A window, perhaps, has been left open, or else is driven in by an unruly gust. It is not to be conceived, beforehand, what wonderful windinstruments are these old timber mansions, and how haunted with the strangest noises, which immediately begin to sing, and sigh, and sob, and shriekand to smite with sledgehammers, airy but ponderous, in some distant chamberand to tread along the entries as with stately footsteps, and rustle up and down the staircase, as with silks miraculously stiffwhenever the gale catches the house with a window open, and gets fairly into it. Would that we were not an attendant spirit here! It is too awful! This clamor of the wind through the lonely house; the Judges quietude, as he sits invisible; and that pertinacious ticking of his watch! As regards Judge Pyncheons invisibility, however, that matter will soon be remedied. The northwest wind has swept the sky clear. The window is distinctly seen. Through its panes, moreover, we dimly catch the sweep of the dark, clustering foliage outside, fluttering with a constant irregularity of movement, and letting in a peep of starlight, now here, now there. Oftener than any other object, these glimpses illuminate the Judges face. But here comes more effectual light. Observe that silvery dance upon the upper branches of the peartree, and now a little lower, and now on the whole mass of boughs, while, through their shifting intricacies, the moonbeams fall aslant into the room. They play over the Judges figure and show that he has not stirred throughout the hours of darkness. They follow the shadows, in changeful sport, across his unchanging features. They gleam upon his watch. His grasp conceals the dialplatebut we know that the faithful hands have met; for one of the city clocks tells midnight. A man of sturdy understanding, like Judge Pyncheon, cares no more for twelve oclock at night than for the corresponding hour of noon. However just the parallel drawn, in some of the preceding pages, between his Puritan ancestor and himself, it fails in this point. The Pyncheon of two centuries ago, in common with most of his contemporaries, professed his full belief in spiritual ministrations, although reckoning them chiefly of a malignant character. The Pyncheon of tonight, who sits in yonder armchair, believes in no such nonsense. Such, at least, was his creed, some few hours since. His hair will not bristle, therefore, at the stories whichin times when chimneycorners had benches in them, where old people sat poking into the ashes of the past, and raking out traditions like live coalsused to be told about this very room of his ancestral house. In fact, these tales are too absurd to bristle even childhoods hair. What sense, meaning, or moral, for example, such as even ghoststories should be susceptible of, can be traced in the ridiculous legend, that, at midnight, all the dead Pyncheons are bound to assemble in this parlor? And, pray, for what? Why, to see whether the portrait of their ancestor still keeps its place upon the wall, in compliance with his testamentary directions! Is it worth while to come out of their graves for that? We are tempted to make a little sport with the idea. Ghoststories are hardly to be treated seriously any longer. The familyparty of the defunct Pyncheons, we presume, goes off in this wise. First comes the ancestor himself, in his black cloak, steeplehat, and trunkbreeches, girt about the waist with a leathern belt, in which hangs his steelhilted sword; he has a long staff in his hand, such as gentlemen in advanced life used to carry, as much for the dignity of the thing as for the support to be derived from it. He looks up at the portrait; a thing of no substance, gazing at its own painted image! All is safe. The picture is still there. The purpose of his brain has been kept sacred thus long after the man himself has sprouted up in graveyard grass. See! he lifts his ineffectual hand, and tries the frame. All safe! But is that a smile?is it not, rather a frown of deadly import, that darkens over the shadow of his features? The stout Colonel is dissatisfied! So decided is his look of discontent as to impart additional distinctness to his features; through which, nevertheless, the moonlight passes, and flickers on the wall beyond. Something has strangely vexed the ancestor! With a grim shake of the head, he turns away. Here come other Pyncheons, the whole tribe, in their half a dozen generations, jostling and elbowing one another, to reach the picture. We behold aged men and grandames, a clergyman with the Puritanic stiffness still in his garb and mien, and a redcoated officer of the old French war; and there comes the shopkeeping Pyncheon of a century ago, with the ruffles turned back from his wrists; and there the periwigged and brocaded gentleman of the artists legend, with the beautiful and pensive Alice, who brings no pride out of her virgin grave. All try the pictureframe. What do these ghostly people seek? A mother lifts her child, that his little hands may touch it! There is evidently a mystery about the picture, that perplexes these poor Pyncheons when they ought to be at rest. In a corner, meanwhile, stands the figure of an elderly man, in a leathern jerkin and breeches, with a carpenters rule sticking out of his side pocket; he points his finger at the bearded Colonel and his descendants, nodding, jeering, mocking, and finally bursting into obstreperous, though inaudible laughter. Indulging our fancy in this freak, we have partly lost the power of restraint and guidance. We distinguish an unlookedfor figure in our visionary scene. Among those ancestral people there is a young man, dressed in the very fashion of today he wears a dark frockcoat, almost destitute of skirts, gray pantaloons, gaiter boots of patent leather, and has a finely wrought gold chain across his breast, and a little silverheaded whalebone stick in his hand. Were we to meet this figure at noonday, we should greet him as young Jaffrey Pyncheon, the Judges only surviving child, who has been spending the last two years in foreign travel. If still in life, how comes his shadow hither? If dead, what a misfortune! The old Pyncheon property, together with the great estate acquired by the young mans father, would devolve on whom? On poor, foolish Clifford, gaunt Hepzibah, and rustic little Phoebe! But another and a greater marvel greets us! Can we believe our eyes? A stout, elderly gentleman has made his appearance; he has an aspect of eminent respectability, wears a black coat and pantaloons, of roomy width, and might be pronounced scrupulously neat in his attire, but for a broad crimson stain across his snowy neckcloth and down his shirtbosom. Is it the Judge, or no? How can it be Judge Pyncheon? We discern his figure, as plainly as the flickering moonbeams can show us anything, still seated in the oaken chair! Be the apparition whose it may, it advances to the picture, seems to seize the frame, tries to peep behind it, and turns away, with a frown as black as the ancestral one. The fantastic scene just hinted at must by no means be considered as forming an actual portion of our story. We were betrayed into this brief extravagance by the quiver of the moonbeams; they dance handinhand with shadows, and are reflected in the lookingglass, which, you are aware, is always a kind of window or doorway into the spiritual world. We needed relief, moreover, from our too long and exclusive contemplation of that figure in the chair. This wild wind, too, has tossed our thoughts into strange confusion, but without tearing them away from their one determined centre. Yonder leaden Judge sits immovably upon our soul. Will he never stir again? We shall go mad unless he stirs! You may the better estimate his quietude by the fearlessness of a little mouse, which sits on its hind legs, in a streak of moonlight, close by Judge Pyncheons foot, and seems to meditate a journey of exploration over this great black bulk. Ha! what has startled the nimble little mouse? It is the visage of Grimalkin, outside of the window, where he appears to have posted himself for a deliberate watch. This grimalkin has a very ugly look. Is it a cat watching for a mouse, or the devil for a human soul? Would we could scare him from the window! Thank Heaven, the night is wellnigh past! The moonbeams have no longer so silvery a gleam, nor contrast so strongly with the blackness of the shadows among which they fall. They are paler now; the shadows look gray, not black. The boisterous wind is hushed. What is the hour? Ah! the watch has at last ceased to tick; for the Judges forgetful fingers neglected to wind it up, as usual, at ten oclock, being half an hour or so before his ordinary bedtimeand it has run down, for the first time in five years. But the great worldclock of Time still keeps its beat. The dreary nightfor, oh, how dreary seems its haunted waste, behind us!gives place to a fresh, transparent, cloudless morn. Blessed, blessed radiance! The daybeameven what little of it finds its way into this always dusky parlorseems part of the universal benediction, annulling evil, and rendering all goodness possible, and happiness attainable. Will Judge Pyncheon now rise up from his chair? Will he go forth, and receive the early sunbeams on his brow? Will he begin this new daywhich God has smiled upon, and blessed, and given to mankindwill he begin it with better purposes than the many that have been spent amiss? Or are all the deeplaid schemes of yesterday as stubborn in his heart, and as busy in his brain, as ever? In this latter case, there is much to do. Will the Judge still insist with Hepzibah on the interview with Clifford? Will he buy a safe, elderly gentlemans horse? Will he persuade the purchaser of the old Pyncheon property to relinquish the bargain in his favor? Will he see his family physician, and obtain a medicine that shall preserve him, to be an honor and blessing to his race, until the utmost term of patriarchal longevity? Will Judge Pyncheon, above all, make due apologies to that company of honorable friends, and satisfy them that his absence from the festive board was unavoidable, and so fully retrieve himself in their good opinion that he shall yet be Governor of Massachusetts? And all these great purposes accomplished, will he walk the streets again, with that dogday smile of elaborate benevolence, sultry enough to tempt flies to come and buzz in it? Or will he, after the tomblike seclusion of the past day and night, go forth a humbled and repentant man, sorrowful, gentle, seeking no profit, shrinking from worldly honor, hardly daring to love God, but bold to love his fellow man, and to do him what good he may? Will he bear about with himno odious grin of feigned benignity, insolent in its pretence, and