But the visitor quietly closed the shopdoor behind him, stood up his umbrella against the counter, and turned a visage of composed benignity, to meet the alarm and anger which his appearance had excited. Hepzibahs presentiment had not deceived her. It was no other than Judge Pyncheon, who, after in vain trying the front door, had now effected his entrance into the shop. How do you do, Cousin Hepzibah?and how does this most inclement weather affect our poor Clifford? began the Judge; and wonderful it seemed, indeed, that the easterly storm was not put to shame, or, at any rate, a little mollified, by the genial benevolence of his smile. I could not rest without calling to ask, once more, whether I can in any manner promote his comfort, or your own. You can do nothing, said Hepzibah, controlling her agitation as well as she could. I devote myself to Clifford. He has every comfort which his situation admits of. But allow me to suggest, dear cousin, rejoined the Judge, you errin all affection and kindness, no doubt, and with the very best intentionsbut you do err, nevertheless, in keeping your brother so secluded. Why insulate him thus from all sympathy and kindness? Clifford, alas! has had too much of solitude. Now let him try societythe society, that is to say, of kindred and old friends. Let me, for instance, but see Clifford, and I will answer for the good effect of the interview. You cannot see him, answered Hepzibah. Clifford has kept his bed since yesterday. What! How! Is he ill? exclaimed Judge Pyncheon, starting with what seemed to be angry alarm; for the very frown of the old Puritan darkened through the room as he spoke. Nay, then, I must and will see him! What if he should die? He is in no danger of death, said Hepzibahand added, with bitterness that she could repress no longer, none; unless he shall be persecuted to death, now, by the same man who long ago attempted it! Cousin Hepzibah, said the Judge, with an impressive earnestness of manner, which grew even to tearful pathos as he proceeded, is it possible that you do not perceive how unjust, how unkind, how unchristian, is this constant, this longcontinued bitterness against me, for a part which I was constrained by duty and conscience, by the force of law, and at my own peril, to act? What did I do, in detriment to Clifford, which it was possible to leave undone? How could you, his sisterif, for your neverending sorrow, as it has been for mine, you had known what I didhave, shown greater tenderness? And do you think, cousin, that it has cost me no pang?that it has left no anguish in my bosom, from that day to this, amidst all the prosperity with which Heaven has blessed me?or that I do not now rejoice, when it is deemed consistent with the dues of public justice and the welfare of society that this dear kinsman, this early friend, this nature so delicately and beautifully constitutedso unfortunate, let us pronounce him, and forbear to say, so guiltythat our own Clifford, in fine, should be given back to life, and its possibilities of enjoyment? Ah, you little know me, Cousin Hepzibah! You little know this heart! It now throbs at the thought of meeting him! There lives not the human being (except yourselfand you not more than I) who has shed so many tears for Cliffords calamity. You behold some of them now. There is none who would so delight to promote his happiness! Try me, Hepzibah!try me, Cousin!try the man whom you have treated as your enemy and Cliffords!try Jaffrey Pyncheon, and you shall find him true, to the hearts core! In the name of Heaven, cried Hepzibah, provoked only to intenser indignation by this outgush of the inestimable tenderness of a stern naturein Gods name, whom you insult, and whose power I could almost question, since he hears you utter so many false words without palsying your tonguegive over, I beseech you, this loathsome pretence of affection for your victim! You hate him! Say so, like a man! You cherish, at this moment, some black purpose against him in your heart! Speak it out, at once!or, if you hope so to promote it better, hide it till you can triumph in its success! But never speak again of your love for my poor brother. I cannot bear it! It will drive me beyond a womans decency! It will drive me mad! Forbear! Not another word! It will make me spurn you! For once, Hepzibahs wrath had given her courage. She had spoken. But, after all, was this unconquerable distrust of Judge Pyncheons integrity, and this utter denial, apparently, of his claim to stand in the ring of human sympathieswere they founded in any just perception of his character, or merely the offspring of a womans unreasonable prejudice, deduced from nothing? The Judge, beyond all question, was a man of eminent respectability. The church acknowledged it; the state acknowledged it. It was denied by nobody. In all the very extensive sphere of those who knew him, whether in his public or private capacities, there was not an individualexcept Hepzibah, and some lawless mystic, like the daguerreotypist, and, possibly, a few political opponentswho would have dreamed of seriously disputing his claim to a high and honorable place in the worlds regard. Nor (we must do him the further justice to say) did Judge Pyncheon himself, probably, entertain many or very frequent doubts, that his enviable reputation accorded with his deserts. His conscience, therefore, usually considered the surest witness to a mans integrityhis conscience, unless it might be for the little space of five minutes in the twentyfour hours, or, now and then, some black day in the whole years circlehis conscience bore an accordant testimony with the worlds laudatory voice. And yet, strong as this evidence may seem to be, we should hesitate to peril our own conscience on the assertion, that the Judge and the consenting world were right, and that poor Hepzibah with her solitary prejudice was wrong. Hidden from mankindforgotten by himself, or buried so deeply under a sculptured and ornamented pile of ostentatious deeds that his daily life could take no note of itthere may have lurked some evil and unsightly thing. Nay, we could almost venture to say, further, that a daily guilt might have been acted by him, continually renewed, and reddening forth afresh, like the miraculous bloodstain of a murder, without his necessarily and at every moment being aware of it. Men of strong minds, great force of character, and a hard texture of the sensibilities, are very capable of falling into mistakes of this kind. They are ordinarily men to whom forms are of paramount importance. Their field of action lies among the external phenomena of life. They possess vast ability in grasping, and arranging, and appropriating to themselves, the big, heavy, solid unrealities, such as gold, landed estate, offices of trust and emolument, and public honors. With these materials, and with deeds of goodly aspect, done in the public eye, an individual of this class builds up, as it were, a tall and stately edifice, which, in the view of other people, and ultimately in his own view, is no other than the mans character, or the man himself. Behold, therefore, a palace! Its splendid halls and suites of spacious apartments are floored with a mosaicwork of costly marbles; its windows, the whole height of each room, admit the sunshine through the most transparent of plateglass; its high cornices are gilded, and its ceilings gorgeously painted; and a lofty domethrough which, from the central pavement, you may gaze up to the sky, as with no obstructing medium betweensurmounts the whole. With what fairer and nobler emblem could any man desire to shadow forth his character? Ah! but in some low and obscure nooksome narrow closet on the groundfloor, shut, locked and bolted, and the key flung awayor beneath the marble pavement, in a stagnant waterpuddle, with the richest pattern of mosaicwork abovemay lie a corpse, half decayed, and still decaying, and diffusing its deathscent all through the palace! The inhabitant will not be conscious of it, for it has long been his daily breath! Neither will the visitors, for they smell only the rich odors which the master sedulously scatters through the palace, and the incense which they bring, and delight to burn before him! Now and then, perchance, comes in a seer, before whose sadly gifted eye the whole structure melts into thin air, leaving only the hidden nook, the bolted closet, with the cobwebs festooned over its forgotten door, or the deadly hole under the pavement, and the decaying corpse within. Here, then, we are to seek the true emblem of the mans character, and of the deed that gives whatever reality it possesses to his life. And, beneath the show of a marble palace, that pool of stagnant water, foul with many impurities, and, perhaps, tinged with bloodthat secret abomination, above which, possibly, he may say his prayers, without remembering itis this mans miserable soul! To apply this train of remark somewhat more closely to Judge Pyncheon. We might say (without in the least imputing crime to a personage of his eminent respectability) that there was enough of splendid rubbish in his life to cover up and paralyze a more active and subtle conscience than the Judge was ever troubled with. The purity of his judicial character, while on the bench; the faithfulness of his public service in subsequent capacities; his devotedness to his party, and the rigid consistency with which he had adhered to its principles, or, at all events, kept pace with its organized movements; his remarkable zeal as president of a Bible society; his unimpeachable integrity as treasurer of a widows and orphans fund; his benefits to horticulture, by producing two much esteemed varieties of the pear and to agriculture, through the agency of the famous Pyncheon bull; the cleanliness of his moral deportment, for a great many years past; the severity with which he had frowned upon, and finally cast off, an expensive and dissipated son, delaying forgiveness until within the final quarter of an hour of the young mans life; his prayers at morning and eventide, and graces at mealtime; his efforts in furtherance of the temperance cause; his confining himself, since the last attack of the gout, to five diurnal glasses of old sherry wine; the snowy whiteness of his linen, the polish of his boots, the handsomeness of his goldheaded cane, the square and roomy fashion of his coat, and the fineness of its material, and, in general, the studied propriety of his dress and equipment; the scrupulousness with which he paid public notice, in the street, by a bow, a lifting of the hat, a nod, or a motion of the hand, to all and sundry of his acquaintances, rich or poor; the smile of broad benevolence wherewith he made it a point to gladden the whole worldwhat room could possibly be found for darker traits in a portrait made up of lineaments like these? This proper face was what he beheld in the lookingglass. This admirably arranged life was what he was conscious of in the progress of every day. Then might not he claim to be its result and sum, and say to himself and the community, Behold Judge Pyncheon there? And allowing that, many, many years ago, in his early and reckless youth, he had committed some one wrong actor that, even now, the inevitable force of circumstances should occasionally make him do one questionable deed among a thousand praiseworthy, or, at least, blameless oneswould you characterize the Judge by that one necessary deed, and that halfforgotten act, and let it overshadow the fair aspect of a lifetime? What is there so ponderous in evil, that a thumbs bigness of it should outweigh the mass of things not evil which were heaped into the other scale! This scale and balance system is a favorite one with people of Judge Pyncheons brotherhood. A hard, cold man, thus unfortunately situated, seldom or never looking inward, and resolutely taking his idea of himself from what