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Everyman, I will go with thee, and be thy guide,
In thy most need to go by thy side.

This is No. 176 of Everyman's Library. A
list of authors and their works in this series
will be found at the end of this volume. The
publishers will be pleased to send freely to all
applicants a separate, annotated list of the
Library.

J. M. DENT & SONS LIMITED

IO-I3 BEDFORD STREET LONDON W.C.2

E. P. DUTTON & CO. INC.

286-302 FOURTH AVENUE
NEW YORK

EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY
EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS

FICTION

THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES
BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, born at Salem,
Mass., on 4th July 1804. After work as a
custom-house official, was made U.S. consul
at Liverpool in 18^3. In 1857 went to
Italy, and in i860 returned to America and
died at Plymouth, New Hampshire, 19th
May 1864.

THE HOUSE
OF THE SEVEN GABLES

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

LONDON: J. M. DENT & SONS LTD.
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. INC.

Made in Great Britain

at The Temple Press Letchworth

and decorated by Eric Ravilious

fir

J. M. Dent Sl Sods Ltd.

Aldine House Bedford St. London

First published in this edition igoj

Last reprinted 1943

BOOK

PRODUCTION

WAR ECONOMY

STANDARD

THIS BOOK IS PRODUCED IN COM-
PLETE CONFORMITY WITH THE
AUTHORIZED ECONOMY STANDARDS

;OLD B. LEE LIBRARY

f*p.t«HAM Y*UNfc UNIVSnSiTY

PROVO, UTAH

INTRODUCTION

" i The House of the Seven Gables ' was finished yester-
day," wrote Mrs. Hawthorne from Lenox on January 27,
^851. She had heard the last pages read aloud by Haw.
thorne on the previous evening, and the impression they
made upon her was summed up in a word : " There is
unspeakable grace and beauty in the conclusion, throwing
back upon the sterner tragedy of the commencement an
ethereal light, and a dear home-loveliness and satisfaction."
The story had taken him five months to write, in the autumn
and winter of 1850-1851. It had to stand the hard test of
comparison with its great and immediate predecessor, " The
Scarlet Letter " ; and it did not disappoint those who
appreciated him at his true measure. James Russell Lowell
said in a letter to him : " It is with the highest art that you
have typified, in the revived likeness of Judge Pyncheon to
his ancestor the Colonel, that intimate relationship between
the Present and the Past in the way of ancestry and descent,
which historians so carefully overlook. " And his friend
and fellow-romancer, Herman Melville, author of " Typee,"
wrote : " This book is like a fine old chamber. ... It has
delighted us ; it has piqued a re-perusal ; it has robbed us
of a day, and made us a present of a whole year — of
thoughtfulness. . . . There is a certain tragic phase of
humanity which was never more powerfully embodied than
by Hawthorne. We mean the tragedies of human thought
in its own unbiassed, native and profounder workings. . . *
Nathaniel Hawthorne had left Salem, the real scene of
"The House of the Seven Gables," for Lenox, early in the
year in which it was chiefly written. He was then forty-six

vii

viii Introduction

years old. He was born at Salem,, Mass., on July 4,
1804, and died at Plymouth, New Hampshire, May 19,

1864.

The following is the list of his published works :

Fanshawe, published anonymously, 1826 ; Twice-Told Tales, 1st
Series, 1837 ; 2nd Series, 1842 ; Grandfather's Chair, a history for
youth, 1841 ; Famous Old People (Grandfather's Chair), 1841 ;
Liberty Tree : with the last words of Grandfather's Chair, 1842 ;
Biographical Stories for Children, 1842 ; Mosses from an Old
Manse, 1846; The Scarlet Letter, 1850 ; The House of the Seven
Gables, 185 1 ; True Stories from History and Biography (the whole
History of Grandfather's Chair), 185 1 ; A Wonder Book for Girls
and Boys, 1 85 1 ; The Snow Image and other Tales, 1851 ; The
Blithedale Romance, 1852 ; Life of Franklin Pierce, 1852 ; Tangle-
wood Tales (2nd Series of the Wonder Book), 1853 ; A Rill from
the Town- Pump, with remarks by Telba, 1857 ; The Marble Faun ;
or, The Romance of Monte Beni (published in England under the
title of "Transformation "), i860 ; Our Old Home, 1863 ; Dolliver
Romance (1st Part in "Atlantic Monthly"), 1864; in 3 Parts,
1876; Pansie, a fragment, Hawthorne's last literary effort, 1864;
American Note-Books, 1868 ; English Note-Books, edited by
Sophia Hawthorne, 1870; French and Italian Note-Books, 1 87 1 ;
Septimius Felton ; or, the Elixir of Life (from the "Atlantic
Monthly"), 1872; Doctor Grimshawe's Secret, with Preface and
Notes by Julian Hawthorne, 1882.

Tales of the White Hills, Legends of New England, Legends of
the Province House, 1877, contain tales which had already been
printed in book form in " Twice-Told Tales " and the " Mosses " ;
"Sketches and Studies," 1883.

Hawthorne's contributions to magazines were numerous, and
most of his tales appeared first in periodicals, chiefly in " The
Token," 1831-1838, "New England Magazine," 1834, 1835;
" Knickerbocker," 1837-1839 ; " Democratic Review," 1838-1846 ;
11 Atlantic Monthly," 1 860- 1872 (scenes from the Dolliver Romance,
Septimius Felton, and passages from Hawthorne's Note-Books).

Works : in 24 volumes, 1879 ; in 12 volumes, with introductory
notes by Lathrop, Riverside Edition, 1883.

Biography, etc.: A. H. Japp (pseud. H. A. Page), "Memoir of
N. Hawthorne," 1872; J. T. Field's "Yesterdays with Authors,'

Introduction ix

1873; G. P. Lathrop, "A Study of Hawthorne," 1876; Henry
James, "English Men of Letters/' 1879; Julian Hawthorne,
"Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife,*' 1885; Moncure D. Conway,
"Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne," 1891 ; "Analytical Index oi
Hawthorne's Works," by E. M. O'Connor, 1882.

♦ 176

PREFACE

When a writer calls his work a Romance, it need hardly
be observed that he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both
as to its fashion and material, which he would not have fell
himself entitled to assume, had he professed to be writing a
NoveL The latter form of composition is presumed to aim
at a very minute fidelity, not merely to the possible, but to
the probable and ordinary course of man's experience. The
former — while, as a work of art, it must rigidly subject
itself to laws, and while it sins unpardonably so far as it may
swerve aside from the truth of the human heart — has fairly a
right to present that truth under circumstances, to a great
extent, of the writers own choosing or creation. If he
think fit, also, he may so manage his atmospherical medium
as to bring out or mellow the lights, and deepen and enrich
the shadows, of the picture. He will be wise, no doubt, to
make a very moderate use of the privileges here stated, and
especially to mingle the Marvellous rather as a slight, deli-
cate and evanescent flavour, than as any portion of the actual
substance of the dish offered to the public He can hardly
be said, however, to commit a literary crime, even if he dis-
regard this caution.

In the present work, the author has proposed to himself —
but with what success, fortunately, it is not for him to judge
— to keep undeviatingly within his immunities. The point
of view in which this tale comes under the Romantic defini-
tion lies in the attempt to connect a by-gone time with the
very present that is flitting away from us. It is a legend,
prolonging itself from an epoch now gray in the distance,
down into our own broad daylight, and bringing along with
it some of its legendary mist, which the reader, according to
his pleasure, may either disregard, or allow it to float almost
imperceptibly about the characters and events, for the sakn

xii Preface

of a picturesque effect. The narrative, it may be, is woven
of so humble a texture as to require this advantage, and, at
the same time, to render it the more difficult of attainment.

Many writers lay very great stress upon some definite
Moral purpose, at which they profess to aim their works.
Not to be deficient in this particular, the author has pro-
vided himself with a moral ; — the truth, namely, that the
wrong-doing of one generation lives into the successive ones,
and, divesting itself of every temporary advantage, becomes
a pure and uncontrollable mischief ; and he would feel it i
singular gratification, if this romance might effectually con-
vince mankind — or, indeed, any one man — of the folly of
tumbling down an avalanche of ill-gotten gold, or real estate,
on the heads of an unfortunate posterity, thereby to maim
and crush them, until the accumulated mass shall be scat-
tered abroad in its original atoms. In good faith, however,
he is not sufficiently imaginative to flatter himself with the
slightest hope of this kind. When romances do really teach
anything, or produce any effective operation, it is usually
hrough a far more subtile process than the ostensible one
The author has considered it hardly worth his while, there-
fore, relentlessly to impale the story with its moral, as with
an iron rod — or rather as by sticking a pin through a butter-
fly— thus at once depriving it of life, and causing it to stiffen
in an ungainly and unnatural attitude. A high truth, indeed,
fairly, finely, and skilfully wrought out, brightening at every
step, and crowning the final development of a work of fiction,
may add an artistic glory, but is never any truer, and seldom
any more evident, at the last page than at the first.

The reader may perhaps choose to assign an actual locality
to the imaginary events of this narrative. If permitted by
the historical connection — which, though slight, was essential
to his plan — the author would very willingly have avoided
anything of this nature. Not to speak of other objections, it
exposes the romance to an inflexible and exceeding dan-
gerous species of criticism, by bringing his fancy pictures
almost into positive contact with the realities of the moment.
It has been «o part of his object, however, to describe local

Preface xiii

manners, nor in any way to meddle with the characteristics
of a community for whom he cherishes a proper respect and
a natural regard. He trusts not to be considered as unpar-
donably offending, by laying out a street that infringes upon
nobody's private rights, and appropriating a lot of land which
had no visible owner, and building a house of materials long
in use for constructing castles in the air. The personages of
the tale — though they give themselves out to be of ancient
stability and considerable prominence — are really of the
author's own making, or, at all events, of his own mixing ;
their virtues can shed no lustre, nor their defects redound, in
the remotest degree, to the discredit of the venerable town of
which they profess to be inhabitants. He would be glad,
therefore, if — especially in the quarter to which he alludes —
the book may be read strictly as a Romance, having a great
deal more to do with the clouds overhead than with any
portion of the actual soil of the County of Essex.

Lenox,
January 27, i3jl.

CONTENTS

CHAP.

I. THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY

II. THE LITTLE SHOP-WINDOW

III. THE FIRST CUSTOMER

IV. A DAY BEHIND THE COUNTER
V. MAY AND NOVEMBER

VI. maule's WELL .

VII. THE GUEST

VIII. THE PYNCHEON OF TO-DAY

IX. CLIFFORD AND PHOEBE

X. THE PYNCHEON-GARDEN .

XI. THE ARCHED WINDOW

XII. THE DAGUERREOTYPIST

XIII. ALICE PYNCHEON

XIV. PHCEBE'S GOOD-BYE .

XV. THE SCOWL AND SMILE .

xvi. Clifford's chamber

XVII. THE FLIGHT OF TWO OWLS

XVIII. GOVERNOR PYNCHEON

xix. Alice's posies .

XX. THE FLOWER OF EDEN .

XXI. THE DEPARTURE

I
26

109

126

138
I5I

165
179
203
214
231
244
258
274
290
299

THE HOUSE

THE SEVEN GABLES

THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY

Half-way down a bye-street of one of our New
England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with
seven acutely-peaked gables, facing towards various
points of the compass, and a huge clustered chimney
in the midst. The street is Pyncheon-street; the
house is the old Pyncheon-house ; and an elm-tree,
of wide circumference, rooted before the door, is
familiar to every town-born child by the title of the
Pyncheon-elm. On my occasional visits to the town
aforesaid, I seldom fail to turn down Pyncheon-street,
for the sake of passing through the shadow of these
two antiquities, — the great elm-tree, and the weather-
beaten edifice.

The aspect of the venerable mansion has always
affected me like a human countenance, bearing the
traces not merely of outward storm and sunshine, but
expressive, also, of the long lapse of mortal life, and
accompanying vicissitudes that have passed within.
Were these to be worthily recounted, they would
form a narrative of no small interest and instruction,
and possessing, moreover, a certain remarkable unity,
which might almost seem the result of artistic arrange-
ment. But the story would include a chain of events
extending over the better part of two centuries, and
written out with reasonable amplitude, would fill a

2 House of the Seven Gables

bigger folio volume, or a longer series of duodecimos,
£han could prudently be appropriated to the annals of
all New England during a similar period. It conse-
quently becomes imperative to make short work with
most of the traditional lore of which the old Pyncheon-
house, otherwise known as the House of the Seven
Gables, has been the theme. With a brief sketch,
therefore, of the circumstances amid which the
foundation of the house was laid, and a rapid glimpse
at its quaint exterior, as it grew black in the prevalent
east wind, — pointing too, here and there, at some spot
of more verdant mossiness on its roof and walls, — we
shall commence the real action of our tale at an epoch
not very remote from the present day. Still there
will be a connection with the long past — a reference
to forgotten events and personages, and to manners,
feelings, and opinions almost or wholly obsolete —
which, if adequately translated to the reader, would
serve to illustrate how much of old material goes to
make up the freshest novelty of human life. Hence,
too, might be drawn a weighty lesson from the little-
regarded truth, that the act of the passing genera-
tion is the germ which may and must produce good
or evil fruit, in a far distant time; that, together
with the seed of the merely temporary crop, which
mortals term expediency, they inevitably sow the
acorns of a more enduring growth, which may darkly
overshadow their posterity.

The House of the Seven Gables, antique as it now
looks, was not the first habitation erected by civilized
man on precisely the same spot of ground. Pyn-
cheon-street formerly bore the humbler appellation of
Mauler-lane, from the name of the original occupant
of the soil, before whose cottage-door it was a cow-
path. A natural spring of soft and pleasant water —
a rare treasure on the sea-girt peninsula where the
Puritan settlement was made — had early induced
Matthew Maule to build a hut, shaggy with thatch,
at this point, although somewhat too remote from
what was then the centre of the village. In the

The Old Pyncheon Family 3

growth of the town, however, after some thirty or
forty years, the site covered by this rude hovel had
become exceedingly desirable in the eyes of a promi-
nent and powerful personage, who asserted plausible
claims to the proprietorship of this and a large
adjacent tract of land, on the strength of a grant
from the legislature. Colonel Pyncheon, the claimant,
as we gather from whatever traits of him are preserved,
was characterized by an iron energy of purpose.
Matthew Maule, on the other hand, though an obscure
man, was stubborn in the defence of what he con-
sidered his right ; and, for several years, he succeeded
in protecting the acre or two of earth which, with his
own toil, he had hewn out of the primaeval forest, to
be his garden-ground and homestead. No written
record of this dispute is known to be in existence.
Our acquaintance with the whole subject is derived
chiefly from tradition. It would be bold, therefore,
and possibly unjust to venture a decisive opinion as
to its merits ; although it appears to have been at
least a matter of doubt, whether Colonel Pyncheon's
claim were not unduly stretched, in order to make
it cover the small metes and bounds of Matthew
Maule. What greatly strengthens such a suspicion
is the fact that this controversy between two ill-
matched antagonists — at a period, moreover, laud
it as we may, when personal influence had far more
weight than now — remained for years undecided, and
came to a close only with the death of the party
occupying the disputed soil. The mode of his death,
too, affects the mind differently in our day, from
what it did a century and a half ago. It was a death
that blasted with strange horror the humble name of
the dweller in the cottage, and made it seem almost a
religious act to drive the plough over the little area
of his habitation, and obliterate his place and memory
from among men.

Old Matthew Maule, in a word, was executed for
the crime of witchcraft. He was one of the martyrs
fco that terrible delusion which should teach us, among

4 House of the Seven Gables

its other morals, that the influential classes, and those
who take upon themselves to be leaders of the people,
are fully liable to all the passionate error that has
ever characterized the maddest mob. Clergymen,
judges, statesmen, — the wisest, calmest, holiest
persons of their day, — stood in the inner circle round
about the gallows, loudest to applaud the work of
blood, latest to confess themselves miserably deceived.
If any one part of their proceedings can be said to
deserve less blame than another, it was the singular
indiscrimination with which they persecuted, not
merely the poor and aged, as in former judicial
massacres, but people of all ranks ; their own equals,
brethren and wives. Amid the disorder of such
various ruin, it is not strange that a man of incon-
siderable note, like Maule, should have trodden the
martyr's path to the hill of execution almost unre-
marked in the throng of his fellow-sufferers. But, in
after days, when the frenzy of that hideous epoch had
subsided, it was remembered how loudly Colonel
Pyncheon had joined in the general cry, to purge the
land from witchcraft ; nor did it fail to be whispered
that there was an invidious acrimony in the zeal with
which he had sought the condemnation of Matthew
Maule. It was well known that the victim had recog-
nized the bitterness of personal enmity in his perse-
cutor's conduct towards him, and that he declared
himself hunted to death for his spoil. At the moment
of execution — with the halter about his neck, and
while Colonel Pyncheon sat on horseback grimly
gazing at the scene — Maule had addressed him fron
the scaffold, and uttered a prophecy, of which history,
as well as fireside tradition, has preserved the very
words. " God," said the dying man, pointing his
finger, with a ghastly look, at the undismayed coun-
tenance of his enemy, " God will give him blood to
drink!"

After the reputed wizard's death, his humble home-
stead had fallen an easy spoil into Colonel Pyncheon's
grasp. When it was understood, however, that the

The Old Pyncheon Family 5

colonel intended to erect a family mansion — spacious,
ponderously framed of oaken timber, and calculated
to endure for many generations of his prosperity —
over the spot first covered by the log-built hut of
Matthew Maule, there was much shaking of the
head among the village gossips. Without absolutely
expressing a doubt whether the stalwart Puritan had
acted as a man of conscience and integrity, through-
out the proceedings which have been sketched, they,
nevertheless, hinted that he was about to build his
house over an unquiet grave. His home would in-
clude the home of the dead and buried wizard, and
would thus afford the ghost of the latter a kind of
privilege to haunt its new apartments, and the
chambers into which future bridegrooms were to lead
their brides, and where children of the Pyncheon
blood were to be born. The terror and ugliness of
Maule 's crime, and the wretchedness of his punish-
ment, would darken the freshly-plastered walls, and
infect them early with the scent of an old and melan-
choly house. Why, then, — while so much of the soil
around him was bestrewn with the virgin forest-
leaves, — why should Colonel Pyncheon prefer a site
that had already been accurst?

But the Puritan soldier and magistrate was not a
man to be turned aside from his well-considered
scheme, either by dread of the wizards ghost, or by
flimsy sentimentalities of any kind, however specious.
Had he been told of a bad air, it might have moved
him somewhat; but he was ready to encounter an
evil spirit on his own ground. Endowed with common
sense, as massive and hard as blocks of granite,
fastened together by stern rigidity of purpose, as with
iron clamps, he followed out his original design,
probably without so much as imagining an objection
to it. On the score of delicacy, or any scrupulous-
ness which a finer sensibility might have taught him,
the colonel, like most of his breed and generation,
was impenetrable. He, therefore, dug his cellar, and
laid the deep foundations of his mansion, on the

6 House of the Seven Gables

square of earth whence Matthew Maule, forty years
before, had first swept away the fallen leaves. It
was a curious, and, as some people thought, an
ominous fact, that, very soon after the workmen
began their operations, the spring of water, above
mentioned, entirely lost the deliciousness of its pris-
tine quality. Whether its sources were disturbed by
the depth of the new cellar, or whatever subtler cause
might lurk at the bottom, it is certain that the water
of Maule's Well, as it continued to be called, grew
hard and brackish. Even such we find it now ; and
any old woman of the neighbourhood will certify
that it is productive of intestinal mischief to those
who quench their thirst there.

The reader may deem it singular that the head
carpenter of the new edifice was no other than the
son of the very man from whose dead gripe the
property of the soil had been wrested. Not improb-
ably he was the best workman of his time; or,
perhaps, the colonel thought it expedient, or was
impelled by some better feeling, thus openly to cast
aside all animosity against the race of his fallen
antagonist. Nor was it out of keeping with the
general coarseness and matter-of-fact character of
the age, that the son should be willing to earn an
honest penny, or, rather, a weighty amount of ster-
ling pounds, from the purse of his father's deadly
enemy. At all events, Thomas Maule became the
architect of the House of the Seven Gables, and per-
formed his duty so faithfully that the timber frame-
work, fastened by his hands, still holds together.

Thus the great house was built. Familiar as it
stands in the Jeter's recollection, — for it has been an
object of curiosity with him from boyhood, both as
a specimen of the best and stateliest architecture of a
long-past epoch, and as the scene of events more full
of human interest, perhaps, than those of a gray
feudal castle, — familiar as it stands, in its rusty old
age, it is therefore only the more difficult to imagine
the bright novelty with which it first caught the sun-

The Old Pyncheon Family 7

shine. The impression of its actual state, at this
distance of a hundred and sixty years, darkens, in-
evitably, through the picture which we would fain
give of its appearance on the morning when the Puri-
tan magnate bade all the town to be his guests. A
ceremony of consecration, festive as well as religious,
was now to be performed. A prayer and discourse
from the Rev. Mr. Higginson, and the outpouring
of a psalm from the general throat of the community,
was to be made acceptable to the grosser sense by
ale, cider, wine, and brandy, in copious effusion, and,
as some authorities aver, by an ox, roasted whole,
or, at least, by the weight and substance of an ox, in
more manageable joints and sirloins. The carcass
of a deer, shot within twenty miles, had supplied
material for the vast circumference of a pasty. A
cod-fish, of sixty pounds, caught in the bay, had been
dissolved into the rich liquid of a chowder. The
chimney of the new house, in short, belching forth its
kitchen-smoke, impregnated the whole air with the
scent of meats, fowls, and fishes, spicily concocted
with odoriferous herbs, and onions in abundance. The
mere smell of such festivity, making its way to every-
body^ nostrils, was at once an invitation and appe-
tite.

Maule's-lane, or Pyncheon-street, as it were now
more decorous to call it, was thronged, at the ap-
pointed hour, as with a congregation on its way to
church. All, as they approached, looked upward at
the imposing edifice, which was henceforth to assume
its rank among the habitations of mankind. There
it rose, a little withdrawn from the life of the street,
but in pride, not modesty. Its whole visible exterior
was ornamented with quaint figures, conceived in
the grotesqueness of a gothic fancy, and drawn or
stamped in the glittering plaster, composed of lime,
pebbles, and bits of glass, with which the wood-work
of the walls was overspread. On every side, the
seven gables pointed sharply towards the sky, and
presented the aspect of a whole sisterhood of

8 House of the Seven Gables

edifices, breathing through the spiracles of one great
chimney. The many lattices, with their small,
diamond-shaped panes, admitted the sunlight into hall
and chamber, while, nevertheless, the second story,
projecting far over the base, and itself retiring be-
neath the third, threw a shadow and thoughtful gloom
into the lower rooms. Carved globes of wood were
affixed under the jutting stories. Little spiral rods of
iron beautified each of the seven peaks. On the
triangular portion of the gable that fronted next the
street, was a dial, put up that very morning, and on
which the sun was still marking the passage of the
first bright hour in a history that was not destined to
be all so bright. All around were scattered shavings,
chips, shingles, and broken halves of bricks ; these,
together with the lately turned earth, on which the
grass had not begun to grow, contributed to the im-
pression of strangeness and novelty proper to a house
that had yet its place to make among men's daily
interests.

The principal entrance, which had almost the
breadth of a church-door, was in the angle between
the two front gables, and was covered by an open
porch, with benches beneath its shelter. Under this
arched door-way, scraping their feet on the unworn
threshold, now trod the clergymen, the elders, the
magistrates, the deacons, and whatever of aristocracy
there was in town or country. Thither, too, thronged
the plebeian classes, as freely as their betters, and in
larger number. Just within the entrance, however,
stood two serving-men, pointing some of the guests
to the neighbourhood of the kitchen, and ushering
others into the statelier rooms, — hospitable alike to
all, but still with a scrutinizing regard to the high or
low degree of each. Velvet garments, sombre but
rich, stiffly-plaited ruffs and bands, embroidered
gloves, venerable beards, the mien and countenance
of authority, made it easy to distinguish the gentle-
man of worship, at that period, from the tradesman,
with his plodding air, or the labourer, in his leathern

The Old Pyncheon Family 9

jerkin, stealing awe-stricken into the house which he
had perhaps helped to build.

One inauspicious circumstance there was, which
awakened a hardly-concealed displeasure in the breasts
of a few of the more punctilious visitors. The founder
of this stately mansion — a gentleman noted for the
square and ponderous courtesy of his demeanour —
ought surely to have stood in his own hall, and to
have offered the first welcome to so many eminent
personages as here presented themselves in honour of
his solemn festival. He was as yet invisible; the
most favoured of the guests had not beheld him. This
sluggishness on Colonel Pyncheon's part became still
more unaccountable, when the second dignitary of the
province made his appearance, and found no more
ceremonious a reception. The lieutenant-governor,
although his visit was one of the anticipated glories
of the day, had alighted from his horse, and assisted
his lady from her side-saddle, and crossed the colonel's
threshold, without other greeting than that of the
principal domestic.

This person — a gray-headed man, of quiet and
most respectful deportment — found it necessary to
explain that his master still remained in his study,
or private apartment; on entering which, an hour be-
fore, he had expressed a wish on no account to be
disturbed.

" Do not you see, fellow," said the high sheriff of
the county, taking the servant aside, " that this is
no less a man than the lieutenant-governor? Sum-
mon Colonel Pyncheon at once ! I know that he
received letters from England this morning; and, in
the perusal and consideration of them, an hour may
have passed away without his noticing it. But he
will be ill-pleased, I judge, if you suffer him to neg-
lect the courtesy due to one of our chief rulers, and
who may be said to represent King William, in the
absence of the governor himself. Call your master
instantly I"

11 Nay, please your worship,' ' answered the man,

io House of the Seven Gables

in much perplexity, but with a backwardness that
strikingly indicated the hard and severe character
of Colonel Pyncheon's domestic rule; " my master's
orders were exceedingly strict ; and, as your worship
knows, he permits of no discretion in the obedience
of those who owe him service. Let who list open
yonder door; I dare not, though the governor's own
voice should bid me do it!"

" Pooh, pooh, master high sheriff !" cried the
lieutenant-governor, who had overheard the fore-
going discussion, and felt himself high enough in
station to play a little with his dignity. " I will take
the matter into my own hands. It is time that the
good colonel came forth to greet his friends ; else we
shall be apt to suspect that he has taken a sip too
much of his Canary wine, in his extreme deliberation
which cask it were best to broach, in honour of the
day ! But since he is so much behindhand, I will give
him a remembrancer myself !"

Accordingly, with such a tramp of his ponderous
riding-boots as might of itself have been audible in
the remotest of the seven gables, he advanced to the
door, which the servant pointed out, and made its
new panels re-echo with a loud, free knock. Then,
looking round, with a smile, to the spectators, he
awaited a response. As none came, however, he
knocked again, but with the same unsatisfactory
result as at first. And now, being a trifle choleric in
his temperament, the lieutenant-governor uplifted the
heavy hilt of his sword, wherewith he so beat and
banged upon the door, that, as some of the by-
standers whispered, the racket might have disturbed
the dead. Be that as it might, it seemed to produce
no awakening effect on Colonel Pyncheon. When
the sound subsided, the silence through the house
was deep, dreary, and oppressive, notwithstanding
that the tongues of many of the guests had already
been loosened by a surreptitious cup or two of wine
or spirits.

64 Strange, forsooth! — very strange!1" cried the

The Old Pyncheon Family n

lieutenant-governor, whose smile was changed to a
frown. " But seeing that our host sets us the good
example of forgetting ceremony, I shall likewise
throw it aside, and make free to intrude on his
privacy I"

He tried the door, which yielded to his hand, and
was flung wide open by a sudden gust of wind that
passed, as with a loud sigh, from the outermost
portal, through all the passages and apartments of
the new house. It rustled the silken garments of
the ladies, and waved the long curls of the gentle-
men's wigs, and shook the window-hangings and
the curtains of the bed-chambers ; causing everywhere
a singular stir, which was yet more like a hush. A
shadow of awe and half-fearful anticipation — no-
body knew wherefore, nor of what — had all at once
fallen over the company.

They thronged, however, to the now open door,
pressing the lieutenant-governor, in the eagerness of
their curiosity, into the room in advance of them.
At the first glimpse, they beheld nothing extraordin-
ary; a handsomely-furnished room, of moderate size,
somewhat darkened by curtains; books arranged on
shelves ; a large map on the wall, and likewise a
portrait of Colonel Pyncheon, beneath which sat the
original colonel himself, in an oaken elbow-chair,
with a pen in his hand. Letters, parchments, and
blank sheets of paper were on the table before him.
He appeared to gaze at the curious crowd, in front
of which stood the lieutenant-governor; and there
was a frown on his dark and massive countenance,
as if sternly resentful of the boldness that had im-
pelled them into his private retirement.

A little boy — the colonel's grandchild, and the only
human being that ever dared to be familiar with
him — now made his way among the guests, and ran
towards the seated figure ; then pausing half-way, he
began to shriek with terror. The company, tremu-
lous as the leaves of a tree, when all are shaking
together, drew nearer, and perceived that there was

12 House of the Seven Gables

an unnatural distortion in the fixedness of Colonel
Pyncheon's stare; that there was blood on his ruff,
and that his hoary beard was saturated with it. It
was too late to give assistance. The iron-hearted
Puritan, the relentless persecutor, the grasping and
strong-willed man, was dead ! Dead, in his new
house ! There is a tradition, only worth alluding
to as lending a tinge of superstitious awe to a
scene perhaps gloomy enough without it, that 21
voice spoke loudly among the guests, the tones of
which were like those of old Matthew Maule, the
executed wizard, — " God hath given him blood to
drink !"

Thus early had that one guest — the only guest who
is certain, at one time or another, to find his way
into every human dwelling — thus early had Death
stepped across the threshold of the House of the
Seven Gables !

Colonel Pyncheon's sudden and mysterious end
made a vast deal of noise in its day. There were
many rumours, some of which have vaguely drifted
down to the present time, how that appearances in-
dicated violence ; that there were the marks of fingers
on his throat, and the print of a bloody hand on his
plaited ruff ; and that his peaked beard was dis-
hevelled, as if it had been fiercely clutched and
pulled. It was averred, likewise, that the lattice-
window, near the Colonel's chair, was open; and
that, only a few minutes before the fatal occurrence,
the figure of a man had been seen clambering over
the garden-fence, in the rear of the house. But it
were folly to lay any stress on stories of this kind,
which are sure to spring up around such an event as
that now related, and which, as in the present case,
sometimes prolong themselves for ages afterwards,
like the toadstools that indicate where the fallen and
buried trunk of a tree has long since mouldered into
the earth. For our own part, we allow them just as
little credence as to that other fable of the skeleton
hand which the lieutenant-governor was said to have

The Old Pyncheon Family 13

seen at the colonel's throat, but which vanished
away as he advanced further into the room. Certain
it is, however, that there was a great consultation
and dispute of doctors over the dead body. One —
John Swinnerton by name — who appears to have
be£n a man of eminence, upheld it, if we have rightly
understood his terms of art, to be a case of aporjlexy.
His professional brethren, each for himself, adopted
various, hypotheses, more or less plausible, but all
dressed out in a perplexing mystery of phrase, which,
if it do not show a bewilderment of mind in these
erudite physicians, certainly causes it in the unlearned
peruser of their opinions. The coroner's jury sat
upon the corpse, and, like sensible men, returned an
unassailable verdict of " Sudden JDeathJ ' '

It is indeed difficult to imagine that there could
have been a serious suspicion of murder, or the
slightest grounds for implicating any particular in-
dividual as the perpetrator. The rank, wealth, and
eminent character of the deceased, must have insured
the strictest scrutiny into every ambiguous circum-
stance. As none such is on record, it is safe to
assume that none existed. Tradition — which some-
times brings down truth that history has let slip,
but is oftener the wild babble of the time, such as
was formerly spoken at the fireside, and now con-
geals in newspapers — tradition is responsible for all
contrary averments. In Colonel Pyncheon's funeral
sermon, which was printed, and is still extant, the
Rev. Mr. Higginson enumerates among the many
felicities of his distinguished parishioner's earthly
career, the happy seasonableness of his death. His
duties all performed, — the highest prosperity at-
tained,— his race and future generations fixed on a
stable basis, and with a stately roof to shelter them,
for centuries to come, — what other upward step
remained for this good man to take, save the final
step from earth to the golden gate of heaven ! The
pious clergyman surely would not have uttered words
like these, had he in the least suspected that the

14 House of the Seven Gables

colonel had been thrust into the other world with the
clutch of violence upon his throat.

