look! In
this direction the sunshine penetrates the dismal mist; by its aid I can direct
our course to the passage of the Notch. Let us go back, love, and dream no
more of the Great Carbuncle.”
“The sun cannot be yonder,” said Hannah, with despondence. “By this
time it must be noon; if there could ever be any sunshine here, it would
come from above our heads.”
“But look!” repeated Matthew, in a somewhat altered tone. “It is
brightening every moment. If not sunshine, what can it be?”
Nor could the young bride any longer deny that a radiance was breaking
through the mist and changing its dim hue to a dusky red, which continually
grew more vivid, as if brilliant particles were interfused with the gloom.
Now, also, the cloud began to roll away from the mountain, while, as it
heavily withdrew, one object after another started out of its impenetrable
obscurity into sight with precisely the effect of a new creation before the
indistinctness of the old chaos had been completely swallowed up. As the
process went on they saw the gleaming of water close at their feet, and
found themselves on the very border of a mountain-lake, deep, bright, clear
and calmly beautiful, spreading from brim to brim of a basin that had been
scooped out of the solid rock. A ray of glory flashed across its surface. The
pilgrims looked whence it should proceed, but closed their eyes, with a
thrill of awful admiration, to exclude the fervid splendor that glowed from
the brow of a cliff impending over the enchanted lake.
For the simple pair had reached that lake of mystery and found the long-
sought shrine of the Great Carbuncle. They threw their arms around each
other and trembled at their own success, for as the legends of this wondrous
gem rushed thick upon their memory they felt themselves marked out by
fate, and the consciousness was fearful. Often from childhood upward they
had seen it shining like a distant star, and now that star was throwing its
intensest lustre on their hearts. They seemed changed to one another’s eyes
in the red brilliancy that flamed upon their cheeks, while it lent the same
fire to the lake, the rocks and sky, and to the mists which had rolled back
before its power. But with their next glance they beheld an object that drew
their attention even from the mighty stone. At the base of the cliff, directly
beneath the Great Carbuncle, appeared the figure of a man with his arms

extended in the act of climbing and his face turned upward as if to drink the
full gush of splendor. But he stirred not, no more than if changed to marble.
“It is the Seeker,” whispered Hannah, convulsively grasping her
husband’s arm. “Matthew, he is dead.”
“The joy of success has killed him,” replied Matthew, trembling
violently. “Or perhaps the very light of the Great Carbuncle was death.”
“‘The Great Carbuncle’!” cried a peevish voice behind them. “The great
humbug! If you have found it, prithee point it out to me.”
They turned their heads, and there was the cynic with his prodigious
spectacles set carefully on his nose, staring now at the lake, now at the
rocks, now at the distant masses of vapor, now right at the Great Carbuncle
itself, yet seemingly as unconscious of its light as if all the scattered clouds
were condensed about his person. Though its radiance actually threw the
shadow of the unbeliever at his own feet as he turned his back upon the
glorious jewel, he would not be convinced that there was the least glimmer
there.
“Where is your great humbug?” he repeated. “I challenge you to make
me see it.”
“There!” said Matthew, incensed at such perverse blindness, and turning
the cynic round toward the illuminated cliff. “Take off those abominable
spectacles, and you cannot help seeing it.”
Now, these colored spectacles probably darkened the cynic’s sight in at
least as great a degree as the smoked glasses through which people gaze at
an eclipse. With resolute bravado, however, he snatched them from his nose
and fixed a bold stare full upon the ruddy blaze of the Great Carbuncle. But
scarcely had he encountered it when, with a deep, shuddering groan, he
dropped his head and pressed both hands across his miserable eyes.
Thenceforth there was in very truth no light of the Great Carbuncle, nor any
other light on earth, nor light of heaven itself, for the poor cynic. So long
accustomed to view all objects through a medium that deprived them of
every glimpse of brightness, a single flash of so glorious a phenomenon,
striking upon his naked vision, had blinded him for ever.
“Matthew,” said Hannah, clinging to him, “let us go hence.”
Matthew saw that she was faint, and, kneeling down, supported her in his
arms while he threw some of the thrillingly-cold water of the enchanted

lake upon her face and bosom. It revived her, but could not renovate her
courage.
“Yes, dearest,” cried Matthew, pressing her tremulous form to his breast;
“we will go hence and return to our humble cottage. The blessed sunshine
and the quiet moonlight shall come through our window. We will kindle the
cheerful glow of our hearth at eventide and be happy in its light. But never
again will we desire more light than all the world may share with us.”
“No,” said his bride, “for how could we live by day or sleep by night in
this awful blaze of the Great Carbuncle?”
Out of the hollow of their hands they drank each a draught from the lake,
which presented them its waters uncontaminated by an earthly lip. Then,
lending their guidance to the blinded cynic, who uttered not a word, and
even stifled his groans in his own most wretched heart, they began to
descend the mountain. Yet as they left the shore, till then untrodden, of the
spirit’s lake, they threw a farewell glance toward the cliff and beheld the
vapors gathering in dense volumes, through which the gem burned duskily.
As touching the other pilgrims of the Great Carbuncle, the legend goes
on to tell that the worshipful Master Ichabod Pigsnort soon gave up the
quest as a desperate speculation, and wisely resolved to betake himself
again to his warehouse, near the town-dock, in Boston. But as he passed
through the Notch of the mountains a war-party of Indians captured our
unlucky merchant and carried him to Montreal, there holding him in
bondage till by the payment of a heavy ransom he had woefully subtracted
from his hoard of pine-tree shillings. By his long absence, moreover, his
affairs had become so disordered that for the rest of his life, instead of
wallowing in silver, he had seldom a sixpence-worth of copper. Doctor
Cacaphodel, the alchemist, returned to his laboratory with a prodigious
fragment of granite, which he ground to powder, dissolved in acids, melted
in the crucible and burnt with the blowpipe, and published the result of his
experiments in one of the heaviest folios of the day. And for all these
purposes the gem itself could not have answered better than the granite. The
poet, by a somewhat similar mistake, made prize of a great piece of ice
which he found in a sunless chasm of the mountains, and swore that it
corresponded in all points with his idea of the Great Carbuncle. The critics
say that, if his poetry lacked the splendor of the gem, it retained all the
coldness of the ice. The lord De Vere went back to his ancestral hall, where

he contented himself with a wax-lighted chandelier, and filled in due course
of time another coffin in the ancestral vault. As the funeral torches gleamed
within that dark receptacle, there was no need of the Great Carbuncle to
show the vanity of earthly pomp.
The cynic, having cast aside his spectacles, wandered about the world a
miserable object, and was punished with an agonizing desire of light for the
wilful blindness of his former life. The whole night long he would lift his
splendor-blasted orbs to the moon and stars; he turned his face eastward at
sunrise as duly as a Persian idolater; he made a pilgrimage to Rome to
witness the magnificent illumination of Saint Peter’s church, and finally
perished in the Great Fire of London, into the midst of which he had thrust
himself with the desperate idea of catching one feeble ray from the blaze
that was kindling earth and heaven.
Matthew and his bride spent many peaceful years and were fond of
telling the legend of the Great Carbuncle. The tale, however, toward the
close of their lengthened lives, did not meet with the full credence that had
been accorded to it by those who remembered the ancient lustre of the gem.
For it is affirmed that from the hour when two mortals had shown
themselves so simply wise as to reject a jewel which would have dimmed
all earthly things its splendor waned. When our pilgrims reached the cliff,
they found only an opaque stone with particles of mica glittering on its
surface. There is also a tradition that as the youthful pair departed the gem
was loosened from the forehead of the cliff and fell into the enchanted lake,
and that at noontide the Seeker’s form may still be seen to bend over its
quenchless gleam.
Some few believe that this inestimable stone is blazing as of old, and say
that they have caught its radiance, like a flash of summer lightning, far
down the valley of the Saco. And be it owned that many a mile from the
Crystal Hills I saw a wondrous light around their summits, and was lured by
the faith of poesy to be the latest pilgrim of the Great Carbuncle.

[5]
THE PROPHETIC PICTURES

“But this painter!” cried Walter Ludlow, with animation. “He not only
excels in his peculiar art, but possesses vast acquirements in all other
learning and science. He talks Hebrew with Dr. Mather and gives lectures in
anatomy to Dr. Boylston. In a word, he will meet the best-instructed man
among us on his own ground. Moreover, he is a polished gentleman, a
citizen of the world—yes, a true cosmopolite; for he will speak like a native
of each clime and country on the globe, except our own forests, whither he
is now going. Nor is all this what I most admire in him.”
“Indeed!” said Elinor, who had listened with a women’s interest to the
description of such a man. “Yet this is admirable enough.”
“Surely it is,” replied her lover, “but far less so than his natural gift of
adapting himself to every variety of character, insomuch that all men—and
all women too, Elinor—shall find a mirror of themselves in this wonderful
painter. But the greatest wonder is yet to be told.”
“Nay, if he have more wonderful attributes than these,” said Elinor,
laughing, “Boston is a perilous abode for the poor gentleman. Are you
telling me of a painter, or a wizard?”
“In truth,” answered he, “that question might be asked much more
seriously than you suppose. They say that he paints not merely a man’s
features, but his mind and heart. He catches the secret sentiments and
passions and throws them upon the canvas like sunshine, or perhaps, in the
portraits of dark-souled men, like a gleam of infernal fire. It is an awful
gift,” added Walter, lowering his voice from its tone of enthusiasm. “I shall
be almost afraid to sit to him.”
“Walter, are you in earnest?” exclaimed Elinor.
“For Heaven’s sake, dearest Elinor, do not let him paint the look which
you now wear,” said her lover, smiling, though rather perplexed. “There! it

is passing away now; but when you spoke, you seemed frightened to death,
and very sad besides. What were you thinking of?”
“Nothing, nothing!” answered Elinor, hastily. “You paint my face with
your own fantasies. Well, come for me tomorrow, and we will visit this
wonderful artist.”
But when the young man had departed, it cannot be denied that a
remarkable expression was again visible on the fair and youthful face of his
mistress. It was a sad and anxious look, little in accordance with what
should have been the feelings of a maiden on the eve of wedlock. Yet
Walter Ludlow was the chosen of her heart.
“A look!” said Elinor to herself. “No wonder that it startled him if it
expressed what I sometimes feel. I know by my own experience how
frightful a look may be. But it was all fancy. I thought nothing of it at the
time; I have seen nothing of it since; I did but dream it;” and she busied
herself about the embroidery of a ruff in which she meant that her portrait
should be taken.
The painter of whom they had been speaking was not one of those native
artists who at a later period than this borrowed their colors from the Indians
and manufactured their pencils of the furs of wild beasts. Perhaps, if he
could have revoked his life and prearranged his destiny, he might have
chosen to belong to that school without a master in the hope of being at
least original, since there were no works of art to imitate nor rules to follow.
But he had been born and educated in Europe. People said that he had
studied the grandeur or beauty of conception and every touch of the master-
hand in all the most famous pictures in cabinets and galleries and on the
walls of churches till there was nothing more for his powerful mind to
learn. Art could add nothing to its lessons, but Nature might. He had,
therefore, visited a world whither none of his professional brethren had
preceded him, to feast his eyes on visible images that were noble and
picturesque, yet had never been transferred to canvas. America was too poor
to afford other temptations to an artist of eminence, though many of the
colonial gentry on the painter’s arrival had expressed a wish to transmit
their lineaments to posterity by moans of his skill. Whenever such proposals
were made, he fixed his piercing eyes on the applicant and seemed to look
him through and through. If he beheld only a sleek and comfortable visage,
though there were a gold-laced coat to adorn the picture and golden guineas

to pay for it, he civilly rejected the task and the reward; but if the face were
the index of anything uncommon in thought, sentiment or experience, or if
he met a beggar in the street with a white beard and a furrowed brow, or if
sometimes a child happened to look up and smile, he would exhaust all the
art on them that he denied to wealth.
Pictorial skill being so rare in the colonies, the painter became an object
of general curiosity. If few or none could appreciate the technical merit of
his productions, yet there were points in regard to which the opinion of the
crowd was as valuable as the refined judgment of the amateur. He watched
the effect that each picture produced on such untutored beholders, and
derived profit from their remarks, while they would as soon have thought of
instructing Nature herself as him who seemed to rival her. Their admiration,
it must be owned, was tinctured with the prejudices of the age and country.
Some deemed it an offence against the Mosaic law, and even a
presumptuous mockery of the Creator, to bring into existence such lively
images of his creatures. Others, frightened at the art which could raise
phantoms at will and keep the form of the dead among the living, were
inclined to consider the painter as a magician, or perhaps the famous Black
Man of old witch-times plotting mischief in a new guise. These foolish
fancies were more than half believed among the mob. Even in superior
circles his character was invested with a vague awe, partly rising like
smoke-wreaths from the popular superstitions, but chiefly caused by the
varied knowledge and talents which he made subservient to his profession.
Being on the eve of marriage, Walter Ludlow and Elinor were eager to
obtain their portraits as the first of what, they doubtless hoped, would be a
long series of family pictures. The day after the conversation above
recorded they visited the painter’s rooms. A servant ushered them into an
apartment where, though the artist himself was not visible, there were
personages whom they could hardly forbear greeting with reverence. They
knew, indeed, that the whole assembly were but pictures, yet felt it
impossible to separate the idea of life and intellect from such striking
counterfeits. Several of the portraits were known to them either as
distinguished characters of the day or their private acquaintances. There
was Governor Burnett, looking as if he had just received an undutiful
communication from the House of Representatives and were inditing a most
sharp response. Mr. Cooke hung beside the ruler whom he opposed, sturdy
and somewhat puritanical, as befitted a popular leader. The ancient lady of

Sir William Phipps eyed them from the wall in ruff and farthingale, an
imperious old dame not unsuspected of witchcraft. John Winslow, then a
very young man, wore the expression of warlike enterprise which long
afterward made him a distinguished general. Their personal friends were
recognized at a glance. In most of the pictures the whole mind and character
were brought out on the countenance and concentrated into a single look; so
that, to speak paradoxically, the originals hardly resembled themselves so
strikingly as the portraits did.
Among these modern worthies there were two old bearded saints who
had almost vanished into the darkening canvas. There was also a pale but
unfaded Madonna who had perhaps been worshipped in Rome, and now
regarded the lovers with such a mild and holy look that they longed to
worship too.
“How singular a thought,” observed Walter Ludlow, “that this beautiful
face has been beautiful for above two hundred years! Oh, if all beauty
would endure so well! Do you not envy her, Elinor?”
“If earth were heaven, I might,” she replied. “But, where all things fade,
how miserable to be the one that could not fade!”
“This dark old St. Peter has a fierce and ugly scowl, saint though he be,”
continued Walter; “he troubles me. But the Virgin looks kindly at us.”
“Yes, but very sorrowfully, methinks,” said Elinor.
The easel stood beneath these three old pictures, sustaining one that had
been recently commenced. After a little inspection they began to recognize
the features of their own minister, the Rev. Dr. Colman, growing into shape
and life, as it were, out of a cloud.
“Kind old man!” exclaimed Elinor. “He gazes at me as if he were about
to utter a word of paternal advice.”
“And at me,” said Walter, “as if he were about to shake his head and
rebuke me for some suspected iniquity. But so does the original. I shall
never feel quite comfortable under his eye till we stand before him to be
married.”
They now heard a footstep on the floor, and, turning, beheld the painter,
who had been some moments in the room and had listened to a few of their
remarks. He was a middle-aged man with a countenance well worthy of his
own pencil. Indeed, by the picturesque though careless arrangement of his

rich dress, and perhaps because his soul dwelt always among painted
shapes, he looked somewhat like a portrait himself. His visitors were
sensible of a kindred between the artist and his works, and felt as if one of
the pictures had stepped from the canvas to salute them.
Walter Ludlow, who was slightly known to the painter, explained the
object of their visit. While he spoke a sunbeam was falling athwart his
figure and Elinor’s with so happy an effect that they also seemed living
pictures of youth and beauty gladdened by bright fortune. The artist was
evidently struck.
“My easel is occupied for several ensuing days, and my stay in Boston
must be brief,” said he, thoughtfully; then, after an observant glance, he
added, “But your wishes shall be gratified though I disappoint the chief-
justice and Madame Oliver. I must not lose this opportunity for the sake of
painting a few ells of broadcloth and brocade.”
The painter expressed a desire to introduce both their portraits into one
picture and represent them engaged in some appropriate action. This plan
would have delighted the lovers, but was necessarily rejected because so
large a space of canvas would have been unfit for the room which it was
intended to decorate. Two half-length portraits were therefore fixed upon.
After they had taken leave, Walter Ludlow asked Elinor, with a smile,
whether she knew what an influence over their fates the painter was about
to acquire.
“The old women of Boston affirm,” continued he, “that after he has once
got possession of a person’s face and figure he may paint him in any act or
situation whatever, and the picture will be prophetic. Do you believe it?”
“Not quite,” said Elinor, smiling. “Yet if he has such magic, there is
something so gentle in his manner that I am sure he will use it well.”
It was the painter’s choice to proceed with both the portraits at the same
time, assigning as a reason, in the mystical language which he sometimes
used, that the faces threw light upon each other. Accordingly, he gave now a
touch to Walter and now to Elinor, and the features of one and the other
began to start forth so vividly that it appeared as if his triumphant art would
actually disengage them from the canvas. Amid the rich light and deep
shade they beheld their phantom selves, but, though the likeness promised
to be perfect, they were not quite satisfied with the expression: it seemed
more vague than in most of the painter’s works. He, however, was satisfied

with the prospect of success, and, being much interested in the lovers,
employed his leisure moments, unknown to them, in making a crayon
sketch of their two figures. During their sittings he engaged them in
conversation and kindled up their faces with characteristic traits, which,
though continually varying, it was his purpose to combine and fix. At length
he announced that at their next visit both the portraits would be ready for
delivery.
“If my pencil will but be true to my conception in the few last touches
which I meditate,” observed he, “these two pictures will be my very best
performances. Seldom indeed has an artist such subjects.” While speaking
he still bent his penetrative eye upon them, nor withdrew it till they had
reached the bottom of the stairs.
Nothing in the whole circle of human vanities takes stronger hold of the
imagination than this affair of having a portrait painted. Yet why should it
be so? The looking-glass, the polished globes of the andirons, the mirror-
like water, and all other reflecting surfaces, continually present us with
portraits—or, rather, ghosts—of ourselves which we glance at and
straightway forget them. But we forget them only because they vanish. It is
the idea of duration—of earthly immortality—that gives such a mysterious
interest to our own portraits.
Walter and Elinor were not insensible to this feeling, and hastened to the
painter’s room punctually at the appointed hour to meet those pictured
shapes which were to be their representatives with posterity. The sunshine
flashed after them into the apartment, but left it somewhat gloomy as they
closed the door. Their eyes were immediately attracted to their portraits,
which rested against the farthest wall of the room. At the first glance
through the dim light and the distance, seeing themselves in precisely their
natural attitudes and with all the air that they recognized so well, they
uttered a simultaneous exclamation of delight.
“There we stand,” cried Walter, enthusiastically, “fixed in sunshine for
ever. No dark passions can gather on our faces.”
“No,” said Elinor, more calmly; “no dreary change can sadden us.”
This was said while they were approaching and had yet gained only an
imperfect view of the pictures. The painter, after saluting them, busied
himself at a table in completing a crayon sketch, leaving his visitors to form
their own judgment as to his perfected labors. At intervals he sent a glance

from beneath his deep eyebrows, watching their countenances in profile
with his pencil suspended over the sketch. They had now stood some
moments, each in front of the other’s picture, contemplating it with
entranced attention, but without uttering a word. At length Walter stepped
forward, then back, viewing Elinor’s portrait in various lights, and finally
spoke.
“Is there not a change?” said he, in a doubtful and meditative tone. “Yes;
the perception of it grows more vivid the longer I look. It is certainly the
same picture that I saw yesterday; the dress, the features, all are the same,
and yet something is altered.”
“Is, then, the picture less like than it was yesterday?” inquired the painter,
now drawing near with irrepressible interest.
“The features are perfect Elinor,” answered Walter, “and at the first
glance the expression seemed also hers; but I could fancy that the portrait
has changed countenance while I have been looking at it. The eyes are fixed
on mine with a strangely sad and anxious expression. Nay, it is grief and
terror. Is this like Elinor?”
“Compare the living face with the pictured one,” said the painter.
Walter glanced sidelong at his mistress, and started. Motionless and
absorbed, fascinated, as it were, in contemplation of Walter’s portrait,
Elinor’s face had assumed precisely the expression of which he had just
been complaining. Had she practised for whole hours before a mirror, she
could not have caught the look so successfully. Had the picture itself been a
mirror, it could not have thrown back her present aspect with stronger and
more melancholy truth. She appeared quite unconscious of the dialogue
between the artist and her lover.
“Elinor,” exclaimed Walter, in amazement, “what change has come over
you?”
She did not hear him nor desist from her fixed gaze till he seized her
hand, and thus attracted her notice; then with a sudden tremor she looked
from the picture to the face of the original.
“Do you see no change in your portrait?” asked she.
“In mine? None,” replied Walter, examining it. “But let me see. Yes;
there is a slight change—an improvement, I think, in the picture, though
none in the likeness. It has a livelier expression than yesterday, as if some

bright thought were flashing from the eyes and about to be uttered from the
lips. Now that I have caught the look, it becomes very decided.”
While he was intent on these observations Elinor turned to the painter.
She regarded him with grief and awe, and felt that he repaid her with
sympathy and commiseration, though wherefore she could but vaguely
guess.
“That look!” whispered she, and shuddered. “How came it there?”
“Madam,” said the painter, sadly, taking her hand and leading her apart,
“in both these pictures I have painted what I saw. The artist—the true artist
—must look beneath the exterior. It is his gift—his proudest, but often a
melancholy one—to see the inmost soul, and by a power indefinable even
to himself to make it glow or darken upon the canvas in glances that
express the thought and sentiment of years. Would that I might convince
myself of error in the present instance!”
They had now approached the table, on which were heads in chalk, hands
almost as expressive as ordinary faces, ivied church-towers, thatched
cottages, old thunder-stricken trees, Oriental and antique costume, and all
such picturesque vagaries of an artist’s idle moments. Turning them over
with seeming carelessness, a crayon sketch of two figures was disclosed.
“If I have failed,” continued he—“if your heart does not see itself
reflected in your own portrait, if you have no secret cause to trust my
delineation of the other—it is not yet too late to alter them. I might change
the action of these figures too. But would it influence the event?” He
directed her notice to the sketch.
A thrill ran through Elinor’s frame; a shriek was upon her lips, but she
stifled it with the self-command that becomes habitual to all who hide
thoughts of fear and anguish within their bosoms. Turning from the table,
she perceived that Walter had advanced near enough to have seen the
sketch, though she could not determine whether it had caught his eye.
“We will not have the pictures altered,” said she, hastily. “If mine is sad, I
shall but look the gayer for the contrast.”
“Be it so,” answered the painter, bowing. “May your griefs be such
fanciful ones that only your pictures may mourn for them! For your joys,
may they be true and deep, and paint themselves upon this lovely face till it
quite belie my art!”