purports to be his image as reflected in the mirror of public opinion, can scarcely arrive at true selfknowledge, except through loss of property and reputation. Sickness will not always help him do it; not always the deathhour! But our affair now is with Judge Pyncheon as he stood confronting the fierce outbreak of Hepzibahs wrath. Without premeditation, to her own surprise, and indeed terror, she had given vent, for once, to the inveteracy of her resentment, cherished against this kinsman for thirty years. Thus far the Judges countenance had expressed mild forbearancegrave and almost gentle deprecation of his cousins unbecoming violencefree and Christianlike forgiveness of the wrong inflicted by her words. But when those words were irrevocably spoken, his look assumed sternness, the sense of power, and immitigable resolve; and this with so natural and imperceptible a change, that it seemed as if the iron man had stood there from the first, and the meek man not at all. The effect was as when the light, vapory clouds, with their soft coloring, suddenly vanish from the stony brow of a precipitous mountain, and leave there the frown which you at once feel to be eternal. Hepzibah almost adopted the insane belief that it was her old Puritan ancestor, and not the modern Judge, on whom she had just been wreaking the bitterness of her heart. Never did a man show stronger proof of the lineage attributed to him than Judge Pyncheon, at this crisis, by his unmistakable resemblance to the picture in the inner room. Cousin Hepzibah, said he very calmly, it is time to have done with this. With all my heart! answered she. Then, why do you persecute us any longer? Leave poor Clifford and me in peace. Neither of us desires anything better! It is my purpose to see Clifford before I leave this house, continued the Judge. Do not act like a madwoman, Hepzibah! I am his only friend, and an allpowerful one. Has it never occurred to youare you so blind as not to have seenthat, without not merely my consent, but my efforts, my representations, the exertion of my whole influence, political, official, personal, Clifford would never have been what you call free? Did you think his release a triumph over me? Not so, my good cousin; not so, by any means! The furthest possible from that! No; but it was the accomplishment of a purpose long entertained on my part. I set him free! You! answered Hepzibah. I never will believe it! He owed his dungeon to you; his freedom to Gods providence! I set him free! reaffirmed Judge Pyncheon, with the calmest composure. And I came hither now to decide whether he shall retain his freedom. It will depend upon himself. For this purpose, I must see him. Never!it would drive him mad! exclaimed Hepzibah, but with an irresoluteness sufficiently perceptible to the keen eye of the Judge; for, without the slightest faith in his good intentions, she knew not whether there was most to dread in yielding or resistance. And why should you wish to see this wretched, broken man, who retains hardly a fraction of his intellect, and will hide even that from an eye which has no love in it? He shall see love enough in mine, if that be all! said the Judge, with wellgrounded confidence in the benignity of his aspect. But, Cousin Hepzibah, you confess a great deal, and very much to the purpose. Now, listen, and I will frankly explain my reasons for insisting on this interview. At the death, thirty years since, of our uncle Jaffrey, it was foundI know not whether the circumstance ever attracted much of your attention, among the sadder interests that clustered round that eventbut it was found that his visible estate, of every kind, fell far short of any estimate ever made of it. He was supposed to be immensely rich. Nobody doubted that he stood among the weightiest men of his day. It was one of his eccentricities, howeverand not altogether a folly, neitherto conceal the amount of his property by making distant and foreign investments, perhaps under other names than his own, and by various means, familiar enough to capitalists, but unnecessary here to be specified. By Uncle Jaffreys last will and testament, as you are aware, his entire property was bequeathed to me, with the single exception of a life interest to yourself in this old family mansion, and the strip of patrimonial estate remaining attached to it. And do you seek to deprive us of that? asked Hepzibah, unable to restrain her bitter contempt. Is this your price for ceasing to persecute poor Clifford? Certainly not, my dear cousin! answered the Judge, smiling benevolently. On the contrary, as you must do me the justice to own, I have constantly expressed my readiness to double or treble your resources, whenever you should make up your mind to accept any kindness of that nature at the hands of your kinsman. No, no! But here lies the gist of the matter. Of my uncles unquestionably great estate, as I have said, not the halfno, not one third, as I am fully convincedwas apparent after his death. Now, I have the best possible reasons for believing that your brother Clifford can give me a clue to the recovery of the remainder. Clifford!Clifford know of any hidden wealth? Clifford have it in his power to make you rich? cried the old gentlewoman, affected with a sense of something like ridicule at the idea. Impossible! You deceive yourself! It is really a thing to laugh at! It is as certain as that I stand here! said Judge Pyncheon, striking his goldheaded cane on the floor, and at the same time stamping his foot, as if to express his conviction the more forcibly by the whole emphasis of his substantial person. Clifford told me so himself! No, no! exclaimed Hepzibah incredulously. You are dreaming, Cousin Jaffrey. I do not belong to the dreaming class of men, said the Judge quietly. Some months before my uncles death, Clifford boasted to me of the possession of the secret of incalculable wealth. His purpose was to taunt me, and excite my curiosity. I know it well. But, from a pretty distinct recollection of the particulars of our conversation, I am thoroughly convinced that there was truth in what he said. Clifford, at this moment, if he choosesand choose he must!can inform me where to find the schedule, the documents, the evidences, in whatever shape they exist, of the vast amount of Uncle Jaffreys missing property. He has the secret. His boast was no idle word. It had a directness, an emphasis, a particularity, that showed a backbone of solid meaning within the mystery of his expression. But what could have been Cliffords object, asked Hepzibah, in concealing it so long? It was one of the bad impulses of our fallen nature, replied the Judge, turning up his eyes. He looked upon me as his enemy. He considered me as the cause of his overwhelming disgrace, his imminent peril of death, his irretrievable ruin. There was no great probability, therefore, of his volunteering information, out of his dungeon, that should elevate me still higher on the ladder of prosperity. But the moment has now come when he must give up his secret. And what if he should refuse? inquired Hepzibah. Oras I steadfastly believewhat if he has no knowledge of this wealth? My dear cousin, said Judge Pyncheon, with a quietude which he had the power of making more formidable than any violence, since your brothers return, I have taken the precaution (a highly proper one in the near kinsman and natural guardian of an individual so situated) to have his deportment and habits constantly and carefully overlooked. Your neighbors have been eyewitnesses to whatever has passed in the garden. The butcher, the baker, the fishmonger, some of the customers of your shop, and many a prying old woman, have told me several of the secrets of your interior. A still larger circleI myself, among the restcan testify to his extravagances at the arched window. Thousands beheld him, a week or two ago, on the point of flinging himself thence into the street. From all this testimony, I am led to apprehendreluctantly, and with deep griefthat Cliffords misfortunes have so affected his intellect, never very strong, that he cannot safely remain at large. The alternative, you must be awareand its adoption will depend entirely on the decision which I am now about to makethe alternative is his confinement, probably for the remainder of his life, in a public asylum for persons in his unfortunate state of mind. You cannot mean it! shrieked Hepzibah. Should my cousin Clifford, continued Judge Pyncheon, wholly undisturbed, from mere malice, and hatred of one whose interests ought naturally to be dear to hima mode of passion that, as often as any other, indicates mental diseaseshould he refuse me the information so important to myself, and which he assuredly possesses, I shall consider it the one needed jot of evidence to satisfy my mind of his insanity. And, once sure of the course pointed out by conscience, you know me too well, Cousin Hepzibah, to entertain a doubt that I shall pursue it. O JaffreyCousin Jaffrey, cried Hepzibah mournfully, not passionately, it is you that are diseased in mind, not Clifford! You have forgotten that a woman was your mother!that you have had sisters, brothers, children of your own!or that there ever was affection between man and man, or pity from one man to another, in this miserable world! Else, how could you have dreamed of this? You are not young, Cousin Jaffrey!no, nor middleagedbut already an old man! The hair is white upon your head! How many years have you to live? Are you not rich enough for that little time? Shall you be hungryshall you lack clothes, or a roof to shelter youbetween this point and the grave? No! but, with the half of what you now possess, you could revel in costly food and wines, and build a house twice as splendid as you now inhabit, and make a far greater show to the worldand yet leave riches to your only son, to make him bless the hour of your death! Then, why should you do this cruel, cruel thing?so mad a thing, that I know not whether to call it wicked! Alas, Cousin Jaffrey, this hard and grasping spirit has run in our blood these two hundred years. You are but doing over again, in another shape, what your ancestor before you did, and sending down to your posterity the curse inherited from him! Talk sense, Hepzibah, for Heavens sake! exclaimed the Judge, with the impatience natural to a reasonable man, on hearing anything so utterly absurd as the above, in a discussion about matters of business. I have told you my determination. I am not apt to change. Clifford must give up his secret, or take the consequences. And let him decide quickly; for I have several affairs to attend to this morning, and an important dinner engagement with some political friends. Clifford has no secret! answered Hepzibah. And God will not let you do the thing you meditate! We shall see, said the unmoved Judge. Meanwhile, choose whether you will summon Clifford, and allow this business to be amicably settled by an interview between two kinsmen, or drive me to harsher measures, which I should be most happy to feel myself justified in avoiding. The responsibility is altogether on your part. You are stronger than I, said Hepzibah, after a brief consideration; and you have no pity in your strength! Clifford is not now insane; but the interview which you insist upon may go far to make him so. Nevertheless, knowing you as I do, I believe it to be my best course to allow you to judge for yourself as to the improbability of his possessing any valuable secret. I will call Clifford. Be merciful in your dealings with him!be far more merciful than your heart bids you be!for God is looking at you, Jaffrey Pyncheon! The Judge followed his cousin from the shop, where the foregoing conversation had passed, into the parlor, and flung himself heavily into the great ancestral chair. Many a former Pyncheon had found repose in its capacious arms rosy children, after their sports; young