 | Mosses from an old manse |  |
YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN.
Young Goodman Brown came forth at sunset, into the street of
Salem village, but put his head back, after crossing the threshold,
to exchange a parting kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as
the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the
street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap,
while she called to Goodman Brown.
“Dearest heart,” whispered she, softly and rather sadly, when
her lips were close to his ear, “pr'ythee, put off your journey
until sunrise, and sleep in your own bed to-night. A lone woman
is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts, that she's afeard
of herself, sometimes. Pray, tarry with me this night, dear husband,
of all nights in the year!”
“My love and my Faith,” replied young Goodman Brown, “of
all nights in the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee.
My journey, as thou callest it, forth and back again, must needs
be done 'twixt now and sunrise. What, my sweet, pretty wife,
dost thou doubt me already, and we but three months married!”
“Then God bless you!” said Faith, with the pink ribbons,
“and may you find all well, when you come back.”
“Amen!” cried Goodman Brown. “Say thy prayers, dear
Faith, and go to bed at dusk, and no harm will come to thee.”
So they parted; and the young man pursued his way, until,
being about to turn the corner by the meeting-house, he looked
back and saw the head of Faith still peeping after him, with a
melancholy air, in spite of her pink ribbons.
“Poor little Faith!” thought he, for his heart smote him.
“What a wretch am I, to leave her on such an errand! She
talks of dreams, too. Methought, as she spoke, there was trouble
in her face, as if a dream had warned her what work is to be
done to-night. But, no, no! 't would kill her to think it. Well;
she's a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night, I'll
cling to her skirts and follow her to Heaven.”
With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown felt
himself justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose.
He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest
trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path
creep through, and closed immediately behind. It was all as
lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such a solitude,
that the traveller knows not who may be concealed by the
innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overheard; so that, with
lonely footsteps, he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude.
“There may be a devilish Indian behind every tree,” said
Goodman Brown to himself; and he glanced fearfully behind
him, as he added, “What if the devil himself should be at my very
elbow!”
His head being turned back, he passed a crook of the road, and
looking forward again, beheld the figure of a man, in grave and
decent attire, seated at the foot of an old tree. He arose, at Goodman
Brown's approach, and walked onward, side by side with
him.
“You are late, Goodman Brown,” said he. “The clock of
the Old South was striking, as I came through Boston; and that
is full fifteen minutes agone.”
“Faith kept me back awhile,” replied the young man, with a
tremor in his voice, caused by the sudden appearance of his companion,
though not wholly unexpected.
It was now deep dusk in the forest, and deepest in that part of
the second traveller was about fifty years old, apparently
in the same rank of life as Goodman Brown, and bearing a considerable
resemblance to him, though perhaps more in expression
than features. Still, they might have been taken for father and
son. And yet, though the elder person was as simply clad as the
younger, and as simple in manner too, he had an indescribable air
of one who knew the world, and would not have felt abashed at
the governor's dinner-table, or in King William's court, were it
possible that his affairs should call him thither. But the only
thing about him, that could be fixed upon as remarkable, was his
staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously
wrought, that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself
like a living serpent. This, of course, must have been an ocular
deception, assisted by the uncertain light.
“Come, Goodman Brown!” cried his fellow-traveller, “this is
a dull pace for the beginning of a journey. Take my staff, if
you are so soon weary.”
“Friend,” said the other, exchanging his slow pace for a full
stop, “having kept covenant by meeting thee here, it is my purpose
now to return whence I came. I have scruples, touching
the matter thou wot'st of.”
“Sayest thou so?” replied he of the serpent, smiling apart.
“Let us walk on, nevertheless, reasoning as we go, and if I convince
thee not, thou shalt turn back. We are but a little way in
the forest, yet.”
“Too far, too far!” exclaimed the goodman, unconsciously
resuming his walk. “My father never went into the woods on
such an errand, nor his father before him. We have been a race
of honest men and good Christians, since the days of the martyrs.