After the marriage of Walter and Elinor the pictures formed the two most
splendid ornaments of their abode. They hung side by side, separated by a
narrow panel, appearing to eye each other constantly, yet always returning
the gaze of the spectator. Travelled gentlemen who professed a knowledge
of such subjects reckoned these among the most admirable specimens of
modern portraiture, while common observers compared them with the
originals, feature by feature, and were rapturous in praise of the likeness.
But it was on a third class—neither travelled connoisseurs nor common
observers, but people of natural sensibility—that the pictures wrought their
strongest effect. Such persons might gaze carelessly at first, but, becoming
interested, would return day after day and study these painted faces like the
pages of a mystic volume. Walter Ludlow’s portrait attracted their earliest
notice. In the absence of himself and his bride they sometimes disputed as
to the expression which the painter had intended to throw upon the features,
all agreeing that there was a look of earnest import, though no two
explained it alike. There was less diversity of opinion in regard to Elinor’s
picture. They differed, indeed, in their attempts to estimate the nature and
depth of the gloom that dwelt upon her face, but agreed that it was gloom
and alien from the natural temperament of their youthful friend. A certain
fanciful person announced as the result of much scrutiny that both these
pictures were parts of one design, and that the melancholy strength of
feeling in Elinor’s countenance bore reference to the more vivid emotion—
or, as he termed it, the wild passion—in that of Walter. Though unskilled in
the art, he even began a sketch in which the action of the two figures was to
correspond with their mutual expression.
It was whispered among friends that day by day Elinor’s face was
assuming a deeper shade of pensiveness which threatened soon to render
her too true a counterpart of her melancholy picture. Walter, on the other
hand, instead of acquiring the vivid look which the painter had given him
on the canvas, became reserved and downcast, with no outward flashes of
emotion, however it might be smouldering within. In course of time Elinor
hung a gorgeous curtain of purple silk wrought with flowers and fringed
with heavy golden tassels before the pictures, under pretence that the dust
would tarnish their hues or the light dim them. It was enough. Her visitors
felt that the massive folds of the silk must never be withdrawn nor the
portraits mentioned in her presence.

Time wore on, and the painter came again. He had been far enough to the
north to see the silver cascade of the Crystal Hills, and to look over the vast
round of cloud and forest from the summit of New England’s loftiest
mountain. But he did not profane that scene by the mockery of his art. He
had also lain in a canoe on the bosom of Lake George, making his soul the
mirror of its loveliness and grandeur till not a picture in the Vatican was
more vivid than his recollection. He had gone with the Indian hunters to
Niagara, and there, again, had flung his hopeless pencil down the precipice,
feeling that he could as soon paint the roar as aught else that goes to make
up the wondrous cataract. In truth, it was seldom his impulse to copy
natural scenery except as a framework for the delineations of the human
form and face, instinct with thought, passion or suffering. With store of
such his adventurous ramble had enriched him. The stern dignity of Indian
chiefs, the dusky loveliness of Indian girls, the domestic life of wigwams,
the stealthy march, the battle beneath gloomy pine trees, the frontier fortress
with its garrison, the anomaly of the old French partisan bred in courts, but
grown gray in shaggy deserts,—such were the scenes and portraits that he
had sketched. The glow of perilous moments, flashes of wild feeling,
struggles of fierce power, love, hate, grief, frenzy—in a word, all the worn-
out heart of the old earth—had been revealed to him under a new form. His
portfolio was filled with graphic illustrations of the volume of his memory
which genius would transmute into its own substance and imbue with
immortality. He felt that the deep wisdom in his art which he had sought so
far was found.
But amid stern or lovely nature, in the perils of the forest or its
overwhelming peacefulness, still there had been two phantoms, the
companions of his way. Like all other men around whom an engrossing
purpose wreathes itself, he was insulated from the mass of humankind. He
had no aim, no pleasure, no sympathies, but what were ultimately
connected with his art. Though gentle in manner and upright in intent and
action, he did not possess kindly feelings; his heart was cold: no living
creature could be brought near enough to keep him warm. For these two
beings, however, he had felt in its greatest intensity the sort of interest
which always allied him to the subjects of his pencil. He had pried into their
souls with his keenest insight and pictured the result upon their features
with his utmost skill, so as barely to fall short of that standard which no
genius ever reached, his own severe conception. He had caught from the

duskiness of the future—at least, so he fancied—a fearful secret, and had
obscurely revealed it on the portraits. So much of himself—of his
imagination and all other powers—had been lavished on the study of Walter
and Elinor that he almost regarded them as creations of his own, like the
thousands with which he had peopled the realms of Picture. Therefore did
they flit through the twilight of the woods, hover on the mist of waterfalls,
look forth from the mirror of the lake, nor melt away in the noontide sun.
They haunted his pictorial fancy, not as mockeries of life nor pale goblins
of the dead, but in the guise of portraits, each with an unalterable expression
which his magic had evoked from the caverns of the soul. He could not
recross the Atlantic till he had again beheld the originals of those airy
pictures.
“O glorious Art!” Thus mused the enthusiastic painter as he trod the
street. “Thou art the image of the Creator’s own. The innumerable forms
that wander in nothingness start into being at thy beck. The dead live again;
thou recallest them to their old scenes and givest their gray shadows the
lustre of a better life, at once earthly and immortal. Thou snatchest back the
fleeting moments of history. With thee there is no past, for at thy touch all
that is great becomes for ever present, and illustrious men live through long
ages in the visible performance of the very deeds which made them what
they are. O potent Art! as thou bringest the faintly-revealed past to stand in
that narrow strip of sunlight which we call ‘now,’ canst thou summon the
shrouded future to meet her there? Have I not achieved it? Am I not thy
prophet?”
Thus with a proud yet melancholy fervor did he almost cry aloud as he
passed through the toilsome street among people that knew not of his
reveries nor could understand nor care for them. It is not good for man to
cherish a solitary ambition. Unless there be those around him by whose
example he may regulate himself, his thoughts, desires and hopes will
become extravagant and he the semblance—perhaps the reality—of a
madman. Reading other bosoms with an acuteness almost preternatural, the
painter failed to see the disorder of his own.
“And this should be the house,” said he, looking up and down the front
before he knocked. “Heaven help my brains! That picture! Methinks it will
never vanish. Whether I look at the windows or the door, there it is framed

within them, painted strongly and glowing in the richest tints—the faces of
the portraits, the figures and action of the sketch!”
He knocked.
“The portraits—are they within?” inquired he of the domestic; then,
recollecting himself, “Your master and mistress—are they at home?”
“They are, sir,” said the servant, adding, as he noticed that picturesque
aspect of which the painter could never divest himself, “and the portraits
too.”
The guest was admitted into a parlor communicating by a central door
with an interior room of the same size. As the first apartment was empty, he
passed to the entrance of the second, within which his eyes were greeted by
those living personages, as well as their pictured representatives, who had
long been the objects of so singular an interest. He involuntarily paused on
the threshold.
They had not perceived his approach. Walter and Elinor were standing
before the portraits, whence the former had just flung back the rich and
voluminous folds of the silken curtain, holding its golden tassel with one
hand, while the other grasped that of his bride. The pictures, concealed for
months, gleamed forth again in undiminished splendor, appearing to throw
a sombre light across the room rather than to be disclosed by a borrowed
radiance. That of Elinor had been almost prophetic. A pensiveness, and next
a gentle sorrow, had successively dwelt upon her countenance, deepening
with the lapse of time into a quiet anguish. A mixture of affright would now
have made it the very expression of the portrait. Walter’s face was moody
and dull or animated only by fitful flashes which left a heavier darkness for
their momentary illumination. He looked from Elinor to her portrait, and
thence to his own, in the contemplation of which he finally stood absorbed.
The painter seemed to hear the step of Destiny approaching behind him
on its progress toward its victims. A strange thought darted into his mind.
Was not his own the form in which that Destiny had embodied itself, and he
a chief agent of the coming evil which he had foreshadowed?
Still, Walter remained silent before the picture, communing with it as
with his own heart and abandoning himself to the spell of evil influence that
the painter had cast upon the features. Gradually his eyes kindled, while as
Elinor watched the increasing wildness of his face her own assumed a look

of terror; and when, at last, he turned upon her, the resemblance of both to
their portraits was complete.
“Our fate is upon us!” howled Walter. “Die!”
Drawing a knife, he sustained her as she was sinking to the ground, and
aimed it at her bosom. In the action and in the look and attitude of each the
painter beheld the figures of his sketch. The picture, with all its tremendous
coloring, was finished.
“Hold, madman!” cried he, sternly.
He had advanced from the door and interposed himself between the
wretched beings with the same sense of power to regulate their destiny as to
alter a scene upon the canvas. He stood like a magician controlling the
phantoms which he had evoked.
“What!” muttered Walter Ludlow as he relapsed from fierce excitement
into sullen gloom. “Does Fate impede its own decree?”
“Wretched lady,” said the painter, “did I not warn you?”
“You did,” replied Elinor, calmly, as her terror gave place to the quiet
grief which it had disturbed. “But I loved him.”
Is there not a deep moral in the tale? Could the result of one or all our
deeds be shadowed forth and set before us, some would call it fate and
hurry onward, others be swept along by their passionate desires, and none
be turned aside by the prophetic pictures.

DAVID SWAN

A FANTASY
We can be but partially acquainted even with the events which actually
influence our course through life and our final destiny. There are
innumerable other events, if such they may be called, which come close
upon us, yet pass away without actual results or even betraying their near
approach by the reflection of any light or shadow across our minds. Could
we know all the vicissitudes of our fortunes, life would be too full of hope
and fear, exultation or disappointment, to afford us a single hour of true
serenity. This idea may be illustrated by a page from the secret history of
David Swan.
We have nothing to do with David until we find him, at the age of twenty,
on the high road from his native place to the city of Boston, where his
uncle, a small dealer in the grocery line, was to take him behind the counter.
Be it enough to say that he was a native of New Hampshire, born of
respectable parents, and had received an ordinary school education with a
classic finish by a year at Gilmanton Academy. After journeying on foot
from sunrise till nearly noon of a summer’s day, his weariness and the
increasing heat determined him to sit down in the first convenient shade and
await the coming up of the stage-coach. As if planted on purpose for him,
there soon appeared a little tuft of maples with a delightful recess in the
midst, and such a fresh bubbling spring that it seemed never to have
sparkled for any wayfarer but David Swan. Virgin or not, he kissed it with
his thirsty lips and then flung himself along the brink, pillowing his head
upon some shirts and a pair of pantaloons tied up in a striped cotton
handkerchief. The sunbeams could not reach him; the dust did not yet rise
from the road after the heavy rain of yesterday, and his grassy lair suited the
young man better than a bed of down. The spring murmured drowsily
beside him; the branches waved dreamily across the blue sky overhead, and

a deep sleep, perchance hiding dreams within its depths, fell upon David
Swan. But we are to relate events which he did not dream of.
While he lay sound asleep in the shade other people were wide awake,
and passed to and fro, afoot, on horseback and in all sorts of vehicles, along
the sunny road by his bedchamber. Some looked neither to the right hand
nor the left and knew not that he was there; some merely glanced that way
without admitting the slumberer among their busy thoughts; some laughed
to see how soundly he slept, and several whose hearts were brimming full
of scorn ejected their venomous superfluity on David Swan. A middle-aged
widow, when nobody else was near, thrust her head a little way into the
recess, and vowed that the young fellow looked charming in his sleep. A
temperance lecturer saw him, and wrought poor David into the texture of
his evening’s discourse as an awful instance of dead drunkenness by the
roadside.
But censure, praise, merriment, scorn and indifference were all one—or,
rather, all nothing—to David Swan. He had slept only a few moments when
a brown carriage drawn by a handsome pair of horses bowled easily along
and was brought to a standstill nearly in front of David’s resting-place. A
linch-pin had fallen out and permitted one of the wheels to slide off. The
damage was slight and occasioned merely a momentary alarm to an elderly
merchant and his wife, who were returning to Boston in the carriage. While
the coachman and a servant were replacing the wheel the lady and
gentleman sheltered themselves beneath the maple trees, and there espied
the bubbling fountain and David Swan asleep beside it. Impressed with the
awe which the humblest sleeper usually sheds around him, the merchant
trod as lightly as the gout would allow, and his spouse took good heed not
to rustle her silk gown lest David should start up all of a sudden.
“How soundly he sleeps!” whispered the old gentleman. “From what a
depth he draws that easy breath! Such sleep as that, brought on without an
opiate, would be worth more to me than half my income, for it would
suppose health and an untroubled mind.”
“And youth besides,” said the lady. “Healthy and quiet age does not sleep
thus. Our slumber is no more like his than our wakefulness.”
The longer they looked, the more did this elderly couple feel interested in
the unknown youth to whom the wayside and the maple shade were as a
secret chamber with the rich gloom of damask curtains brooding over him.

Perceiving that a stray sunbeam glimmered down upon his face, the lady
contrived to twist a branch aside so as to intercept it, and, having done this
little act of kindness, she began to feel like a mother to him.
“Providence seems to have laid him here,” whispered she to her husband,
“and to have brought us hither to find him, after our disappointment in our
cousin’s son. Methinks I can see a likeness to our departed Henry. Shall we
waken him?”
“To what purpose?” said the merchant, hesitating. “We know nothing of
the youth’s character.”
“That open countenance!” replied his wife, in the same hushed voice, yet
earnestly. “This innocent sleep!”
While these whispers were passing, the sleeper’s heart did not throb, nor
his breath become agitated, nor his features betray the least token of
interest. Yet Fortune was bending over him, just ready to let fall a burden of
gold. The old merchant had lost his only son, and had no heir to his wealth
except a distant relative with whose conduct he was dissatisfied. In such
cases people sometimes do stranger things than to act the magician and
awaken a young man to splendor who fell asleep in poverty.
“Shall we not waken him?” repeated the lady, persuasively.
“The coach is ready, sir,” said the servant, behind.
The old couple started, reddened and hurried away, mutually wondering
that they should ever have dreamed of doing anything so very ridiculous.
The merchant threw himself back in the carriage and occupied his mind
with the plan of a magnificent asylum for unfortunate men of business.
Meanwhile, David Swan enjoyed his nap.
The carriage could not have gone above a mile or two when a pretty
young girl came along with a tripping pace which showed precisely how
her little heart was dancing in her bosom. Perhaps it was this merry kind of
motion that caused—is there any harm in saying it?—her garter to slip its
knot. Conscious that the silken girth—if silk it were—was relaxing its hold,
she turned aside into the shelter of the maple trees, and there found a young
man asleep by the spring. Blushing as red as any rose that she should have
intruded into a gentleman’s bedchamber, and for such a purpose too, she
was about to make her escape on tiptoe. But there was peril near the sleeper.
A monster of a bee had been wandering overhead—buzz, buzz, buzz—now

among the leaves, now flashing through the strips of sunshine, and now lost
in the dark shade, till finally he appeared to be settling on the eyelid of
David Swan. The sting of a bee is sometimes deadly. As free-hearted as she
was innocent, the girl attacked the intruder with her handkerchief, brushed
him soundly and drove him from beneath the maple shade. How sweet a
picture! This good deed accomplished, with quickened breath and a deeper
blush she stole a glance at the youthful stranger for whom she had been
battling with a dragon in the air.
“He is handsome!” thought she, and blushed redder yet.
How could it be that no dream of bliss grew so strong within him that,
shattered by its very strength, it should part asunder and allow him to
perceive the girl among its phantoms? Why, at least, did no smile of
welcome brighten upon his face? She was come, the maid whose soul,
according to the old and beautiful idea, had been severed from his own, and
whom in all his vague but passionate desires he yearned to meet. Her only
could he love with a perfect love, him only could she receive into the depths
of her heart, and now her image was faintly blushing in the fountain by his
side; should it pass away, its happy lustre would never gleam upon his life
again.
“How sound he sleeps!” murmured the girl. She departed, but did not trip
along the road so lightly as when she came.
Now, this girl’s father was a thriving country merchant in the
neighborhood, and happened at that identical time to be looking out for just
such a young man as David Swan. Had David formed a wayside
acquaintance with the daughter, he would have become the father’s clerk,
and all else in natural succession. So here, again, had good fortune—the
best of fortunes—stolen so near that her garments brushed against him, and
he knew nothing of the matter.
The girl was hardly out of sight when two men turned aside beneath the
maple shade. Both had dark faces set off by cloth caps, which were drawn
down aslant over their brows. Their dresses were shabby, yet had a certain
smartness. These were a couple of rascals who got their living by whatever
the devil sent them, and now, in the interim of other business, had staked
the joint profits of their next piece of villainy on a game of cards which was
to have been decided here under the trees. But, finding David asleep by the
spring, one of the rogues whispered to his fellow:

“Hist! Do you see that bundle under his head?”
The other villain nodded, winked and leered.
“I’ll bet you a horn of brandy,” said the first, “that the chap has either a
pocketbook or a snug little hoard of small change stowed away amongst his
shirts. And if not there, we will find it in his pantaloons pocket.”
“But how if he wakes?” said the other.
His companion thrust aside his waistcoat, pointed to the handle of a dirk
and nodded.
“So be it!” muttered the second villain.
They approached the unconscious David, and, while one pointed the
dagger toward his heart, the other began to search the bundle beneath his
head. Their two faces, grim, wrinkled and ghastly with guilt and fear, bent
over their victim, looking horrible enough to be mistaken for fiends should
he suddenly awake. Nay, had the villains glanced aside into the spring, even
they would hardly have known themselves as reflected there. But David
Swan had never worn a more tranquil aspect, even when asleep on his
mother’s breast.
“I must take away the bundle,” whispered one.
“If he stirs, I’ll strike,” muttered the other.
But at this moment a dog scenting along the ground came in beneath the
maple trees and gazed alternately at each of these wicked men and then at
the quiet sleeper. He then lapped out of the fountain.
“Pshaw!” said one villain. “We can do nothing now. The dog’s master
must be close behind.”
“Let’s take a drink and be off,” said the other.
The man with the dagger thrust back the weapon into his bosom and
drew forth a pocket-pistol, but not of that kind which kills by a single
discharge. It was a flask of liquor with a block-tin tumbler screwed upon the
mouth. Each drank a comfortable dram, and left the spot with so many jests
and such laughter at their unaccomplished wickedness that they might be
said to have gone on their way rejoicing. In a few hours they had forgotten
the whole affair, nor once imagined that the recording angel had written
down the crime of murder against their souls in letters as durable as
eternity. As for David Swan, he still slept quietly, neither conscious of the

shadow of death when it hung over him nor of the glow of renewed life
when that shadow was withdrawn. He slept, but no longer so quietly as at
first. An hour’s repose had snatched from his elastic frame the weariness
with which many hours of toil had burdened it. Now he stirred, now moved
his lips without a sound, now talked in an inward tone to the noonday
spectres of his dream. But a noise of wheels came rattling louder and louder
along the road, until it dashed through the dispersing mist of David’s
slumber; and there was the stagecoach. He started up with all his ideas
about him.
“Halloo, driver! Take a passenger?” shouted he.
“Room on top!” answered the driver.
Up mounted David, and bowled away merrily toward Boston without so
much as a parting glance at that fountain of dreamlike vicissitude. He knew
not that a phantom of Wealth had thrown a golden hue upon its waters, nor
that one of Love had sighed softly to their murmur, nor that one of Death
had threatened to crimson them with his blood, all in the brief hour since he
lay down to sleep. Sleeping or waking, we hear not the airy footsteps of the
strange things that almost happen. Does it not argue a superintending
Providence that, while viewless and unexpected events thrust themselves
continually athwart our path, there should still be regularity enough in
mortal life to render foresight even partially available?

SIGHTS FROM A STEEPLE

So! I have climbed high, and my reward is small. Here I stand with
wearied knees—earth, indeed, at a dizzy depth below, but heaven far, far
beyond me still. Oh that I could soar up into the very zenith, where man
never breathed nor eagle ever flew, and where the ethereal azure melts away
from the eye and appears only a deepened shade of nothingness! And yet I
shiver at that cold and solitary thought. What clouds are gathering in the
golden west with direful intent against the brightness and the warmth of this
summer afternoon? They are ponderous air-ships, black as death and
freighted with the tempest, and at intervals their thunder—the signal-guns
of that unearthly squadron—rolls distant along the deep of heaven. These
nearer heaps of fleecy vapor—methinks I could roll and toss upon them the
whole day long—seem scattered here and there for the repose of tired
pilgrims through the sky. Perhaps—for who can tell?—beautiful spirits are
disporting themselves there, and will bless my mortal eye with the brief
appearance of their curly locks of golden light and laughing faces fair and
faint as the people of a rosy dream. Or where the floating mass so
imperfectly obstructs the color of the firmament a slender foot and fairy
limb resting too heavily upon the frail support may be thrust through and
suddenly withdrawn, while longing fancy follows them in vain. Yonder,
again, is an airy archipelago where the sunbeams love to linger in their
journeyings through space. Every one of those little clouds has been dipped
and steeped in radiance which the slightest pressure might disengage in
silvery profusion like water wrung from a sea-maid’s hair. Bright they are
as a young man’s visions, and, like them, would be realized in dullness,
obscurity and tears. I will look on them no more.
In three parts of the visible circle whose centre is this spire I discern
cultivated fields, villages, white country-seats, the waving lines of rivulets,
little placid lakes, and here and there a rising ground that would fain be
termed a hill. On the fourth side is the sea, stretching away toward a

viewless boundary, blue and calm except where the passing anger of a
shadow flits across its surface and is gone. Hitherward a broad inlet
penetrates far into the land; on the verge of the harbor formed by its
extremity is a town, and over it am I, a watchman, all-heeding and
unheeded. Oh that the multitude of chimneys could speak, like those of
Madrid, and betray in smoky whispers the secrets of all who since their first
foundation have assembled at the hearths within! Oh that the Limping Devil
of Le Sage would perch beside me here, extend his wand over this
contiguity of roofs, uncover every chamber and make me familiar with their
inhabitants! The most desirable mode of existence might be that of a
spiritualized Paul Pry hovering invisible round man and woman, witnessing
their deeds, searching into their hearts, borrowing brightness from their
felicity and shade from their sorrow, and retaining no emotion peculiar to
himself. But none of these things are possible; and if I would know the
interior of brick walls or the mystery of human bosoms, I can but guess.
Yonder is a fair street extending north and south. The stately mansions
are placed each on its carpet of verdant grass, and a long flight of steps
descends from every door to the pavement. Ornamental trees—the
broadleafed horse-chestnut, the elm so lofty and bending, the graceful but
infrequent willow, and others whereof I know not the names—grow
thrivingly among brick and stone. The oblique rays of the sun are
intercepted by these green citizens and by the houses, so that one side of the
street is a shaded and pleasant walk. On its whole extent there is now but a
single passenger, advancing from the upper end, and he, unless distance and
the medium of a pocket spyglass do him more than justice, is a fine young
man of twenty. He saunters slowly forward, slapping his left hand with his
folded gloves, bending his eyes upon the pavement, and sometimes raising
them to throw a glance before him. Certainly he has a pensive air. Is he in
doubt or in debt? Is he—if the question be allowable—in love? Does he
strive to be melancholy and gentlemanlike, or is he merely overcome by the
heat? But I bid him farewell for the present. The door of one of the houses
—an aristocratic edifice with curtains of purple and gold waving from the
windows—is now opened, and down the steps come two ladies swinging
their parasols and lightly arrayed for a summer ramble. Both are young,
both are pretty; but methinks the left-hand lass is the fairer of the twain,
and, though she be so serious at this moment, I could swear that there is a
treasure of gentle fun within her. They stand talking a little while upon the

steps, and finally proceed up the street. Meantime, as their faces are now
turned from me, I may look elsewhere.
Upon that wharf and down the corresponding street is a busy contrast to
the quiet scene which I have just noticed. Business evidently has its centre
there, and many a man is wasting the summer afternoon in labor and
anxiety, in losing riches or in gaining them, when he would be wiser to flee
away to some pleasant country village or shaded lake in the forest or wild
and cool sea-beach. I see vessels unlading at the wharf and precious
merchandise strown upon the ground abundantly as at the bottom of the sea
—that market whence no goods return, and where there is no captain nor
supercargo to render an account of sales. Here the clerks are diligent with
their paper and pencils and sailors ply the block and tackle that hang over
the hold, accompanying their toil with cries long-drawn and roughly
melodious till the bales and puncheons ascend to upper air. At a little
distance a group of gentlemen are assembled round the door of a
warehouse. Grave seniors be they, and I would wager—if it were safe, in
these times, to be responsible for any one—that the least eminent among
them might vie with old Vincentio, that incomparable trafficker of Pisa. I
can even select the wealthiest of the company. It is the elderly personage in
somewhat rusty black, with powdered hair the superfluous whiteness of
which is visible upon the cape of his coat. His twenty ships are wafted on
some of their many courses by every breeze that blows, and his name, I will
venture to say, though I know it not, is a familiar sound among the far-
separated merchants of Europe and the Indies.
But I bestow too much of my attention in this quarter. On looking again
to the long and shady walk I perceive that the two fair girls have
encountered the young man. After a sort of shyness in the recognition, he
turns back with them. Moreover, he has sanctioned my taste in regard to his
companions by placing himself on the inner side of the pavement, nearest
the Venus to whom I, enacting on a steeple-top the part of Paris on the top
of Ida, adjudged the golden apple.
In two streets converging at right angles toward my watch-tower I
distinguish three different processions. One is a proud array of voluntary
soldiers in bright uniform, resembling, from the height whence I look down,
the painted veterans that garrison the windows of a toy-shop. And yet it stirs
my heart. Their regular advance, their nodding plumes, the sun-flash on

