University of Virginia Library

PETER GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE.

`And so, Peter, you won't even consider of the business?'
said Mr. John Brown, buttoning his surtout
over the snug rotundity of his person, and drawing
on his gloves. `You positively refuse to let me have
this crazy old house, and the land under and adjoining,
at the price named?'

`Neither at that, nor treble the sum,' responded
the gaunt, grizzled, and threadbare Peter Goldthwaite.
`The fact is, Mr. Brown, you must find another site
for your brick block, and be content to leave my
estate with the present owner. Next summer, I
intend to put a splendid new mansion over the cellar
of the old house.'

`Pho, Peter!' cried Mr. Brown, as he opened the
kitchen door; `content yourself with building castles
in the air, where house-lots are cheaper than on
earth, to say nothing of the cost of bricks and mortar.
Such foundations are solid enough for your edifices;

while this underneath us is just the thing for mine; and
so we may both be suited. What say you, again?'

`Precisely what I said before, Mr. Brown,' answered
Peter Goldthwaite. `And, as for castles in the
air, mine may not be as magnificent as that sort of
architecture, but perhaps as substantial, Mr. Brown,
as the very respectable brick block with dry-goods
stores, tailors' shops, and banking-rooms on the lower
floor, and lawyers' offices in the second story, which
you are so anxious to substitute.'

`And the cost, Peter, eh?' said Mr. Brown, as
he withdrew, in something of a pet. `That, I suppose,
will be provided for, off-hand, by drawing a
check on Bubble Bank!'

John Brown and Peter Goldthwaite had been jointly
known to the commercial world between twenty and
thirty years before, under the firm of Goldthwaite and
Brown; which copartnership, however, was speedily
dissolved, by the natural incongruity of its constituent
parts. Since that event, John Brown, with exactly
the qualities of a thousand other John Browns, and
by just such plodding methods as they used, had
prospered wonderfully, and become one of the wealthiest
John Browns on earth. Peter Goldthwaite, on the
contrary, after innumerable schemes, which ought to
have collected all the coin and paper currency of
the country into his coffers, was as needy a gentleman
as ever wore a patch upon his elbow. The contrast
between him and his former partner may be
briefly marked: for Brown never reckoned upon
luck, yet always had it; while Peter made luck the

main condition of his projects, and always missed it.
While the means held out, his speculations had been
magnificent, but were chiefly confined, of late years,
to such small business as adventures in the lottery.
Once, he had gone on a gold-gathering expedition,
somewhere to the South, and ingeniously contrived
to empty his pockets more thoroughly than ever;
while others, doubtless, were filling theirs with native
bullion by the handfull. More recently, he had expended
a legacy of a thousand or two of dollars in
purchasing Mexican scrip, and thereby became the
proprietor of a province; which, however, so far as
Peter could find out, was situated where he might have
had an empire for the same money, — in the clouds.
From a search after this valuable real estate, Peter
returned so gaunt and threadbare, that, on reaching
New England, the scarecrows in the corn-fields beckoned
to him, as he passed by. `They did but flutter
in the wind,' quoth Peter Goldthwaite. No, Peter,
they beckoned, for the scarecrows knew their brother!

At the period of our story, his whole visible income
would not have paid the tax of the old mansion in
which we find him. It was one of those rusty, moss-grown,
many-peaked, wooden houses, which are scattered
about the streets of our elder towns, with a
beetle-browed second story projecting over the foundation,
as if it frowned at the novelty around it. This
old paternal edifice, needy as he was, and though,
being centrally situated on the principal street of the
town, it would have brought him a handsome sum,
the sagacious Peter had his own reasons for never

parting with, either by auction or private sale. There
seemed, indeed, to be a fatality that connected him
with his birth-place; for, often as he had stood on
the verge of ruin, and standing there even now, he
had not yet taken the step beyond it, which would
have compelled him to surrender the house to his
creditors. So here he dwelt with bad luck till good
should come.

Here, then, in his kitchen, the only room where a
spark of fire took off the chill of a November evening,
poor Peter Goldthwaite had just been visited by
his rich old partner. At the close of their interview,
Peter, with rather a mortified look, glanced downwards
at his dress, parts of which appeared as ancient
as the days of Goldthwaite and Brown. His
upper garment was a mixed surtout, wofully faded,
and patched with newer stuff on each elbow; beneath
this, he wore a threadbare black coat, some of
the silk buttons of which had been replaced with
others of a different pattern; and, lastly, though he
lacked not a pair of gray pantaloons, they were very
shabby ones, and had been partially turned brown,
by the frequent toasting of Peter's shins before a
scanty fire. Peter's person was in keeping with his
goodly apparel. Gray-headed, hollow-eyed, pale-cheeked,
and lean-bodied, he was the perfect picture
of a man who had fed on windy schemes and empty
hopes, till he could neither live on such unwholesome
trash, nor stomach more substantial food. But, withal,
this Peter Goldthwaite, crack-brained simpleton as,
perhaps, he was, might have cut a very brilliant

figure in the world, had he employed his imagination
in the airy business of poetry, instead of making
it a demon of mischief in mercantile pursuits. After
all, he was no bad fellow, but as harmless as a child,
and as honest and honorable, and as much of the gentleman
which nature meant him for, as an irregular
life and depressed circumstances will permit any
man to be.