And shall I be the first of the name of Brown, that ever took this
path and kept”—
“Such company, thou wouldst say,” observed the elder person,
been as well acquainted with your family as with ever a one
among the Puritans; and that's no trifle to say. I helped your
grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so
smartly through the streets of Salem. And it was I that brought
your father a pitch-pine knot, kindled at my own hearth, to set
fire to an Indian village, in king Philip's war. They were my
good friends, both; and many a pleasant walk have we had along
this path, and returned merrily after midnight. I would fain be
friends with you, for their sake.”
“If it be as thou sayest,” replied Goodman Brown, “I marvel
they never spoke of these matters. Or, verily, I marvel not,
seeing that the least rumor of the sort would have driven them
from New England. We are a people of prayer, and good works
to boot, and abide no such wickedness.”
“Wickedness or not,” said the traveller with the twisted staff,
“I have a very general acquaintance here in New England. The
deacons of many a church have drunk the communion wine with
me; the selectmen, of divers towns, make me their chairman;
and a majority of the Great and General Court are firm supporters
of my interest. The governor and I, too—but these are state-secrets.”
“Can this be so!” cried Goodman Brown, with a stare of
amazement at his undisturbed companion. “Howbeit, I have
nothing to do with the governor and council; they have their own
ways, and are no rule for a simple husbandman like me. But,
were I to go on with thee, how should I meet the eye of that good
old man, our minister, at Salem village? Oh, his voice would
make me tremble, both Sabbath-day and lecture-day!”
Thus far, the elder traveller had listened with due gravity, but
now burst into a fit of irrepressible mirth, shaking himself so
violently, that his snake-like staff actually seemed to wriggle in
sympathy.
“Ha! ha! ha!” shouted he, again and again; then composing
himself, “Well, go on, Goodman Brown, go on; but, prithee,
don't kill me with laughing!”
“Well, then, to end the matter at once,” said Goodman Brown,
considerably nettled, “there is my wife, Faith. It would break
her dear little heart; and I'd rather break my own!”
“Nay, if that be the case,” answered the other, “e'en go thy
ways, Goodman Brown. I would not, for twenty old women
like the one hobbling before us, that Faith should come to any
harm.”
As he spoke, he pointed his staff at a female figure on the path,
in whom Goodman Brown recognized a very pious and exemplary
dame, who had taught him his catechism in youth, and was still
his moral and spiritual adviser, jointly with the minister and
Deacon Gookin.
“A marvel, truly, that Goody Cloyse should be so far in the
wilderness, at night-fall!” said he. “But, with your leave,
friend, I shall take a cut through the woods, until we have left
this Christian woman behind. Being a stranger to you, she might
ask whom I was consorting with, and whither I was going.”
“Be it so,” said his fellow-traveller. “Betake you to the
woods, and let me keep the path.”
Accordingly, the young man turned aside, but took care to
watch his companion, who advanced softly along the road, until
he had come within a staff's length of the old dame. She, meanwhile,
was making the best of her way, with singular speed for
so aged a woman, and mumbling some indistinct words, a prayer,
doubtless, as she went. The traveller put forth his staff, and
touched her withered neck with what seemed the serpent's tail.
“The devil!” screamed the pious old lady.
“Then Goody Cloyse knows her old friend?” observed the
traveller, confronting her, and leaning on his writhing stick.
“Ah, forsooth, and is it your worship, indeed?” cried the
gossip, Goodman Brown, the grandfather of the silly fellow that
now is. But, would your worship believe it? my broomstick
hath strangely disappeared, stolen, as I suspect, by that unhanged
witch, Goody Cory, and that, too, when I was all anointed with
the juice of smallage and cinque-foil and wolf's-bane”—
“Mingled with fine wheat and the fat of a new-born babe,” said
the shape of old Goodman Brown.
“Ah, your worship knows the recipe,” cried the old lady,
cackling aloud. “So, as I was saying, being all ready for the
meeting, and no horse to ride on, I made up my mind to foot it;
for they tell me, there is a nice young man to be taken into communion
to-night. But now your good worship will lend me your
arm, and we shall be there in a twinkling.”
“That can hardly be,” answered her friend. “I may not
spare you my arm, Goody Cloyse, but here is my staff, if you
will.”