their bayonets and musket-barrels, the roll of their drums ascending past
me, and the fife ever and anon piercing through,—these things have
wakened a warlike fire, peaceful though I be. Close to their rear marches a
battalion of schoolboys ranged in crooked and irregular platoons,
shouldering sticks, thumping a harsh and unripe clatter from an instrument
of tin and ridiculously aping the intricate manoeuvres of the foremost band.
Nevertheless, as slight differences are scarcely perceptible from a church-
spire, one might be tempted to ask, “Which are the boys?” or, rather,
“Which the men?” But, leaving these, let us turn to the third procession,
which, though sadder in outward show, may excite identical reflections in
the thoughtful mind. It is a funeral—a hearse drawn by a black and bony
steed and covered by a dusty pall, two or three coaches rumbling over the
stones, their drivers half asleep, a dozen couple of careless mourners in
their every-day attire. Such was not the fashion of our fathers when they
carried a friend to his grave. There is now no doleful clang of the bell to
proclaim sorrow to the town. Was the King of Terrors more awful in those
days than in our own, that wisdom and philosophy have been able to
produce this change? Not so. Here is a proof that he retains his proper
majesty. The military men and the military boys are wheeling round the
corner, and meet the funeral full in the face. Immediately the drum is silent,
all but the tap that regulates each simultaneous footfall. The soldiers yield
the path to the dusty hearse and unpretending train, and the children quit
their ranks and cluster on the sidewalks with timorous and instinctive
curiosity. The mourners enter the churchyard at the base of the steeple and
pause by an open grave among the burial-stones; the lightning glimmers on
them as they lower down the coffin, and the thunder rattles heavily while
they throw the earth upon its lid. Verily, the shower is near, and I tremble
for the young man and the girls, who have now disappeared from the long
and shady street.
How various are the situations of the people covered by the roofs beneath
me, and how diversified are the events at this moment befalling them! The
new-born, the aged, the dying, the strong in life and the recent dead are in
the chambers of these many mansions. The full of hope, the happy, the
miserable and the desperate dwell together within the circle of my glance.
In some of the houses over which my eyes roam so coldly guilt is entering
into hearts that are still tenanted by a debased and trodden virtue; guilt is on
the very edge of commission, and the impending deed might be averted;

guilt is done, and the criminal wonders if it be irrevocable. There are broad
thoughts struggling in my mind, and, were I able to give them distinctness,
they would make their way in eloquence. Lo! the raindrops are descending.
The clouds within a little time have gathered over all the sky, hanging
heavily, as if about to drop in one unbroken mass upon the earth. At
intervals the lightning flashes from their brooding hearts, quivers,
disappears, and then comes the thunder, travelling slowly after its twin-born
flame. A strong wind has sprung up, howls through the darkened streets,
and raises the dust in dense bodies to rebel against the approaching storm.
The disbanded soldiers fly, the funeral has already vanished like its dead,
and all people hurry homeward—all that have a home—while a few lounge
by the corners or trudge on desperately at their leisure. In a narrow lane
which communicates with the shady street I discern the rich old merchant
putting himself to the top of his speed lest the rain should convert his hair-
powder to a paste. Unhappy gentleman! By the slow vehemence and painful
moderation wherewith he journeys, it is but too evident that Podagra has
left its thrilling tenderness in his great toe. But yonder, at a far more rapid
pace, come three other of my acquaintance, the two pretty girls and the
young man unseasonably interrupted in their walk. Their footsteps are
supported by the risen dust, the wind lends them its velocity, they fly like
three sea-birds driven landward by the tempestuous breeze. The ladies
would not thus rival Atalanta if they but knew that any one were at leisure
to observe them. Ah! as they hasten onward, laughing in the angry face of
nature, a sudden catastrophe has chanced. At the corner where the narrow
lane enters into the street they come plump against the old merchant, whose
tortoise-motion has just brought him to that point. He likes not the sweet
encounter; the darkness of the whole air gathers speedily upon his visage,
and there is a pause on both sides. Finally he thrusts aside the youth with
little courtesy, seizes an arm of each of the two girls, and plods onward like
a magician with a prize of captive fairies. All this is easy to be understood.
How disconsolate the poor lover stands, regardless of the rain that threatens
an exceeding damage to his well-fashioned habiliments, till he catches a
backward glance of mirth from a bright eye, and turns away with whatever
comfort it conveys!
The old man and his daughters are safely housed, and now the storm lets
loose its fury. In every dwelling I perceive the faces of the chambermaids as
they shut down the windows, excluding the impetuous shower and

shrinking away from the quick fiery glare. The large drops descend with
force upon the slated roofs and rise again in smoke. There is a rush and roar
as of a river through the air, and muddy streams bubble majestically along
the pavement, whirl their dusky foam into the kennel, and disappear
beneath iron grates. Thus did Arethusa sink. I love not my station here aloft
in the midst of the tumult which I am powerless to direct or quell, with the
blue lightning wrinkling on my brow and the thunder muttering its first
awful syllables in my ear. I will descend. Yet let me give another glance to
the sea, where the foam breaks out in long white lines upon a broad expanse
of blackness or boils up in far-distant points like snowy mountain-tops in
the eddies of a flood; and let me look once more at the green plain and little
hills of the country, over which the giant of the storm is striding in robes of
mist, and at the town whose obscured and desolate streets might beseem a
city of the dead; and, turning a single moment to the sky, now gloomy as an
author’s prospects, I prepare to resume my station on lower earth. But stay!
A little speck of azure has widened in the western heavens; the sunbeams
find a passage and go rejoicing through the tempest, and on yonder darkest
cloud, born like hallowed hopes of the glory of another world and the
trouble and tears of this, brightens forth the rainbow.

THE HOLLOW OF THE THREE HILLS

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

eyes upward to the verge of the basin, as if meditating to return with her
purpose unaccomplished. But it was not so ordained.
“I am stranger in this land, as you know,” said she, at length. “Whence I
come it matters not, but I have left those behind me with whom my fate was
intimately bound, and from whom I am cut off for ever. There is a weight in
my bosom that I cannot away with, and I have come hither to inquire of
their welfare.”
“And who is there by this green pool that can bring thee news from the
ends of the earth?” cried the old woman, peering into the lady’s face. “Not
from my lips mayst thou hear these tidings; yet be thou bold, and the
daylight shall not pass away from yonder hilltop before thy wish be
granted.”
“I will do your bidding though I die,” replied the lady, desperately.
The old woman seated herself on the trunk of the fallen tree, threw aside
the hood that shrouded her gray locks and beckoned her companion to draw
near.
“Kneel down,” she said, “and lay your forehead on my knees.”
She hesitated a moment, but the anxiety that had long been kindling
burned fiercely up within her. As she knelt down the border of her garment
was dipped into the pool; she laid her forehead on the old woman’s knees,
and the latter drew a cloak about the lady’s face, so that she was in
darkness. Then she heard the muttered words of prayer, in the midst of
which she started and would have arisen.
“Let me flee! Let me flee and hide myself, that they may not look upon
me!” she cried. But, with returning recollection, she hushed herself and was
still as death, for it seemed as if other voices, familiar in infancy and
unforgotten through many wanderings and in all the vicissitudes of her
heart and fortune, were mingling with the accents of the prayer. At first the
words were faint and indistinct—not rendered so by distance, but rather
resembling the dim pages of a book which we strive to read by an imperfect
and gradually brightening light. In such a manner, as the prayer proceeded,
did those voices strengthen upon the ear, till at length the petition ended,
and the conversation of an aged man and of a woman broken and decayed
like himself became distinctly audible to the lady as she knelt. But those
strangers appeared not to stand in the hollow depth between the three hills.
Their voices were encompassed and re-echoed by the walls of a chamber

the windows of which were rattling in the breeze; the regular vibration of a
clock, the crackling of a fire and the tinkling of the embers as they fell
among the ashes rendered the scene almost as vivid as if painted to the eye.
By a melancholy hearth sat these two old people, the man calmly
despondent, the woman querulous and tearful, and their words were all of
sorrow. They spoke of a daughter, a wanderer they knew not where, bearing
dishonor along with her and leaving shame and affliction to bring their gray
heads to the grave. They alluded also to other and more recent woe, but in
the midst of their talk their voices seemed to melt into the sound of the wind
sweeping mournfully among the autumn leaves; and when the lady lifted
her eyes, there was she kneeling in the hollow between three hills.
“A weary and lonesome time yonder old couple have of it,” remarked the
old woman, smiling in the lady’s face.
“And did you also hear them?” exclaimed she, a sense of intolerable
humiliation triumphing over her agony and fear.
“Yea, and we have yet more to hear,” replied the old woman, “wherefore
cover thy face quickly.”
Again the withered hag poured forth the monotonous words of a prayer
that was not meant to be acceptable in heaven, and soon in the pauses of her
breath strange murmurings began to thicken, gradually increasing, so as to
drown and overpower the charm by which they grew. Shrieks pierced
through the obscurity of sound and were succeeded by the singing of sweet
female voices, which in their turn gave way to a wild roar of laughter
broken suddenly by groanings and sobs, forming altogether a ghastly
confusion of terror and mourning and mirth. Chains were rattling, fierce and
stern voices uttered threats and the scourge resounded at their command. All
these noises deepened and became substantial to the listener’s ear, till she
could distinguish every soft and dreamy accent of the love-songs that died
causelessly into funeral-hymns. She shuddered at the unprovoked wrath
which blazed up like the spontaneous kindling of flume, and she grew faint
at the fearful merriment raging miserably around her. In the midst of this
wild scene, where unbound passions jostled each other in a drunken career,
there was one solemn voice of a man, and a manly and melodious voice it
might once have been. He went to and fro continually, and his feet sounded
upon the floor. In each member of that frenzied company whose own
burning thoughts had become their exclusive world he sought an auditor for

the story of his individual wrong, and interpreted their laughter and tears as
his reward of scorn or pity. He spoke of woman’s perfidy, of a wife who had
broken her holiest vows, of a home and heart made desolate. Even as he
went on, the shout, the laugh, the shriek, the sob, rose up in unison, till they
changed into the hollow, fitful and uneven sound of the wind as it fought
among the pine trees on those three lonely hills.
The lady looked up, and there was the withered woman smiling in her
face.
“Couldst thou have thought there were such merry times in a mad-
house?” inquired the latter.
“True, true!” said the lady to herself; “there is mirth within its walls, but
misery, misery without.”
“Wouldst thou hear more?” demanded the old woman.
“There is one other voice I would fain listen to again,” replied the lady,
faintly.
“Then lay down thy head speedily upon my knees, that thou mayst get
thee hence before the hour be past.”
The golden skirts of day were yet lingering upon the hills, but deep
shades obscured the hollow and the pool, as if sombre night were rising
thence to overspread the world. Again that evil woman began to weave her
spell. Long did it proceed unanswered, till the knolling of a bell stole in
among the intervals of her words like a clang that had travelled far over
valley and rising ground and was just ready to die in the air. The lady shook
upon her companion’s knees as she heard that boding sound. Stronger it
grew, and sadder, and deepened into the tone of a death-bell, knolling
dolefully from some ivy-mantled tower and bearing tidings of mortality and
woe to the cottage, to the hall and to the solitary wayfarer, that all might
weep for the doom appointed in turn to them. Then came a measured tread,
passing slowly, slowly on, as of mourners with a coffin, their garments
trailing on the ground, so that the ear could measure the length of their
melancholy array. Before them went the priest, reading the burial-service,
while the leaves of his book were rustling in the breeze. And though no
voice but his was heard to speak aloud, still there were revilings and
anathemas, whispered but distinct, from women and from men, breathed
against the daughter who had wrung the aged hearts of her parents, the wife
who had betrayed the trusting fondness of her husband, the mother who had

sinned against natural affection and left her child to die. The sweeping
sound of the funeral train faded away like a thin vapor, and the wind, that
just before had seemed to shake the coffin-pall, moaned sadly round the
verge of the hollow between three hills. But when the old woman stirred the
kneeling lady, she lifted not her head.
“Here has been a sweet hour’s sport!” said the withered crone, chuckling
to herself.

THE TOLL-GATHERER’S DAY

A SKETCH OF TRANSITORY LIFE
Methinks, for a person whose instinct bids him rather to pore over the
current of life than to plunge into its tumultuous waves, no undesirable
retreat were a toll-house beside some thronged thoroughfare of the land. In
youth, perhaps, it is good for the observer to run about the earth, to leave
the track of his footsteps far and wide, to mingle himself with the action of
numberless vicissitudes, and, finally, in some calm solitude to feed a
musing spirit on all that he has seen and felt. But there are natures too
indolent or too sensitive to endure the dust, the sunshine or the rain, the
turmoil of moral and physical elements, to which all the wayfarers of the
world expose themselves. For such a man how pleasant a miracle could life
be made to roll its variegated length by the threshold of his own hermitage,
and the great globe, as it were, perform its revolutions and shift its thousand
scenes before his eyes without whirling him onward in its course! If any
mortal be favored with a lot analogous to this, it is the toll-gatherer. So, at
least, have I often fancied while lounging on a bench at the door of a small
square edifice which stands between shore and shore in the midst of a long
bridge. Beneath the timbers ebbs and flows an arm of the sea, while above,
like the life-blood through a great artery, the travel of the north and east is
continually throbbing. Sitting on the aforesaid bench, I amuse myself with a
conception, illustrated by numerous pencil-sketches in the air, of the toll-
gatherer’s day.
In the morning—dim, gray, dewy summer’s morn—the distant roll of
ponderous wheels begins to mingle with my old friend’s slumbers, creaking
more and more harshly through the midst of his dream and gradually
replacing it with realities. Hardly conscious of the change from sleep to
wakefulness, he finds himself partly clad and throwing wide the toll-gates
for the passage of a fragrant load of hay. The timbers groan beneath the

slow-revolving wheels; one sturdy yeoman stalks beside the oxen, and,
peering from the summit of the hay, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished
lantern over the toll-house is seen the drowsy visage of his comrade, who
has enjoyed a nap some ten miles long. The toll is paid; creak, creak, again
go the wheels, and the huge hay-mow vanishes into the morning mist. As
yet nature is but half awake, and familiar objects appear visionary. But
yonder, dashing from the shore with a rattling thunder of the wheels and a
confused clatter of hoofs, comes the never-tiring mail, which has hurried
onward at the same headlong, restless rate all through the quiet night. The
bridge resounds in one continued peal as the coach rolls on without a pause,
merely affording the toll-gatherer a glimpse at the sleepy passengers, who
now bestir their torpid limbs and snuff a cordial in the briny air. The morn
breathes upon them and blushes, and they forget how wearily the darkness
toiled away. And behold now the fervid day in his bright chariot, glittering
aslant over the waves, nor scorning to throw a tribute of his golden beams
on the toll-gatherer’s little hermitage. The old man looks eastward, and (for
he is a moralizer) frames a simile of the stage-coach and the sun.
While the world is rousing itself we may glance slightly at the scene of
our sketch. It sits above the bosom of the broad flood—a spot not of earth,
but in the midst of waters which rush with a murmuring sound among the
massive beams beneath. Over the door is a weatherbeaten board inscribed
with the rates of toll in letters so nearly effaced that the gilding of the
sunshine can hardly make them legible. Beneath the window is a wooden
bench on which a long succession of weary wayfarers have reposed
themselves. Peeping within-doors, we perceive the whitewashed walls
bedecked with sundry lithographic prints and advertisements of various
import and the immense show-bill of a wandering caravan. And there sits
our good old toll-gatherer, glorified by the early sunbeams. He is a man, as
his aspect may announce, of quiet soul and thoughtful, shrewd, yet simple
mind, who of the wisdom which the passing world scatters along the
wayside has gathered a reasonable store.
Now the sun smiles upon the landscape and earth smiles back again upon
the sky. Frequent now are the travellers. The toll-gatherer’s practised ear
can distinguish the weight of every vehicle, the number of its wheels and
how many horses beat the resounding timbers with their iron tramp. Here,
in a substantial family chaise, setting forth betimes to take advantage of the
dewy road, come a gentleman and his wife with their rosy-cheeked little girl

sitting gladsomely between them. The bottom of the chaise is heaped with
multifarious bandboxes and carpet-bags, and beneath the axle swings a
leathern trunk dusty with yesterday’s journey. Next appears a four-wheeled
carryall peopled with a round half dozen of pretty girls, all drawn by a
single horse and driven by a single gentleman. Luckless wight doomed
through a whole summer day to be the butt of mirth and mischief among the
frolicsome maidens! Bolt upright in a sulky rides a thin, sour-visaged man
who as he pays his toll hands the toll-gatherer a printed card to stick upon
the wall. The vinegar-faced traveller proves to be a manufacturer of pickles.
Now paces slowly from timber to timber a horseman clad in black, with a
meditative brow, as of one who, whithersoever his steed might bear him,
would still journey through a mist of brooding thought. He is a country
preacher going to labor at a protracted meeting. The next object passing
townward is a butcher’s cart canopied with its arch of snow-white cotton.
Behind comes a “sauceman” driving a wagon full of new potatoes, green
ears of corn, beets, carrots, turnips and summer squashes, and next two
wrinkled, withered witch-looking old gossips in an antediluvian chaise
drawn by a horse of former generations and going to peddle out a lot of
huckleberries. See, there, a man trundling a wheelbarrow-load of lobsters.
And now a milk-cart rattles briskly onward, covered with green canvas and
conveying the contributions of a whole herd of cows, in large tin canisters.
But let all these pay their toll and pass. Here comes a spectacle that
causes the old toll-gatherer to smile benignantly, as if the travellers brought
sunshine with them and lavished its gladsome influence all along the road.
It is a barouche of the newest style, the varnished panels of which reflect
the whole moving panorama of the landscape, and show a picture, likewise,
of our friend with his visage broadened, so that his meditative smile is
transformed to grotesque merriment. Within sits a youth fresh as the
summer morn, and beside him a young lady in white with white gloves
upon her slender hands and a white veil flowing down over her face. But
methinks her blushing cheek burns through the snowy veil. Another white-
robed virgin sits in front. And who are these on whom, and on all that
appertains to them, the dust of earth seems never to have settled? Two
lovers whom the priest has blessed this blessed morn and sent them forth,
with one of the bride-maids, on the matrimonial tour.—Take my blessing
too, ye happy ones! May the sky not frown upon you nor clouds bedew you
with their chill and sullen rain! May the hot sun kindle no fever in your

hearts! May your whole life’s pilgrimage be as blissful as this first day’s
journey, and its close be gladdened with even brighter anticipations than
those which hallow your bridal-night! They pass, and ere the reflection of
their joy has faded from his face another spectacle throws a melancholy
shadow over the spirit of the observing man. In a close carriage sits a fragile
figure muffled carefully and shrinking even from the mild breath of
summer. She leans against a manly form, and his arm enfolds her as if to
guard his treasure from some enemy. Let but a few weeks pass, and when
he shall strive to embrace that loved one, he will press only desolation to his
heart.
And now has Morning gathered up her dewy pearls and fled away. The
sun rolls blazing through the sky, and cannot find a cloud to cool his face
with. The horses toil sluggishly along the bridge, and heave their glistening
sides in short quick pantings when the reins are tightened at the toll-house.
Glisten, too, the faces of the travellers. Their garments are thickly bestrewn
with dust; their whiskers and hair look hoary; their throats are choked with
the dusty atmosphere which they have left behind them. No air is stirring on
the road. Nature dares draw no breath lest she should inhale a stifling cloud
of dust. “A hot and dusty day!” cry the poor pilgrims as they wipe their
begrimed foreheads and woo the doubtful breeze which the river bears
along with it.—“Awful hot! Dreadful dusty!” answers the sympathetic toll-
gatherer. They start again to pass through the fiery furnace, while he re-
enters his cool hermitage and besprinkles it with a pail of briny water from
the stream beneath. He thinks within himself that the sun is not so fierce
here as elsewhere, and that the gentle air doth not forget him in these sultry
days. Yes, old friend, and a quiet heart will make a dog-day temperate. He
hears a weary footstep, and perceives a traveller with pack and staff, who
sits down upon the hospitable bench and removes the hat from his wet
brow. The toll-gatherer administers a cup of cold water, and, discovering his
guest to be a man of homely sense, he engages him in profitable talk,
uttering the maxims of a philosophy which he has found in his own soul,
but knows not how it came there. And as the wayfarer makes ready to
resume his journey he tells him a sovereign remedy for blistered feet.
Now comes the noontide hour—of all the hours, nearest akin to midnight,
for each has its own calmness and repose. Soon, however, the world begins
to turn again upon its axis, and it seems the busiest epoch of the day, when
an accident impedes the march of sublunary things. The draw being lifted to

permit the passage of a schooner laden with wood from the Eastern forests,
she sticks immovably right athwart the bridge. Meanwhile, on both sides of
the chasm a throng of impatient travellers fret and fume. Here are two
sailors in a gig with the top thrown back, both puffing cigars and swearing
all sorts of forecastle oaths; there, in a smart chaise, a dashingly-dressed
gentleman and lady, he from a tailor’s shop-board and she from a milliner’s
back room—the aristocrats of a summer afternoon. And what are the
haughtiest of us but the ephemeral aristocrats of a summer’s day? Here is a
tin-pedler whose glittering ware bedazzles all beholders like a travelling
meteor or opposition sun, and on the other side a seller of spruce beer,
which brisk liquor is confined in several dozen of stone bottles. Here conic
a party of ladies on horseback, in green ridings habits, and gentlemen
attendant, and there a flock of sheep for the market, pattering over the
bridge with a multitude nous clatter of their little hoofs; here a Frenchman
with a hand-organ on his shoulder, and there an itinerant Swiss jeweller. On
this side, heralded by a blast of clarions and bugles, appears a train of
wagons conveying all the wild beasts of a caravan; and on that a company
of summer soldiers marching from village to village on a festival campaign,
attended by the “brass band.” Now look at the scene, and it presents an
emblem of the mysterious confusion, the apparently insolvable riddle, in
which individuals, or the great world itself, seem often to be involved. What
miracle shall set all things right again?
But see! the schooner has thrust her bulky carcase through the chasm; the
draw descends; horse and foot pass onward and leave the bridge vacant
from end to end. “And thus,” muses the toll-gatherer, “have I found it with
all stoppages, even though the universe seemed to be at a stand.” The sage
old man!
Far westward now the reddening sun throws a broad sheet of splendor
across the flood, and to the eyes of distant boatmen gleams brightly among
the timbers of the bridge. Strollers come from the town to quaff the
freshening breeze. One or two let down long lines and haul up flapping
flounders or cunners or small cod, or perhaps an eel. Others, and fair girls
among them, with the flush of the hot day still on their cheeks, bend over
the railing and watch the heaps of seaweed floating upward with the
flowing tide. The horses now tramp heavily along the bridge and wistfully
bethink them of their stables.—Rest, rest, thou weary world! for to-
morrow’s round of toil and pleasure will be as wearisome as to-day’s has

been, yet both shall bear thee onward a day’s march of eternity.—Now the
old toll-gatherer looks seaward and discerns the lighthouse kindling on a far
island, and the stars, too, kindling in the sky, as if but a little way beyond;
and, mingling reveries of heaven with remembrances of earth, the whole
procession of mortal travellers, all the dusty pilgrimage which he has
witnessed, seems like a flitting show of phantoms for his thoughtful soul to
muse upon.

