University of Virginia Library

18. XVIII.
GOVERNOR PYNCHEON.

Judge Pyncheon, while his two relatives have fled away
with such ill-considered haste, still sits in the old parlor,
keeping house, as the familiar phrase is, in the absence of
its ordinary occupants. To him, and to the venerable
House of the Seven Gables, does our story now betake
itself, like an owl, bewildered in the daylight, and hastening
back to his hollow tree.

The judge has not shifted his position for a long while
now. He has not stirred hand or foot, nor withdrawn his
eyes so much as a hair's breadth from their fixed gaze
towards the corner of the room, since the footsteps of
Hepzibah and Clifford creaked along the passage, and the
outer door was closed cautiously behind their exit. He
holds his watch in his left hand, but clutched in such a
manner that you cannot see the dial-plate. How profound
a fit of meditation! Or, supposing him asleep, how infantile
a quietude of conscience, and what wholesome order in
the gastric region, are betokened by slumber so entirely
undisturbed with starts, cramp, twitches, muttered dream-talk,
trumpet-blasts through the nasal organ, or any the
slightest irregularity of breath! You must hold your own
breath, to satisfy yourself whether he breathes at all. It is
quite inaudible. You hear the ticking of his watch; his
breath you do not hear. A most refreshing slumber, doubtless!
And yet, the judge cannot be asleep. His eyes are
open! A veteran politician, such as he, would never fall

asleep with wide-open eyes, lest some enemy or mischief-maker,
taking him thus at unawares, should peep through
these windows into his consciousness, and make strange
discoveries among the reminiscences, projects, hopes, apprehensions,
weaknesses, and strong points, which he has
heretofore shared with nobody. A cautious man is proverbially
said to sleep with one eye open. That may be
wisdom. But not with both; for this were heedlessness!
No, no! Judge Pyncheon cannot be asleep.

It is odd, however, that a gentleman so burthened with
engagements — and noted, too, for punctuality — should
linger thus in an old lonely mansion, which he has never
seemed very fond of visiting. The oaken chair, to be sure,
may tempt him with its roominess. It is, indeed, a spacious,
and, allowing for the rude age that fashioned it, a moderately
easy seat, with capacity enough, at all events, and
offering no restraint to the judge's breadth of beam. A
bigger man might find ample accommodation in it. His
ancestor, now pictured upon the wall, with all his English
beef about him, used hardly to present a front extending
from elbow to elbow of this chair, or a base that would
cover its whole cushion. But there are better chairs than
this — mahogany, black-walnut, rosewood, spring-seated and
damask-cushioned, with varied slopes, and innumerable artifices
to make them easy, and obviate the irksomeness of too
tame an ease; — a score of such might be at Judge Pyncheon's
service. Yes! in a score of drawing-rooms he
would be more than welcome. Mamma would advance to
meet him, with outstretched hand; the virgin daughter,
elderly as he has now got to be, — an old widower, as he smilingly
describes himself, — would shake up the cushion for
the judge, and do her pretty little utmost to make him comfortable.
For the judge is a prosperous man. He cherishes

his schemes, moreover, like other people, and reasonably
brighter than most others; or did so, at least, as he lay
abed, this morning, in an agreeable half-drowse, planning
the business of the day, and speculating on the probabilities
of the next fifteen years. With his firm health, and the
little inroad that age has made upon him, fifteen years or
twenty — yes, or perhaps five-and-twenty! — are no more
than he may fairly call his own. Five-and-twenty years for
the enjoyment of his real estate in town and country, his
railroad, bank, and insurance shares, his United States stock,
— his wealth, in short, however invested, now in possession,
or soon to be acquired; together with the public honors that
have fallen upon him, and the weightier ones that are yet
to fall! It is good! It is excellent! It is enough!