So saying, he threw it down at her feet, where, perhaps, it
assumed life, being one of the rods which its owner had formerly
lent to the Egyptian Magi. Of this fact, however, Goodman
Brown could not take cognizance. He had cast up his eyes in
astonishment, and looking down again, beheld neither Goody
Cloyse nor the serpentine staff, but his fellow-traveller alone, who
waited for him as calmly as if nothing had happened.
“That old woman taught me my catechism!” said the young
man; and there was a world of meaning in this simple comment.
They continued to walk onward, while the elder traveller
exhorted his companion to make good speed and persevere in the
path, discoursing so aptly, that his arguments seemed rather to
spring up in the bosom of his auditor, than to be suggested by
himself. As they went, he plucked a branch of maple, to serve
for a walking-stick, and began to strip it of the twigs and little
boughs, which were wet with evening dew. The moment his
up, as with a week's sunshine. Thus the pair proceeded, at a
good free pace, until suddenly, in a gloomy hollow of the road,
Goodman Brown sat himself down on the stump of a tree, and
refused to go any farther.
“Friend,” said he, stubbornly, “my mind is made up. Not
another step will I budge on this errand. What if a wretched
old woman do choose to go to the devil, when I thought she was
going to Heaven! Is that any reason why I should quit my dear
Faith, and go after her?”
“You will think better of this by-and-by,” said his acquaintance,
composedly. “Sit here and rest yourself awhile; and
when you feel like moving again, there is my staff to help you
along.”
Without more words, he threw his companion the maple stick,
and was as speedily out of sight as if he had vanished into the
deepening gloom. The young man sat a few moments by the
road-side, applauding himself greatly, and thinking with how clear
a conscience he should meet the minister, in his morning-walk,
nor shrink from the eye of good old Deacon Gookin. And what
calm sleep would be his, that very night, which was to have been
spent so wickedly, but purely and sweetly now, in the arms of
Faith! Amidst these pleasant and praiseworthy meditations,
Goodman Brown heard the tramp of horses along the road, and
deemed it advisable to conceal himself within the verge of the
forest, conscious of the guilty purpose that had brought him thither,
though now so happily turned from it.
On came the hoof-tramps and the voices of the riders, two
grave old voices, conversing soberly as they drew near. These
mingled sounds appeared to pass along the road, within a few
yards of the young man's hiding-place; but owing, doubtless, to
the depth of the gloom, at that particular spot, neither the
travellers nor their steeds were visible. Though their figures
that they intercepted, even for a moment, the faint gleam from
the strip of bright sky, athwart which they must have passed.
Goodman Brown alternately crouched and stood on tip-toe, pulling
aside the branches, and thrusting forth his head as far as he durst,
without discerning so much as a shadow. It vexed him the more,
because he could have sworn, were such a thing possible, that he
recognized the voices of the minister and Deacon Gookin, jogging
along quietly, as they were wont to do, when bound to some
ordination or ecclesiastical council. While yet within hearing,
one of the riders stopped to pluck a switch.
“Of the two, reverend Sir,” said the voice like the deacon's,
“I had rather miss an ordination-dinner than to-night's meeting.
They tell me that some of our community are to be here from
Falmouth and beyond, and others from Connecticut and Rhode
Island; besides several of the Indian powows, who, after their
fashion, know almost as much deviltry as the best of us. Moreover,
there is a goodly young woman to be taken into communion.”
“Mighty well, Deacon Gookin!” replied the solemn old tones
of the minister. “Spur up, or we shall be late. Nothing can be
done, you know, until I get on the ground.”
The hoofs clattered again, and the voices, talking so strangely
in the empty air, passed on through the forest, where no church
had ever been gathered, nor solitary Christian prayed. Whither,
then, could these holy men be journeying, so deep into the heathen
wilderness? Young Goodman Brown caught hold of a tree, for
support, being ready to sink down on the ground, faint and over-burthened
with the heavy sickness of his heart. He looked up to
the sky, doubting whether there really was a Heaven above him.
Yet, there was the blue arch, and the stars brightening in it.
“With Heaven above, and Faith below, I will yet stand firm
against the devil!” cried Goodman Brown.