THE VISION OF THE FOUNTAIN

At fifteen I became a resident in a country village more than a hundred
miles from home. The morning after my arrival—a September morning, but
warm and bright as any in July—I rambled into a wood of oaks with a few
walnut trees intermixed, forming the closest shade above my head. The
ground was rocky, uneven, overgrown with bushes and clumps of young
saplings and traversed only by cattle-paths. The track which I chanced to
follow led me to a crystal spring with a border of grass as freshly green as
on May morning, and overshadowed by the limb of a great oak. One
solitary sunbeam found its way down and played like a goldfish in the
water.
From my childhood I have loved to gaze into a spring. The water filled a
circular basin, small but deep and set round with stones, some of which
were covered with slimy moss, the others naked and of variegated hue—
reddish, white and brown. The bottom was covered with coarse sand, which
sparkled in the lonely sunbeam and seemed to illuminate the spring with an
unborrowed light. In one spot the gush of the water violently agitated the
sand, but without obscuring the fountain or breaking the glassiness of its
surface. It appeared as if some living creature were about to emerge—the
naiad of the spring, perhaps, in the shape of a beautiful young woman with
a gown of filmy water-moss, a belt of rainbow-drops and a cold, pure,
passionless countenance. How would the beholder shiver, pleasantly yet
fearfully, to see her sitting on one of the stones, paddling her white feet in
the ripples and throwing up water to sparkle in the sun! Wherever she laid
her hands on grass and flowers, they would immediately be moist, as with
morning dew. Then would she set about her labors, like a careful housewife,
to clear the fountain of withered leaves, and bits of slimy wood, and old
acorns from the oaks above, and grains of corn left by cattle in drinking, till
the bright sand in the bright water were like a treasury of diamonds. But,

should the intruder approach too near, he would find only the drops of a
summer shower glistening about the spot where he had seen her.
Reclining on the border of grass where the dewy goddess should have
been, I bent forward, and a pair of eyes met mine within the watery mirror.
They were the reflection of my own. I looked again, and, lo! another face,
deeper in the fountain than my own image, more distinct in all the features,
yet faint as thought. The vision had the aspect of a fair young girl with locks
of paly gold. A mirthful expression laughed in the eyes and dimpled over
the whole shadowy countenance, till it seemed just what a fountain would
be if, while dancing merrily into the sunshine, it should assume the shape of
woman. Through the dim rosiness of the cheeks I could see the brown
leaves, the slimy twigs, the acorns and the sparkling sand. The solitary
sunbeam was diffused among the golden hair, which melted into its faint
brightness and became a glory round that head so beautiful.
My description can give no idea how suddenly the fountain was thus
tenanted and how soon it was left desolate. I breathed, and there was the
face; I held my breath, and it was gone. Had it passed away or faded into
nothing? I doubted whether it had ever been.
My sweet readers, what a dreamy and delicious hour did I spend where
that vision found and left me! For a long time I sat perfectly still, waiting
till it should reappear, and fearful that the slightest motion, or even the
flutter of my breath, might frighten it away. Thus have I often started from a
pleasant dream, and then kept quiet in hopes to wile it back. Deep were my
musings as to the race and attributes of that ethereal being. Had I created
her? Was she the daughter of my fancy, akin to those strange shapes which
peep under the lids of children’s eyes? And did her beauty gladden me for
that one moment and then die? Or was she a water-nymph within the
fountain, or fairy or woodland goddess peeping over my shoulder, or the
ghost of some forsaken maid who had drowned herself for love? Or, in
good truth, had a lovely girl with a warm heart and lips that would bear
pressure stolen softly behind me and thrown her image into the spring?
I watched and waited, but no vision came again. I departed, but with a
spell upon me which drew me back that same afternoon to the haunted
spring. There was the water gushing, the sand sparkling and the sunbeam
glimmering. There the vision was not, but only a great frog, the hermit of
that solitude, who immediately withdrew his speckled snout and made

himself invisible—all except a pair of long legs—beneath a stone.
Methought he had a devilish look. I could have slain him as an enchanter
who kept the mysterious beauty imprisoned in the fountain.
Sad and heavy, I was returning to the village. Between me and the
church-spire rose a little hill, and on its summit a group of trees insulated
from all the rest of the wood, with their own share of radiance hovering on
them from the west and their own solitary shadow falling to the east. The
afternoon being far declined, the sunshine was almost pensive and the shade
almost cheerful; glory and gloom were mingled in the placid light, as if the
spirits of the Day and Evening had met in friendship under those trees and
found themselves akin. I was admiring the picture when the shape of a
young girl emerged from behind the clump of oaks. My heart knew her: it
was the vision, but so distant and ethereal did she seem, so unmixed with
earth, so imbued with the pensive glory of the spot where she was standing,
that my spirit sunk within me, sadder than before. How could I ever reach
her?
While I gazed a sudden shower came pattering down upon the leaves. In
a moment the air was full of brightness, each raindrop catching a portion of
sunlight as it fell, and the whole gentle shower appearing like a mist, just
substantial enough to bear the burden of radiance. A rainbow vivid as
Niagara’s was painted in the air. Its southern limb came down before the
group of trees and enveloped the fair vision as if the hues of heaven were
the only garment for her beauty. When the rainbow vanished, she who had
seemed a part of it was no longer there. Was her existence absorbed in
nature’s loveliest phenomenon, and did her pure frame dissolve away in the
varied light? Yet I would not despair of her return, for, robed in the rainbow,
she was the emblem of Hope.
Thus did the vision leave me, and many a doleful day succeeded to the
parting moment. By the spring and in the wood and on the hill and through
the village, at dewy sunrise, burning noon, and at that magic hour of sunset,
when she had vanished from my sight, I sought her, but in vain. Weeks
came and went, months rolled away, and she appeared not in them. I
imparted my mystery to none, but wandered to and fro or sat in solitude like
one that had caught a glimpse of heaven and could take no more joy on
earth. I withdrew into an inner world where my thoughts lived and
breathed, and the vision in the midst of them. Without intending it, I

became at once the author and hero of a romance, conjuring up rivals,
imagining events, the actions of others and my own, and experiencing every
change of passion, till jealousy and despair had their end in bliss. Oh, had I
the burning fancy of my early youth with manhood’s colder gift, the power
of expression, your hearts, sweet ladies, should flutter at my tale.
In the middle of January I was summoned home. The day before my
departure, visiting the spots which had been hallowed by the vision, I found
that the spring had a frozen bosom, and nothing but the snow and a glare of
winter sunshine on the hill of the rainbow. “Let me hope,” thought I, “or my
heart will be as icy as the fountain and the whole world as desolate as this
snowy hill.” Most of the day was spent in preparing for the journey, which
was to commence at four o’clock the next morning. About an hour after
supper, when all was in readiness, I descended from my chamber to the
sitting-room to take leave of the old clergyman and his family with whom I
had been an inmate. A gust of wind blew out my lamp as I passed through
the entry.
According to their invariable custom—so pleasant a one when the fire
blazes cheerfully—the family were sitting in the parlor with no other light
than what came from the hearth. As the good clergyman’s scanty stipend
compelled him to use all sorts of economy, the foundation of his fires was
always a large heap of tan, or ground bark, which would smoulder away
from morning till night with a dull warmth and no flame. This evening the
heap of tan was newly put on and surmounted with three sticks of red oak
full of moisture, and a few pieces of dry pine that had not yet kindled. There
was no light except the little that came sullenly from two half-burnt brands,
without even glimmering on the andirons. But I knew the position of the old
minister’s arm-chair, and also where his wife sat with her knitting-work,
and how to avoid his two daughters—one a stout country lass, and the other
a consumptive girl. Groping through the gloom, I found my own place next
to that of the son, a learned collegian who had come home to keep school in
the village during the winter vacation. I noticed that there was less room
than usual to-night between the collegian’s chair and mine.
As people are always taciturn in the dark, not a word was said for some
time after my entrance. Nothing broke the stillness but the regular click of
the matron’s knitting-needles. At times the fire threw out a brief and dusky
gleam which twinkled on the old man’s glasses and hovered doubtfully

round our circle, but was far too faint to portray the individuals who
composed it. Were we not like ghosts? Dreamy as the scene was, might it
not be a type of the mode in which departed people who had known and
loved each other here would hold communion in eternity? We were aware
of each other’s presence, not by sight nor sound nor touch, but by an inward
consciousness. Would it not be so among the dead?
The silence was interrupted by the consumptive daughter addressing a
remark to some one in the circle whom she called Rachel. Her tremulous
and decayed accents were answered by a single word, but in a voice that
made me start and bend toward the spot whence it had proceeded. Had I
ever heard that sweet, low tone? If not, why did it rouse up so many old
recollections, or mockeries of such, the shadows of things familiar yet
unknown, and fill my mind with confused images of her features who had
spoken, though buried in the gloom of the parlor? Whom had my heart
recognized, that it throbbed so? I listened to catch her gentle breathing, and
strove by the intensity of my gaze to picture forth a shape where none was
visible.
Suddenly the dry pine caught; the fire blazed up with a ruddy glow, and
where the darkness had been, there was she—the vision of the fountain. A
spirit of radiance only, she had vanished with the rainbow and appeared
again in the firelight, perhaps to flicker with the blaze and be gone. Yet her
cheek was rosy and lifelike, and her features, in the bright warmth of the
room, were even sweeter and tenderer than my recollection of them. She
knew me. The mirthful expression that had laughed in her eyes and dimpled
over her countenance when I beheld her faint beauty in the fountain was
laughing and dimpling there now. One moment our glance mingled; the
next, down rolled the heap of tan upon the kindled wood, and darkness
snatched away that daughter of the light, and gave her back to me no more!
Fair ladies, there is nothing more to tell. Must the simple mystery be
revealed, then, that Rachel was the daughter of the village squire and had
left home for a boarding-school the morning after I arrived and returned the
day before my departure? If I transformed her to an angel, it is what every
youthful lover does for his mistress. Therein consists the essence of my
story. But slight the change, sweet maids, to make angels of yourselves.

FANCY’S SHOW-BOX

A MORALITY
What is guilt? A stain upon the soul. And it is a point of vast interest
whether the soul may contract such stains in all their depth and flagrancy
from deeds which may have been plotted and resolved upon, but which
physically have never had existence. Must the fleshly hand and visible
frame of man set its seal to the evil designs of the soul, in order to give
them their entire validity against the sinner? Or, while none but crimes
perpetrated are cognizable before an earthly tribunal, will guilty thoughts—
of which guilty deeds are no more than shadows,—will these draw down
the full weight of a condemning sentence in the supreme court of eternity?
In the solitude of a midnight chamber or in a desert afar from men or in a
church while the body is kneeling the soul may pollute itself even with
those crimes which we are accustomed to deem altogether carnal. If this be
true, it is a fearful truth.
Let us illustrate the subject by an imaginary example. A venerable
gentleman—one Mr. Smith—who had long been regarded as a pattern of
moral excellence was warming his aged blood with a glass or two of
generous wine. His children being gone forth about their worldly business
and his grandchildren at school, he sat alone in a deep luxurious arm-chair
with his feet beneath a richly-carved mahogany table. Some old people
have a dread of solitude, and when better company may not be had rejoice
even to hear the quiet breathing of a babe asleep upon the carpet. But Mr.
Smith, whose silver hair was the bright symbol of a life unstained except by
such spots as are inseparable from human nature—he had no need of a babe
to protect him by its purity, nor of a grown person to stand between him and
his own soul. Nevertheless, either manhood must converse with age, or
womanhood must soothe him with gentle cares, or infancy must sport

around his chair, or his thoughts will stray into the misty region of the past
and the old man be chill and sad. Wine will not always cheer him.
Such might have been the case with Mr. Smith, when, through the
brilliant medium of his glass of old Madeira, he beheld three figures
entering the room. These were Fancy, who had assumed the garb and aspect
of an itinerant showman, with a box of pictures on her back; and Memory,
in the likeness of a clerk, with a pen behind her ear, an inkhorn at her
buttonhole and a huge manuscript volume beneath her arm; and lastly,
behind the other two, a person shrouded in a dusky mantle which concealed
both face and form. But Mr. Smith had a shrewd idea that it was
Conscience. How kind of Fancy, Memory and Conscience to visit the old
gentleman just as he was beginning to imagine that the wine had neither so
bright a sparkle nor so excellent a flavor as when himself and the liquor
were less aged! Through the dim length of the apartment, where crimson
curtains muffled the glare of sunshine and created a rich obscurity, the three
guests drew near the silver-haired old man. Memory, with a finger between
the leaves of her huge volume, placed herself at his right hand; Conscience,
with her face still hidden in the dusky mantle, took her station on the left, so
as to be next his heart; while Fancy set down her picture-box upon the table
with the magnifying-glass convenient to his eye.
We can sketch merely the outlines of two or three out of the many
pictures which at the pulling of a string successively peopled the box with
the semblances of living scenes. One was a moonlight picture, in the
background a lowly dwelling, and in front, partly shadowed by a tree, yet
besprinkled with flakes of radiance, two youthful figures, male and female.
The young man stood with folded arms, a haughty smile upon his lip and a
gleam of triumph in his eye as he glanced downward at the kneeling girl.
She was almost prostrate at his feet, evidently sinking under a weight of
shame and anguish which hardly allowed her to lift her clasped hands in
supplication. Her eyes she could not lift. But neither her agony, nor the
lovely features on which it was depicted, nor the slender grace of the form
which it convulsed, appeared to soften the obduracy of the young man. He
was the personification of triumphant scorn.
Now, strange to say, as old Mr. Smith peeped through the magnifying-
glass, which made the objects start out from the canvas with magical
deception, he began to recognize the farmhouse, the tree and both the

figures of the picture. The young man in times long past had often met his
gaze within the looking-glass; the girl was the very image of his first love—
his cottage-love, his Martha Burroughs. Mr. Smith was scandalized. “Oh,
vile and slanderous picture!” he exclaims. “When have I triumphed over
ruined innocence? Was not Martha wedded in her teens to David Tomkins,
who won her girlish love and long enjoyed her affection as a wife? And
ever since his death she has lived a reputable widow!”
Meantime, Memory was turning over the leaves of her volume, rustling
them to and fro with uncertain fingers, until among the earlier pages she
found one which had reference to this picture. She reads it close to the old
gentleman’s ear: it is a record merely of sinful thought which never was
embodied in an act, but, while Memory is reading, Conscience unveils her
face and strikes a dagger to the heart of Mr. Smith. Though not a death-
blow, the torture was extreme.
The exhibition proceeded. One after another Fancy displayed her
pictures, all of which appeared to have been painted by some malicious
artist on purpose to vex Mr. Smith. Not a shadow of proof could have been
adduced in any earthly court that he was guilty of the slightest of those sins
which were thus made to stare him in the face. In one scene there was a
table set out, with several bottles and glasses half filled with wine, which
threw back the dull ray of an expiring lamp. There had been mirth and
revelry until the hand of the clock stood just at midnight, when Murder
stepped between the boon-companions. A young man had fallen on the
floor, and lay stone dead with a ghastly wound crushed into his temple,
while over him, with a delirium of mingled rage and horror in his
countenance, stood the youthful likeness of Mr. Smith. The murdered youth
wore the features of Edward Spencer. “What does this rascal of a painter
mean?” cries Mr. Smith, provoked beyond all patience. “Edward Spencer
was my earliest and dearest friend, true to me as I to him through more than
half a century. Neither I nor any other ever murdered him. Was he not alive
within five years, and did he not, in token of our long friendship, bequeath
me his gold-headed cane and a mourning-ring?”
Again had Memory been turning over her volume, and fixed at length
upon so confused a page that she surely must have scribbled it when she
was tipsy. The purport was, however, that while Mr. Smith and Edward
Spencer were heating their young blood with wine a quarrel had flashed up

between them, and Mr. Smith, in deadly wrath, had flung a bottle at
Spencer’s head. True, it missed its aim and merely smashed a looking-glass;
and the next morning, when the incident was imperfectly remembered, they
had shaken hands with a hearty laugh. Yet, again, while Memory was
reading, Conscience unveiled her face, struck a dagger to the heart of Mr.
Smith and quelled his remonstrance with her iron frown. The pain was quite
excruciating.
Some of the pictures had been painted with so doubtful a touch, and in
colors so faint and pale, that the subjects could barely be conjectured. A
dull, semi-transparent mist had been thrown over the surface of the canvas,
into which the figures seemed to vanish while the eye sought most earnestly
to fix them. But in every scene, however dubiously portrayed, Mr. Smith
was invariably haunted by his own lineaments at various ages as in a dusty
mirror. After poring several minutes over one of these blurred and almost
indistinguishable pictures, he began to see that the painter had intended to
represent him, now in the decline of life, as stripping the clothes from the
backs of three half-starved children. “Really, this puzzles me!” quoth Mr.
Smith, with the irony of conscious rectitude. “Asking pardon of the painter,
I pronounce him a fool as well as a scandalous knave. A man of my
standing in the world to be robbing little children of their clothes!
Ridiculous!”
But while he spoke Memory had searched her fatal volume and found a
page which with her sad calm voice she poured into his ear. It was not
altogether inapplicable to the misty scene. It told how Mr. Smith had been
grievously tempted by many devilish sophistries, on the ground of a legal
quibble, to commence a lawsuit against three orphan-children, joint-heirs to
a considerable estate. Fortunately, before he was quite decided, his claims
had turned out nearly as devoid of law as justice. As Memory ceased to read
Conscience again thrust aside her mantle, and would have struck her victim
with the envenomed dagger only that he struggled and clasped his hands
before his heart. Even then, however, he sustained an ugly gash.
Why should we follow Fancy through the whole series of those awful
pictures? Painted by an artist of wondrous power and terrible acquaintance
with the secret soul, they embodied the ghosts of all the never-perpetrated
sins that had glided through the lifetime of Mr. Smith. And could such
beings of cloudy fantasy, so near akin to nothingness, give valid evidence

against him at the day of judgment? Be that the case or not, there is reason
to believe that one truly penitential tear would have washed away each
hateful picture and left the canvas white as snow. But Mr. Smith, at a prick
of Conscience too keen to be endured, bellowed aloud with impatient
agony, and suddenly discovered that his three guests were gone. There he
sat alone, a silver-haired and highly-venerated old man, in the rich gloom of
the crimsoned-curtained room, with no box of pictures on the table, but
only a decanter of most excellent Madeira. Yet his heart still seemed to
fester with the venom of the dagger.
Nevertheless, the unfortunate old gentleman might have argued the
matter with Conscience and alleged many reasons wherefore she should not
smite him so pitilessly. Were we to take up his cause, it should be somewhat
in the following fashion. A scheme of guilt, till it be put in execution,
greatly resembles a train of incidents in a projected tale. The latter, in order
to produce a sense of reality in the reader’s mind, must be conceived with
such proportionate strength by the author as to seem in the glow of fancy
more like truth, past, present or to come, than purely fiction. The
prospective sinner, on the other hand, weaves his plot of crime, but seldom
or never feels a perfect certainty that it will be executed. There is a
dreaminess diffused about his thoughts; in a dream, as it were, he strikes the
death-blow into his victim’s heart and starts to find an indelible blood-stain
on his hand. Thus a novel-writer or a dramatist, in creating a villain of
romance and fitting him with evil deeds, and the villain of actual life in
projecting crimes that will be perpetrated, may almost meet each other
halfway between reality and fancy. It is not until the crime is accomplished
that Guilt clenches its gripe upon the guilty heart and claims it for his own.
Then, and not before, sin is actually felt and acknowledged, and, if
unaccompanied by repentance, grows a thousandfold more virulent by its
self-consciousness. Be it considered, also, that men often overestimate their
capacity for evil. At a distance, while its attendant circumstances do not
press upon their notice and its results are dimly seen, they can bear to
contemplate it. They may take the steps which lead to crime, impelled by
the same sort of mental action as in working out a mathematical problem,
yet be powerless with compunction at the final moment. They knew not
what deed it was that they deemed themselves resolved to do. In truth, there
is no such thing in man’s nature as a settled and full resolve, either for good
or evil, except at the very moment of execution. Let us hope, therefore, that

all the dreadful consequences of sin will not be incurred unless the act have
set its seal upon the thought.
Yet, with the slight fancy-work which we have framed, some sad and
awful truths are interwoven. Man must not disclaim his brotherhood even
with the guiltiest, since, though his hand be clean, his heart has surely been
polluted by the flitting phantoms of iniquity. He must feel that when he
shall knock at the gate of heaven no semblance of an unspotted life can
entitle him to entrance there. Penitence must kneel and Mercy come from
the footstool of the throne, or that golden gate will never open.

DR. HEIDEGGER’S EXPERIMENT

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

and besprinkled with antique dust. Around the walls stood several oaken
bookcases, the lower shelves of which were filled with rows of gigantic
folios and black-letter quartos, and the upper with little parchment-covered
duodecimos. Over the central bookcase was a bronze bust of Hippocrates,
with which, according to some authorities, Dr. Heidegger was accustomed
to hold consultations in all difficult cases of his practice. In the obscurest
corner of the room stood a tall and narrow oaken closet with its door ajar,
within which doubtfully appeared a skeleton. Between two of the bookcases
hung a looking-glass, presenting its high and dusty plate within a tarnished
gilt frame. Among many wonderful stories related of this mirror, it was
fabled that the spirits of all the doctor’s deceased patients dwelt within its
verge and would stare him in the face whenever he looked thitherward. The
opposite side of the chamber was ornamented with the full-length portrait of
a young lady arrayed in the faded magnificence of silk, satin and brocade,
and with a visage as faded as her dress. Above half a century ago Dr.
Heidegger had been on the point of marriage with this young lady, but,
being affected with some slight disorder, she had swallowed one of her
lover’s prescriptions and died on the bridal-evening. The greatest curiosity
of the study remains to be mentioned: it was a ponderous folio volume
bound in black leather, with massive silver clasps. There were no letters on
the back, and nobody could tell the title of the book. But it was well known
to be a book of magic, and once, when a chambermaid had lifted it merely
to brush away the dust, the skeleton had rattled in its closet, the picture of
the young lady had stepped one foot upon the floor and several ghastly
faces had peeped forth from the mirror, while the brazen head of
Hippocrates frowned and said, “Forbear!”
Such was Dr. Heidegger’s study. On the summer afternoon of our tale a
small round table as black as ebony stood in the centre of the room,
sustaining a cut-glass vase of beautiful form and elaborate workmanship.
The sunshine came through the window between the heavy festoons of two
faded damask curtains and fell directly across this vase, so that a mild
splendor was reflected from it on the ashen visages of the five old people
who sat around. Four champagne-glasses were also on the table.
“My dear old friends,” repeated Dr. Heidegger, “may I reckon on your
aid in performing an exceedingly curious experiment?”