men, dreamy with love; grown men, weary with cares; old men, burdened with wintersthey had mused, and slumbered, and departed to a yet profounder sleep. It had been a long tradition, though a doubtful one, that this was the very chair, seated in which the earliest of the Judges New England forefathershe whose picture still hung upon the wallhad given a dead mans silent and stern reception to the throng of distinguished guests. From that hour of evil omen until the present, it may bethough we know not the secret of his heartbut it may be that no wearier and sadder man had ever sunk into the chair than this same Judge Pyncheon, whom we have just beheld so immitigably hard and resolute. Surely, it must have been at no slight cost that he had thus fortified his soul with iron. Such calmness is a mightier effort than the violence of weaker men. And there was yet a heavy task for him to do. Was it a little mattera trifle to be prepared for in a single moment, and to be rested from in another momentthat he must now, after thirty years, encounter a kinsman risen from a living tomb, and wrench a secret from him, or else consign him to a living tomb again? Did you speak? asked Hepzibah, looking in from the threshold of the parlor; for she imagined that the Judge had uttered some sound which she was anxious to interpret as a relenting impulse. I thought you called me back. No, no gruffly answered Judge Pyncheon with a harsh frown, while his brow grew almost a black purple, in the shadow of the room. Why should I call you back? Time flies! Bid Clifford come to me! The Judge had taken his watch from his vest pocket and now held it in his hand, measuring the interval which was to ensue before the appearance of Clifford. XVI Cliffords Chamber Never had the old house appeared so dismal to poor Hepzibah as when she departed on that wretched errand. There was a strange aspect in it. As she trode along the footworn passages, and opened one crazy door after another, and ascended the creaking staircase, she gazed wistfully and fearfully around. It would have been no marvel, to her excited mind, if, behind or beside her, there had been the rustle of dead peoples garments, or pale visages awaiting her on the landingplace above. Her nerves were set all ajar by the scene of passion and terror through which she had just struggled. Her colloquy with Judge Pyncheon, who so perfectly represented the person and attributes of the founder of the family, had called back the dreary past. It weighed upon her heart. Whatever she had heard, from legendary aunts and grandmothers, concerning the good or evil fortunes of the Pyncheonsstories which had heretofore been kept warm in her remembrance by the chimneycorner glow that was associated with themnow recurred to her, sombre, ghastly, cold, like most passages of family history, when brooded over in melancholy mood. The whole seemed little else but a series of calamity, reproducing itself in successive generations, with one general hue, and varying in little, save the outline. But Hepzibah now felt as if the Judge, and Clifford, and herselfthey three togetherwere on the point of adding another incident to the annals of the house, with a bolder relief of wrong and sorrow, which would cause it to stand out from all the rest. Thus it is that the grief of the passing moment takes upon itself an individuality, and a character of climax, which it is destined to lose after a while, and to fade into the dark gray tissue common to the grave or glad events of many years ago. It is but for a moment, comparatively, that anything looks strange or startlinga truth that has the bitter and the sweet in it. But Hepzibah could not rid herself of the sense of something unprecedented at that instant passing and soon to be accomplished. Her nerves were in a shake. Instinctively she paused before the arched window, and looked out upon the street, in order to seize its permanent objects with her mental grasp, and thus to steady herself from the reel and vibration which affected her more immediate sphere. It brought her up, as we may say, with a kind of shock, when she beheld everything under the same appearance as the day before, and numberless preceding days, except for the difference between sunshine and sullen storm. Her eyes travelled along the street, from doorstep to doorstep, noting the wet sidewalks, with here and there a puddle in hollows that had been imperceptible until filled with water. She screwed her dim optics to their acutest point, in the hope of making out, with greater distinctness, a certain window, where she half saw, half guessed, that a tailors seamstress was sitting at her work. Hepzibah flung herself upon that unknown womans companionship, even thus far off. Then she was attracted by a chaise rapidly passing, and watched its moist and glistening top, and its splashing wheels, until it had turned the corner, and refused to carry any further her idly trifling, because appalled and overburdened, mind. When the vehicle had disappeared, she allowed herself still another loitering moment; for the patched figure of good Uncle Venner was now visible, coming slowly from the head of the street downward, with a rheumatic limp, because the east wind had got into his joints. Hepzibah wished that he would pass yet more slowly, and befriend her shivering solitude a little longer. Anything that would take her out of the grievous present, and interpose human beings betwixt herself and what was nearest to herwhatever would defer for an instant the inevitable errand on which she was boundall such impediments were welcome. Next to the lightest heart, the heaviest is apt to be most playful. Hepzibah had little hardihood for her own proper pain, and far less for what she must inflict on Clifford. Of so slight a nature, and so shattered by his previous calamities, it could not well be short of utter ruin to bring him face to face with the hard, relentless man who had been his evil destiny through life. Even had there been no bitter recollections, nor any hostile interest now at stake between them, the mere natural repugnance of the more sensitive system to the massive, weighty, and unimpressible one, must, in itself, have been disastrous to the former. It would be like flinging a porcelain vase, with already a crack in it, against a granite column. Never before had Hepzibah so adequately estimated the powerful character of her cousin Jaffreypowerful by intellect, energy of will, the long habit of acting among men, and, as she believed, by his unscrupulous pursuit of selfish ends through evil means. It did but increase the difficulty that Judge Pyncheon was under a delusion as to the secret which he supposed Clifford to possess. Men of his strength of purpose and customary sagacity, if they chance to adopt a mistaken opinion in practical matters, so wedge it and fasten it among things known to be true, that to wrench it out of their minds is hardly less difficult than pulling up an oak. Thus, as the Judge required an impossibility of Clifford, the latter, as he could not perform it, must needs perish. For what, in the grasp of a man like this, was to become of Cliffords soft poetic nature, that never should have had a task more stubborn than to set a life of beautiful enjoyment to the flow and rhythm of musical cadences! Indeed, what had become of it already? Broken! Blighted! All but annihilated! Soon to be wholly so! For a moment, the thought crossed Hepzibahs mind, whether Clifford might not really have such knowledge of their deceased uncles vanished estate as the Judge imputed to him. She remembered some vague intimations, on her brothers part, whichif the supposition were not essentially preposterousmight have been so interpreted. There had been schemes of travel and residence abroad, daydreams of brilliant life at home, and splendid castles in the air, which it would have required boundless wealth to build and realize.


Had this wealth been in her power, how gladly would Hepzibah have bestowed it all upon her ironhearted kinsman, to buy for Clifford the freedom and seclusion of the desolate old house! But she believed that her brothers schemes were as destitute of actual substance and purpose as a childs pictures of its future life, while sitting in a little chair by its mothers knee. Clifford had none but shadowy gold at his command; and it was not the stuff to satisfy Judge Pyncheon! Was there no help in their extremity? It seemed strange that there should be none, with a city round about her. It would be so easy to throw up the window, and send forth a shriek, at the strange agony of which everybody would come hastening to the rescue, well understanding it to be the cry of a human soul, at some dreadful crisis! But how wild, how almost laughable, the fatalityand yet how continually it comes to pass, thought Hepzibah, in this dull delirium of a worldthat whosoever, and with however kindly a purpose, should come to help, they would be sure to help the strongest side! Might and wrong combined, like iron magnetized, are endowed with irresistible attraction. There would be Judge Pyncheona person eminent in the public view, of high station and great wealth, a philanthropist, a member of Congress and of the church, and intimately associated with whatever else bestows good nameso imposing, in these advantageous lights, that Hepzibah herself could hardly help shrinking from her own conclusions as to his hollow integrity. The Judge, on one side! And who, on the other? The guilty Clifford! Once a byword! Now, an indistinctly remembered ignominy! Nevertheless, in spite of this perception that the Judge would draw all human aid to his own behalf, Hepzibah was so unaccustomed to act for herself, that the least word of counsel would have swayed her to any mode of action. Little Phoebe Pyncheon would at once have lighted up the whole scene, if not by any available suggestion, yet simply by the warm vivacity of her character. The idea of the artist occurred to Hepzibah. Young and unknown, mere vagrant adventurer as he was, she had been conscious of a force in Holgrave which might well adapt him to be the champion of a crisis. With this thought in her mind, she unbolted a door, cobwebbed and long disused, but which had served as a former medium of communication between her own part of the house and the gable where the wandering daguerreotypist had now established his temporary home. He was not there. A book, face downward, on the table, a roll of manuscript, a halfwritten sheet, a newspaper, some tools of his present occupation, and several rejected daguerreotypes, conveyed an impression as if he were close at hand. But, at this period of the day, as Hepzibah might have anticipated, the artist was at his public rooms. With an impulse of idle curiosity, that flickered among her heavy thoughts, she looked at one of the daguerreotypes, and beheld Judge Pyncheon frowning at her. Fate stared her in the face. She turned back from her fruitless quest, with a heartsinking sense of disappointment. In all her years of seclusion, she had never felt, as now, what it was to be alone. It seemed as if the house stood in a desert, or, by some spell, was made invisible to those who dwelt around, or passed beside it; so that any mode of misfortune, miserable accident, or crime might happen in it without the possibility of aid. In her grief and wounded pride, Hepzibah had spent her life in divesting herself of friends; she had wilfully cast off the support which God has ordained his creatures to need from one another; and it was now her punishment, that Clifford and herself would fall the easier victims to their kindred enemy. Returning to the arched window, she lifted her eyesscowling, poor, dimsighted Hepzibah, in the face of Heaven!and strove hard to send up a prayer through the dense gray pavement of clouds. Those mists had gathered, as if to symbolize a great, brooding mass