While he still gazed upward, into the deep arch of the firmament,
was stirring, hurried across the zenith, and hid the brightening
stars. The blue sky was still visible, except directly overhead,
where this black mass of cloud was sweeping swiftly northward.
Aloft in the air, as if from the depths of the cloud, came a confused
and doubtful sound of voices. Once, the listener fancied
that he could distinguish the accents of town's-people of his own,
men and women, both pious and ungodly, many of whom he had
met at the communion-table, and had seen others rioting at the
tavern. The next moment, so indistinct were the sounds, he
doubted whether he had heard aught but the murmur of the old
forest, whispering without a wind. Then came a stronger swell
of those familiar tones, heard daily in the sunshine, at Salem
village, but never, until now, from a cloud of night. There was
one voice, of a young woman, uttering lamentations, yet with an
uncertain sorrow, and entreating for some favor, which, perhaps,
it would grieve her to obtain. And all the unseen multitude,
both saints and sinners, seemed to encourage her onward.
“Faith!” shouted Goodman Brown, in a voice of agony and
desperation; and the echoes of the forest mocked him, crying—
“Faith! Faith!” as if bewildered wretches were seeking her, all
through the wilderness.
The cry of grief, rage, and terror, was yet piercing the night,
when the unhappy husband held his breath for a response. There
was a scream, drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices,
fading into far-off laughter, as the dark cloud swept away, leaving
the clear and silent sky above Goodman Brown. But something
fluttered lightly down through the air, and caught on the
branch of a tree. The young man seized it, and beheld a pink
ribbon.
“My Faith is gone!” cried he, after one stupefied moment.
“There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come,
devil! for to thee is this world given.”
And maddened with despair, so that he laughed loud and long,
did Goodman Brown grasp his staff and set forth again, at such a
rate, that he seemed to fly along the forest-path, rather than to walk
or run. The road grew wilder and drearier, and more faintly
traced, and vanished at length, leaving him in the heart of the dark
wilderness, still rushing onward, with the instinct that guides
mortal man to evil. The whole forest was peopled with frightful
sounds; the creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beasts,
and the yell of Indians; while, sometimes the wind tolled like a
distant church-bell, and sometimes gave a broad roar around the
traveller, as if all Nature were laughing him to scorn. But he
was himself the chief horror of the scene, and shrank not from its
other horrors.
“Ha! ha! ha!” roared Goodman Brown, when the wind
laughed at him. “Let us hear which will laugh loudest! Think
not to frighten me with your deviltry! Come witch, come wizard,
come Indian powow, come devil himself! and here comes
Goodman Brown. You may as well fear him as he fear you!”
In truth, all through the haunted forest, there could be nothing
more frightful than the figure of Goodman Brown. On he flew,
among the black pines, brandishing his staff with frenzied gestures,
now giving vent to an inspiration of horrid blasphemy, and
now shouting forth such laughter, as set all the echoes of the
forest laughing like demons around him. The fiend in his own
shape is less hideous, than when he rages in the breast of man.
Thus sped the demoniac on his course, until, quivering among
the trees, he saw a red light before him, as when the felled trunks
and branches of a clearing have been set on fire, and throw up
their lurid blaze against the sky, at the hour of midnight. He
paused, in a lull of the tempest that had driven him onward, and
heard the swell of what seemed a hymn, rolling solemnly from
a distance, with the weight of many voices. He knew the tune;
It was a familiar one in the choir of the village meeting-house.
not of human voices, but of all the sounds of the benighted wilderness,
pealing in awful harmony together. Goodman Brown
cried out; and his cry was lost to his own ear, by its unison with
the cry of the desert.
In the interval of silence, he stole forward, until the light glared
full upon his eyes. At one extremity of an open space, hemmed
in by the dark wall of the forest, arose a rock, bearing some
rude, natural resemblance either to an altar or a pulpit, and surrounded
by four blazing pines, their tops a flame, their stems untouched,
like candles at an evening meeting. The mass of
foliage, that had overgrown the summit of the rock, was all on fire,
blazing high into the night, and fitfully illuminating the whole field.