Now, Dr. Heidegger was a very strange old gentleman whose eccentricity
had become the nucleus for a thousand fantastic stories. Some of these
fables—to my shame be it spoken—might possibly be traced back to mine
own veracious self; and if any passages of the present tale should startle the
reader’s faith, I must be content to bear the stigma of a fiction-monger.
When the doctor’s four guests heard him talk of his proposed experiment,
they anticipated nothing more wonderful than the murder of a mouse in an
air-pump or the examination of a cobweb by the microscope, or some
similar nonsense with which he was constantly in the habit of pestering his
intimates. But without waiting for a reply Dr. Heidegger hobbled across the
chamber and returned with the same ponderous folio bound in black leather
which common report affirmed to be a book of magic. Undoing the silver
clasps, he opened the volume and took from among its black-letter pages a
rose, or what was once a rose, though now the green leaves and crimson
petals had assumed one brownish hue and the ancient flower seemed ready
to crumble to dust in the doctor’s hands.
“This rose,” said Dr. Heidegger, with a sigh—“this same withered and
crumbling flower—blossomed five and fifty years ago. It was given me by
Sylvia Ward, whose portrait hangs yonder, and I meant to wear it in my
bosom at our wedding. Five and fifty years it has been treasured between
the leaves of this old volume. Now, would you deem it possible that this
rose of half a century could ever bloom again?”
“Nonsense!” said the widow Wycherly, with a peevish toss of her head.
“You might as well ask whether an old woman’s wrinkled face could ever
bloom again.”
“See!” answered Dr. Heidegger. He uncovered the vase and threw the
faded rose into the water which it contained. At first it lay lightly on the
surface of the fluid, appearing to imbibe none of its moisture. Soon,
however, a singular change began to be visible. The crushed and dried
petals stirred and assumed a deepening tinge of crimson, as if the flower
were reviving from a deathlike slumber, the slender stalk and twigs of
foliage became green, and there was the rose of half a century, looking as
fresh as when Sylvia Ward had first given it to her lover. It was scarcely
full-blown, for some of its delicate red leaves curled modestly around its
moist bosom, within which two or three dewdrops were sparkling.

“That is certainly a very pretty deception,” said the doctor’s friends—
carelessly, however, for they had witnessed greater miracles at a conjurer’s
show. “Pray, how was it effected?”
“Did you never hear of the Fountain of Youth?” asked Dr. Heidegger,
“which Ponce de Leon, the Spanish adventurer, went in search of two or
three centuries ago?”
“But did Ponce de Leon ever find it?” said the widow Wycherly.
“No,” answered Dr. Heidegger, “for he never sought it in the right place.
The famous Fountain of Youth, if I am rightly informed, is situated in the
southern part of the Floridian peninsula, not far from Lake Macaco. Its
source is overshadowed by several gigantic magnolias which, though
numberless centuries old, have been kept as fresh as violets by the virtues
of this wonderful water. An acquaintance of mine, knowing my curiosity in
such matters, has sent me what you see in the vase.”
“Ahem!” said Colonel Killigrew, who believed not a word of the doctor’s
story; “and what may be the effect of this fluid on the human frame?”
“You shall judge for yourself, my dear colonel,” replied Dr. Heidegger.
—“And all of you, my respected friends, are welcome to so much of this
admirable fluid as may restore to you the bloom of youth. For my own part,
having had much trouble in growing old, I am in no hurry to grow young
again. With your permission, therefore, I will merely watch the progress of
the experiment.”
While he spoke Dr. Heidegger had been filling the four champagne-
glasses with the water of the Fountain of Youth. It was apparently
impregnated with an effervescent gas, for little bubbles were continually
ascending from the depths of the glasses and bursting in silvery spray at the
surface. As the liquor diffused a pleasant perfume, the old people doubted
not that it possessed cordial and comfortable properties, and, though utter
sceptics as to its rejuvenescent power, they were inclined to swallow it at
once. But Dr. Heidegger besought them to stay a moment.
“Before you drink, my respectable old friends,” said he, “it would be well
that, with the experience of a lifetime to direct you, you should draw up a
few general rules for your guidance in passing a second time through the
perils of youth. Think what a sin and shame it would be if, with your
peculiar advantages, you should not become patterns of virtue and wisdom
to all the young people of the age!”

The doctor’s four venerable friends made him no answer except by a
feeble and tremulous laugh, so very ridiculous was the idea that, knowing
how closely Repentance treads behind the steps of Error, they should ever
go astray again.
“Drink, then,” said the doctor, bowing; “I rejoice that I have so well
selected the subjects of my experiment.”
With palsied hands they raised the glasses to their lips. The liquor, if it
really possessed such virtues as Dr. Heidegger imputed to it, could not have
been bestowed on four human beings who needed it more woefully. They
looked as if they had never known what youth or pleasure was, but had
been the offspring of Nature’s dotage, and always the gray, decrepit,
sapless, miserable creatures who now sat stooping round the doctor’s table
without life enough in their souls or bodies to be animated even by the
prospect of growing young again. They drank off the water and replaced
their glasses on the table.
Assuredly, there was an almost immediate improvement in the aspect of
the party—not unlike what might have been produced by a glass of
generous wine—together with a sudden glow of cheerful sunshine,
brightening over all their visages at once. There was a healthful suffusion
on their cheeks instead of the ashen hue that had made them look so corpse-
like. They gazed at one another, and fancied that some magic power had
really begun to smooth away the deep and sad inscriptions which Father
Time had been so long engraving on their brows. The widow Wycherly
adjusted her cap, for she felt almost like a woman again.
“Give us more of this wondrous water,” cried they, eagerly. “We are
younger, but we are still too old. Quick! give us more!”
“Patience, patience!” quoth Dr. Heidegger, who sat, watching the
experiment with philosophic coolness. “You have been a long time growing
old; surely you might be content to grow young in half an hour. But the
water is at your service.” Again he filled their glasses with the liquor of
youth, enough of which still remained in the vase to turn half the old people
in the city to the age of their own grandchildren.
While the bubbles were yet sparkling on the brim the doctor’s four guests
snatched their glasses from the table and swallowed the contents at a single
gulp. Was it delusion? Even while the draught was passing down their
throats it seemed to have wrought a change on their whole systems. Their

eyes grew clear and bright; a dark shade deepened among their silvery
locks: they sat around the table three gentlemen of middle age and a woman
hardly beyond her buxom prime.
“My dear widow, you are charming!” cried Colonel Killigrew, whose
eyes had been fixed upon her face while the shadows of age were flitting
from it like darkness from the crimson daybreak.
The fair widow knew of old that Colonel Killigrew’s compliments were
not always measured by sober truth; so she started up and ran to the mirror,
still dreading that the ugly visage of an old woman would meet her gaze.
Meanwhile, the three gentlemen behaved in such a manner as proved that
the water of the Fountain of Youth possessed some intoxicating qualities—
unless, indeed, their exhilaration of spirits were merely a lightsome
dizziness caused by the sudden removal of the weight of years. Mr.
Gascoigne’s mind seemed to run on political topics, but whether relating to
the past, present or future could not easily be determined, since the same
ideas and phrases have been in vogue these fifty years. Now he rattled forth
full-throated sentences about patriotism, national glory and the people’s
right; now he muttered some perilous stuff or other in a sly and doubtful
whisper, so cautiously that even his own conscience could scarcely catch
the secret; and now, again, he spoke in measured accents and a deeply-
deferential tone, as if a royal ear were listening to his well-turned periods.
Colonel Killigrew all this time had been trolling forth a jolly bottle-song
and ringing his glass in symphony with the chorus, while his eyes wandered
toward the buxom figure of the widow Wycherly. On the other side of the
table, Mr. Medbourne was involved in a calculation of dollars and cents
with which was strangely intermingled a project for supplying the East
Indies with ice by harnessing a team of whales to the polar icebergs. As for
the widow Wycherly, she stood before the mirror courtesying and simpering
to her own image and greeting it as the friend whom she loved better than
all the world besides. She thrust her face close to the glass to see whether
some long-remembered wrinkle or crow’s-foot had indeed vanished; she
examined whether the snow had so entirely melted from her hair that the
venerable cap could be safely thrown aside. At last, turning briskly away,
she came with a sort of dancing step to the table.
“My dear old doctor,” cried she, “pray favor me with another glass.”

“Certainly, my dear madam—certainly,” replied the complaisant doctor.
“See! I have already filled the glasses.”
There, in fact, stood the four glasses brimful of this wonderful water, the
delicate spray of which, as it effervesced from the surface, resembled the
tremulous glitter of diamonds.
It was now so nearly sunset that the chamber had grown duskier than
ever, but a mild and moonlike splendor gleamed from within the vase and
rested alike on the four guests and on the doctor’s venerable figure. He sat
in a high-backed, elaborately-carved oaken arm-chair with a gray dignity of
aspect that might have well befitted that very Father Time whose power had
never been disputed save by this fortunate company. Even while quaffing
the third draught of the Fountain of Youth, they were almost awed by the
expression of his mysterious visage. But the next moment the exhilarating
gush of young life shot through their veins. They were now in the happy
prime of youth. Age, with its miserable train of cares and sorrows and
diseases, was remembered only as the trouble of a dream from which they
had joyously awoke. The fresh gloss of the soul, so early lost and without
which the world’s successive scenes had been but a gallery of faded
pictures, again threw its enchantment over all their prospects. They felt like
new-created beings in a new-created universe.
“We are young! We are young!” they cried, exultingly.
Youth, like the extremity of age, had effaced the strongly-marked
characteristics of middle life and mutually assimilated them all. They were
a group of merry youngsters almost maddened with the exuberant
frolicsomeness of their years. The most singular effect of their gayety was
an impulse to mock the infirmity and decrepitude of which they had so
lately been the victims. They laughed loudly at their old-fashioned attire—
the wide-skirted coats and flapped waistcoats of the young men and the
ancient cap and gown of the blooming girl. One limped across the floor like
a gouty grandfather; one set a pair of spectacles astride of his nose and
pretended to pore over the black-letter pages of the book of magic; a third
seated himself in an arm-chair and strove to imitate the venerable dignity of
Dr. Heidegger. Then all shouted mirthfully and leaped about the room.
The widow Wycherly—if so fresh a damsel could be called a widow—
tripped up to the doctor’s chair with a mischievous merriment in her rosy
face.

“Doctor, you dear old soul,” cried she, “get up and dance with me;” and
then the four young people laughed louder than ever to think what a queer
figure the poor old doctor would cut.
“Pray excuse me,” answered the doctor, quietly. “I am old and rheumatic,
and my dancing-days were over long ago. But either of these gay young
gentlemen will be glad of so pretty a partner.”
“Dance with me, Clara,” cried Colonel Killigrew.
“No, no! I will be her partner,” shouted Mr. Gascoigne.
“She promised me her hand fifty years ago,” exclaimed Mr. Medbourne.
They all gathered round her. One caught both her hands in his passionate
grasp, another threw his arm about her waist, the third buried his hand
among the glossy curls that clustered beneath the widow’s cap. Blushing,
panting, struggling, chiding, laughing, her warm breath fanning each of
their faces by turns, she strove to disengage herself, yet still remained in
their triple embrace. Never was there a livelier picture of youthful rivalship,
with bewitching beauty for the prize. Yet, by a strange deception, owing to
the duskiness of the chamber and the antique dresses which they still wore,
the tall mirror is said to have reflected the figures of the three old, gray,
withered grand-sires ridiculously contending for the skinny ugliness of a
shrivelled grandam. But they were young: their burning passions proved
them so.
Inflamed to madness by the coquetry of the girl-widow, who neither
granted nor quite withheld her favors, the three rivals began to interchange
threatening glances. Still keeping hold of the fair prize, they grappled
fiercely at one another’s throats. As they struggled to and fro the table was
overturned and the vase dashed into a thousand fragments. The precious
Water of Youth flowed in a bright stream across the floor, moistening the
wings of a butterfly which, grown old in the decline of summer, had
alighted there to die. The insect fluttered lightly through the chamber and
settled on the snowy head of Dr. Heidegger.
“Come, come, gentlemen! Come, Madam Wycherly!” exclaimed the
doctor. “I really must protest against this riot.”
They stood still and shivered, for it seemed as if gray Time were calling
them back from their sunny youth far down into the chill and darksome vale
of years. They looked at old Dr. Heidegger, who sat in his carved armchair

holding the rose of half a century, which he had rescued from among the
fragments of the shattered vase. At the motion of his hand the four rioters
resumed their seats—the more readily because their violent exertions had
wearied them, youthful though they were.
“My poor Sylvia’s rose!” ejaculated Dr. Heidegger, holding it in the light
of the sunset clouds. “It appears to be fading again.”
And so it was. Even while the party were looking at it the flower
continued to shrivel up, till it became as dry and fragile as when the doctor
had first thrown it into the vase. He shook off the few drops of moisture
which clung to its petals.
“I love it as well thus as in its dewy freshness,” observed he, pressing the
withered rose to his withered lips.
While he spoke the butterfly fluttered down from the doctor’s snowy
head and fell upon the floor. His guests shivered again. A strange dullness—
whether of the body or spirit they could not tell—was creeping gradually
over them all. They gazed at one another, and fancied that each fleeting
moment snatched away a charm and left a deepening furrow where none
had been before. Was it an illusion? Had the changes of a lifetime been
crowded into so brief a space, and were they now four aged people sitting
with their old friend Dr. Heidegger?
“Are we grown old again so soon?” cried they, dolefully.
In truth, they had. The Water of Youth possessed merely a virtue more
transient than that of wine; the delirium which it created had effervesced
away. Yes, they were old again. With a shuddering impulse that showed her
a woman still, the widow clasped her skinny hands before her face and
wished that the coffin-lid were over it, since it could be no longer beautiful.
“Yes, friends, ye are old again,” said Dr. Heidegger, “and, lo! the Water
of Youth is all lavished on the ground. Well, I bemoan it not; for if the
fountain gushed at my very doorstep, I would not stoop to bathe my lips in
it—no, though its delirium were for years instead of moments. Such is the
lesson ye have taught me.”
But the doctor’s four friends had taught no such lesson to themselves.
They resolved forthwith to make a pilgrimage to Florida and quaff at
morning, noon and night from the Fountain of Youth.

Legends of the Province-House

I.
HOWE’S MASQUERADE

One afternoon last summer, while walking along Washington street, my
eye was attracted by a sign-board protruding over a narrow archway nearly
opposite the Old South Church. The sign represented the front of a stately
edifice which was designated as the “OLD PROVINCE HOUSE, kept by
Thomas Waite.” I was glad to be thus reminded of a purpose, long
entertained, of visiting and rambling over the mansion of the old royal
governors of Massachusetts, and, entering the arched passage which
penetrated through the middle of a brick row of shops, a few steps
transported me from the busy heart of modern Boston into a small and
secluded court-yard. One side of this space was occupied by the square
front of the Province House, three stories high and surmounted by a cupola,
on the top of which a gilded Indian was discernible, with his bow bent and
his arrow on the string, as if aiming at the weathercock on the spire of the
Old South. The figure has kept this attitude for seventy years or more, ever
since good Deacon Drowne, a cunning carver of wood, first stationed him
on his long sentinel’s watch over the city.
The Province House is constructed of brick, which seems recently to
have been overlaid with a coat of light-colored paint. A flight of red
freestone steps fenced in by a balustrade of curiously wrought iron ascends
from the court-yard to the spacious porch, over which is a balcony with an
iron balustrade of similar pattern and workmanship to that beneath. These
letters and figures—“16 P.S. 79”—are wrought into the ironwork of the
balcony, and probably express the date of the edifice, with the initials of its
founder’s name.
A wide door with double leaves admitted me into the hall or entry, on the
right of which is the entrance to the bar-room. It was in this apartment, I
presume, that the ancient governors held their levees with vice-regal pomp,

surrounded by the military men, the counsellors, the judges, and other
officers of the Crown, while all the loyalty of the province thronged to do
them honor. But the room in its present condition cannot boast even of
faded magnificence. The panelled wainscot is covered with dingy paint and
acquires a duskier hue from the deep shadow into which the Province
House is thrown by the brick block that shuts it in from Washington street.
A ray of sunshine never visits this apartment any more than the glare of the
festal torches which have been extinguished from the era of the Revolution.
The most venerable and ornamental object is a chimney-piece set round
with Dutch tiles of blue-figured china, representing scenes from Scripture,
and, for aught I know, the lady of Pownall or Bernard may have sat beside
this fireplace and told her children the story of each blue tile. A bar in
modern style, well replenished with decanters, bottles, cigar-boxes and
network bags of lemons, and provided with a beer-pump and a soda-fount,
extends along one side of the room.
At my entrance an elderly person was smacking his lips with a zest which
satisfied me that the cellars of the Province House still hold good liquor,
though doubtless of other vintages than were quaffed by the old governors.
After sipping a glass of port-sangaree prepared by the skilful hands of Mr.
Thomas Waite, I besought that worthy successor and representative of so
many historic personages to conduct me over their time-honored mansion.
He readily complied, but, to confess the truth, I was forced to draw
strenuously upon my imagination in order to find aught that was interesting
in a house which, without its historic associations, would have seemed
merely such a tavern as is usually favored by the custom of decent city
boarders and old-fashioned country gentlemen. The chambers, which were
probably spacious in former times, are now cut up by partitions and
subdivided into little nooks, each affording scanty room for the narrow bed
and chair and dressing-table of a single lodger: The great staircase,
however, may be termed, without much hyperbole, a feature of grandeur
and magnificence. It winds through the midst of the house by flights of
broad steps, each flight terminating in a square landing-place, whence the
ascent is continued toward the cupola. A carved balustrade, freshly painted
in the lower stories, but growing dingier as we ascend, borders the staircase
with its quaintly twisted and intertwined pillars, from top to bottom. Up
these stairs the military boots, or perchance the gouty shoes, of many a
governor have trodden as the wearers mounted to the cupola which afforded

them so wide a view over their metropolis and the surrounding country. The
cupola is an octagon with several windows, and a door opening upon the
roof. From this station, as I pleased myself with imagining, Gage may have
beheld his disastrous victory on Bunker Hill (unless one of the tri-
mountains intervened), and Howe have marked the approaches of
Washington’s besieging army, although the buildings since erected in the
vicinity have shut out almost every object save the steeple of the Old South,
which seems almost within arm’s length. Descending from the cupola, I
paused in the garret to observe the ponderous white-oak framework, so
much more massive than the frames of modern houses, and thereby
resembling an antique skeleton. The brick walls, the materials of which
were imported from Holland, and the timbers of the mansion, are still as
sound as ever, but, the floors and other interior parts being greatly decayed,
it is contemplated to gut the whole and build a new house within the ancient
frame-and brickwork. Among other inconveniences of the present edifice,
mine host mentioned that any jar or motion was apt to shake down the dust
of ages out of the ceiling of one chamber upon the floor of that beneath it.
We stepped forth from the great front window into the balcony where in
old times it was doubtless the custom of the king’s representative to show
himself to a loyal populace, requiting their huzzas and tossed-up hats with
stately bendings of his dignified person. In those days the front of the
Province House looked upon the street, and the whole site now occupied by
the brick range of stores, as well as the present court-yard, was laid out in
grass-plats overshadowed by trees and bordered by a wrought-iron fence.
Now the old aristocratic edifice hides its time-worn visage behind an upstart
modern building; at one of the back windows I observed some pretty
tailoresses sewing and chatting and laughing, with now and then a careless
glance toward the balcony. Descending thence, we again entered the bar-
room, where the elderly gentleman above mentioned—the smack of whose
lips had spoken so favorably for Mr. Waite’s good liquor—was still
lounging in his chair. He seemed to be, if not a lodger, at least a familiar
visitor of the house who might be supposed to have his regular score at the
bar, his summer seat at the open window and his prescriptive corner at the
winter’s fireside. Being of a sociable aspect, I ventured to address him with
a remark calculated to draw forth his historical reminiscences, if any such
were in his mind, and it gratified me to discover that, between memory and
tradition, the old gentleman was really possessed of some very pleasant

gossip about the Province House. The portion of his talk which chiefly
interested me was the outline of the following legend. He professed to have
received it at one or two removes from an eye-witness, but this derivation,
together with the lapse of time, must have afforded opportunities for many
variations of the narrative; so that, despairing of literal and absolute truth, I
have not scrupled to make such further changes as seemed conducive to the
reader’s profit and delight.

At one of the entertainments given at the province-house during the latter
part of the siege of Boston there passed a scene which has never yet been
satisfactorily explained. The officers of the British army and the loyal
gentry of the province, most of whom were collected within the
beleaguered town, had been invited to a masqued ball, for it was the policy
for Sir William Howe to hide the distress and danger of the period and the
desperate aspect of the siege under an ostentation of festivity. The spectacle
of this evening, if the oldest members of the provincial court circle might be
believed, was the most gay and gorgeous affair that had occurred in the
annals of the government. The brilliantly-lighted apartments were thronged
with figures that seemed to have stepped from the dark canvas of historic
portraits or to have flitted forth from the magic pages of romance, or at least
to have flown hither from one of the London theatres without a change of
garments. Steeled knights of the Conquest, bearded statesmen of Queen
Elizabeth and high-ruffed ladies of her court were mingled with characters
of comedy, such as a parti-colored Merry Andrew jingling his cap and bells,
a Falstaff almost as provocative of laughter as his prototype, and a Don
Quixote with a bean-pole for a lance and a pot-lid for a shield.
But the broadest merriment was excited by a group of figures
ridiculously dressed in old regimentals which seemed to have been
purchased at a military rag-fair or pilfered from some receptacle of the cast-
off clothes of both the French and British armies. Portions of their attire had
probably been worn at the siege of Louisburg, and the coats of most recent
cut might have been rent and tattered by sword, ball or bayonet as long ago
as Wolfe’s victory. One of these worthies—a tall, lank figure brandishing a
rusty sword of immense longitude—purported to be no less a personage
than General George Washington, and the other principal officers of the

American army, such as Gates, Lee, Putnam, Schuyler, Ward and Heath,
were represented by similar scarecrows. An interview in the mock-heroic
style between the rebel warriors and the British commander-in-chief was
received with immense applause, which came loudest of all from the
loyalists of the colony.
There was one of the guests, however, who stood apart, eying these antics
sternly and scornfully at once with a frown and a bitter smile. It was an old
man formerly of high station and great repute in the province, and who had
been a very famous soldier in his day. Some surprise had been expressed
that a person of Colonel Joliffe’s known Whig principles, though now too
old to take an active part in the contest, should have remained in Boston
during the siege, and especially that he should consent to show himself in
the mansion of Sir William Howe. But thither he had come with a fair
granddaughter under his arm, and there, amid all the mirth and buffoonery,
stood this stern old figure, the best-sustained character in the masquerade,
because so well representing the antique spirit of his native land. The other
guests affirmed that Colonel Joliffe’s black puritanical scowl threw a
shadow round about him, although, in spite of his sombre influence, their
gayety continued to blaze higher, like—an ominous comparison—the
flickering brilliancy of a lamp which has but a little while to burn.
Eleven strokes full half an hour ago had pealed from the clock of the Old
South, when a rumor was circulated among the company that some new
spectacle or pageant was about to be exhibited which should put a fitting
close to the splendid festivities of the night.
“What new jest has Your Excellency in hand?” asked the Reverend
Mather Byles, whose Presbyterian scruples had not kept him from the
entertainment. “Trust me, sir, I have already laughed more than beseems my
cloth at your Homeric confabulation with yonder ragamuffin general of the
rebels. One other such fit of merriment, and I must throw off my clerical
wig and band.”
“Not so, good Dr. Byles,” answered Sir William Howe; “if mirth were a
crime, you had never gained your doctorate in divinity. As to this new
foolery, I know no more about it than yourself—perhaps not so much.
Honestly, now, doctor, have you not stirred up the sober brains of some of
your countrymen to enact a scene in our masquerade?”

