part in the intercourse of life which belongs to the alleged

deficiency. But now, in his extreme old age,—whether it were that his

long and hard experience had actually brightened him, or that his

decaying judgment rendered him less capable of fairly measuring

himself,—the venerable man made pretensions to no little wisdom, and

really enjoyed the credit of it. There was likewise, at times, a vein

of something like poetry in him; it was the moss or wall-flower of his

mind in its small dilapidation, and gave a charm to what might have

been vulgar and commonplace in his earlier and middle life. Hepzibah

had a regard for him, because his name was ancient in the town and had

formerly been respectable. It was a still better reason for awarding

him a species of familiar reverence that Uncle Venner was himself the

most ancient existence, whether of man or thing, in Pyncheon Street,

except the House of the Seven Gables, and perhaps the elm that

overshadowed it.

This patriarch now presented himself before Hepzibah, clad in an old

blue coat, which had a fashionable air, and must have accrued to him

from the cast-off wardrobe of some dashing clerk. As for his trousers,

they were of tow-cloth, very short in the legs, and bagging down

strangely in the rear, but yet having a suitableness to his figure

which his other garment entirely lacked. His hat had relation to no

other part of his dress, and but very little to the head that wore it.

Thus Uncle Venner was a miscellaneous old gentleman, partly himself,

but, in good measure, somebody else; patched together, too, of

different epochs; an epitome of times and fashions.

“So, you have really begun trade,” said he,—“really begun trade! Well,

I’m glad to see it. Young people should never live idle in the world,

nor old ones neither, unless when the rheumatize gets hold of them. It

has given me warning already; and in two or three years longer, I shall

think of putting aside business and retiring to my farm. That’s

yonder,—the great brick house, you know,—the workhouse, most folks call

it; but I mean to do my work first, and go there to be idle and enjoy

myself. And I’m glad to see you beginning to do your work, Miss

Hepzibah!”

“Thank you, Uncle Venner,” said Hepzibah, smiling; for she always felt

kindly towards the simple and talkative old man. Had he been an old

woman, she might probably have repelled the freedom, which she now took

in good part. “It is time for me to begin work, indeed! Or, to speak

the truth, I have just begun when I ought to be giving it up.”

“Oh, never say that, Miss Hepzibah!” answered the old man. “You are a

young woman yet. Why, I hardly thought myself younger than I am now, it

seems so little while ago since I used to see you playing about the

door of the old house, quite a small child! Oftener, though, you used

to be sitting at the threshold, and looking gravely into the street;

for you had always a grave kind of way with you,—a grown-up air, when

you were only the height of my knee. It seems as if I saw you now; and

your grandfather with his red cloak, and his white wig, and his cocked

hat, and his cane, coming out of the house, and stepping so grandly up

the street! Those old gentlemen that grew up before the Revolution used

to put on grand airs. In my young days, the great man of the town was

commonly called King; and his wife, not Queen to be sure, but Lady.

Nowadays, a man would not dare to be called King; and if he feels

himself a little above common folks, he only stoops so much the lower

to them. I met your cousin, the Judge, ten minutes ago; and, in my old

tow-cloth trousers, as you see, the Judge raised his hat to me, I do

believe! At any rate, the Judge bowed and smiled!”

“Yes,” said Hepzibah, with something bitter stealing unawares into her

tone; “my cousin Jaffrey is thought to have a very pleasant smile!”

“And so he has” replied Uncle Venner. “And that’s rather remarkable in

a Pyncheon; for, begging your pardon, Miss Hepzibah, they never had the

name of being an easy and agreeable set of folks. There was no getting

close to them. But now, Miss Hepzibah, if an old man may be bold to

ask, why don’t Judge Pyncheon, with his great means, step forward, and

tell his cousin to shut up her little shop at once? It’s for your

credit to be doing something, but it’s not for the Judge’s credit to

let you!”

“We won’t talk of this, if you please, Uncle Venner,” said Hepzibah

coldly. “I ought to say, however, that, if I choose to earn bread for

myself, it is not Judge Pyncheon’s fault. Neither will he deserve the

blame,” added she more kindly, remembering Uncle Venner’s privileges of

age and humble familiarity, “if I should, by and by, find it convenient

to retire with you to your farm.”

“And it’s no bad place, either, that farm of mine!” cried the old man

cheerily, as if there were something positively delightful in the

prospect. “No bad place is the great brick farm-house, especially for

them that will find a good many old cronies there, as will be my case.

I quite long to be among them, sometimes, of the winter evenings; for

it is but dull business for a lonesome elderly man, like me, to be

nodding, by the hour together, with no company but his air-tight stove.

Summer or winter, there’s a great deal to be said in favor of my farm!

And, take it in the autumn, what can be pleasanter than to spend a

whole day on the sunny side of a barn or a wood-pile, chatting with

somebody as old as one’s self; or, perhaps, idling away the time with a

natural-born simpleton, who knows how to be idle, because even our busy

Yankees never have found out how to put him to any use? Upon my word,

Miss Hepzibah, I doubt whether I’ve ever been so comfortable as I mean

to be at my farm, which most folks call the workhouse. But you,—you’re

a young woman yet,—you never need go there! Something still better will

turn up for you. I’m sure of it!”

Hepzibah fancied that there was something peculiar in her venerable

friend’s look and tone; insomuch, that she gazed into his face with

considerable earnestness, endeavoring to discover what secret meaning,

if any, might be lurking there. Individuals whose affairs have reached

an utterly desperate crisis almost invariably keep themselves alive

with hopes, so much the more airily magnificent as they have the less

of solid matter within their grasp whereof to mould any judicious and

moderate expectation of good. Thus, all the while Hepzibah was

perfecting the scheme of her little shop, she had cherished an

unacknowledged idea that some harlequin trick of fortune would

intervene in her favor. For example, an uncle—who had sailed for India

fifty years before, and never been heard of since—might yet return, and

adopt her to be the comfort of his very extreme and decrepit age, and

adorn her with pearls, diamonds, and Oriental shawls and turbans, and

make her the ultimate heiress of his unreckonable riches. Or the member

of Parliament, now at the head of the English branch of the

family,—with which the elder stock, on this side of the Atlantic, had

held little or no intercourse for the last two centuries,—this eminent

gentleman might invite Hepzibah to quit the ruinous House of the Seven

Gables, and come over to dwell with her kindred at Pyncheon Hall. But,

for reasons the most imperative, she could not yield to his request. It

was more probable, therefore, that the descendants of a Pyncheon who

had emigrated to Virginia, in some past generation, and became a great

planter there,—hearing of Hepzibah’s destitution, and impelled by the

splendid generosity of character with which their Virginian mixture

must have enriched the New England blood,—would send her a remittance

of a thousand dollars, with a hint of repeating the favor annually.

Or,—and, surely, anything so undeniably just could not be beyond the

limits of reasonable anticipation,—the great claim to the heritage of

Waldo County might finally be decided in favor of the Pyncheons; so

that, instead of keeping a cent-shop, Hepzibah would build a palace,

and look down from its highest tower on hill, dale, forest, field, and

town, as her own share of the ancestral territory.

These were some of the fantasies which she had long dreamed about; and,

aided by these, Uncle Venner’s casual attempt at encouragement kindled

a strange festal glory in the poor, bare, melancholy chambers of her

brain, as if that inner world were suddenly lighted up with gas. But

either he knew nothing of her castles in the air,—as how should he?—or

else her earnest scowl disturbed his recollection, as it might a more

courageous man’s. Instead of pursuing any weightier topic, Uncle Venner

was pleased to favor Hepzibah with some sage counsel in her

shop-keeping capacity.

“Give no credit!”—these were some of his golden maxims,—“Never take

paper-money. Look well to your change! Ring the silver on the

four-pound weight! Shove back all English half-pence and base copper

tokens, such as are very plenty about town! At your leisure hours, knit

children’s woollen socks and mittens! Brew your own yeast, and make

your own ginger-beer!”

And while Hepzibah was doing her utmost to digest the hard little

pellets of his already uttered wisdom, he gave vent to his final, and

what he declared to be his all-important advice, as follows:—

“Put on a bright face for your customers, and smile pleasantly as you

hand them what they ask for! A stale article, if you dip it in a good,

warm, sunny smile, will go off better than a fresh one that you’ve

scowled upon.”

To this last apothegm poor Hepzibah responded with a sigh so deep and

heavy that it almost rustled Uncle Venner quite away, like a withered

leaf,—as he was,—before an autumnal gale. Recovering himself, however,

he bent forward, and, with a good deal of feeling in his ancient

visage, beckoned her nearer to him.

“When do you expect him home?” whispered he.

“Whom do you mean?” asked Hepzibah, turning pale.

“Ah!—You don’t love to talk about it,” said Uncle Venner. “Well, well!

we’ll say no more, though there’s word of it all over town. I remember

him, Miss Hepzibah, before he could run alone!”

During the remainder of the day, poor Hepzibah acquitted herself even

less creditably, as a shop-keeper, than in her earlier efforts. She

appeared to be walking in a dream; or, more truly, the vivid life and

reality assumed by her emotions made all outward occurrences

unsubstantial, like the teasing phantasms of a half-conscious slumber.

She still responded, mechanically, to the frequent summons of the

shop-bell, and, at the demand of her customers, went prying with vague

eyes about the shop, proffering them one article after another, and

thrusting aside—perversely, as most of them supposed—the identical

thing they asked for. There is sad confusion, indeed, when the spirit

thus flits away into the past, or into the more awful future, or, in

any manner, steps across the spaceless boundary betwixt its own region

and the actual world; where the body remains to guide itself as best it

may, with little more than the mechanism of animal life. It is like

death, without death’s quiet privilege,—its freedom from mortal care.

Worst of all, when the actual duties are comprised in such petty

details as now vexed the brooding soul of the old gentlewoman. As the

animosity of fate would have it, there was a great influx of custom in

the course of the afternoon. Hepzibah blundered to and fro about her

small place of business, committing the most unheard-of errors: now

stringing up twelve, and now seven, tallow-candles, instead of ten to

the pound; selling ginger for Scotch snuff, pins for needles, and

needles for pins; misreckoning her change, sometimes to the public

detriment, and much oftener to her own; and thus she went on, doing her

utmost to bring chaos back again, until, at the close of the day’s

labor, to her inexplicable astonishment, she found the money-drawer

almost destitute of coin. After all her painful traffic, the whole

proceeds were perhaps half a dozen coppers, and a questionable

ninepence which ultimately proved to be copper likewise.

At this price, or at whatever price, she rejoiced that the day had

reached its end. Never before had she had such a sense of the

intolerable length of time that creeps between dawn and sunset, and of

the miserable irksomeness of having aught to do, and of the better

wisdom that it would be to lie down at once, in sullen resignation, and

let life, and its toils and vexations, trample over one’s prostrate

body as they may! Hepzibah’s final operation was with the little

devourer of Jim Crow and the elephant, who now proposed to eat a camel.

In her bewilderment, she offered him first a wooden dragoon, and next a

handful of marbles; neither of which being adapted to his else

omnivorous appetite, she hastily held out her whole remaining stock of

natural history in gingerbread, and huddled the small customer out of

the shop. She then muffled the bell in an unfinished stocking, and put

up the oaken bar across the door.

During the latter process, an omnibus came to a stand-still under the

branches of the elm-tree. Hepzibah’s heart was in her mouth. Remote and

dusky, and with no sunshine on all the intervening space, was that

region of the Past whence her only guest might be expected to arrive!

Was she to meet him now?

Somebody, at all events, was passing from the farthest interior of the

omnibus towards its entrance. A gentleman alighted; but it was only to

offer his hand to a young girl whose slender figure, nowise needing

such assistance, now lightly descended the steps, and made an airy

little jump from the final one to the sidewalk. She rewarded her

cavalier with a smile, the cheery glow of which was seen reflected on

his own face as he reentered the vehicle. The girl then turned towards

the House of the Seven Gables, to the door of which, meanwhile,—not the

shop-door, but the antique portal,—the omnibus-man had carried a light

trunk and a bandbox. First giving a sharp rap of the old iron knocker,

he left his passenger and her luggage at the door-step, and departed.

“Who can it be?” thought Hepzibah, who had been screwing her visual

organs into the acutest focus of which they were capable. “The girl

must have mistaken the house.” She stole softly into the hall, and,

herself invisible, gazed through the dusty side-lights of the portal at

the young, blooming, and very cheerful face which presented itself for

admittance into the gloomy old mansion. It was a face to which almost

any door would have opened of its own accord.

The young girl, so fresh, so unconventional, and yet so orderly and

obedient to common rules, as you at once recognized her to be, was

widely in contrast, at that moment, with everything about her. The

sordid and ugly luxuriance of gigantic weeds that grew in the angle of

the house, and the heavy projection that overshadowed her, and the

time-worn framework of the door,—none of these things belonged to her

sphere. But, even as a ray of sunshine, fall into what dismal place it

may, instantaneously creates for itself a propriety in being there, so

did it seem altogether fit that the girl should be standing at the

threshold. It was no less evidently proper that the door should swing

open to admit her. The maiden lady herself, sternly inhospitable in her

first purposes, soon began to feel that the door ought to be shoved

back, and the rusty key be turned in the reluctant lock.

“Can it be Phœbe?” questioned she within herself. “It must be little

Phœbe; for it can be nobody else,—and there is a look of her father

about her, too! But what does she want here? And how like a country

cousin, to come down upon a poor body in this way, without so much as a

day’s notice, or asking whether she would be welcome! Well; she must

have a night’s lodging, I suppose; and to-morrow the child shall go

back to her mother.”

Phœbe, it must be understood, was that one little offshoot of the

Pyncheon race to whom we have already referred, as a native of a rural

part of New England, where the old fashions and feelings of

relationship are still partially kept up. In her own circle, it was

regarded as by no means improper for kinsfolk to visit one another

without invitation, or preliminary and ceremonious warning. Yet, in

consideration of Miss Hepzibah’s recluse way of life, a letter had

actually been written and despatched, conveying information of Phœbe’s

projected visit. This epistle, for three or four days past, had been in

the pocket of the penny-postman, who, happening to have no other

business in Pyncheon Street, had not yet made it convenient to call at

the House of the Seven Gables.

“No—she can stay only one night,” said Hepzibah, unbolting the door.

“If Clifford were to find her here, it might disturb him!”

V.

May and November

Phœbe Pyncheon slept, on the night of her arrival, in a chamber that

looked down on the garden of the old house. It fronted towards the

east, so that at a very seasonable hour a glow of crimson light came

flooding through the window, and bathed the dingy ceiling and

paper-hangings in its own hue. There were curtains to Phœbe’s bed; a

dark, antique canopy, and ponderous festoons of a stuff which had been

rich, and even magnificent, in its time; but which now brooded over the

girl like a cloud, making a night in that one corner, while elsewhere

it was beginning to be day. The morning light, however, soon stole into

the aperture at the foot of the bed, betwixt those faded curtains.

Finding the new guest there,—with a bloom on her cheeks like the

morning’s own, and a gentle stir of departing slumber in her limbs, as

when an early breeze moves the foliage,—the dawn kissed her brow. It

was the caress which a dewy maiden—such as the Dawn is,

immortally—gives to her sleeping sister, partly from the impulse of

irresistible fondness, and partly as a pretty hint that it is time now

to unclose her eyes.

At the touch of those lips of light, Phœbe quietly awoke, and, for a

moment, did not recognize where she was, nor how those heavy curtains

chanced to be festooned around her. Nothing, indeed, was absolutely

plain to her, except that it was now early morning, and that, whatever

might happen next, it was proper, first of all, to get up and say her

prayers. She was the more inclined to devotion from the grim aspect of

the chamber and its furniture, especially the tall, stiff chairs; one

of which stood close by her bedside, and looked as if some

old-fashioned personage had been sitting there all night, and had

vanished only just in season to escape discovery.

When Phœbe was quite dressed, she peeped out of the window, and saw a

rosebush in the garden. Being a very tall one, and of luxuriant growth,

it had been propped up against the side of the house, and was literally

covered with a rare and very beautiful species of white rose. A large

portion of them, as the girl afterwards discovered, had blight or

mildew at their hearts; but, viewed at a fair distance, the whole

rosebush looked as if it had been brought from Eden that very summer,

together with the mould in which it grew. The truth was, nevertheless,

that it had been planted by Alice Pyncheon,—she was Phœbe’s

great-great-grand-aunt,—in soil which, reckoning only its cultivation

as a garden-plat, was now unctuous with nearly two hundred years of

vegetable decay. Growing as they did, however, out of the old earth,

the flowers still sent a fresh and sweet incense up to their Creator;

nor could it have been the less pure and acceptable because Phœbe’s

young breath mingled with it, as the fragrance floated past the window.

Hastening down the creaking and carpetless staircase, she found her way

into the garden, gathered some of the most perfect of the roses, and

brought them to her chamber.

Little Phœbe was one of those persons who possess, as their exclusive

patrimony, the gift of practical arrangement. It is a kind of natural

magic that enables these favored ones to bring out the hidden

capabilities of things around them; and particularly to give a look of

comfort and habitableness to any place which, for however brief a

period, may happen to be their home. A wild hut of underbrush, tossed

together by wayfarers through the primitive forest, would acquire the

home aspect by one night’s lodging of such a woman, and would retain it

long after her quiet figure had disappeared into the surrounding shade.

No less a portion of such homely witchcraft was requisite to reclaim,

as it were, Phœbe’s waste, cheerless, and dusky chamber, which had been

untenanted so long—except by spiders, and mice, and rats, and

ghosts—that it was all overgrown with the desolation which watches to

obliterate every trace of man’s happier hours. What was precisely

Phœbe’s process we find it impossible to say. She appeared to have no

preliminary design, but gave a touch here and another there; brought

some articles of furniture to light and dragged others into the shadow;

looped up or let down a window-curtain; and, in the course of half an

hour, had fully succeeded in throwing a kindly and hospitable smile

over the apartment. No longer ago than the night before, it had

resembled nothing so much as the old maid’s heart; for there was

neither sunshine nor household fire in one nor the other, and, save for

ghosts and ghostly reminiscences, not a guest, for many years gone by,

had entered the heart or the chamber.

There was still another peculiarity of this inscrutable charm. The

bedchamber, no doubt, was a chamber of very great and varied

experience, as a scene of human life: the joy of bridal nights had

throbbed itself away here; new immortals had first drawn earthly breath

here; and here old people had died. But—whether it were the white

roses, or whatever the subtile influence might be—a person of delicate

instinct would have known at once that it was now a maiden’s

bedchamber, and had been purified of all former evil and sorrow by her

sweet breath and happy thoughts. Her dreams of the past night, being

such cheerful ones, had exorcised the gloom, and now haunted the

chamber in its stead.

After arranging matters to her satisfaction, Phœbe emerged from her

chamber, with a purpose to descend again into the garden. Besides the

rosebush, she had observed several other species of flowers growing

there in a wilderness of neglect, and obstructing one another’s

development (as is often the parallel case in human society) by their

uneducated entanglement and confusion. At the head of the stairs,

however, she met Hepzibah, who, it being still early, invited her into

a room which she would probably have called her boudoir, had her

education embraced any such French phrase. It was strewn about with a

few old books, and a work-basket, and a dusty writing-desk; and had, on

one side, a large black article of furniture, of very strange

appearance, which the old gentlewoman told Phœbe was a harpsichord. It

looked more like a coffin than anything else; and, indeed,—not having

been played upon, or opened, for years,—there must have been a vast

deal of dead music in it, stifled for want of air. Human finger was

hardly known to have touched its chords since the days of Alice

Pyncheon, who had learned the sweet accomplishment of melody in Europe.

Hepzibah bade her young guest sit down, and, herself taking a chair

near by, looked as earnestly at Phœbe’s trim little figure as if she

expected to see right into its springs and motive secrets.

“Cousin Phœbe,” said she, at last, “I really can’t see my way clear to

keep you with me.”

These words, however, had not the inhospitable bluntness with which

they may strike the reader; for the two relatives, in a talk before

bedtime, had arrived at a certain degree of mutual understanding.

Hepzibah knew enough to enable her to appreciate the circumstances

(resulting from the second marriage of the girl’s mother) which made it

desirable for Phœbe to establish herself in another home. Nor did she

misinterpret Phœbe’s character, and the genial activity pervading

it,—one of the most valuable traits of the true New England

woman,—which had impelled her forth, as might be said, to seek her

fortune, but with a self-respecting purpose to confer as much benefit

as she could anywise receive. As one of her nearest kindred, she had

naturally betaken herself to Hepzibah, with no idea of forcing herself

on her cousin’s protection, but only for a visit of a week or two,

which might be indefinitely extended, should it prove for the happiness

of both.

To Hepzibah’s blunt observation, therefore, Phœbe replied as frankly,

and more cheerfully.

“Dear cousin, I cannot tell how it will be,” said she. “But I really

think we may suit one another much better than you suppose.”

“You are a nice girl,—I see it plainly,” continued Hepzibah; “and it is

not any question as to that point which makes me hesitate. But, Phœbe,

this house of mine is but a melancholy place for a young person to be

in. It lets in the wind and rain, and the snow, too, in the garret and

upper chambers, in winter-time, but it never lets in the sunshine. And

as for myself, you see what I am,—a dismal and lonesome old woman (for

I begin to call myself old, Phœbe), whose temper, I am afraid, is none

of the best, and whose spirits are as bad as can be! I cannot make your

life pleasant, Cousin Phœbe, neither can I so much as give you bread to

eat.”

“You will find me a cheerful little body” answered Phœbe, smiling, and

yet with a kind of gentle dignity, “and I mean to earn my bread. You

know I have not been brought up a Pyncheon. A girl learns many things

in a New England village.”

“Ah! Phœbe,” said Hepzibah, sighing, “your knowledge would do but

little for you here! And then it is a wretched thought that you should

fling away your young days in a place like this. Those cheeks would not

be so rosy after a month or two. Look at my face!” and, indeed, the

contrast was very striking,—“you see how pale I am! It is my idea that

the dust and continual decay of these old houses are unwholesome for

the lungs.”

“There is the garden,—the flowers to be taken care of,” observed Phœbe.

“I should keep myself healthy with exercise in the open air.”

“And, after all, child,” exclaimed Hepzibah, suddenly rising, as if to

dismiss the subject, “it is not for me to say who shall be a guest or

inhabitant of the old Pyncheon House. Its master is coming.”

“Do you mean Judge Pyncheon?” asked Phœbe in surprise.

“Judge Pyncheon!” answered her cousin angrily. “He will hardly cross

the threshold while I live! No, no! But, Phœbe, you shall see the face

of him I speak of.”

She went in quest of the miniature already described, and returned with

it in her hand. Giving it to Phœbe, she watched her features narrowly,

and with a certain jealousy as to the mode in which the girl would show

herself affected by the picture.

“How do you like the face?” asked Hepzibah.

“It is handsome!—it is very beautiful!” said Phœbe admiringly. “It is

as sweet a face as a man’s can be, or ought to be. It has something of

a child’s expression,—and yet not childish,—only one feels so very

kindly towards him! He ought never to suffer anything. One would bear

much for the sake of sparing him toil or sorrow. Who is it, Cousin

Hepzibah?”

“Did you never hear,” whispered her cousin, bending towards her, “of

Clifford Pyncheon?”

“Never. I thought there were no Pyncheons left, except yourself and our

cousin Jaffrey,” answered Phœbe. “And yet I seem to have heard the name

of Clifford Pyncheon. Yes!—from my father or my mother; but has he not

been a long while dead?”

“Well, well, child, perhaps he has!” said Hepzibah with a sad, hollow

laugh; “but, in old houses like this, you know, dead people are very

apt to come back again! We shall see. And, Cousin Phœbe, since, after

all that I have said, your courage does not fail you, we will not part

so soon. You are welcome, my child, for the present, to such a home as

your kinswoman can offer you.”

With this measured, but not exactly cold assurance of a hospitable

purpose, Hepzibah kissed her cheek.

They now went below stairs, where Phœbe—not so much assuming the office

as attracting it to herself, by the magnetism of innate fitness—took

the most active part in preparing breakfast. The mistress of the house,

meanwhile, as is usual with persons of her stiff and unmalleable cast,

stood mostly aside; willing to lend her aid, yet conscious that her

natural inaptitude would be likely to impede the business in hand.

Phœbe and the fire that boiled the teakettle were equally bright,

cheerful, and efficient, in their respective offices. Hepzibah gazed

forth from her habitual sluggishness, the necessary result of long

solitude, as from another sphere. She could not help being interested,

however, and even amused, at the readiness with which her new inmate

adapted herself to the circumstances, and brought the house, moreover,

and all its rusty old appliances, into a suitableness for her purposes.

Whatever she did, too, was done without conscious effort, and with

frequent outbreaks of song, which were exceedingly pleasant to the ear.

This natural tunefulness made Phœbe seem like a bird in a shadowy tree;

or conveyed the idea that the stream of life warbled through her heart

as a brook sometimes warbles through a pleasant little dell. It

betokened the cheeriness of an active temperament, finding joy in its

activity, and, therefore, rendering it beautiful; it was a New England

trait,—the stern old stuff of Puritanism with a gold thread in the web.

Hepzibah brought out some old silver spoons with the family crest upon

them, and a china tea-set painted over with grotesque figures of man,

bird, and beast, in as grotesque a landscape. These pictured people

were odd humorists, in a world of their own,—a world of vivid

brilliancy, so far as color went, and still unfaded, although the

teapot and small cups were as ancient as the custom itself of

tea-drinking.

“Your great-great-great-great-grandmother had these cups, when she was

married,” said Hepzibah to Phœbe. “She was a Davenport, of a good

family. They were almost the first teacups ever seen in the colony; and

if one of them were to be broken, my heart would break with it. But it

is nonsense to speak so about a brittle teacup, when I remember what my

heart has gone through without breaking.”

The cups—not having been used, perhaps, since Hepzibah’s youth—had

contracted no small burden of dust, which Phœbe washed away with so

much care and delicacy as to satisfy even the proprietor of this

invaluable china.

“What a nice little housewife you are!” exclaimed the latter, smiling,

and at the same time frowning so prodigiously that the smile was

sunshine under a thunder-cloud. “Do you do other things as well? Are

you as good at your book as you are at washing teacups?”

“Not quite, I am afraid,” said Phœbe, laughing at the form of

Hepzibah’s question. “But I was schoolmistress for the little children

in our district last summer, and might have been so still.”

“Ah! ’tis all very well!” observed the maiden lady, drawing herself up.

“But these things must have come to you with your mother’s blood. I

never knew a Pyncheon that had any turn for them.”

It is very queer, but not the less true, that people are generally

quite as vain, or even more so, of their deficiencies than of their

available gifts; as was Hepzibah of this native inapplicability, so to

speak, of the Pyncheons to any useful purpose. She regarded it as an

hereditary trait; and so, perhaps, it was, but unfortunately a morbid

one, such as is often generated in families that remain long above the

surface of society.

Before they left the breakfast-table, the shop-bell rang sharply, and

Hepzibah set down the remnant of her final cup of tea, with a look of

sallow despair that was truly piteous to behold. In cases of

distasteful occupation, the second day is generally worse than the

first. We return to the rack with all the soreness of the preceding

torture in our limbs. At all events, Hepzibah had fully satisfied

herself of the impossibility of ever becoming wonted to this peevishly

obstreperous little bell. Ring as often as it might, the sound always

smote upon her nervous system rudely and suddenly. And especially now,

while, with her crested teaspoons and antique china, she was flattering

herself with ideas of gentility, she felt an unspeakable disinclination

to confront a customer.

“Do not trouble yourself, dear cousin!” cried Phœbe, starting lightly

up. “I am shop-keeper to-day.”

“You, child!” exclaimed Hepzibah. “What can a little country girl know

of such matters?”

“Oh, I have done all the shopping for the family at our village store,”

said Phœbe. “And I have had a table at a fancy fair, and made better

sales than anybody. These things are not to be learnt; they depend upon

a knack that comes, I suppose,” added she, smiling, “with one’s

mother’s blood. You shall see that I am as nice a little saleswoman as

I am a housewife!”

The old gentlewoman stole behind Phœbe, and peeped from the passageway

into the shop, to note how she would manage her undertaking. It was a

case of some intricacy. A very ancient woman, in a white short gown and

a green petticoat, with a string of gold beads about her neck, and what

looked like a nightcap on her head, had brought a quantity of yarn to

barter for the commodities of the shop. She was probably the very last

person in town who still kept the time-honored spinning-wheel in

constant revolution. It was worth while to hear the croaking and hollow

tones of the old lady, and the pleasant voice of Phœbe, mingling in one

twisted thread of talk; and still better to contrast their figures,—so

light and bloomy,—so decrepit and dusky,—with only the counter betwixt

them, in one sense, but more than threescore years, in another. As for

the bargain, it was wrinkled slyness and craft pitted against native

truth and sagacity.

“Was not that well done?” asked Phœbe, laughing, when the customer was

gone.

“Nicely done, indeed, child!” answered Hepzibah. “I could not have gone

through with it nearly so well. As you say, it must be a knack that

belongs to you on the mother’s side.”

It is a very genuine admiration, that with which persons too shy or too

awkward to take a due part in the bustling world regard the real actors

in life’s stirring scenes; so genuine, in fact, that the former are

usually fain to make it palatable to their self-love, by assuming that

these active and forcible qualities are incompatible with others, which

they choose to deem higher and more important. Thus, Hepzibah was well

content to acknowledge Phœbe’s vastly superior gifts as a shop-keeper;

she listened, with compliant ear, to her suggestion of various methods

whereby the influx of trade might be increased, and rendered

profitable, without a hazardous outlay of capital. She consented that

the village maiden should manufacture yeast, both liquid and in cakes;

and should brew a certain kind of beer, nectareous to the palate, and

of rare stomachic virtues; and, moreover, should bake and exhibit for

sale some little spice-cakes, which whosoever tasted would longingly

desire to taste again. All such proofs of a ready mind and skilful

handiwork were highly acceptable to the aristocratic hucksteress, so

long as she could murmur to herself with a grim smile, and a

half-natural sigh, and a sentiment of mixed wonder, pity, and growing

affection:—

“What a nice little body she is! If she only could be a lady; too—but

that’s impossible! Phœbe is no Pyncheon. She takes everything from her

mother!”

As to Phœbe’s not being a lady, or whether she were a lady or no, it

was a point, perhaps, difficult to decide, but which could hardly have

come up for judgment at all in any fair and healthy mind. Out of New

England, it would be impossible to meet with a person combining so many

ladylike attributes with so many others that form no necessary (if

compatible) part of the character. She shocked no canon of taste; she

was admirably in keeping with herself, and never jarred against

surrounding circumstances. Her figure, to be sure,—so small as to be

almost childlike, and so elastic that motion seemed as easy or easier

to it than rest, would hardly have suited one’s idea of a countess.

Neither did her face—with the brown ringlets on either side, and the

slightly piquant nose, and the wholesome bloom, and the clear shade of

tan, and the half dozen freckles, friendly remembrances of the April

sun and breeze—precisely give us a right to call her beautiful. But

there was both lustre and depth in her eyes. She was very pretty; as

graceful as a bird, and graceful much in the same way; as pleasant

about the house as a gleam of sunshine falling on the floor through a

shadow of twinkling leaves, or as a ray of firelight that dances on the

wall while evening is drawing nigh. Instead of discussing her claim to

rank among ladies, it would be preferable to regard Phœbe as the

example of feminine grace and availability combined, in a state of

society, if there were any such, where ladies did not exist. There it

should be woman’s office to move in the midst of practical affairs, and

to gild them all, the very homeliest,—were it even the scouring of pots

and kettles,—with an atmosphere of loveliness and joy.

Such was the sphere of Phœbe. To find the born and educated lady, on

the other hand, we need look no farther than Hepzibah, our forlorn old

maid, in her rustling and rusty silks, with her deeply cherished and

ridiculous consciousness of long descent, her shadowy claims to

princely territory, and, in the way of accomplishment, her

recollections, it may be, of having formerly thrummed on a harpsichord,

and walked a minuet, and worked an antique tapestry-stitch on her

sampler. It was a fair parallel between new Plebeianism and old

Gentility.

It really seemed as if the battered visage of the House of the Seven

Gables, black and heavy-browed as it still certainly looked, must have

shown a kind of cheerfulness glimmering through its dusky windows as

Phœbe passed to and fro in the interior. Otherwise, it is impossible to

explain how the people of the neighborhood so soon became aware of the

girl’s presence. There was a great run of custom, setting steadily in,

from about ten o’clock until towards noon,—relaxing, somewhat, at

dinner-time, but recommencing in the afternoon, and, finally, dying

away a half an hour or so before the long day’s sunset. One of the

stanchest patrons was little Ned Higgins, the devourer of Jim Crow and

the elephant, who to-day signalized his omnivorous prowess by

swallowing two dromedaries and a locomotive. Phœbe laughed, as she

summed up her aggregate of sales upon the slate; while Hepzibah, first

drawing on a pair of silk gloves, reckoned over the sordid accumulation

of copper coin, not without silver intermixed, that had jingled into

the till.

“We must renew our stock, Cousin Hepzibah!” cried the little

saleswoman. “The gingerbread figures are all gone, and so are those

Dutch wooden milkmaids, and most of our other playthings. There has

been constant inquiry for cheap raisins, and a great cry for whistles,

and trumpets, and jew’s-harps; and at least a dozen little boys have

asked for molasses-candy. And we must contrive to get a peck of russet

apples, late in the season as it is. But, dear cousin, what an enormous

heap of copper! Positively a copper mountain!”

“Well done! well done! well done!” quoth Uncle Venner, who had taken

occasion to shuffle in and out of the shop several times in the course

of the day. “Here’s a girl that will never end her days at my farm!

Bless my eyes, what a brisk little soul!”

“Yes, Phœbe is a nice girl!” said Hepzibah, with a scowl of austere

approbation. “But, Uncle Venner, you have known the family a great many

years. Can you tell me whether there ever was a Pyncheon whom she takes

after?”

“I don’t believe there ever was,” answered the venerable man. “At any

rate, it never was my luck to see her like among them, nor, for that

matter, anywhere else. I’ve seen a great deal of the world, not only in

people’s kitchens and back-yards but at the street-corners, and on the

wharves, and in other places where my business calls me; and I’m free

to say, Miss Hepzibah, that I never knew a human creature do her work

so much like one of God’s angels as this child Phœbe does!”

Uncle Venner’s eulogium, if it appear rather too high-strained for the

person and occasion, had, nevertheless, a sense in which it was both

subtile and true. There was a spiritual quality in Phœbe’s activity.

The life of the long and busy day—spent in occupations that might so

easily have taken a squalid and ugly aspect—had been made pleasant, and

even lovely, by the spontaneous grace with which these homely duties

seemed to bloom out of her character; so that labor, while she dealt

with it, had the easy and flexible charm of play. Angels do not toil,

but let their good works grow out of them; and so did Phœbe.

The two relatives—the young maid and the old one—found time before

nightfall, in the intervals of trade, to make rapid advances towards

affection and confidence. A recluse, like Hepzibah, usually displays

remarkable frankness, and at least temporary affability, on being

absolutely cornered, and brought to the point of personal intercourse;

like the angel whom Jacob wrestled with, she is ready to bless you when

once overcome.

The old gentlewoman took a dreary and proud satisfaction in leading

Phœbe from room to room of the house, and recounting the traditions

with which, as we may say, the walls were lugubriously frescoed. She

showed the indentations made by the lieutenant-governor’s sword-hilt in

the door-panels of the apartment where old Colonel Pyncheon, a dead

host, had received his affrighted visitors with an awful frown. The

dusky terror of that frown, Hepzibah observed, was thought to be

lingering ever since in the passageway. She bade Phœbe step into one of

the tall chairs, and inspect the ancient map of the Pyncheon territory

at the eastward. In a tract of land on which she laid her finger, there

existed a silver mine, the locality of which was precisely pointed out

in some memoranda of Colonel Pyncheon himself, but only to be made

known when the family claim should be recognized by government. Thus it

was for the interest of all New England that the Pyncheons should have

justice done them. She told, too, how that there was undoubtedly an

immense treasure of English guineas hidden somewhere about the house,

or in the cellar, or possibly in the garden.

“If you should happen to find it, Phœbe,” said Hepzibah, glancing aside

at her with a grim yet kindly smile, “we will tie up the shop-bell for

good and all!”

“Yes, dear cousin,” answered Phœbe; “but, in the mean time, I hear

somebody ringing it!”

When the customer was gone, Hepzibah talked rather vaguely, and at

great length, about a certain Alice Pyncheon, who had been exceedingly

beautiful and accomplished in her lifetime, a hundred years ago. The

fragrance of her rich and delightful character still lingered about the

place where she had lived, as a dried rose-bud scents the drawer where

it has withered and perished. This lovely Alice had met with some great

and mysterious calamity, and had grown thin and white, and gradually

faded out of the world. But, even now, she was supposed to haunt the

House of the Seven Gables, and, a great many times,—especially when one

of the Pyncheons was to die,—she had been heard playing sadly and

beautifully on the harpsichord. One of these tunes, just as it had

sounded from her spiritual touch, had been written down by an amateur

of music; it was so exquisitely mournful that nobody, to this day,

could bear to hear it played, unless when a great sorrow had made them

know the still profounder sweetness of it.

“Was it the same harpsichord that you showed me?” inquired Phœbe.

“The very same,” said Hepzibah. “It was Alice Pyncheon’s harpsichord.

When I was learning music, my father would never let me open it. So, as

I could only play on my teacher’s instrument, I have forgotten all my

music long ago.”

Leaving these antique themes, the old lady began to talk about the

daguerreotypist, whom, as he seemed to be a well-meaning and orderly

young man, and in narrow circumstances, she had permitted to take up

his residence in one of the seven gables. But, on seeing more of Mr.

Holgrave, she hardly knew what to make of him. He had the strangest

companions imaginable; men with long beards, and dressed in linen

blouses, and other such new-fangled and ill-fitting garments;

reformers, temperance lecturers, and all manner of cross-looking

philanthropists; community-men, and come-outers, as Hepzibah believed,

who acknowledged no law, and ate no solid food, but lived on the scent

of other people’s cookery, and turned up their noses at the fare. As

for the daguerreotypist, she had read a paragraph in a penny paper, the

other day, accusing him of making a speech full of wild and

disorganizing matter, at a meeting of his banditti-like associates. For

her own part, she had reason to believe that he practised animal

magnetism, and, if such things were in fashion nowadays, should be apt

to suspect him of studying the Black Art up there in his lonesome

chamber.

“But, dear cousin,” said Phœbe, “if the young man is so dangerous, why

do you let him stay? If he does nothing worse, he may set the house on

fire!”

“Why, sometimes,” answered Hepzibah, “I have seriously made it a

question, whether I ought not to send him away. But, with all his

oddities, he is a quiet kind of a person, and has such a way of taking

hold of one’s mind, that, without exactly liking him (for I don’t know

enough of the young man), I should be sorry to lose sight of him

entirely. A woman clings to slight acquaintances when she lives so much

alone as I do.”

“But if Mr. Holgrave is a lawless person!” remonstrated Phœbe, a part

of whose essence it was to keep within the limits of law.

“Oh!” said Hepzibah carelessly,—for, formal as she was, still, in her

life’s experience, she had gnashed her teeth against human law,—“I

suppose he has a law of his own!”

VI.

Maule’s Well

After an early tea, the little country-girl strayed into the garden.

The enclosure had formerly been very extensive, but was now contracted

within small compass, and hemmed about, partly by high wooden fences,

and partly by the outbuildings of houses that stood on another street.

In its centre was a grass-plat, surrounding a ruinous little structure,

which showed just enough of its original design to indicate that it had

once been a summer-house. A hop-vine, springing from last year’s root,

was beginning to clamber over it, but would be long in covering the

roof with its green mantle. Three of the seven gables either fronted or

looked sideways, with a dark solemnity of aspect, down into the garden.

The black, rich soil had fed itself with the decay of a long period of

time; such as fallen leaves, the petals of flowers, and the stalks and

seed-vessels of vagrant and lawless plants, more useful after their

death than ever while flaunting in the sun. The evil of these departed

years would naturally have sprung up again, in such rank weeds

(symbolic of the transmitted vices of society) as are always prone to

root themselves about human dwellings. Phœbe saw, however, that their

growth must have been checked by a degree of careful labor, bestowed

daily and systematically on the garden. The white double rosebush had

evidently been propped up anew against the house since the commencement

of the season; and a pear-tree and three damson-trees, which, except a

row of currant-bushes, constituted the only varieties of fruit, bore

marks of the recent amputation of several superfluous or defective

limbs. There were also a few species of antique and hereditary flowers,

in no very flourishing condition, but scrupulously weeded; as if some

person, either out of love or curiosity, had been anxious to bring them

to such perfection as they were capable of attaining. The remainder of

the garden presented a well-selected assortment of esculent vegetables,

in a praiseworthy state of advancement. Summer squashes almost in their

golden blossom; cucumbers, now evincing a tendency to spread away from

the main stock, and ramble far and wide; two or three rows of

string-beans and as many more that were about to festoon themselves on

poles; tomatoes, occupying a site so sheltered and sunny that the

plants were already gigantic, and promised an early and abundant

harvest.

Phœbe wondered whose care and toil it could have been that had planted

these vegetables, and kept the soil so clean and orderly. Not surely

her cousin Hepzibah’s, who had no taste nor spirits for the lady-like

employment of cultivating flowers, and—with her recluse habits, and

tendency to shelter herself within the dismal shadow of the house—would

hardly have come forth under the speck of open sky to weed and hoe

among the fraternity of beans and squashes.

It being her first day of complete estrangement from rural objects,

Phœbe found an unexpected charm in this little nook of grass, and

foliage, and aristocratic flowers, and plebeian vegetables. The eye of

Heaven seemed to look down into it pleasantly, and with a peculiar

smile, as if glad to perceive that nature, elsewhere overwhelmed, and

driven out of the dusty town, had here been able to retain a

breathing-place. The spot acquired a somewhat wilder grace, and yet a

very gentle one, from the fact that a pair of robins had built their

nest in the pear-tree, and were making themselves exceedingly busy and

happy in the dark intricacy of its boughs. Bees, too,—strange to

say,—had thought it worth their while to come hither, possibly from the

range of hives beside some farm-house miles away. How many aerial

voyages might they have made, in quest of honey, or honey-laden,

betwixt dawn and sunset! Yet, late as it now was, there still arose a

pleasant hum out of one or two of the squash-blossoms, in the depths of

which these bees were plying their golden labor. There was one other

object in the garden which Nature might fairly claim as her inalienable

property, in spite of whatever man could do to render it his own. This

was a fountain, set round with a rim of old mossy stones, and paved, in

its bed, with what appeared to be a sort of mosaic-work of variously

colored pebbles. The play and slight agitation of the water, in its

upward gush, wrought magically with these variegated pebbles, and made

a continually shifting apparition of quaint figures, vanishing too

suddenly to be definable. Thence, swelling over the rim of moss-grown

stones, the water stole away under the fence, through what we regret to

call a gutter, rather than a channel. Nor must we forget to mention a

hen-coop of very reverend antiquity that stood in the farther corner of

the garden, not a great way from the fountain. It now contained only

Chanticleer, his two wives, and a solitary chicken. All of them were

pure specimens of a breed which had been transmitted down as an

heirloom in the Pyncheon family, and were said, while in their prime,

to have attained almost the size of turkeys, and, on the score of

delicate flesh, to be fit for a prince’s table. In proof of the

authenticity of this legendary renown, Hepzibah could have exhibited

the shell of a great egg, which an ostrich need hardly have been

ashamed of. Be that as it might, the hens were now scarcely larger than

pigeons, and had a queer, rusty, withered aspect, and a gouty kind of

movement, and a sleepy and melancholy tone throughout all the

variations of their clucking and cackling. It was evident that the race

had degenerated, like many a noble race besides, in consequence of too

strict a watchfulness to keep it pure. These feathered people had

existed too long in their distinct variety; a fact of which the present

representatives, judging by their lugubrious deportment, seemed to be

aware. They kept themselves alive, unquestionably, and laid now and

then an egg, and hatched a chicken; not for any pleasure of their own,

but that the world might not absolutely lose what had once been so

admirable a breed of fowls. The distinguishing mark of the hens was a

crest of lamentably scanty growth, in these latter days, but so oddly

and wickedly analogous to Hepzibah’s turban, that Phœbe—to the poignant

distress of her conscience, but inevitably—was led to fancy a general

resemblance betwixt these forlorn bipeds and her respectable relative.

The girl ran into the house to get some crumbs of bread, cold potatoes,

and other such scraps as were suitable to the accommodating appetite of

fowls. Returning, she gave a peculiar call, which they seemed to

recognize. The chicken crept through the pales of the coop and ran,

with some show of liveliness, to her feet; while Chanticleer and the

ladies of his household regarded her with queer, sidelong glances, and

then croaked one to another, as if communicating their sage opinions of

her character. So wise, as well as antique, was their aspect, as to

give color to the idea, not merely that they were the descendants of a

time-honored race, but that they had existed, in their individual

capacity, ever since the House of the Seven Gables was founded, and

were somehow mixed up with its destiny. They were a species of tutelary

sprite, or Banshee; although winged and feathered differently from most

other guardian angels.

“Here, you odd little chicken!” said Phœbe; “here are some nice crumbs

for you!”

The chicken, hereupon, though almost as venerable in appearance as its

mother—possessing, indeed, the whole antiquity of its progenitors in

miniature,—mustered vivacity enough to flutter upward and alight on

Phœbe’s shoulder.

“That little fowl pays you a high compliment!” said a voice behind

Phœbe.

Turning quickly, she was surprised at sight of a young man, who had

found access into the garden by a door opening out of another gable

than that whence she had emerged. He held a hoe in his hand, and, while

Phœbe was gone in quest of the crumbs, had begun to busy himself with

drawing up fresh earth about the roots of the tomatoes.

“The chicken really treats you like an old acquaintance,” continued he

in a quiet way, while a smile made his face pleasanter than Phœbe at

first fancied it. “Those venerable personages in the coop, too, seem

very affably disposed. You are lucky to be in their good graces so

soon! They have known me much longer, but never honor me with any

familiarity, though hardly a day passes without my bringing them food.

Miss Hepzibah, I suppose, will interweave the fact with her other

traditions, and set it down that the fowls know you to be a Pyncheon!”

“The secret is,” said Phœbe, smiling, “that I have learned how to talk

with hens and chickens.”

“Ah, but these hens,” answered the young man,—“these hens of

aristocratic lineage would scorn to understand the vulgar language of a

barn-yard fowl. I prefer to think—and so would Miss Hepzibah—that they

recognize the family tone. For you are a Pyncheon?”

“My name is Phœbe Pyncheon,” said the girl, with a manner of some

reserve; for she was aware that her new acquaintance could be no other

than the daguerreotypist, of whose lawless propensities the old maid

had given her a disagreeable idea. “I did not know that my cousin

Hepzibah’s garden was under another person’s care.”

“Yes,” said Holgrave, “I dig, and hoe, and weed, in this black old

earth, for the sake of refreshing myself with what little nature and

simplicity may be left in it, after men have so long sown and reaped

here. I turn up the earth by way of pastime. My sober occupation, so

far as I have any, is with a lighter material. In short, I make

pictures out of sunshine; and, not to be too much dazzled with my own

trade, I have prevailed with Miss Hepzibah to let me lodge in one of

these dusky gables. It is like a bandage over one’s eyes, to come into

it. But would you like to see a specimen of my productions?”

“A daguerreotype likeness, do you mean?” asked Phœbe with less reserve;

for, in spite of prejudice, her own youthfulness sprang forward to meet

his. “I don’t much like pictures of that sort,—they are so hard and

stern; besides dodging away from the eye, and trying to escape

altogether. They are conscious of looking very unamiable, I suppose,

and therefore hate to be seen.”

“If you would permit me,” said the artist, looking at Phœbe, “I should

like to try whether the daguerreotype can bring out disagreeable traits

on a perfectly amiable face. But there certainly is truth in what you

have said. Most of my likenesses do look unamiable; but the very

sufficient reason, I fancy, is, because the originals are so. There is

a wonderful insight in Heaven’s broad and simple sunshine. While we

give it credit only for depicting the merest surface, it actually

brings out the secret character with a truth that no painter would ever

venture upon, even could he detect it. There is, at least, no flattery

in my humble line of art. Now, here is a likeness which I have taken

over and over again, and still with no better result. Yet the original

wears, to common eyes, a very different expression. It would gratify me

to have your judgment on this character.”

He exhibited a daguerreotype miniature in a morocco case. Phœbe merely

glanced at it, and gave it back.

“I know the face,” she replied; “for its stern eye has been following

me about all day. It is my Puritan ancestor, who hangs yonder in the

parlor. To be sure, you have found some way of copying the portrait

without its black velvet cap and gray beard, and have given him a

modern coat and satin cravat, instead of his cloak and band. I don’t

think him improved by your alterations.”

“You would have seen other differences had you looked a little longer,”

said Holgrave, laughing, yet apparently much struck. “I can assure you

that this is a modern face, and one which you will very probably meet.

Now, the remarkable point is, that the original wears, to the world’s

eye,—and, for aught I know, to his most intimate friends,—an

exceedingly pleasant countenance, indicative of benevolence, openness

of heart, sunny good-humor, and other praiseworthy qualities of that

cast. The sun, as you see, tells quite another story, and will not be

coaxed out of it, after half a dozen patient attempts on my part. Here

we have the man, sly, subtle, hard, imperious, and, withal, cold as

ice. Look at that eye! Would you like to be at its mercy? At that

mouth! Could it ever smile? And yet, if you could only see the benign

smile of the original! It is so much the more unfortunate, as he is a

public character of some eminence, and the likeness was intended to be

engraved.”

“Well, I don’t wish to see it any more,” observed Phœbe, turning away

her eyes. “It is certainly very like the old portrait. But my cousin

Hepzibah has another picture,—a miniature. If the original is still in

the world, I think he might defy the sun to make him look stern and

hard.”

“You have seen that picture, then!” exclaimed the artist, with an

expression of much interest. “I never did, but have a great curiosity

to do so. And you judge favorably of the face?”

“There never was a sweeter one,” said Phœbe. “It is almost too soft and

gentle for a man’s.”

“Is there nothing wild in the eye?” continued Holgrave, so earnestly

that it embarrassed Phœbe, as did also the quiet freedom with which he

presumed on their so recent acquaintance. “Is there nothing dark or

sinister anywhere? Could you not conceive the original to have been

guilty of a great crime?”

“It is nonsense,” said Phœbe a little impatiently, “for us to talk

about a picture which you have never seen. You mistake it for some

other. A crime, indeed! Since you are a friend of my cousin Hepzibah’s,

you should ask her to show you the picture.”

“It will suit my purpose still better to see the original,” replied the

daguerreotypist coolly. “As to his character, we need not discuss its

points; they have already been settled by a competent tribunal, or one

which called itself competent. But, stay! Do not go yet, if you please!

I have a proposition to make you.”

Phœbe was on the point of retreating, but turned back, with some

hesitation; for she did not exactly comprehend his manner, although, on

better observation, its feature seemed rather to be lack of ceremony

than any approach to offensive rudeness. There was an odd kind of

authority, too, in what he now proceeded to say, rather as if the

garden were his own than a place to which he was admitted merely by

Hepzibah’s courtesy.