of human trouble, doubt, confusion, and chill indifference, between earth and the better regions. Her faith was too weak; the prayer too heavy to be thus uplifted. It fell back, a lump of lead, upon her heart. It smote her with the wretched conviction that Providence intermeddled not in these petty wrongs of one individual to his fellow, nor had any balm for these little agonies of a solitary soul; but shed its justice, and its mercy, in a broad, sunlike sweep, over half the universe at once. Its vastness made it nothing. But Hepzibah did not see that, just as there comes a warm sunbeam into every cottage window, so comes a lovebeam of Gods care and pity for every separate need. At last, finding no other pretext for deferring the torture that she was to inflict on Cliffordher reluctance to which was the true cause of her loitering at the window, her search for the artist, and even her abortive prayerdreading, also, to hear the stern voice of Judge Pyncheon from below stairs, chiding her delayshe crept slowly, a pale, griefstricken figure, a dismal shape of woman, with almost torpid limbs, slowly to her brothers door, and knocked! There was no reply. And how should there have been? Her hand, tremulous with the shrinking purpose which directed it, had smitten so feebly against the door that the sound could hardly have gone inward. She knocked again. Still no response! Nor was it to be wondered at. She had struck with the entire force of her hearts vibration, communicating, by some subtle magnetism, her own terror to the summons. Clifford would turn his face to the pillow, and cover his head beneath the bedclothes, like a startled child at midnight. She knocked a third time, three regular strokes, gentle, but perfectly distinct, and with meaning in them; for, modulate it with what cautious art we will, the hand cannot help playing some tune of what we feel upon the senseless wood. Clifford returned no answer. Clifford! Dear brother! said Hepzibah. Shall I come in? A silence. Two or three times, and more, Hepzibah repeated his name, without result; till, thinking her brothers sleep unwontedly profound, she undid the door, and entering, found the chamber vacant. How could he have come forth, and when, without her knowledge? Was it possible that, in spite of the stormy day, and worn out with the irksomeness within doors he had betaken himself to his customary haunt in the garden, and was now shivering under the cheerless shelter of the summerhouse? She hastily threw up a window, thrust forth her turbaned head and the half of her gaunt figure, and searched the whole garden through, as completely as her dim vision would allow. She could see the interior of the summerhouse, and its circular seat, kept moist by the droppings of the roof. It had no occupant. Clifford was not thereabouts; unless, indeed, he had crept for concealment (as, for a moment, Hepzibah fancied might be the case) into a great, wet mass of tangled and broadleaved shadow, where the squashvines were clambering tumultuously upon an old wooden framework, set casually aslant against the fence. This could not be, however; he was not there; for, while Hepzibah was looking, a strange grimalkin stole forth from the very spot, and picked his way across the garden. Twice he paused to snuff the air, and then anew directed his course towards the parlor window. Whether it was only on account of the stealthy, prying manner common to the race, or that this cat seemed to have more than ordinary mischief in his thoughts, the old gentlewoman, in spite of her much perplexity, felt an impulse to drive the animal away, and accordingly flung down a window stick. The cat stared up at her, like a detected thief or murderer, and, the next instant, took to flight. No other living creature was visible in the garden. Chanticleer and his family had either not left their roost, disheartened by the interminable rain, or had done the next wisest thing, by seasonably returning to it. Hepzibah closed the window. But where was Clifford? Could it be that, aware of the presence of his Evil Destiny, he had crept silently down the staircase, while the Judge and Hepzibah stood talking in the shop, and had softly undone the fastenings of the outer door, and made his escape into the street? With that thought, she seemed to behold his gray, wrinkled, yet childlike aspect, in the oldfashioned garments which he wore about the house; a figure such as one sometimes imagines himself to be, with the worlds eye upon him, in a troubled dream. This figure of her wretched brother would go wandering through the city, attracting all eyes, and everybodys wonder and repugnance, like a ghost, the more to be shuddered at because visible at noontide. To incur the ridicule of the younger crowd, that knew him notthe harsher scorn and indignation of a few old men, who might recall his once familiar features! To be the sport of boys, who, when old enough to run about the streets, have no more reverence for what is beautiful and holy, nor pity for what is sadno more sense of sacred misery, sanctifying the human shape in which it embodies itselfthan if Satan were the father of them all! Goaded by their taunts, their loud, shrill cries, and cruel laughterinsulted by the filth of the public ways, which they would fling upon himor, as it might well be, distracted by the mere strangeness of his situation, though nobody should afflict him with so much as a thoughtless wordwhat wonder if Clifford were to break into some wild extravagance which was certain to be interpreted as lunacy? Thus Judge Pyncheons fiendish scheme would be ready accomplished to his hands! Then Hepzibah reflected that the town was almost completely watergirdled. The wharves stretched out towards the centre of the harbor, and, in this inclement weather, were deserted by the ordinary throng of merchants, laborers, and seafaring men; each wharf a solitude, with the vessels moored stem and stern, along its misty length. Should her brothers aimless footsteps stray thitherward, and he but bend, one moment, over the deep, black tide, would he not bethink himself that here was the sure refuge within his reach, and that, with a single step, or the slightest overbalance of his body, he might be forever beyond his kinsmans grip? Oh, the temptation! To make of his ponderous sorrow a security! To sink, with its leaden weight upon him, and never rise again! The horror of this last conception was too much for Hepzibah. Even Jaffrey Pyncheon must help her now! She hastened down the staircase, shrieking as she went. Clifford is gone! she cried. I cannot find my brother. Help, Jaffrey Pyncheon! Some harm will happen to him! She threw open the parlordoor. But, what with the shade of branches across the windows, and the smokeblackened ceiling, and the dark oakpanelling of the walls, there was hardly so much daylight in the room that Hepzibahs imperfect sight could accurately distinguish the Judges figure. She was certain, however, that she saw him sitting in the ancestral armchair, near the centre of the floor, with his face somewhat averted, and looking towards a window. So firm and quiet is the nervous system of such men as Judge Pyncheon, that he had perhaps stirred not more than once since her departure, but, in the hard composure of his temperament, retained the position into which accident had thrown him. I tell you, Jaffrey, cried Hepzibah impatiently, as she turned from the parlordoor to search other rooms, my brother is not in his chamber! You must help me seek him! But Judge Pyncheon was not the man to let himself be startled from an easychair with haste illbefitting either the dignity of his character or his broad personal basis, by the alarm of an hysteric woman. Yet, considering his own interest in the matter, he might have bestirred himself with a little more alacrity. Do you hear me, Jaffrey Pyncheon? screamed Hepzibah, as she again approached the parlordoor, after an ineffectual search elsewhere. Clifford is gone. At this instant, on the threshold of the parlor, emerging from within, appeared Clifford himself! His face was preternaturally pale; so deadly white, indeed, that, through all the glimmering indistinctness of the passageway, Hepzibah could discern his features, as if a light fell on them alone. Their vivid and wild expression seemed likewise sufficient to illuminate them; it was an expression of scorn and mockery, coinciding with the emotions indicated by his gesture. As Clifford stood on the threshold, partly turning back, he pointed his finger within the parlor, and shook it slowly as though he would have summoned, not Hepzibah alone, but the whole world, to gaze at some object inconceivably ridiculous. This action, so illtimed and extravagantaccompanied, too, with a look that showed more like joy than any other kind of excitementcompelled Hepzibah to dread that her stern kinsmans ominous visit had driven her poor brother to absolute insanity. Nor could she otherwise account for the Judges quiescent mood than by supposing him craftily on the watch, while Clifford developed these symptoms of a distracted mind. Be quiet, Clifford! whispered his sister, raising her hand to impress caution. Oh, for Heavens sake, be quiet! Let him be quiet! What can he do better? answered Clifford, with a still wilder gesture, pointing into the room which he had just quitted. As for us, Hepzibah, we can dance now!we can sing, laugh, play, do what we will! The weight is gone, Hepzibah! It is gone off this weary old world, and we may be as lighthearted as little Phoebe herself. And, in accordance with his words, he began to laugh, still pointing his finger at the object, invisible to Hepzibah, within the parlor. She was seized with a sudden intuition of some horrible thing. She thrust herself past Clifford, and disappeared into the room; but almost immediately returned, with a cry choking in her throat. Gazing at her brother with an affrighted glance of inquiry, she beheld him all in a tremor and a quake, from head to foot, while, amid these commoted elements of passion or alarm, still flickered his gusty mirth. My God! what is to become of us? gasped Hepzibah. Come! said Clifford in a tone of brief decision, most unlike what was usual with him. We stay here too long! Let us leave the old house to our cousin Jaffrey! He will take good care of it! Hepzibah now noticed that Clifford had on a cloaka garment of long agoin which he had constantly muffled himself during these days of easterly storm. He beckoned with his hand, and intimated, so far as she could comprehend him, his purpose that they should go together from the house. There are chaotic, blind, or drunken moments, in the lives of persons who lack real force of charactermoments of test, in which courage would most assert itselfbut where these individuals, if left to themselves, stagger aimlessly along, or follow implicitly whatever guidance may befall them, even if it be a childs. No matter how preposterous or insane, a purpose is a Godsend to them. Hepzibah had reached this point. Unaccustomed to action or responsibilityfull of horror at what she had seen, and afraid to inquire, or almost to imagine, how it had come to passaffrighted at the fatality which seemed to pursue her brotherstupefied by the dim, thick, stifling atmosphere of dread which filled the house as with a deathsmell, and obliterated all definiteness of thoughtshe yielded without a question, and on the instant, to the will which Clifford expressed. For herself, she was like a person in a dream, when the will always sleeps. Clifford, ordinarily so destitute of this faculty, had found it in the tension of the crisis. Why do you delay so? cried he sharply. Put on your cloak and hood, or whatever it pleases you to wear! No matter what; you cannot look beautiful nor brilliant, my poor Hepzibah! Take your purse, with money in it, and come along! Hepzibah obeyed these instructions, as