As Peter stood on the uneven bricks of his hearth,
looking round at the disconsolate old kitchen, his eyes
began to kindle with the illumination of an enthusiasm
that never long deserted him. He raised his
hand, clenched it, and smote it energetically against
the smoky panel over the fireplace.

`The time is come!' said he. `With such a treasure
at command, it were folly to be a poor man any
longer. To-morrow morning I will begin with the
garret, nor desist till I have torn the house down!'

Deep in the chimney-corner, like a witch in a dark
cavern, sat a little old woman, mending one of the
two pairs of stockings wherewith Peter Goldthwaite
kept his toes from being frost-bitten. As the feet
were ragged past all darning, she had cut pieces
out of a cast-off flannel petticoat, to make new soles.
Tabitha Porter was an old maid, upwards of sixty
years of age, fifty-five of which she had sat in that
same chimney-corner, such being the length of time
since Peter's grandfather had taken her from the
almshouse. She had no friend but Peter, nor Peter
any friend but Tabitha; so long as Peter might have
a shelter for his own head, Tabitha would know

where to shelter hers; or, being homeless elsewhere,
she would take her master by the hand, and bring
him to her native home, the almshouse. Should it
ever be necessary, she loved him well enough to feed
him with her last morsel, and clothe him with her
under-petticoat. But Tabitha was a queer old woman,
and, though never infected with Peter's flightiness,
had become so accustomed to his freaks and
follies, that she viewed them all as matters of course.
Hearing him threaten to tear the house down, she
looked quietly up from her work.

`Best leave the kitchen till the last, Mr. Peter,'
said she.

`The sooner we have it all down the better,' said
Peter Goldthwaite. `I am tired to death of living in
this cold, dark, windy, smoky, creaking, groaning,
dismal old house. I shall feel like a younger man,
when we get into my splendid brick mansion, as,
please Heaven, we shall, by this time next autumn.
You shall have a room on the sunny side, old Tabby,
finished and furnished as best may suit your own
notions.'

`I should like it pretty much such a room as this
kitchen,' answered Tabitha. `It will never be like
home to me, till the chimney-corner gets as black
with smoke as this; and that won't be these hundred
years. How much do you mean to lay out on the
house, Mr. Peter?'

`What is that to the purpose?' exclaimed Peter,
loftily. `Did not my great-grand-uncle, Peter Goldthwaite,
who died seventy years ago, and whose namesake

I am, leave treasure enough to build twenty
such?'

`I can't say but he did, Mr. Peter,' said Tabitha,
threading her needle.

Tabitha well understood, that Peter had reference
to an immense hoard of the precious metals, which
was said to exist somewhere in the cellar or walls, or
under the floors, or in some concealed closet, or
other out-of-the-way nook, of the old house. This
wealth, according to tradition, had been accumlated
by a former Peter Goldthwaite, whose character seems
to have borne a remarkable similitude to that of the
Peter of our story. Like him, he was a wild projector,
seeking to heap up gold by the bushel and the
cart-load, instead of scraping it together, coin by
coin. Like Peter the second, too, his projects had
almost invariably failed, and, but for the magnificent
success of the final one, would have left him with
hardly a coat and pair of breeches to his gaunt and
grizzled person. Reports were various, as to the
nature of his fortunate speculation; one intimating,
that the ancient Peter had made the gold by alchymy;
another, that he had conjured it out of people's
pockets by the black art; and a third, still more unaccountable,
that the devil had given him free access
to the old provincial treasury. It was affirmed, however,
that some secret impediment had debarred him
from the enjoyment of his riches, and that he had a
motive for concealing them from his heir, or, at any
rate, had died without disclosing the place of deposit.
The present Peter's father had faith enough in the

story to cause the cellar to be dug over. Peter himself
chose to consider the legend as an indisputable
truth, and, amid his many troubles, had this one consolation,
that, should all other resources fail, he
might build up his fortunes by tearing his house
down. Yet, unless he felt a lurking distrust of the
golden tale, it is difficult to account for his permitting
the paternal roof to stand so long, since he had never
yet seen the moment, when his predecessor's treasure
would not have found plenty of room in his own
strong box. But, now was the crisis. Should he delay
the search a little longer, the house would pass
from the lineal heir, and with it the vast heap of
gold, to remain in its burial-place, till the ruin of the
aged walls should discover it to strangers of a future
generation.

`Yes!' cried Peter Goldthwaite, again; `to-morrow
I will set about it.'