The family of Colonel Pyncheon, at the epoch of
his death, seemed destined to as fortunate a perman-
ence as can anywise consist with the inherent in-
stability of human affairs. It might fairly be
anticipated that the progress of time would rather
increase and ripen their prosperity, than wear away
and destroy it. For, not only had his son and heir
come into immediate enjoyment of a rich estate, but
there was a claim, through an Indian deed, confirmed
by a subsequent grant of the General Court, to a
vast and as yet unexplored and unmeasured tract of
eastern lands. These possessions — for as such they
might almost certainly be reckoned — comprised the
greater part of what is now known as Waldo County,
in the State of Maine, and were more extensive than
many a dukedom, or even a reigning prince's terri-
tory, on European soil. When the pathless forest,
that still covered this wild principality, should give
place — as it inevitably must, though perhaps not till
ages hence — to the golden fertility of human culture,
it would be the source of incalculable wealth to the
Pyncheon blood. Had the colonel survived only a few
weeks longer, it is probable that his great political
influence, and powerful connections, at home and
abroad, would have consummated all that was neces-
sary to render the claim available. But, in spite of
good Mr. Higginson's congratulatory eloquence,
this appeared to be the one thing which Colonel
Pyncheon, provident and sagacious as he was, had
allowed to go at loose ends. So far as the prospec-
tive territory was concerned, he unquestionably died
too soon. His son lacked not merely the father's
eminent position, but the talent and force of character
to achieve it : he could, therefore, effect nothing by
dint of political interest; and the bare justice or
legality of the claim was not so apparent, after
the colonel's decease, as it had been pronounced
in his lifetime. Some connecting link had slipped

The Old Pyncheon Family 15

out of the evidence, and could not anywhere be
found.

Efforts, it is true, were made by the Pyncheons,
not only then, but at various periods for nearly a
hundred years afterwards, to obtain what they stub-
bornly persisted in deeming their right. But, in
course of time, the territory was partly re-granted
to more favoured individuals, and partly cleared and
occupied by actual settlers. These last, if they ever
heard of the Pyncheon title, would have laughed at
the idea of any man's asserting a right — on the
strength of mouldy parchments, signed with the
faded autographs of governors and legislators long
dead and forgotten — to the lands which they or their
fathers had wrested from the wild hand of nature,
by their own sturdy toil. This impalpable claim,
therefore, resulted in nothing more solid than to
cherish, from generation to generation, an absurd
delusion pf family importance, which all along charac-
terized the Pyncheons. It caused the poorest member
of the race to feel as if he inherited a kind of nobility,
and might yet come into the possession of princely
wealth to support it. In the better specimens of the
breed, this peculiarity threw an ideal grace over the
hard material of human life, without stealing away
any truly valuable quality. In the baser sort, its
effect was to increase the liability to sluggishness
and dependence, and induce the victim of a shadowy
hope to remit all self-effort, while awaiting the
realization of his dreams. Years and years after
their claim had passed out of the public memory,
the Pyncheons were accustomed to consult the
colonel's ancient map, which had been projected
while Waldo County was still an unbroken wilder-
ness. Where the old land-surveyor had put down
woods, lakes, and rivers, they marked out the cleared
spaces, and dotted the villages and towns, and cal-
culated the progressively increasing value of the
territory, as if there were yet a prospect of its ulti-
mately forming a princedom for themselves.

1 6 House of the Seven Gables

In almost every generation, nevertheless, there
happened to be some one descendant of the family
gifted with a portion of the hard, keen sense and
practical energy, that had so remarkably distin-
guished the original founder. His character, indeed,
might be traced all the way down, as distinctly as
if the colonel himself, a little diluted, had been gifted
with a sort of intermittent immortality on earth. At
two or three epochs, when the fortunes of the family
were low, this representative of hereditary qualities
had made his appearance, and caused the traditionary
gossips of the town to whisper among themselves :
— " Here is the old Pyncheon come again ! Now the
Seven Gables will be new shingled V9 From father
to son, they clung to the ancestral house, with singu-
lar tenacity of home attachment. For various
reasons, however, and from impressions often too
vaguely founded to be put on paper, the writer
cherishes the belief that many, if not most, of the
successive proprietors of this estate, were troubled
with doubts as to their moral right to hold it. Of
their legal tenure there could be no question ; but
old Matthew Maule, it is to be feared, trod down-
ward from his own age to a far later one, planting
a heavy footstep, all the way, on the conscience of a
Pyncheon. If so, we are left to dispose of the awful
query, whether each inheritor of the property —
conscious of wrong, and failing to rectify it — did not
commit anew the great guilt of his ancestor, and
incur all its original responsibilities. And supposing
such to be the case, would it not be a far truer mode
of expression to say, of the Pyncheon family, that
they inherited a great misfortune, than the reverse?

We have already hinted, that it is not our purpose
to trace down the history of the Pyncheon family, in
its unbroken connection with the House of the Seven
Gables ; nor to show, as in a magic picture, how the
rustiness and infirmity of age gathered over the
venerable house itself. As regards its interior life,
a large, dim looking-glass used to hang in one of the

The Old Pyncheon Family 17

rooms, and was fabled to contain within its depths
all the shapes that had ever been reflected there, —
the old colonel himself, and his many descendants,
some in the garb of antique babyhood, and others
in the bloom of feminine beauty or manly prime, or
saddened* with the wrinkles of frosty age. Had we
the secret of that mirror, we would gladly sit down
before it, and transfer its revelations to our page.
But there was a story, for which it is difficult to
conceive any foundation, that the posterity of
Matthew Maule had some connection with the
mystery of the looking-glass, and that, by what
appears to have been a sort of mesmeric process,
they could make its inner region all alive with the
departed Py^^eons; not as they had shown them-
selves to the worldj nor in their better and happier
hours, but as doing- over again some deed of sin, or
in the crisis of life'sJbitterest sorrow. The popular
imagination, indeed, long kept itself busy with the
affair of the old Puritan Pyncheon and the wizard
Maule ; the curse, which the latter flung from his
scaffold, was remembered, with the very important
addition, that it had become a part of the Pyncheon
inheritance. If one of the family did but gurgle in
his throat, a bystander would be likely enough to
whisper, between jest and earnest, — " He has
Maule's blood to drink !M The sudden death of a
Pyncheon about a hundred years ago, with circum-
stances very similar to what have been related of
the colonel's exit, was held as giving additional pro-
bability to the received opinion on this topic. It was
considered, moveover, an ugly and ominous circum-
stance, that Colonel Pyncheon 's picture — in obedi-
ence, it was said, to a provision of his will — remained
affixed to the wall of the room in which he died.
Those stern, immitigable features seemed to symbol-
ize an evil influence, and so darkly to mingle the
shadow of their presence with the sunshine of the
passing hour, that no good thoughts or purposes
could ever spring up and blossom there. To the

B1^

1 8 House of the Seven Gables

thoughtful mind, there will be no tinge of supersti-
tion in what we figuratively express, by affirming
that the ghost of a dead progenitor — perhaps as a
portion of his own punishment — is often doomed to
become the Evil Genius of his family.

The Pyncheons, in brief, lived along, for the better
part of two centuries, with perhaps less of outward
vicissitude than has attended most other New Eng-
land families, during the same period of time. Pos-
sessing very distinctive traits of their own, they
nevertheless took the general characteristics of the
little community in which they dwelt; a town noted
for its frugal, discreet, well-ordered, and home-loving
inhabitants, as well as for the somewhat confined
scope of its sympathies ; but in which, be it said, there
are odder individuals, and, now and then stranger
Occurrences, than one mee^s with almost anywhere
else. During the Revolution, the Pyncheon of that
epoch, adopting the royal side, became a refugee;
but repented, and made his reappearance, just at
the point of time to preserve the House of the Seven
Gables from confiscation. For the last seventy
years, the most noted event in the Pyncheon annals
had been likewise the heaviest calamity that ever be-
fell the race ; no less than the violent death — for so
it was adjudged — of one member of the family, by
the criminal act of another. Certain circumstances,
attending this fatal occurrence, had brought the deed
irresistibly home to a nephew of the deceased Pyn-
cheon. The young man was tried and convicted of
the crime; but either the circumstantial nature of
the evidence, and possibly some lurking doubt in the
breast of the executive, or lastly, — an argument of
greater weight in a republic than it could have been
under a monarchy, — the high respectability and poli-
tical influence of the criminars connections, had
availed to mitigate his doom from death to perpetual
imprisonment. This sad affair had chanced about
thirty years before the action of our story commences.
Latterly, there were rumours (which few believed,

The Old Pyncheon Family 19

and only one or two felt greatly interested in) that
this long-buried man was likely, for some reason
or other, to be summoned forth from his living tomb.
It is essential to say a few words respecting the
victim of this now almost forgotten murder. He was
an old bachelor, and possessed of great wealth, in
addition to the house and real estate which constituted
what remained of the ancient Pyncheon property.
Being of an eccentric and melancholy turn of mind,
and greatly given to rummaging old records, and
hearkening to old traditions, he had brought himself,
it is averred, to the conclusion, that Matthew Maule,
the wizard, had been foully wronged out of his home-
stead, if not out of his life. Such being the case,
and he, the old bachelor, in possession of the ill-
gotten spoil — with the black stain of blood sunken
deep into it, and still to be scented by conscientious
nostrils — the question occurred, whether it were not
imperative upon him, even at this late hour, to make
restitution jto Maule's posterity, To a man living
so much in the past, and so little in the present, as
the secluded and antiquarian old bachelor, a century
and a half seemed not so vast a period as to obviate
the propriety of substituting right for wrong. It
was the belief of those who knew him best, that he
would positively have taken the very singular step
of giving up the House of the Seven Gables to the
representative of Matthew Maule, but for the un-
speakable tumult which a suspicion of the old gentle-
man's project awakened among his Pyncheon
relatives. Their exertions had the effect of sus-
pending his purpose ; but it was feared that he would
perform, after death, by the operation of his last will,
what he had so hardly been prevented from doing in
his proper lifetime. But there is no one thing which
men so rarely do, whatever the provocation or in-
ducement, as to bequeath patrimonial property away
from their own blood. They may love other indi-
viduals far better than their relatives, — they may
even cherish dislike or positive hatred to the latter;

20 House of the Seven Gables

but yet, in view of death, the strong prejudice of
propinquity revives, and impels the testator to send
down his estate in the line marked out by custom so
immemorial that it looks like nature. In all the
Pyncheons, this feeling had the energy of disease.
It was too powerful for the conscientious scruples of
the old bachelor ; at whose death, accordingly, the
mansion-house, together with most of his other
riches, passed into the possession of his next legal
representative.

This was a nephew, the cousin of the miserable
young man who had been convicted of the uncle's
murder. The new heir, up to the period of his acces-
sion, was reckoned rather a dissipated youth, but
had at once reformed, and made himself an exceed-
ingly respectable member of society. In fact, he
showed more of the Pyncheon quality, and had won
higher eminence in the world, than any of his race,
since the time of the original Puritan. Applying
himself in earlier manhood to the study of the law,
and having a natural tendency towards office, he had
attained, many years ago, to a judiciaLsituation in
some inferior court, which gave him for life the very
desirable and imposing title of judge. Later, he had
engaged in politics, and served a part of two terms in
Congress, besides making a considerable figure in
both branches of the state legislature. Judge Pyn-
cheon was unquestionably an honour to his race.
He had built himself a country seat within a few
miles of his native town, and there spent such por-
tions of his time as could be spared from public
service in the display of every grace and virtue — as
h newspaper phrased it on the eve of an election —
befitting the Christian, the good citizen, the* horticul-
turalist, and the gentleman.

There were few of the Pyncheons left to sun them-
selves in the glow of the judge's prosperity. In
respect to natural increase, the breed had not
thriven ; it appeared rather to be dying out. The
only members of the family known to be extant were,

The Old Pyncheon Family 21

first, the jjodo^Jiiniself, and a single surviving- son,
who was now travelling* in Europe ; next, the thirty
years' prisoner, already alluded to, and a sister of
the latter, who occupied, in an extremely retired
manner, the House of the Seven Gables, in which she
had a life-estate by the will of the old bachelor. She
was understood to be wretchedly poor, and seemed
to make it her choice to remain so; inasmuch as her
affluent cousin, the judge, had repeatedly offered her
all the comforts of life, either in the old mansion or
his own modern residence. The last and youngest
Pyncheon was a little country -girl of seventeen, the
daughter of another of the judge's cousins, who had
married a young woman of no family or property ,
and died early, and in poor circumstances. His
widow had recently taken another husband.

As for Matthew Maule's posterity, it was supposed
now to be extinct. For a very long period after the
witchcraft delusion, however, the Maules had con-
tinued to inhabit the town where their progenitor
had suffered so unjust a death. To all appearance?
they were a quiet, honest, well-meaning race of
people, cherishing no malice against individuals or
the public, for the wrong which had been done them ;
or if, at their own fireside, they transmitted, from
father to child, any hostile recollections of the
wizard's fate, and their lost patrimony, it was never
acted upon, nor openly expressed. Nor would it
have been singular had they ceased to remember that
the House of the Seven Gables was resting its heavy
frame-work on a foundation that was rightfully their
own. There is something so massive, stable, and
almost irresistibly imposing, in the exterior present-
ment of established rank and great possessions, that
their very existence seems to give them a right to
exist; afTeast, so excellent a counterfeit of right,
that" few poor and humble men have moral force
enough to question it, even in their secret minds.
Such is the case now, after so many ancient pre-
judices have been overthrown ; and it was~Tar~more

22 House of the Seven Gables

so in ante-revolutionary days, when the aristocracy
could venture to be proud, and the low were content
to be abased. Thus the Maules, at all events, kept
their resentments within their own breasts. They
were generally poverty-stricken ; always plebeian and
obscure ; working with unsuccessful diligence at
handicrafts ; labouring on the wharves, or following
the sea, as sailors before the mast; living here and
there about the town, in hired tenements, and coming
finally to the almshouse, as the natural home of their
old age. At last, after creeping, as it were, for such
a length of time, along the utmost verge of the
opaque puddle of obscurity, they had taken that
downright plunge, which, sooner or later, is the
destiny of all families, whether princely or plebeian.
For thirty years past, neither town-record, nor grave-
stone, nor the directory, nor the knowledge or
memory of man, bore any trace of Matthew Maule's
descendants. His blood might possibly exist else-
where ; here, where its lowly current could be traced
so far back, it had ceased to keep an onward course.
So long as any of the race were to be found, they
had been marked out from other men — not strik-
ingly, nor as with a sharp line, but with an effect
that was felt, rather than spoken of — by an here-
ditary character of reserve. Their companions, or
those who endeavoured to become such, grew con-
scious of a circle round about the Maules, within
the sanctity or the spell of which, in spite of an
exterior of sufficient frankness and good-fellowship,
it was impossible for any man to step. It was this
indefinable peculiarity, perhaps, that, by insulating
them from human aid, kept them always so unfor-
tunate in life. It certainly operated to prolong, in
their case, and to confirm to them, as their only
inheritance, those feelings of repugnance and super-
stitious terror with which the people of the town,
even after awakening from their frenzy, continued
to regard the memory of the reputed witches. The
mantle, or rather the ragged cloak, of old Matthew

The Old Pyncheon Family 23

Maule, had fallen upon his children. They were
half believed to inherit mysterious attributes ; the
family eye was said to possess strange power.
Among other good-for-nothing properties and privi-
leges, one was especially assigned them : of exercis-
ing an influence over people's dreams. The
Pyncheons, if all stories were true, haughtily as they
bore themselves in the noon-day streets of their
native town, were no better than bond-servants to
those plebeian Maules, on entering the topsy-turvy
commonwealth of sleep. Modern psychology, it
may be, will endeavour to reduce these alleged
necromancies within a system, instead of rejecting
them as altogether fabulous.

A descriptive paragraph or two, treating of the
seven-gabled mansion in its more recent aspect, will
bring this preliminary chapter to a close. The street
in which it upreared its venerable peaks has long
ceased to be a fashionable quarter of the town; so
that, though the old edifice was surrounded by
habitations of modern date, they were mostly small,
built entirely of wood, and typical of the most plod-
ding uniformity of common life. Doubtless, how-
ever, the whole story of human existence may be
latent in each of them, but with no picturesqueness,
externally, that can attract the imagination or sym-
pathy to seek it there. But as for the old structure
of our story, its white-oak frame, and its boards,
shingles, and crumbling plaster, and even the huge
clustered chimney in the midst, seemed to constitute
only the least and meanest paH^^rtfCTreallty^" So
much of manldn^s"^varTed experience had passed » i
there, — so much had been suffered, and something, " K^S^
too, enjoyed, — that the very timbers were oozy, as
with the moisture of a heart. It was itself like a
great human heart, with a life of its own, and full of
rich and sombre reminiscences.

The deep projection of the second story gave the
house such a rY^Q^itotlYp )fr^ that you could ^ot
pass it without the idea that ?t . fraH Wr^tc f> kef*p.

24 House of the Seven Gables

and an eventful history to moralize upon. In front,
just on the edge of the unpaved sidewalk, grew the
Pyncheon-elm, which, in reference to such trees as
one usually meets with, might well be termed
gigantic. It had been planted by a great-grandson
of the first Pyncheon, and, though now fourscore
years of age, or perhaps nearer a hundred, was
still in its strong and broad maturity, throwing its
shadow from side to side of the street, overtopping
the seven gables, and sweeping the whole black
roof with its pendent foliage. It gave beauty to
the old edifice, and seemed to make it a part of
nature. The street having been widened about
forty years ago, the front gable was now precisely
on a line with it. On either side extended a ruin-
ous wooden fence, of open lattice-work, through
which could be seen a grassy yard, and, especially
in the angles of the building, an enormous fertility
of burdocks, with leaves, it is hardly an exaggera-
tion to say, two or three feet long. Behind the
house there appeared to be a garden, which un-
doubtedly had once been extensive, but was now
infringed upon by other enclosures, or shut in by
habitations and out-buildings that stood on another
street. It would be an omission, trifling indeed,
but unpardonable, were we to forget the green moss
that had long since gathered over the projections of
the windows, and on the slopes of the roof; nor must
we fail to direct the reader's eye to a crop, not of
weeds, but flower-shrubs, which were growing aloft
in the air, not a great way from the chimney, in the
nook between two of the gables. They were called
Alice's Posies. The tradition was, that a certain
Alice Pyncheon had flung up the seeds in sport, and
that the dust of the street and the decay of the roof
gradually formed a kind of soil for them, out of which
they grew, when Alice had long been in her grave.
However the flowers might have come there, it was
both sad and sweet to observe how nature adopted
to herself this desolate, decaying, gusty, rusty old

The Old Pyncheon Family 25

house of the Pyncheon family; and how the ever-
returning summer did her best to gladden it with
tender beauty, and grew melancholy in the effort

There is one other feature, very essential to be
noticed, but which, we greatly fear, may damage any
picturesque and romantic impression which we have
been willing to throw over our sketch of this respect-
able edifice. In the front gable, under the impending
brow of the second story, and contiguous to the
street, was a shop-door, divided horizontally in the
midst, and with a window for its upper segment, such
as is often seen in dwellings of a somewhat ancient
date. This same shop-door had been a subject of no
slight mortification to the present occupant of the
august Pyncheon-house, as well as to some of her
predecessors. The matter is disagreeably delicate to
handle ; but, since the reader must needs be let into the
secret, he will please to understand, that about a
century ago, the head of the Pyncheons found himself
involved in serious financial difficulties. The fellow
(gentleman, as he styled himself) can hardly have
been other than a spurious interloper ; for, instead of
seeking office from the king or the royal governor,
or urging his hereditary claim to eastern lands, he
bethought himself of no better avenue to wealth than
by cutting a shop-door through the side of his ances-
tral residence. It was the custom of the time, indeed,
for merchants to store their goods and transact busi-
ness in their own dwellings. But there was some-
thing pitifully small in this old Pyncheon's mode of
setting about his commercial operations ; it was whis-
pered, that, with his own hands, all be-ruffled as
they were, he used to give change for a shilling, and
would turn a half-penny twice over, to make sure
that it was a good one. Beyond all question, he had
the blood of a petty huckster in his veins, through
whatever channel it may have found its way there.

Immediately on his death, the shop-door had been
locked, bolted, and barred, and, down to the period
of our story, had probably never once been opened.

*B 176

26 House of the Seven Gables

The old counter, shelves, and other fixtures of the
little shop remained just as he had left them. It
used to be affirmed, that the dead shopkeeper, in a
white wig-, a faded velvet coat, an apron at his waist,
and his ruffles carefully turned back from his wrists,
might be seen through the chinks of the shutters, any
night of the year, ransacking his till, or poring over
the dingy pages of his day-book. From the look of
unutterable woe upon his face, it appeared to be his
doom to spend eternity in a vain effort to make his
accounts balance.

And now — in a very humble way, as will be seen
— we proceed to open our narrative.

THE LITTLE SHOP-WINDOW

It still lacked half-an-hour of sunrise, when Miss
Hepzibah Pyncheon — we will not say awoke ; it being
doubtful whether the poor lady had so much as closed
her eyes, during the brief night of midsummer — but,
at all events, arose from her solitary pillow, and
of assisting, even in imagination, at a maiden lady's
began what it would be mockery to term the adorn-
ment of her person. Far from us be the indecorum
toilet ! Our story must therefore await Miss Hep-
zibah at the threshold of her chamber ; only presum-
ing, meanwhile to note some of the heavy sighs that
laboured from her bosom, with little restraint as to
their lugubrious depth and volume of sound, inas-
much as they couldJbe audible to nobody, save a
disembodied listener like ourself. The Old Maid was
alone in the old house. Alone, except for a certain
respectable and orderly young- man, an artist in the
daguerreotype line, who, for about three months

The Little Shop-Window 27

back, had been a lodger in a remote gable, — quite a
house by itself, indeed, — with locks, bolts, and oaken
bars, on all the intervening doors. Inaudible, conse-
quently, were poor Miss Hepzibah's gusty sighs.
Inaudible, the creaking joints of her stiffened knees,
as she knelt down by the bedside. And inaudible,
too, by mortal ear, but heard with all-comprehending
love and pity in the furthest heaven, that almost
agony of prayer — now whispered, now a groan, now
a struggling silence — wherewith she besought the
Divine assistance through the day ! Evidently, this
is to be a day of more than ordinary trial to Miss
Hepzibah, who, for above a quarter of a century gone
by, has dwelt in strict seclusion, taking no part in the
business of life, and just as little in its intercourse and
pleasures. Not with such fervour prays the torpid
recluse, looking forward to the cold, sunless, stag-
nant calm of a day that is to be like innumerable
yesterdays !

The maiden lady's devotions are concluded. WiUL
she now issue forth over the threshold of our story?
Not yet, by many moments. First, every drawer in
the tall, old-fashioned bureau is to be opened, with
difficulty, and with a succession of spasmodic jerks ;
then, all must close again, with the same fidgety
reluctance. There is a rustling of stiff silks ; a tread
of backward and forward footsteps, to and fro, across
the chamber. We suspect Miss Hepzibah, more-
over, of taking a step upward into a chair, in order
to give heedful regard to her appearance, on all sides,
and at full length, in the oval, dingy-framed toilet
glass, that hangs above her table. Truly ! well, in-
deed ! who woulrl have thought it ! Is all this precious **
time to be lavished on the matutinal repair and beauti-
fying of an elderly person, who never goes abroad,
whom nobody ever visits^ and from whom, when she
shall have done her utmost, it were the best cHarity
to turn one's eyes another way?

Now she is almost ready. Let us pardon her one
other pause; for it is given to the sole sentiment,

28 House of the Seven Gables

or, we might better say — heightened and rendered
intense, as it has been, by sorrow and seclusion —
to the strong passion, of her life. We heard the
turning of a key in a small lock; she has opened
a secret drawer of an escritoir, and is probably look-
ing at a certain miniature, done in Malbone's most
perfect style, and representing a face worthy of no
less delicate a pencil. It was once our good fortune
to see this picture. It is a likeness of a young man,
in a silken dressing-gown of an old fashion, the soft
richness of which is well adapted to the countenance
of reverie, with its full, tender lips, and beautiful
eyes, that seem to indicate not so much capacity of
thought, as gentle and voluptuous emotion. Of the
possessor of such features we shall have a right to
ask nothing, except that he would take the rude
world easily, and make himself happy in it. Can
it have been an early lover of Miss Hepzibah ? No !
she never had a lover — poor thing, how could she?
— nor ever knew, by her own experience, what love
technically means. And yet, her undying faith and
trust, her fresh remembrance, and continual devoted-
ness towards the original of that miniature, have
been the only substance for her heart to feed upon.

She seems to have put aside the miniature, and
is standing again before the toilet-glass. There
are tears to be wiped off. A few more footsteps to
and fro ; and here, at last — with another pitiful sigh,
like a gust of chill, damp wind out of a long-closed
vault, the door of which has accidentally been set
ajar — here comes Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon ! Forth
she steps into the dusky, time-darkened passage;
a tall figure, clad in black silk, with a long and
shrunken waist, feeling her way towards the stairs
like a near-sighted person, as in truth she is.

The sun, meanwhile, if not already above the
horizon, was ascending nearer and nearer to its
verge. A few clouds, floating high upward, caught
some of the earliest light, and threw down its
golden gleam on the windows of all the houses in

The Little Shop-Window 29

the street, not forgetting the House of the Seven
Gables, which — many such sunrises as it had wit-
nessed— looked cheerfully at the present one. The
reflected radiance served to show, pretty distinctly,
the aspect and arrangement of the room which
Hepzibah entered, after descending the stairs. It
was a low-studded room, with a beam across the
ceiling, panelled with dark wood, and having a large
chimney-piece, set round with pictured tiles, but now
closed by an iron fire-board, through which ran the
funnel of a modern stove. There was a carpet on
the floor, originally of rich texture, but so worn and
faded, in these latter years, that its once brilliant
figure had quite vanished into one indistinguishable
hue. In the way of furniture, there were two tables ;
one, constructed with perplexing intricacy, and ex-
hibiting as many feet as a centipede ; the other, most
delicately wrought, with four long and slender legs,
so apparently frail that it was almost incredible what
a length of time the ancient tea-table had stood upon
them. Half-a-dozen chairs stood about the room,
straight and stiff, and so ingeniously contrived for
the discomfort of the human person that they were
irksome even to sight, and conveyed the ugliest
possible idea of the state of society to which they
could have been adapted. One exception there was,
however, in a very antique elbow-chair, with a high
back, carved elaborately in oak, and a roomy depth
within its arms, that made up, by its spacious com-
prehensiveness, for the lack of any of those artistic
curves which abound in a modern chair.

As for ornamental articles of furniture, we recollect
but two, if such they may be called. One was a map
of the Pyncheon territory at the eastward, not en-
graved, but the handiwork of some skilful old
draughtsman, and grotesquely illuminated with pic-
tures of Indians and wild beasts, among which was
seen a lion ; the natural history of the region being
as little known as its geography, which was put
down most fantastically awry. The other adornment

30 House of the Seven Gables

was the portrait of old Colonel Pyncheon, at two-
thirds length, representing the stern features of a
puritanic-looking personage, in a skull-cap, with a
laced band and a grizzly beard ; holding a Bible with
one hand, and in the other uplifting an iron sword-
hilt. The latter object, being more successfully
depicted by the artist, stood out in far greater pro-
minence than the sacred volume. Face to face with
this picture, on entering the apartment, Miss Hep-
zibah Pyncheon came to a pause ; regarding it with
a singular scowl, a strange contortion of the brow,
which by people who did not know her, would pro-
bably have been interpreted as an expression of
bitter anger and ill-will. But it was no such thing.
She, in fact, felt a reverence for the pictured visage
of which only a far-descended and time-stricken
virgin could be susceptible ; and this forbidding scowl
was the innocent result of her near-sightedness, and
an effort so to concentrate her powers of vision as
to substitute a firm outline of the object instead of
a vague one.

We must linger a moment on this unfortunate ex-
pression of poor Hepzibah 's brow. Her scowl — as
the world, or such part of it as sometimes caught a
transitory glimpse of her at the window, wickedly
persisted in calling it — her scowl had done Miss
Hepzibah a very ill ofl&ce, in establishing her char-
acter as an ill-tempered old maid; nor does it appear
improbable, that, by often gazing at herself in a dim
looking-glass, and perpetually encountering her own
frown within its ghostly sphere, she had been led
to interpret the expression almost as unjustly as the
world did. " How miserably cross I look!" she
must often have whispered to herself ; — and ulti-
mately have fancied herself so, by a sense of inevit-
able doom. But her heart never frowned. It was
naturally tender, sensitive, and full of little tremors
and palpitations ; all of which weaknesses it retained,
while her visage was growing so perversely stern,
and even fierce. Nor had Hepzibah ever any hardi*

The Little Shop- Window 31

hood except what came from the very warmest nook
in her affections.

All this time, however, we are loitering faint-
heartedly on the threshold of our story. In very
truth, we have an invincible reluctance to disclose
what Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon was about to do.

It has already been observed, that, in the basement
storey of the gable fronting on the street, an unworthy
ancestor, nearly a century ago, had fitted up a shop.
Ever since the old gentleman retired from trade, and
fell asleep under his coffin-lid, not only the shop-door,
but the inner arrangements, had been suffered to
remain unchanged ; while the dust of ages gathered
inch-deep over the shelves and counter, and partly
filled an old pair of scales, as if it were of value
enough to be weighed. It treasured itself up, too,
in the half-open till, where there still lingered a base
sixpence, worth neither more nor less than the
hereditary pride which had here been put to shame.
Such had been the state and condition of the little
shop in old Hepzibah 's childhood, when she and her
brother used to play at hide-and-seek in its forsaken
precincts. So it had remained, until within a few
days past.

But now, though the shop-window was still closely
curtained from the public gaze, a remarkable change
had taken place in its interior. The rich and heavy
festoons of cob-web, which it had cost a long ances-
tral succession of spiders their life's labour to spin
and weave, had been carefully brushed away from
the ceiling. The counter, shelves, and floor had all
been scoured, and the latter was overstrewn with
fresh blue sand. The brown scales, too, had evi-
dently undergone rigid discipline, in an unavailing
effort to rub off the rust, which, alas ! had eaten
through and through their substance. Neither was
the little old shop any longer empty of merchantable
goods. A curious eye, privileged to take an account
of stock, and investigate behind the counter, would
have discovered a barrel, — yea, two or three barrels

32 House of the Seven Gables

and half ditto, — one containing flour, another apples,
and a third, perhaps, Indian meal. There was like-
wise a square box of pine-wood, full of soap in
bars ; also, another of the same size, in which were
tallow candles, ten to the pound. A small stock of
brown sugar, some white beans and split peas, and
a few other commodities of low price, and such as
are constantly in demand, made up the bulkier por-
tion of the merchandise. It might have been taken
for a ghostly or phantasmagoric reflection of the old
shopkeeper Pyncheon's shabbily-provided shelves,
save that some of the articles were of a description
and outward form which could hardly have been
known in his day. For instance, there was a glass
pickle jar, filled with fragments of Gibraltar rock;
not, indeed, splinters of the veritable stone founda-
tion of the famous fortress, but bits of delectable
candy, neatly done up in white paper. Jim Crow,
moreover, was seen executing his world-renowned
dance, in ginger-bread. A party of leaden dragoons
were galloping along one of the shelves, in equip-
ments and uniform of modern cut; and there were
some sugar figures, with no strong resemblance to
the humanity of any epoch, but less unsatisfactorily
representing our own fashions than those of a
hundred years ago. Another phenomenon, still more
strikingly modern, was a package of lucifer matches,
which, in old times, would have been thought actually
to borrow their instantaneous flame from the nether
fires of Tophet.

In short, to bring the matter at once to a point,
it was incontrovertibly evident that somebody had
taken the shop and fixtures of the long-retired and
forgotten Mr. Pyncheon, and was about to renew the
enterprise of that departed worthy, with a different
set of customers. Who could this bold adventurer
be? And, of all places in the world, why had he
chosen the House of the Seven Gables as the scene
of his commercial speculations?