loathsome in its falsehoodbut the tender sadness of a contrite heart, broken, at last, beneath its own weight of sin? For it is our belief, whatever show of honor he may have piled upon it, that there was heavy sin at the base of this mans being. Rise up, Judge Pyncheon! The morning sunshine glimmers through the foliage, and, beautiful and holy as it is, shuns not to kindle up your face. Rise up, thou subtle, worldly, selfish, ironhearted hypocrite, and make thy choice whether still to be subtle, worldly, selfish, ironhearted, and hypocritical, or to tear these sins out of thy nature, though they bring the lifeblood with them! The Avenger is upon thee! Rise up, before it be too late! What! Thou art not stirred by this last appeal? No, not a jot! And there we see a flyone of your common houseflies, such as are always buzzing on the windowpanewhich has smelt out Governor Pyncheon, and alights, now on his forehead, now on his chin, and now, Heaven help us! is creeping over the bridge of his nose, towards the wouldbe chiefmagistrates wideopen eyes! Canst thou not brush the fly away? Art thou too sluggish? Thou man, that hadst so many busy projects yesterday! Art thou too weak, that wast so powerful? Not brush away a fly? Nay, then, we give thee up! And hark! the shopbell rings. After hours like these latter ones, through which we have borne our heavy tale, it is good to be made sensible that there is a living world, and that even this old, lonely mansion retains some manner of connection with it. We breathe more freely, emerging from Judge Pyncheons presence into the street before the Seven Gables. XIX Alices Posies Uncle Venner, trundling a wheelbarrow, was the earliest person stirring in the neighborhood the day after the storm. Pyncheon Street, in front of the House of the Seven Gables, was a far pleasanter scene than a bylane, confined by shabby fences, and bordered with wooden dwellings of the meaner class, could reasonably be expected to present. Nature made sweet amends that morning for the five unkindly days which had preceded it. It would have been enough to live for, merely to look up at the wide benediction of the sky, or as much of it as was visible between the houses, genial once more with sunshine. Every object was agreeable, whether to be gazed at in the breadth, or examined more minutely. Such, for example, were the wellwashed pebbles and gravel of the sidewalk; even the skyreflecting pools in the centre of the street; and the grass, now freshly verdant, that crept along the base of the fences, on the other side of which, if one peeped over, was seen the multifarious growth of gardens. Vegetable productions, of whatever kind, seemed more than negatively happy, in the juicy warmth and abundance of their life. The Pyncheon Elm, throughout its great circumference, was all alive, and full of the morning sun and a sweettempered little breeze, which lingered within this verdant sphere, and set a thousand leafy tongues awhispering all at once. This aged tree appeared to have suffered nothing from the gale. It had kept its boughs unshattered, and its full complement of leaves; and the whole in perfect verdure, except a single branch, that, by the earlier change with which the elmtree sometimes prophesies the autumn, had been transmuted to bright gold. It was like the golden branch that gained Aeneas and the Sibyl admittance into Hades. This one mystic branch hung down before the main entrance of the Seven Gables, so nigh the ground that any passerby might have stood on tiptoe and plucked it off. Presented at the door, it would have been a symbol of his right to enter, and be made acquainted with all the secrets of the house. So little faith is due to external appearance, that there was really an inviting aspect over the venerable edifice, conveying an idea that its history must be a decorous and happy one, and such as would be delightful for a fireside tale. Its windows gleamed cheerfully in the slanting sunlight. The lines and tufts of green moss, here and there, seemed pledges of familiarity and sisterhood with Nature; as if this human dwellingplace, being of such old date, had established its prescriptive title among primeval oaks and whatever other objects, by virtue of their long continuance, have acquired a gracious right to be. A person of imaginative temperament, while passing by the house, would turn, once and again, and peruse it well its many peaks, consenting together in the clustered chimney; the deep projection over its basementstory; the arched window, imparting a look, if not of grandeur, yet of antique gentility, to the broken portal over which it opened; the luxuriance of gigantic burdocks, near the threshold; he would note all these characteristics, and be conscious of something deeper than he saw. He would conceive the mansion to have been the residence of the stubborn old Puritan, Integrity, who, dying in some forgotten generation, had left a blessing in all its rooms and chambers, the efficacy of which was to be seen in the religion, honesty, moderate competence, or upright poverty and solid happiness, of his descendants, to this day. One object, above all others, would take root in the imaginative observers memory. It was the great tuft of flowersweeds, you would have called them, only a week agothe tuft of crimsonspotted flowers, in the angle between the two front gables. The old people used to give them the name of Alices Posies, in remembrance of fair Alice Pyncheon, who was believed to have brought their seeds from Italy. They were flaunting in rich beauty and full bloom today, and seemed, as it were, a mystic expression that something within the house was consummated. It was but little after sunrise, when Uncle Venner made his appearance, as aforesaid, impelling a wheelbarrow along the street. He was going his matutinal rounds to collect cabbageleaves, turniptops, potatoskins, and the miscellaneous refuse of the dinnerpot, which the thrifty housewives of the neighborhood were accustomed to put aside, as fit only to feed a pig. Uncle Venners pig was fed entirely, and kept in prime order, on these eleemosynary contributions; insomuch that the patched philosopher used to promise that, before retiring to his farm, he would make a feast of the portly grunter, and invite all his neighbors to partake of the joints and spareribs which they had helped to fatten. Miss Hepzibah Pyncheons housekeeping had so greatly improved, since Clifford became a member of the family, that her share of the banquet would have been no lean one; and Uncle Venner, accordingly, was a good deal disappointed not to find the large earthen pan, full of fragmentary eatables, that ordinarily awaited his coming at the back doorstep of the Seven Gables. I never knew Miss Hepzibah so forgetful before, said the patriarch to himself. She must have had a dinner yesterdayno question of that! She always has one, nowadays. So wheres the potliquor and potatoskins, I ask? Shall I knock, and see if shes stirring yet? No, notwont do! If little Phoebe was about the house, I should not mind knocking; but Miss Hepzibah, likely as not, would scowl down at me out of the window, and look cross, even if she felt pleasantly. So, Ill come back at noon. With these reflections, the old man was shutting the gate of the little backyard. Creaking on its hinges, however, like every other gate and door about the premises, the sound reached the ears of the occupant of the northern gable, one of the windows of which had a sideview towards the gate. Good morning, Uncle Venner! said the daguerreotypist, leaning out of the window. Do you hear nobody stirring? Not a soul, said the man of patches. But thats no wonder. Tis barely half an hour past sunrise, yet. But Im really glad to see you, Mr. Holgrave! Theres a strange, lonesome look about this side of the house; so that my heart misgave me, somehow or other, and I felt as if there was nobody alive in it. The front of the house looks a good deal cheerier; and Alices Posies are blooming there beautifully; and if I were a young man, Mr. Holgrave, my sweetheart should have one of those flowers in her bosom, though I risked my neck climbing for it! Well, and did the wind keep you awake last night? It did, indeed! answered the artist, smiling. If I were a believer in ghostsand I dont quite know whether I am or notI should have concluded that all the old Pyncheons were running riot in the lower rooms, especially in Miss Hepzibahs part of the house. But it is very quiet now. Yes, Miss Hepzibah will be apt to oversleep herself, after being disturbed, all night, with the racket, said Uncle Venner. But it would be odd, now, wouldnt it, if the Judge had taken both his cousins into the country along with him? I saw him go into the shop yesterday. At what hour? inquired Holgrave. Oh, along in the forenoon, said the old man. Well, well! I must go my rounds, and so must my wheelbarrow. But Ill be back here at dinnertime; for my pig likes a dinner as well as a breakfast. No mealtime, and no sort of victuals, ever seems to come amiss to my pig. Good morning to you! And, Mr. Holgrave, if I were a young man, like you, Id get one of Alices Posies, and keep it in water till Phoebe comes back. I have heard, said the daguerreotypist, as he drew in his head, that the water of Maules well suits those flowers best. Here the conversation ceased, and Uncle Venner went on his way. For half an hour longer, nothing disturbed the repose of the Seven Gables; nor was there any visitor, except a carrierboy, who, as he passed the front doorstep, threw down one of his newspapers; for Hepzibah, of late, had regularly taken it in. After a while, there came a fat woman, making prodigious speed, and stumbling as she ran up the steps of the shopdoor. Her face glowed with fireheat, and, it being a pretty warm morning, she bubbled and hissed, as it were, as if all afry with chimneywarmth, and summerwarmth, and the warmth of her own corpulent velocity. She tried the shopdoor; it was fast. She tried it again, with so angry a jar that the bell tinkled angrily back at her. The deuce take Old Maid Pyncheon! muttered the irascible housewife. Think of her pretending to set up a centshop, and then lying abed till noon! These are what she calls gentlefolks airs, I suppose! But Ill either start her ladyship, or break the door down! She shook it accordingly, and the bell, having a spiteful little temper of its own, rang obstreperously, making its remonstrances heardnot, indeed, by the ears for which they were intendedbut by a good lady on the opposite side of the street. She opened the window, and addressed the impatient applicant. Youll find nobody there, Mrs. Gubbins. But I must and will find somebody here! cried Mrs. Gubbins, inflicting another outrage on the bell. I