“Perhaps,” slyly remarked the granddaughter of Colonel Joliffe, whose
high spirit had been stung by many taunts against New England—“perhaps
we are to have a masque of allegorical figures—Victory with trophies from
Lexington and Bunker Hill, Plenty with her overflowing horn to typify the
present abundance in this good town, and Glory with a wreath for His
Excellency’s brow.”
Sir William Howe smiled at words which he would have answered with
one of his darkest frowns had they been uttered by lips that wore a beard.
He was spared the necessity of a retort by a singular interruption. A sound
of music was heard without the house, as if proceeding from a full band of
military instruments stationed in the street, playing, not such a festal strain
as was suited to the occasion, but a slow funeral-march. The drums
appeared to be muffled, and the trumpets poured forth a wailing breath
which at once hushed the merriment of the auditors, filling all with wonder
and some with apprehension. The idea occurred to many that either the
funeral procession of some great personage had halted in front of the
province-house, or that a corpse in a velvet-covered and gorgeously-
decorated coffin was about to be borne from the portal. After listening a
moment, Sir William Howe called in a stern voice to the leader of the
musicians, who had hitherto enlivened the entertainment with gay and
lightsome melodies. The man was drum-major to one of the British
regiments.
“Dighton,” demanded the general, “what means this foolery? Bid your
band silence that dead march, or, by my word, they shall have sufficient
cause for their lugubrious strains. Silence it, sirrah!”
“Please, Your Honor,” answered the drum-major, whose rubicund visage
had lost all its color, “the fault is none of mine. I and my band are all here
together, and I question whether there be a man of us that could play that
march without book. I never heard it but once before, and that was at the
funeral of his late Majesty, King George II.”
“Well, well!” said Sir William Howe, recovering his composure; “it is the
prelude to some masquerading antic. Let it pass.”
A figure now presented itself, but among the many fantastic masks that
were dispersed through the apartments none could tell precisely from
whence it came. It was a man in an old-fashioned dress of black serge and
having the aspect of a steward or principal domestic in the household of a

nobleman or great English landholder. This figure advanced to the outer
door of the mansion, and, throwing both its leaves wide open, withdrew a
little to one side and looked back toward the grand staircase, as if expecting
some person to descend. At the same time, the music in the street sounded a
loud and doleful summons. The eyes of Sir William Howe and his guests
being directed to the staircase, there appeared on the uppermost landing-
place, that was discernible from the bottom, several personages descending
toward the door. The foremost was a man of stern visage, wearing a steeple-
crowned hat and a skull-cap beneath it, a dark cloak and huge wrinkled
boots that came halfway up his legs. Under his arm was a rolled-up banner
which seemed to be the banner of England, but strangely rent and torn; he
had a sword in his right hand and grasped a Bible in his left. The next figure
was of milder aspect, yet full of dignity, wearing a broad ruff, over which
descended a beard, a gown of wrought velvet and a doublet and hose of
black satin; he carried a roll of manuscript in his hand. Close behind these
two came a young man of very striking countenance and demeanor with
deep thought and contemplation on his brow, and perhaps a flash of
enthusiasm in his eye; his garb, like that of his predecessors, was of an
antique fashion, and there was a stain of blood upon his ruff. In the same
group with these were three or four others, all men of dignity and evident
command, and bearing themselves like personages who were accustomed to
the gaze of the multitude. It was the idea of the beholders that these figures
went to join the mysterious funeral that had halted in front of the province-
house, yet that supposition seemed to be contradicted by the air of triumph
with which they waved their hands as they crossed the threshold and
vanished through the portal.
“In the devil’s name, what is this?” muttered Sir William Howe to a
gentleman beside him. “A procession of the regicide judges of King Charles
the martyr?”
“These,” said Colonel Joliffe, breaking silence almost for the first time
that evening—“these, if I interpret them aright, are the Puritan governors,
the rulers of the old original democracy of Massachusetts—Endicott with
the banner from which he had torn the symbol of subjection, and Winthrop
and Sir Henry Vane and Dudley, Haynes, Bellingham and Leverett.”
“Why had that young man a stain of blood upon his ruff?” asked Miss
Joliffe.

“Because in after-years,” answered her grandfather, “he laid down the
wisest head in England upon the block for the principles of liberty.”
“Will not Your Excellency order out the guard?” whispered Lord Percy,
who, with other British officers, had now assembled round the general.
“There may be a plot under this mummery.”
“Tush! we have nothing to fear,” carelessly replied Sir William Howe.
“There can be no worse treason in the matter than a jest, and that somewhat
of the dullest. Even were it a sharp and bitter one, our best policy would be
to laugh it off. See! here come more of these gentry.”
Another group of characters had now partly descended the staircase. The
first was a venerable and white-bearded patriarch who cautiously felt his
way downward with a staff. Treading hastily behind him, and stretching
forth his gauntleted hand as if to grasp the old man’s shoulder, came a tall
soldier-like figure equipped with a plumed cap of steel, a bright breastplate
and a long sword, which rattled against the stairs. Next was seen a stout
man dressed in rich and courtly attire, but not of courtly demeanor; his gait
had the swinging motion of a seaman’s walk, and, chancing to stumble on
the staircase, he suddenly grew wrathful and was heard to mutter an oath.
He was followed by a noble-looking personage in a curled wig such as are
represented in the portraits of Queen Anne’s time and earlier, and the breast
of his coat was decorated with an embroidered star. While advancing to the
door he bowed to the right hand and to the left in a very gracious and
insinuating style, but as he crossed the threshold, unlike the early Puritan
governors, he seemed to wring his hands with sorrow.
“Prithee, play the part of a chorus, good Dr. Byles,” said Sir William
Howe. “What worthies are these?”
“If it please Your Excellency, they lived somewhat before my day,”
answered the doctor; “but doubtless our friend the colonel has been hand
and glove with them.”
“Their living faces I never looked upon,” said Colonel Joliffe, gravely;
“although I have spoken face to face with many rulers of this land, and shall
greet yet another with an old man’s blessing ere I die. But we talk of these
figures. I take the venerable patriarch to be Bradstreet, the last of the
Puritans, who was governor at ninety or thereabouts. The next is Sir
Edmund Andros, a tyrant, as any New England schoolboy will tell you, and
therefore the people cast him down from his high seat into a dungeon. Then

comes Sir William Phipps, shepherd, cooper, sea-captain and governor. May
many of his countrymen rise as high from as low an origin! Lastly, you saw
the gracious earl of Bellamont, who ruled us under King William.”
“But what is the meaning of it all?” asked Lord Percy.
“Now, were I a rebel,” said Miss Joliffe, half aloud, “I might fancy that
the ghosts of these ancient governors had been summoned to form the
funeral procession of royal authority in New England.”
Several other figures were now seen at the turn of the staircase. The one
in advance had a thoughtful, anxious and somewhat crafty expression of
face, and in spite of his loftiness of manner, which was evidently the result
both of an ambitious spirit and of long continuance in high stations, he
seemed not incapable of cringing to a greater than himself. A few steps
behind came an officer in a scarlet and embroidered uniform cut in a
fashion old enough to have been worn by the duke of Marlborough. His
nose had a rubicund tinge, which, together with the twinkle of his eye,
might have marked him as a lover of the wine-cup and good-fellowship;
notwithstanding which tokens, he appeared ill at ease, and often glanced
around him as if apprehensive of some secret mischief. Next came a portly
gentleman wearing a coat of shaggy cloth lined with silken velvet; he had
sense, shrewdness and humor in his face and a folio volume under his arm,
but his aspect was that of a man vexed and tormented beyond all patience
and harassed almost to death. He went hastily down, and was followed by a
dignified person dressed in a purple velvet suit with very rich embroidery;
his demeanor would have possessed much stateliness, only that a grievous
fit of the gout compelled him to hobble from stair to stair with contortions
of face and body. When Dr. Byles beheld this figure on the staircase, he
shivered as with an ague, but continued to watch him steadfastly until the
gouty gentleman had reached the threshold, made a gesture of anguish and
despair and vanished into the outer gloom, whither the funeral music
summoned him.
“Governor Belcher—my old patron—in his very shape and dress!”
gasped Dr. Byles. “This is an awful mockery.”
“A tedious foolery, rather,” said Sir William Howe, with an air of
indifference. “But who were the three that preceded him?”
“Governor Dudley, a cunning politician; yet his craft once brought him to
a prison,” replied Colonel Joliffe. “Governor Shute, formerly a colonel

under Marlborough, and whom the people frightened out of the province,
and learned Governor Burnett, whom the legislature tormented into a mortal
fever.”
“Methinks they were miserable men—these royal governors of
Massachusetts,” observed Miss Joliffe. “Heavens! how dim the light
grows!”
It was certainly a fact that the large lamp which illuminated the staircase
now burned dim and duskily; so that several figures which passed hastily
down the stairs and went forth from the porch appeared rather like shadows
than persons of fleshly substance.
Sir William Howe and his guests stood at the doors of the contiguous
apartments watching the progress of this singular pageant with various
emotions of anger, contempt or half-acknowledged fear, but still with an
anxious curiosity. The shapes which now seemed hastening to join the
mysterious procession were recognized rather by striking peculiarities of
dress or broad characteristics of manner than by any perceptible
resemblance of features to their prototypes. Their faces, indeed, were
invariably kept in deep shadow, but Dr. Byles and other gentlemen who had
long been familiar with the successive rulers of the province were heard to
whisper the names of Shirley, of Pownall, of Sir Francis Bernard and of the
well-remembered Hutchinson, thereby confessing that the actors, whoever
they might be, in this spectral march of governors had succeeded in putting
on some distant portraiture of the real personages. As they vanished from
the door, still did these shadows toss their arms into the gloom of night with
a dread expression of woe. Following the mimic representative of
Hutchinson came a military figure holding before his face the cocked hat
which he had taken from his powdered head, but his epaulettes and other
insignia of rank were those of a general officer, and something in his mien
reminded the beholders of one who had recently been master of the
province-house and chief of all the land.
“The shape of Gage, as true as in a looking-glass!” exclaimed Lord
Percy, turning pale.
“No, surely,” cried Miss Joliffe, laughing hysterically; “it could not be
Gage, or Sir William would have greeted his old comrade in arms. Perhaps
he will not suffer the next to pass unchallenged.”

“Of that be assured, young lady,” answered Sir William Howe, fixing his
eyes with a very marked expression upon the immovable visage of her
grandfather. “I have long enough delayed to pay the ceremonies of a host to
these departing guests; the next that takes his leave shall receive due
courtesy.”
A wild and dreary burst of music came through the open door. It seemed
as it the procession, which had been gradually filling up its ranks, were now
about to move, and that this loud peal of the wailing trumpets and roll of the
muffled drums were a call to some loiterer to make haste. Many eyes, by an
irresistible impulse, were turned upon Sir William Howe, as if it were he
whom the dreary music summoned to the funeral of departed power.
“See! here comes the last,” whispered Miss Joliffe, pointing her
tremulous finger to the staircase.
A figure had come into view as if descending the stairs, although so
dusky was the region whence it emerged some of the spectators fancied that
they had seen this human shape suddenly moulding itself amid the gloom.
Downward the figure came with a stately and martial tread, and, reaching
the lowest stair, was observed to be a tall man booted and wrapped in a
military cloak, which was drawn up around the face so as to meet the
napped brim of a laced hat; the features, therefore, were completely hidden.
But the British officers deemed that they had seen that military cloak
before, and even recognized the frayed embroidery on the collar, as well as
the gilded scabbard of a sword which protruded from the folds of the cloak
and glittered in a vivid gleam of light. Apart from these trifling particulars
there were characteristics of gait and bearing which impelled the wondering
guests to glance from the shrouded figure to Sir William Howe, as if to
satisfy themselves that their host had not suddenly vanished from the midst
of them. With a dark flush of wrath upon his brow, they saw the general
draw his sword and advance to meet the figure in the cloak before the latter
had stepped one pace upon the floor.
“Villain, unmuffle yourself!” cried he. “You pass no farther.”
The figure, without blenching a hair’s-breadth from the sword which was
pointed at his breast, made a solemn pause and lowered the cape of the
cloak from about his face, yet not sufficiently for the spectators to catch a
glimpse of it. But Sir William Howe had evidently seen enough. The
sternness of his countenance gave place to a look of wild amazement, if not

horror, while he recoiled several steps from the figure and let fall his sword
upon the floor. The martial shape again drew the cloak about his features
and passed on, but, reaching the threshold with his back toward the
spectators, he was seen to stamp his foot and shake his clenched hands in
the air. It was afterward affirmed that Sir William Howe had repeated that
selfsame gesture of rage and sorrow when for the last time, and as the last
royal governor, he passed through the portal of the province-house.
“Hark! The procession moves,” said Miss Joliffe.
The music was dying away along the street, and its dismal strains were
mingled with the knell of midnight from the steeple of the Old South and
with the roar of artillery which announced that the beleaguered army of
Washington had intrenched itself upon a nearer height than before. As the
deep boom of the cannon smote upon his ear Colonel Joliffe raised himself
to the full height of his aged form and smiled sternly on the British general.
“Would Your Excellency inquire further into the mystery of the
pageant?” said he.
“Take care of your gray head!” cried Sir William Howe, fiercely, though
with a quivering lip. “It has stood too long on a traitor’s shoulders.”
“You must make haste to chop it off, then,” calmly replied the colonel,
“for a few hours longer, and not all the power of Sir William Howe, nor of
his master, shall cause one of these gray hairs to fall. The empire of Britain
in this ancient province is at its last gasp to-night; almost while I speak it is
a dead corpse, and methinks the shadows of the old governors are fit
mourners at its funeral.”
With these words Colonel Joliffe threw on his cloak, and, drawing his
granddaughter’s arm within his own, retired from the last festival that a
British ruler ever held in the old province of Massachusetts Bay. It was
supposed that the colonel and the young lady possessed some secret
intelligence in regard to the mysterious pageant of that night. However this
might be, such knowledge has never become general. The actors in the
scene have vanished into deeper obscurity than even that wild Indian hand
who scattered the cargoes of the tea-ships on the waves and gained a place
in history, yet left no names. But superstition, among other legends of this
mansion, repeats the wondrous tale that on the anniversary night of
Britain’s discomfiture the ghosts of the ancient governors of Massachusetts
still glide through the portal of the Province House. And last of all comes a

figure shrouded in a military cloak, tossing his clenched hands into the air
and stamping his iron-shod boots upon the broad freestone steps with a
semblance of feverish despair, but without the sound of a foot-tramp.

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

II.
EDWARD RANDOLPH’S PORTRAIT

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

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

In one of the apartments of the province-house there was long preserved
an ancient picture the frame of which was as black as ebony, and the canvas
itself so dark with age, damp and smoke that not a touch of the painter’s art
could be discerned. Time had thrown an impenetrable veil over it and left to
tradition and fable and conjecture to say what had once been there

portrayed. During the rule of many successive governors it had hung, by
prescriptive and undisputed right, over the mantel piece of the same
chamber, and it still kept its place when Lieutenant-governor Hutchinson
assumed the administration of the province on the departure of Sir Francis
Bernard.
The lieutenant-governor sat one afternoon resting his head against the
carved back of his stately arm-chair and gazing up thoughtfully at the void
blackness of the picture. It was scarcely a time for such inactive musing,
when affairs of the deepest moment required the ruler’s decision; for within
that very hour Hutchinson had received intelligence of the arrival of a
British fleet bringing three regiments from Halifax to overawe the
insubordination of the people. These troops awaited his permission to
occupy the fortress of Castle William and the town itself, yet, instead of
affixing his signature to an official order, there sat the lieutenant-governor
so carefully scrutinizing the black waste of canvas that his demeanor
attracted the notice of two young persons who attended him. One, wearing a
military dress of buff, was his kinsman, Francis Lincoln, the provincial
captain of Castle William; the other, who sat on a low stool beside his chair,
was Alice Vane, his favorite niece. She was clad entirely in white—a pale,
ethereal creature who, though a native of New England, had been educated
abroad and seemed not merely a stranger from another clime, but almost a
being from another world. For several years, until left an orphan, she had
dwelt with her father in sunny Italy, and there had acquired a taste and
enthusiasm for sculpture and painting which she found few opportunities of
gratifying in the undecorated dwellings of the colonial gentry. It was said
that the early productions of her own pencil exhibited no inferior genius,
though perhaps the rude atmosphere of New England had cramped her hand
and dimmed the glowing colors of her fancy. But, observing her uncle’s
steadfast gaze, which appeared to search through the mist of years to
discover the subject of the picture, her curiosity was excited.
“Is it known, my dear uncle,” inquired she, “what this old picture once
represented? Possibly, could it be made visible, it might prove a
masterpiece of some great artist; else why has it so long held such a
conspicuous place?”
As her uncle, contrary to his usual custom—for he was as attentive to all
the humors and caprices of Alice as if she had been his own best-beloved

child—did not immediately reply, the young captain of Castle William took
that office upon himself.
“This dark old square of canvas, my fair cousin,” said he, “has been an
heirloom in the province-house from time immemorial. As to the painter, I
can tell you nothing; but if half the stories told of it be true, not one of the
great Italian masters has ever produced so marvellous a piece of work as
that before you.”
Captain Lincoln proceeded to relate some of the strange fables and
fantasies which, as it was impossible to refute them by ocular
demonstration, had grown to be articles of popular belief in reference to this
old picture. One of the wildest, and at the same time the best-accredited,
accounts stated it to be an original and authentic portrait of the evil one,
taken at a witch-meeting near Salem, and that its strong and terrible
resemblance had been confirmed by several of the confessing wizards and
witches at their trial in open court. It was likewise affirmed that a familiar
spirit or demon abode behind the blackness of the picture, and had shown
himself at seasons of public calamity to more than one of the royal
governors. Shirley, for instance, had beheld this ominous apparition on the
eve of General Abercrombie’s shameful and bloody defeat under the walls
of Ticonderoga. Many of the servants of the province-house had caught
glimpses of a visage frowning down upon them at morning or evening
twilight, or in the depths of night while raking up the fire that glimmered on
the hearth beneath, although, if any were, bold enough to hold a torch
before the picture, it would appear as black and undistinguishable as ever.
The oldest inhabitant of Boston recollected that his father—in whose days
the portrait had not wholly faded out of sight—had once looked upon it, but
would never suffer himself to be questioned as to the face which was there
represented. In connection with such stories, it was remarkable that over the
top of the frame there were some ragged remnants of black silk, indicating
that a veil had formerly hung down before the picture until the duskiness of
time had so effectually concealed it. But, after all, it was the most singular
part of the affair that so many of the pompous governors of Massachusetts
had allowed the obliterated picture to remain in the state-chamber of the
province-house.
“Some of these fables are really awful,” observed Alice Vane, who had
occasionally shuddered as well as smiled while her cousin spoke. “It would

be almost worth while to wipe away the black surface of the canvas, since
the original picture can hardly be so formidable as those which fancy paints
instead of it.”
“But would it be possible,” inquired her cousin,” to restore this dark
picture to its pristine hues?”
“Such arts are known in Italy,” said Alice.
The lieutenant-governor had roused himself from his abstracted mood,
and listened with a smile to the conversation of his young relatives. Yet his
voice had something peculiar in its tones when he undertook the
explanation of the mystery.
“I am sorry, Alice, to destroy your faith in the legends of which you are
so fond,” remarked he, “but my antiquarian researches have long since
made me acquainted with the subject of this picture—if picture it can be
called—which is no more visible, nor ever will be, than the face of the
long-buried man whom it once represented. It was the portrait of Edward
Randolph, the founder of this house, a person famous in the history of New
England.”
“Of that Edward Randolph,” exclaimed Captain Lincoln, “who obtained
the repeal of the first provincial charter, under which our forefathers had
enjoyed almost democratic privileges—he that was styled the arch-enemy
of New England, and whose memory is still held in detestation as the
destroyer of our liberties?”
“It was the same Randolph,” answered Hutchinson, moving uneasily in
his chair. “It was his lot to taste the bitterness of popular odium.”
“Our annals tell us,” continued the captain of Castle William, “that the
curse of the people followed this Randolph where he went and wrought evil
in all the subsequent events of his life, and that its effect was seen, likewise,
in the manner of his death. They say, too, that the inward misery of that
curse worked itself outward and was visible on the wretched man’s
countenance, making it too horrible to be looked upon. If so, and if this
picture truly represented his aspect, it was in mercy that the cloud of
blackness has gathered over it.”
“These traditions are folly to one who has proved, as I have, how little of
historic truth lies at the bottom,” said the lieutenant-governor. “As regards
the life and character of Edward Randolph, too implicit credence has been

given to Dr. Cotton Mather, who—I must say it, though some of his blood
runs in my veins—has filled our early history with old women’s tales as
fanciful and extravagant as those of Greece or Rome.”
“And yet,” whispered Alice Vane, “may not such fables have a moral?
And methinks, if the visage of this portrait be so dreadful, it is not without a
cause that it has hung so long in a chamber of the province-house. When the
rulers feel themselves irresponsible, it were well that they should be
reminded of the awful weight of a people’s curse.”
The lieutenant-governor started and gazed for a moment at his niece, as if
her girlish fantasies had struck upon some feeling in his own breast which
all his policy or principles could not entirely subdue. He knew, indeed, that
Alice, in spite of her foreign education, retained the native sympathies of a
New England girl.
“Peace, silly child!” cried he, at last, more harshly than he had ever
before addressed the gentle Alice. “The rebuke of a king; is more to be
dreaded than the clamor of a wild, misguided multitude.—Captain Lincoln,
it is decided: the fortress of Castle William must be occupied by the royal
troops. The two remaining regiments shall be billeted in the town or
encamped upon the Common. It is time, after years of tumult, and almost
rebellion, that His Majesty’s government should have a wall of strength
about it.”
“Trust, sir—trust yet a while to the loyalty of the people,” said Captain
Lincoln, “nor teach them that they can ever be on other terms with British
soldiers than those of brotherhood, as when they fought side by side
through the French war. Do not convert the streets of your native town into
a camp. Think twice before you give up old Castle William, the key of the
province, into other keeping than that of true-born New Englanders.”
“Young man, it is decided,” repeated Hutchinson, rising from his chair.
“A British officer will be in attendance this evening to receive the necessary
instructions for the disposal of the troops. Your presence also will be
required. Till then, farewell.”
With these words the lieutenant-governor hastily left the room, while
Alice and her cousin more slowly followed, whispering together, and once
pausing to glance back at the mysterious picture. The captain of Castle
William fancied that the girl’s air and mien were such as might have
belonged to one of those spirits of fable—fairies or creatures of a more

antique mythology—who sometimes mingled their agency with mortal
affairs, half in caprice, yet with a sensibility to human weal or woe. As he
held the door for her to pass Alice beckoned to the picture and smiled.
“Come forth, dark and evil shape!” cried she. “It is thine hour.”
In the evening Lieutenant-governor Hutchinson sat in the same chamber
where the foregoing scene had occurred, surrounded by several persons
whose various interests had summoned them together. There were the
selectmen of Boston—plain patriarchal fathers of the people, excellent
representatives of the old puritanical founders whose sombre strength had
stamped so deep an impress upon the New England character. Contrasting
with these were one or two members of council, richly dressed in the white
wigs, the embroidered waistcoats and other magnificence of the time, and
making a somewhat ostentatious display of courtier-like ceremonial. In
attendance, likewise, was a major of the British army, awaiting the
lieutenant-governor’s orders for the landing of the troops, which still
remained on board the transports. The captain of Castle William stood
beside Hutchinson’s chair, with folded arms, glancing rather haughtily at
the British officer by whom he was soon to be superseded in his command.
On a table in the centre of the chamber stood a branched silver candlestick,
throwing down the glow of half a dozen waxlights upon a paper apparently
ready for the lieutenant-governor’s signature.
Partly shrouded in the voluminous folds of one of the window-curtains,
which fell from the ceiling to the floor, was seen the white drapery of a
lady’s robe. It may appear strange that Alice Vane should have been there at
such a time, but there was something so childlike, so wayward, in her
singular character, so apart from ordinary rules, that her presence did not
surprise the few who noticed it. Meantime, the chairman of the selectmen
was addressing to the lieutenant-governor a long and solemn protest against
the reception of the British troops into the town.
“And if Your Honor,” concluded this excellent but somewhat prosy old
gentleman, “shall see fit to persist in bringing these mercenary sworders
and musketeers into our quiet streets, not on our heads be the responsibility.
Think, sir, while there is yet time, that if one drop of blood be shed, that
blood shall be an eternal stain upon Your Honor’s memory. You, sir, have
written with an able pen the deeds of our forefathers; the more to be desired
is it, therefore, that yourself should deserve honorable mention as a true