We return to the elderly maiden. She at. length

The Little Shop-Window 33

withdrew her eyes from the dark countenance of the
colonel's portrait, heaved a sigh, — indeed her breast
was a very cave of Mollis, that morning, — and stept
across the room on tip-toe, as is the customary gait
of elderly women. Passing through an intervening
passage, she opened a door that communicated with
the shop, just now so elaborately described. Owing
to the projection of the upper storey — and still more
to the thick shadow of the Pyncheon-elm, which stood
almost directly in front of the gable — the twilight,
here, was still as much akin to night as morning.
Another heavy sigh from Miss Hepzibah ! After a
moment's pause on the threshold, peering towards
the window with her near-sighted scowl, as if frown-
ing down some bitter enemy, she suddenly projected
herself into the shop. The haste, and, as it were,
the galvanic impulse of the movement, were really
quite startling.

Nervously — in a sort of frenzy, we might almost
say — she began to busy herself in arranging some
children's playthings, and other little wares, on the
shelves and at the shop-window. In the aspect of
this dark-arrayed, pale-faced, lady-lik^7 old figure,
there was a deeply-tragic character, that contrasted
irreconcilably with the ludicrous pettiness of her
employment. It seemed a queer anomaly, that so
gaunt and dismal a personage should take^a_t,ay
in hand; a miracle, that the toy did not vanish in
her grasp ; a miserably absurd idea, that she should
go on perplexing her stiff and sombre intellect with
the question how to tempt little boys into her
premises ! Yet such is undoubtedly her object.
Now she places a gingerbread elephant against the
window, but with so tremulous a touch that it tumbles
upon the floor, with the dismemberment of three legs
and its trunk ; it has ceased to be an elephant, and
has become a few bits of musty gingerbread. There,
again, she has upset a tumbler of marbles, all of
which roll different ways, and each individual marble,
devil-directed, into the most difficult obscurity that

34 House of the Seven Gables

■

it can find. Heaven help our^poor old Hepzibah,
and forgive us for taking a ludicrous view of her
position ! As her rigid and rusty frame goes down
upon its hands and knees, in quest of the abscond-
ing marbles, we positively feel so much the more
inclined to shed tears of sympathy, from the very
fact that we must needs turn aside and laugh at her.
For here — and if we fail to impress it suitably upon
the reader, it is our own fault, not that of the theme
— here is one of the truest points of melancholy
interest that occur in ordinary life. It was the final
throe of what called itself old gentility. A lady —
who had fed herself from childhood with the shadowy
food of aristocratic reminiscences, and whose religion
it was that a lady's hand soils itself irremediably by
doing aught for bread — this born lady, after sixty
years of narrowing means, is fain to step down from
her pedestal of imaginary rank. Poverty, treading
closely at her heels for a lifetime, has come up with
her at last. She must earn her own food, or starve !
And we have stolen upon Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon,
too irreverently, at the instant of time when the
patrician lady is to be transformed into the plebeian
woman.

In this republican country, amid the fluctuating
waves of our social life, somebody is always at the
drowning-point. The tragedy is enacted with as
continual a repetition as that of a popular drama on
a holiday ; and, nevertheless, is felt as deeply, per-
haps, as when an hereditary noble sinks below his
order. More deeply; since, with us, rank is the
grosser substance of wealth and a splendid establish-
ment, and has no spiritual existence after the death
of these, but dies hopelessly along with them. And,
therefore, since we have been unfortunate enough to
introduce our heroine at so inauspicious a juncture,
we would entreat for a mood of due solemnity in the
spectators of her fate. Let us behold, in poor
Hepzibah, the immemorial lady, — two hundred years
old, on this side of the water, and thrice as many

The Little Shop- Window 35

on the other, — with her antique portraits, pedigrees,
coats of arms, records and traditions, and her claim,
as joint heiress, to that princely territory at the east-
ward, no longer a wilderness but a populous fertility,
— born, too, in Pyncheon-street, under the Pyncheon-
elm, and in the Pyncheon-house, where she has spent
all her days, — reduced now, in that very house, to
be the hucksteress of a cent-shop !

This business of setting up a petty shop is almost
the only resource of women, in circumstances at all
similar to those of our unfortunate recluse. With
her near-sightedness, and those tremulous fingers of
hers, at once inflexible and delicate, she could not be
a seamstress ; although her sampler of fifty years
gone by exhibited some of the iQOSt recondite^ speci-
mens of ornamental needle-work. A school for little
children had been often in her thoughts; and, at one
time, she had begun a review of her early studies
in the New England primer, with a view to prepare
herself for the office of instructress. But the love of
children had never been quickened in Hepzibah's
heart, and was now torpid, if not extinct; she
watched the little people of the neighbourhood from
her chamber-window, and doubted whether she could
tolerate a more intimate acquaintance with them.
Besides, in our day, the very ABC has become a
science, greatly too abstruse to be any longer taught
by pointing a pin from letter to letter. A modern
child could teach old Hepzibah more than old Hepzi-
bah could teach the child. So — with many a cold,
deep heart-quake at the idea of at last coming into
sordid contact with the world, from which she had so
long kept aloof, while every added day of seclusion
had rolled another stone against the cavern-door
of her hermitage — the poor thing bethought her-
self of the ancient shop-window, the rusty scales,
and dusty till. She might have held back a little
longer ; but another circumstance, not yet hinted at,
had somewhat hastened her decision. Her humble
preparations, therefore, were duly made, and the

36 House of the Seven Gables

enterprise was now to be commenced. Nor was she
entitled to complain of any remarkable singularity
in her fate ; for, in the town of her nativity, we might
point to several little shops of a similar description ;
some of them in houses as ancient as that of the
seven gables ; and one or two, it may be, where a
decayed gentlewoman stands behind the counter, as
grim an image of family pride as Miss Hepzibah
Pyncheon herself.

It was overpoweringly ridiculous — we must hon-
estly confess it — the deportment of the maiden lady
while setting her shop in order for the public eye.
She stole on tiptoe to the window, as cautiously as
if she conceived some bloody-minded villain to be
watching behind the elm-tree, with intent to take her
life. Stretching out her long, lank arm, she put a
paper of pearl-buttons, a Jew's-harp, or whatever
the small article might be, in its destined place, and
straightway vanished back into the dusk, as if the
world need never hope for another glimpse of her. It
might have been fancied, indeed, that she expected
to minister to the wants of the community unseen,
like a disembodied divinity, or enchantress, holding
forth her bargains to the reverential and awe-stricken
purchaser, in an invisible hand. But Hepzibah had
no such flattering dream. She was well aware that
she must ultimately come forward, and stand
revealed in her proper individuality ; but, like other
sensitive persons, she could not bear to be observed
in the gradual process, and chose rather to flash
forth on the world's astonished gaze at once.

The inevitable moment was not much longer to be
delayed. The sunshine might now be seen stealing
down the front of the opposite house, from the win-
dows of which came a reflected gleam, struggling
through the boughs of the elm-tree, and enlighten-
ing the interior of the shop more distinctly than here-
tofore. The town appeared to be waking up. A
baker's cart had already rattled through the street,
chasing away the latest vestige of night's sanctity

The Little Shop- Window 37

with the jingle-jangle of its dissonant bells. A milk-
man was distributing the contents of his cans from
door to door; and the harsh peal of a fisherman's
conch-shell was heard far off, around the corner.
None of these tokens escaped Hepzibah's notice.
The moment had arrived. To delay longer would
be only to lengthen out her misery. Nothing
remained, except to take down the bar from the shop-
door, leaving the entrance free — more than free —
welcome, as if all were household friends — to every
passer-by, whose eyes might be attracted by the
commodities at the window. This last act Hepzibah
now performed, letting the bar fall with what smote
upon her excited nerves as a most astounding clatter.
Then — as if the only barrier betwixt herself and the
world had been thrown down, and a flood of evil con*
sequences would come tumbling through the gap-
she fled into the inner parlour, threw herself into the
ancestral elbow-chair, and wept.

Our miserable old Hepzibah ! It is a heavy annoy-
ance to a writer, who endeavours to represent nature,
its various attitudes and circumstances, in a reason-
ably correct outline and true colouring, that so much
of the mean and ludicrous should be hopelessly mixed
up with the purest pathos which life anywhere sup-
plies to him. What tragic dignity, for example, can
be wrought into a scene like this ! How can we
elevate our history of retribution for the sin of long
ago, when, as one of our most prominent figures, we
are compelled to introduce — not a young and lovely
woman, nor even the stately remains of beauty,
storm-shattered by affliction — but a gaunt, sallow,
rusty-jointed maiden, in a long-waisted silk gown,
and with the strange horror of a turban on her head !
Her visage is not even ugly. It is redeemed from
insignificance only by the contraction of her eyebrows
into a near-sighted scowl. And finally, her great
life-trial seems to be that, after sixty years of idle-
ness, she finds it convenient to earn comfortable bread
by setting up a shop in a small way. Nevertheless,

38 House of the Seven Gables

if we look through all the heroic fortunes of man-
kind, we shall find this same entanglement of some-
thing mean and trivial with whatever is noblest in
joy or sorrow. Life is made up of marble and mud.
And without all the deeper trust in a comprehensive
sympathy above us, we might hence be led to suspect
the insult of a sneer, as well as an immitigable frown,
on the iron countenance of fate. What is called
poetic insight is the gift of discerning, in this sphere
of strangely-mingled elements, the beauty and the
majesty which are compelled to assume a garb so
sordid.

Ill

THE FIRST CUSTOMER

Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon sat in the oaken elbow-
chair, with her hands over her face, giving way to
that heavy down-sinking of the heart which most
persons have experienced, when the image of hope
itself seems ponderously moulded of lead, on the
eve of an enterprise at once doubtful and moment-
ous. She was suddenly startled by the tinkling
alarum — high, sharp, and irregular — of a little bell.
The maiden lady arose upon her feet, as pale as a
ghost at cockcrow ; for she was an enslaved spirit,
and this the talisman to which she owed obedience.
This little bell — to speak in plainer terms — being
fastened over the shop-door, was so contrived as to
vibrate by means of a steel spring, and thus convey
notice to the inner regions of the house, when any
customer should cross the threshold. Its ugly and
spiteful little din (heard now for the first time, per-
haps, since Hepzibah's periwigged predecessor had
retired from trade) at once set every nerv^e of her

The First Customer 39

body in responsive and tumultuous vibration. The
crisis was upon her ! Her first customer was at the
door !

Without giving herself time for a second thought,
she rushed into the shop, pale, wild, desperate in
gesture and expression, scowling portentously, and
looking far better qualified to do fierce battle with a
housebreaker, than to stand smiling behind the
counter, bartering small wares for a copper recom-
pense. Any ordinary customer, indeed, would have
turned his back and fled. And yet there was nothing
fierce in Hepzibah's poor old heart; nor had she, at
the moment, a single bitter thought against the world
at large, or one individual man or woman. She
wished them all well, but wished, too, that she herself
were done with them, and in her quiet grave.

The applicant by this time stood within the door-
way. Coming freshly, as he did, out of the morn-
ing light, he appeared to have brought some of its
cheery influences into the shop along with him. It
was a slender young man, not more than one or two
and twenty years old, with rather a grave and
thoughtful expression, for his years, but likewise a
springy alacrity and vigour. These qualities were
not only perceptible physically, in his make and
motions, but made themselves felt almost immedi-
ately in his character. A brown beard, not too silken
in its texture, fringed his chin, but as yet without
completely hiding it ; he wore a short moustache, too,
and his dark, high-featured countenance looked all
the better for these natural ornaments. As for his
dress, it was of the simplest kind ; a summer sack of
cheap and ordinary material, thin, checkered panta-
loons, and a straw hat, by no means of the finest
braid. Oak Hall might have supplied his entire
equipment. He was chiefly marked as a gentle-
man— if such, indeed, he made any claim to be —
by the rather remarkable whiteness and nicety of his
clean linen.

He met the scowl of old Hepzibah without apparent

40 House of the Seven Gables

alarm, as having heretofore encountered it, and found
it harmless.

11 So, my dear Miss Pyncheon," said the daguerreo-
typist, — for it was that sole other occupant of the
seven-gabled mansion, — " I am glad to see that you
have not shrunk from your good purpose. I merely
look in to offer my best wishes, and to ask if I can
assist you any further in your preparations. "

People in difficulty and distress, or in any manner
at odds with the world, can endure a vast amount
of harsh treatment, and perhaps be only the stronger
for it; whereas, they give way at once before the
simplest expression of what they perceive to be
genuine sympathy. So it proved with poor Hepzi-
bah; for, when she saw the young man's smile, —
looking so much the brighter on a thoughtful face, —
and heard his kindly tone, she broke first into a
hysteric giggle, and then began to sob.

" Ah, Mr. Holgrave," cried she, as soon as she
could speak, " I never can go through with it!
Never, never, never ! I wish I were dead, and in the
old family-tomb, with all my forefathers ! With
my father, and my mother, and my sister ! Yes,
and with my brother, who had far better find
me there than here ! The world is too chill and
hard, — and I am too old, and too feeble, and too
hopeless I"

■ O, believe me, Miss Hepzibah," said the young
man, quietly, " these feelings will not trouble you
any longer, after you are once fairly in the midst of
your enterprise. They are unavoidable at this mo-
ment, standing, as you do, on the outer verge of your
long seclusion, and peopling the world with ugly
shapes, which you will soon find to be as unreal as
the giants and ogres of a child's story book. I find
nothing so singular in life, as that everything appears
to lose its substance, the instant one actually grapples
with it. So it will be with what you think so
terrible. M

" But I aiv a woman I" said Hepzibah, piteously.

The First Customer 41

" I was going to say, a lady, — but I consider that as
past."

"Well; no matter if it be past!" answered the
artist, a strange gleam of half-hidden sarcasm flash-
ing through the kindliness of his manner. " Let
it go ! You are the better without it. I speak
frankly, my dear Miss Pyncheon : for are we not
friends? I look upon this as one of the fortunate
days of your life. It ends an epoch and begins one.
Hitherto, the life-blood has been gradually chilling in
your veins, as you sat aloof, within your circle of
gentility, while the rest of the world was fighting out
its battle with one kind of necessity or another.
Henceforth you will at least have the sense of healthy
and natural effort for a purpose, and of lending your
strength — be it great or small — to the united struggle
of mankind. This is success — all the success that
anybody meets with I"

"It is natural enough, Mr. Holgrave, that you
should have ideas like these," rejoined Hepzibah,
drawing up her gaunt figure, with slightly offended
dignity. " You are a man, a young man, and
brought up, I suppose, as almost everybody is now-
a-days, with a view to seeking your fortune. But I
was born a lady, and have always lived one ; no
matter in what narrowness of means, always a lady !"

11 But I was not born a gentleman; neither have I
lived like one," said Holgrave, slightly smiling; " so,
my dear madam, you will hardly expect me to
sympathize with sensibilities of this kind ; though,
unless I deceive myself, I have some imperfect com-
prehension of them. These names of gentleman and
lady had a meaning, in the past history of the world,
and conferred privileges, desirable or otherwise, on
those entitled to bear them. In the present — and
still more in the future condition of society — they
imply, not privilege, but restriction !"

" These are new notions," said the old gentle-
woman, shaking her head. " I shall never under-
stand them; neither do I wish it."

42 House of the Seven Gables

" We will cease to speak of them, then," replied
the artist, with a friendlier smile than his last one,
" and I will leave you to feel whether it is not better
to be a true woman than a lady. Do you really think,
Miss Hepzibah, that any lady of your family has
ever done a more heroic thing since this house was
built, than you are performing in it to-day ? Never ;
and if the Pyncheons had always acted so nobly, I
doubt whether an old wizard Maule's anathema, of
which you told me once, would have had much weight
with Providence against them. "

" Ah ! — no, no !" said Hepzibah, not displeased at
this allusion to the sombre dignity of an inherited
curse. " If old Maule's ghost, or a descendant of
his, could see me behind the counter to-day, he would
call it the fulfilment of his worst wishes. But I thank
you for your kindness, Mr. Holgrave, and will do my
utmost to be a good shopkeeper. "

" Pray do," said Holgrave, " and let me have the
pleasure of being your first customer. I am about
taking a walk to the sea-shore before going to my
rooms, where I misuse Heaven's blessed sunshine
by tracing out human features through its agency.
A few of those biscuits, dipt in sea-water, will be
just what I need for breakfast. What is the price
of half-a-dozen ?"

M Let me be a lady a moment longer,' ' replied
Hepzibah, with a manner of antique stateliness, to
which a melancholy smile lent a kind of grace. She
put the biscuits into his hand, but rejected the com-
pensation. " A Pyncheon must not, at all events,
under her forefathers' roof, receive money for a
morsel of bread, from her only friend !"

Holgrave took his departure, leaving her, for the
moment, with spirits not quite so much depressed.
Soon, however, they had subsided nearly to their
former dead level. With a beating heart, she listened
to the footsteps of early passengers, which now began
to be frequent along the street. Once or twice they
seemed to linger; these strangers, or neighbours,

The First Customer 43

as the case might be, were looking at the display of
toys and pretty commodities in Hepzibah's shop-
window. She was doubly tortured; in part, with a
sense of overwhelming shame, that strange and
unloving eyes should have the privilege of gazing,
and partly because the idea occurred to her, with
ridiculous importunity, that the window was not
arranged so skilfully, nor nearly to so much advant-
age, as it might have been. It seemed as if the
whole fortune or failure of her shop might depend on
the display of a different set of articles, or substitut-
ing a fairer apple for one which appeared to be
specked. So she made the change, and straightway
fancied that everything was spoiled by it ; not recog-
nizing that it was the nervousness of the juncture,
and her own native squeamishness, as an old maid,
that wrought all the seeming mischief.

Anon, there was an encounter, just at the door-
step, betwixt two labouring men, as their rough
voices denoted them to be. After some slight talk
about their own affairs, one of them chanced to
notice the shop-window, and directed the other's
attention to it.

4 * See here ! ' ' cried he ; "what do you think of this ?
Trade seems to be looking up in Pyncheon-street !"

4 * Well, well, this is a sight, to be sure!" ex-
claimed the other. M In the old Pyncheon-house, and
underneath the Pyncheon-elm ! Who would have
thought it? Old Maid Pyncheon is setting up a cent-
shop !"

"Will she make it go, think you, Dixey?" said
his friend. " I don't call it a very good stand.
There's another shop just round the corner."

"Make it go!" cried Dixey, with a most con-
temptuous expression, as if the very idea were im-
possible to be conceived. " Not a bit of it ! Why,
her face — I've seen it, for I dug her garden for her
one year — her face is enough to frighten the Old
Nick himself, if he had ever so great a mind to trade
with her. People can't stand it, I tell you ! She

44 House of the Seven Gables

scowls dreadfully, reason or none, out of pure
ugliness of temper !M

" Well, that's not so much matter," remarked the
other man. " These sour-tempered folks are most
handy at business, and know pretty well what they
are about. But, as you say, I don't think she'll do
much. This business of keeping cent-shops is over-
done, like all other kinds of trade, handicraft, and
bodily labour. I know it, to my cost ! My wife kept
a cent-shop three months, and lost five dollars on her
outlay V9

" Poor business!" responded Dixey, in a tone as
if he were shaking his head, — " poor business I"

For some reason or other, not very easy to analyze,
there had hardly been so bitter a pang, in all her
previous misery about the matter, as what thrilled
Hepzibah's heart, on overhearing the above conversa-
tion. The testimony in regard to her scowl was
frightfully important ; it seemed to hold up her image,
wholly relieved from the false light of her self-parti-
alities, and so hideous that she dared not look at it.
She was absurdly hurt, moreover, by the slight and
idle effect that her setting-up shop — an event of such
breathless interest to herself — appeared to have upon
the public, of which these two men were the nearest
representatives. A glance ; a passing word or two ;
a coarse laugh ; and she was doubtless forgotten, be-
fore they turned the corner ! They cared nothing for
her dignity, and just as little for her degradation.
Then, also, the augury of ill-success, uttered from the
sure wisdom of experience, fell upon her half-dead
hope like a clod into a grave. The man's wife had
already tried the same experiment, and failed ! How
could the born lady — the recluse of half a lifetime,
utterly unpractised in the world, at sixty years of
age — how could she ever dream of succeeding, when
the hard, vulgar, keen, busy, hackneyed New Eng-
land woman, had lost five dollars on her little outlay !
Success presented itself as an impossibility, and the
hope of it as a wild hallucination.

The First Customer 45

Some malevolent spirit, doing his utmost to drive
Hepzibah mad, unrolled before her imagination a
kind of panorama, representing the great thorough-
fare of a city, all astir with customers. So many and
so magnificent shops as there were ! Groceries, toy-
shops, dry-goods stores, with their immense panes of
plate-glass, their gorgeous fixtures, their vast and
complete assortments of merchandise, in which
fortunes had been invested ; and those noble mirrors
at the further end of each establishment, doubling all
this wealth by a brightly-burnished vista of un-
realities ! On one side of the street this splendid
bazaar, with a multitude of perfumed and gloss)
salesmen, smirking, smiling, bowing, and measuring | ,
out the goods. On the other, the dusty old House |
of the Seven Gables, with the antiquated shop-window
under its projecting storey, and Hepzibah herself, in
a gown of rusty black silk, behind the counter, scowl-
ing at the world as it went by ! This mighty contrast
thrust itself forward, as a fair expression of the odds
against which she was to begin her struggle for a
subsistence. Success? Preposterous I She would
never think of it again ! The house might just as
well be buried in an eternal fog, while all the other
houses had the sunshine on them ; for not a foot
would ever cross the threshold, nor a hand so much
as try the door !

But, at this instant, the shop-bell, right over her
head, tinkled as if it were bewitched. The old gentle-
woman's heart seemed to be attached to the same
steel spring, for it went through a series of sharp
jerks, in unison with the sound. The door was
thrust open, although no human form was percept-
ible on the other side of the half-window. Hepzibah,
nevertheless, stood at a gaze, with her hands clasped,
looking very much as if she had summoned up an
evil spirit, and were afraid, yet resolved, to hazard
the encounter.

4< Heaven help me !" she groaned mentally. 4< Now
is my hour of need 1"

46 House of the Seven Gables

The door, which moved with difficulty on its creak-
ing and rusty hinges, being forced quite open, a
square and sturdy little urchin became apparent, with
cheeks as red as an apple. He was clad rather
shabbily (but as it seemed, more owing to his mother's
carelessness than his father's poverty), in a blue
apron, very wide and short trousers, shoes somewhat
out at the toes, and a chip-hat, with the frizzles of
his curly hair sticking through the crevices. A book
and a small slate under his arm indicated that he
was on his way to school. He stared at Hepzibah a
moment, as an elder customer than himself would
have been likely enough to do, not knowing what
to make of the tragic attitude and queer scowl where-
with she regarded him.

" Well, child," said she, taking heart at sight of a
personage so little formidable, — " well, my child,
what did you wish for?"

" That Jim Crow, there, in the window," answered
the urchin, holding out a cent, and pointing to the
gingerbread figure that had attracted his notice, as
he loitered along to school; " the one that has not a
broken foot."

So Hepzibah put forth her lank arm, and taking
the effigy from the shop-window, delivered it to her
first customer.

" No matter for the money," said she, giving him
a little push towards the door; for her old gentility
was contumaciously squeamish at sight of the copper
coin, and, besides, it seemed such pitiful meanness
to take the child's pocket-money in exchange for a
bit of stale ginger-bread. " No matter for the cent.
You are welcome to Jim Crow."

The child, staring with round eyes, at this instance
of liberality, wholly unprecedented in his large ex-
perience of cent-shops, took the man of gingerbread,
and quitted the premises. No sooner had he reached
the sidewalk (little cannibal that he was !) than Jim
Crow's head was in his mouth. As he had not been
tareful to shut the door, Hepzibah was at the pains

The First Customer 47

of closing it after him, with a pettish ejaculation or
two about the troublesomeness of young people, and
particularly of small boys. She had just placed
another representative of the renowned Jim Crow at
the window, when again the shop-bell tinkled clamor-
ously, and again the door being thrust open, with
its characteristic jerk and jar, disclosed the same
sturdy little urchin who, precisely two minutes ago,
had made his exit. The crumbs and discoloration of
the cannibal feast, as yet hardly consummated, were
exceedingly visible about his mouth.

11 What is it now, child ?" asked the maiden lady,
rather impatiently; " did you come back to shut the
door?"

" No," answered the urchin, pointing to the figure
that had just been put up; " I want that other Jim
Crow."

" Well, here it is for you," said Hepzibah, reach-
ing it down ; but, recognizing that this pertinacious
customer would not quit her on any other terms, so
long as she had a gingerbread figure in her shop, she
partly drew back her extended hand, — " Where is
the cent?"

The little boy had the cent ready, but like a true-
born Yankee would have preferred the better bargain
to the worse. Looking somewhat chagrined, he put
the coin into Hepzibah's hand, and departed, sending
the second Jim Crow in quest of the former one. The
new shopkeeper dropped the first solid result of her
commercial enterprise into the till. It was done.
The sordid stain of that copper coin could never be
washed away from her palm. The little school-boy,
aided by the impish figure of the negro dancer, had
wrought an irreparable ruin. The structure of ancient
aristocracy had been demolished by him, even as if
his childish gripe had torn down the seven-gabled
mansion ! Now let Hepzibah turn the old Pyncheon
portraits with their faces to the wall ; and take the
map of her eastern territory to kindle the kitchen
fire, and blow up the flame with the empty breath of

48 House of the Seven Gables

her ancestral traditions ! What had she to do with
ancestry ? Nothing : no more than with posterity !
No lady now, but simply Hepzibah Pyncheon, 3
forlorn old maid, and keeper of a cent-shop !

Nevertheless, even while she paraded these ideas
somewhat ostentatiously through her mind, it is alto-
gether surprising what a calmness had come over her.
The anxiety and misgivings which had tormented
her, whether asleep or in melancholy day-dreams,
ever since her project began to take an aspect of
solidity, had now vanished quite away. She felt the
novelty of her position, indeed, but no longer with
disturbance or affright. Now and then there came
a thrill of almost youthful enjoyment. It was the
invigorating breath of a fresh outward atmosphere,
after the long torpor and monotonous seclusion of
her life. So wholesome is effort ! So miraculous the
strength that we do not know of ! The healthiest
glow that Hepzibah had known for years had come
now, in the dreaded crisis, when, for the first time,
she had put forth her hand to help herself. The
little circlet of the school-boy's copper coin — dim and
lustreless though it was, with the small services which
it had been doing here and there about the world — had
proved a talisman, fragrant with good, and deserving
to be set in gold and worn next her heart. It was as
potent, and perhaps endowed with the same kind of
efficacy, as a galvanic ring ! Hepzibah, at all events,
was indebted to its subtle operation, both in body
and spirit; so much the more, as it inspired her with
energy to get some breakfast, at which, still the
better to keep up her courage, she allowed herself an
extra spoonful in her infusion of black tea.

Her introductory day of shop-keeping did not run
on, however, without many and serious interruptions
of this mode of cheerful vigour. As a general rule,
Providence seldom vouchsafes to mortals any more
than just that degree of encouragement which suffices
to keep them at a reasonably full exertion of their
powers. In the case of our old gentlewoman, after

The First Customer 49

the excitement of new effort had subsided, the des-
pondency of her whole life threatened ever and anon
to return. It was like the heavy mass of clouds which
we may often see obscuring the sky, and making a
gray twilight everywhere, until, towards nightfall, it
yields temporarily to a glimpse of sunshine. But,
always, the envious cloud strives to gather again
across the streak of celestial azure.

Customers came in, as the forenoon advanced, but
rather slowly ; in some cases too, it must be owned,
with little satisfaction either to themselves or Miss
Hepzibah; nor, on the whole, with an aggregate of
very rich emolument to the till. A little girl, sent by
her mother to match a skein of cotton thread of a
peculiar hue, took one that the near-sighted old lady
pronounced extremely like, but soon came running
back, with a blunt and cross message, that it would
not do, and besides, was very rotten ! Then there
was a pale, care-wrinkled woman, not old but
haggard, and already with streaks of gray among her
hair, like silver ribbons ; one of those women, natur-
ally delicate, whom you at once recognize as worn to
death by a brute — probably a drunken brute — of a
husband, and at least nine children. She wanted a
few pounds of flour, and offered the money, which
the decayed gentlewoman silently rejected, and gave
the poor soul better measure than if she had taken it.
Shortly afterwards, a man in a blue cotton frock,
much soiled, came in and bought a pipe, filling the
whole shop, meanwhile, with the hot odour of strong
drink, not only exhaled in the torrid atmosphere of
his breath, but oozing out of his entire system, like
an inflammable gas. It was impressed on Hepzibah's
mind that this was the husband of the care-wrinkled
woman. He asked for a paper of tobacco; and as
she had neglected to provide herself with the article,
her brutal customer dashed down his newly-bought
pipe, and left the shop muttering unintelligible words,
which had the tone and bitterness of a curse. Here*
CJ77

50 House of the Seven Gables

upon Hepzibah threw up her eyes, unintentionally
scowling in the face of Providence !

No less than five persons, during the forenoon,
inquired for ginger-beer, or root-beer, or any drink of
a similar brewage, and, obtaining nothing of the kind,
went off in an exceedingly bad humour. Three of
them left the door open, and the other two pulled it
so spitefully in going out that the little bell played the
very deuce with Hepzibah's nerves. A round, bust-
ling, fire-ruddy housewife of the neighbourhood burst
breathless into the shop, fiercely demanding yeast;
and when the poor gentlewoman, with her cold shy-
ness of manner, gave her hot customer to understand
that she did not keep the article, this very capable
housewife took upon herself to administer a regular
rebuke.

" A cent-shop, and no yeast \" quoth she; " that
will never do! Who ever heard of such a thing?
Your loaf will never rise, no more than mine will to-
day. You had better shut up shop at once. "

"Well," said Hepzibah, heaving a deep sigh,
" perhaps I had!"

Several times, moreover, besides the above instance,
her ladylike sensibilities were seriously infringed upon
by the familiar, if not rude tone, with which people
addressed her. They evidently considered themselves
not merely her equals, but her patrons and superiors.
Now, Hepzibah had unconsciously flattered herself
with the idea that there would be a gleam or halo, of
some kind or other, about her person, which would
insure an obeisance to her sterling gentility, or, at
least a tacit recognition of it. On the other hand,
nothing tortured her more intolerably than when this
recognition was too prominently expressed. To one
or two rather officious offers of sympathy, her re-
sponses were little short of acrimonious; and, we
regret to say, Hepzibah was thrown into a positively
unchristian state of mind, by the suspicion that one
of her customers was drawn to the shop, not by any

The First Customer 51

real need of the article which she pretended to seek,
but by a wicked wish to stare at her. The vulgar
creature was determined to see for herself what sort
of a figure a mildewed piece of aristocracy, after wast-
ing all the bloom, and much of the decline of her life,
apart from the world, would cut behind a counter.
In this particular case, however mechanical and
innocuous it might be at other times, Hepzibah's
contortion of brow served her in good stead.

" I never was so frightened in my life !" said the
curious customer, in describing the incident to one of
her acquaintances. " She's a real old vixen, take
my word for it ! She says little, to be sure ; but if
you could only see the mischief in her eye !"

On the whole, therefore, her new experience led our
decayed gentlewoman^jtojvery^ disagreeable conclu-
sions as to the temper and manners of what she
termed the lower classes, whom heretofore she had
looked down upon with a gentle and pitying complais-
ance, as herself occupying a sphere of unquestionable
superiority. But, unfortunately, she had likewise to
struggle against a bitter emotion of a directly opposite
kind : a sentiment of virulence, we mean, towards
the idle aristocracy to which it had so recently been
her pride to belong. When a lady, in a delicate and
costly summer garb, with a floating veil and grace-
fully-swaying gown, and, altogether, an ethereal
lightness that made you look at her beautifully-
slippered feet, to see whether she trod on the dust or
floated in the air, — when such a vision happened to
pass through this retired street, leaving it tenderly
and delusively fragrant with her passage, as if a
bouquet of tea-roses had been borne along, — then,
again, it is to be feared, old Hepzibah's scowl could
no longer vindicate itself entirely on the plea of near-
sightedness.

" For what end," thought she, giving vent to that
feeling of hostility which is the only real abasement
of the poor, in presence of the rich, — " for what good
end, in the wisdom of Providence, does that woman

52 House of the Seven Gables

live? Must the whole world toil, that the palms o*
her hands may be kept white and delicate ?M

Then, ashamed and penitent, she hid her face.

" May God forgive me !" said she.

Doubtless, God did forgive her. But, taking the
inward and outward history of the first half-day into
consideration, Hepzibah began to fear that the shop
would prove her ruin in a moral and religious point
of view, without contributing very essentially towards
even her temporal welfare.