want a halfpound of pork, to fry some firstrate flounders for Mr. Gubbinss breakfast; and, lady or not, Old Maid Pyncheon shall get up and serve me with it! But do hear reason, Mrs. Gubbins! responded the lady opposite. She, and her brother too, have both gone to their cousins, Judge Pyncheons at his countryseat. Theres not a soul in the house, but that young daguerreotypeman that sleeps in the north gable. I saw old Hepzibah and Clifford go away yesterday; and a queer couple of ducks they were, paddling through the mudpuddles! Theyre gone, Ill assure you. And how do you know theyre gone to the Judges? asked Mrs. Gubbins. Hes a rich man; and theres been a quarrel between him and Hepzibah this many a day, because he wont give her a living. Thats the main reason of her setting up a centshop. I know that well enough, said the neighbor. But theyre gonethats one thing certain. And who but a blood relation, that couldnt help himself, I ask you, would take in that awfultempered old maid, and that dreadful Clifford? Thats it, you may be sure. Mrs. Gubbins took her departure, still brimming over with hot wrath against the absent Hepzibah. For another halfhour, or, perhaps, considerably more, there was almost as much quiet on the outside of the house as within. The elm, however, made a pleasant, cheerful, sunny sigh, responsive to the breeze that was elsewhere imperceptible; a swarm of insects buzzed merrily under its drooping shadow, and became specks of light whenever they darted into the sunshine; a locust sang, once or twice, in some inscrutable seclusion of the tree; and a solitary little bird, with plumage of pale gold, came and hovered about Alices Posies. At last our small acquaintance, Ned Higgins, trudged up the street, on his way to school; and happening, for the first time in a fortnight, to be the possessor of a cent, he could by no means get past the shopdoor of the Seven Gables. But it would not open. Again and again, however, and half a dozen other agains, with the inexorable pertinacity of a child intent upon some object important to itself, did he renew his efforts for admittance. He had, doubtless, set his heart upon an elephant; or, possibly, with Hamlet, he meant to eat a crocodile. In response to his more violent attacks, the bell gave, now and then, a moderate tinkle, but could not be stirred into clamor by any exertion of the little fellows childish and tiptoe strength. Holding by the doorhandle, he peeped through a crevice of the curtain, and saw that the inner door, communicating with the passage towards the parlor, was closed. Miss Pyncheon! screamed the child, rapping on the windowpane, I want an elephant! There being no answer to several repetitions of the summons, Ned began to grow impatient; and his little pot of passion quickly boiling over, he picked up a stone, with a naughty purpose to fling it through the window; at the same time blubbering and sputtering with wrath. A manone of two who happened to be passing bycaught the urchins arm. Whats the trouble, old gentleman? he asked. I want old Hepzibah, or Phoebe, or any of them! answered Ned, sobbing. They wont open the door; and I cant get my elephant! Go to school, you little scamp! said the man. Theres another centshop round the corner. Tis very strange, Dixey, added he to his companion, whats become of all these Pyncheons! Smith, the liverystable keeper, tells me Judge Pyncheon put his horse up yesterday, to stand till after dinner, and has not taken him away yet. And one of the Judges hired men has been in, this morning, to make inquiry about him. Hes a kind of person, they say, that seldom breaks his habits, or stays out o nights. Oh, hell turn up safe enough! said Dixey. And as for Old Maid Pyncheon, take my word for it, she has run in debt, and gone off from her creditors. I foretold, you remember, the first morning she set up shop, that her devilish scowl would frighten away customers. They couldnt stand it! I never thought shed make it go, remarked his friend. This business of centshops is overdone among the womenfolks. My wife tried it, and lost five dollars on her outlay! Poor business! said Dixey, shaking his head. Poor business! In the course of the morning, there were various other attempts to open a communication with the supposed inhabitants of this silent and impenetrable mansion. The man of rootbeer came, in his neatly painted wagon, with a couple of dozen full bottles, to be exchanged for empty ones; the baker, with a lot of crackers which Hepzibah had ordered for her retail custom; the butcher, with a nice titbit which he fancied she would be eager to secure for Clifford. Had any observer of these proceedings been aware of the fearful secret hidden within the house, it would have affected him with a singular shape and modification of horror, to see the current of human life making this small eddy hereaboutswhirling sticks, straws and all such trifles, round and round, right over the black depth where a dead corpse lay unseen! The butcher was so much in earnest with his sweetbread of lamb, or whatever the dainty might be, that he tried every accessible door of the Seven Gables, and at length came round again to the shop, where he ordinarily found admittance. Its a nice article, and I know the old lady would jump at it, said he to himself. She cant be gone away! In fifteen years that I have driven my cart through Pyncheon Street, Ive never known her to be away from home; though often enough, to be sure, a man might knock all day without bringing her to the door. But that was when shed only herself to provide for. Peeping through the same crevice of the curtain where, only a little while before, the urchin of elephantine appetite had peeped, the butcher beheld the inner door, not closed, as the child had seen it, but ajar, and almost wide open. However it might have happened, it was the fact. Through the passageway there was a dark vista into the lighter but still obscure interior of the parlor. It appeared to the butcher that he could pretty clearly discern what seemed to be the stalwart legs, clad in black pantaloons, of a man sitting in a large oaken chair, the back of which concealed all the remainder of his figure. This contemptuous tranquillity on the part of an occupant of the house, in response to the butchers indefatigable efforts to attract notice, so piqued the man of flesh that he determined to withdraw. So, thought he, there sits Old Maid Pyncheons bloody brother, while Ive been giving myself all this trouble! Why, if a hog hadnt more manners, Id stick him! I call it demeaning a mans business to trade with such people; and from this time forth, if they want a sausage or an ounce of liver, they shall run after the cart for it! He tossed the titbit angrily into his cart, and drove off in a pet. Not a great while afterwards there was a sound of music turning the corner and approaching down the street, with several intervals of silence, and then a renewed and nearer outbreak of brisk melody. A mob of children was seen moving onward, or stopping, in unison with the sound, which appeared to proceed from the centre of the throng; so that they were loosely bound together by slender strains of harmony, and drawn along captive; with ever and anon an accession of some little fellow in an apron and strawhat, capering forth from door or gateway. Arriving under the shadow of the Pyncheon Elm, it proved to be the Italian boy, who, with his monkey and show of puppets, had once before played his hurdygurdy beneath the arched window. The pleasant face of Phoebeand doubtless, too, the liberal recompense which she had flung himstill dwelt in his remembrance. His expressive features kindled up, as he recognized the spot where this trifling incident of his erratic life had chanced. He entered the neglected yard (now wilder than ever, with its growth of hogweed and burdock), stationed himself on the doorstep of the main entrance, and, opening his showbox, began to play. Each individual of the automatic community forthwith set to work, according to his or her proper vocation the monkey, taking off his Highland bonnet, bowed and scraped to the bystanders most obsequiously, with ever an observant eye to pick up a stray cent; and the young foreigner himself, as he turned the crank of his machine, glanced upward to the arched window, expectant of a presence that would make his music the livelier and sweeter. The throng of children stood near; some on the sidewalk; some within the yard; two or three establishing themselves on the very doorstep; and one squatting on the threshold. Meanwhile, the locust kept singing in the great old Pyncheon Elm. I dont hear anybody in the house, said one of the children to another. The monkey wont pick up anything here. There is somebody at home, affirmed the urchin on the threshold. I heard a step! Still the young Italians eye turned sidelong upward; and it really seemed as if the touch of genuine, though slight and almost playful, emotion communicated a juicier sweetness to the dry, mechanical process of his minstrelsy. These wanderers are readily responsive to any natural kindnessbe it no more than a smile, or a word itself not understood, but only a warmth in itwhich befalls them on the roadside of life. They remember these things, because they are the little enchantments which, for the instantfor the space that reflects a landscape in a soapbubblebuild up a home about them. Therefore, the Italian boy would not be discouraged by the heavy silence with which the old house seemed resolute to clog the vivacity of his instrument. He persisted in his melodious appeals; he still looked upward, trusting that his dark, alien countenance would soon be brightened by Phoebes sunny aspect. Neither could he be willing to depart without again beholding Clifford, whose sensibility, like Phoebes smile, had talked a kind of hearts language to the foreigner. He repeated all his music over and over again, until his auditors were getting weary. So were the little wooden people in his showbox, and the monkey most of all. There was no response, save the singing of the locust. No children live in this house, said a schoolboy, at last. Nobody lives here but an old maid and an old man.