The deeper he looked at the matter, the more certain
of success grew Peter. His spirits were naturally
so elastic, that, even now, in the blasted autumn
of his age, he could often compete with the
spring-time gayety of other people. Enlivened by
his brightening prospects, he began to caper about
the kitchen like a hobgoblin, with the queerest antics
of his lean limbs, and gesticulations of his starved
features. Nay, in the exuberance of his feelings, he
seized both of Tabitha's hands, and danced the old
lady across the floor, till the oddity of her rheumatic
motions set him into a roar of laughter, which was
echoed back from the rooms and chambers, as if Peter

Goldthwaite were laughing in every one. Finally,
he bounded upward, almost out of sight, into the
smoke that clouded the roof of the kitchen, and,
alighting safely on the floor again, endeavored to resume
his customary gravity.

`To-morrow, at sunrise,' he repeated, taking his
lamp, to retire to bed, `I'll see whether this treasure
be hid in the wall of the garret.'

`And, as we're out of wood, Mr. Peter,' said
Tabitha, puffing and panting with her late gymnastics,
`as fast as you tear the house down, I'll make a
fire with the pieces.'

Gorgeous, that night, were the dreams of Peter
Goldthwaite! At one time, he was turning a ponderous
key in an iron door, not unlike the door of a
sepulchre, but which, being opened, disclosed a vault,
heaped up with gold coin, as plentifully as golden
corn in a granary. There were chased goblets, also,
and tureens, salvers, dinner-dishes, and dish-covers,
of gold, or silver-gilt, besides chains and other jewels,
incalculably rich, though tarnished with the damps of
the vault; for, of all the wealth that was irrevocably
lost to man, whether buried in the earth, or sunken in
the sea, Peter Goldthwaite had found it in this one
treasure-place. Anon, he had returned to the old
house, as poor as ever, and was received at the door,
by the gaunt and grizzled figure of a man, whom he
might have mistaken for himself, only that his garments
were of a much elder fashion. But the house,
without losing its former aspect, had been changed
into a palace of the precious metals. The floors,

walls, and ceilings, were of burnished silver; the
doors, the window-frames, the cornices, the balustrades,
and the steps of the staircase, of pure gold;
and silver, with gold bottoms, were the chairs, and
gold, standing on silver legs, the high chests of
drawers, and silver the bedsteads, with blankets of
woven gold, and sheets of silver tissue. The house
had evidently been transmuted by a single touch;
for it retained all the marks that Peter remembered,
but in gold or silver, instead of wood; and the initials
of his name, which, when a boy, he had cut in the
wooden door-post, remained as deep in the pillar of
gold. A happy man would have been Peter Goldthwaite,
except for a certain ocular deception, which,
whenever he glanced backward, caused the house to
darken from its glittering magnificence into the sordid
gloom of yesterday.

Up, betimes, rose Peter, seized an axe, hammer,
and saw, which he had placed by his bedside, and
hied him to the garret. It was but scantily lighted
up, as yet, by the frosty fragments of a sunbeam,
which began to glimmer through the almost opaqe
bull's eyes of the window. A moralizer might find
abundant themes for his speculative and impracticable
wisdom, in a garret. There is the limbo of
departed fashions, aged trifles of a day, and whatever
was valuable only to one generation of men, and
which passed to the garret when that generation
passed to the grave, not for safe keeping, but to be
out of the way. Peter saw piles of yellow and musty
account-books, in parchment covers, wherein creditors,

long dead and buried, had written the names of
dead and buried debtors, in ink now so faded, that
their moss-grown tombstones were more legible. He
found old, moth-eaten garments, all in rags and tatters,
or Peter would have put them on. Here was a
naked and rusty sword, not a sword of service, but a
gentleman's small French rapier, which had never left
its scabbard till it lost it. Here were canes of twenty
different sorts, but no gold-headed ones, and shoe-buckles
of various pattern and material, but not
silver, nor set with precious stones. Here was a
large box full of [shoes, with high heels and peaked
toes. Here, on a shelf, were a multitude of phials,
half filled with old apothecary's stuff, which, when
the other half had done its business on Peter's ancestors,
had been brought hither from the death-chamber.
Here, — not to give a longer inventory of articles
that will never be put up at auction, — was the
fragment of a full-length looking-glass, which, by the
dust and dimness of its surface, made the picture of
these old things look older than the reality. When
Peter, not knowing that there was a mirror there,
caught the faint traces of his own figure, he partly
imagined that the former Peter Goldthwaite had come
back, either to assist or impede his search for the
hidden wealth. And at that moment a strange notion
glimmered through his brain, that he was the
identical Peter who had concealed the gold, and
ought to know whereabout it lay. This, however
he had unaccountably forgotten.

`Well, Mr. Peter!' cried Tabitha, on the garret

stairs. `Have you torn the house down enough to
heat the tea-kettle?'

`Not yet, old Tabby,' answered Peter; `but that's
soon done, — as you shall see.'

With the word in his mouth, he uplifted the axe,
and laid about him so vigorously, that the dust flew,
the boards crashed, and, in a twinkling, the old woman
had an apron full of broken rubbish.

`We shall get our winter's wood cheap,' quoth
Tabitha.