A DAY BEHIND THE COUNTER

Towards noon, Hepzibah saw an elderly gentle-
man, large and portly, and of remarkably dignified
demeanour, passing slowly along, on the opposite side
of the white and dusty street. On coming within
the shadow of the Pyncheon-elm, he stopt, and
(taking off his hat, meanwhile, to wipe the perspira-
tion from his brow) seemed to scrutinize, with especial
interest, the dilapidated and rusty-visaged House of
the Seven Gables. He himself, in a very different
style, was as well worth looking at as the house. No
better model need be sought, nor could have been
found, of a very high order of respectability, which,
by some indescribable magic, not merely expressed
itself in his looks and gestures, but even governed
the fashion of his garments, and rendered them all
proper and essential to the man. Without appearing
to differ, in any tangible way, from other people's
clothes, there was yet a wide and rich gravity about
them, that must have been a characteristic of the
wearer, since it could not be defined as pertaining
either to the cut or material. His gold-headed cane,

A Day Behind the Counter 53

too, — a serviceable staff of dark, polished wood, —
had similar traits, and had it chosen to take a walk
by itself, would have been recognized anywhere as a
tolerably adequate representative of its master. This
character — which showed itself so strikingly in every-
thing about him, and the effect of which we seek to
convey to the reader — went no deeper than his station,
habits of life, and external circumstances. One per-
ceived him to be a personage of mark, influence, and
authority ; and especially, you could feel just as
certain that he was opulent as if he had exhibited his
bank account, or as if you had seen him touching the
twigs of the Pyncheon-elm, and, Midas-like, trans-
muting them to gold.

In his youth he had probably been considered a
handsome man ; at his present age, his brow was too
heavy, his temples too bare, his remaining hair too
gray, his eye too cold, his lips too closely compressed,
to bear any relation to mere personal beauty. He
would have made a good and massive portrait ; better
now, perhaps, than at any previous period of his life,
although his look might grow positively harsh, in th«
process of being fixed upon the canvas. The artist
would have found it desirable to study his face, and
prove its capacity for varied expression ; to darken
it with a frown — to kindle it up with a smile.

While the elderly gentleman stood looking at the
Pyncheon-house, both the frown and the smile passed
successively over his countenance. His eye rested
on the shop-window, and, putting up a pair of gold-
bowed spectacles, which he held in his hand, he
minutely surveyed Hepzibah's little arrangement of
toys and commodities. At first it seemed not to please
him, — nay, to cause him exceeding displeasure, — and
yet, the very next moment, he smiled. While th<e
latter expression was yet on his lips, he caught a
glimpse of Hepzibah, who had involuntarily bent for-
ward to the window ; and then the smile changed from
acrid and disagreeable to the sunniest complacency
and benevolence. He bowed, with a happy mixture

54 House of the Seven Gables

of dignity and courteous kindliness, and pursued his
way.

14 There he is !" said Hepzibah to herself, gulping
down a very bitter emotion, and, since she could not
rid herself of it, trying to drive it back into her heart,
44 What does he think of it, I wonder? Does it please
him ? Ah ! — he is looking back ! ' '

The gentleman had paused in the street, and turned
himself half about, with his eyes fixed on the shop-
window. In fact, he wheeled wholly round, and com-
menced a step or two, as if designing to enter the
shop ; but, as it chanced, his purpose was anticipated
by Hepzibah's first customer, the little cannibal of
Jim Crow, who, staring up at the window, was irresist-
ibly attracted by an elephant of gingerbread. What
a grand appetite had this small urchin ! — two Jim
Crows immediately after breakfast ! — and now an
elephant, as a preliminary whet before dinner ! By
the time this latter purchase was completed, the
elderly gentleman had resumed his way, and turned
the street corner.

"Take it as you like, Cousin Jaffrey!" muttered
the maiden lady, as she drew back, after cautiously
thrusting out her head, and looking up and down the
street. " Take it as you like ! You have seen my
little shop-window ! Well ! — What have you to say ?
— is not the Pyncheon-house my own, while I'm
alive ?"

After this incident, Hepzibah retreated to the back
parlour, where she at first caught up a half-finished
stocking, and began knitting at it with nervous and
irregular jerks; but quickly finding herself at odds
with the stitches, she threw it aside, and walked
hurriedly about the room. At length, she paused
before the portrait of the stern old Puritan, her
ancestor, and the founder of the house. In one sense,
this picture had almost faded into the canvas, and
hidden itself behind the duskiness of age ; in another,
she could not but fancy that it had been growing more
prominent, and strikingly expressive, ever since her

A Day Behind the Counter 55

earliest familiarity with it, as a child. For, while
the physical outline and substance were darkening
away from the beholder's eye, the bold, hard, and,
at the same time, indirect character of the man,
seemed to be brought out in a kind of spiritual relief.
Such an effect may occasionally be observed in pic-
tures of antique date. They acquire a look which an
artist (if he have anything like the complacency of
artists now-a-days) would never dream of presenting
to a patron as his own characteristic expression, but
which, nevertheless, we at once recognize as reflect-
ing the unlovely truth of a human soul. In such
cases, the painter's deep conception of his subject's
inward traits has wrought itself into the essence of
the picture, and is seen after the superficial colouring
has been rubbed off by time.

While gazing at the portrait, Hepzibah trembled
under its eye. Her hereditary reverence made her
afraid to judge the character of the original so harshly
as a perception of the truth compelled her to do. But
still she gazed, because the face of the picture enabled
her— at least, she fancied so — to read more accur-
ately, and to a greater depth, the face which she had
just seen in the street.

" This is the very man !" murmured she to herself.
44 Let Jaffrey Pyncheon smile as he will, there is that
look beneath ! Put on him a skull-cap, and a band,
and a black cloak, and a Bible in one hand and a
sword in the other, — then let Jaffrey smile as he
might, — nobody would doubt that it was the old
Pyncheon come again ! He has proved himself the
very man to build up a new house ! Perhaps, too,
to draw down a new curse !M

Thus did Hepzibah bewilder herself with these fan-
tasies of the old time. She had dwelt too much alone,
— too long in the Pyncheon-house, — until her very
brain was impregnated with the dry rot of its timbers.
She needed a walk along the noon-day street, to keep
her sane.

By the spell of contrast, another portrait rose up

56 House of the Seven Gables

before her, painted with more daring flattery than any
artist would have ventured upon, but yet so delicately
touched that the likeness remained perfect. Mal-
bone's miniature, though from the same original, was
far inferior to Hepzibah's air-drawn picture, at which
affection and sorrowful remembrance wrought to-
gether. Soft, mildly, and cheerfully contemplative,
with full, red lips, just on the verge of a smile,
which the eyes seemed to herald by a gentle kindling-
up of their orbs ! Feminine traits, moulded insepar-
ably with those of the other sex ! The miniature,
likewise, had this last peculiarity ; so that you inevit-
ably thought of the original as resembling his mother,
and she, a lovely and lovable woman, with perhaps
seme beautiful infirmity of character, that made it
all the pleasanter to know, and easier to love her.

" Yes," thought Hepzibah, with grief of which it
was only the more tolerable portion that welled up
from her heart to her eyelids, " they persecuted his
mother in him ! He never was a Pyncheon I"

But here the shop-bell rang ; it was like a sound
from a remote distance — so far had Hepzibah de-
scended into the sepulchral depths of her reminis-
cences. On entering the shop, she found an old man
there, a humble resident of Pyncheon-street, and
whom, for a great many years past, she had suffered
to be a kind of familiar of the house. He was an
immemorial personage, who seemed always to have
had a white head and wrinkles, and never to have
possessed but a single tooth, and that a half-decayed
one, in the front of the upper jaw. Well advanced
as Hepzibah was, she could not remember when Uncle
Venner, as the neighbourhood called him, had not
gone up and down the street, stooping a little and
drawing his feet heavily over the gravel or pavement.
But still there was something tough and vigorous
about him, that not only kept him in daily breath,
but enabled him to fill a place which would else have
been vacant in the apparently crowded world. To go
of errands, with his slow and shuffling gait, which

A Day Behind the Counter 57

made you doubt how he ever was to arrive anywhere ;
to saw a small household's foot or two of firewood,
or knock to pieces an old barrel, or split up a pine
board, for kindling-stuff; in summer, to dig the few
yards of garden ground appertaining to a low-rented
tenement, and share the produce of his labour at the
halves ; in winter, to shovel away the snow from the
side-walk, or open paths to the wood-shed, or along
the clothes-line ; such were some of the essential
offices which Uncle Venner performed among at least
a score families. Within that circle, he claimed the
same sort of privilege, and probably felt as much
warmth of interest, as a clergyman does in the range
of his parishioners. Not that he laid claim to the tithe
pig ; but, as an analogous mode of reverence, he went
his rounds, every morning, to gather up the crumbs
of the table and overflowings of the dinner-pot, as
food for a pig of his own.

In his younger days — for, after all, there was a dim
tradition that he had been, not young, but younger —
Uncle Venner was commonly regarded as rather defi-
cient, than otherwise, in his wits. In truth, he had
virtually pleaded guilty to the charge, by scarcely
aiming at such success as other- men seek, and by
taking only that humble and modest part, in the inter-
course 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 bright-
ened 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 like-
wise, 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 common-place 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
*C J/6

58 House of the Seven Gables

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.

The patriarch now presented himself before Hep-
zibah, clad in an old blue coat, which had a fashion-
able 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 miscellane-
ous 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, Pm 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 Pm
glad to see you beginning to do your work, Miss
Hepzibah!"

" Thank you, Uncle Venner,' ' said Hepzibah, smil-
ing ; 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 gcod 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. "

" O, 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 play-

A Day Behind the Counter 59

ing about the door of the old house, quite a small
child 1 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 grand-
father, 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. Now-a-days,
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 steal-
ing unawares into her tone; V my cousin Jaffrey is
thought to have a very pleasant smile I"

" And so he has I" 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!"

11 We won't talk of this, if you please, Uncle Ven-
ner," said Hepzibah, coldly. " I ought to say, how-
ever, 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 familiar-

60 House of the Seven Gables

aty, " if I should, by-and-by, find it convenient to retire
with you to your farm. "

" And it's no bad place, neither, 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 favour 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 earnest-
ness, endeavouring 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 inter-
vene in her favour. For example, an uncle — who had
sailed for India fifty years before, and never been

A Day Behind the Counter f 61

heard of since — might yet return, and adopt herto
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 parlia-
ment, 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 impera-
tive, she could not yield to his request. It was more
probable, therefore, that the descendants of a Pyn-
cheon who had emigrated to Virginia, in some past
generation, and became a great planter there, — hear-
ing of Hepzibah's destitution, and impelled by the
splendid generosity of character with which their
Virginian mixture must have enriched the New Eng-
land blood, — would send her a remittance of a thou-
sand dollars, with a hint of repeating the favour
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 favour 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

62/ House of the Seven Gables

ased to favour Hepzibah with some sage counsel
in her shop-keeping capacity.

11 Give no credit I" — 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 halfpence and base
copper tokens, such as are very plenty about town 1
At your leisure hours, knit children's woollen socks
and mittens ! Brew your own yeast, and make your
own ginger-beer I"

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 him-
self, 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,

A Day Behind the Counter 63

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 labour, 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!

64 House of the Seven Gables

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
standstill under the branches of the elm-tree. Hep-
zibah'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
furthest 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
needed 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 re-entered 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 band-box. 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 Vy

She stole swiftly into the hall, and, herself invisible,
gazed through the dusky side-lights of the portal at
the young, blooming, and very cheerful face, which
presented itself for admittance into the gloomy old

A Day Behind the Counter 65

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 projec-
tion that overshadowed her, and the time-worn frame-
work 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 alto-
gether 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.
44 Can it be Phoebe ?" questioned she within herself.
4 It must be little Phcebe; 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 !"

Phcebe, it must be understood, was that one little
off-shoot 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 con-
sideration of Miss Hepzibah's recluse way of life, a
letter had actually been written and despatched, con-
veying information of Phoebe's projected visit. This

66 House of the Seven Gables

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.

<4 No! — she can stay only one night," said Hep-
zibah, unbolting the door. " If Clifford were to find
her here, it might disturb him IM

MAY AND NOVEMBER

Phoebe 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 Phoebe'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 sleep-
ing 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, Phoebe quietly

May and November 67

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 Phoebe was quite dressed, she peeped out of
the window, and saw a rose-bush in the garden.
Being a very tall one, and of luxurious growth, it
had been propped up against the side of the house,
and was literally covered with a rare and very beautiv
ful species of white rose. A large portion of them,
as the girl afterwards discovered, had blight or mil-
dew at their hearts ; but, viewed at a fair distance,
the whole rose-bush looked as if it had been brought
from Eden that very summer, together with the
mould in which it grew. The truth was, neverthe-
less, that it had been planted by Alice Pyncheon, —
she was Phoebe'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, how-
ever, out of the ^ld 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
Phoebe's young breath mingled with it, as the frag-
rance 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 Phoebe 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 favoured ones to bring out the

68 House of the Seven Gables

hidden capabilities of things around them ; and par-
ticularly 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 underbush,
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 sur-
rounding shade. No less a portion of such homely
witchcraft was requisite to reclaim, as it were,
Phoebe's waste, cheerless, and dusky chamber, which
had been untenanted so long — except by spiders, and
mice, 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
Phoebe'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-curtail*;
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 inscrut-
able charm. The bed-chamber, 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 what-
ever the subtile influence might be— a person of
delicate instinct would have known, at once, that it
was now a maiden's bed-chamber, and had been
purified of all former evil and sorrow by her sweet
breath and happy thoughts. Her d /earns of the past

May and November 69

night, being such cheerful ones, had exorcised the
gloom, and now haunted the chamber in its stead.

After arranging matters to her satisfaction, Phoebe
emerged from her chamber, with a purpose to descend
again into the garden. Besides the rose-bush, she
had observed several other species of flowers, grow-
ing there in a wilderness of neglect, and obstructing
one another's development (as is often the parallel
case in human society) by their uneducated entangle-
ment and confusion. At the head of the stairs, how-
ever, 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 Phoebe 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, her-
self taking a chair near by, looked as earnestly at
Phoebe's trim little figure, as if she expected to see
right into its springs and motive secrets.

" Cousin Phoebe,' ' 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 mar-
riage of the girl's mother) which made it desirable for
Phoebe to establish herself in another home. Nor did
she misinterpret Phoebe's character, and the genial

70 House of the Seven Gables

activity pervading it, — one of the most valuable traits
of the true New England woman, — which had im-
pelled her forth, as might be said, to seek her for-
tune, 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 her-
self 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, Phoebe
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, Phoebe, 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 lone-
some old woman (for I begin to call myself old,
Phoebe), whose temper, I am afraid, is none of the
best, and whose spirits are as bad as can be. I can-
not make your life pleasant, Cousin Phoebe, neither
can I so much as give you bread to eat."

" You will find me a cheerful little body," answered
Phoebe, 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! Phoebe/ ' 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

May and November 71

idea that the dust and continual decay of these old
houses are unwholesome for the lungs. "

44 There is the garden, — the flowers to be taken
care of," observed Phoebe. " I should keep myself
healthy with exercise in the open air. "

44 And, after all, child," exclaimed Hepzibah, sud-
denly rising, as if to dismiss the subject, 44 it is not
for me to say who shall be a guest or inhabitant of
the old Pyncheon-house. Its master is coming. "

44 Do you mean Judge Pyncheon?" asked Phcebe,
in surprise.

44 Judge Pyncheon I" answered her cousin, angrily.
11 He will hardly cross the threshold while I live !
No, no 1 But, Phcebe, you shall see the face of him
I speak of."

She went in quest of the miniature already de-
scribed, and returned with it in her hand. Giving
it to Phcebe, 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.

44 How do you like the face?" asked Hepzibah.

44 It is handsome! — it is very beautiful!" said
Phcebe, admiringly. 44 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?"

44 Did you never hear," whispered her cousin,
bending towards her, 44 of Clifford Pyncheon?"

44 Never! I thought there were no Pyncheons
left, except yourself and our cousin Jaffrey,"
answered Phcebe. 44 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?"

44 Well, well, child, perhaps he has!" said Hep-
zibah, with a sad, hollow laugh; 44 but, in old houses
like this, you know, dead people are very apt to come

72 House of the Seven Gables

back again ! We shall see. And, Cousin Phoebe,
since, after all that I have said, your courage does
not fail you, we will not part so soon. You are wel-
come, my child, for the present, to such a home as
your kinswoman can offer you. "

With this measured, but not exactly cold assur-
ance of a hospitable purpose, Hepzibah kissed her
cheek.

They now went below stairs, where Phoebe — not
so much assuming the office as attracting it to her-
self, by the magnetism of innate fitness — took the
most active part in preparing breakfast. The mis-
tress 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 busi-
ness in hand. Phoebe, and the fire that boiled the
tea-kettle, 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 beir»g 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 Phoebe
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, there-
fore, 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

May and November 73

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 colour went,
and still unfaded, although the tea-pot 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
Phoebe. " She was a Davenport, of a good family.
They were almost the first tea-cups 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 tea-cup, 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 Phoebe 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
tea-cups ?"

" Not quite, I am afraid," said Phoebe, laughing
at the form of Hepzibah's question. " But I was
schoolmistress for the little children of 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 Hep-
zibah 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

74 House of the Seven Gables

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 impossi-
bility 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 tea-spoons 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
Phoebe, starting lightly up. " I am shopkeeper to-
day."

M You, child l" exclaimed Hepzibah. '■ What can
a little country-girl know of such matters?"

" O, I have done all the shopping for the family,
at our village store," said Phoebe. " 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 Phoebe, and
peeped from the passage-way 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 night-cap 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-honoured spinning-wheel in constant

May and November 75

revolution. It was worth while to hear the croaking
and hollow tones of the old lady, and the pleasant
voice of Phoebe, 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 Phoebe, laugh-
ing, when the customer was gone.

" Nicely done, indeed, child I" 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 Phoebe's vastly
superior gifts as a shopkeeper; 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, more-
over, 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 —

76 House of the Seven Gables

11 What a nice little body she is ! If she could only
be a lady, too ! — but that's impossible ! Phoebe is no
Pyncheon. She takes everything from her mother."

As to Phoebe'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 a dozen freckles, friendly remembrancers
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 fall-
ing 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 discuss-
ing her claim to rank among ladies, it would be
preferable to regard Phoebe as the example of femi-
nine 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 Phoebe. To find the born
and educated lady, on the other hand, we need look
no further than Hepzibah, our forlorn old maid, in

May and November 77

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 win-
dows, as Phcebe passed to and fro in the interior.
Otherwise it is impossible to explain how the people
of the neighbourhood 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 to-
wards noon, — relaxing, somewhat, at dinner-time,
but recommencing in the afternoon, and, finally,
dying away half-an-hour or so before the long day's
sunset. One of the staunchest patrons was little Ned
Wiggins, the devourer of Jim Crow and the elephant,
who to-day had signalized his omnivorous prowess by
swallowing two dromedaries and a locomotive.
Phcebe 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 inter-
mixed, 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 \"

78 House of the Seven Gables

" Well done I 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 1 Bless my eyes, what a brisk little soul !"

11 Yes, Phcebe 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. M At any rate, it never was my luck
to see her like among them, nor, for that matter, any-
where 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 Phcebe does !"

Uncle Venner's eulogium, if it appear rather too
high-strained for the purpose and occasion, had,
nevertheless, a sense in it which was both subtle and
true. There was a spiritual quality in Phoebe'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 labour, 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
Phcebe.

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 dis-
plays remarkable frankness, and at least temporary
affability, on being absolutely cornered, and brought
to the point of personal intercourse; like the angel

May and November 79

whom Jacob wrestled with, she is ready to bless you,
when once overcome.

The old gentlewoman took a dreary and proud
satisfaction in leading- Phoebe 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 apart-
ment 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 passage
way. She bade Phoebe 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 wa§ 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.

44 If you should happen to find it, Phoebe," said
Hepzibah, glancing aside at her with a grim yet
kindly smile, " we will tie up the shop-bell for good
and ahV '

44 Yes, my dear cousin," answered Phoebe; 44 but,
in the meantime, 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 charac-
ter still lingered about the place where she had lived,
as a dried rosebud scents the drawer where it has
withered and perished. This lovely Alice had met
with some great and mysterious calamity, and had

8o House of the Seven Gables

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 ex-
quisitely 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 Phoebe.

" 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 com-
panions 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 philan-
thropists ; community-men, and come-outers, as Hep-
zibah 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 mak-
ing 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

Maule's Well 81

now-a-days, should be apt to suspect him of studying
the Black Art, up there in his lonesome chamber.

""But, dear cousin,' ' said Phoebe, " if the young
man is so dangerous, why do you let him stay? H
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 Phcebe, a part of whose essence it was
to keep within the limits of law.

"O!" 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 !"

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 out-buildings 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
Di76 .

82 House of the Seven Gables

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. Phoebe
saw, however, that their growth must have been
checked by a degree of careful labour, bestowed
daily and systematically on the garden. The white
double rose-bush 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 here-
ditary 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.

Maule's Well 8?

Phoebe 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 her-
self 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, Phoebe 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 breath-
ing-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
labour. 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 vari-
ously coloured pebbles. The play and slight agita-
tion of the water, in its upward gush, wrought
magically with these variegated pebbles, and made a

84 House of the Seven Gables

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 wc
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 further 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
heir-loom 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 eggy 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 be-
sides, 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 them-
selves 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 Hep-
zibah's turban, that Phoebe — to the poignant distress
of her conscience, but inevitably — was led to fancy
a general resemblance betwixt these forlorn bipeds
and her respectable relative.

Maule's Well 85

The girl ran into the house to get some crumbs of
bread, cold potatoes, and other scraps as were suit-
able 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 live-
liness., 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 com-
municating their sage opinions of her character. So
wise, as well as antique, was their aspect, as to give
colour to the idea, not merely that they were the
descendants of a time-honoured 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; al-
though winged and feathered differently from most
other guardian angels.

"Here, you odd little chicken!" said Phoebe;
" 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 Phoebe's shoulder.

"That little fowl pays you a high compliment !"
said a voice behind Phoebe.

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 Phoebe 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 ac-
quaintance/ ' continued he, in a quiet way, while a
smile made his face pleasanter than Phoebe at first
fancied it. " Those venerable personages in the
coop, too, seem very affably disposed. You are

86 House of the Seven Gables

lucky to be in their good graces so soon ! They have
known me much longer, but never honour 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 Phoebe, 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 Phcebe 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 refresh-
ing 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 those 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
Phcebe, 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

Maule's Well 87

conscious of looking very unamiable, I suppose, and
therefore hate to be seen."

" If you would permit me,M said the artist, look-
ing at Phoebe, " 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 sun-
shine. 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. Phoebe merely glanced at it, and gave
it back.

" I know the face," she replied, " for its stern eye
has been following me about ail day. It is my Puritan
ancestor, who hangs yonder in the parlour. To be
sure, you have found some way of copying the por-
trait without its black velvet cap and gray beard, and
have given him a modern coat and satin cravat, in-
stead of his cloak and band. I don't think him
improved by your alterations. M

" 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-humour,

88 House of the Seven Gables

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 like-
ness was intended to be engraved. "

11 Well, I don't wish to see it any more," observed
Phoebe, 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. M

" You have seen that picture, then I" exclaimed the
artist, with an expression of much interest. " I
never did, but have a great curiosity to do so. And
you judge favourably of the face?"

11 There never was a sweeter one," said Phoebe.
11 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 Phoebe,
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 Phoebe, 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

Maule's Well 89

not go yet, if you please ! I have a proposition to
make you. M

Phoebe was on the point of retreating, but turned
back, with some hesitation; for she did not exactly
comprehend his manner, although, on better observa-
tion, 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 pro-
ceeded 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,M 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-labourers,
somewhat on the community system."

Silently, and rather surprised at her own compli-
ance, Phcebe 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 approach-
ing 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 artists nature, which he exercised to-
wards her, possibly without being conscious of it.

After a little while the twilight, deepened by the
shadows of the fruit-trees, and the surrounding build-
ings, threw an obscurity over the garden.
*DI76

90 House of the Seven Gables

" There/' said Holgrave, " it is time to give over
work ! That last stroke of the hoe has cut off a
bean-stalk. Good night, Miss Phoebe Pyncheon !
Any bright day, if you will put one of those rose-buds
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
Phoebe, 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
v • he. " Neither drink nor bathe your face in it !"

" Maule's well!" answered Phcebe. " Is that it
with the rim of mossy stones ? I have no thought of
drinking there — but why not?"

" O," rejoined the daguerreotypist, M because, like
an old lady's cup of tea, it is water bewitched !"

He vanished ; and Phcebe, 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 department of the house, she found the
low-studded parlour 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 pale-
ness of her cheek, turned sideway towards a corner.

11 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 lamp-light 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, common-place as they were, had been steeped

)

Maule's Well 91

in the warmth of her heart. Again, while lighting
the lamp in the kitchen, Phoebe 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 Phoebe's mind was that of
unreality. She concluded that she must have mis-
taken 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 parlour. Hepzibah's form, though its
sable outline mingled with the dusk, was now lessl
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 Phoebe, "did you speak to me
just now?"

44 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 com-
municated itself to Phoebe. The girl sat silently for
a moment. But soon, her senses being very acute,
she became conscious of an irregular respiration -in
an obscure cor^er-joLjJie^xaQai. ^Her physical organiza-
tion^ moreover, being at once delicate and healthy,
gave her a perception, operating with almost the
effect of a spiritual medium, that somebody was
near ath&ad.

MV dear cousin," asked she, overcoming aa

92 House of the Seven Gables

indefinable reluctance, " is there not some one in
the room with us?"

" Phoebe, 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 parlour a while
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 Phcebe, 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?

" Good-night, cousin,' ' said Phoebe, strangely
affected by Hepzibah 's manner. " If you begin to
love me, I am glad In

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 foot-
step 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, Phcebe
heard that vague strange murmur, which might be
likened to an indistinct shadow of human utterance

VII

THE GUEST

When Phoebe 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

The Guest 93

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 steamed 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 grand-
father), 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 savoury
volume, and inquired of Phoebe whether old Speckle,
as she called one of the hens, had laid an tgg the
preceding day. Phoebe ran to see, but returned
without the expected treasure in her hand. At that
instant, however, the blast of a fishdealer'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 Phoebe 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

94 House of the Seven Gables

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 savoury preparation.
Perchance, amid their proper element of smoke,
which eddied forth from the ill-constructed chimney,
the ghosts of departed cook-maids looked wonder-
ingly 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 meagre-
ness, 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
Phoebe, the only spectator, except the rats and ghosts
aforesaid, had not been better employed than in shed-
ding 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 a-blaze 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 Guest 95

the material delights of the morning meal are cap-
able of being fully enjoyed, without any very grievous
reproaches, whether gastric or conscientious, for
yielding even a trifle overmuch to the animal depart-
ment 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 inter-
course 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 vapour 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.
Phoebe'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
Phoebe 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 parlour.
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 Pyn-
cheon's guests need not have scorned to take his
place. But the Puritan's face scowled down out of
the picture, as if nothing o«n the table pleased his
appetite.

By way of contributing what grace she could,
Phoebe gathered some roses and a few other flowers,
possessing either scent or beauty, and arranged them
an a glass pitcher, which, having long ago lost its

96 House of the Seven Gables

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
Phoebe, — 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 Phoebe could see the quivering of
her gaunt shadow, as thrown by the fire-light on the
kitchen wall, or by the sunshine on the parlour 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 enfold Phoebe 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 en-
franchised— 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 forth-
with, as if to try which was the most touching, a
gust 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 Phcebe, as we have
said, she was affectionate, — far tenderer than ever
before, in their brief acquaintance, except for that

The Guest 97

one kiss on the preceding night, — yet with a continu-
ally 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 labour was all finished,
she took Phoebe'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, Phoebe, though I speak so roughly !
Think nothing of it, dearest child 1 By-and-bye, I
shall be kind, and only kind !"

" My dearest cousin, cannot you tell me what has
happened ?" asked Phcebe, with a sunny and tearful
sympathy. " What is it that moves you so?"

4 * Hush! hush! He is coming I" whispered
Hepzibah, hastily wiping her eyes. " Let him see
you first, Phcebe; 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 Clif-
ford,— and, oh, what a black shadow ! Poor, poor
Clifford !"

Thus murmuring, in an under tone, as if speak-
ing rather to her own heart than to Phoebe, the old
gentlewoman stepped on tiptoe about the room, mak-
ing such arrangements as suggested themselves at
the crisis.

Meanwhile, there was a step in the passage-way,
above stairs. Phcebe 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 stair-
case; he paused twice or thrice in the descent; he
paused again at the foot. Each time the delay

98 House of the Seven Gables

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 parlour. He took
hold of the knob of the door ; then loosened his grasp,
without opening it. Hepzibah, her hands con-
vulsively clasped, stood gazing at the entrance.

" Dear Cousin Hepzibah, pray don't look so!"
said Phoebe, trembling; for her cousin's emotion, and
this mysteriously reluctant stop, 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, Phoebe 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 over-
shadowed his forehead, except when he thrust it bafck,
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 counte-
nance— 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 up-
ward,— more intently, but with a certain impatience.

The Guest 99

as if it ought either to kindle itself into satisfactory
splendour, 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 Phoebe, however, and caught an illumin-
ation from her youthful and pleasant aspect, which,
indeed, threw a cheerfulness about the parlour, 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 courtesy. Imperfect
as it was, however, it conveyed an idea, or, at least,
gave a hint, of indescribable grace, such as no prac-
tised 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.

11 Dear Clifford," said Hepzibah, in the tone with
which one soothes a wayward infant, " this is our
cousin Phoebe, — little Phcebe Pyncheon, — Arthur's
only child, you know. She has come from the
country to stay with us a while; for our old house
has grown to be very lonely now. "

" Phoebe?— Phoebe Pyncheon?— Phcebe?" repeated
the guest, with a strange, sluggish, ill-defined utter-
ance. " Arthur's child ! Ah, I forget ! No matter !
She is very welcome V

11 Come, dear Clifford, take this chair," said Hepzi-
bah, leading him to his place. " Pray, Phoebe, 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 try-
ing to grapple with the present scene, and bring it
home to his mind with a more satisfactory distinct-
ness. He desired to be certain, at least, that he was
here, in the low-studded, cross-beamed, oaken-
panelled parlour, and not in some other spot, which
had stereotyped itself into his senses. But the effort

ioo House of the Seven Gables

was too great to be sustained with more than a frag-
mentary 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 eye-balls. 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, Phoebe 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 tran-
slate 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 expres-
sion, so refined, so softly imaginative, which Mal-
bone — venturing a happy touch, with suspended
breath —had imparted to the miniature ! There had

The Guest 101

been something so innately characteristic in this look,
that all the dusky years, and the burthen 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 dis-
quieted.

"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 manner 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, Clif-
ford IV

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 imper-
fection heard in the midst of ethereal harmony, — so
deep was the sensibility that found an organ in Hepzi-
bah's voice !

4 * There is nothing but love, here, Clifford/ ' she
added,— " nothing but love! You are at home! M

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

102 House of the Seven Gables

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 every-
thing 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 pro-
bably 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
vigour. But, as it existed now, the effect was pain-
ful, and made Phoebe 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 I 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 intel-
lectual ; 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

The Guest 103

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 develop-
ments would likewise be beautiful. Such a man
should have nothing to do with sorrow ; nothing with
strife; nothing with the marytrdom 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 parlour, 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 Phoebe, whose fresh and maidenly
figure was both sunshine and flowers, — their essence,
in a prettier and more agreeable mode of manifesta-
tion. 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

ro4 House of the Seven Gables

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 affec-
tion 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 dis-
interested 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 age and uncomely features. They never pos-
sessed 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 !Mhe murmured,
but not as if addressing any one. /'Will it last?
How balmy the atmosphere, through that open
window 1 An open window ! How beautiful that
play of sunshine ! Those flowers, how very frag-
rant I That young girl's face, how cheerful, how
blooming ! — a flower with the dew on it, and sun-
beams in the dew drops ! Ah ! this must be all a
dream ! A dream ! A dream ! But it has quite
hidden the four stone walls V

Then his face darkened, as if the shadow of a
cavern or a dungeon had come over it; there was

The Guest 105

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 further into the
depths. Phoebe (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.

11 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 odours, brought innumerable
associations along with the fragrance that it exhaled.
11 Thank you ! This has done me good. I remem-
ber 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 con-
sciousness strangely dim ! But how kind of the fair
young girl ! Thank you ! Thank you !"