if nothing else were to be done or thought of. She began to wonder, it is true, why she did not wake up, and at what still more intolerable pitch of dizzy trouble her spirit would struggle out of the maze, and make her conscious that nothing of all this had actually happened. Of course it was not real; no such black, easterly day as this had yet begun to be; Judge Pyncheon had not talked with, her. Clifford had not laughed, pointed, beckoned her away with him; but she had merely been afflictedas lonely sleepers often arewith a great deal of unreasonable misery, in a morning dream! NownowI shall certainly awake! thought Hepzibah, as she went to and fro, making her little preparations. I can bear it no longer I must wake up now! But it came not, that awakening moment! It came not, even when, just before they left the house, Clifford stole to the parlordoor, and made a parting obeisance to the sole occupant of the room. What an absurd figure the old fellow cuts now! whispered he to Hepzibah. Just when he fancied he had me completely under his thumb! Come, come; make haste! or he will start up, like Giant Despair in pursuit of Christian and Hopeful, and catch us yet! As they passed into the street, Clifford directed Hepzibahs attention to something on one of the posts of the front door. It was merely the initials of his own name, which, with somewhat of his characteristic grace about the forms of the letters, he had cut there when a boy. The brother and sister departed, and left Judge Pyncheon sitting in the old home of his forefathers, all by himself; so heavy and lumpish that we can liken him to nothing better than a defunct nightmare, which had perished in the midst of its wickedness, and left its flabby corpse on the breast of the tormented one, to be gotten rid of as it might! XVII The Flight of Two Owls Summer as it was, the east wind set poor Hepzibahs few remaining teeth chattering in her head, as she and Clifford faced it, on their way up Pyncheon Street, and towards the centre of the town. Not merely was it the shiver which this pitiless blast brought to her frame (although her feet and hands, especially, had never seemed so deathacold as now), but there was a moral sensation, mingling itself with the physical chill, and causing her to shake more in spirit than in body. The worlds broad, bleak atmosphere was all so comfortless! Such, indeed, is the impression which it makes on every new adventurer, even if he plunge into it while the warmest tide of life is bubbling through his veins. What, then, must it have been to Hepzibah and Cliffordso timestricken as they were, yet so like children in their inexperienceas they left the doorstep, and passed from beneath the wide shelter of the Pyncheon Elm! They were wandering all abroad, on precisely such a pilgrimage as a child often meditates, to the worlds end, with perhaps a sixpence and a biscuit in his pocket. In Hepzibahs mind, there was the wretched consciousness of being adrift. She had lost the faculty of selfguidance; but, in view of the difficulties around her, felt it hardly worth an effort to regain it, and was, moreover, incapable of making one. As they proceeded on their strange expedition, she now and then cast a look sidelong at Clifford, and could not but observe that he was possessed and swayed by a powerful excitement. It was this, indeed, that gave him the control which he had at once, and so irresistibly, established over his movements. It not a little resembled the exhilaration of wine. Or, it might more fancifully be compared to a joyous piece of music, played with wild vivacity, but upon a disordered instrument. As the cracked jarring note might always be heard, and as it jarred loudest amidst the loftiest exultation of the melody, so was there a continual quake through Clifford, causing him most to quiver while he wore a triumphant smile, and seemed almost under a necessity to skip in his gait. They met few people abroad, even on passing from the retired neighborhood of the House of the Seven Gables into what was ordinarily the more thronged and busier portion of the town. Glistening sidewalks, with little pools of rain here and there along their unequal surface; umbrellas displayed ostentatiously in the shopwindows, as if the life of trade had concentrated itself in that one article; wet leaves of the horsechestnut or elmtrees, torn off untimely by the blast and scattered along the public way; an unsightly accumulation of mud in the middle of the street, which perversely grew the more unclean for its long and laborious washingthese were the more definable points of a very sombre picture. In the way of movement and human life, there was the hasty rattle of a cab or coach, its driver protected by a waterproof cap over his head and shoulders; the forlorn figure of an old man, who seemed to have crept out of some subterranean sewer, and was stooping along the kennel, and poking the wet rubbish with a stick, in quest of rusty nails; a merchant or two, at the door of the postoffice, together with an editor and a miscellaneous politician, awaiting a dilatory mail; a few visages of retired seacaptains at the window of an insurance office, looking out vacantly at the vacant street, blaspheming at the weather, and fretting at the dearth as well of public news as local gossip. What a treasuretrove to these venerable quidnuncs, could they have guessed the secret which Hepzibah and Clifford were carrying along with them! But their two figures attracted hardly so much notice as that of a young girl, who passed at the same instant, and happened to raise her skirt a trifle too high above her ankles. Had it been a sunny and cheerful day, they could hardly have gone through the streets without making themselves obnoxious to remark. Now, probably, they were felt to be in keeping with the dismal and bitter weather, and therefore did not stand out in strong relief, as if the sun were shining on them, but melted into the gray gloom and were forgotten as soon as gone. Poor Hepzibah! Could she have understood this fact, it would have brought her some little comfort; for, to all her other troublesstrange to say!there was added the womanish and oldmaidenlike misery arising from a sense of unseemliness in her attire. Thus, she was fain to shrink deeper into herself, as it were, as if in the hope of making people suppose that here was only a cloak and hood, threadbare and woefully faded, taking an airing in the midst of the storm, without any wearer! As they went on, the feeling of indistinctness and unreality kept dimly hovering round about her, and so diffusing itself into her system that one of her hands was hardly palpable to the touch of the other. Any certainty would have been preferable to this. She whispered to herself, again and again, Am I awake?Am I awake? and sometimes exposed her face to the chill spatter of the wind, for the sake of its rude assurance that she was. Whether it was Cliffords purpose, or only chance, had led them thither, they now found themselves passing beneath the arched entrance of a large structure of gray stone. Within, there was a spacious breadth, and an airy height from floor to roof, now partially filled with smoke and steam, which eddied voluminously upward and formed a mimic cloudregion over their heads. A train of cars was just ready for a start; the locomotive was fretting and fuming, like a steed impatient for a headlong rush; and the bell rang out its hasty peal, so well expressing the brief summons which life vouchsafes to us in its hurried career. Without question or delaywith the irresistible decision, if not rather to be called recklessness, which had so strangely taken possession of him, and through him of HepzibahClifford impelled her towards the cars, and assisted her to enter. The signal was given; the engine puffed forth its short, quick breaths; the train began its movement; and, along with a hundred other passengers, these two unwonted travellers sped onward like the wind. At last, therefore, and after so long estrangement from everything that the world acted or enjoyed, they had been drawn into the great current of human life, and were swept away with it, as by the suction of fate itself. Still haunted with the idea that not one of the past incidents, inclusive of Judge Pyncheons visit, could be real, the recluse of the Seven Gables murmured in her brothers ear Clifford! Clifford! Is not this a dream? A dream, Hepzibah! repeated he, almost laughing in her face. On the contrary, I have never been awake before! Meanwhile, looking from the window, they could see the world racing past them. At one moment, they were rattling through a solitude; the next, a village had grown up around them; a few breaths more, and it had vanished, as if swallowed by an earthquake. The spires of meetinghouses seemed set adrift from their foundations; the broadbased hills glided away. Everything was unfixed from its agelong rest, and moving at whirlwind speed in a direction opposite to their own. Within the car there was the usual interior life of the railroad, offering little to the observation of other passengers, but full of novelty for this pair of strangely enfranchised prisoners. It was novelty enough, indeed, that there were fifty human beings in close relation with them, under one long and narrow roof, and drawn onward by the same mighty influence that had taken their two selves into its grasp. It seemed marvellous how all these people could remain so quietly in their seats, while so much noisy strength was at work in their behalf. Some, with tickets in their hats (long travellers these, before whom lay a hundred miles of railroad), had plunged into the English scenery and adventures of pamphlet novels, and were keeping company with dukes and earls. Others, whose briefer span forbade their devoting themselves to studies so abstruse, beguiled the little tedium of the way with pennypapers. A party of girls, and one young man, on opposite sides of the car, found huge amusement in a game of ball. They tossed it to and fro, with peals of laughter that might be measured by milelengths; for, faster than the nimble ball could fly, the merry players fled unconsciously along, leaving the trail of their mirth afar behind, and ending their game under another sky than had witnessed its commencement. Boys, with apples, cakes, candy, and rolls of variously tinctured lozengesmerchandise that reminded Hepzibah of her deserted shopappeared at each momentary stoppingplace, doing up their business in a hurry, or breaking it short off, lest the market should ravish them away with it. New people continually entered. Old acquaintancesfor such they soon grew to be, in this rapid current of affairscontinually departed. Here and there, amid the rumble and the tumult, sat one asleep. Sleep; sport; business; graver or lighter study; and the common and inevitable movement onward! It was life itself! Cliffords naturally poignant sympathies were all aroused. He caught the color of what was passing about him, and threw it back more vividly than he received it, but mixed, nevertheless, with a lurid and portentous hue. Hepzibah, on the other hand, felt herself more apart from human kind than even in the seclusion which she had just quitted. You are not happy, Hepzibah! said Clifford, apart, in a tone of reproach. You are thinking of that dismal old house, and of Cousin Jaffreyhere came the quake through himand of Cousin Jaffrey sitting there, all by himself! Take my advicefollow my exampleand let such things slip aside. Here we are, in the world, Hepzibah!in the midst of life!in the throng of our fellow beings! Let you and I be happy! As happy as that youth and those pretty girls, at their game of ball! Happy thought Hepzibah, bitterly conscious, at the word, of her dull and heavy heart, with the frozen pain in ithappy. He is mad already; and, if I could once feel myself broad awake, I should go mad