University of Virginia Library

15. XV.
THE SCOWL AND SMILE.

Several days passed over the seven gables, heavily and
drearily enough. In fact (not to attribute the whole gloom
of sky and earth to the one inauspicious circumstance of
Phœbe's departure), an easterly storm had set in, and indefatigably
applied itself to the task of making the black roof
and walls of the old house look more cheerless than ever
before. Yet was the outside not half so cheerless as the
interior. Poor Clifford was cut off, at once, from all his
scanty resources of enjoyment. Phœbe was not there; nor
did the sunshine fall upon the floor. The garden, with its
muddy walks, and the chill, dripping foliage of its summer-house,
was an image to be shuddered at. Nothing flourished
in the cold, moist, pitiless atmosphere, drifting with
the brackish scud of sea-breezes, except the moss along the
joints of the shingle-roof, and the great bunch of weeds, that
had lately been suffering from drought, in the angle between
the two front gables.

As for Hepzibah, she seemed not merely possessed with
the east wind, but to be, in her very person, only another
phase of this gray and sullen spell of weather; the east
wind itself, grim and disconsolate, in a rusty black silk
gown, and with a turban of cloud-wreaths on its head.
The custom of the shop fell off because a story got abroad
that she soured her small beer and other damageable commodities,
by scowling on them. It is, perhaps, true that the
public had something reasonably to complain of in her deportment;

but towards Clifford she was neither ill-tempered
nor unkind, nor felt less warmth of heart than always, had
it been possible to make it reach him. The inutility of her
best efforts, however, palsied the poor old gentlewoman. She
could do little else than sit silently in a corner of the room,
when the wet pear-tree branches, sweeping across the small
windows, created a noon-day dusk, which Hepzibah unconsciously
darkened with her woe-begone aspect. It was no
fault of Hepzibah's. Everything — even the old chairs and
tables, that had known what weather was for three or four
such lifetimes as her own — looked as damp and chill as if
the present were their worst experience. The picture of the
Puritan colonel shivered on the wall. The house itself
shivered, from every attic of its seven gables, down to the
great kitchen fireplace, which served all the better as an
emblem of the mansion's heart, because, though built for
warmth, it was now so comfortless and empty.

Hepzibah attempted to enliven matters by a fire in the
parlor. But the storm-demon kept watch above, and, whenever
a flame was kindled, drove the smoke back again,
choking the chimney's sooty throat with its own breath.
Nevertheless, during four days of this miserable storm,
Clifford wrapt himself in an old cloak, and occupied his customary
chair. On the morning of the fifth, when summoned
to breakfast, he responded only by a broken-hearted
murmur, expressive of a determination not to leave his bed.
His sister made no attempt to change his purpose. In fact,
entirely as she loved him, Hepzibah could hardly have
borne any longer the wretched duty — so impracticable by
her few and rigid faculties — of seeking pastime for a still
sensitive, but ruined mind, critical and fastidious, without
force or volition. It was, at least, something short of positive
despair, that, to-day, she might sit shivering alone, and

not suffer continually a new grief, and unreasonable pang of
remorse, at every fitful sigh of her fellow-sufferer.

But Clifford, it seemed, though he did not make his
appearance below stairs, had, after all, bestirred himself in
quest of amusement. In the course of the forenoon, Hepzibah
heard a note of music, which (there being no other tuneful
contrivance in the House of the Seven Gables) she knew
must proceed from Alice Pyncheon's harpsichord. She was
aware that Clifford, in his youth, had possessed a cultivated
taste for music, and a considerable degree of skill in its practice.
It was difficult, however, to conceive of his retaining
an accomplishment to which daily exercise is so essential, in
the measure indicated by the sweet, airy, and delicate,
though most melancholy strain, that now stole upon her
ear. Nor was it less marvellous that the long-silent instrument
should be capable of so much melody. Hepzibah
involuntarily thought of the ghostly harmonies, prelusive of
death in the family, which were attributed to the legendary
Alice. But it was, perhaps, proof of the agency of other
than spiritual fingers, that, after a few touches, the chords
seemed to snap asunder with their own vibrations, and the
music ceased.

But a harsher sound succeeded to the mysterious notes;
nor was the easterly day fated to pass without an event
sufficient in itself to poison, for Hepzibah and Clifford, the
balmiest air that ever brought the humming-birds along with
it. The final echoes of Alice Pyncheon's performance (or
Clifford's, if his we must consider it) were driven away by
no less vulgar a dissonance than the ringing of the shop-bell.
A foot was heard scraping itself on the threshold, and
thence somewhat ponderously stepping on the floor. Hepzibah
delayed a moment, while muffling herself in a faded
shawl, which had been her defensive armor in a forty years'

warfare against the east wind. A characteristic sound,
however, — neither a cough nor a hem, but a kind of rumbling
and reverberating spasm in somebody's capacious
depth of chest, — impelled her to hurry forward, with that
aspect of fierce faint-heartedness so common to women in
cases of perilous emergency. Few of her sex, on such occasions,
have ever looked so terrible as our poor scowling
Hepzibah. But the visiter quietly closed the shop-door 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.