The favourable 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 Hep-
zibah with what might easily be recognized as the
licensed irritability of a petted member of the family.

14 Hepzibah ! — Hepzibah !" cried he, with no little
force and distinctness, — 4< why do you keep that

io6 House of the Seven Gables

odious picture on the wall? Yes, yes ! — that is pre-
cisely 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 I"

'■ 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 I 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 Phoebe and I will do
wonders with it."

M 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, occur-
ring 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 out-
line, like that which a brooding mist, with no sun-
shine 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

The Guest 107

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 I what horrible dis-
turbance have we now in the house ?" cried he,
wreaking his resentful impatience — as a matter of
course, and a custom of old — oa the one person in
the world that loved him. " I have never heard such
a hateful clamour ! Why do you permit it? In the
name of all dissonance, what can it be?M

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 perfect-
ibility, that subtle 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 redeem-
ing 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 dis-
agreeable even to me. But, do you know, Clifford,
I have something to tell you? This ugly noise, —
pray run, Phoebe, and see who is there ! — this naughty
little tinkle is nothing but our shop-bell I"

" Shop-bell I" repeated Clifford, with a bewildered
stare.

11 Yes, our shop-bell,' ' said Hepzibah, a certain

108 House of the Seven Gables

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, how-
ever; 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 Hep-
zibah with a smile, the keen half-derisory purport of
which was a puzzle to her.

li 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 vigour 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

The Pynqheon of To-day 109

do Her heart melted away in tears ; her profound-
cst 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, 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

Phoebe, 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 loco-
motive. 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
Phoebe accordingly supplied, and, as a mark of
gratitude for his previous patronage, and a slight
superadded morsel after breakfast, put likewise into
his hand a whale ! The great fish, reversing his ex-
perience 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 be-
cause he, as well as Time, after engulfing thus much
of creation, looked almost as youthful as if he had
been just that moment made.

no House of the Seven Gables

After partly closing the door, the child turned
back, and mumbled something to Phoebe, which, as
the whale was but half disposed of, she could not
perfectly understand.

11 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 I" exclaimed
Phoebe, 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 un-
intelligent in themselves. Then, as Phoebe con-
tinued 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 advan-
tage 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, resem-
bling 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
white neckcloth of the utmost snowy purity, and the
conscientious polish of his boots. His dark, square
fcountenance, with its almost shaggy depth of eye-|
brows, was naturally impressive, and would, perhaps,?
'have been rather stern, had not the gentleman con-
siderately taken upon himself to mitigate the harsh
effect by a look of exceeding good-humour and be-
nevolence. 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

The Pyncheon of To-day in

as he doubtless intended it to be. A susceptible
observer, at any rate, might have regarded it as
affording very little evidence of the genuine benig-
nity of soul, whereof it purported to be the out-
ward 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 labour to bring out
and preserve them. —— — —

As the stranger entered the little shop, where the
projection "of the second storey 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 counter-
acting the whole gloom of the atmosphere (besides
any moral gloom pertaining to Hg^^w|nd her
inmates) by the unassisted light of his countenance.
(?n 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 un-
cultivated man, would have been gruff, but by dint
of careful training, was now sufficiently agreeable, —
M I was not aware that Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon had
commenced business under such favourable auspices.
You are her assistant, I suppose?"

V I certainly am," answered Phoebe, and added,
with a little air of ladylike 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."

11 Her cousin? — and from the country? Pray
pardon me, then," said the gentleman, bowing and
smiling, as Phoebe never had been bowed to nor
smiled on before; " in that case, we must be better
acquainted; for, unless I am sadly mistaken, you

ii2 House of the Seven Gables

are my own little kinswoman likewise ! Let me see,
— Mary? — Dolly? — Phoebe? — yes, Phoebe is the
name ! Is it possible that you are Phoebe 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 Phoebe curtsied in reply, the judge bent forward,
with the pardonable and even praiseworthy purpose
— considering the nearness of blood, and the differ-
ence 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), Phoebe, 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 pre-
dicament 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 mis-
taking a shadow for a substance. The truth was, —
and it is Phoebe'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, inter-
posed between, yet it became quite too intense, when
this dark, full-fed physiognomy (so roughly bearded,
too, that no razor oould 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 demonstra-
tions of that sort. Phoebe's eyes sank, and without
knowing why, she felt herself blushing deeply under
his look. Yet she had been kissed before, and with-
out any particular squeamishness, by perhaps half-
a-dozen different cousins, younger as well as older,
than this dark-browed, grisly-bearded, white-neck-

The Pyncheon of To-day 113

clothed, and unctuously-benevolent judge ! Then
why not by him?

On raising her eyes, Phoebe 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 passion-
ate 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 Phcebe that this very
Jud^e 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 inflex-
ibly 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 Phcebe might have found something
very terrible in this idea. It implied that the weak-
nesses and defects, the had passions, the mean ten-
dencies, 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 honours which it seeks to entail upon
posterity.

But, as it happened, scarcely had Phcebe's eyes
rested again on the judge's countenance, than all its
ugly sternness vanished ; and she found herself quite

E1^

U4 House of the Seven Gables

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
odour.

" I like that, Cousin Phoebe I" 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 Phoebe, 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 acquaint-
ance, 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, Phoebe 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

The Pyncheon of To-day 115

have stood together before her eye, many points of
difference would have been perceptible, and perhaps
only a general resemblance. The long lapse of inter-
vening 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 judged 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 contem-
poraries, in respect of animal substance, and as
favoured 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 humaa
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 Pyn-
cheon 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

n6 House of the Seven Gables

would afford reason to anticipate. In old Colonel
Pyncheon's funeral discourse, the clergyman ab-
solutely carbonized his deceased parishioner, and open-
ing, 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 con-
sistency and uprightness of his character. So, also, as
regards the Judge Pyncheon of to-day, neither clergy-
man, nor legal critic, nor inscriber of tomb-stones,
nor historian of general or local politics, would ven-
ture 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, be-
sides 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 g££edv 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 kindli-
ness, 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

The Pyncheon of To-day 1 1 7

this rude benevolence into that broad benignity of
smile, wherewith he shone like a noon-day sun along
the streets, or glowed like a household fire in the
drawing-rooms of his private acquaintance. The
Puritan, — if jiot belied by some singular stories, mur-
mured, even aTtJns day, unJeTThe narrator's breath,
— ferfr'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, riot impossibly,
typical of Judge Pyncheon's marital deportment, —
that the lady got her death-blow in the honey-moon,
and never smiled again, because her husband com-
pelled 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 con-
sider how large an accumulation of ancestry lies be-
hind every man, at the distance of one or two cen-
turies. 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^-4ntpet4eu«T relentless^. crafty ; lay-
ing his purposes deep, and following them out with
an inveteracy of pursuit that knew neither rest nor
conscience; trampling on the weak, and, when

n8 House of the Seven Gables

essential to his ends, doing his utmost to beat down
the strong. Whether the judge in any degree re-
sembled him, the further progress of our narrative
may show,
cs* Scarcely any of the items in the above-drawnN
i parallel occurred to Phoebe, whose country birth and l
j residence, in truth, had left her pitifully ignorant of \
I most of the family traditions, which lingered, like
J cobwebs and incrustations of smoke, about the rooms
I and chimney-corners of the House of the Seven
iGables. Yet there was a circumstance, very trifling
Mft itself, which impressed her with an odd degree of
horror. She had heard of the anathema flung by
Maule, the executed wizard, against Colonel Pyi>
cheon 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, — Phoebe 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 Phoebe 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 de-
scribe), she, very foolishly, started, and clasped her
hands.

The Pyncheon of To-day 119

Of course, it was exceedingly ridiculous in Phoebe
to be discomposed by such a trifle, and still more un-
pardonable 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 ?"

" O, nothing, sir, — nothing in the world 1" an-
swered Phoebe, with a little laugh of vexation at her-
self. " 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. tl You seem
to be a little nervous this morning. The town air,
Cousin Phoebe, does not agree with your good, whole»
some country habits. Or, has anything happened to
disturb you? — anything remarkable in Cousin Hep*
zibah'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 !"

11 You quite puzzle me, sir," replied Phoebe, gazing
inquiringly at the judge. " There is no frightful
guest in the house, but only a poor, gentle, child-like
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 thaw
itself. He startle me ! — O, no indeed !"

'* I rejoice to hear so favourable and so ingenuous
an account of my cousin Clifford," said the bene-
volent 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 con-
cerns. You say, Cousin Phoebe, he appears to be

120 House of the Seven Gables

weak-minded. Heaven grant him at least enough of
intellect to repent of his past sins !"

" Nobody, I fancy," observed Phoebe, "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. Be-
lieve 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 rela-
tives, whose characters have necessarily a degree
of mutual dependence. But is Clifford in the parlour?
I will just step in and see."

11 Perhaps, sir, I had better call my cousin Hepzi-
bah," said Phoebe; 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 Phoebe, 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 Phoebe !" 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 Hep-
zibah, 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-
by, there were symptoms of a change from his sudden
harshness into his previous benignity of manner. —
*• I am at home here, Phoebe, you must recollect, and

The Pyncheon of To-day 121

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 ! there is Hepzibah herself I"

Such was the case. The vibrations of the judge's
voice had reached the old gentlewoman in the parlour,
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, un-
deniably, 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 tremour, which, to her
own perception, set each of her joints at variance with
its fellows.

Possibly, the judge was aware how little true hardi-
hood 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.

4 * Hepzibah, my beloved cousin, I am rejoiced l"

*E!76

122 House of the Seven Gables

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
heart-felt gratification to see him ! Shall I step in,
this moment?"

11 No/' replied Hepzibah, her voice quivering too
painfully to allow of many words. " He cannot see
visitors I"

" A visitor, my dear cousin ! — do you call me so?M
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 con-
veniences— 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 to-
gether, and labour 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 l"

On hearing these so hospitable offers, and such
generous recognition of the claims of kindred, Phoebe
felt very much in the mood of running up to 7U(%e
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!"

The Pyncheon of To-day 123

11 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 behoves your nearest kins-
man 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 1 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 Pyn-
cheon '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 parlour whence
issued that broken and miserable murmur of entreaty.
It was not pity that restrained him, for, at the first

124 House of the Seven Gables

sound of the enfeebled voice, a red fire kindled in his
eyes, and he made a quick pace forward, with some-
thing 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 im-
pression 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 energetic-
ally 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 Phoebe,
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.
11 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 Phoebe,

The Pyncheon of To-day 125

the judge left the shop, and went smiling along the
street. As is customary with the rich, when they aim
at the honours 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 humbleness of the man whom
he saluted, and thereby proving a haughty conscious-
ness 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 rumour 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 Phoebe, let her
head fall on the young girl's shoulder.

<4 O, Phoebe !" 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 Phoebe. " Yet his
offers were surely kind l"

11 Do not speak of them — he has a heart of iron !"
rejoined Hepzibah. " Go, now, and talk to Clifford 1
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. n

Phoebe 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 fear-
ful and startling effect, on minds of the trim, orderly,
and limit-loving class, in which we find our little

126 House of the Seven Gables

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 head-
long into chaos. But Phcebe, 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 dis-
paragement of it, she concluded that Hepzibah's judg-
ment 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.

CLIFFORD AND PHCEBE

Truly was there something high, generous, and
noble, in the native composition of our poor old Hep-
zibah ! 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, Hep-
zibah had looked forward — for the most part despair-
ingly, 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 Provi-
dence, but the opportunity of devoting herself to this

Clifford and Phoebe 127

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, un-
falteringly, 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 re-
sponded 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 I 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 endeavour 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 1 How pitiful, yet mag-
nanimous, they were 1

Remembering his early love of poetry and fiction,
she unlocked a book-case, 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 con-

128 House of the Seven Gables

tented 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 an^
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 har-
vesting 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, accom-
panying 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 en
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 tradi-
tionary 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 inter-
position of the long-buried Alice herself, — the threat-
ening calamity was averted.

But the worst of all,— the hardest stroke of fate for

Clifford and Phoebe 129

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
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 Phoebe. No grovel-
ling 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 Phoebe, 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.

130 House of the Seven Gables

By the involuntary effect of a genial temperament,
Phoebe 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
iier 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 bed-chambers, ever since his
visits of long ago ; — these were less powerful than the
purifying influence scattered throughout the atmo-
sphere of the household by the presence of one youth-
ful, fresh, and thoroughly wholesome heart. There
was no morbidness in Phoebe ; 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 Phoebe's intermixture with them. Her activity
of body, intellect, and heart, impelled her continually
to perform the ordinary little toils that offered them-
selves around her, and to think the thought proper for
the moment, and to sympathize, — now with the twit-
tering gaiety of the robins in the pear-tree, and now
to such a depth as she could with Hepzibah's dark

Clifford and Phoebe 131

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 Phoebe's has invariably its due in-
fluence, but is seldom regarded with due honour. 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 sur-
rounded 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 Phoebe's figure, were perhaps in
some fit proportion with the normal weight and sub-
stance, respectively, of the woman and the girl.

To the guest, — to Hepzibah's brother, — or cousin
Clifford, as Phcebe 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 move-
ments ; 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-humour, whenever Hep-
zibah endeavoured to arouse him. Phoebe's presence ?
and the contiguity of her fresh life on 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 Phoebe sang she
might stray at her own will about the house. Clif-

132 House of the Seven Gables

ford was content, whether the sweet, airy homeliness
of her tones came down from the upper chambers, or
along the passage-way 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 facfe,
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 tempera-
ment, that Phoebe oftener choose a strain of pathos
than of gaiety. But the young and happy are not ill
pleased to temper their life with a transparent shadow.
The deepest pathos of Phoebe's voice and song, more-
over, 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 Phoebe 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 ex-
quisite and happy spirit. That gray hair, and those
furrows — with their record of infinite sorrow, so
deeply written across his brow, and so compressed,

Clifford and Phoebe 133

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.

Phoebe, 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 semi-
circle 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 Phoebe'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 indis-
pensable. Had Phoebe been coarse in feature, shaped
clumsily, of 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 a woman, she would have shocked Clif-
ford, and depressed him by her lack of beauty. But
nothing more beautiful — nothing prettier, at least —
v/as ever made than Phoebe. And, therefore, to this
man — whose whole poor and impalpable enjoyment of
existence, heretofore, and until both his heart and

134 House of the Seven Gables

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 loneli-

ss, be it on a mountain-top or in a dungeon. Now,
Phoebe'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 handicraftsmen as well as that of the ideal
craftsmen of the spirit? Because, probably, at his
highest elevation, the poet needs no human inter-
course; 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 con-
stantly linked together, yet with such a waste of
gloomy and mysterious years from his birth-day 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 »t was now too
late. He knew it, with the instinctive delicacy that

Clifford and Phoebe 135

had survived his intellectual decay. Thus, his senti-
ment for Phoebe, 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-silem
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 belong-
ing to himself as an individual. He read Phoebe, 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 had
lacked on earth, brought warmly home to his con-
ception ; so that this mere symbol, or lifelike 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 unattainable.
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 tempest-
uous sea, had been flung, by the last mountain-wave
of his shipwreck, into a quiet harbour. There, as
he lay more than half lifeless on the strand, the

136 House of the Seven Gables

fragrance of an earthly rose-bud had come to his
nostrils, and, as odours will, had summoned up
reminiscences or visions of all the living- and breath-
ing 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 Phoebe 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 pictur-
esque in his situation, nor so much even, by the
finer grace 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. What-
ever 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 Phoebe afforded her poor patient a
1 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,

Clifford and Phoebe 137

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 Phoebe, in her rela-
tion 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 hereto-
fore. 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? Phcebe 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 estab-
lished 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 noon-day. These hours of drowsy
head were the season of the old gentlewoman's
attendance on her brother, while Phoebe took charge
of the shop; an arrangement which the public

138 House of the Seven Gables

speedily understood, and evinced their decided pre-
ference of the younger shopwoman by the multi-
plicity 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 Phoebe, 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.

THE PYNCHEON-GARDEN

Clifford, except for Phoebe's more active instiga-
tion, 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 morn-
ing 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 arbour, or summer-
house, that It was now a sufficient shelter from sun-
shine 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 wilder
solitude of the garden.

Here, sometimes, in this green play-place of
flickering light, Phoebe read to Clifford. Her ac-
quaintance, the artist, who appeared to have a liter-
ary turn, had supplied her with works of fiction, in
pamphlet-form, and a few volumes of poetry, in alto-

The Pyncheon-garden 139

gether 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 read-
ings were in any degree more successful than her
elderly cousin's. Phoebe's voice had always a pretty
music in it, and could either enliven Clifford by its
sparkle and gaiety of tone, or soothe him by a con-
tinued 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, humour, 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 Phoebe broke into a peal of merry laughter
at what she read, he would now and then laugh for
sympathy, but often respond with a troubled, ques-
tioning 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 incap-
able of feeling the sentiment of poetry, — not, per-
haps, 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, Phoebe 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, how-
ever, was often the precursor of gloom for many

140 House of the Seven Gables

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 Phoebe 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 look-
ing from its petals into Phoebe'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 Clif-
ford's enjoyment was accompanied with a percep-
tion 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 exclu-
sively 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. Clif-
ford, 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 con-
tinually came to pass in that secluded garden-spot,
when once Phoebe 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 per-
tinacious desire for far-fetched sweets, when, no
doubt, there were broad clover fields, and all kinds
of garden growth, much nearer home than this.

The Pyncheon-garden 141

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 odour 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, the 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, doubt-
less, meant to sow them the next summer, but was
himself first sown in Death's garden-ground. By
way of testing whether there was 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
arbour, to see them the better; all the while, too,

142 House of the Seven Gables

motioning Phoebe to be quiet, and snatching glimpses
of the smile upon her face, so as to heap his enjoy-
ment 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 coin-
cidence, 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

The Pyncheon-garden 143

what seems its own promise in their nature; with-
holding 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 other-
wise, 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 at heart, he could
with difficulty comprehend his little airy happiness.
Frequently, there was a dim shadow of doubt in his
eyes. "Take my hand, Phoebe," he would say,
14 and pinch it hard with your little fingers ! Give me
a rose, that I may press its thorns, and prove myself
lawakey-by the sharp touch of pain I" EvidentTy, he
(desired this prick of a trifling anguish, in order to
jassure 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 Phoebe'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, land 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
Phoebe 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 confine-
ment, 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..

144 House of the Seven Gables

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 diver-
sified 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 gallinace-
ous. 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.

Queerly, 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 cggf
and, at the same time, sufficiently old, withered,
wizened, and experienced, to have been the 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

The Pyncheon-garden 145

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 indefatig-
able zeal with which she scratched, and her unscru-
pulousness in digging up the choicest flower or vege-
table, for the sake of the fat earth-worm 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 neighbour'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.

Phcebe, 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 ex-
amined 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 daguerreo-
typist 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, al-
th?5u"gh an unintelligible one, as such clues generally
are. It was a feathered riddle; a mystery hatched
out of an egg, and just as mysterious as if the ^gg
had been addle 1

Fi76

146 House of the Seven Gables

The second of Chanticleer's two wives, ever since
Phoebe's arrival, had been in a state of heavy despond-
ency, caused, as it afterwards appeared, by her
inability to lay an egg. One day, however, by her
self-important gait, the side-way 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 man-
kind 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
afternon Phoebe found a diminutive egg9 — 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 eggy and
appropriated it to Clifford's breakfast, on account of
a certain delicacy of flavour, 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 1 It
must have been in reference to this outrage that
Chanticleer, the next day, accompanied by the
bereaved mother of the eggy took his post in front
of Phoebe 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 Phoebe's part.
Hereupon, the offended fowl stalked away on his long
stilts, and utterly withdrew his notice from Phoebe
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 favour with his
aristocratic taste.

The Pyncheon-garden 147

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 re-
cord 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 coloured 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, M The dark
face gazes at me !" and be miserable the whole day
afterwards. Phoebe, 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
coloured pebbles, looking as if the gush of the water
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 Phoebe 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 Phoebe, two guests made up the company. One
was the artist, Holgrave, who, in spite of his con-

148 House of the Seven Gables

sociation with reformers, and his other queer and
questionable traits, continued to hold an elevated
place in Hepzibah's regard. The other, we are al-
most 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 ine-
quality in the length of its skirts. Clifford, on several
occasions, had seemed to enjoy the old man's inter-
course, for the sake of his mellow, cheerful vein,
which was like the sweet flavour of a frost-bitten
apple, such as one picks up under the tree in Decem-
ber. 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, doubt-
less, 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 arbour. 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 mes-
senger of everybody's petty errands, the patched
philosopher. And Uncle Venner, who had studied
the world at street-corners, and at other posts equally
well adapted for just observation, was as ready to
give out his wisdom as a town-pump to give water.

The Pyncheon-garden 149

M 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 I"

11 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 I"

"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 mis-
take 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 1 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
Phoebe, after a pause; for she had been trying to
fathom the profundity and appositeness of this con-
cluding 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,
grniling, " 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, Phoebe," 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,
Phoebe 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 — con-
stituted all the entertainment. Meanwhile, Holgrave

150 House of the Seven Gables

took some pains to establish an intercourse with
Clifford, actuated, it might seem, entirely by an im-
pulse 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. Neverthe-
less, 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 Hep-
zibah threw off one tint of melancholy, and made
what shift she could with the remaining portion.
Phoebe said to herself, — " How pleasant he can be V
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 Hoi-
grave'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 plea-
sant 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, at it were, through
the arbour, and made their escape among the inter-
stices of the foliage. He had been as cheerful, no
doubt, while alone with Phoebe, but never with such
tokens of acute, although partial intelligence.

The Pyncheon-garden 151

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 1M at last he murmured,
hoarsely and indistinctly, hardly shaping out the
words. M Many, many years have I waited for it!
It is late ! It is late ! I want my happiness l9t

Alas, poor Clifford I 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
Phoebe, 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 I Murmur not, — question not, — but make
the most of it I

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

152 House of the Seven Gables

it might be for his benefit occasionally to diversify
the scene, Phoebe sometimes suggested that he should
look out upon the life of the street. For this pur-
pose, they used to mount the staircase together, to
the second storey of the house, where, at the termin-
ation 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 worlds movement as
might be supposed to roll through one of the retired
streets of a not very populous city. But he and
Phoebe 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 earnest-
ness, and, at every petty throb of his sensibility,
turning for sympathy to the eyes of the bright young

&irl! '

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 out-look at
existence seemed strange to him. A cab ; an omni-
bus, 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

The Arched Window 153

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 ex-
ample, 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 impres-
sion from it, but lost the recollection of this per-
ambulatory 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 lean-
ing 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 dis-
agreeably, 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 unaccus-
tomed 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 ca-
lamity befalls us.

Clifford was indeed the most inveterate of conser-
vatives. 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 fas-
tidious senses. He loved the old rumbling and jolting
carts, the former track of which he still found in his
*Fi76

154 House of the Seven Gables

long-buried remembrance, as the observer of to-day
finds the wheel-tracks of ancient vehicles in Hercula-
neum. 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 country-
man'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 pota-
toes, with half the housewives of the neighbourhood.
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 dis-
agreeable, had very brisk life in it, and, together with
the circle of curious children watching the revolu-
tions 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, now-a-days. And he asked,

The Arched Window 155

in an injured tone, what had become of all those old
square-top 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
whortleberries 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 re-
commended 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 watch-
ing 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 High-
land plaid ; and, to complete the sum of splendid
attractions wherewith he presented himself to the
public, there was a company of little figures, whose
gphere 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,
beholcfl 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 : the scholar opened his book,
with eager thirst for knowledge, and turned his head
to and fro along the page ; the milk-maid energetic-
ally drained her cow ; and a miser counted gold into

156 House of the Seven Gables

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 1 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 ingredi*
ent, 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 Phoebe
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

The Arched Window 157

showed him ready to gripe at every miserable ad-
vantage; 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, sym-
bolizing the grossest form of the love of money.
Neither was there any possibility of satisfying the
covetous little devil. Phoebe threw down a whole
handful of cents, which he picked up with joyless
eagerness, handed them over to the Italian for safe-
keeping, 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 a while 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 spec-
tacles 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 r marched all through town, and

158 House of the Seven Gables

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 common-place 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 be-
come majestic, it should be viewed from some van-
tage-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 homo-
geneous spirit animating it. But, on the other hand,
if am 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 mys-
tery, and, out of its depths, calling to the kindred
depths 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 Phoebe, 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

The Arched Window 159

again, by virtue of the irrepressible instinct that pos-
sessed him. Had Clifford attained the balcony, he
would probably have leaped into the street; but
whether impelled by the species of terror that some-
times urges its victim over the very precipice which
he shrinks from, or by a natural magnetism, tend-
ing 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. Phoebe, to whom all extrava-
gance was a horror, burst into sobs and tears.

"Clifford, Clifford! are you crazy ?" cried his
sister.

"I hardly know, Hepzibahf" said Clifford, draw-
ing a TR>n|pbreathT "Fear nothing — it is over now
— -but had I taken that plunge, and survived it, me-
thinks 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 profound-
ness, 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,

160 House of the Seven Gables

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, watch-
ing the neighbours as they stepped into the street.
All of them, however unspiritual on other days, were
tlansfigured 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 mothers needle — had somewhat of the quality of
ascension-robes. Forth, likewise, from the portal of
the old house, stepped Phoebe, 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 glad-
ness, 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 Phoebe, 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 stock-
ings— had ever been put on before ; or, if worn, were

The Arched Window 161

all the fresher for it, and with a fragrance as if they
had lain among the rose-buds.

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
Phoebe 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 damp-
ness and mouldy smell of the past was on them, —
made themselves ready in their faded bettermost, to
go to church. They descended the staircase to-
gether,— gaunt, sallow Hepzibah, and pale, emaci-
ated, 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

1 62 House of the Seven Gables

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 en-
couragement. The warm sunny air of the street
made them shiver. Their hearts quaked within
them, at the idea of taking one step further.

11 It cannot be, Hepzibah ! — it is too late," said
Clifford, with deep sadness. <4 We are ghosts ! We
have no right among human beings, — no right any-
where, but in this old house, which has a curse on it,
and which therefore we are doomed to haunt 1 And,
besides, " he continued, with a fastidious sensibility,
inalienably characteristic of the man, " it would not
be fit nor beautiful to go I It is an ugly thought, that
I should be frightful to my fellow-beings, and that
children would cling to their mother's gowns, at
sight of me 1M

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 I

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 afHrm, of
so much as half his years, who enjoyed so many
lightsome and griefless moments as himself. He had
no burthen 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 provid-
ing for their support. In this respect he was a child
— a child for the whole term of his existence, be it

The Arched Window 163

long or short. Indeed, his life seemed to be stand-
ing 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 con-
siderably behind the accident that stupefied him. He
sometimes told Phoebe 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 morn-
ing-dress, which he had seen their mother wear, in
the dream of the preceding night. Hepzibah, piqu-
ing 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 remem-
brance of it. Had Clifford, every time that he
emerged out of dreams so life-like, undergone the tor-
ture 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 dream-
mg 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 subtle sense of propriety,
from desiring to associate with them, he loved few
things better than to look out of the arched window.

164 House of the Seven Gables

and see a little girl driving- her hoop along the side-
walk, 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 amuse-
ment, as Hepzibah told Phoebe apart, that had been a
favourite 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 acknow-
ledged to be spiritual and immortal since it had sur-
vived 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 atmos-
phere 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-

The Daguerreotypist 165

day sultriness for the space of several yards about
him.

"Aha, Cousin Clifford!" cried Judge Pyncheon.
"What! still blowing soap-bubbles ?V

The tone seemed as if meant to be kind and sooth-
ing, 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 charac-
ter, 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 con-
nectionSp

XII

THE DAGUERREOTYPIST

It must not be supposed that the life of a person-
age naturally so active as Phoebe could be wholly con-
fined within the precincts of the old Pyncheon-house.
Clifford's demands upon her time were usually satis-
fied, in those long days, considerably earlier than
sunset. Quiet as his daily existence seemed, it never-
theless 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 ten-
dency 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

1 66 House of the Seven Gables

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 sun-
beams were still melting through his window-cur-
tains, or were thrown with late lustre on the chamber
wall. And while he thus slept early, as other children
do, and dreamed of childhood, Phcebe 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 Phcebe. 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,
irith 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, how-
ever intimate and exclusive their relations with him.
But the sympathy or magnetism among human beings
is more subtle 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 Phcebe 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

The Daguerreotypist 167

happier breasts Unless she had now and then in-
dulged 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 pano-
rama, or listening to a concert — had gone shopping
about the city, ransacking entire dep6ts of splendid
merchandise, and bringing home a ribbon — had em-
ployed, 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 Phoebe 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 un-
mingled 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 Phoebe 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 per-
sons would have been likely to bestow much thought
upon the other; unless, indeed, their extreme dissimi-
larity should have proved a principle of mutual attrac-
tion. Both, it is true, were characters proper to New

1 68 House of the Seven Gables

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. Dur-
ing the early part of their acquaintance, Phoebe 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
Phcebe 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 Bias, 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 Phcebe,
somewhat proudly, could not boast of his origin, un-
less as being exceedingly humble, nor of his educa-
tion, 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 school-
master ; 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
pedler, in the employment of a Connecticut manu-
factory of cologne-water and other essences. In an

The Daguerreotypist 169

episodical way, he had studied and practised den-
tistry, 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 Fourier-
ists. Still more recently, he had been a public
lecturer on Mesmerism, for which science (as he
assured Phoebe, and, indeed, satisfactorily proved,
by putting Chanticleer, who happened to be scratch-
ing near by, to sleep) he had very remarkable endow-
ments.

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 digres-
sive 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. Home-
less as he had been — continually changing his where-
about, 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. Phoebe
soon saw it, likewise, and gave him the sort of confi-
dence which such a certainty inspires. She was
startled, however, and sometimes repelled — not by
any doubt of his integrity to whatever law he ac-
knowledged— but by a sense that his law differed from
her own. He made her uneasy, and seemed to un-
settle everything around her, by his lack of reverence

170 House of the Seven Gables

for what was fixed, unless, at a moment's warnings
it could establish its right to hold its ground.

Then, moreover, she scarcely thought him affec-
tionate in his nature. He was too calm and cool an
- observer. Phoebe felt his eye, often; his heart,
seldom, or never. He took a certain kind of interest
in Hepzibah and her brother, and Phoebe 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. Phoebe
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 Phoebe, the artist
made especial inquiry as to the welfare of Clifford,
whom, except at the Sunday festival, he seldom
saw.

11 Does he still seem happy?" he asked one day.

"As happy as a child," answered Phoebe; "but
— like a child, too — very easily disturbed."

44 How disturbed?" inquired Holgrave. " By
things without, or by thoughts within?"

44 I cannot see his thoughts! How should I?"
replied Phoebe with simple piquancy. 44 Very often,
his humour changes without any reason that can be
guessed at, just as a cloud comes over the sun. Lat-
terly, 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 cheer-
ful— when the sun shines into his mind — then I ven-
ture to peep in, just as far as the light reaches, but
no further. It is holy ground where the shadow
falls!"

The Daguerreotypist 171

" 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. "

11 How strange that you should wish it !" remarked
Phoebe, involuntarily. " What is Cousin Clifford to
you?"

11 O, 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 wis-
dom. 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 subtle 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.
Phoebe and he were young together; nor had Hol-
grave, 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 some-
thing 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, cap-

172 House of the Seven Gables

able of being improved into all that it ought to be,
but scarcely yet had shown the remotest promise of
(^ becoming. ^JHe had that sense, or inward phophecy
— 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 for ever 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 life-
time. 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 renew-
ing 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 experi-
ence, it would be with oejiarsh and sudden revolu-
tion 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 z far

The Daguerreotypist 173

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, anduiat 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 him-
self 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 im-
pulses, 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 coun-
teracted some of its tendencies ; in his magnanimous
zeal for man's welfare, and his recklessness of what-
ever 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 Hol-
grave's age, for whom we anticipate wonderful

174 House of the Seven Gables

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 arbour 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 admir-
able 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 Phoebe. 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 Phoebe, 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; these pebbles at
the bottom of the fountain are further from us than
we think. Thus the artist, whatever he might judge
of Phoebe'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 Phoebe while
he talked to her, and was moved only by the inevit-
able 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 colour

The Daguerreotypist 175

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 Phoebe 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.