The good work being thus commenced, Peter beat
down all before him, smiting and hewing at the
joists and timbers, unclenching spike-nails, ripping
and tearing away boards, with a tremendous racket,
from morning till night. He took care, however, to
leave the outside shell of the house untouched, so
that the neighbors might not suspect what was going
on.

Never, in any of his vagaries, though each had
made him happy while it lasted, had Peter been happier
than now. Perhaps, after all, there was something
in Peter Goldthwaite's turn of mind, which
brought him an inward recompense for all the external
evil that it caused. If he were poor, ill clad,
even hungry, and exposed, as it were, to be utterly
annihilated by a precipice of impending ruin, yet
only his body remained in these miserable circumstances,
while his aspiring soul enjoyed the sunshine
of a bright futurity. It was his nature to be always
young, and the tendency of his mode of life to keep
him so. Gray hairs were nothing, no, nor wrinkles,

nor infirmity; he might look old, indeed, and be
somewhat disagreeably connected with a gaunt old
figure, much the worse for wear; but the true, the
essential Peter, was a young man of high hopes, just
entering on the world. At the kindling of each new
fire, his burnt-out youth rose afresh from the old embers
and ashes. It rose exulting now. Having lived
thus long, — not too long, but just to the right age, —
a susceptible bachelor, with warm and tender dreams,
he resolved, so soon as the hidden gold should flash
to light, to go a wooing, and win the love of the fairest
maid in town. What heart could resist him?
Happy Peter Goldthwaite!

Every evening, — as Peter had long absented himself
from his former lounging-places, at insurance
offices, news-rooms, and bookstores, and as the honor
of his company was seldom requested in private circles,
— he and Tabitha used to sit down sociably by
the kitchen hearth. This was always heaped plentifully
with the rubbish of his day's labor. As the
foundation of the fire, there would be a goodly sized
backlog of red oak, which, after being sheltered from
rain or damp above a century, still hissed with the
heat, and distilled streams of water from each end,
as if the tree had been cut down within a week or
two. Next, there were large sticks, sound, black and
heavy, which had lost the principle of decay, and
were indestructible except by fire, wherein they
glowed like red-hot bars of iron. On this solid basis,
Tabitha would rear a lighter structure, composed of
the splinters of door-panels, ornamented mouldings,

and such quick combustibles, which caught like straw,
and threw a brilliant blaze high up the spacious flue,
making its sooty sides visible almost to the chimney-top.
Meantime, the gloom of the old kitchen would
be chased out of the cob-wehhed corners, and away
from the dusky cross-beams overhead, and driven
nobody could tell whither, while Peter smiled like a
gladsome man, and Tabitha seemed a picture of
comfortable age. All this, of course, was but an emblem
of the bright fortune, which the destruction of
the house would shed upon its occupants.

While the dry pine was flaming and crackling,
like an irregular discharge of fairy musketry, Peter
sat looking and listening, in a pleasant state of excitement.
But, when the brief blaze and uproar
were succeeded by the dark red glow, the substantial
heat, and the deep singing sound, which were to last
throughout the evening, his humor became talkative.
One night, the hundredth time, he teased Tabitha to
tell him something new about his great-grand-uncle.

`You have been sitting in that chimney-corner fifty-five
years, old Tabby, and must have heard many a
tradition about him,' said Peter. `Did not you tell
me, that, when you first came to the house, there
was an old woman sitting where you sit now, who
had been housekeeper to the famous Peter Goldthwaite?'

`So there was, Mr. Peter,' answered Tabitha; `and
she was near about a hundred years old. She used
to say, that she and old Peter Goldthwaite had often
spent a sociable evening by the kitchen fire, — pretty
much as you and I are doing now, Mr. Peter.'

`The old fellow must have resembled me in more
points than one,' said Peter, complacently, `or he
never would have grown so rich. But, methinks, he
might have invested the money better than he did, —
no interest! — nothing but good security! — and the
house to be torn down to come at it! What made
him hide it so snug, Tabby?'

`Because he could not spend it,' said Tabitha; `for,
as often as he went to unlock the chest, the Old
Scratch came behind and caught his arm. The
money, they say, was paid Peter out of his purse;
and he wanted Peter to give him a deed of this house
and land, which Peter swore he would not do.'

`Just as I swore to John Brown, my old partner,
remarked Peter. `But this is all nonsense, Tabby!
I don't believe the story.'

`Well, it may not be just the truth,' said Tabitha;
`for some folks say, that Peter did make over the
house to the Old Scratch; and that's the reason it
has always been so unlucky to them that lived in it.
And as soon as Peter had given him the deed, the
chest flew open, and Peter caught up a handful of
the gold. But, lo and behold! — there was nothing
in his fist but a parcel of old rags.'

`Hold your tongue, you silly old Tabby!' cried
Peter, in great wrath. `They were as good golden
guineas as ever bore the effigies of the king of England.
It seems as if I could recollect the whole circumstance,
and how I, or old Peter, or whoever it
was, thrust in my hand, or his hand, and drew it out,
all of a blaze with gold. Old rags, indeed!'