Still lingering in the old chair! If the judge has a little
time to throw away, why does not he visit the insurance
office, as is his frequent custom, and sit a while in one of
their leathern-cushioned arm-chairs, listening to the gossip
of the day, and dropping some deeply-designed chance-word,
which will be certain to become the gossip of to-morrow!
And have not the bank directors a meeting, at which it was
the judge's purpose to be present, and his office to preside?
Indeed they have; and the hour is noted on a card, which
is, or ought to be, in Judge Pyncheon's right vest-pocket.
Let him go thither, and loll at ease upon his money-bags!
He has lounged long enough in the old chair!

This was to have been such a busy day! In the first
place, the interview with Clifford. Half an hour, by the
judge's reckoning, was to suffice for that; it would probably
be less, but — taking into consideration that Hepzibah was
first to be dealt with, and that these women are apt to make
many words where a few would do much better — it might
be safest to allow half an hour. Half an hour? Why,

judge, it is already two hours, by your own undeviatingly
accurate chronometer! Glance your eye down at it, and
see! Ah! he will not give himself the trouble either to bend
his head, or elevate his hand, so as to bring the faithful
time-keeper within his range of vision! Time, all at once,
appears to have become a matter of no moment with the
judge!

And has he forgotten all the other items of his memoranda?
Clifford's affair arranged, he was to meet a State-street
broker, who has undertaken to procure a heavy percentage,
and the best of paper, for a few loose thousands
which the judge happens to have by him, uninvested. The
wrinkled note-shaver will have taken his railroad trip in
vain. Half an hour later, in the street next to this, there
was to be an auction of real estate, including a portion of
the old Pyncheon property, originally belonging to Maule's
garden-ground. It has been alienated from the Pyncheons
these fourscore years; but the judge had kept it in his eye,
and had set his heart on reännexing it to the small demesne
still left around the seven gables; — and now, during this
odd fit of oblivion, the fatal hammer must have fallen, and
transferred our ancient patrimony to some alien possessor!
Possibly, indeed, the sale may have been postponed till
fairer weather. If so, will the judge make it convenient to
be present, and favor the auctioneer with his bid, on the
proximate occasion?

The next affair was to buy a horse for his own driving.
The one heretofore his favorite stumbled, this very morning,
on the road to town, and must be at once discarded.
Judge Pyncheon's neck is too precious to be risked on such
a contingency as a stumbling steed. Should all the above
business be seasonably got through with, he might attend
the meeting of a charitable society; the very name of which,

however, in the multiplicity of his benevolence, is quite forgotten;
so that this engagement may pass unfulfilled, and
no great harm done. And if he have time, amid the press
of more urgent matters, he must take measures for the
renewal of Mrs. Pyncheon's tombstone, which, the sexton
tells him, has fallen on its marble face, and is cracked quite
in twain. She was a praiseworthy woman enough, thinks
the judge, in spite of her nervousness, and the tears that she
was so oozy with, and her foolish behavior about the coffee;
and as she took her departure so seasonably, he will not
grudge the second tombstone. It is better, at least, than if
she had never needed any! The next item on his list was
to give orders for some fruit-trees, of a rare variety, to be
deliverable at his country-seat, in the ensuing autumn.
Yes, buy them, by all means; and may the peaches be
luscious in your mouth, Judge Pyncheon! After this comes
something more important. A committee of his political
party has besought him for a hundred or two of dollars, in
addition to his previous disbursements, towards carrying on
the fall campaign. The judge is a patriot; the fate of the
country is staked on the November election; and besides, as
will be shadowed forth in another paragraph, he has no
trifling stake of his own, in the same great game. He will
do what the committee asks; nay, he will be liberal beyond
their expectations; they shall have a check for five hundred
dollars, and more anon, if it be needed. What next? A
decayed widow, whose husband was Judge Pyncheon's early
friend, has laid her case of destitution before him, in a very
moving letter. She and her fair daughter have scarcely
bread to eat. He partly intends to call on her, to-day, —
perhaps so — perhaps not, — accordingly as he may happen
to have leisure, and a small bank-note.