patriot and upright ruler when your own doings shall be written down in
history.”
“I am not insensible, my good sir, to the natural desire to stand well in
the annals of my country,” replied Hutchinson, controlling his impatience
into courtesy, “nor know I any better method of attaining that end than by
withstanding the merely temporary spirit of mischief which, with your
pardon, seems to have infected older men than myself. Would you have me
wait till the mob shall sack the province-house as they did my private
mansion? Trust me, sir, the time may come when you will be glad to flee
for protection to the king’s banner, the raising of which is now so distasteful
to you.”
“Yes,” said the British major, who was impatiently expecting the
lieutenant-governor’s orders. “The demagogues of this province have raised
the devil, and cannot lay him again. We will exorcise him in God’s name
and the king’s.”
“If you meddle with the devil, take care of his claws,” answered the
captain of Castle William, stirred by the taunt against his countrymen.
“Craving your pardon, young sir,” said the venerable selectman, “let not
an evil spirit enter into your words. We will strive against the oppressor
with prayer and fasting, as our forefathers would have done. Like them,
moreover, we will submit to whatever lot a wise Providence may send us—
always after our own best exertions to amend it.”
“And there peep forth the devil’s claws!” muttered Hutchinson, who well
understood the nature of Puritan submission. “This matter shall be
expedited forthwith. When there shall be a sentinel at every corner and a
court of guard before the town-house, a loyal gentleman may venture to
walk abroad. What to me is the outcry of a mob in this remote province of
the realm? The king is my master, and England is my country; upheld by
their armed strength, I set my foot upon the rabble and defy them.”
He snatched a pen and was about to affix his signature to the paper that
lay on the table, when the captain of Castle William placed his hand upon
his shoulder. The freedom of the action, so contrary to the ceremonious
respect which was then considered due to rank and dignity, awakened
general surprise, and in none more than in the lieutenant-governor himself.
Looking angrily up, he perceived that his young relative was pointing his
finger to the opposite wall. Hutchinson’s eye followed the signal, and he

saw what had hitherto been unobserved—that a black silk curtain was
suspended before the mysterious picture, so as completely to conceal it. His
thoughts immediately recurred to the scene of the preceding afternoon, and
in his surprise, confused by indistinct emotions, yet sensible that his niece
must have had an agency in this phenomenon, he called loudly upon her:
“Alice! Come hither, Alice!”
No sooner had he spoken than Alice Vane glided from her station, and,
pressing one hand across her eyes, with the other snatched away the sable
curtain that concealed the portrait. An exclamation of surprise burst from
every beholder, but the lieutenant-governor’s voice had a tone of horror.
“By Heaven!” said he, in a low inward murmur, speaking rather to
himself than to those around him; “if the spirit of Edward Randolph were to
appear among us from the place of torment, he could not wear more of the
terrors of hell upon his face.”
“For some wise end,” said the aged selectman, solemnly, “hath
Providence scattered away the mist of years that had so long hid this
dreadful effigy. Until this hour no living man hath seen what we behold.”
Within the antique frame which so recently had enclosed a sable waste of
canvas now appeared a visible picture-still dark, indeed, in its hues and
shadings, but thrown forward in strong relief. It was a half-length figure of
a gentleman in a rich but very old-fashioned dress of embroidered velvet,
with a broad ruff and a beard, and wearing a hat the brim of which
overshadowed his forehead. Beneath this cloud the eyes had a peculiar glare
which was almost lifelike. The whole portrait started so distinctly out of the
background that it had the effect of a person looking down from the wall at
the astonished and awe-stricken spectators. The expression of the face, if
any words can convey an idea of it, was that of a wretch detected in some
hideous guilt and exposed to the bitter hatred and laughter and withering
scorn of a vast surrounding multitude. There was the struggle of defiance,
beaten down and overwhelmed by the crushing weight of ignominy. The
torture of the soul had come forth upon the countenance. It seemed as if the
picture, while hidden behind the cloud of immemorial years, had been all
the time acquiring an intenser depth and darkness of expression, till now it
gloomed forth again and threw its evil omen over the present hour. Such, if
the wild legend may be credited, was the portrait of Edward Randolph as he
appeared when a people’s curse had wrought its influence upon his nature.

“’Twould drive me mad, that awful face,” said Hutchinson, who seemed
fascinated by the contemplation of it.
“Be warned, then,” whispered Alice. “He trampled on a people’s rights.
Behold his punishment, and avoid a crime like his.”
The lieutenant-governor actually trembled for an instant, but, exerting his
energy—which was not, however, his most characteristic feature—he strove
to shake off the spell of Randolph’s countenance.
“Girl,” cried he, laughing bitterly, as he turned to Alice, “have you
brought hither your painter’s art, your Italian spirit of intrigue, your tricks
of stage-effect, and think to influence the councils of rulers and the affairs
of nations by such shallow contrivances? See here!”
“Stay yet a while,” said the selectman as Hutchinson again snatched the
pen; “for if ever mortal man received a warning from a tormented soul,
Your Honor is that man.”
“Away!” answered Hutchinson, fiercely. “Though yonder senseless
picture cried ‘Forbear!rsquo; it should not move me!”
Casting a scowl of defiance at the pictured face—which seemed at that
moment to intensify the horror of its miserable and wicked look—he
scrawled on the paper, in characters that betokened it a deed of desperation,
the name of Thomas Hutchinson. Then, it is said, he shuddered, as if that
signature had granted away his salvation.
“It is done,” said he, and placed his hand upon his brow.
“May Heaven forgive the deed!” said the soft, sad accents of Alice Vane,
like the voice of a good spirit flitting away.
When morning came, there was a stifled whisper through the household,
and spreading thence about the town, that the dark mysterious picture had
started from the wall and spoken face to face with Lieutenant-governor
Hutchinson. If such a miracle had been wrought, however, no traces of it
remained behind; for within the antique frame nothing could be discerned
save the impenetrable cloud which had covered the canvas since the
memory of man. If the figure had, indeed, stepped forth, it had fled back,
spirit-like, at the day-dawn, and hidden itself behind a century’s obscurity.
The truth probably was that Alice Vane’s secret for restoring the hues of the
picture had merely effected a temporary renovation. But those who in that
brief interval had beheld the awful visage of Edward Randolph desired no

second glance, and ever afterward trembled at the recollection of the scene,
as if an evil spirit had appeared visibly among them. And, as for
Hutchinson, when, far over the ocean, his dying-hour drew on, he gasped
for breath and complained that he was choking with the blood of the Boston
Massacre, and Francis Lincoln, the former captain of Castle William, who
was standing at his bedside, perceived a likeness in his frenzied look to that
of Edward Randolph. Did his broken spirit feel at that dread hour the
tremendous burden of a people’s curse?

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

III.
LADY ELEANORE’S MANTLE

Mine excellent friend the landlord of the Province House was pleased the
other evening to invite Mr. Tiffany and myself to an oyster-supper. This
slight mark of respect and gratitude, as he handsomely observed, was far
less than the ingenious tale-teller, and I, the humble note-taker of his
narratives, had fairly earned by the public notice which our joint
lucubrations had attracted to his establishment. Many a cigar had been
smoked within his premises, many a glass of wine or more potent aqua vitæ
had been quaffed, many a dinner had been eaten, by curious strangers who,
save for the fortunate conjunction of Mr. Tiffany and me, would never have
ventured through that darksome avenue which gives access to the historic
precincts of the Province House. In short, if any credit be due to the
courteous assurances of Mr. Thomas Waite, we had brought his forgotten
mansion almost as effectually into public view as if we had thrown down
the vulgar range of shoe-shops and dry-good stores which hides its
aristocratic front from Washington street. It may be unadvisable, however,
to speak too loudly of the increased custom of the house, lest Mr. Waite
should find it difficult to renew the lease on so favorable terms as
heretofore.
Being thus welcomed as benefactors, neither Mr. Tiffany nor myself felt
any scruple in doing full justice to the good things that were set before us. If
the feast were less magnificent than those same panelled walls had
witnessed in a bygone century; if mine host presided with somewhat less of
state than might have befitted a successor of the royal governors; if the
guests made a less imposing show than the bewigged and powdered and
embroidered dignitaries who erst banqueted at the gubernatorial table and
now sleep within their armorial tombs on Copp’s Hill or round King’s
Chapel,—yet never, I may boldly say, did a more comfortable little party

assemble in the province-house from Queen Anne’s days to the Revolution.
The occasion was rendered more interesting by the presence of a venerable
personage whose own actual reminiscences went back to the epoch of Gage
and Howe, and even supplied him with a doubtful anecdote or two of
Hutchinson. He was one of that small, and now all but extinguished, class
whose attachment to royalty, and to the colonial institutions and customs
that were connected with it, had never yielded to the democratic heresies of
after-times. The young queen of Britain has not a more loyal subject in her
realm—perhaps not one who would kneel before her throne with such
reverential love—as this old grandsire whose head has whitened beneath
the mild sway of the republic which still in his mellower moments he terms
a usurpation. Yet prejudices so obstinate have not made him an ungentle or
impracticable companion. If the truth must be told, the life of the aged
loyalist has been of such a scrambling and unsettled character—he has had
so little choice of friends and been so often destitute of any—that I doubt
whether he would refuse a cup of kindness with either Oliver Cromwell or
John Hancock, to say nothing of any democrat now upon the stage. In
another paper of this series I may perhaps give the reader a closer glimpse
of his portrait.
Our host in due season uncorked a bottle of Madeira of such exquisite
perfume and admirable flavor that he surely must have discovered it in an
ancient bin down deep beneath the deepest cellar where some jolly old
butler stored away the governor’s choicest wine and forgot to reveal the
secret on his death-bed. Peace to his red-nosed ghost and a libation to his
memory! This precious liquor was imbibed by Mr. Tiffany with peculiar
zest, and after sipping the third glass it was his pleasure to give us one of
the oddest legends which he had yet raked from the storehouse where he
keeps such matters. With some suitable adornments from my own fancy, it
ran pretty much as follows.

Not long after Colonel Shute had assumed the government of
Massachusetts Bay—now nearly a hundred and twenty years ago—a young
lady of rank and fortune arrived from England to claim his protection as her
guardian. He was her distant relative, but the nearest who had survived the
gradual extinction of her family; so that no more eligible shelter could be

found for the rich and high-born Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe than within the
province-house of a Transatlantic colony. The consort of Governor Shute,
moreover, had been as a mother to her childhood, and was now anxious to
receive her in the hope that a beautiful young woman would be exposed to
infinitely less peril from the primitive society of New England than amid
the artifices and corruptions of a court. If either the governor or his lady had
especially consulted their own comfort, they would probably have sought to
devolve the responsibility on other hands, since with some noble and
splendid traits of character Lady Eleanore was remarkable for a harsh,
unyielding pride, a haughty consciousness of her hereditary and personal
advantages, which made her almost incapable of control. Judging from
many traditionary anecdotes, this peculiar temper was hardly less than a
monomania; or if the acts which it inspired were those of a sane person, it
seemed due from Providence that pride so sinful should be followed by as
severe a retribution. That tinge of the marvellous which is thrown over so
many of these half-forgotten legends has probably imparted an additional
wildness to the strange story of Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe.
The ship in which she came passenger had arrived at Newport, whence
Lady Eleanore was conveyed to Boston in the governor’s coach, attended
by a small escort of gentlemen on horseback. The ponderous equipage, with
its four black horses, attracted much notice as it rumbled through Cornhill
surrounded by the prancing steeds of half a dozen cavaliers with swords
dangling to their stirrups and pistols at their holsters. Through the large
glass windows of the coach, as it rolled along, the people could discern the
figure of Lady Eleanore, strangely combining an almost queenly stateliness
with the grace and beauty of a maiden in her teens. A singular tale had gone
abroad among the ladies of the province that their fair rival was indebted for
much of the irresistible charm of her appearance to a certain article of dress
—an embroidered mantle—which had been wrought by the most skilful
artist in London, and possessed even magical properties of adornment. On
the present occasion, however, she owed nothing to the witchery of dress,
being clad in a riding-habit of velvet which would have appeared stiff and
ungraceful on any other form.
The coachman reined in his four black steeds, and the whole cavalcade
came to a pause in front of the contorted iron balustrade that fenced the
province-house from the public street. It was an awkward coincidence that
the bell of the Old South was just then tolling for a funeral; so that, instead

of a gladsome peal with which it was customary to announce the arrival of
distinguished strangers, Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe was ushered by a doleful
clang, as if calamity had come embodied in her beautiful person.
“A very great disrespect!” exclaimed Captain Langford, an English
officer who had recently brought despatches to Governor Shute. “The
funeral should have been deferred lest Lady Eleanore’s spirits be affected
by such a dismal welcome.”
“With your pardon, sir,” replied Dr. Clarke, a physician and a famous
champion of the popular party, “whatever the heralds may pretend, a dead
beggar must have precedence of a living queen. King Death confers high
privileges.”
These remarks-were interchanged while the speakers waited a passage
through the crowd which had gathered on each side of the gateway, leaving
an open avenue to the portal of the province-house. A black slave in livery
now leaped from behind the coach and threw open the door, while at the
same moment Governor Shute descended the flight of steps from his
mansion to assist Lady Eleanore in alighting. But the governor’s stately
approach was anticipated in a manner that excited general astonishment. A
pale young man with his black hair all in disorder rushed from the throng
and prostrated himself beside the coach, thus offering his person as a
footstool for Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe to tread upon. She held back an
instant, yet with an expression as if doubting whether the young man were
worthy to bear the weight of her footstep rather than dissatisfied to receive
such awful reverence from a fellow-mortal.
“Up, sir!” said the governor, sternly, at the same time lifting his cane over
the intruder. “What means the Bedlamite by this freak?”
“Nay,” answered Lady Eleanore, playfully, but with more scorn than pity
in her tone; “Your Excellency shall not strike him. When men seek only to
be trampled upon, it were a pity to deny them a favor so easily granted—
and so well deserved!” Then, though as lightly as a sunbeam on a cloud, she
placed her foot upon the cowering form and extended her hand to meet that
of the governor.
There was a brief interval during which Lady Eleanore retained this
attitude, and never, surely, was there an apter emblem of aristocracy and
hereditary pride trampling on human sympathies and the kindred of nature
than these two figures presented at that moment. Yet the spectators were so

smitten with her beauty, and so essential did pride seem to the existence of
such a creature, that they gave a simultaneous acclamation of applause.
“Who is this insolent young fellow?” inquired Captain Langford, who
still remained beside Dr. Clarke. “If he be in his senses, his impertinence
demands the bastinado; if mad, Lady Eleanore should be secured from
further inconvenience by his confinement.”
“His name is Jervase Helwyse,” answered the doctor—“a youth of no
birth or fortune, or other advantages save the mind and soul that nature gave
him; and, being secretary to our colonial agent in London, it was his
misfortune to meet this Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe. He loved her, and her
scorn has driven him mad.”
“He was mad so to aspire,” observed the English officer.
“It may be so,” said Dr. Clarke, frowning as he spoke; “but I tell you, sir,
I could wellnigh doubt the justice of the Heaven above us if no signal
humiliation overtake this lady who now treads so haughtily into yonder
mansion. She seeks to place herself above the sympathies of our common
nature, which envelops all human souls; see if that nature do not assert its
claim over her in some mode that shall bring her level with the lowest.”
“Never!” cried Captain Langford, indignantly—“neither in life nor when
they lay her with her ancestors.”
Not many days afterward the governor gave a ball in honor of Lady
Eleanore Rochcliffe. The principal gentry of the colony received
invitations, which were distributed to their residences far and near by
messengers on horseback bearing missives sealed with all the formality of
official despatches. In obedience to the summons, there was a general
gathering of rank, wealth and beauty, and the wide door of the province-
house had seldom given admittance to more numerous and honorable guests
than on the evening of Lady Eleanore’s ball. Without much extravagance of
eulogy, the spectacle might even be termed splendid, for, according to the
fashion of the times, the ladies shone in rich silks and satins outspread over
wide-projecting hoops, and the gentlemen glittered in gold embroidery laid
unsparingly upon the purple or scarlet or sky-blue velvet which was the
material of their coats and waistcoats. The latter article of dress was of great
importance, since it enveloped the wearer’s body nearly to the knees and
was perhaps bedizened with the amount of his whole year’s income in
golden flowers and foliage. The altered taste of the present day—a taste

symbolic of a deep change in the whole system of society—would look
upon almost any of those gorgeous figures as ridiculous, although that
evening the guests sought their reflections in the pier-glasses and rejoiced to
catch their own glitter amid the glittering crowd. What a pity that one of the
stately mirrors has not preserved a picture of the scene which by the very
traits that were so transitory might have taught us much that would be worth
knowing and remembering!
Would, at least, that either painter or mirror could convey to us some
faint idea of a garment already noticed in this legend—the Lady Eleanore’s
embroidered mantle, which the gossips whispered was invested with magic
properties, so as to lend a new and untried grace to her figure each time that
she put it on! Idle fancy as it is, this mysterious mantle has thrown an awe
around my image of her, partly from its fabled virtues and partly because it
was the handiwork of a dying woman, and perchance owed the fantastic
grace of its conception to the delirium of approaching death.
After the ceremonial greetings had been paid, Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe
stood apart from the mob of guests, insulating herself within a small and
distinguished circle to whom she accorded a more cordial favor than to the
general throng. The waxen torches threw their radiance vividly over the
scene, bringing out its brilliant points in strong relief, but she gazed
carelessly, and with now and then an expression of weariness or scorn
tempered with such feminine grace that her auditors scarcely perceived the
moral deformity of which it was the utterance. She beheld the spectacle not
with vulgar ridicule, as disdaining to be pleased with the provincial
mockery of a court-festival, but with the deeper scorn of one whose spirit
held itself too high to participate in the enjoyment of other human souls.
Whether or no the recollections of those who saw her that evening were
influenced by the strange events with which she was subsequently
connected, so it was that her figure ever after recurred to them as marked by
something wild and unnatural, although at the time the general whisper was
of her exceeding beauty and of the indescribable charm which her mantle
threw around her. Some close observers, indeed, detected a feverish flush
and alternate paleness of countenance, with a corresponding flow and
revulsion of spirits, and once or twice a painful and helpless betrayal of
lassitude, as if she were on the point of sinking to the ground. Then, with a
nervous shudder, she seemed to arouse her energies, and threw some bright
and playful yet half-wicked sarcasm into the conversation. There was so

strange a characteristic in her manners and sentiments that it astonished
every right-minded listener, till, looking in her face, a lurking and
incomprehensible glance and smile perplexed them with doubts both as to
her seriousness and sanity. Gradually, Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe’s circle
grew smaller, till only four gentlemen remained in it. These were Captain
Langford, the English officer before mentioned; a Virginian planter who
had come to Massachusetts on some political errand; a young Episcopal
clergyman, the grandson of a British earl; and, lastly, the private secretary
of Governor Shute, whose obsequiousness had won a sort of tolerance from
Lady Eleanore.
At different periods of the evening the liveried servants of the province-
house passed among the guests bearing huge trays of refreshments and
French and Spanish wines. Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe, who refused to wet
her beautiful lips even with a bubble of champagne, had sunk back into a
large damask chair, apparently overwearied either with the excitement of
the scene or its tedium; and while, for an instant, she was unconscious of
voices, laughter and music, a young man stole forward and knelt down at
her feet. He bore a salver in his hand on which was a chased silver goblet
filled to the brim with wine, which he offered as reverentially as to a
crowned queen—or, rather, with the awful devotion of a priest doing
sacrifice to his idol. Conscious that some one touched her robe, Lady
Eleanore started, and unclosed her eyes upon the pale, wild features and
dishevelled hair of Jervase Helwyse.
“Why do you haunt me thus?” said she, in a languid tone, but with a
kindlier feeling than she ordinarily permitted herself to express. “They tell
me that I have done you harm.”
“Heaven knows if that be so,” replied the young man, solemnly. “But,
Lady Eleanore, in requital of that harm, if such there be, and for your own
earthly and heavenly welfare, I pray you to take one sip of this holy wine
and then to pass the goblet round among the guests. And this shall be a
symbol that you have not sought to withdraw yourself from the chain of
human sympathies, which whoso would shake off must keep company with
fallen angels.”
“Where has this mad fellow stolen that sacramental vessel?” exclaimed
the Episcopal clergyman.

This question drew the notice of the guests to the silver cup, which was
recognized as appertaining to the communion-plate of the Old South
Church, and, for aught that could be known, it was brimming over with the
consecrated wine.
“Perhaps it is poisoned,” half whispered the governor’s secretary.
“Pour it down the villain’s throat!” cried the Virginian, fiercely.
“Turn him out of the house!” cried Captain Langford, seizing Jervase
Helwyse so roughly by the shoulder that the sacramental cup was
overturned and its contents sprinkled upon Lady Eleanore’s mantle.
“Whether knave, fool or Bedlamite, it is intolerable that the fellow should
go at large.”
“Pray, gentlemen, do my poor admirer no harm,” said Lady Eleanore,
with a faint and weary smile. “Take him out of my sight, if such be your
pleasure, for I can find in my heart to do nothing but laugh at him, whereas,
in all decency and conscience, it would become me to weep for the mischief
I have wrought.”
But while the bystanders were attempting to lead away the unfortunate
young man he broke from them and with a wild, impassioned earnestness
offered a new and equally strange petition to Lady Eleanore. It was no other
than that she should throw off the mantle, which while he pressed the silver
cup of wine upon her she had drawn more closely around her form, so as
almost to shroud herself within it.
“Cast it from you,” exclaimed Jervase Helwyse, clasping his hands in an
agony of entreaty. “It may not yet be too late. Give the accursed garment to
the flames.”
But Lady Eleanore, with a laugh of scorn, drew the rich folds of the
embroidered mantle over her head in such a fashion as to give a completely
new aspect to her beautiful face, which, half hidden, half revealed, seemed
to belong to some being of mysterious character and purposes.
“Farewell, Jervase Helwyse!” said she. “Keep my image in your
remembrance as you behold it now.”
“Alas, lady!” he replied, in a tone no longer wild, but sad as a funeral-
bell; “we must meet shortly when your face may wear another aspect, and
that shall be the image that must abide within me.” He made no more
resistance to the violent efforts of the gentlemen and servants who almost

dragged him out of the apartment and dismissed him roughly from the iron
gate of the province-house.
Captain Langford, who had been very active in this affair, was returning
to the presence of Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe, when he encountered the
physician, Dr. Clarke, with whom he had held some casual talk on the day
of her arrival. The doctor stood apart, separated from Lady Eleanore by the
width of the room, but eying her with such keen sagacity that Captain
Langford involuntarily gave him credit for the discovery of some deep
secret.
“You appear to be smitten, after all, with the charms of this queenly
maiden,” said he, hoping thus to draw forth the physician’s hidden
knowledge.
“God forbid!” answered Dr. Clarke, with a grave smile; “and if you be
wise, you will put up the same prayer for yourself. Woe to those who shall
be smitten by this beautiful Lady Eleanore! But yonder stands the governor,
and I have a word or two for his private ear. Good-night!” He accordingly
advanced to Governor Shute and addressed him in so low a tone that none
of the bystanders could catch a word of what he said, although the sudden
change of His Excellency’s hitherto cheerful visage betokened that the
communication could be of no agreeable import. A very few moments
afterward it was announced to the guests that an unforeseen circumstance
rendered it necessary to put a premature close to the festival.
The ball at the province-house supplied a topic of conversation for the
colonial metropolis for some days after its occurrence, and might still
longer have been the general theme, only that a subject of all-engrossing
interest thrust it for a time from the public recollection. This was the
appearance of a dreadful epidemic which in that age, and long before and
afterward, was wont to slay its hundreds and thousands on both sides of the
Atlantic. On the occasion of which we speak it was distinguished by a
peculiar virulence, insomuch that it has left its traces—its pitmarks, to use
an appropriate figure—on the history of the country, the affairs of which
were thrown into confusion by its ravages. At first, unlike its ordinary
course, the disease seemed to confine itself to the higher circles of society,
selecting its victims from among the proud, the well-born and the wealthy,
entering unabashed into stately chambers and lying down with the
slumberers in silken beds. Some of the most distinguished guests of the

province-house—even those whom the haughty Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe
had deemed not unworthy of her favor—were stricken by this fatal scourge.
It was noticed with an ungenerous bitterness of feeling that the four
gentlemen—the Virginian, the British officer, the young clergyman and the
governor’s secretary—who had been her most devoted attendants on the
evening of the ball were the foremost on whom the plague-stroke fell. But
the disease, pursuing its onward progress, soon ceased to be exclusively a
prerogative of aristocracy. Its red brand was no longer conferred like a
noble’s star or an order of knighthood. It threaded its way through the
narrow and crooked streets, and entered the low, mean, darksome dwellings
and laid its hand of death upon the artisans and laboring classes of the town.
It compelled rich and poor to feel themselves brethren then, and stalking to
and fro across the Three Hills with a fierceness which made it almost a new
pestilence, there was that mighty conqueror—that scourge and horror of our
forefathers—the small-pox.
We cannot estimate the affright which this plague inspired of yore by
contemplating it as the fangless monster of the present day. We must
remember, rather, with what awe we watched the gigantic footsteps of the
Asiatic cholera striding from shore to shore of the Atlantic and marching
like Destiny upon cities far remote which flight had already half
depopulated. There is no other fear so horrible and unhumanizing as that
which makes man dread to breathe heaven’s vital air lest it be poison, or to
grasp the hand of a brother or friend lest the grip of the pestilence should
clutch him. Such was the dismay that now followed in the track of the
disease or ran before it throughout the town. Graves were hastily dug and
the pestilential relics as hastily covered, because the dead were enemies of
the living and strove to draw them headlong, as it were, into their own
dismal pit. The public councils were suspended, as if mortal wisdom might
relinquish its devices now that an unearthly usurper had found his way into
the ruler’s mansion. Had an enemy’s fleet been hovering on the coast or his
armies trampling on our soil, the people would probably have committed
their defence to that same direful conqueror who had wrought their own
calamity and would permit no interference with his sway. This conqueror
had a symbol of his triumphs: it was a blood-red flag that fluttered in the
tainted air over the door of every dwelling into which the small-pox had
entered.