too! If a fixed idea be madness, she was perhaps not remote from it. Fast and far as they had rattled and clattered along the iron track, they might just as well, as regarded Hepzibahs mental images, have been passing up and down Pyncheon Street. With miles and miles of varied scenery between, there was no scene for her save the seven old gablepeaks, with their moss, and the tuft of weeds in one of the angles, and the shopwindow, and a customer shaking the door, and compelling the little bell to jingle fiercely, but without disturbing Judge Pyncheon! This one old house was everywhere! It transported its great, lumbering bulk with more than railroad speed, and set itself phlegmatically down on whatever spot she glanced at. The quality of Hepzibahs mind was too unmalleable to take new impressions so readily as Cliffords. He had a winged nature; she was rather of the vegetable kind, and could hardly be kept long alive, if drawn up by the roots. Thus it happened that the relation heretofore existing between her brother and herself was changed. At home, she was his guardian; here, Clifford had become hers, and seemed to comprehend whatever belonged to their new position with a singular rapidity of intelligence. He had been startled into manhood and intellectual vigor; or, at least, into a condition that resembled them, though it might be both diseased and transitory. The conductor now applied for their tickets; and Clifford, who had made himself the pursebearer, put a banknote into his hand, as he had observed others do. For the lady and yourself? asked the conductor. And how far? As far as that will carry us, said Clifford. It is no great matter. We are riding for pleasure merely. You choose a strange day for it, sir! remarked a gimleteyed old gentleman on the other side of the car, looking at Clifford and his companion, as if curious to make them out. The best chance of pleasure, in an easterly rain, I take it, is in a mans own house, with a nice little fire in the chimney. I cannot precisely agree with you, said Clifford, courteously bowing to the old gentleman, and at once taking up the clue of conversation which the latter had proffered. It had just occurred to me, on the contrary, that this admirable invention of the railroadwith the vast and inevitable improvements to be looked for, both as to speed and convenienceis destined to do away with those stale ideas of home and fireside, and substitute something better. In the name of common sense, asked the old gentleman rather testily, what can be better for a man than his own parlor and chimneycorner? These things have not the merit which many good people attribute to them, replied Clifford. They may be said, in few and pithy words, to have ill served a poor purpose. My impression is, that our wonderfully increased and still increasing facilities of locomotion are destined to bring us around again to the nomadic state. You are aware, my dear siryou must have observed it in your own experiencethat all human progress is in a circle; or, to use a more accurate and beautiful figure, in an ascending spiral curve. While we fancy ourselves going straight forward, and attaining, at every step, an entirely new position of affairs, we do actually return to something long ago tried and abandoned, but which we now find etherealized, refined, and perfected to its ideal. The past is but a coarse and sensual prophecy of the present and the future. To apply this truth to the topic now under discussion. In the early epochs of our race, men dwelt in temporary huts, of bowers of branches, as easily constructed as a birdsnest, and which they builtif it should be called building, when such sweet homes of a summer solstice rather grew than were made with handswhich Nature, we will say, assisted them to rear where fruit abounded, where fish and game were plentiful, or, most especially, where the sense of beauty was to be gratified by a lovelier shade than elsewhere, and a more exquisite arrangement of lake, wood, and hill.


This life possessed a charm which, ever since man quitted it, has vanished from existence. And it typified something better than itself. It had its drawbacks; such as hunger and thirst, inclement weather, hot sunshine, and weary and footblistering marches over barren and ugly tracts, that lay between the sites desirable for their fertility and beauty. But in our ascending spiral, we escape all this. These railroadscould but the whistle be made musical, and the rumble and the jar got rid ofare positively the greatest blessing that the ages have wrought out for us. They give us wings; they annihilate the toil and dust of pilgrimage; they spiritualize travel! Transition being so facile, what can be any mans inducement to tarry in one spot? Why, therefore, should he build a more cumbrous habitation than can readily be carried off with him? Why should he make himself a prisoner for life in brick, and stone, and old wormeaten timber, when he may just as easily dwell, in one sense, nowherein a better sense, wherever the fit and beautiful shall offer him a home? Cliffords countenance glowed, as he divulged this theory; a youthful character shone out from within, converting the wrinkles and pallid duskiness of age into an almost transparent mask. The merry girls let their ball drop upon the floor, and gazed at him. They said to themselves, perhaps, that, before his hair was gray and the crowsfeet tracked his temples, this now decaying man must have stamped the impress of his features on many a womans heart. But, alas! no womans eye had seen his face while it was beautiful. I should scarcely call it an improved state of things, observed Cliffords new acquaintance, to live everywhere and nowhere! Would you not? exclaimed Clifford, with singular energy. It is as clear to me as sunshinewere there any in the skythat the greatest possible stumblingblocks in the path of human happiness and improvement are these heaps of bricks and stones, consolidated with mortar, or hewn timber, fastened together with spikenails, which men painfully contrive for their own torment, and call them house and home! The soul needs air; a wide sweep and frequent change of it. Morbid influences, in a thousandfold variety, gather about hearths, and pollute the life of households. There is no such unwholesome atmosphere as that of an old home, rendered poisonous by ones defunct forefathers and relatives. I speak of what I know. There is a certain house within my familiar recollectionone of those peakedgable (there are seven of them), projectingstoried edifices, such as you occasionally see in our older townsa rusty, crazy, creaky, dryrotted, dingy, dark, and miserable old dungeon, with an arched window over the porch, and a little shopdoor on one side, and a great, melancholy elm before it! Now, sir, whenever my thoughts recur to this sevengabled mansion (the fact is so very curious that I must needs mention it), immediately I have a vision or image of an elderly man, of remarkably stern countenance, sitting in an oaken elbowchair, dead, stonedead, with an ugly flow of blood upon his shirtbosom! Dead, but with open eyes! He taints the whole house, as I remember it. I could never flourish there, nor be happy, nor do nor enjoy what God meant me to do and enjoy. His face darkened, and seemed to contract, and shrivel itself up, and wither into age. Never, sir! he repeated. I could never draw cheerful breath there! I should think not, said the old gentleman, eyeing Clifford earnestly, and rather apprehensively. I should conceive not, sir, with that notion in your head! Surely not, continued Clifford; and it were a relief to me if that house could be torn down, or burnt up, and so the earth be rid of it, and grass be sown abundantly over its foundation. Not that I should ever visit its site again! for, sir, the farther I get away from it, the more does the joy, the lightsome freshness, the heartleap, the intellectual dance, the youth, in shortyes, my youth, my youth!the more does it come back to me. No longer ago than this morning, I was old. I remember looking in the glass, and wondering at my own gray hair, and the wrinkles, many and deep, right across my brow, and the furrows down my cheeks, and the prodigious trampling of crowsfeet about my temples! It was too soon! I could not bear it! Age had no right to come! I had not lived! But now do I look old? If so, my aspect belies me strangely; fora great weight being off my mindI feel in the very heyday of my youth, with the world and my best days before me! I trust you may find it so, said the old gentleman, who seemed rather embarrassed, and desirous of avoiding the observation which Cliffords wild talk drew on them both. You have my best wishes for it. For Heavens sake, dear Clifford, be quiet! whispered his sister. They think you mad. Be quiet yourself, Hepzibah! returned her brother. No matter what they think! I am not mad. For the first time in thirty years my thoughts gush up and find words ready for them. I must talk, and I will! He turned again towards the old gentleman, and renewed the conversation. Yes, my dear sir, said he, it is my firm belief and hope that these terms of roof and hearthstone, which have so long been held to embody something sacred, are soon to pass out of mens daily use, and be forgotten. Just imagine, for a moment, how much of human evil will crumble away, with this one change! What we call real estatethe solid ground to build a house onis the broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of this world rests. A man will commit almost any wronghe will heap up an immense pile of wickedness, as hard as granite, and which will weigh as heavily upon his soul, to eternal agesonly to build a great, gloomy, darkchambered mansion, for himself to die in, and for his posterity to be miserable in. He lays his own dead corpse beneath the underpinning, as one may say, and hangs his frowning picture on the wall, and, after thus converting himself into an evil destiny, expects his remotest greatgrandchildren to be happy there. I do not speak wildly. I have just such a house in my minds eye! Then, sir, said the old gentleman, getting anxious to drop the subject, you are not to blame for leaving it. Within the lifetime of the child already born, Clifford went on, all this will be done away. The world is growing too ethereal and spiritual to bear these enormities a great while longer. To me, though, for a considerable period of time, I have lived chiefly in retirement, and know less of such things than most meneven to me, the harbingers of a better era are unmistakable. Mesmerism, now! Will that effect nothing, think you, towards purging away the grossness out of human life? All a humbug! growled the old gentleman. These rapping spirits, that little Phoebe told us of, the other day, said Cliffordwhat are these but the messengers of the spiritual world, knocking at the door of substance? And it shall be flung wide open! A humbug, again! cried the old gentleman, growing more and more testy at these glimpses of Cliffords metaphysics. I should like to rap with a good stick on the empty pates of the dolts who circulate such nonsense! Then there is electricitythe demon, the angel, the mighty physical power, the allpervading intelligence! exclaimed Clifford. Is that a humbug, too? Is it a factor have I dreamt itthat, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time? Rather, the round globe is a vast head, a brain, instinct with intelligence! Or, shall we say, it is itself a thought, nothing but thought, and no longer the substance which we deemed it! If you mean the telegraph, said the old gentleman, glancing his eye toward its wire, alongside the railtrack, it is an excellent thingthat is, of course, if the speculators in cotton and politics dont get possession of it. A great thing, indeed, sir, particularly as regards the detection of bankrobbers and murderers. I dont quite