Another business, which, however, he puts no great weight

on — (it is well, you know, to be heedful, but not over
anxious, as respects one's personal health) — another business,
then, was to consult his family physician. About
what, for Heaven's sake? Why, it is rather difficult to
describe the symptoms. A mere dimness of sight and dizziness
of brain, was it? — or a disagreeable choking, or stifling,
or gurgling, or bubbling, in the region of the thorax, as the
anatomists say? — or was it a pretty severe throbbing and
kicking of the heart, rather creditable to him than otherwise,
as showing that the organ had not been left out of the
judge's physical contrivance? No matter what it was.
The doctor, probably, would smile at the statement of such
trifles to his professional ear; the judge would smile, in his
turn; and meeting one another's eyes, they would enjoy a
hearty laugh together! But a fig for medical advice! The
judge will never need it.

Pray, pray, Judge Pyncheon, look at your watch, now!
What — not a glance! It is within ten minutes of the dinner-hour!
It surely cannot have slipped your memory that the
dinner of to-day is to be the most important, in its consequences,
of all the dinners you ever ate. Yes, precisely the
most important; although, in the course of your somewhat
eminent career, you have been placed high towards the head
of the table, at splendid banquets, and have poured out your
festive eloquence to ears yet echoing with Webster's mighty
organ-tones. No public dinner this, however. It is merely
a gathering of some dozen or so of friends from several districts
of the state; men of distinguished character and
influence, assembling, almost casually, at the house of a
common friend, likewise distinguished, who will make them
welcome to a little better than his ordinary fare. Nothing
in the way of French cookery, but an excellent dinner,
nevertheless! Real turtle, we understand, and salmon, tautog,

canvas-backs, pig, English mutton, good roast-beef or
dainties of that serious kind, fit for substantial country
gentlemen, as these honorable persons mostly are. The
delicacies of the season, in short, and flavored by a brand
of old Madeira which has been the pride of many seasons.
It is the Juno brand; a glorious wine, fragrant, and full of
gentle might; a bottled-up happiness, put by for use; a
golden liquid, worth more than liquid gold; so rare and
admirable, that veteran wine-bibbers count it among their
epochs to have tasted it! It drives away the heart-ache,
and substitutes no head-ache! Could the judge but quaff
a glass, it might enable him to shake off the unaccountable
lethargy which — (for the ten intervening minutes, and five
to boot, are already past) — has made him such a laggard
at this momentous dinner. It would all but revive a dead
man! Would you like to sip it now, Judge Pyncheon?

Alas, this dinner! Have you really forgotten its true
object? Then let us whisper it, that you may start at once
out of the oaken chair, which really seems to be enchanted,
like the one in Comus, or that in which Moll Pitcher imprisoned
your own grandfather. But ambition is a talisman
more powerful than witchcraft. Start up, then, and, hurrying
through the streets, burst in upon the company, that
they may begin before the fish is spoiled! They wait for
you; and it is little for your interest that they should wait.
These gentlemen — need you be told it? — have assembled,
not without purpose, from every quarter of the state. They
are practised politicians, every man of them, and skilled to
adjust those preliminary measures which steal from the
people, without its knowledge, the power of choosing its
own rulers. The popular voice, at the next gubernatorial
election, though loud as thunder, will be really but an echo
of what these gentlemen shall speak, under their breath, at

your friend's festive board. They meet to decide upon
their candidate. This little knot of subtle schemers will
control the convention, and, through it, dictate to the party.
And what worthier candidate, — more wise and learned,
more noted for philanthropic liberality, truer to safe principles,
tried oftener by public trusts, more spotless in private
character, with a larger stake in the common welfare, and
deeper grounded, by hereditary descent, in the faith and
practice of the Puritans, — what man can be presented for
the suffrage of the people, so eminently combining all these
claims to the chief-rulership as Judge Pyncheon here before
us?

Make haste, then! Do your part! The meed for which
you have toiled, and fought, and climbed, and crept, is
ready for your grasp! Be present at this dinner! — drink
a glass or two of that noble wine! — make your pledges in
as low a whisper as you will! — and you rise up from
table virtually governor of the glorious old state! Governor
Pyncheon, of Massachusetts!