Such a banner was long since waving over the portal of the province-
house, for thence, as was proved by tracking its footsteps back, had all this
dreadful mischief issued. It had been traced back to a lady’s luxurious
chamber, to the proudest of the proud, to her that was so delicate and hardly
owned herself of earthly mould, to the haughty one who took her stand
above human sympathies—to Lady Eleanore. There remained no room for
doubt that the contagion had lurked in that gorgeous mantle which threw so
strange a grace around her at the festival. Its fantastic splendor had been
conceived in the delirious brain of a woman on her death-bed and was the
last toil of her stiffening fingers, which had interwoven fate and misery with
its golden threads. This dark tale, whispered at first, was now bruited far
and wide. The people raved against the Lady Eleanore and cried out that her
pride and scorn had evoked a fiend, and that between them both this
monstrous evil had been born. At times their rage and despair took the
semblance of grinning mirth; and whenever the red flag of the pestilence
was hoisted over another and yet another door, they clapped their hands and
shouted through the streets in bitter mockery: “Behold a new triumph for
the Lady Eleanore!”
One day in the midst of these dismal times a wild figure approached the
portal of the province-house, and, folding his arms, stood contemplating the
scarlet banner, which a passing breeze shook fitfully, as if to fling abroad
the contagion that it typified. At length, climbing one of the pillars by
means of the iron balustrade, he took down the flag, and entered the
mansion waving it above his head. At the foot of the staircase he met the
governor, booted and spurred, with his cloak drawn around him, evidently
on the point of setting forth upon a journey.
“Wretched lunatic, what do you seek here?” exclaimed Shute, extending
his cane to guard himself from contact. “There is nothing here but Death;
back, or you will meet him.”
“Death will not touch me, the banner-bearer of the pestilence,” cried
Jervase Helwyse, shaking the red flag aloft. “Death and the pestilence, who
wears the aspect of the Lady Eleanore, will walk through the streets to-
night, and I must march before them with this banner.”
“Why do I waste words on the fellow?” muttered the governor, drawing
his cloak across his mouth. “What matters his miserable life, when none of
us are sure of twelve hours’ breath?—On, fool, to your own destruction!”

He made way for Jervase Helwyse, who immediately ascended the
staircase, but on the first landing-place was arrested by the firm grasp of a
hand upon his shoulder. Looking fiercely up with a madman’s impulse to
struggle with and rend asunder his opponent, he found himself powerless
beneath a calm, stern eye which possessed the mysterious property of
quelling frenzy at its height. The person whom he had now encountered was
the physician, Dr. Clarke, the duties of whose sad profession had led him to
the province-house, where he was an infrequent guest in more prosperous
times.
“Young man, what is your purpose?” demanded he.
“I seek the Lady Eleanore,” answered Jervase Helwyse, submissively.
“All have fled from her,” said the physician. “Why do you seek her now?
I tell you, youth, her nurse fell death-stricken on the threshold of that fatal
chamber. Know ye not that never came such a curse to our shores as this
lovely Lady Eleanore, that her breath has filled the air with poison, that she
has shaken pestilence and death upon the land from the folds of her
accursed mantle?”
“Let me look upon her,” rejoined the mad youth, more wildly. “Let me
behold her in her awful beauty, clad in the regal garments of the pestilence.
She and Death sit on a throne together; let me kneel down before them.”
“Poor youth!” said Dr. Clarke, and, moved by a deep sense of human
weakness, a smile of caustic humor curled his lip even then. “Wilt thou still
worship the destroyer and surround her image with fantasies the more
magnificent the more evil she has wrought? Thus man doth ever to his
tyrants. Approach, then. Madness, as I have noted, has that good efficacy
that it will guard you from contagion, and perhaps its own cure may be
found in yonder chamber.” Ascending another flight of stairs, he threw open
a door and signed to Jervase Helwyse that he should enter.
The poor lunatic, it seems probable, had cherished a delusion that his
haughty mistress sat in state, unharmed herself by the pestilential influence
which as by enchantment she scattered round about her. He dreamed, no
doubt, that her beauty was not dimmed, but brightened into superhuman
splendor. With such anticipations he stole reverentially to the door at which
the physician stood, but paused upon the threshold, gazing fearfully into the
gloom of the darkened chamber.
“Where is the Lady Eleanore?” whispered he.

“Call her,” replied the physician.
“Lady Eleanore! princess! queen of Death!” cried Jervase Helwyse,
advancing three steps into the chamber. “She is not here. There, on yonder
table, I behold the sparkle of a diamond which once she wore upon her
bosom. There”—and he shuddered—“there hangs her mantle, on which a
dead woman embroidered a spell of dreadful potency. But where is the
Lady Eleanore?”
Something stirred within the silken curtains of a canopied bed and a low
moan was uttered, which, listening intently, Jervase Helwyse began to
distinguish as a woman’s voice complaining dolefully of thirst. He fancied,
even, that he recognized its tones.
“My throat! My throat is scorched,” murmured the voice. “A drop of
water!”
“What thing art thou?” said the brain-stricken youth, drawing near the
bed and tearing asunder its curtains. “Whose voice hast thou stolen for thy
murmurs and miserable petitions, as if Lady Eleanore could be conscious of
mortal infirmity? Fie! Heap of diseased mortality, why lurkest thou in my
lady’s chamber?”
“Oh, Jervase Helwyse,” said the voice—and as it spoke the figure
contorted itself, struggling to hide its blasted face—“look not now on the
woman you once loved. The curse of Heaven hath stricken me because I
would not call man my brother nor woman sister. I wrapped myself in pride
as in a mantle and scorned the sympathies of nature, and therefore has
Nature made this wretched body the medium of a dreadful sympathy. You
are avenged, they are all avenged, Nature is avenged; for I am Eleanore
Rochcliffe.”
The malice of his mental disease, the bitterness lurking at the bottom of
his heart, mad as he was, for a blighted and ruined life and love that had
been paid with cruel scorn, awoke within the breast of Jervase Helwyse. He
shook his finger at the wretched girl, and the chamber echoed, the curtains
of the bed were shaken, with his outburst of insane merriment.
“Another triumph for the Lady Eleanore!” he cried. “All have been her
victims; who so worthy to be the final victim as herself?” Impelled by some
new fantasy of his crazed intellect, he snatched the fatal mantle and rushed
from the chamber and the house.

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

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

IV.
OLD ESTHER DUDLEY

Our host having resumed the chair, he as well as Mr. Tiffany and myself
expressed much eagerness to be made acquainted with the story to which
the loyalist had alluded. That venerable man first of all saw lit to moisten
his throat with another glass of wine, and then, turning his face toward our
coal-fire, looked steadfastly for a few moments into the depths of its
cheerful glow. Finally he poured forth a great fluency of speech. The
generous liquid that he had imbibed, while it warmed his age-chilled blood,
likewise took off the chill from his heart and mind, and gave him an energy
to think and feel which we could hardly have expected to find beneath the
snows of fourscore winters. His feelings, indeed, appeared to me more
excitable than those of a younger man—or, at least, the same degree of
feeling manifested itself by more visible effects than if his judgment and
will had possessed the potency of meridian life. At the pathetic passages of
his narrative he readily melted into tears. When a breath of indignation
swept across his spirit, the blood flushed his withered visage even to the
roots of his white hair, and he shook his clinched fist at the trio of peaceful
auditors, seeming to fancy enemies in those who felt very kindly toward the
desolate old soul. But ever and anon, sometimes in the midst of his most
earnest talk, this ancient person’s intellect would wander vaguely, losing its
hold of the matter in hand and groping for it amid misty shadows. Then
would he cackle forth a feeble laugh and express a doubt whether his wits—
for by that phrase it pleased our ancient friend to signify his mental powers
—were not getting a little the worse for wear.
Under these disadvantages, the old loyalist’s story required more revision
to render it fit for the public eye than those of the series which have
preceded it; nor should it be concealed that the sentiment and tone of the
affair may have undergone some slight—or perchance more than slight—

metamorphosis in its transmission to the reader through the medium of a
thoroughgoing democrat. The tale itself is a mere sketch with no involution
of plot nor any great interest of events, yet possessing, if I have rehearsed it
aright, that pensive influence over the mind which the shadow of the old
Province House flings upon the loiterer in its court-yard.

The hour had come—the hour of defeat and humiliation—when Sir
William Howe was to pass over the threshold of the province-house and
embark, with no such triumphal ceremonies as he once promised himself,
on board the British fleet. He bade his servants and military attendants go
before him, and lingered a moment in the loneliness of the mansion to quell
the fierce emotions that struggled in his bosom as with a death-throb.
Preferable then would he have deemed his fate had a warrior’s death left
him a claim to the narrow territory of a grave within the soil which the king
had given him to defend. With an ominous perception that as his departing
footsteps echoed adown the staircase the sway of Britain was passing for
ever from New England, he smote his clenched hand on his brow and
cursed the destiny that had flung the shame of a dismembered empire upon
him.
“Would to God,” cried he, hardly repressing his tears of rage, “that the
rebels were even now at the doorstep! A blood-stain upon the floor should
then bear testimony that the last British ruler was faithful to his trust.”
The tremulous voice of a woman replied to his exclamation.
“Heaven’s cause and the king’s are one,” it said. “Go forth, Sir William
Howe, and trust in Heaven to bring back a royal governor in triumph.”
Subduing at once the passion to which he had yielded only in the faith
that it was unwitnessed, Sir William Howe became conscious that an aged
woman leaning on a gold-headed staff was standing betwixt him and the
door. It was old Esther Dudley, who had dwelt almost immemorial years in
this mansion, until her presence seemed as inseparable from it as the
recollections of its history. She was the daughter of an ancient and once
eminent family which had fallen into poverty and decay and left its last
descendant no resource save the bounty of the king, nor any shelter except
within the walls of the province-house. An office in the household with

merely nominal duties had been assigned to her as a pretext for the payment
of a small pension, the greater part of which she expended in adorning
herself with an antique magnificence of attire. The claims of Esther
Dudley’s gentle blood were acknowledged by all the successive governors,
and they treated her with the punctilious courtesy which it was her foible to
demand, not always with success, from a neglectful world. The only actual
share which she assumed in the business of the mansion was to glide
through its passages and public chambers late at night to see that the
servants had dropped no fire from their flaring torches nor left embers
crackling and blazing on the hearths. Perhaps it was this invariable custom
of walking her rounds in the hush of midnight that caused the superstition
of the times to invest the old woman with attributes of awe and mystery,
fabling that she had entered the portal of the province-house—none knew
whence—in the train of the first royal governor, and that it was her fate to
dwell there till the last should have departed.
But Sir William Howe, if he ever heard this legend, had forgotten it.
“Mistress Dudley, why are you loitering here?” asked he, with some
severity of tone. “It is my pleasure to be the last in this mansion of the
king.”
“Not so, if it please Your Excellency,” answered the time-stricken
woman. “This roof has sheltered me long; I will not pass from it until they
bear me to the tomb of my forefathers. What other shelter is there for old
Esther Dudley save the province-house or the grave?”
“Now, Heaven forgive me!” said Sir William Howe to himself. “I was
about to leave this wretched old creature to starve or beg.—Take this, good
Mistress Dudley,” he added, putting a purse into her hands. “King George’s
head on these golden guineas is sterling yet, and will continue so, I warrant
you, even should the rebels crown John Hancock their king. That purse will
buy a better shelter than the province-house can now afford.”
“While the burden of life remains upon me I will have no other shelter
than this roof,” persisted Esther Dudley, striking her staff upon the floor
with a gesture that expressed immovable resolve; “and when Your
Excellency returns in triumph, I will totter into the porch to welcome you.”
“My poor old friend!” answered the British general, and all his manly
and martial pride could no longer restrain a gush of bitter tears. “This is an
evil hour for you and me. The province which the king entrusted to my

charge is lost. I go hence in misfortune—perchance in disgrace—to return
no more. And you, whose present being is incorporated with the past, who
have seen governor after governor in stately pageantry ascend these steps,
whose whole life has been an observance of majestic ceremonies and a
worship of the king,—how will you endure the change? Come with us; bid
farewell to a land that has shaken off its allegiance, and live still under a
royal government at Halifax.”
“Never! never!” said the pertinacious old dame. “Here will I abide, and
King George shall still have one true subject in his disloyal province.”
“Beshrew the old fool!” muttered Sir William Howe, growing impatient
of her obstinacy and ashamed of the emotion into which he had been
betrayed. “She is the very moral of old-fashioned prejudice, and could exist
nowhere but in this musty edifice.—Well, then, Mistress Dudley, since you
will needs tarry, I give the province-house in charge to you. Take this key,
and keep it safe until myself or some other royal governor shall demand it
of you.” Smiling bitterly at himself and her, he took the heavy key of the
province-house, and, delivering it into the old lady’s hands, drew his cloak
around him for departure.
As the general glanced back at Esther Dudley’s antique figure he deemed
her well fitted for such a charge, as being so perfect a representative of the
decayed past—of an age gone by, with its manners, opinions, faith and
feelings all fallen into oblivion or scorn, of what had once been a reality,
but was now merely a vision of faded magnificence. Then Sir William
Howe strode forth, smiting his clenched hands together in the fierce anguish
of his spirit, and old Esther Dudley was left to keep watch in the lonely
province-house, dwelling there with Memory; and if Hope ever seemed to
flit around her, still it was Memory in disguise.
The total change of affairs that ensued on the departure of the British
troops did not drive the venerable lady from her stronghold. There was not
for many years afterward a governor of Massachusetts, and the magistrates
who had charge of such matters saw no objection to Esther Dudley’s
residence in the province-house, especially as they must otherwise have
paid a hireling for taking care of the premises, which with her was a labor
of love; and so they left her the undisturbed mistress of the old historic
edifice. Many and strange were the fables which the gossips whispered
about her in all the chimney-corners of the town.

Among the time-worn articles of furniture that had been left in the
mansion, there was a tall antique mirror which was well worthy of a tale by
itself, and perhaps may hereafter be the theme of one. The gold of its
heavily-wrought frame was tarnished, and its surface so blurred that the old
woman’s figure, whenever she paused before it, looked indistinct and
ghostlike. But it was the general belief that Esther could cause the
governors of the overthrown dynasty, with the beautiful ladies who had
once adorned their festivals, the Indian chiefs who had come up to the
province-house to hold council or swear allegiance, the grim provincial
warriors, the severe clergymen—in short, all the pageantry of gone days, all
the figures that ever swept across the broad-plate of glass in former times,
—she could cause the whole to reappear and people the inner world of the
mirror with shadows of old life. Such legends as these, together with the
singularity of her isolated existence, her age and the infirmity that each
added winter flung upon her, made Mistress Dudley the object both of fear
and pity, and it was partly the result of either sentiment that, amid all the
angry license of the times, neither wrong nor insult ever fell upon her
unprotected head. Indeed, there was so much haughtiness in her demeanor
toward intruders—among whom she reckoned all persons acting under the
new authorities—that it was really an affair of no small nerve to look her in
the face. And, to do the people justice, stern republicans as they had now
become, they were well content that the old gentlewoman, in her hoop-
petticoat and faded embroidery, should still haunt the palace of ruined pride
and overthrown power, the symbol of a departed system, embodying a
history in her person. So Esther Dudley dwelt year after year in the
province-house, still reverencing all that others had flung aside, still faithful
to her king, who, so long as the venerable dame yet held her post, might be
said to retain one true subject in New England and one spot of the empire
that had been wrested from him.
And did she dwell there in utter loneliness? Rumor said, “Not so.”
Whenever her chill and withered heart desired warmth, she was wont to
summon a black slave of Governor Shirley’s from the blurred mirror and
send him in search of guests who had long ago been familiar in those
deserted chambers. Forth went the sable messenger, with the starlight or the
moonshine gleaming through him, and did his errand in the burial-grounds,
knocking at the iron doors of tombs or upon the marble slabs that covered
them, and whispering to those within, “My mistress, old Esther Dudley,

bids you to the province-house at midnight;” and punctually as the clock of
the Old South told twelve came the shadows of the Olivers, the
Hutchinsons, the Dudleys—all the grandees of a bygone generation—
gliding beneath the portal into the well-known mansion, where Esther
mingled with them as if she likewise were a shade. Without vouching for
the truth of such traditions, it is certain that Mistress Dudley sometimes
assembled a few of the stanch though crestfallen old Tories who had
lingered in the rebel town during those days of wrath and tribulation. Out of
a cobwebbed bottle containing liquor that a royal governor might have
smacked his lips over they quaffed healths to the king and babbled treason
to the republic, feeling as if the protecting shadow of the throne were still
flung around them. But, draining the last drops of their liquor, they stole
timorously homeward, and answered not again if the rude mob reviled them
in the street.
Yet Esther Dudley’s most frequent and favored guests were the children
of the town. Toward them she was never stern. A kindly and loving nature
hindered elsewhere from its free course by a thousand rocky prejudices
lavished itself upon these little ones. By bribes of gingerbread of her own
making, stamped with a royal crown, she tempted their sunny sportiveness
beneath the gloomy portal of the province-house, and would often beguile
them to spend a whole play-day there, sitting in a circle round the verge of
her hoop-petticoat, greedily attentive to her stories of a dead world. And
when these little boys and girls stole forth again from the dark, mysterious
mansion, they went bewildered, full of old feelings that graver people had
long ago forgotten, rubbing their eyes at the world around them as if they
had gone astray into ancient times and become children of the past. At
home, when their parents asked where they had loitered such a weary while
and with whom they had been at play, the children would talk of all the
departed worthies of the province as far back as Governor Belcher and the
haughty dame of Sir William Phipps. It would seem as though they had
been sitting on the knees of these famous personages, whom the grave had
hidden for half a century, and had toyed with the embroidery of their rich
waistcoats or roguishly pulled the long curls of their flowing wigs. “But
Governor Belcher has been dead this many a year,” would the mother say to
her little boy. “And did you really see him at the province-house?”—“Oh
yes, dear mother—yes!” the half-dreaming child would answer. “But when
old Esther had done speaking about him, he faded away out of his chair.”

Thus, without affrighting her little guests, she led them by the hand into the
chambers of her own desolate heart and made childhood’s fancy discern the
ghosts that haunted there.
Living so continually in her own circle of ideas, and never regulating her
mind by a proper reference to present things, Esther Dudley appears to have
grown partially crazed. It was found that she had no right sense of the
progress and true state of the Revolutionary war, but held a constant faith
that the armies of Britain were victorious on every field and destined to be
ultimately triumphant. Whenever the town rejoiced for a battle won by
Washington or Gates or Morgan or Greene, the news, in passing through the
door of the province-house as through the ivory gate of dreams, became
metamorphosed into a strange tale of the prowess of Howe, Clinton or
Cornwallis. Sooner or later, it was her invincible belief, the colonies would
be prostrate at the footstool of the king. Sometimes she seemed to take for
granted that such was already the case. On one occasion she startled the
townspeople by a brilliant illumination of the province-house with candles
at every pane of glass and a transparency of the king’s initials and a crown
of light in the great balcony-window. The figure of the aged woman in the
most gorgeous of her mildewed velvets and brocades was seen passing from
casement to casement, until she paused before the balcony and flourished a
huge key above her head. Her wrinkled visage actually gleamed with
triumph, as if the soul within her were a festal lamp.
“What means this blaze of light? What does old Esther’s joy portend?”
whispered a spectator. “It is frightful to see her gliding about the chambers
and rejoicing there without a soul to bear her company.”
“It is as if she were making merry in a tomb,” said another.
“Pshaw! It is no such mystery,” observed an old man, after some brief
exercise of memory. “Mistress Dudley is keeping jubilee for the king of
England’s birthday.”
Then the people laughed aloud, and would have thrown mud against the
blazing transparency of the king’s crown and initials, only that they pitied
the poor old dame who was so dismally triumphant amid the wreck and ruin
of the system to which she appertained.
Oftentimes it was her custom to climb the weary staircase that wound
upward to the cupola, and thence strain her dimmed eyesight seaward and
countryward, watching for a British fleet or for the march of a grand

procession with the king’s banner floating over it. The passengers in the
street below would discern her anxious visage and send up a shout: “When
the golden Indian on the province-house shall shoot his arrow, and when the
cock on the Old South spire shall crow, then look for a royal governor
again!” for this had grown a by-word through the town. And at last, after
long, long years, old Esther Dudley knew—or perchance she only dreamed
—that a royal governor was on the eve of returning to the province-house to
receive the heavy key which Sir William Howe had committed to her
charge. Now, it was the fact that intelligence bearing some faint analogy to
Esther’s version of it was current among the townspeople. She set the
mansion in the best order that her means allowed, and, arraying herself in
silks and tarnished gold, stood long before the blurred mirror to admire her
own magnificence. As she gazed the gray and withered lady moved her
ashen lips, murmuring half aloud, talking to shapes that she saw within the
mirror, to shadows of her own fantasies, to the household friends of
memory, and bidding them rejoice with her and come forth to meet the
governor. And while absorbed in this communion Mistress Dudley heard
the tramp of many footsteps in the street, and, looking out at the window,
beheld what she construed as the royal governor’s arrival.
“Oh, happy day! Oh, blessed, blessed hour!” she exclaimed. “Let me but
bid him welcome within the portal, and my task in the province-house and
on earth is done.” Then, with tottering feet which age and tremulous joy
caused to tread amiss, she hurried down the grand staircase, her silks
sweeping and rustling as she went; so that the sound was as if a train of
special courtiers were thronging from the dim mirror.
And Esther Dudley fancied that as soon as the wide door should be flung
open all the pomp and splendor of bygone times would pace majestically
into the province-house and the gilded tapestry of the past would be
brightened by the sunshine of the present. She turned the key, withdrew it
from the lock, unclosed the door and stepped across the threshold.
Advancing up the court-yard appeared a person of most dignified mien,
with tokens, as Esther interpreted them, of gentle blood, high rank and long-
accustomed authority even in his walk and every gesture. He was richly
dressed, but wore a gouty shoe, which, however, did not lessen the
stateliness of his gait. Around and behind him were people in plain civic
dresses and two or three war-worn veterans—evidently officers of rank—
arrayed in a uniform of blue and buff. But Esther Dudley, firm in the belief