Youll get nothing here! Why dont you go along? You fool, you, why do you tell him? whispered a shrewd little Yankee, caring nothing for the music, but a good deal for the cheap rate at which it was had. Let him play as he likes! If theres nobody to pay him, thats his own lookout! Once more, however, the Italian ran over his round of melodies. To the common observerwho could understand nothing of the case, except the music and the sunshine on the hither side of the doorit might have been amusing to watch the pertinacity of the streetperformer. Will he succeed at last? Will that stubborn door be suddenly flung open? Will a group of joyous children, the young ones of the house, come dancing, shouting, laughing, into the open air, and cluster round the showbox, looking with eager merriment at the puppets, and tossing each a copper for longtailed Mammon, the monkey, to pick up? But to us, who know the inner heart of the Seven Gables as well as its exterior face, there is a ghastly effect in this repetition of light popular tunes at its doorstep. It would be an ugly business, indeed, if Judge Pyncheon (who would not have cared a fig for Paganinis fiddle in his most harmonious mood) should make his appearance at the door, with a bloody shirtbosom, and a grim frown on his swarthily white visage, and motion the foreign vagabond away! Was ever before such a grinding out of jigs and waltzes, where nobody was in the cue to dance? Yes, very often. This contrast, or intermingling of tragedy with mirth, happens daily, hourly, momently. The gloomy and desolate old house, deserted of life, and with awful Death sitting sternly in its solitude, was the emblem of many a human heart, which, nevertheless, is compelled to hear the thrill and echo of the worlds gayety around it. Before the conclusion of the Italians performance, a couple of men happened to be passing, On their way to dinner. I say, you young French fellow! called out one of themcome away from that doorstep, and go somewhere else with your nonsense! The Pyncheon family live there; and they are in great trouble, just about this time. They dont feel musical today. It is reported all over town that Judge Pyncheon, who owns the house, has been murdered; and the city marshal is going to look into the matter. So be off with you, at once! As the Italian shouldered his hurdygurdy, he saw on the doorstep a card, which had been covered, all the morning, by the newspaper that the carrier had flung upon it, but was now shuffled into sight. He picked it up, and perceiving something written in pencil, gave it to the man to read. In fact, it was an engraved card of Judge Pyncheons with certain pencilled memoranda on the back, referring to various businesses which it had been his purpose to transact during the preceding day. It formed a prospective epitome of the days history; only that affairs had not turned out altogether in accordance with the programme. The card must have been lost from the Judges vestpocket in his preliminary attempt to gain access by the main entrance of the house. Though well soaked with rain, it was still partially legible. Look here; Dixey! cried the man. This has something to do with Judge Pyncheon. See!heres his name printed on it; and here, I suppose, is some of his handwriting. Lets go to the city marshal with it! said Dixey. It may give him just the clue he wants. After all, whispered he in his companions ear, it would be no wonder if the Judge has gone into that door and never come out again! A certain cousin of his may have been at his old tricks. And Old Maid Pyncheon having got herself in debt by the centshopand the Judges pocketbook being well filledand bad blood amongst them already! Put all these things together and see what they make! Hush, hush! whispered the other. It seems like a sin to be the first to speak of such a thing. But I think, with you, that we had better go to the city marshal. Yes, yes! said Dixey. Well!I always said there was something devilish in that womans scowl! The men wheeled about, accordingly, and retraced their steps up the street. The Italian, also, made the best of his way off, with a parting glance up at the arched window. As for the children, they took to their heels, with one accord, and scampered as if some giant or ogre were in pursuit, until, at a good distance from the house, they stopped as suddenly and simultaneously as they had set out. Their susceptible nerves took an indefinite alarm from what they had overheard. Looking back at the grotesque peaks and shadowy angles of the old mansion, they fancied a gloom diffused about it which no brightness of the sunshine could dispel. An imaginary Hepzibah scowled and shook her finger at them, from several windows at the same moment. An imaginary Cliffordfor (and it would have deeply wounded him to know it) he had always been a horror to these small peoplestood behind the unreal Hepzibah, making awful gestures, in a faded dressinggown. Children are even more apt, if possible, than grown people, to catch the contagion of a panic terror. For the rest of the day, the more timid went whole streets about, for the sake of avoiding the Seven Gables; while the bolder signalized their hardihood by challenging their comrades to race past the mansion at full speed. It could not have been more than half an hour after the disappearance of the Italian boy, with his unseasonable melodies, when a cab drove down the street. It stopped beneath the Pyncheon Elm; the cabman took a trunk, a canvas bag, and a bandbox, from the top of his vehicle, and deposited them on the doorstep of the old house; a straw bonnet, and then the pretty figure of a young girl, came into view from the interior of the cab. It was Phoebe! Though not altogether so blooming as when she first tripped into our storyfor, in the few intervening weeks, her experiences had made her graver, more womanly, and deepereyed, in token of a heart that had begun to suspect its depthsstill there was the quiet glow of natural sunshine over her. Neither had she forfeited her proper gift of making things look real, rather than fantastic, within her sphere. Yet we feel it to be a questionable venture, even for Phoebe, at this juncture, to cross the threshold of the Seven Gables. Is her healthful presence potent enough to chase away the crowd of pale, hideous, and sinful phantoms, that have gained admittance there since her departure? Or will she, likewise, fade, sicken, sadden, and grow into deformity, and be only another pallid phantom, to glide noiselessly up and down the stairs, and affright children as she pauses at the window? At least, we would gladly forewarn the unsuspecting girl that there is nothing in human shape or substance to receive her, unless it be the figure of Judge Pyncheon, whowretched spectacle that he is, and frightful in our remembrance, since our nightlong vigil with him!still keeps his place in the oaken chair. Phoebe first tried the shopdoor. It did not yield to her hand; and the white curtain, drawn across the window which formed the upper section of the door, struck her quick perceptive faculty as something unusual. Without making another effort to enter here, she betook herself to the great portal, under the arched window. Finding it fastened, she knocked. A reverberation came from the emptiness within. She knocked again, and a third time; and, listening intently, fancied that the floor creaked, as if Hepzibah were coming, with her ordinary tiptoe movement, to admit her. But so dead a silence ensued upon this imaginary sound, that she began to question whether she might not have mistaken the house, familiar as she thought herself with its exterior. Her notice was now attracted by a childs voice, at some distance. It appeared to call her name. Looking in the direction whence it proceeded, Phoebe saw little Ned Higgins, a good way down the street, stamping, shaking his head violently, making deprecatory gestures with both hands, and shouting to her at mouthwide screech. No, no, Phoebe! he screamed. Dont you go in! Theres something wicked there! Dontdontdont go in! But, as the little personage could not be induced to approach near enough to explain himself, Phoebe concluded that he had been frightened, on some of his visits to the shop, by her cousin Hepzibah; for the good ladys manifestations, in truth, ran about an equal chance of scaring children out of their wits, or compelling them to unseemly laughter. Still, she felt the more, for this incident, how unaccountably silent and impenetrable the house had become. As her next resort, Phoebe made her way into the garden, where on so warm and bright a day as the present, she had little doubt of finding Clifford, and perhaps Hepzibah also, idling away the noontide in the shadow of the arbor. Immediately on her entering the garden gate, the family of hens half ran, half flew to meet her; while a strange grimalkin, which was prowling under the parlor window, took to his heels, clambered hastily over the fence, and vanished. The arbor was vacant, and its floor, table, and circular bench were still damp, and bestrewn with twigs and the disarray of the past storm. The growth of the garden seemed to have got quite out of bounds; the weeds had taken advantage of Phoebes absence, and the longcontinued rain, to run rampant over the flowers and kitchenvegetables. Maules well had overflowed its stone border, and made a pool of formidable breadth in that corner of the garden. The impression of the whole scene was that of a spot where no human foot had left its print for many preceding daysprobably not since Phoebes departurefor she saw a sidecomb of her own under the table of the arbor, where it must have fallen on the last afternoon when she and Clifford sat there. The girl knew that her two relatives were capable of far greater oddities than that of shutting themselves up in their old house, as they appeared now to have done. Nevertheless, with indistinct misgivings of something amiss, and apprehensions to which she could not give shape, she approached the door that formed the customary communication between the house and garden. It was secured within, like the two which she had already tried. She knocked, however; and immediately, as if the application had been expected, the door was drawn open, by a considerable exertion of some unseen persons strength, not wide, but far enough to afford her a sidelong entrance. As Hepzibah, in order not to expose herself to inspection from without, invariably opened a door in this manner, Phoebe necessarily concluded that it was her cousin who now admitted her. Without hesitation, therefore, she stepped across the threshold, and had no sooner entered than the door closed behind her. XX The Flower of Eden Phoebe, coming so suddenly from the sunny daylight, was altogether bedimmed in such density of shadow as lurked in most of the passages of the old house. She was not at first aware by whom she had been admitted. Before her eyes had adapted themselves to the obscurity, a hand grasped her own with a firm but gentle and warm pressure, thus imparting a welcome which caused her heart to leap and thrill with an indefinable shiver of enjoyment. She felt herself drawn along, not towards the parlor, but into a large and unoccupied apartment, which had formerly been the grand receptionroom of the Seven Gables. The