And is there no potent and exhilarating cordial in a certainty
like this? It has been the grand purpose of half
your lifetime to obtain it. Now, when there needs little
more than to signify your acceptance, why do you sit so
lumpishly in your great-great-grandfather's oaken chair, as
if preferring it to the gubernatorial one? We have all
heard of King Log; but, in these jostling times, one of that
royal kindred will hardly win the race for an elective chief-magistracy.

Well! it is absolutely too late for dinner! Turtle, salmon,
tautog, woodcock, boiled turkey, South-Down mutton, pig,
roast beef, have vanished, or exist only in fragments, with
lukewarm potatoes, and gravies crusted over with cold fat.
The judge, had he done nothing else, would have achieved

wonders with his knife and fork. It was he, you know, of
whom it used to be said, in reference to his ogre-like appetite,
that his Creator made him a great animal, but that the
dinner-hour made him a great beast. Persons of his large
sensual endowments must claim indulgence, at their feeding-time.
But, for once, the judge is entirely too late for dinner!
Too late, we fear, even to join the party at their
wine! The guests are warm and merry; they have given
up the judge; and, concluding that the free-soilers have
him, they will fix upon another candidate. Were our
friend now to stalk in among them, with that wide-open
stare, at once wild and stolid, his ungenial presence would
be apt to change their cheer. Neither would it be seemly
in Judge Pyncheon, generally so scrupulous in his attire, to
show himself at a dinner-table with that crimson stain upon
his shirt-bosom. By-the-by, how came it there? It is an
ugly sight, at any rate; and the wisest way for the judge is
to button his coat closely over his breast, and, taking his
horse and chaise from the livery-stable, to make all speed
to his own house. There, after a glass of brandy and water,
and a mutton-chop, a beef-steak, a broiled fowl, or some
such hasty little dinner and supper all in one, he had better
spend the evening by the fire-side. He must toast his
slippers a long while, in order to get rid of the chilliness
which the air of this vile old house has sent curdling
through his veins.

Up, therefore, Judge Pyncheon, up! You have lost a
day. But to-morrow will be here anon. Will you rise,
betimes, and make the most of it? To-morrow! To-morrow!
To-morrow! We, that are alive, may rise betimes
to-morrow. As for him that has died to-day, his
morrow will be the resurrection morn.

Meanwhile the twilight is glooming upward out of the

corners of the room. The shadows of the tall furniture
grow deeper, and at first become more definite; then,
spreading wider, they lose their distinctness of outline in the
dark gray tide of oblivion, as it were, that creeps slowly over
the various objects, and the one human figure sitting in the
midst of them. The gloom has not entered from without;
it has brooded here all day, and now, taking its own inevitable
time, will possess itself of everything. The judge's
face, indeed, rigid, and singularly white, refuses to melt
into this universal solvent. Fainter and fainter grows the
light. It is as if another double-handful of darkness had
been scattered through the air. Now it is no longer gray,
but sable. There is still a faint appearance at the window;
neither a glow, nor a gleam, nor a glimmer, — any phrase of
light would express something far brighter than this doubtful
perception, or sense, rather, that there is a window there.
Has it yet vanished? No! — yes! — not quite! And
there is still the swarthy whiteness, — we shall venture to
marry these ill-agreeing words, — the swarthy whiteness
of Judge Pyncheon's face. The features are all gone; there
is only the paleness of them left. And how looks it now?
There is no window! There is no face! An infinite,
inscrutable blackness has annihilated sight! Where is our
universe? All crumbled away from us; and we, adrift in
chaos, may hearken to the gusts of homeless wind, that go
sighing and murmuring about, in quest of what was once a
world!

Is there no other sound? One other, and a fearful one.
It is the ticking of the judge's watch, which, ever since
Hepzibah left the room in search of Clifford, he has been
holding in his hand. Be the cause what it may, this little,
quiet, never-ceasing throb of Time's pulse, repeating its
small strokes with such busy regularity, in Judge Pyncheon's

motionless hand, has an effect of terror, which we do not
find in any other accompaniment of the scene.