“If agreeable to you,” he observed, “it would give me pleasure to turn

over these flowers, and those ancient and respectable fowls, to your

care. Coming fresh from country air and occupations, you will soon feel

the need of some such out-of-door employment. My own sphere does not so

much lie among flowers. You can trim and tend them, therefore, as you

please; and I will ask only the least trifle of a blossom, now and

then, in exchange for all the good, honest kitchen vegetables with

which I propose to enrich Miss Hepzibah’s table. So we will be

fellow-laborers, somewhat on the community system.”

Silently, and rather surprised at her own compliance, Phœbe accordingly

betook herself to weeding a flower-bed, but busied herself still more

with cogitations respecting this young man, with whom she so

unexpectedly found herself on terms approaching to familiarity. She did

not altogether like him. His character perplexed the little

country-girl, as it might a more practised observer; for, while the

tone of his conversation had generally been playful, the impression

left on her mind was that of gravity, and, except as his youth modified

it, almost sternness. She rebelled, as it were, against a certain

magnetic element in the artist’s nature, which he exercised towards

her, possibly without being conscious of it.

After a little while, the twilight, deepened by the shadows of the

fruit-trees and the surrounding buildings, threw an obscurity over the

garden.

“There,” said Holgrave, “it is time to give over work! That last stroke

of the hoe has cut off a beanstalk. Good-night, Miss Phœbe Pyncheon!

Any bright day, if you will put one of those rosebuds in your hair, and

come to my rooms in Central Street, I will seize the purest ray of

sunshine, and make a picture of the flower and its wearer.” He retired

towards his own solitary gable, but turned his head, on reaching the

door, and called to Phœbe, with a tone which certainly had laughter in

it, yet which seemed to be more than half in earnest.

“Be careful not to drink at Maule’s well!” said he. “Neither drink nor

bathe your face in it!”

“Maule’s well!” answered Phœbe. “Is that it with the rim of mossy

stones? I have no thought of drinking there,—but why not?”

“Oh,” rejoined the daguerreotypist, “because, like an old lady’s cup of

tea, it is water bewitched!”

He vanished; and Phœbe, lingering a moment, saw a glimmering light, and

then the steady beam of a lamp, in a chamber of the gable. On returning

into Hepzibah’s apartment of the house, she found the low-studded

parlor so dim and dusky that her eyes could not penetrate the interior.

She was indistinctly aware, however, that the gaunt figure of the old

gentlewoman was sitting in one of the straight-backed chairs, a little

withdrawn from the window, the faint gleam of which showed the blanched

paleness of her cheek, turned sideways towards a corner.

“Shall I light a lamp, Cousin Hepzibah?” she asked.

“Do, if you please, my dear child,” answered Hepzibah. “But put it on

the table in the corner of the passage. My eyes are weak; and I can

seldom bear the lamplight on them.”

What an instrument is the human voice! How wonderfully responsive to

every emotion of the human soul! In Hepzibah’s tone, at that moment,

there was a certain rich depth and moisture, as if the words,

commonplace as they were, had been steeped in the warmth of her heart.

Again, while lighting the lamp in the kitchen, Phœbe fancied that her

cousin spoke to her.

“In a moment, cousin!” answered the girl. “These matches just glimmer,

and go out.”

But, instead of a response from Hepzibah, she seemed to hear the murmur

of an unknown voice. It was strangely indistinct, however, and less

like articulate words than an unshaped sound, such as would be the

utterance of feeling and sympathy, rather than of the intellect. So

vague was it, that its impression or echo in Phœbe’s mind was that of

unreality. She concluded that she must have mistaken some other sound

for that of the human voice; or else that it was altogether in her

fancy.

She set the lighted lamp in the passage, and again entered the parlor.

Hepzibah’s form, though its sable outline mingled with the dusk, was

now less imperfectly visible. In the remoter parts of the room,

however, its walls being so ill adapted to reflect light, there was

nearly the same obscurity as before.

“Cousin,” said Phœbe, “did you speak to me just now?”

“No, child!” replied Hepzibah.

Fewer words than before, but with the same mysterious music in them!

Mellow, melancholy, yet not mournful, the tone seemed to gush up out of

the deep well of Hepzibah’s heart, all steeped in its profoundest

emotion. There was a tremor in it, too, that—as all strong feeling is

electric—partly communicated itself to Phœbe. The girl sat silently for

a moment. But soon, her senses being very acute, she became conscious

of an irregular respiration in an obscure corner of the room. Her

physical organization, moreover, being at once delicate and healthy,

gave her a perception, operating with almost the effect of a spiritual

medium, that somebody was near at hand.

“My dear cousin,” asked she, overcoming an indefinable reluctance, “is

there not some one in the room with us?”

“Phœbe, my dear little girl,” said Hepzibah, after a moment’s pause,

“you were up betimes, and have been busy all day. Pray go to bed; for I

am sure you must need rest. I will sit in the parlor awhile, and

collect my thoughts. It has been my custom for more years, child, than

you have lived!” While thus dismissing her, the maiden lady stept

forward, kissed Phœbe, and pressed her to her heart, which beat against

the girl’s bosom with a strong, high, and tumultuous swell. How came

there to be so much love in this desolate old heart, that it could

afford to well over thus abundantly?

“Goodnight, cousin,” said Phœbe, strangely affected by Hepzibah’s

manner. “If you begin to love me, I am glad!”

She retired to her chamber, but did not soon fall asleep, nor then very

profoundly. At some uncertain period in the depths of night, and, as it

were, through the thin veil of a dream, she was conscious of a footstep

mounting the stairs heavily, but not with force and decision. The voice

of Hepzibah, with a hush through it, was going up along with the

footsteps; and, again, responsive to her cousin’s voice, Phœbe heard

that strange, vague murmur, which might be likened to an indistinct

shadow of human utterance.

VII.

The Guest

When Phœbe awoke,—which she did with the early twittering of the

conjugal couple of robins in the pear-tree,—she heard movements below

stairs, and, hastening down, found Hepzibah already in the kitchen. She

stood by a window, holding a book in close contiguity to her nose, as

if with the hope of gaining an olfactory acquaintance with its

contents, since her imperfect vision made it not very easy to read

them. If any volume could have manifested its essential wisdom in the

mode suggested, it would certainly have been the one now in Hepzibah’s

hand; and the kitchen, in such an event, would forthwith have streamed

with the fragrance of venison, turkeys, capons, larded partridges,

puddings, cakes, and Christmas pies, in all manner of elaborate mixture

and concoction. It was a cookery book, full of innumerable old fashions

of English dishes, and illustrated with engravings, which represented

the arrangements of the table at such banquets as it might have

befitted a nobleman to give in the great hall of his castle. And, amid

these rich and potent devices of the culinary art (not one of which,

probably, had been tested, within the memory of any man’s grandfather),

poor Hepzibah was seeking for some nimble little titbit, which, with

what skill she had, and such materials as were at hand, she might toss

up for breakfast.

Soon, with a deep sigh, she put aside the savory volume, and inquired

of Phœbe whether old Speckle, as she called one of the hens, had laid

an egg the preceding day. Phœbe ran to see, but returned without the

expected treasure in her hand. At that instant, however, the blast of a

fish-dealer’s conch was heard, announcing his approach along the

street. With energetic raps at the shop-window, Hepzibah summoned the

man in, and made purchase of what he warranted as the finest mackerel

in his cart, and as fat a one as ever he felt with his finger so early

in the season. Requesting Phœbe to roast some coffee,—which she

casually observed was the real Mocha, and so long kept that each of the

small berries ought to be worth its weight in gold,—the maiden lady

heaped fuel into the vast receptacle of the ancient fireplace in such

quantity as soon to drive the lingering dusk out of the kitchen. The

country-girl, willing to give her utmost assistance, proposed to make

an Indian cake, after her mother’s peculiar method, of easy

manufacture, and which she could vouch for as possessing a richness,

and, if rightly prepared, a delicacy, unequalled by any other mode of

breakfast-cake. Hepzibah gladly assenting, the kitchen was soon the

scene of savory preparation. Perchance, amid their proper element of

smoke, which eddied forth from the ill-constructed chimney, the ghosts

of departed cook-maids looked wonderingly on, or peeped down the great

breadth of the flue, despising the simplicity of the projected meal,

yet ineffectually pining to thrust their shadowy hands into each

inchoate dish. The half-starved rats, at any rate, stole visibly out of

their hiding-places, and sat on their hind-legs, snuffing the fumy

atmosphere, and wistfully awaiting an opportunity to nibble.

Hepzibah had no natural turn for cookery, and, to say the truth, had

fairly incurred her present meagreness by often choosing to go without

her dinner rather than be attendant on the rotation of the spit, or

ebullition of the pot. Her zeal over the fire, therefore, was quite an

heroic test of sentiment. It was touching, and positively worthy of

tears (if Phœbe, the only spectator, except the rats and ghosts

aforesaid, had not been better employed than in shedding them), to see

her rake out a bed of fresh and glowing coals, and proceed to broil the

mackerel. Her usually pale cheeks were all ablaze with heat and hurry.

She watched the fish with as much tender care and minuteness of

attention as if,—we know not how to express it otherwise,—as if her own

heart were on the gridiron, and her immortal happiness were involved in

its being done precisely to a turn!

Life, within doors, has few pleasanter prospects than a neatly arranged

and well-provisioned breakfast-table. We come to it freshly, in the

dewy youth of the day, and when our spiritual and sensual elements are

in better accord than at a later period; so that the material delights

of the morning meal are capable of being fully enjoyed, without any

very grievous reproaches, whether gastric or conscientious, for

yielding even a trifle overmuch to the animal department of our nature.

The thoughts, too, that run around the ring of familiar guests have a

piquancy and mirthfulness, and oftentimes a vivid truth, which more

rarely find their way into the elaborate intercourse of dinner.

Hepzibah’s small and ancient table, supported on its slender and

graceful legs, and covered with a cloth of the richest damask, looked

worthy to be the scene and centre of one of the cheerfullest of

parties. The vapor of the broiled fish arose like incense from the

shrine of a barbarian idol, while the fragrance of the Mocha might have

gratified the nostrils of a tutelary Lar, or whatever power has scope

over a modern breakfast-table. Phœbe’s Indian cakes were the sweetest

offering of all,—in their hue befitting the rustic altars of the

innocent and golden age,—or, so brightly yellow were they, resembling

some of the bread which was changed to glistening gold when Midas tried

to eat it. The butter must not be forgotten,—butter which Phœbe herself

had churned, in her own rural home, and brought it to her cousin as a

propitiatory gift,—smelling of clover-blossoms, and diffusing the charm

of pastoral scenery through the dark-panelled parlor. All this, with

the quaint gorgeousness of the old china cups and saucers, and the

crested spoons, and a silver cream-jug (Hepzibah’s only other article

of plate, and shaped like the rudest porringer), set out a board at

which the stateliest of old Colonel Pyncheon’s guests need not have

scorned to take his place. But the Puritan’s face scowled down out of

the picture, as if nothing on the table pleased his appetite.

By way of contributing what grace she could, Phœbe gathered some roses

and a few other flowers, possessing either scent or beauty, and

arranged them in a glass pitcher, which, having long ago lost its

handle, was so much the fitter for a flower-vase. The early sunshine—as

fresh as that which peeped into Eve’s bower while she and Adam sat at

breakfast there—came twinkling through the branches of the pear-tree,

and fell quite across the table. All was now ready. There were chairs

and plates for three. A chair and plate for Hepzibah,—the same for

Phœbe,—but what other guest did her cousin look for?

Throughout this preparation there had been a constant tremor in

Hepzibah’s frame; an agitation so powerful that Phœbe could see the

quivering of her gaunt shadow, as thrown by the firelight on the

kitchen wall, or by the sunshine on the parlor floor. Its

manifestations were so various, and agreed so little with one another,

that the girl knew not what to make of it. Sometimes it seemed an

ecstasy of delight and happiness. At such moments, Hepzibah would fling

out her arms, and infold Phœbe in them, and kiss her cheek as tenderly

as ever her mother had; she appeared to do so by an inevitable impulse,

and as if her bosom were oppressed with tenderness, of which she must

needs pour out a little, in order to gain breathing-room. The next

moment, without any visible cause for the change, her unwonted joy

shrank back, appalled, as it were, and clothed itself in mourning; or

it ran and hid itself, so to speak, in the dungeon of her heart, where

it had long lain chained, while a cold, spectral sorrow took the place

of the imprisoned joy, that was afraid to be enfranchised,—a sorrow as

black as that was bright. She often broke into a little, nervous,

hysteric laugh, more touching than any tears could be; and forthwith,

as if to try which was the most touching, a gush of tears would follow;

or perhaps the laughter and tears came both at once, and surrounded our

poor Hepzibah, in a moral sense, with a kind of pale, dim rainbow.

Towards Phœbe, as we have said, she was affectionate,—far tenderer than

ever before, in their brief acquaintance, except for that one kiss on

the preceding night,—yet with a continually recurring pettishness and

irritability. She would speak sharply to her; then, throwing aside all

the starched reserve of her ordinary manner, ask pardon, and the next

instant renew the just-forgiven injury.

At last, when their mutual labor was all finished, she took Phœbe’s

hand in her own trembling one.

“Bear with me, my dear child,” she cried; “for truly my heart is full

to the brim! Bear with me; for I love you, Phœbe, though I speak so

roughly. Think nothing of it, dearest child! By and by, I shall be

kind, and only kind!”

“My dearest cousin, cannot you tell me what has happened?” asked Phœbe,

with a sunny and tearful sympathy. “What is it that moves you so?”

“Hush! hush! He is coming!” whispered Hepzibah, hastily wiping her

eyes. “Let him see you first, Phœbe; for you are young and rosy, and

cannot help letting a smile break out whether or no. He always liked

bright faces! And mine is old now, and the tears are hardly dry on it.

He never could abide tears. There; draw the curtain a little, so that

the shadow may fall across his side of the table! But let there be a

good deal of sunshine, too; for he never was fond of gloom, as some

people are. He has had but little sunshine in his life,—poor

Clifford,—and, oh, what a black shadow. Poor, poor Clifford!”

Thus murmuring in an undertone, as if speaking rather to her own heart

than to Phœbe, the old gentlewoman stepped on tiptoe about the room,

making such arrangements as suggested themselves at the crisis.

Meanwhile there was a step in the passage-way, above stairs. Phœbe

recognized it as the same which had passed upward, as through her

dream, in the night-time. The approaching guest, whoever it might be,

appeared to pause at the head of the staircase; he paused twice or

thrice in the descent; he paused again at the foot. Each time, the

delay seemed to be without purpose, but rather from a forgetfulness of

the purpose which had set him in motion, or as if the person’s feet

came involuntarily to a stand-still because the motive-power was too

feeble to sustain his progress. Finally, he made a long pause at the

threshold of the parlor. He took hold of the knob of the door; then

loosened his grasp without opening it. Hepzibah, her hands convulsively

clasped, stood gazing at the entrance.

“Dear Cousin Hepzibah, pray don’t look so!” said Phœbe, trembling; for

her cousin’s emotion, and this mysteriously reluctant step, made her

feel as if a ghost were coming into the room. “You really frighten me!

Is something awful going to happen?”

“Hush!” whispered Hepzibah. “Be cheerful! whatever may happen, be

nothing but cheerful!”

The final pause at the threshold proved so long, that Hepzibah, unable

to endure the suspense, rushed forward, threw open the door, and led in

the stranger by the hand. At the first glance, Phœbe saw an elderly

personage, in an old-fashioned dressing-gown of faded damask, and

wearing his gray or almost white hair of an unusual length. It quite

overshadowed his forehead, except when he thrust it back, and stared

vaguely about the room. After a very brief inspection of his face, it

was easy to conceive that his footstep must necessarily be such an one

as that which, slowly and with as indefinite an aim as a child’s first

journey across a floor, had just brought him hitherward. Yet there were

no tokens that his physical strength might not have sufficed for a free

and determined gait. It was the spirit of the man that could not walk.

The expression of his countenance—while, notwithstanding it had the

light of reason in it—seemed to waver, and glimmer, and nearly to die

away, and feebly to recover itself again. It was like a flame which we

see twinkling among half-extinguished embers; we gaze at it more

intently than if it were a positive blaze, gushing vividly upward,—more

intently, but with a certain impatience, as if it ought either to

kindle itself into satisfactory splendor, or be at once extinguished.

For an instant after entering the room, the guest stood still,

retaining Hepzibah’s hand instinctively, as a child does that of the

grown person who guides it. He saw Phœbe, however, and caught an

illumination from her youthful and pleasant aspect, which, indeed,

threw a cheerfulness about the parlor, like the circle of reflected

brilliancy around the glass vase of flowers that was standing in the

sunshine. He made a salutation, or, to speak nearer the truth, an

ill-defined, abortive attempt at curtsy. Imperfect as it was, however,

it conveyed an idea, or, at least, gave a hint, of indescribable grace,

such as no practised art of external manners could have attained. It

was too slight to seize upon at the instant; yet, as recollected

afterwards, seemed to transfigure the whole man.

“Dear Clifford,” said Hepzibah, in the tone with which one soothes a

wayward infant, “this is our cousin Phœbe,—little Phœbe

Pyncheon,—Arthur’s only child, you know. She has come from the country

to stay with us awhile; for our old house has grown to be very lonely

now.”

“Phœbe—Phœbe Pyncheon?—Phœbe?” repeated the guest, with a strange,

sluggish, ill-defined utterance. “Arthur’s child! Ah, I forget! No

matter. She is very welcome!”

“Come, dear Clifford, take this chair,” said Hepzibah, leading him to

his place. “Pray, Phœbe, lower the curtain a very little more. Now let

us begin breakfast.”

The guest seated himself in the place assigned him, and looked

strangely around. He was evidently trying to grapple with the present

scene, and bring it home to his mind with a more satisfactory

distinctness. He desired to be certain, at least, that he was here, in

the low-studded, cross-beamed, oaken-panelled parlor, and not in some

other spot, which had stereotyped itself into his senses. But the

effort was too great to be sustained with more than a fragmentary

success. Continually, as we may express it, he faded away out of his

place; or, in other words, his mind and consciousness took their

departure, leaving his wasted, gray, and melancholy figure—a

substantial emptiness, a material ghost—to occupy his seat at table.

Again, after a blank moment, there would be a flickering taper-gleam in

his eyeballs. It betokened that his spiritual part had returned, and

was doing its best to kindle the heart’s household fire, and light up

intellectual lamps in the dark and ruinous mansion, where it was doomed

to be a forlorn inhabitant.

At one of these moments of less torpid, yet still imperfect animation,

Phœbe became convinced of what she had at first rejected as too

extravagant and startling an idea. She saw that the person before her

must have been the original of the beautiful miniature in her cousin

Hepzibah’s possession. Indeed, with a feminine eye for costume, she had

at once identified the damask dressing-gown, which enveloped him, as

the same in figure, material, and fashion, with that so elaborately

represented in the picture. This old, faded garment, with all its

pristine brilliancy extinct, seemed, in some indescribable way, to

translate the wearer’s untold misfortune, and make it perceptible to

the beholder’s eye. It was the better to be discerned, by this exterior

type, how worn and old were the soul’s more immediate garments; that

form and countenance, the beauty and grace of which had almost

transcended the skill of the most exquisite of artists. It could the

more adequately be known that the soul of the man must have suffered

some miserable wrong, from its earthly experience. There he seemed to

sit, with a dim veil of decay and ruin betwixt him and the world, but

through which, at flitting intervals, might be caught the same

expression, so refined, so softly imaginative, which Malbone—venturing

a happy touch, with suspended breath—had imparted to the miniature!

There had been something so innately characteristic in this look, that

all the dusky years, and the burden of unfit calamity which had fallen

upon him, did not suffice utterly to destroy it.

Hepzibah had now poured out a cup of deliciously fragrant coffee, and

presented it to her guest. As his eyes met hers, he seemed bewildered

and disquieted.

“Is this you, Hepzibah?” he murmured sadly; then, more apart, and

perhaps unconscious that he was overheard, “How changed! how changed!

And is she angry with me? Why does she bend her brow so?”

Poor Hepzibah! It was that wretched scowl which time and her

near-sightedness, and the fret of inward discomfort, had rendered so

habitual that any vehemence of mood invariably evoked it. But at the

indistinct murmur of his words her whole face grew tender, and even

lovely, with sorrowful affection; the harshness of her features

disappeared, as it were, behind the warm and misty glow.

“Angry!” she repeated; “angry with you, Clifford!”

Her tone, as she uttered the exclamation, had a plaintive and really

exquisite melody thrilling through it, yet without subduing a certain

something which an obtuse auditor might still have mistaken for

asperity. It was as if some transcendent musician should draw a

soul-thrilling sweetness out of a cracked instrument, which makes its

physical imperfection heard in the midst of ethereal harmony,—so deep

was the sensibility that found an organ in Hepzibah’s voice!

“There is nothing but love here, Clifford,” she added,—“nothing but

love! You are at home!”

The guest responded to her tone by a smile, which did not half light up

his face. Feeble as it was, however, and gone in a moment, it had a

charm of wonderful beauty. It was followed by a coarser expression; or

one that had the effect of coarseness on the fine mould and outline of

his countenance, because there was nothing intellectual to temper it.

It was a look of appetite. He ate food with what might almost be termed

voracity; and seemed to forget himself, Hepzibah, the young girl, and

everything else around him, in the sensual enjoyment which the

bountifully spread table afforded. In his natural system, though

high-wrought and delicately refined, a sensibility to the delights of

the palate was probably inherent. It would have been kept in check,

however, and even converted into an accomplishment, and one of the

thousand modes of intellectual culture, had his more ethereal

characteristics retained their vigor. But as it existed now, the effect

was painful and made Phœbe droop her eyes.

In a little while the guest became sensible of the fragrance of the yet

untasted coffee. He quaffed it eagerly. The subtle essence acted on him

like a charmed draught, and caused the opaque substance of his animal

being to grow transparent, or, at least, translucent; so that a

spiritual gleam was transmitted through it, with a clearer lustre than

hitherto.

“More, more!” he cried, with nervous haste in his utterance, as if

anxious to retain his grasp of what sought to escape him. “This is what

I need! Give me more!”

Under this delicate and powerful influence he sat more erect, and

looked out from his eyes with a glance that took note of what it rested

on. It was not so much that his expression grew more intellectual;

this, though it had its share, was not the most peculiar effect.

Neither was what we call the moral nature so forcibly awakened as to

present itself in remarkable prominence. But a certain fine temper of

being was now not brought out in full relief, but changeably and

imperfectly betrayed, of which it was the function to deal with all

beautiful and enjoyable things. In a character where it should exist as

the chief attribute, it would bestow on its possessor an exquisite

taste, and an enviable susceptibility of happiness. Beauty would be his

life; his aspirations would all tend toward it; and, allowing his frame

and physical organs to be in consonance, his own developments would

likewise be beautiful. Such a man should have nothing to do with

sorrow; nothing with strife; nothing with the martyrdom which, in an

infinite variety of shapes, awaits those who have the heart, and will,

and conscience, to fight a battle with the world. To these heroic

tempers, such martyrdom is the richest meed in the world’s gift. To the

individual before us, it could only be a grief, intense in due

proportion with the severity of the infliction. He had no right to be a

martyr; and, beholding him so fit to be happy and so feeble for all

other purposes, a generous, strong, and noble spirit would, methinks,

have been ready to sacrifice what little enjoyment it might have

planned for itself,—it would have flung down the hopes, so paltry in

its regard,—if thereby the wintry blasts of our rude sphere might come

tempered to such a man.

Not to speak it harshly or scornfully, it seemed Clifford’s nature to

be a Sybarite. It was perceptible, even there, in the dark old parlor,

in the inevitable polarity with which his eyes were attracted towards

the quivering play of sunbeams through the shadowy foliage. It was seen

in his appreciating notice of the vase of flowers, the scent of which

he inhaled with a zest almost peculiar to a physical organization so

refined that spiritual ingredients are moulded in with it. It was

betrayed in the unconscious smile with which he regarded Phœbe, whose

fresh and maidenly figure was both sunshine and flowers,—their essence,

in a prettier and more agreeable mode of manifestation. Not less

evident was this love and necessity for the Beautiful, in the

instinctive caution with which, even so soon, his eyes turned away from

his hostess, and wandered to any quarter rather than come back. It was

Hepzibah’s misfortune,—not Clifford’s fault. How could he,—so yellow as

she was, so wrinkled, so sad of mien, with that odd uncouthness of a

turban on her head, and that most perverse of scowls contorting her

brow,—how could he love to gaze at her? But, did he owe her no

affection for so much as she had silently given? He owed her nothing. A

nature like Clifford’s can contract no debts of that kind. It is—we say

it without censure, nor in diminution of the claim which it

indefeasibly possesses on beings of another mould—it is always selfish

in its essence; and we must give it leave to be so, and heap up our

heroic and disinterested love upon it so much the more, without a

recompense. Poor Hepzibah knew this truth, or, at least, acted on the

instinct of it. So long estranged from what was lovely as Clifford had

been, she rejoiced—rejoiced, though with a present sigh, and a secret

purpose to shed tears in her own chamber that he had brighter objects

now before his eyes than her aged and uncomely features. They never

possessed a charm; and if they had, the canker of her grief for him

would long since have destroyed it.

The guest leaned back in his chair. Mingled in his countenance with a

dreamy delight, there was a troubled look of effort and unrest. He was

seeking to make himself more fully sensible of the scene around him;

or, perhaps, dreading it to be a dream, or a play of imagination, was

vexing the fair moment with a struggle for some added brilliancy and

more durable illusion.

“How pleasant!—How delightful!” he murmured, but not as if addressing

any one. “Will it last? How balmy the atmosphere through that open

window! An open window! How beautiful that play of sunshine! Those

flowers, how very fragrant! That young girl’s face, how cheerful, how

blooming!—a flower with the dew on it, and sunbeams in the dew-drops!

Ah! this must be all a dream! A dream! A dream! But it has quite hidden

the four stone walls!”

Then his face darkened, as if the shadow of a cavern or a dungeon had

come over it; there was no more light in its expression than might have

come through the iron grates of a prison-window—still lessening, too,

as if he were sinking farther into the depths. Phœbe (being of that

quickness and activity of temperament that she seldom long refrained

from taking a part, and generally a good one, in what was going

forward) now felt herself moved to address the stranger.

“Here is a new kind of rose, which I found this morning in the garden,”

said she, choosing a small crimson one from among the flowers in the

vase. “There will be but five or six on the bush this season. This is

the most perfect of them all; not a speck of blight or mildew in it.

And how sweet it is!—sweet like no other rose! One can never forget

that scent!”

“Ah!—let me see!—let me hold it!” cried the guest, eagerly seizing the

flower, which, by the spell peculiar to remembered odors, brought

innumerable associations along with the fragrance that it exhaled.

“Thank you! This has done me good. I remember how I used to prize this

flower,—long ago, I suppose, very long ago!—or was it only yesterday?

It makes me feel young again! Am I young? Either this remembrance is

singularly distinct, or this consciousness strangely dim! But how kind

of the fair young girl! Thank you! Thank you!”

The favorable excitement derived from this little crimson rose afforded

Clifford the brightest moment which he enjoyed at the breakfast-table.

It might have lasted longer, but that his eyes happened, soon

afterwards, to rest on the face of the old Puritan, who, out of his

dingy frame and lustreless canvas, was looking down on the scene like a

ghost, and a most ill-tempered and ungenial one. The guest made an

impatient gesture of the hand, and addressed Hepzibah with what might

easily be recognized as the licensed irritability of a petted member of

the family.

“Hepzibah!—Hepzibah!” cried he with no little force and distinctness,

“why do you keep that odious picture on the wall? Yes, yes!—that is

precisely your taste! I have told you, a thousand times, that it was

the evil genius of the house!—my evil genius particularly! Take it

down, at once!”

“Dear Clifford,” said Hepzibah sadly, “you know it cannot be!”

“Then, at all events,” continued he, still speaking with some energy,

“pray cover it with a crimson curtain, broad enough to hang in folds,

and with a golden border and tassels. I cannot bear it! It must not

stare me in the face!”

“Yes, dear Clifford, the picture shall be covered,” said Hepzibah

soothingly. “There is a crimson curtain in a trunk above stairs,—a

little faded and moth-eaten, I’m afraid,—but Phœbe and I will do

wonders with it.”

“This very day, remember” said he; and then added, in a low,

self-communing voice, “Why should we live in this dismal house at all?

Why not go to the South of France?—to Italy?—Paris, Naples, Venice,

Rome? Hepzibah will say we have not the means. A droll idea that!”

He smiled to himself, and threw a glance of fine sarcastic meaning

towards Hepzibah.

But the several moods of feeling, faintly as they were marked, through

which he had passed, occurring in so brief an interval of time, had

evidently wearied the stranger. He was probably accustomed to a sad

monotony of life, not so much flowing in a stream, however sluggish, as

stagnating in a pool around his feet. A slumberous veil diffused itself

over his countenance, and had an effect, morally speaking, on its

naturally delicate and elegant outline, like that which a brooding

mist, with no sunshine in it, throws over the features of a landscape.

He appeared to become grosser,—almost cloddish. If aught of interest or

beauty—even ruined beauty—had heretofore been visible in this man, the

beholder might now begin to doubt it, and to accuse his own imagination

of deluding him with whatever grace had flickered over that visage, and

whatever exquisite lustre had gleamed in those filmy eyes.

Before he had quite sunken away, however, the sharp and peevish tinkle

of the shop-bell made itself audible. Striking most disagreeably on

Clifford’s auditory organs and the characteristic sensibility of his

nerves, it caused him to start upright out of his chair.

“Good heavens, Hepzibah! what horrible disturbance have we now in the

house?” cried he, wreaking his resentful impatience—as a matter of

course, and a custom of old—on the one person in the world that loved

him. “I have never heard such a hateful clamor! Why do you permit it?

In the name of all dissonance, what can it be?”

It was very remarkable into what prominent relief—even as if a dim

picture should leap suddenly from its canvas—Clifford’s character was

thrown by this apparently trifling annoyance. The secret was, that an

individual of his temper can always be pricked more acutely through his

sense of the beautiful and harmonious than through his heart. It is

even possible—for similar cases have often happened—that if Clifford,

in his foregoing life, had enjoyed the means of cultivating his taste

to its utmost perfectibility, that subtile attribute might, before this

period, have completely eaten out or filed away his affections. Shall

we venture to pronounce, therefore, that his long and black calamity

may not have had a redeeming drop of mercy at the bottom?

“Dear Clifford, I wish I could keep the sound from your ears,” said

Hepzibah, patiently, but reddening with a painful suffusion of shame.

“It is very disagreeable even to me. But, do you know, Clifford, I have

something to tell you? This ugly noise,—pray run, Phœbe, and see who is

there!—this naughty little tinkle is nothing but our shop-bell!”

“Shop-bell!” repeated Clifford, with a bewildered stare.

“Yes, our shop-bell,” said Hepzibah, a certain natural dignity, mingled

with deep emotion, now asserting itself in her manner. “For you must

know, dearest Clifford, that we are very poor. And there was no other

resource, but either to accept assistance from a hand that I would push

aside (and so would you!) were it to offer bread when we were dying for

it,—no help, save from him, or else to earn our subsistence with my own

hands! Alone, I might have been content to starve. But you were to be

given back to me! Do you think, then, dear Clifford,” added she, with a

wretched smile, “that I have brought an irretrievable disgrace on the

old house, by opening a little shop in the front gable? Our

great-great-grandfather did the same, when there was far less need! Are

you ashamed of me?”

“Shame! Disgrace! Do you speak these words to me, Hepzibah?” said

Clifford,—not angrily, however; for when a man’s spirit has been

thoroughly crushed, he may be peevish at small offences, but never

resentful of great ones. So he spoke with only a grieved emotion. “It

was not kind to say so, Hepzibah! What shame can befall me now?”

And then the unnerved man—he that had been born for enjoyment, but had

met a doom so very wretched—burst into a woman’s passion of tears. It

was but of brief continuance, however; soon leaving him in a quiescent,

and, to judge by his countenance, not an uncomfortable state. From this

mood, too, he partially rallied for an instant, and looked at Hepzibah

with a smile, the keen, half-derisory purport of which was a puzzle to

her.

“Are we so very poor, Hepzibah?” said he.

Finally, his chair being deep and softly cushioned, Clifford fell

asleep. Hearing the more regular rise and fall of his breath (which,

however, even then, instead of being strong and full, had a feeble kind

of tremor, corresponding with the lack of vigor in his

character),—hearing these tokens of settled slumber, Hepzibah seized

the opportunity to peruse his face more attentively than she had yet

dared to do. Her heart melted away in tears; her profoundest spirit

sent forth a moaning voice, low, gentle, but inexpressibly sad. In this

depth of grief and pity she felt that there was no irreverence in

gazing at his altered, aged, faded, ruined face. But no sooner was she

a little relieved than her conscience smote her for gazing curiously at

him, now that he was so changed; and, turning hastily away, Hepzibah

let down the curtain over the sunny window, and left Clifford to

slumber there.

VIII.

The Pyncheon of To-day

Phœbe, on entering the shop, beheld there the already familiar face of

the little devourer—if we can reckon his mighty deeds aright—of Jim

Crow, the elephant, the camel, the dromedaries, and the locomotive.

Having expended his private fortune, on the two preceding days, in the

purchase of the above unheard-of luxuries, the young gentleman’s

present errand was on the part of his mother, in quest of three eggs

and half a pound of raisins. These articles Phœbe accordingly supplied,

and, as a mark of gratitude for his previous patronage, and a slight

super-added morsel after breakfast, put likewise into his hand a whale!

The great fish, reversing his experience with the prophet of Nineveh,

immediately began his progress down the same red pathway of fate

whither so varied a caravan had preceded him. This remarkable urchin,

in truth, was the very emblem of old Father Time, both in respect of

his all-devouring appetite for men and things, and because he, as well

as Time, after ingulfing thus much of creation, looked almost as

youthful as if he had been just that moment made.

After partly closing the door, the child turned back, and mumbled

something to Phœbe, which, as the whale was but half disposed of, she

could not perfectly understand.

“What did you say, my little fellow?” asked she.

“Mother wants to know” repeated Ned Higgins more distinctly, “how Old

Maid Pyncheon’s brother does? Folks say he has got home.”

“My cousin Hepzibah’s brother?” exclaimed Phœbe, surprised at this

sudden explanation of the relationship between Hepzibah and her guest.

“Her brother! And where can he have been?”

The little boy only put his thumb to his broad snub-nose, with that

look of shrewdness which a child, spending much of his time in the

street, so soon learns to throw over his features, however

unintelligent in themselves. Then as Phœbe continued to gaze at him,

without answering his mother’s message, he took his departure.

As the child went down the steps, a gentleman ascended them, and made

his entrance into the shop. It was the portly, and, had it possessed

the advantage of a little more height, would have been the stately

figure of a man considerably in the decline of life, dressed in a black

suit of some thin stuff, resembling broadcloth as closely as possible.

A gold-headed cane, of rare Oriental wood, added materially to the high

respectability of his aspect, as did also a neckcloth of the utmost

snowy purity, and the conscientious polish of his boots. His dark,

square countenance, with its almost shaggy depth of eyebrows, was

naturally impressive, and would, perhaps, have been rather stern, had

not the gentleman considerately taken upon himself to mitigate the

harsh effect by a look of exceeding good-humor and benevolence. Owing,

however, to a somewhat massive accumulation of animal substance about

the lower region of his face, the look was, perhaps, unctuous rather

than spiritual, and had, so to speak, a kind of fleshly effulgence, not

altogether so satisfactory as he doubtless intended it to be. A

susceptible observer, at any rate, might have regarded it as affording

very little evidence of the general benignity of soul whereof it

purported to be the outward reflection. And if the observer chanced to

be ill-natured, as well as acute and susceptible, he would probably

suspect that the smile on the gentleman’s face was a good deal akin to

the shine on his boots, and that each must have cost him and his

boot-black, respectively, a good deal of hard labor to bring out and

preserve them.

As the stranger entered the little shop, where the projection of the

second story and the thick foliage of the elm-tree, as well as the

commodities at the window, created a sort of gray medium, his smile

grew as intense as if he had set his heart on counteracting the whole

gloom of the atmosphere (besides any moral gloom pertaining to Hepzibah

and her inmates) by the unassisted light of his countenance. On

perceiving a young rose-bud of a girl, instead of the gaunt presence of

the old maid, a look of surprise was manifest. He at first knit his

brows; then smiled with more unctuous benignity than ever.

“Ah, I see how it is!” said he in a deep voice,—a voice which, had it

come from the throat of an uncultivated man, would have been gruff,

but, by dint of careful training, was now sufficiently agreeable,—“I

was not aware that Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon had commenced business under

such favorable auspices. You are her assistant, I suppose?”

“I certainly am,” answered Phœbe, and added, with a little air of

lady-like assumption (for, civil as the gentleman was, he evidently

took her to be a young person serving for wages), “I am a cousin of

Miss Hepzibah, on a visit to her.”

“Her cousin?—and from the country? Pray pardon me, then,” said the

gentleman, bowing and smiling, as Phœbe never had been bowed to nor

smiled on before; “in that case, we must be better acquainted; for,

unless I am sadly mistaken, you are my own little kinswoman likewise!

Let me see,—Mary?—Dolly?—Phœbe?—yes, Phœbe is the name! Is it possible

that you are Phœbe Pyncheon, only child of my dear cousin and

classmate, Arthur? Ah, I see your father now, about your mouth! Yes,

yes! we must be better acquainted! I am your kinsman, my dear. Surely

you must have heard of Judge Pyncheon?”

As Phœbe curtsied in reply, the Judge bent forward, with the pardonable

and even praiseworthy purpose—considering the nearness of blood and the

difference of age—of bestowing on his young relative a kiss of

acknowledged kindred and natural affection. Unfortunately (without

design, or only with such instinctive design as gives no account of

itself to the intellect) Phœbe, just at the critical moment, drew back;

so that her highly respectable kinsman, with his body bent over the

counter and his lips protruded, was betrayed into the rather absurd

predicament of kissing the empty air. It was a modern parallel to the

case of Ixion embracing a cloud, and was so much the more ridiculous as

the Judge prided himself on eschewing all airy matter, and never

mistaking a shadow for a substance. The truth was,—and it is Phœbe’s

only excuse,—that, although Judge Pyncheon’s glowing benignity might

not be absolutely unpleasant to the feminine beholder, with the width

of a street, or even an ordinary-sized room, interposed between, yet it

became quite too intense, when this dark, full-fed physiognomy (so

roughly bearded, too, that no razor could ever make it smooth) sought

to bring itself into actual contact with the object of its regards. The

man, the sex, somehow or other, was entirely too prominent in the

Judge’s demonstrations of that sort. Phœbe’s eyes sank, and, without

knowing why, she felt herself blushing deeply under his look. Yet she

had been kissed before, and without any particular squeamishness, by

perhaps half a dozen different cousins, younger as well as older than

this dark-browned, grisly-bearded, white-neck-clothed, and

unctuously-benevolent Judge! Then, why not by him?

On raising her eyes, Phœbe was startled by the change in Judge

Pyncheon’s face. It was quite as striking, allowing for the difference

of scale, as that betwixt a landscape under a broad sunshine and just

before a thunder-storm; not that it had the passionate intensity of the

latter aspect, but was cold, hard, immitigable, like a day-long

brooding cloud.

“Dear me! what is to be done now?” thought the country-girl to herself.

“He looks as if there were nothing softer in him than a rock, nor

milder than the east wind! I meant no harm! Since he is really my

cousin, I would have let him kiss me, if I could!”

Then, all at once, it struck Phœbe that this very Judge Pyncheon was

the original of the miniature which the daguerreotypist had shown her

in the garden, and that the hard, stern, relentless look, now on his

face, was the same that the sun had so inflexibly persisted in bringing

out. Was it, therefore, no momentary mood, but, however skilfully

concealed, the settled temper of his life? And not merely so, but was

it hereditary in him, and transmitted down, as a precious heirloom,

from that bearded ancestor, in whose picture both the expression and,

to a singular degree, the features of the modern Judge were shown as by

a kind of prophecy? A deeper philosopher than Phœbe might have found

something very terrible in this idea. It implied that the weaknesses

and defects, the bad passions, the mean tendencies, and the moral

diseases which lead to crime are handed down from one generation to

another, by a far surer process of transmission than human law has been

able to establish in respect to the riches and honors which it seeks to

entail upon posterity.

But, as it happened, scarcely had Phœbe’s eyes rested again on the

Judge’s countenance than all its ugly sternness vanished; and she found

herself quite overpowered by the sultry, dog-day heat, as it were, of

benevolence, which this excellent man diffused out of his great heart

into the surrounding atmosphere,—very much like a serpent, which, as a

preliminary to fascination, is said to fill the air with his peculiar

odor.

“I like that, Cousin Phœbe!” cried he, with an emphatic nod of

approbation. “I like it much, my little cousin! You are a good child,

and know how to take care of yourself. A young girl—especially if she

be a very pretty one—can never be too chary of her lips.”

“Indeed, sir,” said Phœbe, trying to laugh the matter off, “I did not

mean to be unkind.”

Nevertheless, whether or no it were entirely owing to the inauspicious

commencement of their acquaintance, she still acted under a certain

reserve, which was by no means customary to her frank and genial

nature. The fantasy would not quit her, that the original Puritan, of

whom she had heard so many sombre traditions,—the progenitor of the

whole race of New England Pyncheons, the founder of the House of the

Seven Gables, and who had died so strangely in it,—had now stept into

the shop. In these days of off-hand equipment, the matter was easily

enough arranged. On his arrival from the other world, he had merely

found it necessary to spend a quarter of an hour at a barber’s, who had

trimmed down the Puritan’s full beard into a pair of grizzled whiskers,

then, patronizing a ready-made clothing establishment, he had exchanged

his velvet doublet and sable cloak, with the richly worked band under

his chin, for a white collar and cravat, coat, vest, and pantaloons;

and lastly, putting aside his steel-hilted broadsword to take up a

gold-headed cane, the Colonel Pyncheon of two centuries ago steps

forward as the Judge of the passing moment!

Of course, Phœbe was far too sensible a girl to entertain this idea in

any other way than as matter for a smile. Possibly, also, could the two

personages have stood together before her eye, many points of

difference would have been perceptible, and perhaps only a general

resemblance. The long lapse of intervening years, in a climate so

unlike that which had fostered the ancestral Englishman, must

inevitably have wrought important changes in the physical system of his

descendant. The Judge’s volume of muscle could hardly be the same as

the Colonel’s; there was undoubtedly less beef in him. Though looked

upon as a weighty man among his contemporaries in respect of animal

substance, and as favored with a remarkable degree of fundamental

development, well adapting him for the judicial bench, we conceive that

the modern Judge Pyncheon, if weighed in the same balance with his

ancestor, would have required at least an old-fashioned fifty-six to

keep the scale in equilibrio. Then the Judge’s face had lost the ruddy

English hue that showed its warmth through all the duskiness of the

Colonel’s weather-beaten cheek, and had taken a sallow shade, the

established complexion of his countrymen. If we mistake not, moreover,

a certain quality of nervousness had become more or less manifest, even

in so solid a specimen of Puritan descent as the gentleman now under

discussion. As one of its effects, it bestowed on his countenance a

quicker mobility than the old Englishman’s had possessed, and keener

vivacity, but at the expense of a sturdier something, on which these

acute endowments seemed to act like dissolving acids. This process, for

aught we know, may belong to the great system of human progress, which,

with every ascending footstep, as it diminishes the necessity for

animal force, may be destined gradually to spiritualize us, by refining

away our grosser attributes of body. If so, Judge Pyncheon could endure

a century or two more of such refinement as well as most other men.

The similarity, intellectual and moral, between the Judge and his

ancestor appears to have been at least as strong as the resemblance of

mien and feature would afford reason to anticipate. In old Colonel

Pyncheon’s funeral discourse the clergyman absolutely canonized his

deceased parishioner, and opening, as it were, a vista through the roof

of the church, and thence through the firmament above, showed him

seated, harp in hand, among the crowned choristers of the spiritual

world. On his tombstone, too, the record is highly eulogistic; nor does

history, so far as he holds a place upon its page, assail the

consistency and uprightness of his character. So also, as regards the

Judge Pyncheon of to-day, neither clergyman, nor legal critic, nor

inscriber of tombstones, nor historian of general or local politics,

would venture a word against this eminent person’s sincerity as a

Christian, or respectability as a man, or integrity as a judge, or

courage and faithfulness as the often-tried representative of his

political party. But, besides these cold, formal, and empty words of

the chisel that inscribes, the voice that speaks, and the pen that

writes, for the public eye and for distant time,—and which inevitably

lose much of their truth and freedom by the fatal consciousness of so

doing,—there were traditions about the ancestor, and private diurnal

gossip about the Judge, remarkably accordant in their testimony. It is

often instructive to take the woman’s, the private and domestic, view

of a public man; nor can anything be more curious than the vast

discrepancy between portraits intended for engraving and the

pencil-sketches that pass from hand to hand behind the original’s back.

For example: tradition affirmed that the Puritan had been greedy of

wealth; the Judge, too, with all the show of liberal expenditure, was

said to be as close-fisted as if his gripe were of iron. The ancestor

had clothed himself in a grim assumption of kindliness, a rough

heartiness of word and manner, which most people took to be the genuine

warmth of nature, making its way through the thick and inflexible hide

of a manly character. His descendant, in compliance with the

requirements of a nicer age, had etherealized this rude benevolence

into that broad benignity of smile wherewith he shone like a noonday

sun along the streets, or glowed like a household fire in the

drawing-rooms of his private acquaintance. The Puritan—if not belied by

some singular stories, murmured, even at this day, under the narrator’s

breath—had fallen into certain transgressions to which men of his great

animal development, whatever their faith or principles, must continue

liable, until they put off impurity, along with the gross earthly

substance that involves it. We must not stain our page with any

contemporary scandal, to a similar purport, that may have been

whispered against the Judge. The Puritan, again, an autocrat in his own

household, had worn out three wives, and, merely by the remorseless

weight and hardness of his character in the conjugal relation, had sent

them, one after another, broken-hearted, to their graves. Here the

parallel, in some sort, fails. The Judge had wedded but a single wife,

and lost her in the third or fourth year of their marriage. There was a

fable, however,—for such we choose to consider it, though, not

impossibly, typical of Judge Pyncheon’s marital deportment,—that the

lady got her death-blow in the honeymoon, and never smiled again,

because her husband compelled her to serve him with coffee every

morning at his bedside, in token of fealty to her liege-lord and

master.

But it is too fruitful a subject, this of hereditary resemblances,—the

frequent recurrence of which, in a direct line, is truly unaccountable,

when we consider how large an accumulation of ancestry lies behind

every man at the distance of one or two centuries. We shall only add,

therefore, that the Puritan—so, at least, says chimney-corner

tradition, which often preserves traits of character with marvellous

fidelity—was bold, imperious, relentless, crafty; laying his purposes

deep, and following them out with an inveteracy of pursuit that knew

neither rest nor conscience; trampling on the weak, and, when essential

to his ends, doing his utmost to beat down the strong. Whether the

Judge in any degree resembled him, the further progress of our

narrative may show.

Scarcely any of the items in the above-drawn parallel occurred to

Phœbe, whose country birth and residence, in truth, had left her

pitifully ignorant of most of the family traditions, which lingered,

like cobwebs and incrustations of smoke, about the rooms and

chimney-corners of the House of the Seven Gables. Yet there was a

circumstance, very trifling in itself, which impressed her with an odd

degree of horror. She had heard of the anathema flung by Maule, the

executed wizard, against Colonel Pyncheon and his posterity,—that God

would give them blood to drink,—and likewise of the popular notion,

that this miraculous blood might now and then be heard gurgling in

their throats. The latter scandal—as became a person of sense, and,

more especially, a member of the Pyncheon family—Phœbe had set down for

the absurdity which it unquestionably was. But ancient superstitions,

after being steeped in human hearts and embodied in human breath, and

passing from lip to ear in manifold repetition, through a series of

generations, become imbued with an effect of homely truth. The smoke of

the domestic hearth has scented them through and through. By long

transmission among household facts, they grow to look like them, and

have such a familiar way of making themselves at home that their

influence is usually greater than we suspect. Thus it happened, that

when Phœbe heard a certain noise in Judge Pyncheon’s throat,—rather

habitual with him, not altogether voluntary, yet indicative of nothing,

unless it were a slight bronchial complaint, or, as some people hinted,

an apoplectic symptom,—when the girl heard this queer and awkward

ingurgitation (which the writer never did hear, and therefore cannot

describe), she very foolishly started, and clasped her hands.

Of course, it was exceedingly ridiculous in Phœbe to be discomposed by

such a trifle, and still more unpardonable to show her discomposure to

the individual most concerned in it. But the incident chimed in so

oddly with her previous fancies about the Colonel and the Judge, that,

for the moment, it seemed quite to mingle their identity.

“What is the matter with you, young woman?” said Judge Pyncheon, giving

her one of his harsh looks. “Are you afraid of anything?”

“Oh, nothing, sir—nothing in the world!” answered Phœbe, with a little

laugh of vexation at herself. “But perhaps you wish to speak with my

cousin Hepzibah. Shall I call her?”

“Stay a moment, if you please,” said the Judge, again beaming sunshine

out of his face. “You seem to be a little nervous this morning. The

town air, Cousin Phœbe, does not agree with your good, wholesome

country habits. Or has anything happened to disturb you?—anything

remarkable in Cousin Hepzibah’s family?— An arrival, eh? I thought so!

No wonder you are out of sorts, my little cousin. To be an inmate with

such a guest may well startle an innocent young girl!”

“You quite puzzle me, sir,” replied Phœbe, gazing inquiringly at the

Judge. “There is no frightful guest in the house, but only a poor,

gentle, childlike man, whom I believe to be Cousin Hepzibah’s brother.

I am afraid (but you, sir, will know better than I) that he is not

quite in his sound senses; but so mild and quiet he seems to be, that a

mother might trust her baby with him; and I think he would play with

the baby as if he were only a few years older than itself. He startle

me!—Oh, no indeed!”

“I rejoice to hear so favorable and so ingenuous an account of my

cousin Clifford,” said the benevolent Judge. “Many years ago, when we

were boys and young men together, I had a great affection for him, and

still feel a tender interest in all his concerns. You say, Cousin

Phœbe, he appears to be weak minded. Heaven grant him at least enough

of intellect to repent of his past sins!”

“Nobody, I fancy,” observed Phœbe, “can have fewer to repent of.”

“And is it possible, my dear,” rejoined the Judge, with a commiserating

look, “that you have never heard of Clifford Pyncheon?—that you know

nothing of his history? Well, it is all right; and your mother has

shown a very proper regard for the good name of the family with which

she connected herself. Believe the best you can of this unfortunate

person, and hope the best! It is a rule which Christians should always

follow, in their judgments of one another; and especially is it right

and wise among near relatives, whose characters have necessarily a

degree of mutual dependence. But is Clifford in the parlor? I will just

step in and see.”