sunshine came freely into all the uncurtained windows of this room, and fell upon the dusty floor; so that Phoebe now clearly sawwhat, indeed, had been no secret, after the encounter of a warm hand with hersthat it was not Hepzibah nor Clifford, but Holgrave, to whom she owed her reception. The subtle, intuitive communication, or, rather, the vague and formless impression of something to be told, had made her yield unresistingly to his impulse. Without taking away her hand, she looked eagerly in his face, not quick to forebode evil, but unavoidably conscious that the state of the family had changed since her departure, and therefore anxious for an explanation. The artist looked paler than ordinary; there was a thoughtful and severe contraction of his forehead, tracing a deep, vertical line between the eyebrows. His smile, however, was full of genuine warmth, and had in it a joy, by far the most vivid expression that Phoebe had ever witnessed, shining out of the New England reserve with which Holgrave habitually masked whatever lay near his heart. It was the look wherewith a man, brooding alone over some fearful object, in a dreary forest or illimitable desert, would recognize the familiar aspect of his dearest friend, bringing up all the peaceful ideas that belong to home, and the gentle current of everyday affairs. And yet, as he felt the necessity of responding to her look of inquiry, the smile disappeared. I ought not to rejoice that you have come, Phoebe, said he. We meet at a strange moment! What has happened? she exclaimed. Why is the house so deserted? Where are Hepzibah and Clifford? Gone! I cannot imagine where they are! answered Holgrave. We are alone in the house! Hepzibah and Clifford gone? cried Phoebe. It is not possible! And why have you brought me into this room, instead of the parlor? Ah, something terrible has happened! I must run and see! No, no, Phoebe! said Holgrave holding her back. It is as I have told you. They are gone, and I know not whither. A terrible event has, indeed happened, but not to them, nor, as I undoubtingly believe, through any agency of theirs. If I read your character rightly, Phoebe, he continued, fixing his eyes on hers with stern anxiety, intermixed with tenderness, gentle as you are, and seeming to have your sphere among common things, you yet possess remarkable strength. You have wonderful poise, and a faculty which, when tested, will prove itself capable of dealing with matters that fall far out of the ordinary rule. Oh, no, I am very weak! replied Phoebe, trembling. But tell me what has happened! You are strong! persisted Holgrave. You must be both strong and wise; for I am all astray, and need your counsel. It may be you can suggest the one right thing to do! Tell me!tell me! said Phoebe, all in a tremble. It oppressesit terrifies methis mystery! Anything else I can bear! The artist hesitated. Notwithstanding what he had just said, and most sincerely, in regard to the selfbalancing power with which Phoebe impressed him, it still seemed almost wicked to bring the awful secret of yesterday to her knowledge. It was like dragging a hideous shape of death into the cleanly and cheerful space before a household fire, where it would present all the uglier aspect, amid the decorousness of everything about it. Yet it could not be concealed from her; she must needs know it. Phoebe, said he, do you remember this? He put into her hand a daguerreotype; the same that he had shown her at their first interview in the garden, and which so strikingly brought out the hard and relentless traits of the original. What has this to do with Hepzibah and Clifford? asked Phoebe, with impatient surprise that Holgrave should so trifle with her at such a moment. It is Judge Pyncheon! You have shown it to me before! But here is the same face, taken within this halfhour said the artist, presenting her with another miniature. I had just finished it when I heard you at the door. This is death! shuddered Phoebe, turning very pale. Judge Pyncheon dead! Such as there represented, said Holgrave, he sits in the next room. The Judge is dead, and Clifford and Hepzibah have vanished! I know no more. All beyond is conjecture. On returning to my solitary chamber, last evening, I noticed no light, either in the parlor, or Hepzibahs room, or Cliffords; no stir nor footstep about the house. This morning, there was the same deathlike quiet. From my window, I overheard the testimony of a neighbor, that your relatives were seen leaving the house in the midst of yesterdays storm. A rumor reached me, too, of Judge Pyncheon being missed. A feeling which I cannot describean indefinite sense of some catastrophe, or consummationimpelled me to make my way into this part of the house, where I discovered what you see. As a point of evidence that may be useful to Clifford, and also as a memorial valuable to myselffor, Phoebe, there are hereditary reasons that connect me strangely with that mans fateI used the means at my disposal to preserve this pictorial record of Judge Pyncheons death. Even in her agitation, Phoebe could not help remarking the calmness of Holgraves demeanor. He appeared, it is true, to feel the whole awfulness of the Judges death, yet had received the fact into his mind without any mixture of surprise, but as an event preordained, happening inevitably, and so fitting itself into past occurrences that it could almost have been prophesied. Why have you not thrown open the doors, and called in witnesses? inquired she with a painful shudder. It is terrible to be here alone! But Clifford! suggested the artist. Clifford and Hepzibah! We must consider what is best to be done in their behalf. It is a wretched fatality that they should have disappeared! Their flight will throw the worst coloring over this event of which it is susceptible. Yet how easy is the explanation, to those who know them! Bewildered and terrorstricken by the similarity of this death to a former one, which was attended with such disastrous consequences to Clifford, they have had no idea but of removing themselves from the scene. How miserably unfortunate! Had Hepzibah but shrieked aloudhad Clifford flung wide the door, and proclaimed Judge Pyncheons deathit would have been, however awful in itself, an event fruitful of good consequences to them. As I view it, it would have gone far towards obliterating the black stain on Cliffords character. And how, asked Phoebe, could any good come from what is so very dreadful? Because, said the artist, if the matter can be fairly considered and candidly interpreted, it must be evident that Judge Pyncheon could not have come unfairly to his end. This mode of death had been an idiosyncrasy with his family, for generations past; not often occurring, indeed, but, when it does occur, usually attacking individuals about the Judges time of life, and generally in the tension of some mental crisis, or, perhaps, in an access of wrath. Old Maules prophecy was probably founded on a knowledge of this physical predisposition in the Pyncheon race. Now, there is a minute and almost exact similarity in the appearances connected with the death that occurred yesterday and those recorded of the death of Cliffords uncle thirty years ago. It is true, there was a certain arrangement of circumstances, unnecessary to be recounted, which made it possible nay, as men look at these things, probable, or even certainthat old Jaffrey Pyncheon came to a violent death, and by Cliffords hands. Whence came those circumstances? exclaimed Phoebe. He being innocent, as we know him to be! They were arranged, said Holgraveat least such has long been my convictionthey were arranged after the uncles death, and before it was made public, by the man who sits in yonder parlor. His own death, so like that former one, yet attended by none of those suspicious circumstances, seems the stroke of God upon him, at once a punishment for his wickedness, and making plain the innocence of Clifford. But this flightit distorts everything! He may be in concealment, near at hand. Could we but bring him back before the discovery of the Judges death, the evil might be rectified. We must not hide this thing a moment longer! said Phoebe. It is dreadful to keep it so closely in our hearts. Clifford is innocent. God will make it manifest! Let us throw open the doors, and call all the neighborhood to see the truth! You are right, Phoebe, rejoined Holgrave. Doubtless you are right. Yet the artist did not feel the horror, which was proper to Phoebes sweet and orderloving character, at thus finding herself at issue with society, and brought in contact with an event that transcended ordinary rules. Neither was he in haste, like her, to betake himself within the precincts of common life. On the contrary, he gathered a wild enjoymentas it were, a flower of strange beauty, growing in a desolate spot, and blossoming in the windsuch a flower of momentary happiness he gathered from his present position. It separated Phoebe and himself from the world, and bound them to each other, by their exclusive knowledge of Judge Pyncheons mysterious death, and the counsel which they were forced to hold respecting it. The secret, so long as it should continue such, kept them within the circle of a spell, a solitude in the midst of men, a remoteness as entire as that of an island in midocean; once divulged, the ocean would flow betwixt them, standing on its widely sundered shores. Meanwhile, all the circumstances of their situation seemed to draw them together; they were like two children who go hand in hand, pressing closely to one anothers side, through a shadowhaunted passage. The image of awful Death, which filled the house, held them united by his stiffened grasp. These influences hastened the development of emotions that might not otherwise have flowered so. Possibly, indeed, it had been Holgraves purpose to let them die in their undeveloped germs. Why do we delay so? asked Phoebe. This secret takes away my breath! Let us throw open the doors! In all our lives there can never come another moment like this! said Holgrave. Phoebe, is it all terror?nothing but terror? Are you conscious of no joy, as I am, that has made this the only point of life worth living for? It seems a sin, replied Phoebe, trembling, to think of joy at such a time! Could you but know, Phoebe, how it was with me the hour before you came! exclaimed the artist. A dark, cold, miserable hour! The presence of yonder dead man threw a great black shadow over everything; he made the universe, so far as my perception could reach, a scene of guilt and of retribution more dreadful than the guilt. The sense of it took away my youth. I never hoped to feel young again! The world looked strange, wild, evil, hostile; my past life, so lonesome and