But it was not an old woman's legend that would
discourage Peter Goldthwaite. All night long, he slept
among pleasant dreams, and awoke at daylight with
a joyous throb of the heart, which few are fortunate
enough to feel, beyond their boyhood. Day after
day, he labored hard, without wasting a moment, except
at meal times, when Tabitha summoned him to
the pork and cabbage, or such other sustenance as
she had picked up, or Providence had sent them.
Being a truly pious man, Peter never failed to ask a
blessing; if the food were none of the best, then
so much the more earnestly, as it was more needed;
— nor to return thanks, if the dinner had been scanty,
yet for the good appetite, which was better than a sick
stomach at a feast. Then did he hurry back to his
toil, and, in a moment, was lost to sight in a cloud of
dust from the old walls, though sufficiently perceptible
to the car, by the clatter which he raised in the
midst of it. How enviable is the consciousness of
being usefully employed! Nothing troubled Peter;
or nothing but those phantoms of the mind, which
seem like vague recollections, yet have also the
aspect of presentiments. He often paused, with his
axe uplifted in the air, and said to himself, — `Peter
Goldthwaite, did you never strike this blow before?'
— or — `Peter, what need of tearing the whole house
down? Think, a little while, and you will remember
where the gold is hidden.' Days and weeks
passed on, however, without any remarkable discovery.
Sometimes, indeed, a lean, gray rat peeped
forth at the lean, gray man, wondering what devil

had got into the old house, which had always been
so peaceable till now. And, occasionally, Peter sympathized
with the sorrows of a female mouse, who
had brought five or six pretty, little, soft, and delicate
young ones into the world, just in time to
see them crushed by its ruin. But, as yet, no
treasure!

By this time, Peter, being as determined as Fate,
and as diligent as Time, had made an end with the
uppermost regions, and got down to the second story,
where he was busy in one of the front chambers. It
had formerly been the state bedchamber, and was
honored by tradition as the sleeping apartment of
Governor Dudley, and many other eminent guests.
The furniture was gone. There were remnants of
faded and tattered paper-hangings, but larger spaces
of bare wall, ornamented with charcoal sketches,
chiefly of people's heads in profile. These being
specimens of Peter's youthful genius, it went more
to his heart to obliterate them, than if they had been
pictures on a church wall by Michael Angelo. One
sketch, however, and that the best one, affected him
differently. It represented a ragged man, partly supporting
himself on a spade, and bending his lean
body over a hole in the earth, with one hand extended
to grasp something that he had found. But,
close behind him, with a fiendish laugh on his features,
appeared a figure with horns, a tufted tail, and
a cloven hoof.

`Avaunt, Satan!' cried Peter. `The man shall
have his gold!'

Uplifting his axe, he hit the horned gentleman such
a blow on the head, as not only demolished him, but
the treasure-seeker also, and caused the whole scene
to vanish like magic. Moreover, his axe broke quite
through the plaster and laths, and discovered a cavity.

`Mercy on us, Mr. Peter, are you quarreling with
the Old Scratch?' said Tabitha, who was seeking
some fuel to put under the dinner pot.

Without answering the old woman, Peter broke
down a further space of the wall, and laid open a
small closet or cupboard, on one side of the fireplace,
about breast-high from the ground. It contained
nothing but a brass lamp, covered with verdigris, and
a dusty piece of parchment. While Peter inspected
the latter, Tabitha seized the lamp, and began to rub
it with her apron.

`There is no use in rubbing it, Tabitha,' said Peter.
`It is not Aladdin's lamp, though I take it to be a
token of as much luck. Look here, Tabby!'

Tabitha took the parchment, and held it close to
her nose, which was saddled with a pair of iron-bound
spectacles. But no sooner had she begun to puzzle
over it, than she burst into a chuckling laugh, holding
both her hands against her sides.

`You can't make a fool of the old woman!' cried
she. `This is your own handwriting, Mr. Peter! the
same as in the letter you sent me from Mexico.'

`There is certainly a considerable resemblance,'
said Peter, again examining the parchment. `But
you know yourself, Tabby, that this closet must have
been plastered up before you came to the house, or I

came into the world. No; this is old Peter Goldthwaite's
writing; these columns of pounds, shillings,
and pence, are his figures, denoting the amount of
the treasure; and this, at the bottom, is, doubtless, a
reference to the place of concealment. But the ink
has either faded or peeled off, so that it is absolutely
illegible. What a pity!'

`Well; this lamp is as good as new. That's
some comfort,' said Tabitha.

`A lamp!' thought Peter. `That indicates light
on my researches.'

For the present, Peter felt more inclined to ponder
on this discovery, than to resume his labors. After
Tabitha had gone down stairs, he stood poring over
the parchment, at one of the front windows, which
was so obscured with dust, that the sun could barely
throw an uncertain shadow of the casement across
the floor. Peter forced it open, and looked out upon
the great street of the town, while the sun looked in
at his old house. The air, though mild, and even
warm, thrilled Peter, as with a dash of water.