like it, in that point of view, replied Clifford. A bankrobber, and what you call a murderer, likewise, has his rights, which men of enlightened humanity and conscience should regard in so much the more liberal spirit, because the bulk of society is prone to controvert their existence. An almost spiritual medium, like the electric telegraph, should be consecrated to high, deep, joyful, and holy missions. Lovers, day by dayhour by hour, if so often moved to do itmight send their heartthrobs from Maine to Florida, with some such words as theseI love you forever!My heart runs over with love!I love you more than I can! and, again, at the next messageI have lived an hour longer, and love you twice as much! Or, when a good man has departed, his distant friend should be conscious of an electric thrill, as from the world of happy spirits, telling himYour dear friend is in bliss! Or, to an absent husband, should come tidings thusAn immortal being, of whom you are the father, has this moment come from God! and immediately its little voice would seem to have reached so far, and to be echoing in his heart. But for these poor rogues, the bankrobberswho, after all, are about as honest as nine people in ten, except that they disregard certain formalities, and prefer to transact business at midnight rather than Changehoursand for these murderers, as you phrase it, who are often excusable in the motives of their deed, and deserve to be ranked among public benefactors, if we consider only its resultfor unfortunate individuals like these, I really cannot applaud the enlistment of an immaterial and miraculous power in the universal worldhunt at their heels! You cant, hey? cried the old gentleman, with a hard look. Positively, no! answered Clifford. It puts them too miserably at disadvantage. For example, sir, in a dark, low, crossbeamed, panelled room of an old house, let us suppose a dead man, sitting in an armchair, with a bloodstain on his shirtbosomand let us add to our hypothesis another man, issuing from the house, which he feels to be overfilled with the dead mans presenceand let us lastly imagine him fleeing, Heaven knows whither, at the speed of a hurricane, by railroad! Now, sir, if the fugitive alight in some distant town, and find all the people babbling about that selfsame dead man, whom he has fled so far to avoid the sight and thought of, will you not allow that his natural rights have been infringed? He has been deprived of his city of refuge, and, in my humble opinion, has suffered infinite wrong! You are a strange man, sir! said the old gentleman, bringing his gimleteye to a point on Clifford, as if determined to bore right into him. I cant see through you! No, Ill be bound you cant! cried Clifford, laughing. And yet, my dear sir, I am as transparent as the water of Maules well! But come, Hepzibah! We have flown far enough for once. Let us alight, as the birds do, and perch ourselves on the nearest twig, and consult wither we shall fly next! Just then, as it happened, the train reached a solitary waystation. Taking advantage of the brief pause, Clifford left the car, and drew Hepzibah along with him. A moment afterwards, the trainwith all the life of its interior, amid which Clifford had made himself so conspicuous an objectwas gliding away in the distance, and rapidly lessening to a point which, in another moment, vanished. The world had fled away from these two wanderers. They gazed drearily about them. At a little distance stood a wooden church, black with age, and in a dismal state of ruin and decay, with broken windows, a great rift through the main body of the edifice, and a rafter dangling from the top of the square tower. Farther off was a farmhouse, in the old style, as venerably black as the church, with a roof sloping downward from the threestory peak, to within a mans height of the ground. It seemed uninhabited. There were the relics of a woodpile, indeed, near the door, but with grass sprouting up among the chips and scattered logs. The small raindrops came down aslant; the wind was not turbulent, but sullen, and full of chilly moisture. Clifford shivered from head to foot. The wild effervescence of his moodwhich had so readily supplied thoughts, fantasies, and a strange aptitude of words, and impelled him to talk from the mere necessity of giving vent to this bubblingup gush of ideas had entirely subsided. A powerful excitement had given him energy and vivacity. Its operation over, he forthwith began to sink. You must take the lead now, Hepzibah! murmured he, with a torpid and reluctant utterance. Do with me as you will! She knelt down upon the platform where they were standing and lifted her clasped hands to the sky. The dull, gray weight of clouds made it invisible; but it was no hour for disbeliefno juncture this to question that there was a sky above, and an Almighty Father looking from it! O God!ejaculated poor, gaunt Hepzibahthen paused a moment, to consider what her prayer should beO Godour Fatherare we not thy children? Have mercy on us! XVIII Governor Pyncheon Judge Pyncheon, while his two relatives have fled away with such illconsidered haste, still sits in the old parlor, keeping house, as the familiar phrase is, in the absence of its ordinary occupants. To him, and to the venerable House of the Seven Gables, does our story now betake itself, like an owl, bewildered in the daylight, and hastening back to his hollow tree. The Judge has not shifted his position for a long while now. He has not stirred hand or foot, nor withdrawn his eyes so much as a hairsbreadth from their fixed gaze towards the corner of the room, since the footsteps of Hepzibah and Clifford creaked along the passage, and the outer door was closed cautiously behind their exit. He holds his watch in his left hand, but clutched in such a manner that you cannot see the dialplate. How profound a fit of meditation! Or, supposing him asleep, how infantile a quietude of conscience, and what wholesome order in the gastric region, are betokened by slumber so entirely undisturbed with starts, cramp, twitches, muttered dreamtalk, trumpetblasts through the nasal organ, or any slightest irregularity of breath! You must hold your own breath, to satisfy yourself whether he breathes at all. It is quite inaudible. You hear the ticking of his watch; his breath you do not hear. A most refreshing slumber, doubtless! And yet, the Judge cannot be asleep. His eyes are open! A veteran politician, such as he, would never fall asleep with wideopen eyes, lest some enemy or mischiefmaker, taking him thus at unawares, should peep through these windows into his consciousness, and make strange discoveries among the reminiscences, projects, hopes, apprehensions, weaknesses, and strong points, which he has heretofore shared with nobody. A cautious man is proverbially said to sleep with one eye open. That may be wisdom. But not with both; for this were heedlessness! No, no! Judge Pyncheon cannot be asleep. It is odd, however, that a gentleman so burdened with engagementsand noted, too, for punctualityshould linger thus in an old lonely mansion, which he has never seemed very fond of visiting. The oaken chair, to be sure, may tempt him with its roominess. It is, indeed, a spacious, and, allowing for the rude age that fashioned it, a moderately easy seat, with capacity enough, at all events, and offering no restraint to the Judges breadth of beam. A bigger man might find ample accommodation in it. His ancestor, now pictured upon the wall, with all his English beef about him, used hardly to present a front extending from elbow to elbow of this chair, or a base that would cover its whole cushion. But there are better chairs than thismahogany, black walnut, rosewood, springseated and damaskcushioned, with varied slopes, and innumerable artifices to make them easy, and obviate the irksomeness of too tame an easea score of such might be at Judge Pyncheons service. Yes! in a score of drawingrooms he would be more than welcome. Mamma would advance to meet him, with outstretched hand; the virgin daughter, elderly as he has now got to bean old widower, as he smilingly describes himselfwould shake up the cushion for the Judge, and do her pretty utmost to make him comfortable. For the Judge is a prosperous man. He cherishes his schemes, moreover, like other people, and reasonably brighter than most others; or did so, at least, as he lay abed this morning, in an agreeable halfdrowse, planning the business of the day, and speculating on the probabilities of the next fifteen years. With his firm health, and the little inroad that age has made upon him, fifteen years or twentyyes, or perhaps fiveandtwenty!are no more than he may fairly call his own. Fiveandtwenty years for the enjoyment of his real estate in town and country, his railroad, bank, and insurance shares, his United States stockhis wealth, in short, however invested, now in possession, or soon to be acquired; together with the public honors that have fallen upon him, and the weightier ones that are yet to fall! It is good! It is excellent! It is enough! Still lingering in the old chair! If the Judge has a little time to throw away, why does not he visit the insurance office, as is his frequent custom, and sit awhile in one of their leatherncushioned armchairs, listening to the gossip of the day, and dropping some deeply designed chanceword, which will be certain to become the gossip of tomorrow. And have not the bank directors a meeting at which it was the Judges purpose to be present, and his office to preside? Indeed they have; and the hour is noted on a card, which is, or ought to be, in Judge Pyncheons right vestpocket. Let him go thither, and loll at ease upon his moneybags! He has lounged long enough in the old chair! This was to have been such a busy day. In the first place, the interview with Clifford. Half an hour, by the Judges reckoning, was to suffice for that; it would probably be less, buttaking into consideration that Hepzibah was first to be dealt with, and that these women are apt to make many words where a few would do much betterit might be safest to allow half an hour. Half an hour? Why, Judge, it is already two hours, by your own undeviatingly accurate chronometer. Glance your eye down at it and see! Ah; he will not give himself the trouble either to bend his head, or elevate his hand, so as to bring the faithful timekeeper within his range of vision! Time, all at once, appears to have become a matter of no moment with the Judge! And has he forgotten all the other items of his memoranda? Cliffords affair arranged, he was to meet a State Street broker, who has undertaken to procure a heavy percentage, and the best of paper, for a few loose thousands which the Judge happens to have by him, uninvested. The wrinkled noteshaver will have taken his railroad trip in vain. Half an hour later, in the street next to this, there was to be an auction of real estate, including a portion of the old Pyncheon property, originally belonging to Maules garden ground. It has been alienated from the Pyncheons these fourscore years; but the Judge had kept it in his eye, and had set his heart on reannexing it to the small demesne still left around the Seven Gables; and now, during this odd fit of oblivion, the fatal hammer must have fallen, and transferred our ancient patrimony to some alien possessor. Possibly, indeed, the sale may have been postponed till fairer weather. If so, will the Judge make it convenient to be present, and favor the auctioneer with his bid, on the proximate occasion? The next affair was to buy a horse for his own driving. The one heretofore his favorite stumbled, this very morning, on the road to town, and must be at once discarded. Judge Pyncheons neck is too precious to be risked on such a contingency as a stumbling steed. Should all the above business be seasonably got through with, he might attend the meeting of a charitable