dreary; my future, a shapeless gloom, which I must mould into gloomy shapes! But, Phoebe, you crossed the threshold; and hope, warmth, and joy came in with you! The black moment became at once a blissful one. It must not pass without the spoken word. I love you! How can you love a simple girl like me? asked Phoebe, compelled by his earnestness to speak. You have many, many thoughts, with which I should try in vain to sympathize. And II, tooI have tendencies with which you would sympathize as little. That is less matter. But I have not scope enough to make you happy. You are my only possibility of happiness! answered Holgrave. I have no faith in it, except as you bestow it on me! And thenI am afraid! continued Phoebe, shrinking towards Holgrave, even while she told him so frankly the doubts with which he affected her. You will lead me out of my own quiet path. You will make me strive to follow you where it is pathless. I cannot do so. It is not my nature. I shall sink down and perish! Ah, Phoebe! exclaimed Holgrave, with almost a sigh, and a smile that was burdened with thought. It will be far otherwise than as you forebode. The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits. I have a presentiment that, hereafter, it will be my lot to set out trees, to make fencesperhaps, even, in due time, to build a house for another generationin a word, to conform myself to laws and the peaceful practice of society. Your poise will be more powerful than any oscillating tendency of mine. I would not have it so! said Phoebe earnestly. Do you love me? asked Holgrave. If we love one another, the moment has room for nothing more. Let us pause upon it, and be satisfied. Do you love me, Phoebe? You look into my heart, said she, letting her eyes drop. You know I love you! And it was in this hour, so full of doubt and awe, that the one miracle was wrought, without which every human existence is a blank. The bliss which makes all things true, beautiful, and holy shone around this youth and maiden. They were conscious of nothing sad nor old. They transfigured the earth, and made it Eden again, and themselves the two first dwellers in it. The dead man, so close beside them, was forgotten. At such a crisis, there is no death; for immortality is revealed anew, and embraces everything in its hallowed atmosphere. But how soon the heavy earthdream settled down again! Hark! whispered Phoebe. Somebody is at the street door! Now let us meet the world! said Holgrave. No doubt, the rumor of Judge Pyncheons visit to this house, and the flight of Hepzibah and Clifford, is about to lead to the investigation of the premises. We have no way but to meet it. Let us open the door at once. But, to their surprise, before they could reach the street dooreven before they quitted the room in which the foregoing interview had passedthey heard footsteps in the farther passage. The door, therefore, which they supposed to be securely lockedwhich Holgrave, indeed, had seen to be so, and at which Phoebe had vainly tried to entermust have been opened from without. The sound of footsteps was not harsh, bold, decided, and intrusive, as the gait of strangers would naturally be, making authoritative entrance into a dwelling where they knew themselves unwelcome. It was feeble, as of persons either weak or weary; there was the mingled murmur of two voices, familiar to both the listeners. Can it be? whispered Holgrave. It is they! answered Phoebe. Thank God!thank God! And then, as if in sympathy with Phoebes whispered ejaculation, they heard Hepzibahs voice more distinctly. Thank God, my brother, we are at home! Well!Yes!thank God! responded Clifford. A dreary home, Hepzibah! But you have done well to bring me hither! Stay! That parlor door is open. I cannot pass by it! Let me go and rest me in the arbor, where I usedoh, very long ago, it seems to me, after what has befallen uswhere I used to be so happy with little Phoebe! But the house was not altogether so dreary as Clifford imagined it. They had not made many stepsin truth, they were lingering in the entry, with the listlessness of an accomplished purpose, uncertain what to do nextwhen Phoebe ran to meet them. On beholding her, Hepzibah burst into tears. With all her might, she had staggered onward beneath the burden of grief and responsibility, until now that it was safe to fling it down. Indeed, she had not energy to fling it down, but had ceased to uphold it, and suffered it to press her to the earth. Clifford appeared the stronger of the two. It is our own little Phoebe!Ah! and Holgrave with her, exclaimed he, with a glance of keen and delicate insight, and a smile, beautiful, kind, but melancholy. I thought of you both, as we came down the street, and beheld Alices Posies in full bloom. And so the flower of Eden has bloomed, likewise, in this old, darksome house today. XXI The Departure The sudden death of so prominent a member of the social world as the Honorable Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon created a sensation (at least, in the circles more immediately connected with the deceased) which had hardly quite subsided in a fortnight. It may be remarked, however, that, of all the events which constitute a persons biography, there is scarcely onenone, certainly, of anything like a similar importanceto which the world so easily reconciles itself as to his death. In most other cases and contingencies, the individual is present among us, mixed up with the daily revolution of affairs, and affording a definite point for observation. At his decease, there is only a vacancy, and a momentary eddyvery small, as compared with the apparent magnitude of the ingurgitated objectand a bubble or two, ascending out of the black depth and bursting at the surface. As regarded Judge Pyncheon, it seemed probable, at first blush, that the mode of his final departure might give him a larger and longer posthumous vogue than ordinarily attends the memory of a distinguished man. But when it came to be understood, on the highest professional authority, that the event was a natural, andexcept for some unimportant particulars, denoting a slight idiosyncrasyby no means an unusual form of death, the public, with its customary alacrity, proceeded to forget that he had ever lived. In short, the honorable Judge was beginning to be a stale subject before half the country newspapers had found time to put their columns in mourning, and publish his exceedingly eulogistic obituary. Nevertheless, creeping darkly through the places which this excellent person had haunted in his lifetime, there was a hidden stream of private talk, such as it would have shocked all decency to speak loudly at the streetcorners. It is very singular, how the fact of a mans death often seems to give people a truer idea of his character, whether for good or evil, than they have ever possessed while he was living and acting among them. Death is so genuine a fact that it excludes falsehood, or betrays its emptiness; it is a touchstone that proves the gold, and dishonors the baser metal. Could the departed, whoever he may be, return in a week after his decease, he would almost invariably find himself at a higher or lower point than he had formerly occupied, on the scale of public appreciation. But the talk, or scandal, to which we now allude, had reference to matters of no less old a date than the supposed murder, thirty or forty years ago, of the late Judge Pyncheons uncle. The medical opinion with regard to his own recent and regretted decease had almost entirely obviated the idea that a murder was committed in the former case. Yet, as the record showed, there were circumstances irrefragably indicating that some person had gained access to old Jaffrey Pyncheons private apartments, at or near the moment of his death. His desk and private drawers, in a room contiguous to his bedchamber, had been ransacked; money and valuable articles were missing; there was a bloody handprint on the old mans linen; and, by a powerfully welded chain of deductive evidence, the guilt of the robbery and apparent murder had been fixed on Clifford, then residing with his uncle in the House of the Seven Gables. Whencesoever originating, there now arose a theory that undertook so to account for these circumstances as to exclude the idea of Cliffords agency. Many persons affirmed that the history and elucidation of the facts, long so mysterious, had been obtained by the daguerreotypist from one of those mesmerical seers who, nowadays, so strangely perplex the aspect of human affairs, and put everybodys natural vision to the blush, by the marvels which they see with their eyes shut. According to this version of the story, Judge Pyncheon, exemplary as we have portrayed him in our narrative, was, in his youth, an apparently irreclaimable scapegrace. The brutish, the animal instincts, as is often the case, had been developed earlier than the intellectual qualities, and the force of character, for which he was afterwards remarkable. He had shown himself wild, dissipated, addicted to low pleasures, little short of ruffianly in his propensities, and recklessly expensive, with no other resources than the bounty of his uncle. This course of conduct had alienated the old bachelors affection, once strongly fixed upon him. Now it is averredbut whether on authority available in a court of justice, we do not pretend to have investigatedthat the young man was tempted by the devil, one night, to search his uncles private drawers, to which he had unsuspected means of access. While thus criminally occupied, he was startled by the opening of the chamberdoor.