But, listen! That puff of the breeze was louder; it had
a tone unlike the dreary and sullen one which has bemoaned
itself, and afflicted all mankind with miserable sympathy,
for five days past. The wind has veered about! It
now comes boisterously from the north-west, and, taking hold
of the aged frame-work of the seven gables, gives it a shake,
like a wrestler that would try strength with his antagonist.
Another and another sturdy tussle with the blast! The
old house creaks again, and makes a vociferous but somewhat
unintelligible bellowing in its sooty throat — (the big
flue, we mean, of its wide chimney) — partly in complaint
at the rude wind, but rather, as befits their century and a
half of hostile intimacy, in tough defiance. A rumbling
kind of a bluster roars behind the fire-board. A door has
slammed above-stairs. A window, perhaps, has been left
open, or else is driven in by an unruly gust. It is not to
be conceived, beforehand, what wonderful wind-instruments
are these old timber mansions, and how haunted with the
strangest noises, which immediately begin to sing, and sigh,
and sob, and shriek, — and to smite with sledge-hammers,
airy, but ponderous, in some distant chamber, — and to tread
along the entries as with stately foot-steps, and rustle up
and down the stair-case, as with silks miraculously stiff, —
whenever the gale catches the house with a window open,
and gets fairly into it. Would that we were not an attendant
spirit here! It is too awful! This clamor of the wind
through the lonely house; the judge's quietude, as he sits
invisible; and that pertinacious ticking of his watch!

As regards Judge Pyncheon's invisibility, however, that
matter will soon be remedied. The north-west wind has
swept the sky clear. The window is distinctly seen.

Through its panes, moreover, we dimly catch the sweep of
the dark, clustering foliage, outside, fluttering with a constant
irregularity of movement, and letting in a peep of starlight,
now here, now there. Oftener than any other object,
these glimpses illuminate the judge's face. But here
comes more effectual light. Observe that silvery dance
upon the upper branches of the pear-tree, and now a little
lower, and now on the whole mass of boughs, while,
through their shifting intricacies, the moonbeams fall aslant
into the room. They play over the judge's figure, and show
that he has not stirred throughout the hours of darkness.
They follow the shadows, in changeful sport, across his
unchanging features. They gleam upon his watch. His
grasp conceals the dial-plate; but we know that the faithful
hands have met; for one of the city-clocks tells midnight.

A man of sturdy understanding, like Judge Pyncheon,
cares no more for twelve o'clock at night than for the corresponding
hour of noon. However just the parallel drawn,
in some of the preceding pages, between his Puritan ancestor
and himself, it fails in this point. The Pyncheon of
two centuries ago, in common with most of his contemporaries,
professed his full belief in spiritual ministrations,
although reckoning them chiefly of a malignant character.
The Pyncheon of to-night, who sits in yonder arm-chair,
believes in no such nonsense. Such, at least, was his
creed, some few hours since. His hair will not bristle,
therefore, at the stories which — in times when chimney-corners
had benches in them, where old people sat poking
into the ashes of the past, and raking out traditions like
live coals — used to be told about this very room of his
ancestral house. In fact, these tales are too absurd to bristle
even childhood's hair. What sense, meaning, or moral, for
example, such as even ghost-stories should be susceptible

of, can be traced in the ridiculous legend, that, at midnight,
all the dead Pyncheons are bound to assemble in this
parlor? And, pray, for what? Why, to see whether the
portrait of their ancestor still keeps its place upon the wall,
in compliance with his testamentary directions! Is it worth
while to come out of their graves for that?

We are tempted to make a little sport with the idea.
Ghost-stories are hardly to be treated seriously, any longer.
The family-party of the defunct Pyncheons, we presume,
goes off in this wise.