Each pendant twig and leafy festoon was in a blaze. As the
red light arose and fell, a numerous congregation alternately
shone forth, then disappeared in shadow, and again grew, as it
were, out of the darkness, peopling the heart of the solitary woods
at once.
“A grave and dark-clad company!” quoth Goodman Brown.
In truth, they were such. Among them, quivering to-and-fro,
between gloom and splendor, appeared faces that would be seen,
next day, at the council-board of the province, and others which,
Sabbath after Sabbath, looked devoutly heavenward, and benignantly
over the crowded pews, from the holiest pulpits in the
land. Some affirm, that the lady of the governor was there. At
least, there were high dames well known to her, and wives of
honored husbands, and widows, a great multitude, and ancient
maidens, all of excellent repute, and fair young girls, who trembled
lest their mothers should espy them. Either the sudden
gleams of light, flashing over the obscure field, bedazzled Goodman
Brown, or he recognized a score of the church-members of
Salem village, famous for their especial sanctity. Good old Deacon
Gookin had arrived, and waited at the skirts of that venerable
these grave, reputable, and pious people, these elders of the
church, these chaste dames and dewy virgins, there were men of
dissolute lives and women of spotted fame, wretches given over
to all mean and filthy vice, and suspected even of horrid crimes.
It was strange to see, that the good shrank not from the wicked,
nor were the sinners abashed by the saints. Scattered, also,
among their pale-faced enemies, were the Indian priests, or powows,
who had often scared their native forest with more hideous
incantations than any known to English witchcraft.
“But, where is Faith?” thought Goodman Brown; and, as
hope came into his heart, he trembled.
Another verse of the hymn arose, a slow and mournful strain,
such as the pious love, but joined to words which expressed all
that our nature can conceive of sin, and darkly hinted at far more.
Unfathomable to mere mortals is the lore of fiends. Verse after
verse was sung, and still the chorus of the desert swelled between,
like the deepest tone of a mighty organ. And, with the final peal
of that dreadful anthem, there came a sound, as if the roaring
wind, the rushing streams, the howling beasts, and every other
voice of the unconverted wilderness, were mingling and according
with the voice of guilty man, in homage to the prince of all. The
four blazing pines threw up a loftier flame, and obscurely discovered
shapes and visages of horror on the smoke-wreaths, above the
impious assembly. At the same moment, the fire on the rock
shot redly forth, and formed a glowing arch above its base, where
now appeared a figure. With reverence be it spoken, the apparition
bore no slight similitude, both in garb and manner, to some
grave divine of the New England churches.
“Bring forth the converts!” cried a voice, that echoed through
the field and rolled into the forest.
At the word, Goodman Brown stepped forth from the shadow of
the trees, and approached the congregation, with whom he felt a
his heart. He could have well nigh sworn, that the shape of his
own dead father beckoned him to advance, looking downward
from a smoke-wreath, while a woman, with dim features of despair,
threw out her hand to warn him back. Was it his mother?
But he had no power to retreat one step, nor to resist, even in
thought, when the minister and good old Deacon Gookin seized
his arms, and led him to the blazing rock. Thither came also
the slender form of a veiled female, led between Goody Cloyse,
that pious teacher of the catechism, and Martha Carrier, who had
received the devil's promise to be queen of hell. A rampant hag
was she! And there stood the proselytes, beneath the canopy
of fire.
“Welcome, my children,” said the dark figure, “to the communion
of your race! Ye have found, thus young, your nature
and your destiny. My children, look behind you!”
They turned; and flashing forth, as it were, in a sheet of flame,
the fiend-worshippers were seen; the smile of welcome gleamed
darkly on every visage.