“Perhaps, sir, I had better call my cousin Hepzibah,” said Phœbe;

hardly knowing, however, whether she ought to obstruct the entrance of

so affectionate a kinsman into the private regions of the house. “Her

brother seemed to be just falling asleep after breakfast; and I am sure

she would not like him to be disturbed. Pray, sir, let me give her

notice!”

But the Judge showed a singular determination to enter unannounced; and

as Phœbe, with the vivacity of a person whose movements unconsciously

answer to her thoughts, had stepped towards the door, he used little or

no ceremony in putting her aside.

“No, no, Miss Phœbe!” said Judge Pyncheon in a voice as deep as a

thunder-growl, and with a frown as black as the cloud whence it issues.

“Stay you here! I know the house, and know my cousin Hepzibah, and know

her brother Clifford likewise.—nor need my little country cousin put

herself to the trouble of announcing me!”—in these latter words, by the

bye, there were symptoms of a change from his sudden harshness into his

previous benignity of manner. “I am at home here, Phœbe, you must

recollect, and you are the stranger. I will just step in, therefore,

and see for myself how Clifford is, and assure him and Hepzibah of my

kindly feelings and best wishes. It is right, at this juncture, that

they should both hear from my own lips how much I desire to serve them.

Ha! here is Hepzibah herself!”

Such was the case. The vibrations of the Judge’s voice had reached the

old gentlewoman in the parlor, where she sat, with face averted,

waiting on her brother’s slumber. She now issued forth, as would

appear, to defend the entrance, looking, we must needs say, amazingly

like the dragon which, in fairy tales, is wont to be the guardian over

an enchanted beauty. The habitual scowl of her brow was undeniably too

fierce, at this moment, to pass itself off on the innocent score of

near-sightedness; and it was bent on Judge Pyncheon in a way that

seemed to confound, if not alarm him, so inadequately had he estimated

the moral force of a deeply grounded antipathy. She made a repelling

gesture with her hand, and stood a perfect picture of prohibition, at

full length, in the dark frame of the doorway. But we must betray

Hepzibah’s secret, and confess that the native timorousness of her

character even now developed itself in a quick tremor, which, to her

own perception, set each of her joints at variance with its fellows.

Possibly, the Judge was aware how little true hardihood lay behind

Hepzibah’s formidable front. At any rate, being a gentleman of steady

nerves, he soon recovered himself, and failed not to approach his

cousin with outstretched hand; adopting the sensible precaution,

however, to cover his advance with a smile, so broad and sultry, that,

had it been only half as warm as it looked, a trellis of grapes might

at once have turned purple under its summer-like exposure. It may have

been his purpose, indeed, to melt poor Hepzibah on the spot, as if she

were a figure of yellow wax.

“Hepzibah, my beloved cousin, I am rejoiced!” exclaimed the Judge most

emphatically. “Now, at length, you have something to live for. Yes, and

all of us, let me say, your friends and kindred, have more to live for

than we had yesterday. I have lost no time in hastening to offer any

assistance in my power towards making Clifford comfortable. He belongs

to us all. I know how much he requires,—how much he used to

require,—with his delicate taste, and his love of the beautiful.

Anything in my house,—pictures, books, wine, luxuries of the table,—he

may command them all! It would afford me most heartfelt gratification

to see him! Shall I step in, this moment?”

“No,” replied Hepzibah, her voice quivering too painfully to allow of

many words. “He cannot see visitors!”

“A visitor, my dear cousin!—do you call me so?” cried the Judge, whose

sensibility, it seems, was hurt by the coldness of the phrase. “Nay,

then, let me be Clifford’s host, and your own likewise. Come at once to

my house. The country air, and all the conveniences,—I may say

luxuries,—that I have gathered about me, will do wonders for him. And

you and I, dear Hepzibah, will consult together, and watch together,

and labor together, to make our dear Clifford happy. Come! why should

we make more words about what is both a duty and a pleasure on my part?

Come to me at once!”

On hearing these so hospitable offers, and such generous recognition of

the claims of kindred, Phœbe felt very much in the mood of running up

to Judge Pyncheon, and giving him, of her own accord, the kiss from

which she had so recently shrunk away. It was quite otherwise with

Hepzibah; the Judge’s smile seemed to operate on her acerbity of heart

like sunshine upon vinegar, making it ten times sourer than ever.

“Clifford,” said she,—still too agitated to utter more than an abrupt

sentence,—“Clifford has a home here!”

“May Heaven forgive you, Hepzibah,” said Judge Pyncheon,—reverently

lifting his eyes towards that high court of equity to which he

appealed,—“if you suffer any ancient prejudice or animosity to weigh

with you in this matter. I stand here with an open heart, willing and

anxious to receive yourself and Clifford into it. Do not refuse my good

offices,—my earnest propositions for your welfare! They are such, in

all respects, as it behooves your nearest kinsman to make. It will be a

heavy responsibility, cousin, if you confine your brother to this

dismal house and stifled air, when the delightful freedom of my

country-seat is at his command.”

“It would never suit Clifford,” said Hepzibah, as briefly as before.

“Woman!” broke forth the Judge, giving way to his resentment, “what is

the meaning of all this? Have you other resources? Nay, I suspected as

much! Take care, Hepzibah, take care! Clifford is on the brink of as

black a ruin as ever befell him yet! But why do I talk with you, woman

as you are? Make way!—I must see Clifford!”

Hepzibah spread out her gaunt figure across the door, and seemed really

to increase in bulk; looking the more terrible, also, because there was

so much terror and agitation in her heart. But Judge Pyncheon’s evident

purpose of forcing a passage was interrupted by a voice from the inner

room; a weak, tremulous, wailing voice, indicating helpless alarm, with

no more energy for self-defence than belongs to a frightened infant.

“Hepzibah, Hepzibah!” cried the voice; “go down on your knees to him!

Kiss his feet! Entreat him not to come in! Oh, let him have mercy on

me! Mercy! mercy!”

For the instant, it appeared doubtful whether it were not the Judge’s

resolute purpose to set Hepzibah aside, and step across the threshold

into the parlor, whence issued that broken and miserable murmur of

entreaty. It was not pity that restrained him, for, at the first sound

of the enfeebled voice, a red fire kindled in his eyes, and he made a

quick pace forward, with something inexpressibly fierce and grim

darkening forth, as it were, out of the whole man. To know Judge

Pyncheon was to see him at that moment. After such a revelation, let

him smile with what sultriness he would, he could much sooner turn

grapes purple, or pumpkins yellow, than melt the iron-branded

impression out of the beholder’s memory. And it rendered his aspect not

the less, but more frightful, that it seemed not to express wrath or

hatred, but a certain hot fellness of purpose, which annihilated

everything but itself.

Yet, after all, are we not slandering an excellent and amiable man?

Look at the Judge now! He is apparently conscious of having erred, in

too energetically pressing his deeds of loving-kindness on persons

unable to appreciate them. He will await their better mood, and hold

himself as ready to assist them then as at this moment. As he draws

back from the door, an all-comprehensive benignity blazes from his

visage, indicating that he gathers Hepzibah, little Phœbe, and the

invisible Clifford, all three, together with the whole world besides,

into his immense heart, and gives them a warm bath in its flood of

affection.

“You do me great wrong, dear Cousin Hepzibah!” said he, first kindly

offering her his hand, and then drawing on his glove preparatory to

departure. “Very great wrong! But I forgive it, and will study to make

you think better of me. Of course, our poor Clifford being in so

unhappy a state of mind, I cannot think of urging an interview at

present. But I shall watch over his welfare as if he were my own

beloved brother; nor do I at all despair, my dear cousin, of

constraining both him and you to acknowledge your injustice. When that

shall happen, I desire no other revenge than your acceptance of the

best offices in my power to do you.”

With a bow to Hepzibah, and a degree of paternal benevolence in his

parting nod to Phœbe, the Judge left the shop, and went smiling along

the street. As is customary with the rich, when they aim at the honors

of a republic, he apologized, as it were, to the people, for his

wealth, prosperity, and elevated station, by a free and hearty manner

towards those who knew him; putting off the more of his dignity in due

proportion with the humbleness of the man whom he saluted, and thereby

proving a haughty consciousness of his advantages as irrefragably as if

he had marched forth preceded by a troop of lackeys to clear the way.

On this particular forenoon, so excessive was the warmth of Judge

Pyncheon’s kindly aspect, that (such, at least, was the rumor about

town) an extra passage of the water-carts was found essential, in order

to lay the dust occasioned by so much extra sunshine!

No sooner had he disappeared than Hepzibah grew deadly white, and,

staggering towards Phœbe, let her head fall on the young girl’s

shoulder.

“O Phœbe!” murmured she, “that man has been the horror of my life!

Shall I never, never have the courage,—will my voice never cease from

trembling long enough to let me tell him what he is?”

“Is he so very wicked?” asked Phœbe. “Yet his offers were surely kind!”

“Do not speak of them,—he has a heart of iron!” rejoined Hepzibah. “Go,

now, and talk to Clifford! Amuse and keep him quiet! It would disturb

him wretchedly to see me so agitated as I am. There, go, dear child,

and I will try to look after the shop.”

Phœbe went accordingly, but perplexed herself, meanwhile, with queries

as to the purport of the scene which she had just witnessed, and also

whether judges, clergymen, and other characters of that eminent stamp

and respectability, could really, in any single instance, be otherwise

than just and upright men. A doubt of this nature has a most disturbing

influence, and, if shown to be a fact, comes with fearful and startling

effect on minds of the trim, orderly, and limit-loving class, in which

we find our little country-girl. Dispositions more boldly speculative

may derive a stern enjoyment from the discovery, since there must be

evil in the world, that a high man is as likely to grasp his share of

it as a low one. A wider scope of view, and a deeper insight, may see

rank, dignity, and station, all proved illusory, so far as regards

their claim to human reverence, and yet not feel as if the universe

were thereby tumbled headlong into chaos. But Phœbe, in order to keep

the universe in its old place, was fain to smother, in some degree, her

own intuitions as to Judge Pyncheon’s character. And as for her

cousin’s testimony in disparagement of it, she concluded that

Hepzibah’s judgment was embittered by one of those family feuds which

render hatred the more deadly by the dead and corrupted love that they

intermingle with its native poison.

IX.

Clifford and Phœbe

Truly was there something high, generous, and noble in the native

composition of our poor old Hepzibah! Or else,—and it was quite as

probably the case,—she had been enriched by poverty, developed by

sorrow, elevated by the strong and solitary affection of her life, and

thus endowed with heroism, which never could have characterized her in

what are called happier circumstances. Through dreary years Hepzibah

had looked forward—for the most part despairingly, never with any

confidence of hope, but always with the feeling that it was her

brightest possibility—to the very position in which she now found

herself. In her own behalf, she had asked nothing of Providence but the

opportunity of devoting herself to this brother, whom she had so

loved,—so admired for what he was, or might have been,—and to whom she

had kept her faith, alone of all the world, wholly, unfalteringly, at

every instant, and throughout life. And here, in his late decline, the

lost one had come back out of his long and strange misfortune, and was

thrown on her sympathy, as it seemed, not merely for the bread of his

physical existence, but for everything that should keep him morally

alive. She had responded to the call. She had come forward,—our poor,

gaunt Hepzibah, in her rusty silks, with her rigid joints, and the sad

perversity of her scowl,—ready to do her utmost; and with affection

enough, if that were all, to do a hundred times as much! There could be

few more tearful sights,—and Heaven forgive us if a smile insist on

mingling with our conception of it!—few sights with truer pathos in

them, than Hepzibah presented on that first afternoon.

How patiently did she endeavor to wrap Clifford up in her great, warm

love, and make it all the world to him, so that he should retain no

torturing sense of the coldness and dreariness without! Her little

efforts to amuse him! How pitiful, yet magnanimous, they were!

Remembering his early love of poetry and fiction, she unlocked a

bookcase, and took down several books that had been excellent reading

in their day. There was a volume of Pope, with the Rape of the Lock in

it, and another of the Tatler, and an odd one of Dryden’s Miscellanies,

all with tarnished gilding on their covers, and thoughts of tarnished

brilliancy inside. They had no success with Clifford. These, and all

such writers of society, whose new works glow like the rich texture of

a just-woven carpet, must be content to relinquish their charm, for

every reader, after an age or two, and could hardly be supposed to

retain any portion of it for a mind that had utterly lost its estimate

of modes and manners. Hepzibah then took up Rasselas, and began to read

of the Happy Valley, with a vague idea that some secret of a contented

life had there been elaborated, which might at least serve Clifford and

herself for this one day. But the Happy Valley had a cloud over it.

Hepzibah troubled her auditor, moreover, by innumerable sins of

emphasis, which he seemed to detect, without any reference to the

meaning; nor, in fact, did he appear to take much note of the sense of

what she read, but evidently felt the tedium of the lecture, without

harvesting its profit. His sister’s voice, too, naturally harsh, had,

in the course of her sorrowful lifetime, contracted a kind of croak,

which, when it once gets into the human throat, is as ineradicable as

sin. In both sexes, occasionally, this lifelong croak, accompanying

each word of joy or sorrow, is one of the symptoms of a settled

melancholy; and wherever it occurs, the whole history of misfortune is

conveyed in its slightest accent. The effect is as if the voice had

been dyed black; or,—if we must use a more moderate simile,—this

miserable croak, running through all the variations of the voice, is

like a black silken thread, on which the crystal beads of speech are

strung, and whence they take their hue. Such voices have put on

mourning for dead hopes; and they ought to die and be buried along with

them!

Discerning that Clifford was not gladdened by her efforts, Hepzibah

searched about the house for the means of more exhilarating pastime. At

one time, her eyes chanced to rest on Alice Pyncheon’s harpsichord. It

was a moment of great peril; for,—despite the traditionary awe that had

gathered over this instrument of music, and the dirges which spiritual

fingers were said to play on it,—the devoted sister had solemn thoughts

of thrumming on its chords for Clifford’s benefit, and accompanying the

performance with her voice. Poor Clifford! Poor Hepzibah! Poor

harpsichord! All three would have been miserable together. By some good

agency,—possibly, by the unrecognized interposition of the long-buried

Alice herself,—the threatening calamity was averted.

But the worst of all—the hardest stroke of fate for Hepzibah to endure,

and perhaps for Clifford, too was his invincible distaste for her

appearance. Her features, never the most agreeable, and now harsh with

age and grief, and resentment against the world for his sake; her

dress, and especially her turban; the queer and quaint manners, which

had unconsciously grown upon her in solitude,—such being the poor

gentlewoman’s outward characteristics, it is no great marvel, although

the mournfullest of pities, that the instinctive lover of the Beautiful

was fain to turn away his eyes. There was no help for it. It would be

the latest impulse to die within him. In his last extremity, the

expiring breath stealing faintly through Clifford’s lips, he would

doubtless press Hepzibah’s hand, in fervent recognition of all her

lavished love, and close his eyes,—but not so much to die, as to be

constrained to look no longer on her face! Poor Hepzibah! She took

counsel with herself what might be done, and thought of putting ribbons

on her turban; but, by the instant rush of several guardian angels, was

withheld from an experiment that could hardly have proved less than

fatal to the beloved object of her anxiety.

To be brief, besides Hepzibah’s disadvantages of person, there was an

uncouthness pervading all her deeds; a clumsy something, that could but

ill adapt itself for use, and not at all for ornament. She was a grief

to Clifford, and she knew it. In this extremity, the antiquated virgin

turned to Phœbe. No grovelling jealousy was in her heart. Had it

pleased Heaven to crown the heroic fidelity of her life by making her

personally the medium of Clifford’s happiness, it would have rewarded

her for all the past, by a joy with no bright tints, indeed, but deep

and true, and worth a thousand gayer ecstasies. This could not be. She

therefore turned to Phœbe, and resigned the task into the young girl’s

hands. The latter took it up cheerfully, as she did everything, but

with no sense of a mission to perform, and succeeding all the better

for that same simplicity.

By the involuntary effect of a genial temperament, Phœbe soon grew to

be absolutely essential to the daily comfort, if not the daily life, of

her two forlorn companions. The grime and sordidness of the House of

the Seven Gables seemed to have vanished since her appearance there;

the gnawing tooth of the dry-rot was stayed among the old timbers of

its skeleton frame; the dust had ceased to settle down so densely, from

the antique ceilings, upon the floors and furniture of the rooms

below,—or, at any rate, there was a little housewife, as light-footed

as the breeze that sweeps a garden walk, gliding hither and thither to

brush it all away. The shadows of gloomy events that haunted the else

lonely and desolate apartments; the heavy, breathless scent which death

had left in more than one of the bedchambers, ever since his visits of

long ago,—these were less powerful than the purifying influence

scattered throughout the atmosphere of the household by the presence of

one youthful, fresh, and thoroughly wholesome heart. There was no

morbidness in Phœbe; if there had been, the old Pyncheon House was the

very locality to ripen it into incurable disease. But now her spirit

resembled, in its potency, a minute quantity of ottar of rose in one of

Hepzibah’s huge, iron-bound trunks, diffusing its fragrance through the

various articles of linen and wrought-lace, kerchiefs, caps, stockings,

folded dresses, gloves, and whatever else was treasured there. As every

article in the great trunk was the sweeter for the rose-scent, so did

all the thoughts and emotions of Hepzibah and Clifford, sombre as they

might seem, acquire a subtle attribute of happiness from Phœbe’s

intermixture with them. Her activity of body, intellect, and heart

impelled her continually to perform the ordinary little toils that

offered themselves around her, and to think the thought proper for the

moment, and to sympathize,—now with the twittering gayety of the robins

in the pear-tree, and now to such a depth as she could with Hepzibah’s

dark anxiety, or the vague moan of her brother. This facile adaptation

was at once the symptom of perfect health and its best preservative.

A nature like Phœbe’s has invariably its due influence, but is seldom

regarded with due honor. Its spiritual force, however, may be partially

estimated by the fact of her having found a place for herself, amid

circumstances so stern as those which surrounded the mistress of the

house; and also by the effect which she produced on a character of so

much more mass than her own. For the gaunt, bony frame and limbs of

Hepzibah, as compared with the tiny lightsomeness of Phœbe’s figure,

were perhaps in some fit proportion with the moral weight and

substance, respectively, of the woman and the girl.

To the guest,—to Hepzibah’s brother,—or Cousin Clifford, as Phœbe now

began to call him,—she was especially necessary. Not that he could ever

be said to converse with her, or often manifest, in any other very

definite mode, his sense of a charm in her society. But if she were a

long while absent he became pettish and nervously restless, pacing the

room to and fro with the uncertainty that characterized all his

movements; or else would sit broodingly in his great chair, resting his

head on his hands, and evincing life only by an electric sparkle of

ill-humor, whenever Hepzibah endeavored to arouse him. Phœbe’s

presence, and the contiguity of her fresh life to his blighted one, was

usually all that he required. Indeed, such was the native gush and play

of her spirit, that she was seldom perfectly quiet and undemonstrative,

any more than a fountain ever ceases to dimple and warble with its

flow. She possessed the gift of song, and that, too, so naturally, that

you would as little think of inquiring whence she had caught it, or

what master had taught her, as of asking the same questions about a

bird, in whose small strain of music we recognize the voice of the

Creator as distinctly as in the loudest accents of his thunder. So long

as Phœbe sang, she might stray at her own will about the house.

Clifford was content, whether the sweet, airy homeliness of her tones

came down from the upper chambers, or along the passageway from the

shop, or was sprinkled through the foliage of the pear-tree, inward

from the garden, with the twinkling sunbeams. He would sit quietly,

with a gentle pleasure gleaming over his face, brighter now, and now a

little dimmer, as the song happened to float near him, or was more

remotely heard. It pleased him best, however, when she sat on a low

footstool at his knee.

It is perhaps remarkable, considering her temperament, that Phœbe

oftener chose a strain of pathos than of gayety. But the young and

happy are not ill pleased to temper their life with a transparent

shadow. The deepest pathos of Phœbe’s voice and song, moreover, came

sifted through the golden texture of a cheery spirit, and was somehow

so interfused with the quality thence acquired, that one’s heart felt

all the lighter for having wept at it. Broad mirth, in the sacred

presence of dark misfortune, would have jarred harshly and irreverently

with the solemn symphony that rolled its undertone through Hepzibah’s

and her brother’s life. Therefore, it was well that Phœbe so often

chose sad themes, and not amiss that they ceased to be so sad while she

was singing them.

Becoming habituated to her companionship, Clifford readily showed how

capable of imbibing pleasant tints and gleams of cheerful light from

all quarters his nature must originally have been. He grew youthful

while she sat by him. A beauty,—not precisely real, even in its utmost

manifestation, and which a painter would have watched long to seize and

fix upon his canvas, and, after all, in vain,—beauty, nevertheless,

that was not a mere dream, would sometimes play upon and illuminate his

face. It did more than to illuminate; it transfigured him with an

expression that could only be interpreted as the glow of an exquisite

and happy spirit. That gray hair, and those furrows,—with their record

of infinite sorrow so deeply written across his brow, and so

compressed, as with a futile effort to crowd in all the tale, that the

whole inscription was made illegible,—these, for the moment, vanished.

An eye at once tender and acute might have beheld in the man some

shadow of what he was meant to be. Anon, as age came stealing, like a

sad twilight, back over his figure, you would have felt tempted to hold

an argument with Destiny, and affirm, that either this being should not

have been made mortal, or mortal existence should have been tempered to

his qualities. There seemed no necessity for his having drawn breath at

all; the world never wanted him; but, as he had breathed, it ought

always to have been the balmiest of summer air. The same perplexity

will invariably haunt us with regard to natures that tend to feed

exclusively upon the Beautiful, let their earthly fate be as lenient as

it may.

Phœbe, it is probable, had but a very imperfect comprehension of the

character over which she had thrown so beneficent a spell. Nor was it

necessary. The fire upon the hearth can gladden a whole semicircle of

faces round about it, but need not know the individuality of one among

them all. Indeed, there was something too fine and delicate in

Clifford’s traits to be perfectly appreciated by one whose sphere lay

so much in the Actual as Phœbe’s did. For Clifford, however, the

reality, and simplicity, and thorough homeliness of the girl’s nature

were as powerful a charm as any that she possessed. Beauty, it is true,

and beauty almost perfect in its own style, was indispensable. Had

Phœbe been coarse in feature, shaped clumsily, of a harsh voice, and

uncouthly mannered, she might have been rich with all good gifts,

beneath this unfortunate exterior, and still, so long as she wore the

guise of woman, she would have shocked Clifford, and depressed him by

her lack of beauty. But nothing more beautiful—nothing prettier, at

least—was ever made than Phœbe. And, therefore, to this man,—whose

whole poor and impalpable enjoyment of existence heretofore, and until

both his heart and fancy died within him, had been a dream,—whose

images of women had more and more lost their warmth and substance, and

been frozen, like the pictures of secluded artists, into the chillest

ideality,—to him, this little figure of the cheeriest household life

was just what he required to bring him back into the breathing world.

Persons who have wandered, or been expelled, out of the common track of

things, even were it for a better system, desire nothing so much as to

be led back. They shiver in their loneliness, be it on a mountain-top

or in a dungeon. Now, Phœbe’s presence made a home about her,—that very

sphere which the outcast, the prisoner, the potentate,—the wretch

beneath mankind, the wretch aside from it, or the wretch above

it,—instinctively pines after,—a home! She was real! Holding her hand,

you felt something; a tender something; a substance, and a warm one:

and so long as you should feel its grasp, soft as it was, you might be

certain that your place was good in the whole sympathetic chain of

human nature. The world was no longer a delusion.

By looking a little further in this direction, we might suggest an

explanation of an often-suggested mystery. Why are poets so apt to

choose their mates, not for any similarity of poetic endowment, but for

qualities which might make the happiness of the rudest handicraftsman

as well as that of the ideal craftsman of the spirit? Because,

probably, at his highest elevation, the poet needs no human

intercourse; but he finds it dreary to descend, and be a stranger.

There was something very beautiful in the relation that grew up between

this pair, so closely and constantly linked together, yet with such a

waste of gloomy and mysterious years from his birthday to hers. On

Clifford’s part it was the feeling of a man naturally endowed with the

liveliest sensibility to feminine influence, but who had never quaffed

the cup of passionate love, and knew that it was now too late. He knew

it, with the instinctive delicacy that had survived his intellectual

decay. Thus, his sentiment for Phœbe, without being paternal, was not

less chaste than if she had been his daughter. He was a man, it is

true, and recognized her as a woman. She was his only representative of

womankind. He took unfailing note of every charm that appertained to

her sex, and saw the ripeness of her lips, and the virginal development

of her bosom. All her little womanly ways, budding out of her like

blossoms on a young fruit-tree, had their effect on him, and sometimes

caused his very heart to tingle with the keenest thrills of pleasure.

At such moments,—for the effect was seldom more than momentary,—the

half-torpid man would be full of harmonious life, just as a long-silent

harp is full of sound, when the musician’s fingers sweep across it.

But, after all, it seemed rather a perception, or a sympathy, than a

sentiment belonging to himself as an individual. He read Phœbe as he

would a sweet and simple story; he listened to her as if she were a

verse of household poetry, which God, in requital of his bleak and

dismal lot, had permitted some angel, that most pitied him, to warble

through the house. She was not an actual fact for him, but the

interpretation of all that he lacked on earth brought warmly home to

his conception; so that this mere symbol, or life-like picture, had

almost the comfort of reality.

But we strive in vain to put the idea into words. No adequate

expression of the beauty and profound pathos with which it impresses us

is attainable. This being, made only for happiness, and heretofore so

miserably failing to be happy,—his tendencies so hideously thwarted,

that, some unknown time ago, the delicate springs of his character,

never morally or intellectually strong, had given way, and he was now

imbecile,—this poor, forlorn voyager from the Islands of the Blest, in

a frail bark, on a tempestuous sea, had been flung, by the last

mountain-wave of his shipwreck, into a quiet harbor. There, as he lay

more than half lifeless on the strand, the fragrance of an earthly

rose-bud had come to his nostrils, and, as odors will, had summoned up

reminiscences or visions of all the living and breathing beauty amid

which he should have had his home. With his native susceptibility of

happy influences, he inhales the slight, ethereal rapture into his

soul, and expires!

And how did Phœbe regard Clifford? The girl’s was not one of those

natures which are most attracted by what is strange and exceptional in

human character. The path which would best have suited her was the

well-worn track of ordinary life; the companions in whom she would most

have delighted were such as one encounters at every turn. The mystery

which enveloped Clifford, so far as it affected her at all, was an

annoyance, rather than the piquant charm which many women might have

found in it. Still, her native kindliness was brought strongly into

play, not by what was darkly picturesque in his situation, nor so much,

even, by the finer graces of his character, as by the simple appeal of

a heart so forlorn as his to one so full of genuine sympathy as hers.

She gave him an affectionate regard, because he needed so much love,

and seemed to have received so little. With a ready tact, the result of

ever-active and wholesome sensibility, she discerned what was good for

him, and did it. Whatever was morbid in his mind and experience she

ignored; and thereby kept their intercourse healthy, by the incautious,

but, as it were, heaven-directed freedom of her whole conduct. The sick

in mind, and, perhaps, in body, are rendered more darkly and hopelessly

so by the manifold reflection of their disease, mirrored back from all

quarters in the deportment of those about them; they are compelled to

inhale the poison of their own breath, in infinite repetition. But

Phœbe afforded her poor patient a supply of purer air. She impregnated

it, too, not with a wild-flower scent,—for wildness was no trait of

hers,—but with the perfume of garden-roses, pinks, and other blossoms

of much sweetness, which nature and man have consented together in

making grow from summer to summer, and from century to century. Such a

flower was Phœbe in her relation with Clifford, and such the delight

that he inhaled from her.

Yet, it must be said, her petals sometimes drooped a little, in

consequence of the heavy atmosphere about her. She grew more thoughtful

than heretofore. Looking aside at Clifford’s face, and seeing the dim,

unsatisfactory elegance and the intellect almost quenched, she would

try to inquire what had been his life. Was he always thus? Had this

veil been over him from his birth?—this veil, under which far more of

his spirit was hidden than revealed, and through which he so

imperfectly discerned the actual world,—or was its gray texture woven

of some dark calamity? Phœbe loved no riddles, and would have been glad

to escape the perplexity of this one. Nevertheless, there was so far a

good result of her meditations on Clifford’s character, that, when her

involuntary conjectures, together with the tendency of every strange

circumstance to tell its own story, had gradually taught her the fact,

it had no terrible effect upon her. Let the world have done him what

vast wrong it might, she knew Cousin Clifford too well—or fancied

so—ever to shudder at the touch of his thin, delicate fingers.

Within a few days after the appearance of this remarkable inmate, the

routine of life had established itself with a good deal of uniformity

in the old house of our narrative. In the morning, very shortly after

breakfast, it was Clifford’s custom to fall asleep in his chair; nor,

unless accidentally disturbed, would he emerge from a dense cloud of

slumber or the thinner mists that flitted to and fro, until well

towards noonday. These hours of drowsihead were the season of the old

gentlewoman’s attendance on her brother, while Phœbe took charge of the

shop; an arrangement which the public speedily understood, and evinced

their decided preference of the younger shopwoman by the multiplicity

of their calls during her administration of affairs. Dinner over,

Hepzibah took her knitting-work,—a long stocking of gray yarn, for her

brother’s winter wear,—and with a sigh, and a scowl of affectionate

farewell to Clifford, and a gesture enjoining watchfulness on Phœbe,

went to take her seat behind the counter. It was now the young girl’s

turn to be the nurse,—the guardian, the playmate,—or whatever is the

fitter phrase,—of the gray-haired man.

X.

The Pyncheon Garden

Clifford, except for Phœbe’s more active instigation, would ordinarily

have yielded to the torpor which had crept through all his modes of

being, and which sluggishly counselled him to sit in his morning chair

till eventide. But the girl seldom failed to propose a removal to the

garden, where Uncle Venner and the daguerreotypist had made such

repairs on the roof of the ruinous arbor, or summer-house, that it was

now a sufficient shelter from sunshine and casual showers. The

hop-vine, too, had begun to grow luxuriantly over the sides of the

little edifice, and made an interior of verdant seclusion, with

innumerable peeps and glimpses into the wider solitude of the garden.

Here, sometimes, in this green play-place of flickering light, Phœbe

read to Clifford. Her acquaintance, the artist, who appeared to have a

literary turn, had supplied her with works of fiction, in pamphlet

form,—and a few volumes of poetry, in altogether a different style and

taste from those which Hepzibah selected for his amusement. Small

thanks were due to the books, however, if the girl’s readings were in

any degree more successful than her elderly cousin’s. Phœbe’s voice had

always a pretty music in it, and could either enliven Clifford by its

sparkle and gayety of tone, or soothe him by a continued flow of pebbly

and brook-like cadences. But the fictions—in which the country-girl,

unused to works of that nature, often became deeply absorbed—interested

her strange auditor very little, or not at all. Pictures of life,

scenes of passion or sentiment, wit, humor, and pathos, were all thrown

away, or worse than thrown away, on Clifford; either because he lacked

an experience by which to test their truth, or because his own griefs

were a touch-stone of reality that few feigned emotions could

withstand. When Phœbe broke into a peal of merry laughter at what she

read, he would now and then laugh for sympathy, but oftener respond

with a troubled, questioning look. If a tear—a maiden’s sunshiny tear

over imaginary woe—dropped upon some melancholy page, Clifford either

took it as a token of actual calamity, or else grew peevish, and

angrily motioned her to close the volume. And wisely too! Is not the

world sad enough, in genuine earnest, without making a pastime of mock

sorrows?

With poetry it was rather better. He delighted in the swell and

subsidence of the rhythm, and the happily recurring rhyme. Nor was

Clifford incapable of feeling the sentiment of poetry,—not, perhaps,

where it was highest or deepest, but where it was most flitting and

ethereal. It was impossible to foretell in what exquisite verse the

awakening spell might lurk; but, on raising her eyes from the page to

Clifford’s face, Phœbe would be made aware, by the light breaking

through it, that a more delicate intelligence than her own had caught a

lambent flame from what she read. One glow of this kind, however, was

often the precursor of gloom for many hours afterward; because, when

the glow left him, he seemed conscious of a missing sense and power,

and groped about for them, as if a blind man should go seeking his lost

eyesight.

It pleased him more, and was better for his inward welfare, that Phœbe

should talk, and make passing occurrences vivid to his mind by her

accompanying description and remarks. The life of the garden offered

topics enough for such discourse as suited Clifford best. He never

failed to inquire what flowers had bloomed since yesterday. His feeling

for flowers was very exquisite, and seemed not so much a taste as an

emotion; he was fond of sitting with one in his hand, intently

observing it, and looking from its petals into Phœbe’s face, as if the

garden flower were the sister of the household maiden. Not merely was

there a delight in the flower’s perfume, or pleasure in its beautiful

form, and the delicacy or brightness of its hue; but Clifford’s

enjoyment was accompanied with a perception of life, character, and

individuality, that made him love these blossoms of the garden, as if

they were endowed with sentiment and intelligence. This affection and

sympathy for flowers is almost exclusively a woman’s trait. Men, if

endowed with it by nature, soon lose, forget, and learn to despise it,

in their contact with coarser things than flowers. Clifford, too, had

long forgotten it; but found it again now, as he slowly revived from

the chill torpor of his life.

It is wonderful how many pleasant incidents continually came to pass in

that secluded garden-spot when once Phœbe had set herself to look for

them. She had seen or heard a bee there, on the first day of her

acquaintance with the place. And often,—almost continually,

indeed,—since then, the bees kept coming thither, Heaven knows why, or

by what pertinacious desire, for far-fetched sweets, when, no doubt,

there were broad clover-fields, and all kinds of garden growth, much

nearer home than this. Thither the bees came, however, and plunged into

the squash-blossoms, as if there were no other squash-vines within a

long day’s flight, or as if the soil of Hepzibah’s garden gave its

productions just the very quality which these laborious little wizards

wanted, in order to impart the Hymettus odor to their whole hive of New

England honey. When Clifford heard their sunny, buzzing murmur, in the

heart of the great yellow blossoms, he looked about him with a joyful

sense of warmth, and blue sky, and green grass, and of God’s free air

in the whole height from earth to heaven. After all, there need be no

question why the bees came to that one green nook in the dusty town.

God sent them thither to gladden our poor Clifford. They brought the

rich summer with them, in requital of a little honey.

When the bean-vines began to flower on the poles, there was one

particular variety which bore a vivid scarlet blossom. The

daguerreotypist had found these beans in a garret, over one of the

seven gables, treasured up in an old chest of drawers by some

horticultural Pyncheon of days gone by, who doubtless meant to sow them

the next summer, but was himself first sown in Death’s garden-ground.

By way of testing whether there were still a living germ in such

ancient seeds, Holgrave had planted some of them; and the result of his

experiment was a splendid row of bean-vines, clambering, early, to the

full height of the poles, and arraying them, from top to bottom, in a

spiral profusion of red blossoms. And, ever since the unfolding of the

first bud, a multitude of humming-birds had been attracted thither. At

times, it seemed as if for every one of the hundred blossoms there was

one of these tiniest fowls of the air,—a thumb’s bigness of burnished

plumage, hovering and vibrating about the bean-poles. It was with

indescribable interest, and even more than childish delight, that

Clifford watched the humming-birds. He used to thrust his head softly

out of the arbor to see them the better; all the while, too, motioning

Phœbe to be quiet, and snatching glimpses of the smile upon her face,

so as to heap his enjoyment up the higher with her sympathy. He had not

merely grown young;—he was a child again.

Hepzibah, whenever she happened to witness one of these fits of

miniature enthusiasm, would shake her head, with a strange mingling of

the mother and sister, and of pleasure and sadness, in her aspect. She

said that it had always been thus with Clifford when the humming-birds

came,—always, from his babyhood,—and that his delight in them had been

one of the earliest tokens by which he showed his love for beautiful

things. And it was a wonderful coincidence, the good lady thought, that

the artist should have planted these scarlet-flowering beans—which the

humming-birds sought far and wide, and which had not grown in the

Pyncheon garden before for forty years—on the very summer of Clifford’s

return.

Then would the tears stand in poor Hepzibah’s eyes, or overflow them

with a too abundant gush, so that she was fain to betake herself into

some corner, lest Clifford should espy her agitation. Indeed, all the

enjoyments of this period were provocative of tears. Coming so late as

it did, it was a kind of Indian summer, with a mist in its balmiest

sunshine, and decay and death in its gaudiest delight. The more

Clifford seemed to taste the happiness of a child, the sadder was the

difference to be recognized. With a mysterious and terrible Past, which

had annihilated his memory, and a blank Future before him, he had only

this visionary and impalpable Now, which, if you once look closely at

it, is nothing. He himself, as was perceptible by many symptoms, lay

darkly behind his pleasure, and knew it to be a baby-play, which he was

to toy and trifle with, instead of thoroughly believing. Clifford saw,

it may be, in the mirror of his deeper consciousness, that he was an

example and representative of that great class of people whom an

inexplicable Providence is continually putting at cross-purposes with

the world: breaking what seems its own promise in their nature;

withholding their proper food, and setting poison before them for a

banquet; and thus—when it might so easily, as one would think, have

been adjusted otherwise—making their existence a strangeness, a

solitude, and torment. All his life long, he had been learning how to

be wretched, as one learns a foreign tongue; and now, with the lesson

thoroughly by heart, he could with difficulty comprehend his little

airy happiness. Frequently there was a dim shadow of doubt in his eyes.

“Take my hand, Phœbe,” he would say, “and pinch it hard with your

little fingers! Give me a rose, that I may press its thorns, and prove

myself awake by the sharp touch of pain!” Evidently, he desired this

prick of a trifling anguish, in order to assure himself, by that

quality which he best knew to be real, that the garden, and the seven

weather-beaten gables, and Hepzibah’s scowl, and Phœbe’s smile, were

real likewise. Without this signet in his flesh, he could have

attributed no more substance to them than to the empty confusion of

imaginary scenes with which he had fed his spirit, until even that poor

sustenance was exhausted.

The author needs great faith in his reader’s sympathy; else he must

hesitate to give details so minute, and incidents apparently so

trifling, as are essential to make up the idea of this garden-life. It

was the Eden of a thunder-smitten Adam, who had fled for refuge thither

out of the same dreary and perilous wilderness into which the original

Adam was expelled.

One of the available means of amusement, of which Phœbe made the most

in Clifford’s behalf, was that feathered society, the hens, a breed of

whom, as we have already said, was an immemorial heirloom in the

Pyncheon family. In compliance with a whim of Clifford, as it troubled

him to see them in confinement, they had been set at liberty, and now

roamed at will about the garden; doing some little mischief, but

hindered from escape by buildings on three sides, and the difficult

peaks of a wooden fence on the other. They spent much of their abundant

leisure on the margin of Maule’s well, which was haunted by a kind of

snail, evidently a titbit to their palates; and the brackish water

itself, however nauseous to the rest of the world, was so greatly

esteemed by these fowls, that they might be seen tasting, turning up

their heads, and smacking their bills, with precisely the air of

wine-bibbers round a probationary cask. Their generally quiet, yet

often brisk, and constantly diversified talk, one to another, or

sometimes in soliloquy,—as they scratched worms out of the rich, black

soil, or pecked at such plants as suited their taste,—had such a

domestic tone, that it was almost a wonder why you could not establish

a regular interchange of ideas about household matters, human and

gallinaceous. All hens are well worth studying for the piquancy and

rich variety of their manners; but by no possibility can there have

been other fowls of such odd appearance and deportment as these

ancestral ones. They probably embodied the traditionary peculiarities

of their whole line of progenitors, derived through an unbroken

succession of eggs; or else this individual Chanticleer and his two

wives had grown to be humorists, and a little crack-brained withal, on

account of their solitary way of life, and out of sympathy for

Hepzibah, their lady-patroness.

Queer, indeed, they looked! Chanticleer himself, though stalking on two

stilt-like legs, with the dignity of interminable descent in all his

gestures, was hardly bigger than an ordinary partridge; his two wives

were about the size of quails; and as for the one chicken, it looked

small enough to be still in the egg, and, at the same time,

sufficiently old, withered, wizened, and experienced, to have been

founder of the antiquated race. Instead of being the youngest of the

family, it rather seemed to have aggregated into itself the ages, not

only of these living specimens of the breed, but of all its forefathers

and foremothers, whose united excellences and oddities were squeezed

into its little body. Its mother evidently regarded it as the one

chicken of the world, and as necessary, in fact, to the world’s

continuance, or, at any rate, to the equilibrium of the present system

of affairs, whether in church or state. No lesser sense of the infant

fowl’s importance could have justified, even in a mother’s eyes, the

perseverance with which she watched over its safety, ruffling her small

person to twice its proper size, and flying in everybody’s face that so

much as looked towards her hopeful progeny. No lower estimate could

have vindicated the indefatigable zeal with which she scratched, and

her unscrupulousness in digging up the choicest flower or vegetable,

for the sake of the fat earthworm at its root. Her nervous cluck, when

the chicken happened to be hidden in the long grass or under the

squash-leaves; her gentle croak of satisfaction, while sure of it

beneath her wing; her note of ill-concealed fear and obstreperous

defiance, when she saw her arch-enemy, a neighbor’s cat, on the top of

the high fence,—one or other of these sounds was to be heard at almost

every moment of the day. By degrees, the observer came to feel nearly

as much interest in this chicken of illustrious race as the mother-hen

did.

Phœbe, after getting well acquainted with the old hen, was sometimes

permitted to take the chicken in her hand, which was quite capable of

grasping its cubic inch or two of body. While she curiously examined

its hereditary marks,—the peculiar speckle of its plumage, the funny

tuft on its head, and a knob on each of its legs,—the little biped, as

she insisted, kept giving her a sagacious wink. The daguerreotypist

once whispered her that these marks betokened the oddities of the

Pyncheon family, and that the chicken itself was a symbol of the life

of the old house, embodying its interpretation, likewise, although an

unintelligible one, as such clews generally are. It was a feathered

riddle; a mystery hatched out of an egg, and just as mysterious as if

the egg had been addle!

The second of Chanticleer’s two wives, ever since Phœbe’s arrival, had

been in a state of heavy despondency, caused, as it afterwards

appeared, by her inability to lay an egg. One day, however, by her

self-important gait, the sideways turn of her head, and the cock of her

eye, as she pried into one and another nook of the garden,—croaking to

herself, all the while, with inexpressible complacency,—it was made

evident that this identical hen, much as mankind undervalued her,

carried something about her person the worth of which was not to be

estimated either in gold or precious stones. Shortly after, there was a

prodigious cackling and gratulation of Chanticleer and all his family,

including the wizened chicken, who appeared to understand the matter

quite as well as did his sire, his mother, or his aunt. That afternoon

Phœbe found a diminutive egg,—not in the regular nest, it was far too

precious to be trusted there,—but cunningly hidden under the

currant-bushes, on some dry stalks of last year’s grass. Hepzibah, on

learning the fact, took possession of the egg and appropriated it to

Clifford’s breakfast, on account of a certain delicacy of flavor, for

which, as she affirmed, these eggs had always been famous. Thus

unscrupulously did the old gentlewoman sacrifice the continuance,

perhaps, of an ancient feathered race, with no better end than to

supply her brother with a dainty that hardly filled the bowl of a

tea-spoon! It must have been in reference to this outrage that

Chanticleer, the next day, accompanied by the bereaved mother of the

egg, took his post in front of Phœbe and Clifford, and delivered

himself of a harangue that might have proved as long as his own

pedigree, but for a fit of merriment on Phœbe’s part. Hereupon, the

offended fowl stalked away on his long stilts, and utterly withdrew his

notice from Phœbe and the rest of human nature, until she made her

peace with an offering of spice-cake, which, next to snails, was the

delicacy most in favor with his aristocratic taste.

We linger too long, no doubt, beside this paltry rivulet of life that

flowed through the garden of the Pyncheon House. But we deem it

pardonable to record these mean incidents and poor delights, because

they proved so greatly to Clifford’s benefit. They had the earth-smell

in them, and contributed to give him health and substance. Some of his

occupations wrought less desirably upon him. He had a singular

propensity, for example, to hang over Maule’s well, and look at the

constantly shifting phantasmagoria of figures produced by the agitation

of the water over the mosaic-work of colored pebbles at the bottom. He

said that faces looked upward to him there,—beautiful faces, arrayed in

bewitching smiles,—each momentary face so fair and rosy, and every

smile so sunny, that he felt wronged at its departure, until the same

flitting witchcraft made a new one. But sometimes he would suddenly cry

out, “The dark face gazes at me!” and be miserable the whole day

afterwards. Phœbe, when she hung over the fountain by Clifford’s side,

could see nothing of all this,—neither the beauty nor the ugliness,—but

only the colored pebbles, looking as if the gush of the waters shook

and disarranged them. And the dark face, that so troubled Clifford, was

no more than the shadow thrown from a branch of one of the

damson-trees, and breaking the inner light of Maule’s well. The truth

was, however, that his fancy—reviving faster than his will and

judgment, and always stronger than they—created shapes of loveliness

that were symbolic of his native character, and now and then a stern

and dreadful shape that typified his fate.

On Sundays, after Phœbe had been at church,—for the girl had a

church-going conscience, and would hardly have been at ease had she

missed either prayer, singing, sermon, or benediction,—after

church-time, therefore, there was, ordinarily, a sober little festival

in the garden. In addition to Clifford, Hepzibah, and Phœbe, two guests

made up the company. One was the artist Holgrave, who, in spite of his

consociation with reformers, and his other queer and questionable

traits, continued to hold an elevated place in Hepzibah’s regard. The

other, we are almost ashamed to say, was the venerable Uncle Venner, in

a clean shirt, and a broadcloth coat, more respectable than his

ordinary wear, inasmuch as it was neatly patched on each elbow, and

might be called an entire garment, except for a slight inequality in

the length of its skirts. Clifford, on several occasions, had seemed to

enjoy the old man’s intercourse, for the sake of his mellow, cheerful

vein, which was like the sweet flavor of a frost-bitten apple, such as

one picks up under the tree in December. A man at the very lowest point

of the social scale was easier and more agreeable for the fallen

gentleman to encounter than a person at any of the intermediate

degrees; and, moreover, as Clifford’s young manhood had been lost, he

was fond of feeling himself comparatively youthful, now, in apposition

with the patriarchal age of Uncle Venner. In fact, it was sometimes

observable that Clifford half wilfully hid from himself the

consciousness of being stricken in years, and cherished visions of an

earthly future still before him; visions, however, too indistinctly

drawn to be followed by disappointment—though, doubtless, by

depression—when any casual incident or recollection made him sensible

of the withered leaf.

So this oddly composed little social party used to assemble under the

ruinous arbor. Hepzibah—stately as ever at heart, and yielding not an

inch of her old gentility, but resting upon it so much the more, as

justifying a princess-like condescension—exhibited a not ungraceful

hospitality. She talked kindly to the vagrant artist, and took sage

counsel—lady as she was—with the wood-sawyer, the messenger of

everybody’s petty errands, the patched philosopher. And Uncle Venner,

who had studied the world at street-corners, and other posts equally

well adapted for just observation, was as ready to give out his wisdom

as a town-pump to give water.

“Miss Hepzibah, ma’am,” said he once, after they had all been cheerful

together, “I really enjoy these quiet little meetings of a Sabbath

afternoon. They are very much like what I expect to have after I retire

to my farm!”

“Uncle Venner” observed Clifford in a drowsy, inward tone, “is always

talking about his farm. But I have a better scheme for him, by and by.

We shall see!”

“Ah, Mr. Clifford Pyncheon!” said the man of patches, “you may scheme

for me as much as you please; but I’m not going to give up this one

scheme of my own, even if I never bring it really to pass. It does seem

to me that men make a wonderful mistake in trying to heap up property

upon property. If I had done so, I should feel as if Providence was not

bound to take care of me; and, at all events, the city wouldn’t be! I’m

one of those people who think that infinity is big enough for us

all—and eternity long enough.”

“Why, so they are, Uncle Venner,” remarked Phœbe after a pause; for she

had been trying to fathom the profundity and appositeness of this

concluding apothegm. “But for this short life of ours, one would like a

house and a moderate garden-spot of one’s own.”

“It appears to me,” said the daguerreotypist, smiling, “that Uncle

Venner has the principles of Fourier at the bottom of his wisdom; only

they have not quite so much distinctness in his mind as in that of the

systematizing Frenchman.”

“Come, Phœbe,” said Hepzibah, “it is time to bring the currants.”

And then, while the yellow richness of the declining sunshine still

fell into the open space of the garden, Phœbe brought out a loaf of

bread and a china bowl of currants, freshly gathered from the bushes,

and crushed with sugar. These, with water,—but not from the fountain of

ill omen, close at hand,—constituted all the entertainment. Meanwhile,

Holgrave took some pains to establish an intercourse with Clifford,

actuated, it might seem, entirely by an impulse of kindliness, in order

that the present hour might be cheerfuller than most which the poor

recluse had spent, or was destined yet to spend. Nevertheless, in the

artist’s deep, thoughtful, all-observant eyes, there was, now and then,

an expression, not sinister, but questionable; as if he had some other

interest in the scene than a stranger, a youthful and unconnected

adventurer, might be supposed to have. With great mobility of outward

mood, however, he applied himself to the task of enlivening the party;

and with so much success, that even dark-hued Hepzibah threw off one

tint of melancholy, and made what shift she could with the remaining

portion. Phœbe said to herself,—“How pleasant he can be!” As for Uncle

Venner, as a mark of friendship and approbation, he readily consented

to afford the young man his countenance in the way of his

profession,—not metaphorically, be it understood, but literally, by

allowing a daguerreotype of his face, so familiar to the town, to be

exhibited at the entrance of Holgrave’s studio.

Clifford, as the company partook of their little banquet, grew to be

the gayest of them all. Either it was one of those up-quivering flashes

of the spirit, to which minds in an abnormal state are liable, or else

the artist had subtly touched some chord that made musical vibration.

Indeed, what with the pleasant summer evening, and the sympathy of this

little circle of not unkindly souls, it was perhaps natural that a

character so susceptible as Clifford’s should become animated, and show

itself readily responsive to what was said around him. But he gave out

his own thoughts, likewise, with an airy and fanciful glow; so that

they glistened, as it were, through the arbor, and made their escape

among the interstices of the foliage. He had been as cheerful, no

doubt, while alone with Phœbe, but never with such tokens of acute,

although partial intelligence.

But, as the sunlight left the peaks of the Seven Gables, so did the

excitement fade out of Clifford’s eyes. He gazed vaguely and mournfully

about him, as if he missed something precious, and missed it the more

drearily for not knowing precisely what it was.

“I want my happiness!” at last he murmured hoarsely and indistinctly,

hardly shaping out the words. “Many, many years have I waited for it!

It is late! It is late! I want my happiness!”

Alas, poor Clifford! You are old, and worn with troubles that ought

never to have befallen you. You are partly crazy and partly imbecile; a

ruin, a failure, as almost everybody is,—though some in less degree, or

less perceptibly, than their fellows. Fate has no happiness in store

for you; unless your quiet home in the old family residence with the

faithful Hepzibah, and your long summer afternoons with Phœbe, and

these Sabbath festivals with Uncle Venner and the daguerreotypist,

deserve to be called happiness! Why not? If not the thing itself, it is

marvellously like it, and the more so for that ethereal and intangible

quality which causes it all to vanish at too close an introspection.