First comes the ancestor himself, in his black cloak,
steeple-hat, and trunk-breeches, girt about the waist with a
leathern belt, in which hangs his steel-hilted sword; he has
a long staff in his hand, such as gentlemen in advanced
life used to carry, as much for the dignity of the thing as
for the support to be derived from it. He looks up at the
portrait; — a thing of no substance, gazing at its own painted
image! All is safe. The picture is still there. The purpose
of his brain has been kept sacred thus long after the
man himself has sprouted up in grave-yard grass. See! he
lifts his ineffectual hand, and tries the frame. All safe!
But is that a smile? — is it not, rather, a frown of deadly
import, that darkens over the shadow of his features? The
stout colonel is dissatisfied! So decided is his look of discontent
as to impart additional distinctness to his features;
through which, nevertheless, the moonlight passes, and
flickers on the wall beyond. Something has strangely
vexed the ancestor! With a grim shake of the head, he
turns away. Here come other Pyncheons, the whole tribe,
in their half a dozen generations, jostling and elbowing one
another, to reach the picture. We behold aged men and
grandames, a clergyman with the Puritanic stiffness still in
his garb and mien, and a red-coated officer of the old French

war; and there comes the shop-keeping Pyncheon of a century
ago, with the ruffles turned back from his wrists; and
there the periwigged and brocaded gentleman of the artist's
legend, with the beautiful and pensive Alice, who brings no
pride out of her virgin grave. All try the picture-frame.
What do these ghostly people seek? A mother lifts her
child, that his little hands may touch it! There is evidently
a mystery about the picture, that perplexes these
poor Pyncheons, when they ought to be at rest. In a corner,
meanwhile, stands the figure of an elderly man, in a leather
jerkin and breeches, with a carpenter's rule sticking out of
his side-pocket; he points his finger at the bearded colonel
and his descendants, nodding, jeering, mocking, and finally
bursting into obstreperous, though inaudible laughter.

Indulging our fancy in this freak, we have partly lost the
power of restraint and guidance. We distinguish an
unlooked-for figure in our visionary scene. Among those
ancestral people there is a young man, dressed in the very
fashion of to-day; he wears a dark frock-coat, almost destitute
of skirts, gray pantaloons, gaiter boots of patent
leather, and has a finely-wrought gold chain across his
breast, and a little silver-headed whalebone stick in his
hand. Were we to meet this figure at noon-day, we should
greet him as young Jaffrey Pyncheon, the judge's only
surviving child, who has been spending the last two years
in foreign travel. If still in life, how comes his shadow
hither? If dead, what a misfortune! The old Pyncheon
property, together with the great estate acquired by the
young man's father, would devolve on whom? On poor,
foolish Clifford, gaunt Hepzibah, and rustic little Phœbe!
But another and a greater marvel greets us! Can we
believe our eyes? A stout, elderly gentleman has made
his appearance; he has an aspect of eminent respectability,

wears a black coat and pantaloons, of roomy width, and
might be pronounced scrupulously neat in his attire, but for
a broad crimson stain across his snowy neckcloth and down
his shirt-bosom. Is it the judge, or no? How can it be
Judge Pyncheon? We discern his figure, as plainly as the
flickering moonbeams can show us anything, still seated in
the oaken chair! Be the apparition whose it may, it
advances to the picture, seems to seize the frame, tries to
peep behind it, and turns away, with a frown as black as
the ancestral one.

The fantastic scene just hinted at must by no means be
considered as forming an actual portion of our story. We
were betrayed into this brief extravagance by the quiver of
the moonbeams; they dance hand-in-hand with shadows,
and are reflected in the looking-glass, which, you are
aware, is always a kind of window or door-way into the
spiritual world. We needed relief, moreover, from our too
long and exclusive contemplation of that figure in the
chair. This wild wind, too, has tossed our thoughts into
strange confusion, but without tearing them away from
their one determined centre. Yonder leaden judge sits
immovably upon our soul. Will he never stir again?
We shall go mad, unless he stirs! You may the better
estimate his quietude by the fearlessness of a little mouse,
which sits on its hind legs, in a streak of moonlight, close
by Judge Pyncheon's foot, and seems to meditate a journey
of exploration over this great black bulk. Ha! what has
startled the nimble little mouse? It is the visage of Grimalkin,
outside of the window, where he appears to have
posted himself for a deliberate watch. This Grimalkin has
a very ugly look. Is it a cat watching for a mouse, or the
devil for a human soul? Would we could scare him from
the window!