11 Shall we never, never get rid of this Past?" cried
he, keeping up the earnest tone of his preceding con-
versation.— M 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 carry-
ing 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 I"

14 But I do not see it," observed Phoebe.

"For example, then," continued Holgrave; " a
dead man, if he happen 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 jjudges do but
search out and repeat his decisions. We read in
dead men's books S 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

176 House of the Seven Gables

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 Phoebe, M 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
gutta percha, 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-halls, 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. M

€i How you hate everything old !" said Phoebe, in
dismay. " It makes me dizzy to think of such a
shifting world !M

11 I certainly love nothing mouldy/ ' answered Hol-
grave. M 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 I"

The Daguerreotypist 177

"Then why do you live in it?" asked Phcebe, 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-by,
did you ever hear the story of Maule, the wizard, and
what happened between him and your immeasurably
great-grandfather ? ' '

" Yes, indeed!" said Phoebe; "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!"

li I do believe it," said the artist, seriously; M not
as a superstition, however, but as proved by unques-
tionable 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 con-
stantly defeated hope, strife amongst kindred, vari-
ous 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. HumaB
G*76

178 House of the Seven Gables

blood, in order to keep its freshness, should run in
hidden streams, as the water of an aqueduct is con-
veyed in subterranean pipes. In the family exist-
ence of these Pyncheons, for instance — forgive me,
Phoebe ; 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 V9

" You speak very unceremoniously of my kindred,* *
said Phoebe, debating with herself whether she ought
to take offence.

" I speak true thoughts to a true mind t" answered
Holgrave, with a vehemence which Phoebe 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 himselt,
and still walks the streets — at least, his very image,
in mind and body — with the fairest prospect of trans-
mitting to posterity as rich and as wretched an in-
heritance as he has received ! Do you remember the
daguerreotype, and its resemblance to the old por-
trait ?"■

" How strangely in earnest you are!" exclaimed
Phoebe, looking at him with surprise and perplexity :
half alarmed, and partly inclined to laugh. " You
talk of the lunacy of the Pyncheons — is it contagi-
ous?"

" I understand you !" said the artist, colouring and
laughing. " I believe I am a little mad. This sub-
ject 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
Phoebe.

11 Is it possible you did not know it?" cried
Holgrave. — " Well, such is literary fame ! Yes, Miss
Phcebe Pyncheon, among the multitude of my mar-

Alice Pyncheon 179

vellous 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 appear-
ance, 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 Phoebe, — and
added, laughingly, — " nor very dull."

As this latter point was one which the daguerreo-
typist could not decide for himself, he forthwith pro-
duced 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 pre-
sence at the House of the Seven Gables.

11 And what does your master want with me?" said
the carpenter to Mr. Pyncheon's black servant.
11 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."

14 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

i8o House of the Seven Gables

the old man haunt it so, and frighten a poor niggar
as he does?"

* Well, well, friend Scipio; let your master know
that I'm coming/' said the carpenter with a laugh.
4 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
quit," 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 to-
gether."

" What's that you mutter to yourself, Matthew
Maule?" asked Scipio. " And what for do you look
so black at me?"

11 No matter, darkey !" said the carpenter. M 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 !"

44 He talk of Mistress Alice!" cried Scipio, as he
returned from his errand. M 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 in-
tegrity, 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 deport-
ment, 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

Alice Pyncheon 181

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 in-
tended 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 retain-
ing 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 amends) had an inveterate habit of haunt-
ing 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 Pyn-
cheons, 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 alto-
gether so incredible, to those who could remember
what an inflexibly obstinate old fellow this wizard
Maul* had been.

1 82 House of the Seven Gables

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 promul-
gated 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 accord-
ing to his own fancy, pretty much like the stage-
manager of a theatre. There was a great deal of
talk among the neighbours, particularly the petti-
coated 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 heart-burn. 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 car*
penter 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 con-
tracted 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 Eng-
land, where he married a lady of fortune, and had

Alice Pyncheon 183

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 criticize 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 gate-
way, towards the out-buildings 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 storey, 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 patri-
arch, who might establish his own head-quarters 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

1 84 House of the Seven Gables

heart, which kept them all warm, and made a great
whole of the seven smaller ones.

There was a vertical sun-dial on the front gable;
and as the carpenter passed beneath it, he looked up
and noted the hour.

" Three o'clock I" 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 on the threshold.

Black Scipio answered the summons, in a pro-
digious 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. M Show me
the way to your master's parlour !"

Alice Pyncheon 185

As he stepped into the house, a note of sweet and
melancholy music thrilled and vibrated along the pas-
sage 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 beauti-
ful 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 parlour
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 splendour — 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

*GI76

1 86 House of the Seven Gables

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 favourite 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 fire-light glistened on the
spacious breadth of his waistcoat, which was flowered
all over with gold. On the entrance of Scipio, usher-
ing in the carpenter, Mr. Pyncheon turned partly
round, but resumed his former position, and pro-
ceeded deliberately to finish his cup of coffee, without
immediate notice of the guest whom he had sum-
moned 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,w said he. " Be pleased to
explain your business, that I may go back to my
own affairs. "

"Ah! excuse me," said Mr. Pyncheon, quietly.
14 I did not mean to tax your time without a recom-
pense. Your name, I think, is Maule — Thomas

Alice Pyncheon 187

or Matthew Maule — a son or grandson of the builder
of this house ?"

44 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 equa-
nimity. 44 I am well aware that my grandfather was
compelled to resort to a suit at law, in order to estab-
lish 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 in-
veterate grudge — excuse me, I mean no offence — this
irritability, which you have just shown, is not en-
tirely aside from the matter."

44 If you can find anything for your purpose, Mr.
Pyncheon," said the carpenter, 44 in a man's natural
resentment for the wrongs done to his blood, you are
welcome to it !"

44 I take you at your word, Goodman Maule," said
the owner of the seven gables, with a smile, *4 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?"

44 Often," replied Maule — and it is said that a
smile came over his face — 4< very often, from my
father!"

44 This claim," continued Mr. Pyncheon, after
pausing a moment, as if to consider what the car-
penter's smile might mean, 44 appeared to be on the
very verge of a settlement and full allowance, at the
period of my grandfather's decease. It was well

1 88 House of the Seven Gables

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 anticipa-
tion 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. "

11 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 be-
tween the family of the Maules and these vast, unreal-
ized possessions of the Pyncheons. It was an. ordin-
ary 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 ex-
change for an acre or two of garden-ground. A very
aged woman, recently dead, had often used the meta-
phorical expression, in her fire-side talk, that miles
and miles of the Pyncheon lands had been shovelled
into Maule's grave; which, by-the-by, was but a
very shallow nook, between two rocks, near the sum-

Alice Pyncheon 189

mh 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 por-
tion of these popular rumours 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. Cer-
tain papers belonging to Colonel Pyncheon, as his
grandson distinctly recollected, had been spread out
on the table.

Matthew Maule understood the insinuated sus-
picion.

44 My father," he said, but still there was that dark
smile, making a riddle of his countenance, 44 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"

44 I shall not bandy words with you," observed
the foreign-bred Mr. Pyncheon, with haughty com-
posure. 44 Nor will it become me to resent any rude-
ness 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 dis-

190 House of the Seven Gables

agreeableness of the means. It does so, in the
present instance. M

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 essenti-
ally follows) here gives an account of some very
strange behaviour 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 edfice would come thundering down in a
heap of dusty ruin. All through the foregoing con-
versation between Mr. Pyncheon and the carpenter,
the portrait had been frowning, clenching its fist,
and giving many such proofs of excessive discom-
posure, 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 !M exclaimed Mr. Pyncheon,
in amazement at the proposal. " Were I to do so,
my grandfather would not rest quiet in his grave V

11 He never has, if all stories are true," remarked

Alice Pyncheon 191

the carpenter, composedly. " But that matter con-
cerns 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 per-
sonal 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 con-
temptuously at the House of the Seven Gables,
whether in point of splendour 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 him-
self. In the event of success, indeed, it was his pur-
pose 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 exhaus-
tion. The eastern claim once fairly settled, and put
upon the firm basis of actual possession, Mr. Pyn~
cheon'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
1 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, thai

192 House of the Seven Gables

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 wit-
nesses. Others say that Matthew Maule was con-
tented with a private written agreement, in which
Mr. Pyncheon pledged his honour and integrity to
the fulfilment of the terms concluded upon. The
gentleman then ordered wine, which he and the car-
penter drank together, in confirmation of their bar-
gain. 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.

41 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 return-
ing to Europe, I shall confine myself to the more
delicate vintages of Italy and France, the best of
which will not bear transportation."

44 My Lord Pyncheon may drink what wine he
will, and wherever he pleases," replied the carpen-
ter, as if he had been privy to Mr. Pyncheon's
projects. " But first, sir, if you desire tidings of
this lost document, I must crave the favour of a
little talk with your fair daughter Alice."

44 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 d business Tike this?"

Indeed, at this new demand on the carpenter'*

Alice Pyncheon 193

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 assign-
able 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 under-
stand, in a mysterious kind of explanation — which
made the matter considerably darker than it looked
before — that the only chance of acquiring the requi-
site 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 redeem-
ing 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

194 House of the Seven Gables

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 a 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. Pyn-
cheon's full-dress sword of that gentleman's aristo-
cratic 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
perception.

" 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 I"

11 My father, you sent for me," said Alice, in her
sweet and harp-like voice. " But, if you have busi-
ness 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."

44 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 dis-
turbance 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

Alice Pyncheon 195

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 com-
plying 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 appre-
hension, 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
favour (though altogether beyond a poor carpenter's
deserts) to fix your eyes on mine I"

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 impene-
trable, unless betrayed by treachery within. She in-
stinctively 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.

196 House of the Seven Gables

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 it-
self in the pictured bewildering depths. But, ijn
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 as the grandson, here present, as his two imme-
diate 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 super-
stitions, 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 now
appeared, was now about to exercise a subtle in-
fluence 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.

44 Stay, Maule!" exclaimed Mr. Pyncheon, step-
ping forward. " I forbid your proceeding further!™

" Pray, my dear father, do not interrupt the young
man," said Alice, without changing her position.
M His efforts, I assure you, will prove very harm-
less/ '

Again Mr. Pyncheon turned his eyes towards the

Alice Pyncheon 197

Claude. It was then his daughter's will, in opposi-
tion to his own, that the experiment should be fairly
tried. Henceforth, therefore, he did but consent,
not urge it. And was it not for her sake, far more
than his own, that he desired its success? That lost
parchment once restored, the beautiful Alice Pyn-
cheon, with the rich dowry which he could then be-
stow, 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 indis-
tinct that there seemed but half a will to shape out
the words, and too undefined a purport to be intel-
ligible. 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 re-echoed
so, in the region round his heart 1 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 carpen-
ter was standing erect in front of Alice's chair, and
pointing his finger towards the maiden with an ex-
pression 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!"

4 * Alice! My daughter!" exclaimed Mr. Pyn-
cheon. " My own Alice!"

She did not stir.

V Louder!" said Maule, smiling.

198 House of the Seven Gables

" 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 sensi-
tive 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 impos-
sibility of reaching her with his voice.

" Best touch her l" said Matthew Maule. " Shake
the girl, and roughly too ! My hands are hardened
with too much use of axe, saw, and plane, — else
1 might help you 1"

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 hav-
ing 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 peri-
wig; how the reserved and stately gentleman forgot
his dignity ; how the gold-embroidered waistcoat
flickered and glistened in the fire-light, with the con-
vulsion of rage, terror, and sorrow, in the human
heart that was beating under it.

" Villain V9 cried Mr. Pyncheon, shaking his
clenched fist at Maule. " You and the fiend to-
gether have robbed me of my daughter 1 Give her
back, spawn of the old wizard, or you shall climb
Gallows Hill in your grandfather's footsteps !"

" Softly, Mr. Pyncheon I" said the carpenter, with
scornful composure. " Softly, an' it please your

Alice Pyncheon 199

worship, else you will spoil those lace ruffles at your
wrists ! Is it my crime if you have sold your daugh-
ter 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
a while since. "

He spoke, and Alice responded with a soft, sub-
dued, inward acquiescence, and a bending of her
form towards him, like the flame of a torch when
it indicates a gentle draft of air. He beckoned with
his hand, and rising from her chair — blindly but un-
doubtingly, 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 con-
vert 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 suc-
ceeded accordingly, in holding an imperfect sort of
intercourse, at one remove, with the departed per-
sonages, 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 be-
yond the middle age, wearing a coarse woollen tunic

200 House of the Seven Gables

and leather breeches, and with a carpenter's rule
sticking out of his side pocket. These three vision-
ary 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 parch-
ments in his immediate keeping but was prevented,
by his two partners in the mystery, from disburden-
ing 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.

11 It will never be allowed/ ' said he. " The cus-
tody 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 dearly-bought an inheritance, and too heavy
with the curse upon it, to be shifted yet awhile from
the Colonel's posterity !M

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. M Why,
she is fairly mine ! Nevertheless, not to be too hard

Alice Pyncheon 201

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 car-
penter. "

He waved his hands with an upward motion ; and
after a few repetitions of similar gestures, the beau-
tiful 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 conscious-
ness of actual life, in almost as brief an interval as
the down-sinking flame of the hearth could 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 Pyn-
cheon 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 humiliat-
ing 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 wor-
shipping at church— whatever her place or occupa-
tion, her spirit passed from beneath her own control,
and bowed itself to Maule. " Alice, laugh I"— the
carpenter, beside his hearth, would say; or perhaps
intensely will it, without a spoken word. And even

202 House of the Seven Gables

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 I" — and dance she would,
not in such court-like measures as she had learned
abroad, but some high-paced jig, or hop-skip riga-
doon, 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 gigan-
tic mischief, which would have crowned her sorrows
with the grace of tragedy, but to wreak a low, un-
generous 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 !

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 labouring-man. There
was laughter and good cheer within ; for Matthew
Maule, that night, was to wed the labourer's daugh-
ter, 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 wTith a
smile all steeped in sadness — she kissed Maule's
wife, and went her way. It was an inclement night ;
the south-east 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 side-walks. 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 ! O, joy ! For Alice had borne
her last humiliation ! O, greater joy ! For Alice
was penitent of her one earthly sin, and proud no
more !

Phoebe's Good-bye 203

The Pyncheons made a great funeral for Alice.
The kith and kin were there, and the whole respect-
ability of the town besides. But, last in the pro-
cession, 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

phcebe'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^jLinlike^th^

feeTshimself 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 Phoebe's perception the figure
of the mesmerizing carpenter. With the lids droop-
ing 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 condi-
tion, which, as he had himself told Phoebe, he pos-
sessed 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 fast-

204 House of the Seven Gables

ened it on the young girl, grew involuntarily more
concentrated ; in his attitude there was the con-
sciousness of power, investing his hardly mature
figure with a dignity that did not belong to it&
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 Phoebe'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 exer-
cised over the ill-fated Alice.

To a disposition like Holgrave's, at once specula-
/ tive 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 in-
dividuality. Let us allow him integrity, also, for
ever after to be confided in ; since he forbade himself
to twine that one link more which might have
rendered his spell over Phoebe indissoluble.

He made a slight gesture upward with his hand.

" You really mortify me, my dear Miss Phoebe!"
he exclaimed, smiling half-sarcastically at her.
u 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 manu-
script 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
Phoebe, 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

Phoebe's Good-bye 205

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 exceed-
ingly 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 melt-
ing its disk into the azure — like an ambitious dema-
gogue, who hides his aspiring purpose by assum-
ing the prevalent hue of popular sentiment — now
began to shine out, broad and oval, in its middle
pathway. These silvery beams were already power-
ful 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 storey, 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 noon-
tide, 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 whis-
pering 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

206 House of the Seven Gables

and there, a few drops of this freshness were scat-
tered on a human heart, and gave it youth again,
and sympathy with the eternal joy of nature. The
artist chanced to be one on whom the reviving in-
fluence 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.

14 It seems to me," he observed, 44 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 ageworn 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, delv-
ing in a grave-yard ! 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
flavour 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 !"

44 I have been happier than I am now; at least,
much gayer/ ' said Phoebe, 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 moon-
light before. What is there, I wonder, so beautiful
in it to-night ?"

44 And you have never felt it before ?" inquired the
artist, looking earnestly at the girl, through the
twilight.
mix i 44 Never," answered Phoebe; "and life does not

Phoebe's Good-bye 207

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, Phoebe, 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 1
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) . j
over the first, careless, shallow gaiety of youth
departed, and this profound happiness at youth re-
gained— 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.' '

11 I hardly think I understand you," said Phoebe.

" No wonder," replied Holgrave, smiling; " for
I have told you a secret which I hardly began to
know, before I found myself eiving 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, be-
tween those buildings," remarked Phoebe. " I must
go in. Cousin Hepzibah is not quick at figures, and

2o8 House of the Seven Gables

will give herself a headache over the day's accounts,
unless I help her. M

But Holgrave detained her a little longer.

44 Miss Hepzibah tells me," observed he, " that
you return to the country, in a few days. "

44 Yes, but only for a little while,' ' answered
Phoebe; 44 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. "

44 You surely may, and more than you imagine,' '
said the artist. " Whatever health, comfort and
natural life, exist in the house, are embodied in your
person. These blessings came along with you, and
will vanish when you leave the threshold. Miss Hep-
zibah, 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 the 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. "

44 I should be very sorry to think so," answered
Phoebe, gravely. 44 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. Hol-
grave, I am sometimes puzzled to know whether you
wish them well or ill. "

44 Undoubtedly," said the daguerreotypist, 44 I do
feel an interest in this antiquated, poverty-stricken old

Phoebe's Good-bye 209

maiden-lady, and this degraded and shattered gentle-
man— 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 privi-
leged and meet spectator, I pledge myself to lend
these unfortunate beings whatever aid I can. "

" I wish you would speak more plainly,' ' cried
Phoebe, 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 Hep-
zibah'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 this piquant sketch of
his own mood.

" And then," continued Phoebe, " 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 l"

11 Forgive me, Phoebe 1 said the daguerreotypist,

nl7*

210 House of the Seven Gables

holding out his hand, to which the girl was con-
strained 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 Phoebe.

11 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 Phoebe, " you did speak as if mis-
fortune were impending I"

" O, that was because I am morbid I" 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 Phoebe, 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 !"

Phoebe's Good-bye 211

11 Then let us part friends !M said Holgrave, press-
ing her hand. " Or, if not friends, let us part
before you entirely hate me. You, who love every-
body else in the world !"

" Good-bye, then," said Phoebe, frankly. M I do
not mean to be angry a great while, and should be
sorry to have you think so. There has Cousin Hep-
zibah been standing in the shadow of the door-way,
this quarter of an hour past 1 She thinks I stay
too long in the damp garden. So, good-night, and
good-bye !"

On the second morning thereafter, Phoebe 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 Phoebe'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-atmos-
phere yet lurking in his breath — how had he trans-
formed himself into the simplest child, whom Phoebe
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 con-
sciousness, 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

212 House of the Seven Gables

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 Phoebe on the window-sill, where it looked gravely
into her face and vented its emotions in a croak.
Phoebe bade it be a good old chicken during her
absence, and promised to bring it a little bag of buck-
wheat.

" Ah, Phoebe !" 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 !"

11 Come hither, Phoebe,' ' suddenly cried her cousin
Clifford, who had said very little all the morning.
" Close ! — closer ! — and look me in the face I"

Phoebe 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, Phoebe 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 something
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

Phoebe's Good-bye 213

down — ascended higher, in a tide of fitful progress,
until even her brow was all suffused with it.

"It is enough, Phoebe," said Clifford, with a
melancholy smile. lt When I first saw you, you
were the prettiest little maiden in the world ; and
now you have deepened into beauty I Girlhood has
passed into womanhood ; the bud is a bloom ! Go,
now ! — I feel lonelier than I did. "

Phoebe took leave of the desolate couple, and
passed through the shop, twinkling her eyelids to
shake off a dewdrop ; 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 hand-
kerchief. On the door-step, 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 Phoebe,
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 unaccount-
able how little while it takes some folks to grow just
as natural to a man as his own breath ; and, begging
your pardon, Miss Phoebe (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.

214 House of the Seven Gables

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," said Phoebe.

" And let it be all the sooner, Phoebe, for the sake
of those poor souls yonder/' continued her com-
panion. " They can never do without you now, —
never, Phoebe, 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 are going home by
the railroad I They can't bear it, Miss Phoebe; so
be sure to come back !"

" I am no angel, Uncle Venner," said Phoebe,
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
Phoebe 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.

THE SCOWL AND SMILE

Several days passed over the seven gables,
heavily and drearily enough. In fact (not to attri-
bute the whole gloom of sky and earth to the one
inauspicious circumstance of Phoebe's departure) an

The Scowl and Smile 215

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. Phcebe was
not there; nor did the sunshine fall upon the floor.
The gardem 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 had got abroad that she
soured her small beer and other damageable com-
modities, 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 noon-day 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 life-
times 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

216 House of the Seven Gables

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 parlour. 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, Hep-
zibah 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 voli-
tion. 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 unreason-
able 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

The Scowl and Smile 217

marvellous that the long-silent instrument should
be capable of so much melody. Hepzibah involun-
tarily 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 ringers, 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 thres-
hold, and thence somewhat ponderously stepping
on the floor. Hepzibah delayed a moment, while
muffling herself in a faded shawl, which had been her
defensive armour 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,
*Hi76

218 House of the Seven Gables

indeed, that the easterly storm was not put to shame,
or, at any rate, a little mollified, by the genial bene-
volence 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 situa-
tion 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 kind-
ness? 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 should 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 uniust, how unkind,
how unchristian, is this constant, this long-continued
bitterness against me, for a part which I was con-
strained 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

The Scowl and Smile 219

undone? How oould you, his sister, — if, for your
never-ending sorrow, as it has been for mine, you
had known what I did, — have shown greater tender-
ness? 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 pros-
perity 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 unfor-
tunate, 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, Hep-
zibah ! — 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, pro-
voked only to intenser indignation by this out-gush
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

House of the Seven Gables

decency ! It will drive me mad ! Forbear ! Not
another word ! It will make me spurn you I"

For once, Hepzibah's wrath had given her courage.
She had spoken. But, after all, was this unconquer-
able 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 Hep-
zibah, and some lawless mystic, like the daguerreo-
typist, and, possibly, a few political opponents — who
would have dreamed of seriously disputing his claim
to a high and honourable place in the world's regard.
Nor (we must do him the further justice to say) did
Judge Pyncheon himself, probably, entertain many
or frequent doubts, that his enviable reputation
accorded with his deserts. His conscience, there-
fore, 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 him-
self, or buried so deeply under a sculptured and
ornamental 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

The Scowl and Smile 221

venture to say, further, that a daily guilt might have
been acted by him, continually renewed, and redden-
ing 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 ordin-
arily men to whom forms are of paramount import-
ance. Their field of action lies among the external
phenomena of life. They possess vast ability in
grasping, and arranging, and appropriating to them-
selves, the big, heavy, solid unrealities, such as gold,
landed estate, offices of trust and emolument, and
public honours. 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, there-
fore, a palace ! Its splendid halls, and suites of
spacious apartments, are floored with the 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 pave-
ment, 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 con-
scious of it, for it has long been his daily breath !
Neither will the visitors, for they smell only the rich

222 House of the Seven Gables

odours which the master sedulously scatters through
the palace, and the incense which they bring, and de-
light 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, pos-
sibly, 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 devoted-
ness 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 unimpeach-
able 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 agricul-
ture, 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

The Scowl and Smile 223

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 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 I"

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 praise-
worthy, or at least blameless ones — would you char-
acterize 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
favourite one with people of Judge Pyncheon's
brotherhood. A hard, cold man, thus unfortunately
situated, seldom or never looking inward, and reso-
lutely taking his idea of himself from what purports
to be his image as reflected in the mirror of public
opnion, can scarcely arrive at true self-knowledge,
except through loss of property and reputation. Sick-
ness will not always help him to it; not always the
death-hour !

224 House of the Seven Gables

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 even 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 depreca-
tion 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 vapoury clouds, with their soft colouring,
suddenly vanish from the stony brow of a precipi-
tous 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 attri-
buted 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. "

lt With all my heart V9 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
mad-woman, 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 representa-
tions, the exertion of my whole influence, political,

The Scowl and Smile 225

official, personal, Clifford would never have be^en
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!"

44 You IM answered Hepzibah. " I never will be-
lieve it ! He owed his dungeon to you — his freedom
to God's providence V

44 I set him free!" re-affirmed Judge Pyncheon,
with the calmest composure. tl And I come hither
now to decide whether he shall retain his freedom. It
will depend upon himself. For this purpose I must
see him."

44 Never! — it would drive him mad!" exclaimed
Hepzibah, but with an irresoluteness sufficiently per-
ceptible 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? "

44 He shall see love enough in mine, if that be
all !" said the judge, with well-grounded confidence in
the benignity of his aspect. 44 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 sup-
posed 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 alto-
gether a folly, neither — to conceal the amount of his
property by making distant and foreign investments,

226 House of the Seven Gables

perhaps under other names than his own, and by
various means, familiar enough to capitalists, but un-
necessary 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 ex-
ception 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 ?"

14 Certainly not, my dear cousin!" answered the
judge, smiling benevolently. 4< 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 clue to the
recovery of the remainder. "

44 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. 44 Impossible!
You deceive yourself ! It is really a thing to laugh
at!M

44 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 !"

44 No, no!" exclaimed Hepzibah, incredulously.
44 You are dreaming, Cousin Jaffrey I"

44 I do not belong to the dreaming class of men,"

The Scowl and Smile 227

said the judge, quietly. " Some months before my
uncle's death, Clifford boasted to me of the posses-
sion of the secret of incalculable wealth. His pur-
pose was to taunt me, and excite my curiosity. I
know it well. But, from a pretty distinct recollec-
tion of the particulars of our conversation, 1 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 what-
ever 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 back-bone
of solid meaning within the mystery of his expres-

sion. "

44 But what could have been Clifford's object,' '
asked Hepzibah, 44 in concealing it so long?"

44 It was one of the bad impulses of our fallen
nature," replied the judge, turning up his eyes.
44 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 volunteer-
ing 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 Hepzi-
bah. 44 Or — as I steadfastly believe — what if he has
no knowledge of this wealth ?"

44 My dear cousin," said Judge Pyncheon, with a
quietude which he had the power of making more
formidable than any violence, 44 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
habit constantly and carefully overlooked. Your
neighbours have been eye-witnesses to whatever has
passed in the garden. The butcher, the baker, the

228 House of the Seven Gables

fishmonger, 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 extrava-
gancies at the arched window. Thousands beheld
him, a week or two ago, on the point of flinging him-
self 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 alterna-
tive 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/ p 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 1 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?

The Scowl and Smile 229

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 hun-
dred years ! You are but doing over again, in
another shape, what your ancestor before you did,
and sending down to your posterity the curse in-
herited from him!"

44 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. "

44 Clifford has no secret!" answered Hepzibah.
44 And God will not let you do the thing you medi-
tate.1 '

"We shall see," said the unmoved judge.
44 Meanwhile, choose whether you will summon Clif-
ford, 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 responsi-
bility is altogether on your part. "

44 You are stronger than I," said Hepzibah, after
a brief consideration; 44 and you have no pity in your
strength ! Clifford is not now insane ; but the inter-
view which you insist upon may go far to make him

230 House of the Seven Gables

so. Nevertheless, knowing you as I do, I believe it
to be my best course to allow you to judge for your-
self 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 I"

The judge followed his cousin from the shop,
where the foregoing conversation had passed, into
the parlour, and flung himself he^Uxjntg^^thegrtSit
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, burthened 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 distin-
guished 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, en-
counter 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 parlour; for she imagined
that the judge had uttered some sound which she

Clifford's Chamber 231

was anxious to interpret as a relenting impulse.
" I thought you called me back. "

44 No, no!" gruffly answered Judge Pyncheon,
with a harsh frown, while his brow grew almost a
black purple, in the shadow of the room. il Why
should I call you back? Time flies! Bid Clifford
come to me I"

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 strode along the foot-worn passages, and
opened one crazy door after another, and ascended
the creaking staircase, she gazed wistfully and fear-
fully 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, concern-
ing 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>

232 House of the Seven Gables

ghastly, cold, like most passages of family history,
when brooded over in melancholy mood. The whole
seemed little else but a series of calamity, reproduc-
ing 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 wrere 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 appear-
ance as the day before, and numberless preceding
days, except for the difference between sunshine and
storm. Her eyes travelled along the street, from
door-step to door-step, noting the wet side-walks,
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,
ihat 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

Clifford's Chamber 233

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
overburthened, mind. When the vehicle had dis-
appeared, 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 Clif-
ford. 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

234 House of the Seven Gables

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 Clif-
ford 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

Clifford's Chamber 235

soul, at some dreadful crisis ! But how wild, how
almost laughable the fatality, — and yet how con-
tinually 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 by-word ! 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 Phoebe 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 daguer-
reotypist 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 im-
pression as if he were close at hand. But at this

236 House of the Seven Gables

period of the day, as Hepzibah might have antici-
pated, 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 daguerreo-
types, and beheld Judge Pyncheon frowning at her !
Fate stared her in the face. She turned back from
her fruitless quest, with a heart-sinking 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 divest-
ing 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, brood-
ing 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, sun-
like sweep, over half the universe at once. Its vast-
ness made it nothing. But Hepzibah did not see
that, just as there comes a warm sunbeam into every
cottage window, so comes a love-beam of God's care
and pity, for every separate need.

At last, finding no other pretext for deferring the

Clifford's Chamber 237

torture that she was to inflict on Clifford — her reluct-
ance 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 won-
dered at. She had struck with the entire force of
her heart's vibration, communicating, by some subtle
magnetism, her own terror to the summons. Clifford
would turn his face to the pillow, and cover his
head beneath the bed-clothes, like a startled child
at midnight. She knocked a third time three regular
strokes, gentle, but perfectly distinct, and with mean-
ing 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.

11 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

238 House of the Seven Gables

garden through, as completely as her dim vision
would allow. She could see the interior of the sum-
mer-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
frame-work, 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 to the parlour-
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

Cliffords Chamber 239

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 harbour, and, in this
inclement weather, were deserted by the ordinary
throng of merchants, labourers, and seafaring 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
for ever beyond his kinsman's gripe? O, the tempta-
tion ! 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

240 House of the Seven Gables

now ! She hastened down the staircase, shrieking
as she went.

11 Clifford is gone !" she cried. " I cannot find my
brother ! Help, Jaffrey Pyncheon ! Some harm will
happen to him !"

She threw open the parlour 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.

M I tell you, Jaffrey,M cried Hepzibah, impatiently,
as she turned from the parlour-door to search other
rooms, " my brother is not in the chamber ! You
must help me seek him!"

But Judge Pyncheon was not the man to let him-
self 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.

11 Do you hear me, Jaffrey Pyncheon?" screamed
Hepzibah, as she again approached the parlour-door,
after an ineffectual search elsewhere. " Clifford is
gone !M

At this instant, on the threshold of the parlour,
emerging from within, appeared Clifford himself !
His face was preternaturally pale; so deadly white,
indeed, that, through all the glimmering indistinct-
ness of the passage-way, Hepzibah could discern his

Clifford's Chamber 241

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
parlour, 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 — accom-
panied, too, with a look that showed more like joy
than any other kind of excitement — compelled Hep-
zibah 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 dis-
tracted mind.

li Be quiet, Clifford !" whispered his sister, raising
her hand, to impress caution. " O, for Heaven's
sake, be quiet !*'

" Let him be quiet! What can he do better ?"
answered Clifford, with a still wider gesture, point-
ing 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 Phoebe
herself !"

And, in accordance with these words, he began to

laugh, still pointing his finger at the object, invisible

to Hepzibah, within the parlour. 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.
1 176 S '

242 House of the Seven Gables

" My God! what is to become of us?" gasped
Hepzibah.

" Come t" 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 V*

Hepzibah now noticed that Clifford had on a cloak
— a garment of long ago — in which he had con-
stantly 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 what-
ever guidance may befall them, even if it be a child's.
No matter how preposterous or insane, a purpose is
a god-send to them. Hepzibah had reached this
point. Unaccustomed to action or responsibility —
full of horror at what she had seen, and afraid to
inquire, 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 beauti-
ful nor brilliant, my poor Hepzibah ! Take your
purse, with money in it, and come along !M

Hepzibah obeyed these instructions, as if nothing
else were to be done or thought of. She began to

Clifford's Chamber 243

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 hap-
pened. Of course it was not real ; no such black,
easterly day as this had yet begun to be ; Judge Pyn-
cheon 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 I

" 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, Clif-
ford stole to the parlour-door, and made a parting
obeisance to the sole occupant of the room.

" What an absurd figure the old fellow cuts now I"
whispered he to Hepzibah. 4< 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 !