society; the very name of which, however, in the multiplicity of his benevolence, is quite forgotten; so that this engagement may pass unfulfilled, and no great harm done. And if he have time, amid the press of more urgent matters, he must take measures for the renewal of Mrs. Pyncheons tombstone, which, the sexton tells him, has fallen on its marble face, and is cracked quite in twain. She was a praiseworthy woman enough, thinks the Judge, in spite of her nervousness, and the tears that she was so oozy with, and her foolish behavior about the coffee; and as she took her departure so seasonably, he will not grudge the second tombstone. It is better, at least, than if she had never needed any! The next item on his list was to give orders for some fruittrees, of a rare variety, to be deliverable at his countryseat in the ensuing autumn. Yes, buy them, by all means; and may the peaches be luscious in your mouth, Judge Pyncheon! After this comes something more important. A committee of his political party has besought him for a hundred or two of dollars, in addition to his previous disbursements, towards carrying on the fall campaign. The Judge is a patriot; the fate of the country is staked on the November election; and besides, as will be shadowed forth in another paragraph, he has no trifling stake of his own in the same great game. He will do what the committee asks; nay, he will be liberal beyond their expectations; they shall have a check for five hundred dollars, and more anon, if it be needed. What next? A decayed widow, whose husband was Judge Pyncheons early friend, has laid her case of destitution before him, in a very moving letter. She and her fair daughter have scarcely bread to eat. He partly intends to call on her todayperhaps soperhaps notaccordingly as he may happen to have leisure, and a small banknote. Another business, which, however, he puts no great weight on (it is well, you know, to be heedful, but not overanxious, as respects ones personal health)another business, then, was to consult his family physician. About what, for Heavens sake? Why, it is rather difficult to describe the symptoms. A mere dimness of sight and dizziness of brain, was it?or disagreeable choking, or stifling, or gurgling, or bubbling, in the region of the thorax, as the anatomists say?or was it a pretty severe throbbing and kicking of the heart, rather creditable to him than otherwise, as showing that the organ had not been left out of the Judges physical contrivance? No matter what it was. The doctor probably would smile at the statement of such trifles to his professional ear; the Judge would smile in his turn; and meeting one anothers eyes, they would enjoy a hearty laugh together! But a fig for medical advice. The Judge will never need it. Pray, pray, Judge Pyncheon, look at your watch, Now! Whatnot a glance! It is within ten minutes of the dinner hour! It surely cannot have slipped your memory that the dinner of today is to be the most important, in its consequences, of all the dinners you ever ate. Yes, precisely the most important; although, in the course of your somewhat eminent career, you have been placed high towards the head of the table, at splendid banquets, and have poured out your festive eloquence to ears yet echoing with Websters mighty organtones. No public dinner this, however. It is merely a gathering of some dozen or so of friends from several districts of the State; men of distinguished character and influence, assembling, almost casually, at the house of a common friend, likewise distinguished, who will make them welcome to a little better than his ordinary fare. Nothing in the way of French cookery, but an excellent dinner, nevertheless. Real turtle, we understand, and salmon, tautog, canvasbacks, pig, English mutton, good roast beef, or dainties of that serious kind, fit for substantial country gentlemen, as these honorable persons mostly are. The delicacies of the season, in short, and flavored by a brand of old Madeira which has been the pride of many seasons. It is the Juno brand; a glorious wine, fragrant, and full of gentle might; a bottledup happiness, put by for use; a golden liquid, worth more than liquid gold; so rare and admirable, that veteran winebibbers count it among their epochs to have tasted it! It drives away the heartache, and substitutes no headache! Could the Judge but quaff a glass, it might enable him to shake off the unaccountable lethargy which (for the ten intervening minutes, and five to boot, are already past) has made him such a laggard at this momentous dinner. It would all but revive a dead man! Would you like to sip it now, Judge Pyncheon? Alas, this dinner. Have you really forgotten its true object? Then let us whisper it, that you may start at once out of the oaken chair, which really seems to be enchanted, like the one in Comus, or that in which Moll Pitcher imprisoned your own grandfather. But ambition is a talisman more powerful than witchcraft. Start up, then, and, hurrying through the streets, burst in upon the company, that they may begin before the fish is spoiled! They wait for you; and it is little for your interest that they should wait. These gentlemenneed you be told it?have assembled, not without purpose, from every quarter of the State. They are practised politicians, every man of them, and skilled to adjust those preliminary measures which steal from the people, without its knowledge, the power of choosing its own rulers. The popular voice, at the next gubernatorial election, though loud as thunder, will be really but an echo of what these gentlemen shall speak, under their breath, at your friends festive board. They meet to decide upon their candidate. This little knot of subtle schemers will control the convention, and, through it, dictate to the party. And what worthier candidatemore wise and learned, more noted for philanthropic liberality, truer to safe principles, tried oftener by public trusts, more spotless in private character, with a larger stake in the common welfare, and deeper grounded, by hereditary descent, in the faith and practice of the Puritanswhat man can be presented for the suffrage of the people, so eminently combining all these claims to the chiefrulership as Judge Pyncheon here before us? Make haste, then! Do your part! The meed for which you have toiled, and fought, and climbed, and crept, is ready for your grasp! Be present at this dinner!drink a glass or two of that noble wine!make your pledges in as low a whisper as you will!and you rise up from table virtually governor of the glorious old State! Governor Pyncheon of Massachusetts! And is there no potent and exhilarating cordial in a certainty like this? It has been the grand purpose of half your lifetime to obtain it. Now, when there needs little more than to signify your acceptance, why do you sit so lumpishly in your greatgreatgrandfathers oaken chair, as if preferring it to the gubernatorial one? We have all heard of King Log; but, in these jostling times, one of that royal kindred will hardly win the race for an elective chiefmagistracy. Well; it is absolutely too late for dinner! Turtle, salmon, tautog, woodcock, boiled turkey, SouthDown mutton, pig, roastbeef, have vanished, or exist only in fragments, with lukewarm potatoes, and gravies crusted over with cold fat. The Judge, had he done nothing else, would have achieved wonders with his knife and fork. It was he, you know, of whom it used to be said, in reference to his ogrelike appetite, that his Creator made him a great animal, but that the dinnerhour made him a great beast. Persons of his large sensual endowments must claim indulgence, at their feedingtime. But, for once, the Judge is entirely too late for dinner! Too late, we fear, even to join the party at their wine! The guests are warm and merry; they have given up the Judge; and, concluding that the FreeSoilers have him, they will fix upon another candidate. Were our friend now to stalk in among them, with that wideopen stare, at once wild and stolid, his ungenial presence would be apt to change their cheer. Neither would it be seemly in Judge Pyncheon, generally so scrupulous in his attire, to show himself at a dinnertable with that crimson stain upon his shirtbosom. By the by, how came it there? It is an ugly sight, at any rate; and the wisest way for the Judge is to button his coat closely over his breast, and, taking his horse and chaise from the livery stable, to make all speed to his own house. There, after a glass of brandy and water, and a muttonchop, a beefsteak, a broiled fowl, or some such hasty little dinner and supper all in one, he had better spend the evening by the fireside. He must toast his slippers a long while, in order to get rid of the chilliness which the air of this vile old house has sent curdling through his veins. Up, therefore, Judge Pyncheon, up! You have lost a day. But tomorrow will be here anon. Will you rise, betimes, and make the most of it? Tomorrow. Tomorrow! Tomorrow. We, that are alive, may rise betimes tomorrow. As for him that has died today, his morrow will be the resurrection morn. Meanwhile the twilight is glooming upward out of the corners of the room. The shadows of the tall furniture grow deeper, and at first become more definite; then, spreading wider, they lose their distinctness of outline in the dark gray tide of oblivion, as it were, that creeps slowly over the various objects, and the one human figure sitting in the midst of them. The gloom has not entered from without; it has brooded here all day, and now, taking its own inevitable time, will possess itself of everything. The Judges face, indeed, rigid and singularly white, refuses to melt into this universal solvent. Fainter and fainter grows the light. It is as if another doublehandful of darkness had been scattered through the air. Now it is no longer gray, but sable. There is still a faint appearance at the window; neither a glow, nor a gleam, nor a glimmerany phrase of light would express something far brighter than this doubtful perception, or sense, rather, that there is a window there. Has it yet vanished? No!yes!not quite! And there is still the swarthy whitenesswe shall venture to marry these illagreeing wordsthe swarthy whiteness of Judge Pyncheons face. The features are all gone there is only the paleness of them left. And how looks it now? There is no window! There is no face! An infinite, inscrutable blackness has annihilated sight! Where is our universe? All crumbled away from us; and we, adrift in chaos, may hearken to the gusts of homeless wind, that go sighing and murmuring about in quest of what was once a world! Is there no other sound? One other, and a fearful one. It is the ticking of the Judges watch, which, ever since Hepzibah left the room in search of Clifford, he has been holding in his hand. Be the cause what it may, this little, quiet, neverceasing throb of Times pulse, repeating its small strokes with such busy regularity, in Judge Pyncheons motionless hand, has an effect of terror, which we do not find in any other accompaniment of the scene. But, listen! That puff of the breeze was louder. It had a tone unlike the dreary and sullen one which has bemoaned itself, and afflicted all mankind with miserable sympathy, for five days past. The wind has veered about! It now comes boisterously from the northwest, and, taking hold of the aged framework of the Seven Gables, gives it a shake, like a wrestler that would try strength with his antagonist. Another and another sturdy tussle with the blast! The old house creaks again, and makes a vociferous but somewhat unintelligible bellowing in its sooty throat (the big flue, we mean, of its wide chimney), partly in complaint at the rude wind, but rather, as befits their century and a half of hostile intimacy, in tough defiance. A rumbling kind of a bluster roars behind the fireboard. A door has slammed above stairs.