Thank Heaven, the night is well-nigh past! The moonbeams
have no longer so silvery a gleam, nor contrast so
strongly with the blackness of the shadows among which
they fall. They are paler, now; the shadows look gray,
not black. The boisterous wind is hushed. What is the
hour? Ah! the watch has at last ceased to tick; for the
judge's forgetful fingers neglected to wind it up, as usual,
at ten o'clock, being half an hour, or so, before his ordinary
bed-time; — and it has run down, for the first time in five
years. But the great world-clock of Time still keeps its
beat. The dreary night, — for, oh, how dreary seems its
haunted waste, behind us! — gives place to a fresh, transparent,
cloudless morn. Blessed, blessed radiance! The
day-beam, — even what little of it finds its way into this
always dusky parlor — seems part of the universal benediction,
annulling evil, and rendering all goodness possible, and
happiness attainable. Will Judge Pyncheon now rise up
from his chair? Will he go forth, and receive the early
sunbeams on his brow? Will he begin this new day, —
which God has smiled upon, and blessed, and given to mankind,
— will he begin it with better purposes than the
many that have been spent amiss? Or are all the deep-laid
schemes of yesterday as stubborn in his heart, and as
busy in his brain, as ever?

In this latter case, there is much to do. Will the judge
still insist with Hepzibah on the interview with Clifford?
Will he buy a safe, elderly gentleman's horse? Will he
persuade the purchaser of the old Pyncheon property to
relinquish the bargain, in his favor? Will he see his
family physician, and obtain a medicine that shall preserve
him, to be an honor and blessing to his race, until the
utmost term of patriarchal longevity? Will Judge Pyncheon,
above all, make due apologies to that company of

honorable friends, and satisfy them that his absence from
the festive board was unavoidable, and so fully retrieve himself
in their good opinion that he shall yet be Governor of
Massachusetts? And, all these great purposes accomplished,
will he walk the streets again, with that dog-day smile of
elaborate benevolence, sultry enough to tempt flies to come
and buzz in it? Or will he, after the tomb-like seclusion
of the past day and night, go forth a humbled and repentant
man, sorrowful, gentle, seeking no profit, shrinking from
worldly honor, hardly daring to love God, but bold to love
his fellow-man, and to do him what good he may? Will
he bear about with him, — no odious grin of feigned benignity,
insolent in its pretence, and loathsome in its falsehood,
— but the tender sadness of a contrite heart, broken,
at last, beneath its own weight of sin? For it is our belief,
whatever show of honor he may have piled upon it, that
there was heavy sin at the base of this man's being.

Rise up, Judge Pyncheon! The morning sunshine glimmers
through the foliage, and, beautiful and holy as it is,
shuns not to kindle up your face. Rise up, thou subtile,
worldly, selfish, iron-hearted hypocrite, and make thy choice
whether still to be subtile, worldly, selfish, iron-hearted, and
hypocritical, or to tear these sins out of thy nature, though
they bring the life-blood with them! The Avenger is upon
thee! Rise up, before it be too late!

What! Thou art not stirred by this last appeal? No,
not a jot! And there we see a fly, — one of your common
house-flies, such as are always buzzing on the window-pane,
— which has smelt out Governor Pyncheon, and alights,
now on his forehead, now on his chin, and now, Heaven
help us! is creeping over the bridge of his nose, towards
the would-be chief-magistrate's wide-open eyes! Canst thou
not brush the fly away? Art thou too sluggish? Thou

man, that hadst so many busy projects, yesterday! Art
thou too weak, that wast so powerful? Not brush away a
fly! Nay, then, we give thee up!

And, hark! the shop-bell rings. After hours like these
latter ones, through which we have borne our heavy tale, it
is good to be made sensible that there is a living world, and
that even this old, lonely mansion retains some manner of
connection with it. We breathe more freely, emerging
from Judge Pyncheon's presence into the street before the
seven gables.