Take it, therefore, while you may. Murmur not,—question not,—but make

the most of it!

XI.

The Arched Window

From the inertness, or what we may term the vegetative character, of

his ordinary mood, Clifford would perhaps have been content to spend

one day after another, interminably,—or, at least, throughout the

summer-time,—in just the kind of life described in the preceding pages.

Fancying, however, that it might be for his benefit occasionally to

diversify the scene, Phœbe sometimes suggested that he should look out

upon the life of the street. For this purpose, they used to mount the

staircase together, to the second story of the house, where, at the

termination of a wide entry, there was an arched window, of uncommonly

large dimensions, shaded by a pair of curtains. It opened above the

porch, where there had formerly been a balcony, the balustrade of which

had long since gone to decay, and been removed. At this arched window,

throwing it open, but keeping himself in comparative obscurity by means

of the curtain, Clifford had an opportunity of witnessing such a

portion of the great world’s movement as might be supposed to roll

through one of the retired streets of a not very populous city. But he

and Phœbe made a sight as well worth seeing as any that the city could

exhibit. The pale, gray, childish, aged, melancholy, yet often simply

cheerful, and sometimes delicately intelligent aspect of Clifford,

peering from behind the faded crimson of the curtain,—watching the

monotony of every-day occurrences with a kind of inconsequential

interest and earnestness, and, at every petty throb of his sensibility,

turning for sympathy to the eyes of the bright young girl!

If once he were fairly seated at the window, even Pyncheon Street would

hardly be so dull and lonely but that, somewhere or other along its

extent, Clifford might discover matter to occupy his eye, and

titillate, if not engross, his observation. Things familiar to the

youngest child that had begun its outlook at existence seemed strange

to him. A cab; an omnibus, with its populous interior, dropping here

and there a passenger, and picking up another, and thus typifying that

vast rolling vehicle, the world, the end of whose journey is everywhere

and nowhere; these objects he followed eagerly with his eyes, but

forgot them before the dust raised by the horses and wheels had settled

along their track. As regarded novelties (among which cabs and

omnibuses were to be reckoned), his mind appeared to have lost its

proper gripe and retentiveness. Twice or thrice, for example, during

the sunny hours of the day, a water-cart went along by the Pyncheon

House, leaving a broad wake of moistened earth, instead of the white

dust that had risen at a lady’s lightest footfall; it was like a summer

shower, which the city authorities had caught and tamed, and compelled

it into the commonest routine of their convenience. With the water-cart

Clifford could never grow familiar; it always affected him with just

the same surprise as at first. His mind took an apparently sharp

impression from it, but lost the recollection of this perambulatory

shower, before its next reappearance, as completely as did the street

itself, along which the heat so quickly strewed white dust again. It

was the same with the railroad. Clifford could hear the obstreperous

howl of the steam-devil, and, by leaning a little way from the arched

window, could catch a glimpse of the trains of cars, flashing a brief

transit across the extremity of the street. The idea of terrible energy

thus forced upon him was new at every recurrence, and seemed to affect

him as disagreeably, and with almost as much surprise, the hundredth

time as the first.

Nothing gives a sadder sense of decay than this loss or suspension of

the power to deal with unaccustomed things, and to keep up with the

swiftness of the passing moment. It can merely be a suspended

animation; for, were the power actually to perish, there would be

little use of immortality. We are less than ghosts, for the time being,

whenever this calamity befalls us.

Clifford was indeed the most inveterate of conservatives. All the

antique fashions of the street were dear to him; even such as were

characterized by a rudeness that would naturally have annoyed his

fastidious senses. He loved the old rumbling and jolting carts, the

former track of which he still found in his long-buried remembrance, as

the observer of to-day finds the wheel-tracks of ancient vehicles in

Herculaneum. The butcher’s cart, with its snowy canopy, was an

acceptable object; so was the fish-cart, heralded by its horn; so,

likewise, was the countryman’s cart of vegetables, plodding from door

to door, with long pauses of the patient horse, while his owner drove a

trade in turnips, carrots, summer-squashes, string-beans, green peas,

and new potatoes, with half the housewives of the neighborhood. The

baker’s cart, with the harsh music of its bells, had a pleasant effect

on Clifford, because, as few things else did, it jingled the very

dissonance of yore. One afternoon a scissor-grinder chanced to set his

wheel a-going under the Pyncheon Elm, and just in front of the arched

window. Children came running with their mothers’ scissors, or the

carving-knife, or the paternal razor, or anything else that lacked an

edge (except, indeed, poor Clifford’s wits), that the grinder might

apply the article to his magic wheel, and give it back as good as new.

Round went the busily revolving machinery, kept in motion by the

scissor-grinder’s foot, and wore away the hard steel against the hard

stone, whence issued an intense and spiteful prolongation of a hiss as

fierce as those emitted by Satan and his compeers in Pandemonium,

though squeezed into smaller compass. It was an ugly, little, venomous

serpent of a noise, as ever did petty violence to human ears. But

Clifford listened with rapturous delight. The sound, however

disagreeable, had very brisk life in it, and, together with the circle

of curious children watching the revolutions of the wheel, appeared to

give him a more vivid sense of active, bustling, and sunshiny existence

than he had attained in almost any other way. Nevertheless, its charm

lay chiefly in the past; for the scissor-grinder’s wheel had hissed in

his childish ears.

He sometimes made doleful complaint that there were no stage-coaches

nowadays. And he asked in an injured tone what had become of all those

old square-topped chaises, with wings sticking out on either side, that

used to be drawn by a plough-horse, and driven by a farmer’s wife and

daughter, peddling whortle-berries and blackberries about the town.

Their disappearance made him doubt, he said, whether the berries had

not left off growing in the broad pastures and along the shady country

lanes.

But anything that appealed to the sense of beauty, in however humble a

way, did not require to be recommended by these old associations. This

was observable when one of those Italian boys (who are rather a modern

feature of our streets) came along with his barrel-organ, and stopped

under the wide and cool shadows of the elm. With his quick professional

eye he took note of the two faces watching him from the arched window,

and, opening his instrument, began to scatter its melodies abroad. He

had a monkey on his shoulder, dressed in a Highland plaid; and, to

complete the sum of splendid attractions wherewith he presented himself

to the public, there was a company of little figures, whose sphere and

habitation was in the mahogany case of his organ, and whose principle

of life was the music which the Italian made it his business to grind

out. In all their variety of occupation,—the cobbler, the blacksmith,

the soldier, the lady with her fan, the toper with his bottle, the

milk-maid sitting by her cow—this fortunate little society might truly

be said to enjoy a harmonious existence, and to make life literally a

dance. The Italian turned a crank; and, behold! every one of these

small individuals started into the most curious vivacity. The cobbler

wrought upon a shoe; the blacksmith hammered his iron, the soldier

waved his glittering blade; the lady raised a tiny breeze with her fan;

the jolly toper swigged lustily at his bottle; a scholar opened his

book with eager thirst for knowledge, and turned his head to and fro

along the page; the milkmaid energetically drained her cow; and a miser

counted gold into his strong-box,—all at the same turning of a crank.

Yes; and, moved by the self-same impulse, a lover saluted his mistress

on her lips! Possibly some cynic, at once merry and bitter, had desired

to signify, in this pantomimic scene, that we mortals, whatever our

business or amusement,—however serious, however trifling,—all dance to

one identical tune, and, in spite of our ridiculous activity, bring

nothing finally to pass. For the most remarkable aspect of the affair

was, that, at the cessation of the music, everybody was petrified at

once, from the most extravagant life into a dead torpor. Neither was

the cobbler’s shoe finished, nor the blacksmith’s iron shaped out; nor

was there a drop less of brandy in the toper’s bottle, nor a drop more

of milk in the milkmaid’s pail, nor one additional coin in the miser’s

strong-box, nor was the scholar a page deeper in his book. All were

precisely in the same condition as before they made themselves so

ridiculous by their haste to toil, to enjoy, to accumulate gold, and to

become wise. Saddest of all, moreover, the lover was none the happier

for the maiden’s granted kiss! But, rather than swallow this last too

acrid ingredient, we reject the whole moral of the show.

The monkey, meanwhile, with a thick tail curling out into preposterous

prolixity from beneath his tartans, took his station at the Italian’s

feet. He turned a wrinkled and abominable little visage to every

passer-by, and to the circle of children that soon gathered round, and

to Hepzibah’s shop-door, and upward to the arched window, whence Phœbe

and Clifford were looking down. Every moment, also, he took off his

Highland bonnet, and performed a bow and scrape. Sometimes, moreover,

he made personal application to individuals, holding out his small

black palm, and otherwise plainly signifying his excessive desire for

whatever filthy lucre might happen to be in anybody’s pocket. The mean

and low, yet strangely man-like expression of his wilted countenance;

the prying and crafty glance, that showed him ready to gripe at every

miserable advantage; his enormous tail (too enormous to be decently

concealed under his gabardine), and the deviltry of nature which it

betokened,—take this monkey just as he was, in short, and you could

desire no better image of the Mammon of copper coin, symbolizing the

grossest form of the love of money. Neither was there any possibility

of satisfying the covetous little devil. Phœbe threw down a whole

handful of cents, which he picked up with joyless eagerness, handed

them over to the Italian for safekeeping, and immediately recommenced a

series of pantomimic petitions for more.

Doubtless, more than one New-Englander—or, let him be of what country

he might, it is as likely to be the case—passed by, and threw a look at

the monkey, and went on, without imagining how nearly his own moral

condition was here exemplified. Clifford, however, was a being of

another order. He had taken childish delight in the music, and smiled,

too, at the figures which it set in motion. But, after looking awhile

at the long-tailed imp, he was so shocked by his horrible ugliness,

spiritual as well as physical, that he actually began to shed tears; a

weakness which men of merely delicate endowments, and destitute of the

fiercer, deeper, and more tragic power of laughter, can hardly avoid,

when the worst and meanest aspect of life happens to be presented to

them.

Pyncheon Street was sometimes enlivened by spectacles of more imposing

pretensions than the above, and which brought the multitude along with

them. With a shivering repugnance at the idea of personal contact with

the world, a powerful impulse still seized on Clifford, whenever the

rush and roar of the human tide grew strongly audible to him. This was

made evident, one day, when a political procession, with hundreds of

flaunting banners, and drums, fifes, clarions, and cymbals,

reverberating between the rows of buildings, marched all through town,

and trailed its length of trampling footsteps, and most infrequent

uproar, past the ordinarily quiet House of the Seven Gables. As a mere

object of sight, nothing is more deficient in picturesque features than

a procession seen in its passage through narrow streets. The spectator

feels it to be fool’s play, when he can distinguish the tedious

commonplace of each man’s visage, with the perspiration and weary

self-importance on it, and the very cut of his pantaloons, and the

stiffness or laxity of his shirt-collar, and the dust on the back of

his black coat. In order to become majestic, it should be viewed from

some vantage point, as it rolls its slow and long array through the

centre of a wide plain, or the stateliest public square of a city; for

then, by its remoteness, it melts all the petty personalities, of which

it is made up, into one broad mass of existence,—one great life,—one

collected body of mankind, with a vast, homogeneous spirit animating

it. But, on the other hand, if an impressible person, standing alone

over the brink of one of these processions, should behold it, not in

its atoms, but in its aggregate,—as a mighty river of life, massive in

its tide, and black with mystery, and, out of its depths, calling to

the kindred depth within him,—then the contiguity would add to the

effect. It might so fascinate him that he would hardly be restrained

from plunging into the surging stream of human sympathies.

So it proved with Clifford. He shuddered; he grew pale; he threw an

appealing look at Hepzibah and Phœbe, who were with him at the window.

They comprehended nothing of his emotions, and supposed him merely

disturbed by the unaccustomed tumult. At last, with tremulous limbs, he

started up, set his foot on the window-sill, and in an instant more

would have been in the unguarded balcony. As it was, the whole

procession might have seen him, a wild, haggard figure, his gray locks

floating in the wind that waved their banners; a lonely being,

estranged from his race, but now feeling himself man again, by virtue

of the irrepressible instinct that possessed him. Had Clifford attained

the balcony, he would probably have leaped into the street; but whether

impelled by the species of terror that sometimes urges its victim over

the very precipice which he shrinks from, or by a natural magnetism,

tending towards the great centre of humanity, it were not easy to

decide. Both impulses might have wrought on him at once.

But his companions, affrighted by his gesture,—which was that of a man

hurried away in spite of himself,—seized Clifford’s garment and held

him back. Hepzibah shrieked. Phœbe, to whom all extravagance was a

horror, burst into sobs and tears.

“Clifford, Clifford! are you crazy?” cried his sister.

“I hardly know, Hepzibah,” said Clifford, drawing a long breath. “Fear

nothing,—it is over now,—but had I taken that plunge, and survived it,

methinks it would have made me another man!”

Possibly, in some sense, Clifford may have been right. He needed a

shock; or perhaps he required to take a deep, deep plunge into the

ocean of human life, and to sink down and be covered by its

profoundness, and then to emerge, sobered, invigorated, restored to the

world and to himself. Perhaps again, he required nothing less than the

great final remedy—death!

A similar yearning to renew the broken links of brotherhood with his

kind sometimes showed itself in a milder form; and once it was made

beautiful by the religion that lay even deeper than itself. In the

incident now to be sketched, there was a touching recognition, on

Clifford’s part, of God’s care and love towards him,—towards this poor,

forsaken man, who, if any mortal could, might have been pardoned for

regarding himself as thrown aside, forgotten, and left to be the sport

of some fiend, whose playfulness was an ecstasy of mischief.

It was the Sabbath morning; one of those bright, calm Sabbaths, with

its own hallowed atmosphere, when Heaven seems to diffuse itself over

the earth’s face in a solemn smile, no less sweet than solemn. On such

a Sabbath morn, were we pure enough to be its medium, we should be

conscious of the earth’s natural worship ascending through our frames,

on whatever spot of ground we stood. The church-bells, with various

tones, but all in harmony, were calling out and responding to one

another,—“It is the Sabbath!—The Sabbath!—Yea; the Sabbath!”—and over

the whole city the bells scattered the blessed sounds, now slowly, now

with livelier joy, now one bell alone, now all the bells together,

crying earnestly,—“It is the Sabbath!”—and flinging their accents afar

off, to melt into the air and pervade it with the holy word. The air

with God’s sweetest and tenderest sunshine in it, was meet for mankind

to breathe into their hearts, and send it forth again as the utterance

of prayer.

Clifford sat at the window with Hepzibah, watching the neighbors as

they stepped into the street. All of them, however unspiritual on other

days, were transfigured by the Sabbath influence; so that their very

garments—whether it were an old man’s decent coat well brushed for the

thousandth time, or a little boy’s first sack and trousers finished

yesterday by his mother’s needle—had somewhat of the quality of

ascension-robes. Forth, likewise, from the portal of the old house

stepped Phœbe, putting up her small green sunshade, and throwing upward

a glance and smile of parting kindness to the faces at the arched

window. In her aspect there was a familiar gladness, and a holiness

that you could play with, and yet reverence it as much as ever. She was

like a prayer, offered up in the homeliest beauty of one’s

mother-tongue. Fresh was Phœbe, moreover, and airy and sweet in her

apparel; as if nothing that she wore—neither her gown, nor her small

straw bonnet, nor her little kerchief, any more than her snowy

stockings—had ever been put on before; or, if worn, were all the

fresher for it, and with a fragrance as if they had lain among the

rosebuds.

The girl waved her hand to Hepzibah and Clifford, and went up the

street; a religion in herself, warm, simple, true, with a substance

that could walk on earth, and a spirit that was capable of heaven.

“Hepzibah,” asked Clifford, after watching Phœbe to the corner, “do you

never go to church?”

“No, Clifford!” she replied,—“not these many, many years!”

“Were I to be there,” he rejoined, “it seems to me that I could pray

once more, when so many human souls were praying all around me!”

She looked into Clifford’s face, and beheld there a soft natural

effusion; for his heart gushed out, as it were, and ran over at his

eyes, in delightful reverence for God, and kindly affection for his

human brethren. The emotion communicated itself to Hepzibah. She

yearned to take him by the hand, and go and kneel down, they two

together,—both so long separate from the world, and, as she now

recognized, scarcely friends with Him above,—to kneel down among the

people, and be reconciled to God and man at once.

“Dear brother,” said she earnestly, “let us go! We belong nowhere. We

have not a foot of space in any church to kneel upon; but let us go to

some place of worship, even if we stand in the broad aisle. Poor and

forsaken as we are, some pew-door will be opened to us!”

So Hepzibah and her brother made themselves, ready—as ready as they

could in the best of their old-fashioned garments, which had hung on

pegs, or been laid away in trunks, so long that the dampness and mouldy

smell of the past was on them,—made themselves ready, in their faded

bettermost, to go to church. They descended the staircase

together,—gaunt, sallow Hepzibah, and pale, emaciated, age-stricken

Clifford! They pulled open the front door, and stepped across the

threshold, and felt, both of them, as if they were standing in the

presence of the whole world, and with mankind’s great and terrible eye

on them alone. The eye of their Father seemed to be withdrawn, and gave

them no encouragement. The warm sunny air of the street made them

shiver. Their hearts quaked within them at the idea of taking one step

farther.

“It cannot be, Hepzibah!—it is too late,” said Clifford with deep

sadness. “We are ghosts! We have no right among human beings,—no right

anywhere but in this old house, which has a curse on it, and which,

therefore, we are doomed to haunt! And, besides,” he continued, with a

fastidious sensibility, inalienably characteristic of the man, “it

would not be fit nor beautiful to go! It is an ugly thought that I

should be frightful to my fellow-beings, and that children would cling

to their mothers’ gowns at sight of me!”

They shrank back into the dusky passage-way, and closed the door. But,

going up the staircase again, they found the whole interior of the

house tenfold more dismal, and the air closer and heavier, for the

glimpse and breath of freedom which they had just snatched. They could

not flee; their jailer had but left the door ajar in mockery, and stood

behind it to watch them stealing out. At the threshold, they felt his

pitiless gripe upon them. For, what other dungeon is so dark as one’s

own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one’s self!

But it would be no fair picture of Clifford’s state of mind were we to

represent him as continually or prevailingly wretched. On the contrary,

there was no other man in the city, we are bold to affirm, of so much

as half his years, who enjoyed so many lightsome and griefless moments

as himself. He had no burden of care upon him; there were none of those

questions and contingencies with the future to be settled which wear

away all other lives, and render them not worth having by the very

process of providing for their support. In this respect he was a

child,—a child for the whole term of his existence, be it long or

short. Indeed, his life seemed to be standing still at a period little

in advance of childhood, and to cluster all his reminiscences about

that epoch; just as, after the torpor of a heavy blow, the sufferer’s

reviving consciousness goes back to a moment considerably behind the

accident that stupefied him. He sometimes told Phœbe and Hepzibah his

dreams, in which he invariably played the part of a child, or a very

young man. So vivid were they, in his relation of them, that he once

held a dispute with his sister as to the particular figure or print of

a chintz morning-dress which he had seen their mother wear, in the

dream of the preceding night. Hepzibah, piquing herself on a woman’s

accuracy in such matters, held it to be slightly different from what

Clifford described; but, producing the very gown from an old trunk, it

proved to be identical with his remembrance of it. Had Clifford, every

time that he emerged out of dreams so lifelike, undergone the torture

of transformation from a boy into an old and broken man, the daily

recurrence of the shock would have been too much to bear. It would have

caused an acute agony to thrill from the morning twilight, all the day

through, until bedtime; and even then would have mingled a dull,

inscrutable pain and pallid hue of misfortune with the visionary bloom

and adolescence of his slumber. But the nightly moonshine interwove

itself with the morning mist, and enveloped him as in a robe, which he

hugged about his person, and seldom let realities pierce through; he

was not often quite awake, but slept open-eyed, and perhaps fancied

himself most dreaming then.

Thus, lingering always so near his childhood, he had sympathies with

children, and kept his heart the fresher thereby, like a reservoir into

which rivulets were pouring not far from the fountain-head. Though

prevented, by a subtile sense of propriety, from desiring to associate

with them, he loved few things better than to look out of the arched

window and see a little girl driving her hoop along the sidewalk, or

schoolboys at a game of ball. Their voices, also, were very pleasant to

him, heard at a distance, all swarming and intermingling together as

flies do in a sunny room.

Clifford would, doubtless, have been glad to share their sports. One

afternoon he was seized with an irresistible desire to blow

soap-bubbles; an amusement, as Hepzibah told Phœbe apart, that had been

a favorite one with her brother when they were both children. Behold

him, therefore, at the arched window, with an earthen pipe in his

mouth! Behold him, with his gray hair, and a wan, unreal smile over his

countenance, where still hovered a beautiful grace, which his worst

enemy must have acknowledged to be spiritual and immortal, since it had

survived so long! Behold him, scattering airy spheres abroad from the

window into the street! Little impalpable worlds were those

soap-bubbles, with the big world depicted, in hues bright as

imagination, on the nothing of their surface. It was curious to see how

the passers-by regarded these brilliant fantasies, as they came

floating down, and made the dull atmosphere imaginative about them.

Some stopped to gaze, and perhaps, carried a pleasant recollection of

the bubbles onward as far as the street-corner; some looked angrily

upward, as if poor Clifford wronged them by setting an image of beauty

afloat so near their dusty pathway. A great many put out their fingers

or their walking-sticks to touch, withal; and were perversely

gratified, no doubt, when the bubble, with all its pictured earth and

sky scene, vanished as if it had never been.

At length, just as an elderly gentleman of very dignified presence

happened to be passing, a large bubble sailed majestically down, and

burst right against his nose! He looked up,—at first with a stern, keen

glance, which penetrated at once into the obscurity behind the arched

window,—then with a smile which might be conceived as diffusing a

dog-day sultriness for the space of several yards about him.

“Aha, Cousin Clifford!” cried Judge Pyncheon. “What! Still blowing

soap-bubbles!”

The tone seemed as if meant to be kind and soothing, but yet had a

bitterness of sarcasm in it. As for Clifford, an absolute palsy of fear

came over him. Apart from any definite cause of dread which his past

experience might have given him, he felt that native and original

horror of the excellent Judge which is proper to a weak, delicate, and

apprehensive character in the presence of massive strength. Strength is

incomprehensible by weakness, and, therefore, the more terrible. There

is no greater bugbear than a strong-willed relative in the circle of

his own connections.

XII.

The Daguerreotypist

It must not be supposed that the life of a personage naturally so

active as Phœbe could be wholly confined within the precincts of the

old Pyncheon House. Clifford’s demands upon her time were usually

satisfied, in those long days, considerably earlier than sunset. Quiet

as his daily existence seemed, it nevertheless drained all the

resources by which he lived. It was not physical exercise that

overwearied him,—for except that he sometimes wrought a little with a

hoe, or paced the garden-walk, or, in rainy weather, traversed a large

unoccupied room,—it was his tendency to remain only too quiescent, as

regarded any toil of the limbs and muscles. But, either there was a

smouldering fire within him that consumed his vital energy, or the

monotony that would have dragged itself with benumbing effect over a

mind differently situated was no monotony to Clifford. Possibly, he was

in a state of second growth and recovery, and was constantly

assimilating nutriment for his spirit and intellect from sights,

sounds, and events which passed as a perfect void to persons more

practised with the world. As all is activity and vicissitude to the new

mind of a child, so might it be, likewise, to a mind that had undergone

a kind of new creation, after its long-suspended life.

Be the cause what it might, Clifford commonly retired to rest,

thoroughly exhausted, while the sunbeams were still melting through his

window-curtains, or were thrown with late lustre on the chamber wall.

And while he thus slept early, as other children do, and dreamed of

childhood, Phœbe was free to follow her own tastes for the remainder of

the day and evening.

This was a freedom essential to the health even of a character so

little susceptible of morbid influences as that of Phœbe. The old

house, as we have already said, had both the dry-rot and the damp-rot

in its walls; it was not good to breathe no other atmosphere than that.

Hepzibah, though she had her valuable and redeeming traits, had grown

to be a kind of lunatic by imprisoning herself so long in one place,

with no other company than a single series of ideas, and but one

affection, and one bitter sense of wrong. Clifford, the reader may

perhaps imagine, was too inert to operate morally on his

fellow-creatures, however intimate and exclusive their relations with

him. But the sympathy or magnetism among human beings is more subtile

and universal than we think; it exists, indeed, among different classes

of organized life, and vibrates from one to another. A flower, for

instance, as Phœbe herself observed, always began to droop sooner in

Clifford’s hand, or Hepzibah’s, than in her own; and by the same law,

converting her whole daily life into a flower fragrance for these two

sickly spirits, the blooming girl must inevitably droop and fade much

sooner than if worn on a younger and happier breast. Unless she had now

and then indulged her brisk impulses, and breathed rural air in a

suburban walk, or ocean breezes along the shore,—had occasionally

obeyed the impulse of Nature, in New England girls, by attending a

metaphysical or philosophical lecture, or viewing a seven-mile

panorama, or listening to a concert,—had gone shopping about the city,

ransacking entire depots of splendid merchandise, and bringing home a

ribbon,—had employed, likewise, a little time to read the Bible in her

chamber, and had stolen a little more to think of her mother and her

native place—unless for such moral medicines as the above, we should

soon have beheld our poor Phœbe grow thin and put on a bleached,

unwholesome aspect, and assume strange, shy ways, prophetic of

old-maidenhood and a cheerless future.

Even as it was, a change grew visible; a change partly to be regretted,

although whatever charm it infringed upon was repaired by another,

perhaps more precious. She was not so constantly gay, but had her moods

of thought, which Clifford, on the whole, liked better than her former

phase of unmingled cheerfulness; because now she understood him better

and more delicately, and sometimes even interpreted him to himself. Her

eyes looked larger, and darker, and deeper; so deep, at some silent

moments, that they seemed like Artesian wells, down, down, into the

infinite. She was less girlish than when we first beheld her alighting

from the omnibus; less girlish, but more a woman.

The only youthful mind with which Phœbe had an opportunity of frequent

intercourse was that of the daguerreotypist. Inevitably, by the

pressure of the seclusion about them, they had been brought into habits

of some familiarity. Had they met under different circumstances,

neither of these young persons would have been likely to bestow much

thought upon the other, unless, indeed, their extreme dissimilarity

should have proved a principle of mutual attraction. Both, it is true,

were characters proper to New England life, and possessing a common

ground, therefore, in their more external developments; but as unlike,

in their respective interiors, as if their native climes had been at

world-wide distance. During the early part of their acquaintance, Phœbe

had held back rather more than was customary with her frank and simple

manners from Holgrave’s not very marked advances. Nor was she yet

satisfied that she knew him well, although they almost daily met and

talked together, in a kind, friendly, and what seemed to be a familiar

way.

The artist, in a desultory manner, had imparted to Phœbe something of

his history. Young as he was, and had his career terminated at the

point already attained, there had been enough of incident to fill, very

creditably, an autobiographic volume. A romance on the plan of Gil

Blas, adapted to American society and manners, would cease to be a

romance. The experience of many individuals among us, who think it

hardly worth the telling, would equal the vicissitudes of the

Spaniard’s earlier life; while their ultimate success, or the point

whither they tend, may be incomparably higher than any that a novelist

would imagine for his hero. Holgrave, as he told Phœbe somewhat

proudly, could not boast of his origin, unless as being exceedingly

humble, nor of his education, except that it had been the scantiest

possible, and obtained by a few winter-months’ attendance at a district

school. Left early to his own guidance, he had begun to be

self-dependent while yet a boy; and it was a condition aptly suited to

his natural force of will. Though now but twenty-two years old (lacking

some months, which are years in such a life), he had already been,

first, a country schoolmaster; next, a salesman in a country store;

and, either at the same time or afterwards, the political editor of a

country newspaper. He had subsequently travelled New England and the

Middle States, as a peddler, in the employment of a Connecticut

manufactory of cologne-water and other essences. In an episodical way

he had studied and practised dentistry, and with very flattering

success, especially in many of the factory-towns along our inland

streams. As a supernumerary official, of some kind or other, aboard a

packet-ship, he had visited Europe, and found means, before his return,

to see Italy, and part of France and Germany. At a later period he had

spent some months in a community of Fourierists. Still more recently he

had been a public lecturer on Mesmerism, for which science (as he

assured Phœbe, and, indeed, satisfactorily proved, by putting

Chanticleer, who happened to be scratching near by, to sleep) he had

very remarkable endowments.

His present phase, as a daguerreotypist, was of no more importance in

his own view, nor likely to be more permanent, than any of the

preceding ones. It had been taken up with the careless alacrity of an

adventurer, who had his bread to earn. It would be thrown aside as

carelessly, whenever he should choose to earn his bread by some other

equally digressive means. But what was most remarkable, and, perhaps,

showed a more than common poise in the young man, was the fact that,

amid all these personal vicissitudes, he had never lost his identity.

Homeless as he had been,—continually changing his whereabout, and,

therefore, responsible neither to public opinion nor to

individuals,—putting off one exterior, and snatching up another, to be

soon shifted for a third,—he had never violated the innermost man, but

had carried his conscience along with him. It was impossible to know

Holgrave without recognizing this to be the fact. Hepzibah had seen it.

Phœbe soon saw it likewise, and gave him the sort of confidence which

such a certainty inspires. She was startled, however, and sometimes

repelled,—not by any doubt of his integrity to whatever law he

acknowledged, but by a sense that his law differed from her own. He

made her uneasy, and seemed to unsettle everything around her, by his

lack of reverence for what was fixed, unless, at a moment’s warning, it

could establish its right to hold its ground.

Then, moreover, she scarcely thought him affectionate in his nature. He

was too calm and cool an observer. Phœbe felt his eye, often; his

heart, seldom or never. He took a certain kind of interest in Hepzibah

and her brother, and Phœbe herself. He studied them attentively, and

allowed no slightest circumstance of their individualities to escape

him. He was ready to do them whatever good he might; but, after all, he

never exactly made common cause with them, nor gave any reliable

evidence that he loved them better in proportion as he knew them more.

In his relations with them, he seemed to be in quest of mental food,

not heart-sustenance. Phœbe could not conceive what interested him so

much in her friends and herself, intellectually, since he cared nothing

for them, or, comparatively, so little, as objects of human affection.

Always, in his interviews with Phœbe, the artist made especial inquiry

as to the welfare of Clifford, whom, except at the Sunday festival, he

seldom saw.

“Does he still seem happy?” he asked one day.

“As happy as a child,” answered Phœbe; “but—like a child, too—very

easily disturbed.”

“How disturbed?” inquired Holgrave. “By things without, or by thoughts

within?”

“I cannot see his thoughts! How should I?” replied Phœbe with simple

piquancy. “Very often his humor changes without any reason that can be

guessed at, just as a cloud comes over the sun. Latterly, since I have

begun to know him better, I feel it to be not quite right to look

closely into his moods. He has had such a great sorrow, that his heart

is made all solemn and sacred by it. When he is cheerful,—when the sun

shines into his mind,—then I venture to peep in, just as far as the

light reaches, but no further. It is holy ground where the shadow

falls!”

“How prettily you express this sentiment!” said the artist. “I can

understand the feeling, without possessing it. Had I your

opportunities, no scruples would prevent me from fathoming Clifford to

the full depth of my plummet-line!”

“How strange that you should wish it!” remarked Phœbe involuntarily.

“What is Cousin Clifford to you?”

“Oh, nothing,—of course, nothing!” answered Holgrave with a smile.

“Only this is such an odd and incomprehensible world! The more I look

at it, the more it puzzles me, and I begin to suspect that a man’s

bewilderment is the measure of his wisdom. Men and women, and children,

too, are such strange creatures, that one never can be certain that he

really knows them; nor ever guess what they have been from what he sees

them to be now. Judge Pyncheon! Clifford! What a complex riddle—a

complexity of complexities—do they present! It requires intuitive

sympathy, like a young girl’s, to solve it. A mere observer, like

myself (who never have any intuitions, and am, at best, only subtile

and acute), is pretty certain to go astray.”

The artist now turned the conversation to themes less dark than that

which they had touched upon. Phœbe and he were young together; nor had

Holgrave, in his premature experience of life, wasted entirely that

beautiful spirit of youth, which, gushing forth from one small heart

and fancy, may diffuse itself over the universe, making it all as

bright as on the first day of creation. Man’s own youth is the world’s

youth; at least, he feels as if it were, and imagines that the earth’s

granite substance is something not yet hardened, and which he can mould

into whatever shape he likes. So it was with Holgrave. He could talk

sagely about the world’s old age, but never actually believed what he

said; he was a young man still, and therefore looked upon the

world—that gray-bearded and wrinkled profligate, decrepit, without

being venerable—as a tender stripling, capable of being improved into

all that it ought to be, but scarcely yet had shown the remotest

promise of becoming. He had that sense, or inward prophecy,—which a

young man had better never have been born than not to have, and a

mature man had better die at once than utterly to relinquish,—that we

are not doomed to creep on forever in the old bad way, but that, this

very now, there are the harbingers abroad of a golden era, to be

accomplished in his own lifetime. It seemed to Holgrave,—as doubtless

it has seemed to the hopeful of every century since the epoch of Adam’s

grandchildren,—that in this age, more than ever before, the moss-grown

and rotten Past is to be torn down, and lifeless institutions to be

thrust out of the way, and their dead corpses buried, and everything to

begin anew.

As to the main point,—may we never live to doubt it!—as to the better

centuries that are coming, the artist was surely right. His error lay

in supposing that this age, more than any past or future one, is

destined to see the tattered garments of Antiquity exchanged for a new

suit, instead of gradually renewing themselves by patchwork; in

applying his own little life-span as the measure of an interminable

achievement; and, more than all, in fancying that it mattered anything

to the great end in view whether he himself should contend for it or

against it. Yet it was well for him to think so. This enthusiasm,

infusing itself through the calmness of his character, and thus taking

an aspect of settled thought and wisdom, would serve to keep his youth

pure, and make his aspirations high. And when, with the years settling

down more weightily upon him, his early faith should be modified by

inevitable experience, it would be with no harsh and sudden revolution

of his sentiments. He would still have faith in man’s brightening

destiny, and perhaps love him all the better, as he should recognize

his helplessness in his own behalf; and the haughty faith, with which

he began life, would be well bartered for a far humbler one at its

close, in discerning that man’s best directed effort accomplishes a

kind of dream, while God is the sole worker of realities.

Holgrave had read very little, and that little in passing through the

thoroughfare of life, where the mystic language of his books was

necessarily mixed up with the babble of the multitude, so that both one

and the other were apt to lose any sense that might have been properly

their own. He considered himself a thinker, and was certainly of a

thoughtful turn, but, with his own path to discover, had perhaps hardly

yet reached the point where an educated man begins to think. The true

value of his character lay in that deep consciousness of inward

strength, which made all his past vicissitudes seem merely like a

change of garments; in that enthusiasm, so quiet that he scarcely knew

of its existence, but which gave a warmth to everything that he laid

his hand on; in that personal ambition, hidden—from his own as well as

other eyes—among his more generous impulses, but in which lurked a

certain efficacy, that might solidify him from a theorist into the

champion of some practicable cause. Altogether in his culture and want

of culture,—in his crude, wild, and misty philosophy, and the practical

experience that counteracted some of its tendencies; in his magnanimous

zeal for man’s welfare, and his recklessness of whatever the ages had

established in man’s behalf; in his faith, and in his infidelity; in

what he had, and in what he lacked,—the artist might fitly enough stand

forth as the representative of many compeers in his native land.

His career it would be difficult to prefigure. There appeared to be

qualities in Holgrave, such as, in a country where everything is free

to the hand that can grasp it, could hardly fail to put some of the

world’s prizes within his reach. But these matters are delightfully

uncertain. At almost every step in life, we meet with young men of just

about Holgrave’s age, for whom we anticipate wonderful things, but of

whom, even after much and careful inquiry, we never happen to hear

another word. The effervescence of youth and passion, and the fresh

gloss of the intellect and imagination, endow them with a false

brilliancy, which makes fools of themselves and other people. Like

certain chintzes, calicoes, and ginghams, they show finely in their

first newness, but cannot stand the sun and rain, and assume a very

sober aspect after washing-day.

But our business is with Holgrave as we find him on this particular

afternoon, and in the arbor of the Pyncheon garden. In that point of

view, it was a pleasant sight to behold this young man, with so much

faith in himself, and so fair an appearance of admirable powers,—so

little harmed, too, by the many tests that had tried his metal,—it was

pleasant to see him in his kindly intercourse with Phœbe. Her thought

had scarcely done him justice when it pronounced him cold; or, if so,

he had grown warmer now. Without such purpose on her part, and

unconsciously on his, she made the House of the Seven Gables like a

home to him, and the garden a familiar precinct. With the insight on

which he prided himself, he fancied that he could look through Phœbe,

and all around her, and could read her off like a page of a child’s

story-book. But these transparent natures are often deceptive in their

depth; those pebbles at the bottom of the fountain are farther from us

than we think. Thus the artist, whatever he might judge of Phœbe’s

capacity, was beguiled, by some silent charm of hers, to talk freely of

what he dreamed of doing in the world. He poured himself out as to

another self. Very possibly, he forgot Phœbe while he talked to her,

and was moved only by the inevitable tendency of thought, when rendered

sympathetic by enthusiasm and emotion, to flow into the first safe

reservoir which it finds. But, had you peeped at them through the

chinks of the garden-fence, the young man’s earnestness and heightened

color might have led you to suppose that he was making love to the

young girl!

At length, something was said by Holgrave that made it apposite for

Phœbe to inquire what had first brought him acquainted with her cousin

Hepzibah, and why he now chose to lodge in the desolate old Pyncheon

House. Without directly answering her, he turned from the Future, which

had heretofore been the theme of his discourse, and began to speak of

the influences of the Past. One subject, indeed, is but the

reverberation of the other.

“Shall we never, never get rid of this Past?” cried he, keeping up the

earnest tone of his preceding conversation. “It lies upon the Present

like a giant’s dead body! In fact, the case is just as if a young giant

were compelled to waste all his strength in carrying about the corpse

of the old giant, his grandfather, who died a long while ago, and only

needs to be decently buried. Just think a moment, and it will startle

you to see what slaves we are to bygone times,—to Death, if we give the

matter the right word!”

“But I do not see it,” observed Phœbe.

“For example, then,” continued Holgrave: “a dead man, if he happens to

have made a will, disposes of wealth no longer his own; or, if he die

intestate, it is distributed in accordance with the notions of men much

longer dead than he. A dead man sits on all our judgment-seats; and

living judges do but search out and repeat his decisions. We read in

dead men’s books! We laugh at dead men’s jokes, and cry at dead men’s

pathos! We are sick of dead men’s diseases, physical and moral, and die

of the same remedies with which dead doctors killed their patients! We

worship the living Deity according to dead men’s forms and creeds.

Whatever we seek to do, of our own free motion, a dead man’s icy hand

obstructs us! Turn our eyes to what point we may, a dead man’s white,

immitigable face encounters them, and freezes our very heart! And we

must be dead ourselves before we can begin to have our proper influence

on our own world, which will then be no longer our world, but the world

of another generation, with which we shall have no shadow of a right to

interfere. I ought to have said, too, that we live in dead men’s

houses; as, for instance, in this of the Seven Gables!”

“And why not,” said Phœbe, “so long as we can be comfortable in them?”

“But we shall live to see the day, I trust,” went on the artist, “when

no man shall build his house for posterity. Why should he? He might

just as reasonably order a durable suit of clothes,—leather, or

guttapercha, or whatever else lasts longest,—so that his

great-grandchildren should have the benefit of them, and cut precisely

the same figure in the world that he himself does. If each generation

were allowed and expected to build its own houses, that single change,

comparatively unimportant in itself, would imply almost every reform

which society is now suffering for. I doubt whether even our public

edifices—our capitols, state-houses, court-houses, city-hall, and

churches,—ought to be built of such permanent materials as stone or

brick. It were better that they should crumble to ruin once in twenty

years, or thereabouts, as a hint to the people to examine into and

reform the institutions which they symbolize.”

“How you hate everything old!” said Phœbe in dismay. “It makes me dizzy

to think of such a shifting world!”

“I certainly love nothing mouldy,” answered Holgrave. “Now, this old

Pyncheon House! Is it a wholesome place to live in, with its black

shingles, and the green moss that shows how damp they are?—its dark,

low-studded rooms—its grime and sordidness, which are the

crystallization on its walls of the human breath, that has been drawn

and exhaled here in discontent and anguish? The house ought to be

purified with fire,—purified till only its ashes remain!”

“Then why do you live in it?” asked Phœbe, a little piqued.

“Oh, I am pursuing my studies here; not in books, however,” replied

Holgrave. “The house, in my view, is expressive of that odious and

abominable Past, with all its bad influences, against which I have just

been declaiming. I dwell in it for a while, that I may know the better

how to hate it. By the bye, did you ever hear the story of Maule, the

wizard, and what happened between him and your immeasurably

great-grandfather?”

“Yes, indeed!” said Phœbe; “I heard it long ago, from my father, and

two or three times from my cousin Hepzibah, in the month that I have

been here. She seems to think that all the calamities of the Pyncheons

began from that quarrel with the wizard, as you call him. And you, Mr.

Holgrave look as if you thought so too! How singular that you should

believe what is so very absurd, when you reject many things that are a

great deal worthier of credit!”

“I do believe it,” said the artist seriously; “not as a superstition,

however, but as proved by unquestionable facts, and as exemplifying a

theory. Now, see: under those seven gables, at which we now look

up,—and which old Colonel Pyncheon meant to be the house of his

descendants, in prosperity and happiness, down to an epoch far beyond

the present,—under that roof, through a portion of three centuries,

there has been perpetual remorse of conscience, a constantly defeated

hope, strife amongst kindred, various misery, a strange form of death,

dark suspicion, unspeakable disgrace,—all, or most of which calamity I

have the means of tracing to the old Puritan’s inordinate desire to

plant and endow a family. To plant a family! This idea is at the bottom

of most of the wrong and mischief which men do. The truth is, that,

once in every half-century, at longest, a family should be merged into

the great, obscure mass of humanity, and forget all about its

ancestors. Human blood, in order to keep its freshness, should run in

hidden streams, as the water of an aqueduct is conveyed in subterranean

pipes. In the family existence of these Pyncheons, for

instance,—forgive me, Phœbe, but I cannot think of you as one of

them,—in their brief New England pedigree, there has been time enough

to infect them all with one kind of lunacy or another.”

“You speak very unceremoniously of my kindred,” said Phœbe, debating

with herself whether she ought to take offence.

“I speak true thoughts to a true mind!” answered Holgrave, with a

vehemence which Phœbe had not before witnessed in him. “The truth is as

I say! Furthermore, the original perpetrator and father of this

mischief appears to have perpetuated himself, and still walks the

street,—at least, his very image, in mind and body,—with the fairest

prospect of transmitting to posterity as rich and as wretched an

inheritance as he has received! Do you remember the daguerreotype, and

its resemblance to the old portrait?”

“How strangely in earnest you are!” exclaimed Phœbe, looking at him

with surprise and perplexity; half alarmed and partly inclined to

laugh. “You talk of the lunacy of the Pyncheons; is it contagious?”

“I understand you!” said the artist, coloring and laughing. “I believe

I am a little mad. This subject has taken hold of my mind with the

strangest tenacity of clutch since I have lodged in yonder old gable.

As one method of throwing it off, I have put an incident of the

Pyncheon family history, with which I happen to be acquainted, into the

form of a legend, and mean to publish it in a magazine.”

“Do you write for the magazines?” inquired Phœbe.

“Is it possible you did not know it?” cried Holgrave. “Well, such is

literary fame! Yes. Miss Phœbe Pyncheon, among the multitude of my

marvellous gifts I have that of writing stories; and my name has

figured, I can assure you, on the covers of Graham and Godey, making as

respectable an appearance, for aught I could see, as any of the

canonized bead-roll with which it was associated. In the humorous line,

I am thought to have a very pretty way with me; and as for pathos, I am

as provocative of tears as an onion. But shall I read you my story?”

“Yes, if it is not very long,” said Phœbe,—and added laughingly,—“nor

very dull.”

As this latter point was one which the daguerreotypist could not decide

for himself, he forthwith produced his roll of manuscript, and, while

the late sunbeams gilded the seven gables, began to read.

XIII.

Alice Pyncheon

There was a message brought, one day, from the worshipful Gervayse

Pyncheon to young Matthew Maule, the carpenter, desiring his immediate

presence at the House of the Seven Gables.

“And what does your master want with me?” said the carpenter to Mr.

Pyncheon’s black servant. “Does the house need any repair? Well it may,

by this time; and no blame to my father who built it, neither! I was

reading the old Colonel’s tombstone, no longer ago than last Sabbath;

and, reckoning from that date, the house has stood seven-and-thirty

years. No wonder if there should be a job to do on the roof.”

“Don’t know what massa wants,” answered Scipio. “The house is a berry

good house, and old Colonel Pyncheon think so too, I reckon;—else why

the old man haunt it so, and frighten a poor nigga, as he does?”

“Well, well, friend Scipio; let your master know that I’m coming,” said

the carpenter with a laugh. “For a fair, workmanlike job, he’ll find me

his man. And so the house is haunted, is it? It will take a tighter

workman than I am to keep the spirits out of the Seven Gables. Even if

the Colonel would be quiet,” he added, muttering to himself, “my old

grandfather, the wizard, will be pretty sure to stick to the Pyncheons

as long as their walls hold together.”

“What’s that you mutter to yourself, Matthew Maule?” asked Scipio. “And

what for do you look so black at me?”

“No matter, darky,” said the carpenter. “Do you think nobody is to look

black but yourself? Go tell your master I’m coming; and if you happen

to see Mistress Alice, his daughter, give Matthew Maule’s humble

respects to her. She has brought a fair face from Italy,—fair, and

gentle, and proud,—has that same Alice Pyncheon!”

“He talk of Mistress Alice!” cried Scipio, as he returned from his

errand. “The low carpenter-man! He no business so much as to look at

her a great way off!”

This young Matthew Maule, the carpenter, it must be observed, was a

person little understood, and not very generally liked, in the town

where he resided; not that anything could be alleged against his

integrity, or his skill and diligence in the handicraft which he

exercised. The aversion (as it might justly be called) with which many

persons regarded him was partly the result of his own character and

deportment, and partly an inheritance.

He was the grandson of a former Matthew Maule, one of the early

settlers of the town, and who had been a famous and terrible wizard in

his day. This old reprobate was one of the sufferers when Cotton

Mather, and his brother ministers, and the learned judges, and other

wise men, and Sir William Phipps, the sagacious governor, made such

laudable efforts to weaken the great enemy of souls, by sending a

multitude of his adherents up the rocky pathway of Gallows Hill. Since

those days, no doubt, it had grown to be suspected that, in consequence

of an unfortunate overdoing of a work praiseworthy in itself, the

proceedings against the witches had proved far less acceptable to the

Beneficent Father than to that very Arch Enemy whom they were intended

to distress and utterly overwhelm. It is not the less certain, however,

that awe and terror brooded over the memories of those who died for

this horrible crime of witchcraft. Their graves, in the crevices of the

rocks, were supposed to be incapable of retaining the occupants who had

been so hastily thrust into them. Old Matthew Maule, especially, was

known to have as little hesitation or difficulty in rising out of his

grave as an ordinary man in getting out of bed, and was as often seen

at midnight as living people at noonday. This pestilent wizard (in whom

his just punishment seemed to have wrought no manner of amendment) had

an inveterate habit of haunting a certain mansion, styled the House of

the Seven Gables, against the owner of which he pretended to hold an

unsettled claim for ground-rent. The ghost, it appears,—with the

pertinacity which was one of his distinguishing characteristics while

alive,—insisted that he was the rightful proprietor of the site upon

which the house stood. His terms were, that either the aforesaid

ground-rent, from the day when the cellar began to be dug, should be

paid down, or the mansion itself given up; else he, the ghostly

creditor, would have his finger in all the affairs of the Pyncheons,

and make everything go wrong with them, though it should be a thousand

years after his death. It was a wild story, perhaps, but seemed not

altogether so incredible to those who could remember what an inflexibly

obstinate old fellow this wizard Maule had been.

Now, the wizard’s grandson, the young Matthew Maule of our story, was

popularly supposed to have inherited some of his ancestor’s

questionable traits. It is wonderful how many absurdities were

promulgated in reference to the young man. He was fabled, for example,

to have a strange power of getting into people’s dreams, and regulating

matters there according to his own fancy, pretty much like the

stage-manager of a theatre. There was a great deal of talk among the

neighbors, particularly the petticoated ones, about what they called

the witchcraft of Maule’s eye. Some said that he could look into

people’s minds; others, that, by the marvellous power of this eye, he

could draw people into his own mind, or send them, if he pleased, to do

errands to his grandfather, in the spiritual world; others, again, that

it was what is termed an Evil Eye, and possessed the valuable faculty

of blighting corn, and drying children into mummies with the heartburn.

But, after all, what worked most to the young carpenter’s disadvantage

was, first, the reserve and sternness of his natural disposition, and

next, the fact of his not being a church-communicant, and the suspicion

of his holding heretical tenets in matters of religion and polity.

After receiving Mr. Pyncheon’s message, the carpenter merely tarried to

finish a small job, which he happened to have in hand, and then took

his way towards the House of the Seven Gables. This noted edifice,

though its style might be getting a little out of fashion, was still as

respectable a family residence as that of any gentleman in town. The

present owner, Gervayse Pyncheon, was said to have contracted a dislike

to the house, in consequence of a shock to his sensibility, in early

childhood, from the sudden death of his grandfather. In the very act of

running to climb Colonel Pyncheon’s knee, the boy had discovered the

old Puritan to be a corpse. On arriving at manhood, Mr. Pyncheon had

visited England, where he married a lady of fortune, and had

subsequently spent many years, partly in the mother country, and partly

in various cities on the continent of Europe. During this period, the

family mansion had been consigned to the charge of a kinsman, who was

allowed to make it his home for the time being, in consideration of

keeping the premises in thorough repair. So faithfully had this

contract been fulfilled, that now, as the carpenter approached the

house, his practised eye could detect nothing to criticise in its

condition. The peaks of the seven gables rose up sharply; the shingled

roof looked thoroughly water-tight; and the glittering plaster-work

entirely covered the exterior walls, and sparkled in the October sun,

as if it had been new only a week ago.

The house had that pleasant aspect of life which is like the cheery

expression of comfortable activity in the human countenance. You could

see, at once, that there was the stir of a large family within it. A

huge load of oak-wood was passing through the gateway, towards the

outbuildings in the rear; the fat cook—or probably it might be the

housekeeper—stood at the side door, bargaining for some turkeys and

poultry which a countryman had brought for sale. Now and then a

maid-servant, neatly dressed, and now the shining sable face of a

slave, might be seen bustling across the windows, in the lower part of

the house. At an open window of a room in the second story, hanging

over some pots of beautiful and delicate flowers,—exotics, but which

had never known a more genial sunshine than that of the New England

autumn,—was the figure of a young lady, an exotic, like the flowers,

and beautiful and delicate as they. Her presence imparted an

indescribable grace and faint witchery to the whole edifice. In other

respects, it was a substantial, jolly-looking mansion, and seemed fit

to be the residence of a patriarch, who might establish his own

headquarters in the front gable and assign one of the remainder to each

of his six children, while the great chimney in the centre should

symbolize the old fellow’s hospitable heart, which kept them all warm,

and made a great whole of the seven smaller ones.