There stood old Jaffrey Pyncheon, in his nightclothes! The surprise of such a discovery, his agitation, alarm, and horror, brought on the crisis of a disorder to which the old bachelor had an hereditary liability; he seemed to choke with blood, and fell upon the floor, striking his temple a heavy blow against the corner of a table. What was to be done? The old man was surely dead! Assistance would come too late! What a misfortune, indeed, should it come too soon, since his reviving consciousness would bring the recollection of the ignominious offence which he had beheld his nephew in the very act of committing! But he never did revive. With the cool hardihood that always pertained to him, the young man continued his search of the drawers, and found a will, of recent date, in favor of Cliffordwhich he destroyedand an older one, in his own favor, which he suffered to remain. But before retiring, Jaffrey bethought himself of the evidence, in these ransacked drawers, that someone had visited the chamber with sinister purposes. Suspicion, unless averted, might fix upon the real offender. In the very presence of the dead man, therefore, he laid a scheme that should free himself at the expense of Clifford, his rival, for whose character he had at once a contempt and a repugnance. It is not probable, be it said, that he acted with any set purpose of involving Clifford in a charge of murder. Knowing that his uncle did not die by violence, it may not have occurred to him, in the hurry of the crisis, that such an inference might be drawn. But, when the affair took this darker aspect, Jaffreys previous steps had already pledged him to those which remained. So craftily had he arranged the circumstances, that, at Cliffords trial, his cousin hardly found it necessary to swear to anything false, but only to withhold the one decisive explanation, by refraining to state what he had himself done and witnessed. Thus Jaffrey Pyncheons inward criminality, as regarded Clifford, was, indeed, black and damnable; while its mere outward show and positive commission was the smallest that could possibly consist with so great a sin. This is just the sort of guilt that a man of eminent respectability finds it easiest to dispose of. It was suffered to fade out of sight or be reckoned a venial matter, in the Honorable Judge Pyncheons long subsequent survey of his own life. He shuffled it aside, among the forgotten and forgiven frailties of his youth, and seldom thought of it again. We leave the Judge to his repose. He could not be styled fortunate at the hour of death. Unknowingly, he was a childless man, while striving to add more wealth to his only childs inheritance. Hardly a week after his decease, one of the Cunard steamers brought intelligence of the death, by cholera, of Judge Pyncheons son, just at the point of embarkation for his native land. By this misfortune Clifford became rich; so did Hepzibah; so did our little village maiden, and, through her, that sworn foe of wealth and all manner of conservatismthe wild reformerHolgrave! It was now far too late in Cliffords life for the good opinion of society to be worth the trouble and anguish of a formal vindication. What he needed was the love of a very few; not the admiration, or even the respect, of the unknown many. The latter might probably have been won for him, had those on whom the guardianship of his welfare had fallen deemed it advisable to expose Clifford to a miserable resuscitation of past ideas, when the condition of whatever comfort he might expect lay in the calm of forgetfulness. After such wrong as he had suffered, there is no reparation. The pitiable mockery of it, which the world might have been ready enough to offer, coming so long after the agony had done its utmost work, would have been fit only to provoke bitterer laughter than poor Clifford was ever capable of. It is a truth (and it would be a very sad one but for the higher hopes which it suggests) that no great mistake, whether acted or endured, in our mortal sphere, is ever really set right. Time, the continual vicissitude of circumstances, and the invariable inopportunity of death, render it impossible. If, after long lapse of years, the right seems to be in our power, we find no niche to set it in. The better remedy is for the sufferer to pass on, and leave what he once thought his irreparable ruin far behind him. The shock of Judge Pyncheons death had a permanently invigorating and ultimately beneficial effect on Clifford. That strong and ponderous man had been Cliffords nightmare. There was no free breath to be drawn, within the sphere of so malevolent an influence. The first effect of freedom, as we have witnessed in Cliffords aimless flight, was a tremulous exhilaration. Subsiding from it, he did not sink into his former intellectual apathy. He never, it is true, attained to nearly the full measure of what might have been his faculties. But he recovered enough of them partially to light up his character, to display some outline of the marvellous grace that was abortive in it, and to make him the object of no less deep, although less melancholy interest than heretofore. He was evidently happy. Could we pause to give another picture of his daily life, with all the appliances now at command to gratify his instinct for the Beautiful, the garden scenes, that seemed so sweet to him, would look mean and trivial in comparison. Very soon after their change of fortune, Clifford, Hepzibah, and little Phoebe, with the approval of the artist, concluded to remove from the dismal old House of the Seven Gables, and take up their abode, for the present, at the elegant countryseat of the late Judge Pyncheon. Chanticleer and his family had already been transported thither, where the two hens had forthwith begun an indefatigable process of egglaying, with an evident design, as a matter of duty and conscience, to continue their illustrious breed under better auspices than for a century past. On the day set for their departure, the principal personages of our story, including good Uncle Venner, were assembled in the parlor. The countryhouse is certainly a very fine one, so far as the plan goes, observed Holgrave, as the party were discussing their future arrangements. But I wonder that the late Judgebeing so opulent, and with a reasonable prospect of transmitting his wealth to descendants of his ownshould not have felt the propriety of embodying so excellent a piece of domestic architecture in stone, rather than in wood. Then, every generation of the family might have altered the interior, to suit its own taste and convenience; while the exterior, through the lapse of years, might have been adding venerableness to its original beauty, and thus giving that impression of permanence which I consider essential to the happiness of any one moment. Why, cried Phoebe, gazing into the artists face with infinite amazement, how wonderfully your ideas are changed! A house of stone, indeed! It is but two or three weeks ago that you seemed to wish people to live in something as fragile and temporary as a birdsnest! Ah, Phoebe, I told you how it would be! said the artist, with a halfmelancholy laugh. You find me a conservative already! Little did I think ever to become one. It is especially unpardonable in this dwelling of so much hereditary misfortune, and under the eye of yonder portrait of a model conservative, who, in that very character, rendered himself so long the evil destiny of his race. That picture! said Clifford, seeming to shrink from its stern glance. Whenever I look at it, there is an old dreamy recollection haunting me, but keeping just beyond the grasp of my mind. Wealth, it seems to say!boundless wealth!unimaginable wealth! I could fancy that, when I was a child, or a youth, that portrait had spoken, and told me a rich secret, or had held forth its hand, with the written record of hidden opulence. But those old matters are so dim with me, nowadays! What could this dream have been? Perhaps I can recall it, answered Holgrave. See! There are a hundred chances to one that no person, unacquainted with the secret, would ever touch this spring. A secret spring! cried Clifford. Ah, I remember now! I did discover it, one summer afternoon, when I was idling and dreaming about the house, long, long ago. But the mystery escapes me. The artist put his finger on the contrivance to which he had referred. In former days, the effect would probably have been to cause the picture to start forward. But, in so long a period of concealment, the machinery had been eaten through with rust; so that at Holgraves pressure, the portrait, frame and all, tumbled suddenly from its position, and lay face downward on the floor. A recess in the wall was thus brought to light, in which lay an object so covered with a centurys dust that it could not immediately be recognized as a folded sheet of parchment. Holgrave opened it, and displayed an ancient deed, signed with the hieroglyphics of several Indian sagamores, and conveying to Colonel Pyncheon and his heirs, forever, a vast extent of territory at the Eastward. This is the very parchment, the attempt to recover which cost the beautiful Alice Pyncheon her happiness and life, said the artist, alluding to his legend. It is what the Pyncheons sought in vain, while it was valuable; and now that they find the treasure, it has long been worthless. Poor Cousin Jaffrey! This is what deceived him, exclaimed Hepzibah. When they were young together, Clifford probably made a kind of fairytale of this discovery. He was always dreaming hither and thither about the house, and lighting up its dark corners with beautiful stories. And poor Jaffrey, who took hold of everything as if it were real, thought my brother had found out his uncles wealth. He died with this delusion in his mind! But, said Phoebe, apart to Holgrave, how came you to know the secret? My dearest Phoebe, said Holgrave, how will it please you to assume the name of Maule? As for the secret, it is the only inheritance that has come down to me from my ancestors. You should have known sooner (only that I was afraid of frightening you away) that, in this long drama of wrong and retribution, I represent the old wizard, and am probably as much a wizard as ever he was. The son of the executed Matthew Maule, while building this house, took the opportunity to construct that recess, and hide away the Indian deed, on which depended the immense landclaim of the Pyncheons. Thus they bartered their eastern territory for Maules gardenground. And now, said Uncle Venner, I suppose their whole claim is not worth one mans share in my farm yonder! Uncle Venner, cried Phoebe, taking the patched philosophers hand, you must never talk any more about your farm! You shall never go there, as long as you live! There is a cottage in our new gardenthe prettiest little yellowishbrown cottage you ever saw; and the sweetestlooking place, for it looks just as if it were made of gingerbreadand we are going to fit it up and furnish it, on purpose for you. And you shall do nothing but what you choose, and shall be as happy as the day is long, and shall keep Cousin Clifford in spirits with the wisdom and pleasantness which is always dropping from your lips! Ah! my dear child, quoth good Uncle Venner, quite overcome, if you were to speak to a young man as you do to an old one, his chance of keeping his heart another minute would not be worth one of the buttons on my waistcoat! Andsoul alive!that great sigh, which you made me heave, has burst off the very last of them! But, never mind! It was the happiest sigh I ever did heave; and it seems as if I must have drawn in a gulp of heavenly breath, to make it with. Well, well, Miss Phoebe! Theyll miss me in the gardens hereabouts, and round by the back doors; and Pyncheon Street, Im afraid, will hardly look the same without old Uncle Venner, who remembers it with a mowing field on one side, and the garden of the Seven Gables