Hepzibah's 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 err, — in all affection and kindness, no doubt,
and with the very best intentions, — but 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
society, — the 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 Hepzibah, — and
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 long-continued 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 sister, — if, for your never-ending sorrow, as
it has been for mine, you had known what I did, — have
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
constituted, — so unfortunate, let us pronounce him, and
forbear to say, so guilty, — that 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
yourself, — and you not more than I) who has shed so many
tears for Clifford's 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 Clifford's!
— try Jaffrey Pyncheon, and you shall find him
true, to the heart's core!”

“In the name of Heaven,” cried Hepzibah, provoked only
to intenser indignation by this out-gush of the inestimable
tenderness of a stern nature, — “in God's name, whom you
insult, and whose power I could almost question, since he
hears you utter so many false words, without palsying your
tongue, — give 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 woman's decency! It will drive me mad! Forbear!
Not another word! It will make me spurn you!”

For once, Hepzibah's wrath had given her courage. She
had spoken. But, after all, was this unconquerable distrust
of Judge Pyncheon's integrity, and this utter denial, apparently,
of his claim to stand in the ring of human sympathies,
— were they founded in any just perception of his
character, or merely the offspring of a woman's 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 individual
— except Hepzibah, and some lawless mystic, like
the daguerreotypist, and, possibly, a few political opponents
— who would have dreamed of seriously disputing
his claim to a high and honorable place in the world's
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 man's integrity, — his conscience,
unless it might be for the little space of five minutes
in the twenty-four hours, or, now and then, some black day
in the whole year's circle, — his conscience bore an accordant
testimony with the world's 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
mankind, — forgotten by himself, or buried so deeply under
a sculptured and ornamented pile of ostentatious deeds that
his daily life could take no note of it, — there 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 blood-stain 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
man's character, or the man himself. Behold, therefore, a
palace! Its splendid halls, and suites of spacious apartments,
are floored with a mosaic-work of costly marbles; its
windows, the whole height of each room, admit the sunshine
through the most transparent of plate-glass; its high
cornices are gilded, and its ceilings gorgeously painted; and
a lofty dome — through which, from the central pavement,
you may gaze up to the sky, as with no obstructing medium
between — surmounts the whole. With what fairer and
nobler emblem could any man desire to shadow forth his
character? Ah! but in some low and obscure nook, — some
narrow closet on the ground-floor, shut, locked, and bolted,
and the key flung away, — or beneath the marble pavement,
in a stagnant water-puddle, with the richest pattern
of mosaic-work above, — may lie a corpse, half decayed, and
still decaying, and diffusing its death-scent all through the
palace! The inhabitant will not be conscious of it, for it
has long been his daily breath! Neither will the visiters,
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 man's 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 blood, — that secret abomination, above which, possibly,
he may say his prayers, without remembering it, — is this
man's 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 subtile 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
widow's and orphan's 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 man's life; his prayers at morning and
eventide, and graces at meal-time; 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 gold-headed 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 his acquaintances,
rich or poor; the smile of broad benevolence wherewith he
made it a point to gladden the whole world; — what 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 looking-glass. 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
act, — or that, even now, the inevitable force of circumstances
should occasionally make him do one questionable
deed, among a thousand praiseworthy, or, at least, blameless
ones, — would you characterize the judge by that one
necessary deed, and that half-forgotten act, and let it overshadow
the fair aspect of a lifetime? What is there so
ponderous in evil, that a thumb's 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 Pyncheon's 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 self-knowledge,
except through loss of property and reputation.
Sickness will not always help him to it; not always the
death-hour!

But our affair now is with Judge Pyncheon as he stood
confronting the fierce outbreak of Hepzibah's 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 judge's countenance had expressed mild
forbearance, — grave and almost gentle deprecation of his
cousin's unbecoming violence, — free and Christian-like
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 all-powerful
one. Has it never occurred to you, — are you so blind as
not to have seen, — that, 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 God's
providence!”

“I set him free!” reäffirmed Judge Pyncheon, with the
calmest composure. “And I come 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 well-grounded 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 found, — I know not whether the circumstance ever
attracted much of your attention, among the sadder interests
that clustered round that event, — but 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, however, — and
not altogether a folly, neither, — to 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 Jaffrey's 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 uncle's unquestionably great
estate, as I have said, not the half — no, not one third, as I
am fully convinced — was 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 gold-headed 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 uncle's 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 chooses, — and 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 Jaffrey's missing property. He
has the secret. His boast was no idle word. It had a directness,
an emphasis, a particularity, that showed a back-bone
of solid meaning within the mystery of his expression.”

“But what could have been Clifford's 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.
“Or, — as I steadfastly believe, — what 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 brother's 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 eye-witnesses 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 circle — I myself, among the
rest — can 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 apprehend — reluctantly, and
with deep grief — that Clifford's misfortunes have so affected
his intellect, never very strong, that he cannot safely remain
at large. The alternative, you must be aware, — and its
adoption will depend entirely on the decision which I am
now about to make, — the 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 him, — a mode
of passion that, as often as any other, indicates mental disease,
— should 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, Jaffrey — Cousin 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 middle-aged, —
but 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 hungry, — shall you lack
clothes, or a roof to shelter you, — between 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 world, — and 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 Heaven's 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, burthened
with winters; — they 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 judge's New England
forefathers — he whose picture still hung upon the wall
— had given a dead man's silent and stern reception to the
throng of distinguished guests. From that hour of evil
omen, until the present, it may be, — though we know not
the secret of his heart, — but 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 matter, — a trifle to be prepared for in a single moment,
and to be rested from in another moment, — that 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.