There was a vertical sundial on the front gable; and as the carpenter

passed beneath it, he looked up and noted the hour.

“Three o’clock!” said he to himself. “My father told me that dial was

put up only an hour before the old Colonel’s death. How truly it has

kept time these seven-and-thirty years past! The shadow creeps and

creeps, and is always looking over the shoulder of the sunshine!”

It might have befitted a craftsman, like Matthew Maule, on being sent

for to a gentleman’s house, to go to the back door, where servants and

work-people were usually admitted; or at least to the side entrance,

where the better class of tradesmen made application. But the carpenter

had a great deal of pride and stiffness in his nature; and, at this

moment, moreover, his heart was bitter with the sense of hereditary

wrong, because he considered the great Pyncheon House to be standing on

soil which should have been his own. On this very site, beside a spring

of delicious water, his grandfather had felled the pine-trees and built

a cottage, in which children had been born to him; and it was only from

a dead man’s stiffened fingers that Colonel Pyncheon had wrested away

the title-deeds. So young Maule went straight to the principal

entrance, beneath a portal of carved oak, and gave such a peal of the

iron knocker that you would have imagined the stern old wizard himself

to be standing at the threshold.

Black Scipio answered the summons in a prodigious hurry; but showed the

whites of his eyes, in amazement on beholding only the carpenter.

“Lord-a-mercy, what a great man he be, this carpenter fellow!” mumbled

Scipio, down in his throat. “Anybody think he beat on the door with his

biggest hammer!”

“Here I am!” said Maule sternly. “Show me the way to your master’s

parlor.”

As he stept into the house, a note of sweet and melancholy music

thrilled and vibrated along the passage-way, proceeding from one of the

rooms above stairs. It was the harpsichord which Alice Pyncheon had

brought with her from beyond the sea. The fair Alice bestowed most of

her maiden leisure between flowers and music, although the former were

apt to droop, and the melodies were often sad. She was of foreign

education, and could not take kindly to the New England modes of life,

in which nothing beautiful had ever been developed.

As Mr. Pyncheon had been impatiently awaiting Maule’s arrival, black

Scipio, of course, lost no time in ushering the carpenter into his

master’s presence. The room in which this gentleman sat was a parlor of

moderate size, looking out upon the garden of the house, and having its

windows partly shadowed by the foliage of fruit-trees. It was Mr.

Pyncheon’s peculiar apartment, and was provided with furniture, in an

elegant and costly style, principally from Paris; the floor (which was

unusual at that day) being covered with a carpet, so skilfully and

richly wrought that it seemed to glow as with living flowers. In one

corner stood a marble woman, to whom her own beauty was the sole and

sufficient garment. Some pictures—that looked old, and had a mellow

tinge diffused through all their artful splendor—hung on the walls.

Near the fireplace was a large and very beautiful cabinet of ebony,

inlaid with ivory; a piece of antique furniture, which Mr. Pyncheon had

bought in Venice, and which he used as the treasure-place for medals,

ancient coins, and whatever small and valuable curiosities he had

picked up on his travels. Through all this variety of decoration,

however, the room showed its original characteristics; its low stud,

its cross-beam, its chimney-piece, with the old-fashioned Dutch tiles;

so that it was the emblem of a mind industriously stored with foreign

ideas, and elaborated into artificial refinement, but neither larger,

nor, in its proper self, more elegant than before.

There were two objects that appeared rather out of place in this very

handsomely furnished room. One was a large map, or surveyor’s plan, of

a tract of land, which looked as if it had been drawn a good many years

ago, and was now dingy with smoke, and soiled, here and there, with the

touch of fingers. The other was a portrait of a stern old man, in a

Puritan garb, painted roughly, but with a bold effect, and a remarkably

strong expression of character.

At a small table, before a fire of English sea-coal, sat Mr. Pyncheon,

sipping coffee, which had grown to be a very favorite beverage with him

in France. He was a middle-aged and really handsome man, with a wig

flowing down upon his shoulders; his coat was of blue velvet, with lace

on the borders and at the button-holes; and the firelight glistened on

the spacious breadth of his waistcoat, which was flowered all over with

gold. On the entrance of Scipio, ushering in the carpenter, Mr.

Pyncheon turned partly round, but resumed his former position, and

proceeded deliberately to finish his cup of coffee, without immediate

notice of the guest whom he had summoned to his presence. It was not

that he intended any rudeness or improper neglect,—which, indeed, he

would have blushed to be guilty of,—but it never occurred to him that a

person in Maule’s station had a claim on his courtesy, or would trouble

himself about it one way or the other.

The carpenter, however, stepped at once to the hearth, and turned

himself about, so as to look Mr. Pyncheon in the face.

“You sent for me,” said he. “Be pleased to explain your business, that

I may go back to my own affairs.”

“Ah! excuse me,” said Mr. Pyncheon quietly. “I did not mean to tax your

time without a recompense. Your name, I think, is Maule,—Thomas or

Matthew Maule,—a son or grandson of the builder of this house?”

“Matthew Maule,” replied the carpenter,—“son of him who built the

house,—grandson of the rightful proprietor of the soil.”

“I know the dispute to which you allude,” observed Mr. Pyncheon with

undisturbed equanimity. “I am well aware that my grandfather was

compelled to resort to a suit at law, in order to establish his claim

to the foundation-site of this edifice. We will not, if you please,

renew the discussion. The matter was settled at the time, and by the

competent authorities,—equitably, it is to be presumed,—and, at all

events, irrevocably. Yet, singularly enough, there is an incidental

reference to this very subject in what I am now about to say to you.

And this same inveterate grudge,—excuse me, I mean no offence,—this

irritability, which you have just shown, is not entirely aside from the

matter.”

“If you can find anything for your purpose, Mr. Pyncheon,” said the

carpenter, “in a man’s natural resentment for the wrongs done to his

blood, you are welcome to it.”

“I take you at your word, Goodman Maule,” said the owner of the Seven

Gables, with a smile, “and will proceed to suggest a mode in which your

hereditary resentments—justifiable or otherwise—may have had a bearing

on my affairs. You have heard, I suppose, that the Pyncheon family,

ever since my grandfather’s days, have been prosecuting a still

unsettled claim to a very large extent of territory at the Eastward?”

“Often,” replied Maule,—and it is said that a smile came over his

face,—“very often,—from my father!”

“This claim,” continued Mr. Pyncheon, after pausing a moment, as if to

consider what the carpenter’s smile might mean, “appeared to be on the

very verge of a settlement and full allowance, at the period of my

grandfather’s decease. It was well known, to those in his confidence,

that he anticipated neither difficulty nor delay. Now, Colonel

Pyncheon, I need hardly say, was a practical man, well acquainted with

public and private business, and not at all the person to cherish

ill-founded hopes, or to attempt the following out of an impracticable

scheme. It is obvious to conclude, therefore, that he had grounds, not

apparent to his heirs, for his confident anticipation of success in the

matter of this Eastern claim. In a word, I believe,—and my legal

advisers coincide in the belief, which, moreover, is authorized, to a

certain extent, by the family traditions,—that my grandfather was in

possession of some deed, or other document, essential to this claim,

but which has since disappeared.”

“Very likely,” said Matthew Maule,—and again, it is said, there was a

dark smile on his face,—“but what can a poor carpenter have to do with

the grand affairs of the Pyncheon family?”

“Perhaps nothing,” returned Mr. Pyncheon, “possibly much!”

Here ensued a great many words between Matthew Maule and the proprietor

of the Seven Gables, on the subject which the latter had thus broached.

It seems (although Mr. Pyncheon had some hesitation in referring to

stories so exceedingly absurd in their aspect) that the popular belief

pointed to some mysterious connection and dependence, existing between

the family of the Maules and these vast unrealized possessions of the

Pyncheons. It was an ordinary saying that the old wizard, hanged though

he was, had obtained the best end of the bargain in his contest with

Colonel Pyncheon; inasmuch as he had got possession of the great

Eastern claim, in exchange for an acre or two of garden-ground. A very

aged woman, recently dead, had often used the metaphorical expression,

in her fireside talk, that miles and miles of the Pyncheon lands had

been shovelled into Maule’s grave; which, by the bye, was but a very

shallow nook, between two rocks, near the summit of Gallows Hill.

Again, when the lawyers were making inquiry for the missing document,

it was a by-word that it would never be found, unless in the wizard’s

skeleton hand. So much weight had the shrewd lawyers assigned to these

fables, that (but Mr. Pyncheon did not see fit to inform the carpenter

of the fact) they had secretly caused the wizard’s grave to be

searched. Nothing was discovered, however, except that, unaccountably,

the right hand of the skeleton was gone.

Now, what was unquestionably important, a portion of these popular

rumors could be traced, though rather doubtfully and indistinctly, to

chance words and obscure hints of the executed wizard’s son, and the

father of this present Matthew Maule. And here Mr. Pyncheon could bring

an item of his own personal evidence into play. Though but a child at

the time, he either remembered or fancied that Matthew’s father had had

some job to perform on the day before, or possibly the very morning of

the Colonel’s decease, in the private room where he and the carpenter

were at this moment talking. Certain papers belonging to Colonel

Pyncheon, as his grandson distinctly recollected, had been spread out

on the table.

Matthew Maule understood the insinuated suspicion.

“My father,” he said,—but still there was that dark smile, making a

riddle of his countenance,—“my father was an honester man than the

bloody old Colonel! Not to get his rights back again would he have

carried off one of those papers!”

“I shall not bandy words with you,” observed the foreign-bred Mr.

Pyncheon, with haughty composure. “Nor will it become me to resent any

rudeness towards either my grandfather or myself. A gentleman, before

seeking intercourse with a person of your station and habits, will

first consider whether the urgency of the end may compensate for the

disagreeableness of the means. It does so in the present instance.”

He then renewed the conversation, and made great pecuniary offers to

the carpenter, in case the latter should give information leading to

the discovery of the lost document, and the consequent success of the

Eastern claim. For a long time Matthew Maule is said to have turned a

cold ear to these propositions. At last, however, with a strange kind

of laugh, he inquired whether Mr. Pyncheon would make over to him the

old wizard’s homestead-ground, together with the House of the Seven

Gables, now standing on it, in requital of the documentary evidence so

urgently required.

The wild, chimney-corner legend (which, without copying all its

extravagances, my narrative essentially follows) here gives an account

of some very strange behavior on the part of Colonel Pyncheon’s

portrait. This picture, it must be understood, was supposed to be so

intimately connected with the fate of the house, and so magically built

into its walls, that, if once it should be removed, that very instant

the whole edifice would come thundering down in a heap of dusty ruin.

All through the foregoing conversation between Mr. Pyncheon and the

carpenter, the portrait had been frowning, clenching its fist, and

giving many such proofs of excessive discomposure, but without

attracting the notice of either of the two colloquists. And finally, at

Matthew Maule’s audacious suggestion of a transfer of the seven-gabled

structure, the ghostly portrait is averred to have lost all patience,

and to have shown itself on the point of descending bodily from its

frame. But such incredible incidents are merely to be mentioned aside.

“Give up this house!” exclaimed Mr. Pyncheon, in amazement at the

proposal. “Were I to do so, my grandfather would not rest quiet in his

grave!”

“He never has, if all stories are true,” remarked the carpenter

composedly. “But that matter concerns his grandson more than it does

Matthew Maule. I have no other terms to propose.”

Impossible as he at first thought it to comply with Maule’s conditions,

still, on a second glance, Mr. Pyncheon was of opinion that they might

at least be made matter of discussion. He himself had no personal

attachment for the house, nor any pleasant associations connected with

his childish residence in it. On the contrary, after seven-and-thirty

years, the presence of his dead grandfather seemed still to pervade it,

as on that morning when the affrighted boy had beheld him, with so

ghastly an aspect, stiffening in his chair. His long abode in foreign

parts, moreover, and familiarity with many of the castles and ancestral

halls of England, and the marble palaces of Italy, had caused him to

look contemptuously at the House of the Seven Gables, whether in point

of splendor or convenience. It was a mansion exceedingly inadequate to

the style of living which it would be incumbent on Mr. Pyncheon to

support, after realizing his territorial rights. His steward might

deign to occupy it, but never, certainly, the great landed proprietor

himself. In the event of success, indeed, it was his purpose to return

to England; nor, to say the truth, would he recently have quitted that

more congenial home, had not his own fortune, as well as his deceased

wife’s, begun to give symptoms of exhaustion. The Eastern claim once

fairly settled, and put upon the firm basis of actual possession, Mr.

Pyncheon’s property—to be measured by miles, not acres—would be worth

an earldom, and would reasonably entitle him to solicit, or enable him

to purchase, that elevated dignity from the British monarch. Lord

Pyncheon!—or the Earl of Waldo!—how could such a magnate be expected to

contract his grandeur within the pitiful compass of seven shingled

gables?

In short, on an enlarged view of the business, the carpenter’s terms

appeared so ridiculously easy that Mr. Pyncheon could scarcely forbear

laughing in his face. He was quite ashamed, after the foregoing

reflections, to propose any diminution of so moderate a recompense for

the immense service to be rendered.

“I consent to your proposition, Maule!” cried he. “Put me in possession

of the document essential to establish my rights, and the House of the

Seven Gables is your own!”

According to some versions of the story, a regular contract to the

above effect was drawn up by a lawyer, and signed and sealed in the

presence of witnesses. Others say that Matthew Maule was contented with

a private written agreement, in which Mr. Pyncheon pledged his honor

and integrity to the fulfillment of the terms concluded upon. The

gentleman then ordered wine, which he and the carpenter drank together,

in confirmation of their bargain. During the whole preceding discussion

and subsequent formalities, the old Puritan’s portrait seems to have

persisted in its shadowy gestures of disapproval; but without effect,

except that, as Mr. Pyncheon set down the emptied glass, he thought he

beheld his grandfather frown.

“This sherry is too potent a wine for me; it has affected my brain

already,” he observed, after a somewhat startled look at the picture.

“On returning to Europe, I shall confine myself to the more delicate

vintages of Italy and France, the best of which will not bear

transportation.”

“My Lord Pyncheon may drink what wine he will, and wherever he

pleases,” replied the carpenter, as if he had been privy to Mr.

Pyncheon’s ambitious projects. “But first, sir, if you desire tidings

of this lost document, I must crave the favor of a little talk with

your fair daughter Alice.”

“You are mad, Maule!” exclaimed Mr. Pyncheon haughtily; and now, at

last, there was anger mixed up with his pride. “What can my daughter

have to do with a business like this?”

Indeed, at this new demand on the carpenter’s part, the proprietor of

the Seven Gables was even more thunder-struck than at the cool

proposition to surrender his house. There was, at least, an assignable

motive for the first stipulation; there appeared to be none whatever

for the last. Nevertheless, Matthew Maule sturdily insisted on the

young lady being summoned, and even gave her father to understand, in a

mysterious kind of explanation,—which made the matter considerably

darker than it looked before,—that the only chance of acquiring the

requisite knowledge was through the clear, crystal medium of a pure and

virgin intelligence, like that of the fair Alice. Not to encumber our

story with Mr. Pyncheon’s scruples, whether of conscience, pride, or

fatherly affection, he at length ordered his daughter to be called. He

well knew that she was in her chamber, and engaged in no occupation

that could not readily be laid aside; for, as it happened, ever since

Alice’s name had been spoken, both her father and the carpenter had

heard the sad and sweet music of her harpsichord, and the airier

melancholy of her accompanying voice.

So Alice Pyncheon was summoned, and appeared. A portrait of this young

lady, painted by a Venetian artist, and left by her father in England,

is said to have fallen into the hands of the present Duke of

Devonshire, and to be now preserved at Chatsworth; not on account of

any associations with the original, but for its value as a picture, and

the high character of beauty in the countenance. If ever there was a

lady born, and set apart from the world’s vulgar mass by a certain

gentle and cold stateliness, it was this very Alice Pyncheon. Yet there

was the womanly mixture in her; the tenderness, or, at least, the

tender capabilities. For the sake of that redeeming quality, a man of

generous nature would have forgiven all her pride, and have been

content, almost, to lie down in her path, and let Alice set her slender

foot upon his heart. All that he would have required was simply the

acknowledgment that he was indeed a man, and a fellow-being, moulded of

the same elements as she.

As Alice came into the room, her eyes fell upon the carpenter, who was

standing near its centre, clad in green woollen jacket, a pair of loose

breeches, open at the knees, and with a long pocket for his rule, the

end of which protruded; it was as proper a mark of the artisan’s

calling as Mr. Pyncheon’s full-dress sword of that gentleman’s

aristocratic pretensions. A glow of artistic approval brightened over

Alice Pyncheon’s face; she was struck with admiration—which she made no

attempt to conceal—of the remarkable comeliness, strength, and energy

of Maule’s figure. But that admiring glance (which most other men,

perhaps, would have cherished as a sweet recollection all through life)

the carpenter never forgave. It must have been the devil himself that

made Maule so subtile in his preception.

“Does the girl look at me as if I were a brute beast?” thought he,

setting his teeth. “She shall know whether I have a human spirit; and

the worse for her, if it prove stronger than her own!”

“My father, you sent for me,” said Alice, in her sweet and harp-like

voice. “But, if you have business with this young man, pray let me go

again. You know I do not love this room, in spite of that Claude, with

which you try to bring back sunny recollections.”

“Stay a moment, young lady, if you please!” said Matthew Maule. “My

business with your father is over. With yourself, it is now to begin!”

Alice looked towards her father, in surprise and inquiry.

“Yes, Alice,” said Mr. Pyncheon, with some disturbance and confusion.

“This young man—his name is Matthew Maule—professes, so far as I can

understand him, to be able to discover, through your means, a certain

paper or parchment, which was missing long before your birth. The

importance of the document in question renders it advisable to neglect

no possible, even if improbable, method of regaining it. You will

therefore oblige me, my dear Alice, by answering this person’s

inquiries, and complying with his lawful and reasonable requests, so

far as they may appear to have the aforesaid object in view. As I shall

remain in the room, you need apprehend no rude nor unbecoming

deportment, on the young man’s part; and, at your slightest wish, of

course, the investigation, or whatever we may call it, shall

immediately be broken off.”

“Mistress Alice Pyncheon,” remarked Matthew Maule, with the utmost

deference, but yet a half-hidden sarcasm in his look and tone, “will no

doubt feel herself quite safe in her father’s presence, and under his

all-sufficient protection.”

“I certainly shall entertain no manner of apprehension, with my father

at hand,” said Alice with maidenly dignity. “Neither do I conceive that

a lady, while true to herself, can have aught to fear from whomsoever,

or in any circumstances!”

Poor Alice! By what unhappy impulse did she thus put herself at once on

terms of defiance against a strength which she could not estimate?

“Then, Mistress Alice,” said Matthew Maule, handing a chair,—gracefully

enough, for a craftsman, “will it please you only to sit down, and do

me the favor (though altogether beyond a poor carpenter’s deserts) to

fix your eyes on mine!”

Alice complied. She was very proud. Setting aside all advantages of

rank, this fair girl deemed herself conscious of a power—combined of

beauty, high, unsullied purity, and the preservative force of

womanhood—that could make her sphere impenetrable, unless betrayed by

treachery within. She instinctively knew, it may be, that some sinister

or evil potency was now striving to pass her barriers; nor would she

decline the contest. So Alice put woman’s might against man’s might; a

match not often equal on the part of woman.

Her father meanwhile had turned away, and seemed absorbed in the

contemplation of a landscape by Claude, where a shadowy and

sun-streaked vista penetrated so remotely into an ancient wood, that it

would have been no wonder if his fancy had lost itself in the picture’s

bewildering depths. But, in truth, the picture was no more to him at

that moment than the blank wall against which it hung. His mind was

haunted with the many and strange tales which he had heard, attributing

mysterious if not supernatural endowments to these Maules, as well the

grandson here present as his two immediate ancestors. Mr. Pyncheon’s

long residence abroad, and intercourse with men of wit and

fashion,—courtiers, worldlings, and free-thinkers,—had done much

towards obliterating the grim Puritan superstitions, which no man of

New England birth at that early period could entirely escape. But, on

the other hand, had not a whole community believed Maule’s grandfather

to be a wizard? Had not the crime been proved? Had not the wizard died

for it? Had he not bequeathed a legacy of hatred against the Pyncheons

to this only grandson, who, as it appeared, was now about to exercise a

subtle influence over the daughter of his enemy’s house? Might not this

influence be the same that was called witchcraft?

Turning half around, he caught a glimpse of Maule’s figure in the

looking-glass. At some paces from Alice, with his arms uplifted in the

air, the carpenter made a gesture as if directing downward a slow,

ponderous, and invisible weight upon the maiden.

“Stay, Maule!” exclaimed Mr. Pyncheon, stepping forward. “I forbid your

proceeding further!”

“Pray, my dear father, do not interrupt the young man,” said Alice,

without changing her position. “His efforts, I assure you, will prove

very harmless.”

Again Mr. Pyncheon turned his eyes towards the Claude. It was then his

daughter’s will, in opposition to his own, that the experiment should

be fully tried. Henceforth, therefore, he did but consent, not urge it.

And was it not for her sake far more than for his own that he desired

its success? That lost parchment once restored, the beautiful Alice

Pyncheon, with the rich dowry which he could then bestow, might wed an

English duke or a German reigning-prince, instead of some New England

clergyman or lawyer! At the thought, the ambitious father almost

consented, in his heart, that, if the devil’s power were needed to the

accomplishment of this great object, Maule might evoke him. Alice’s own

purity would be her safeguard.

With his mind full of imaginary magnificence, Mr. Pyncheon heard a

half-uttered exclamation from his daughter. It was very faint and low;

so indistinct that there seemed but half a will to shape out the words,

and too undefined a purport to be intelligible. Yet it was a call for

help!—his conscience never doubted it;—and, little more than a whisper

to his ear, it was a dismal shriek, and long reechoed so, in the region

round his heart! But this time the father did not turn.

After a further interval, Maule spoke.

“Behold your daughter,” said he.

Mr. Pyncheon came hastily forward. The carpenter was standing erect in

front of Alice’s chair, and pointing his finger towards the maiden with

an expression of triumphant power, the limits of which could not be

defined, as, indeed, its scope stretched vaguely towards the unseen and

the infinite. Alice sat in an attitude of profound repose, with the

long brown lashes drooping over her eyes.

“There she is!” said the carpenter. “Speak to her!”

“Alice! My daughter!” exclaimed Mr. Pyncheon. “My own Alice!”

She did not stir.

“Louder!” said Maule, smiling.

“Alice! Awake!” cried her father. “It troubles me to see you thus!

Awake!”

He spoke loudly, with terror in his voice, and close to that delicate

ear which had always been so sensitive to every discord. But the sound

evidently reached her not. It is indescribable what a sense of remote,

dim, unattainable distance betwixt himself and Alice was impressed on

the father by this impossibility of reaching her with his voice.

“Best touch her!” said Matthew Maule “Shake the girl, and roughly, too!

My hands are hardened with too much use of axe, saw, and plane,—else I

might help you!”

Mr. Pyncheon took her hand, and pressed it with the earnestness of

startled emotion. He kissed her, with so great a heart-throb in the

kiss, that he thought she must needs feel it. Then, in a gust of anger

at her insensibility, he shook her maiden form with a violence which,

the next moment, it affrighted him to remember. He withdrew his

encircling arms, and Alice—whose figure, though flexible, had been

wholly impassive—relapsed into the same attitude as before these

attempts to arouse her. Maule having shifted his position, her face was

turned towards him slightly, but with what seemed to be a reference of

her very slumber to his guidance.

Then it was a strange sight to behold how the man of conventionalities

shook the powder out of his periwig; how the reserved and stately

gentleman forgot his dignity; how the gold-embroidered waistcoat

flickered and glistened in the firelight with the convulsion of rage,

terror, and sorrow in the human heart that was beating under it.

“Villain!” cried Mr. Pyncheon, shaking his clenched fist at Maule. “You

and the fiend together have robbed me of my daughter. Give her back,

spawn of the old wizard, or you shall climb Gallows Hill in your

grandfather’s footsteps!”

“Softly, Mr. Pyncheon!” said the carpenter with scornful composure.

“Softly, an’ it please your worship, else you will spoil those rich

lace-ruffles at your wrists! Is it my crime if you have sold your

daughter for the mere hope of getting a sheet of yellow parchment into

your clutch? There sits Mistress Alice quietly asleep. Now let Matthew

Maule try whether she be as proud as the carpenter found her awhile

since.”

He spoke, and Alice responded, with a soft, subdued, inward

acquiescence, and a bending of her form towards him, like the flame of

a torch when it indicates a gentle draught of air. He beckoned with his

hand, and, rising from her chair,—blindly, but undoubtingly, as tending

to her sure and inevitable centre,—the proud Alice approached him. He

waved her back, and, retreating, Alice sank again into her seat.

“She is mine!” said Matthew Maule. “Mine, by the right of the strongest

spirit!”

In the further progress of the legend, there is a long, grotesque, and

occasionally awe-striking account of the carpenter’s incantations (if

so they are to be called), with a view of discovering the lost

document. It appears to have been his object to convert the mind of

Alice into a kind of telescopic medium, through which Mr. Pyncheon and

himself might obtain a glimpse into the spiritual world. He succeeded,

accordingly, in holding an imperfect sort of intercourse, at one

remove, with the departed personages in whose custody the so much

valued secret had been carried beyond the precincts of earth. During

her trance, Alice described three figures as being present to her

spiritualized perception. One was an aged, dignified, stern-looking

gentleman, clad as for a solemn festival in grave and costly attire,

but with a great blood-stain on his richly wrought band; the second, an

aged man, meanly dressed, with a dark and malign countenance, and a

broken halter about his neck; the third, a person not so advanced in

life as the former two, but beyond the middle age, wearing a coarse

woollen tunic and leather breeches, and with a carpenter’s rule

sticking out of his side pocket. These three visionary characters

possessed a mutual knowledge of the missing document. One of them, in

truth,—it was he with the blood-stain on his band,—seemed, unless his

gestures were misunderstood, to hold the parchment in his immediate

keeping, but was prevented by his two partners in the mystery from

disburdening himself of the trust. Finally, when he showed a purpose of

shouting forth the secret loudly enough to be heard from his own sphere

into that of mortals, his companions struggled with him, and pressed

their hands over his mouth; and forthwith—whether that he were choked

by it, or that the secret itself was of a crimson hue—there was a fresh

flow of blood upon his band. Upon this, the two meanly dressed figures

mocked and jeered at the much-abashed old dignitary, and pointed their

fingers at the stain.

At this juncture, Maule turned to Mr. Pyncheon.

“It will never be allowed,” said he. “The custody of this secret, that

would so enrich his heirs, makes part of your grandfather’s

retribution. He must choke with it until it is no longer of any value.

And keep you the House of the Seven Gables! It is too dear bought an

inheritance, and too heavy with the curse upon it, to be shifted yet

awhile from the Colonel’s posterity.”

Mr. Pyncheon tried to speak, but—what with fear and passion—could make

only a gurgling murmur in his throat. The carpenter smiled.

“Aha, worshipful sir!—so you have old Maule’s blood to drink!” said he

jeeringly.

“Fiend in man’s shape! why dost thou keep dominion over my child?”

cried Mr. Pyncheon, when his choked utterance could make way. “Give me

back my daughter. Then go thy ways; and may we never meet again!”

“Your daughter!” said Matthew Maule. “Why, she is fairly mine!

Nevertheless, not to be too hard with fair Mistress Alice, I will leave

her in your keeping; but I do not warrant you that she shall never have

occasion to remember Maule, the carpenter.”

He waved his hands with an upward motion; and, after a few repetitions

of similar gestures, the beautiful Alice Pyncheon awoke from her

strange trance. She awoke without the slightest recollection of her

visionary experience; but as one losing herself in a momentary reverie,

and returning to the consciousness of actual life, in almost as brief

an interval as the down-sinking flame of the hearth should quiver again

up the chimney. On recognizing Matthew Maule, she assumed an air of

somewhat cold but gentle dignity, the rather, as there was a certain

peculiar smile on the carpenter’s visage that stirred the native pride

of the fair Alice. So ended, for that time, the quest for the lost

title-deed of the Pyncheon territory at the Eastward; nor, though often

subsequently renewed, has it ever yet befallen a Pyncheon to set his

eye upon that parchment.

But, alas for the beautiful, the gentle, yet too haughty Alice! A power

that she little dreamed of had laid its grasp upon her maiden soul. A

will, most unlike her own, constrained her to do its grotesque and

fantastic bidding. Her father as it proved, had martyred his poor child

to an inordinate desire for measuring his land by miles instead of

acres. And, therefore, while Alice Pyncheon lived, she was Maule’s

slave, in a bondage more humiliating, a thousand-fold, than that which

binds its chain around the body. Seated by his humble fireside, Maule

had but to wave his hand; and, wherever the proud lady chanced to

be,—whether in her chamber, or entertaining her father’s stately

guests, or worshipping at church,—whatever her place or occupation, her

spirit passed from beneath her own control, and bowed itself to Maule.

“Alice, laugh!”—the carpenter, beside his hearth, would say; or perhaps

intensely will it, without a spoken word. And, even were it

prayer-time, or at a funeral, Alice must break into wild laughter.

“Alice, be sad!”—and, at the instant, down would come her tears,

quenching all the mirth of those around her like sudden rain upon a

bonfire. “Alice, dance.”—and dance she would, not in such court-like

measures as she had learned abroad, but some high-paced jig, or

hop-skip rigadoon, befitting the brisk lasses at a rustic merry-making.

It seemed to be Maule’s impulse, not to ruin Alice, nor to visit her

with any black or gigantic mischief, which would have crowned her

sorrows with the grace of tragedy, but to wreak a low, ungenerous scorn

upon her. Thus all the dignity of life was lost. She felt herself too

much abased, and longed to change natures with some worm!

One evening, at a bridal party (but not her own; for, so lost from

self-control, she would have deemed it sin to marry), poor Alice was

beckoned forth by her unseen despot, and constrained, in her gossamer

white dress and satin slippers, to hasten along the street to the mean

dwelling of a laboring-man. There was laughter and good cheer within;

for Matthew Maule, that night, was to wed the laborer’s daughter, and

had summoned proud Alice Pyncheon to wait upon his bride. And so she

did; and when the twain were one, Alice awoke out of her enchanted

sleep. Yet, no longer proud,—humbly, and with a smile all steeped in

sadness,—she kissed Maule’s wife, and went her way. It was an inclement

night; the southeast wind drove the mingled snow and rain into her

thinly sheltered bosom; her satin slippers were wet through and

through, as she trod the muddy sidewalks. The next day a cold; soon, a

settled cough; anon, a hectic cheek, a wasted form, that sat beside the

harpsichord, and filled the house with music! Music in which a strain

of the heavenly choristers was echoed! Oh; joy! For Alice had borne her

last humiliation! Oh, greater joy! For Alice was penitent of her one

earthly sin, and proud no more!

The Pyncheons made a great funeral for Alice. The kith and kin were

there, and the whole respectability of the town besides. But, last in

the procession, came Matthew Maule, gnashing his teeth, as if he would

have bitten his own heart in twain,—the darkest and wofullest man that

ever walked behind a corpse! He meant to humble Alice, not to kill her;

but he had taken a woman’s delicate soul into his rude gripe, to play

with—and she was dead!

XIV.

Phœbe’s Good-Bye

Holgrave, plunging into his tale with the energy and absorption natural

to a young author, had given a good deal of action to the parts capable

of being developed and exemplified in that manner. He now observed that

a certain remarkable drowsiness (wholly unlike that with which the

reader possibly feels himself affected) had been flung over the senses

of his auditress. It was the effect, unquestionably, of the mystic

gesticulations by which he had sought to bring bodily before Phœbe’s

perception the figure of the mesmerizing carpenter. With the lids

drooping over her eyes,—now lifted for an instant, and drawn down again

as with leaden weights,—she leaned slightly towards him, and seemed

almost to regulate her breath by his. Holgrave gazed at her, as he

rolled up his manuscript, and recognized an incipient stage of that

curious psychological condition which, as he had himself told Phœbe, he

possessed more than an ordinary faculty of producing. A veil was

beginning to be muffled about her, in which she could behold only him,

and live only in his thoughts and emotions. His glance, as he fastened

it on the young girl, grew involuntarily more concentrated; in his

attitude there was the consciousness of power, investing his hardly

mature figure with a dignity that did not belong to its physical

manifestation. It was evident, that, with but one wave of his hand and

a corresponding effort of his will, he could complete his mastery over

Phœbe’s yet free and virgin spirit: he could establish an influence

over this good, pure, and simple child, as dangerous, and perhaps as

disastrous, as that which the carpenter of his legend had acquired and

exercised over the ill-fated Alice.

To a disposition like Holgrave’s, at once speculative and active, there

is no temptation so great as the opportunity of acquiring empire over

the human spirit; nor any idea more seductive to a young man than to

become the arbiter of a young girl’s destiny. Let us,

therefore,—whatever his defects of nature and education, and in spite

of his scorn for creeds and institutions,—concede to the

daguerreotypist the rare and high quality of reverence for another’s

individuality. Let us allow him integrity, also, forever after to be

confided in; since he forbade himself to twine that one link more which

might have rendered his spell over Phœbe indissoluble.

He made a slight gesture upward with his hand.

“You really mortify me, my dear Miss Phœbe!” he exclaimed, smiling

half-sarcastically at her. “My poor story, it is but too evident, will

never do for Godey or Graham! Only think of your falling asleep at what

I hoped the newspaper critics would pronounce a most brilliant,

powerful, imaginative, pathetic, and original winding up! Well, the

manuscript must serve to light lamps with;—if, indeed, being so imbued

with my gentle dulness, it is any longer capable of flame!”

“Me asleep! How can you say so?” answered Phœbe, as unconscious of the

crisis through which she had passed as an infant of the precipice to

the verge of which it has rolled. “No, no! I consider myself as having

been very attentive; and, though I don’t remember the incidents quite

distinctly, yet I have an impression of a vast deal of trouble and

calamity,—so, no doubt, the story will prove exceedingly attractive.”

By this time the sun had gone down, and was tinting the clouds towards

the zenith with those bright hues which are not seen there until some

time after sunset, and when the horizon has quite lost its richer

brilliancy. The moon, too, which had long been climbing overhead, and

unobtrusively melting its disk into the azure,—like an ambitious

demagogue, who hides his aspiring purpose by assuming the prevalent hue

of popular sentiment,—now began to shine out, broad and oval, in its

middle pathway. These silvery beams were already powerful enough to

change the character of the lingering daylight. They softened and

embellished the aspect of the old house; although the shadows fell

deeper into the angles of its many gables, and lay brooding under the

projecting story, and within the half-open door. With the lapse of

every moment, the garden grew more picturesque; the fruit-trees,

shrubbery, and flower-bushes had a dark obscurity among them. The

commonplace characteristics—which, at noontide, it seemed to have taken

a century of sordid life to accumulate—were now transfigured by a charm

of romance. A hundred mysterious years were whispering among the

leaves, whenever the slight sea-breeze found its way thither and

stirred them. Through the foliage that roofed the little summer-house

the moonlight flickered to and fro, and fell silvery white on the dark

floor, the table, and the circular bench, with a continual shift and

play, according as the chinks and wayward crevices among the twigs

admitted or shut out the glimmer.

So sweetly cool was the atmosphere, after all the feverish day, that

the summer eve might be fancied as sprinkling dews and liquid

moonlight, with a dash of icy temper in them, out of a silver vase.

Here and there, a few drops of this freshness were scattered on a human

heart, and gave it youth again, and sympathy with the eternal youth of

nature. The artist chanced to be one on whom the reviving influence

fell. It made him feel—what he sometimes almost forgot, thrust so early

as he had been into the rude struggle of man with man—how youthful he

still was.

“It seems to me,” he observed, “that I never watched the coming of so

beautiful an eve, and never felt anything so very much like happiness

as at this moment. After all, what a good world we live in! How good,

and beautiful! How young it is, too, with nothing really rotten or

age-worn in it! This old house, for example, which sometimes has

positively oppressed my breath with its smell of decaying timber! And

this garden, where the black mould always clings to my spade, as if I

were a sexton delving in a graveyard! Could I keep the feeling that now

possesses me, the garden would every day be virgin soil, with the

earth’s first freshness in the flavor of its beans and squashes; and

the house!—it would be like a bower in Eden, blossoming with the

earliest roses that God ever made. Moonlight, and the sentiment in

man’s heart responsive to it, are the greatest of renovators and

reformers. And all other reform and renovation, I suppose, will prove

to be no better than moonshine!”

“I have been happier than I am now; at least, much gayer,” said Phœbe

thoughtfully. “Yet I am sensible of a great charm in this brightening

moonlight; and I love to watch how the day, tired as it is, lags away

reluctantly, and hates to be called yesterday so soon. I never cared

much about moonlight before. What is there, I wonder, so beautiful in

it, to-night?”

“And you have never felt it before?” inquired the artist, looking

earnestly at the girl through the twilight.

“Never,” answered Phœbe; “and life does not look the same, now that I

have felt it so. It seems as if I had looked at everything, hitherto,

in broad daylight, or else in the ruddy light of a cheerful fire,

glimmering and dancing through a room. Ah, poor me!” she added, with a

half-melancholy laugh. “I shall never be so merry as before I knew

Cousin Hepzibah and poor Cousin Clifford. I have grown a great deal

older, in this little time. Older, and, I hope, wiser, and,—not exactly

sadder,—but, certainly, with not half so much lightness in my spirits!

I have given them my sunshine, and have been glad to give it; but, of

course, I cannot both give and keep it. They are welcome,

notwithstanding!”

“You have lost nothing, Phœbe, worth keeping, nor which it was possible

to keep,” said Holgrave after a pause. “Our first youth is of no value;

for we are never conscious of it until after it is gone. But

sometimes—always, I suspect, unless one is exceedingly

unfortunate—there comes a sense of second youth, gushing out of the

heart’s joy at being in love; or, possibly, it may come to crown some

other grand festival in life, if any other such there be. This

bemoaning of one’s self (as you do now) over the first, careless,

shallow gayety of youth departed, and this profound happiness at youth

regained,—so much deeper and richer than that we lost,—are essential to

the soul’s development. In some cases, the two states come almost

simultaneously, and mingle the sadness and the rapture in one

mysterious emotion.”

“I hardly think I understand you,” said Phœbe.

“No wonder,” replied Holgrave, smiling; “for I have told you a secret

which I hardly began to know before I found myself giving it utterance.

Remember it, however; and when the truth becomes clear to you, then

think of this moonlight scene!”

“It is entirely moonlight now, except only a little flush of faint

crimson, upward from the west, between those buildings,” remarked

Phœbe. “I must go in. Cousin Hepzibah is not quick at figures, and will

give herself a headache over the day’s accounts, unless I help her.”

But Holgrave detained her a little longer.

“Miss Hepzibah tells me,” observed he, “that you return to the country

in a few days.”

“Yes, but only for a little while,” answered Phœbe; “for I look upon

this as my present home. I go to make a few arrangements, and to take a

more deliberate leave of my mother and friends. It is pleasant to live

where one is much desired and very useful; and I think I may have the

satisfaction of feeling myself so here.”

“You surely may, and more than you imagine,” said the artist. “Whatever

health, comfort, and natural life exists in the house is embodied in

your person. These blessings came along with you, and will vanish when

you leave the threshold. Miss Hepzibah, by secluding herself from

society, has lost all true relation with it, and is, in fact, dead;

although she galvanizes herself into a semblance of life, and stands

behind her counter, afflicting the world with a

greatly-to-be-deprecated scowl. Your poor cousin Clifford is another

dead and long-buried person, on whom the governor and council have

wrought a necromantic miracle. I should not wonder if he were to

crumble away, some morning, after you are gone, and nothing be seen of

him more, except a heap of dust. Miss Hepzibah, at any rate, will lose

what little flexibility she has. They both exist by you.”

“I should be very sorry to think so,” answered Phœbe gravely. “But it

is true that my small abilities were precisely what they needed; and I

have a real interest in their welfare,—an odd kind of motherly

sentiment,—which I wish you would not laugh at! And let me tell you

frankly, Mr. Holgrave, I am sometimes puzzled to know whether you wish

them well or ill.”

“Undoubtedly,” said the daguerreotypist, “I do feel an interest in this

antiquated, poverty-stricken old maiden lady, and this degraded and

shattered gentleman,—this abortive lover of the beautiful. A kindly

interest, too, helpless old children that they are! But you have no

conception what a different kind of heart mine is from your own. It is

not my impulse, as regards these two individuals, either to help or

hinder; but to look on, to analyze, to explain matters to myself, and

to comprehend the drama which, for almost two hundred years, has been

dragging its slow length over the ground where you and I now tread. If

permitted to witness the close, I doubt not to derive a moral

satisfaction from it, go matters how they may. There is a conviction

within me that the end draws nigh. But, though Providence sent you

hither to help, and sends me only as a privileged and meet spectator, I

pledge myself to lend these unfortunate beings whatever aid I can!”

“I wish you would speak more plainly,” cried Phœbe, perplexed and

displeased; “and, above all, that you would feel more like a Christian

and a human being! How is it possible to see people in distress without

desiring, more than anything else, to help and comfort them? You talk

as if this old house were a theatre; and you seem to look at Hepzibah’s

and Clifford’s misfortunes, and those of generations before them, as a

tragedy, such as I have seen acted in the hall of a country hotel, only

the present one appears to be played exclusively for your amusement. I

do not like this. The play costs the performers too much, and the

audience is too cold-hearted.”

“You are severe,” said Holgrave, compelled to recognize a degree of

truth in the piquant sketch of his own mood.

“And then,” continued Phœbe, “what can you mean by your conviction,

which you tell me of, that the end is drawing near? Do you know of any

new trouble hanging over my poor relatives? If so, tell me at once, and

I will not leave them!”

“Forgive me, Phœbe!” said the daguerreotypist, holding out his hand, to

which the girl was constrained to yield her own. “I am somewhat of a

mystic, it must be confessed. The tendency is in my blood, together

with the faculty of mesmerism, which might have brought me to Gallows

Hill, in the good old times of witchcraft. Believe me, if I were really

aware of any secret, the disclosure of which would benefit your

friends,—who are my own friends, likewise,—you should learn it before

we part. But I have no such knowledge.”

“You hold something back!” said Phœbe.

“Nothing,—no secrets but my own,” answered Holgrave. “I can perceive,

indeed, that Judge Pyncheon still keeps his eye on Clifford, in whose

ruin he had so large a share. His motives and intentions, however are a

mystery to me. He is a determined and relentless man, with the genuine

character of an inquisitor; and had he any object to gain by putting

Clifford to the rack, I verily believe that he would wrench his joints

from their sockets, in order to accomplish it. But, so wealthy and

eminent as he is,—so powerful in his own strength, and in the support

of society on all sides,—what can Judge Pyncheon have to hope or fear

from the imbecile, branded, half-torpid Clifford?”

“Yet,” urged Phœbe, “you did speak as if misfortune were impending!”

“Oh, that was because I am morbid!” replied the artist. “My mind has a

twist aside, like almost everybody’s mind, except your own. Moreover,

it is so strange to find myself an inmate of this old Pyncheon House,

and sitting in this old garden—(hark, how Maule’s well is

murmuring!)—that, were it only for this one circumstance, I cannot help

fancying that Destiny is arranging its fifth act for a catastrophe.”

“There!” cried Phœbe with renewed vexation; for she was by nature as

hostile to mystery as the sunshine to a dark corner. “You puzzle me

more than ever!”

“Then let us part friends!” said Holgrave, pressing her hand. “Or, if

not friends, let us part before you entirely hate me. You, who love

everybody else in the world!”

“Good-by, then,” said Phœbe frankly. “I do not mean to be angry a great

while, and should be sorry to have you think so. There has Cousin

Hepzibah been standing in the shadow of the doorway, this quarter of an

hour past! She thinks I stay too long in the damp garden. So,

good-night, and good-by.”

On the second morning thereafter, Phœbe might have been seen, in her

straw bonnet, with a shawl on one arm and a little carpet-bag on the

other, bidding adieu to Hepzibah and Cousin Clifford. She was to take a

seat in the next train of cars, which would transport her to within

half a dozen miles of her country village.

The tears were in Phœbe’s eyes; a smile, dewy with affectionate regret,

was glimmering around her pleasant mouth. She wondered how it came to

pass, that her life of a few weeks, here in this heavy-hearted old

mansion, had taken such hold of her, and so melted into her

associations, as now to seem a more important centre-point of

remembrance than all which had gone before. How had Hepzibah—grim,

silent, and irresponsive to her overflow of cordial sentiment—contrived

to win so much love? And Clifford,—in his abortive decay, with the

mystery of fearful crime upon him, and the close prison-atmosphere yet

lurking in his breath,—how had he transformed himself into the simplest

child, whom Phœbe felt bound to watch over, and be, as it were, the

providence of his unconsidered hours! Everything, at that instant of

farewell, stood out prominently to her view. Look where she would, lay

her hand on what she might, the object responded to her consciousness,

as if a moist human heart were in it.

She peeped from the window into the garden, and felt herself more

regretful at leaving this spot of black earth, vitiated with such an

age-long growth of weeds, than joyful at the idea of again scenting her

pine forests and fresh clover-fields. She called Chanticleer, his two

wives, and the venerable chicken, and threw them some crumbs of bread

from the breakfast-table. These being hastily gobbled up, the chicken

spread its wings, and alighted close by Phœbe on the window-sill, where

it looked gravely into her face and vented its emotions in a croak.

Phœbe bade it be a good old chicken during her absence, and promised to

bring it a little bag of buckwheat.

“Ah, Phœbe!” remarked Hepzibah, “you do not smile so naturally as when

you came to us! Then, the smile chose to shine out; now, you choose it

should. It is well that you are going back, for a little while, into

your native air. There has been too much weight on your spirits. The

house is too gloomy and lonesome; the shop is full of vexations; and as

for me, I have no faculty of making things look brighter than they are.

Dear Clifford has been your only comfort!”

“Come hither, Phœbe,” suddenly cried her cousin Clifford, who had said

very little all the morning. “Close!—closer!—and look me in the face!”

Phœbe put one of her small hands on each elbow of his chair, and leaned

her face towards him, so that he might peruse it as carefully as he

would. It is probable that the latent emotions of this parting hour had

revived, in some degree, his bedimmed and enfeebled faculties. At any

rate, Phœbe soon felt that, if not the profound insight of a seer, yet

a more than feminine delicacy of appreciation, was making her heart the

subject of its regard. A moment before, she had known nothing which she

would have sought to hide. Now, as if some secret were hinted to her

own consciousness through the medium of another’s perception, she was

fain to let her eyelids droop beneath Clifford’s gaze. A blush,

too,—the redder, because she strove hard to keep it down,—ascended

bigger and higher, in a tide of fitful progress, until even her brow

was all suffused with it.

“It is enough, Phœbe,” said Clifford, with a melancholy smile. “When I

first saw you, you were the prettiest little maiden in the world; and

now you have deepened into beauty. Girlhood has passed into womanhood;

the bud is a bloom! Go, now—I feel lonelier than I did.”

Phœbe took leave of the desolate couple, and passed through the shop,

twinkling her eyelids to shake off a dew-drop; for—considering how

brief her absence was to be, and therefore the folly of being cast down

about it—she would not so far acknowledge her tears as to dry them with

her handkerchief. On the doorstep, she met the little urchin whose

marvellous feats of gastronomy have been recorded in the earlier pages

of our narrative. She took from the window some specimen or other of

natural history,—her eyes being too dim with moisture to inform her

accurately whether it was a rabbit or a hippopotamus,—put it into the

child’s hand as a parting gift, and went her way. Old Uncle Venner was

just coming out of his door, with a wood-horse and saw on his shoulder;

and, trudging along the street, he scrupled not to keep company with

Phœbe, so far as their paths lay together; nor, in spite of his patched

coat and rusty beaver, and the curious fashion of his tow-cloth

trousers, could she find it in her heart to outwalk him.

“We shall miss you, next Sabbath afternoon,” observed the street

philosopher. “It is unaccountable how little while it takes some folks

to grow just as natural to a man as his own breath; and, begging your

pardon, Miss Phœbe (though there can be no offence in an old man’s

saying it), that’s just what you’ve grown to me! My years have been a

great many, and your life is but just beginning; and yet, you are

somehow as familiar to me as if I had found you at my mother’s door,

and you had blossomed, like a running vine, all along my pathway since.

Come back soon, or I shall be gone to my farm; for I begin to find

these wood-sawing jobs a little too tough for my back-ache.”

“Very soon, Uncle Venner,” replied Phœbe.

“And let it be all the sooner, Phœbe, for the sake of those poor souls

yonder,” continued her companion. “They can never do without you,

now,—never, Phœbe; never—no more than if one of God’s angels had been

living with them, and making their dismal house pleasant and

comfortable! Don’t it seem to you they’d be in a sad case, if, some

pleasant summer morning like this, the angel should spread his wings,

and fly to the place he came from? Well, just so they feel, now that

you’re going home by the railroad! They can’t bear it, Miss Phœbe; so

be sure to come back!”

“I am no angel, Uncle Venner,” said Phœbe, smiling, as she offered him

her hand at the street-corner. “But, I suppose, people never feel so

much like angels as when they are doing what little good they may. So I

shall certainly come back!”

Thus parted the old man and the rosy girl; and Phœbe took the wings of

the morning, and was soon flitting almost as rapidly away as if endowed

with the aerial locomotion of the angels to whom Uncle Venner had so

graciously compared her.

XV.

The Scowl and Smile

Several days passed over the Seven Gables, heavily and drearily enough.

In fact (not to attribute the whole gloom of sky and earth to the one

inauspicious circumstance of Phœbe’s departure), an easterly storm had

set in, and indefatigably applied itself to the task of making the black

roof and walls of the old house look more cheerless than ever before.

Yet was the outside not half so cheerless as the interior. Poor

Clifford was cut off, at once, from all his scanty resources of

enjoyment. Phœbe was not there; nor did the sunshine fall upon the

floor. The garden, with its muddy walks, and the chill, dripping

foliage of its summer-house, was an image to be shuddered at. Nothing

flourished in the cold, moist, pitiless atmosphere, drifting with the

brackish scud of sea-breezes, except the moss along the joints of the

shingle-roof, and the great bunch of weeds, that had lately been

suffering from drought, in the angle between the two front gables.