It was the first day of the January thaw. The
snow lay deep upon the house-tops, but was rapidly
dissolving into millions of water-drops, which sparkled
downwards through the sunshine, with the noise of a
summer shower beneath the eaves. Along the street,
the trodden snow was as hard and solid as a pavement
of white marble, and had not yet grown moist,
in the spring-like temperature. But, when Peter
thrust forth his head, he saw that the inhabitants, if
not the town, were already thawed out by this warm

day, after two or three weeks of winter weather. It
gladdened him, — a gladness with a sigh breathing
through it, — to see the stream of ladies, gliding
along the slippery side-walks, with their red cheeks
set off by quilted hoods, boas, and sable capes, like
roses amidst a new kind of foliage. The sleigh-bells
jingled to and fro continually, sometimes announcing
the arrival of a sleigh from Vermont, laden with the
frozen bodies of porkers, or sheep, and perhaps a
deer or two; sometimes, of a regular market-man,
with chickens, geese, and turkeys, comprising the
whole colony of a barn-yard; and sometimes, of a
farmer and his dame, who had come to town partly
for the ride, partly to go a shopping, and partly for
the sale of some eggs and butter. This couple rode
in an old-fashioned square sleigh, which had served
them twenty winters, and stood twenty summers in
the sun, beside their door. Now, a gentleman and
lady skimmed the snow, in an elegant car, shaped
somewhat like a cockle-shell. Now, a stage-sleigh,
with its cloth curtains thrust aside to admit the sun,
dashed rapidly down the street, whirling in and out
among the vehicles that obstructed its passage. Now
came, round a corner, the similitude of Noah's ark,
on runners, being an immense open sleigh, with
seats for fifty people, and drawn by a dozen horses.
This spacious receptacle was populous with merry
maids and merry bachelors, merry girls and boys,
and merry old folks, all alive with fun, and grinning
to the full width of their mouths. They kept
up a buzz of babbling voices and low laughter, and
sometimes burst into a deep, joyous shout, which the
spectators answered with three cheers, while a gang
of roguish boys let drive their snowballs right among
the pleasure-party. The sleigh passed on, and, when
concealed by a bend of the street, was still audible
by a distant cry of merriment.

Never had Peter beheld a livelier scene than was
constituted by all these accessories: the bright sun;
the flashing water-drops; the gleaming snow; the
cheerful multitude; the variety of rapid vehicles;
and the jingle-jangle of merry bells, which made the
heart dance to their music. Nothing dismal was to
be seen, except that peaked piece of antiquity, Peter
Goldthwaite's house, which might well look sad externally,
since such a terrible consumption was preying
on its insides. And Peter's gaunt figure, half visible
in the projecting second story, was worthy of his
house.

`Peter! How goes it, friend Peter?' cried a voice
across the street, as Peter was drawing in his head.
`Look out here, Peter!'

Peter looked, and saw his old partner, Mr. John
Brown, on the opposite side-walk, portly and comfortable,
with his furred cloak thrown open, disclosing
a handsome surtout beneath. His voice had directed
the attention of the whole town to Peter Goldthwaite's
window, and to the dusty scarecrow which appeared
at it.

`I say, Peter,' cried Mr. Brown again, `what the
devil are you about there, that I hear such a racket,
whenever I pass by? You are repairing the old

house, I suppose, — making a new one of it, —
eh?'

`Too late for that, I am afraid, Mr. Brown,' replied
Peter. `If I make it new, it will be new inside
and out, from the cellar upwards.'

`Had not you better let me take the job?' said
Mr. Brown, significantly.

`Not yet!' answered Peter, hastily shutting the
window; for, ever since he had been in search of
the treasure, he hated to have people stare at him.

As he drew back, ashamed of his outward poverty,
yet proud of the secret wealth within his grasp, a
haughty smile shone out on Peter's visage, with precisely
the effect of the dim sunbeams in the squalid
chamber. He endeavored to assume such a mien as
his ancestor had probably worn, when he gloried in
the building of a strong house for a home to many
generations of his posterity. But the chamber was
very dark to his snow-dazzled eyes, and very dismal
too, in contrast with the living scene that he had just
looked upon. His brief glimpse into the street had
given him a forcible impression of the manner in
which the world kept itself cheerful and prosperous,
by social pleasures and an intercourse of business,
while he, in seclusion, was pursuing an object that
might possibly be a phantasm, by a method which
most people would call madness. It is one great
advantage of a gregarious mode of life, that each
person rectifies his mind by other minds, and squares
his conduct to that of his neighbors, so as seldom to
be lost in eccentricity. Peter Goldthwaite had exposed

himself to this influence, by merely looking out of
the window. For a while, he doubted whether there
were any hidden chest of gold, and, in that case,
whether it was so exceedingly wise to tear the house
down, only to be convinced of its non-existence.