244 House of the Seven Gables

XVII

THE FLIGHT OF TWO OWLS

Summer as it was, the east wind set poor Hepzi-
bah'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 adven-
turer, 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 door-step, and
passed from beneath the wide shelter of the Pyn-
cheon-elm ! They were wandering all abroad, on
precisely such a pilgrimage as a child often meditates,
to the worlds 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, in-
deed, 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

The Flight of Two Owls 245

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 neighbourhood of the House of the Seven
Gables into what was ordinarily the more thronged
and busier portion of the town. Glistening side-
walks, with little pools of rain here and there along
their unequal surface ; umbrellas displayed ostentati-
ously 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 water-proof 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 stoop-
ing 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 quid-nuncs, 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

246 House of the Seven Gables

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 ob-
noxious 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
wofully 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 floor, now partially filled with
smoke and steam, which eddied voluminously up-
ward, 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.

$«*

The Flight of Two Owls 247

Without question or delay — with the irresistible de-
cision, 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.

Ajt_ last, therefore, and after so long estrangement
from everySiirig''th"at 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 1 Clifford ! Is not this a dream ?"

4< A dream, Hepzibah l" repeated he, almost laugh-
ing 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

248 House of the Seven Gables

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 Eng-
lish 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 their 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
— merchandize that reminded Hepzibah of her de-
serted 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 ac-
quaintances— 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 colour 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 I" said Clifford,
apart, in a tone of reproach. " You are thinking of
that dismal old house, and of Cousin Jaffrey," — -here

The Flight of Two Owls 249

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 V*

" 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 I"

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
vigour; or at least, into a condition that resembled
them, though it might be both diseased and tran-
sitory.

*H76

250 House of the Seven Gables

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 con-
ductor. " And how far?"

" As far as that will carry us," said Clifford. M 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."

11 I cannot precisely agree with you," said Clifford,
courteously bowing to the old gentleman, and at once
taking up the clue 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 parlour and chimney-corner?"

" These things have not the merit which many
good people attribute to them," replied Clifford.
11 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 round 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 for-
ward, and attaining at every step an entirely new
position of affairs, we do actually return to something

The Flight of Two Owls 251

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 pre-
sent 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, or 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 especi-
ally, where the sense of beauty was to be gratified
by a lovelier shade than elsewhere, and a more ex-
quisite arrangement of lake, wood, and hill. This life
possessed a charm which, ever since man quitted it,
has vanished from existence. And it typified some-
thing better than itself. It had its drawbacks ; such
as hunger and thirst, inclement weather, hot sun-
shine, and weary and foot-blistering marches over
barren and ugly tracts, that lay between the sites de-
sirable 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 ! Transi-
tion being so facile, what can be any man's induce-
ment 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 him-
self 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

252 House of the Seven Gables

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 con-
trive for their own torment, and call them house and
home ! The soul needs air ; a wide sweep and fre-
quent 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 poison-
ous 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 elder
towns — a rusty, crazy, creaky, dry-rotted, damp-
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 1 Dead, but with open eyes ! He taints
the whole house, as I remember it. I could never

The Flight of Two Owls 253

flourish there, nor be happy, nor do nor enjoy what
Gpd meant me to do and enjoy I"

His face darkened, and seemed to contract, and
shrivel itself up, and wither into age.

M Never, sir !" he repeated. " I could never draw
cheerful breath there 1°

" I should think not," said the old gentleman, eye-
ing 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 further
I get away from it, the more does the joy, the light-
some 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 hey-day
of my youth, with the world and my best days before
me!"

" I trust you may find it so," said the old gentle-
man, whc 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 1 I am not
mad. For the first time in thirty years, my thoughts

254 House of the Seven Gables

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.

11 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 im-
mense 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 con-
verting himself into an evil destiny, expects his re-
motest 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. M

u 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 I" growled the old gentleman.

" These rapping spirits, that little Phoebe told us

The Flight of Two Owls 255

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 intelli-
gence !" 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 gentle-
man, glancing his eye towards 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 regard 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 for ever !' — ' My heart runs over
with love!' — *I love you more than I can!' — and,

256 House of the Seven Gables

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 indi-
viduals like these, I really cannot applaud the enlist-
ment of an immaterial and miraculous power in the
universal world-hunt at their heels I"

" 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 l"

The Flight of Two Owls 257

" You are a strange man, sir !M said the old gentle-
man, bringing his gimlet-eye to a point on Clifford,
as if determined to bore right into him. H I can't
see through you I"

11 No, I'll be bound you can't !" cried Clifford,
laughing. u And yet, my dear sir, I am as trans-
parent as the water of Maule's well 1 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 whither 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 dang-
ling from the top of the square tower. Further off
was a farm-house, in the old style, as venerably black
as the church, with a roof sloping downward from
the three-storey 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 sup-
plied thoughts, fantasies, and a strange aptitude of
words, and impelled him to talk from the mere neces-
sity of giving vent to this bubbling-up gush of ideas
— had entirely subsided. A powerful excitement had

258 House of the Seven Gables

given him energy and vivacity. Its operation over,
he forthwith began to sink.

11 You must take the lead now, Hepzibah !M mur-
mured he, with a torpid and reluctant utterance.
tl 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 in-
visible ; but it was no hour for disbelief ; — no juncture
this to question that there was a sky above, and an
Almighty Father looking down from it !

" Oh, 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 !M

XVIII

GOVERNOR PYNCHEON

Judge Pyncheon, while his two relatives have fled
away with such ill-considered haste, still sits in the
old parlour, 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

Governor Pyncheon 259

see the dial-plate. How profound a fit of meditation 1
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
dream-talk, trumpet blasts through the nasal organ,
or any of the 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 burthened
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 re-
straint to the judge's breadth of beam. A bigger
man might find ample accommodation in it. His an-
cestor, now pictured upon the wall, with all his Eng-
lish 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

260 House of the Seven Gables

easy, and obviate the irksomeness of too tame and
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
little 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 specu-
lating 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 honours 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 a
while 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 pre-
side? 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 money-bags I He has lounged long
enough in the old chair !

Governor Pyncheon 261

This was to have been such a busy day ! In tht
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
undeviating 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 per-centage, 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 fourscore years ; but the judge
had kept it in his eye, and had set his heart on re-
annexing 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 favour 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 favourite stumbled
this very morning on the road to town, and must

262 House of the Seven Gables

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 benevo-
lence, 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 nervous-
ness, and the tears that she was so oozy with, and
her foolish behaviour 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 impor-
tant. A committee of his political party has be-
sought him for a hundred or two of dollars, in addi-
tion 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 elec-
tion ; 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 Pyn-
cheon'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 in-
tends to call on her to-day, — perhaps so — perhaps

Governor Pyncheon 263

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 a disagreeable choking, or stifling, or gurg-
ling, or bubbling, in the region of the thorax, as
the anatomists say ? — or was it a pretty severe throb-
bing 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 profes-
sional 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 com-
mon 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 excel-
lent dinner, nevertheless ! Real turtle, we under-

264 House of the Seven Gables

stand, and salmon, tautog, canvas-backs, pig,
English mutton, good roast-beef, or dainties of that
serious kind, fit for substantial country gentlemen,
as these honourable persons mostly are. The delica-
cies of the season, in short, and flavoured 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 moment-
ous dinner. It would all but revive a dead man I
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, hurry-
ing 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 poli-
ticians, 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 guber-
natorial 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.

Governor Pyncheon 265

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 spot-
less 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 kin-
dred will hardly win the race for an elective chief-
magistracy.

Well ! it is absolutely too late for dinner 1 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

266 House of the Seven Gables

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 candi-
date. 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 Pyn-
cheon, generally so scrupulous in his attire, to show
himself at a dinner-table with that crimson stain upon
his shirt-bosom. By-the-by, 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 beef-steak, a broiled fowl, or some
such hasty little dinner and supper all in one, he
had better spend the evening by the fire-side. 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 dis-
tinctness 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 ;

Governor Pyncheon 267

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-agree-
ing words — the swarthy whiteness of Judge Pyn-
cheon *s face. The features are all gone; there is
only the paleness of them left. And how looks it
now ? There is no window 1 There is no face 1 An
infinite, inscrutable blackness has annihilated sight S
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 tJifi^iidge/^-watrh, which
ever since Hepzibah left the room in search of Clif-
ford, 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 north-west, and, taking hold of the aged frame-
work of the seven gables, gives it a shake, like a
wrestler that would try strength with his antagonist,

268 House of the Seven Gables

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, beforehand, what wonderful
wind-instruments are these old timber mansions, and
how haunted with the strangest noises, which imme-
diately begin to sing, and sigh, arid sob, and shriek —
and to smite with sledge-hammers, airy, but ponder-
ous, 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 win-
dow open, and gets fairly into it. Would that we
were not an attendant spirit here ! It is too awful !
This clamour of the wind through the lonely house ;
the judge's quietude, as he sits invisible; and that
pertinacious ticking of his watch I

As regards Judge Pyncheon's invisibility, however,
that matter will soon be remedied. The north-west
wind has swept the sky clear. The window is dis-
tinctly seen. Through its panes, moreover, we
dimly catch the sweep of the dark, clustering foli-
age, 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 fol-

Governor Pyncheon 269

low 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 Pyn-
cheon, 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, pro-
fessed 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 ances-
tral 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 ridicu-
lous legend, that, at midnight, all the dead Pyncheons
are bound to assemble in this parlour? And pray for
what? Why, to see whether the portrait of their
ancestor still keeps its place upon the wall, in com-
pliance 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 Pyn-
cheons, 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

270 House of the Seven Gables

as gentlemen in advanced life used to carry, as much
lor 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 sprouted up in grave-yard
grass. See ! he lifts his ineffectual hand, and tries
the frame. All safe ! But is that a smile ? — is it
eiot, 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 Pyn-
cheons, the whole tribe, in their half-a-dozen genera-
tions, 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 leather jerkin and breeches, with a car-
penter'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

Governor Pyncheon 271

lost the power of restraint and guidance. We dis-
tinguish 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 noon-day, 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 mis-
fortune ! 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 Phoebe ! 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 scrupu-
lously 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 Pyn-
cheon? 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 extrava-
gance 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 door-way into the spiritual
world. We needed relief, moreover, from our too
long and exclusive contemplation of that figure in the

272 House of the Seven Gables

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 immoveably upon our soul. Will he never
stir again? We shall go mad, unless he stirs ! You
may the better estimate his quietude by the fearless-
ness 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 Grimal-
kin, 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
moon-beams 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 boister-
ous wind is hushed. What is the hour? Ah ! the
watch has at last ceased to tick; for the judged
forgetful fingers neglected to wind it up, as usual,
at ten o'clock, being half-an-hour, or so, before his
ordinary bed-time; — 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 day-beam, — even
what little of it finds its way into this always dusky
parlour — 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

Governor Pyncheon 273

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 gentle-
man's horse? Will he persuade the purchaser of
the old Pyncheon property to relinquish the bargain
in his favour? Will he see his family physician, and
obtain a medicine that shall preserve him, to be an
honour and blessing to his race, until the utmost
term of patriarchal longevity? Will Judge Pyncheon,
above all, make due apologies" to that company of
honourable 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 benevo-
lence, 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 honour, hardly daring to love
God, but bold to love his fellow-man, and 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 honour 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 hypo-
crite, 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

Ki76

274 House of the Seven Gables

the life-blood with them ! The Avenger is upon thee I
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 man-
sion retains some manner of connection with it. We
breathe more freely, emerging from Judge Pyn-
cheon'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 neighbourhood, 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,

Alice's Posies 275

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 side-walk ;
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 what-
ever 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
sweetly-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 prophecies the autumn, had
been transmuted to bright gold. It was like the
golden branch, that gained iEneas and the Sybil
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 fire-side 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

276 House of the Seven Gables

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 pass-
ing 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-storey ; 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 con-
scious 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 com-
petence, 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
gi&at 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 wheel-
barrow along the street. He was going his matu-
tinal rounds to collect cabbage-leaves, turnip-tops,
potato-skins, and the miscellaneous refuse of the
dinner-pot, which the thrifty housewives of the neigh-
bourhood were accustomed to put aside, as fit only to
feed a pig. Uncle Venner's pig was fed entirely,

Alice's Posies 277

and kept in prime order, on these eleemosynary con-
tributions ; 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 neighbours to partake of the joints and spare-
ribs which they had helped to fatten. Miss Hep-
zibah Pyncheon's housekeeping had so greatly im-
proved 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 door-step of the seven gables.

" I never knew Miss Hepzibah so forgetful be-
fore/' said the patriarch to himself. M She must
have had a dinner yesterday — no question of that I
She always has one, now-a-days. So where 's the
pot-liquor and potato-skins, I ask? Shall I knock,
and see if she's stirring yet? No, no — 't won't do !
If little Phoebe 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 daguer-
reotypist, leaning out of the window. " Do you hear
nobody stirring?"

14 Not a soul," said the man of patches. "But
that's no wonder. 'Tis barely half-an-hour past sun-
rise yet. But I'm really glad to see you, Mr. Hol-
grave ! 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

278 House of the Seven Gables

cheerier, and Alice's Posies are blooming there
beautifully; and if I were a young man, Mr. Hol-
grave, my sweetheart should have one of those
flowers in her bosom, though I risked my neck climb-
ing 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 oversleep her-
self 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.

" O, along in the forenoon," said the old man.
11 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 break-
lp fast. 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 Phcebe comes back."

" I have heard," said the daguerreotypist, as he
I 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 door-step, 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

Alice's Posies 279

fire-heat, and it being a pretty warm morning shr
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.

44 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 gentlefolks' airs, I sup-
pose ! 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
her window, and addressed the impatient applicant.

41 You'll find nobody there, Mrs. Gubbins. "

44 But I must and will find somebody here !" cried
Mrs. Gubbins, inflicting another outrage on the bell.
44 I want a half-pound of pork, to fry some first-rate
flounders, for Mr. Gubbins' breakfast; and, lady or
not, Old Maid Pyncheon shall get up and serve me
with it!"

44 But do hear reason, Mrs. Gubbins !" responded
the lady opposite. 44 She, and her brother too, have
both gone to their cousin, 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."

44 And how do you know they're gone to the
judge's?" asked Mrs. Gubbins. 4< He's a rich man;
and there's been a quarrel between him and Hep-
zibah this many a day, because he won't give her a
living. That's the main reason of her setting up a
cent-shop."

280 House of the Seven Gables

V I know that well enough," said the neighbour.
" 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 hap-
pening, 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
clamour 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 parlour, was closed.

" Miss Pyncheon V screamed the child, rapping on
the window-pane, " I want an elephant !"

There being no answer to several repetitions of the

Alice's Posies 281

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 sput-
tering with wrath. A man — one of two who hap-
pened to be passing by — caught the urchin's arm.

" What's the trouble, old gentleman ?" he asked.

44 I want old Hepzibah, or Phoebe, or any of
them !" answered Ned, sobbing. 4< They won't open
the door; and I can't get my elephant."

44 Go to school, you little scamp !" said the man.
44 There's another cent-shop round the corner. 'Tis
very strange, Dixey," added he to his companion,
44 what's become of all these Pyncheons ! 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."

44 O, he'll turn up safe enough!" said Dixey.
44 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!"

44 I never thought she'd make it go," remarked his
friend. 44 This business of cent-shops is overdone
among the women-folks. My wife tried it, and lost
five dollars on her outlay !"

44 Poor business !" said Dixey, shaking his head.
44 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 hisr 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

*Ki76

282 House of the Seven Gables

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 modifica-
tion 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 sweet-
bread 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. M

Peeping through the same crevice of the curtain
where, only a little while before, the urchin of elephan-
tine 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 hap-
pened, it was the fact. Through the passage-way
there was a dark vista into the lighter but still obscure
interior of the parlour. 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 con-
temptuous 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 Pyn-
cheon's bloody brother, while I've been giving myself
all this trouble ! Why, if a hog hadn't more manners,

Alice's Posies 283

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
Phoebe — and doubtless too, the liberal recompense
which she had flung him — still dwelt in his remem-
brance. 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 door-step
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
an the sidewalk, some within the yard ; two or three

284 House of the Seven Gables

establishing themselves on the very door-step ; and
one squatting on the threshold. Meanwhile the locust
kept singing in the great old Pyncheon-elm.

11 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. M I heard a step."

Still the young Italian's eye turned sidelong up-
ward ; and it really seemed as if the touch of genuine,
though slight and almost playful emotion, communi-
cated a juicier sweetness to the dry, mechanical pro-
cess 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 road-
side 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 — built 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, trust-
ing that his dark, alien countenance would soon be
brightened by Phoebe's sunny aspect. Neither could
he be willing to depart without again beholding
Clifford, whose sensibility, like Phoebe'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,

Alice's Posies 285

but a good deal for the cheap rate at which it was
had. " Let him play as long as he likes ! If there's
nobody to pay him, that's his own look-out !"

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 vaga-
bond 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 inter-
mingling 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 trill and echo of the world's gaiety 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 !M called out one
of them, — M come away trom that door-step, and
go somewhere else with your nonsense ! The Pyn-
cheon family live there ; and they are in great trouble

286 House of the Seven Gables

just about this time. They don't feel musical to-
day. It is reported all over town that Judge Pyn-
cheon, 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 door-step 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 pro-
gramme. 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 clue 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 !"

M 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."

Alice's Posies 287

" Yes, yes!" said Dixey. " Well !— I always
said there was something devilish in that woman's
scowl !M

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 sus-
ceptible 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 ringer 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 un-
seasonable 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 door-step 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 Phoebe ! 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,

288 House of the Seven Gables

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 for-
feited 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 Phoebe,
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 unsuspect-
ing girl that there is nothing in human shape or sub-
stance 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.

Phoebe 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 un-
usual. Without making another effort to enter here,
she betook herself to the great portal under the arched
window. Finding it fastened, she knocked. A re-
verberation came from the emptiness within. She
knocked again, and a third time ; and, listening in-
tently, 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, Phcebe

Alice's Posies 289

saw little Ned Higgins a good way down the street,
stamping, shaking his head violently, making depre-
catory gestures with both hands, and shouting to
her at mouth-wide screech.

"No, no, Phoebe !" 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, Phoebe
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, Phoebe 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 arbour. 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 parlour-window, took to his heels,
clambered hastily over the fence, and vanished. The
arbour 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 Phoebe'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 Phoebe's depar-
ture— for she saw a sidecomb of her own under the
table of the arbour, where it must have fallen on the
last afternoon when she and Clifford sat there.

290 House of the Seven Gables

The girl knew that her two relatives were capable
of far greater oddities than that of shutting them-
selves 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, how-
ever ; 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
widely, but far enough to afford her a side-long en-
trance. As Hepzibah, in order not to expose herself
to inspection from without, invariably opened a door
in this manner, Phoebe 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.

THE FLOWER OF EDEN

Phcebe, coming so suddenly from the sunny day-
light, 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 them-
selves 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 parlour, but
into a large and unoccupied apartment, which had

The Flower of Eden 291

formerly been the grand reception room of the seven
gables. The sunshine came freely into all the uncur-
tained windows of this room, and fell upon the dusty
floor; so that Phoebe now clearly saw — what, indeed,
had been no secret, after the encounter of a warm
hand with hers — that it was not Hepzibah or Clifford,
but Holgrave, to whom she owed her reception. The
subtle, intuitive communication, or, rather, the vague
and formless impression of something to be told, had
made her yield unresistingly to his impulse. With-
out 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
Phoebe 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 everyday affairs.
And yet, as he felt the necessity of responding to her
look of inquiry, the smile disappeared.

11 I ought not to rejoice that you have come,
Phoebe, " said he. " We meet at a strange moment V

" What has happened ?" she exclaimed. " Why
is the house so deserted? Where are Hepzibah and
Clifford ?"

" Gone ! I cannot imagine where they are !" an-
swered Holgrave. " We are alone in the house V

" Hepzibah and Clifford gone?" cried Phcebe,

It is not possible ! And why have you brought mt-
Into this room, instead of the parlour? Ah, some-

292 House of the Seven Gables

thing terrible has happened I I must run and
see!"

" No, no, Phoebe!" said Holgrave, holding her
back. " It is as I have told you. They are gone,
and I know not whither. A terrible event has, in-
deed, but not to them, nor, as I undoubtingly be-
lieve, through any agency of theirs. If I read your
character rightly, Phoebe/ ' 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 Phoebe,
trembling. " But tell me what has happened !"

11 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 Phoebe, all in a
tremble. " It oppresses — it terrifies rne, this my-
stery ! 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 Phoebe 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.

*' Phoebe," 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.

The Flower of Eden 293

11 What has this to do with Hepzibah and Clif-
ford ?" asked Phoebe, with impatient surprise that
Holgrave should so trifle with her at such a moment.
11 It is Judge Pyncheon ! You have shown it to me
before !"

V 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 !M shuddered Phoebe, turning very
pale. M Judge Pyncheon dead!"

11 Such as there represented,' * said Holgrave, M he
sits in the next room. The judge is dead, and Clif-
ford 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
parlour, 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 neighbour, that your
relatives were seen leaving the house in the midst
of yesterday's storm. A rumour reached me, too,
of Judge Pyncheon being missed. A feeling which
I cannot describe — an indefinite sense of some catas-
trophe or consummation — impelled me to make my
way into this part of the house, where 1 discovered
what you see. As a point of evidence that may be
useful to Clifford, and also as a memorial valuable
to myself — for, Phcebe, there are hereditary reasons
that connect me strangely with that man's fate — J
used the means at my disposal to preserve this
pictorial record of Judge Pyncheon 's death."

Even in her agitation, Phoebe could not help re-
marking the calmness of Holgrave 's demeanour. 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
pre-ordained, happening inevitably, and so fitting it-
self into past occurrences that it oould almost have
been prophesied.

294 House of the Seven Gables

11 Why have you not thrown open the doors and
called in witnesses ?M 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 colouring over this event of which it
is susceptible. Yet how easy is the explanation to
those who knew 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 no idea but of removing them-
selves 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. "

lt And how," asked Phoebe, M could any good come
from what is so very dreadful?"

" Because," said the artist, M 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 has 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 excess 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 appearance 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, un-
necessary to be recounted, which made it possible —
nay, as men look at these things, probablet or even

The Flower of Eden 295

certain — that old Jaffrey Pyncheon came to a violent
death, and by Clifford's hand."

11 Whence came those circumstances ?" exclaimed
Phoebe; " he being innocent, as we know him to
be!"

11 They were arranged," said Holgrave — " at least
such has long been my conviction — they were ar-
ranged, after the uncle's death, and before it was
made public, by the man who sits in yonder parlour.
His own death, so like that former one, yet attended
with 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 every thing !
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."

44 We must not hide this thing a moment longer I"
said Phoebe. " 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 neighbourhood to see the truth !"

"You are right, Phoebe," rejoined Holgrave.
M Doubtless you are right."

Yet the artist did not feel the horror which was
proper to Phoebe'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 Phoebe and himself
from the world, and bound them to each other, by
their exclusive knowledge of Judge Pyncheon 's mys-
terious death, and the counsel which they were forced
to hold respecting it. The secret, as long as it
should continue such, kept them within the circle of

296 House of the Seven Gables

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, stand-
ing 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
soon. Possibly, indeed, it had been Holgrave's pur-
pose to let them die in their undeveloped germs.

" Why do we delay so?" asked Phoebe. " This
secret takes away my breath ! Let us throw open
the doors I"

" In all our lives, there can never come another
moment like this l" said Holgrave. " Phoebe, 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 Phoebe, trembling, " to
think of joy at such a time !"

" Could you but know, Phoebe, how it was with
me, the hour before you came!" exclaimed the
artist. " A dark, cold, miserable hour! The pre-
sence 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 retri-
bution 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, Phoebe, 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. \ love you !.."
'* How can you love a simple girl like me?" asked

The Flower of Eden 297

Phoebe, 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 Phoebe,
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 path-
less. I cannot do so. It is not my nature. I shall
sink down and perish I"
yC? "Ah, Phoebe t" exclaimed Holgrave, with almost
a sigh, and a smile that was burthened 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
lor 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 lM said Phoebe, 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, Phoebe?"

" 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

298 House of the Seven Gables

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
j again !

1 "Hark!" whispered Phoebe. "Somebody is at
the street-door !"

"Now let us meet the world!" said Holgrave,
" No doubt the rumour of Judge Pyncheon's visit
to this house, and the flight of Hepzibah and Clif-
ford, is about to lead to the investigation of the pre-
mises. 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 further passage. The door,
therefore, which they supposed to be securely locked
— which Holgrave, indeed, had seen to be so, and
at which Phcebe 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 naturally would be, making authori-
tative 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 Phcebe. " Thank God-
thank God!"

And then, as if in sympathy with Phoebe's whis-
pered ejaculation, they heard Hepzibab'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 parlour-door

The Departure 299

is open. I cannot,pass by it! Let me go and rest
in the arbour, 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 Phoebe I"

But the house was not altogether so dreary as Clif-
ford 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 Phoebe 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 Phoebe ! — Ah ! and Holgrave
with her,M 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 like-
wise, in this old, darksome house to-day I"

XXI

THE DEPARTURE

The sudden death of so prominent a member of the
social world as $he Honourable Judge Jaffrey Pyn-
cheon 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

300 House of the Seven Gables

similar importance — to which the world so easily
reconciles itself, as to its 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 burst-
ing 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 mem-
ory 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 idiosyn-
crasy— 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 honour-
able judge was beginning to be a stale subject, be-
fore half the county newspapers had found time to
put their columns in mourning, and publish his ex-
ceedingly eulogistic obituary.

Nevertheless, creeping darkly through the places
which this excellent person had haunted in his life-
time, 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 dis-
honours the baser metal. Could the departed, who-
ever 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,

The Departure 301

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, now-a-days, 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 Pyn-
cheon, exemplary as we have portrayed him in our
narrative, was, in his youth, an apparently irre-
claimable scapegrace. The brutish, the animal in-
stincts, as is often the case, had been developed
earlier than the intellectual qualities, and the force
of character, for which he was afterwards remark-
able. He had shown himself wild, dissipated,
addicted to low pleasures, little short of ruffianly in
his propensities, and recklessly expensive, with no
other resouroes than the bounty of his uncle. This
course of conduct had alienated the old bachelor's

302 House of the Seven Gables

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 investi-
gated— 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
Jaff rey Pyncheon in his night-clothes ! 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 he 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 recollec-
tion 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 con-
tinued his search of the drawers, and found a will,
of recent date, in favour of Clifford — which he
destroyed — and an older one, in his own favour,
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 pro-
bable, be it said, that he acted with any set purpose
of involving Clifford in a charge of murder. Know-
ing 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

The Departure 303

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 commis-
sion 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 dis-
pose of. It was suffered to fade out of sight, or be
reckoned a venial matter, in the Honourable Judge
Pyncheon's long subsequent survey of his own life.
He shuffled it aside, among the forgotten and for-
given 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. Unknow-
ingly, 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 embarka-
tion 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

304 House of the Seven Gables

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 invari-
able 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 per-
manently invigorating and ultimately beneficial effect
on Clifford. That strong and ponderous man had
been Clifford's night-mare. There was no free
breath to be drawn, within the sphere of so malevo-
lent 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 in-
terest 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 Phoebe, with the approval of the
artist, concluded to remove from the dismal old

The Departure 305

House of the Seven Gables, and take up their abode,
forHEhlTpFeserit, 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 per-
sonages of our story, including good Uncle Venner,
were assembled in the parlour.

11 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.
11 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 esential to the happi-
ness of any one moment."

"Why," cried Phoebe, 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 !"

11 Ah, Phcebe, 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 con-
servative, who, in that very character, rendered him-
self so long the evil destiny of his race."

Lx76

306 House of the Seven Gables

" 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 rich
secret, or had held forth its head, with the written
record of hidden opulence. But those old matters
are so dim with me, now-a-days 1 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 1" cried Clifford. " Ah, I
remember now I I did discover it, one summer after-
noon, 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 conceal-
ment, 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 Pyn-
cheon and hts heirs, for ever, a vast extent of terri-
tory 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,

The Departure 307

while it was valuable; and now that they find the
treasure, it has long been worthless. "

11 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 dream-
ing 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 !"

11 But," said Phoebe, apart to Holgrave, "how
came you to know the secret ?"

11 My dearest Phoebe," 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 pro-
bably as much of 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."

11 And now," said Uncle Venner, M I suppose their
whole claim is not worth one man's share in my farm
yonder !"

M Uncle Venner," cried Phoebe, 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

308 House of the Seven Gables

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 1
— that great sigh which you made me heave, has
burst off the very last of them ! But never mind I 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 Phoebe 1 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 the two things cer-
tain ; and I leave you to choose which 1 ' '

11 O, 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 !"

44 Dear me !" cried Uncle Venner, beginning partly
to realize what manner of man he was. M 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 Phoebe tell me of, are like the golden dande-
lions, 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 dande-
lions, if there were twice as many !"

The Departure 309

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 em* ion
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 spectack as the barouche
and a 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
Phoebe'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 I"

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 Pynchcon-elm, moreover,

310 House of the Seven Gables

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 by-gone 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 thb Seven Gables !

THE KND

EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY

By ERNEST RHYS

VICTOR HUGO said a Library was 'an act of faith/ and
another writer spoke of one so beautiful, so perfect, so
harmonious in all its parts, that he who made it was smitten
with a passion. In that faith Everyman's Library was planned
out originally on a large scale; and the idea was to make it
conform as far as possible to a perfect scheme. However, per-
fection is a thing to be aimed at and not to be achieved in this
difficult world; and since the first volumes appeared there have
been many interruptions, chief among them Wars, during which
even the City of Books feels the great commotion. But the
series always gets back into its old stride.

One of the practical expedients in the original plan was to
divide the volumes into separate sections, as Biography,
Fiction, History, Belles-lettres, Poetry, Philosophy, Romance,
and so forth; with a shelf for Young People. The largest slice
of the huge provision of nearly a thousand volumes is, as a
matter of course, given to the tyrranous demands of fiction.
But in carrying out the scheme, publishers and editors con-
trived to keep in mind that books, like men and women, have
their elective affinities. The present volume, for instance, will
be found to have its companion books, both in the same class

and not less significantly in other sections. With that idea too,
novels like Walter Scott's Ivanhoe and Fortunes of Nigel,
Lytton's Harold, and Dickens's Tale of Two Cities, have been
used as pioneers of history and treated in some sort as holiday
history books.

As for history, Everyman's Library has been eclectic enough
to choose its historians from every school in turn, including
Gibbon, Grote, Finlay, Macaulay, Motley, and Prescott, while
among earlier books may be found the Venerable Bede and the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. On the classic shelf too, there is a
Livy in an admirable translation by Canon Roberts, and Caesar,
Tacitus, Thucydides, and Herodotus are not forgotten.

The poets next, and we may turn to the finest critic of
Victorian times, Matthew Arnold, as their showman, and find
in his essay on Maurice de Guerin a clue to the 'magical power
of poetry.'

Hazlitt's Table Talk may help again to show the relationship
of author to author, which is another form of the Friendship of
Books. His incomparable essay, 'On Going a Journey,' makes
a capital prelude to Coleridge's Biographia Literaria; and so
throughout the long labyrinth of the Library shelves you can
follow the magic clue in prose or verse that leads to the hidden
treasury. In that way Everyman becomes his own critic and
Doctor of Letters.

To him all books which lay
Their sure foundation in the heart of man . . .
From Homer the great Thunderer, to the voice
That roars along the bed of Jewish song . . .
Shall speak as Powers for ever to be hallowed !

EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY

A LIST OF THE Q73 VOLUMES
ARRANGED UNDER AUTHORS

A nonymous works are given under titles.
Anthologies, Dictionaries, etc. are arranged at the end of the list.