“There,” resumed the sable form, “are all whom ye have reverenced
from youth. Ye deemed them holier than yourselves,
and shrank from your own sin, contrasting it with their lives of
righteousness, and prayerful aspirations heavenward. Yet, here
are they all, in my worshipping assembly! This night it shall be
granted you to know their secret deeds; how hoary-bearded elders
of the church have whispered wanton words to the young maids
of their households; how many a woman, eager for widow's weeds,
has given her husband a drink at bed-time, and let him sleep his
last sleep in her bosom; how beardless youths have made haste
to inherit their father's wealth; and how fair damsels—blush not,
sweet ones!—have dug little graves in the garden, and bidden
me, the sole guest, to an infant's funeral. By the sympathy of
your human hearts for sin, ye shall scent out all the places—
crime has been committed, and shall exult to behold the whole
earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood-spot. Far more than
this! It shall be yours to penetrate, in every bosom, the deep
mystery of sin, the fountain of all wicked arts, and which inexhaustibly
supplies more evil impulses than human power—than
my power, at its utmost!—can make manifest in deeds. And now,
my children, look upon each other.”
They did so; and, by the blaze of the hell-kindled torches,
the wretched man beheld his Faith, and the wife her husband,
trembling before that unhallowed altar.
“Lo! there ye stand, my children,” said the figure, in a deep
and solemn tone, almost sad, with its despairing awfulness, as if
his once angelic nature could yet mourn for our miserable race.
“Depending upon one another's hearts, ye had still hoped that
virtue were not all a dream! Now are ye undeceived!—
Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness.
Welcome, again, my children, to the communion of your
race!”
“Welcome!” repeated the fiend-worshippers, in one cry of
despair and triumph.
And there they stood, the only pair, as it seemed, who were yet
hesitating on the verge of wickedness, in this dark world. A
basin was hollowed, naturally, in the rock. Did it contain water,
reddened by the lurid light? or was it blood? or, perchance, a
liquid flame? Herein did the Shape of Evil dip his hand, and
prepare to lay the mark of baptism upon their foreheads, that they
might be partakers of the mystery of sin, more conscious of the
secret guilt of others, both in deed and thought, than they could
now be of their own. The husband cast one look at his pale wife,
and Faith at him. What polluted wretches would the next glance
show them to each other, shuddering alike at what they disclosed
and what they saw!
“Faith! Faith!” cried the husband. “Look up to Heaven,
and resist the Wicked One!”
Whether Faith obeyed, he knew not. Hardly had he spoken,
when he found himself amid calm night and solitude, listening to
a roar of the wind, which died heavily away through the forest.
He staggered against the rock, and felt it chill and damp, while a
hanging twig, that had been all on fire, besprinkled his cheek
with the coldest dew.
The next morning, young Goodman Brown came slowly into
the street of Salem village, staring around him like a bewildered
man. The good old minister was taking a walk along the graveyard,
to get an appetite for breakfast and meditate his sermon,
and bestowed a blessing, as he passed, on Goodman Brown. He
shrank from the venerable saint, as if to avoid an anathema. Old
Deacon Gookin was at domestic worship, and the holy words of
his prayer were heard through the open window. “What God
doth the wizard pray to?” quoth Goodman Brown. Goody
Cloyse, that excellent old Christian, stood in the early sunshine,
at her own lattice, catechising a little girl, who had brought her
a pint of morning's milk. Goodman Brown snatched away the
child, as from the grasp of the fiend himself. Turning the corner
by the meeting-house, he spied the head of Faith, with the pink
ribbons, gazing anxiously forth, and bursting into such joy at
sight of him, that she skipt along the street, and almost kissed her
husband before the whole village. But Goodman Brown looked
sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without a greeting.
Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest, and only
dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting?
Be it so, if you will. But, alas! it was a dream of evil omen
for young Goodman Brown. A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative,
a distrustful, if not a desperate man, did he become, from the night
of that fearful dream. On the Sabbath-day, when the congregation
were singing a holy psalm, he could not listen, because an
blessed strain. When the minister spoke from the pulpit, with power
and fervid eloquence, and with his hand on the open bible, of the
sacred truths of our religion, and of saint-like lives and triumphant
deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then did Goodman
Brown turn pale, dreading lest the roof should thunder
down upon the grey blasphemer and his hearers. Often, awaking
suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith, and at
morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he
scowled, and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife,
and turned away. And when he had lived long, and was borne
to his grave, a hoary corpse, followed by Faith, an aged woman,
and children and grand-children, a goodly procession, besides
neighbors, not a few, they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone;
for his dying hour was gloom.
| Mosses from an old manse | |