But this was momentary. Peter, the Destroyer,
resumed the task which fate had assigned him, nor
faltered again, till it was accomplished. In the course
of his search, he met with many things that are usually
found in the ruins of an old house, and also with
some that are not. What seemed most to the purpose,
was a rusty key, which had been thrust into a
chink of the wall, with a wooden label appended to
the handle, bearing the initials, P. G. Another singular
discovery was that of a bottle of wine, walled
up in an old oven. A tradition ran in the family, that
Peter's grandfather, a jovial officer in the old French
war, had set aside many dozens of the precious
liquor, for the benefit of topers then unborn. Peter
needed no cordial to sustain his hopes, and therefore
kept the wine to gladden his success. Many halfpence
did he pick up, that had been lost through the
cracks of the floor, and some few Spanish coins, and
the half of a broken sixpence, which had doubtless
been a love-token. There was likewise a silver coronation
medal of George the Third. But, old Peter
Golthwaite's strong box fled from one dark corner to
another, or otherwise eluded the second Peter's
clutches, till, should he seek much further, he must
burrow into the earth.

We will not follow him in his triumphant progress,

step by step. Suffice it, that Peter worked like a
steam engine, and finished, in that one winter, the
job, which all the former inhabitants of the house,
with time and the elements to aid them, had only half
done in a century. Except the kitchen, every room
and chamber was now gutted. The house was nothing
but a shell, — the apparition of a house, — as
unreal as the painted edifices of a theatre. It was
like the perfect rind of a great cheese, in which a
mouse had dwelt and nibbled, till it was a cheese no
more. And Peter was the mouse.

What Peter had torn down, Tabitha had burnt up:
for she wisely considered, that, without a house, they
should need no wood to warm it; and therefore economy
was nonsense. Thus the whole house might be
said to have dissolved in smoke, and flown up among
the clouds, through the great black flue of the kitchen
chimney. It was an admirable parallel to the feat of
the man who jumped down his own throat.

On the night between the last day of winter and
the first of spring, every chink and cranny had been
ransacked, except within the precincts of the kitchen.
This fated evening was an ugly one. A snow-storm
had set in some hours before, and was still driven and
tossed about the atmosphere by a real hurricane,
which fought against the house, as if the prince of the
air, in person, were putting the final stroke to Peter's
labors. The framework being so much weakened,
and the inward props removed, it would have been no
marvel, if, in some stronger wrestle of the blast, the
rotten walls of the edifice, and all the peaked roofs,

had come crashing down upon the owner's head.
He, however, was careless of the peril, but as wild
and restless as the night itself, or as the flame that
quivered up the chimney, at each roar of the tempestuous
wind.

`The wine, Tabitha!' he cried. `My grandfather's
rich old wine! We will drink it now!'

Tabitha arose from her smoke-blackened bench in
the chimney-corner, and placed the bottle before Peter,
close beside the old brass lamp, which had likewise
been the prize of his researches. Peter held it before
his eyes, and looking through the liquid medium,
beheld the kitchen illuminated with a golden glory,
which also enveloped Tabitha, and gilded her silver
hair, and converted her mean garments into robes of
queenly splendor. It reminded him of his golden
dream.

`Mr. Peter,' remarked Tabitha `must the wine be
drunk before the money is found?'

`The money is found!' exclaimed Peter, with a
sort of fierceness. `The chest is within my reach.
I will not sleep, till I have turned this key in the rusty
lock. But, first of all, let us drink!'

There being no corkscrew in the house, he smote
the neck of the bottle with old Peter Goldthwaite's
rusty key, and decapitated the sealed cork at a single
blow. He then filled two little china teacups, which
Tabitha had brought from the cupboard. So clear
and brilliant was this aged wine, that it shone within
the cups, and rendered the sprig of scarlet flowers,
at the bottom of each, more distinctly visible, than

when there had been no wine there. Its rich and
delicate perfume wasted itself round the kitchen.

`Drink, Tabitha!' cried Peter. `Blessings on the
honest old fellow, who set aside this good liquor for
you and me! And here's to Peter Goldthwaite's
memory!'

`And good cause have we to remember him,' quoth
Tabitha, as she drank.

How many years, and through what changes of
fortune, and various calamity, had that bottle hoarded
up its effervescent joy, to be quaffed at last by two
such boon companions! A portion of the happiness
of a former age had been kept for them, and was
now set free, in a crowd of rejoicing visions, to sport
amid the storm and desolation of the present time.
Until they have finished the bottle, we must turn our
eyes elsewhere.

It so chanced, that, on this stormy night, Mr. John
Brown found himself ill at ease, in his wire-cushioned
arm-chair, by the glowing grate of anthracite, which
heated his handsome parlor. He was naturally a
good sort of a man, and kind and pitiful, whenever
the misfortunes of others happened to reach his heart
through the padded vest of his own prosperity. This
evening, he had thought much about his old partner,
Peter Goldthwaite, his strange vagaries, and continual
ill luck, the poverty of his dwelling, at Mr.
Brown's last visit, and Peter's crazed and haggard aspect,
when he had talked with him at the window.