As for Hepzibah, she seemed not merely possessed with the east wind,

but to be, in her very person, only another phase of this gray and

sullen spell of weather; the East-Wind itself, grim and disconsolate,

in a rusty black silk gown, and with a turban of cloud-wreaths on its

head. The custom of the shop fell off, because a story got abroad that

she soured her small beer and other damageable commodities, by scowling

on them. It is, perhaps, true that the public had something reasonably

to complain of in her deportment; but towards Clifford she was neither

ill-tempered nor unkind, nor felt less warmth of heart than always, had

it been possible to make it reach him. The inutility of her best

efforts, however, palsied the poor old gentlewoman. She could do little

else than sit silently in a corner of the room, when the wet pear-tree

branches, sweeping across the small windows, created a noonday dusk,

which Hepzibah unconsciously darkened with her woe-begone aspect. It

was no fault of Hepzibah’s. Everything—even the old chairs and tables,

that had known what weather was for three or four such lifetimes as her

own—looked as damp and chill as if the present were their worst

experience. The picture of the Puritan Colonel shivered on the wall.

The house itself shivered, from every attic of its seven gables down to

the great kitchen fireplace, which served all the better as an emblem

of the mansion’s heart, because, though built for warmth, it was now so

comfortless and empty.

Hepzibah attempted to enliven matters by a fire in the parlor. But the

storm demon kept watch above, and, whenever a flame was kindled, drove

the smoke back again, choking the chimney’s sooty throat with its own

breath. Nevertheless, during four days of this miserable storm,

Clifford wrapt himself in an old cloak, and occupied his customary

chair. On the morning of the fifth, when summoned to breakfast, he

responded only by a broken-hearted murmur, expressive of a

determination not to leave his bed. His sister made no attempt to

change his purpose. In fact, entirely as she loved him, Hepzibah could

hardly have borne any longer the wretched duty—so impracticable by her

few and rigid faculties—of seeking pastime for a still sensitive, but

ruined mind, critical and fastidious, without force or volition. It was

at least something short of positive despair, that to-day she might sit

shivering alone, and not suffer continually a new grief, and

unreasonable pang of remorse, at every fitful sigh of her fellow

sufferer.

But Clifford, it seemed, though he did not make his appearance below

stairs, had, after all, bestirred himself in quest of amusement. In the

course of the forenoon, Hepzibah heard a note of music, which (there

being no other tuneful contrivance in the House of the Seven Gables)

she knew must proceed from Alice Pyncheon’s harpsichord. She was aware

that Clifford, in his youth, had possessed a cultivated taste for

music, and a considerable degree of skill in its practice. It was

difficult, however, to conceive of his retaining an accomplishment to

which daily exercise is so essential, in the measure indicated by the

sweet, airy, and delicate, though most melancholy strain, that now

stole upon her ear. Nor was it less marvellous that the long-silent

instrument should be capable of so much melody. Hepzibah involuntarily

thought of the ghostly harmonies, prelusive of death in the family,

which were attributed to the legendary Alice. But it was, perhaps,

proof of the agency of other than spiritual fingers, that, after a few

touches, the chords seemed to snap asunder with their own vibrations,

and the music ceased.

But a harsher sound succeeded to the mysterious notes; nor was the

easterly day fated to pass without an event sufficient in itself to

poison, for Hepzibah and Clifford, the balmiest air that ever brought

the humming-birds along with it. The final echoes of Alice Pyncheon’s

performance (or Clifford’s, if his we must consider it) were driven

away by no less vulgar a dissonance than the ringing of the shop-bell.

A foot was heard scraping itself on the threshold, and thence somewhat

ponderously stepping on the floor. Hepzibah delayed a moment, while

muffling herself in a faded shawl, which had been her defensive armor

in a forty years’ warfare against the east wind. A characteristic

sound, however,—neither a cough nor a hem, but a kind of rumbling and

reverberating spasm in somebody’s capacious depth of chest;—impelled

her to hurry forward, with that aspect of fierce faint-heartedness so

common to women in cases of perilous emergency. Few of her sex, on such

occasions, have ever looked so terrible as our poor scowling Hepzibah.

But the visitor quietly closed the shop-door behind him, stood up his

umbrella against the counter, and turned a visage of composed

benignity, to meet the alarm and anger which his appearance had

excited.

Hepzibah’s presentiment had not deceived her. It was no other than

Judge Pyncheon, who, after in vain trying the front door, had now

effected his entrance into the shop.

“How do you do, Cousin Hepzibah?—and how does this most inclement

weather affect our poor Clifford?” began the Judge; and wonderful it

seemed, indeed, that the easterly storm was not put to shame, or, at

any rate, a little mollified, by the genial benevolence of his smile.

“I could not rest without calling to ask, once more, whether I can in

any manner promote his comfort, or your own.”

“You can do nothing,” said Hepzibah, controlling her agitation as well

as she could. “I devote myself to Clifford. He has every comfort which

his situation admits of.”

“But allow me to suggest, dear cousin,” rejoined the Judge, “you

err,—in all affection and kindness, no doubt, and with the very best

intentions,—but you do err, nevertheless, in keeping your brother so

secluded. Why insulate him thus from all sympathy and kindness?

Clifford, alas! has had too much of solitude. Now let him try

society,—the society, that is to say, of kindred and old friends. Let

me, for instance, but see Clifford, and I will answer for the good

effect of the interview.”

“You cannot see him,” answered Hepzibah. “Clifford has kept his bed

since yesterday.”

“What! How! Is he ill?” exclaimed Judge Pyncheon, starting with what

seemed to be angry alarm; for the very frown of the old Puritan

darkened through the room as he spoke. “Nay, then, I must and will see

him! What if he should die?”

“He is in no danger of death,” said Hepzibah,—and added, with

bitterness that she could repress no longer, “none; unless he shall be

persecuted to death, now, by the same man who long ago attempted it!”

“Cousin Hepzibah,” said the Judge, with an impressive earnestness of

manner, which grew even to tearful pathos as he proceeded, “is it

possible that you do not perceive how unjust, how unkind, how

unchristian, is this constant, this long-continued bitterness against

me, for a part which I was constrained by duty and conscience, by the

force of law, and at my own peril, to act? What did I do, in detriment

to Clifford, which it was possible to leave undone? How could you, his

sister,—if, for your never-ending sorrow, as it has been for mine, you

had known what I did,—have shown greater tenderness? And do you think,

cousin, that it has cost me no pang?—that it has left no anguish in my

bosom, from that day to this, amidst all the prosperity with which

Heaven has blessed me?—or that I do not now rejoice, when it is deemed

consistent with the dues of public justice and the welfare of society

that this dear kinsman, this early friend, this nature so delicately

and beautifully constituted,—so unfortunate, let us pronounce him, and

forbear to say, so guilty,—that our own Clifford, in fine, should be

given back to life, and its possibilities of enjoyment? Ah, you little

know me, Cousin Hepzibah! You little know this heart! It now throbs at

the thought of meeting him! There lives not the human being (except

yourself,—and you not more than I) who has shed so many tears for

Clifford’s calamity. You behold some of them now. There is none who

would so delight to promote his happiness! Try me, Hepzibah!—try me,

Cousin!—try the man whom you have treated as your enemy and

Clifford’s!—try Jaffrey Pyncheon, and you shall find him true, to the

heart’s core!”

“In the name of Heaven,” cried Hepzibah, provoked only to intenser

indignation by this outgush of the inestimable tenderness of a stern

nature,—“in God’s name, whom you insult, and whose power I could almost

question, since he hears you utter so many false words without palsying

your tongue,—give over, I beseech you, this loathsome pretence of

affection for your victim! You hate him! Say so, like a man! You

cherish, at this moment, some black purpose against him in your heart!

Speak it out, at once!—or, if you hope so to promote it better, hide it

till you can triumph in its success! But never speak again of your love

for my poor brother. I cannot bear it! It will drive me beyond a

woman’s decency! It will drive me mad! Forbear! Not another word! It

will make me spurn you!”

For once, Hepzibah’s wrath had given her courage. She had spoken. But,

after all, was this unconquerable distrust of Judge Pyncheon’s

integrity, and this utter denial, apparently, of his claim to stand in

the ring of human sympathies,—were they founded in any just perception

of his character, or merely the offspring of a woman’s unreasonable

prejudice, deduced from nothing?

The Judge, beyond all question, was a man of eminent respectability.

The church acknowledged it; the state acknowledged it. It was denied by

nobody. In all the very extensive sphere of those who knew him, whether

in his public or private capacities, there was not an individual—except

Hepzibah, and some lawless mystic, like the daguerreotypist, and,

possibly, a few political opponents—who would have dreamed of seriously

disputing his claim to a high and honorable place in the world’s

regard. Nor (we must do him the further justice to say) did Judge

Pyncheon himself, probably, entertain many or very frequent doubts,

that his enviable reputation accorded with his deserts. His conscience,

therefore, usually considered the surest witness to a man’s

integrity,—his conscience, unless it might be for the little space of

five minutes in the twenty-four hours, or, now and then, some black day

in the whole year’s circle,—his conscience bore an accordant testimony

with the world’s laudatory voice. And yet, strong as this evidence may

seem to be, we should hesitate to peril our own conscience on the

assertion, that the Judge and the consenting world were right, and that

poor Hepzibah with her solitary prejudice was wrong. Hidden from

mankind,—forgotten by himself, or buried so deeply under a sculptured

and ornamented pile of ostentatious deeds that his daily life could

take no note of it,—there may have lurked some evil and unsightly

thing. Nay, we could almost venture to say, further, that a daily guilt

might have been acted by him, continually renewed, and reddening forth

afresh, like the miraculous blood-stain of a murder, without his

necessarily and at every moment being aware of it.

Men of strong minds, great force of character, and a hard texture of

the sensibilities, are very capable of falling into mistakes of this

kind. They are ordinarily men to whom forms are of paramount

importance. Their field of action lies among the external phenomena of

life. They possess vast ability in grasping, and arranging, and

appropriating to themselves, the big, heavy, solid unrealities, such as

gold, landed estate, offices of trust and emolument, and public honors.

With these materials, and with deeds of goodly aspect, done in the

public eye, an individual of this class builds up, as it were, a tall

and stately edifice, which, in the view of other people, and ultimately

in his own view, is no other than the man’s character, or the man

himself. Behold, therefore, a palace! Its splendid halls and suites of

spacious apartments are floored with a mosaic-work of costly marbles;

its windows, the whole height of each room, admit the sunshine through

the most transparent of plate-glass; its high cornices are gilded, and

its ceilings gorgeously painted; and a lofty dome—through which, from

the central pavement, you may gaze up to the sky, as with no

obstructing medium between—surmounts the whole. With what fairer and

nobler emblem could any man desire to shadow forth his character? Ah!

but in some low and obscure nook,—some narrow closet on the

ground-floor, shut, locked and bolted, and the key flung away,—or

beneath the marble pavement, in a stagnant water-puddle, with the

richest pattern of mosaic-work above,—may lie a corpse, half decayed,

and still decaying, and diffusing its death-scent all through the

palace! The inhabitant will not be conscious of it, for it has long

been his daily breath! Neither will the visitors, for they smell only

the rich odors which the master sedulously scatters through the palace,

and the incense which they bring, and delight to burn before him! Now

and then, perchance, comes in a seer, before whose sadly gifted eye the

whole structure melts into thin air, leaving only the hidden nook, the

bolted closet, with the cobwebs festooned over its forgotten door, or

the deadly hole under the pavement, and the decaying corpse within.

Here, then, we are to seek the true emblem of the man’s character, and

of the deed that gives whatever reality it possesses to his life. And,

beneath the show of a marble palace, that pool of stagnant water, foul

with many impurities, and, perhaps, tinged with blood,—that secret

abomination, above which, possibly, he may say his prayers, without

remembering it,—is this man’s miserable soul!

To apply this train of remark somewhat more closely to Judge Pyncheon.

We might say (without in the least imputing crime to a personage of his

eminent respectability) that there was enough of splendid rubbish in

his life to cover up and paralyze a more active and subtile conscience

than the Judge was ever troubled with. The purity of his judicial

character, while on the bench; the faithfulness of his public service

in subsequent capacities; his devotedness to his party, and the rigid

consistency with which he had adhered to its principles, or, at all

events, kept pace with its organized movements; his remarkable zeal as

president of a Bible society; his unimpeachable integrity as treasurer

of a widow’s and orphan’s fund; his benefits to horticulture, by

producing two much esteemed varieties of the pear and to agriculture,

through the agency of the famous Pyncheon bull; the cleanliness of his

moral deportment, for a great many years past; the severity with which

he had frowned upon, and finally cast off, an expensive and dissipated

son, delaying forgiveness until within the final quarter of an hour of

the young man’s life; his prayers at morning and eventide, and graces

at meal-time; his efforts in furtherance of the temperance cause; his

confining himself, since the last attack of the gout, to five diurnal

glasses of old sherry wine; the snowy whiteness of his linen, the

polish of his boots, the handsomeness of his gold-headed cane, the

square and roomy fashion of his coat, and the fineness of its material,

and, in general, the studied propriety of his dress and equipment; the

scrupulousness with which he paid public notice, in the street, by a

bow, a lifting of the hat, a nod, or a motion of the hand, to all and

sundry of his acquaintances, rich or poor; the smile of broad

benevolence wherewith he made it a point to gladden the whole

world,—what room could possibly be found for darker traits in a

portrait made up of lineaments like these? This proper face was what he

beheld in the looking-glass. This admirably arranged life was what he

was conscious of in the progress of every day. Then might not he claim

to be its result and sum, and say to himself and the community, “Behold

Judge Pyncheon there”?

And allowing that, many, many years ago, in his early and reckless

youth, he had committed some one wrong act,—or that, even now, the

inevitable force of circumstances should occasionally make him do one

questionable deed among a thousand praiseworthy, or, at least,

blameless ones,—would you characterize the Judge by that one necessary

deed, and that half-forgotten act, and let it overshadow the fair

aspect of a lifetime? What is there so ponderous in evil, that a

thumb’s bigness of it should outweigh the mass of things not evil which

were heaped into the other scale! This scale and balance system is a

favorite one with people of Judge Pyncheon’s brotherhood. A hard, cold

man, thus unfortunately situated, seldom or never looking inward, and

resolutely taking his idea of himself from what purports to be his

image as reflected in the mirror of public opinion, can scarcely arrive

at true self-knowledge, except through loss of property and reputation.

Sickness will not always help him do it; not always the death-hour!

But our affair now is with Judge Pyncheon as he stood confronting the

fierce outbreak of Hepzibah’s wrath. Without premeditation, to her own

surprise, and indeed terror, she had given vent, for once, to the

inveteracy of her resentment, cherished against this kinsman for thirty

years.

Thus far the Judge’s countenance had expressed mild forbearance,—grave

and almost gentle deprecation of his cousin’s unbecoming violence,—free

and Christian-like forgiveness of the wrong inflicted by her words. But

when those words were irrevocably spoken, his look assumed sternness,

the sense of power, and immitigable resolve; and this with so natural

and imperceptible a change, that it seemed as if the iron man had stood

there from the first, and the meek man not at all. The effect was as

when the light, vapory clouds, with their soft coloring, suddenly

vanish from the stony brow of a precipitous mountain, and leave there

the frown which you at once feel to be eternal. Hepzibah almost adopted

the insane belief that it was her old Puritan ancestor, and not the

modern Judge, on whom she had just been wreaking the bitterness of her

heart. Never did a man show stronger proof of the lineage attributed to

him than Judge Pyncheon, at this crisis, by his unmistakable

resemblance to the picture in the inner room.

“Cousin Hepzibah,” said he very calmly, “it is time to have done with

this.”

“With all my heart!” answered she. “Then, why do you persecute us any

longer? Leave poor Clifford and me in peace. Neither of us desires

anything better!”

“It is my purpose to see Clifford before I leave this house,” continued

the Judge. “Do not act like a madwoman, Hepzibah! I am his only friend,

and an all-powerful one. Has it never occurred to you,—are you so blind

as not to have seen,—that, without not merely my consent, but my

efforts, my representations, the exertion of my whole influence,

political, official, personal, Clifford would never have been what you

call free? Did you think his release a triumph over me? Not so, my good

cousin; not so, by any means! The furthest possible from that! No; but

it was the accomplishment of a purpose long entertained on my part. I

set him free!”

“You!” answered Hepzibah. “I never will believe it! He owed his dungeon

to you; his freedom to God’s providence!”

“I set him free!” reaffirmed Judge Pyncheon, with the calmest

composure. “And I came hither now to decide whether he shall retain his

freedom. It will depend upon himself. For this purpose, I must see

him.”

“Never!—it would drive him mad!” exclaimed Hepzibah, but with an

irresoluteness sufficiently perceptible to the keen eye of the Judge;

for, without the slightest faith in his good intentions, she knew not

whether there was most to dread in yielding or resistance. “And why

should you wish to see this wretched, broken man, who retains hardly a

fraction of his intellect, and will hide even that from an eye which

has no love in it?”

“He shall see love enough in mine, if that be all!” said the Judge,

with well-grounded confidence in the benignity of his aspect. “But,

Cousin Hepzibah, you confess a great deal, and very much to the

purpose. Now, listen, and I will frankly explain my reasons for

insisting on this interview. At the death, thirty years since, of our

uncle Jaffrey, it was found,—I know not whether the circumstance ever

attracted much of your attention, among the sadder interests that

clustered round that event,—but it was found that his visible estate,

of every kind, fell far short of any estimate ever made of it. He was

supposed to be immensely rich. Nobody doubted that he stood among the

weightiest men of his day. It was one of his eccentricities,

however,—and not altogether a folly, neither,—to conceal the amount of

his property by making distant and foreign investments, perhaps under

other names than his own, and by various means, familiar enough to

capitalists, but unnecessary here to be specified. By Uncle Jaffrey’s

last will and testament, as you are aware, his entire property was

bequeathed to me, with the single exception of a life interest to

yourself in this old family mansion, and the strip of patrimonial

estate remaining attached to it.”

“And do you seek to deprive us of that?” asked Hepzibah, unable to

restrain her bitter contempt. “Is this your price for ceasing to

persecute poor Clifford?”

“Certainly not, my dear cousin!” answered the Judge, smiling

benevolently. “On the contrary, as you must do me the justice to own, I

have constantly expressed my readiness to double or treble your

resources, whenever you should make up your mind to accept any kindness

of that nature at the hands of your kinsman. No, no! But here lies the

gist of the matter. Of my uncle’s unquestionably great estate, as I

have said, not the half—no, not one third, as I am fully convinced—was

apparent after his death. Now, I have the best possible reasons for

believing that your brother Clifford can give me a clew to the recovery

of the remainder.”

“Clifford!—Clifford know of any hidden wealth? Clifford have it in his

power to make you rich?” cried the old gentlewoman, affected with a

sense of something like ridicule at the idea. “Impossible! You deceive

yourself! It is really a thing to laugh at!”

“It is as certain as that I stand here!” said Judge Pyncheon, striking

his gold-headed cane on the floor, and at the same time stamping his

foot, as if to express his conviction the more forcibly by the whole

emphasis of his substantial person. “Clifford told me so himself!”

“No, no!” exclaimed Hepzibah incredulously. “You are dreaming, Cousin

Jaffrey.”

“I do not belong to the dreaming class of men,” said the Judge quietly.

“Some months before my uncle’s death, Clifford boasted to me of the

possession of the secret of incalculable wealth. His purpose was to

taunt me, and excite my curiosity. I know it well. But, from a pretty

distinct recollection of the particulars of our conversation, I am

thoroughly convinced that there was truth in what he said. Clifford, at

this moment, if he chooses,—and choose he must!—can inform me where to

find the schedule, the documents, the evidences, in whatever shape they

exist, of the vast amount of Uncle Jaffrey’s missing property. He has

the secret. His boast was no idle word. It had a directness, an

emphasis, a particularity, that showed a backbone of solid meaning

within the mystery of his expression.”

“But what could have been Clifford’s object,” asked Hepzibah, “in

concealing it so long?”

“It was one of the bad impulses of our fallen nature,” replied the

Judge, turning up his eyes. “He looked upon me as his enemy. He

considered me as the cause of his overwhelming disgrace, his imminent

peril of death, his irretrievable ruin. There was no great probability,

therefore, of his volunteering information, out of his dungeon, that

should elevate me still higher on the ladder of prosperity. But the

moment has now come when he must give up his secret.”

“And what if he should refuse?” inquired Hepzibah. “Or,—as I

steadfastly believe,—what if he has no knowledge of this wealth?”

“My dear cousin,” said Judge Pyncheon, with a quietude which he had the

power of making more formidable than any violence, “since your

brother’s return, I have taken the precaution (a highly proper one in

the near kinsman and natural guardian of an individual so situated) to

have his deportment and habits constantly and carefully overlooked.

Your neighbors have been eye-witnesses to whatever has passed in the

garden. The butcher, the baker, the fish-monger, some of the customers

of your shop, and many a prying old woman, have told me several of the

secrets of your interior. A still larger circle—I myself, among the

rest—can testify to his extravagances at the arched window. Thousands

beheld him, a week or two ago, on the point of flinging himself thence

into the street. From all this testimony, I am led to

apprehend—reluctantly, and with deep grief—that Clifford’s misfortunes

have so affected his intellect, never very strong, that he cannot

safely remain at large. The alternative, you must be aware,—and its

adoption will depend entirely on the decision which I am now about to

make,—the alternative is his confinement, probably for the remainder of

his life, in a public asylum for persons in his unfortunate state of

mind.”

“You cannot mean it!” shrieked Hepzibah.

“Should my cousin Clifford,” continued Judge Pyncheon, wholly

undisturbed, “from mere malice, and hatred of one whose interests ought

naturally to be dear to him,—a mode of passion that, as often as any

other, indicates mental disease,—should he refuse me the information so

important to myself, and which he assuredly possesses, I shall consider

it the one needed jot of evidence to satisfy my mind of his insanity.

And, once sure of the course pointed out by conscience, you know me too

well, Cousin Hepzibah, to entertain a doubt that I shall pursue it.”

“O Jaffrey,—Cousin Jaffrey,” cried Hepzibah mournfully, not

passionately, “it is you that are diseased in mind, not Clifford! You

have forgotten that a woman was your mother!—that you have had sisters,

brothers, children of your own!—or that there ever was affection

between man and man, or pity from one man to another, in this miserable

world! Else, how could you have dreamed of this? You are not young,

Cousin Jaffrey!—no, nor middle-aged,—but already an old man! The hair

is white upon your head! How many years have you to live? Are you not

rich enough for that little time? Shall you be hungry,—shall you lack

clothes, or a roof to shelter you,—between this point and the grave?

No! but, with the half of what you now possess, you could revel in

costly food and wines, and build a house twice as splendid as you now

inhabit, and make a far greater show to the world,—and yet leave riches

to your only son, to make him bless the hour of your death! Then, why

should you do this cruel, cruel thing?—so mad a thing, that I know not

whether to call it wicked! Alas, Cousin Jaffrey, this hard and grasping

spirit has run in our blood these two hundred years. You are but doing

over again, in another shape, what your ancestor before you did, and

sending down to your posterity the curse inherited from him!”

“Talk sense, Hepzibah, for Heaven’s sake!” exclaimed the Judge, with

the impatience natural to a reasonable man, on hearing anything so

utterly absurd as the above, in a discussion about matters of business.

“I have told you my determination. I am not apt to change. Clifford

must give up his secret, or take the consequences. And let him decide

quickly; for I have several affairs to attend to this morning, and an

important dinner engagement with some political friends.”

“Clifford has no secret!” answered Hepzibah. “And God will not let you

do the thing you meditate!”

“We shall see,” said the unmoved Judge. “Meanwhile, choose whether you

will summon Clifford, and allow this business to be amicably settled by

an interview between two kinsmen, or drive me to harsher measures,

which I should be most happy to feel myself justified in avoiding. The

responsibility is altogether on your part.”

“You are stronger than I,” said Hepzibah, after a brief consideration;

“and you have no pity in your strength! Clifford is not now insane; but

the interview which you insist upon may go far to make him so.

Nevertheless, knowing you as I do, I believe it to be my best course to

allow you to judge for yourself as to the improbability of his

possessing any valuable secret. I will call Clifford. Be merciful in

your dealings with him!—be far more merciful than your heart bids you

be!—for God is looking at you, Jaffrey Pyncheon!”

The Judge followed his cousin from the shop, where the foregoing

conversation had passed, into the parlor, and flung himself heavily

into the great ancestral chair. Many a former Pyncheon had found repose

in its capacious arms: rosy children, after their sports; young men,

dreamy with love; grown men, weary with cares; old men, burdened with

winters,—they had mused, and slumbered, and departed to a yet

profounder sleep. It had been a long tradition, though a doubtful one,

that this was the very chair, seated in which the earliest of the

Judge’s New England forefathers—he whose picture still hung upon the

wall—had given a dead man’s silent and stern reception to the throng of

distinguished guests. From that hour of evil omen until the present, it

may be,—though we know not the secret of his heart,—but it may be that

no wearier and sadder man had ever sunk into the chair than this same

Judge Pyncheon, whom we have just beheld so immitigably hard and

resolute. Surely, it must have been at no slight cost that he had thus

fortified his soul with iron. Such calmness is a mightier effort than

the violence of weaker men. And there was yet a heavy task for him to

do. Was it a little matter—a trifle to be prepared for in a single

moment, and to be rested from in another moment,—that he must now,

after thirty years, encounter a kinsman risen from a living tomb, and

wrench a secret from him, or else consign him to a living tomb again?

“Did you speak?” asked Hepzibah, looking in from the threshold of the

parlor; for she imagined that the Judge had uttered some sound which

she was anxious to interpret as a relenting impulse. “I thought you

called me back.”

“No, no” gruffly answered Judge Pyncheon with a harsh frown, while his

brow grew almost a black purple, in the shadow of the room. “Why should

I call you back? Time flies! Bid Clifford come to me!”

The Judge had taken his watch from his vest pocket and now held it in

his hand, measuring the interval which was to ensue before the

appearance of Clifford.

XVI.

Clifford’s Chamber

Never had the old house appeared so dismal to poor Hepzibah as when she

departed on that wretched errand. There was a strange aspect in it. As

she trode along the foot-worn passages, and opened one crazy door after

another, and ascended the creaking staircase, she gazed wistfully and

fearfully around. It would have been no marvel, to her excited mind,

if, behind or beside her, there had been the rustle of dead people’s

garments, or pale visages awaiting her on the landing-place above. Her

nerves were set all ajar by the scene of passion and terror through

which she had just struggled. Her colloquy with Judge Pyncheon, who so

perfectly represented the person and attributes of the founder of the

family, had called back the dreary past. It weighed upon her heart.

Whatever she had heard, from legendary aunts and grandmothers,

concerning the good or evil fortunes of the Pyncheons,—stories which

had heretofore been kept warm in her remembrance by the chimney-corner

glow that was associated with them,—now recurred to her, sombre,

ghastly, cold, like most passages of family history, when brooded over

in melancholy mood. The whole seemed little else but a series of

calamity, reproducing itself in successive generations, with one

general hue, and varying in little, save the outline. But Hepzibah now

felt as if the Judge, and Clifford, and herself,—they three

together,—were on the point of adding another incident to the annals of

the house, with a bolder relief of wrong and sorrow, which would cause

it to stand out from all the rest. Thus it is that the grief of the

passing moment takes upon itself an individuality, and a character of

climax, which it is destined to lose after a while, and to fade into

the dark gray tissue common to the grave or glad events of many years

ago. It is but for a moment, comparatively, that anything looks strange

or startling,—a truth that has the bitter and the sweet in it.

But Hepzibah could not rid herself of the sense of something

unprecedented at that instant passing and soon to be accomplished. Her

nerves were in a shake. Instinctively she paused before the arched

window, and looked out upon the street, in order to seize its permanent

objects with her mental grasp, and thus to steady herself from the reel

and vibration which affected her more immediate sphere. It brought her

up, as we may say, with a kind of shock, when she beheld everything

under the same appearance as the day before, and numberless preceding

days, except for the difference between sunshine and sullen storm. Her

eyes travelled along the street, from doorstep to doorstep, noting the

wet sidewalks, with here and there a puddle in hollows that had been

imperceptible until filled with water. She screwed her dim optics to

their acutest point, in the hope of making out, with greater

distinctness, a certain window, where she half saw, half guessed, that

a tailor’s seamstress was sitting at her work. Hepzibah flung herself

upon that unknown woman’s companionship, even thus far off. Then she

was attracted by a chaise rapidly passing, and watched its moist and

glistening top, and its splashing wheels, until it had turned the

corner, and refused to carry any further her idly trifling, because

appalled and overburdened, mind. When the vehicle had disappeared, she

allowed herself still another loitering moment; for the patched figure

of good Uncle Venner was now visible, coming slowly from the head of

the street downward, with a rheumatic limp, because the east wind had

got into his joints. Hepzibah wished that he would pass yet more

slowly, and befriend her shivering solitude a little longer. Anything

that would take her out of the grievous present, and interpose human

beings betwixt herself and what was nearest to her,—whatever would

defer for an instant the inevitable errand on which she was bound,—all

such impediments were welcome. Next to the lightest heart, the heaviest

is apt to be most playful.

Hepzibah had little hardihood for her own proper pain, and far less for

what she must inflict on Clifford. Of so slight a nature, and so

shattered by his previous calamities, it could not well be short of

utter ruin to bring him face to face with the hard, relentless man who

had been his evil destiny through life. Even had there been no bitter

recollections, nor any hostile interest now at stake between them, the

mere natural repugnance of the more sensitive system to the massive,

weighty, and unimpressible one, must, in itself, have been disastrous

to the former. It would be like flinging a porcelain vase, with already

a crack in it, against a granite column. Never before had Hepzibah so

adequately estimated the powerful character of her cousin

Jaffrey,—powerful by intellect, energy of will, the long habit of

acting among men, and, as she believed, by his unscrupulous pursuit of

selfish ends through evil means. It did but increase the difficulty

that Judge Pyncheon was under a delusion as to the secret which he

supposed Clifford to possess. Men of his strength of purpose and

customary sagacity, if they chance to adopt a mistaken opinion in

practical matters, so wedge it and fasten it among things known to be

true, that to wrench it out of their minds is hardly less difficult

than pulling up an oak. Thus, as the Judge required an impossibility of

Clifford, the latter, as he could not perform it, must needs perish.

For what, in the grasp of a man like this, was to become of Clifford’s

soft poetic nature, that never should have had a task more stubborn

than to set a life of beautiful enjoyment to the flow and rhythm of

musical cadences! Indeed, what had become of it already? Broken!

Blighted! All but annihilated! Soon to be wholly so!

For a moment, the thought crossed Hepzibah’s mind, whether Clifford

might not really have such knowledge of their deceased uncle’s vanished

estate as the Judge imputed to him. She remembered some vague

intimations, on her brother’s part, which—if the supposition were not

essentially preposterous—might have been so interpreted. There had been

schemes of travel and residence abroad, day-dreams of brilliant life at

home, and splendid castles in the air, which it would have required

boundless wealth to build and realize. Had this wealth been in her

power, how gladly would Hepzibah have bestowed it all upon her

iron-hearted kinsman, to buy for Clifford the freedom and seclusion of

the desolate old house! But she believed that her brother’s schemes

were as destitute of actual substance and purpose as a child’s pictures

of its future life, while sitting in a little chair by its mother’s

knee. Clifford had none but shadowy gold at his command; and it was not

the stuff to satisfy Judge Pyncheon!

Was there no help in their extremity? It seemed strange that there

should be none, with a city round about her. It would be so easy to

throw up the window, and send forth a shriek, at the strange agony of

which everybody would come hastening to the rescue, well understanding

it to be the cry of a human soul, at some dreadful crisis! But how

wild, how almost laughable, the fatality,—and yet how continually it

comes to pass, thought Hepzibah, in this dull delirium of a world,—that

whosoever, and with however kindly a purpose, should come to help, they

would be sure to help the strongest side! Might and wrong combined,

like iron magnetized, are endowed with irresistible attraction. There

would be Judge Pyncheon,—a person eminent in the public view, of high

station and great wealth, a philanthropist, a member of Congress and of

the church, and intimately associated with whatever else bestows good

name,—so imposing, in these advantageous lights, that Hepzibah herself

could hardly help shrinking from her own conclusions as to his hollow

integrity. The Judge, on one side! And who, on the other? The guilty

Clifford! Once a byword! Now, an indistinctly remembered ignominy!

Nevertheless, in spite of this perception that the Judge would draw all

human aid to his own behalf, Hepzibah was so unaccustomed to act for

herself, that the least word of counsel would have swayed her to any

mode of action. Little Phœbe Pyncheon would at once have lighted up the

whole scene, if not by any available suggestion, yet simply by the warm

vivacity of her character. The idea of the artist occurred to Hepzibah.

Young and unknown, mere vagrant adventurer as he was, she had been

conscious of a force in Holgrave which might well adapt him to be the

champion of a crisis. With this thought in her mind, she unbolted a

door, cobwebbed and long disused, but which had served as a former

medium of communication between her own part of the house and the gable

where the wandering daguerreotypist had now established his temporary

home. He was not there. A book, face downward, on the table, a roll of

manuscript, a half-written sheet, a newspaper, some tools of his

present occupation, and several rejected daguerreotypes, conveyed an

impression as if he were close at hand. But, at this period of the day,

as Hepzibah might have anticipated, the artist was at his public rooms.

With an impulse of idle curiosity, that flickered among her heavy

thoughts, she looked at one of the daguerreotypes, and beheld Judge

Pyncheon frowning at her. Fate stared her in the face. She turned back

from her fruitless quest, with a heartsinking sense of disappointment.

In all her years of seclusion, she had never felt, as now, what it was

to be alone. It seemed as if the house stood in a desert, or, by some

spell, was made invisible to those who dwelt around, or passed beside

it; so that any mode of misfortune, miserable accident, or crime might

happen in it without the possibility of aid. In her grief and wounded

pride, Hepzibah had spent her life in divesting herself of friends; she

had wilfully cast off the support which God has ordained his creatures

to need from one another; and it was now her punishment, that Clifford

and herself would fall the easier victims to their kindred enemy.

Returning to the arched window, she lifted her eyes,—scowling, poor,

dim-sighted Hepzibah, in the face of Heaven!—and strove hard to send up

a prayer through the dense gray pavement of clouds. Those mists had

gathered, as if to symbolize a great, brooding mass of human trouble,

doubt, confusion, and chill indifference, between earth and the better

regions. Her faith was too weak; the prayer too heavy to be thus

uplifted. It fell back, a lump of lead, upon her heart. It smote her

with the wretched conviction that Providence intermeddled not in these

petty wrongs of one individual to his fellow, nor had any balm for

these little agonies of a solitary soul; but shed its justice, and its

mercy, in a broad, sunlike sweep, over half the universe at once. Its

vastness made it nothing. But Hepzibah did not see that, just as there

comes a warm sunbeam into every cottage window, so comes a lovebeam of

God’s care and pity for every separate need.

At last, finding no other pretext for deferring the torture that she

was to inflict on Clifford,—her reluctance to which was the true cause

of her loitering at the window, her search for the artist, and even her

abortive prayer,—dreading, also, to hear the stern voice of Judge

Pyncheon from below stairs, chiding her delay,—she crept slowly, a

pale, grief-stricken figure, a dismal shape of woman, with almost

torpid limbs, slowly to her brother’s door, and knocked!

There was no reply.

And how should there have been? Her hand, tremulous with the shrinking

purpose which directed it, had smitten so feebly against the door that

the sound could hardly have gone inward. She knocked again. Still no

response! Nor was it to be wondered at. She had struck with the entire

force of her heart’s vibration, communicating, by some subtile

magnetism, her own terror to the summons. Clifford would turn his face

to the pillow, and cover his head beneath the bedclothes, like a

startled child at midnight. She knocked a third time, three regular

strokes, gentle, but perfectly distinct, and with meaning in them; for,

modulate it with what cautious art we will, the hand cannot help

playing some tune of what we feel upon the senseless wood.

Clifford returned no answer.

“Clifford! Dear brother!” said Hepzibah. “Shall I come in?”

A silence.

Two or three times, and more, Hepzibah repeated his name, without

result; till, thinking her brother’s sleep unwontedly profound, she

undid the door, and entering, found the chamber vacant. How could he

have come forth, and when, without her knowledge? Was it possible that,

in spite of the stormy day, and worn out with the irksomeness within

doors he had betaken himself to his customary haunt in the garden, and

was now shivering under the cheerless shelter of the summer-house? She

hastily threw up a window, thrust forth her turbaned head and the half

of her gaunt figure, and searched the whole garden through, as

completely as her dim vision would allow. She could see the interior of

the summer-house, and its circular seat, kept moist by the droppings of

the roof. It had no occupant. Clifford was not thereabouts; unless,

indeed, he had crept for concealment (as, for a moment, Hepzibah

fancied might be the case) into a great, wet mass of tangled and

broad-leaved shadow, where the squash-vines were clambering

tumultuously upon an old wooden framework, set casually aslant against

the fence. This could not be, however; he was not there; for, while

Hepzibah was looking, a strange grimalkin stole forth from the very

spot, and picked his way across the garden. Twice he paused to snuff

the air, and then anew directed his course towards the parlor window.

Whether it was only on account of the stealthy, prying manner common to

the race, or that this cat seemed to have more than ordinary mischief

in his thoughts, the old gentlewoman, in spite of her much perplexity,

felt an impulse to drive the animal away, and accordingly flung down a

window stick. The cat stared up at her, like a detected thief or

murderer, and, the next instant, took to flight. No other living

creature was visible in the garden. Chanticleer and his family had

either not left their roost, disheartened by the interminable rain, or

had done the next wisest thing, by seasonably returning to it. Hepzibah

closed the window.

But where was Clifford? Could it be that, aware of the presence of his

Evil Destiny, he had crept silently down the staircase, while the Judge

and Hepzibah stood talking in the shop, and had softly undone the

fastenings of the outer door, and made his escape into the street? With

that thought, she seemed to behold his gray, wrinkled, yet childlike

aspect, in the old-fashioned garments which he wore about the house; a

figure such as one sometimes imagines himself to be, with the world’s

eye upon him, in a troubled dream. This figure of her wretched brother

would go wandering through the city, attracting all eyes, and

everybody’s wonder and repugnance, like a ghost, the more to be

shuddered at because visible at noontide. To incur the ridicule of the

younger crowd, that knew him not,—the harsher scorn and indignation of

a few old men, who might recall his once familiar features! To be the

sport of boys, who, when old enough to run about the streets, have no

more reverence for what is beautiful and holy, nor pity for what is

sad,—no more sense of sacred misery, sanctifying the human shape in

which it embodies itself,—than if Satan were the father of them all!

Goaded by their taunts, their loud, shrill cries, and cruel

laughter,—insulted by the filth of the public ways, which they would

fling upon him,—or, as it might well be, distracted by the mere

strangeness of his situation, though nobody should afflict him with so

much as a thoughtless word,—what wonder if Clifford were to break into

some wild extravagance which was certain to be interpreted as lunacy?

Thus Judge Pyncheon’s fiendish scheme would be ready accomplished to

his hands!

Then Hepzibah reflected that the town was almost completely

water-girdled. The wharves stretched out towards the centre of the

harbor, and, in this inclement weather, were deserted by the ordinary

throng of merchants, laborers, and sea-faring men; each wharf a

solitude, with the vessels moored stem and stern, along its misty

length. Should her brother’s aimless footsteps stray thitherward, and

he but bend, one moment, over the deep, black tide, would he not

bethink himself that here was the sure refuge within his reach, and

that, with a single step, or the slightest overbalance of his body, he

might be forever beyond his kinsman’s gripe? Oh, the temptation! To

make of his ponderous sorrow a security! To sink, with its leaden

weight upon him, and never rise again!

The horror of this last conception was too much for Hepzibah. Even

Jaffrey Pyncheon must help her now! She hastened down the staircase,

shrieking as she went.

“Clifford is gone!” she cried. “I cannot find my brother. Help, Jaffrey

Pyncheon! Some harm will happen to him!”

She threw open the parlor-door. But, what with the shade of branches

across the windows, and the smoke-blackened ceiling, and the dark

oak-panelling of the walls, there was hardly so much daylight in the

room that Hepzibah’s imperfect sight could accurately distinguish the

Judge’s figure. She was certain, however, that she saw him sitting in

the ancestral arm-chair, near the centre of the floor, with his face

somewhat averted, and looking towards a window. So firm and quiet is

the nervous system of such men as Judge Pyncheon, that he had perhaps

stirred not more than once since her departure, but, in the hard

composure of his temperament, retained the position into which accident

had thrown him.

“I tell you, Jaffrey,” cried Hepzibah impatiently, as she turned from

the parlor-door to search other rooms, “my brother is not in his

chamber! You must help me seek him!”

But Judge Pyncheon was not the man to let himself be startled from an

easy-chair with haste ill-befitting either the dignity of his character

or his broad personal basis, by the alarm of an hysteric woman. Yet,

considering his own interest in the matter, he might have bestirred

himself with a little more alacrity.

“Do you hear me, Jaffrey Pyncheon?” screamed Hepzibah, as she again

approached the parlor-door, after an ineffectual search elsewhere.

“Clifford is gone.”

At this instant, on the threshold of the parlor, emerging from within,

appeared Clifford himself! His face was preternaturally pale; so deadly

white, indeed, that, through all the glimmering indistinctness of the

passageway, Hepzibah could discern his features, as if a light fell on

them alone. Their vivid and wild expression seemed likewise sufficient

to illuminate them; it was an expression of scorn and mockery,

coinciding with the emotions indicated by his gesture. As Clifford

stood on the threshold, partly turning back, he pointed his finger

within the parlor, and shook it slowly as though he would have

summoned, not Hepzibah alone, but the whole world, to gaze at some

object inconceivably ridiculous. This action, so ill-timed and

extravagant,—accompanied, too, with a look that showed more like joy

than any other kind of excitement,—compelled Hepzibah to dread that her

stern kinsman’s ominous visit had driven her poor brother to absolute

insanity. Nor could she otherwise account for the Judge’s quiescent

mood than by supposing him craftily on the watch, while Clifford

developed these symptoms of a distracted mind.

“Be quiet, Clifford!” whispered his sister, raising her hand to impress

caution. “Oh, for Heaven’s sake, be quiet!”

“Let him be quiet! What can he do better?” answered Clifford, with a

still wilder gesture, pointing into the room which he had just quitted.

“As for us, Hepzibah, we can dance now!—we can sing, laugh, play, do

what we will! The weight is gone, Hepzibah! It is gone off this weary

old world, and we may be as light-hearted as little Phœbe herself.”

And, in accordance with his words, he began to laugh, still pointing

his finger at the object, invisible to Hepzibah, within the parlor. She

was seized with a sudden intuition of some horrible thing. She thrust

herself past Clifford, and disappeared into the room; but almost

immediately returned, with a cry choking in her throat. Gazing at her

brother with an affrighted glance of inquiry, she beheld him all in a

tremor and a quake, from head to foot, while, amid these commoted

elements of passion or alarm, still flickered his gusty mirth.

“My God! what is to become of us?” gasped Hepzibah.

“Come!” said Clifford in a tone of brief decision, most unlike what was

usual with him. “We stay here too long! Let us leave the old house to

our cousin Jaffrey! He will take good care of it!”

Hepzibah now noticed that Clifford had on a cloak,—a garment of long

ago,—in which he had constantly muffled himself during these days of

easterly storm. He beckoned with his hand, and intimated, so far as she

could comprehend him, his purpose that they should go together from the

house. There are chaotic, blind, or drunken moments, in the lives of

persons who lack real force of character,—moments of test, in which

courage would most assert itself,—but where these individuals, if left

to themselves, stagger aimlessly along, or follow implicitly whatever

guidance may befall them, even if it be a child’s. No matter how

preposterous or insane, a purpose is a Godsend to them. Hepzibah had

reached this point. Unaccustomed to action or responsibility,—full of

horror at what she had seen, and afraid to inquire, or almost to

imagine, how it had come to pass,—affrighted at the fatality which

seemed to pursue her brother,—stupefied by the dim, thick, stifling

atmosphere of dread which filled the house as with a death-smell, and

obliterated all definiteness of thought,—she yielded without a

question, and on the instant, to the will which Clifford expressed. For

herself, she was like a person in a dream, when the will always sleeps.

Clifford, ordinarily so destitute of this faculty, had found it in the

tension of the crisis.

“Why do you delay so?” cried he sharply. “Put on your cloak and hood,

or whatever it pleases you to wear! No matter what; you cannot look

beautiful nor brilliant, my poor Hepzibah! Take your purse, with money

in it, and come along!”

Hepzibah obeyed these instructions, as if nothing else were to be done

or thought of. She began to wonder, it is true, why she did not wake

up, and at what still more intolerable pitch of dizzy trouble her

spirit would struggle out of the maze, and make her conscious that

nothing of all this had actually happened. Of course it was not real;

no such black, easterly day as this had yet begun to be; Judge Pyncheon

had not talked with, her. Clifford had not laughed, pointed, beckoned

her away with him; but she had merely been afflicted—as lonely sleepers

often are—with a great deal of unreasonable misery, in a morning dream!

“Now—now—I shall certainly awake!” thought Hepzibah, as she went to and

fro, making her little preparations. “I can bear it no longer! I must

wake up now!”

But it came not, that awakening moment! It came not, even when, just

before they left the house, Clifford stole to the parlor-door, and made

a parting obeisance to the sole occupant of the room.

“What an absurd figure the old fellow cuts now!” whispered he to

Hepzibah. “Just when he fancied he had me completely under his thumb!

Come, come; make haste! or he will start up, like Giant Despair in

pursuit of Christian and Hopeful, and catch us yet!”

As they passed into the street, Clifford directed Hepzibah’s attention

to something on one of the posts of the front door. It was merely the

initials of his own name, which, with somewhat of his characteristic

grace about the forms of the letters, he had cut there when a boy. The

brother and sister departed, and left Judge Pyncheon sitting in the old

home of his forefathers, all by himself; so heavy and lumpish that we

can liken him to nothing better than a defunct nightmare, which had

perished in the midst of its wickedness, and left its flabby corpse on

the breast of the tormented one, to be gotten rid of as it might!

XVII.

The Flight of Two Owls

Summer as it was, the east wind set poor Hepzibah’s few remaining teeth

chattering in her head, as she and Clifford faced it, on their way up

Pyncheon Street, and towards the centre of the town. Not merely was it

the shiver which this pitiless blast brought to her frame (although her

feet and hands, especially, had never seemed so death-a-cold as now),

but there was a moral sensation, mingling itself with the physical

chill, and causing her to shake more in spirit than in body. The

world’s broad, bleak atmosphere was all so comfortless! Such, indeed,

is the impression which it makes on every new adventurer, even if he

plunge into it while the warmest tide of life is bubbling through his

veins. What, then, must it have been to Hepzibah and Clifford,—so

time-stricken as they were, yet so like children in their

inexperience,—as they left the doorstep, and passed from beneath the

wide shelter of the Pyncheon Elm! They were wandering all abroad, on

precisely such a pilgrimage as a child often meditates, to the world’s

end, with perhaps a sixpence and a biscuit in his pocket. In Hepzibah’s

mind, there was the wretched consciousness of being adrift. She had

lost the faculty of self-guidance; but, in view of the difficulties

around her, felt it hardly worth an effort to regain it, and was,

moreover, incapable of making one.

As they proceeded on their strange expedition, she now and then cast a

look sidelong at Clifford, and could not but observe that he was

possessed and swayed by a powerful excitement. It was this, indeed,

that gave him the control which he had at once, and so irresistibly,

established over his movements. It not a little resembled the

exhilaration of wine. Or, it might more fancifully be compared to a

joyous piece of music, played with wild vivacity, but upon a disordered

instrument. As the cracked jarring note might always be heard, and as

it jarred loudest amidst the loftiest exultation of the melody, so was

there a continual quake through Clifford, causing him most to quiver

while he wore a triumphant smile, and seemed almost under a necessity

to skip in his gait.

They met few people abroad, even on passing from the retired

neighborhood of the House of the Seven Gables into what was ordinarily

the more thronged and busier portion of the town. Glistening sidewalks,

with little pools of rain, here and there, along their unequal surface;

umbrellas displayed ostentatiously in the shop-windows, as if the life

of trade had concentrated itself in that one article; wet leaves of the

horse-chestnut or elm-trees, torn off untimely by the blast and

scattered along the public way; an unsightly accumulation of mud in the

middle of the street, which perversely grew the more unclean for its

long and laborious washing,—these were the more definable points of a

very sombre picture. In the way of movement and human life, there was

the hasty rattle of a cab or coach, its driver protected by a

waterproof cap over his head and shoulders; the forlorn figure of an

old man, who seemed to have crept out of some subterranean sewer, and

was stooping along the kennel, and poking the wet rubbish with a stick,

in quest of rusty nails; a merchant or two, at the door of the

post-office, together with an editor and a miscellaneous politician,

awaiting a dilatory mail; a few visages of retired sea-captains at the

window of an insurance office, looking out vacantly at the vacant

street, blaspheming at the weather, and fretting at the dearth as well

of public news as local gossip. What a treasure-trove to these

venerable quidnuncs, could they have guessed the secret which Hepzibah

and Clifford were carrying along with them! But their two figures

attracted hardly so much notice as that of a young girl, who passed at

the same instant, and happened to raise her skirt a trifle too high

above her ankles. Had it been a sunny and cheerful day, they could

hardly have gone through the streets without making themselves

obnoxious to remark. Now, probably, they were felt to be in keeping

with the dismal and bitter weather, and therefore did not stand out in

strong relief, as if the sun were shining on them, but melted into the

gray gloom and were forgotten as soon as gone.

Poor Hepzibah! Could she have understood this fact, it would have

brought her some little comfort; for, to all her other

troubles,—strange to say!—there was added the womanish and

old-maiden-like misery arising from a sense of unseemliness in her

attire. Thus, she was fain to shrink deeper into herself, as it were,

as if in the hope of making people suppose that here was only a cloak

and hood, threadbare and woefully faded, taking an airing in the midst

of the storm, without any wearer!

As they went on, the feeling of indistinctness and unreality kept dimly

hovering round about her, and so diffusing itself into her system that

one of her hands was hardly palpable to the touch of the other. Any

certainty would have been preferable to this. She whispered to herself,

again and again, “Am I awake?—Am I awake?” and sometimes exposed her

face to the chill spatter of the wind, for the sake of its rude

assurance that she was. Whether it was Clifford’s purpose, or only

chance, had led them thither, they now found themselves passing beneath

the arched entrance of a large structure of gray stone. Within, there

was a spacious breadth, and an airy height from floor to roof, now

partially filled with smoke and steam, which eddied voluminously upward

and formed a mimic cloud-region over their heads. A train of cars was

just ready for a start; the locomotive was fretting and fuming, like a

steed impatient for a headlong rush; and the bell rang out its hasty

peal, so well expressing the brief summons which life vouchsafes to us

in its hurried career. Without question or delay,—with the irresistible

decision, if not rather to be called recklessness, which had so

strangely taken possession of him, and through him of

Hepzibah,—Clifford impelled her towards the cars, and assisted her to

enter. The signal was given; the engine puffed forth its short, quick

breaths; the train began its movement; and, along with a hundred other

passengers, these two unwonted travellers sped onward like the wind.

At last, therefore, and after so long estrangement from everything that

the world acted or enjoyed, they had been drawn into the great current

of human life, and were swept away with it, as by the suction of fate

itself.