on the other. But either I must go to your countryseat, or you must come to my farmthats one of two things certain; and I leave you to choose which! Oh, come with us, by all means, Uncle Venner! said Clifford, who had a remarkable enjoyment of the old mans mellow, quiet, and simple spirit. I want you always to be within five minutes, saunter of my chair. You are the only philosopher I ever knew of whose wisdom has not a drop of bitter essence at the bottom! Dear me! cried Uncle Venner, beginning partly to realize what manner of man he was. And yet folks used to set me down among the simple ones, in my younger days! But I suppose I am like a Roxbury russeta great deal the better, the longer I can be kept. Yes; and my words of wisdom, that you and Phoebe tell me of, are like the golden dandelions, which never grow in the hot months, but may be seen glistening among the withered grass, and under the dry leaves, sometimes as late as December. And you are welcome, friends, to my mess of dandelions, if there were twice as many! A plain, but handsome, darkgreen barouche had now drawn up in front of the ruinous portal of the old mansionhouse. The party came forth, and (with the exception of good Uncle Venner, who was to follow in a few days) proceeded to take their places. They were chatting and laughing very pleasantly together; andas proves to be often the case, at moments when we ought to palpitate with sensibilityClifford and Hepzibah bade a final farewell to the abode of their forefathers, with hardly more emotion than if they had made it their arrangement to return thither at teatime. Several children were drawn to the spot by so unusual a spectacle as the barouche and pair of gray horses. Recognizing little Ned Higgins among them, Hepzibah put her hand into her pocket, and presented the urchin, her earliest and staunchest customer, with silver enough to people the Domdaniel cavern of his interior with as various a procession of quadrupeds as passed into the ark. Two men were passing, just as the barouche drove off. Well, Dixey, said one of them, what do you think of this? My wife kept a centshop three months, and lost five dollars on her outlay. Old Maid Pyncheon has been in trade just about as long, and rides off in her carriage with a couple of hundred thousandreckoning her share, and Cliffords, and Phoebesand some say twice as much! If you choose to call it luck, it is all very well; but if we are to take it as the will of Providence, why, I cant exactly fathom it! Pretty good business! quoth the sagacious Dixeypretty good business! Maules well, all this time, though left in solitude, was throwing up a succession of kaleidoscopic pictures, in which a gifted eye might have seen foreshadowed the coming fortunes of Hepzibah and Clifford, and the descendant of the legendary wizard, and the village maiden, over whom he had thrown loves web of sorcery. The Pyncheon Elm, moreover, with what foliage the September gale had spared to it, whispered unintelligible prophecies. And wise Uncle Venner, passing slowly from the ruinous porch, seemed to hear a strain of music, and fancied that sweet Alice Pyncheonafter witnessing these deeds, this bygone woe and this present happiness, of her kindred mortalshad given one farewell touch of a spirits joy upon her harpsichord, as she floated heavenward from the House of the Seven Gables! Colophon The House of the Seven Gables was published in 1851 by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This ebook was produced for Standard Ebooks by Alex Cabal, and is based on a transcription produced in 1993 by Judith Boss and Al Haines for Project Gutenberg and on digital scans from Google Books. The cover page is adapted from Bondehave Fra Mjstrakterne, a painting completed circa 1929 by Gerhard Munthe. The cover and title pages feature the League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by The League of Moveable Type. This edition was released on November 7, 2024, 856 p.m. and is based on revision dc54bb4. The first edition of this ebook was released on October 2, 2024, 228 a.m. You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at standardebooks.orgebooksnathanielhawthornethehouseofthesevengables. The volunteerdriven Standard Ebooks project relies on readers like you to submit typos, corrections, and other improvements. Anyone can contribute at standardebooks.org. 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Standard Ebooks is a volunteerdriven project that produces ebook editions of public domain literature using modern typography, technology, and editorial standards, and distributes them free of cost. You can download this and other ebooks carefully produced for true book lovers at standardebooks.org. Preface When a writer calls his work a Romance, it need hardly be observed that he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both as to its fashion and material, which he would not have felt himself entitled to assume had he professed to be writing a Novel. The latter form of composition is presumed to aim at a very minute fidelity, not merely to the possible, but to the probable and ordinary course of mans experience. The formerwhile, as a work of art, it must rigidly subject itself to laws, and while it sins unpardonably so far as it may swerve aside from the truth of the human hearthas fairly a right to present that truth under circumstances, to a great extent, of the writers own choosing or creation. If he think fit, also, he may so manage his atmospherical medium as to bring out or mellow the lights and deepen and enrich the shadows of the picture. He will be wise, no doubt, to make a very moderate use of the privileges here stated, and, especially, to mingle the Marvelous rather as a slight, delicate, and evanescent flavor, than as any portion of the actual substance of the dish offered to the public. He can hardly be said, however, to commit a literary crime even if he disregard this caution. In the present work, the author has proposed to himselfbut with what success, fortunately, it is not for him to judgeto keep undeviatingly within his immunities. The point of view in which this tale comes under the Romantic definition lies in the attempt to connect a bygone time with the very present that is flitting away from us. It is a legend prolonging itself, from an epoch now gray in the distance, down into our own broad daylight, and bringing along with it some of its legendary mist, which the reader, according to his pleasure, may either disregard, or allow it to float almost imperceptibly about the characters and events for the sake of a picturesque effect. The narrative, it may be, is woven of so humble a texture as to require this advantage, and, at the same time, to render it the more difficult of attainment. Many writers lay very great stress upon some definite moral purpose, at which they profess to aim their works. Not to be deficient in this particular, the author has provided himself with a moralthe truth, namely, that the wrongdoing of one generation lives into the successive ones, and, divesting itself of every temporary advantage, becomes a pure and uncontrollable mischief; and he would feel it a singular gratification if this romance might effectually convince mankindor, indeed, any one manof the folly of tumbling down an avalanche of illgotten gold, or real estate, on the heads of an unfortunate posterity, thereby to maim and crush them, until the accumulated mass shall be scattered abroad in its original atoms. In good faith, however, he is not sufficiently imaginative to flatter himself with the slightest hope of this kind. When romances do really teach anything, or produce any effective operation, it is usually through a far more subtle process than the ostensible one. The author has considered it hardly worth his while, therefore, relentlessly to impale the story with its moral as with an iron rodor, rather, as by sticking a pin through a butterflythus at once depriving it of life, and causing it to stiffen in an ungainly and unnatural attitude. A high truth, indeed, fairly, finely, and skilfully wrought out, brightening at every step, and crowning the final development of a work of fiction, may add an artistic glory, but is never any truer, and seldom any more evident, at the last page than at the first. The reader may perhaps choose to assign an actual locality to the imaginary events of this narrative. If permitted by the historical connectionwhich, though slight, was essential to his planthe author would very willingly have avoided anything of this nature. Not to speak of other objections, it exposes the romance to an inflexible and exceedingly dangerous species of criticism, by bringing his fancypictures almost into positive contact with the realities of the moment. It has been no part of his object, however, to describe local manners, nor in any way to meddle with the characteristics of a community for whom he cherishes a proper respect and a natural regard. He trusts not to be considered as unpardonably offending by laying out a street that infringes upon nobodys private rights, and appropriating a lot of land which had no visible owner, and building a house of materials long in use for constructing castles in the air. The personages of the talethough they give themselves out to be of ancient stability and considerable prominenceare really of the authors own making, or at all events, of his own mixing; their virtues can shed no lustre, nor their defects redound, in the remotest degree, to the discredit of the venerable town of which they profess to be inhabitants. He would be glad, therefore, ifespecially in the quarter to which he alludesthe book may be read strictly as a Romance, having a great deal more to do with the clouds overhead than with any portion of the actual soil of the County of Essex. Lenox, January 27, 1851. The House of the Seven Gables By Nathaniel Hawthorne. Uncopyright May you do good and not evil. May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others. May you share freely, never taking more than you give. Copyright pages exist to tell you that you cant do something. 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Table of Contents Titlepage Imprint Preface The House of the Seven Gables I The Old Pyncheon Family II The Little Shopwindow III The First Customer IV A Day Behind the Counter V May and November VI Maules Well VII The Guest VIII The Pyncheon of Today IX Clifford and Phoebe X The Pyncheon Garden XI The Arched Window XII The Daguerreotypist XIII Alice Pyncheon XIV Phoebes Goodbye XV The Scowl and Smile XVI Cliffords Chamber XVII The Flight of Two Owls XVIII Governor Pyncheon XIX Alices Posies XX The Flower of Eden XXI The Departure Colophon Uncopyright Landmarks The House of the Seven Gables