`Poor fellow!' thought Mr. John Brown. `Poor,
crackbrained Peter Goldthwaite! For old acquaintance'

sake, I ought to have taken care that he was
comfortable, this rough winter.'

These feelings grew so powerful, that, in spite of
the inclement weather, he resolved to visit Peter
Goldthwaite immediately. The strength of the impulse
was really singular. Every shriek of the blast
seemed a summons, or would have seemed so, had
Mr. Brown been accustomed to hear the echoes of
his own fancy in the wind. Much amazed at such
active benevolence, he huddled himself in his cloak,
muffled his throat and ears in comforters and handkerchiefs,
and thus fortified, bade defiance to the tempest.
But, the powers of the air had rather the best
of the battle. Mr. Brown was just weathering the
corner, by Peter Goldthwaite's house, when the hurricane
caught him off his feet, tossed him face downward
into a snow-bank, and proceeded to bury his
protuberant part beneath fresh drifts. There seemed
little hope of his reappearance, earlier than the next
thaw. At the same moment, his hat was snatched
away, and whirled aloft into some far distant region,
whence no tidings have as yet returned.

Nevertheless Mr. Brown contrived to burrow a passage
through the snow-drift, and, with his bare head
bent against the storm, floundered onward to Peter's
door. There was such a creaking, and groaning, and
rattling, and such an ominous shaking throughout the
crazy edifice, that the loudest rap would have been
inaudible to those within. He therefore entered,
without ceremony, and groped his way to the kitchen.

His intrusion, even there, was unnoticed. Peter

and Tabitha stood with their backs to the door, stooping
over a large chest, which, apparently, they had
just dragged from a cavity, or concealed closet, on
the left side of the chimney. By the lamp in the old
woman's hand, Mr. Brown saw that the chest was
barred and clamped with iron, strengthened with iron
plates, and studded with iron nails, so as to be a fit
receptacle in which the wealth of one century might
be hoarded up for the wants of another. Peter Goldthwaite
was inserting a key into the lock.

`Oh, Tabitha!' cried he, with tremulous rapture,
`how shall I endure the effulgence? The gold! —
the bright, bright gold! Methinks I can remember
my last glance at it, just as the iron-plated lid fell
down. And ever since, being seventy years, it has
been blazing in secret, and gathering its splendor
against this glorious moment! It will flash upon us
like the noon-day sun!'

`Then shade your eyes, Mr. Peter!' said Tabitha,
with somewhat less patience than usual. `But, for
mercy's sake, do turn the key!'

And, with a strong effort of both hands, Peter did
force the rusty key through the intricacies of the
rusty lock. Mr. Brown, in the mean time, had drawn
near, and thrust his eager visage between those of
the other two, at the instant that Peter threw up the
lid. No sudden blaze illuminated the kitchen.

`What 's here?' exclaimed Tabitha, adjusting her
spectacles, and holding the lamp over the open chest.
`Old Peter Goldthwaite's hoard of old rags."

`Pretty much so, Tabby,' said Mr. Brown, lifting
a handful of the treasure.

Oh, what a ghost of dead and buried wealth had
Peter Goldthwaite raised, to scare himself out of his
scanty wits withal! Here was the semblance of an
incalculable sum, enough to purchase the whole town,
and build every street anew, but which, vast as it was,
no sane man would have given a solid sixpence for.
What then, in sober earnest, were the delusive treasures
of the chest? Why, here were old provincial
bills of credit, and treasury notes, and bills of land-banks,
and all other bubbles of the sort, from the first
issue, above a century and a half ago, down nearly
to the Revolution. Bills of a thousand pounds were
intermixed with parchment pennies, and worth no
more than they.

`And this, then, is old Peter Goldthwaite's treasure!'
said John Brown. `Your namesake, Peter,
was something like yourself; and, when the provincial
currency had depreciated fifty or seventy-five per
cent., he bought it up, in expectation of a rise. I
have heard my grandfather say, that old Peter gave
his father a mortgage of this very house and land, to
raise cash for his silly project. But the currency kept
sinking, till nobody would take it as a gift; and there
was old Peter Goldthwaite, like Peter the second,
with thousands in his strong-box, and hardly a coat to
his back. He went mad upon the strength of it.
But, never mind, Peter! It is just the sort of capital
for building castles in the air.'

`The house will be down about our ears!' cried
Tabitha, as the wind shook it with increasing violence.

`Let it fall!' said Peter, folding his arms, as he
seated himself upon the chest.

`No, no, my old friend Peter,' said John Brown.
`I have house-room for you and Tabby, and a safe
vault for the chest of treasure. To-morrow we will
try to come to an agreement about the sale of this
old house. Real estate is well up, and I could afford
you a pretty handsome price.'

`And I,' observed Peter Goldthwaite, with reviving
spirits, `have a plan for laying out the cash to great
advantage.'

`Why, as to that,' muttered John Brown to himself,
`we must apply to the next court for a guardian
to take care of the solid cash; and if Peter insists
upon speculating, he may do it, to his heart's content,
with old Peter Goldthwaite's Treasure.'