Still haunted with the idea that not one of the past incidents,

inclusive of Judge Pyncheon’s visit, could be real, the recluse of the

Seven Gables murmured in her brother’s ear,—

“Clifford! Clifford! Is not this a dream?”

“A dream, Hepzibah!” repeated he, almost laughing in her face. “On the

contrary, I have never been awake before!”

Meanwhile, looking from the window, they could see the world racing

past them. At one moment, they were rattling through a solitude; the

next, a village had grown up around them; a few breaths more, and it

had vanished, as if swallowed by an earthquake. The spires of

meeting-houses seemed set adrift from their foundations; the

broad-based hills glided away. Everything was unfixed from its age-long

rest, and moving at whirlwind speed in a direction opposite to their

own.

Within the car there was the usual interior life of the railroad,

offering little to the observation of other passengers, but full of

novelty for this pair of strangely enfranchised prisoners. It was

novelty enough, indeed, that there were fifty human beings in close

relation with them, under one long and narrow roof, and drawn onward by

the same mighty influence that had taken their two selves into its

grasp. It seemed marvellous how all these people could remain so

quietly in their seats, while so much noisy strength was at work in

their behalf. Some, with tickets in their hats (long travellers these,

before whom lay a hundred miles of railroad), had plunged into the

English scenery and adventures of pamphlet novels, and were keeping

company with dukes and earls. Others, whose briefer span forbade their

devoting themselves to studies so abstruse, beguiled the little tedium

of the way with penny-papers. A party of girls, and one young man, on

opposite sides of the car, found huge amusement in a game of ball. They

tossed it to and fro, with peals of laughter that might be measured by

mile-lengths; for, faster than the nimble ball could fly, the merry

players fled unconsciously along, leaving the trail of their mirth afar

behind, and ending their game under another sky than had witnessed its

commencement. Boys, with apples, cakes, candy, and rolls of variously

tinctured lozenges,—merchandise that reminded Hepzibah of her deserted

shop,—appeared at each momentary stopping-place, doing up their

business in a hurry, or breaking it short off, lest the market should

ravish them away with it. New people continually entered. Old

acquaintances—for such they soon grew to be, in this rapid current of

affairs—continually departed. Here and there, amid the rumble and the

tumult, sat one asleep. Sleep; sport; business; graver or lighter

study; and the common and inevitable movement onward! It was life

itself!

Clifford’s naturally poignant sympathies were all aroused. He caught

the color of what was passing about him, and threw it back more vividly

than he received it, but mixed, nevertheless, with a lurid and

portentous hue. Hepzibah, on the other hand, felt herself more apart

from human kind than even in the seclusion which she had just quitted.

“You are not happy, Hepzibah!” said Clifford, apart, in a tone of

reproach. “You are thinking of that dismal old house, and of Cousin

Jaffrey”—here came the quake through him,—“and of Cousin Jaffrey

sitting there, all by himself! Take my advice,—follow my example,—and

let such things slip aside. Here we are, in the world, Hepzibah!—in the

midst of life!—in the throng of our fellow beings! Let you and I be

happy! As happy as that youth and those pretty girls, at their game of

ball!”

“Happy—” thought Hepzibah, bitterly conscious, at the word, of her dull

and heavy heart, with the frozen pain in it,—“happy. He is mad already;

and, if I could once feel myself broad awake, I should go mad too!”

If a fixed idea be madness, she was perhaps not remote from it. Fast

and far as they had rattled and clattered along the iron track, they

might just as well, as regarded Hepzibah’s mental images, have been

passing up and down Pyncheon Street. With miles and miles of varied

scenery between, there was no scene for her save the seven old

gable-peaks, with their moss, and the tuft of weeds in one of the

angles, and the shop-window, and a customer shaking the door, and

compelling the little bell to jingle fiercely, but without disturbing

Judge Pyncheon! This one old house was everywhere! It transported its

great, lumbering bulk with more than railroad speed, and set itself

phlegmatically down on whatever spot she glanced at. The quality of

Hepzibah’s mind was too unmalleable to take new impressions so readily

as Clifford’s. He had a winged nature; she was rather of the vegetable

kind, and could hardly be kept long alive, if drawn up by the roots.

Thus it happened that the relation heretofore existing between her

brother and herself was changed. At home, she was his guardian; here,

Clifford had become hers, and seemed to comprehend whatever belonged to

their new position with a singular rapidity of intelligence. He had

been startled into manhood and intellectual vigor; or, at least, into a

condition that resembled them, though it might be both diseased and

transitory.

The conductor now applied for their tickets; and Clifford, who had made

himself the purse-bearer, put a bank-note into his hand, as he had

observed others do.

“For the lady and yourself?” asked the conductor. “And how far?”

“As far as that will carry us,” said Clifford. “It is no great matter.

We are riding for pleasure merely.”

“You choose a strange day for it, sir!” remarked a gimlet-eyed old

gentleman on the other side of the car, looking at Clifford and his

companion, as if curious to make them out. “The best chance of

pleasure, in an easterly rain, I take it, is in a man’s own house, with

a nice little fire in the chimney.”

“I cannot precisely agree with you,” said Clifford, courteously bowing

to the old gentleman, and at once taking up the clew of conversation

which the latter had proffered. “It had just occurred to me, on the

contrary, that this admirable invention of the railroad—with the vast

and inevitable improvements to be looked for, both as to speed and

convenience—is destined to do away with those stale ideas of home and

fireside, and substitute something better.”

“In the name of common-sense,” asked the old gentleman rather testily,

“what can be better for a man than his own parlor and chimney-corner?”

“These things have not the merit which many good people attribute to

them,” replied Clifford. “They may be said, in few and pithy words, to

have ill served a poor purpose. My impression is, that our wonderfully

increased and still increasing facilities of locomotion are destined to

bring us around again to the nomadic state. You are aware, my dear

sir,—you must have observed it in your own experience,—that all human

progress is in a circle; or, to use a more accurate and beautiful

figure, in an ascending spiral curve. While we fancy ourselves going

straight forward, and attaining, at every step, an entirely new

position of affairs, we do actually return to something long ago tried

and abandoned, but which we now find etherealized, refined, and

perfected to its ideal. The past is but a coarse and sensual prophecy

of the present and the future. To apply this truth to the topic now

under discussion. In the early epochs of our race, men dwelt in

temporary huts, of bowers of branches, as easily constructed as a

bird’s-nest, and which they built,—if it should be called building,

when such sweet homes of a summer solstice rather grew than were made

with hands,—which Nature, we will say, assisted them to rear where

fruit abounded, where fish and game were plentiful, or, most

especially, where the sense of beauty was to be gratified by a lovelier

shade than elsewhere, and a more exquisite arrangement of lake, wood,

and hill. This life possessed a charm which, ever since man quitted it,

has vanished from existence. And it typified something better than

itself. It had its drawbacks; such as hunger and thirst, inclement

weather, hot sunshine, and weary and foot-blistering marches over

barren and ugly tracts, that lay between the sites desirable for their

fertility and beauty. But in our ascending spiral, we escape all this.

These railroads—could but the whistle be made musical, and the rumble

and the jar got rid of—are positively the greatest blessing that the

ages have wrought out for us. They give us wings; they annihilate the

toil and dust of pilgrimage; they spiritualize travel! Transition being

so facile, what can be any man’s inducement to tarry in one spot? Why,

therefore, should he build a more cumbrous habitation than can readily

be carried off with him? Why should he make himself a prisoner for life

in brick, and stone, and old worm-eaten timber, when he may just as

easily dwell, in one sense, nowhere,—in a better sense, wherever the

fit and beautiful shall offer him a home?”

Clifford’s countenance glowed, as he divulged this theory; a youthful

character shone out from within, converting the wrinkles and pallid

duskiness of age into an almost transparent mask. The merry girls let

their ball drop upon the floor, and gazed at him. They said to

themselves, perhaps, that, before his hair was gray and the crow’s-feet

tracked his temples, this now decaying man must have stamped the

impress of his features on many a woman’s heart. But, alas! no woman’s

eye had seen his face while it was beautiful.

“I should scarcely call it an improved state of things,” observed

Clifford’s new acquaintance, “to live everywhere and nowhere!”

“Would you not?” exclaimed Clifford, with singular energy. “It is as

clear to me as sunshine,—were there any in the sky,—that the greatest

possible stumbling-blocks in the path of human happiness and

improvement are these heaps of bricks and stones, consolidated with

mortar, or hewn timber, fastened together with spike-nails, which men

painfully contrive for their own torment, and call them house and home!

The soul needs air; a wide sweep and frequent change of it. Morbid

influences, in a thousand-fold variety, gather about hearths, and

pollute the life of households. There is no such unwholesome atmosphere

as that of an old home, rendered poisonous by one’s defunct forefathers

and relatives. I speak of what I know. There is a certain house within

my familiar recollection,—one of those peaked-gable (there are seven of

them), projecting-storied edifices, such as you occasionally see in our

older towns,—a rusty, crazy, creaky, dry-rotted, dingy, dark, and

miserable old dungeon, with an arched window over the porch, and a

little shop-door on one side, and a great, melancholy elm before it!

Now, sir, whenever my thoughts recur to this seven-gabled mansion (the

fact is so very curious that I must needs mention it), immediately I

have a vision or image of an elderly man, of remarkably stern

countenance, sitting in an oaken elbow-chair, dead, stone-dead, with an

ugly flow of blood upon his shirt-bosom! Dead, but with open eyes! He

taints the whole house, as I remember it. I could never flourish there,

nor be happy, nor do nor enjoy what God meant me to do and enjoy.”

His face darkened, and seemed to contract, and shrivel itself up, and

wither into age.

“Never, sir!” he repeated. “I could never draw cheerful breath there!”

“I should think not,” said the old gentleman, eyeing Clifford

earnestly, and rather apprehensively. “I should conceive not, sir, with

that notion in your head!”

“Surely not,” continued Clifford; “and it were a relief to me if that

house could be torn down, or burnt up, and so the earth be rid of it,

and grass be sown abundantly over its foundation. Not that I should

ever visit its site again! for, sir, the farther I get away from it,

the more does the joy, the lightsome freshness, the heart-leap, the

intellectual dance, the youth, in short,—yes, my youth, my youth!—the

more does it come back to me. No longer ago than this morning, I was

old. I remember looking in the glass, and wondering at my own gray

hair, and the wrinkles, many and deep, right across my brow, and the

furrows down my cheeks, and the prodigious trampling of crow’s-feet

about my temples! It was too soon! I could not bear it! Age had no

right to come! I had not lived! But now do I look old? If so, my aspect

belies me strangely; for—a great weight being off my mind—I feel in the

very heyday of my youth, with the world and my best days before me!”

“I trust you may find it so,” said the old gentleman, who seemed rather

embarrassed, and desirous of avoiding the observation which Clifford’s

wild talk drew on them both. “You have my best wishes for it.”

“For Heaven’s sake, dear Clifford, be quiet!” whispered his sister.

“They think you mad.”

“Be quiet yourself, Hepzibah!” returned her brother. “No matter what

they think! I am not mad. For the first time in thirty years my

thoughts gush up and find words ready for them. I must talk, and I

will!”

He turned again towards the old gentleman, and renewed the

conversation.

“Yes, my dear sir,” said he, “it is my firm belief and hope that these

terms of roof and hearth-stone, which have so long been held to embody

something sacred, are soon to pass out of men’s daily use, and be

forgotten. Just imagine, for a moment, how much of human evil will

crumble away, with this one change! What we call real estate—the solid

ground to build a house on—is the broad foundation on which nearly all

the guilt of this world rests. A man will commit almost any wrong,—he

will heap up an immense pile of wickedness, as hard as granite, and

which will weigh as heavily upon his soul, to eternal ages,—only to

build a great, gloomy, dark-chambered mansion, for himself to die in,

and for his posterity to be miserable in. He lays his own dead corpse

beneath the underpinning, as one may say, and hangs his frowning

picture on the wall, and, after thus converting himself into an evil

destiny, expects his remotest great-grandchildren to be happy there. I

do not speak wildly. I have just such a house in my mind’s eye!”

“Then, sir,” said the old gentleman, getting anxious to drop the

subject, “you are not to blame for leaving it.”

“Within the lifetime of the child already born,” Clifford went on, “all

this will be done away. The world is growing too ethereal and spiritual

to bear these enormities a great while longer. To me, though, for a

considerable period of time, I have lived chiefly in retirement, and

know less of such things than most men,—even to me, the harbingers of a

better era are unmistakable. Mesmerism, now! Will that effect nothing,

think you, towards purging away the grossness out of human life?”

“All a humbug!” growled the old gentleman.

“These rapping spirits, that little Phœbe told us of, the other day,”

said Clifford,—“what are these but the messengers of the spiritual

world, knocking at the door of substance? And it shall be flung wide

open!”

“A humbug, again!” cried the old gentleman, growing more and more testy

at these glimpses of Clifford’s metaphysics. “I should like to rap with

a good stick on the empty pates of the dolts who circulate such

nonsense!”

“Then there is electricity,—the demon, the angel, the mighty physical

power, the all-pervading intelligence!” exclaimed Clifford. “Is that a

humbug, too? Is it a fact—or have I dreamt it—that, by means of

electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating

thousands of miles in a breathless point of time? Rather, the round

globe is a vast head, a brain, instinct with intelligence! Or, shall we

say, it is itself a thought, nothing but thought, and no longer the

substance which we deemed it!”

“If you mean the telegraph,” said the old gentleman, glancing his eye

toward its wire, alongside the rail-track, “it is an excellent

thing,—that is, of course, if the speculators in cotton and politics

don’t get possession of it. A great thing, indeed, sir, particularly as

regards the detection of bank-robbers and murderers.”

“I don’t quite like it, in that point of view,” replied Clifford. “A

bank-robber, and what you call a murderer, likewise, has his rights,

which men of enlightened humanity and conscience should regard in so

much the more liberal spirit, because the bulk of society is prone to

controvert their existence. An almost spiritual medium, like the

electric telegraph, should be consecrated to high, deep, joyful, and

holy missions. Lovers, day by day—hour by hour, if so often moved to do

it,—might send their heart-throbs from Maine to Florida, with some such

words as these ‘I love you forever!’—‘My heart runs over with love!’—‘I

love you more than I can!’ and, again, at the next message ‘I have

lived an hour longer, and love you twice as much!’ Or, when a good man

has departed, his distant friend should be conscious of an electric

thrill, as from the world of happy spirits, telling him ‘Your dear

friend is in bliss!’ Or, to an absent husband, should come tidings thus

‘An immortal being, of whom you are the father, has this moment come

from God!’ and immediately its little voice would seem to have reached

so far, and to be echoing in his heart. But for these poor rogues, the

bank-robbers,—who, after all, are about as honest as nine people in

ten, except that they disregard certain formalities, and prefer to

transact business at midnight rather than ’Change-hours,—and for these

murderers, as you phrase it, who are often excusable in the motives of

their deed, and deserve to be ranked among public benefactors, if we

consider only its result,—for unfortunate individuals like these, I

really cannot applaud the enlistment of an immaterial and miraculous

power in the universal world-hunt at their heels!”

“You can’t, hey?” cried the old gentleman, with a hard look.

“Positively, no!” answered Clifford. “It puts them too miserably at

disadvantage. For example, sir, in a dark, low, cross-beamed, panelled

room of an old house, let us suppose a dead man, sitting in an

arm-chair, with a blood-stain on his shirt-bosom,—and let us add to our

hypothesis another man, issuing from the house, which he feels to be

over-filled with the dead man’s presence,—and let us lastly imagine him

fleeing, Heaven knows whither, at the speed of a hurricane, by

railroad! Now, sir, if the fugitive alight in some distant town, and

find all the people babbling about that self-same dead man, whom he has

fled so far to avoid the sight and thought of, will you not allow that

his natural rights have been infringed? He has been deprived of his

city of refuge, and, in my humble opinion, has suffered infinite

wrong!”

“You are a strange man; Sir!” said the old gentleman, bringing his

gimlet-eye to a point on Clifford, as if determined to bore right into

him. “I can’t see through you!”

“No, I’ll be bound you can’t!” cried Clifford, laughing. “And yet, my

dear sir, I am as transparent as the water of Maule’s well! But come,

Hepzibah! We have flown far enough for once. Let us alight, as the

birds do, and perch ourselves on the nearest twig, and consult wither

we shall fly next!”

Just then, as it happened, the train reached a solitary way-station.

Taking advantage of the brief pause, Clifford left the car, and drew

Hepzibah along with him. A moment afterwards, the train—with all the

life of its interior, amid which Clifford had made himself so

conspicuous an object—was gliding away in the distance, and rapidly

lessening to a point which, in another moment, vanished. The world had

fled away from these two wanderers. They gazed drearily about them. At

a little distance stood a wooden church, black with age, and in a

dismal state of ruin and decay, with broken windows, a great rift

through the main body of the edifice, and a rafter dangling from the

top of the square tower. Farther off was a farm-house, in the old

style, as venerably black as the church, with a roof sloping downward

from the three-story peak, to within a man’s height of the ground. It

seemed uninhabited. There were the relics of a wood-pile, indeed, near

the door, but with grass sprouting up among the chips and scattered

logs. The small rain-drops came down aslant; the wind was not

turbulent, but sullen, and full of chilly moisture.

Clifford shivered from head to foot. The wild effervescence of his

mood—which had so readily supplied thoughts, fantasies, and a strange

aptitude of words, and impelled him to talk from the mere necessity of

giving vent to this bubbling-up gush of ideas had entirely subsided. A

powerful excitement had given him energy and vivacity. Its operation

over, he forthwith began to sink.

“You must take the lead now, Hepzibah!” murmured he, with a torpid and

reluctant utterance. “Do with me as you will!” She knelt down upon the

platform where they were standing and lifted her clasped hands to the

sky. The dull, gray weight of clouds made it invisible; but it was no

hour for disbelief,—no juncture this to question that there was a sky

above, and an Almighty Father looking from it!

“O God!”—ejaculated poor, gaunt Hepzibah,—then paused a moment, to

consider what her prayer should be,—“O God,—our Father,—are we not thy

children? Have mercy on us!”

XVIII.

Governor Pyncheon

Judge Pyncheon, while his two relatives have fled away with such

ill-considered haste, still sits in the old parlor, keeping house, as

the familiar phrase is, in the absence of its ordinary occupants. To

him, and to the venerable House of the Seven Gables, does our story now

betake itself, like an owl, bewildered in the daylight, and hastening

back to his hollow tree.

The Judge has not shifted his position for a long while now. He has not

stirred hand or foot, nor withdrawn his eyes so much as a

hair’s-breadth from their fixed gaze towards the corner of the room,

since the footsteps of Hepzibah and Clifford creaked along the passage,

and the outer door was closed cautiously behind their exit. He holds

his watch in his left hand, but clutched in such a manner that you

cannot see the dial-plate. How profound a fit of meditation! Or,

supposing him asleep, how infantile a quietude of conscience, and what

wholesome order in the gastric region, are betokened by slumber so

entirely undisturbed with starts, cramp, twitches, muttered dreamtalk,

trumpet-blasts through the nasal organ, or any slightest irregularity

of breath! You must hold your own breath, to satisfy yourself whether

he breathes at all. It is quite inaudible. You hear the ticking of his

watch; his breath you do not hear. A most refreshing slumber,

doubtless! And yet, the Judge cannot be asleep. His eyes are open! A

veteran politician, such as he, would never fall asleep with wide-open

eyes, lest some enemy or mischief-maker, taking him thus at unawares,

should peep through these windows into his consciousness, and make

strange discoveries among the reminiscences, projects, hopes,

apprehensions, weaknesses, and strong points, which he has heretofore

shared with nobody. A cautious man is proverbially said to sleep with

one eye open. That may be wisdom. But not with both; for this were

heedlessness! No, no! Judge Pyncheon cannot be asleep.

It is odd, however, that a gentleman so burdened with engagements,—and

noted, too, for punctuality,—should linger thus in an old lonely

mansion, which he has never seemed very fond of visiting. The oaken

chair, to be sure, may tempt him with its roominess. It is, indeed, a

spacious, and, allowing for the rude age that fashioned it, a

moderately easy seat, with capacity enough, at all events, and offering

no restraint to the Judge’s breadth of beam. A bigger man might find

ample accommodation in it. His ancestor, now pictured upon the wall,

with all his English beef about him, used hardly to present a front

extending from elbow to elbow of this chair, or a base that would cover

its whole cushion. But there are better chairs than this,—mahogany,

black walnut, rosewood, spring-seated and damask-cushioned, with varied

slopes, and innumerable artifices to make them easy, and obviate the

irksomeness of too tame an ease,—a score of such might be at Judge

Pyncheon’s service. Yes! in a score of drawing-rooms he would be more

than welcome. Mamma would advance to meet him, with outstretched hand;

the virgin daughter, elderly as he has now got to be,—an old widower,

as he smilingly describes himself,—would shake up the cushion for the

Judge, and do her pretty utmost to make him comfortable. For the Judge

is a prosperous man. He cherishes his schemes, moreover, like other

people, and reasonably brighter than most others; or did so, at least,

as he lay abed this morning, in an agreeable half-drowse, planning the

business of the day, and speculating on the probabilities of the next

fifteen years. With his firm health, and the little inroad that age has

made upon him, fifteen years or twenty—yes, or perhaps

five-and-twenty!—are no more than he may fairly call his own.

Five-and-twenty years for the enjoyment of his real estate in town and

country, his railroad, bank, and insurance shares, his United States

stock,—his wealth, in short, however invested, now in possession, or

soon to be acquired; together with the public honors that have fallen

upon him, and the weightier ones that are yet to fall! It is good! It

is excellent! It is enough!

Still lingering in the old chair! If the Judge has a little time to

throw away, why does not he visit the insurance office, as is his

frequent custom, and sit awhile in one of their leathern-cushioned

arm-chairs, listening to the gossip of the day, and dropping some

deeply designed chance-word, which will be certain to become the gossip

of to-morrow. And have not the bank directors a meeting at which it was

the Judge’s purpose to be present, and his office to preside? Indeed

they have; and the hour is noted on a card, which is, or ought to be,

in Judge Pyncheon’s right vest-pocket. Let him go thither, and loll at

ease upon his moneybags! He has lounged long enough in the old chair!

This was to have been such a busy day. In the first place, the

interview with Clifford. Half an hour, by the Judge’s reckoning, was to

suffice for that; it would probably be less, but—taking into

consideration that Hepzibah was first to be dealt with, and that these

women are apt to make many words where a few would do much better—it

might be safest to allow half an hour. Half an hour? Why, Judge, it is

already two hours, by your own undeviatingly accurate chronometer.

Glance your eye down at it and see! Ah; he will not give himself the

trouble either to bend his head, or elevate his hand, so as to bring

the faithful time-keeper within his range of vision! Time, all at once,

appears to have become a matter of no moment with the Judge!

And has he forgotten all the other items of his memoranda? Clifford’s

affair arranged, he was to meet a State Street broker, who has

undertaken to procure a heavy percentage, and the best of paper, for a

few loose thousands which the Judge happens to have by him, uninvested.

The wrinkled note-shaver will have taken his railroad trip in vain.

Half an hour later, in the street next to this, there was to be an

auction of real estate, including a portion of the old Pyncheon

property, originally belonging to Maule’s garden ground. It has been

alienated from the Pyncheons these four-score years; but the Judge had

kept it in his eye, and had set his heart on reannexing it to the small

demesne still left around the Seven Gables; and now, during this odd

fit of oblivion, the fatal hammer must have fallen, and transferred our

ancient patrimony to some alien possessor. Possibly, indeed, the sale

may have been postponed till fairer weather. If so, will the Judge make

it convenient to be present, and favor the auctioneer with his bid, on

the proximate occasion?

The next affair was to buy a horse for his own driving. The one

heretofore his favorite stumbled, this very morning, on the road to

town, and must be at once discarded. Judge Pyncheon’s neck is too

precious to be risked on such a contingency as a stumbling steed.

Should all the above business be seasonably got through with, he might

attend the meeting of a charitable society; the very name of which,

however, in the multiplicity of his benevolence, is quite forgotten; so

that this engagement may pass unfulfilled, and no great harm done. And

if he have time, amid the press of more urgent matters, he must take

measures for the renewal of Mrs. Pyncheon’s tombstone, which, the

sexton tells him, has fallen on its marble face, and is cracked quite

in twain. She was a praiseworthy woman enough, thinks the Judge, in

spite of her nervousness, and the tears that she was so oozy with, and

her foolish behavior about the coffee; and as she took her departure so

seasonably, he will not grudge the second tombstone. It is better, at

least, than if she had never needed any! The next item on his list was

to give orders for some fruit-trees, of a rare variety, to be

deliverable at his country-seat in the ensuing autumn. Yes, buy them,

by all means; and may the peaches be luscious in your mouth, Judge

Pyncheon! After this comes something more important. A committee of his

political party has besought him for a hundred or two of dollars, in

addition to his previous disbursements, towards carrying on the fall

campaign. The Judge is a patriot; the fate of the country is staked on

the November election; and besides, as will be shadowed forth in

another paragraph, he has no trifling stake of his own in the same

great game. He will do what the committee asks; nay, he will be liberal

beyond their expectations; they shall have a check for five hundred

dollars, and more anon, if it be needed. What next? A decayed widow,

whose husband was Judge Pyncheon’s early friend, has laid her case of

destitution before him, in a very moving letter. She and her fair

daughter have scarcely bread to eat. He partly intends to call on her

to-day,—perhaps so—perhaps not,—accordingly as he may happen to have

leisure, and a small bank-note.

Another business, which, however, he puts no great weight on (it is

well, you know, to be heedful, but not over-anxious, as respects one’s

personal health),—another business, then, was to consult his family

physician. About what, for Heaven’s sake? Why, it is rather difficult

to describe the symptoms. A mere dimness of sight and dizziness of

brain, was it?—or disagreeable choking, or stifling, or gurgling, or

bubbling, in the region of the thorax, as the anatomists say?—or was it

a pretty severe throbbing and kicking of the heart, rather creditable

to him than otherwise, as showing that the organ had not been left out

of the Judge’s physical contrivance? No matter what it was. The doctor

probably would smile at the statement of such trifles to his

professional ear; the Judge would smile in his turn; and meeting one

another’s eyes, they would enjoy a hearty laugh together! But a fig for

medical advice. The Judge will never need it.

Pray, pray, Judge Pyncheon, look at your watch, Now! What—not a glance!

It is within ten minutes of the dinner hour! It surely cannot have

slipped your memory that the dinner of to-day is to be the most

important, in its consequences, of all the dinners you ever ate. Yes,

precisely the most important; although, in the course of your somewhat

eminent career, you have been placed high towards the head of the

table, at splendid banquets, and have poured out your festive eloquence

to ears yet echoing with Webster’s mighty organ-tones. No public dinner

this, however. It is merely a gathering of some dozen or so of friends

from several districts of the State; men of distinguished character and

influence, assembling, almost casually, at the house of a common

friend, likewise distinguished, who will make them welcome to a little

better than his ordinary fare. Nothing in the way of French cookery,

but an excellent dinner, nevertheless. Real turtle, we understand, and

salmon, tautog, canvas-backs, pig, English mutton, good roast beef, or

dainties of that serious kind, fit for substantial country gentlemen,

as these honorable persons mostly are. The delicacies of the season, in

short, and flavored by a brand of old Madeira which has been the pride

of many seasons. It is the Juno brand; a glorious wine, fragrant, and

full of gentle might; a bottled-up happiness, put by for use; a golden

liquid, worth more than liquid gold; so rare and admirable, that

veteran wine-bibbers count it among their epochs to have tasted it! It

drives away the heart-ache, and substitutes no head-ache! Could the

Judge but quaff a glass, it might enable him to shake off the

unaccountable lethargy which (for the ten intervening minutes, and five

to boot, are already past) has made him such a laggard at this

momentous dinner. It would all but revive a dead man! Would you like to

sip it now, Judge Pyncheon?

Alas, this dinner. Have you really forgotten its true object? Then let

us whisper it, that you may start at once out of the oaken chair, which

really seems to be enchanted, like the one in Comus, or that in which

Moll Pitcher imprisoned your own grandfather. But ambition is a

talisman more powerful than witchcraft. Start up, then, and, hurrying

through the streets, burst in upon the company, that they may begin

before the fish is spoiled! They wait for you; and it is little for

your interest that they should wait. These gentlemen—need you be told

it?—have assembled, not without purpose, from every quarter of the

State. They are practised politicians, every man of them, and skilled

to adjust those preliminary measures which steal from the people,

without its knowledge, the power of choosing its own rulers. The

popular voice, at the next gubernatorial election, though loud as

thunder, will be really but an echo of what these gentlemen shall

speak, under their breath, at your friend’s festive board. They meet to

decide upon their candidate. This little knot of subtle schemers will

control the convention, and, through it, dictate to the party. And what

worthier candidate,—more wise and learned, more noted for philanthropic

liberality, truer to safe principles, tried oftener by public trusts,

more spotless in private character, with a larger stake in the common

welfare, and deeper grounded, by hereditary descent, in the faith and

practice of the Puritans,—what man can be presented for the suffrage of

the people, so eminently combining all these claims to the

chief-rulership as Judge Pyncheon here before us?

Make haste, then! Do your part! The meed for which you have toiled, and

fought, and climbed, and crept, is ready for your grasp! Be present at

this dinner!—drink a glass or two of that noble wine!—make your pledges

in as low a whisper as you will!—and you rise up from table virtually

governor of the glorious old State! Governor Pyncheon of Massachusetts!

And is there no potent and exhilarating cordial in a certainty like

this? It has been the grand purpose of half your lifetime to obtain it.

Now, when there needs little more than to signify your acceptance, why

do you sit so lumpishly in your great-great-grandfather’s oaken chair,

as if preferring it to the gubernatorial one? We have all heard of King

Log; but, in these jostling times, one of that royal kindred will

hardly win the race for an elective chief-magistracy.

Well; it is absolutely too late for dinner! Turtle, salmon, tautog,

woodcock, boiled turkey, South-Down mutton, pig, roast-beef, have

vanished, or exist only in fragments, with lukewarm potatoes, and

gravies crusted over with cold fat. The Judge, had he done nothing

else, would have achieved wonders with his knife and fork. It was he,

you know, of whom it used to be said, in reference to his ogre-like

appetite, that his Creator made him a great animal, but that the

dinner-hour made him a great beast. Persons of his large sensual

endowments must claim indulgence, at their feeding-time. But, for once,

the Judge is entirely too late for dinner! Too late, we fear, even to

join the party at their wine! The guests are warm and merry; they have

given up the Judge; and, concluding that the Free-Soilers have him,

they will fix upon another candidate. Were our friend now to stalk in

among them, with that wide-open stare, at once wild and stolid, his

ungenial presence would be apt to change their cheer. Neither would it

be seemly in Judge Pyncheon, generally so scrupulous in his attire, to

show himself at a dinner-table with that crimson stain upon his

shirt-bosom. By the bye, how came it there? It is an ugly sight, at any

rate; and the wisest way for the Judge is to button his coat closely

over his breast, and, taking his horse and chaise from the livery

stable, to make all speed to his own house. There, after a glass of

brandy and water, and a mutton-chop, a beefsteak, a broiled fowl, or

some such hasty little dinner and supper all in one, he had better

spend the evening by the fireside. He must toast his slippers a long

while, in order to get rid of the chilliness which the air of this vile

old house has sent curdling through his veins.

Up, therefore, Judge Pyncheon, up! You have lost a day. But to-morrow

will be here anon. Will you rise, betimes, and make the most of it?

To-morrow. To-morrow! To-morrow. We, that are alive, may rise betimes

to-morrow. As for him that has died to-day, his morrow will be the

resurrection morn.

Meanwhile the twilight is glooming upward out of the corners of the

room. The shadows of the tall furniture grow deeper, and at first

become more definite; then, spreading wider, they lose their

distinctness of outline in the dark gray tide of oblivion, as it were,

that creeps slowly over the various objects, and the one human figure

sitting in the midst of them. The gloom has not entered from without;

it has brooded here all day, and now, taking its own inevitable time,

will possess itself of everything. The Judge’s face, indeed, rigid and

singularly white, refuses to melt into this universal solvent. Fainter

and fainter grows the light. It is as if another double-handful of

darkness had been scattered through the air. Now it is no longer gray,

but sable. There is still a faint appearance at the window; neither a

glow, nor a gleam, nor a glimmer,—any phrase of light would express

something far brighter than this doubtful perception, or sense, rather,

that there is a window there. Has it yet vanished? No!—yes!—not quite!

And there is still the swarthy whiteness,—we shall venture to marry

these ill-agreeing words,—the swarthy whiteness of Judge Pyncheon’s

face. The features are all gone: there is only the paleness of them

left. And how looks it now? There is no window! There is no face! An

infinite, inscrutable blackness has annihilated sight! Where is our

universe? All crumbled away from us; and we, adrift in chaos, may

hearken to the gusts of homeless wind, that go sighing and murmuring

about in quest of what was once a world!

Is there no other sound? One other, and a fearful one. It is the

ticking of the Judge’s watch, which, ever since Hepzibah left the room

in search of Clifford, he has been holding in his hand. Be the cause

what it may, this little, quiet, never-ceasing throb of Time’s pulse,

repeating its small strokes with such busy regularity, in Judge

Pyncheon’s motionless hand, has an effect of terror, which we do not

find in any other accompaniment of the scene.

But, listen! That puff of the breeze was louder. It had a tone unlike

the dreary and sullen one which has bemoaned itself, and afflicted all

mankind with miserable sympathy, for five days past. The wind has

veered about! It now comes boisterously from the northwest, and, taking

hold of the aged framework of the Seven Gables, gives it a shake, like

a wrestler that would try strength with his antagonist. Another and

another sturdy tussle with the blast! The old house creaks again, and

makes a vociferous but somewhat unintelligible bellowing in its sooty

throat (the big flue, we mean, of its wide chimney), partly in

complaint at the rude wind, but rather, as befits their century and a

half of hostile intimacy, in tough defiance. A rumbling kind of a

bluster roars behind the fire-board. A door has slammed above stairs. A

window, perhaps, has been left open, or else is driven in by an unruly

gust. It is not to be conceived, before-hand, what wonderful

wind-instruments are these old timber mansions, and how haunted with

the strangest noises, which immediately begin to sing, and sigh, and

sob, and shriek,—and to smite with sledge-hammers, airy but ponderous,

in some distant chamber,—and to tread along the entries as with stately

footsteps, and rustle up and down the staircase, as with silks

miraculously stiff,—whenever the gale catches the house with a window

open, and gets fairly into it. Would that we were not an attendant

spirit here! It is too awful! This clamor of the wind through the

lonely house; the Judge’s quietude, as he sits invisible; and that

pertinacious ticking of his watch!

As regards Judge Pyncheon’s invisibility, however, that matter will

soon be remedied. The northwest wind has swept the sky clear. The

window is distinctly seen. Through its panes, moreover, we dimly catch

the sweep of the dark, clustering foliage outside, fluttering with a

constant irregularity of movement, and letting in a peep of starlight,

now here, now there. Oftener than any other object, these glimpses

illuminate the Judge’s face. But here comes more effectual light.

Observe that silvery dance upon the upper branches of the pear-tree,

and now a little lower, and now on the whole mass of boughs, while,

through their shifting intricacies, the moonbeams fall aslant into the

room. They play over the Judge’s figure and show that he has not

stirred throughout the hours of darkness. They follow the shadows, in

changeful sport, across his unchanging features. They gleam upon his

watch. His grasp conceals the dial-plate,—but we know that the faithful

hands have met; for one of the city clocks tells midnight.

A man of sturdy understanding, like Judge Pyncheon, cares no more for

twelve o’clock at night than for the corresponding hour of noon.

However just the parallel drawn, in some of the preceding pages,

between his Puritan ancestor and himself, it fails in this point. The

Pyncheon of two centuries ago, in common with most of his

contemporaries, professed his full belief in spiritual ministrations,

although reckoning them chiefly of a malignant character. The Pyncheon

of to-night, who sits in yonder arm-chair, believes in no such

nonsense. Such, at least, was his creed, some few hours since. His hair

will not bristle, therefore, at the stories which—in times when

chimney-corners had benches in them, where old people sat poking into

the ashes of the past, and raking out traditions like live coals—used

to be told about this very room of his ancestral house. In fact, these

tales are too absurd to bristle even childhood’s hair. What sense,

meaning, or moral, for example, such as even ghost-stories should be

susceptible of, can be traced in the ridiculous legend, that, at

midnight, all the dead Pyncheons are bound to assemble in this parlor?

And, pray, for what? Why, to see whether the portrait of their ancestor

still keeps its place upon the wall, in compliance with his

testamentary directions! Is it worth while to come out of their graves

for that?

We are tempted to make a little sport with the idea. Ghost-stories are

hardly to be treated seriously any longer. The family-party of the

defunct Pyncheons, we presume, goes off in this wise.

First comes the ancestor himself, in his black cloak, steeple-hat, and

trunk-breeches, girt about the waist with a leathern belt, in which

hangs his steel-hilted sword; he has a long staff in his hand, such as

gentlemen in advanced life used to carry, as much for the dignity of

the thing as for the support to be derived from it. He looks up at the

portrait; a thing of no substance, gazing at its own painted image! All

is safe. The picture is still there. The purpose of his brain has been

kept sacred thus long after the man himself has sprouted up in

graveyard grass. See! he lifts his ineffectual hand, and tries the

frame. All safe! But is that a smile?—is it not, rather a frown of

deadly import, that darkens over the shadow of his features? The stout

Colonel is dissatisfied! So decided is his look of discontent as to

impart additional distinctness to his features; through which,

nevertheless, the moonlight passes, and flickers on the wall beyond.

Something has strangely vexed the ancestor! With a grim shake of the

head, he turns away. Here come other Pyncheons, the whole tribe, in

their half a dozen generations, jostling and elbowing one another, to

reach the picture. We behold aged men and grandames, a clergyman with

the Puritanic stiffness still in his garb and mien, and a red-coated

officer of the old French war; and there comes the shop-keeping

Pyncheon of a century ago, with the ruffles turned back from his

wrists; and there the periwigged and brocaded gentleman of the artist’s

legend, with the beautiful and pensive Alice, who brings no pride out

of her virgin grave. All try the picture-frame. What do these ghostly

people seek? A mother lifts her child, that his little hands may touch

it! There is evidently a mystery about the picture, that perplexes

these poor Pyncheons when they ought to be at rest. In a corner,

meanwhile, stands the figure of an elderly man, in a leathern jerkin

and breeches, with a carpenter’s rule sticking out of his side pocket;

he points his finger at the bearded Colonel and his descendants,

nodding, jeering, mocking, and finally bursting into obstreperous,

though inaudible laughter.

Indulging our fancy in this freak, we have partly lost the power of

restraint and guidance. We distinguish an unlooked-for figure in our

visionary scene. Among those ancestral people there is a young man,

dressed in the very fashion of to-day: he wears a dark frock-coat,

almost destitute of skirts, gray pantaloons, gaiter boots of patent

leather, and has a finely wrought gold chain across his breast, and a

little silver-headed whalebone stick in his hand. Were we to meet this

figure at noonday, we should greet him as young Jaffrey Pyncheon, the

Judge’s only surviving child, who has been spending the last two years

in foreign travel. If still in life, how comes his shadow hither? If

dead, what a misfortune! The old Pyncheon property, together with the

great estate acquired by the young man’s father, would devolve on whom?

On poor, foolish Clifford, gaunt Hepzibah, and rustic little Phœbe! But

another and a greater marvel greets us! Can we believe our eyes? A

stout, elderly gentleman has made his appearance; he has an aspect of

eminent respectability, wears a black coat and pantaloons, of roomy

width, and might be pronounced scrupulously neat in his attire, but for

a broad crimson stain across his snowy neckcloth and down his

shirt-bosom. Is it the Judge, or no? How can it be Judge Pyncheon? We

discern his figure, as plainly as the flickering moonbeams can show us

anything, still seated in the oaken chair! Be the apparition whose it

may, it advances to the picture, seems to seize the frame, tries to

peep behind it, and turns away, with a frown as black as the ancestral

one.

The fantastic scene just hinted at must by no means be considered as

forming an actual portion of our story. We were betrayed into this

brief extravagance by the quiver of the moonbeams; they dance

hand-in-hand with shadows, and are reflected in the looking-glass,

which, you are aware, is always a kind of window or doorway into the

spiritual world. We needed relief, moreover, from our too long and

exclusive contemplation of that figure in the chair. This wild wind,

too, has tossed our thoughts into strange confusion, but without

tearing them away from their one determined centre. Yonder leaden Judge

sits immovably upon our soul. Will he never stir again? We shall go mad

unless he stirs! You may the better estimate his quietude by the

fearlessness of a little mouse, which sits on its hind legs, in a

streak of moonlight, close by Judge Pyncheon’s foot, and seems to

meditate a journey of exploration over this great black bulk. Ha! what

has startled the nimble little mouse? It is the visage of grimalkin,

outside of the window, where he appears to have posted himself for a

deliberate watch. This grimalkin has a very ugly look. Is it a cat

watching for a mouse, or the devil for a human soul? Would we could

scare him from the window!

Thank Heaven, the night is well-nigh past! The moonbeams have no longer

so silvery a gleam, nor contrast so strongly with the blackness of the

shadows among which they fall. They are paler now; the shadows look

gray, not black. The boisterous wind is hushed. What is the hour? Ah!

the watch has at last ceased to tick; for the Judge’s forgetful fingers

neglected to wind it up, as usual, at ten o’clock, being half an hour

or so before his ordinary bedtime,—and it has run down, for the first

time in five years. But the great world-clock of Time still keeps its

beat. The dreary night—for, oh, how dreary seems its haunted waste,

behind us!—gives place to a fresh, transparent, cloudless morn.

Blessed, blessed radiance! The daybeam—even what little of it finds its

way into this always dusky parlor—seems part of the universal

benediction, annulling evil, and rendering all goodness possible, and

happiness attainable. Will Judge Pyncheon now rise up from his chair?

Will he go forth, and receive the early sunbeams on his brow? Will he

begin this new day,—which God has smiled upon, and blessed, and given

to mankind,—will he begin it with better purposes than the many that

have been spent amiss? Or are all the deep-laid schemes of yesterday as

stubborn in his heart, and as busy in his brain, as ever?

In this latter case, there is much to do. Will the Judge still insist

with Hepzibah on the interview with Clifford? Will he buy a safe,

elderly gentleman’s horse? Will he persuade the purchaser of the old

Pyncheon property to relinquish the bargain in his favor? Will he see

his family physician, and obtain a medicine that shall preserve him, to

be an honor and blessing to his race, until the utmost term of

patriarchal longevity? Will Judge Pyncheon, above all, make due

apologies to that company of honorable friends, and satisfy them that

his absence from the festive board was unavoidable, and so fully

retrieve himself in their good opinion that he shall yet be Governor of

Massachusetts? And all these great purposes accomplished, will he walk

the streets again, with that dog-day smile of elaborate benevolence,

sultry enough to tempt flies to come and buzz in it? Or will he, after

the tomb-like seclusion of the past day and night, go forth a humbled

and repentant man, sorrowful, gentle, seeking no profit, shrinking from

worldly honor, hardly daring to love God, but bold to love his fellow

man, and to do him what good he may? Will he bear about with him,—no

odious grin of feigned benignity, insolent in its pretence, and

loathsome in its falsehood,—but the tender sadness of a contrite heart,

broken, at last, beneath its own weight of sin? For it is our belief,

whatever show of honor he may have piled upon it, that there was heavy

sin at the base of this man’s being.

Rise up, Judge Pyncheon! The morning sunshine glimmers through the

foliage, and, beautiful and holy as it is, shuns not to kindle up your

face. Rise up, thou subtle, worldly, selfish, iron-hearted hypocrite,

and make thy choice whether still to be subtle, worldly, selfish,

iron-hearted, and hypocritical, or to tear these sins out of thy

nature, though they bring the lifeblood with them! The Avenger is upon

thee! Rise up, before it be too late!

What! Thou art not stirred by this last appeal? No, not a jot! And

there we see a fly,—one of your common house-flies, such as are always

buzzing on the window-pane,—which has smelt out Governor Pyncheon, and

alights, now on his forehead, now on his chin, and now, Heaven help us!

is creeping over the bridge of his nose, towards the would-be

chief-magistrate’s wide-open eyes! Canst thou not brush the fly away?

Art thou too sluggish? Thou man, that hadst so many busy projects

yesterday! Art thou too weak, that wast so powerful? Not brush away a

fly? Nay, then, we give thee up!

And hark! the shop-bell rings. After hours like these latter ones,

through which we have borne our heavy tale, it is good to be made

sensible that there is a living world, and that even this old, lonely

mansion retains some manner of connection with it. We breathe more

freely, emerging from Judge Pyncheon’s presence into the street before

the Seven Gables.

XIX.

Alice’s Posies

Uncle Venner, trundling a wheelbarrow, was the earliest person stirring

in the neighborhood the day after the storm.

Pyncheon Street, in front of the House of the Seven Gables, was a far

pleasanter scene than a by-lane, confined by shabby fences, and

bordered with wooden dwellings of the meaner class, could reasonably be

expected to present. Nature made sweet amends, that morning, for the

five unkindly days which had preceded it. It would have been enough to

live for, merely to look up at the wide benediction of the sky, or as

much of it as was visible between the houses, genial once more with

sunshine. Every object was agreeable, whether to be gazed at in the

breadth, or examined more minutely. Such, for example, were the

well-washed pebbles and gravel of the sidewalk; even the sky-reflecting

pools in the centre of the street; and the grass, now freshly verdant,

that crept along the base of the fences, on the other side of which, if

one peeped over, was seen the multifarious growth of gardens. Vegetable

productions, of whatever kind, seemed more than negatively happy, in

the juicy warmth and abundance of their life. The Pyncheon Elm,

throughout its great circumference, was all alive, and full of the

morning sun and a sweet-tempered little breeze, which lingered within

this verdant sphere, and set a thousand leafy tongues a-whispering all

at once. This aged tree appeared to have suffered nothing from the

gale. It had kept its boughs unshattered, and its full complement of

leaves; and the whole in perfect verdure, except a single branch, that,

by the earlier change with which the elm-tree sometimes prophesies the

autumn, had been transmuted to bright gold. It was like the golden

branch that gained Aeneas and the Sibyl admittance into Hades.

This one mystic branch hung down before the main entrance of the Seven

Gables, so nigh the ground that any passer-by might have stood on

tiptoe and plucked it off. Presented at the door, it would have been a

symbol of his right to enter, and be made acquainted with all the

secrets of the house. So little faith is due to external appearance,

that there was really an inviting aspect over the venerable edifice,

conveying an idea that its history must be a decorous and happy one,

and such as would be delightful for a fireside tale. Its windows

gleamed cheerfully in the slanting sunlight. The lines and tufts of

green moss, here and there, seemed pledges of familiarity and

sisterhood with Nature; as if this human dwelling-place, being of such

old date, had established its prescriptive title among primeval oaks

and whatever other objects, by virtue of their long continuance, have

acquired a gracious right to be. A person of imaginative temperament,

while passing by the house, would turn, once and again, and peruse it

well: its many peaks, consenting together in the clustered chimney; the

deep projection over its basement-story; the arched window, imparting a

look, if not of grandeur, yet of antique gentility, to the broken

portal over which it opened; the luxuriance of gigantic burdocks, near

the threshold; he would note all these characteristics, and be

conscious of something deeper than he saw. He would conceive the

mansion to have been the residence of the stubborn old Puritan,

Integrity, who, dying in some forgotten generation, had left a blessing

in all its rooms and chambers, the efficacy of which was to be seen in

the religion, honesty, moderate competence, or upright poverty and

solid happiness, of his descendants, to this day.

One object, above all others, would take root in the imaginative

observer’s memory. It was the great tuft of flowers,—weeds, you would

have called them, only a week ago,—the tuft of crimson-spotted flowers,

in the angle between the two front gables. The old people used to give

them the name of Alice’s Posies, in remembrance of fair Alice Pyncheon,

who was believed to have brought their seeds from Italy. They were

flaunting in rich beauty and full bloom to-day, and seemed, as it were,

a mystic expression that something within the house was consummated.

It was but little after sunrise, when Uncle Venner made his appearance,

as aforesaid, impelling a wheelbarrow along the street. He was going

his matutinal rounds to collect cabbage-leaves, turnip-tops,

potato-skins, and the miscellaneous refuse of the dinner-pot, which the

thrifty housewives of the neighborhood were accustomed to put aside, as

fit only to feed a pig. Uncle Venner’s pig was fed entirely, and kept

in prime order, on these eleemosynary contributions; insomuch that the

patched philosopher used to promise that, before retiring to his farm,

he would make a feast of the portly grunter, and invite all his

neighbors to partake of the joints and spare-ribs which they had helped

to fatten. Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon’s housekeeping had so greatly

improved, since Clifford became a member of the family, that her share

of the banquet would have been no lean one; and Uncle Venner,

accordingly, was a good deal disappointed not to find the large earthen

pan, full of fragmentary eatables, that ordinarily awaited his coming

at the back doorstep of the Seven Gables.

“I never knew Miss Hepzibah so forgetful before,” said the patriarch to

himself. “She must have had a dinner yesterday,—no question of that!

She always has one, nowadays. So where’s the pot-liquor and

potato-skins, I ask? Shall I knock, and see if she’s stirring yet? No,

no,—’twon’t do! If little Phœbe was about the house, I should not mind

knocking; but Miss Hepzibah, likely as not, would scowl down at me out

of the window, and look cross, even if she felt pleasantly. So, I’ll

come back at noon.”

With these reflections, the old man was shutting the gate of the little

back-yard. Creaking on its hinges, however, like every other gate and

door about the premises, the sound reached the ears of the occupant of

the northern gable, one of the windows of which had a side-view towards

the gate.

“Good-morning, Uncle Venner!” said the daguerreotypist, leaning out of

the window. “Do you hear nobody stirring?”

“Not a soul,” said the man of patches. “But that’s no wonder. ’Tis

barely half an hour past sunrise, yet. But I’m really glad to see you,

Mr. Holgrave! There’s a strange, lonesome look about this side of the

house; so that my heart misgave me, somehow or other, and I felt as if

there was nobody alive in it. The front of the house looks a good deal

cheerier; and Alice’s Posies are blooming there beautifully; and if I

were a young man, Mr. Holgrave, my sweetheart should have one of those

flowers in her bosom, though I risked my neck climbing for it! Well,

and did the wind keep you awake last night?”

“It did, indeed!” answered the artist, smiling. “If I were a believer

in ghosts,—and I don’t quite know whether I am or not,—I should have

concluded that all the old Pyncheons were running riot in the lower

rooms, especially in Miss Hepzibah’s part of the house. But it is very

quiet now.”

“Yes, Miss Hepzibah will be apt to over-sleep herself, after being

disturbed, all night, with the racket,” said Uncle Venner. “But it

would be odd, now, wouldn’t it, if the Judge had taken both his cousins

into the country along with him? I saw him go into the shop yesterday.”

“At what hour?” inquired Holgrave.