Abbott's Rollo at Work, etc., 275
Addison's Spectator, 164-7
iEschylus's LyTical Dramas, 62
iEsop's and Other Fables, 657
Aimard's The Indian Scout, 428
Ainsworth's Tower of London, 400
„ Old St Paul's, 522
,, Windsor Castle, 709
„ Rookwood, 870
„ The Admirable Crichton, 894
A Kempis's Imitation of Christ, 484
Alcott's Little Women and Good
Wives, 248
Little Men, 512
Alpine Club: Peaks, Passes, and

Glaciers, 778
Andersen's Fairy Tales, 4

„ More Fairy Tales, 822

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 624
Anson's Voyages, 510
Aristophanes' Acharnians, etc., 344

,, Frogs, etc., 516

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, 547
Politics, 605
„ Poetics, and Demetrius

on Style, etc., 901
Armour's Fall of the Nibelungs, 312

Gudrun, 880
Arnold's (Matthew) Essays, 115
Poems, 334
„ Study of Celtic Literature,
etc., 458
Aucassin and Nicolette, 497
Augustine's (Saint) Confessions, 200
Aurelius' (Marcus) Meditations, 9
Austen's (Jane) Sense and Sensi-
bility, 21
„ Pride and Prejudice, 22

Mansfield Park, 23
„ Emma, 24
„ Northanger Abbey, and
Persuasion, 25

Bacon's Essays, 10

„ Advancement of Learning,
719
Bagehot's Literary Studies, 520, 521
Baker's (Sir S. W.) Cast up by the

Sea, 539
Bailantyne's Coral Island, 245

Martin Rattler, 246
„ Ungava, 276

Balzac's Wild Ass's Skin, 26
Eugenie Grandet, 169
Old Goriot, 170
„ Atheist's Mass, etc., 229
„ Christ in Flanders, etc.,

284
„ The Chouans, 285
„ Quest of the Absolute, 2 S6
„ Cat and Racket, etc., 349
„ Catherine de Medici, 419
„ Cousin Pons, 463
„ The Country Doctor, 530
., Rise and Fall of Cesar

Birotteau, 596
„ Lost Illusions, 656
„ The Country Parson, 686
„ Ursule Mirouet, 733
Barbusse's Under Fire, 798
Barca's (Mme C. de la) Life in

Mexico, 664
Bates's Naturalist on the Amazon,

446
Baxter's (Richard) Autobiography,

868
Beaumont and Fletcher's Selected

Plays, 506
Beaumont's (Mary) Joan Seaton, 597
Bede's Ecclesiastical History, 479
Belloc's Stories, Essays, and Poems.

948
Belt's Naturalist in Nicaragua, 50 1
Bennett's The Old Wives' Tale, 919
Berkeley's (Bishop) Principles of
Human Knowledge, New Theory
of Vision, etc., 483
Berlioz (Hector), Life of, 602
Binns's Life of Abraham Lincoln,

783
Bjornson's Plays, 625, 696
Blackmore's Lorna Doone, 304
„ Springhaven, 350

Blackwell's Pioneer Work for

Women, 667
Blake's Poems and Prophecies, 792
Bligh's A Book of the 'Bounty,' 950
Boccaccio's Decameron, 845, 846
Boehme's The Signature of All

Things, etc., 569
Bona Ventura's The Little Flowers,
The Life of St Francis, etc., 485
Borrow's Wild Wales, 49
Lavengro, 119
„ Romany Rye, 120

Borrow's Bible in Spain, 151

„ Gypsies in Spain, 697
BoswelTs Lite of Johnson, 1, 2

Tour to the Hebrides, 387
Bonlt's Asgard and Norse Heroes,

689
Boyle's The Sceptical Chymist, 559
Bright's (John) Speeches, 252
Bronte's (A.) The Tenant of Wildfell

Hall, and Agnes Grey, 685
Bronte's (C.) Jane Eyre, 287
Shirley, 288
Villette, 351
The Professor, 417
Bronte's (E.) Wuthering Heights,

243
Brown's (Dr John) Rab and His

Friends, etc., 116
Browne's (Frances) Grannie's Won-
derful Chair, 112
Browne's (Sir Thos.) Religio Medici,

etc., 92
Browning's Poems, 1833-44, 41
„ 1844-64, 42
„ 1871-90, 964
The Ring & the Book, 502
Buchanan's Life and Adventures of

Audubon, 601
Bulfinch's The Age of Fable, 472

Legends of Charlemagne,
556
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, 204
„ Grace Abounding, and

Mr Badman, 815
Burke's American Speeches and
Letters, 340
„ Reflections on the French
Revolution, etc., 460
Burnet's History of Wis Own Times,

85
Burney's (Fanny) Evelina, 352

„ „ Diary, A Selec-

tion, edited by Lewis Gibbs, 960
Burns's Poems and Songs, 94
Burton's East Africa, 500
Burton's (Robert) Anatomy of

Melancholy, 886-8
Butler's Analogy of Religion, 90
Butler's (Samuel) Erewhon and

Erewhon Revisited, 881
Butler's The Way of All Flesh, 895
Buxton's Memoirs, 773
Byron's Complete Poetical and
Dramatic Works, 486-8
„ Letters, 931

Caesar's Gallic War, etc., 702

Calderon's Plays, 819

Canton's Child's Book of Saints, 61

„ Invisible Playmate, etc., 566
Carlyle's French Revolution, 31, 32

„ Letters, etc., of Cromwell,
266-8

„ Sartor Resartus, 278

„ Past and Present, 608
Essays, 703, 704

„ Reminiscences, 875
Carroll's (Lewis) Alice in Wonder-
land, etc., 836
Castigiione's The Courtier, 807
Cellini's Autobiography, 51

Cervantes' Don Quixote, 385, 386
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, 307
Chesterfield's Letters to his Son, 823
Chesterton's (G. K.) Stories, Essays,

and Poems, 913
Chesterton's (Cecil) A History of the

United States, 865
Chretien de Troyes's Arthurian

Romances, 698
Cibber's Apology for his Life, 668
Cicero's Select Letters and Orations,

345
Clarke's Tales from Chaucer, 537
Shakespeare's Heroines,
109-11
Cobbett's Rural Rides, 638, 639
Coleridge's Biographia, 11

Golden Book of Poetry,
43
„ Lectures on Shakespeare,
162
Collins's Woman in White, 464
Collodi's Pinocchio, 538
Conrad's Lord Jim, 925
Converse's Long Will, 328

House of Prayer, 923
Cook's (Captain) Voyages, 99
Cooper's The Deerslayer, 77
The Pathfinder, 78
Last of the Mohicans, 79
The Pioneer, 171
The Prairie, 172
Cowper's Letters, 774
Poems, 872
Cox's Tales of Ancient Greece, 721
Craik's Manual of English Litera-
ture, 346
Craik (Mrs). See Mulock
Creasy's Fifteen Decisive Battles,

300
Crevecceur's Letters from an Amer-
ican Farmer, 640
Curtis's Prue and I, and Lotus, 418

Dana's Two Years before the Mast,

588
Dante's Divine Comedy, 308
Darwin's Origin of Species, 811

„ Voyage of the Beagle, 104
Dasent's Story of Burnt Njal, 558
Daudet's Tartarin of Tarascon, 423
Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, 59
„ Captain Singleton, 74
„ Memoirs of a Cavalier, 283
Journal of Plague, 289
Tour through England and

Wales, 820, 821
Moll Flanders, 837
De Joinville's Memoirs of the

Crusades, 333
de la Mare's Stories and Poems, 940
Demosthenes' Select Orations, 546
Dennis's Cities and Cemeteries of

Etruria, 183, 184
Do Quincey's Lake Poets, 163
Opium -Eater, 223
English Mail Coach,
etc., 609
De Retz (Cardinal), Memoirs of, 735,

736
Descartes' Discourse on Method,
570

Dickens's Baraaby Rudge, 76

Tale of Two Cities, 102
Old Curiosity Shop, 173
Oliver Twist, 233
Great Expectations, 234
Pickwick Papers, 235
Bleak House, 236
Sketches by Boz, 237
Nicholas Nickleby, 238
Christmas Books, 239
Dombey and Son, 240
Martin Chuzzlewit, 241
David Copperfield, 242
American Notes, 290
Child's History of Eng-
land, 291
Hard Times, 292
Little Dorrit, 293
Our Mutual Friend, 294
Christmas Stories, 414
Uncommercial Traveller,

536
Edwin Drood, 725
Reprinted Pieces, 744
Disraeli's Coningsby, 535
Dodge's Hans Brinker, G20
Donne's Poems, 867
Dostoevsky's Crime and Punish-
ment, 501
„ The House of the Dead, 533
„ Letters from the Underworld,

etc., 654
„ The Idiot, 682
„ Poor Folk, and The Gambler,

711
„ The Brothers Karamazov, 802,

803
„ The Possessed, 861, 862
Dowden's Life of R. Browning, 701
Dry den's Dramatic Essays, 568

„ Poems, 910
Dufferin's Letters from High Lati-
tudes, 499
Dumas's The Three Musketeers, 81
The Black Tulip, 174
Twenty Years After, 175
„ Marguerite de Valois, 326
„ The Count of Monte Crist o,
393 394
The Forty -Five, 420
„ Chicot the Jester, 421

Vicomte de Bragelonne,
593-5
,, Le Chevalier de Maison
Rouge, 614
Du Maurice's Trilby, 863
Duruy's Heroes of England, 471
„ History of France, 737, 738

Eddington's Nature of the Physical

World, 922
Edgar's Cressy and Poictiers, 17
„ Runnymede and Lincoln
Fair, 320
Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent, etc.,

410
Eighteenth -Century Plays, 818
Eliot's Adam Bede, 27
Silas Marner, 121
Romola, 231
Mill on the Floss, 325
Felix Holt, 353

Eliot's Scenes of Clerical Lffe, 468

,, Middiemarch, 854, 855
Ellis's (Havelock) Selected Essavs,
Elyot's Gouernour, 227 [930

Emerson's Essays, 12

„ Representative Men, 279

„ Nature, Conduct of Life,

etc., 322
„ Society and Solitude, etc.,
„ Poems, 715 [567

Epictetus' Moral Discourses, 404
Erckmann-Chatrian's The Conscript
and Waterloo, 354
,, Story of a Peasant,

Euclid's Elements, 891 [706, 707
Euripides' Plays, 63, 271
Evans's Holy Graal, 445
Evelyn's Diary, 220, 221
Everyman and other Interludes, 381
E wing's (Mrs) Mrs Overthe way's
Remembrances, etc., 730
„ Jackanapes, Daddy Dar-
win's Dovecot, and The
Story of a Short Life, 731

Faraday's Experimental Researches

in Electricity, 576
Ferrier's (Susan) Marriage, 816
Fielding's Tom Jones, 355, 356
Amelia, 852, 853
Joseph Andrews, 467
,, Jonathan Wild, and The
Journal of a Voyage to
Lisbon, 877
Finlay's Byzantine Empire, 33 [185
„ Greece under the Romans,
Flaubert's Madame Bovary, 808

Salammbo, 869 [969

,, Sentimental Education,

Fletcher's (Beaumont and) Selected

Plays, 506
Ford's Gatherings from Spain, 152
Forster's Life of Dickens, 781, 782
Forster's (E. M.) A Passage to India,

0 I A

Fox's (Charles James) Selected

Speeches, 759
Fox's (George) Journal, 754
France's (Anatole) Sign of the Reine
Pedauque & Revolt of the Angels,
967
Francis' (Saint) The Little Flowers,
etc., 485 [447

Franklin's Journey to the Polar Sea,
Freeman's Old English History for

Children, 540 *

French Mediaeval Romances, 557
Froissart's Chronicles, 57
Froude's Short Studies, 13, 705
Henry VIII, 372-4
Edward VI, 375
Mary Tudor, 477
History of Queen Eliza-
beth's Reign, 583-7
„ Life of Benjamin Disraeli,
Lord Beaconsneld, 666

Galsworthy's Country House, 917
Gait's Annals* of the Parish, 427
Galton's Inquiries into Human

Faculty, 263
Gaskell's Cranford, 83

Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte,
Sylvia's Lovers, 524 [318
„ Mary Barton, 598
„ Cousin PMllis, etc., 615
North and South, 680
Gatty's Parables from Nature, 158
Geoffrey of Monmouth's Histories

of the Kings of Britain, 57 7
George's Progress and Poverty, 560
Gibbon's Roman Empire, 434-6,
474-6
„ Autobiography, 511
Gilchrist's life of Blake, 971
Gilfillan's Literary Portraits, 348
Giraldus Cambrensis, Wales, 272
Gleig's Life of Wellington, 341

The Subaltern, 708
Goethe's Faust, 335

Wilhelm Meister, 599, 600
„ Conversations with Ecker-
mann, 851
Gogol's Dead Souls, 726
Taras Bulba, 74ft
Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, 295
Poems and Plays, 415
Citizen of the World,
etc., 902
Goncharov's Oblomov, 878
Gore's Philosophy of the Good Life,
Gorki's Through Russia, 741 [924
Gotthelf's Ulric the Farm Servant,

228
Gray's Poems and Letters, 628
Green's Short History of the Eng-
lish People, 727, 728.
Grettir Saga, 699
Grimm's Fairy Tales, 56
Gro^smith's Diary of a Nobody, 963
Grote's History of Greece, 186-97
Guest's (Lady) Mabinogion, 97

Hahnemann's The Organon of the

Rational Art of Healing, 663
Hakluyt's Voyages, 264, 265, 313,

314, 338, 339, 388, 389
Hallam's Constitutional History,

621-3
Hamilton's The Federalist, 519
Harte's Luck of Roaring Camp, 681
Harvey's Circulation of Blood, 2G2
Hawthorne's Wonder Book, 5

The Scarlet Letter, 122
House of Seven Gables,
176
„ The Marble Faun, 424

Twice Told Tales, 531
Blithedale Romance,
592
Hazlitt's Characters of Shake-
speare's Plays, 65
Table Talk, 321
„ Lectures, 411
„ Spirit of the Age and Lec-
tures on English Poets,
Plain Speaker, 814 [459
Hebbel's Plays, 694
Heimskringla: The Olaf Sagas, 717
„ Sagas of the Norse

Bangs, 847
Heine's Prose and Poetry, 911
Helps's (Sir Arthur) Life of Colum-
bus, 332

Herbert's Temple, 309
Herodotus, 405, 406
Herrick's Hesperides, 310
Hobbes's Leviathan, 691
Holinshed's Chronicle, 800
Holmes's Life of Mozart, 564
Holmes's (O. W.) Autocrat, 66
„ Professor, 67

Poet, 68
Homer's Hiad, 453

„ Odyssey, 454

Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, 201,

202 [515

Horace's Complete Poetical Works,

Houghton's Life and Letters of

Keats, 801
Howard's (E.) Rattlin the Reefer,

857
Howard's (John) State of the
Prisons, 835 [926

Hudson's (W. H.) A Shepherd's Life,
Far Away and Long Ago,
956 [58

Hughes's Tom Brown's Schooldays,
Hugo's (Victor) Les Mis6rables, 363,
364
Notre Dame, 422
„ Toilers of the Sea,

509
Hume's Treatise of Human Nature,

etc., 548, 549
Hunt's (Leigh) Selected Essays, 829
Hutchinson's (Col.) Memoirs, 317
Huxley's (Aldous) Stories, Essays,

and Poems, 935
Huxley's (T. H.) Man's Place in
Nature, 47
„ Select Lectures and Lay

Sermons, 498

Ibsen's The Doll's House, etc., 494
Ghosts, etc., 552
Pretender, Pillars of Society,

Rosmersholm, 059
Brand, 716
„ Lady Inger, etc., 729
Peer Gynt, 747
Ingelow's Mopsa the Fairy, 619
Irving's Sketch Book, 117

Conquest of Granada, 478
„ Life of Mahomet, 513
Italian Short Stories, 876

James's (G. P. R.) Richelieu, 357
James's (Henry) The Turn of the
Screw, and The Aspern Papers, 912
James (Wm.), Selections from, 739
Jefferies's (Richard) After London,
and Amaryllis at the
Fair, 951
„ Be vis, 850

Johnson's (Dr) Lives of the Poets,

770-1
Jonson's (Ben) Plays, 489, 490
Josephus's Wars of the Jews, 712

Kalidasa's Shakuntala, 629
Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 909
Keats's Poems, 101
Keble's Christian Year, 690
King's Life of Mazzini, 562
Kinglake's Eothen, 337

Kingsloy's (Chas.) Westward Ho! 20
„ Heroes, 113

„ Hereward the Wake, 206

,, Hypatia, 230

„ Water Babies, and

Glaucus, 277
Alton Locke, 462
Yeast, 611
„ Madam How and Lady

Why, 777
Poems, 793
Kingsley's (Henry) Ravenshoe, 28

„ Geoffrey Hamlyn, 4 1 6

Kingston's Peter the Whaler, 6

„ Three Midshipmen, 7

Kirby's Kalevala, 259, 260
Koran, 380

Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, 8
„ Essays of Elia, 14
Letters, 342, 343
Landor's Imaginary Conversations

and Poems, 890
Lane's Modern Egyptians, 315
Langland's Piers Plowman, 571
Latimer's Sermons, 40
Law's Serious Call, 91
Lawrence's The White Peacock, 914
„ Stories, Essays, and

Poems, 958
Layamon's (Wace and) Arthurian

Chronicles, 578
Lear (Edward). See under Antho-
logies
Leibniz' Philosophical Writings, 905
Le Sage's Gil Bias, 437, 438
Leslie's Memoirs of John Constable,
Lessing's Laocoon, etc., 843 [563
Lever's Harry Lorrequer, 177
Lewes's Life of Goethe, 269
Lincoln's Speeches, etc., 206
Livy's History of Rome, 603, 609

670, 749, 755, 756
Locke's Civil Government, 751
Lockhart's Life of Napoleon, 3
„ Life of Scott, 55

Life of Burns, 156
Longfellow's Poems, 382
Lonnrott's Kalevala, 259, 260
Loti's Iceland Fisherman, 920
Lover's Handy Andy, 178
Lowell's Among My Books, 607
Lucretius's Of the Nature of Things,

750
Liitzow's History of Bohemia, 432
LyeH's Antiquity of Man, 700
Lytton's Harold, 15

„ Last of the Barons, 18

Last Da3rs of Pompeii, 80
„ Pilgrims of the Rhine, 390
Rienzi, 532

Macaulay's England, 34-6
„ Essays, 225, 226

„ Speeches on Politics,

etc., 399
w Miscellaneous Essays,

MacDonald's Sir Gibbie, 678 [439
„ Phantastes, 732

Machiavelli's Prince, 280
„ Florence, 376

Maine's Ancient Law, 734

Malory's Le Morte D 'Arthur, 45, 46
Malthus on the Principles of

Population, 692, 693
MandeviUe's Travels, 812
Mann's (Thomas) Stories & Epi-
sodes, 962
Manning's Sir Thomas More, 19
„ Mary Powell, and De-

borah's Diary, 324
Marlowe's Plays and Poems, 383
Marryat's Mr Midshipman Easy, 82
„ Little Savage, 159
„ Masterman Ready, 160

Peter Simple, 232
„ Children of New Forest,

247
„ Percival Keene, 358
„ Settlers in Canada, 370
King's Own, 580
Jacob Faithful, 618
Martineau's Feats on the Fjords,429
Martinengo - Cesaresco's Folk - Lore

and other Essays, 673
Marx's Capital, 848, 849
Maugham's (Somerset) Cakes and

Ale, 932
Maupassant's Short Stories, 907
Maurice's Kingdom of Christ, 146-7
Mazzini's Duties of Man, etc., 224
Melville's Moby Dick, 179
Typee, 180
Omoo, 297
Meredith's The Ordeal of Richard

Feverel, 916
Merimee's Carmen, etc., 834
| Merivale's History of Rome, 433
Mickiewicz's Pan Tadeusz, 842
Mignet's French Revolution, 713
Mill's Utilitarianism, Liberty, Repre-
sentative Government, 482
Rights of Woman, 825
Miller's Old Red Sandstone, 103
Milman's History of the Jews, 377,
Milton's Poems, 384 [378

„ Areopagitica and other
Prose Works, 795
Mitford's Our Village, 927
Moliere's Comedies, 830, 831
Mommsen's History of Rome, 542-5
Montagu's (Lady) Letters, 69
Montaigne's Essays, 440-2
Moore's (George) Esther Waters, 933
More's Utopia, and Dialogue of
Comfort against Tribulation, 461
Morier's Hajji Baba, 679
Morris's (Wm.) Early Romances, 261
„ Life and Death of Jason, 575
Morte D 'Arthur Romances, 634
Motley's Dutch Republic, 86-8
Mulock's John Halifax, 123

Neale's Fall of Constantinople, 655

Newcastle's (Margaret, Duchess of)
Life of the First Duke of New-
castle, etc., 722 [636

Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua,
„ On the Scope and Nature
of University Education, and a
Paper on Christianity and Scien-
tific Investigation, 723

Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zara-
thustra, 892

Oiiphant's Salem Chapel, 244
Omar Khayyam, 819
Osborne (Dorothy), Letters of, 674
Ovid: Selected Works, 955
Owen's (Robert) A New View of
Society, etc., 799

Paine's Rights of Man, 718
Palgrave's Golden Treasury, 96
Paltock's Peter Wilkins, 676
Park's (Mungo) Travels, 205
Parkman's Conspiracy of Pontiac,

302, 303
Pascal's Pensees, 874
Paston Letters, 752, 753
Pater's Marius the Epicurean, 903
Peacock's Headlong Hall, 327
Pearson's The Grammar of Science,

939
Penn's The Peace of Europe, Some

Fruits of Solitude, etc., 724
Pepys's Diary, 53, 54
Percy's Reliques, 148, 149
Pinnow's (H.) History of Germany,

929
Pitt's Orations, 145
Plato's Republic, 64

„ Dialogues, 456, 457
Plutarch's Lives, 407-9
„ Moralia, 565

Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagina-
tion, 336

„ Poems and Essays, 791
Polo's (Marco) Travels, 306
Pope's Complete Poetical Works, 7 60
Prescott's Conquest of Peru, 301

Conquest of Mexico, 397,
398
Pr6vost's Manon Lescaut, etc., 834
Priestley's Angel Pavement, 938
Proctor's Legends and Lyrics, 150
Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter,

etc., 898

Quiller-Couch's Hetty Wesley, 864

Rabelais's Gargantua and Panta-

gruel, 826, 827
Radclrffe's (Mrs Ann) The Mysteries

of Udolpho, 865, 866
Ramayana and Mahabharata, 403
Reade's The Cloister and the
Hearth, 29
„ Peg Woffington, 299
Reid's (Mayne) Boy Hunters of the
Mississippi, 582
„ The Boy Slaves, 797
Renan's Life of Jesus, 805
Reynolds's Discourses, 118
Ricardo's Principles of Political

Economy and Taxation, 590
Richardson's Pamela, 683, 684

Clarissa, 882-5
Roberts's (Morley) Western Aver-

nus, 762
Robertson's Religion and Life, 37
„ Christian Doctrine, 38

„ Bible Subjects, 39

Robinson's (Wade) Sermons, 637
Roget's Thesaurus, 630, 631
Rossetti's (D. G.) Poems, 627
Rousseau's Emile, 518

Rousseau's Social Contract and
other Essays, 660
„ Confessions, 859, 860

Ruskin's Seven Lamps of Architec-
ture, 207
„ Modern Painters, 208-12
Stones of Venice, 213-15
„ Unto this Last, etc., 216
„ Elements of Drawing, etc.,

217
„ Pre-Raphaelitism, etc.,218
„ Sesame and Lilies, 219
„ Ethics of the Dust, 282
„ Crown of Wild Olive, and

Cestus of Aglaia, 323
„ Time and Tide, etc., 450
The Two Boyhoods, 683
Russell's Life of Gladstone, 661

Sand's (George) The Devil's Pool,

and Francois the Waif, 534
Scheftel's Ekkehard, 529
Scott's (M.) Tom Cringle's Log, 710
Scott's (Sir W.) Ivanhoe, 16
„ Fortunes of Nigel, 71

Woodstock, 72
„ Waverley, 75

The Abbot, 124
„ Anne of Geierstein, 125

The Antiquary, 126
„ Highland Widow, and Be-
trothed, 127
„ Black Dwarf, Legend of

Montrose, 128
„ Bride of Lammermoor, 129
„ Castle Dangerous, Surgeon's
Daughter, 130
Robert of Paris, 131
Fair Maid of Perth, 132
Guy Mannering, 133
Heart of Midlothian, 134
Kenilworth, 135
The Monastery, 136
Old Mortality, 137
Peveril of the Peak, 138
The Pirate, 139
Quentin Durward, 140
Redgauntlet, 141
Rob Roy, 142
St Ronan's Well, 143
The Talisman, 144
Lives of the Novelists, 331
Poems and Plays, 550, 551
Seebohm's Oxford Reformers, 665
Seeley's Ecce Homo, 305
Sewell's (Anna) Black Beauty, 748
Shakespeare's Comedies, 153

„ Histories, etc., 154

„ Tragedies, 155 [908

Shchedrin's The Golovlyov Family,
Shelley's Poetical Works, 257, 258
Shelley's (Mrs) Frankenstein, 616

„ Rights of Women, 825
Sheppard's Charles Auchester, 505
Sheridan's Plays, 95
Sienkiewicz's Tales, 871

Quo Vadis?, 970
Sismondi's Italian Republics, 250
Smeaton's Life of Shakespeare, 514
Smith's Wealth of Nations. 412, 413
Smith's (George) Life of Wm. Carey,
395

Smollett's Roderick Random, 790

Peregrine Pickle, 838, 839
Sophocles* Dramas, 114
Southey's Life of Nelson, 52
Spectator, 164-7
Speke's Source of the Nile, 50
Spencer's (Herbert) Essays on

Education, 503
Spenser's Faerie Queene, 443, 444
„ The Shepherd's Calendar,
879
Spinoza's Ethics, etc., 481
Spyri's Heidi, 431
Stanley's Memorials of Canterbury,
Eastern Church, 251 [89
Steele's The Spectator, 164-7
Stendhal's Scarlet and Black, 945,
Sterne's Tristram Shandy, 617 [946
„ Sentimental Journey, and
Journal to Eliza, 796
Stevenson's Treasure Island, and
Kidnapped, 763
„ Master of Ballantrae, and The

Black Arrow, 764
„ Virginibus Puerisque, and
Familiar Studies of Men
and Books, 765
„ An Inland Voyage, Travels
with a Donkey, and Silver-
ado Squatters, 766
„ Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The

Merry Men, etc., 767
,. Poems, 768

„ In the South Seas, and Island
Nights' Entertainments, 769
„ St Ives, 904
Stow's Survey of London, 589
Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, 371
Strickland's Queen Elizabeth, 100
Surtees's Jorrocks's Jaunts, 817
Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell, 379
„ Divine Love and

Wisdom, 635
„ Divine Providence,

658
The True Christian
Religion, 893
Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Un-
abridged Editon, 60
Tale of a Tub, etc., 347
„ Journal to Stella, 757
Swinburne's (A. C), Poems and

Prose, 961
Swinntrton's The Georgian Literary

Scene, 943
Swiss Family Robinson, 430
Synge's Plays, Poems & Prose, 968

Tacitus's Annals, 273

„ Agricola and Germania, 274
Taylor's Words and Places, 517
Tchekhov's Plays and Stories, 941
Tennyson's Poems, 44, 626
Thackeray's Esmond, 73

„ Vanity Fair, 298
„ Christmas Books, 359
„ Pendennis, 425, 426

„ Newcomes, 465, 466

„ The Virginians, 507, 508
., English Humorists, and

„ The Four Georges, 610

,. Roundabout Papers, 687

Thierry's Norman Conquest,198,199
Thoreau's Walden, 281
Thucydides' Peloponnesian War, 455
Tolstoy's Master & Mao, Other
Parables & Tales, 469
„ War and Peace, 525-7

Childhood, Boyhood, and

Youth, 591
Anna Karenina, 612, 613
Trench's On the Study of Words and

English Past and Present, 788
Trollope's Barchester Towers, 30
„ Framley Parsonage, 181
The Warden, 182
Dr Thome, 360 [361

„ Small House at Allington,
Last Chronicles of Barset,
391, 392 [761

„ Golden Lion of Granpere,
Phineas Finn, 832, 833
Trotter's The Bayard of India, 396
„ Hodson of Hodson's Horse,
„ Warren Hastings, 452 [401
Turgenev's Virgin Soil, 528
„ Liza, 677

,, Fathers and Sons, 742

Tyndall's Glaciers of the Alps, 98
Tytler's Principles of Translation,
168

Vasari's Lives of the Painters, 784-7
Verne's (Jules) Twenty Thousand
Leagues under the Sea, 319
,, Dropped from the Clouds, 367
,, Abandoned, 368
„ The Secret of the Island, 369
„ Five Weeks in a Balloon, and
Around the World in Eighty
Days, 779
Virgil's Mneid, 161

„ Eclogues and Georgics, 222
Voltaire's Life of Charles XII, 270
„ Age of Louis XIV, 780

Candide and Other Tales,
936

Wace and Layamon's Arthurian

Chronicles, 578 [etc., 828

Wakefield's Letter from Sydney,
Walpole's Letters, 775
Walpole's (Hugh) Mr Perrin and

Mr Traill, 918
Walton's Compleat Angler, 70
Waterton's Wanderings in South

America, 772 [899

Webster and Ford's Selected Plays,
Wells's The Time Machine, and The

Wheels of Chance, 915
Wesley's Journal, 105-8
White's Selborne, 48
Whitman's Leaves of Grass, and

Democratic Vistas, etc., 573
Whyte-MelviUe's Gladiators, 523
Wilde's Plays, Prose Writings and

Poems, 858 [84

Wood's (Mrs Henry) The Channings,
Woolf's To the Lighthouse, 949
Wooiman's Journal, etc., 402
Wordsworth's Shorter Poems, 203
„ Longer Poems, 311

Xenophon's Cyropaedia, 61

Yellow Book, 503

Yonge's The Dove In the Eagle's
Nest 329
„ The Book of Golden Deeds, 330
„ The Heir of Redclyffe, 362
„ The Little Duke, 470
„ The Lances of Lynwood, 579

Young's (Arthur) Travels in France
and Italy, 720

Zola's Germinal, 897

Anthologies, Dictionaries, etc.

A Book of English Ballads, 572

A Book of Heroic Verse, 574

A Book of Nonsense, by Edward

Lear, and Others, 806
A Century of Essays, An Anthology,

653
American Short Stories of the Nine-
teenth Century, 840
A New Book of Sense and Nonsense,

813
An Anthology of English Prose:

From Bede to Stevenson, 675
An Encyclopaedia of Gardening, by

Walter P. Wright, 555
Ancient Hebrew Literature, 4 vols.,
Anglo-Saxon Poetry, 794 [253-6
Annals of Fairyland, 365, 366, 541
Anthology of British Historical

Speeches and Orations, 714

Atlas of Classical Geography, 451

Atlases, Literary and Historical:

Europe, 496; America, 553; Asia,

633; Africa and Australasia, 662

Chinese Philosophy in Classical

Times, 973
Dictionary, Biographical, of English
Literature, 449
„ Biographical, of Foreign

Literature, 900
M of Dates, New Edition to

end of 1939, 554
t, Everyman's English, 776
of Non-Classical Myth-
ology, 632
„ Smaller Classical, 495

of Quotations and Pro-
verbs, 809, 810
English Galaxy of Shorter Poems,
The, Chosen and Edited by
Gerald Bullett, 959

English Religious Verse, Edited by

G. Lacey May, 937
English Short Stories. An An-
Fairy Gold, 157 fthology, 743

Fairy Tales from the Arabian Nights,
French Short Stories, 896 [249

Ghost Stories, Edited by John

Hampden, 952
Golden Book of Modern English

Poetry, 921 [746

Golden Treasury of Longer Poems,
Hindu Scriptures, Edited by Dr

Nicol Macnicol, 944
Minor Elizabethan Drama, 491, 492
Minor Poets of the Eighteenth Cen-
tury, 844
Minor Poets of the Seventeenth

Century, 873
Modern Humour, Edited by Guy

Pocock and M. M. Bozman, 957
Modern Plays, 942
Modern Short Stories, Edited by

John Hadfield, 954
Mother Goose, 473
Muses' Pageant, The, 581, 606, 671
New Golden Treasury, 695
New Testament, The, 93
Plays for Boys and Girls, 966
Poetry Book for Boys and Girls, 894
Political Liberty, a Symposium, 745
Prayer Books of King Edward VI,

First and Second, 448
Prelude to Poetry, 789
Reader's Guide to Everyman's

Library, revised edition, covering

the first 950 vols., 889
Restoration Plays, 604
Russian Short Stories, 758
Selections from St Thomas Aquinas,

Edited by The Rev. Father

M. C. D'Arcy, 953
Shorter Novels: Elizabethan, 824
„ Jacobean and Restora-
tion, 841
Eighteenth Century, 856
Story Book for Boys and Girls, 934
Table Talk, 906
Tales of Detection, 928
Theology in the English Poets, 493
Thesaurus of English Words and

Phrases, Roget's, 630, 631
Twenty One-Act Plays, Selected by

John Hampden, 947

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