'SO Edgar Allan Poe A BOOK OF SHORT STORIES SELECTED AND EDITED BY STUART P. SHERMAN PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1914 BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY CONTENTS The figures in the second column indicate the pages of the Notes and Comment and Biographical Sketches. PAGE PAGE INTRODUCTION I. Establishing Standards for the Short Story in Prose . vii II. Types of the Short Story . ... . xii III. Critical Considerations .... xxvi DESCRIPTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY xxxiii WASHINGTON IRVING 3S Rip Van Winkle 3 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE '310 The Minister's Black Veil 26 Ethan Brand 43 EDGAR ALLAN POE 314 The Fall of the House of Usher .... 64 cThe Gold-Bug .87 CHARLES DICKENS 3 T 9 The Signal-Man 131 FRANK STOCKTON 321 The Lady, or the Tiger 148 THOMAS HARDY 322 The Three Strangers 157 ROBERT Louis STEVENSON . . . . . 326 Will O' the Mill . . . . * . .185 The Sire De Maletroit's Door ... . . .217 SIR JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE 330 The Courting of T'nowhead's Bell . . . 242 vi Contents PAGE PAGE O. HENRY 333 Phoebe 266 RUDYARD KIPLING 335 The Man Who Was 286 NOTES AND COMMENT 305 QUESTIONS 340 Portrait of Edgar Allan Poe Frontispiece INTRODUCTION ESTABLISHING STANDARDS FOR THE SHORT STORY IN PROSE AMERICANS who are sensitive to the assertion that America has originated nothing in literature point to Ed- gar Allan Poe as the originator of the short story. In the ordinary sense of the word, of course he was nothing of the s sort. The origin of the short story is lost in the unhistorical morning of human society. Not to speak of the ancient tales of Rome, Greece, Arabia, India, we know that there were numberless fine short stories in English and other modern tongues hundreds of years before Poe was born. The mystery of narrative effectiveness was not unknown to the nameless authors of the English and Scottish popu- lar ballads. Before the end of the fourteenth century Chaucer had made a book of short stories, the Canterbury Tales, quite as vivid, various, and artful as this of ours. Painter's Palace of Pleasure, a prose collection of the Eliza- bethan Age, contained sufficient of "human interest" and dramatic situation to furnish plots for Shakespeare and a generation of great dramatists. And so we might proceed to show that short stories in prose or verse of more or less merit have appeared in every age. 1 Is it a question of the origination of the "modern" short story? Poe himself declared in 1842 that "we are far behind our progenitors 1 See The Short Story in English, by Henry Seidel Canby. New Yo*k: Henry Holt and Co., 1909. vii viii Introduction in this department of literature," and pointed to the earlier numbers of Blackwood's and to the British magazines in gen- eral for superior examples conforming to his own standards. 1 The importance of Poe is not that he originated a literary form but that he defined it sharply and illustrated it bril- liantly at a critical moment in its history. He appeared at a time when the reading public, entering upon a period of immense expansion, was calling for the multiplication of magazines, and editors were calling for the multiplication of reading matter. Poe himself an editor perceived and pointed out the significance for the author of the new periodical publications: "The increase, within a few years, of the magazine literature, is by no means to be regarded as indicating what some critics would suppose it to in- dicate a downward tendency in American taste or in American letters. It is but a sign of the times, an indica- tion of an era in which men are forced upon the curt, the condensed, the well-digested in place of the voluminous in a word, upon journalism in lieu of dissertation. ... I will not be sure that men at present think more pro- foundly than half a century ago, but beyond question they think with more rapidity, with more skill, with more tact, with more of method and less of excrescence in the thought." 2 As a writer of tales Poe held himself to " more of method and less of excrescence in the thought" than characterized the work of most of his contemporaries and predecessors. His exemplifications of terseness and system in composition have served as models from his day to this. His discussions of the purpose and principles of the short story writer, particularly in his review 3 of Hawthorne's 1 Selections from the Critical Writings of Poe, by F. C. Prescott. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1909, pp. 96, 97. 2 The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, edited by James A. Harrison. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. Vol. XVI, p. 82. 3 See Prescott's Selections. Standards for the Short Story ix Twice-Told Tales and in the "Philosophy of Composi- tion," 1 have served as the starting point for all subsequent treatises on technique. It may be fairly maintained that he established standards for the short story in prose, to which all subsequent writers have generally striven to con- form. Let us enumerate the chief articles of Poe's doc- trine some of which, by the way, may be found in Aristotle's Poetics. (i) A good short story must produce upon the reader a 3 perfectly unified effect or impression. "A skilful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents he then combines such events as may best aid him in es- tablishing this preconceived effect. If his very initial sen- tence tend not to the outbringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step." 2 "_Keeping originality always in view- for he is false to himself who ventures to dispense "with so obvious and so easily attainable a source of in- terest I say to myself, in the first place, ' Of the innumer- able effects, or impressions, of which the heart, the in- tellect, or (more generally) the soul is susceptible, what one shall I, on the present occasion, select? '" 3 As it hap- pens, Poe illustrates the "Philosophy of Composition" by an account of the order of his mental processes in com- posing his poem "The Raven," of which the intended effect was sadness awakened by the death of a beautiful woman. But it is clear that Poe's prose tales, as well as his poems, were written after an exact determination of the total impression to be produced by them. 1 See Prescott's Selections. 2 Ibid., pp. 94-95- 8 Ibid., p. 151. x Introduction (2) No stroke should be made in a short story, which does not advance the action towards its denouement or con- tribute to the premeditated effect. "In the whole com- position there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one preestablished design. And by such means, with such care and skill, a picture is at length painted which leaves in the mind of him who contemplates it, a sense of the fullest satisfaction. The idea of the tale has been presented unblemished, be- cause undisturbed; and this is an end unattainable by the novel." l (3) There is but one absolutely right order of arrange- ment for the details of a story. This perfect order few authors actually achieve; but all good artists strive for it. "Plot," he says, "is very imperfectly understood, and has never been rightly denned. Many persons regard it as mere complexity of incident. In its most rigorous accepta- tion, it is that from which no component atom can be removed, and in which none of the component atoms can be displaced, without ruin to the whole; 2 and although a sufficiently good plot may be constructed, without attention to the whole rigor of this definition, still it is the definition which the true artist should always keep in view, and always en- deavor to consummate in his works." 3 (4) The short story, like all forms of fiction, must show "originality," that is to say, the power of so refashioning 1 Prescott's Selections, p. 95. * Cf. "The Fable, being an imitation of an action, should be an imitation of an action that is one and entire, the parts of it being so connected, that if any one of them be either transposed or taken away, the whole will be destroyed or changed; for whatever may be either re- tained or omitted, without making any sensible difference, is not properly a part." The Poetics of Aristotle, New York: Cassell and Co., 1901, p. 31. It may be observed that this single sentence implies everything in our articles (i), (2), and (3). 3 Prescott's Selections, p. 320; see also pp. 310-311. Standards for the Short Story xi the stuff of experience as to produce novel effects. Poe praises Hawthorne warmly on the ground that he possesses originality in high degree. "Mr. Hawthorne's distinctive trait is invention, creation, imagination, originality a trait which, in the literature of fiction, is positively worth all the rest. . . . The inventive or original mind as fre- quently displays itself in novelty of tone as in novelty of matter. Mr. Hawthorne is original at all points." L Orig- inality reveals itself in the choice of subject, in the disposi- tion of details, in the total "atmosphere" of the piece: it is the peculiar personality of the author impressing a special character upon all his work. A short story deserves the name of art only when it is a "reproduction of what the Senses perceived in Nature through the veil of the soul." : (5) A short story should be short enough to be perused at a single sitting of from a half hour to one or two hours. 3 This prescription is not made in order to set up an arbitrary distinction between a short story and a novel. It is offered rather as a condition essential to securing that unity of im- pression which is the true distinguishing object of the short story writer. The novelist expects to make a series of va- rious impressions, and can afford to allow his reader breath- ing spaces between them. But in the case of "the talc proper," as Poe put it, "simple cessation in reading, would, of itself, be sufficient to destroy the true unity." During the hour of perusal, the soul of the reader must remain without interruption or weariness under the writer's con- trol. 4 Bringing these points into line, we may say that, ac- 1 Prescott's Selections, p. 97. 2 Ibid., p. 306. 3 Cf. "In the fable a certain length is requisite, but, that length must be such as to present a whole easily comprehended by the memory." The Poetics of Aristotle, p. 29. 4 Prescott's Selections, p. 94. xii Introduction cording to Poe's practice and precept, a short story is: A brief, original narrative, free from excrescence, of events cunningly arranged for the production of a single pre- determined effect. If this definition fits all the stories in this book, it will serve our purposes better than most of the definitions devised by recent critics. Professor Brander Matthews, for example, says: "The Short-story fulfils the three false unities of the 'French classic drama: it shows one action, in one place, on one day. A Short-story deals with a single character, a single event, a single emotion, or the series of emotions called forth by a single situation." x This is, at most, a description of a tendency rather than of an established fact. If you will examine the stories in our collection with reference to Professor Matthews's def- inition, you will be inclined to believe that the authors have generally acted upon Poe's assurance that the only unity with which the artist needs to concern himself is the unity of effect. II TYPES OF THE SHORT STORY We have discussed hitherto those characteristics which all good short stories have in common; we have discussed, so to speak, the genus short story. How shall we distin- guish the various species of the genus? The possible prin- ciples of classification are almost unlimited, and it is per- haps worth the student's while to experiment with several of them. We may group our stories with reference to the 1 The Philosophy of the Short Story, p. 16. Longmans, Green, and Co., 1901. Of course the maker of the definition is at liberty to say that, "Rip Van Winkle," "The Minister's Black Veil," "The Gold- Bug," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Courting of T'now- head's Bell," and "Phoebe" are not "Short-stories." Types of the Short Story xiii emotion which they excite in us as tragic, comic, pathetic, farcical, etc. We may group them^wIthTreTerence~tb"the principal passion involved in them as love stories, murder stories, revenge stories, etc. We may group them with reference to the significant characters who appear in them as fairy stories, ghost stories, animal stories, etc. We may group them with reference to certain rather vaguely de- nned literary categories as romantic, realistic, idealistic, naturalistic, etc. We may group them with reference to the occupations and social strata presented as stories of peasant life, slum life, military life, clerical life, etc. We may group them with reference to geographical setting as stories of New England, California, Tennessee, Scotland, India, etc. And whatever series of groups we chose, we should easily find a long list of specimens to represent each of our divisions. 1 R. L. Stevenson, who like Poe was both an author and an analyst of stories, suggested still another method of classification which is perhaps more fundamental and more interesting than any of these. He grouped his own tales not with reference to the effect that they produce upon the reader but with reference to the nature of the impulse in which they originated in his own mind. "There are," he said, "so far as I know, three ways, and three ways, only, of writing a story. You may take a plot and fit characters to it, or you may take a character and choose incidents and situations to develop it, or lastly . . . you may take a y certain atmosphere and get actions and persons to realize A and express it." : The division here suggested is interest- 1 Elaborate classifications may be found in Barrett's Short Story Writing, Ch. II, and in Esenwein's Writing the Short Story, Pt. I, Ch. II; but elaborate classifications generally result in a confusion with regard to the principle of division. 2 The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson, by Graham Balfour. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1908. Vol. II, pp. 168-169. xiv Introduction ing, because it provokes the student to discover what in the case of any particular story was the starting point in the composition. It is fundamental, because it is based upon the three elements present in every story a scene, an actor, and an act. It must be admitted that in some of the finest stories it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to determine which of the three elements receives the predominant em- phasis. A composer like Irving unites plot, characters, and atmosphere into a skilful and intricate harmony, and, to continue the musical analogy, it is hard to say which part carries the "air." What is it in "Rip Van Winkle" that Irving strove chiefly to "realize and express" the notion of a man falling asleep to wake years afterwards, or the character of the loveable village ne'er-do-well, or the dreamy and legend-haunted valley of the Hudson? In the case of Hardy's "Three Strangers" we may feel reason- ably sure that no one of the characters contained the original germ of the story; but we cannot separate the interest of the other two elements the plot-interest developed by the juxtaposition at a convivial gathering of a condemned man and his executioner, from the interest of the intensely realized Wessex "atmosphere" which envelops the whole situation. So, too, in Barrie's "Courting of T'nowhead's Bell" there is the strictest interdependence of plot, char- acters, and setting, and one is at a loss to declare whether the author set out with a desire to "express" Thrums, or to illustrate the characters of two Scotch lovers, or to realize the humorous possibilities of a series of odd situa- tions. Distinct species or types of the short story, accord- ing to the division suggested by Stevenson, are recognizable only when two of the component elements are manifestly subordinate to the third. " You may take a plot and fit characters to it" If the ef- Types of the Short Story xv feet is to be secured by a plot to which characters and setting are clearly subordinate, it must be a very thrilling or a very ingenious plot. Poe, who prided himself upon the variety as well as upon the excellence of his tales, worked out at least two distinct varieties of what we may call the plot-story: a thrilling variety and an ingenious variety. In the former sort, of which "The Pit and the Pendu- lum" will serve as an example, the interest is sustained by an intrinsically exciting situation in this instance, by a man bound fast beneath a slowly-descending crescent- shaped knife. In such a situation any man whatsoever becomes instantly the object of nervous solicitude; we can dispense in his case with "atmosphere" and traits of char- acter. Most short stories of highly extraordinary adven- ture may be related more or less closely to this variety. In Stockton's "The Lady or the Tiger?", for example, the barest suggestion of humanity and the briefest indication of barbaric setting suffice to render the situation plausible and captivating to the imagination; and in the same author's sea yarns, like "The Wreck of the Thomas Hyke," and in his fairy tales of science, like "Negative Gravity," it is perfectly obvious that the characters and the locality were painted upon the plot, and might, as it \ were, be erased and replaced by a half-dozen differentj decorations without impairing the essential element in the conception of the story. Stevenson's "The Sire de Male- troit's Door" is a very superior specimen of the thrilling variety of the plot-story superior because a fine artist has done his utmost to give firm historical coloring to his scene and vitality to a set of somewhat conventional romantic figures; yet one can hardly doubt that this scene and these figures were elaborated after the author had established as his center of interest a situation in which xvi Introduction some man or other is forced to choose between marriage or death the lady or the tiger! The ingenious variety of plot-story which Poe called the "tale of ratiocination" is represented in our collection by "The Gold-Bug" alone. Other examples by Poe are "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Mystery of Marie Roget," and "The Purloined Letter." Now it has been sometimes asserted that "The Gold-Bug" is really two stories a story of the quest for buried treasure and a story of the deciphering of a cryptogram, stitched to- gether in the middle; but this conception is erroneous. The quest and discovery of the treasure is the dramatic demonstration that the cryptogram has been correctly deciphered. "The Gold-Bug" is plotted on precisely the same system as "The Purloined Letter": a problem is presented, the solution is given, and then the steps which led to the solution are explained. In other words, "The Gold-Bug" has the essential features of a "detective story." The scene is carefully adjusted to the problem, and the principal character is designed expressly to solve it. The detective story, which in recent years has attained great popularity at the hands of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his rivals, preserves its special type characteristics with remarkable distinctness. Indeed, it has seemed pos- sible to Miss Carolyn Wells to write an entire volume on "The Technique of the Mystery Story" a volume de- voted almost exclusively to the consideration of problems for the literary detective. " You may take a character and choose incidents and situa- tions to develop it" It is clear that Stevenson's "Will o' the Mill" was composed in this fashion. The effect aimed at is the charm of a tranquilly contemplative and re- flective soul. This effect is produced chiefly by showing how this soul deals with three main "incidents" of life the Types of the Short Story xvii choice of a career, love, and death. The effect is further emphasized by the selection of a scene and enveloping atmosphere of natural beauty and unruffled peace. There is just enough development in the soul of Will to link the three incidents of his earthly pilgrimage into one contin- uous gently rising and falling action; otherwise, "Will o' the Mill" would be classed rather as a character sketch than as a story. Mr. Kipling's "William the Conqueror," in The Day's Work, similarly illustrates the characters of men and women who "do things." Though in this case the time is limited to the duration of a famine in a certain district in India, the incidents are somewhat loosely re- lated it would certainly be possible to remove or trans- pose some of them without noticeable injury to the design. To produce a character-story firmly unified and at the same time vigorously dramatic a different procedure must be adopted: a critical situation must be discovered in which the conduct of the principal character or characters in a single act or closely articulated series of acts betrays the temper and habits of a lifetime. Obviously, characters with sharp edges, marked idiosyncrasies, or dominating passions most readily and completely reveal themselves in the isolated acts and emergencies of their lives. A de- lightfully humorous illustration may be seen in Frank Stockton's "Asaph": a man who for unnumbered years has loafed and smoked his pipe at the expense of a sister, being deprived of his creature comforts, suddenly ex- hibits an active ingenuity and a dramatic passion of in- dolence issuing in a victorious assurance that he will be able for the rest of his days to smoke his pipe and loaf at the expense of a wife. Similarly focused in a single critical situation is the character-revelation in Mrs. Mary Wilkins Freeman's "A New England Nun," and in several other delicate delineations of New England types. Mr. Kip- xviii Introduction ling's "The Courting of Dinah Shadd," likewise centered upon a single definite situation, achieves the exposure of Sergeant Mulvaney's passions and ideas by presenting him in dramatic relations with no less than three other clearly realized characters, and by allowing him to relate the event in his own rich slang and dialect. Thomas Hardy's "An Imaginative Woman," in Wessex Tales, a study of a morbidly sentimental character attains a singu- lar intensity of effect through a climactic series of related situations in which one identical passion, a fantastic but overmastering yearning, variously expresses itself. Relatively speaking, first rate stories in which plot and scene are plainly subordinate to character are not very abundant. Poe, for example, created a number of rather striking maniacs, but one questions whether any of his tales originated in a conception of character: his "William Wilson" is a good subject for debate. " You may take a certain atmosphere and get actions and persons to realize and express it. 7 ' Stevenson pointed to one of his own stories as an illustration of this type. "I'll give you an example," he said, " 'The Merry Men.' There I began with a feeling of one of those islands on the west coast of Scotland, and I gradually developed the story to express the sentiment with which that coast affected me." What is the nature of this feeling for "atmosphere," and what are the elements which constitute "atmosphere"? Stevenson partly answered this question in a passage of Vailima Letters written in his South Sea island home in the year preceding that of his death: "It pours with rain from the westward, very unusual kind of weather; I was stand- ing out on the little verandah in front of my room this morning, and there went through me or over me a wave of extraordinary and apparently baseless emotion. I literally staggered. And then the explanation came, and I knew Types of the Short Story xix I had found a frame of mind and body that belonged to Scotland, and particularly to the neighborhood of Col- lander. Very odd these identities of sensation, and the world of connotations implied; highland huts, and peat smoke, and the brown, swirling rivers, and wet clothes, and whisky, and the romance of the past, and that indescribable bite of the whole thing at a man^ heart, which is or rather lies at the bottom of a story." l To express in a tale this atmosphere constituted of highland huts, peat smoke, swirling rivers, wet clothes, whisky, and the ro- mance of the past, one must take persons whose lives have been shaped and stamped and dyed by these elements, and one must take actions which are inseparably related to the persons as consequences of the characteristics imposed upon them by the scene and the total environment. There results what has often been called the " local-color " story. Bearing in mind that local color may appear in every element of a story in action, character, language, as well as in the mere physical setting we may say that since the middle of the last century the majority of notable short story writers, especially in America, have been local- colorists. It does not follow that every one of these writers has consciously begun the composition of each of his stories with a vague feeling of an atmosphere which he desired to express. The point is rather that, in an age generally de- manding realism in fiction and profoundly impressed by the relation of people to their environment, they have made choice, once for all, of some more or less definite locality, have intensely studied it, and have reproduced its peculiar- ities of " color" in the very stuff of their art. This is a rather different procedure from that described by Mrs. Wharton in the opening paragraphs of "The Confessional" 1 Vailima Letters Letters and Miscellanies of Robert Louis Steven- son. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909, p. 238. xx Introduction (in Crucial Instances), where the narrator tells how a ''craving for local color" made him a deliberate collector of foreign "pigment" at a restaurant frequented by the Italian mill-hands at Dunstable. To indicate a locality by a few superficial splashes is an easily acquired trick; to express a locality through the entire stuff and texture of a story is possible only when a feeling for locality lies, as Stevenson says, "at the bottom" of it. Barring such writers as Henry James, who is cosmopolitan and concerned rather with social than with geographical areas, and bar- ring the writers of the detective story, to whom the plot is always the primary consideration, it may be said that local color, in our broad sense of the word, is the most con- spicuous distinguishing mark of the authors of the short story since Poe. Technique, plot-formulas, elementary types of character they possess in common, but the dis- tinguishing colors of pioneer California were perceived and appropriated by Bret Harte; 1 what makes Wessex dif- ferent from Lincolnshire was Thomas Hardy's discovery; the wide realm of India Kipling holds as his demesne; decadent New England is shared by Mrs. Freeman, Sarah Orne Jewett, Margaret Deland, and Alice Brown; Thrums belongs to Barrie; old New Orleans to Cable; old Virginia 1 In an article on "The Rise of the 'Short Story'" published in the Cornkill Magazine of July, 1899, Bret Harte modestly declines the credit for originating the short story in America, but he seems on the whole to accept the credit for opening the vein of "local color." A good story was written in Poe's time, he says, " but it was not the American short story of to-day. It was not characteristic of Amer- ican life, American habits, nor American thought. It was not vital and instinct with the experience and observation of the average Amer- ican; it made no attempt to follow his reasoning or to understand his peculiar form of expression which it was apt to consider vulgar; it had no sympathy with those dramatic contrasts and surprises which are the wonders of American civilization; it took no account of en- vironment and of geographical limitations; indeed, it knew little of American geography." Types of the Short Story xxi to Page; the Georgia plantations to Joel Chandler Harris; the Tennessee mountains to Charles Egbert Craddock; the Middle West to Hamlin Garland, Octave Thanet, and Stewart Edward White; Alaska to Jack London; Texas and the "Tenderloin" to O. Henry; and so on. 1 From this great mass of realistic short stories so firmly rooted in definite soils and in the observed life of our con- temporaries, we must set off an older variety in which setting and atmosphere are faintly historical or wholly the fabrication of the romantic imagination a variety which pleases precisely because of its remoteness from ordinary experience. Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto, though not a short story, strikingly illustrates the genesis of this kind of tale. It originated in a dream of which in the morning, as the author said, "all I could recover was, that I had thought myself in an ancient castle (a very natural dream for a head like mine, filled with Gothic story), and that on the uppermost banister of a great staircase I saw a gigantic hand in armor. In the evening I sat down to write, without knowing in the least what I intended to say* or relate." : The Castle of Otranto is, then, a perfect ex- ] ample of a story developed by getting "actions and persons to realize and express" an imaginary and unlocalized scene. ' Evidently the experience of Coleridge was similar when, in consequence of a dream, he sat down to write his famous "Kubla Khan": what remained in his memory, what he transferred to paper, was the "stately pleasure-dome," "Alph, the sacred river," "the caverns measureless to man," "the sunny spots of greenery," "the deep romantic chasm," " the mighty fountain," the shadow floating "mid- 1 See The American Short Story, by Elias Lieberman. Ridgewood, New Jersey: The Editor, 1912. 2 See Introduction to The Castle of Otranto by Henry Morley. London: Cassell & Co., 1901, pp. 5-6. xxli Introduction way on the waves" a setting, in short, suggestive and wildly imaginary, of which the meaning was never ex- pressed in act or character. With " Kubla Khan " may in- structively be compared Tennyson's " Mariana," another poem containing two elements of a romantic tale: an op- pressively melancholy setting made predominant by its development through eight lines of each of the seven stanzas, and a melancholy character expressing the setting in a four-line refrain. Poe's imagination had fed upon such tales and poems as these. 1 It is a fairly safe guess that his "Fall of the House of Usher" originated like them in the setting in the conception of the house itself, an ancient ruin crumbling into a tarn. It is certain at any rate that the shadowy human figures and their obscure acts and re- lations are employed but as means to express the dominat- ing personality of the house, of which the fall gives the final emphasis to an impression of mysterious and overwhelming gloom. Some analysts of technique Professor Pitkin, for ex- ample, in his The Art and Business of Story Writing range alongside of the fundamental types which we have just been distinguishing another type the story with a theme, purpose, or moral. It is unquestionably true that a theme may arise in the author's mind, and clamor to be put into a story, before either character or plot or setting has pre- sented itself in his consciousness. Hawthorne records such suggestions in his American Note-Books: 2 " A story to show how we are all wronged and wrongers, and avenge one another." (p. 107.) "There is evil in every human heart, which may remain x See the illuminating sections on "The Gothic Romance" and "The Renovation of Gothic Romance" in The Development of the Eng- lish Novel, by Wilbur L. Cross. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1900. 2 The citations are from Vol. IX of the Standard Library Edition of Hawthorne's works published by Houghton, Mifflin and Co. Types of the Short Story xxiii latent, perhaps, through the whole of life; but circum- stances may arouse it to activity. To imagine such cir- cumstances." (p. 43.) But much more frequently even with Hawthorne, who is the preeminent moralist among the short story writers, a symbol 1 or a situation or a character or a setting presented itself first, and the meaning or moral was evolved later. The following examples will illustrate each of these four sorts of originating impulse: A symbol: "A snake taken into a man's stomach and nourished there from fifteen years to thirty-four, torment- ing him most horribly. A type of envy or some other evil passion." (p. 34.) A situation: " Suppose a married couple fondly attached to one another, and to think that they lived solely for one another; then it to be found out that they were divorced, or that they might separate if they chose. What would be its effect? " (p. 89.) A character: " A woman to sympathize with all emotions, but to have none of her own." (p. 109.) A setting: (i) "The scene of a story or sketch to be laid within the light of a street-lantern; the time, when the lamp is near going out; and the catastrophe to be simul- taneous with the last flickering beam." (p. 22.) (2) "A house to be built over a natural spring of inflam- mable gas, and to be constantly illuminated therewith. What moral could be drawn from this?" (p. 106.) Now, as we are viewing the classification of short stories, a tale by Hawthorne which originates in the theme, let us say, that " there is evil in every human breast" is not a different species from that which originates in a conception of a suitable place or person or predicament for a tale. Of 1 A symbol, strictly considered, is always a part of the character, the plot, or the setting. xxiv Introduction a tale so originating we should rather declare that the theme had presented itself before the processes of artistic composition were started; so long as it remained in the theme-state it was indistinguishable from the germ of a sermon. And, however important the moral meaning may become in the final "effect," the moment that Hawthorne actually begins to compose, he must in accordance with the very constitution of a story, seize, as Stevenson said, upon one of the three constituent elements and fit to it the other two. He must, in other words, employ the same means to present his theme that a writer would employ who had no theme to present; his story can therefore be classified with reference to the relative emphasis upon character, plot, and setting. Let us put the matter in still another way: the introduc- tion of a theme or moral may be regarded as a technical device for intensifying an effect primarily produced by the mere transactions of the story. It is an appeal to the reader to relate the story directly to his own experience as an illustration of a "general idea" a truth of universal interest. An effect, for instance, is produced by the mere appearance of a minister in a black veil; but that effect is greatly intensified by the introduction of the theme: Every man wears a black veil. An effect is produced by the mere relation of the predicament of the goat who jumped into a well and could not get out; but the effect is intensi- fied by the "moral" placed at the conclusion of the ancient fable: Look before you leap. Mr. Kipling in his Indian tales frequently employed an ingenious modification of this de- vice. By introducing the theme or moral at the beginning of his story he made it render an additional service; in this position, it arouses the feeling of suspense. Here are some examples: " As a general rule, it is inexpedient to meddle with ques- Types of the Short Story xxv tions of State in a land where men are highly paid to work them out for you. This tale is a justifiable exception." ("A Germ-Destroyer" in Plain Tales from the Hills.) " Some people hold that an English Cavalry regiment cannot run. This is a mistake." ("The Rout of the White Hussars" in the same.) "East of Suez, some hold, the direct control of Provi- dence ceases. . . . This theory accounts for some of the more unnecessary horrors of life in India: it may be stretched to explain my story." ("The Mark of the Beast " in Mine Own People.) Consider now our specimen of the short story by Kipling, "The Man Who Was." The author has taken a plot in some respects curiously similar to that of "Rip Van Winkle," of which the essence is this: a man who has been absent for a long period of years returns to the scene of his earlier life and in a series of interesting incidents identifies himself and his surroundings. To this plot Kipling has fitted an elaborate and impressive setting, and has filled in the stage with the necessary characters. By these means is produced an ample effect of terrible pathos. But, not content with this, Kipling screws up the effect one degree higher by the introduction of a theme announced ironically in a curt sentence at the outset of the story: "Let it be clearly understood that the Russian is a delightful person till he tucks his shirt in." Kipling apparently passed this device on to O. Henry, who employs it in much the same way. O. Henry's "Help- ing the Other Fellow" (in Rolling Stones) begins with a theme in the form of a question of Mulvaney's, "But can thim that helps others help thimselves?" In the second paragraph the author makes a bow to his celebrated prede- cessor: "As usual, I became aware that the Man from Bombay had already written the story." As a variant xxvi Introduction upon the plain moral, 0. Henry sometimes begins with a somewhat enigmatic proverb which piques curiosity, as in "The Gold that Glittered" (Strictly Business): "A story with a moral appended is like the bill of a mosquito. It bores you, and then injects a stinging drop to irritate your conscience. Therefore let us have the moral first and be done with it. All is not gold that glitters, but it is a wise child that keeps the stopper in his bottle of testing acid." Perhaps in most of O. Henry's stories of this character it is fairly obvious that the theme or moral was formulated after the story was conceived. In " Phoebe," however, the theme announced in the preliminary conversation and re- sumed in the epilogue is the thread on which the incidents of the plot are strung: Luck plays a critical part in the affairs of men and nations. The theme of this story may be regarded nevertheless as a means of intensifying an effect which is produced primarily through the plot. Ill CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS The student who reads recent essays and books on the subject will find here and there a good many extravagant utterances regarding the short story as a form and regard- ing the value of the literature written in that form. This fact is in curious contrast with Professor Canby's state- ment that "a perfect short story, because it is a short story, will be strangely undervalued in comparison with artistically second-rate essay, drama, or verse." The danger that the tale might be undervalued in comparison with the poem was felt long ago by Poe when he said: "Were we called upon, however, to designate that class of 1 4 Study of The Short Story, p. 77. By H. 5. Canby : Holt, 1913. Critical Considerations xxvii composition which, next to such a poem as we have sug- gested, should best fulfil the demands of high genius should offer it the most advantageous field of exercise we should unhesitatingly speak of the prose tale, as Mr. Haw- thorne has here [in Twice-Told Tales] exemplified it." 1 But the danger at present seems to lie rather in the direc- tion of enthusiastic overvaluation of the short story in comparison with the novel such as appears, for instance, in the introduction to a recent collection 2 of modern short stories: "Gradually men have come to see that a perfect short story demands an art even more delicate and rare than a novel. ... It must not be assumed, however, that because the short story occupies but a small canvas it is therefore inferior to the novel, for this would con- stitute bulk as the standard of value. . . . The fact is that it is much more difficult to write a perfect short story than a successful novel. It demands superior gifts of con- centration, of ingenuity, of fantasy, of originality, of dramatic intensity, of exquisite craftmanship. . . . Amer- ica has not yet produced a novelist of the calibre of Dickens or Thackeray, of Meredith or Hardy; but it has produced a host of short-story writers of incomparable excellence." That is to say, we have no writer who can do the easy thing which Thackeray accomplished, but we have a host of writers who can do the "much more difficult" thing which Poe accomplished. This, of course, is pure absurdity. The conclusion of common sense is that writing a satisfactory short story is, as compared with writing a satisfactory novel, a small and simple task not to be undertaken without some talent, yet not beyond the power of men and women of second 1 Prescott's Selections, p. 94. 2 The Great English Short Story Writers, Vol. 11, pp. 7, 14, 23. By W. J. and C. W. Dawson: Harpers, 1910. xxviii Introduction and third rate talent. Professor Pitkin, who is nothing if not practical, counsels the beginner in fiction to make his first experiments in the shorter form; for, as he says, "a person who can write at all can finish a score of stories in the time required for one novel." l If the advice is sound, it is not merely because the writer of the short story can learn his technique and test his powers and sell his product more expeditiously than the novelist. The more important consideration is that an admirable short story may be written by a very young man with brief exercise of ingenuity, superficial observation, and comparatively re- stricted experience; but a really admirable novel demands a faculty for sustained invention, an understanding of the motives of action, and a depth of experience, which are commoner after than before the age of thirty. It is not an insignificant coincidence that Hawthorne, Bret Harte, Stevenson, Stockton, Barrie, and Kipling had all written excellent tales before they achieved any success with the novel. Nor is it irrelevant to note that Pamela was pub- lished when Richardson was fifty-one, Tom Jones when Fielding was forty-two, Waverley when Scott was forty- three, Vanity Fair when Thackeray was thirty-six, The Scarlet Letter when Hawthorne was forty-six, Adam Bede when George Eliot was forty, and shall we add it? Joseph Vance when De Morgan was sixty-seven. That Kipling produced Plain Tales from the Hills when he was twenty-two is not impossible, because it is a fact; but that Thackeray should have published Vanity Fair when he was twenty-two is inconceivable, because literary his- tory has no record of such a feat, and because common sense cries aloud that no boy of that age ever possessed the sheer stuff of experience which is woven into that complex web of characters and events. 1 The Art and the Business of Story Writing, p. 16. Critical Considerations xxix Let us then clearly recognize that the literature written in the form of the short story is in some important respects inferior to that written in the form of the novel. Within the prescribed limits of the briefer form, one and that perhaps the highest achievement of the writer of prose fiction is virtually impossible: that is, to present a rich and complex character in the processes of development. In order to exhibit Richard Feverel or David Copperfield or Pendennis growing, the author must have room to display various scenes, various groups of characters, various crit- ical situations the ununified events of years through which the hero, struggling, attains the full stature of his many-sided manhood. The short story writer, by virtue of the relatively simple unity of effect which he seeks, must ordinarily confine himself to showing the reaction of a formed and single-minded character to a single set of cir- cumstances; and with such a character, so presented, we can never get on really intimate terms we can never love him as we love Richard Feverel, we can never hate him as we hate Uriah Heep. When plot is clearly the chief interest, the superiority of the novel is not quite so obvious. No one feels that the short story inadequately exhibits the prob- lems and solutions of Dupin or Sherlock Holmes. No one can wish that "The Pit and the Pendulum" were longer. When the novel is of an epic or episodic structure, a skill in plotting may suffice which is quite inferior to that mani- fested in the masterly design of "The Gold-Bug." But take a novel of the dramatic type, say Thomas Hardy's Return of the Native, and compare it with his own dra- matic short story, "The Three Strangers": in the one, the mere plotting is a piece of ingenuity; in the other it is a work of genius. The same illustrations will serve to sug- gest the comparatively restricted capacity of the short story for conveying the "atmosphere" of a locality and the xxx Introduction aspect of the scene: "The Three Strangers" presents, vividly enough, the interior of one room in one lonely grange on one rainy night; The Return of the Native pre- sents the diurnal life at three or four such focal points re- solved into the larger unity of Egdon Heath, which we have watched withering through the sultry summer, under storm and star and solemn sunset. All things considered, a fine dramatic short story bears about the same relation of value to a fine dramatic novel that the spirited first scene of Romeo and Juliet bears to the five act symphony of King Lear. 1 To compare the value of one short story with that of another short story is an altogether different matter. Poe, in commenting without excessive modesty upon his own tales, suggests two points of comparison which our study has prepared us to use. "You would be surprised," he says, "to hear me say that (omitting one or two of my first efforts) I do not consider any one of my stories belter than another. There is a great variety of kinds and, in degree of value, these kinds vary but each tale is equally good of its kind. The loftiest kind is that of the highest imagination and for this reason only, "Ligeia" may be called my best tale." ' When Poe says that he does not consider any one of his stories "better than another." he can only mean that they all conform to the general stand- ard for the short story which we discussed in our first section. Let us then, in the case of any pair of tales, take that standard as the first point of comparison, and inquire whether they both have that unity of effect, that freedom from excrescence, that firmly knit plot, that originality, and that brevity, which are characteristic of the genus. 1 It would be more accurate to compare a fine one-act drama with a fine drama in five acts by the same author; the reader may supply the modern instance. 2 Prescott's Selections, p. 322. Critical Considerations xxxi Having formed our opinion upon their general technical qualities, we may proceed, perhaps with more difficulty, to the second point of comparison, and inquire to which of the "kinds" or species discussed in our second section they belong. If they belong to different species, if, for example, one is a plot-story like "The Gold-Bug" and the other a character-story like "Will o' the Mill" we may raise, and possibly settle, the question: Which is the higher species? If they belong to the same species, for example, a detective story of Poe's and one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's, which is the more impressive specimen of its kind? If the stories we have chosen seem to belong clearly to no one of our three main classes, they may profitably be compared with reference to each class in turn: we may inquire, in other words, which is the more impressive with respect to its characters, which with respect to its plot, which with respect to its atmosphere and setting. After one has practised these methods of comparison for some time, one is fairly certain to conclude that some short stories of perhaps equal technical merit are of very unequal merit on other grounds. Let us take a case of quite glaring inequality: "The Signal-Man" and "The Man Who Was." Both are brief, original, firmly knit, free from excrescence, and of intense unity of effect. But the characters of " The Signal-Man" are essentially insignificant: a colorless nar- rator and a railway man distinguished only by a nervous hallucination. The characters of "The Man Who Was" are significant and brilliantly indicated representatives of the British, the Indian, and the Russian empires. The plot of "The Signal-Man" is a web of such incidents as afford recreation to societies for psychical research. The plot of "The Man Who Was" is involved with a question of the difference between Eastern and Western civilization, with a crisis in the relations of Russia and England, with xxxii Introduction the memories of a great European war. The setting of "The Signal-Man" is a railway cut and a signal station any station and any cut would have served as well. The setting of "The Man Who Was" is the mess-room of the White Hussars, reeking with "local color," from which the imagination is sent across the Punjab, through the Khybar Pass, and the mountains of Afghanistan, towards the northernmost limits of the Siberian wilderness. Such a comparison should leave no doubt as to which of the tales is the more valuable contribution to literature. It suggests that we may well add to our standards of criti- cism for the short story a standard which Aristotle set up for the criticism of tragedy, when he said that the fable must be "of a certain magnitude." In every short story that is permanently and deeply impressive we shall find that the author whether by a suggestion of geographical breadth in his setting, or by historical or legendary depth in his plot, or by moral, social, or other significance in his characters, or by all combined has given to his final effect a certain spatial, or temporal or ideal magnitude. To construct a short story "large" in all three dimensions is an extremely difficult and rare achievement. DESCRIPTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY An historical survey of all the varieties of brief fictitious narrative written in English may be found in Henry Seidel Canby's The Short Story in English, published by Henry Holt & Company, New York, 1909. A Study of the Short Story, by the same author and publisher, 1913, is a revised abridgment of the earlier work, with the addition of illus- trative specimens. A special study in the influence of locality upon the development of the short story in Amer- ica is Elias Lieberman's The American Short Story, pub- lished by The Editor: Ridgewood, New Jersey, 1912. See also the introduction to Charles Sears Baldwin's American Short Stories, published by Longmans, Green, and Co. A sketch of the development of the short story with reference to French, Italian, Spanish, German, Russian, and Scan- dinavian, as well as English, writers appears as the in- troduction to a collection of stories from various lands, The Short-Story, made by Brander Matthews, and pub- lished by the American Book Company, New York. Most of the authors represented in our collection are treated more or less fully in The Development of the English Novel, by Wilbur L. Cross. (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1900), where they may profitably be viewed in relation to the main stream of fiction. Most of the recent books on the short story were in- tended primarily to serve as practical manuals for the writer. This purpose, however, does not render them less useful to the student who desires merely to understand the nature and appreciate the merits of the form. Indeed, the surest way to a recognition of the art in " Rip Van Winkle " xxxiii xxxiv Descriptive Bibliography or " Phoebe" is to study two or three of the books in the following list, to write a short story, and then to compare it with the work of 0. Henry or Irving: 1. Albright, Evelyn May, The Short Story Its Principles and Structure. New York: The Macmillan Company. 2. Barrett, Charles Raymond, Short Story Writing: A Practical Treatise on the Art of the Short Story. New York: The Baker and Taylor Company, 1900. (One of the earliest of the practical man- uals.) 3. Esenwein, J. Berg, Writing the Short Story: A Practical Handbook on the Rise, Structure, Writing, and Sale of the Modern Short Story. New York: Hinds, Noble & Eldredge, 1909. (This book contains a useful bibliography, including a considerable list of magazine articles on the short story.) 4. Grabo, Carl H., The Art of the Short Story. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1914. (Interesting in its attempt to throw light upon the psychology of composition.) 5. Hamilton, Clayton, The Materials and Methods of Fiction. New York: The Baker and Taylor Company, 1908. 6. Hart, W. M., Hawthorne and the Short Story. Berkeley, Cali- fornia, 1900. 7. Matthews, Brander, The Philosophy of the Short Story. New York: Longmans, Green, and Company, 1901. (" So far as the author is aware, he had no predecessor in asserting that the Short-story differs from the novel essentially, and not merely in the matter of length. So far as he knows, it was in the present paper the suggestion was first made that the Short-story is in reality a genre, a separate kind, a genus by itself.") 8. Perry, Bliss, A Study of Prose Fiction. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1902. (A very clear and sound discussion of the elements of fiction. The short story is treated in Chapter XII.) 9. Pitkin, Walter B., The Art and the Business of Story Writing. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1912. ("An outgrowth of the belief that fiction has a technique no less definite, though much less rigid, than the technique of perspective drawing or of harmony and counterpoint in music.") 10. Prescott, F. C. (editor), Selections from the Critical Writings of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1909. (A convenient collection of Poe's most significant critical work, with an extended introductory discussion of his theories.) 11. Wells, Carolyn, The Technique of the Mystery Story. Spring- field, Mass: The Home Correspondence School, 1913. (Somewhat diffuse, but rich in illustrative matter.) A BOOK OF SHORT STORIES RIP VAN WINKLE By WASHINGTON IRVING A POSTHUMOUS WRITING OF DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER By Woden, God of Saxons, From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday, Truth is a thing that ever I will keep Unto thylke day in which I creep into My sepulcher - Cartwright [The following tale was found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old gentleman of New York, who was very carious in the Dutch history of the province, and the manners of the descendants from its primitive settlers. His historical researches, however, did not lie so much among books 5 as among men; for the former are lamentably scanty on his favorite topics; whereas he found the old burghers, and still more their wives, rich in that legendary lore so invaluable to true history. Whenever, therefore, he happened upon a gen- uine Dutch family, snugly shut up in its low-roofed farmhouse, 10 under a spreading sycamore, he looked upon it as a little clasped volume of black-letter, and studied it with the zeal of a book- worm. The result of all these researches was a history of the province during the reign of the Dutch governors, which he published 15 some years since. There have been various opinions as to the literary character of his work, and, to tell the truth, it is not a whit better than it should be. Its chief merit is its scrupulous accuracy, which indeed was a little questioned on its first ap- pearance, but has since been completely established; and it is 20 now admitted into all historical collections as a book of unques- tionable authority. The old gentleman died shortly after the publication of his work; and now that he is dead and gone, it cannot do much 3 4 Washington Irving harm to his memory to 3ay that his time might have been much better employed in weightier labors. He, however, was apt to ride his hobby in his own way; and though it did now and then kick up the dust a little in the eyes of his neighbors, and grieve 5 the spirit of some friends, for whom he felt the truest deference and affection, yet his errors and follies are remembered "more in sorrow than in anger," and it begins to be suspected that he never intended to injure or offend. But however his memory may be appreciated by critics, it js still held dear by many folk 10 whose good opinion is well worth having; particularly by cer- tain biscuit-bakers, who have gone so far as to imprint his like- ness on their New Year cakes; and have thus given him a chance for immortality, almost equal to the being stamped on a Water- loo medal, or a Queen Anne's farthing.] 15 WHOEVER has made a voyage up the Hudson must re- member the Kaatskill mountains. They are a dismem- bered branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over the surrounding country. 20 Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in 25 blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky; but sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory. 30 At the foot of these fairy mountains, the voyager may have descried the light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle-roofs gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little village, of great Rip Van Winkle 5 antiquity, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists in the early times of the province, just about the beginning of the government of the good Peter Stuy- vesant (may he rest in peace!), and there were some of the houses of the original settlers standing within a few 5 years, built of small yellow bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windows and gable fronts, surmounted with weathercocks. In that same village, and in one of these very houses (which, to tell the precise truth, was sadly time-worn and 10 weather-beaten), there lived, many years since, while the country was yet a province of Great Britain, a simple, good-natured fellow, of the name of Rip Van Winkle. He was a descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and 15 accompanied him to the siege of Fort Christina. He in- herited, however, but little of the martial character of his ancestors. I have observed that he was a simple, good- natured man; he was, moreover, a kind neighbor, and an obedient, hen-pecked husband. Indeed, to the latter cir- 20 cumstance might be owing that meekness of spirit which gained him such universal popularity; for those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad who are under the discipline of shrews at home. Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and malleable in the fiery 25 furnace of domestic tribulation; and a curtain-lecture is worth all the sermons in the world for teaching the virtues of patience and long-suffering. A termagant wife may, therefore, in some respects, be considered a tolerable blessing; and, if so, Rip Van Winkle was thrice blessed. 30 Certain it is, that he was a great favorite among all the good wives of the village, who, as usual with the amiable sex, took his part in all family squabbles; and never failed, whenever they talked those matters over in their evening 6 Washington Irving gossipings, to lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle. The children of the village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly kites and shoot 5 marbles, and told them long stories of ghosts, witches, and Indians. Whenever he went dodging about the vil- lage he was surrounded by a troop of them, hanging on his skirts, clambering on his back, and playing a thousand tricks on him with impunity; and not a dog would bark 10 at him throughout the neighborhood. The great error in Rip's composition was an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor. It could not be from the want of assiduity or perseverance, for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a Tar- 15 tar's lance, and fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be encouraged by a single nibble. He would carry a fowling-piece on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. 20 He would never refuse to assist a neighbor even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man at all country frolics for husking Indian corn or building stone fences; the women of the village, too, used to employ him to run their errands, and to do such little odd jobs as their less obliging 25 husbands would not do for them. In a word, Rip was ready to attend to anybody's business but his own; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order, he found it impossible. In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his farm ; 30 it was the most pestilent little piece of ground in the whole country; everything about it went wrong, and would go wrong, in spite of him. His fences were continually falling to pieces; his cow would either go astray, or get among the cabbages; weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields Rip Van Winkle 7 than anywhere else; the rain always made a point of setting in just as he had some out-of-door work to do; so that though his patrimonial estate had dwindled away under his management, acre by acre, until there was little more left than a mere patch of Indian corn and potatoes, 5 yet it was the worst conditioned farm in the neighborhood. His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they belonged to nobody. His son Rip, an urchin begotten in his own likeness, promised to inherit the habits, with the old clothes, of his father. He was generally seen trooping 10 like a colt at his mother's heels, equipped in a pair of his father's cast-off galligaskins, which he had much ado to hold up with one hand, as a fine lady does her train in bad weather. Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy 15 mortals, of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or brown, whichever can be got with least thought or trouble, and would rather starve on a penny than work for a pound. If left to himself, he would have whistled life away in perfect contentment; 20 but his wife kept continually dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness and the ruin he was bringing on his family. Morning, noon and night, her tqngue was in- cessantly going, and everything he said or did was sure to produce a torrent of household eloquence. Rip had but 25 one way of replying to all lectures of the kind, and that, by frequent use, had grown into a habit. He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, cast up his eyes, but said noth- ing. This, however, always provoked a fresh volley from his wife; so that he was fain to draw off his forces, and take 30 to the outside of the house the one side which, in truth, belongs to a hen-pecked husband. Rip's sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as much hen-pecked as his master; for Dame Van Winkle 8 Washington Irving regarded them as companions in idleness, and even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause of his master's going so often astray. True it is, in all points of spirit befitting an honorable dog, he was as courageous an animal 5 as ever scoured the woods; but what courage can withstand the ever-during and all-besetting terrors of a woman's tongue? The moment Wolf entered the house his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground, or curled between his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a 10 sidelong glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or ladle he would fly to the door with yelping precipitation. Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony rolled on; a tart temper never mellows 15 with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use. For a long while he used to console himself, when driven from home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the village, which held its sessions 20 on a bench before a small inn, designated by a rubicund portrait of His Majesty, George the Third. Here they used to sit in the shade through a long, lazy summer's day, talking listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless sleepy stories about nothing. But it would have been 25 worth any statesman's money to have heard the profound discussions that sometimes took place, when by chance an old newspaper fell into their hands from some passing traveler. How solemnly they would listen to the contents, as drawled out by Derrick Van Bummel, the schoolmaster, 30 a dapper, learned little man, who was not to be daunted by the most gigantic word in the dictionary; and how sagely they would deliberate upon public events some months after they had taken place. The opinions of this junta were completely controlled Rip Van Winkle 9 by Nicholas Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and land- lord of the inn, at the door of which he took his seat from morning till night, just moving sufficiently to avoid the sun and keep in the shade of a large tree; so that the neigh- bors could tell the hour by his movements as accurately 5 as by a sun-dial. It is true he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his pipe incessantly. His adherents, however (for every great man has his adherents), perfectly under- stood him, and knew how to gather his opinions. When anything that was read or related displeased him, he was 10 observed to smoke his pipe vehemently, and to send forth short, frequent, and angry puffs; but when pleased, he would inhale the smoke slowly and tranquilly, and emit it in light and placid clouds; and sometimes, taking the pipe from his mouth, and letting the fragrant vapor curl 15 about his nose, would gravely nod his head in token of perfect approbation. From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at length routed by his termagant wife, who would suddenly break in upon the tranquillity of the assemblage and call 20 the members all to naught; nor was that august personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred from the daring tongue of this terrible virago, who charged him outright with encouraging her husband in habits of idleness. Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and his 25 only alternative, to escape from the labor of the farm and clamor of his wife, was to take gun in hand and stroll away into the woods. Here he would sometimes seat him- self at the foot of a tree, and share the contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he sympathized as a fellow 30 sufferer in persecution. "Poor Wolf," he would say, "thy mistress leads thee a dog's life of it; but never mind, my lad, whilst I live thou shalt never want a friend to stand by thee!" Wolf would wag his tail, look wistfully in his io Washington Irving master's face; and if dogs can feel pity, I verily believe he reciprocated the sentiment with all his heart. In a long ramble of the kind on a fine autumnal day, Rip had unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest 5 parts of the Kaatskill mountains. He was after his favor- ite sport of squirrel shooting, and the still solitudes had echoed and re-echoed with the reports of his gun. Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, late in the afternoon, on a green knoll, covered with mountain herbage, that crowned io the brow of a precipice. From an opening between the trees he could overlook all the lower country for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance the lordy Hudson, far, far below him, moving on his silent but ma- jestic course, with the reflection of a purple cloud, or the 15 sail of a lagging bark, here and there sleeping on its glassy bottom, and at last losing itself in the blue highlands. On the other side he looked down into a deep mountain glen, wild, lonely, and shagged, the bottom filled with fragments from the impending cliffs, and scarcely lighted 20 by the reflected rays of the setting sun. For some time Rip lay musing on this scene; evening was gradually ad- vancing; the mountains began to throw their long, blue shadows over the valleys; he saw that it would be dark long before he could reach the village, and he heaved a 25 heavy sigh when he thought of encountering the terrors of Dame Van Winkle. As he was about to descend, he heard a voice from a dis- tance, hallooing, " Rip Van Winkle, Rip Van Winkle ! " He looked round, but could see nothing but a crow winging its 30 solitary flight acros^ the mountain. He thought his fancy must have deceived him, and turned again to descend, when he heard the same cry ring through the still evening air: "Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!" at the same time Wolf bristled up his back, and giving a low growl, Rip Van Winkle II skulked to his master's side, looking fearfully down into the glen. Rip now felt a vague apprehension stealing over him; he looked anxiously in the same direction, and per- ceived a strange figure slowly toiling up the rocks, and bending under the weight of something he carried on his 5 back. He was surprised to see any human being in this lonely and unfrequented place; but supposing it to be some one of the neighborhood in need of his assistance, he has- tened down to yield it. On nearer approach he was still more surprised at the 10 singularity of the stranger's appearance. He was a short, square-built old fellow, with thick bushy hair, and a griz- zled beard. His dress was of the antique Dutch fashion a cloth jerkin strapped round the waist several pair of breeches, the outer one of ample volume, decorated with 15 rows of buttons down the sides, and bunches at the knees. He bore on his shoulder a stout keg that seemed full of liquor, and made signs for Rip to approach and assist him with the load. Though rather shy and distrustful of this new acquaintance, Rip complied with his usual alacrity; 20 and mutually relieving one another, they clambered up a narrow gully, apparently the dry bed of a mountain tor- rent. As they ascended, Rip every now and then heard long, rolling peals, like distant thunder, that seemed to issue out of a deep ravine, or rather cleft,, between lofty 25 rocks, toward which their rugged path conducted. He paused for an instant, but supposing it to.be the muttering of one of those transient thunder showers which often take place in mountain heights, he proceeded. Passing through the ravine, they came to a hollow, Ijke a small amphi- 30 theater, surrounded by perpendicular precipices, over the brinks of which impending trees shot their branches, so that you only caught glimpses of the azure sky and the bright evening cloud. During the whole time Rip and his 12 Washington Irving companion had labored on in silence; for though the former marveled greatly what could be the object of carrying a keg of liquor up this wild mountain, yet there was some- thing strange and incomprehensible about the unknown, 5 that inspired awe and checked familiarity. On entering the amphitheater, new objects of wonder presented themselves. On a level spot in the center was a company of odd-looking personages playing at ninepins. They were dressed in a quaint, outlandish fashion; some 10 wore short doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in their belts, and most of them had enormous breeches of similar style with that of the guide's. Their visages, too, were peculiar: one had a large beard, broad face, and small, piggish eyes; the face of another seemed to consist entirely 15 of nose, and was surmounted by a white sugar-loaf hat, set off with a little red cock's tail. They all had beards of various shapes and colors. There was one who seemed to be the commander. He was a stout old gentleman, with a weather-beaten countenance; he wore a laced doublet, 20 broad belt and hanger, high crowned hat and feather, red stockings, and high-heeled shoes, with roses in them. The whole group reminded Rip of the figures in an old Flemish painting, in the parlor of Dominie Van Shaick, the village parson, and which had been brought over from Holland 25 at the time of the settlement. What seemed particularly odd to Rip was, that, though these folks were evidently amusing themselves, yet they maintained the gravest faces, the most mysterious silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy party of pleasure he 30 had ever witnessed. Nothing interrupted the stillness of the scene but the noise of the balls, which, whenever they were rolled, echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder. As Rip and his companion approached them, they sud- Rip Van Winkle 13 denly desisted from their play, and stared at him with such fixed, statue-like gaze, and such strange, uncouth, lack- luster countenances, that his heart turned within him, and his knees smote together. His companion now emptied the contents of the keg into large flagons, and made signs to 5 him to wait upon the company. He obeyed with fear and trembling; they quaffed the liquor in profound silence, and then returned to their game. By degrees Rip's awe and apprehension subsided. He even ventured, when no eye was fixed upon him, to taste 10 the beverage, which he found had much of the flavor of excellent Hollands. He was naturally a thirsty soul, and was soon tempted to repeat the draught. One taste pro- voked another; and he reiterated his visits to the flagon so often that at length his senses were overpowered, his eyes 15 swam in his head, his head gradually declined, and he fell into a deep sleep. On waking, he found himself on the green knoll whence he had first seen the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes it was a bright, sunny morning. The birds were 20 hopping and twittering among the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain breeze. "Surely," thought Rip, "I have not slept here all night." He recalled the occurrences before he fell asleep. The strange man with a keg of liquor the mountain 25 ravine the wild retreat among the rocks the woe-begone party at ninepins the flagon "Oh! that flagon! that wicked flagon!" thought Rip "what excuse shall I make to Dame Van Winkle?" He looked round for his gun, but in place of the clean, 30 well-oiled fowling-piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel incrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He now suspected that the grave roisterers of the mountain had put a trick upon him, 14 Washington Irving and, having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had disappeared, but he might have strayed away after a squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him, and shouted his name, but all in vain; the echoes 5 repeated his whistle and shout, but no dog was to be seen. He determined to revisit the scene of the last evening's gambol, and if he met with any of the party to demand his dog and gun. As he rose to walk he found himself stiff 10 in the joints, and wanting in his usual activity. "These mountain beds do not agree with me," thought Rip, "and if this frolic should lay me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall have a blessed time with Dame Van Winkle!" With some difficulty he got down into the glen; he found 15 the gully up which he and his companion had ascended the preceding evening; but to his astonishment a mountain stream was now foaming down it, leaping from rock to rock, and filling the glen with babbling murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble up its sides, working his toilsome 20 way through thickets of birch, sassafras, and witch-hazel, and sometimes tripped up or entangled by the wild grape- vines that twisted their coils or tendrils from tree to tree, and spread a kind of network in his path. At length he reached to where the ravine had opened 25 through the cliffs to the amphitheater; but no traces of such opening remained. The rocks presented a high, im- penetrable wall, over which the torrent came tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a broad deep basin, black from the shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, 30 then, poor Rip was brought to a stand. He again called and whistled after his dog; he was only answered by the cawing of a flock of idle crows, sporting high in air about a dry tree that overhung a sunny precipice; and who, secure in their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the Rip Van Winkle 15 poor man's perplexities. What was to be done? The morning was passing away, and Rip felt famished for want of his breakfast. He grieved to give up his dog and gun; he dreaded to meet his wife; but it would not do to starve among the mountains. He shook his head, shouldered the 5 rusty firelock, and, with a heart full of trouble and anxiety, turned his steps homeward, As he approached the village he met a number of people, but none whom he knew, which somewhat surprised him, for he had thought himself acquainted with every one 10 in the country round. Their dress, too, was of a different fashion from that to which he was accustomed. They all stared at him with equal marks of surprise, and whenever they cast their eyes upon him, invariably stroked their chins. The constant recurrence of this gesture, induced 15 Rip, involuntarily, to do the same, when, to his astonish- ment, he found his beard had grown a foot long! He had now entered the skirts of the village. A troop of strange children ran at his heels, hooting after him, and pointing at his gray beard. The dogs, too, not one of 20 which he recognized for an old acquaintance, barked at him as he passed. The very village was altered; it was larger and more populous. There were rows of houses which he had never seen before, and those which had been his familiar haunts had disappeared. Strange names were 25 over the doors strange faces at the windows everything was strange. His mind now misgave him; he began to doubt whether both he and the world around him were not bewitched. Surely this was his native village, which he had left but the day before. There stood the Kaatskill 30 mountains there ran the silver Hudson at a distance there was every hill and dale precisely as it had always been. Rip was sorely perplexed. " That flagon last night," thought he, "has addled my poor head sadly!" 16 Washington Irving It was with some difficulty that he found the way to his own house, which he approached with silent awe, expecting every moment to hear the shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house gone to decay the roof fallen in, the 5 windows shattered, and the doors off the hinges. A half- starved dog that looked like Wolf was skulking about it. Rip called him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. This was an unkind cut indeed. "My very dog," sighed poor Rip, "has forgotten me!" 10 He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame Van Winkle had always kept in neat order. It was empty, forlorn, and apparently abandoned. This desolateness overcame all his connubial fears he called loudly for his wife and children the lonely chambers rang for a moment 15 with his voice, and then all again was silence. He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old resort, the village inn but it, too, was gone. A large, rickety wooden building stood in its place, with great gaping win- dows, some of them broken and mended with old hats and 20 petticoats, and over the door was painted, "The Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle." Instead of the great tree that used to shelter the quiet little Dutch inn of yore, there now was reared a tall naked pole, with something on the top that looked like a red nightcap, and from it was flutter- 25 ing a flag, on which was a singular assemblage of stars and stripes; all this was strange and incomprehensible. He recognized on the sign, however, the ruby face of King George, under which he had smoked so many a peacefu 1 pipe; but even this was singularly metamorphosed. The 30 red coat was changed for one of blue and buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a scepter, the head was dec- orated with a cocked hat, and underneath was painted in large characters, GENERAL WASHINGTON. There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, but Rip Van Winkle 17 none that Rip recollected. The very character of the people seemed changed. There was a busy, bustling, dis- putatious tone about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquillity. He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Vedder, with his broad face, double chin, and fair 5 long pipe, uttering clouds of tobacco smoke instead of idle speeches; or Van Bummel, the schoolmaster, doling forth the contents of an ancient newspaper. In place of these, a lean, bilious-looking fellow, with his pockets full of hand- bills, was haranguing vehemently about rights of citizens 10 elections members of Congress liberty Bunker's Hill heroes of '76 and other words, which were a perfect Babylonish jargon to the bewildered Van Winkle. The appearance of Rip, with his long grizzled beard, his rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and an army of 15 women and children at his heels, soon attracted the atten- tion of the tavern politicians. They crowded round him, eying him from head to foot with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and, drawing him partly aside, inquired " On which side he voted? " Rip stared in vacant 20 stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear, " Whether he was Federal or Democrat? " Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made 25 his way through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as he passed, and planting himself be- fore Van Winkle, with one arm akimbo, the other resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp hat penetrating, as it were, into his very soul, demanded in an austere tone, 30 "What brought him to the election with a gun on his shoulder, and a mob at his heels; and whether he meant to breed a riot in the village?" "Alas! gentlemen," cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, "I am a poor, quiet man, a 1 8 Washington Irving native of the place, and a loyal subject of the King, God bless him!" Here a general shout burst from the by-standers "A tory! a tory! a spy! a refugee! hustle him! away with him!" 5 It was with great difficulty that the self-important man in the cocked hat restored order; and, having assumed a ten- fold austerity of brow, demanded again of the unknown culprit, what he came there for, and whom he was seeking? The poor man humbly assured him that he meant no harm, 10 but merely came there in search of some of his neighbors, who used to keep about the tavern. "Well who are they? name them." Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, "Where's Nicholas Vedder?" 15 There was a silence for a little while, when an old man replied, in a thin, piping voice, "Nicholas Vedder! Why, he is dead and gone these eighteen years! There was a wooden tombstone in the churchyard that used to tell all about him, but that's rotten and gone too." 20 " Where's Brom Butcher? " "Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the war; some say he was killed at the storming of Stony Point others say he was drowned in a squall at the foot of Antony's Nose. I don't know he never came back again." 25 "Where's Van Bummel, the schoolmaster?" "He went off to the wars, too, was a great militia gen- eral, and is now in congress." Rip's heart died away at hearing of these sad changes in his home and friends, and finding himself thus alone in 30 the world. Every answer puzzled him, too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and of matters which he could not understand: war congress Stony Point he had no courage to ask after any more friends, but cried out in despair, "Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle?" Rip Van Winkle 19 "Oh, Rip Van Winkle!" exclaimed two or three, "oh, to be sure! that's Rip Van Winkle yonder, leaning against the tree." Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of himself, as he went up the mountain; apparently as lazy, and cer- 5 tainly as ragged. The poor fellow was now completely confounded. He doubted his own identity, and whether he was himself or another man. In the midst of his be- wilderment, the man in the cocked hat demanded who he was, and what was his name. 10 "God knows," exclaimed he, at his wits' end; "I'm not myself I'm somebody else that's me yonder no that's somebody else got into my shoes I was myself last night, but I fell asleep on the mountain, and they've changed my gun, and everything's changed, and I'm 15 changed, and I can't tell what's my name, or who I am!" The by-standers began now to look at each other, nod, wink significantly, and tap their fingers against their fore- heads. There was a whisper, also, about securing the gun, 20 and keeping the old fellow from doing mischief, at the very suggestion of which the self-important man in the cocked hat retired with some precipitation. At this critical moment a fresh, comely woman pressed through the throng to get a peep at the gray-bearded man. She had a chubby 25 child in her arms, which, frightened at his looks, began to cry. "Hush, Rip," cried she, "hush, you little fool; the old man won't hurt you." The name of the child, the air of the mother, the tone of her voice, all awakened a train of recollections in his mind. "What is your name, my 30 good woman?" asked he. "Judith Gardenier." "And your father's name?" "Ah, poor man, Rip Van Winkle was his name, but 2O Washington Irving it's twenty years since he went away from home with his gun, and never has been heard of since his dog came home without him; but whether he shot himself, or was carried away by the Indians, nobody can tell. I was then 5 but a little girl." Rip had but one question more to ask; but he put it with a faltering voice: "Where's your mother?" "Oh, she, too, had died but a short time since; she broke 10 a blood vessel in a fit of passion at a New England ped- dler." There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this intelligence. The honest man could contain himself no longer. He caught his daughter and her child in his arms. " I am your 15 father!" cried he "Young Rip Van Winkle once old Rip Van Winkle now! Does nobody know poor Rip Van Winkle?" All stood amazed, until an old woman, tottering out from among the crowd, put her hand to her brow, and 20 peering under it in his face for a moment, exclaimed, "Sure enough! It is Rip Van Winkle it is himself! Welcome home again, old neighbor. Why, where have you been these twenty long years? " Rip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty years 25 had been to him but as one night. The neighbors stared when they heard it; some were seen to wink at each other, and put their tongues in their cheeks; and the self- important man in the cocked hat, -who, when the alarm was over, had returned to the field, screwed down the 30 corners of his mouth, and shook his head upon which there was a general shaking of the head throughout the assemblage. It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old Peter Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly advancing up the Rip Van Winkle 21 road. He was a descendant of the historian of that name, who wrote one of the earliest accounts of the province. Peter was the most ancient inhabitant of the village, and well versed in all the wonderful events and traditions of the neighborhood. He recollected Rip at once, and cor- 5 roborated his story in the most satisfactory manner. He assured the company that it was a fact, handed down from his ancestor the historian, that the Kaatskill mountains had always been haunted by strange beings. That it was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first dis- 10 coverer of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half-moon; being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his enter- prise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river and the great city called by his name. That his father had once seen 15 them in their old Dutch dresses playing at ninepins in a hollow of the mountain; and that he himself had heard, one summer afternoon, the sound of their balls, like distant peals of thunder. To make a long story short, the company broke up and 20 returned to the more important concerns of the election. Rip's daughter took him home to live with her; she had a snug, well-furnished house, and a stout, cheery farmer for a husband, whom Rip recollected for one of the urchins that used to climb upon his back. As to Rip's son and 25 heir, who was the ditto of himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was employed to work on the farm; but evinced an hereditary disposition to attend to anything else but his business. Rip now resumed his old walks and habits; he soon found 30 many of his former cronies, though all rather the worse for the wear and tear of time; and preferred making friends among the rising generation, with whom he soon grew into great favor. 22 Washington Irving Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at that happy age when a man can be idle with impunity, he took his place once more on the bench at the inn door, and was reverenced as one of the patriarchs of the village, and 5 a chronicle of the old times " before the war." It was some time before he could get into the regular track of gossip, or could be made to comprehend the strange events that had taken place during his torpor. How that there had been a revolutionary war that the country had thrown off 10 the yoke of old England and that, instead of being a sub- ject of His Majesty, George III., he was now a free citizen of the United States. Rip, in fact, was no politician; the changes of states and empires made but little impression on him; but there was one species of despotism under which 15 he had long groaned, and that was petticoat government. Happily that was at an end; he had got his neck out of the yoke of matrimony, and could go in and out whenever he pleased, without dreading the tyranny of Dame Van Winkle. Whenever her name was mentioned, however, 20 he shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and cast up his eyes; which might pass either for an expression of resigna- tion to his fate or joy at his deliverance. He used to tell his story to every stranger that arrived at Mr. Doolittle's hotel. He was observed, at first, to 25 vary on some points every time he told it, which was, doubtless, owing to his having so recently awaked. It at last settled down precisely to the tale I have related, and not a man, woman, or child in the neighborhood but knew it by heart. Some always pretended to doubt the reality 30 of it, and insisted that Rip had been out of his head, and that this was one point on which he always remained flighty. The old Dutch inhabitants, however, almost uni- versally gave it full credit. Even to this day they never hear a thunder storm of a summer afternoon about the Rip Van Winkle 23 Kaatskill, but they say Hendrick Hudson and his crew are at their game of ninepins; and it is a common wish of all hen-pecked husbands in the neighborhood, when life hangs heavy on their hands, that they might have a quiet- ing draught out of Rip Van Winkle's flagon. 5 NOTE The foregoing tale, one would suspect, had been suggested to Mr. Knickerbocker by a little German superstition about the Emperor Frederick der Rothbart, and the Kypphauser mountain: the subjoined note, however, which he had appended to the tale, shows that it is an absolute fact, narrated with his 10 usual fidelity. "The story of Rip Van Winkle may seem incredible to many, but nevertheless I give it my full belief, for I know the vicinity of our old Dutch settlements to have been very subject to mar- vellous events and appearances. Indeed, I have heard many 15 stranger stories than this, in the villages along the Hudson; all of which were too well authenticated to admit of a doubt. I have even talked with Rip Van Winkle myself, who, when last I saw him, was a very venerable old man, and so perfectly ra- tional and consistent on every other point, that I think no 20 conscientious person could refuse to take this into the bargain; nay, I have seen a certificate on the subject taken before a coun- try justice and signed with a cross, in the justice's own hand- writing. The story, therefore, is beyond the possibility of a doubt. 25 "D. K." POSTSCRIPT The following are traveling notes from a memorandum book of Mr. Knickerbocker: The Kaatsberg, or Catskill Mountains, have always been a region full of fable. The Indians considered them the abode of spirits, who influenced the weather, spreading sunshine or 30 clouds over the landscape, and sending good or bad hunting 24 Washington Irving seasons. They were ruled by an old squaw spirit, said to be their mother. She dwelt on the highest peak of the Catskills, and had charge of the doors of day and night to open and shut them at the proper hour. She hung up the new moon in the 5 skies, and cut up the old ones into stars. In times of drought, if properly propitiated, she would spin light summer clouds out of cobwebs and morning dew, and send them off from the crest of the mountain, flake after flake, like flakes of carded cotton, to float in the air; until, dissolved by the heat of the 10 sun, they would fall in gentle showers, causing the grass to spring, the fruits to ripen, and the corn to grow an inch an hour. If displeased, however, she would brew up clouds black as ink, sitting in the midst of them like a bottle-bellied spider in the midst of its web; and when these clouds broke, woe 15 betide the valleys! In old times, say the Indian traditions, there was a kind of Manitou or Spirit, who kept about the wildest recesses of the Catskill Mountains, and took a mischievous pleasure in wreak- ing all kinds of evils and vexations upon the red men. Some- 20 times he would assume the form of a bear, a panther, or a deer, lead the bewildered hunter a weary chase through tangled forests and among ragged rocks; and then spring off with a loud ho ! ho ! leaving him aghast on the brink of a beetling prec- ipice or raging torrent. 25 The favorite abode of this Manitou is still shown. It is a great rock or cliff on the loneliest part of the mountains, and, from the flowering vines which clamber about it, and the wild flowers which abound in its neighborhood, is known by the name of the Garden Rock. Near the foot of it is a small lake, 30 the haunt of the solitary bittern, with water-snakes basking in the sun on the leaves of the pond-lilies which lie on the sur- face. This place was held in great awe by the Indians, inso- much that the boldest hunter would not pursue his game within its precincts. Once upon a time, however, a hunter who had 35 lost his way, penetrated to the Garden Rock, where he beheld a number of gourds placed in the crotches of trees. One of these he seized and made off with it, but in the hurry of his Rip Van Winkle 25 retreat he let it fall among the rocks, when a great stream gushed forth, which washed him away and swept him down precipices, where he was dashed to pieces, and the stream made its way to the Hudson, and continues to flow to the present day; being the identical stream known by the name of the 5 Kaaterskill. THE MINISTER'S BLACK VEIL By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE THE sexton stood in the porch of Milford meeting-house, pulling lustily at the bell-rope. The old people of the village came stooping along the street. Children with bright faces tript merrily beside their parents, or mimicked 5 a graver gait in the conscious dignity of their Sunday clothes. Spruce bachelors looked sidelong at the pretty maidens, and fancied that the Sabbath sunshine made them prettier than on week-days. When the throng had mostly streamed into the porch, the sexton began to toll 10 the bell, keeping his eye on the Reverend Mr. Hooper's door. The first glimpse of the clergyman's figure was the signal for the bell to cease its summons. "But what has good Parson Hooper got upon his face? " cried the sexton in astonishment. 15 All within hearing immediately turned about, and be- held the semblance of Mr. Hooper pacing slowly in his' meditative way towards the meeting-house. With one accord they started, expressing monfwonder than if some strange minister were coming to dust the cushions of Mr. 20 Hooper's pulpit. "Are you sure it is our parson?" inquired Goodman Gray of the sexton. 1 Another clergyman in New England, Mr. Joseph Moody, of York, Maine, who died about eighty years since, made himself re- markable by the same eccentricity that is here related of the Reverend Mr. Hooper. In his case, however, the symbol had a different import. In early life he had accidentally killed a beloved friend; and from that day till the hour of his own death he hid his face from men. 26 The Minister's Black Veil 27 "Of a certainty it is good Mr. Hooper," replied the sexton. "He was to have exchanged pulpits with Parson Shute, of Westbury; but Parson Shute sent to excuse him- self yesterday, being to preach a funeral sermon." The cause of so much amazement may appear sum- 5 ciently slight. Mr. Hooper, a gentlemanly person of about thirty, though still a bachelor, was dressed with due clerical neatness, as if a careful wife had starched his band, and brushed the weekly dust from his Sunday's garb. There was but one thing remarkable in his appearance. 10 Swathed about his forehead, and hanging down over his face so low as to be shaken by his breath, Mr. Hooper had on a black veil. On a nearer view it seemed to con- sist of two folds of crape, which entirely concealed his features except the mouth and chin, but probably did not 15 intercept his sight farther than to give a darkened aspect to all living and ^animate things. With this gloomy shade before him, good Mr. Hooper walked onward at a slow and quiet pace, stooping somewhat and looking on the ground, as is customary with abstracted men, yet 20 nodding kindly to those of his rjarishioners who still waited on the meeting-house steps. But so wonder-struck were they that his greeting hardly met with a return. "I can't really feel as if good Mr. Hooper's face was behind that piece of crape," said the sexton. 25 "I don't like it," muttered an old woman, as she hobbled into the meeting-house. "He has changed himself into something awful only by hiding his face." "Our parson has gone mad!" cried Goodman Gray, following him across the threshold. 30 A rumor of some unaccountable phenomenon had pre- ceded Mr. Hooper into the meeting-liouse,\nd set all the congregation astir. Few could refrain from twisting their heads towards the door; many stood upright and turned 28 Nathaniel Hawthorne directly about; while several little boys clambered upon the seats, and came down again with a terrible racket. There was a general bustle, a rustling of the women's gowns and shuffling of the men's feet, greatly at variance 5 with that hushed repose which should attend the entrance of the minister. But Mr. Hooper appeared not to notice the perturbation of his people. He entered with an almost noiseless step, bent his head mildly to the pews on each side, and bowed as he passed his oldest parishioner, a white- 10 haired great-grandsire, who occupied an arm-chair in the center of the aisle. It was strange to observe how slowly this venerable man became conscious of something sin- gular in the appearance of his pastor. He seemed not fully to partake of the prevailing wonder till Mr. Hooper 15 had ascended the stairs, and showed himself in the pulpit face to face with his congregation except for the black veil. That mysterious emblem was never once withdrawn. It shook with his measured breath as he gave out the psalm ; it threw its obscurity between him and the holy page as 20 he read the Scriptures; and while he prayed, the veil lay heavily on his uplifted countenance. Did he seek to hide it from the dread Being whom he was addressing? Such was the effect of this simple piece of crape that more than one woman of delicate nerves was forced to 25 leave the meeting-house. Yet perhaps the pale-faced con- gregation was almost as fearful a sight to the minister as his black veil to them. Mr. Hooper had the reputation of a good preacher, but not an energetic one: he strove to win his people heaven- 30 ward by mild, persuasive injLugnces, rather than to drive them thither by the thunders of the Word. The sermon which he now delivered was marked by the same charac- teristics of style and manner as the general series of his pulpit oratory. But there was something either in the The Minister's Black Veil 29 sentiment of the discourse itself, or in the imagination of the auditors, which made it greatly the most powerful effort that they had ever heard from their pastor's lips. It was tinged rather more darkly than usual with the gentle gloom of Mr. Hooper's temperament. The subject 5 had reference to secret sin, and those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest, and would fain con- ceal from our own consciousness, even forgetting that the Omniscient can detect them. A subtle power was breathed into his words. Each member of the congregation, the 10 most innocent girl, and the man of hardened breast, felt as if the preacher had crept upon them behind his awful veil, and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought. Many spread their clasped hands on their bosoms. There was nothing terrible in what Mr. Hooper 15 said; at least, no violence; and yet, with every tremor of his melancholy voice the hearers quaked. An unsought pathos came hand in hand with awe. So sensible were the audience of some unwonted attribute in their minister, that they longed for a breath of wind to blow aside the veil, 20 almost believing that a stranger's visage would be dis- covered, though the form, gesture, and voice were those of Mr. Hooper. At the close of the service the people hurried out with indecorous confusion, eager to communicate their pent- 25 up amazement, and conscious of lighter spirits the moment they lost sight of the black veil. Some gathered in little circles, huddled closely together, with their mouths all whispering in the center; some went homeward alone, wrapt in silent meditation; some talked loudly, and pro- 30 faned the Sabbath-day with ostentatious laughter. A few shook their sagacious heads, intimating that they could penetrate the mystery; while one or two affirmed that there was no mystery at all, but only that Mr. Hooper's 30 Nathaniel Hawthorne eyes were so weakened by the midnight lamp as to require a shade. After a brief interval, forth came good Mr. Hooper also, in the rear of his flock. Turning his veiled face from one group to another, he paid due reverence to 5 the hoary heads, saluted the middle-aged with kind dig- nity, as their friend and spiritual guide, greeted the young with mingled authority and love, and laid his hands on the little children's heads to bless them. Such was always his custom on the Sabbath-day. Strange and bewildered 10 looks repaid him for his courtesy. None, as on former occasions, aspired to the honor of walking by their pas- tor's side. Old Squire Saunders, doubtless by an acci- dental lapse of memory, neglected to invite Mr. Hooper to his table, where the good clergyman had been wont to 15 bless the food almost every Sunday since his settlement. He returned, therefore, to the parsonage, and, at the moment of closing the door, was observed to look back upon the people, all of whom had their eyes fixed upon the minister. A sad smile gleamed faintly from beneath 20 the black veil, and flickered about his mouth, glimmering as he disappeared. "How strange," said a lady, "that a simple black veil, such as any woman might wear on her bonnet, should become such a terrible thing on Mr. Hooper's face!" 25 "Something must surely be amiss with Mr. Hooper's intellects," observed her husband, the physician of the village. "But the strangest part of the affair is the effect of this vagary, even on a sober-minded man like myself. The black veil, though it covers only our pastor's face, 30 throws its influence over his whole person, and makes him ghostlike from head to foot. Do you not feel it so? " "Truly do I," replied the lady; "and I would not be alone with him for the world. I wonder he is not afraid to be alone with himself!" The Minister's Black Veil 31 "Men sometimes are so," said her husband. The afternoon service was attended with similar cir- cumstances. At its conclusion, the bell tolled for the funeral of a young lady. The relatives and friends were assembled in the house, and the more distant acquaint- 5 ances stood about the door, speaking of the good qualities of the deceased, when their talk was interrupted by the appearance of Mr. Hooper, still covered with his black veil. It was now an appropriate emblem. The clergyman stepped into the room where the corpse was laid, and bent 10 over the coffin to take a last farewell of his deceased parish- ioner. As he stooped, the veil hung straight down from his forehead, so that, if her eyelids had not been closed for ever, the dead maiden might have seen his face. Could Mr. Hooper be fearful of her glance, that he so hastily 15 caught back the black veil? A person who watched the interview between the dead and living scrupled not to affirm that, at the instant when the clergyman's features were disclosed, the corpse had slightly shuddered, rustling the shroud and muslin cap, though the countenance re- 20 tained the composure of death. A superstitious old woman was the only witness of this prodigy. From the coffin Mr. Hooper passed into the chamber of the mourners, and thence to the head of the staircase, to make the funeral prayer. It was a tender and heart-dissolving prayer, full 25 of sorrow, yet so imbued with celestial hopes that the music of a heavenly harp, swept by the fingers of the dead, seemed faintly to be heard among the saddest accents of the minister. The people trembled, though they but darkly understood him, when he prayed that they, and 30 himself, and all of mortal race, might be ready, as he trusted this young maiden had been, for the dreadful hour that should snatch the veil from their faces. The */ bearers went heavily forth, and the mourners followed, 32 Nathaniel Hawthorne saddening all the street, with the dead before them, and Mr. Hooper in the black veil behind. "Why do you look back?" said one in the procession to his partner. 5 "I had a fancy," replied she, "that the minister and the maiden's spirit were walking hand in hand." "And so had I at the same moment," said the other. That night the handsomest couple in Milford village were to be joined in wedlock. Though reckoned a melan- 10 choly man, Mr. Hooper had a placid cheerfulness for such occasions which often excited a sympathetic smile where livelier merriment would have been thrown away. There was no quality of his disposition which made him more beloved than this. The company at the wedding awaited 15 his arrival with impatience, trusting that the strange awe which had gathered over him throughout the day would now be dispelled. But such was not the result. When Mr. Hooper came, the first thing that their eyes rested on was the same horrible black veil, which had added deeper 20 gloom to the funeral, and could portend nothing but evil to the wedding. Such was its immediate effect on the guests, that a cloud seemed to have rolled duskily from beneath the black cra^e and dimmed the light of the can- dles. The bridal pair stood up before the minister. But 25 the bride's cold fingers quivered in the tremulous hand of the bridegroom, and her deathlike paleness caused a whis- per that the maiden who had been buried a few hours before was come from her grave to be married. If ever another wedding were so dismal, it was that famous one 30 where they tolled the wedding knell. After performing the ceremony, Mr. Hooper raised a glass of wine to his lips, wishing happiness to the new-married couple, in a strain of mild pleasantry that ought to have brightened the features of the guests, like a cheerful gleam from the The Minister's Black Veil 33 hearth. At that instant, catching a glimpse of his figure in the looking-glass, the black veil involved his own spirit in the horror with which it overwhelmed all others. His frame shuddered his lips grew white he spilt the untasted wine upon the carpet and rushed forth into 5 the darkness. For the earth, too, had on her black veil. The next day the whole village of Milford talked of little else than Parson Hooper's black veil. That, and the mystery concealed behind it, supplied a topic for discus- 10 sion between acquaintances meeting in the street, and good women gossiping at their open windows. It was the first item of news that the tavern-keeper told to his guests. The children babbled of it on their way to school. One imitative little imp covered his face with an old black 15 handkerchief, thereby so affrighting his playmates that the panic seized himself, and he well-nigh lost his wits by his own waggery. It was remarkable that, of all the busylpodies and im- pertinent people in the parish, not one ventured to put 20 the plain question to Mr. Hooper, wherefore he did this thing. Hitherto, whenever there appeared the slightest call for such interference, he had never lacked advisers, nor shown himself averse to be guided by their judgment. If he erred at all, it was by so painful a degree of self- 25 distrust that even the mildest censure would lead him to consider an indifferent action as a crime. Yet, though so well acquainted with this amiable, weakness, no individual among his parishioners chose to make the black veil a subject of friendly remonstrance. There was a feeling of 30 dread, neither plainly confessed nor carefully concealed, which caused each to shift the responsibility upon another, till at length it was found expedient to send a deputation of the church, in order to deal with Mr. Hooper about 34 Nathaniel Hawthorne the mystery before it should grow into a scandal. Never did an embassy so ill discharge its duties. The minister received them with friendly courtesy, but became silent after they were seated, leaving to his visitors the whole 5 burden of introducing their important business. The topic, it might be supposed, was obvious enough. There was the black veil swathed round Mr. Hooper's forehead, and concealing every feature above his placid mouth, on which at times they could perceive the glimmering of 10 a melancholy smile. But that piece of crape, to their imagination, seemed to hang down before his heart, the symbol of a fearful secret between him and them. Were the veil but cast aside they might speak freely of it, but not till then. Thus they sat a considerable time, speech- 15 less, confused, and shrinking uneasily from Mr. Hooper's eye, which they felt to be fixed upon them with an invisible glance. Finally, the deputies returned abashed to their constituents, pronouncing the matter too weighty to be handled, except by a council of the churches, if indeed ao it might not require a general synod. But there was one person in the village unappalled by the awe with which the black veil had impressed all beside herself. When the deputies returned without an explana- tion, or even venturing to demand one, she, with the calm 25 energy of her character, determined to chase away the strange cloud that appeared to be settling round Mr. Hooper, every moment more darkly than before. As his plighted wife, it should be her privilege to know what the black veil concealed. At the minister's first visit, there- 30 fore, she entered upon the subject with a direct simplicity which made the task easier both for him and her. After he had seated himself she fixed her eyes steadfastly upon the veil, but could discern nothing of the dreadful gloom that had so overawed the multitude; it was but a double The Minister's Black Veil 35 fold of crape, hanging down from his forehead to his mouth, and slightly stirring with his breath. "No," said she aloud, and smiling, " there is nothing terrible in this piece of crape, except that it hides a face which I am always glad to look upon. Come, good sir, 5 let the sun shine from behind the cloud. First lay aside your black veil: then tell me why you put it on." Mr. Hooper's smile glimmered faintly. "There is an hour to come," said he, "when all of us shall cast aside our veils. Take it not amiss, beloved 10 friend, if I wear this piece of crape till then." "Your words are a mystery too," returned the young lady. "Take away the veil from them at least." "Elizabeth, I will," said he, "so far as my vow may suffer me. Know, then, this veil is a type and a symbol, 15 and I am bound to wear it ever, both in light and darkness, in solitude and before the gaze of multitudes, and as with strangers, so with my familiar friends. No mortal eye will see it withdrawn. This dismal shade must separate me from the world: even you, Elizabeth, can never come 20 behind it!" "What grievous affliction hath befallen you," she ear- nestly inquired, " that you should thus darken your eyes for ever?" "If it be a sign of mourning," replied Mr. Hooper, "I, 25 perhaps, like most other mortals, have sorrows dark enough to be typified by a black veil." "But what if the world will not believe that it is the type of an innocent sorrow? " urged Elizabeth. " Beloved and respected as you are, there may be whispers that you 30 hide your face under the consciousness of secret sin. For the sake of your holy office, do away this scandal!" The color rose into her cheeks as she intimated the na- ture of the rumors that were already abroad in the village. 36 Nathaniel Hawthorne But Mr. Hooper's mildness did not forsake him. He even smiled again that same sad smile, which always appeared like a faint glimmering of light proceeding from the ob- scurity beneath the veil. 5 "If I hide my face for sorrow, there is cause enough," he merely replied; "and if I cover it for secret sin, what mortal might not do the same?" And with this gentle but unconquerable obstinacy did he resist all her entreaties. At length Elizabeth sat silent. 10 For a few moments she appeared lost in thought, con- sidering, probably, what new methods might be tried to withdraw her lover from so dark a fantasy, which, if it had no other meaning, was perhaps a symptom of mental disease. Though of a firmer character than his own, the 15 tears rolled down her cheeks. But in an instant, as it were, a new feeling took the place of sorrow.: her eyes were fixed insensibly on the black veil, when, like a sudden twilight in the air, its terrors fell around her. She arose, and stood trembling before him. po "And do you feel it then at last? " said he mournfully. She made no reply, but covered her eyes with her hand, and turned to leave the room. He rushed forward and caught her arm. "Have patience with me, Elizabeth!" cried he pas- 25 sionately. "Do not desert me, though this veil must be between us here on earth. Be mine, and hereafter there shall be no veil over my face, no darkness between our souls! It is but a mortal veil it is not for eternity! Oh! you know not how lonely I am, and how frightened, to be 30 alone behind my black veil. Do not leave me in this miserable obscurity for ever!" "Lift the veil but once and look me in the face," said she. "Never! It cannot be!" replied Mr. Hooper. "Then, farewell!" said Elizabeth. The Minister's Black Veil 37 She withdrew her arm from his grasp and slowly de- parted, pausing at the door to give one long, shuddering gaze, that seemed almost to penetrate the mystery of the black veil. But even amid his grief Mr. Hooper smiled to think that only a material emblem had separated him 5 from happiness, though the horrors which it shadowed / forth must be drawn darkly between the fondest of lovers. From that time no attempts were made to remove Mr. Hooper's black veil, or, by a direct appeal, to discover the secret which it was supposed to hide. By persons who 10 claimed a superiority to popular prejudice it was reckoned merely an eccentric whim, such as often mingles with the sober actions of men otherwise rational, and tinges them all with its own semblance of insanity. But with the mul- titude good Mr. Hooper was irreparably a bugbear. He 15 could not walk the streets with any peace of mind, so conscious was he that the gentle and timid would turn aside to avoid him, and that others would make it a point of hardihood to throw themselves in his way. The im- pertinence of the latter class compelled him to give up his 20 customary walk at sunset to the burial-ground; for when he leaned pensively over the gate, there would always be faces behind the grave-stones peeping at his black veil. A fable went the rounds that the stare of the dead people drove him thence. It grieved him to the very depth of 25 his kind heart to observe how the children fled from his approach, breaking up their merriest sports while his melancholy figure was yet afar off. Their instinctive dread caused him to feel more strongly than aught else that a preternatural horror was interwoven with the 30 threads of the black crape. In truth, his own antipathy to the veil was known to be so great that he never willingly passed before a mirror, nor stooped to drink at a still fountain, lest in its peaceful bosom he should be affrighted 38 Nathaniel Hawthorne by himself. This was what gave plausibility to the whis- pers, that Mr. Hooper's conscience tortured him for some great crime too horrible to be entirely concealed, or other- wise than so obscurely intimated. Thus from beneath 5 the black veil there rolled a cloud into the sunshine, an ambiguity of sin or sorrow, which enveloped the poor minister, so that love or sympathy could never reach him. It was said that ghost and fiend consorted with him there. With self-shudderings and outward terrors he walked con- 10 tinually in its shadow, groping darkly within his own soul, or gazing through a medium that saddened the whole world. Even the lawless wind, it was believed, respected his dreadful secret and never blew aside the veil. But still good Mr. Hooper sadly smiled at the pale visages of the 15 worldly throng as he passed by. Among all its bad influences, the black veil had the one desirable effect of making its wearer a very efficient clergy- man. By the aid of his mysterious emblem for there was no other apparent cause he became a man of awful 20 power over souls that were in agony for sin. His converts always regarded him with a dread peculiar to themselves, affirming, though but figuratively, that, before he brought v them to celestial light, they had been with him behind the black veil. Its gloom, indeed, enabled him to sym- 25 pathize with all dark affections. Dying sinners cried aloud for Mr. Hooper, and would not yield their breath till he appeared; -though ever, as he stooped to whisper con- solation, they shuddered at the veiled face so near their own. Such were the terrors of the black veil, even when 30 Death had bared his visage! Strangers came long dis- tances to attend service at his church, with the mere idle purpose of gazing at his figure, because it was forbidden them to behold his face. But many were made to quake ere they departed! Once, during Governor Belcher's ad- The Minister's Black: Veil 59 ministration, Mr. Hooper was appointed to preach the election sermon. Covered with his black veil, he stood before the chief magistrate, the council, and the represent- atives, and wrought so deep an impression that the legisla- tive measures of that year were characterized by all the 5 gloom and piety of our earliest ancestral sway. In this manner Mr. Hooper spent a long life, irreproach- able in outward act, yet shrouded in dismal suspicions; kind and loving, though unloved, and dimly feared; a man apart from men, shunned in their health and joy, but ever 10 summoned to their aid in mortal anguish. As years wore on, shedding their snows above his sable veil, he acquired a name throughout the New England churches, and they called him Father Hooper. Nearly all his parishioners who were of mature age when he was settled had been 15 borne away by many a funeral: he had one congregation in the church, and a more crowded one in the church- yard; and having wrought so late into the evening, and done his work so well, it was now good Father Hooper's turn to rest. 20 Several persons were visible by the shaded candlelight in the death-chamber of the old clergyman. Natural connections he had none. But there was the decorously grave though unmoved physician, seeking only to mitigate the last pangs of the patient whom he could not save. 25 There were the deacons, and other eminently pious mem- bers of his church. There, also, was the Reverend Mr. Clark, of Westbury, a young and zealous divine, who had ridden in haste to pray by the bedside of the expiring minister. There was the nurse, no hired handmaiden of 30 death, but one whose calm affection had endured thus long in secrecy, in solitude, amid the chill of age, and would not perish, even at the dying hour. Who, but Elizabeth! And there lay the hoary head of good Father Hooper upon 4 Nathaniel Hawthorne the death-pillow, with the black veil still swathed about his brow and reaching down over his face, so that each more difficult gasp of his faint breath caused it to stir. All through life that piece of crape had hung between him and 5 the world: it had separated him from cheerful brotherhood and woman's love, and kept him in that saddest of all prisons, his own heart; and still it lay upon his face, as if to deepen the gloom of his darksome chamber, and shade him from the sunshine of eternity. 10 For some time previous his mind had been confused, wavering doubtfully between the past and the present, and hovering forward, as it were, at intervals, into the indis- tinctness of the world to come. There had been feverish turns, which tossed him from side to side, and wore away 15 what little strength he had. But in his most convulsive struggles, and in the wildest vagaries of his intellect, when no other thought retained its sober influence, he still showed an awful solicitude lest the black veil should slip aside. Even if his bewildered soul could have forgotten, 20 there was a faithful woman at his pillow, who, with averted eyes, would have covered that aged face, which she had last beheld in the comeliness of manhood. At length the death-stricken old man lay quietly in the torpor of mental and bodily exhaustion, with an imperceptible pulse, 25 and breath that grew fainter and fainter, except when a long, deep, and irregular inspiration seemed to prelude the flight of his spirit. The minister of Westbury approached the bedside. " Venerable Father Hooper," said he, "the moment of 30 your release is at hand. Are you ready for the lifting of the veil that shuts in time from eternity?" Father Hooper at first replied merely by a feeble mo- tion of his head; then, apprehensive, perhaps, that his meaning might be doubtful, he exerted himself to speak. The Minister's Black Veil 41 "Yea," said he, in faint accents, "my soul hath a pa- tient weariness until that veil be lifted." "And is it fitting," resumed the Reverend Mr. Clark, "that a man so given to prayer, of such a blameless ex- ample, holy in deed and thought, so far as mortal judg- 5 ment may pronounce; is it fitting that a father in the church should leave a shadow on his memory, that may seem to blacken a life so pure? I pray you, my venerable brother, let not this thing be! Suffer us to be gladdened by your triumphant aspect, as you go to your reward. 10 Before the veil of eternity be lifted, let me cast aside this black veil from your face!" And thus speaking, the Reverend Mr. Clark bent for- ward to reveal the mystery of so many years. But exert- ing a sudden energy that made all the beholders stand 15 aghast, Father Hooper snatched both his hands from beneath the bed-clothes, and pressed them strongly on the black veil, resolute to struggle if the minister of West- bury would contend with a dying man. "Never!" cried the, veiled clergyman. "On earth, 20 never!" ,.. . "Dark old man!" exclaimed the affrighted minister, "with what horrible crime upon your soul are you now passing to the judgment?" Father Hooper's breath heaved; it rattled in his throat; 25 but, with a mighty effort, grasping forward with his hands, he caught hold of life, and held it back till he should speak. He even raised himself in bed; and there he sat, shivering with the arms of death around him, while the black veil hung down, awful, at that last moment, in the 30 gathered terrors of a lifetime. And yet the faint, sad smile, so often there, now seemed to glimmer from its obscurity, and linger on Father Hooper's lips. "Why do you tremble at me alone?" cried he, turning 42 Nathaniel Hawthorne his veiled face round the circle of pale spectators. " Trem- ble also at each other! Have men avoided me, and women shown no pity, and children screamed and fled, only for my black veil? What but the mystery which it obscurely 5 typified has made this piece of crape so awful? When the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend; the lover to his best beloved; when man does not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol 10 beneath which I have lived, and die! I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a black veil!" While his auditors shrank from one another in mutual affright, Father Hooper fell back upon his pillow, a veiled corpse, with a faint smile lingering on the lips. Still veiled, 15 they laid him in his coffin, and a veiled corpse they bore him to the grave. The grass of many years has sprung up and withered on that grave, the burial-stone is moss- grown, and good Mr. Hooper's face is dust; but awful is still the thought that it mouldered beneath the black veil! ETHAN BRAND By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE BARTRAM the lime-burner, a rough, heavy-looking man, begrimed with charcoal, sat watching his kiln, at nightfall, while his little son played at building houses with the scat- tered fragments of marble, when, on the hillside below them, they heard a roar of laughter, not mirthful, but slow, 5 and even solemn, like a wind shaking the boughs of the forest. "Father, what is that?" asked the little boy, leaving his play, and pressing betwixt his father's knees. "O, some drunken man, I suppose," answered the lime- 10 burner; "some merry fellow from the bar-room in the vil- lage, who dared not laugh loud enough within doors lest he should blow the roof of the house off. So here he is, shaking his jolly sides at the foot of Graylock." "But, father," said the child, more sensitive than the 15 obtuse, middle-aged clown, "he does not laugh like a man that is glad. So the noise frightens me!" "Don't be a fool, child!" cried his father, gruffly. "You will never make a man, I do believe; there is too much of your mother in you. I have known the rustling 20 of a leaf startle you. Hark! Here comes the merry fellow now. You shall see that there is no harm in him." Bartram and his little son, while they were talking thus, sat watching the same lime-kiln that had been the scene of Ethan Brand's solitary and rn^ditative_life, before he 25 began his search for the Unpardonable Sin. Many years, as we have seen, had now elapsed, since that portentous night when the IDEA was first developed. The kiln, how- 43 44 Nathaniel Hawthorne ever, on the mountain-side, stood unimpaired, and was in nothing changed since he had thrown his dark thoughts into the intense glow of its furnace, and melted them, as it were, into the one thought that took possession of his life. 3 It was a rude, round, tower-like structure, about twenty feet high, heavily built of rough stones, and with a hillock of earth heaped about the larger part of its circumference; so that the blocks and fragments of marble might be drawn by cart-loads, and thrown in at the top. There was an \o opening at the bottom of the tower, like an oven-mouth, but large enough to admit a man in a stooping posture, and provided with a massive iron door. With the smoke and jets of flame issuing from the chinks and crevices of this door, which seemed to give admittance into the hillside, it 15 resembled nothing so much as the private entrance to the infernal regions, which the shepherds of the Delectable Mountains were accustomed to show to pilgrims. There are many such lime-kilns in that tract of country, for the purpose of burning the white marble which com- 20 poses a large part of the substance of the hills. Some of them, built years ago, and long deserted, with weeds grow- ing in the vacant round of the interior, which is open to the sky, and grass and wild-flowers rooting themselves into the chinks of the stones, look already like relics of 25 antiquity, and may yet be overspread with the lichens of centuries to come. Others, where the lime-burner still feeds his daily and night-long fire, afford points of interest to the wanderer among the hills, who seats himself on a log of wood or a fragment of marble, to hold a chat with the .30 solitary man. It is a lonesome, and, when the character is inclined to thought, may be an intensely thoughtful oc- cupation; as it proved in the case of Ethan Brand, who had mused to such strange purpose, in days gone by, while the fire in this very kiln was burning. Ethan Brand 45 The man who now watched the fire was of a different order, and troubled himself with no thoughts save the very few that were requisite to his business. At frequent intervals, he flung back the clashing weight of the iron door, and, turning his face from the insufferable glare, thrust in 5 huge logs of oak, or stirred the immense brands with a long pole. Within the furnace were seen the curling and riotous flames, and the burning marble, almost molten with the intensity of heat; while without, the reflection of the fire quivered on the dark intricacy of the surrounding forest, 10 and showed in the foreground a bright and ruddy little picture of the hut,, the spring beside its door, the athletic and coal-begrimed figure of the lime-burner, and the half- frightened child, shrinking into the protection of his father's shadow. And when again the iron door was closed, 15 then reappeared the tender light of the half -full moon, which vainly strove to trace out the indistinct shapes of the neighboring mountains; and, in the upper sky, there was a flitting congregation of clouds, still faintly tinged with the rosy sunset, though thus far down into the valley the sun- 20 shine had vanished long and long ago. The little boy now crept still closer to his father, as foot- steps were heard ascending the hillside, and a human form thrust aside the bushes that clustered beneath the trees. "Halloo! who is it?" cried the lime-burner, vexed at 25 his son's timidity, yet half infected by it. " Come forward, and show yourself, like a man, or I'll fling this chunk of marble at your head!" "You offer me a rough welcome," said a gloomy voice, as the unknown man drew nigh. "Yet I neither claim nor 30 desire a kinder one, even at my own fireside." To obtain a distincter view, Bartram threw open the iron door of the kiln, whence immediately issued a gush of fierce light, that smote full upon the stranger's face and 46 Nathaniel Hawthorne figure. To a careless eye there appeared nothing very re- markable in his aspect, which was that of a man in a coarse, brown, country-made suit of clothes, tall and thin, with the staff and heavy shoes of a wayfarer. As he advanced, he 5 fixed his eyes which were very bright intently upon the brightness of the furnace, as if he beheld, or expected to be- hold, some object worthy of note within it. " Good evening, stranger," said the lime-burner; "whence come yo^so late in the day?" 10 "I come from my search," answered the wayfarer; "for, at last, it is finished." "Drunk! or crazy!" muttered Bajrtram to himself. "I shall have trouble with the fellow. The sooner I drive him away, the better." 15 The little boy, all in a tremble, whispered to his father, and begged him to shut the door of the kiln, so that there might not be so much light; for that there was something in the man's face which he was afraid to look at, yet could not look away from. And, indeed, even the lime-burner's 20 dull and torpid sense began to be impressed by an inde- scribable something in that thin, rugged, thoughtful visage, with the grizzled hair hanging wildly about it, and those deeply sunken eyes, which gleamed like fires within the entrance of a mysterious cavern. But, as he closed the 25 door, the stranger turned towards him, and spoke in a quiet, familiar way, that made Bartram feel as if he were a sane and sensible man, after all. "Your task draws to an end, I see," said he. "This marble has already been burning three days. A few hours 30 more will convert the stone to lime." "Why, who are you?" exclaimed the lime-burner. "You seem as well acquainted with my business as I am myself." "And well I may be," said the stranger; "for I followed Ethan Brand 47 the same craft many a long year, and here, too, on this very spot. But you are a new-comer in these parts. Did you never hear of Ethan Brand?" "The man that went in search of the Unpardonable Sin?" asked Bartram, with a laugh. 5 "The same," answered the stranger. "He has found what he sought, and therefore he comes back again." "What! then you are Ethan Brand himself?^' cried the lime-burner, in amazement. "I am a new-comer^ here, as you say, and they call it eighteen years since you left the 10 foot of Graylock. But, I can tell you, the good folks still talk about Ethan Brand, in the village yonder, and what a strange errand took him away from his lime-kiln. Well, and so you have found the Unpardonable Sin? " "Even so!" said the stranger, calmly. 15 "If the question is a fair one," proceeded Bartram, " Where might it be?" Ethan Brand laid his finger on his own heart. "Here!" replied he. And then, without mirth in his countenance, but as if 20 moved by an involuntary recognition of the infinite ab- surdity of seeking throughout the world for what was the closest of all things to himself, and looking into every heart, save his own, for what was hidden in no other breast, he broke into a laugh of scorn. It was the same 25 slow, heavy laugh, that had almost appalled the lime- burner when it heralded the wayfarer's approach. The solitary mountain-side was made dismal by it. Laughter, when out of place, mistimed, or bursting forth from a disordered state of feeling, may be the most terrible 30 modulation of the human voice. The laughter of one asleep, even if it be a little child, the madman's laugh, the wild, screaming laugh of a born idiot, are sounds that we sometimes tremble to hear, and would always 48 Nathaniel Hawthorne willingly forget. Poets have imagined no utterance of fiends or hobgoblins so fearfully appropriate as a laugh. And even the obtuse lime-burner felt his nerves shaken, as this strange man looked inward at his own heart, and burst S into laughter that rolled away into the night, and was in- distinctly rej,[erberatgd among the hiils. "Joe," said he to his little son, "scamper down to the tavern in the village, and tell the jolly fellows there that Ethan Brand has come back, and that he has found the 10 Unpardonable Sin!" The boy darted away on his errand, to which Ethan Brand made no objection, nor seemed hardly to notice it. He sat on a log of wood, looking steadfastly at the iron door of the kiln. When the child was out of sight, and his swift 15 and light footsteps ceased to be heard treading first on the fallen leaves and then on the rocky mountain-path, the lime-burner began to regret his departure. He felt that the little fellow's presence had been a barrier between his guest and himself, and that he must now deal, heart to 20 heart, with a man who, on his own confession, had com- mitted the one only crime for which Heaven could afford no mercy. That crime, in its indistinct blackness, seemed to overshadow him. The lime-burner's own sins rose up within him, and made his memory riotous with a throng of 25 evil shapes that asserted their kindred with the Master Sin, whatever it might be, which it was within the scope of man's corrupted nature to conceive and cherish. They were all of one family; they went to and fro between his breast and Ethan Brand's, and carried dark greetings from 30 one to the other. Then Bartram remembered the stories which had grown traditionary in reterence to this strange man, who had come upon him like a shadow of the night, and was making himself at home in his old plaoe, after so long absence that Ethan Brand 49 the dead people, dead and buried for years, would have had more right to be at home, in any familiar spot, than he. Ethan Brand, it was said, had conversed with Satan him- self in the lurkl_blaze of this very kiln. The legend had been matter~oT"mirth heretofore, but looked grisly now. 5 According to this tale, before Ethan Brand departed on his search, he had been accustomed to evoke a fiend from the hot furnace of the lime-kiln, night after night, in order to confer with him about the Unpardonable Sin; the man and the fiend each laboring to frame the image of some 10 mode of guUt^ which could neither be atoned for nor forgiven. And, with the first gleam of light upon the mountain-top, the fiend crept in at the iron door, there to abide the intensest element of fire, until again summoned forth to share in the dreadful- task of extending man's pos- 1 5 sible guilt beyond the scope of Heaven's else infinite mercy. While the lime-burner was struggling with the horror of these thoughts, Ethan Brand rose from the log, and flung open the door of the kiln. The action was in such accordance with the idea in Bartram's mind, that he almost 20 expected to see the Evil One issue forth, red-hot from the raging furnace. "Hold! hold!" cried he, with a tremulous attempt to laugh; for he was ashamed of his fears, although they over- mastered him. "Don't, for mercy's sake, bring out your 25 Devil now!" "Man!" sternly replied Ethan Brand, "what need have I of the Devil? I have left him behind me, on my track. It is with such half-way sinners as you that he busies him- self. Fear not, because I open the door. I do but act by 30 old custom, and am going to trim your fire, like a lime- burner, as I was once." He stirred the vast coals, thrust in more wood, and bent forward to gaze into the hollow prison-house of the fire, 50 Nathaniel Hawthorne regardless of the fierce glow that reddened upon his face. The lime-burner sat watching him, and half suspected his strange guest of a purpose, if not to evoke a fiend, at least to plunge bodily into the flames, and thus vanish from the 5 sight of man. Ethan Brand, however, drew quietly back, and closed the door of the kiln. "I have looked," said he, "into many a human heart that was seven times hotter with sinful passions than yonder furnace is with fire. But I found not there what I 10 sought. No, not the Unpardonable Sin!" "What is the Unpardonable Sin?" asked the lime- burner; and then he shrank farther from his companion, trembling lest his question should be answered. "It is a sin that grew within my own breast," replied 15 Ethan Brand, standing erect, with a pride that distin- guishes all enthusiasts of his stamp. "A sin that grew nowhere else! The sin of an intellect that trj^imphed over the sense of brotherhood with man and reverence for God, and sacrificed everything to its own mighty claims! The 20 only sin that deserves a recompense of immortal agony! Freely, were it to do again, would I incur the guilt. Un- shrinkingly I accept the retribution!" "The man's head is turned," muttered the lime-burner to himself. "He may be a sinner, like the rest of us, 25 nothing more likely, but, I'll be sworn, he is a madman too." Nevertheless, he felt uncomfortable at his situation, alone with Ethan Brand on the wild mountain-side, and was right glad to hear the rough murmur of tongues, and 30 the footsteps of what seemed a pretty numerous party, stumbling over the stones and rustling through the under- brush. Soon appeared the whole lazy regiment that was wont to infest the village tavern, comprehending three or four individuals who had drunk flip beside the bar-room Ethan Brand 51 fire through all the winters, and smoked their pipes be- neath the stoop through all the summers, since Ethan Brand's departure. Laughing boisterously, and mingling all their voices together in unceremonious talk, they now burst into the moonshine and narrow streaks of firelight 5 that illuminated the open space before the lime-kiln. Bartram set the door ajar again, flooding the spot with light, that the whole company might get a fair view of Ethan Brand, and he of them. There, among other old acquaintances, was a once 10 ubiquitous man, now almost extinct, but whom we were formerly sure to encounter at the hotel of every thriving village throughout the country. It was the stage-agent. The present specimen of the genus was a wilted and smoke- dried man, wrinkled and red-nosed, in a smartly cut, 15 brown, bob-tailed coat, with brass buttons, who, for a length of time unknown, had kept his desk and corner in the bar-room, and was still puffing what seemed to be the same cigar that he had lighted twenty years before. He had great fame as a dry joker, though, perhaps, less 20 on account of any intrinsic humor than from a certain flavor of brandy-toddy and tobacco-smoke, which im- pregnated all his ideas and expressions, as well as his per- son. Another well-remembered though strangely altered face was that of Lawyer Giles, as people still called him in 25 Courtesy; an elderly ragamuffin, in his soiled shirt-sleeves and tow-cloth trousers. This poor fellow had been an attorney, in what he called his better days, a sharp prac- titioner, and in great vogue among the village jjitigants; but flip, and sling, and toddy, and cocktails, imbibed at 30 all hours, morning, noon, and night, had caused him to slide from intellectual to various kinds and degrees of bodily labor, till, at last, to adopt his own phrase, he slid into a soap-vat. In other words, Giles was now a soap- 52 Nathaniel Hawthorne boiler, in a small way. He had come to be but the frag- ment of a human being, a part of one foot having been chopped off by an axe, and an entire hand torn away by the devilish grip of a steam-engine. Yet, though the cor- 5 poreal hand was gone, a spiritual member remained; for, stretching forth the stump, Giles steadfastly averred that he felt an invisible thumb and fingers with as vivid a sen- sation as before the real ones were amputated. A maimed and miserable wretch he was; but one, nevertheless, whom 10 the world could not trample on, and had no right to scorn, either in this or any previous stage of his misfortunes^ since he had still kept up the courage and spirit of a man, asked nothing in charity, and with his one hand and that the left one fought a stern battle against want and hostile 15 circumstances. Among the throng too, came another personage, who, with certain points of similarity to Lawyer Giles, had many more of difference. It was the village doctor; a man of some fifty years, whom, at an earlier period of his 20 life, we introduced as paying a professional visit to Ethan Brand during the latter's supposed insanity. He was now a purple- visaged, rude, and brutal, yet half-gentlemanly figure, with something wild, ruined, and desperate in his talk, and in all the details of his gesture and manners. 25 Brandy possessed this man like an evil spirit, and made him as surly and savage as a wild beast, and as miserable as a lost soul; but there was supposed to be in him such wonderful skill, such native gifts of healing, beyond any which medical science could impart, that society caught 30 hold of him, and would not let him sink out of its reach. So, swaying to and fro upon his horse, and grumbling thick accents at the bedside, he visited all the sick-cham- bers for miles about among the mountain towns, and some- times raised a dying man, as it were, by miracle, or quite Ethan Brand 53 as often, no doubt, sent his patient to a grave that was dug many a year too soon. The doctor had an everlasting pipe in his mouth, and, as somebody said, in allusion to his habit of swearing, it was always alight with hell-fire. These three worthies pressed forward, and greeted 5 Ethan Brand each after his own fashion, earnestly in- viting him to partake of the contents of a certain black bottle, in which, as they averred, he would find some- thing far better worth seeking for than the Unpardonable Sin. No mind, which has wrought itself by intense and 10 solitary meditation into a high state of enthusiasm, can endure the kind of contact with low and vulgar modes of thought and feeling to which Ethan Brand was now sub- jected. It made him doubt and, strange to say, it was a painful doubt whether he had indeed found the Un- 15 pardonable Sin and found it within himself. The whole question on which he had exhausted life, and more than life, looked like a delusion. "Leave me," he said bitterly, "ye brute beasts, that have made yourselves so, shrivelling up your souls with 20 fiery liquors! I have done with you. Years and years ago, I groped into your hearts, and found nothing there for my purpose. Get ye gone!" "Why, you uncivil scoundrel," cried the fierce doctor, "is that the way you respond to the kindness of your best 25 friends? Then let me tell you the truth. You have no more found the Unpardonable Sin than yonder boy Joe has. You are but a crazy fellow, I told you so twenty years ago, neither better nor worse than a crazy fellow, and the fit companion of old Humphrey, here!" . 30 He pointed to an old man, shabbily dressed, with long white hair, thin visage, and unsteady eyes. For some years past this aged person had been wandering about among the hills, inquiring of all travelers whom he met 54 Nathaniel Hawthorne for his daughter. The girl, it seemed, had gone off with a company of circus-performers; and occasionally tidings of her came to the village, and fine stories were told of her glittering appearance as she rode on horse-back in the 5 ring, or performed marvellous feats on the tight-rope. The white-haired father now approached Ethan Brand, and gazed unsteadily into his face. "They tell me you have been all over the earth," said he, wringing his hands with earnestness. "You must 10 have seen my daughter, for she makes a grand figure in the world, and everybody goes to see her. Did she send any word to her old father, or say when she was coming back?" Ethan Brand's eye quailed beneath the old man's. 15 That daughter, from whom he so earnestly desired a word of greeting, was the Esther of our tale, the very girl whom, with such cold and remorseless purpose, Ethan Brand had made the subject of a psychological experiment, and wasted, absorbed, and perhaps annihilated her soul, in 20 the process. "Yes," murmured he, turning away from the hoary wanderer; "it is no delusion. There is an Unpardonable Sin!" While these things were passing, a merry scene was going 25 forward in the area of cheerful light, beside the spring and before the door of the hut. A number of the youth of the village, young men and girls, had hurried up the hill- side, impelled by curiosity to see Ethan Brand, the hero of so many a legend familiar to their childhood. Finding 30 nothing, however, very remarkable in his aspect, nothing but a sunburnt wayfarer, in plain garb and dusty shoes, who sat looking into the fire, as if he fancied pictures among the coals, these young people speedily grew tired of observing him. As it happened, there was other Ethan Brand 55 amusement at hand. An old German Jew, traveling with a diorama on his back, was passing down the mountain- road towards the village just as the party turned aside from it, and, in hopes of eking out the profits of the day, the showman had kept them company to the lime-kiln. 5 "Come, old Dutchman," cried one of the young men, "let us see your pictures, if you can swear they are worth looking at!" "O yes, Captain," answered the Jew, whether as a matter of courtesy or craft, he styled everybody Captain, 10 "I shall show you, indeed, some very superb pictures!" So, placing his box in a proper position, he invited the young men and girls to look through the glass orifices of the machine, and proceeded to exhibit a series of the most outrageous scratchings and daubings, as specimens of the 15 fine arts, that ever an itinerant showman had the face to impose upon his circle of spectators. The pictures were worn out, moreover, tattered, full of cracks and wrinkles, dingy with tobacco-smoke, and otherwise in a most pitiable condition. Some purported to be cities, public edifices, 20 and ruined castles in Europe; others represented Napo- leon's battles and Nelson's sea-fights; and in the midst of these would be seen a gigantic, brown, hairy hand, which might have been mistaken for the Hand of Destiny, though in truth, it was only the showman's, pointing its fore- 25 finger to various scenes of the conflict, while its owner gave historical illustrations. When, with much merri- ment at its abominable deficiency of merit, the exhibition was concluded, the German bade little Joe put his head into the box. Viewed through the magnifying-glasses, 30 the boy's round, rosy visage assumed the strangest im- aginable aspect of an immense Titanic child, the mouth grinning broadly, and the eyes and every other feature overflowing with fun at the joke. Suddenly, however, 56 Nathaniel Hawthorne that merry face turned pale, and its expression changed to horror, for this easily impressed and excitable child had become sensible that the eye of Ethan Brand was fixed upon him through the glass. 5 "You make the little man to be afraid, Captain," said the German Jew, turning up the dark and strong outline of his visage, from his stooping posture. " But look again, and, by chance, I shall cause you to see somewhat that is very fine, upon my word!" 10 Ethan Brand gazed into the box for an instant, and then starting back, looked fixedly at the German. What had he seen? Nothing, apparently; for a curious youth, who had peeped in almost at the same moment, beheld only a vacant space of canvas. 15 "I remember you now," muttered Ethan Brand to the showman. "Ah, Captain," whispered the Jew of Nuremberg, with a dark smile, " I find it to be a heavy matter in my show- box, this Unpardonable Sin! By my faith, Captain, it 20 has wearied my shoulders, this long day, to carry it over the mountain." "Peace," answered Ethan Brand, sternly, "or get thee into the furnace yonder!" The Jew's exhibition had scarcely concluded, when a 25 great, elderly dog who seemed to be his own master, as no person in the company laid claim to him saw fit to render himself the object of public notice. Hitherto, he had shown himself a very quiet, well-disposed old dog, going round from one to another, and by way of being 30 sociable, offering his rough head to be patted by any kindly hand that would take so much trouble. But now, all of a sudden, this grave and venerable quadruped of his own mere motion, and without the slightest suggestion from anybody else, began to run round after his tail, which, Ethan Brand 57 to heighten the absurdity of the proceeding, was a great deal shorter than it should have been. Never was seen such headlong eagerness in pursuit of an object that could not possibly be attained; never was heard such a tremen- dous outbreak of growling, snarling, barking, and snapping, 5 as if one end of the ridiculous brute's body were at deadly and most unforgivable enmity with the other. Faster and faster, round about went the cur; and faster and still faster fled the unapproachable brevity of his tail; and louder and fiercer grew his yells of rage and 10 animosity; until, utterly exhausted, and as far from the goal as ever, the foolish old dog ceased his performance as suddenly as he had begun it. The next moment he was as mild, quiet, sensible, and respectable in his deportment, as when he first scraped acquaintance with the company. 15 As may be supposed, the exhibition was greeted with universal laughter, clapping of hands, and shouts of en- core, to which the canine performer responded by wagging all that there was to wag of his tail, but appeared totally unable to repeat his very successful effort to amuse the 20 spectators. Meanwhile, Ethan Brand had resumed his seat upon the log, and moved, it might be, by a perception of some remote analogy between his own case and that of this self-pursuing cur, he broke into the awful laugh, which, 25 more than any other token, expressed the condition ef his inward being. From that moment, the merriment of the party was at an end; they stood aghast, dreading lest the inauspicious sound should be reverberated around the horizon, and that mountain would thunder it to moun- 30 tain, and so the horror be prolonged upon their ears. Then, whispering one to another that it was late, that the moon was almost down, that the August night was growing chill, they hurried homewards, leaving the 58 Nathaniel Hawthorne lime-burner and little Joe to deal as they might with their unwelcome guest. Save for these three human beings, the open space on the hillside was a solitude, set in a vast gloom of forest. Beyond that darksome verge, the fire- 5 light glimmered on the stately trunks and almost black foliage of pines, intermixed with the lighter verdure of sapling oaks, maples, and poplars, while here and there lay the gigantic corpses of dead trees, decaying on the leaf-strewn soil. And it seemed to little Joe a timorous 10 and imaginative child that the silent forest was holding its breath, until some fearful thing should happen. Ethan Brand thrust more wood into the fire, and closed the door of the kiln; then looking over his shoulder at the lime-burner and his son, he bade, rather than advised, 15 them to retire to rest. "For myself, I cannot sleep," said he. "I have matters that it concerns me to meditate upon. I will watch the fire, as I used to do in the old time." "And call the Devil out of the furnace to keep you com- 20 pany, I suppose," muttered Bartram, who had been mak- ing intimate acquaintance with the black bottle above mentioned. "But watch, if you like, and call as many devils as you like! For my part, I shall be all the better for a snooze. Come, Joe!" 25 As the boy followed his father into the hut, he looked back at the wayfarer, and the tears came into his eyes, for his tender spirit had an intuition of the bleak and terrible loneliness in which this man had enveloped him- self. 30 When they had gone, Ethan Brand sat listening to the crackling of the kindled wood, and looking at the little spirts of fire that issued through the chinks of the door. These trifles, however, once so familiar, had but the slight- est hold of his attention, while deep within his mind he Ethan Brand 59 was reviewing the gradual but marvellous change that had been wrought upon him by the search to which he had devoted himself. He remembered how the night dew had fallen upon him, how the dark forest had whispered to him, how the stars had gleamed upon him, a simple and 5 loving man, watching his fire in the years gone by, and ever musing as it burned. H remembered with what tenderness, with wiiat love and sympathy for mankind, and what pity for human guilt and woe, he had first begun to contemplate those ideas which afterwards became the 10 inspiration of his life; with what reverence he had then looked into the heart of man, viewing it as a temple orig- inally divine, and, however desecrated, still to be held sacred by a brother; with what awful fear he had depre- cated the success of his pursuit, and prayed that the Un- 15 pardonable Sin might never be revealed to him. Then en- sued that vast intellectual development, which, in its progress, disturbed the counterpoise between his mind and heart. The Idea that possessed his life had operated as a means of education; it had gone on cultivating his powers 20 to the highest point of which they were susceptible ; it had raised him from the level of an unlettered laborer to stand on a star-lit eminence, whither the philosophers of the earth, laden with the lore of universities, might vainly strive to clamber after him. So much for the intellect! 25 But where was the heart? That, indeed, had withered, had contracted, had hardened, had perished! It ha"d ceased to partake of the universal throb. He had lost his hold of the magnetic chain of humanity. He was no longer a brother-man, opening the chambers of the dungeons of 30 our common nature by the key of holy sympathy, which gave him a right to share in all its secrets; he was now a cold observer, looking on mankind as the subject of his experi- ment, and, at length, converting man and woman to be his 6o Nathaniel Hawthorne puppets, and pulling the wires that moved them to such degrees of crime as were demanded for his study. Thus Ethan Brand became a fiend. He began to be so from the moment that his moral nature had ceased to keep 5 the pace of improvement with his intellect. And now, as his highest effort and inevitable development, as the bright and gorgeous flower, and rich, delicious fruit of his life's labor, he had produced the Unpardonable Sin! "What more have I to seek? what more to achieve?" 10 said Ethan Brand to himself. "My task is done, and well done!" Starting from the log with a certain alacrity in his gait and ascending the hillock of earth that was raised against the stone circumference of the lime-kiln, he thus reached 15 the top of the structure. It was a space of perhaps ten feet across, from edge to edge, presenting a view of the upper surface of the immense mass of broken marble with which the kiln was heaped. All these innumerable blocks and fragments of marble were red-hot and vividly on fire, 20 sending up great spouts of blue flame, which quivered aloft and danced madly, as within a magic circle, and sank and rose again, with continual and multitudinous activity. As the lonely man bent forward over this terrible body of fire, the blasting heat smote up against his person with a 25 breath that, it might be supposed, would have scorched and shrivelled him up in a moment. Ethan Brand stood erect, and raised his arms on high. The blue flames played upon his face, and imparted the wild and ghastly light which alone could have suited its 30 expression; it was that of a fiend on the verge of plunging into his gulf of intensest torment. "O Mother Earth," cried he, "who art no more my Mother, and into whose bosom this frame shall never be resolved! O mankind, whose brotherhood I have cast off, Ethan Brand 6l and trampled thy great heart beneath my feet! O stars of heaven, that shone on me of old, as if to light me onward and upward! farewell all, and forever. Come, deadly element of Fire, henceforth my familiar frame ! Embrace me, as I do thee!" 5 That night the sound of a fearful peal of laughter rolled heavily through the sleep of the lime-burner and his little son; dim shapes of horror and anguish haunted their dreams, and seemed still present in the rude hovel, when they opened their eyes to the daylight. 10 "Up, boy, up!" cried the lime-burner, staring about him. "Thank Heaven, the night is gone, at last; and rather than pass such another, I would watch my lime- kiln, wide awake, for a twelvemonth. This Ethan Brand, with his humbug of an Unpardonable Sin, has done me no 15 such mighty favor, in taking my place!" He issued from the hut, followed by little Joe, who kept fast hold of his father's hand. The early sunshine was al- ready pouring its gold upon the mountain- tops; and though the valleys were still in shadow, they smiled cheerfully in 20 the promise of the bright day that was hastening onward. The village, completely shut in by hills, which swelled away gently about it, looked as if it had rested peacefully in the hollow of the great hand of Providence. Every dwelling was distinctly visible; the little spires of the two 25 churches pointed upwards, and caught a fore-glimmering of brightness from the sun-gilt skies upon their gilded weathercocks. The tavern was astir, and the figure of the old, smoke-dried stage-agent, cigar in mouth, was seen be- neath the stoop. Old Gray lock was glorified with a golden 30 cloud upon his head. Scattered likewise over the breasts of the surrounding mountains, there were heaps of hoary mist, in fantastic shapes, some of them far down into the valley, others high up towards the summits, and still others, 62 Nathaniel Hawthorne of the same family of mist or cloud, hovering in the gold radiance of the upper atmosphere. Stepping from one to another of the clouds that rested on the hills, and thence to the loftier brotherhood that sailed in air, it seemed al- 5 most as if a mortal man might thus ascend into the heav- enly regions. \ Earth was so mingled with sky that it was a day-dream to look at it. \ To supply that charm of the familiar and homely, which Nature so readily adopts into a scene like this, the stage- 10 coach was rattling down the mountain-road, and the driver sounded his horn, while echo caught up the notes, and intertwined them into a rich and varied and elaborate harmony, of which the original performer could lay claim to little share. The great hills played a concert among them- 15 selves, each contributing a strain of airy sweetness. Little Joe's face brightened at once. "Dear father," cried he, skipping cheerily to and fro, " that strange man is gone, and the sky and the mountains all seem glad of it!" 20 " Yes," growled the lime-burner, with an oath, "but he has let the fire go down, and no thanks to him if five hun- dred bushels of lime are not spoiled. If I catch the fellow hereabouts again, I shall feel like tossing him into the furnace!" 25 With his long pole in his hand, he ascended to the top of the kiln. After a moment's pause, he called to his son. "Come up here, Joe!" said he. So little Joe ran up the hillock, and stood by his father's side. The marble was all burnt into perfect, snow-white 30 lime. But on its surface, in the midst of the circle, snow- white too, and thoroughly converted into lime, lay a human skeleton, in the attitude of a person who, after long toil, lies down to long repose. Within the. ribs strange to say was the shape of a human heart. Ethan Brand 63 "Was the fellow's heart made of marble?" cried Bar- tram, in some perplexity at this phenomenon. "At any rate, it is burnt into what looks like special good lime; and, taking all the bones together, my kiln is half a bushel the richer for him." So saying, the rude lime-burner lifted his pole, and, letting it fall upon the skeleton, the relics of Ethan Brand were crumbled into fragments. THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER By E. A. POE Son coeur est un luth suspendu; Sitot qu'on le touche il resonne. Beranger. DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length 5 found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insuffer- able; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half- 10 pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me upon the mere house, and the simple landscape fea- tures of the domain, upon the bleak walls, upon the vacant 15 eye-like windows, upon a few rank sedges, and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon opium; the bitter lapse into every-day life, the hideous dropping 20 off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart, an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it I paused to think what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House 64 The Fall of the House of Usher 65 of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as i pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatis- factory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have 5 the power of thus affecting us still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was pos- sible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate, its capac- 10 ity for sorrowful impression; and acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled luster by the dwelling, and gazed down but with a shudder even more thrilling than before upon the remodeled and inverted images of the 15 gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows. Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to myself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roder- ick Usher, had been one of my boon companions in boy- 20 hood; but many years had elapsed since our last meeting. A letter, however, had lately reached me in a distant part >i the country a letter from him which in its wildly im- portunate nature had admitted of no other than a personal reply. The MS. gave evidence of nervous agitation. The 25 writer spoke of acute bodily illness, of a mental disorder which oppressed him, and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best and indeed his only personal friend, with a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society, some alleviation of his malady. It was the manner in which all 30 this, and much more, was said it was the apparent heart that went with his request which allowed me no room for hesitation; and I accordingly obeyed forthwith what I still considered a very singular summons. 66 Edgar Allan Poe Although as boys we had been even intimate associates, yet I really knew little of my friend. His reserve had been always excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that his very ancient family had been noted, time out of 5 mind, for a peculiar sensibility of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages, in many works of exalted art, and manifested of late in repeated deeds of munificent yet un- obtrusive charity, as well as in a passionate devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even more than to the orthodox 10 and easily recognizable beauties, of musical science. I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had put forth at no period any enduring branch; in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had al- 15 ways, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain. It was this deficiency, I considered, while running over in thought the perfect keeping of the character of the premises with the accredited character of the people, and while speculating upon the possible influence which the one, 20 in the long lapse of centuries, might have exercised upon the other it was this deficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue, and the consequent undeviating transmission from sire to son of the patrimony with the name, which had, at length, so identified the two as to merge the original title 25 of the estate in the quaint and equivocal appellation of the " House of Usher" an appellation which seemed to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and the family mansion. I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childish 30 experiment, that of looking down within the tarn, had been to deepen the first singular impression. There can be no doubt that the consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition for why should I not so term it? served mainly to accelerate the increase itself. Such, I have long The Fall of the House of Usher 67 known, is the paradoxical law of all sentiments having terror as a basis. And it might have been for this reason only, that, when I again uplifted my eyes to the house itself, from its image in the pool, there grew in my mind a strange fancy a fancy so ridiculous, indeed, that I but 5 mention it to show the vivid force of the sensations which oppressed me. I had so worked upon my imagination as really to believe that about the whole mansion and domain there hung an atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity: an atmosphere which had no affinity 10 with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn: a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish, faintly discern- ible, and leaden-hued. Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, 15 I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive an- tiquity. The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves. Yet all this was apart 20 from any extraordinary dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen; and there appeared to be a wild in- consistency between its still perfect adaptation of parts and the crumbling condition of the individual stones. In this there was much that reminded me of the specious totality 25 of old wood-work which has rotted for long years in some neglected vault, with no disturbance from the breath of the external air. Beyond this indication of extensive decay, however, the fabric gave little token of instability. Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer might have discovered a 30 barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zig-zag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn. 68 Edgar Allan Poe Noticing these things, I rode over a short causeway to the house. A servant in waiting took my horse, and I en- tered the Gothic archway of the hall. A valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted me, in silence, through many dark 5 and intricate passages in my progress to the studio of his master. Much that I encountered on the way contributed, I know not how, to heighten the vague sentiments of which I have already spoken. While the objects around me while the carvings of the ceilings, the somber tapestries 10 of the walls, the ebon blackness of the floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies which rattled as I strode, were but matters to which, or to such as which, I had been accustomed from my infancy while I hesitated not to acknowledge how familiar was all this I still won- 15 dered to find how unfamiliar were the fancies which or- dinary images were stirring up. On one of the staircases, I met the physician of the family. His countenance, I thought, wore a mingled expression of low cunning and perplexity. He accosted me with trepidation and passed 20 on. The valet now threw open a door and ushered me into the presence of his master. The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty. The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from the black oaken floor as to be 25 altogether inaccessible from within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way through the trellised panes, and served to render sufficiently distinct the more prominent objects around; the eye, however, struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or the 30 recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique > and tattered. Many books and musical instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmos- The Fall of the House of Usher 69 phere of sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all. Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a sofa on which he had been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth which had much in it, I at first thought, 5 of an overdone cordiality of the constrained effort of the ennuye man of the world. A glance, however, at his countenance, convinced me of his perfect sincerity. We sat down, and for some moments, while he spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. 10 Surely man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with diffi- culty that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my early boyhood. Yet the character of his face had been at all 15 times remarkable. A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar formations; a 20 finely moulded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want of moral energy; hair of a more than web-like softness and tenuity; these features, with an inordinate expansion above the regions of the temple, made up al- together a countenance not easily to be forgotten. And 25 now in the mere exaggeration of the prevailing character of these features, and of the expression they were wont to convey, lay so much of change that I doubted to whom I spoke. The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous luster of the eye, above all things startled and 30 even awed me. The silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the face, I could not, even with effort, connect its arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity. 70 Edgar Allan Poe In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an incoherence, an inconsistency; and I soon found this to arise from a series of feeble and futile struggles to over- come an habitual trepidancy, an excessive nervous agita- 5 tion. For something of this nature I had indeed been prepared, no less by his letter than by reminiscences of certain boyish traits, and by conclusions deduced from his peculiar physical conformation and temperament. His action was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice 10 varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision (when the ani- mal spirits seemed utterly in abeyance) to that species of energetic concision that abrupt, weighty, unhurried, and hollow-sounding enunciation that leaden, self-balanced and perfectly modulated guttural utterance which may 15 be observed in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium, during the periods of his most intense ex- citement. It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of his earnest desire to see me, and of the solace he expected 20 me to afford him. He entered, at some length, into what he conceived to be the nature of his malady. It was, he said, a constitutional and a family evil, and one for which he despaired to find a remedy a mere nervous affection, he immediately added, which would undoubtedly soon 25 pass off. It displayed itself in a host of unnatural sensa- tions. Some of these, as he detailed them, interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the terms and the general manner of the narration had their weight. He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the 30 most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror. The Fall of the House of Usher 71 To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden slave. "I shall perish," said he, "I must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in their results. I shudder at the thought of any, 5 even the most trivial, incident, which may operate upon this intolerable agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no ab- horrence of danger, except in its absolute effect in terror. In this unnerved in this pitiable condition, I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon 10 life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR." I learned moreover at intervals, and through broken and equivocal hints, another singular feature of his mental condition. He was enchained by certain superstitious 15 impressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for many years, he had never ventured forth in regard to an influence whose supposititious force was conveyed in terms too shadowy here to be restated an influence which some peculiarities in the mere form and 20 substance of his family mansion, had, by dint of long sufferance, he said, obtained over his spirit an effect which the physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at length, brought about upon the morale of his existence. 25 He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a more natural and far more palpable origin to the severe and long-continued illness, indeed to the evidently approaching dissolution, of a tenderly beloved 30 sister his sole companion for long years, his last and only relative on earth. "Her decease," he said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, "would leave him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient 72 Edgar Allan Poe race of the Ushers." While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was she called) passed slowly through a remote portion of the apartment, and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared. I regarded her with an utter 5 astonishment not unmingled with dread, and yet I found it impossible to account for such feelings. A sensation of stupor oppressed me, as my eyes followed her retreating steps. When a door, at length, closed upon her, my glance sought instinctively and eagerly the countenance of the 10 brother; but he had buried his face in his hands, and I could only perceive that a far more than ordinary wanness had overspread the emaciated fingers through which trickled many passionate tears. The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the 15 skill of her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wast- ing away of the person, and frequent although transient affections of a partially cataleptical character, were the unusual diagnosis. Hitherto she had steadily borne up against the pressure of her malady, and had not betaken 20 herself finally to bed; but, on the closing in of the evening of my arrival at the house, she succumbed (as her brother told me at night with inexpressible agitation) to the pros- trating power of the destroyer; and I learned that the glimpse I had obtained of her person would thus probably 25 be the last I should obtain that the lady, at least while living, would be seen by me no more. For several days ensuing, her name was unmentioned by either Usher or myself; and during this period I was busied in earnest endeavors to alleviate the melancholy 30 of my friend. We painted and read together; or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild improvisation of his speaking guitar. And thus, as a closer and still closer intimacy ad- mitted me more unreservedly into the recesses of his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive the futility of all The Fall of the House of Usher 73 attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all objects of the moral and physical universe, in one unceasing radia- tion of gloom. I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn 5 hours I thus spent alone with the master of the House of Usher. Yet I should fail in any attempt to convey an idea of the exact character of the studies, or of the occupa- tions, in which he involved me, or led me the way. An excited and highly distempered ideality threw a sulphur- 10 ous luster over all. His long improvised dirges will ring forever in my ears. Among other things, I hold painfully in mind a certain singular perversion and amplification of the wild air of the last waltz of Von Weber. From the paintings over which his elaborate fancy brooded, and 15 which grew, touch by touch, into vaguenesses at which I shuddered the more thrillingly because I shuddered know- ing not why; from these paintings (vivid as their images now are before me) I would in vain endeavor to educe more than a small portion which should lie within the 20 compass of merely written words. By the utter simplicity, by the nakedness of his designs, he arrested and overawed attention. If ever mortal painted an idea, that mortal was Roderick Usher. For me at least, in the circumstances then surrounding me, there arose, out of the pure abstrac- 25 tions which the hypochondriac contrived to throw upon his canvas, an intensity of intolerable awe, no shadow of which felt I ever yet in the contemplation of the certainly glowing yet too concrete reveries of Fuseli. One of the phantasmagoric conceptions of my friend, 30 partaking not so rigidly of the spirit of abstraction, may be shadowed forth, although feebly, in words. A small picture presented the interior of an immensely long and rectangular vault or tunnel, with low walls, smooth, white, 74 Edgar Allan Poe and without interruption or device. Certain accessory points of the design served well to convey the idea that this excavation lay at an exceeding depth below the surface of the earth. No outlet was observed in any portion of 5 its vast extent, and no torch or other artificial source of light was discernible; yet a flood of intense rays rolled throughout, and bathed the whole in a ghastly and inap- propriate splendor. I have just spoken of that morbid condition of the audi- 10 tory nerve which rendered all music intolerable to the sufferer, with the exception of certain effects of stringed instruments. It was, perhaps, the narrow limits to which he thus confined himself upon the guitar, which gave birth, in great measure, to the fantastic character of his 15 performances. But the fervid facility of his impromptus could not be so accounted for. They must have been, and were, in the notes, as well as in the words of his wild fantasies (for he not unfrequently accompanied himself with rhymed verbal improvisations), the result of that 20 intense mental collectedness and concentration to which I have previously alluded as observable only in particular moments of the highest artificial excitement. The words of one of these rhapsodies I have easily remembered. I was, perhaps, the more forcibly impressed with it, as he 25 gave it, because, in the under or mystic current of its meaning, I fancied that I perceived, and for the first time, a full consciousness, on the part of Usher, of the tottering of his lofty reason upon her throne. The verses, which were entitled "The Haunted Palace," ran very nearly, if 30 not accurately, thus: i In the greenest of our valleys By good angels tenanted, Once a fair and stately palace Radiant palace reared its head. The Fall of the House of Usher . 75 In the monarch Thought's dominion, It stood there; Never seraph spread a pinion Over fabric half so fair. Banners yellow, glorious, golden, 5 On its roof did float and flow, (This all this was in the olden Time long ago) And every gentle air that dallied, In that sweet day, 10 Along the ramparts. plumed and pallid, A winged odor went away. in Wanderers in that happy valley Through two luminous windows saw Spirits moving musically 15 To a lute's well-tuned law, Round about a throne where, sitting, Porphyrogene, In state his glory well befitting, The ruler of the realm was seen. 20 IV And all with pearl and ruby glowing Was the fair palace door, Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing, And sparkling evermore, A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty 25 Was but to sing, In voices of surpassing beauty, The wit and wisdom of their king. But evil things, in robes of sorrow Assailed the monarch's high estate; 30 (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow Shall dawn upon him, desolate!) And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomed Is but a dim-remembered story 35 Of the old time entombed. 76 Edgar Allan Poe VI And travelers now within that valley Through the red-litten windows see Vast forms that move fantastically To a discordant melody; 5 While, like a ghastly rapid river, Through the pale door A hideous throng rush out forever, And laugh but smile no more. I well remember that suggestions arising from this bal- 10 lad led us into a train of thought, wherein there became manifest an opinion of Usher's which I mention not so much on account of its novelty, (for other men l have thought thus,) as on account of the pertinacity with which he maintained it. This opinion, in its general form, was 15 that of the sentience of all vegetable things. But in his disordered fancy the idea had assumed a more daring character, and trespassed, under certain conditions, upon the kingdom of inorganization. I lack words to express the full extent, or the earnest abandon of his persuasion. 20 The belief, however, was connected (as I have previously hinted) with the gray stones of the home of his forefathers. The conditions of the sentience had been here, he imag- ined, fulfilled in the method of collocation of these stones in the order of their arrangement, as well as in that of 25 the many fungi which overspread them, and of the de- cayed trees which stood around above all, in the long undisturbed endurance of this arrangement, and in its reduplication in the still waters of the tarn. Its evidence the evidence of the sentience was to be seen, he said (and 30 I here started as he spoke), in the gradual yet certain con- densation of an atmosphere of their own about the waters and the walls. The result was discoverable, he added, 1 Watson, Dr. Perciva!, Spallanzani, and especially the Bishop of Landaff. See "Chemical Essays," Vol. V. The Fall of the House of Usher 77 in that silent, yet importunate and terrible influence which for centuries had moulded the destinies of his family, and which made him what I now saw him what he was. Such opinions need no comment, and I will make none. Our books the books which, for years, had formed no 5 small portion of the mental existence of the invalid were, as might be supposed, in strict keeping with this character of phantasm. We pored together over such works as the Ververt and Chartreuse of Cresset; the Belphegor of Machiavelli; the Heaven and Hell of Swedenborg; the 10 Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by Holberg; the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean DTndagine, and of De la Chambre; the Journey into the Blue Distance of Tieck; and the City of the Sun of Campanella. One favorite volume was a small octavo edition of the Director- 1 5 ium Inquisitorum, by the Dominican Eymeric de Gironne; and there were passages in Pomponius Mela, about the old African Satyrs and ^Egipans, over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. His chief delight, however, was found in the perusal of an exceedingly rare and curious 20 book in quarto Gothic the manual of a forgotten church the Vigilia Mortuorum secundum Chorum Ecclesm Magun- tince. I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of its probable influence upon the hypochondriac, 25 when one evening, having informed me abruptly that the lady Madeline was no more, he stated his intention of preserving her corpse for a fortnight, (previously to its final interment,) in one of the numerous vaults within the main walls of the building. The worldly reason, however, 30 assigned for this singular proceeding, was one which I did not feel at liberty to dispute. The brother had been led to his resolution (so he told me) by consideration of the unusual character of the malady of the deceased, of certain 78 Edgar Allan Poe obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medical men, and of the remote and exposed situation of the burial- ground of the family. I will not deny that when I called to mind the sinister countenance of the person whom I met- 5 upon the staircase, on the day of my arrival at the house, I had no desire to oppose what I regarded as at best but a harmless, and by no means an unnatural, precaution. At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the arrangements for the temporary entombment. The body 10 having been encomned, we two alone bore it to its rest. The vault in which we placed it (and which had been so long unopened that our torches, half smothered in its op- pressive atmosphere, gave us little opportunity for in- vestigation) was small, damp, and entirely without means 15 of admission for light; lying, at great depth, immediately beneath that portion of the building in which was my own sleeping apartment. It had been used, apparently, in re- mote feudal times, for the worst purposes of a donjon-keep, and in later days as a place of deposit for powder, or some 20 other highly combustible substance, as a portion of its floor, and the whole interior of a long archway through which we reached it, were carefully sheathed with copper. The door, of massive iron, had been, also, similarly pro- tected. Its immense weight caused an unusually sharp 25 grating sound, as it moved upon its hinges. Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within this region of horror, we partially turned aside the yet unscrewed lid of the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant. A striking similitude between the brother 30 and sister now first arrested my attention; and Usher, divining, perhaps, my thoughts, murmured out some few words from which I learned that the deceased and himself had been twins, and that sympathies of a scarcely intel- ligible nature had always existed between them. Our The Fall of the House of Usher 79 glances, however, rested not long upon the dead for we could not regard her unawed. The disease which had thus entombed the lady in the maturity of youth, had left, as .usual in all maladies of a strictly cataleptical character, the mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face, 5 and that suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death. We replaced and screwed down the lid, and, having secured the door of iron, made our way, with toil, into the scarcely less gloomy apartments of the upper portion of the house. 10 And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an observable change came over the features of the mental disorder of my friend. His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary occupations were neglected or forgotten. He roamed from chamber to chamber with hurried, unequal, 15 and objectless step. The pallor of his countenance had as- sumed, if possible, a more ghastly hue but the luminous- ness of his eye had utterly gone out. The once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually characterized 20 his utterance. There were times, indeed, when I thought his unceasingly agitated mind was laboring with some op- pressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for the nec- essary courage. At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, for I 25 beheld him gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound. It was no wonder that his con- dition terrified that it infected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his 30 own fantastic yet impressive superstitions. It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night of the seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady Madeline within the donjon, that I experienced the full 80 Edgar Allan Poe power of such feelings. Sleep came not near my couch, while the hours waned and waned away. I struggled to reason off the nervousness which had dominion over me. I endeavored to believe that much, if not all, of what I felt 5 was due to the bewildering influence of the gloomy furni- ture of the room of the dark and tattered draperies which, tortured into motion by the breath of a rising tempest, swayed fitfully to and fro upon the walls, and rustled un- easily about the decorations of the bed. But my efforts 10 were fruitless. An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame; and at length there sat upon my very heart an incubus of utterly causeless alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a struggle, I uplifted myself upon the pillows, and, peering earnestly within the intense darkness of the 15 chamber, hearkened I know not why, except that an in- stinctive spirit prompted me to certain low and indefinite sounds which came, through the pauses of the storm, at long intervals, I knew not whence. Overpowered by an intense sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet unendur- 20 able, I threw on my clothes with haste, (for I felt that I should sleep no more during the night,) and endeavored to arouse myself from the pitiable condition into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and fro through the apart- ment. 25 I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step on an adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I presently recognized it as that of Usher. In an instant afterward he rapped with a gentle touch at my door, and entered, bearing a lamp. His countenance was, as usual, 30 cadaverously wan but, moreover, there was a species of mad hilarity in his eyes an evidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanor. His air appalled me but any- thing was preferable to the solitude which I had so long endured, and I even welcomed his presence as a relief. The Fall of the House of Usher 81 "And you have not seen it?" he said abruptly, after having stared about him for some moments in silence "you have not then seen it? but, stay! you shall." Thus speaking, and having carefully shaded his lamp, he hurried to one of the casements, and threw it freely open to the 5 storm. The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted us from our feet. It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly beautiful night, and one wildly singular in its terror and its beauty. A whirlwind had apparently collected its 10 force in our vicinity; for there were frequent and violent alterations in the direction of the wind; and the exceeding density of the clouds (which hung so low as to press upon the turrets of the house) did not prevent our perceiving the life-like velocity with which they flew careering from 15 all points against each other, without passing away into the distance. I say that even their exceeding density did not prevent our perceiving this; yet we had no glimpse of the moon or stars, nor was there any flashing forth of the lightning. But the under surfaces of the huge masses of 20 agitated vapor, as well as all terrestrial objects immediately around us, were glowing in the unnatural light of a faintly luminous and distinctly visible gaseous exhalation which hung about and enshrouded the mansion. "You must not you shall not behold this!" said I, 25 shudderingly, to Usher, as I led him with a gentle violence from the window to a seat. "These appearances, which bewilder you, are merely electrical phenomena not un- common or it may be that they have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of the tarn. Let us close this casement; 30 the air is chilling and dangerous to your frame. Here is one of your favorite romances. I will read, and you shall listen; and so we will pass away this terrible night to- gether.*' 82 Edgar Allan Poe The antique volume which I had taken up was the "Mad Trist" of Sir Launcelot Canning; but I had called it a favorite of Usher's more in sad jest than in earnest; for, in truth, there is little in its uncouth and unimagina- 5 tive prolixity which could have had interest for the lofty and spiritual ideality of my friend. It was, however, the only book immediately at hand; and I indulged a vague hope that the excitement which now agitated the hypo- chondriac might find relief (for the history of mental dis- 10 order is full of similar anomalies) even in the extremeness of the folly which I should read. Could I have judged, indeed, by the wild overstrained air of vivacity with which he hearkened, or apparently hearkened, to the words of the tale, I might well have congratulated myself upon the 15 success of my design. I had arrived at that well-known portion of the story where Ethelred, the hero of the Trist, having sought in vain for peaceable admission into the dwelling of the her- mit, proceeds to make good an entrance by force. Here, 20 it will be remembered, the words of the narrative run thus: "And Ethelred, who was by nature of a doughty heart, and who was now mighty withal, on account of the powerfulness of the wine which he had drunken, waited no longer to hold 25 parley with the hermit, who, in sooth, was of an obstinate and maliceful turn, but, feeling the rain upon his shoulders, and fearing the rising of the tempest, uplifted his mace outright, and with blows made quickly room in the plankings of the door for his gauntleted hand; and now pulling therewith sturdily, 30 he so cracked, and ripped, and tore all asunder, that the noise of the dry and hollow-sounding wood alarumed and rever- berated throughout the forest." At the termination of this sentence I started, and for a moment paused; for it appeared to me (although I at The Fall of the House of Usher 83 once concluded that my excited fancy had deceived me) it appeared to me that from some very remote portion of the mansion there came, indistinctly, to my ears, what might have been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo (but a stifled and dull one certainly) of the very crack- 5 ing and ripping sound which Sir Launcelot had so particu- larly described. It was, beyond doubt, the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for, amid the rattling of the sashes of the casements, and the ordinary commingled noises of the still increasing storm, the sound, 10 in itself, had nothing, surely, which should have interested or disturbed me. I continued the story: "But the good champion Ethelred, now entering within the door, was sore enraged and amazed to perceive no signal of the maliceful hermit; but, in the stead thereof, a dragon of a scaly 15 and prodigious demeanor, and of a fiery tongue, which sate in guard before a palace of gold, with a floor of silver; and upon the wall there hung a shield of shining brass with this legend enwritten Who entereth herein, a conqueror hath bin; 20 Who slayeth the dragon, the shield he shall win. And Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck upon the head of the dragon, which fell before him, and gave up his pesty breath, with a shriek so horrid and harsh, and withal so piercing, that Ethelred had fain to close his ears with his hands against the 25 dreadful noise of it, the like whereof was never before heard." Here again I paused abruptly, and now w r ith a feeling of wild amazement; for there could be no doubt whatever that, in this instance, I did actually hear (although from what direction it proceeded I found it impossible to say) 30 a low and apparently distant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual screaming or grating sound the exact counterpart of what my fancy had already conjured up for 84 Edgar Allan Poe the dragon's unnatural shriek as described by the ro- mancer. Oppressed, as I certainly was, upon the occurrence of this second and most extraordinary coincidence, by a 5 thousand conflicting sensations, in which wonder and ex- treme terror were predominant, I still retained sufficient presence of mind to avoid exciting, by any observation, the sensitive nervousness of my companion. I was by no means certain that he had noticed the sounds in question; 10 although, assuredly, a strange alteration had during the last few minutes taken place in his demeanor. From a position fronting my own, he had gradually brought round his chair, so as to sit with his face to the door of the cham- ber; and thus I could but partially perceive his features, 15 although I saw that his lips trembled as if he were mur- muring inaudibly. His head had dropped upon his breast yet I knew that he was not asleep, from the wide and rigid opening of the eye as I caught a glance of it in profile. The motion of his body, too, was at variance with this idea 20 for he rocked from side to side with a gentle yet constant and uniform sway. Having rapidly taken notice of all this, 'I resumed the narrative of Sir Launcelot, which thus pro- ceeded: "And now, the champion, hayving escaped from the terrible 25 fury of the dragon, bethinking himself of the brazen shield, and of the breaking up of the enchantment which was upon it, re- moved the carcass from out of the way before him, and ap- proached valorously over the silver pavement of the castle to where the shield was upon the wall; which in sooth tarried not 3 for his full coming, but fell down at his feet upon the silver floor, with a mighty great and terrible ringing sound." No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than as if a shield of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heav- The Fall of the House of Usher 85 ily upon a floor of silver I became aware of a distinct, hol- low, metallic and clangorous, yet apparently muffled rever- beration. Completely unnerved, I leaped to my feet; but the measured rocking movement of Usher was undisturbed. I rushed to the chair in which he sat. His eyes were bent 5 fixedly before him, and throughout his whole countenance there reigned a stony rigidity. But, as I placed my hand upon his shoulder, there came a strong shudder over his whole person; a sickly smile quivered about his lips; and I saw that he spoke in a low, hurried, and gibbering mur- 10 mur, as if unconscious of my presence. Bending closely over him, I at length drank in the hideous import of his words. "Not hear it? yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long -long long many minutes, many hours, many days, 15 have I heard it yet I dared not oh, pity me, miser- able wretch that I am! I dared not I dared not speak! We have put her living in the tomb! Said I not that my senses were acute? I now tell you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I heard them 20 many, many days ago yet I dared not / dared not speak! And now to 7 night Ethelred ha! ha! the breaking of the hermit's door, and the death-cry of the dragon, and the clangor of the shield! say, rather, the rending of her coffin, and the grating of the iron hinges of her prison, and 25 her struggles within the coppered archway of the vault! Oh, whither shall I fly? Will she not be here anon? Is she not hurrying to upbraid me for my haste? Have I not heard her footstep on the stair? Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart? Madman!" 30 here he sprang furiously to his feet, and shrieked out his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up his soul "Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door!" AS if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there 86 Edgar Allan Poe had been found the potency of a spell, the huge antique panels to which the speaker pointed threw slowly back, upon the instant, their ponderous and ebony jaws. It was the work of the rushing gust but then without those 5 doors there did stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she re- mained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the thresh- 10 old then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and, in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated. From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled 15 aghast. The storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued; for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind me. The radiance was 20 that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon, which now shone vividly through that once barely-discernible fissure, of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof of the building, in a zigzag direction, to the base. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened there came a fierce 25 breath of the whirlwind the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed 30 sullenly and silently over the fragments of the "House of Usher." THE GOLD-BUG By EDGAR ALLAN POE What ho! what ho! this fellow is dancing mad! He hath been bitten by the Tarantula. All in the Wrong. MANY years ago, I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot family, and had once been wealthy; but a series of misfortunes had reduced him to want. To avoid the mortification conse- g . quent upon his disasters, he left New Orleans, the city of 5 his forefathers, and took up his residence at Sullivan's Island, near Charleston, South Carolina. This island is a very singular one. It consists of little else than the sea sand, and is about three miles long. Its breadth at no point exceeds a quarter of a mile. It is sep- T0 arated from the main-land by a scarcely perceptible creek, oozing its way through a wilderness of reeds and slime, a favorite resort of the marsh-hen. The vegetation, as might be supposed, is scant, or at least dwarfish. No trees of any magnitude are to be seen. Near the western extremity, 15 where Fort Moultrie stands, and where are some miserable frame buildings, tenanted during summer by the fugitives from Charleston dust and fever, may be found, indeed, the bristly palmetto; but the whole island, with the exception of this western point, and a line of hard white beach on 2 o the seacoast, is covered with a dense undergrowth of the sweet myrtle, so much prized by the horticulturists of England. The shrub here often attains the height of fifteen 4 or twenty feet, and forms an almost impenetrable coppice, burdening the air with its fragrance. 25' 87 88 Edgar Allan Poe In the utmost recesses of this coppice, not far from tke eastern or more remote end of the island, Legrand had built himself a small hut, which he occupied when I first, by mere accident, made his acquaintance. This soon 5 ripened into friendship for there was much in the recluse to excite interest and esteem. I found him well educated, with unusual powers of mind, but infected with misan- thropy, and subject to perverse moods of alternate en- thusiasm and melancholy. He had with him many books, 10 but rarely employed them. His chief amusements were gunning and fishing, or sauntering along the beach and through the myrtles, in quest of shells or entomological specimens; his collection of the latter might have been envied by a Swammerdamm. In these excursions he was 15 usually accompanied by an old negro, called Jupiter, who had been manumitted before the reverses of the family, but who could be induced, neither by threats nor by promises, to abandon what he considered his right of at- tendance upon the footsteps of his young "Massa Will." 20 It is not improbable that the relatives of Legrand, con- ceiving him to be somewhat unsettled in intellect, had con- trived to instil this obstinacy into Jupiter, with a view to the supervision and guardianship of the wanderer. The winters in the latitude of Sullivan's Island are 25 seldom very severe, and in the fall of the year it is a rare event indeed when a fire is considered necessary. About the middle of October, 18 , there occurred, however, a day of remarkable chilliness. Just before sunset I scram- bled my way through the evergreens to the hut of my 30 friend, whom I had not visited for several weeks my residence being at that time in Charleston, a distance of nine miles from the island, while the facilities of passage and re-passage were very far behind those of the present Upon reaching the hut I rapped, as was my pustpm, The Gold-Bug 89 and, getting no reply, sought for the key where I knew it was secreted, unlocked the door and went in. A fine fire was blazing upon the hearth. It was a novelty, and by no means an ungrateful one. I threw off an overcoat, took an armchair by the crackling logs, and awaited patiently 5 the arrival of my hosts. Soon after dark they arrived, and gave me a most cordial welcome. Jupiter, grinning from ear to ear, bustled about to prepare some marsh-hens for supper. Legrand was in one of his fits how else shall I term them? of 10 enthusiasm. He had found an unknown bivalve, forming a new genus, and, more than this, he had hunted down and secured, with Jupiter's assistance, a scarabceus which he believed to be totally new, but in respect to which he wished to have my opinion on the morrow. 15 "And why not to-night?" I asked, rubbing my hands over the blaze, and wishing the whole tribe of scarabcei at the devil. "Ah, if I had only known you were here!" said Legrand, "but it's so long since I saw you; and how could I foresee 20 that you would pay me a visit this very night of all others? As I was coming home I met Lieutenant G , from the fort, and, very foolishly, I lent him the bug; so it will be impossible for you to see it until the morning. Stay here to-night, and I will send Jup down for it at sunrise. It is 25 the loveliest thing in creation!" "What? sunrise?" "Nonsense! no! the bug. It is of a brilliant gold color about the size of a large hickory-nut with two jet black spots near one extremity of the back, and 30 another, somewhat longer, at the other. The antenna are " "Dey ain't no tin in him, Massa Will, I keep a tellin on you," here interrupted Jupiter; "de bug is a goole-bug, 9b Edgar Allan Poe solid, ebery bit of him, inside and all, sep him wing neber feel half so hebby a bug in my life." "Well, suppose it is, Jup," replied Legrand, somewhat more earnestly, it seemed to me, than the case demanded, 5 "is that any reason for your letting the birds burn? The color" here he turned to me "is really almost enough to warrant Jupiter's idea. You never saw a more brilliant metallic luster than the scales emit but of this you can- not judge till to-morrow. In the mean time I can give you 10 some idea of the shape." Saying this, he seated himself at a small table, on which were a pen and ink, but no paper. He looked for some in a drawer, but found none. "Never mind," said he at length, "this will answer;" and he drew from his waistcoat pocket a scrap of what I 15 took to be very dirty foolscap, and made upon it a rough drawing with the pen. While he did this, I retained my seat by the fire, for I was still chilly. When the design was complete, he handed it to me without rising. As I re- ceived it, a low growl was heard, succeeded by a scratching 20 at the door. Jupiter opened it, and a large Newfoundland, belonging to Legrand, rushed in, leaped upon my shoulders, and loaded me with caresses; for I had shown him much attention during previous visits. When his gambols were over, I looked at the paper, and, to speak the truth, found 25 myself not a little puzzled at what my friend had de- picted. "Well!" I said, after contemplating it for some minutes, this is a strange scarabaeus, I must confess; new to me: never saw anything like it before unless it was a skull, or 30 a death's-head, which it more nearly resembles than any- thing else that has come under my observation." "A death's-head!" echoed Legrand " Oh yes well, it has something of that appearance upon paper, no doubt. The two upper black spots look like eyes, eh? and the The Gold-Bug 91 longer one at the bottom like a mouth and then the shape of the whole is oval." " Perhaps so," said I; "but, Legrand, I fear you are no artist. I must wait until I see the beetle itself, if I am to form any idea of its personal appearance." 5 "Well, I don't know," said he, a little nettled, "I draw tolerably should do it at least have had good masters, and flatter myself that I am not quite a blockhead." "But, my dear fellow, you are joking then," said I, "this is a very passable skull, indeed, I may say that it is a 10 very excellent skull, according to the vulgar notions about such specimens of physiology and your scarabmis must be the queerest scarabceus in the world if it resembles it. Why, we may get up a very thrilling bit of superstition upon this hint. I presume you will call the bug scarabceus 15 caput hominis, or something of that kind there are many similar titles in the Natural Histories. But where are the antenna you spoke of?" "The antenna!" said Legrand, who seemed to be getting unaccountably warm upon the subject; "I am sure you 20 must see the antenna. I made them as distinct as they are in the original insect, and I presume that is sufficient." "Well, well," I said, "perhaps you have still I don't see them; " and I handed him the paper without additional remark, not wishing to ruffle his temper; but I was much 25 surprised at the turn affairs had taken; his ill humor puz- zled me and, as for the drawing of the beetle, there were positively no antennce visible, and the whole did bear a very close resemblance to the ordinary cuts of a death's- head. 30 He received the paper very peevishly, and was about to crumple it, apparently to throw it in the fire, when a casual glance at the design seemed suddenly to rivet his attention. In an instant his face grew violently red in another as 92 Edgar Allan Poe excessively pale. For some minutes he continued to scrutinize the drawing minutely where he sat. At length he arose, took a candle from the table, and proceeded to seat himself upon a sea-chest in the farthest corner of the 5 room. Here again he made an anxious examination of the paper; turning it in all directions. He said nothing, however, and his conduct greatly astonished me; yet I thought it prudent not to exacerbate the growing moodi- ness of his temper by any comment. Presently he took 10 from his coat pocket a wallet, placed the paper carefully in it, and deposited both in a writing-desk, which he locked. He now grew more composed in his demeanor; but his original air of enthusiasm had quite disappeared. Yet he seemed not so much sulky as abstracted. As the evening 15 wore away he became more and more absorbed in re very, from which no sallies of mine could arouse him. It had been my intention to pass the night at the hut, as I had frequently done before, but, seeing my host in this mood, I deemed it proper to take leave. He did not press me to 20 remain, but, as I departed, he shook my hand with even more than his usual cordiality. It was about a month after this (and during the interval I had seen nothing of Legrand) when I received a visit, at Charleston, from his man, Jupiter. I had never seen the 25 good old negro look so dispirited, and I feared that some serious disaster had befallen my friend. "Well, Jup," said I, "what is the matter now? how is your master? " "Why, to speak de troof, massa, him not so berry well 30 as mought be." "Not well! I am truly sorry to hear it. What does he complain of?" "Dar! dat's it! him neber plain of notin but him berry sick for all dat." The Gold-Bug 93 "Very sick, Jupiter I why didn't you say so at once? Is he confined to bed?" "No, dat he aint! he aint find nowhar dat's just whar de shoe pinch my mind is got to be berry hebby bout poor Massa Will." 5 "Jupiter, I should like to understand what it is you are talking about. You say your master is sick. Hasn't he told you what ails him? " "Why, massa, taint worf while for to git mad bcut de matter Massa Will say nofi&n at all aint de matter wid 10 him but den what make him go about looking dis here way, wid he head down and he soldiers up, and as white as a gose? And den he keep a syphon all de time " "Keeps a what, Jupiter?" " Keeps a^yphon wid de figgurs on de slate de queerest 15 figgurs I ebber did see. Ise gittin to be skeered, I tell you. Hab for to keep mighty tight eye pon him noovers. Todder day he gib me slip fore de sun up and was gone de whole ob de blessed day. I had a big stick ready cut for to gib him d d good beating when he did come but 20 Ise sich a fool dat I hadn't de heart arter all he look so berry poorly." " Eh? what? ah yes! upon the whole I think you had better not be too severe with the poor fellow don't flog him, Jupiter he can't very well stand it but can you 25 form no idea of what has occasioned this illness, or rather this change of conduct? Has anything unpleasant hap- pened since I saw you?" "No, massa, dey aint bin noffin onpleasant since den 'twas fore den I'm feared 'twas de berry day you was 30 dare." "How? what do you mean?" "Why, massa, I mean de bug dare now." "The what?" 94 Edgar Allan Poe "De bug I'm berry sartain dat Massa Will bin bit somewhere bout de head by dat goole-bug." "And what cause have you, Jupiter, for such a supposi- tion?" 5 " Claws enuff, massa, and mouff too. I nebber did see sich a d d bug he kick and he bite ebery ting what cum near him. Massa Will cotch him fuss, but had for to let him go gin mighty quick, I tell you den was de time he must ha got de bite. I didn't like de look ob de bug 10 mouff, myself, no how, so I wouldn't take hold ob him wid my finger, but I cotch him wid a piece ob paper dat I found. I rap him up in de paper and stuff piece ob it in he mouff dat was de way." "And you think, then, that your master was really 15 bitten by the beetle, and that the bite made him sick?" "I don't tink noffin about it I nose it. What make him dream bout de goole so much, if taint cause he bit by de goole-bug? Ise heerd bout dem goole-bugs fore dis." "But how do you know he dreams about gold?" 20 " How I know? why cause he talk about it in he sleep dat's how I nose." "Well, Jup, perhaps you are right; but to what fortunate circumstance am I to attribute the honor of a visit from you to-day?" 25 " What de matter, massa? " "Did you bring any message from Mr. Legrand?" "No, massa, I bring dis here pissel;" and here Jupiter handed me a note which ran thus: "My DEAR , Why have I not seen you for so long a 30 time? I hope you have not been so foolish as to take offence at any little brusquerie of mine; but no, that is improbable. "Since I saw you I have had great cause for anxiety. I have something to tell you, yet scarcely know how to tell it, or whether I should tell it at all. The Gold-Bug 95 "I have not been quite well for some days past, and poor old Jup annoys me, almost beyond endurance, by his well- meant attentions. Would you believe it? he had prepared a huge stick, the other day, with which to chastise me for giving him the slip, and spending the day, solus, among the hills on 5 the mainland. I verily believe that my ill looks alone saved me a flogging. "I have made no addition to my cabinet since we met. "If you can, in any way, make it convenient, come over with Jupiter. Do come. I wish to see you to-night, upon business of 10 importance. I assure you that it is of the highest importance. "Ever yours, "WILLIAM LEGRAND." There was something in the tone of this note which gave me great uneasiness. Its whole style differed materially 15 from that of Legrand. What could he be dreaming of? What new crotchet possessed his excitable brain? What '"business of the highest importance" could he possibly have to transact? Jupiter's account of him boded no good. I dreaded lest the continued pressure of misfortune 20 had, at length, fairly unsettled the reason of my friend. Without a moment's hesitation, therefore, I prepared to accompany the negro. Upon reaching the wharf, I noticed a scythe and three ^ spades, all apparently new, lying in the bottom of the boat 25 in which we were to embark. "What is the meaning of all this, Jup?" I inquired. "Him syfe, massa, and spade." "Very true; but what are they doing here?" "Him de syfe and de spade what Massa Will sis pon 30 my buying for him in de town, and de debbil's own lot of money I had to gib for em." "But what, in the name of all that is mysterious, is your 'Massa Will' going to do with scythes and spades?" 96 Edgar Allan Poe " Dat's more dan I know, and debbil take me if I don't blieve 'tis more dan he know, too. But it's all cum ob de bug." Finding that no satisfaction was to be obtained of 5 Jupiter, whose whole intellect seemed to be absorbed by "de bug," I now stepped into the boat and made sail. With a fair and strong breeze we soon ran into the little cove to the northward of Fort Moultrie, and a walk of some two miles brought us to the hut. It was about three 10 in the afternoon when we arrived. Legrand had been awaiting us in eager expectation. He grasped my hand with a nervous empressement, which alarmed me and strengthened the suspicions already entertained. His countenance was pale, even to ghastliness, and his deep-set 15 eyes glared with unnatural luster. After some inquiries respecting his health, I asked him, not knowing what better to say, if he had yet obtained the scarab&us from Lieuten- ant G- . "Oh, yes," he replied, coloring violently, "I got it from 20 him the next morning. Nothing should tempt me to part with that scarabceus. Do you know that Jupiter is quite right about it?" "In what way?" I asked, with a sad foreboding at heart. "In supposing it to be a bug of real gold" He said this 25 with an air of profound seriousness, and I felt inexpressibly shocked. "This bug is to make my fortune," he continued, with a triumphant smile, " to reinstate me in my family posses- sions. Is it any wonder, then, that I prize it? Since For- 30 tune has thought fit to bestow it upon me, I have only to use it properly and I shall arrive at the gold of which it is the index. Jupiter, bring me that scardbceus!" "What! de bug, massa? I'd rudder not go fer trubble dat bug you mus git him for your own self." Hereupon The Gold-Bug 97 Legrand arose, with a grave and stately air, and brought me the beetle from a glass case in which it was enclosed. It was a beautiful scarabceus, and, at that time, unknown to naturalists of course a great prize in a scientific point of view. There were two round, black spots near one 5 extremity of the back, and a long one near the other. The scales were exceedingly hard and glossy, with all the appearance of burnished gold. The weight of the insect was very remarkable, and, taking all things into considera- tion, I could hardly blame Jupiter for his opinion respecting 10 it; but what to make of Legrand's agreement with that opinion, I could not, for the life of me, tell. "I sent for you," said he, in a grandiloquent tone, when I had completed my examination of the beetle, "I sent for you, that I might have your counsel and assistance in 15 furthering the views of Fate and of the bug " "My dear Legrand," I cried, interrupting him, "you are certainly unwell, and had better use some little precautions. You shall go to bed, and I will remain with you a few days, until you get over this. You are feverish and " 20 "Feel my pulse," said he. I felt it, and to say the truth, found not the slightest indication of fever. "But you may be ill, and yet have no fever. Allow me this once to prescribe for you. In the first place, go to 25 bed. In the next "You are mistaken," he interposed. "I am as well as I can expect to be under the excitement which I suffer. If you really wish me well, you will relieve this excitement." "And how is this to be done?" 30 "Very easily. Jupiter and myself are going upon an expedition into the hills, upon the mainland, and, in this expedition, we shall need the aid of some person in whom we can confide. You are the only one we can trust. 98 Edgar Allan Poe Whether we succeed or fail, the excitement which you now perceive in me will be equally allayed." "I am anxious to oblige you in any way," I replied; "but do you mean to say that this infernal beetle has any S connection with your expedition into the hills?" "It has." "Then, Legrand, I can become a party to no such absurd proceeding." "I am sorry very sorry for we shall have to try it by 10 ourselves." "Try it by yourselves! The man is surely mad! but stay how long do you propose to be absent?" "Probably all night. We shall start immediately, and be back, at all events, by sunrise." 15 "And will you promise me, upon your honor, that when this freak of yours is over, and the bug business (good God!) settled to your satisfaction, you will then return home and follow my advice implicitly, as that of your physician?" 20 "Yes; I promise; and now let us be off, for we have no time to lose." With a heavy heart I accompanied my friend. We started about four o'clock Legrand, Jupiter, the dog, and myself. Jupiter had with him the scythe and spades 25 the whole of which he insisted upon carrying, more through fear, it seemed to me, of trusting either of the implements within reach of his master, than from any excess of industry or complaisance. His demeanor was dogged in the ex- treme, and "dat d d bug" were the sole words which 30 escaped his lips during the journey. For my own part, I had charge of a couple of dark lanterns, while Legrand contended himself with the scarabceus, which he carried attached to the end of a bit of whip-cord; twirling it to and fro, with the air of a conjurer, as he went. When I The Gold-Bug 99 observed this last, plain evidence of my friend's aberration of mind, I could scarcely refrain from tears. I thought it best, however, to humor his fancy, at least for the present, or until I could adopt some more energetic measures with a chance of success. In the mean time I endeavored, but 5 all in vain, to sound him in regard to the object of the expedition. Having succeeded in inducing me to accom- pany him, he seemed unwilling to hold conversation upon any topic of minor importance, and to all my questions vouchsafed no other reply than "we shall see!" 10 We crossed the creek at the head of the island by means of a skiff, and, ascending the high grounds on the shore of the mainland, proceeded in a northwesterly direction, through a tract of country excessively wild and desolate, where no trace of a human footstep was to be seen. Le- 15 grand led the way with decision; pausing only for an in- stant, here and there, to consult what appeared to be certain landmarks of his own contrivance upon a former carab(Eus, and that this skull, not only in outline, but in size, should so closely resemble my drawing. I say the 25 singularity of this coincidence absolutely stupefied me for a time. This is the usual effect of such coincidences. The mind struggles to establish a connection a sequence of cause and effect and, being unable to do so, suffers a species of temporary paralysis. But, when I recovered 30 from this stupor, there dawned upon me gradually a con- viction which startled me even far more than the coin- cidence. I began distinctly, positively, to remember that there had been no drawing on the parchment when I made H4 Edgar Allan Poe my sketch of the scarabczus. I became perfectly certain of this; for I recollected turning up first one side and then the other, in search of the cleanest spot. Had the skull been then there, of course I could not have failed to notice it. 5 Here was indeed a mystery which I felt it impossible to explain; but, even at that early moment, there seemed to glimmer, faintly, within the most remote and secret cham- bers of my intellect, a glow-worm-like conception of that truth which last night's adventure brought to so magnif- 10 icent a demonstration. I arose at once, and, putting the parchment securely away, dismissed all farther reflection until I should be alone. " When you had gone, and when Jupiter was fast asleep, I betook myself to a more methodical investigation of the 15 affair. In the first place I considered the manner in which the parchment had come into my possession. The spot where we discovered the scarabteus was on the coast of the mainland, about a mile eastward of the island, and but a short distance above high- water mark. Upon my taking 20 hold of it, it gave me a sharp bite, which caused me to let it drop. Jupiter, with his accustomed caution, before seizing the insect, which had flown towards him, looked about him for a leaf, or something of that nature, by which to take hold of it. It was at this moment that his eyes, and 25 mine also, fell upon the scrap of parchment, which I then supposed to be paper. It was lying half-buried in the sand, a corner sticking up. Near the spot where we found it, I observed the remnants of the hull of what appeared to have been a ship's long boat. The wreck seemed to have been 30 there for a very great while; for the resemblance to boat timbers could scarcely be traced. "Well, Jupiter picked up the parchment, wrapped the beetle in it, and gave it to me. Soon afterwards we turned to go home, and on the way met Lieutenant G . I The Gold-Bug 115 showed him the insect, and he begged me to let him take it to the fort. On my consenting, he thrust it forthwith into his waistcoat pocket, without the parchment in which it had been wrapped, and which I had continued to hold in my hand during his inspection. Perhaps he dreaded my 5 changing my mind, and thought it best to make sure of the Drize at once you know how enthusiastic he is on all sub- [ects connected with Natural History. At the same time, without being conscious of it, I must have deposited the parchment in my own pocket. 10 "You remember that when I went to the table, for the purpose of making a sketch of the beetle, I found no paper where it was usually kept. I looked in the drawer, and found none there. I searched my pockets, hoping to find an old letter, and then my hand fell upon the parchment. 15 thus detail the precise mode in which it came into my possession; for the circumstances impressed me with peculiar force. "No doubt you will think me fanciful but I had already established a kind of connection. I had put together two 20 links of a great chain. There was a boat lying on a sea- coast, and not far from the boat was a parchment not a paper with a skull depicted on it. You will, of course, ask 'where is the connection?' I reply that the skull, or death's-head, is the well-known emblem of the pirate. The 25 flag of the death's-head is hoisted in all engagements. "I have said that the scrap was parchment, and not paper. Parchment is durable almost imperishable. Mat- ters of little moment are raiely consigned to parchment; since, for the mere ordinary purposes of drawing or writ- 30 ing, it is not nearly so well adapted as paper. This reflec- tion suggested some meaning some relevancy in the death's-head. I did not fail to observe, also, the form of the parchment. Although one of its corners had been, by n6 Edgar Allan Poe some accident, destroyed, it could be seen that the original form was oblong. It was just such a slip, indeed, as might have been chosen for a memorandum for a record of some- thing to be long remembered and carefully preserved." 5 "But," I interposed, "you say that the skull was not upon the parchment when you made the drawing of the beetle. How then do you trace any connection between the boat and the skull since this latter, according to your own admission, must have been designed (God only knows 10 how or by whom) at some period subsequent to your sketching the scarabceus? " "Ah, hereupon turns the whole mystery; although the secret, at this point, I had comparatively little difficulty in solving. My steps were sure, and could afford but a 15 single result. I reasoned, for example, thus: When I drew the scarab&us, there was no skull apparent on the parch- ment. When I had completed the drawing I gave it to you, and observed you narrowly until you returned it. You, therefore, did not design the skull, and no one else 20 was present to do it. Then it was not done by human agency. And nevertheless it was done. "At this stage of my reflections I endeavored to remem- ber, and did remember, with entire distinctness, every in- cident which occurred about the period in question. The 25 weather was chilly (O rare and happy accident!), and a fire was blazing on the hearth. I was heated with exercise and sat near the table. You, however, had drawn a chair close to the chimney. Just as I placed the parchment in your hand, and as you were in the act of inspecting it, Wolf, the 30 Newfoundland, entered, and leaped upon your shoulders. With your left hand you caressed him and kept him off, while your right, holding the parchment, was permitted to fall listlessly between your knees, and in close proximity to the fire. At one moment I thought the blaze had caught The Gold-Bug 117 t, and was about to caution you, but, before I could speak, you had withdrawn it, and were engaged in its examina- tion. When I considered all these particulars, I doubted not for a moment that heat had been the agent in bringing to light, on the parchment, the skull which I saw designed 5 on it. You are well aware that chemical preparations exist, and have existed time out of mind, by means of which it is possible to write on either paper or vellum, so :hat the characters shall become visible only when sub- ected to the action of fire. Zaffre, digested in aqua regia, 10 and diluted with four times its weight of water, is some- times employed; a green tint results. The regulus of cobalt, dissolved in spirit of nitre, gives a red. These colors disappear at longer or shorter intervals after the material written upon cools, but again become apparent 15 upon the re-application of heat. "I now scrutinized the death's-head with care. Its outer edges the edges of the drawing nearest the edge of :he vellum were far more distinct than the others. It was clear that the action of the caloric had been imperfect or 20 unequal. I immediately kindled a fire, and subjected every portion of the parchment to a glowing heat. At first, the only effect was the strengthening of the faint lines in the skull ; but, on persevering in the experiment, there be- came visible at the corner of the slip, diagonally opposite 25 ;o the spot in which the death's-head was delineated, the figure of what I at first supposed to be a goat. A closer scrutiny, however, satisfied me that it was intended for a kid." "Ha! ha!" said I, "to be sure I have no right to laugh at 30 you a million and a half of money is too serious a matter for mirth but you are not about to establish a third link in your chain : you will not find any especial connection be- tween your pirates and a goat; pirates, you know, have u8 Edgar Allan Foe nothing to do with goats; they appertain to the farming interest." "But I have just said that the figure was not that of a goat." 5 "Well, a kid, then pretty much the same thing." "Pretty much, but not altogether," said Legrand. "You may have heard of one Captain Kidd. I at once looked on the figure of the animal as a kind of punning or hieroglyphical signature. I say signature; because i\s 10 position on the vellum suggested this idea. The death's- head at the corner diagonally opposite had, in the same manner, the air of a stamp, or seal. But I was sorely put out by the absence of all else of the body to my imagined instrument of the text for my context." 15 "I presume you expected to find a letter between the stamp and the signature." " Something of that kind. The fact is, I felt irresistibly impressed with a presentiment of some vast good fortune impending. I can scarcely say why. Perhaps, after all, 20 it was rather a desire than an actual belief; but do you know that Jupiter's silly words, about the bug being of solid gold, had a remarkable effect on my fancy? And then the series of accidents and coincidences these were so very extraordinary. Do you observe how mere an accident 25 it was that these events should have occurred on the sole day of all the year in which it has been, or may be, suffi- ciently cool for fire, and that without the fire, or without the intervention of the dog at the precise moment in which he appeared, I should never have become aware of the 30 death's-head, and so never the possessor of the treasure?" "But proceed I am all impatience." "Well; you have heard, of course, the many stories cur- rent the thousand vague rumors afloat about money buried ; somewhere on the Atlantic coast ; by Kidd and his The Gold-Bug 119 associates. These rumors must have had some foundation in fact. And that the rumors have existed so long and so continuously, could have resulted, it appeared to me, only from the circumstance of the buried treasure still remaining entombed. Had Kidd concealed his plunder for a time, 5 and afterwards reclaimed it, the rumors would scarcely have reached us in their present unvarying form. You will observe that the stories told are all about money-seekers, not about money-finders. Had the pirate recovered his money, there the affair would have dropped. It seemed to 10 me that some accident say the loss of a memorandum indicating its locality had deprived him of the means of recovering it, and that this accident had become known to his followers, who otherwise might never have heard that treasure had been concealed at all, and who, busying them- 15 selves in vain, because unguided, attempts to regain it, had given first birth, and then universal currency, to the reports which are now so common. Have you ever heard of any important treasure being unearthed along the coast?" "Never." 20 "But that Kidd's accumulations were immense is well known. I took it for granted, therefore, that the earth still held them; and you will scarcely be surprised when I tell you that I felt a hope, nearly amounting to certainty, that the parchment so strangely found involved a lost 25 record of the place of deposit." "But how did you proceed?" "I held the vellum again to the fire, after increasing the heat, but nothing appeared. I now thought it possible that the coating of dirt might have something to do with 30 the failure; so I carefully rinsed the parchment by pouring warm w r ater over it, and, having done this, I placed it in a tin pan, with the skull downwards, and put the pan upon a furnace of lighted charcoal. In a few minutes, the pan I2O Edgar Allan Poe having become thoroughly heated, I removed the slip, and, to my inexpressible joy, found it spotted, in several places, with what appeared to be figures arranged in lines. Again I placed it in the pan, and suffered it to remain another 5 minute. Upon taking it off, the whole was just as you see it now." Here Legrand, having reheated the parchment, sub- mitted it to my inspection. The following characters were rudely traced, in a red tint, between the death's-head and 10 the goat: 53t305))6*;4826)4.)4);8o6*; 4 8t8^6o))8s;;l8*;:t*8t83(88)5*t;46 15 "But," said I, returning him the slip, "I am as much in the dark as ever. Were all the jewels of Golconda awaiting me on my solution of this enigma, I am quite sure that I should be unable to earn them." "And yet," said Legrand, "the solution is by no means 20 so difficult as you might be led to imagine from the first hasty inspection of the characters. These characters, as any one might readily guess, form a cipher that is to say, they convey a meaning; but then, from what is known of Kidd, I could not suppose him capable of constructing 25 any of the more abstruse cryptographs. I made up my mind, at once, that this was of a simple species such, how r - ever, as would appear, to the crude intellect of the sailor, absolutely insoluble without the key." "And you really solved it?" 30 "Readily; I have solved others of an abstruseness ten thousand times greater. Circumstances, and a certain bias of mind, have led me to take interest in such riddles, and it may well be doubted whether human ingenuity can con- struct an enigma of the kind which human ingenuity may The Gold-Bug 121 not, by proper application, resolve. In fact, having once established connected and legible characters, I scarcely gave a thought to the mere difficulty of developing their import. "In the present case indeed in all cases of secret writ- 5 ing the first question regards the language of the cipher; for the principles of solution, so far, especially, as the more simple ciphers are concerned, depend on, and are varied by, the genius of the particular idiom. In general, there is no alternative but experiment (directed by probabilities) of 10 every tongue known to him who attempts the solution, until the true one be attained. But, with the cipher now before us, all difficulty is removed by the signature. The pun upon the word ' Kidd ' is appreciable in no other Ian- * guage than the English. But for this consideration I should 15 have begun my attempts with the Spanish and French, as the tongues in which a secret of this kind would most naturally have been written by a pirate of the Spanish main. As it was, I assumed the cryptograph to be English. "You observe there are no divisions between the words. 20 Had there been divisions, the task would have been com- paratively easy. In such case I should have commenced with a collation and analysis of the shorter words, and, had a word of a single letter occurred, as is most likely (a or I, for example), I should have considered the solution as 25 assured. But, there being no division, my first step was to ascertain the predominant letters, as well as the least frequent. Counting all, I constructed a table, thus: Of the character 8 there are 33 26 Of the character f i there are 8 4 t) 5 6 19 16 13 12 II O 9 2 =3 i 122 Edgar Allan Poe "Now, in English, the letter which most frequently occurs is e. Afterwards the succession runs thus: a o id h nrstuycfglmwbkpqxz. E predominates, how- ever, so remarkably that an individual sentence of any 5 length is rarely seen, in which it is not the prevailing character. "Here, then, we have, in the very beginning, the ground- work for something more than a mere guess. The general use which may be made of the table is obvious but, in 10 this particular cipher, we shall only very partially require its aid. As our predominant character is 8, we will com- mence by assuming it as the e of the natural alphabet. To verify the supposition, let us observe if the 8 be seen often in couples for e is doubled with great frequency in 15 English in such words, for example, as 'meet,' 'fleet/ 'speed,' 'seen,' 'been,' 'agree,' &c. In the present instance we see it doubled no less than five times, although the cryptograph is brief. "Let us assume 8, then, as e. Now, of all words in the 20 language, 'the' is most usual; let us see, therefore, whether there are not repetitions of any three characters, in the same order of collocation, the last of them being 8. If we discover repetitions of such letters, so arranged, they will most probably represent the word 'the.' On inspection, 25 we find no less than seven such arrangements, the char- acters being 548. We may, therefore, assume that the semicolon represents /, that 4 represents h, and that 8 represents e the last being now well confirmed. Thus a great step has been taken. 30 "But, having established a single word, we are enabled to establish a vastly important point; that is to say, several commencements and terminations of other words. Let us refer, for example, to the last instance but one, in which the combination 548 occurs not far from the end The Gold-Bug 123 of the cipher. We know that the semicolon immediately ensuing is the commencement of a word, and, of the six characters succeeding this 'the/ we are cognizant of no less than five. Let us set these characters down, thus, by the letters we know them to represent, leaving a space for 5 the unknown t eeth. "Here we are enabled, at once, to discard the 'tk,' as forming no portion of the word commencing with the first /; since, by experiment of the entire alphabet for a letter 10 adapted to the vacancy, we perceive that no word can be formed of which this th can be a part. We are thus nar- rowed into tee, and, going through the alphabet, if necessary, as before, 15 we arrive at the word 'tree' as the sole possible reading. We thus gain another letter, r, represented by (, with the words ' the tree ' in juxtaposition. "Looking beyond these words, for a short distance, we again see the combination 548, and employ it by way of 20 termination to what immediately precedes. We have thus this arrangement: the tree 54(^34 the, or, substituting the natural letters, where known, it reads thus: 25 the tree thr|?3h the. "Now, if, in place of the unknown characters, we leave blank spaces, or substitute dots, we read thus: the tree thr . . . h the, when the word 'through 1 makes itself evident at once. 30 But this discovery gives us three new letters, o, u, and g, represented by J ? and 3. "Looking now, narrowly, through the cipher for com- 124 Edgar Allan Poe binations of known characters, we find, not very far from the beginning this arrangement, or egree, which, plainly, is the conclusion of the word 'degree,' and 5 gives us another letter, d, represented by f. "Four letters beyond the word 'degree,' we perceive the combination 546(588* "Translating the known characters, and representing 10 the unknown by dots, as before, we read thus: th . rtee . an arrangement immediately suggestive of the word ' thirteen,' and again furnishing us with two new characters, i and n, represented by 6 and *. 15 "Referring, now, to the beginning of the cryptograph, we find the combination, "Translating, as before, we obtain M good, 20 which assures us that the first letter is A, and that the first two words are 'A good.' "To avoid confusion, it is now time that we arrange our key, as far as discovered, in a tabular form. It will stand thus: 5 represents a d e The Gold-Bug 125 "We have, therefore, no less than ten of the most im- portant letters represented, and it will be unnecessary to proceed with the details of the solution. I have said enough to convince you that ciphers of this nature are readily soluble, and to give you some insight into the 5 rationale of their development. But be assured that the specimen before us appertains to the very simplest species of cryptograph. It now only remains to give you the full translation of the characters upon the parchment, as un- riddled. Here it is: 10 "'A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's seat twenty one degrees and thirteen minutes north-east and by north main branch seventh limb 'east side shoot from the left eye of the death's-head a bee-line from the tree through the shot fifty feet out.'" 15 "But," said I, "the enigma seems still in as bad a condition as ever. How is it possible to extort a meaning from all this jargon about 'devil's seats,' 'death's-heads,' and 'bishop's hotels'?" "I confess," replied Legrand, "that the matter still 20 wears a serious aspect, when regarded with a casual glance. My first endeavor was to divide the sentence into the natural division intended by the cryptographist/' "You mean, to punctuate it?" "Something of that kind." 25 "But how was it possible to effect this?" "I reflected that it had been a point with the writer to run his words together without division, so as to increase the difficulty of solution. Now, a not over-acute man, in pursuing such an object, would be nearly certain to overdo 30 the matter. When, in the course of his composition, he arrived at a break in his subject which would naturally require a pause, or a point, he would be exceedingly apt 126 Edgar Allan Poe to run his characters, at this place, more than usually close together. If you will observe the MS., in the present in- stance, you will easily detect five such cases of unusual crowding. Acting on this hint, I made the division thus: 5 "'A good glass in the Bishop's hostel in the Devil's seat twenty-one degrees and thirteen minutes north-east and by north main branch seventh limb east side shoot from the left eye of the death's-head a bee-line from the tree through the shot fifty feet out.'" 10 "Even this division, "said I, "leaves me still in the dark." "It left me also in the dark," replied Legrand, "for a few days; during which I made diligent inquiry, in the neighborhood of Sullivan's Island, for any building which went by the name of the ' Bishop's Hotel; ' for, of course, I 15 dropped the obsolete word 'hostel.' Gaining no informa- tion on the subject, I was on the point of extending my sphere of search, and proceeding in a more systematic manner, when one morning it entered into my head, quite suddenly, that this Bishop's 'Hostel' might have some 20 reference to an old family, of the name of Bessop, which, time out of mind, had held possession of an ancient manor- house, about four miles to the northward of the island. I accordingly went over to the plantation, and reinstituted my inquiries among the older negroes of the place. At 25 length one of the most aged of the women said that she had heard of such a place as Bessop' s Castle, and thought that she could guide me to it, but that it was not a castle, nor a tavern, but a high rock. "I offered to pay her well for her trouble, and, after 30 some demur, she consented to accompany me to the spot. We found it without much difficulty, when, dismissing her, I proceeded to examine the place. The 'castle' con- sisted of an irregular assemblage of cliffs and rocks one The Gold-Bug 127 of the latter being quite remarkable for its height as well as for its insulated and artificial appearance. I clambered to its apex, and then felt much at a loss as to what should be next done. "While I was busied in reflection, my eyes fell on a 5 narrow ledge in the eastern face of the rock, perhaps a yard below the summit upon which I stood. This ledge pro- jected about eighteen inches, and was not more than a foot wide, while a niche in the cliff just above it gave it a rude resemblance to one of the hollow-backed chairs used 10 by our ancestors. I made no doubt that here was the 'devil's seat' alluded to in the MS., and now I seemed to grasp the full secret of the riddle. "The 'good glass,' I knew, could have reference to nothing but a telescope; for the word 'glass' is rarely em- 15 ployed in any other sense by seamen. Now here, I at once saw, was a telescope to be used, and a definite point of view, admitting no -variation, from which to use it. Nor did I hesitate to believe that the phrases, 'twenty-one degrees and thirteen minutes,' and 'north-east and by north,' 20 were intended as directions for the levelling of the glass. Greatly excited by these discoveries, I hurried home, pro- cured a telescope, and returned to the rock. "I let myself down to the ledge, and found that it was impossible to retain a seat on it unless in one particular 25 position. This fact confirmed my preconceived idea. I proceeded to use the glass. Of course, the ' twenty-one degrees and thirteen minutes' could allude to nothing but elevation above the visible horizon, since the horizontal direction was clearly indicated by the words, 'north-east 30 and by north.' This latter direction I at once established by means of a pocket-compass; then, pointing the glass as nearly at an angle of twenty-one degrees of elevation as I could do it by guess, I moved it cautiously up or down, 128 Edgar Allan Poe until my attention was arrested by a circular rift or opening in the foliage of a large tree that overtopped its fellows in the distance. In the center of this rift I perceived a white spot, but could not, at first, distinguish what it was. 5 Adjusting the focus of the telescope, I again looked, and now made it out to be a human skull. "On this discovery I was so sanguine as to consider the enigma solved; for the phrase 'main branch, seventh limb, east side/ could refer only to the position of the skull on the 10 tree, while 'shoot from the left eye of the death's-head' admitted, also, of but one interpretation, in regard to a search for buried treasure. I perceived that the design was to drop a bullet from the left eye of the skull, and that a bee-line, or, in other words, a straight line, drawn from 15 the nearest point of the trunk through 'the shot' (or the spot where the bullet fell), and thence extended to a dis- tance of fifty feet, would indicate a definite point and beneath this point I thought it at least possible that a deposit of value lay concealed." 20 "All this," I said "is exceedingly clear, and, although ingenious, still simple and explicit. When you left the Bishop's Hotel, what then?" "Why, having carefully taken the bearings of the tree, I turned homewards. The instant that I left 'the devil's 25 seat,' however, the circular rift vanished; nor could I get a glimpse of it afterwards, turn as I would. What seems to me the chief ingenuity in this whole business, is the fact (for repeated experiment has convinced me.it is a fact) that the circular opening in question is visible from no 30 other attainable point of view than that afforded by the narrow ledge on the face of the rock. "In this expedition to the 'Bishop's Hotel' I had been, attended by Jupiter, who had no doubt observed, for some ; weeks past, the abstraction of my demeanor, and took The Gold-Bug 129 especial care not to leave me alone. But on the next day, getting up very early, I contrived to give him the slip, and went into the hills in search of the tree. After much toil I found it. When I came home at night my valet proposed to give me a flogging. With the rest of the adventure I 5 believe you are as well acquainted as myself." "I suppose," said I, "you missed the spot, in the first attempt at digging, through Jupiter's stupidity in letting the bug fall through the right instead of through the left eye of the skull." 10 " Precisely. This mistake made a difference of about two inches and a half in the i shot ' that is to say, in the posi- tion of the peg nearest the tree; and had the treasure been beneath the 'shot/ the error would have been of little moment; but 'the shot/ together with the nearest point 15 of the tree, were merely two points for the establishment of a line of direction; of course the error, however trivial in the beginning, increased as we proceeded with the line, and, by the time we had gone fifty feet, threw us quite off the scent. But for my deep-seated convictions that treas- 20 lire was here somewhere actually buried, we might have had all our labor in vain." "I presume the fancy of the skull of letting fall a bullet through the skull's eye was suggested to Kidd by the piratical flag. No doubt he felt a kind of poetical 25 consistency in recovering his money through this ominous insignium." "Perhaps so; still, I cannot help thinking that common- sense had quite as much to do with the matter as poetical consistency. To be visible from the Devil's seat, it was 30 necessary that the object, if small, should be white; and there is nothing like your human skull for retaining and even increasing its whiteness under exposure to all vicis- situdes of weather." 130 Edgar Allan Poe "But your grandiloquence, and your conduct in swinging the beetle how excessively odd ! I was sure you were mad. And why did you insist on letting fall the bug, instead of a bullet, from the skull?" 5 "Why, to be frank, I felt somewhat annoyed by your evident suspicions touching my sanity, and so resolved to punish you quietly, in my own way, by a little bit of sober mystification. For this reason I swung the beetle, and for this reason I let it fall from the tree. An observation of 10 yours about its great weight suggested the latter idea." "Yes, I perceive; and now there is only one point which puzzles me. What are we to make of the skeletons found in the hole?" "That is a question I am no more able to answer than 15 yourself. There seems, however, only one plausible way of accounting for them and yet it is dreadful to believe in such atrocity as my suggestion would imply. It is clear that Kidd if Kidd indeed secreted this treasure, which I doubt not it is clear that he must have had assistance in 20 the labor. But, the worst of this labor concluded, he may have thought it expedient to remove all participants in his secret. Perhaps a couple of blows with a mattock were sufficient, while his coadjutors were busy in the pit; per- haps it required a dozen who shall tell?" THE SIGNAL-MAN By CHARLES DICKENS "HALLOA! Below there!" When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was stand- ing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short pole. One would have thought, considering the nature of the ground, that he could not have doubted 5 from what quarter the voice came; but instead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the steep cutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about, and looked down the Line. There was something remarkable in his manner of doing so t though I could not have said for my life what. 10 But I know it was remarkable enough to attract my notice, even though his figure was foreshortened and shadowed, down in the deep trench, and mine was high above him, so steeped in the glow of an angry sunset, that I had shaded my eyes with my hand before I saw him at all. 15 "Halloa! Below!" From looking down the Line, he turned himself about again, and, raising his eyes, saw my figure high above him. "Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to you? " 20 He looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at him without pressing him too soon with a repetition of my idle question. Just then there came a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly changing into a violent pulsa- tion, and an oncoming rush that caused me to start back, 25 as though it had force to draw me down. When such vapor as rose to my height from this rapid train had passed me, and was skimming away over the landscape, I looked down 131 132 Charles Dickens again, and saw him refurling the flag he had shown while the train went by. I repeated my inquiry. After a pause, during which he seemed to regard me with fixed attention, he motioned with 5 his rolled-up flag towards a point on my level, some two or three hundred yards distant. I called down to him, "All right ! " and made for that point. There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough zigzag descending path notched out, which I followed. 10 The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipi- tate. It was made through a clammy stone, that became oozier and wetter as I went down. For these reasons, I found the way long enough to give me time to recall a singular air of reluctance or compulsion with which he had 15 pointed out the path. When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to see him again, I saw that he was standing between the rails on the way by which the train had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were waiting for me to appear. He had 20 his left hand at his chin, and that left elbow rested on his right hand, crossed over his breast. His attitude was one of such expectation and watchfulness that I stopped a moment, wondering at it. I resumed my downward way, and stepping out upon the 25 level of the railroad, and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark sallow man, with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows. His post was in as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw. On either side, a dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky; the per- 30 spective one way only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier en- trance to a black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air. So The Signal-Man 133 little sunlight ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had left the natural world. Before he stirred, I was near enough to him to have 5 touched him. Not even then removing his eyes from mine, he stepped back one step, and lifted his hand. This was a lonesome post to occupy (I said), and it had riveted my attention when I looked down from up yonder. A visitor was a rarity, I should suppose; not an unwelcome 10 rarity, I hoped? In me, he merely saw a man who had been shut up within narrow limits all his life, and who, being at last set free, had a newly-awakened interest in these great works. To such purpose I spoke to him; but I am far from sure of the terms I used; for, besides that I 15 am not happy in opening any conversation, there was some- thing in the man that daunted me. He directed a most curious look towards the red light near the tunnel's mouth, and looked all about it, as if something were missing from it, and then looked at me. 20 That light was part of his charge? Was it not? He answered in a low voice, "Don't you know it is?" The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the fixed eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man. I have speculated since, whether there may 25 have been infection in his mind. In my turn, I stepped back. But in making the action, I detected in his eyes some latent fear of me. This put the monstrous thought to flight. "You look at me," I said, forcing a smile, "as if you had 30 a dread of me." "I was doubtful," he returned, "whether I had seen you before." Where?" 134 Charles Dickens He pointed to the red light he had looked at. " There? "I said. Intently watchful of me, he replied (but without sound), "Yes." 5 "My good fellow, what should I do there? However, be that as it may, I never was there, you may swear." "I think I may," he rejoined. " Yes; I am sure I may." His manner cleared, like my own. He replied to my re- marks with readiness, and in well-chosen words. Had he 10 much to do there? Yes; that was to say, he had enough responsibility to bear; but exactness and watchfulness were what was required of him, and of actual work manual labor he had next to none. To change that signal, to trim those lights, and to turn this iron handle now and then, 15 was all he had to do under that head. Regarding those many long and lonely hours of which I seemed to make so much, he could only say that the routine of his life had shaped itself into that form, and he had grown used to it. He had taught himself a language down here, if only to 20 know it by sight, and to have formed his own crude ideas of its pronunciation, could be called learning it. He had also worked at fractions and decimals, and tried a little algebra; but he was, and had been as a boy, a poor hand at figures. Was it necessary for him when on duty always 25 to remain in that channel of damp air, and could he never rise into the sunshine from between those high stone walls? Why, that depended upon times and circumstances. Un- der some conditions there would be less upon the Line than under others, and the same held good as to certain hours 30 of the day and night. In bright weather, he did choose occasions for getting a little above these lower shadows; but, being at all times liable to be called by his electric bell, and at such times listening for it with redoubled anx- iety, the relief was less than I would suppose. The Signal-Man 135 He took me into his box, where there was a fire, a desk for an official book in which he had to make certain entries, a telegraphic instrument with its dial, face, and needles, and the little bell of which he had spoken. On my trusting that he would excuse the remark that he had been well 5 educated, and (I hoped I might say without offence); per- haps educated above that station, he observed that in- stances of slight incongruity in such wise would rarely be found wanting among large bodies of men; that he had beard it was so in workhouses, in the police force, even in 10 that last desperate resource, the army; and that he knew it was so, more or less, in any great railway staff. He had been, when young (if I could believe it, sitting in that hut, he scarcely could), a student of natural philosophy, and had attended lectures; but he had run wild, misused 15 bis opportunities, gone down, and never risen again. He had no complaint to offer about that. He had made his bed, and he lay upon it. It was far too late to make an- other. All that I have here condensed he said in a quiet manner, 20 with his grave dark regards divided between me and the fire. He threw in the word, " Sir," from time to time, and especially when he referred to his youth, as though to request me to understand that he claimed to be nothing but what I found him. He was several times interrupted 25 by the little bell, and had to read off messages, and send replies. Once he had to stand without the door, and dis- play a flag as a train passed, and make some verbal com- munication to the driver. In the discharge of his duties, I observed him to be remarkably exact and vigilant, break- 30 ing off his discourse at a syllable, and remaining silent until what he had to do was done. In a word, I should have set this man down as one of the safest of men to be employed in that capacity, but for the 136 Charles Dickens circumstance that while he was speaking to me he twice broke off with a fallen color, turned his face towards the little bell when it did NOT ring, opened the door of the hut (which was kept shut to exclude the unhealthy damp), and 5 looked out towards the red light near the mouth of the tunnel. On both of those occasions, he came back to the fire with the inexplicable air upon him which I had re- marked, without being able to define, when we were so far asunder. 10 Said I, when I rose to leave him, "You almost make me think that I have met with a contented man." (I am afraid I must acknowledge that I said it to lead him on.) "I believe I used to be so," he rejoined, in the low voice 15 in which he had first spoken; "but I am troubled, Sir, I am troubled." He would have recalled the words if he could. He had said them, however, and I took them up quickly. "With what? What-is your trouble?" 20 "It is very difficult to impart, Sir. It is very, very diffi- cult to speak of. If ever you make me another visit, I will try to tell you." " But I expressly intend to make you another visit. Say, when shall it be?" 25 "1 go off early in the morning, and I shall be on again at ten to-morrow night, Sir." "I will come at eleven." He thanked me, and went out at the door with me. " I'll show my white light, Sir," he said, in his peculiar low voice, 30 "till you have found the way up. When you have found it, don't call out! And when you are at the top, don't call out!" His manner seemed to make the place strike colder to me, but I said no more than, "Very well," The Signal-Man 137 "And when you come down to-morrow night, don't call out ! Let me ask you a parting question. What made you cry, ' Halloa ! Below there ! ' to-night? " "Heaven knows," said I. "I cried something to that effect 5 "Not to that effect, Sir. Those were the very words. I know them well." "Admit those were the very words. I said them, no doubt, because I saw you below." "For no other reason?" 10 "What other reason could I possibly have?" "You had no feeling that they were conveyed to you in any supernatural way?" "No." He wished me good night, and held up his light. I 15 \valked by the side of the down Line of rails (with a very disagreeable sensation of a train coming behind me) until I found the path. It was easier to mount than to descend, and I got back to my inn without any adventure. Punctual to my appointment, I placed my foot on the 20 first notch of the zigzag next night, as the distant clocks were striking eleven. He was waiting for me at the bot- tom, with his white light on. "I have not called out," I said, when we came close together; "may I speak now?" "By all means, Sir." "Good night, then, and here's my 25 hand." "Good night, Sir, and here's mine." \Vith that we walked side by side to his box, entered it, closed the door, and sat down by the fire. "I have made up my mind, Sir," he began, bending for- ward as soon as we were seated, and speaking in a tone but 30 a little above a whisper, " that you shall not have to ask me twice what troubles me. I took you for some one else yesterday evening. That troubles me." "That mistake?"' 138 Charles Dickens "No. That some one else." " Who is it?" "I don't know." "Like me?" 5 "I don't know. I never saw the face. The left arm is across the face, and the right arm is waved, violently waved. This way." I followed his action with my eyes, and it was the action of an arm gesticulating, with the utmost passion and 10 vehemence, "For God's sake, clear the way!" "One moonlight night," said the man, "I was sitting here, when I heard a voice cry, 'Halloa! Below there!' I started up, looked from that door, and saw this Some one else standing by the red light near the tunnel, waving as 15 I just now showed you. The voice seemed hoarse with shouting, and it cried, 'Look out! Look out!' And then again, 'Halloa! Below there! Look outP I caught up my lamp, turned it on red, and ran towards the figure, call- ing, 'What's wrong? What has happened? Where?' It 20 stood just outside the blackness of the tunnel. I advanced so close upon it that I wondered at its keeping the sleeve across its' eyes. I ran right up at it, and had my hand stretched out to pull the sleeve away, when it was gone." 25 " Into the tunnel? " said I. "No. I ran on into the tunnel, five hundred yards. I stopped, and held my lamp above my head, and saw the figures of the measured distance, and saw the wet stains stealing down the walls and trickling through the arch. I 30 ran out again faster than I had run in (for I had a mortal abhorrence of the place upon me), and I looked all round the red light with my own red light, and I went up the iron ladder to the gallery atop of it, and I came down again, and ran back here. I telegraphed both ways. 'An alarm has The Signal-Man 139 been given. Is anything wrong? ' The answer came back, both ways, 'All well."' Resisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine, I showed him how that this figure must be a de- ception of his sense of sight; and how that figures, originat- 5 ing in disease of the delicate nerves that minister to the functions of the eye, were known to have often troubled patients, some of whom had become conscious of the nature of their affliction, and had even proved it by experiments upon themselves. "As to an imaginary cry," said I, "do 10 but listen for a moment to the wind in this unnatural val- ley while we speak so low, and to the wild harp it makes of the telegraph wires." That was all very well, he returned, after we had sat listening for a while, and he ought to know something of 15 the wind and the wires, he who so often passed long win- ter nights there, alone and watching. But he would beg to remark that he had not finished. I asked his pardon, and he slowly added these words, touching my arm, 20 "Within six hours after the Appearance, the memorable accident on this Line happened, and within ten hours the dead and wounded were brought along through the tunnel over the spot where the figure had stood." A disagreeable shudder crept over me, but I did my best 25 against it. It was not to be denied, I rejoined, that this was a remarkable coincidence, calculated deeply to impress his mind. But it was unquestionable that remarkable coincidences did continually occur, and they must be taken into account in dealing with such a subject. Though to be 30 sure I must admit, I added (for I thought I saw that he was going to bring the objection to bear upon me), men of common sense did not allow much for coincidences in making the ordinary calculations of life. 140 Charles Dickens He again begged to remark that he had not finished. I again begged his pardon for being betrayed into in- terruptions. " This," he said, again laying his hand upon my arm, and 5 glancing over his shoulder with hollow eyes, "was just a year ago. Six or seven months passed, and I had recovered from the surprise and shock, when one morning, as the day was breaking, I, standing at the door, looked towards the red light, and saw the specter again." He stopped, with a 10 fixed look at me. "Did it cry out?" "No. It was silent." "Did it wave its arm?" "No. It leaned against the shaft of the light, with both 15 hands before the face. Like this." Once more I followed his action with my eyes. It was an action of mourning. I have seen such an attitude in stone figures on tombs. "Did you go up to it?" 20 "I came in and sat down, partly to collect my thoughts, partly because it had turned me faint. When I went to the door again, daylight was above me, and the ghost was gone." "But nothing followed? Nothing came of this?" 25 He touched me on the arm with his forefinger twice or thrice, giving a ghastly nod each time: "That very day, as a train came out of the tunnel, I noticed, at a carriage window on my side, what looked like a confusion of hands and heads, and something waved. I 30 saw it just in time to signal the driver, Stop ! He shut off, and put his brake on, but the train drifted past here a hun- dred and fifty yards or more. I ran after it, and, as I went along, heard terrible screams and cries. A beautiful young lady had died instantaneously in one of the compartments, The Signal-Man 141 and was brought in here, and laid down on this floor be- tween us." Involuntarily I pushed my chair back, as I looked from the boards at which he pointed to himself. "True, Sir. True. Precisely as it happened, so I tell it 5 you." I could think of nothing to say, to any purpose, and my mouth was very dry. The wind and the wires took up the story with a long lamenting wail. He resumed. "Now, Sir, mark this, and judge how my 10 mind is troubled. The specter came back a week ago. Ever since, it has been there, now and again, by fits and starts." "At the light?" "At the Danger-light." 15 "What does it seem to do?" He repeated, if possible with increased passion and vehemence, that former gesticulation of "For God's sake, clear the way!" Then he went on. "I have no peace or rest for it. It 20 calls to me, for many minutes together, in an agonised manner, 'Below there! Look out! Look out!' It stands waving to me. It rings my little bell I caught at that. " Did it ring your bell yesterday even- ing when I was here, and you went to the door? " 25 "Twice." "Why, see," said I, "how your imagination misleads you. My eyes were on the bell, and my ears were open to the bell, and if I am a living man, it did NOT ring at those times. No, nor at any other time, except when it was rung 30 in the natural course of physical things by the station com- municating with you." He shook his head. " I have never made a mistake as to that yet, Sir. I have never confused the specter's ring 142 Charles Dickens with the man's. The ghost's ring is a strange vibration in the bell that it derives from nothing else, and I have not asserted that the bell stirs to the eye. I don't wonder that you failed to hear it. But / heard it." 5 "And did the specter seem to be there, when you looked out?" "It WAS there." "Both times?" He repeated firmly: "Both times." 10 "Will you come to the door with me, and look for it now?" He bit his under lip as though he were somewhat un- willing, but arose. I opened the door, and stood on the step, while he stood in the doorway. There was the 15 Danger-light. There was the dismal mouth of the tunnel. There were the high, wet stone walls of the cutting. There were the stars above them. "Do you see it?" I asked him, taking particular note of his face. His eyes were prominent and strained, but not 20 very much more so, perhaps, than my own had been when I had directed them earnestly towards the same spot, "No," he answered. "It is not there." "Agreed," said I. We went in again, shut the door, and resumed our seats. 25 I was thinking how best to improve this advantage, if it might be called one, when he took up the conversation in such a matter-of-course way, so assuming that there could be no serious question of fact between us, that I felt myself placed in the weakest of positions. 30 "By this time you will fully understand, Sir," he said, " that what troubles me so dreadfully is the question, What does the specter mean?" I was not sure, I told him, that I did fully understand. "What is its warning against? " he said, ruminating, with The Signal-Man 143 his eyes on the fire, and only by times turning them on me. "What is the danger? Where is the danger? There is danger overhanging somewhere on the Line. Some dread- ful calamity will happen. It is not to be doubted this third time, after what has gone before. But surely this is a 5 cruel haunting of me. What can / do? " He pulled out his handkerchief, and wiped the drops from his heated forehead. "If I telegraph Danger, on either side of me, or on both, I can give no reason for it," he went on, wiping the palms 10 of his hands. "I should get into trouble, and do no good. They would think I was mad. This is the way it would work, Message: 'Danger! Take care!' Answer: 'What Danger? Where?' Message: 'Don't know. But, for God's sake, take care!' They would displace me. What 15 else could they do? " His pain of mind was most pitiable to see. It w r as the mental torture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond endurance by an unintelligible responsibility involving life. 20 "When it first stood under the Danger-light," he went on, putting his dark hair back from his head, and drawing his hands outward across and across his temples in an ex- tremity of feverish distress, "why not tell me where that accident was to happen, if it must happen? Why not 25 tell me how it could be averted, if it could have been averted? When on its second coming it hid its face, why not tell me, instead, ' She is going to die. Let them keep her at home? ' If it came, on those two occasions, only to show me that its warnings were true, and so to prepare me for - O o the third, why not warn me plainly now? And I, Lord help me! A mere poor signal-man on this solitary station! Why not go to somebody with credit to be believed, and power to act? " 144 Charles Dickens When I saw him in this state, I saw that for the poor man's sake, as well as for the public safety, what I had to do for the time was to compose his mind. Therefore, set- ting aside all question of reality or unreality between us, I 5 represented to him that whoever thoroughly discharged his duty must do well, and that at least it was his comfort that he understood his duty, though he did not understand these confounding Appearances. In this effort I succeeded far better than in the attempt to reason him out of his 10 conviction. He became calm; the occupations incidental to his post as the night advanced began to make larger demands on his attention: and I left him at two in the morning. I had offered to stay through the night, but he would not hear of it. 15 That I more than once looked back at the red light as I ascended the pathway, that I did not like the red light, and that I should have slept but poorly if my bed had been under it, I see no reason to conceal. Nor did I like the two sequences of the accident and the dead girl. I see no rea- 20 son to conceal that either. But what ran most in my thoughts was the considera- tion how ought I to act, having become the recipient of this disclosure? I had proved the man to be intelligent vigilant, painstaking, and exact; but how long might he 25 remain so, in his state of mind? Though in a subordinate position, still he' held a most important trust, and would ] (for instance) like to stake my own life on the chances ol his continuing to execute it with precision? Unable to overcome a feeling that there would be some- 30 thing treacherous in my communicating what he had tolc me to his superiors in the Company, without first bein^ plain with himself and proposing a middle course to him I ultimately resolved to offer to accompany him (otherwis* keeping his secret for the present) to the wisest medica- The Signal-Man 145 practitioner we could hear of in those parts, and to take iiis opinion. A change in his time of duty would come round next night, he had apprised me, and he would be off an hour or two after sunrise, and on again soon after sunset. I had appointed to return accordingly. 5 Next evening was a lovely evening, and I walked out early to enjoy it. The sun was not yet quite down when I traversed the field-path near the top of the deep cutting. I would extend my walk for an hour, I said to myself, half an hour on and half an hour back, and it would then be 10 time to go to my signal-man's box. Before pursuing my stroll, I stepped to the brink, and mechanically looked down, from the point from which I bad first seen him. I cannot describe the thrill that seized upon me, when, close at the mouth of the tunnel, I saw 15 the appearance of a man, with his left sleeve across his eyes, passionately waving his right arm. The nameless horror that oppressed me passed in a moment, for in a moment I saw that this appearance of a man was a man indeed, and that there was a little group 20 of other men, standing at a short distance, to whom he seemed to be rehearsing the gesture he made. The Danger-light was not yet lighted. Against its shaft, a little [ow hut, entirely new to me, had been made of some wooden supports and tarpaulin. It looked no bigger than 25 abed. With an irresistible sense that something was wrong, with a flashing self -reproachful fear that fatal mischief had come of my leaving the man there, and causing no one to be sent to overlook or correct what he did, I descended 30 the notched path with all the speed I could make. "What is the matter?" I asked the men. " Signal-man killed this morning, Sir." "Not the man belonging to that box?" 146 Charles Dickens "Yes, Sir." "Not the man I know?" "You will recognize him, Sir, if you knew him," said the man who spoke for the others, solemnly uncovering his 5 own head, and raising an end of the tarpaulin, "for his face is quite composed." "O, how did this happen, how did this happen?" I asked, turning from one to another as the hut closed in again. 10 "He was cut down by an engine, Sir. No man in Eng- land knew his work better. But somehow he was not clear of the outer rail. It was just at broad day. He had struck the light, and had the lamp in his hand. As the engine came out of the tunnel, his back was towards her, and she 15 cut him down. That man drove her, and was showing how it happened. Show the gentleman, Tom." The man, who wore a rough dark dress, stepped back to his former place at the mouth of the tunnel. "Coming round the curve in the tunnel, Sir," he said, 20 "I saw him at the end, like as if I saw him down a per- spective-glass. There was no time to check speed, and I knew him to be very careful. As he didn't seem to take heed of the whistle, I shut it off when we were running down upon him, and called to him as loud as I could call." 25 "What did you say?" "I said, 'Below there! Look out! Look out! For God's sake, clear the way!'" I started. "Ah! it was a dreadful time, Sir. I never left off calling 30 to him. I put this arm before my eyes not to see, and I waved this arm to the last; but it was no use." Without prolonging the narrative to dwell on any one of its curious circumstances more than on any other, I The Signal-Man 147 may, in closing it, point out the coincidence that the warn- ing of the Engine-Driver included, not only the words which the unfortunate Signal-man had repeated to me as haunting him, but also the words which I myself not he had attached, and that only in my own mind, to the gestic- ulation he had imitated. 10 THE LADY, OR THE TIGER? 1 By FRANK STOCKTON IN the very king, whese-kU olden time, there lived a semi-barbaric t ^polished jand sharp- ened by the progressiveness of distant Latin neighbors, wofe^sfiiOarge, flodd, and untrammeled, as became the half of him which Was bmbtfxjch lie was a man of e^iber- Mrtrfan^randrwithal ot'an^lfctberity-^irT^ s- varied iaircies-irrte-JaetsT He was greatly given to self-communing; and, when he and him- selfagreA_Jipoa~anyJ:hmg, the thing was ^2ne. When everymember of his domestic" and" political systems moved smoothly in its /appointed course, his nature was bland and geniajjmU^hen^veV.thefe was a little hitch, and some of ruVotBs?gbt ou;t of the\r/6rbits, he was blander and more genialstityfor nothing pleased him so much as to make the S'--ertj5oKed str^gfa^|nd^rusb^h^^ U Among" the borrowed notions~W~which his barbarism rhad^bccomG Domificd^ \Va^ A ~iha/frCT tnV public arena, M I w^ikVby ^hibitioi^ .uf mwly at*d beastly -^afor, -the I minHr nfhin rnV.jnntn mnrn rnfir.^ q nr | ^ItnrPii. 20 But even here the exuberant and barbaric fancy sertjcd itself. The arena of the king was builU not to the people an opportunity arband~Df-c]j.oristers, anq dancing maidens blowing joyous airs on golden horns treading an epithalamic/fne^sure, advanced to where am the pair stood, side by side;jind trie wedding was^promptly and] cheerily solemnized. TThen/the gay brasS bells rang 20 fortji their merry peals, the people shouted glad hurrahs, and/ the innocent man, preceded by children strgwjng "oi ThisN^as the king's semi-barbaric method of admin- istering jiitice. Its perfect fairness is obvious. The 25 criminal could not know out of wbich door would come the lady: he opened either he/pleased, without having the slightest idea Vhether, in/fefie next instant, he was to be devoured or marriecL Op 'some occasions the tiger came out of one door, and o)*\some out of the other. The deci- 30 sions of this tribunal wefre not only fair, they were pos- itively determinate: the accused person was instantly pun- ished if he found himself guiltyland, if innocent, he was rewarded on the spot, whether necked it or not. There was no escape from the judgments of the king'^ arena. The Lady, or the Tiger? 151 The institution was a very popular one. When the people gathered together on one of the great trial days, ^ they neverNknew whether they were to witness a bloed^T slaughter or\ hilarious wedding. This elernentof un- certainty lent ahsjnterect to the occasion .which it could not 5 otherwise have abamed. Thus, the masses were enter- tained and pleased, and tjie thinking part of the com- munity could bring no^^arge of unfairness against this plan; for did not the accused person have the whole matter in his-owiTliands? \ 10 This semi-barbaric king had a daughter as blooming as > hid inujl fluritrtuiucs, and ivilli d buUl aa feivenl and -> imperious as mVowrt. As is usual in cuch cacec, she was the apple of his eye, and was loved by him above all humanity. Among his courtiers was a young man of that fineness of i blood and lowness of station common to the conventional heroes of romance who love royal maidens. ThisTTsyal maife-*ss-^^ ffave-to-a^degree unsurpassed in -all -this king; hr ImTTt-rmn yrith Tin nrrlnr tV>nf haH P^nmrh^ in it fn rnaV^ i> p-g This love affair moved on happily for many months, until one day the king happened to discover its existence. He dte-B&t hooitatc nor waver in regard to hip duty inHfe^ prcmoci "The youth was immediately cast into prison, 25! and a day was appointed for his trial in the king's arena. ThJsrt^oareSrwas-aa^sperially importaa^eetaaiun, ciiid hisj^aj^sly., aj ^dl ^ all OIL piupli, \\u.^ greatly interested ., in tho ^Trridngs and JevelopmeiiL uf this tiial. Never"' ^ TEe dau te*&^*v^^ "hr-nrrsUglit-dcgroc, nuvtl and blgrtlmg.'~ f nr IS 2 Frank Stockton mostWvage and relentless beasts, from which the fiercest monster might be selected for the arena; and the ranks of maiden youth and beauty throughout the land were carefully surveyed by competent judges, in order that the 5 young man might have a fitting bride in case fate did not determine for Him a different destiny. Of course, every- body knew that, the deed mth which the accused was charged had been done, tjte had loved the princess, and neither he, she, norvany/one else thought of denying the 10 fact; but the king wjjmd not think of allowing any fact of this kind to interfere with the workings of the tribunal, in which he took such .great delight and satisfaction. No matter how^ the affair turned out, the youth would be disposed off and the king would take an aesthetic pleasure 15 in watemng the course of events, which would determine whether or not the young man tia,d done wrong in allowing / himself to love the princess. \^ The appointed day arrived. From -far and ireaE-4hg nnrj ^rQj^yArj ffr^ rffl.t .llfTlVs of the 20 ai ibh massed fateftdrpgrtalspSt uppusil- torriblL in tilth 1 ju All was ifeadyr- . Jhe signal was given. A door beneath 25 the royal party opened, and the lover-et~fc3ifiDrincess walked ip tc the arena. Tall, beautiful, fair, hisappear- ance wa^s ^ reeted with a low hum of admiration^nd anxiety: Half the audience had not known so grand, a youthhadkyed among them. No wonder the princess As the youth advanced into the arena, he turned, as the custom was, to bow to the king: but he did not think at all of that royal personage; his eyes were fixed upon the princess, who sat to the right of her father. The Lady, or the Tiger? 153 been for the moiety of barbari able that lady woirftNiot have; and fervid souJ/wouloVVxft all occasion in w. moment that the deer should decide his fate i of nothing, night or ^ay, hut various subjects connected wi power, influence, ano/fonze of had >ever before %e/ux interest done wkat_no_other person ha herseM-ef the secret of the .door in her nattffe^it is prob- there; but h< to be absent on ly interested. Fi >ne forth, that 's arena, she Ijan though! this great event and :h it. Possessed of moi Laraeterthan any one wh( 1 in such a case, she had 10 done, she had possessed She knew in which of the two rooms, that lay behind those doors, stood the cage of the tiger, with its open front, andjn L which_waitedJ:he lady. Tfemgir thtsc thick dor^Tiea^^^curtafaedJwitii sJaits\ 1 5 on tie insid< , it was impossible that any noise or suggestion from withih to tnfe person/^ly should ap- ise tHe latch (ojr one iHhem;^ut gold, and the will, had brought the secret to the . - not only did she know in which room stood the lady ready to emerge, all blushing and radiant, should her door be opened, but she knew who the lady was. It was one of the fairest and loveliest of the damsels of the court who had been selected as the reward of the accused youth, 25 should he be proved innocent of the crime of aspiringto one so far above him; and the princess hated hen .had she--seef^i3i^nragmeU4haJ 1 ^^ creature throwing glances of admiration upon the person o her- lover, anoTfejs^imes she thought these glancis V ere 3 perceived and even returned. Now and then she had seen them talking togetHerYit wasjiife for a moment or tj^o, but much can be said in a brief-space; it may have beenxrn most unimportant topics, but how could she know 154 Frank Stockton had daredjxu^aise faei eyes the loved one of the princess; and, with all the intensity tha savage blood transmitted to her through long lines wlolly barbaric ancestors, she hated_the_j*--eni"an who and UeiiibletH^ehiad that sil len her lover turned and looked at her, irfei h'Pl's S"i "hn nnt thorn pnlrr and wlr tpr thi nmnniin fnrnn oV>rmt that p pt he S&W, -by^ uc p on e 1 that she knew behind which door crouched the tiger, and behind which stood the lady. VnH pTrprrtodJaor to-knowotA H and his soul was assured that she would never rest until she had made plain to herself this thing, hidden to all other 1 5 lookers-on, even to the king. JphetBily hope for the youth in which there waande based 5T the success oTtrTe prmcessTn discovering this mys- ry; and the moment he looked iirjonjier, he saw she succeetR^aTas in his soul he knew she would sue- Then it was that his .quick and anxious glance asked the question: " Which?"! Ir-W errfirWi -Xhcrc w __ istion was asked in a flash; it must be 25 answered in another. Her right arm lay on the cushioned parapet before her. She raised her hand, and made a slight, quick movement toward the right. No one but her lover saw her. eye but his wfls-fiYpd nn the mnn in the are*^ 30 He turned, and with a firm and rapid step he walked across the empty space. Every heart stopped beating, every breath was held, every eye was fixed immovably upon that man. Without the slightest hesitation, he went to the door on the right, and opened it. The Lady, or the Tiger? 155 Now, the point of the story is this: Did the tiger come out of that door, or did the lady? is r. w Rie more we~reflect upon this question, the harder it It involves a study of tn\ human heart us through devious ma^es of cult to fincLour way. Thi 151011 of line question d v i / i i / .1 ^*""*>-%^i V /i i t i^^\ se^i, but upon her soul at a wTul;e~tea1r^beiiath the" co despair and jealousy. She had tve hun?_ r^oftem-'in her waking hours and in her dreams, had she started in wild horror, and covered her face with her hands as she thought of her lover opening the door, on the other side of which waited the cruel fangs of the 15 tiger! But how much oftener had she seen him at the other but who si door! Eh had-sfe when she saw his alai't of iapLuious ~^ deligkfe-as h^ppened-the-door of the ladyl How her soul 20 had burned in agony when she had seen him rush to meet that woman, with her flushing cheek and sparkling eye of triumph; when she had seen him lead her forth, his whole frame kindled with the joy of recovered life; when she had heard the glad shouts from the multitude, and 25 the wild ringing of the happy bells; when she had seen the priest, with his joyous followers, advance to the couple, and make them man and wife before her very eyes; and when she had seen them walk away together upon their path of flowers, followed by the tremendous shouts of the 30 hilarious multitude, in which her one despairing shriek was lost and drowned! Would it not be better for him to die at once, and go to wait for her in the blessed regions of semi-barbaric futurity? 156 Frank Stockton And yet, that awful tiger, those shrieks, that blood! HeE-4eeisTDB had boon indicated in an inctairtrbtrtrirfaad- bee*ro4e-ate^dftye-pci'soii able to anawcc-it^ And so I leave it he I T ik^^ 10 with all of you: Which came out of lady, or the tiger? opened door, the THE THREE STRANGERS By THOMAS HARDY AMONG the few features of agricultural England which retain an appearance but little modified by the lapse of centuries, may be reckoned the high, grassy and furzy downs, coombs, or ewe-leases, as they are indifferently called, that fill a large area < f certain counties iri the south 5 and south-west. If any mark of human occupation is met with hereon, it usually takes the form of the solitary cot- tage of some shepherd. Fifty years ago such a lonely cottage stood on such a down, and may possibly be standing there now. In spite * ( of its loneliness, however, the spot, by actual measurement ; was not more than five miles from a county-town. Y^^.~> that affected it little. Five miles of irregular upland dur- ing the long inimical seasons, with their slee^, snows, rains, and mists, afford withdrawing space enough to isolate a 15 Timon or a Nebuchadnezzar; much less, in fair weather, to please that less repellent tribe, the poets, philosophers; artists, and others who " conceive and meditate of pleasant things." Some old earthen camp or barrow, some clump of trees, 20 at least some starved fragment of ancient hedge is usually taken advantage of in the erection of these forlorn dwell- v , ings. But, in the present case, such a kind of shelter*had been disregarded. Higher Crowstairs, as the house was called, stood quite detached and undefended. The only 25 reason for its precise situation seemed to be the crossing of two footpaths at right angles hard by, which may have crossed there and thus for a good five hundred years. , though the wind up here blew unmistakably wnen it )low, and the rain hit hard whenever it fell, the vari- weathers of the winter season were not quite so for- I/ible on the coomb as they were imagined to be by lers on low ground. The raw rimes were not so per- ,jus as in the hollows, and the frosts were scarcely so re. When the shepherd and his family who tenanted louse were pitied for their sufferings from the exposure, said that upon the whole they were less inconvenienced wuzzes and flames " (hoarses and phlegms) than when had lived by the stream of a snug neighboring valley. The night of March 28, 182-, was precisely one of the ts that were wont to call forth these expressions of nmiseration. The level rainstorm smote walls, slopes, hedges like the clothyard shafts of Senlac and Crecy. i sheep and outdoor animals as had no shelter stood i their buttocks to the winds; while the tails of little s trying to roost on some scraggy thorn were blown ' : de-oil l like umbrellas. The gable-end of the cottage stained with wet, and the eavesdroppings flapped nst the wall. Yet never was commiseration for the : )herd more misplaced. For that cheerful rustic was staining a large party in glorification of the christen- y of his second girl. /he guests had arrived before the rain began to fall, and y were all now assembled in the chief or living room of dwelling. A glance into the apartment at eight o'clock this eventful evening would have resulted in the opin- that it was as cosy and comfortable a nook as could be i -hod for in boisterous weather. The calling of its in- stant was proclaimed by a number of highly-polished Kep-crooks without stems that were hung ornamentally r the fireplace, 'the curl of each shining crook varying The Three Strangers 159 from the antiquated type engraved in the patriarchal pictures of old family Bibles to the most approved fashion of the last local sheep-fair. The room was lighted by half-a-dozen candles, having wicks only a trifle smaller than the grease which enveloped them, in candlesticks 5 that were never used but at high-days, holy-days and fam- ily feasts. The lights were scattered about the room, two of them standing on the chimney-piece. This position of candles was in itself significant Candles on the chimney- piece always meant a party. 10 On the hearth, in front of a back-brand to give substance, blazed a fire of thorns, that crackled "like the laughter of the fool." Nineteen persons were gathered here. Of these, five women, wearing gowns of various bright hues, sat in chairs 15 along the wall; girls shy and not shy filled the window- bench; four men, including Charley Jake the hedge- carpenter, Elijah New the parish-clerk, and John Pitcher, a neighboring dairyman, the shepherd's father-in-law, lolled in the settle; a young man and maid, who were blush- 20 ing over tentative pourparlers on a life-companionship, sat beneath the corner-cupboard; and an elderly engaged man of fifty or upward moved restlessly about from spots where his betrothed was not to the spot where she was. Enjoy- ment was pretty general, and so much the more prevailed 25 in being unhampered by conventional restrictions. Abso- lute confidence in each other's good opinion begat perfect ease, while the finishing stroke of manner, amounting to a truly princely serenity, was lent to the majority by the absence of any expression or trait denoting that they 30 wished to get on in the world, enlarge their minds, or do any eclipsing thing whatever which nowadays so gen- erally nips the bloom and bonhomie of all except the two extremes of the social scale. 160 Thomas Hardy Shepherd Fennel had married well, his wife being a dairyman's daughter from a vale at a distance, who brought fifty guineas in her pocket and kept them there, till they should be required for ministering to the needs of a coming 5 family. This frugal woman had been somewhat exercised as to the character that should be given to the gathering. A sit-still party had its advantages; but an undisturbed position of ease in chairs and settles was apt to lead on the men to such an unconscionable deal of toping that they 10 would sometimes fairly drink the house dry. A dancing- party was the alternative; but this, while avoiding the foregoing objection on the score of good drink, had a counterbalancing disadvantage in the matter of good victuals, the ravenous appetites engendered by the exercise 15 causing immense havoc in the buttery. Shepherdess Fennel fell back upon the intermediate plan of mingling short dances with short periods of talk and singing, so as to hinder any ungovernable rage in either. But this scheme was entirely confined to her own gentle mind: the 20 shepherd himself was in the mood to exhibit the most reckless phases of hospitality. The fiddler was a boy of those parts, about twelve years of age, who had a wonderful dexterity in jigs and reels, though his fingers were so small and short as to necessitate 25 a constant shifting for the high notes, from which he scrambled back to the first position with sounds not of unmixed purity of tone. At seven the shrill tweedle-dee of this youngster had begun, accompanied by a booming ground-bass from Elijah New, the parish-clerk, who had 30 thoughtfully brought with him his favorite musical instru- ment, the serpent. Dancing was instantaneous, Mrs. Fen- nel privately enjoining the players on no account to let the dance exceed the length of a quarter of an hour. But Elijah and the boy, in the excitement of their posi- The Three Strangers 161 tion, quite forgot the injunction. Moreover, Oliver Giles, a man of seventeen, one of the dancers, who was enamored of his partner, a fair girl of thirty-three rolling years, had recklessly handed a new crown-piece to the musicians, as a bribe to keep going as long as they had muscle and wind. 5 Mrs. Fennel, seeing the steam begin to generate on the countenances of her guests, crossed over and touched the fiddler's elbow and put her hand on the serpent's mouth. But they took no notice, and fearing she might lose her character of genial hostess if she were to interfere too 10 markedly, she retired and sat down helpless. And so the dance whizzed on with cumulative fury, the performers moving in their planet-like courses, direct and retrograde, from apogee to perigee, till the hand of the well-kicked clock at the bottom of the room had traveled over the cir- 15 cumference of an hour. While these cheerful events were in course of enactment within Fennel's pastoral dwelling, an incident having con- siderable bearing on the party had occurred in the gloomy night without. Mrs. Fennel's concern about the growing 20 fierceness of the dance corresponded in point of time with the ascent of a human figure to the solitary hill of Higher Crowstairs from the direction of the distant town. This personage strode on through the rain without a pause, fol- lowing the little-worn path which, further on in its course, 25 skirted the shepherd's cottage. It was nearly the time of full moon, and on this account, though the sky was lined with a uniform sheet of dripping cloud, ordinary objects out of doors were readily visible. The sad wan light revealed the lonely pedestrian to be a 30 man of supple frame ; his gait suggested that he had some- what passed the period of perfect and instinctive agility, though not so far as to be otherwise than rapid of motion when occasion required. At a rough guess, he might have 1 62 Thomas Hardy been about forty years of age. He appeared tall, but a recruiting sergeant, or other person accustomed to the judging of men's heights by the eye, would have discerned that this was chiefly owing to his gauntness, and that he 5 was not more than five-feet-eight or nine. Notwithstanding the regularity of his tread, there was caution in it, as in that of one who mentally feels his way; and despite the fact that it was not a black coat nor a dark garment of any sort that he wore, there was something 10 about him which suggested that he naturally belonged to the black-coated tribes of men. His clothes were of fustian, and his boots hobnailed, yet in his progress he showed not the mud-accustomed bearing of hobnailed and fustianed peasantry. 15 By the time that he had arrived abreast of the shep- herd's premises the rain came down, or rather came along, with yet more determined violence. The outskirts of the little settlement partially broke the force of wind and rain, and this induced him to stand still. The most salient of the 20 shepherd's domestic erections was an empty sty at the for- ward corner of his hedgeless garden, for in these latitudes the principle of masking the homelier features of your es- tablishment by a conventional frontage was unknown. The traveler's eye was attracted to this small building by 25 the pallid shine of the wet slates that covered it. He turned aside, and, finding it empty, stood under the pent- roof for shelter. While he stood, the boom of the serpent within the ad- jacent house, and the lesser strains of the fiddler, reached 30 the spot as an accompaniment to the surging hiss of the flying rain on the sod, its louder beating on the cabbage- leaves of the garden, on the eight or ten beehives just dis- cernible by the path, and its dripping from the eaves into a row of buckets and pans that had been placed under the The Three Strangers 163 walls of the cottage. For at Higher Crowstairs, as at all such elevated domiciles, the grand difficulty of housekeep- ing was an insufficiency of water; and a casual rainfall was utilized by turning out, as catchers, every utensil that the house contained. Some queer stories might be told of the 5 contrivances for economy in suds and dish-waters that are absolutely necessitated in upland habitations during the droughts of summer. But at this season there were no such exigencies; a mere acceptance of what the skies be- stowed was sufficient for an abundant store. 10 At last the notes of the serpent ceased and the house was silent. This cessation of activity aroused the solitary pedestrian from the reverie into which he had lapsed, and, emerging from the shed, with an apparently new intention, he walked up the path to the house-door. Arrived here, 15 his first act was to kneel down on a large stone beside the row of vessels, and to drink a copious draught from one of them. Having quenched his thirst he rose and lifted his hand to knock, but paused with his eye upon the panel. Since the dark surface of the wood revealed absolutely 20 nothing, it was evident that he must be mentally looking through the door, as if he wished to measure thereby all the possibilities that a house of this sort might include, and how they might bear upon the question of his entry. In his indecision he turned and surveyed the scene 25 around. Not a soul was anywhere visible. The garden- path stretched downward from his feet, gleaming like the track of a snail; the roof of the little well (mostly dry), the well-cover, the top rail of the garden-gate, were varnished with the same dull liquid glaze; while, far away in the vale, 30 a faint whiteness of more than usual extent showed that the rivers were high in the meads. Beyond all this winked a few bleared lamplights through the beating drops lights that denoted the situation of the county-town from which 164 Thomas Hardy he had appeared to come. The absence of all notes of life in that direction seemed to clinch his intentions, and he knocked at the door. Within, a desultory chat had taken the place of move- 5 ment and musical sound. The hedge-carpenter was sug- gesting a song to the company, which nobody just then was inclined to undertake, so that the knock afforded a not unwelcome diversion. "Walk in!" said the shepherd promptly. 10 The latch clicked upward, and out of the night our pedestrian appeared upon the door-mat. The shepherd arose, snuffed two of the nearest candles, and turned to look at him. Their light disclosed that the stranger was dark in com- 15 plexion and not unprepossessing as to feature. His hat, which for a moment he did not remove, hung low over his eyes, without concealing that they were large, open, and determined, moving with a flash rather than a glance round the room. He seemed pleased with his survey, and, 20 baring his shaggy head, said, in a rich deep voice, "The rain is so heavy, friends, that I ask leave to come in and rest awhile." "To be sure, stranger," said the shepherd. "And fait 1 ., you've been lucky in choosing your time, for we are hav- 25 ing a bit of a fling for a glad cause though, to be sure, a man could hardly wish that glad cause to happen more than once a year." "Nor less," spoke up a woman. "For 'tis best to get your family over and done with, as soon as you can, so 30 as to be all the earlier out of the fag o't." "And what may be this glad cause? " asked the stranger. "A birth and christening," said the shepherd. The stranger hoped his host might not be made unhappy either by too many or too few of such episodes, and being The Three Strangers 165 invited by a gesture to a pull at the mug, he readily ac- quiesced. His manner, which, before entering, had been so dubious, was now altogether that of a careless and candid man. "Late to be traipsing athwart this coomb hey?" said 5 the engaged man of fifty. "Late it is, master, as you say. I'll take a seat in the chimney-corner, if you have nothing to urge against it, ma'am; for I am a little moist on the side that was next the rain." 10 Mrs. Shepherd Fennel assented, and made room for the self-invited comer, who, having got completely inside the chimney-corner, stretched out his legs and his arms with the expansiveness of a person quite at home. "Yes, I am rather cracked in the vamp," he said freely, 15 seeing that the eyes of the shepherd's wife fell upon his boots, "and I am not well fitted either. I have had some rough times lately, and have been forced to pick up what I can get in the way of wearing, but I must find a suit better fit for working-days when I reach home." 20 "One of hereabouts?" she inquired. "Not quite that further up the country." "I thought so. And so be I; and by your tongue you come from my neighborhood." "But you would hardly have heard of me," he said 25 quickly. "My time would be long before yours, ma'am, you see." This testimony to the youthfulness of his hostess had the effect of stopping her cross-examination. "There is only one thing more wanted to make me 30 happy," continued the new-comer. "And that is a little baccy, which I am sorry to say I am out of." "I'll fill your pipe," said the shepherd. "I must ask you to lend me a pipe likewise." 1 66 Thomas Hardy "A smoker, and no pipe about 'ee?" "I have dropped it somewhere on the road." The shepherd filled and handed him a new clay pipe, saying, as he did so, "Hand me your baccy-box I'll fill 5 that too, now I am about it." The man went through the movement of searching his pockets. "Lost that too?" said his entertainer, with some sur- prise. 10 "I am afraid so," said the man with some confusion. " Give it to me in a screw of paper." Lighting his pipe at the candle with a suction that drew the whole flame into the bowl, he resettled himself in the corner and bent hi? looks upon the faint steam from his damp legs, as if he 15 wished to say no more. Meanwhile the general body of guests had been taking little notice of this visitor by reason of an absorbing dis- cussion in which they were engaged with the band about a tune for the next dance. The matter being settled, they 20 were about to stand up when an interruption came in the shape of another knock at the door. At sound of the same the man in the chimney-corner took up the poker and began stirring the brands as if do- ing it thoroughly were the one aim of his existence; and 25 a second time the shepherd said, "Walk in ! " In a moment another man stood upon the straw-woven door-mat. He too was a stranger. This individual was one of a type radically different from the first. There was more of the commonplace in 30 his manner, and a certain jovial cosmopolitanism sat upon his features. He was several years older than the first arrival, his hair being slightly frosted, his eyebrows bristly, and his whiskers cut back from his cheeks. His face was rather full and flabby, and yet it was not altogether a face The Three Strangers 167 without power. A few grog-blossoms marked the neigh- borhood of his nose. He flung back his long drab great- coat, revealing that beneath it he wore a suit of cinder-gray shade throughout, large heavy seals, of some metal or other that would take a polish, dangling from his fob as his 5 only personal ornament. Shaking the water-drops from his low-crowned glazed hat, he said, "I must ask for a few minutes' shelter, comrades, or I shall be wetted to my skin before I get to Casterbridge." "Make yourself at home, master," said the shepherd, 10 perhaps a trifle less heartily than on the first occasion. Not that Fennel had the least tinge of niggardliness in his composition ; but the room was far from large, spare chairs were not numerous, and damp companions were not alto- gether desirable at close quarters for the women and girls 15 in their bright-colored gowns. However, the second comer, after taking off his great- coat, and hanging his hat on a nail in one of the ceiling- beams as if he had been specially invited to put it there, advanced and sat down at the table. This had been pushed 20 so closely into the chimney-corner, to give all available room to the dancers, that its inner edge grazed the elbow of the man who had ensconced himself by the fire; and thus the two strangers were brought into close companion- ship. They nodded to each other by way of breaking the 25 ice of unacquaintance, and the first stranger handed his neighbor the family mug a huge vessel of brown ware, having its upper edge worn away like a threshold by the rub of whole generations of thirsty lips that had gone the way of all flesh, and bearing the following inscription 30 burnt upon its rotund side in yellow letters: THERE IS NO FUN PNTILL i CUM. 168 Thomas Hardy The other man, nothing loth, raised the mug .to his lips, and drank on, and on, and on till a curious blueness overspread the countenance of the shepherd's wife, who had regarded with no little surprise the first stranger's 5 free offer to the second of what did not belong to him to dispense. "I knew it!" said the toper to the shepherd with much satisfaction. " When I walked up your garden before com- ing in, and saw the hives all of a row, I said to myself, 10 'Where there's bees there's honey, and where there's honey there's mead.' But mead of such a truly comfort- able sort as this I really didn't expect to meet in my older days." He took yet another pull at the mug, till it assumed an ominous elevation. 15 "Glad you enjoy it!" said the shepherd warmly. "It is goodish mead," assented Mrs. Fennel, with an absence of enthusiasm which seemed to say that it was possible to buy praise for one's cellar at too heavy a price. "It is trouble enough to make and really I hardly think 20 we shall make any more. For honey sells well, and we ourselves can make shift with a drop o' small mead and metheglin for common use from the comb-washings." "O, but you'll never have the heart!" reproachfully cried the stranger in cinder-gray, after taking up the mug 25 a third time and setting it down empty. "I love mead, when 'tis old like this, as I love to go to church o' Sundays, or to relieve the needy any day of the week." "Ha, ha, ha!" said the man in the chimney-corner, who in spite of the taciturnity induced by the pipe of tobacco, 30 could not or would not refrain from this slight testimony to his comrade's humor. Now the old mead of those days, brewed of the purest first-year or maiden honey, four pounds to the gallon with its due complement of white of eggs, cinnamon, gin- The Three Strangers 169 ger, cloves, mace, rosemary, yeast, and processes of work- ing, bottling, and cellaring tasted remarkably strong; but it did not taste so strong as it actually was. Hence, presently, the stranger in cinder-gray at the table, moved by its creeping influence, unbuttoned his waistcoat, threw 5 himself back in his chair, spread his legs, and made his presence felt in various ways. "Well, well, as I say," he resumed, "I am going to Casterbridge, and to Casterbridge I must go. I should have been almost there by this time; but the rain drove 10 me into your dwelling, and I'm not sorry for it." "You don't live in Casterbridge?" said the shepherd. "Not as yet; though I shortly mean to move there." "Going to set up in trade, perhaps?" "No, no," said the shepherd's wife. "It is easy to see 15 that the gentleman is rich, and don't want to work at anything." The cinder-gray stranger paused, as if to consider whether he would accept that definition of himself. He presently rejected it by answering, "Rich is not quite the 20 word for me, dame. I do work, and I must work. And even if I only get to Casterbridge by midnight I must begin work there at eight to-morrow morning. Yes, het or wet, blow or snow, famine or sword, my day's work to-morrow must be done." 25 "Poor man! Then, in spite o' seeming, you be worse off than we?" replied the shepherd's wife. " 'Tis the nature of my trade, men and maidens. 'Tis the nature of my trade more than my poverty. . . . But really and truly I must up and off, or I shan't get a lodg- 30 ing in the town." However, the speaker did not move, and directly added, "There's time for one more draught of friendship before I go; and I'd perform it at once if the mug were not dry." 170 Thomas Hardy ''Here's a mug o' small," said Mrs. Fennel. " Small, we call it, though to be sure 'tis only the first wash o' the combs." "No," said the stranger disdainfully. "I won't spoil 5 your first kindness by partaking o' your second." "Certainly not," broke in Fennel. "We don't increase and multiply every day, and I'll fill the mug again." He went away to the dark place under the stairs where the barrel stood. The shepherdess followed him. 10 "Why should you do this?" she said reproachfully, as soon as they were alone. "He's emptied it once, though it held enough for ten people; and now he's not contented wi' the small, but must needs call for more o' the strong ! And a stranger unbeknown to any of us. For my part, I 15 don't like the look o>' the man at all." "But he's in the house, my honey; and 'tis a wet night, and a christening. Daze it, what's a cup of mead more or less? There'll be plenty more next bee-burning." "Very well this time, then," she answered, looking 20 wistfully at the barrel. "But what is the man's calling, and where is he one of, that he should come in and join us like this?" "I don't know. I'll ask him again." The catastrophe of having the mug drained dry at one 25 pull by the stranger in cinder-gray was effectually guarded against this time by Mrs. Fennel. She poured out his allowance in a small cup, keeping the large one at a dis- creet distance from him. When he had tossed off his por- tion the shepherd renewed his inquiry about the stranger's 30 occupation. The latter did not immediately reply, and the man in the chimney-corner, with sudden demonstrativeness, said, "Anybody may know my trade I'm a wheel- wright." The Three Strangers 171 "A very good trade for these parts," said the shepherd. "And anybody may know mine if they've the sense to find it out," said the stranger in cinder-gray. "You may generally tell what a man is by his claws," observed the hedge-carpenter, looking at his own hands. 5 "My fingers be as full of thorns as an old pin-cushion is of pins." The hands of the man in the chimney-corner instinc- tively sought the shade, and he gazed into the fire as he resumed his pipe. The man at the table took up the hedge- 10 carpenter's remark, and added smartly, " True; but the oddity of my trade is that, instead of setting a mark upon me, it sets a mark upon my customers." No observation being offered by anybody in elucidation of this enigma, the shepherd's wife once more called for a 15 song. The same obstacles presented themselves as at the former time one had no voice, another had forgotten the first verse. The stranger at the table, whose soul had now risen to a good working temperature, relieved the difficulty by exclaiming that, to start the company, he 20 would sing himself. Thrusting one thumb into the arm- hole of his waistcoat, he waved the other hand in the air, and, with an extemporizing gaze at the shining sheep- crooks above the mantelpiece, began: "O my trade it is the rarest one, 25 Simple shepherds all My trade is a sight to see; For my customers I tie, and take them up on high, And waft 'em to a far countree!" The room was silent when he had finished the verse with 3 one exception, that of the man in the chimney-corner, who, at the singer's word, "Chorus!" joined him in a deep bass voice of musical relish "And waft 'em to a far countree!" 172 Thomas Hardy Oliver Giles, John Pitcher the dairyman, the parish-clerk, the engaged man of fifty, the row of young women against the wall, seemed lost in thought not of the gayest kind. The shepherd looked meditatively on the ground, the 5 shepherdess gazed keenly at the singer, and with some suspicion; she was doubting whether this stranger were merely singing an old song from recollection, or was com- posing one there and then for the occasion. All were as .perplexed at the obscure revelation as the guests at 10 Belshazzar's Feast, except the man in the chimney- corner, who quietly said. "Second verse, stranger," and smoked on. The singer thoroughly moistened himself from his lips inwards, and went on with the next stanza as requested: 15 "My tools are but common ones, Simple shepherds all My tools are no sight to see: A little hempen string, and a post whereon to swing, Are implements enough for me!" 20 Shepherd Fennel glanced round. There was no longer any doubt that the stranger was answering his question rhyth- mically; The guests one and all started back with sup- pressed exclamations. The young woman engaged to the man of fifty fainted half-way, and would have proceeded, 25 but finding him wanting in alacrity for catching her she sat down trembling. "O, he's the - !" whispered the people in the back- ground, mentioning the name of an ominous public officer. "He's come to do it! 'Tis to be at Casterbridge jail to- 30 morrow the man for sheep-stealing the poor clock- maker we heard of, who used to live away at Shottsford and had no work to do Timothy Summers, whose family were a-starving, and so he went out of Shottsford by the high- The Three Strangers 173 road, and took a sheep in open daylight defying the farmer and the farmer's wife and the farmer's lad, and every man jack among 'em. He" (and they nodded towards the stranger of the deadly trade) "is come from up the coun- try to do it because there's not enough to do in his own 5 county-town, and he's got the place here now our own county man's dead; he's going to live in the same cottage under the prison wall." The stranger in cinder-gray took no notice of this whispered string of observations, but again wetted his lips. '10 Seeing that his friend in the chimney-corner was the only one who reciprocated his joviality in any way, he held out his cup towards that appreciative comrade, who also held out his own. They clinked together, the eyes of the rest of the room hanging upon the singer's actions. He parted 15 his lips for the third verse; but at that moment another knock was audible upon the door. This time the knock was faint and hesitating. The company seemed scared; the shepherd looked with consternation towards the entrance, and it was with some 20 effort that he resisted his alarmed wife's deprecatory glance, and uttered for the third time the welcoming words " Walk in!" The door was gently, opened, and another man stood upon the mat. He, like those who had preceded him, was a 25 stranger. This time it was a short, small personage, of fair complexion, and dressed in a decent suit of dark clothes. "Can you tell me the way to ?" he began: when, gazing round the room to observe the nature of the com- 30 pany amongst whom he had fallen, his eyes lighted on the stranger in cinder-gray. It was just at the instant when the latter, who had thrown his mind into his song with such a will that he scarcely heeded the interruption, 174 Thomas Hardy silenced all whispers and inquiries by bursting into his third verse : "To-morrow is my working day, Simple shepherds all e To-morrow is a working day for me: For the farmer's sheep is slain, and the lad who did it ta'en, And on his soul may God ha' merc-y!" The stranger in the chimney-corner, waving cups with the singer so heartily that his mead splashed over on the 10 hearth, repeated in his bass voice as before: "And on his soul may God ha' merc-y!" All this time the third stranger had been standing in the doorway. Finding now that he did not come forward or go on speaking, the guests particularly regarded him. They 15 noticed to their surprise that he stood before them the picture of abject terror his knees trembling, his hand shaking so violently that the door-latch by which he sup- ported himself rattled audibly: his white lips were parted, and his eyes fixed on the merry officer of justice in the 20 middle of the room. A moment more and he had turned, closed the door, and fled. "What a man can it be?" said the shepherd. The rest, between the awfulness of their late discovery and the odd conduct of this third visitor, looked as if they 25 knew not what to think, and said nothing. Instinctively they withdrew further and further from the grim gentle- man in their midst, whom some of them seemed to take for the Prince of Darkness himself, till they formed a remote circle, an empty space of floor being left between them and ao him "... circulus, cujus centrum diabolus." The room was so silent though there were more than twenty people in it that nothing could be heard but the The Three Strangers 175 patter of the rain against the window-shutters, accom- panied by the occasional hiss of a stray drop that fell down the chimney into the fire, and the steady puffing of the man in the corner, who had now resumed his pipe of long clay. 5 The stillness was unexpectedly broken. The distant sound of a gun reverberated through the air apparently from the direction of the county-town. "Be jiggered!" cried the stranger who had sung the song, jumping up. 10 "What does that mean?" asked several. "A prisoner escaped from the jail that's what it means." All listened. The sound was repeated, and none of them spoke but the man in the chimney-corner, who said quietly, 15 "I've often been told that in this county they fire a gun at such times; but I never heard it till now." "I wonder if it is my man?" murmured the personage in cinder-gray. "Surely it is!" said the shepherd involuntarily. "And 20 surely we've zeed him! That little man who looked in at the door by now, and quivered like a leaf when he zeed ye and heard your song!" "His teeth chattered, and the breath went out of his body," said the dairyman. 25 "And his heart seemed to sink within him like a stone," said Oliver Giles. "And he bolted as if he'd been shot at," said the hedge- carpenter. "True his teeth chattered, and his heart seemed to 30 sink; and he bolted as if he'd been shot at," slowly summed up the man in the chimney-corner. "I didn't notice it," remarked the hangman. "We were all a-wondering what made him run off in suet 176 Thomas Hardy a fright," faltered one of the women against the wall, "and now 'tis explained!" The firing of the alarm-gun went on at intervals, low and sullenly, and their suspicions became a certainty. 5 The sinister gentleman in cinder-gray roused himself. " Is there a constable here?" he asked, in thick tones. "If so, let him step forward." The engaged man of fifty stepped quavering out from the wall, his betrothed beginning to sob on the back of 10 the chair. "You are a sworn constable?" "I be, sir." "Then pursue the criminal at once, with assistance, and bring him back here. He can't have gone far." 15 " I will, sir, I will when I've got my staff. I'll go home and get it, and come sharp here, and start in a body." "Staff! never mind your staff; the man'll be gone!" "But I can't do nothing without my staff can I, Wil- liam, and John, and Charles Jake? No; for there's the 20 king's royal crown a painted on en in yaller and gold, and the lion and the unicorn, so as when I raise en up and hit my prisoner, 'tis made a lawful blow thereby. I wouldn't 'tempt to take up a man without my staff no, not I. If I hadn't the law to gie me courage, why, instead o' my 25 taking up him he might take up me!" "Now, I'm a king's man myself, and can give you au- thority enough for this," said the formidable officer in gray. "Now then, all of ye, be ready. Have ye any lanterns?" "Yes have ye any lanterns? I demand it!" said the 30 constable. "And the rest of you able-bodied- " "Able-bodied men yes the rest of ye!" said the con- stable. "Have you some good stout staves and pitchforks " The Three Strangers 177 "Staves and pitchforks in the name o' the law! And take 'em in yer hands and go in quest, and do as we in authority tell ye!" Thus aroused, the men prepared to give chase. The evidence was, indeed, though circumstantial, so convinc- < ing, that but little argument was needed to show the shep- herd's guests that after what they had seen it would look very much like connivance if they did not instantly pursue the unhappy third stranger, who could not as yet have gone more than a few hundred yards over such uneven country. 10 A shepherd is always well provided with lanterns; and, lighting these hastily, and with hurdle-staves in their hands, they poured out of the door, taking a direction along the crest of the hill, away from the town, the rain having fortunately a little abated. 15 Disturbed by the noise, or possibly by unpleasant dreams of her baptism, the child who had been christened began to cry heart-brokenly in the room overhead. These notes of grief came down through the chinks of the floor to the ears of the women below, who jumped up one by one, and 20 seemed glad of the excuse to ascend and comfort the baby, for the incidents of the last half-hour greatly oppressed them. Thus in the space of two or three minutes the room on the ground-floor was deserted quite. But it was not for long. Hardly had the sound of foot- 25 steps died away when a man returned round the corner of the house from the direction the pursuers had taken. P* ?p- ing in at the door, and seeing nobody there, he entered leisurely. It was the stranger of the chimney-corner, who had gone out with the rest. The motive of his return was 30 shown by his helping himself to a cut piece of skimmer- cake that lay on a ledge beside where he had sat, and which he had apparently forgotten to take with him. He also poured out half a cup more mead from the quantity that 1 78 Thomas Hardy remained, ravenously eating and drinking these as he stood. He had not finished when another figure came in just as quietly his friend in cinder-gray. "O you here?" said the latter, smiling. "I thought 5 you had gone to help in the capture." And this speaker also revealed the object of his return by looking solicitously round for the fascinating mug of old mead. "And I thought you had gone," said the other, contin- uing his skimmer-cake with some effort. 10 "Well, on second thoughts, I felt there were enough without me," said the first confidentially, "and such a night as it is, too. Besides, 'tis the business o' the Govern- ment to take care of its criminals not mine." "True; so it is. And I felt as you did, that there were 15 enough without me." "I don't want to break my limbs running over the humps and hollows of this wild country." "Nor I neither, between you and me." "These shepherd-people are used to it simple-minded 20 souls, you know, stirred up to anything in a moment. They'll have him ready for me before the morning, and no trouble to me at all." "They'll have him, and we shall have saved ourselves all labor in the matter." 25 "True, true. Well, my way is to Casterbridge; and 'tis as much as "my legs will do to take me that far. Going the same way? " " No, I am sorry to say ! I have to get home over there " (he nodded indefinitely to the right), "and I feel as you 30 do, that it is quite enough for my legs to do before bed- time." The other had by this time finished the mead in the mug, after which, shaking hands heartily at the door, and wish- ing each other well, they went their several ways. The Three Strangers 179 In the meantime the company of pursuers had reached the end of the hog's-back elevation which dominated this part of the down. They had decided on no particular plan of action; and, finding that the man of the baleful trade was no longer in their company, they seemed quite unable 5 to form any such plan now. They descended in all direc- tions down the hill, and straightway several of the party fell into the snare set by Nature for all misguided midnight ramblers over this part of the cretaceous formation. The "lanchets," or flint slopes, which belted the escarpment at ic intervals of a dozen yards, took the less cautious ones un- awares, and losing their footing on the rubbly steep they slid sharply downwards, the lanterns rolling from their hands to the bottom, and there lying on their sides till the horn was scorched through. 15 When they had again gathered themselves together, the shepherd, as the man who knew the country best, took the lead, and guided them round these treacherous inclines. The lanterns, which seemed rather to dazzle their eyes and warn the fugitive than to assist them in the exploration, 20 were extinguished, due silence was observed; and in this more rational order they plunged into the vale. It was a grassy, briery, moist defile, affording some shelter to any person who had sought it; but the party perambulated it in vain, and ascended on the other side. Here they wan- 25 dered apart, and after an interval closed together again to report progress. At the second time of closing in they found themselves near a lonely ash, the single tree on this part of the coomb, probably sown there by a passing bird some fifty years before. And here, standing a little to one 30 side of the trunk, as motionless as the trunk itself, appeared the man they were in quest of, his outline being well de- fined against the sky beyond. The band noiselessly drew up and faced him. 180 Thomas Hardy "Your money or your life!" said the constable sternly to the still figure. "No, no," whispered John Pitcher. "'Tisn't our side ought to say that. That's the doctrine of vagabonds like 5 him, and we be on the side of the law." "Well, well," replied the constable impatiently; "I must say something, mustn't I? and if you had all the weight o' this undertaking upon your mind, perhaps you'd say the wrong thing too! Prisoner at the bar, surrender, in 10 the name of the Father the Crown, I mane!" The man under the tree seemed now to notice them for the first time, and, giving them no opportunity whatever for exhibiting their courage, he strolled slowly towards them. He was, indeed, the little man, the third stranger; 15 but his trepidation had in a great measure gone. "Well, travelers," he said, "did I hear ye speak to me?" "You did: you've got to come and be our prisoner at once!" said the constable. "We arrest 'ee on the charge 20 of not biding in Casterbridge jail in a decent proper man- ner to be hung to-morrow morning. Neighbors, do your duty, and seize the culpet!" On hearing the charge, the man seemed enlightened, and, saying not another word, resigned himself with preter- 25 natural civility to the search-party, who, with their staves in their hands, surrounded him on all sides, and marched him back towards the shepherd's cottage. It was eleven o'clock by the time they arrived. The light shining from the open door, a sound of men's voices 30 within, proclaimed to them as they approached the house that some new events had arisen in their absence. On entering they discovered the shepherd's living room to be invaded by two officers from Casterbridge jail, and a well-known magistrate who lived at the nearest country- The Three Strangers 181 seat, intelligence of the escape having become generally circulated. " Gentlemen," said the constable, "I have brought back your man not without risk and danger; but every one must do his duty! He is inside this circle of able-bodied 5 persons, who have lent me useful aid, considering their ignorance of Crown work. Men, bring forward your prisoner !" And the third stranger was led to the light. "Who is this?" said one of the officials. "The man," said the constable. 10 "Certainly not," said the turnkey; and the first corrob- orated his statement. "But how can it be otherwise?" asked the constable. "Or why was he so terrified at sight o' the singing instru- ment of the law who sat there?" Here he related the 15 strange behavior of the third stranger on entering the house during the hangman's song. "Can't understand it," said the officer coolly. "All I know is that it is not the condemned man. He's quite a different character from this one; a gauntish fellow, 20 with dark hair and eyes, rather good-looking, and with a musical bass voice that if you heard it once you'd never mistake as long as you lived." "Why, souls 'twas the man in the chimney-corner!" "Hey what?" said the magistrate, coming forward 25 after inquiring particulars from the shepherd in the back- ground. "Haven't you got the man after all?" "Well, sir," said the constable, "he's the man we were in search of, that's true; and yet he's not the man we were in search of. For the man we were in search of was not 30 the man we wanted, sir, if you understand my every-day way; for 'twas the man in the chimney-corner!" "A pretty kettle of fish altogether!" said the magistrate. "You had better start for the other man at once." 182 Thomas Hardy The prisoner now spoke for the first time. The mention of the man in the chimney-corner seemed to have moved him as nothing else could do. " Sir," he said, stepping for- ward to the magistrate, "take no more trouble about me. 5 The time is come when I may as well speak. I have done nothing; my crime is that the condemned man is my brother. Early this afternoon I left home at Shottsford to tramp it all the way to Casterbridge jail to bid him farewell. I was benighted, and called here to rest and ask the way, 10 When I opened the door I saw before me the very man, my brother, that I thought to see in the condemned cell at Casterbridge. He was in this chimney-corner; and jammed close to him, so that he could not have got out if he had tried, was the executioner who'd come to take his life, 15 singing a song about it and not knowing that it was his victim who was close by, joining in to save appearances. My brother looked a glance of agony at me, and I knew he meant, 'Don't reveal what you see; my life depends on it.' I was so terror-struck that I could hardly stand, 20 and, not knowing what I did, I turned and hurried away." The narrator's manner and tone had the stamp of truth, and his story made a great impression on all around. "And do you know where your brother is at the present time?" asked the magistrate. 25 "I do not. I have never seen him since I closed this door." "I can testify to that, for we've been between ye ever since," said the constable. "Where does he think to fly to? what is his occupa- 30 tion?" "He's a watch-and-clock-maker, sir." "'A said 'a was a wheelwright a wicked rogue," said the constable. "The wheels of clocks and watches he meant, no doubt/' The Three Strangers 183 said Shepherd Fennel. "I thought his hands were palish for's trade." "Well, it appears to me that nothing can be gained by retaining this poor man in custody," said the magistrate; "your business lies with the other, unquestionably." 5 And so the little man was released off-hand; but he looked nothing the less sad on that account, it being be- yond the power of magistrate or constable to raze out the written troubles in his brain, for they concerned another whom he regarded with more solicitude than himself. 10 When this was done, and the man had gone his way, the night was found to be so far advanced that it was deemed useless to renew the search before the next morning. Next day, accordingly, the quest for the clever sheep- stealer became general and keen, to all appearance at least. 15 But the intended punishment was cruelly disproportioned to the transgression, and the sympathy of a great many country-folk in that district was strongly on the side of the fugitive. Moreover, his marvelous coolness and dar- ing in hob-and-nobbing with the hangman, under the un- 20 precedented circumstances of the shepherd's party, won their admiration. So that it may be questioned if all those who ostensibly made themselves so busy in exploring woods and fields and lanes were quite so thorough when it came to the private examination of their own lofts and outhouses. 25 Stories were afloat of a mysterious figure being occasionally seen in some old overgrown trackway or other, remote from turnpike roads; but when a search was instituted in any of these suspected quarters nobody was found. Thus the days and weeks passed without tidings. 30 In brief, the bass-voiced man of the chimney-corner was never recaptured. Some said that he went across the sea, others that he did not, but buried himself in the depths of a populous city. At any rate, the gentleman in cinder-gray 184 Thomas Hardy never did his morning's work at Casterbridge, nor met anywhere at all, for business purposes, the genial comrade with whom he had passed an hour of relaxation in the lonely house on the coomb. 5 The grass has long been green on the graves of Shepherd Fennel and his frugal wife; the guests who made up the christening party have mainly followed their entertainers to the tomb; the baby in whose honor they all had met is a matron in the sere and yellow leaf. But the arrival of 10 the three strangers at the shepherd's that night, and the details connected therewith, is a story as well known as ever in the country about Higher Crowstairs. WILL O' THE MILL By ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON THE PLAIN AND THE STARS Mijj where Will lived with his adopted parents stood in a falling valley between pinewoods and great mountains. Above, hill after hill soared upwards until they soared out of the depth of the hardiest timber, and stood naked against the sky. Some way up, a long gray 5 village lay like a seam or a rag of vapor on a wooded 'hill- side; and when the wind was favorable, the sound of the church bells would drop down, thin and silvery, to Will. Below, the valley grew ever steeper and steeper, and at the same time widened out on either hand; and from an 10 eminence beside the mill it was possible to see its whole length and away beyond it over a wide plain, where the river turned and shone, and moved on froin_city_to_city on its voyage towards the sea. It chanced that "* r -this valley there lay; a pass into a neighboring kingdom, so 15 that, quiet and rural as it was, the road that ran along be- side the river was a high thoroughfare between two splen- did and powerful s^iejjes. All through the summer, traveling-carriages came crawling up, or went plunging briskly downwards past the mill; and as it happened that 20 the other side was very much easier of ascent, the path was not much frequented, except by people going in one direction; and of all the carriages that Will saw go by, five-sixths were plunging briskly downwards and only one-sixth crawling up. Much more was this the case with 25 foot-passengers. All the light-footed tourists, all the 185 1 86 Robert Louis Stevenson pedj&rs laden with strange wares, were tending down- ward like the river that accompanied their path. Nor was this all; for when Will was yet a child a disastrous war arose over a great part of the world. The newspapers 5 were full of defeats and victories, the earth rang with cavalry hoofs, and often for days together and for miles around the coil of battle terrified good people from their labors in the field. Of all this, nothing was heard for a long time in the valley; but at last one of the commanders 10 pushed an army over the pass by forced marches, and for three days horse and foot, cannon and tumbril, drum and standard, kept pouring downward past the mill. All day the child stood and watched them on their passage the rhythmical stride, the pale, unshaven faces tanned 15 about the eyes, the discolored regimental^ and the tat- tered flags, filled him with a sense of weariness, pity, and wonder; and all night long, after he was in bed, he could hear the cannon pounding and the feet trampling, and the great armament sweeping onward and downward 20 past the mill. No one in the valley ever heard the fate of the expedition, for they lay out of the way of gossip in those troublous times; but Will saw one thing plainly, that not a man returned. Whither had they all gone? Whither went all the tourists and pedlars with strange 25 wares? whither all the brisk barouches with servants in the dicky? whither the water of the stream, ever cours- ing downward and ever renewed from above? Even the wind blew oftener down the valley, and carried the dead leaves along with it in the fall. It seemed like a great 30 conspiracy of things animate and inanimate; they all went downward, fleetly and gaily downward, and only he, it seemed, remained behind, like a stock upon the wayside. It sometimes made him glad when he noticed how the fishes kept their heads up stream. They, at least, stood Will o' the Mill 187 faithfully by him, while all else were posting downward to the unknown world. One evening he asked the miller where the river w^ent. "It goes down the valley," answered he, "and turns 5 a power of mills six score mills, they say, from here to Unterdeck and it none the wearier after all. And then it goes out into the lowlands, and waters the great corn coun- try, and runs through a sight of fine cities (so they say) where kings live all alone in great palaces, with a sentry 10 walking up and down before the door. And it goes under bridges with stone men upon them, looking down and smiling so curious at the water, and living folks leaning their elbows on the wall and looking over too. And then it goes on and on, and down through marshes and sands, 15 until at last it falls into the sea, where the ships are that bring parrots and tobacco from the Indies. Ay, it has a long trot before it as it goes singing over our weir, bless its heart!" "And what is the sea?" asked Will. 20 "The sea!" cried the miller. "Lord help us all, it is the greatest thing God made! That is where all the water in the world runs down into a great salt lake. There it lies, as flat as my hand and as innocent-like as a child; but they do say when the wind blows it gets up into water- 25 mountains bigger than any of ours, and swallows down great ships bigger than our mill, and makes such a roar- ing that you can hear it miles away upon the land. There are great fish in it five times bigger than a bull, and one old serpent as long as our river and as old as all the world, 30 with whiskers like a man, and a crown of silver on her head." Will thought he had never heard anything like this, and he kept on asking question after question about the 1 88 Robert Louis Stevenson world that lay away down the river, with all its perils and marvels, until the old miller became quite interested him- self, and at last took him by the hand and led him to the hill-top that overlooks the valley and the plain. The sun 5 was near setting, and hung low down in a cloudless sky. Everything was denned and glorified in golden light. Will had never seen so great an expanse of country in his life; he stood and gazed with all his eyes. He could see the cities, and the woods and fields, and the bright curves 10 of the river, and far away to where the rim of the plain trenched along the shining heavens. An over-mastering emotion seized upon the boy, soul and body; his heart beat so thickly that he could not breathe; the scene swam before his eyes; the sun seemed to wheel round and round, 15 and throw off, as it turned, strange shapes which dis- appeared with the rapidity of thought, and were succeeded by others. Will covered his face with his hands, and burst into a violent fit of tears; and the poor miller, sadly disappointed and perplexed, saw nothing better for it 20 than to take him up in his arms and carry him home in silence. From that day forward Will was full of new hopes and longings. Something kept tugging at his heart-strings; the running water carried his desires along with it as 25 he dreamed over its fleeting surface; the wind, as it ran over innumerable tree-tops, hailed him with encouraging words; branches beckoned downward; the open road, as it shouldered round the angles and went turning and van- ishing faster and faster down the valley, tortured him 30 with its solicitations. He spent long whiles on the emi- nence, looking down the river-shed and abroad on the flat lowlands, and watched the clouds that traveled forth upon the sluggish wind and trailed their purple shadows on the plain; or he would linger by the wayside, and follow the Willo' the Mill 189 carriages with his eyes as they rattled downward by the river. It did not matter what it was; everything that went that way, were it cloud or carriage, bird or brown water in the stream, he felt his heart flow out after it in an ecstasy of longing. 5 We are told by men of science that all the ventures of mariners on the sea, all that counter-marching~oTtribes and races that confounds old history with its dust and rumor, sprang from nothing more abstruse than the laws of supply and demand, and a certain natural instinct 10 for cheap rations. To any one thinking deeply, this will seem a dull and pitiful explanation. The tribes that came swarming out of the North and East, if they were indeed pressed onward from behind by others, were drawn at the same time by the magnetic influence of the South and 15 West. The fame of other lands had reached them; the name of the eternal city rang in their ears; they were not colonists, but pilgrims; they traveled towards wine and gold and sunshine, but their hearts were set on something higher. That divine unrest, that old stinging trouble of 20 humanity that makes all high achievements and all miser- able failure, the same that spread wings with Icarus, the same that sent Columbus into the desolate Atlantic, in- spired and supported these barbarians on their perilous march. There is one legend which profoundly represents 25 their spirit, of how a flying party of these wanderers encountered a very old man shod with iron. The old man asked them whither they were going; and they an- swered with one voice: "To the Eternal City!" He looked upon them gravely. "I have sought it,' 5 he said, 30 "over the most part of the world. Three such pairs as I now carry on my feet have I worn out upon this pilgrim- age, and now the fourth is growing slender underneath my steps. And all this while I have not found the city." 190 Robert Louis Stevenson And he turned and went his own way alone, leaving them astonished. And yet this would scarcely parallel the intensity of Will's feeling for the plain. If he could only go far enough 5 out there, he felt as if his eyesight would be purged and clarified, as if his hearing would grow more delicate, and his very breath would come and go with luxury. He was transplanted and withering where he was; he lay in a strange country and was sick for home. Bit by bit, he 10 pieced together broken notions of the world below: of the river, ever moving and growing until it sailed forth into the majestic ocean; of the cities, full of brisk and beautiful people, playing fountains, bands of music and marble palaces, and lighted up at night from end to end with 15 artificial stars of gold; of the great churches, wise univer- sities, brave armies, and untold money lying stored in vaults ; of the high-flying vice that moved in the sunshine, and the stealth and swiftness of midnight murder. I have said he was sick as if for home: the figure halts. He was 20 like some one lying in twilit, formless pre-existence, and stretching out his hands lovingly towards many-colored, many-sounding life. It was no wonder he was unhappy, he would go and tell the fish: they were made for their life, wished for no more than worms and running water, and 25 a hole below a falling bank; but he was differently de- signed, full of desires and aspirations, itching at the fingers, lusting with the eyes, whom the whole variegated world could not satisfy with aspects. The true life, the true bright sunshine, lay far out upon the plain. And 0! 30 to see this sunlight once before he died! to move with a jocund spirit in a golden land ! to hear the trained singers and sweet church bells, and see the holiday gardens! "And O fish!" he would cry, "if you would only turn your noses down stream, you could swim so easily into Will o> the Mill 191 the fabled waters and see the vast ships passing over your head like clouds, and hear the great water-hills making music over you all day long!" But the fish kept looking patiently in their own direction, until Will hardly knew whether to laugh or cry. 5 Hitherto the traffic on the road had passed by Will, like something seen in a picture: he had perhaps exchanged salutations with a tourist, or caught sight of an old gentle- man in a traveling-cap at a carriage window; but for the most part it had been a mere symbol, which he contem- 10 plated from apart and with something of a superstitious feeling. A time came at last when this was to be changed. The miller, who was a greedy man in his way, and never forewent an opportunity of honest profit, turned the mill- house into a little wayside inn, and, several pieces of good 15 fortune falling in opportunely, built stables and got the position of post-master on the road. It now became Will's duty to wait upon people, as they sat to break their fasts in the little arbor at the top of the mill garden; and you may be sure that he kept his ears open, and learned 20 many new things about the outside world as he brought the omelette or the wine. Nay, he would often get into conversation with single guests, and by adroit questions and polite attention, not only gratify his own curiosity, but win the good-will of the travelers. Many compli- 25 mented the old couple on their serving-boy; and a pro- fessor was eager to take him away with him, and have him properly educated in the plain. The miller and his wife were mightily astonished and even more pleased. They thought it a very good thing that they should have opened 30 their inn. "You see," the old man would remark, "he has a kind of talent for a gujblican; he never would have made anything else!" And so life wagged on in the val- ley, with high satisfaction to all concerned but Will. 192 Robert Louis Stevenson Every carriage that left the inn-door seemed to take a part of him away with it; and when people jestingly of- fered him a lift, he could with difficulty command his emotion. Night after night he would dream that he 5 was awakened by flustered servants, and that a splendid equipage waited at the door to carry him down into the plain; night after night; until the dream, which had seemed all jollity to him at first, began to take on a color of gravity, and the nocturnal summons and waiting 10 equipage occupied a place in his mind as something to be both feared and hoped for. One day, when Will was about sixteen, a fat young man arrived at sunset to pass the night. He was a contented- looking fellow, with a jolly eye, and carried a knapsack. 15 While dinner was preparing, he sat in the arbor to read a book; but as soon as he had begun to observe Will, the book was laid aside; he was plainly one of those who prefer living people to people made of ink and paper. Will, on his part, although he had not been much interested in the' 20 stranger at first sight, soon began to take a great deal oil pleasure in his talk, which was full of good nature and good ! sense, and at last conceived a great respect for his character and wisdom. They sat far into the night; and about twc in the morning Will opened his heart to the young man, 25 and told him how he longed to leave the valley and what bright hopes he had connected with the cities of the plain, The young man whistled, and then broke into a smile. "My young friend," he remarked, "you are a ver) curious little fellow to be sure, and wish a great man) 30 things which you will never get. Why, you would fee quite ashamed if you knew how the little fellows in these fairy cities of yours are all after the same sort of nonsense and keep breaking their hearts to get up into the moun tains. And let me tell you, those who go down into th< Will o' the Mill 193 plains are a very short while there before they wish them- selves heartily back again. The air is not so light nor so pure; nor is the sun any brighter. As for the beautiful men and women, you would see many of them in rags and many of them deformed with horrible disorders; and a 5 city is so hard a place for people who are poor and sensi- tive that many choose to die by their own hand." "You must think me very simple," answered Will. " Although I have never been out of this valley, believe me, I have used my eyes. I know how one thing lives 10 on another; for instance, how the fish hangs in the eddy to catch his fellows; and the shepherd, who makes so pretty a picture carrying home the lamb, is only carrying it home for dinner. I do not expect to find ail things right in your cities. That is not what troubles me; it might 15 have been that once upon a time; but although I live here always, I have asked many questions and learned a great deal in these last years, and certainly enough to cure me of my old fancies. But you would not have me die like a dog and not see all that is to be seen, and do all that a 2; man can do, let it be good or evil? you would not have me spend all my days between this road here and the river, and not so much as make a motion to be up and live my life? I would rather die out of hand," he cried, "than linger on as I am doing." 25 "Thousands of people," said the young man, "live and die like you, and are none the less happy." "Ah I" said Will, "if there are thousands who would like, why should not one of them have my place? " It was quite dark; there was a hanging lamp in the 30 arbor which lit up the table and the faces of the speakers; and along the arch, the leaves upon the trellis stood out illuminated against the night sky, a pattern of trans- parent green upon a dusky purple. The fat young man 194 Robert Louis Stevenson rose, and, taking Will by the arm, led him out under the open heavens. "Did you ever look at the stars?" he asked, pointing upwards. 5 "Often and often," answered Will. "And do you know what they are?" "I have fancied many things." "They are worlds like ours," said the young man. "Some of them less; many of them a million times greater; 10 and some of the least sparkles that you see are not only worlds, but whole clusters of worlds turning about each other in the midst of space. We do not know what there may be in any of them; perhaps the answer to all our dif- ficulties or the cure of all our sufferings: and yet we can 15 never reach them; not all the skill of the craftiest of men can fit out a ship for the nearest of these our neighbors, nor would the life of the most aged sumcejor such a jour- ney. When a great battle has been lost or a dear friend is dead, when we are hipped or in high spirits, there they 20 are unweariedly shining overhead. We may stand down here, a whole army of us together, and shout until we break our hearts, and not a whisper reaches them. We may climb the highest mountain, and we are no nearer them. All we can do is to stand down here in the garden 25 and take off our hats; the starshine lights upon our heads, and where mine is a little bald, I dare say you can see it glisten in the darkness. The mountain and the mouse. That is like to be all we shall ever have to do with Arcturus or Aldebaran. Can you apply a parable?" he added, 30 laying his hand upon Will's shoulder. " It is not the same thing as a reason, but usually vastly more convincing." Will hung his head a little, and then raised it once more to heaven. The stars seemed to expand and emit a sharper brilliancy; and as he kept turning his eyes higher and Will o' the Mill 195 higher, they seemed to increase in multitude under his gaze. "I see," he said, turning to the young man. "We are in a rat-trap." "Something of that size. Did you ever see a squirrel 5 turning in a cage? and another squirrel sitting philosophic- ally over his nuts? I needn't ask you which of them looked more of a fool." THE PARSON'S MARJORY After some years the old people died, both in one win- ter, very carefully tended by their adopted son, and very 10 quietly mourned when they were gone. People who had heard of his roving fancies supposed he would hasten to sell the property, and go down the river to push his for- tunes. But there was never any sign of such an intention on the part of Will. On the contrary, he had the inn set 15 on a better footing, and hired a couple of servants to assist him in carrying it on; and there he settled down, a kind, talkative, inscrutable young man, six feet three in his stockings, with an iron constitution and a friendly voice. He soon began to take rank in the district as a bit of an 20 oddity: it was not much to be wondered at from the first, for he was always full of notions, and kept calling the plainest common-sense in question; but what most raised the report upon him was the odd circumstance of his courtship with the parson's Marjory. 25 The parson's Marjory was a lass about nineteen, when Will would be about thirty; well enough looking, and much better educated than any other girl in that part of the country, as became her parentage. She held her head very high, and had already refused several offers of mar- 30 riage with a grand air, which had got her hard names among the neighbors. For all that she was a good 196 Robert Louis Stevenson girl, and one that would have made any man well con- tented. Will had never seen much of her; for although the church and parsonage were only two miles from his own 5 door, he was never known to go there but on Sundays. It chanced, however, that the parsonage fell into disre- pair, and had to be dismantled; and the parson and his daughter took lodgings for a month or so, on very much reduced terms, at Will's inn. Now, what with the inn, 10 and the mill, and the old miller's savings, our friend was a man of substance; and besides that, he had a name for good temper and shrewdness, which make a capital por- tion in marriage; and so it was currently gossiped, among their ill-wishers, that the parson and his daughter had 15 not chosen their temporary lodging with their eyes shut. Will was about the last man in the world to be cajoled or frightened into marriage. You had only to look into his eyes, limpid and still like pools of water, and yet with a sort of clear light that seemed to come from within, and 20 you would understand at once that here was one who knew his own mind, and would stand to it immovably. Marjory herself was no weakling by her looks, with strong steady eyes and a resolute and quiet bearing. It might be a question whether she was not Will's match in stead- 25 fastness, after all, or which of them would rule the roast in marriage. But Marjory had never given it a thought, and accompanied her father with the most unshaken in- nocence and unconcern. The season was still so early that Will's customers were 30 few and far between; but the lilacs were already flowering, and the weather was so mild that the party took dinner under the trellis, with the noise of the river in their ears and the woods ringing about them with the songs of birds. Will soon began to take a particular pleasure in these din- Will o' the Mill 197 ners. The parson was rather a dull companion, with a habit of dozing at table; but nothing rude or cruel ever fell from his lips. And as for the parson's daughter, she suited her surroundings with the best grace imaginable; and whatever she said seemed so pat and pretty that Will 5 conceived a great idea of her talents. He could see her face, as she leaned forward, against a background of rising pine woods; her eyes shone peaceably; the light lay around her hair like a kerchief ; something that was hardly a smile rippled her pale cheeks, and Will could not con- 10 tain himself from gazing on her in an agreeable dismay. She looked, even in her quietest moments, so complete in herself, and so quick with life down to her finger tips and the very skirts of her dress, that the remainder of created things became no more than a blot by comparison; and if 15 Will glanced away from her to her surroundings, the trees looked inanimate and senseless, the clouds hung in heaven like dead things, and even the mountain tops were dis- enchanted. The whole valley could not compare in looks with this one girl. 20 Will was always observant in the society of his fellow- creatures; but his observation became 'almost painfully eager in the case of Marjory. He listened to all she ut- tered, and read her eyes, at the same time, for the un- spoken commentary. Many kind, simple, and sincere 25 speeches found an echo in his heart. He became con- scious of a soul beautifully poised upon itself, nothing doubting, nothing desiring, clothed in peace. It was not' possible to separate her thoughts from her appearance. The turn of her wrist, the still sound of her voice, the light 30 in her eyes, the lines of her body, fell in tune with her grave and gentle words, like the accompaniment that sus- tains and harmonises the voice of the singer. Her influ- ence was one thing, not to be divided or discussed, only 198 Robert. Louis Stevenson to be felt with gratitude and joy. To Will, her presence recalled something of his childhood, and the thought of her took its place in his mind beside that of dawn, of running water, and of the earliest violets and lilacs. It 5 is the property of things seen for the first time, or for the first time after long, like the flowers in spring, to reawaken in us the sharp edge of sense and that impression of mystic strangeness which otherwise passes out of life with the coming of years; but the sight of a loved face is what re- 10 news a man's character from the fountain upwards. One day after dinner Will took a stroll among the firs; a grave beatitude possessed him from top to toe, and he kept smiling to himself and the landscape as he went. The river ran between the stepping-stones with a pretty 15 wimple; a bird sang loudly in the wood; the hill- tops looked immeasurably high, and as he glanced at them from time to time seemed to contemplate his movements with a beneficent but awful curiosity. His way took him to the eminence which overlooked the plain; and there he 20 sat down upon a stone, and fell into deep and pleasant thought. The plain lay abroad with its cities and silver" river; everything was asleep, except a great eddy of birds which kept rising and falling and going round and round in the blue air. He repeated Marjory's name aloud, and 25 the sound of it gratified his ear. He shut his eyes, and her image sprang up before him, quietly luminous and attended with good thoughts. The river might run'' for ever; the birds fly higher and higher till they touched the stars. He saw it was empty bustle after all; for here, 30 without stirring a foot, waiting patiently in his own nar- row valley, he also had attained the better sunlight. The next day Will made a sort of declaration across the dinner-table, while the parson was filling his pipe. "Miss Marjory," he said, "I never knew any one I Will o' the Mill 199 liked so well as you. I am mostly a cold, unkindly sort of man; not from want of heart, but out of strangeness in my way of thinking; and people seem far away from me. 'Tis as if there were a circle round me, which kept every one out but you; I can hear the others talking and laugh- 5 ing; but you come quite close. Maybe this is disagreeable to you? " he asked. Marjory made no answer. "Speak up, girl," said the parson. "Nay, now," returned Will, "I wouldn't press her, 10 parson. I feel tongue-tied myself, who am not used to it; and she's a woman, and little more than a child, when all is said. But for my part, as far as I can understand what people mean by it, I fancy I must be what they call in love. I do not wish to be held as committing myself; 15 for I may be wrong; but that is how I believe things are with me. And if Miss Marjory should feel any otherwise on her part, mayhap she would be so kind as shake her head." Marjory was silent, and gave no sign that she had 20 heard. "How is that, parson?" asked Will. "The girl must speak," replied the parson, laying down his pipe. "Here's our neighbor who says he loves you, Madge. Do you love him, ay or no? " 25 "I think I do," said Marjory faintly. "Well, then, that's all that could be wished!" cried Will heartily. And he took her hand across the table, and held it a moment in both of his with great satisfaction. "You must marry," observed the parson, replacing his 30 pipe in his mouth. "Is that the right thing to do, think you?" demanded Will. "It is indispensable," said the parson. 2OO Robert Louis Stevenson "Very well," replied the wooer. Two or three days passed away with great delight to Will, although a bystander might scarce have found it out. He continued to take his meals opposite Marjory, 5 and to talk with her and gaze upon her in her father's presence; but he made no attempt to see her alone, nor in any other way changed his conduct towards her from what it had been since the beginning. Perhaps the girl was a little disappointed, and perhaps not unjustly; and 10 yet if it had been enough to be always in the thoughts of another person, and so pervade and alter his whole life, she might have been thoroughly contented. For she was never out of Will's mind for an instant. He sat over the stream, and watched the dust of the eddy, and the poised 15 fish, and straining weeds; he wandered out alone into the purple even, with all the blackbirds piping round him in the wood; he rose early in the morning, and saw the sky turn from grey to gold, and the light leap upon the hill- tops; and all the while he kept wondering if he had never 20 seen such things before, or how itxwas that they should look so different now. The sound ol.his own mill-wheel, or of the wind among the trees, confounded and charmed his heart. The most enchanting thoughts presented them- selves unbidden in his mind. He was so happy that he 25 could not sleep at night, and so restless that he could hardly sit still out of her company. And yet it seemed as if he avoided her rather than sought her out. One day, as he was coming home from 'a ramble, Will found Marjory in the garden picking flowers, and as he 30 came up with her, slackened his pace and continued walk- ing by^her side. "You like flowers?" he said. "Indeed I love them dearly," she replied. "Do you?" "Why, no," said he, "not so much. They are a very Will o' the Mill 201 small affair, when all is done. I can fancy people caring for them greatly, but not doing as you are just now." "How?" she asked, pausing and looking up at him. "Plucking them," said he. "They are a deal better off where they are, and look a deal prettier, if you go to that." 5 "I wish to have them for my own," she answered, "to carry them near my heart, and keep them in my room. They tempt me when they grow here; they seem to say, 'Come and do something with us'; but once I have cut them and put them by, the charm is laid, and I can look 10 at them with quite an easy heart." "You wish to possess them," replied Will, "in order ^ to think no more about them. It's a bit like killing the goose with the golden eggs. It's a bit like what I wished to do when I was a boy. Because I had a fancy for look- 15 ing out over the plain, I wished to go down there where I couldn't look out over it any longer. Was not that fine reasoning? Dear, dear, if they only thought of it, all the world would do like me; and you would let your flowers alone, just as I stay up here in the mountains." Sud- 20 denly he broke off sharp. "By the Lord!" he cried. And when she asked him what was wrong, he turned the question off, and walked away into the house with rather a humorous expression of face. He was silent at table; and after the night had fallen 25 and the stars had come out overhead, he walked up and down for hours in the court-yard and garden with an un- even pace. There was still a light in. the window of Mar- jory's room: one little oblong patch of orange in a world of dark blue hills and silver starlight. Will's mind ran a 30 great deal on the window; but his thoughts were not very lover-like. "There she is in her room," he thought, "and there are the stars overhead: a blessing upon both!" 5oth were good influences in his life; both soothed and 2O2 Robert Louis Stevenson braced him in his profound contentment with the world. And what more should he desire with either? The fat young man and his counsels were so present to his mind that he threw back his head, and, putting his hands before 5 his mouth, shouted aloud to the populous heavens. Whether from the position of his head or the sudden strain of the exertion, he seemed to see a momentary shock among the stars, and a diffusion of frosty light pass from one to another along the sky. At the same instant, a cor- 10 ner of the blind was lifted up and lowered again at once. He laughed a loud ho-ho! "One and another!" thought Will. "The stars tremble, and the blind goes up. Why, before Heaven, what a great magician I must bel Now, if I were only a fool, should not I be in a pretty way?" 15 And he went off to bed, chuckling to himself: "If I were only a fool!" The next morning, pretty early, he saw ! her once more in the garden, and sought her out. "I have been thinking about getting married," he be- 20 gan abruptly; "and after having turned it all over, I have made up my mind it's not worth while." She turned upon him for a single moment; but his radiant, kindly appearance would, under the circum- stances, have disconcerted an angel, and she looked down 25 again upon the ground in silence. He could see her tremble. "I hope you don't mind," he went on, a little taken aback. "You ought not. I have turned it all over, and upon my soul there's nothing in it. We should never be 30 one whit nearer than we are just now, and, if I am a wise man, nothing like so happy." "It is unnecessary to go round about with me," she said. "I very well remember that you refused to com- mit yourself; and now that I see you were mistaken, and Will o' the Mill 203 in reality have never cared for me, I can only feel sad that I have been so far misled." "I ask your pardon," said Will stoutly; "you do not understand my meaning. As to whether I have ever loved you or not, I must leave that to others. But for 5 one thing, my feeling is not changed; and for another, you may make it your boast that you have made my whole life and character something different from what they were. I mean what I say; no less. I do not think getting married is worth while. I would rather you went 10 on living with your father, so that I could walk over and see you once, or maybe twice a week, as people go to church, and then we should both be all the happier be- tween whiles. That's my notion. But I'll marry you if you will," he added. 15 "Do you know that you are insulting me?" she broke out. "Not I, Marjory," said he; "if there is anything in a clear conscience, not I. I offer all my heart's best affections; you can take it or want it, though I suspect 20 it's beyond either your power or mine to change what has once been done, and set me fancy-free. I'll marry you, if you like; but I tell you again and again, it's not worth while, and we had best stay friends. Though I am a quiet man I have noticed a heap of things in my life. 25 Trust in me, and take things as I propose; or, if you don't like that, say the word, and I'll marry you out of hand." There was a considerable pause, and Will, who began to feel uneasy, began to grow angry in consequence. "It seems you are too proud to say your mind," he 30 said. "Believe me, that's a pity. A clean shrift makes simple living. Can a man be more downright or hon- orable to a woman than I have been? I have said my say, and given you your choice. Do you want me to 204 Robert Louis Stevenson marry you? or will you take my friendship, as I think best? or have you had enough of me for good? Speak out for the dear God's sake! You know your father told you a girl should speak her mind in these affairs." 5 She seemed to recover herself at that, turned without a word, walked rapidly through the garden, and disap- peared into the house, leaving Will in some confusion as to the result. He walked up and down the garden, whistling softly to himself. Sometimes he stopped and 10 contemplated the sky and hill-tops; sometimes he went down to the tail of the weir and sat there, looking fool- ishly in the water. All this dubiety and perturbation was so foreign to his nature and the life which he had res- olutely chosen for himself, that he began to regret Mar- 15 jory's arrival. "After all," he thought, "I was as happy as a man need be. I could come down here and watch my fishes all day long if I wanted: I was as settled and contented as my old mill." Marjory came down to dinner, looking very trim and 20 quiet; and no sooner were all three at table than she made her father a speech, with her eyes fixed upon her plate, but showing no other sign of embarrassment or distress. "Father," she began, "Mr. Will and I have been talk- ing things over. We see that we have each made a mis- 25 take about our feelings, and he has agreed, at my request, to give up all idea of marriage, and be no more than my very good friend, as in the past. You see, there is no shadow of a quarrel, and indeed I hope we shall see a great deal of him in the future, for his visits will always 30 be welcome in our house. Of course, father, you will know best, but perhaps we should do better to leave Mr. Will's house for the present. I believe, after what has passed, we should hardly be agreeable inmates for some days." Will o' the Mill 205 Will, who had commanded himself with difficulty from the first, broke out upon this into an inarticulate noise, and raised one hand with an appearance of real dismay, as if he were about to interfere and contradict. But she checked him at once, looking up at him with a swift 5 glance and an angry flush upon her cheek. "You will perhaps have the good grace," she said, "to let me explain these matters for myself." Will was put entirely out of countenance by her ex- pression and the ring of her voice. He held his peace, 10 concluding that there were some things about this girl beyond his comprehension, in which he was exactly right. The poor parson was quite crestfallen. He tried to prove that this was no more than a true lover's tiff, which would pass off before night; and when he was dislodged 15 from that position, he went on to argue that where there was no quarrel there could be no call for a separation; for the good man liked both his entertainment and his host. It was curious to see how the girl managed them, saying little all the time, and that very quietly, and yet 20 twisting them round her finger and insensibly leading them wherever she would by feminine tact and general- ship. It scarcely seemed to have been her doing it seemed as if things had merely so fallen out that she and her father took their departure that same afternoon 25 in a farm-cart, and went farther down the valley, to wait, until their own house was ready for them, in another hamlet. But Will had been observing closely, and was well aware of her dexterity and resolution. When he found himself alone he had a great many curious matters 30 to turn over in his mind. He was very sad and solitary, to begin with. All the interest had gone out of his life; and he might look up at the stars as long as he pleased, he somehow failed to find support or consolation. And 206 Robert Louis Stevenson then he was in such a turmoil of spirit about Marjory. He had been puzzled and irritated at her behavior, and yet he could not keep himself from admiring it. He thought he recognized a fine perverse angel in that still 5 soul which he had never hitherto suspected; and though he saw it was an influence that would fit but ill with his own life of artificial calm, he could not keep himself from ardently desiring to possess it. Like a man who has lived, among shadows and now meets the sun, he 10 was both pained and delighted. As the days went forward he passed from one extreme to another; now pluming himself on the strength of his determination, now despising his timid and silly caution. The former was, perhaps, the true thought of his heart, 15 and represented the regular tenor of the man's reflections; but the latter burst forth from time to time with an unruly violence, and then he would forget all consideration, and go up and down his house and garden or walk among the fir woods like one who is beside himself with remorse. 20 To equable, steady-minded Will this state of matters was intolerable; and he determined, at whatever cost, to bring it to an end. So, one warm summer afternoon he put on his best clothes, took a thorn switch in his hand, and set out down the valley by the river. As soon as he had taken 25 his determination, he had regained at a bound his cus- tomary peace of heart, and he enjoyed the bright weather and the variety of the scene without any admixture of alarm or unpleasant eagerness. It was nearly the same to him how the matter turned out. If she accepted him, 30 he would have to marry her this time, which perhaps was all for the best. If she refused him, he would have done his utmost, and might follow his own way in the future with an untroubled conscience. He hoped, on the whole, she would refuse him; and then, again, as he saw the brown Will o' the Mill 207 roof which sheltered her, peeping through some willows at an angle of the stream, he was half inclined to reverse the wish, and more than half ashamed of himself for this infirmity of purpose. Marjory seemed glad to see him, and gave him her hand 5 without affectation or delay. "I have been thinking about this marriage," he began. "So have I," she answered. "And I respect you more and more for a very wise man. You understood me better than I understood myself; and I am now quite certain that 10 things are all for the best as they are." "At the same time " ventured Will. "You must be tired," she interrupted. "Take a seat and let me fetch you a glass of wane. The afternoon is so warm; and I wish you not to be displeased with your 15 visit. You must come quite often; once a week, if you can spare the time; I am always so glad to see my friends." "Oh, very well," thought Will to himself. "It appears I was right after all." And he paid a very agreeable visit, walked home again in capital spirits, and gave himself no 20 further concern about the matter. For nearly three years Will and Marjory continued on these terms, seeing each other once or twice a week without any word of love between them; and for all that time I believe Will was nearly as happy as a man can be. 25 He rather stinted himself the pleasure of seeing her; and he would often walk half-way over to the parsonage, and then back again, as if to whet his appetite. Indeed there was one corner of the road, whence he could see the church- spire wedged into a crevice of the valley between sloping 30 fir woods, with a triangular snatch of plain by way of background, which he greatly affected as a place to sit and moralize in before returning homewards ; and the peasants got so much into the habit of finding him there in the 208 Robert Louis Stevenson twilight that they gave it the name of "Will o' the Mill's Corner." At the end of the three years Marjory played him a sad trick by suddenly marrying somebody else. Will 5 kept his countenance bravely, and merely remarked that, for as little as he knew of women, he had acted very prudently in not marrying her himself three years before. She plainly knew very little of her own mind, and, in spite of a deceptive manner, was as fickle and flighty as 10 the rest of them. He had to congratulate himself on an escape, he said, and would take a higher opinion of his own wisdom in consequence. But at heart, he was reason- ably displeased, moped a good deal for a month or two, and fell away in flesh, to the astonishment of his serving- 15 lads. It was perhaps a year after this marriage that Will was awakened late one night by the sound of a horse galloping on the road, followed by precipitate knocking at the inn-door. He opened his window- and saw a farm 20 servant, mounted and holding a led horse by the bridle, who told him to make what haste he could and go along with him; for Marjory was dying, and had sent urgently to fetch him to her bedside. Will was no horseman, and! made so little speed upon the way that the poor young 25 wife was very near her end before he arrived. But they had some minutes' talk in private, and he was present and wept very bitterly while she breathed her last. DEATH Year after year went away into nothing, with great explosions and outcries in the cities on the plain; red 30 revolt springing up and being suppressed in blood, battle swaying hither and thither, patient astronomers in ob- servatory towers picking out and christening new stars. Will o' the Mill 209 plays being performed in lighted theaters, people being carried into hospitals on stretchers, and all the usual turmoil and agitation of men's lives in crowded centers. Up in Will's valley only the winds and seasons made an epoch; the fish hung in the swift stream, the birds circled 5 overhead, the pine-tops rustled underneath the stars, the tall hills stood over all; and Will went to and fro, minding his wayside inn, until the snow began to thicken on his head. His heart was young and vigorous and if his pulses kept a sober time, they still beat strong and 10 steady in his wrists. He carried a ruddy stain on either cheek, like a ripe apple; he stooped a little, but his step was still firm; and his sinewy hands were reached out to all men with a friendly pressure. His face was covered with those wrinkles which are got in open air, and which, rightly 15 looked at, are no more than a sort of permanent sun- burning; such wrinkles heighten the stupidity of stupid faces; but to a person like Will, with his clear eyes and smiling mouth, only give another charm by testifying to a simple and easy life. His talk was full of wise sayings. 20 He had a taste for other people; and other people had a taste for him. When the valley was full of tourists in the season, there were merry nights in Will's arbor; and his views, which seemed whimsical to his neighbors, were often enough admired by learned people out of towns and 25 colleges. Indeed, he had a very noble old age, and grew daily better known; so that his fame was heard of in the cities of the plain; and young men who had been summer travelers spoke together in cafes of Will o' the Mill and his rough philosophy. Many and many an invitation, you 30 may be sure, he had; but nothing could tempt him from his upland valley. He would shake his head and smile over his tobacco-pipe with a deal of meaning. "You come too late," he would answer. "I am a dead man now: I 2io Robert Louis Stevenson have lived and died already. Fifty years ago you would have brought my heart into my mouth; and now you do not even tempt me. But that is the object of long living, that man should cease to care about life." And again: 5 "There is only one difference between a long life and a good dinner: that, in the dinner, the sweets come last." Or once more: " When I was a boy, I was a bit puzzled, and hardly knew whether it was myself or the world that was curious and worth looking into. Now, I know it is myself, 10 and stick to that." He never showed any symptoms of frailty, but kept stalwart and firm to the last; but they say he grew less talkative towards the end, and would listen to other people by the hour in an amused and sympathetic silence. 15 Only, when he did speak, it was more to the point and more charged with old experience. He drank a bottle of wine gladly; above all, at sunset on the hill- top or quite late at night under the stars in the arbor. The sight of something attractive and unattainable seasoned his 20 enjoyment, he would say; and he professed he had lived long enough to admire a candle all the more when he could compare it with a planet. One night, in his seventy-second year, he awoke in bed, in such uneasiness of body and mind that he arose 25 and dressed himself and went out to meditate in the arbor. It was pitch dark, without a star; the river was swollen, and the wet woods and meadows loaded the air with perfume. It had thundered during the day, and it promised more thunder for the morrow. A murky, stifling 30 night for a man of seventy- two! Whether it was the weather or the wakefulness, or some little touch of fever in his old limbs, Will's mind was besieged by tumultuous and crying memories. His boyhood, the night with the fat young man, the death of his adopted parents, the summer Will o' the Mill 211 days with Marjory, and many of those small circumstances, which seem nothing to another, and are yet the very gist of a man's own life to himself things seen, words heard, looks misconstrued arose from their forgotten corners and usurped his attention. The dead themselves were with 5 him, not merely taking part in this thin show of memory that defiled before his brain, but revisiting his bodily senses as they do in profound and vivid dreams. The fat young man leaned his elbows on the table opposite; Marjory came and went with an apronful of flowers be- 10 tween the garden and the arbor; he could hear the old parson knocking out his pipe or blowing his resonant nose. The tide of his consciousness ebbed and flowed; he was sometimes half asleep and drowned in his recollections of the past; and. sometimes he was broad awake, won- 15 dering at himself. But about the middle of the night he was startled by the voice of the dead miller calling to him out of the house as he used to do on the arrival of custom. The hallucination was so perfect that Will sprang from his seat and stood listening for the summons to be repeated; 20 and as. he listened he became conscious of another noise besides the brawling of the river and the ringing in his feverish ears. It was like the stir of- the horses and the creaking of harness, as though a carriage with an impatient team had been brought up upon the road before the court- 25 yard gate. At such an hour, upon this rough and danger- ous pass, the supposition was no better than absurd; and Will dismissed it from his mind, and resumed his seat upon the arbor chair; and sleep closed over him again like running water. He was once again awakened by the dead 30 miller's call, thinner and more spectral than before; and once again he heard the noise of an equipage upon the road. And so thrice and four times, the same dream, or the same fancy, presented itself to his senses: until at length, smiling 212 Robert Louis Stevenson to himself as when one humors a nervous child, he pro- ceeded towards the gate to set his uncertainty at rest. From the arbor to the gate was no great distance, and yet it took Will some time; it seemed as if the dead thick- 5 ened around him in the court, and crossed his path at every step. For, first, he was suddenly surprised by an overpowering sweetness of heliotropes; it was as if his garden had been planted with this flower from end to end, and the hot, damp night had drawn forth all their per- 10 fumes in a breath. Now the heliotrope had been Marjory's favorite flower, and since her death not one of them had ever been planted in Will's ground. "I must be going crazy," he thought. "Poor Marjory and her heliotropes 1" 15 And with that he raised his eyes towards the window that had once been hers. If he had been bewildered before, he was now almost terrified; for there was a light in the room; the window was an orange oblong as of yore; and the corner of the blind was lifted and let fall as on the 20 night when he stood and shouted to the stars in his per- plexity. The illusion only endured an instant; but it left him somewhat unmanned, rubbing his eyes and staring at the outline of the house and the black night behind it. While he thus stood, and it seemed as if he must have stood 25 there quite a long time, there came a renewal of the noises on the road: and he turned in time to meet a stranger, who was advancing to meet him across the court. There was something like the outline of a great carriage discernible on the road behind the stranger, and, above that, a few 30 black pine tops, like so many plumes. "Master Will?" asked the new-comer, in brief military fashion. "That same, sir," answered Will. "Can I do anything to serve you?" Will o' the Mill 213 "I have heard you much spoken of, Master Will," returned the other; "much spoken of, and well. And though I have both hands full of business, I wish to drink a bottle of wine with you in your arbor. Before I go, I shall introduce myself." 5 Will led the way to the trellis, and got a lamp lighted and a bottle uncorked. He was not altogether unused to such complimentary interviews, and hoped little enough from this one, being schooled by many disappointments. A sort of cloud had settled on his wits and prevented him 10 from remembering the strangeness of the hour. He moved ' like a person in his sleep; and it seemed as if the lamp caught fire and the bottle came uncorked with the facility of thought. Still, he had some curiosity about the appear- ance of his visitor, and tried in vain to turn the light into 15 his face; either he handled the lamp clumsily, or there was a dimness over his eyes; but he could make out little more than a shadow at table with him. He stared and stared at this shadow, as he wiped out the glasses, and began to feel cold and strange about the heart. The silence weighed 20 upon him, for he could hear nothing now, not even the river, but the drumming of his own arteries in his ears. "Here's to you," said the stranger roughly. "Here is my service, sir," replied Will, sipping his wine, 25 which somehow tasted oddly. "I understand you are a very positive fellow," pursued the stranger. Will made answer with a smile of some satisfaction and a little nod. 30 "So am I," continued the other; "and it is the delight of my heart to tramp on people's corns. I will have nobody positive but myself; not one. I have crossed the whims, in my time, of kings and generals and great artists, 214 Robert Louis Stevenson And what would you say," he went on, "if I had come up here on purpose to cross yours?" Will had it on his tongue to make a sharp rejoinder; but the politeness of an old innkeeper prevailed; and he held 5 his peace and made answer with a civil gesture of the hand. "I have," said the stranger. "And if I did not hold you in a particular esteem, I should make no words about the matter. It appears you pride yourself on staying where you are. You mean to stick by your inn. Now I mean you shall come for a turn with me in my barouche; and before this bottle's empty, so you shall." "That would be an odd thing, to be sure," replied Will, with a chuckle. "Why, sir, I have grown here like an old oak tree; the Devil himself could hardly root me 15 up; and for all I perceive you are a very entertaining old gentleman, I would wager you another bottle you lose your pains with me." The dimness of Will's eyesight had been increasing all this while ; but he was somehow conscious of a sharp and 20 chilling scrutiny which irritated and yet overmastered him. "You need not think," he broke out suddenly, in an explosive, febrile manner that startled and alarmed him- self, "that I am a stay-at-home, because I fear anything under God. God knows I am tired enough of it all; and 25 when the time comes for a longer journey than ever you dream of, I reckon I shall find myself prepared." The stranger emptied his glass and pushed it away from him. He looked down for a little, and then, leaning over the table, tapped Will three times upon the forearm 30 with a single finger. "The time has come!" he said solemnly. An ugly thrill spread from the spot he touched. The tones of his voice were dull and startling, and echoed strangely in Will's heart. Will o' the Mill 215 "I beg your pardon," he said, with some discomposure. "What do you mean?" "Look at me, and you will find your eyesight swim. Raise your hand; it is dead-heavy. This is your last bottle of wine, Master Will, and your last night upon 5 the earth." "You are a doctor?" quavered Will. "The best that ever was," replied the other; "for I cure both mind andJ>od^Jffiith_th_same prescription. I take away all pain and I forgive all sins; and where my 10 patients have gone wrong in life, I smooth out all com- plications and set them free again upon their feet." "I have no need of you," said Will. "A time comes for all men, Master Will," replied the doctor, "when the helm is taken out of their hands. For 15 you, because you were prudent and quiet, it has been long of coming, and you have had long to discipline yourself for its reception. You have seen what is to be seen about your mill; you have sat close all your days like a hare in its form; but now that is at an end; and," added the doctor, 20 getting 'on his feet, "you must arise and come with me." "You are a strange physician," said Will, looking steadfastly upon his guest. "I am a natural law," he replied, "and people call me Death." 25 "Why did you not tell me so at first?" cried Will. "I have been waiting for you these many years. Give me your hand, and welcome." "Lean upon my arm," said the stranger, "for already your strength abates. Lean on me heavily as you need; 30 for though I am old, I am very strong. It is but three . steps to my carriage, and there all your trouble ends. Why, Will," he added, "I have b.en yearning for you as if you were my own son; and of all the men that ever I 216 Robert Louis Stevenson came for in my long days, I have come for you most gladly. I am caustic, and sometimes offend people at first sight; but I am a good friend at heart to such as you." "Since Marjory was taken," returned Will, "I declare 5 before God you were the only friend I had to look for." So the pair went arm in arm across the court-yard. One of the servants awoke about this time and heard the noise of horses pawing before he dropped asleep again; all down the valley that night there was a rushing as of a 10 smooth and steady wind descending towards the plain; and when the world rose next morning, sure enough Will o' the Mill had gone at last upon his travels. THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR By ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON DENIS DE BEAULIEU was not yet two-and- twenty, but he counted himself a grown man, and a very accomplished cavalier into the bargain. Lads were early formed in that rough, warfaring epoch; and when one has been in a pitched battle and a dozen raids, has killed one's man in an 5 honorable fashion, and knows a thing or two of strategy and mankind, a certain swagger in the gait is surely to be pardoned. He had put up his horse with due care, and supped with due deliberation; and then, in a very agree- able frame of mind, went out to pay a visit in the gray 10 of the evening. It was not a very wise proceeding on the young man's part. He would have done better to remain beside the fire or go decently to bed. For the town was full of troops of Burgundy and England under a mixed command; and though Denis was there on safe-conduct, 15 his safe-conduct was like to serve him little on a chance encounter. It was September, 1429; the weather had fallen sharp; a flighty piping wind, laden with showers, beat about the township; and the dead leaves ran riot along the streets. 20 Here and there a window was already lighted up; and the noise of men-at-arms making merry over supper within, came forth in fits and was swallowed up and carried away by the wind. The night fell swiftly; the flag of England, fluttering on the spire top, grew ever fainter and fainter 25 against the flying clouds a black speck like a swallow in the tumultuous, leaden chaos of the sky. As the night fell 217 2i 8 Robert Louis Stevenson the wind rose, and began to hoot under archways and roar amid the tree-tops in the valley below the town. Denis de Beaulieu walked fast and was soon knocking at his friend's door; but though he promised himself to 5 stay only a little while and make an early return, his wel- come was so pleasant, and he found so much to delay him, that it was already long past midnight before he said good-bye upon the threshold. The wind had fallen again in the meanwhile; the night was as black as the grave; 10 not a star, nor a glimmer of moonshine, slipped through the canopy of cloud. Denis was ill-acquainted with the intricate lanes of Chateau Landon; even by daylight he had found some trouble in picking his way; and in this absolute darkness he soon lost it altogether. He was 15 certain of one thing only to keep mounting the hill; for his friend's house lay at the lower end, or tail, of Chateau Landon, while the inn was up at the head, under the great church spire. With this clew to go upon he stumbled and groped forward, now breathing more freely in the open 20 places where there was a good slice of sky overhead, now feeling along the wall in stifling closes. It is an eerie and mysterious position to be thus submerged in opaque black- ness in an almost unknown town. The silence is terrifying in its possibilities. The touch of cold window bars to 25 the exploring hand startles the man like a touch of a toad; the inequalities of the pavement shake his heart into his mouth; a piece of denser darkness threatens an ambuscade or a chasm in the pathway; and where the air is brighter, the houses put on strange and bewildering appearances, as 30 if to lead him further from his way. For Denis, who had to regain his inn without attracting notice, there was real danger as well as mere discomfort in the walk; and he went warily and boldly at once, and at every corner paused to make an observation. The Sire de Maletroit's Door 219 He had been for some time threading a lane so narrow that he could touch a wall with either hand, when it began to open out and go sharply downward. Plainly this lay no longer in the direction of his inn; but the hope of a little more light tempted him forward to reconnoiter. The lane 5 ended in a terrace with a bartizan wall, which gave an out- look between high houses, as out of an embrasure, into the valley lying dark and formless several hundred feet below. Denis looked down, and could discern a few tree-tops wav- ing and a single speck of brightness where the river ran 10 across a weir. The weather was clearing up, and the sky had lightened, so as to show the outline of the heavier clouds and the dark margin of the hills. By the uncertain glimmer, the house on his left hand should be a place of some pretensions; it was surmounted by several pinnacles 15 and turret- tops; the round stern of a chapel, with a fringe of flying buttresses, projected boldly from the main block; and the door was sheltered under a deep porch carved with figures and overhung by two long gargoyles. The windows of the chapel gleamed through their intricate 20 tracery with a light as of many tapers, and threw out the buttresses and the peaked roof in a more intense blackness against the sky. It was plainly the hotel of some great family of the neighborhood; and as it reminded Denis of a town house of his own at Bourges, he stood for some 25 time gazing up at it and mentally gauging the skill of the architects and the consideration of the two families. There seemed to be no issue to the terrace but the lane by which he had reached it; he could only retrace his steps, but he had gained some notion of his whereabouts, and 30 hoped by this means to hit the main thoroughfare and speedily regain the inn. He was reckoning without that chapter of accidents which was to make this night mem- orable above all others in his career; for he had not gone 22O Robert Louis Stevenson back above a hundred yards before he saw a light coming to meet him, and heard loud voices speaking together in the echoing narrows of the lane. It was a party of men- at-arms going the night round with torches. Denis assured 5 himself that they had all been making free with the wine- bowl, and were in no mood to be particular about safe- conducts or the niceties of chivalrous war. It was as like as not that they would kill him like a dog and leave him where he fell. The situation was inspiriting but nervous. 10 Their own torches would conceal him from sight, he re- flected; and he hoped that they would drown the noise of his footsteps with their own empty voices. If he were but fleet and silent, he might evade their notice altogether. Unfortunately, as he turned to beat a retreat, his foot 15 rolled upon a pebble; he fell against the wall with an ejac- ulation, and his sword rung loudly on the stones. Two or three voices demanded who went there some in French, some in English; but Denis made no reply, and ran the faster down the lane. Once upon the terrace, he paused 20 to look back. They still kept calling after him, and just then began to double the pace in pursuit, with a consider- able clank of armor, and great tossing of the torchlight to and fro in the narrow jaws of the passage. Denis cast a look around and darted into the porch. 25 There he might escape observation, or if that were too much to expect was in a capital posture whether for par- ley or defense. So thinking, he drew his sword and tried to set his back against the door. To his surprise it yielded behind his weight; and though he turned in a moment, 30 continued to swing back on oiled and noiseless hinges until it stood wide open on a black interior. When things fall out opportunely for the person concerned, he is not apt to be critical about the how or why, his own immediate per- sonal convenience seeming a sufficient reason for the The Sire de Maletroit's Door 221 strangest oddities and revolutions in our sublunary things; and so Denis, without a moment's hesitation, stepped within, and partly closed the door behind him to conceal his place of refuge. Nothing was further from his thoughts than to close it altogether; but for some inexplicable 5 reason perhaps by a spring or a weight the ponderous mass of oak whipped itself out of his fingers and clanked to, with a formidable rumble and a noise like the falling of an automatic bar. The round, at that very moment, debouched upon the 10 terrace and proceeded to summon him with shouts and curses. He heard them ferreting in the dark corners; the stock of a lance even rattled along the outer surface of the door behind which he stood; but these gentlemen were in too high a humor to be long delayed, and soon made off 15 down a corkscrew pathway which had escaped Denis' observation, and passed out of sight and hearing along the battlements of the town. Denis breathed again. He gave them a few minutes' grace for fear of accidents, and then groped about for 20 some means of opening the door and slipping forth again. The inner surface was quite smooth, not a handle, not a molding, not a projection of any sort. He got his finger- nails round the edges and pulled, but the mass was im- movable. He shook it, it was as firm as a rock. Denis de 25 Beaulieu frowned and gave vent to a little noiseless whistle. What ailed the door, he wondered. Why was it open? How came it to shut so easily and so effectually after him? There was something obscure and underhand about all this, that was little to the young man's fancy. It looked 30 like a snare, and yet who could suppose a snare in such a quiet by-street and in a house of so prosperous and even noble an exterior? And yet snare or no snare, intention- ally or unintentionally here he was, prettily trapped; and 222 Robert Louis Stevenson for the life of him he could see no way out of it again. The darkness began to weigh upon him. He gave ear; all was silent without, but within and close by he seemed to catch a faint sighing, a faint sobbing rustle, a little stealthy 5 creak as though many persons were at his side, holding themselves quite still, and governing even their respiration with the extreme of slyness. The idea went to his vitals with a shock, and he faced about suddenly as if to defend his life. Then, for the first time, he became aware of a 10 light about the level of his eyes and at some distance in the interior of the house a vertical thread of light, widening toward the bottom, such as might escape between two wings of arras over a doorway. To see anything was a relief to Denis; it was like a 15 piece of solid ground to a man laboring in a morass; his mind seized upon it with avidity; and he stood staring at it and trying to piece together some logical conception of his surroundings. Plainly there was a flight of steps ascend- ing from his own level to that of this illuminated doorway, 20 and indeed he thought he could make out another thread of light, as fine as a needle and as faint as phosphores- cence, which might very well be reflected along the polished wood of a handrail. Since he had begun to suspect that he was not alone, his heart had continued to beat with 25 smothering violence, and an intolerable desire for action of any sort had possessed itself of his spirit. He was in deadly peril, he believed. What could be more natural than to mount the staircase, lift the curtain, and confront his difficulty at once? At least he would be dealing with 30 something tangible; at least he would be no longer in the dark. He stepped slowly forward with outstretched hands, until his foot struck the bottom step; then he rapidly scaled the stairs, stood for a moment to compose his expression, lifted the arras and went in. The Sire de Maletroit's Door 223 He found himself in a large apartment of polished stone. There were three doors; one on each of three sides; all similarly curtained with tapestry. The fourth side was occupied by two large windows and a great stone chimney- piece, carved with the arms of the Maletroits. Denis 5 recognized the bearings, and was gratified to find himself in such good hands. The room was strongly illuminated; but it contained little furniture except a heavy table and a chair or two, the hearth was innocent of fire, and the pavement was but sparsely strewn with rushes clearly 10 many days old. On a high chair beside the chimney, and directly facing Denis as he entered, sat a little old gentleman in a fur tippet. He sat with his legs crossed and his hands folded, and a cup of spiced wine stood by his elbow on a bracket on 15 the wall. His countenance had a strong masculine cast; not properly human, but such as we see in the bull, the goat, or the domestic boar; something equivocal and wheedling, something greedy, brutal, and dangerous. The upper lip was inordinately full, as though swollen by a 20 blow or a toothache; and the smile, the peaked eyebrows, and the small, strong eyes were quaintly and almost comically evil in expression. Beautiful white hair hung straight all round his head, like a saint's, and fell in a single curl upon the tippet. His beard and mustache were 25 the pink of venerable sweetness. Age, probably in conse- quence of inordinate precautions, had left no mark upon his hands; and the Maletroit hand was famous. It would be difficult to imagine anything at once so fleshy and so delicate in design; the taper, sensual fingers were like those 30 of one of Leonardo's women; the fork of the thumb made a dimpled protuberance when closed; the nails were per- fectly shaped, and of a dead, surprising whiteness. It ren- dered his aspect tenfold more redoubtable, that a man 224 Robert Louis Stevenson with hands like these should keep them devoutly folded like a virgin martyr that a man with so intent and start- ling an expression of face should sit patiently on his seat and contemplate people with an unwinking stare, like a 5 god, 'or a god's statue. His quiescence seemed ironical and treacherous, it fitted so poorly with his looks. Such was Alain, Sire de Maletroit. Denis and he looked silently at each other for a second or two. 10 "Pray step in," said the Sire de Maletroit. "I have been expecting you all the evening." He had not risen but he accompanied his words with a smile and a slight but courteous inclination of the head. Partly from the smile, partly from the strange musical 15 murmur with which the sire prefaced his observation, Denis felt a strong shudder of disgust go through his mar- row. And what with disgust and honest confusion of mind, he could scarcely get words together in reply. "I fear," he said, "that this is a double accident. I am 20 not the person you suppose me. It seems you were looking for a visit; but for my part, nothing was further from my thoughts nothing could be more contrary to my wishes than this intrusion." "Well, well," replied the old gentleman indulgently, 25 "here you are, which is the main point. Seat yourself, my friend, and put yourself entirely at your ease. We shall arrange our little affairs presently." Denis perceived that the matter was still complicated with some misconception, and he hastened to continue his 30 explanations. "Your door," he began. "About my door?" asked the other, raising his peaked eyebrows. "A little piece of ingenuity." And he shrugged his shoulders. "A hospitable fancy! By your own ac The Sire de Maletroit's Door 225 count, you were not desirous of making my acquaintance. We old people look for such reluctance now and then; when it touches our honor, we cast about until we find some way of overcoming it. You arrive uninvited, but believe me, very welcome." 5 "You persist in error, sir," said Denis. " There can be no question between you and me. I am a stranger in this countryside. My name is Denis, damoiseau de Beaulieu. If you see me in your house it is only " "My young friend," interrupted the other, "you will 10 permit me to have my own ideas on that subject. They probably differ from yours at the present moment," he added with a leer, "but time will show which of us is in the right." Denis was convinced he had to do with a lunatic. He 15 seated himself with a shrug, content to wait the upshot; and a pause ensued, during which he thought he could distinguish a hurried gabbling as of a prayer from behind the arras immediately opposite him. Sometimes there seemed to be but one person engaged, sometimes two; and 20 the vehemence of the voice, low as it was, seemed to indi- cate either great haste or an agony of spirit. It occurred to him that this piece of tapestry covered the entrance to the chapel he had noticed from without. The old gentleman meanwhile surveyed Denis from head 25 to foot with a smile, and from time to time emitted little noises like a bird or a mouse, which seemed to indicate a high degree of satisfaction. This state of matters became rapidly insupportable; and Denis, to put an end to it, remarked politely that the wind had gone down. 30 The old gentleman fell into a fit of silent laughter, so prolonged and violent that he became quite red in the face. Denis got upon his feet at once, and put on his hat with a flourish. 226 Robert Louis Stevenson "Sir," he said, "if you are in your wits, you have af- fronted me grossly. If you are out of them, I flatter my- self I can find better employment for my brains than to talk with lunatics. My conscience is clear; you have made 5 a fool of me from the first moment; you have refused to hear my explanations; and now there is no power under God will make me stay here any longer; and if I cannot make my way out in a more decent fashion, I will hack your door in pieces with my sword." 10 The Sire de Maletroit raised his right hand and wagged it at Denis with the fore and little fingers extended. "My dear nephew," he said, "sit down." "Nephew!" retorted Denis, "you' lie in your throat;" and he snapped his fingers in his face. 15 "Sit down, you rogue!" cried the old gentleman, in a sudden, harsh voice, like the barking of a dog. "Do you fancy," he went on, "that when I had made my little con- trivance for the door I had stopped short with that? If you prefer to be bound hand and foot till your bones ache, 20 rise and try to go away. If you choose to remain a free young buck, agreeably conversing with an old gentleman why, sit where you are in peace, and God be with you." "Do you mean I am a prisoner?" demanded Denis. "I state the facts," replied the other. "I would rather 25 leave the conclusion to yourself." Denis sat down again. Externally he managed to keep pretty calm, but within, he was now boiling with anger, now chilled with apprehension. He no longer felt con- vinced that he was dealing with a madman. And if the old 30 gentleman was sane, what, in God's name, had he to look for? What absurd or tragical adventure had befallen him? What countenance was he to assume? While he was thus unpleasantly reflecting, the arras that overhung the chapel door was raised, and a tall priest in The Sire de Maletroit' s Door 227 his robes came forth, and, giving a long, keen stare at Denis, said something in an undertone to Sire de Maletroit. "She is in a better frame of spirit?" asked the latter. "She is more resigned, messire," replied the priest. " Now, the Lord help her, she is hard to please ! " sneered 5 the old gentleman. "A likely stripling not ill-born and of her own choosing, too! Why, what more would the jade have? " "The situation is not usual for a young damsel,' 7 said the other, "and somewhat trying to her blushes." 10 " She should have thought of that before she began the dance! It was none of my choosing, God knows that; but since she is in it, by our Lady, she shall carry it to the end." And then addressing Denis, "Monsieur de Beau- lieu," he asked, "may I present you to my niece? She has 15 been waiting your arrival, I may say, with even greater impatience than myself." Denis had resigned himself with a good grace all he desired was to know the worst of it as speedily as possible; so he rose at once, and bowed in acquiescence. The Sire 20 de Maletroit followed his example and limped, with the assistance of the chaplain's arm, toward the chapel door. The priest pulled aside the arras, and all three entered. The building had considerable architectural pretensions. A light groining sprung from six stout columns, and hung 25 down in two rich pendants from the center of the vault. The place terminated behind the altar in a round end, embossed and honeycombed with a superfluity of ornament in relief, and pierced by many little windows shaped like stars, trefoils, or wheels. These windows were imperfectly 30 glazed, so that the night air circulated freely in the chapel. The tapers, of which there must have been half a hundred burning on the altar, were unmercifully blown about; and the light went through many different phases of brilliancy 228 Robert Louis Stevenson and semi-eclipse. On the steps in front of the altar knelt a young girl richly attired as a bride. A chill settled over Denis as he observed her costume; he fought with desperate energy against the conclusion that was being thrust upon 5 his mind; it could not it should not be as he feared. "Blanche," said the sire, in his most flute-like tones, "I have brought a friend to see you, my little girl; turn round and give him your pretty hand. It is good to be devout; but it is necessary to be polite, my niece." 10 The girl rose to her feet and turned toward the new- comers. She moved all of a piece; and shame and exhaus- tion were expressed in every line of her fresh young body; and she held her head down and kept her eyes upon the pavement, as she came slowly forward. In the course of 15 her advance her eyes fell upon Denis de Beaulieu's feet feet of which he was justly vain, be it remarked, and w r ore in the most elegant accouterment even while traveling. She paused started, as if his yellow boots had conveyed some shocking meaning and glanced suddenly up into the 20 wearer's countenance. Their eyes met; shame gave place to horror and terror in her looks; the blood left her lips, with a piercing scream she covered her face with her hands and sank upon the chapel floor. "That is not the man!" she cried. "My uncle, that is 25 not the man!" The Sire de Maletroit chirped agreeably. "Of course not," he said; " I expected as much. It was so unfortunate you could not remember his name." "Indeed," she cried, "indeed, I have never seen this 30 person till this moment I have never so much as set eyes upon him I never wish to see him again. Sir," she said, turning to Denis, "if you are a gentleman, you will bear me out. Have I ever seen you have you ever seen me before this accursed hour?" The Sire de Maletroit's Door 229 "To speak for myself, I have never had that pleasure," answered the young man. "This is the first time, messire, that I have met with your engaging niece." The old gentleman shrugged his shoulders. "I am distressed to hear it," he said. "But it is never 5 too late to begin. I had little more acquaintance with my own late lady ere I married her; which proves," he added, with a grimace, "that these impromptu marriages may often produce an excellent understanding in the long run. As the bridegroom is to have a voice in the matter, I will 10 give him two hours to make up for lost time before we proceed with the ceremony." And he turned toward the door, followed by the clergyman. The girl was on her feet in a moment. "My uncle, you cannot be in earnest," she said. "I declare before God I 15 will stab myself rather than be forced on that young man. The heart rises at it; God forbids such marriages; you dishonor your white hair. Oh, my uncle, pity me! There is not a woman in all the world but would prefer death to such a nuptial. Is it possible," she added, faltering 20 "is it possible that you do not believe me that you still think this" and she pointed at Denis with a tremor of anger and contempt "that you still think this to be the man?" "Frankly," said the old gentleman, pausing on the 25 threshold, "I do. But let me explain to you once for all, Blanche de Maletroit, my way of thinking about this affair. When you took it into your head to dishonor my family and the name that I have borne, in peace and war, for more than threescore years, you forfeited, not only the 30 right to question my designs, but that of looking me in the face. If your father had been alive, he would have spat on you and turned you out of doors. His was the hand of iron. You may bless your God you have only to deal with 230 Robert Louis Stevenson the hand of velvet, mademoiselle. It was my duty to get you married without delay. Out of pure good- will, I have tried to find your own gallant for you. And I believe I have succeeded. But before God and all the holy angels, 5 Blanche de Mabtroit, if I have not, I care not one jack- straw. So let me recommend you to be polite to our young friend; for, upon my word, your next groom may be less appetizing." And with that he went out, with the chaplain at his 10 fieels; and the arras fell behind the pair. The girl turned upon Denis with flashing eyes. "And what, sir," she demanded, "may be the meaning of all this?" "God knows," returned Denis, gloomily. "I am a pris- 15 oner in this house, which seems full of mad people. More I know not; and -nothing do I understand." "And pray how came you here?" she asked. He told her as briefly as he could. "For the rest," he added, "perhaps you will follow my example, and tell me 20 the answer to all these riddles, and what, in God's name, is like to be the end of it." She stood silent for a little, and he could see her lips tremble and her tearless eyes burn with a feverish luster. Then she pressed her forehead in both hands. 25 "Alas, how my head aches!" she said, wearily "to say nothing of my poor heart! But it is due to you to know my story, unmaidenly as it must seem. I am called Blanche de Maletroit; I have been without father or mother for oh! for as long as I can recollect, and indeed I 30 have been most unhappy all my life. Three months ago a young captain began to stand near me every day in church. I could see that I pleased him; I am much to blame, but I was so glad that any one should love me; and when he passed me a letter, I took it home with me and read it The Sire de Maletroit's Door 231 with great pleasure. Since that time he has written many. He was so anxious to speak with me, poor fellow! and kept asking me to leave the door open some evening that we might have two words upon the stair. For he knew how much my uncle trusted me." She gave some- 5 thing like a sob at that, and it was a moment before she could go on. "My uncle is a hard man, but he is very shrewd," she said at last. "He has performed many feats in war, and was a great person at court, and much trusted by Queen Isabeau in old days. How he came to 10 suspect me I cannot tell; but it is hard to keep anything from his knowledge; and this morning, as we came from mass, he took my hand in his, forced it open, and read my little billet, walking by my side all the while. "When he finished, he gave it back to me with great 15 politeness. It contained another request to have the door left open; and this has been the ruin of us all. My uncle kept me strictly in my room until evening, and then ordered me to dress myself as you see me a hard mockery for a young girl, do you not think so? I suppose, when he 20 could not prevail with me to tell him the young captain's name, he must have laid a trap for him; into which, alas! you have fallen in the anger of God. I looked for much confusion; for how could I tell whether he was willing to take me for his wife on these sharp terms? He might have 25 been trifling with me from the first; or I might have made myself too cheap in his eyes. But truly I had not looked for such a shameful punishment as this ! I could not think that God would let a girl be so disgraced before a young man. And now I tell you all; and I can scarcely hope that 30 you will not despise me." Denis made her a respectful inclination. "Madam," he said, "you have honored me by your confidence. It remains for me to prove that I am .not 232 Robert Louis Stevenson unworthy of the honor. Is Messire de Maletroit at hand?" "I believe he is writing in the salle without," she an- swered. 5 "May I lead you thither, madam?" asked Denis, offering his hand with his most courtly bearing. She accepted it; and the pair passed out of the chapel, Blanche in a very drooping and shamefast condition, but Denis strutting and ruffling in the consciousness of a mis- 10 sion, and the boyish certainty of accomplishing it with honor. The Sire de Maletroit rose to meet them with an ironical obeisance. "Sir," said Denis, with the grandest possible air, "I 15 believe I am to have some say in the matter of this mar- riage; and let me tell you at once, I will be no party to forcing the inclination of this young lady. Had it been freely offered to me, I should have been proud to accept her hand, for I perceive she is as good as she is beautiful; 20 but as things are, I have now the honor, messire, of re- fusing." Blanche looked at him with gratitude in her eyes; but the old gentleman only smiled and smiled, until his smile grew positively sickening to Denis. 25 " I am afraid," he said, " Monsieur de Beaulieu, that you do not perfectly understand the choice I have offered you. Follow me, I beseech you, to this window." And he led the way to one of the large windows which stood open on the night. "You observe," he went on, "there is an iron 30 ring in the upper masonry, and reeved through that, a very efficacious rope. Now, mark my words: if you should find your disinclination to my niece's person insurmountable, I shall have you hanged out of this window before sunrise. I shall only proceed to such an extremity with the greatest The Sire de Maletroit's Door 233 regret, you may believe me. For it is not at all your death that I desire, but my niece's establishment in life. At the same time, it must come to that if you prove obstinate. Your family, Monsieur de Beaulieu, is very well in its way, but if you sprung from Charlemagne, you should not refuse 5 the hand of a Maletroit with impunity not if she had been as common as the Paris road not if she was as hideous as the gargoyle over my door. Neither my niece nor you, nor my own private feelings, move me at all in this matter. The honor of my house has been compromised; I believe 10 you to be the guilty person, at least you are now in the secret; and you can hardly wonder if I request you to wipe out the stain. If you will not, your blood be on your own head! It will be no great satisfaction to me to have your interesting relics kicking their heels in the breeze 15 below my windows, but half a loaf is better than no bread, and if I cannot cure the dishonor, I shall at least stop the scandal." There was a pause. "I believe there are other ways of settling such im- 20 broglios among gentlemen," said Denis. "You wear a sword, and I hear you have used it with distinction." The Sire de Maletroit made a signal to the chaplain, who crossed the room with long silent strides and raised the arras over the third of the three doors. It was only a 25 moment before he let it fall again; but Denis had time to see a dusky passage full of armed men. "When I was a little younger, I should have been de- lighted to honor you, Monsieur de Beaulieu," said Sire Alain; "but I am now too old. Faithful retainers are the 30 sinews of age, and I must employ the strength I have. This is one of the hardest things to swallow as a man grows up in years; but with a little patience, even this becomes habitual. You and the lady seem to prefer the 234 Robert Louis Stevenson salle for what remains of your two hours; and as I have no desire to cross your preference, I shall resign it to your use with all the pleasure in the world. No haste!" he added, holding up his hand, as he saw a dangerous look come into 5 Denis de Beaulieu's face. "If your mind revolt against hanging, it will be time enough two hours hence to throw yourself out of the window or upon the pikes of my re- tainers. Two hours of life are always two hours. A great many things may turn up in even as little a while 10 as that. And, besides, if I understand her appearance, my niece has something to say to you. You will not dis- figure your last hours by a want of politeness to a lady?" Denis looked at Blanche, and she made him an imploring 15 gesture. It is likely that the old gentleman was hugely pleased at this symptom of an understanding; for he smiled on both, and added sweetly: "If you will give me your word of honor, Monsieur de Beaulieu, to await my return at the 20 end of the two hours before attempting anything desper- ate, I shall withdraw my retainers, and let you speak in greater privacy with mademoiselle." Denis again glanced at the girl, who seemed to beseech him to agree. 25 "I give you my word of honor," he said. Messire de Maletroit bowed, and proceeded to limp about the apartment, clearing his throat the while with that odd musical chirp which had already grown so ir- ritating in the ears of Denis de Beaulieu. He first possessed 30 himself of some papers which lay upon the table; then he went to the mouth of the passage and appeared to give an order to the men behind the arras; and lastly he hobbled out through the door by which Denis had come in, turning upon the threshold to address a last smiling bow to the The Sire de Maletroit's Door 235 young couple, and followed by the chaplain with a hand- lamp. No sooner were they alone than Blanche advanced toward Denis with her hands extended. Her face was flushed and excited, and her eyes shone with tears. "You shall not die!" she cried, "you shall marry me after all." "You seem to think, madam," replied Denis, "that I stand much in fear of death." "Oh, no, no," she said, "I see you are no poltroon. It ic is for my own sake I could not bear to have you slain for such a scruple." "I am afraid," returned Denis, "that you underrate the difficulty, madam. What you may be too generous to re- fuse, I may be too proud to accept. In a moment of noble 15 feeling toward me, you forget what you perhaps owe to others." He had the decency to keep his eyes on the floor as he said this, and after he had finished, so as not to spy upon her confusion. She stood silent for a moment, then walked 20 suddenly away, and falling on her uncle's chair, fairly burst out sobbing. Denis was in the acme of embarrass- ment. He looked round, as if to seek for inspiration, and seeing a stool, plumped down upon it for something to do. There he sat, playing with the guard of his rapier, and, 25 wishing himself dead a thousand times over, and buried in the nastiest kitchen-heap in France. His eyes wandered round the apartment, but found nothing to arrest them. There were such wide spaces between the furniture, the light fell so badly and cheerlessly over all, the dark out- 30 side air looked in so coldly through the windows, that he thought he had never seen a church so vast, nor a tomb so melancholy. The regular sobs of Blanche de Maletroit measured out the time like the ticking of a clock. He read 236 Robert Louis Stevenson the device upon the shield over and over again, until his eyes became obscured; he stared into shadowy corners until he imagined they were swarming with horrible ani- mals; and every now and again he awoke with a start, to 5 remember that his last two hours were running, and death was on the march. Oftener and oftener, as the time went on, did his glance settle on the girl herself. Her face was bowed forward and covered with her hands, and she was shaken at intervals 10 by the convulsive hiccough of grief. Even thus she was not an unpleasant object to dwell upon, so plump and yet so fine, with a warm brown skin, and the most beautiful hair, Denis thought, in the whole world of womankind. Her hands were like her uncle's: but they were more in 15 place at the end of her young arms, and looked infinitely soft and caressing. He remembered how her blue eyes had shone upon him, full of anger, pity, and innocence. And the more he dwelt on her perfections, the uglier death looked, and the more deeply was he smitten with penitence 20 at her continued tears. Now he felt that no man could have the courage to leave a world which contained so beautiful a creature; and now he would have given forty minutes of his last hour to have unsaid his cruel speech. Suddenly a hoarse and ragged peal of cockcrow rose to a* their ears from the dark valley below the windows. And this shattering noise in the silence of all around was like a light in a dark place, and shook them both out of their reflections. "Alas, can I do nothing to help you?" she said, looking 30 up. "Madam," replied Denis, with a fine irrelevancy, "if I have said anything to wound you, believe me, it was for your own sake and not for mine." She thanked him with a tearful look. The Sire de Maletroit's Door 237 "I feel your position cruelly," he went on. "The world has been bitter hard on you. Your uncle is a disgrace to mankind. Believe me, madam, there is no young gentle- man in all France but would be glad of my opportunity, to die in doing you a momentary service." 5 "I know already that you can be very brave and gener- ous," she answered. "What I want to know is whether I can serve you now or afterward," she added, with a quaver. "Most certainly," he answered, with a smile. "Let me 10 sit beside you as if I were a friend, instead of a foolish intruder; try to forget how awkwardly we are placed to one another; make my last moments go pleasantly; and you will do me the chief service possible." "You are very gallant," she added, with a yet deeper 15 sadness "very gallant and it somehow pains me. But draw nearer, if you please; and if you find anything to say to me, you will at least make certain of a very friendly listener. Ah! Monsieur de Beaulieu," she broke forth "ah! Monsieur de Beaulieu, how can I look you in the 20 face?" And she fell to weeping again with a renewed effusion. "Madam," said Denis, taking her hand in both of his, "reflect on the little time I have before me, and the great bitterness into which I am cast by the sight of your dis- 25 tress. Spare me, in my last moments, the spectacle of what I cannot cure even with the sacrifice of my life." "I am very selfish," answered Blanche. "I will te braver, Monsieur de Beaulieu, for your sake. But think if I can do you no kindness in the future if you have no 30 friends to whom I could carry your adieus. Charge me as heavily as you can; every burden will lighten, by so little, the invaluable gratitude I owe you. Put it in my power to do something more for you than weep." 238 Robert Louis Stevenson "My mother is married again, and has a young family to care for. My brother Guichard will inherit my fiefs; and if I am not in error, that will content him amply for my death. Life is a little vapor that passeth away, as we 5 are told by those in holy orders. When a man is in a fair way and sees all life open in front of him, he seems to him- self to make a very important figure in the world. His horse whinnies to him; the trumpets blow and the girls look out of window as he rides into town before his com- 10 pany; he receives many assurances of trust and regard sometimes by express in a letter sometimes face to face, with persons of great consequence falling on his neck. It is not wonderful if his head is turned for a time. But once he is dead, were he as brave as Hercules or as wise as 15 Solomon, he is soon forgotten. It is not ten years since my father fell, with many other knights around him, in a very fierce encounter, and I do not think that any one of them, nor as much as the name of the fight, is now remembered. No, no, madam, the nearer you come to it, you see that 20 death is a dark and dusty corner, where a man gets into his tomb and has the door shut after him till the judgment day. I have few friends just now, and once I am dead I shall have none." "Ah, Monsieur de Beaulieu!" she exclaimed, "you for- 25 get Blanche de Maletroit." "You have a sweet nature, madam, and you are pleased to estimate a little service far beyond its worth." " It is not that," she answered. " You mistake me if you think I am easily touched by my own concerns. I say so 30 because you are the noblest man I have ever met; because I recognize in you a spirit that would have made even a common person famous in the land." "And yet here I die in a mousetrap with no more noise about it than my own squeaking," answered he. The Sire de Maletroit's Door 239 A look of pain crossed her face and she was silent for a little while. Then a light came into her eyes, and with a smile she spoke again. "I cannot have my champion think meanly of himself. Any one who gives his life for another will be met in 5 Paradise by all the heralds and angels of the Lord God. And you have no such cause to hang your head. For Pray, do you think me beautiful?" she asked, with a deep flush. "Indeed, madam, I do," he said. 10 "I am glad of that," she answered heartily. "Do you think there are many men in France who have been asked in marriage by a beautiful maiden with her own lips and who have refused her to her face? I know you men would half despise such a triumph; but believe me, we 15 women know more of what is precious in love. There is nothing that should set a person higher in his own esteem; and we women would prize nothing more dearly." "You are very good," he said; "but you cannot make me forget that I was asked in pity and not for love." 20 "I am not so sure of that," she replied, holding down her head. "Hear me to an end, Monsieur de Beaulieu. I know how you must despise me; I feel you are right to do so; I am too poor a creature to occupy one thought of your mind, although, alas! you must die for me this morning. 25 But when I asked you to marry me, indeed, and indeed, it was because I respected and admired you, and loved you with my whole soul, from the very moment that you took my part against my uncle. If you had seen yourself, and how noble you. looked, you would pity rather than despise 30 me. And now," she went on, hurriedly checking him with her hand, "although I have laid aside all reserve and told you so much, remember that I know your sentiments toward me already. I would not, believe me, being nobly 249 Robert Louis Stevenson born, weary you with importunities into consent. I too have a pride of my own; and I declare before the holy mother of God, if you should now go back from your word already given, I would no more marry you than I would 5 marry my uncle's groom." Denis smiled a little bitterly. "It is a small love," he said, "that shies at a little pride." She made no answer, although she probably had her own thoughts. 10 "Come hither to the window," he said with a sigh. "Here is the dawn." And indeed the dawn was already beginning. The hol- low of the sky was full of essential daylight, colorless and clean; and the valley underneath was flooded with a gray 15 reflection. A few thin vapors clung in the coves of the forest or lay along the winding course of the river. The scene disengaged a surprising effect of stillness, which was hardly interrupted when the cocks began once more to crow among the steadings. Perhaps the same fellow who 20 had made so horrid a clangor in the darkness not half an hour before, now sent up the merriest cheer to greet the coming day. A little wind went bustling and eddying among the tree-tops underneath the windows. And still the daylight kept flooding insensibly out of the east, which 25 was soon to grow incandescent and cast up that red-hot cannon-ball, the rising sun. Denis looked out over all this with a bit of a shiver. He had taken her hand, and retained it in his almost unconsciously. 30 "Has the day begun already?" she said; and then illog- ically enough: "the night has been so long! Alas! what shall we say to my uncle when he returns? " "What you will," said Denis, and he pressed her fingers in his. The Sire de Maletroit's Door 241 She was silent. "Blanche," he said, with a swift, uncertain, passionate utterance, "you have seen whether I fear death. You must know well enough that I would as gladly leap out of that window into the empty air as to lay a finger on you 5 without your free and full consent. But if you care for me at all do not let me lose my life in a misapprehension, for I love you better than the whole world; and though I will die for you blithely, it would be like all the joys of Para- dise to live on and spend my life in your service." 10 As he stopped speaking, a bell began to ring loudly in the interior of the house; and a clatter of armor in the cor- ridor showed that the retainers were returning to their post, and the two hours were at an end. "After all that you have heard? " she whispered, leaning 15 toward him with her lips and eyes. "I have heard nothing," he replied. "The captain's name was Florimond de Champdivers," she said in his ear. "I did not hear it," he answered, taking her supple body 20 in his arms, and covered her wet face with kisses. A melodious chirping was audible behind, followed by a beautiful chuckle, and the voice of Messire de Maletroit wished his new nephew a good-morning. THE COURTING OF T'NOWHEAD'S BELL By SIR JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE FOR two years it had been notorious in the square that Sam'l Dickie was thinking of courting T'nowhead's Bell, and that if little Sanders Elshioner (which is the Thrums pronunciation of Alexander Alexander) went in for her, he 5 might prove a formidable rival. Sam'l was a weaver in the Tenements, and Sanders a coal-carter, whose trade- mark was a bell on his horse's neck 'that told when coal was coming. Being something of a public man, Sanders had not, .perhaps, so high a social position as Sam'l, but 10 he had succeeded his father on the coal-cart, while the weaver had already tried several trades. It had always been against Sam'l, too, that once when the kirk was vacant he had advised the selection of the third minister who preached for it on the ground that it came expensive 15 to pay a large number of candidates. The scandal of the thing was hushed up, out of respect for his father, who was a God-fearing man, but Sam'l was known by it in Lang Tammas' circle. The coal-carter was called Little Sanders to distinguish him from his father, who was not much more 20 than half his size. He had grown up with the name, and its inapplicability now came home to nobody. Sam'l's mother had been more far-seeing than Sanders'. Her man had been called Sammy all his life because it was the name he got as a boy, so when their eldest son was born she 25 spoke of him as Sam'l while still in Ihe cradle. The neighbors imitated her, and thus the young man had a better start in life than had been granted to Sammy, his fathe, ( The Courting of T'nowhead's Bell 243 It was Saturday evening the night in the week when Auld Licht young men fell in love. Sam'l Dickie, wearing a blue glengarry bonnet with a red ball on the top, came to the door of a one-story house in the Tenements, and stood there wriggling, for he was in a suit of tweed for the 5 first time that week, and did not feel at one with them. When his feeling of being a stranger to himself wore off, he looked up and down the road, which straggles between houses and gardens, and then, picking his way over the puddles, crossed to his father's hen-house and sat down 10 oifftTj He was now on his way to the square. Eppie Fargus was sitting on an adjoining dyke knitting stockings, and Sam'l looked at her for a time. "Is't yersel, Eppie?" he said at last. " It's a' that," said Eppie. 15 "Hoo's 1 a> wi' ye?" asked Sam'l. " We're juist aff an' on," 2 replied Eppie, cautiously. There was not much more to say, but as Sam'l sidled off the hen-house, he murmured politely, "Ay, ay." In another minute he would have been fairly started, but 20 Eppie resumed the conversation. "Sam'l," she said, with a twinkle in her eye, "ye can tell Lisbeth Fargus I'll likely be drappin' in on her aboot Mununday or Teisday." Lisbeth was sister to Eppie, and wife cf Tammas 25 McQuhatty, better known as T'nowhead, which was the name of his farm. She was thus Bell's mistress. Sam'l leaned against the hen-house as if all his desire to depart had gone. "Hoo d'ye kin 3 I'll be at the T'nowhead the nicht?" 4 30 he asked, grinnipg in anticipation. "Ou, I'se warrant ye'll be after Bell," said Eppie. s w ^ 1 How is. 2 Ajf an' on is "so so" indifferently well. 3 Know. 4 To-night. 244 Sir James Matthew Barrie "Am no sae sure o' that," said Sam'l, trying to leer. He was enjoying himself now. "Am no sure o' that," he repeated, for Eppie seemed lost in stitches. 5 "Sam'l!" "Ay." f"Ye'll be speirin' 1 her sune noo, I dinna doot? " TEis took Sam'l, who had only been courting Bell for a year or two, a little aback. 10 "Hoo d'ye mean, Eppie?" he asked. "Maybe ye'll do't the nicht." "Na, there's nae hurry," said Sam'l. " Weel, we're a' coontin' on't, Sam'l." "Gaewawi'ye." 2 15 "What for no?" " Gae wa wi' ye," said Sam'l again. "Bell's gei an' fond 3 o' ye, Sam'l." "Ay," said Sam'l. "But am dootin' ye're a fell 4 billy 5 wi' the lasses." 20 "Ay, oh, I d'na kin, moderate, moderate," said Sam'l in high delight. "7 "I saw ye, jr "said Eppie, speaking with a wire in her mouth, "gae'in on terr'ble wi' Mysy Haggart at the pump last Saturday." 25 "We was juist amoosin' oorsels," said Sam'l. "It'll be nae amoosement to Mysy," said Eppie, "gin 6 ye brak her heart." "Losh, 7 Eppie," said Sam'l, "I didna think o' that." 30 "Ye maun 8 kin weel, Sam'l, 'at there's mony a lass wid jump at ye." 1 Asking. " Go on with you." 3 Gei an' fond is "mighty fond." 4 Terrible. 5 Fellow. 6 H. 7 "Lordy " or "Laws." 8 Mast The Courting of T'riowhead's Bell 245 "Ou, weel," said Sam'l, implying that a man must take these things as they come. "For ye're a dainty chield to look at, Sam'l." "Do ye think so, Eppie? Ay, ay; oh, I d'na kin am 1 ony thing by the ordinar." : "Ye mayna be," said Eppie, "but lasses doesna do be ower partikler." Sam'l resented this, and prepared to depart again. "Ye'll no tell Bell that?" he asked anxiously. "Tell her what?" 10 "Aboot me an' Mysy." "We'll see hoo ye behave yersel, Sam'l." "No 'at I care, Eppie; ye can tell her gin ye like. I widna think twice o' tellin' her mysel." "The Lord forgie ye for leein', 3 Sam'l," said Eppie, as he 15 disappeared down Tamm Tosh's close. Here he came upon Renders Webster. "Ye're late, Sam'l," said Renders. "What for?" "Ou, I was thinkin' ye wid be gaen the length o' T'now- 20 head the nicht, an' I saw Sanders Elshioner makkin's wy 4 there an oor syne." 5 "Did ye?" cried Sam'l, adding craftily, "but it's naething to me." "Tod, 6 lad," said Renders, "gin ye dinna buckle to, 25 Sanders'll be carryin' her off." Sam'l flung back his head and passed on. "Sam'l!" cried Renders after him. "Ay," said Sam'l, wheeling round. " Gie Bell a kiss frae me." 30 The full force of this joke struck neither all at once. Sam'l began to smile at it as he turned down the school- l l am. *By the ordinar, extraordinary. 3 Lying. 4 Way. 6 Oor syne, hour ago. 6 " Gosh," 246 Sir James Matthew Barrie wynd, 1 and it came upon Henders while he was in his garden feeding his ferret. Then he slapped his legs glee- fully, and explained the conceit to WilPum Byars, who went into the house and thought it over. 5 There were twelve or twenty little groups of men in the square, which was lit by a flare of oil suspended over a cadger's 2 cart. Now and again a staid young woman passed through the square with a basket on her arm, and if she had lingered long enough to give them time, 10 some of the idlers would have addressed her. As it was, they gazed after her, and then grinned to each other. "Ay, Sam'l," said two or three young men, as Sam'l joined them beneath the town-clock. 15 "Ay, Davit," replied Sam'l. This group was composed of*some of the sharpest wits in Thrums, and it was not to be expected that they would let this opportunity pass. Perhaps when Sam'l joined them he knew what was in store for him. 20 "Was ye lookin' for T'nowhead's Bell, Sam'l?" asked one. "Or mebbe ye was wantin' the minister?" suggested another, the same who had walked out twice with Chirsty Duff and not married her after all. 25 Sam'l could not think of a good reply at the moment, so he laughed good-naturedly. "Ondootedly she's- a snod 3 bit crittur," said Davit, archly. "An' michty clever wi' her fingers," added Jamie 30 Deuchars. "Man, I've thocht o' makkin' up to Bell mysel," said Pete Ogle. "Wid there be ony chance, think ye, Sam'l?" 1 Lane. 2 Huckster. 3 Trim, tidy. The Courting of T'nowhead's Bell 247 "I'm thinkin' she widna hae ye for her first, Pete," replied Sam'l, in one of those happy flashes that come to some men, "but there's nae savin' but what she micht tak ye to finish up wi'." The unexpectedness of this sally startled every one. 5 Though Sam'l did not set up for a wit, however, like Davit, it was notorious that he could say a cutting thing once in a way. "Did ye ever see Bell reddin' 1 up?" asked Pete, re- covering from his overthrow. He was a man who bore no 10 malice. "It's a sicht," 2 said Sam'l, solemnly. "Hoo will that be?" asked Jamie Deuchars. "It's weel worth yer while," said Pete, "to ging atower 3 to the T'nowhead an' see. Ye'll mind the closed-in beds 15 i' the kitchen? Ay, weel, they're a fell spoilt crew, T'now- head's litlins, an' no that aisy to manage. Th' ither lasses Lisbeth's hae'n had a michty trouble wi' them. When they war i' the middle o' their reddin' up the bairns wid come tumlin' about the floor, but, sal, 4 I assure ye, Bell 20 didna fash 5 lang wi' them. Did she, Sam'l? " "She did not," said Sam'l, dropping into a fine mode of speech to add emphasis to his remark. "I'll tell ye what she did," said Pete to the others. " She juist lifted up the litlins, twa at a time, an' flung them 25 into the coffin-beds. 6 Syne she snibbit 7 the doors on them an' keepit them there till the floor was dry." "Ay, man, did she so?" said Davit, admiringly. "I've seen her do't mysel," said Sam'l. "There's no a lassie maks better bannocks 8 this side o' 30 Fetter Lums," continued Pete. 1 Tidying. 2 Sight. 3 Over. 4 An expletive. 5 Bother. 6 The "closed-in beds" mentioned above. 7 Fastened. 8 A barley or oatmeal cake baked on a griddle. 248 Sir James Matthew Barrie "Her mither tocht her that," said Sam'l; "she was a gran' han' at the bakin,' Kitty Ogilvy." " I've heard say," remarked Jamie, putting it this way so as not to tie himself down to anything, " 'at Bell's scones 1 5 is equal to Mag Lunan's." "So they are," said Sam'l, almost fiercely. "I kin she's a neat han' at singein' a hen," said Pete. -'"An' wi't a'," said Davit, "she's a snod, canty bit 10 stocky 2 in her Sabbath claes." 3 "If onything, thick in the waist," suggested Jamie. "I dinna see that," said Sam'l. "I d'na care for her hair either," continued Jamie, who was very nice in his tastes; "something mair yallowchy 4 15 wid be an improvement." "A'body 5 kins," growled Sam'l, "'at black hair's the bonniest," The others chuckled. "Puir Sam'l! "Pete said. 20 Sam'l not being certain whether this should be received with a smile or a frown, opened his mouth wide as a kind of compromise. This was position one with him for think- ing things over. ^Few Auld Lichts, as I have said, went the length of 25 choosing a helpmate for themselves. One day a young man's friends would see him mending the washing- tub of a maiden's mother. They kept the joke until Saturday night, and then he learned from them what he had been after. It dazed him for a time, but in a year or so he grew 30 accustomed to the idea, and they were then married. With a little help he fell in love just like other people. ") 1 A cake thinner than a bannock. 2 Canty bit stocky, cheery little body. 3 Clothes. 4 Yellowish. 5 Everybody. The Courting of T'nowhead's Bell 249 Sam'l was going the way of the others, but he found it difficult to come to the point. He only went courting once a week, and he could never take up the running at the place where he left off the Saturday before. Thus he had not, so far, made great headway. His method of making 5 up to Bell had been to drop in at T'nowhead on Saturday nights and talk with the farmer about the rinderpest. 1 VJhe farm kitchen was Bell's testimonial. Its chairs, tables, and stools were scoured by her to the whiteness of Rob Angus' saw-mill boards, and the muslin blind on the 10 window was starched like a child's pinafore. Bell was brave, too, as well as energetic? Once Thrums had been overrun with thieves. It is now thought that there may have been only one, but he had the wicked cleverness of a gang. . Such was his repute that there were weavers who 15 spoke of locking their doors when they went from home. He was not very skilful, however, being generally caught, and when they said they knew he was a robber, he gave them their things back and went away. If they had given him time there is no doubt that he would have gone off 20 with his plunder. One night he went to T'nowhead, and Bell, who slept in the kitchen, was awakened by the noise. She knew who it would be, so she rose and dressed herself, and went to look for him with a candle. The thief had not known what to do when he got in, and as it was very 25 lonely he was glad to see Bell. She told him he ought to be ashamed of himself, and would not let him out by the door until he had taken off his boots so as not to soil the On thisoaturday evening Sam'l stood his ground in the 30 square, until by and by he found himself alone. There were other groups there still, but his circle had melted away. They went separately, and no one said good-night. 1 Cattle plague. 250 Sir James Matthew Barrie Each took himself off slowly, backing out of the group until he was fairly started. 3$ am 'l looked about him, and then, seeing that the others had gone, walked round the town-house into the darkness 5 of the brae Mthat leads down and then uplto the farm of T'nowhead. To get into the good graces of Lisbeth Fargus you had to know her ways and humor them. Sam'l, who was a student of women, knew this, and so, instead of pushing 10 the door open and walking in, he went through the rather ridiculous ceremony of knocking. Sanders Elshioner was also aware of this weakness of Lisbeth's, but though he often made up his mind to knock, the absurdity of the thing prevented his doing so when he reached the door. 15 T'nowhead himself had never got used to his wife's refined notions, and when any one knocked he always started to his feet, thinking there must be something wrongT] Lisbeth came to the door, her expansive figure blocking the way in. 20 "Sam'l," she said. "Lisbeth," said Sam'l. He shook hands with the farmer's wife, knowing that she liked it, but only said, "Ay, Bell," to his sweetheart, "Ay, T'nowhead," to McQuhatty, and "It's yersel, 25 Sanders," to his rival. They were all sitting round the fire; T'nowhead, with his feet on the ribs, wondering why he felt so warm, and Bell darned a stocking, while Lisbeth kept an eye on a goblet 2 full of potatoes. 30 " Sit into 3 the fire, Sam'l," said the farmer, not, how- ever, making way for him. "Na, na," said Sam'l; "I'm to bide nae time." Then he sat into the fire. His face was turned away from Bell, 1 Slope of the hill. 2 A deep sauce-pan. 3 Up to. The Courting of T'nowhead's Bell 251 and when she spoke he answered her without looking round. Sam'l felt a little anxious. Sanders Elshioner, who had one leg shorter than the other, but looked well when sitting, seemed suspiciously at home. He asked Bell questions out of his own head, which was beyond 5 Sam'l, and once he said something to her in such a low voice that the others could not catch it. T'nowhead asked curiously what it was, and Sanders explained that he had only said, "Ay, Bell, the morn's the Sabbath." There was nothing startling in this, but Sam'l did not like it. He 10 began to wonder if he were too late, and had he seen his opportunity would have told Bell of a nasty rumor that Sanders intended to go over to the Free Church if they would make him kirk-officer. l_ Sam'l had the good- will of T'nowhead's wife, who liked 15 a polite man. Sanders did his best, but from want of practice he constantly made mistakes. To-night, for instance, he wore his hat in the house because he did not like to put up his hand and take it off. T'nowhead had not taken his off either, but that was because he meant 20 to go out by and by and lock the byre 1 doqrj It was im- possible to say which of her lovers Bell preferred. The proper course with an Auld Licht lassie was to prefer the man who proposed to her. "Ye'll bide a wee, an' hae something to eat?" Lisbeth 25 asked Sam'l, with her eyes on the goblet. "No, I thank ye," said Sam'l, with true gentility. "Ye'll better." "Idinnathinkit." "Hoots aye; 2 what's to hender ye? " 30 "Weel, since ye're sae pressin', I'll bide." No one asked Sanders to stay. Bell could not, for she was but the servant,, and T'nowhead knew that the kick 1 Barn or cow-shed. . 2 Hoots aye, "fudge." 252 Sir James Matthew Barrie his wife had given him meant that he was not to do so either. Sanders whistled to show that he was not un- comfortable. "Ay, then, I'll be stappin' ower the brae," he said at last. 5 He did not go, however. L There was sufficient pride in him to get him off his chair, but only slowly, for he had to get accustomed to the notion of going. At intervals of two or three minutes he remarked that he must now be going. In the same circumstances Sam'l would have 10 acted similarly. For a Thrums man, it is one of the hard- est things in life to get away from anywhere.J At last Lisbeth saw that something must be done. The potatoes were burning, and T'nowhead had an invitation on his tongue. 15 "Yes, I'll hae to be movin'," said Sanders, hopelessly, for the fifth time. "Guid nicht to ye, then, Sanders," said Lisbeth. "Gie the door a fling- to, ahent 1 ye." Sanders, with a mighty effort, pulled himself together. 20 He looked boldly at Bell, and then took off his hat care- fully. Sam'l saw with misgivings that there was something in it which was not a handkerchief. It was a paper bag glittering with gold braid, and contained such an assort- ment of sweets as lads bought for their lasses on the Muckte 25 Friday. "Hae, Bell," said Sanders, handing the bag to Bell in an off-hand way as if it were but a trifle. Nevertheless he was a little excited, for he went off without saying good- night. 30 No one spoke. Bell's face was crimson. T'nowhead fidgeted on his chair, and Lisbeth looked at Sam'l. The weaver was strangely calm and collected, though he would have liked to know whether this was a proposal. 1 Behind. The Courting of T'nowhead's Bell 253 "Sit in by to the table, Sam'l," said Lisbeth, trying to look as if things were as they had been before. She put a saucerful of butter, salt, and pepper near the fire to melt, for melted butter is the shoeing-horn that helps over a meal of potatoes. Sam'l, however, saw what the 5 hour required, and jumping up, he seized his bonnet. "King the tatties l higher up the joist, Lisbeth," he said with dignity; "I'se be back in ten meenits." He hurried out of the house, leaving the others looking at each other. 10 "What do ye think? " asked Lisbeth. "I d'na kin," faltered Bell. "Thae tatties is lang o' comin' to the boil," said T'now- head. In some circles a lover who behaved like Sam'l would 15 have been suspected of intent upon his rival's life, but neither Bell nor Lisbeth did the weaver that injustice. In a case of this kind it does not much matter what T 'now- head thought. The ten minutes had barely passed when Sam'l was 20 back in the farm kitchen. He was too flurried to knock this time, and, indeed, Lisbeth did not expect it of him. "Bell, hae!" he cried, handing his sweetheart a tinsel bag twice the size of Sanders' gift. 25 "Losh preserve's!" exclaimed Lisbeth; "I'se warrant there's a shillin's worth." "There's a' that, Lisbeth an' mair," said Sam'l firmly. "I thank ye, Sam'l," said Bell, feeling an unwonted 30 elation as she gazed at the two paper bags in her lap. "Ye're ower extra vegint, Sam'l," Lisbeth said. "Not at all," said Sam'l; "not at all. But I widna 1 Potatoes. 254 Sir James Matthew Barrie advise ye to eat thae ither anes, Bell they're second quality." - Bell drew back a step from Sam'l. "How do ye kin?" asked the farmer shortly, for he 5 liked Sanders. . ' "Ispeired i' the shop," said Sam'l. ' The goblet was placed on a broken plate on the table with the saucer beside it, and Sam'l, like the others, helped himself. What he did was to take potatoes from 10 the pot with his fingers, peel off their coats, and then dip them into the butter. Lisbeth would have liked to provide knives and forks, but she knew that beyond a certain point T'nowhead was master in his own house. As for Sam'l, he felt victory in his hands, and began to think that he had 15 gone too far^-) In the mean time Sanders, little witting that Sam'l had trumped his trick, was sauntering along the kirk-wynd with his hat on the side ofhjs head. Fortunately he did not meet the minister, 1 ^^ 20 >^The courting of T'nowhead's Bell reached its crisis one Sabbath about a month after the events above recorded. The minister was in great force that day, but it is no part of mine to tell how he bore himself. I was there, and am not likely to forget the scene. It was a fateful Sabbath 25 for T'nowhead's Bell and her swains, and destined to be remembered for the painful scandal which they perpetrated in their passion. Bell was not in the kirk. (.There being ah infant of six months in the house it was a question of either Lisbeth 30 or the lassie's staying at home with him, and though Lis- beth was unselfish in a general way, she could not resist the delight of going to church. She had nine children besides the baby, and being but a woman, it was the pride of her life to march them into the T'nowhead pew, so well The Courting of T'nowhead's Bell 255 watched that they dared not misbehave, and so tightly packed that they could not fall. The congregation looked - at that pew, the mothers enviously, when they sang the lines . * "Jerusalem like a city is 5 Compactly built together." The first half of the service had been gone through on this particular Sunday without anything remarkable happening. It was at the end of the psalm which preceded the sermon that Sanders Elshioner, who sat near the door, 10 lowered his head until it was no higher than the pews, and in that attitude, looking almost like a four-footed animal, slipped out of the church. In their eagerness to be at the sermon many of the congregation did not notice him, and those who did put the matter by in their minds for future 15 investigation. Sam'l, however, could not take it so coolly. From his seat in the gallery he saw Sanders disappear, and his mind misgave him. With the true lover's instinct he understood it all. Sanders had been struck by the fine turn-out in the T'nowhead pew. Bell was alone at the 20 farm. What an opportunity to work one's way up to a proposal! T'nowhead was so overrun with children that such a chance seldom occurred, except on a Sabbath. Sanders, doubtless, was off to propose, and he, Sam'l, was left behind. 25 The suspense was terrible. i.Sam'l and Sanders had both known all along that Bell would take the first of the two who asked her. Even those who thought her proud ad- mitted that she was modest. Bitterly the weaver repented having waited so long. Now it was too late. In ten 30 minutes Sanders would be at T'nowhead; in an hour all would be over. Sam'l rose to his feet in a daze. His mother pulled him down by the coat-tail, and his father shook him, thinking he was walking in his sleep. He 256 Sir James Matthew Barrie tottered past them, however, hurried up the aisle, which was so narrow that Dan'l Ross could only reach his seat by walking sideways, and was gone before the minister could do more than stop in the middle of a whirl and gape 5 in horror after him. A number of the congregation felt that day the advan- tage of sitting in the laft. 1 What was a mystery to those downstairs was revealed to them. From the gallery win- dows they had a fine open view to the south ; and as Sam'l 10 took the common, which was a short cut though a steep ascent, to T'nowhead, he was never out of their line of vision. Sanders was not to be seen, but they guessed rightly the reason why. Thinking he had ample time, he had gone round by the main road to save his boots 15 perhaps a little scared by what was coming. SamTs design was to forestall him by taking the shorter path over the burn 2 and up the commonty. 3 It was a race for a wife, and several onlookers in the gallery braved the minister's displeasure to see who won. 20 Those who favored Sam'l's suit exultingly saw him leap the stream, while the friends of Sanders fixed their eyes on the top of the common where it ran into the road. San- ders must come into sight there, and the one who reached this point first would get Bell. 25 As Auld Lichts do not walk abroad on the Sabbath, Sanders would probably not be delayed. The chances were in his favor. Had it been any other day in the week Sam'l might have run. So some of the congregation in the gallery were thinking, when suddenly they saw him bend 30 low and then take to his heels. He had caught sight of < Sanders' head bobbing over the. hedge that separated the road from the common, and feared that Sanders might 1 see him. The congregation who could crane their necks \ 1 Gallery. 2 Brook. 3 Common. The Courting of T'nowhead's Bell 257 sufficiently saw a black object, which they guessed to be the carter's hat, crawling along the hedge-top. For a moment it was motionless, and then it shot ahead. The rivals had seen each other. It was now a hot race. Sam'l, dissembling no longer, clattered up the common, be- 5 coming smaller and smaller to the on-lookers as he neared the top. More than one person in the gallery almost rose to their feet in their excitement. Sam'l had it. No, Sanders was in front. Then the two figures disap- peared from view. They seemed to run into each other 10 at the top of the brae, and no one could say who was first. The congregation looked at one another. Some of them perspired. But the minister held on his course. Sam'l had just been in time to cut Sanders out. It was the weaver's saving that Sanders saw this when his rival 15 turned the corner; for Sam'l was sadly blown. Sanders took in the situation and gave in at once. The last hun- dred yards of the distance he covered at his leisure, and when he arrived at his destination he did not go in. It was a fine afternoon for the time of year, and he went 20 round to have a look at the pig, about which T'nowhead was a little sinfully puffed up. "Ay," said Sanders, digging his fingers critically into the grunting animal; "quite so." ' "Grumph," said the pig, getting reluctantly to his 25 feet. "Ou, ay; yes," said Sanders, thoughtfully. Then he sat down on the edge of the sty, and looked long and silently at an empty bucket. But whether his thoughts were of T'nowhead's Bell, whom he had lost 30 forever, or of the food the farmer fed his pig on, is not known. "Lord preserve's! Are ye no at the kirk?" cried Bell, nearly dropping the baby as Sam'l broke into the room. 258 Sir James Matthew Barrie "Bell!" cried Sam'l. Then T'nowhead's Bell knew that her hour had come. "Sam'l," she faltered. "Will ye hae's, Bell?" demanded Sam'l, glaring at her 5 sheepishly. "Ay," answered Bell. Sam'l fell into a chair. "Bring's a drink o' water, Bell," he said. But Bell thought the occasion required milk, and there was none in 10 the kitchen. She went out to the byre, still with the baby in her arms, and saw Sanders Elshioner sitting gloomily on the pig-sty. "Weel, Bell," said Sanders. "I thocht ye'd been at the kirk, Sanders," said Bell. 15 Then there was a silence between them. "Has Sam'l speired ye, Bell?" asked Sanders stolidly. "Ay," said Bell again, and this time there was a tear in her eye. Sanders was little better than an "orra man," i and Sam'l was a weaver, and yet But it was too late 20 now. Sanders gave the pig a vicious poke with a stick, and when it had ceased to grunt, Bell was back in the kitchen. She had forgotten about the milk, however, and Sam'l only got water after all. In after days, when the story of Bell's wooing was told, 25 there were some who held that the circumstances would have almost justified the lassie in giving Sam'l the go-by. But these perhaps forgot that her other lover was in the same predicament as the accepted one that of the two, indeed, he was the more to blame, for he set off to T'now- 30 head on the Sabbath of his own accord, while Sam'l only ran after him. And then there is no one to say for certain whether Bell heard of her suitors' delinquencies until Lisbeth's return from the kirk. Sam'l could never remem- 1 Odd job man. The Courting of T'nowhead's Bell 259 her whether he told her, and Bell was not sure whether, if he did, she took it in. Sanders was greatly in demand for weeks after to tell what he knew of the affair, but though he was twice asked to tea to the manse among the trees, and subjected thereafter to ministerial cross-examinations, 5 this is all he told. He remained at the pig-sty until Sam'l left the farm, when he joined him at the top of the brae, and they went home together. "It's yersel, Sanders," said Sam'l. "It is so, Sam'l," said Sanders. 10 "Very cauld," said Sam'l. "Blawy," assented Sanders. After a pause "Sam'l," said Sanders. "Ay." . is "I'm hearin' ye're to be mairit." "Ay." "Weel, Sam'l, she's a snod bit lassie." "Thank ye," said Sam'l. "I had ance a kin' o' notion o' Bell mysel," continued 20 Sanders. "Yehad?" "Yes, Sam'l; but I thocht better o't." "Hoo d'ye mean?" asked Sam'l, a little anxiously. "Weel, Sam'l, mairitch is a terrible responsibeelity." 25 "It is so," said Sam'l, wincing. "An' no the thing to tak up withoot conseederation." "But it's a blessed and honorable state, Sanders; ye've heard the minister on't." "They say," continued the relentless Sanders, " 'at the 30 minister doesna get on sair J wi' the wife himsel." "So they do," cried Sam'l, with a sinking at the heart. 1 Very well. 260 Sir James Matthew Barrie "I've been telt," Sanders went on, " 'at gm ye can get the upper han' o' the wife for a while at first, there's the mair chance o' a harmonious exeestence." "Bell's no the lassie," said Sam'l appealingly, "to 5 thwart her man." Sanders smiled. "D'ye think she is, Sanders?" "Weel, Sam'l,. I d'na want to fluster ye, but she's been ower lang wi' Lisbeth Fargus no to hae learnt her ways, 10 An a'body kins what a life T'nowhead has wi' her." "Guid sake, Sanders, hoo did ye no speak o' this afore?" "I thocht ye kent 1 o't, Sam'l." They had now reached the square, and the U. P. kirk 15 was coming out. The Auld Licht kirk would be half an hour yet. "But, Sanders," said Sam'l, brightening up, "ye was on yer wy to spier her yersel." "I was, Sam'l," said Sanders, "and I canna but be 20 thankfu' ye was ower quick for's." "Gin't hadna been you," said Sam'l, "I wid never hae thocht o't." t "I'm sayin' naething agin Bell," pursued the other, "but, man Sam'l, a body should be mair deleeberate in a 25 thing o' the kind." "It was michty hurried," said Sam'l, wofully. "It's a serious thing to spier a lassie," said Sanders. "It's an awfu' thing," said Sam'l. "But we'll hope for the best," added Sanders in a hope, 30 less voice. They were close to the Tenements now, and Sam'l looked as if he were on his way to be hanged. "Sam'l!" 1 Knew. The Courting of T'nowhead's Bell 261 "Ay, Sanders." "Did ye did ye kiss her, Sam'l?" "Na." "Hoo?" "There's was varra little time, Sanders." 5 "Half an 'oor," said Sanders. "Was there? Man Sanders, to tell ye the truth, I never thocht o't." Then the soul of Sanders Elshioner was filled with con- tempt for Sam'l Dickie.>