“Oh, along in the forenoon,” said the old man. “Well, well! I must go

my rounds, and so must my wheelbarrow. But I’ll be back here at

dinner-time; for my pig likes a dinner as well as a breakfast. No

meal-time, and no sort of victuals, ever seems to come amiss to my pig.

Good morning to you! And, Mr. Holgrave, if I were a young man, like

you, I’d get one of Alice’s Posies, and keep it in water till Phœbe

comes back.”

“I have heard,” said the daguerreotypist, as he drew in his head, “that

the water of Maule’s well suits those flowers best.”

Here the conversation ceased, and Uncle Venner went on his way. For

half an hour longer, nothing disturbed the repose of the Seven Gables;

nor was there any visitor, except a carrier-boy, who, as he passed the

front doorstep, threw down one of his newspapers; for Hepzibah, of

late, had regularly taken it in. After a while, there came a fat woman,

making prodigious speed, and stumbling as she ran up the steps of the

shop-door. Her face glowed with fire-heat, and, it being a pretty warm

morning, she bubbled and hissed, as it were, as if all a-fry with

chimney-warmth, and summer-warmth, and the warmth of her own corpulent

velocity. She tried the shop-door; it was fast. She tried it again,

with so angry a jar that the bell tinkled angrily back at her.

“The deuce take Old Maid Pyncheon!” muttered the irascible housewife.

“Think of her pretending to set up a cent-shop, and then lying abed

till noon! These are what she calls gentlefolk’s airs, I suppose! But

I’ll either start her ladyship, or break the door down!”

She shook it accordingly, and the bell, having a spiteful little temper

of its own, rang obstreperously, making its remonstrances heard,—not,

indeed, by the ears for which they were intended,—but by a good lady on

the opposite side of the street. She opened the window, and addressed

the impatient applicant.

“You’ll find nobody there, Mrs. Gubbins.”

“But I must and will find somebody here!” cried Mrs. Gubbins,

inflicting another outrage on the bell. “I want a half-pound of pork,

to fry some first-rate flounders for Mr. Gubbins’s breakfast; and, lady

or not, Old Maid Pyncheon shall get up and serve me with it!”

“But do hear reason, Mrs. Gubbins!” responded the lady opposite. “She,

and her brother too, have both gone to their cousin’s, Judge Pyncheon’s

at his country-seat. There’s not a soul in the house, but that young

daguerreotype-man that sleeps in the north gable. I saw old Hepzibah

and Clifford go away yesterday; and a queer couple of ducks they were,

paddling through the mud-puddles! They’re gone, I’ll assure you.”

“And how do you know they’re gone to the Judge’s?” asked Mrs. Gubbins.

“He’s a rich man; and there’s been a quarrel between him and Hepzibah

this many a day, because he won’t give her a living. That’s the main

reason of her setting up a cent-shop.”

“I know that well enough,” said the neighbor. “But they’re gone,—that’s

one thing certain. And who but a blood relation, that couldn’t help

himself, I ask you, would take in that awful-tempered old maid, and

that dreadful Clifford? That’s it, you may be sure.”

Mrs. Gubbins took her departure, still brimming over with hot wrath

against the absent Hepzibah. For another half-hour, or, perhaps,

considerably more, there was almost as much quiet on the outside of the

house as within. The elm, however, made a pleasant, cheerful, sunny

sigh, responsive to the breeze that was elsewhere imperceptible; a

swarm of insects buzzed merrily under its drooping shadow, and became

specks of light whenever they darted into the sunshine; a locust sang,

once or twice, in some inscrutable seclusion of the tree; and a

solitary little bird, with plumage of pale gold, came and hovered about

Alice’s Posies.

At last our small acquaintance, Ned Higgins, trudged up the street, on

his way to school; and happening, for the first time in a fortnight, to

be the possessor of a cent, he could by no means get past the shop-door

of the Seven Gables. But it would not open. Again and again, however,

and half a dozen other agains, with the inexorable pertinacity of a

child intent upon some object important to itself, did he renew his

efforts for admittance. He had, doubtless, set his heart upon an

elephant; or, possibly, with Hamlet, he meant to eat a crocodile. In

response to his more violent attacks, the bell gave, now and then, a

moderate tinkle, but could not be stirred into clamor by any exertion

of the little fellow’s childish and tiptoe strength. Holding by the

door-handle, he peeped through a crevice of the curtain, and saw that

the inner door, communicating with the passage towards the parlor, was

closed.

“Miss Pyncheon!” screamed the child, rapping on the window-pane, “I

want an elephant!”

There being no answer to several repetitions of the summons, Ned began

to grow impatient; and his little pot of passion quickly boiling over,

he picked up a stone, with a naughty purpose to fling it through the

window; at the same time blubbering and sputtering with wrath. A

man—one of two who happened to be passing by—caught the urchin’s arm.

“What’s the trouble, old gentleman?” he asked.

“I want old Hepzibah, or Phœbe, or any of them!” answered Ned, sobbing.

“They won’t open the door; and I can’t get my elephant!”

“Go to school, you little scamp!” said the man. “There’s another

cent-shop round the corner. ’Tis very strange, Dixey,” added he to his

companion, “what’s become of all these Pyncheon’s! Smith, the

livery-stable keeper, tells me Judge Pyncheon put his horse up

yesterday, to stand till after dinner, and has not taken him away yet.

And one of the Judge’s hired men has been in, this morning, to make

inquiry about him. He’s a kind of person, they say, that seldom breaks

his habits, or stays out o’ nights.”

“Oh, he’ll turn up safe enough!” said Dixey. “And as for Old Maid

Pyncheon, take my word for it, she has run in debt, and gone off from

her creditors. I foretold, you remember, the first morning she set up

shop, that her devilish scowl would frighten away customers. They

couldn’t stand it!”

“I never thought she’d make it go,” remarked his friend. “This business

of cent-shops is overdone among the women-folks. My wife tried it, and

lost five dollars on her outlay!”

“Poor business!” said Dixey, shaking his head. “Poor business!”

In the course of the morning, there were various other attempts to open

a communication with the supposed inhabitants of this silent and

impenetrable mansion. The man of root-beer came, in his neatly painted

wagon, with a couple of dozen full bottles, to be exchanged for empty

ones; the baker, with a lot of crackers which Hepzibah had ordered for

her retail custom; the butcher, with a nice titbit which he fancied she

would be eager to secure for Clifford. Had any observer of these

proceedings been aware of the fearful secret hidden within the house,

it would have affected him with a singular shape and modification of

horror, to see the current of human life making this small eddy

hereabouts,—whirling sticks, straws and all such trifles, round and

round, right over the black depth where a dead corpse lay unseen!

The butcher was so much in earnest with his sweetbread of lamb, or

whatever the dainty might be, that he tried every accessible door of

the Seven Gables, and at length came round again to the shop, where he

ordinarily found admittance.

“It’s a nice article, and I know the old lady would jump at it,” said

he to himself. “She can’t be gone away! In fifteen years that I have

driven my cart through Pyncheon Street, I’ve never known her to be away

from home; though often enough, to be sure, a man might knock all day

without bringing her to the door. But that was when she’d only herself

to provide for.”

Peeping through the same crevice of the curtain where, only a little

while before, the urchin of elephantine appetite had peeped, the

butcher beheld the inner door, not closed, as the child had seen it,

but ajar, and almost wide open. However it might have happened, it was

the fact. Through the passage-way there was a dark vista into the

lighter but still obscure interior of the parlor. It appeared to the

butcher that he could pretty clearly discern what seemed to be the

stalwart legs, clad in black pantaloons, of a man sitting in a large

oaken chair, the back of which concealed all the remainder of his

figure. This contemptuous tranquillity on the part of an occupant of

the house, in response to the butcher’s indefatigable efforts to

attract notice, so piqued the man of flesh that he determined to

withdraw.

“So,” thought he, “there sits Old Maid Pyncheon’s bloody brother, while

I’ve been giving myself all this trouble! Why, if a hog hadn’t more

manners, I’d stick him! I call it demeaning a man’s business to trade

with such people; and from this time forth, if they want a sausage or

an ounce of liver, they shall run after the cart for it!”

He tossed the titbit angrily into his cart, and drove off in a pet.

Not a great while afterwards there was a sound of music turning the

corner and approaching down the street, with several intervals of

silence, and then a renewed and nearer outbreak of brisk melody. A mob

of children was seen moving onward, or stopping, in unison with the

sound, which appeared to proceed from the centre of the throng; so that

they were loosely bound together by slender strains of harmony, and

drawn along captive; with ever and anon an accession of some little

fellow in an apron and straw-hat, capering forth from door or gateway.

Arriving under the shadow of the Pyncheon Elm, it proved to be the

Italian boy, who, with his monkey and show of puppets, had once before

played his hurdy-gurdy beneath the arched window. The pleasant face of

Phœbe—and doubtless, too, the liberal recompense which she had flung

him—still dwelt in his remembrance. His expressive features kindled up,

as he recognized the spot where this trifling incident of his erratic

life had chanced. He entered the neglected yard (now wilder than ever,

with its growth of hog-weed and burdock), stationed himself on the

doorstep of the main entrance, and, opening his show-box, began to

play. Each individual of the automatic community forthwith set to work,

according to his or her proper vocation: the monkey, taking off his

Highland bonnet, bowed and scraped to the by-standers most

obsequiously, with ever an observant eye to pick up a stray cent; and

the young foreigner himself, as he turned the crank of his machine,

glanced upward to the arched window, expectant of a presence that would

make his music the livelier and sweeter. The throng of children stood

near; some on the sidewalk; some within the yard; two or three

establishing themselves on the very door-step; and one squatting on the

threshold. Meanwhile, the locust kept singing in the great old Pyncheon

Elm.

“I don’t hear anybody in the house,” said one of the children to

another. “The monkey won’t pick up anything here.”

“There is somebody at home,” affirmed the urchin on the threshold. “I

heard a step!”

Still the young Italian’s eye turned sidelong upward; and it really

seemed as if the touch of genuine, though slight and almost playful,

emotion communicated a juicier sweetness to the dry, mechanical process

of his minstrelsy. These wanderers are readily responsive to any

natural kindness—be it no more than a smile, or a word itself not

understood, but only a warmth in it—which befalls them on the roadside

of life. They remember these things, because they are the little

enchantments which, for the instant,—for the space that reflects a

landscape in a soap-bubble,—build up a home about them. Therefore, the

Italian boy would not be discouraged by the heavy silence with which

the old house seemed resolute to clog the vivacity of his instrument.

He persisted in his melodious appeals; he still looked upward, trusting

that his dark, alien countenance would soon be brightened by Phœbe’s

sunny aspect. Neither could he be willing to depart without again

beholding Clifford, whose sensibility, like Phœbe’s smile, had talked a

kind of heart’s language to the foreigner. He repeated all his music

over and over again, until his auditors were getting weary. So were the

little wooden people in his show-box, and the monkey most of all. There

was no response, save the singing of the locust.

“No children live in this house,” said a schoolboy, at last. “Nobody

lives here but an old maid and an old man. You’ll get nothing here! Why

don’t you go along?”

“You fool, you, why do you tell him?” whispered a shrewd little Yankee,

caring nothing for the music, but a good deal for the cheap rate at

which it was had. “Let him play as he likes! If there’s nobody to pay

him, that’s his own lookout!”

Once more, however, the Italian ran over his round of melodies. To the

common observer—who could understand nothing of the case, except the

music and the sunshine on the hither side of the door—it might have

been amusing to watch the pertinacity of the street-performer. Will he

succeed at last? Will that stubborn door be suddenly flung open? Will a

group of joyous children, the young ones of the house, come dancing,

shouting, laughing, into the open air, and cluster round the show-box,

looking with eager merriment at the puppets, and tossing each a copper

for long-tailed Mammon, the monkey, to pick up?

But to us, who know the inner heart of the Seven Gables as well as its

exterior face, there is a ghastly effect in this repetition of light

popular tunes at its door-step. It would be an ugly business, indeed,

if Judge Pyncheon (who would not have cared a fig for Paganini’s fiddle

in his most harmonious mood) should make his appearance at the door,

with a bloody shirt-bosom, and a grim frown on his swarthily white

visage, and motion the foreign vagabond away! Was ever before such a

grinding out of jigs and waltzes, where nobody was in the cue to dance?

Yes, very often. This contrast, or intermingling of tragedy with mirth,

happens daily, hourly, momently. The gloomy and desolate old house,

deserted of life, and with awful Death sitting sternly in its solitude,

was the emblem of many a human heart, which, nevertheless, is compelled

to hear the thrill and echo of the world’s gayety around it.

Before the conclusion of the Italian’s performance, a couple of men

happened to be passing, On their way to dinner. “I say, you young

French fellow!” called out one of them,—“come away from that doorstep,

and go somewhere else with your nonsense! The Pyncheon family live

there; and they are in great trouble, just about this time. They don’t

feel musical to-day. It is reported all over town that Judge Pyncheon,

who owns the house, has been murdered; and the city marshal is going to

look into the matter. So be off with you, at once!”

As the Italian shouldered his hurdy-gurdy, he saw on the doorstep a

card, which had been covered, all the morning, by the newspaper that

the carrier had flung upon it, but was now shuffled into sight. He

picked it up, and perceiving something written in pencil, gave it to

the man to read. In fact, it was an engraved card of Judge Pyncheon’s

with certain pencilled memoranda on the back, referring to various

businesses which it had been his purpose to transact during the

preceding day. It formed a prospective epitome of the day’s history;

only that affairs had not turned out altogether in accordance with the

programme. The card must have been lost from the Judge’s vest-pocket in

his preliminary attempt to gain access by the main entrance of the

house. Though well soaked with rain, it was still partially legible.

“Look here; Dixey!” cried the man. “This has something to do with Judge

Pyncheon. See!—here’s his name printed on it; and here, I suppose, is

some of his handwriting.”

“Let’s go to the city marshal with it!” said Dixey. “It may give him

just the clew he wants. After all,” whispered he in his companion’s

ear, “it would be no wonder if the Judge has gone into that door and

never come out again! A certain cousin of his may have been at his old

tricks. And Old Maid Pyncheon having got herself in debt by the

cent-shop,—and the Judge’s pocket-book being well filled,—and bad blood

amongst them already! Put all these things together and see what they

make!”

“Hush, hush!” whispered the other. “It seems like a sin to be the first

to speak of such a thing. But I think, with you, that we had better go

to the city marshal.”

“Yes, yes!” said Dixey. “Well!—I always said there was something

devilish in that woman’s scowl!”

The men wheeled about, accordingly, and retraced their steps up the

street. The Italian, also, made the best of his way off, with a parting

glance up at the arched window. As for the children, they took to their

heels, with one accord, and scampered as if some giant or ogre were in

pursuit, until, at a good distance from the house, they stopped as

suddenly and simultaneously as they had set out. Their susceptible

nerves took an indefinite alarm from what they had overheard. Looking

back at the grotesque peaks and shadowy angles of the old mansion, they

fancied a gloom diffused about it which no brightness of the sunshine

could dispel. An imaginary Hepzibah scowled and shook her finger at

them, from several windows at the same moment. An imaginary

Clifford—for (and it would have deeply wounded him to know it) he had

always been a horror to these small people—stood behind the unreal

Hepzibah, making awful gestures, in a faded dressing-gown. Children are

even more apt, if possible, than grown people, to catch the contagion

of a panic terror. For the rest of the day, the more timid went whole

streets about, for the sake of avoiding the Seven Gables; while the

bolder signalized their hardihood by challenging their comrades to race

past the mansion at full speed.

It could not have been more than half an hour after the disappearance

of the Italian boy, with his unseasonable melodies, when a cab drove

down the street. It stopped beneath the Pyncheon Elm; the cabman took a

trunk, a canvas bag, and a bandbox, from the top of his vehicle, and

deposited them on the doorstep of the old house; a straw bonnet, and

then the pretty figure of a young girl, came into view from the

interior of the cab. It was Phœbe! Though not altogether so blooming as

when she first tripped into our story,—for, in the few intervening

weeks, her experiences had made her graver, more womanly, and

deeper-eyed, in token of a heart that had begun to suspect its

depths,—still there was the quiet glow of natural sunshine over her.

Neither had she forfeited her proper gift of making things look real,

rather than fantastic, within her sphere. Yet we feel it to be a

questionable venture, even for Phœbe, at this juncture, to cross the

threshold of the Seven Gables. Is her healthful presence potent enough

to chase away the crowd of pale, hideous, and sinful phantoms, that

have gained admittance there since her departure? Or will she,

likewise, fade, sicken, sadden, and grow into deformity, and be only

another pallid phantom, to glide noiselessly up and down the stairs,

and affright children as she pauses at the window?

At least, we would gladly forewarn the unsuspecting girl that there is

nothing in human shape or substance to receive her, unless it be the

figure of Judge Pyncheon, who—wretched spectacle that he is, and

frightful in our remembrance, since our night-long vigil with

him!—still keeps his place in the oaken chair.

Phœbe first tried the shop-door. It did not yield to her hand; and the

white curtain, drawn across the window which formed the upper section

of the door, struck her quick perceptive faculty as something unusual.

Without making another effort to enter here, she betook herself to the

great portal, under the arched window. Finding it fastened, she

knocked. A reverberation came from the emptiness within. She knocked

again, and a third time; and, listening intently, fancied that the

floor creaked, as if Hepzibah were coming, with her ordinary tiptoe

movement, to admit her. But so dead a silence ensued upon this

imaginary sound, that she began to question whether she might not have

mistaken the house, familiar as she thought herself with its exterior.

Her notice was now attracted by a child’s voice, at some distance. It

appeared to call her name. Looking in the direction whence it

proceeded, Phœbe saw little Ned Higgins, a good way down the street,

stamping, shaking his head violently, making deprecatory gestures with

both hands, and shouting to her at mouth-wide screech.

“No, no, Phœbe!” he screamed. “Don’t you go in! There’s something

wicked there! Don’t—don’t—don’t go in!”

But, as the little personage could not be induced to approach near

enough to explain himself, Phœbe concluded that he had been frightened,

on some of his visits to the shop, by her cousin Hepzibah; for the good

lady’s manifestations, in truth, ran about an equal chance of scaring

children out of their wits, or compelling them to unseemly laughter.

Still, she felt the more, for this incident, how unaccountably silent

and impenetrable the house had become. As her next resort, Phœbe made

her way into the garden, where on so warm and bright a day as the

present, she had little doubt of finding Clifford, and perhaps Hepzibah

also, idling away the noontide in the shadow of the arbor. Immediately

on her entering the garden gate, the family of hens half ran, half flew

to meet her; while a strange grimalkin, which was prowling under the

parlor window, took to his heels, clambered hastily over the fence, and

vanished. The arbor was vacant, and its floor, table, and circular

bench were still damp, and bestrewn with twigs and the disarray of the

past storm. The growth of the garden seemed to have got quite out of

bounds; the weeds had taken advantage of Phœbe’s absence, and the

long-continued rain, to run rampant over the flowers and

kitchen-vegetables. Maule’s well had overflowed its stone border, and

made a pool of formidable breadth in that corner of the garden.

The impression of the whole scene was that of a spot where no human

foot had left its print for many preceding days,—probably not since

Phœbe’s departure,—for she saw a side-comb of her own under the table

of the arbor, where it must have fallen on the last afternoon when she

and Clifford sat there.

The girl knew that her two relatives were capable of far greater

oddities than that of shutting themselves up in their old house, as

they appeared now to have done. Nevertheless, with indistinct

misgivings of something amiss, and apprehensions to which she could not

give shape, she approached the door that formed the customary

communication between the house and garden. It was secured within, like

the two which she had already tried. She knocked, however; and

immediately, as if the application had been expected, the door was

drawn open, by a considerable exertion of some unseen person’s

strength, not wide, but far enough to afford her a sidelong entrance.

As Hepzibah, in order not to expose herself to inspection from without,

invariably opened a door in this manner, Phœbe necessarily concluded

that it was her cousin who now admitted her.

Without hesitation, therefore, she stepped across the threshold, and

had no sooner entered than the door closed behind her.

XX.

The Flower of Eden

Phœbe, coming so suddenly from the sunny daylight, was altogether

bedimmed in such density of shadow as lurked in most of the passages of

the old house. She was not at first aware by whom she had been

admitted. Before her eyes had adapted themselves to the obscurity, a

hand grasped her own with a firm but gentle and warm pressure, thus

imparting a welcome which caused her heart to leap and thrill with an

indefinable shiver of enjoyment. She felt herself drawn along, not

towards the parlor, but into a large and unoccupied apartment, which

had formerly been the grand reception-room of the Seven Gables. The

sunshine came freely into all the uncurtained windows of this room, and

fell upon the dusty floor; so that Phœbe now clearly saw—what, indeed,

had been no secret, after the encounter of a warm hand with hers—that

it was not Hepzibah nor Clifford, but Holgrave, to whom she owed her

reception. The subtile, intuitive communication, or, rather, the vague

and formless impression of something to be told, had made her yield

unresistingly to his impulse. Without taking away her hand, she looked

eagerly in his face, not quick to forebode evil, but unavoidably

conscious that the state of the family had changed since her departure,

and therefore anxious for an explanation.

The artist looked paler than ordinary; there was a thoughtful and

severe contraction of his forehead, tracing a deep, vertical line

between the eyebrows. His smile, however, was full of genuine warmth,

and had in it a joy, by far the most vivid expression that Phœbe had

ever witnessed, shining out of the New England reserve with which

Holgrave habitually masked whatever lay near his heart. It was the look

wherewith a man, brooding alone over some fearful object, in a dreary

forest or illimitable desert, would recognize the familiar aspect of

his dearest friend, bringing up all the peaceful ideas that belong to

home, and the gentle current of every-day affairs. And yet, as he felt

the necessity of responding to her look of inquiry, the smile

disappeared.

“I ought not to rejoice that you have come, Phœbe,” said he. “We meet

at a strange moment!”

“What has happened!” she exclaimed. “Why is the house so deserted?

Where are Hepzibah and Clifford?”

“Gone! I cannot imagine where they are!” answered Holgrave. “We are

alone in the house!”

“Hepzibah and Clifford gone?” cried Phœbe. “It is not possible! And why

have you brought me into this room, instead of the parlor? Ah,

something terrible has happened! I must run and see!”

“No, no, Phœbe!” said Holgrave holding her back. “It is as I have told

you. They are gone, and I know not whither. A terrible event has,

indeed happened, but not to them, nor, as I undoubtingly believe,

through any agency of theirs. If I read your character rightly, Phœbe,”

he continued, fixing his eyes on hers with stern anxiety, intermixed

with tenderness, “gentle as you are, and seeming to have your sphere

among common things, you yet possess remarkable strength. You have

wonderful poise, and a faculty which, when tested, will prove itself

capable of dealing with matters that fall far out of the ordinary

rule.”

“Oh, no, I am very weak!” replied Phœbe, trembling. “But tell me what

has happened!”

“You are strong!” persisted Holgrave. “You must be both strong and

wise; for I am all astray, and need your counsel. It may be you can

suggest the one right thing to do!”

“Tell me!—tell me!” said Phœbe, all in a tremble. “It oppresses,—it

terrifies me,—this mystery! Anything else I can bear!”

The artist hesitated. Notwithstanding what he had just said, and most

sincerely, in regard to the self-balancing power with which Phœbe

impressed him, it still seemed almost wicked to bring the awful secret

of yesterday to her knowledge. It was like dragging a hideous shape of

death into the cleanly and cheerful space before a household fire,

where it would present all the uglier aspect, amid the decorousness of

everything about it. Yet it could not be concealed from her; she must

needs know it.

“Phœbe,” said he, “do you remember this?” He put into her hand a

daguerreotype; the same that he had shown her at their first interview

in the garden, and which so strikingly brought out the hard and

relentless traits of the original.

“What has this to do with Hepzibah and Clifford?” asked Phœbe, with

impatient surprise that Holgrave should so trifle with her at such a

moment. “It is Judge Pyncheon! You have shown it to me before!”

“But here is the same face, taken within this half-hour” said the

artist, presenting her with another miniature. “I had just finished it

when I heard you at the door.”

“This is death!” shuddered Phœbe, turning very pale. “Judge Pyncheon

dead!”

“Such as there represented,” said Holgrave, “he sits in the next room.

The Judge is dead, and Clifford and Hepzibah have vanished! I know no

more. All beyond is conjecture. On returning to my solitary chamber,

last evening, I noticed no light, either in the parlor, or Hepzibah’s

room, or Clifford’s; no stir nor footstep about the house. This

morning, there was the same death-like quiet. From my window, I

overheard the testimony of a neighbor, that your relatives were seen

leaving the house in the midst of yesterday’s storm. A rumor reached

me, too, of Judge Pyncheon being missed. A feeling which I cannot

describe—an indefinite sense of some catastrophe, or

consummation—impelled me to make my way into this part of the house,

where I discovered what you see. As a point of evidence that may be

useful to Clifford, and also as a memorial valuable to myself,—for,

Phœbe, there are hereditary reasons that connect me strangely with that

man’s fate,—I used the means at my disposal to preserve this pictorial

record of Judge Pyncheon’s death.”

Even in her agitation, Phœbe could not help remarking the calmness of

Holgrave’s demeanor. He appeared, it is true, to feel the whole

awfulness of the Judge’s death, yet had received the fact into his mind

without any mixture of surprise, but as an event preordained, happening

inevitably, and so fitting itself into past occurrences that it could

almost have been prophesied.

“Why have you not thrown open the doors, and called in witnesses?”

inquired she with a painful shudder. “It is terrible to be here alone!”

“But Clifford!” suggested the artist. “Clifford and Hepzibah! We must

consider what is best to be done in their behalf. It is a wretched

fatality that they should have disappeared! Their flight will throw the

worst coloring over this event of which it is susceptible. Yet how easy

is the explanation, to those who know them! Bewildered and

terror-stricken by the similarity of this death to a former one, which

was attended with such disastrous consequences to Clifford, they have

had no idea but of removing themselves from the scene. How miserably

unfortunate! Had Hepzibah but shrieked aloud,—had Clifford flung wide

the door, and proclaimed Judge Pyncheon’s death,—it would have been,

however awful in itself, an event fruitful of good consequences to

them. As I view it, it would have gone far towards obliterating the

black stain on Clifford’s character.”

“And how,” asked Phœbe, “could any good come from what is so very

dreadful?”

“Because,” said the artist, “if the matter can be fairly considered and

candidly interpreted, it must be evident that Judge Pyncheon could not

have come unfairly to his end. This mode of death had been an

idiosyncrasy with his family, for generations past; not often

occurring, indeed, but, when it does occur, usually attacking

individuals about the Judge’s time of life, and generally in the

tension of some mental crisis, or, perhaps, in an access of wrath. Old

Maule’s prophecy was probably founded on a knowledge of this physical

predisposition in the Pyncheon race. Now, there is a minute and almost

exact similarity in the appearances connected with the death that

occurred yesterday and those recorded of the death of Clifford’s uncle

thirty years ago. It is true, there was a certain arrangement of

circumstances, unnecessary to be recounted, which made it possible—nay,

as men look at these things, probable, or even certain—that old Jaffrey

Pyncheon came to a violent death, and by Clifford’s hands.”

“Whence came those circumstances?” exclaimed Phœbe. “He being innocent,

as we know him to be!”

“They were arranged,” said Holgrave,—“at least such has long been my

conviction,—they were arranged after the uncle’s death, and before it

was made public, by the man who sits in yonder parlor. His own death,

so like that former one, yet attended by none of those suspicious

circumstances, seems the stroke of God upon him, at once a punishment

for his wickedness, and making plain the innocence of Clifford. But

this flight,—it distorts everything! He may be in concealment, near at

hand. Could we but bring him back before the discovery of the Judge’s

death, the evil might be rectified.”

“We must not hide this thing a moment longer!” said Phœbe. “It is

dreadful to keep it so closely in our hearts. Clifford is innocent. God

will make it manifest! Let us throw open the doors, and call all the

neighborhood to see the truth!”

“You are right, Phœbe,” rejoined Holgrave. “Doubtless you are right.”

Yet the artist did not feel the horror, which was proper to Phœbe’s

sweet and order-loving character, at thus finding herself at issue with

society, and brought in contact with an event that transcended ordinary

rules. Neither was he in haste, like her, to betake himself within the

precincts of common life. On the contrary, he gathered a wild

enjoyment,—as it were, a flower of strange beauty, growing in a

desolate spot, and blossoming in the wind,—such a flower of momentary

happiness he gathered from his present position. It separated Phœbe and

himself from the world, and bound them to each other, by their

exclusive knowledge of Judge Pyncheon’s mysterious death, and the

counsel which they were forced to hold respecting it. The secret, so

long as it should continue such, kept them within the circle of a

spell, a solitude in the midst of men, a remoteness as entire as that

of an island in mid-ocean; once divulged, the ocean would flow betwixt

them, standing on its widely sundered shores. Meanwhile, all the

circumstances of their situation seemed to draw them together; they

were like two children who go hand in hand, pressing closely to one

another’s side, through a shadow-haunted passage. The image of awful

Death, which filled the house, held them united by his stiffened grasp.

These influences hastened the development of emotions that might not

otherwise have flowered so. Possibly, indeed, it had been Holgrave’s

purpose to let them die in their undeveloped germs. “Why do we delay

so?” asked Phœbe. “This secret takes away my breath! Let us throw open

the doors!”

“In all our lives there can never come another moment like this!” said

Holgrave. “Phœbe, is it all terror?—nothing but terror? Are you

conscious of no joy, as I am, that has made this the only point of life

worth living for?”

“It seems a sin,” replied Phœbe, trembling, “to think of joy at such a

time!”

“Could you but know, Phœbe, how it was with me the hour before you

came!” exclaimed the artist. “A dark, cold, miserable hour! The

presence of yonder dead man threw a great black shadow over everything;

he made the universe, so far as my perception could reach, a scene of

guilt and of retribution more dreadful than the guilt. The sense of it

took away my youth. I never hoped to feel young again! The world looked

strange, wild, evil, hostile; my past life, so lonesome and dreary; my

future, a shapeless gloom, which I must mould into gloomy shapes! But,

Phœbe, you crossed the threshold; and hope, warmth, and joy came in

with you! The black moment became at once a blissful one. It must not

pass without the spoken word. I love you!”

“How can you love a simple girl like me?” asked Phœbe, compelled by his

earnestness to speak. “You have many, many thoughts, with which I

should try in vain to sympathize. And I,—I, too,—I have tendencies with

which you would sympathize as little. That is less matter. But I have

not scope enough to make you happy.”

“You are my only possibility of happiness!” answered Holgrave. “I have

no faith in it, except as you bestow it on me!”

“And then—I am afraid!” continued Phœbe, shrinking towards Holgrave,

even while she told him so frankly the doubts with which he affected

her. “You will lead me out of my own quiet path. You will make me

strive to follow you where it is pathless. I cannot do so. It is not my

nature. I shall sink down and perish!”

“Ah, Phœbe!” exclaimed Holgrave, with almost a sigh, and a smile that

was burdened with thought.

“It will be far otherwise than as you forebode. The world owes all its

onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines

himself within ancient limits. I have a presentiment that, hereafter,

it will be my lot to set out trees, to make fences,—perhaps, even, in

due time, to build a house for another generation,—in a word, to

conform myself to laws and the peaceful practice of society. Your poise

will be more powerful than any oscillating tendency of mine.”

“I would not have it so!” said Phœbe earnestly.

“Do you love me?” asked Holgrave. “If we love one another, the moment

has room for nothing more. Let us pause upon it, and be satisfied. Do

you love me, Phœbe?”

“You look into my heart,” said she, letting her eyes drop. “You know I

love you!”

And it was in this hour, so full of doubt and awe, that the one miracle

was wrought, without which every human existence is a blank. The bliss

which makes all things true, beautiful, and holy shone around this

youth and maiden. They were conscious of nothing sad nor old. They

transfigured the earth, and made it Eden again, and themselves the two

first dwellers in it. The dead man, so close beside them, was

forgotten. At such a crisis, there is no death; for immortality is

revealed anew, and embraces everything in its hallowed atmosphere.

But how soon the heavy earth-dream settled down again!

“Hark!” whispered Phœbe. “Somebody is at the street door!”

“Now let us meet the world!” said Holgrave. “No doubt, the rumor of

Judge Pyncheon’s visit to this house, and the flight of Hepzibah and

Clifford, is about to lead to the investigation of the premises. We

have no way but to meet it. Let us open the door at once.”

But, to their surprise, before they could reach the street door,—even

before they quitted the room in which the foregoing interview had

passed,—they heard footsteps in the farther passage. The door,

therefore, which they supposed to be securely locked,—which Holgrave,

indeed, had seen to be so, and at which Phœbe had vainly tried to

enter,—must have been opened from without. The sound of footsteps was

not harsh, bold, decided, and intrusive, as the gait of strangers would

naturally be, making authoritative entrance into a dwelling where they

knew themselves unwelcome. It was feeble, as of persons either weak or

weary; there was the mingled murmur of two voices, familiar to both the

listeners.

“Can it be?” whispered Holgrave.

“It is they!” answered Phœbe. “Thank God!—thank God!”

And then, as if in sympathy with Phœbe’s whispered ejaculation, they

heard Hepzibah’s voice more distinctly.

“Thank God, my brother, we are at home!”

“Well!—Yes!—thank God!” responded Clifford. “A dreary home, Hepzibah!

But you have done well to bring me hither! Stay! That parlor door is

open. I cannot pass by it! Let me go and rest me in the arbor, where I

used,—oh, very long ago, it seems to me, after what has befallen

us,—where I used to be so happy with little Phœbe!”

But the house was not altogether so dreary as Clifford imagined it.

They had not made many steps,—in truth, they were lingering in the

entry, with the listlessness of an accomplished purpose, uncertain what

to do next,—when Phœbe ran to meet them. On beholding her, Hepzibah

burst into tears. With all her might, she had staggered onward beneath

the burden of grief and responsibility, until now that it was safe to

fling it down. Indeed, she had not energy to fling it down, but had

ceased to uphold it, and suffered it to press her to the earth.

Clifford appeared the stronger of the two.

“It is our own little Phœbe!—Ah! and Holgrave with, her” exclaimed he,

with a glance of keen and delicate insight, and a smile, beautiful,

kind, but melancholy. “I thought of you both, as we came down the

street, and beheld Alice’s Posies in full bloom. And so the flower of

Eden has bloomed, likewise, in this old, darksome house to-day.”

XXI.

The Departure

The sudden death of so prominent a member of the social world as the

Honorable Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon created a sensation (at least, in the

circles more immediately connected with the deceased) which had hardly

quite subsided in a fortnight.

It may be remarked, however, that, of all the events which constitute a

person’s biography, there is scarcely one—none, certainly, of anything

like a similar importance—to which the world so easily reconciles

itself as to his death. In most other cases and contingencies, the

individual is present among us, mixed up with the daily revolution of

affairs, and affording a definite point for observation. At his

decease, there is only a vacancy, and a momentary eddy,—very small, as

compared with the apparent magnitude of the ingurgitated object,—and a

bubble or two, ascending out of the black depth and bursting at the

surface. As regarded Judge Pyncheon, it seemed probable, at first

blush, that the mode of his final departure might give him a larger and

longer posthumous vogue than ordinarily attends the memory of a

distinguished man. But when it came to be understood, on the highest

professional authority, that the event was a natural, and—except for

some unimportant particulars, denoting a slight idiosyncrasy—by no

means an unusual form of death, the public, with its customary

alacrity, proceeded to forget that he had ever lived. In short, the

honorable Judge was beginning to be a stale subject before half the

country newspapers had found time to put their columns in mourning, and

publish his exceedingly eulogistic obituary.

Nevertheless, creeping darkly through the places which this excellent

person had haunted in his lifetime, there was a hidden stream of

private talk, such as it would have shocked all decency to speak loudly

at the street-corners. It is very singular, how the fact of a man’s

death often seems to give people a truer idea of his character, whether

for good or evil, than they have ever possessed while he was living and

acting among them. Death is so genuine a fact that it excludes

falsehood, or betrays its emptiness; it is a touchstone that proves the

gold, and dishonors the baser metal. Could the departed, whoever he may

be, return in a week after his decease, he would almost invariably find

himself at a higher or lower point than he had formerly occupied, on

the scale of public appreciation. But the talk, or scandal, to which we

now allude, had reference to matters of no less old a date than the

supposed murder, thirty or forty years ago, of the late Judge

Pyncheon’s uncle. The medical opinion with regard to his own recent and

regretted decease had almost entirely obviated the idea that a murder

was committed in the former case. Yet, as the record showed, there were

circumstances irrefragably indicating that some person had gained

access to old Jaffrey Pyncheon’s private apartments, at or near the

moment of his death. His desk and private drawers, in a room contiguous

to his bedchamber, had been ransacked; money and valuable articles were

missing; there was a bloody hand-print on the old man’s linen; and, by

a powerfully welded chain of deductive evidence, the guilt of the

robbery and apparent murder had been fixed on Clifford, then residing

with his uncle in the House of the Seven Gables.

Whencesoever originating, there now arose a theory that undertook so to

account for these circumstances as to exclude the idea of Clifford’s

agency. Many persons affirmed that the history and elucidation of the

facts, long so mysterious, had been obtained by the daguerreotypist

from one of those mesmerical seers who, nowadays, so strangely perplex

the aspect of human affairs, and put everybody’s natural vision to the

blush, by the marvels which they see with their eyes shut.

According to this version of the story, Judge Pyncheon, exemplary as we

have portrayed him in our narrative, was, in his youth, an apparently

irreclaimable scapegrace. The brutish, the animal instincts, as is

often the case, had been developed earlier than the intellectual

qualities, and the force of character, for which he was afterwards

remarkable. He had shown himself wild, dissipated, addicted to low

pleasures, little short of ruffianly in his propensities, and

recklessly expensive, with no other resources than the bounty of his

uncle. This course of conduct had alienated the old bachelor’s

affection, once strongly fixed upon him. Now it is averred,—but whether

on authority available in a court of justice, we do not pretend to have

investigated,—that the young man was tempted by the devil, one night,

to search his uncle’s private drawers, to which he had unsuspected

means of access. While thus criminally occupied, he was startled by the

opening of the chamber-door. There stood old Jaffrey Pyncheon, in his

nightclothes! The surprise of such a discovery, his agitation, alarm,

and horror, brought on the crisis of a disorder to which the old

bachelor had an hereditary liability; he seemed to choke with blood,

and fell upon the floor, striking his temple a heavy blow against the

corner of a table. What was to be done? The old man was surely dead!

Assistance would come too late! What a misfortune, indeed, should it

come too soon, since his reviving consciousness would bring the

recollection of the ignominious offence which he had beheld his nephew

in the very act of committing!

But he never did revive. With the cool hardihood that always pertained

to him, the young man continued his search of the drawers, and found a

will, of recent date, in favor of Clifford,—which he destroyed,—and an

older one, in his own favor, which he suffered to remain. But before

retiring, Jaffrey bethought himself of the evidence, in these ransacked

drawers, that some one had visited the chamber with sinister purposes.

Suspicion, unless averted, might fix upon the real offender. In the

very presence of the dead man, therefore, he laid a scheme that should

free himself at the expense of Clifford, his rival, for whose character

he had at once a contempt and a repugnance. It is not probable, be it

said, that he acted with any set purpose of involving Clifford in a

charge of murder. Knowing that his uncle did not die by violence, it

may not have occurred to him, in the hurry of the crisis, that such an

inference might be drawn. But, when the affair took this darker aspect,

Jaffrey’s previous steps had already pledged him to those which

remained. So craftily had he arranged the circumstances, that, at

Clifford’s trial, his cousin hardly found it necessary to swear to

anything false, but only to withhold the one decisive explanation, by

refraining to state what he had himself done and witnessed.

Thus Jaffrey Pyncheon’s inward criminality, as regarded Clifford, was,

indeed, black and damnable; while its mere outward show and positive

commission was the smallest that could possibly consist with so great a

sin. This is just the sort of guilt that a man of eminent

respectability finds it easiest to dispose of. It was suffered to fade

out of sight or be reckoned a venial matter, in the Honorable Judge

Pyncheon’s long subsequent survey of his own life. He shuffled it

aside, among the forgotten and forgiven frailties of his youth, and

seldom thought of it again.

We leave the Judge to his repose. He could not be styled fortunate at

the hour of death. Unknowingly, he was a childless man, while striving

to add more wealth to his only child’s inheritance. Hardly a week after

his decease, one of the Cunard steamers brought intelligence of the

death, by cholera, of Judge Pyncheon’s son, just at the point of

embarkation for his native land. By this misfortune Clifford became

rich; so did Hepzibah; so did our little village maiden, and, through

her, that sworn foe of wealth and all manner of conservatism,—the wild

reformer,—Holgrave!

It was now far too late in Clifford’s life for the good opinion of

society to be worth the trouble and anguish of a formal vindication.

What he needed was the love of a very few; not the admiration, or even

the respect, of the unknown many. The latter might probably have been

won for him, had those on whom the guardianship of his welfare had

fallen deemed it advisable to expose Clifford to a miserable

resuscitation of past ideas, when the condition of whatever comfort he

might expect lay in the calm of forgetfulness. After such wrong as he

had suffered, there is no reparation. The pitiable mockery of it, which

the world might have been ready enough to offer, coming so long after

the agony had done its utmost work, would have been fit only to provoke

bitterer laughter than poor Clifford was ever capable of. It is a truth

(and it would be a very sad one but for the higher hopes which it

suggests) that no great mistake, whether acted or endured, in our

mortal sphere, is ever really set right. Time, the continual

vicissitude of circumstances, and the invariable inopportunity of

death, render it impossible. If, after long lapse of years, the right

seems to be in our power, we find no niche to set it in. The better

remedy is for the sufferer to pass on, and leave what he once thought

his irreparable ruin far behind him.

The shock of Judge Pyncheon’s death had a permanently invigorating and

ultimately beneficial effect on Clifford. That strong and ponderous man

had been Clifford’s nightmare. There was no free breath to be drawn,

within the sphere of so malevolent an influence. The first effect of

freedom, as we have witnessed in Clifford’s aimless flight, was a

tremulous exhilaration. Subsiding from it, he did not sink into his

former intellectual apathy. He never, it is true, attained to nearly

the full measure of what might have been his faculties. But he

recovered enough of them partially to light up his character, to

display some outline of the marvellous grace that was abortive in it,

and to make him the object of no less deep, although less melancholy

interest than heretofore. He was evidently happy. Could we pause to

give another picture of his daily life, with all the appliances now at

command to gratify his instinct for the Beautiful, the garden scenes,

that seemed so sweet to him, would look mean and trivial in comparison.

Very soon after their change of fortune, Clifford, Hepzibah, and little

Phœbe, with the approval of the artist, concluded to remove from the

dismal old House of the Seven Gables, and take up their abode, for the

present, at the elegant country-seat of the late Judge Pyncheon.

Chanticleer and his family had already been transported thither, where

the two hens had forthwith begun an indefatigable process of

egg-laying, with an evident design, as a matter of duty and conscience,

to continue their illustrious breed under better auspices than for a

century past. On the day set for their departure, the principal

personages of our story, including good Uncle Venner, were assembled in

the parlor.

“The country-house is certainly a very fine one, so far as the plan

goes,” observed Holgrave, as the party were discussing their future

arrangements. “But I wonder that the late Judge—being so opulent, and

with a reasonable prospect of transmitting his wealth to descendants of

his own—should not have felt the propriety of embodying so excellent a

piece of domestic architecture in stone, rather than in wood. Then,

every generation of the family might have altered the interior, to suit

its own taste and convenience; while the exterior, through the lapse of

years, might have been adding venerableness to its original beauty, and

thus giving that impression of permanence which I consider essential to

the happiness of any one moment.”

“Why,” cried Phœbe, gazing into the artist’s face with infinite

amazement, “how wonderfully your ideas are changed! A house of stone,

indeed! It is but two or three weeks ago that you seemed to wish people

to live in something as fragile and temporary as a bird’s-nest!”

“Ah, Phœbe, I told you how it would be!” said the artist, with a

half-melancholy laugh. “You find me a conservative already! Little did

I think ever to become one. It is especially unpardonable in this

dwelling of so much hereditary misfortune, and under the eye of yonder

portrait of a model conservative, who, in that very character, rendered

himself so long the evil destiny of his race.”

“That picture!” said Clifford, seeming to shrink from its stern glance.

“Whenever I look at it, there is an old dreamy recollection haunting

me, but keeping just beyond the grasp of my mind. Wealth, it seems to

say!—boundless wealth!—unimaginable wealth! I could fancy that, when I

was a child, or a youth, that portrait had spoken, and told me a rich

secret, or had held forth its hand, with the written record of hidden

opulence. But those old matters are so dim with me, nowadays! What

could this dream have been?”

“Perhaps I can recall it,” answered Holgrave. “See! There are a hundred

chances to one that no person, unacquainted with the secret, would ever

touch this spring.”

“A secret spring!” cried Clifford. “Ah, I remember now! I did discover

it, one summer afternoon, when I was idling and dreaming about the

house, long, long ago. But the mystery escapes me.”

The artist put his finger on the contrivance to which he had referred.

In former days, the effect would probably have been to cause the

picture to start forward. But, in so long a period of concealment, the

machinery had been eaten through with rust; so that at Holgrave’s

pressure, the portrait, frame and all, tumbled suddenly from its

position, and lay face downward on the floor. A recess in the wall was

thus brought to light, in which lay an object so covered with a

century’s dust that it could not immediately be recognized as a folded

sheet of parchment. Holgrave opened it, and displayed an ancient deed,

signed with the hieroglyphics of several Indian sagamores, and

conveying to Colonel Pyncheon and his heirs, forever, a vast extent of

territory at the Eastward.

“This is the very parchment, the attempt to recover which cost the

beautiful Alice Pyncheon her happiness and life,” said the artist,

alluding to his legend. “It is what the Pyncheons sought in vain, while

it was valuable; and now that they find the treasure, it has long been

worthless.”

“Poor Cousin Jaffrey! This is what deceived him,” exclaimed Hepzibah.

“When they were young together, Clifford probably made a kind of

fairy-tale of this discovery. He was always dreaming hither and thither

about the house, and lighting up its dark corners with beautiful

stories. And poor Jaffrey, who took hold of everything as if it were

real, thought my brother had found out his uncle’s wealth. He died with

this delusion in his mind!”

“But,” said Phœbe, apart to Holgrave, “how came you to know the

secret?”

“My dearest Phœbe,” said Holgrave, “how will it please you to assume

the name of Maule? As for the secret, it is the only inheritance that

has come down to me from my ancestors. You should have known sooner

(only that I was afraid of frightening you away) that, in this long

drama of wrong and retribution, I represent the old wizard, and am

probably as much a wizard as ever he was. The son of the executed

Matthew Maule, while building this house, took the opportunity to

construct that recess, and hide away the Indian deed, on which depended

the immense land-claim of the Pyncheons. Thus they bartered their

eastern territory for Maule’s garden-ground.”

“And now” said Uncle Venner “I suppose their whole claim is not worth

one man’s share in my farm yonder!”

“Uncle Venner,” cried Phœbe, taking the patched philosopher’s hand,

“you must never talk any more about your farm! You shall never go

there, as long as you live! There is a cottage in our new garden,—the

prettiest little yellowish-brown cottage you ever saw; and the

sweetest-looking place, for it looks just as if it were made of

gingerbread,—and we are going to fit it up and furnish it, on purpose

for you. And you shall do nothing but what you choose, and shall be as

happy as the day is long, and shall keep Cousin Clifford in spirits

with the wisdom and pleasantness which is always dropping from your

lips!”

“Ah! my dear child,” quoth good Uncle Venner, quite overcome, “if you

were to speak to a young man as you do to an old one, his chance of

keeping his heart another minute would not be worth one of the buttons

on my waistcoat! And—soul alive!—that great sigh, which you made me

heave, has burst off the very last of them! But, never mind! It was the

happiest sigh I ever did heave; and it seems as if I must have drawn in

a gulp of heavenly breath, to make it with. Well, well, Miss Phœbe!

They’ll miss me in the gardens hereabouts, and round by the back doors;

and Pyncheon Street, I’m afraid, will hardly look the same without old

Uncle Venner, who remembers it with a mowing field on one side, and the

garden of the Seven Gables on the other. But either I must go to your

country-seat, or you must come to my farm,—that’s one of two things

certain; and I leave you to choose which!”

“Oh, come with us, by all means, Uncle Venner!” said Clifford, who had

a remarkable enjoyment of the old man’s mellow, quiet, and simple

spirit. “I want you always to be within five minutes’ saunter of my

chair. You are the only philosopher I ever knew of whose wisdom has not

a drop of bitter essence at the bottom!”

“Dear me!” cried Uncle Venner, beginning partly to realize what manner

of man he was. “And yet folks used to set me down among the simple

ones, in my younger days! But I suppose I am like a Roxbury russet,—a

great deal the better, the longer I can be kept. Yes; and my words of

wisdom, that you and Phœbe tell me of, are like the golden dandelions,

which never grow in the hot months, but may be seen glistening among

the withered grass, and under the dry leaves, sometimes as late as

December. And you are welcome, friends, to my mess of dandelions, if

there were twice as many!”

A plain, but handsome, dark-green barouche had now drawn up in front of

the ruinous portal of the old mansion-house. The party came forth, and

(with the exception of good Uncle Venner, who was to follow in a few

days) proceeded to take their places. They were chatting and laughing

very pleasantly together; and—as proves to be often the case, at

moments when we ought to palpitate with sensibility—Clifford and

Hepzibah bade a final farewell to the abode of their forefathers, with

hardly more emotion than if they had made it their arrangement to

return thither at tea-time. Several children were drawn to the spot by

so unusual a spectacle as the barouche and pair of gray horses.

Recognizing little Ned Higgins among them, Hepzibah put her hand into

her pocket, and presented the urchin, her earliest and staunchest

customer, with silver enough to people the Domdaniel cavern of his

interior with as various a procession of quadrupeds as passed into the

ark.

Two men were passing, just as the barouche drove off.

“Well, Dixey,” said one of them, “what do you think of this? My wife

kept a cent-shop three months, and lost five dollars on her outlay. Old

Maid Pyncheon has been in trade just about as long, and rides off in

her carriage with a couple of hundred thousand,—reckoning her share,

and Clifford’s, and Phœbe’s,—and some say twice as much! If you choose

to call it luck, it is all very well; but if we are to take it as the

will of Providence, why, I can’t exactly fathom it!”

“Pretty good business!” quoth the sagacious Dixey,—“pretty good

business!”

Maule’s well, all this time, though left in solitude, was throwing up a

succession of kaleidoscopic pictures, in which a gifted eye might have

seen foreshadowed the coming fortunes of Hepzibah and Clifford, and the

descendant of the legendary wizard, and the village maiden, over whom

he had thrown love’s web of sorcery. The Pyncheon Elm, moreover, with

what foliage the September gale had spared to it, whispered

unintelligible prophecies. And wise Uncle Venner, passing slowly from

the ruinous porch, seemed to hear a strain of music, and fancied that

sweet Alice Pyncheon—after witnessing these deeds, this bygone woe and

this present happiness, of her kindred mortals—had given one farewell

touch of a spirit’s joy upon her harpsichord, as she floated heavenward

from the HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES!