 | CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD.
“THREE LETTERS!” Paul Ardenheim, the monk of Wissahikon |  |
23. CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD.
“THREE LETTERS!”
“What do you think of it, sir?”—again that voice.
“I don't know,” cried Jacopo, as he grovelled on the floor, wiping the
streaming perspiration from his red face—“I hardly know—what—to
think—”
The unknown rested his elbow on the table,—the forefinger of his right
hand on his lip—and continued in a meditative tone:
“Were I to meet this Jacopo—this Bernard—this Joseph Marie—this
three fold traitor, on a dark night, I would be justified in putting him to
death as I would a noxious reptile. But should I meet him in broad day
—meet him in a quiet room, with the sunlight playing upon his coward
face—Eh? What then?”
“I don't know—” and Jacopo turned his frightened face from side to
side—“I can't tell. How should I? Never had the honor of bein' acquainted
with this Jac—Jac-o-po—”
And those large eyes, shining in the pallid face of the unknown, made
the poor wretch shiver with inexpressible terror.
“We will imagine a scene. I encounter him in a quiet room, on a
calm sun-shiny day. I have a pistol; he has none. He is the enemy of
the human race—a reptile when it is virtue to crush out of life. I am
justified in killing him, not only by every law of justice, every instinct
name of Guiellietta, and in the name of Madeline!”
“Do you think so? Indeed, it never struck me in that light,” faltered
Jacopo, completely frightened out of his wits.
“For every name a seperate death, for every crime a stab, a pistol shot,
and a Curse!” continued the unknown, centreing his gaze upon the face
of the grovelling wretch. “What do you think of it, sir?”
The elderly gentleman arose and paced up and down the chamber, with
his hands behind his back.
“He limps on one leg,” muttered Jacopo, “and yet I can't see the
cloven foot!”
He cringed nearer to the wall, for the unknown almost touched him as
he passed along. Stealthily raising his eyes, Jacopo cast a hurried glance
into that pale face, with its dazzling eyes, and bold broad forehead.
“I've seen it afore,—” he said, and wrung his hands—“I remember it
by * * *!”
Then, as if some memory had overwhelmed his soul—or that part of
him which passed for a soul—with a new fear, he rested his hot forehead
against the wall, and shook as with an ague chill.
“Rise!”—Jacopo heard the word, and started trembling to his feet.
The strange confronted him. Confronted him with that form clad in
black, with that massy forehead, and those eyes that seemed to turn into
his soul. He was very near Jacopo—he could have touched him with
his hand—but he shrunk away and cringed closer to the wall
“What would you give to save your life?”
Hope dawned in Jacopo's diminative eyeballs.
“Most anythin' ” gasped the Philosopher—“Only don't you come any
nearer. I'm a little nervous you know. Just rose out of a sick bed.”
“What would you do to save your life?” asked the elderly gentleman,
in a stern low voice.
“Anythin' you can mention,” said the Philosopher, shaking from head
to foot—“From burnin' a church to lamin' a cripple,—anythin'—anythin'—”
The unknown turned away, traversing the floor with a halting gait,
while the Philosopher cringed closer to the wall.
It was a fearful moment for Jacopo.
“He's gettin' his pistols—no! It's a knife—ah! Unlucky conjunction
of my planets—in a little while, say ten minutes or more, I'll be a
carcass—stiff—with all sorts of gashes about me—”
“You heard of the village of Germantown?” said the stranger, as with
his back turned toward Jacopo, he looked from the southern window.
“Germantown? What, that delightful Dutch paradise, where the
children of two years weigh a hundred pounds, and old folks—especially
old maids—can't die? The houses are built along one street, like a row
or a devil, or some such kind of thing. Did I ever hear of Germantown?
My goodness! I was kicked there once—”
“You will go to Germantown. You will deliver these letters. And
your life is spared.”
The elderly gentleman turned toward Jacopo, holding some letters or
papers in his extended hand.
“Obey my commands—deliver these letters—and your life is spared.”
—and he fixed his gaze upon the face of the Philosopher—“Do you consent?”
“Do I? Do I look as if I did n't?” whined Jacopo.
“Listen! You will hasten to Germantown, by a lane which skirts the
forest not half a mile from where I stand—”
“Y-e-s Y-e-s!”
“You have heard of the `township-line road'?”
Jacopo nodded as if he intended to shake his red nose from his face.
“You will deliver this letter at the corner of the lane and the `town
ship-line road.'—”
“There's no house there,” interrupted Jacopo—“It's as wild as a
basket of gray cats—”
“Near the forks of the road, stands a solitary cedar, and by this cedar
a huge granite rock.—Are you listening.—”
Again Jacopo nodded—nodded with frightful intensity.
“In a crevice of this rock, which stands near the solitary cedar, you
will place this letter. Mark it well, and note the superscription—`To the
King.' Do you understand me?”
“All over,” faltered Jacopo, with a convulsive grimace.
“After you have concealed this letter in the crevice, you will hurry on.
Traversing the lane, you will emerge upon the solitary street of German-town,
opposite the lawn of Chew's House. You have seen this lawn?”
“It is seperated from the road by a stone wall, nearly half a mile long”
—suggested Jacopo.
“At the setting of the sun, a man dressed in a gray surtout, and mounted
on a black horse, will await you near the southern end of this wall. He
will rein his horse in the road, and turn his face to the west. You will
give him this letter. You will remember the superscription—`To the
Duke?' In the peril of your soul, do not confound these letters!”
“If I do, may I be—”
“Do not swear,” said the elderly personage, with a smile quivering
about his thin lips—“For an oath, with you, Joseph Marie, with you
Bernard—do you comprehend—with you Jacopo,—is only a Herald
sent before, to announce the coming of a—Lie. Do not swear.'
“I wont swear. I'll be very particular on that point, I assure you.”
“You will remember? The first letter to the crevice in the rock, the
the third—”
“The third?”
“After you have delivered the second letter, you will enter the Haunted
House, and deliver this letter—it has no superscription—to the first person,
whom you may chance to meet.”
“The Haunted House!” ejaculated our Philosopher, “How shall I
know it? There's two or three dozen in Germantown.”
“Any of the villagers will tell you where it stands. Near the southern
end of Chew's wall,—a substantial fabric of gray stone—two storied—
with a cottage or cabin, on one side, and a garden surrounded by a high
wall on the other. You cannot avoid it.”
“And I am to enter this House?” said Jacopo, with a shudder.
“Yes,—and mark you,—without being seen by any person. You
must enter it in silence, in secresy, and once within its walls, deliver this
letter without superscription, as you see, to the first person whom you
may encounter.”
“Oh!” ejaculated Jacopo. “Excuse me—only a sudden pain—but—
but—if this blank should happen to be filled up with his name? His—
you understand—”
He pointed downwards with the forefinger of his right hand
“What mean you!”
“The Dev-il!” faltered the Philosopher.
“Do you jest with me, sirrah?” said the unknown, as a cold smile
played round his lips, while his eyes so strangely lustrous, flashed with
anger. “Jest with your—Judge? You are courageous! A word from
me, and you will become the Hangman's prey—a goodly acorn for the
gallow's tree! Jest on—I will be pleased to hear you.”
“Mercy! Mercy!” screamed Jacopo,—“I will obey.”
“Spare your cries. I can trust you. For you know that I hold your
life in my hands. Disobey me—fail in a single item of my commands—
and you are dead, before the rising of another sun.”
The Haunted House!” murmured Jacopo—“Yes—I will obey—”
There was a wild light in the eyes of the unknown, a mocking smile
about his lips, as he gazed upon the cringing Philosopher, and exclaimed—
“Yes, the Haunted House. The villagers avoid it—not a man in the
place would enter it for his weight in gold. They say a curse broods
over its walls—the curse of unnatural murder. It has been untenanted
for many years; the garden is choked with weeds, and the grass grows
about its threshold stone. Strange sounds are heard, echoing from its
deserted chambers at dead of night,—and lights as strange, as spectral,
flit from window to window, and shine dismally through the darkness—
it is indeed an accursed place, this Haunted House.”
The cold moisture started in beads from Jacopo's brow. He gazed
upon this singular personage, who stood motionless between his eyes and
the window, he heard his calm, silvery voice, he felt the dazzling lustre
of his full deep eyes, and a fear such as he had never experienced before
—something more intense than physical cowardice—possessed his brain,
and made his temples throb, while his heart grew cold—colder—almost
lifeless.
“I will go,” he faltered—“The first letter to the crevice in the rock;
the second to the horseman in gray; the third to the person in the
Haunted House. You see I remember—I will go—I will go—”
Grasping the letters, he retreated toward the door, his dilating eyes
fixed upon the unknown.
“It is well,” said the silvery voice, “and mark you—after the third
letter is delivered return to the Wissahikon. I will need your clerical
services, before the night is over. You will meet me—”
He drew near the trembling wretch and whispered a word in his ear.
“Yes—yes—I'll be there—I will,” cried Jacopo—“Good afternoon,
good afternoon—”
He disappeared through the doorway, but in an instant his face was
seen again, and his shrill voice resounded through the room—
“Pardon me—” he cried, as his visage projected into the chamber,
“But if it's not an impertinent question, how the devil did you get into
this room?
He did not pause for an answer for there was something in the eye of
the stranger, that made his heart contract and dilate by turns. He turned
wildly away.
Grasping the three letters with one hand, while the other crushed the
three-cornered hat over his face, he hurried down the dark stairway, into
the lower room, and, in an instant stood on the threshold stone, with the
light of the summer sun upon his terror stricken face.
He did not pause for a moment, to glance toward the arbor, nor did he
think of the white-haired old man, who but a little while ago, was
menaced by the knife, in the hand of the frenzied negro.
But passing around the farm house, he crossed the barn yard, sprung
over the fence, and with unsteady strides hurried through a cornfield
toward a wood, which appeared at the distance of some two hundred
yards. Once or twice he turned his affrighted face over his shoulder—
cast a stealthy glance at the old fabric resting so calmly in the sun—and
then urged onward with accelerated speed. It was not altogether a
solemn thing, to see him plunging in amid the rows of corn, his dark
skirts streaming behind him, while the shadow of his form was flung far
over the field—like the grotesque profile of an immense spider.
He soon attained the wood, and with a bound plunged into its shadows.
Through the thickly gathered brushwood, along the mossy spots of verdure,
old rock, Jacopo, otherwise known as the Philosopher, held on his way.
Had you seen him, you would have sworn it was for a wager—this night-mare
race—a match between his Legs and Time.
At last panting and blowing, his face covered with perspiration; his
dark attire strown with fragments of leaves and briars, he sank exhausted
at the foot of a rock, and with a profound sigh, gave himself up to his
Destiny.
“Let 'em take me,” he said, between his gasps—“I'm ready. They
can't do more than hang me. To think those legs should ever come to
the gallows!”
From some obscure recess of his capacious pockets, he drew forth an
immense handkerchief—silken in texture, and indigo in color—and
polished his streaming visage until it shone again.
Possessed by some fatal idea, he evidently expected to be seized,—
chained—and dragged away from this solitude by merciless hands.
“Ah! I know his face—have seen it afore. The devil himself is a
fool to him—HE might set up school, and all the imps of darkness would
take lessons in devilty from him!”
Completely exhausted, with his back against the rock, and his limbs
stretched out upon the sand, in the shape of the letter V—Jacopo the
Philosopher became the victim of various terrors. His mouth, never too
small, expanded in a chronic grimace; he polished his face with the
indigo handkerchief; fanned his heated brow with the three-cornered hat.
“To go over a fellow's life in that style, and after one has reformed
and turned from the error of his ways, to rub up old sins, and make one's
tender conscience bleed in a dozen places! It was ungentlemanly—ah!
Oh! How cursed hot it is!”
And while our Philosopher, agitated by the memory of these `old sins,'
and perchance by some indefinable idea of punishment, surrendered himself
to the cheering influences of the indigo handkerchief—used as a
towel—and the three-cornered hat—transformed into a fan—the letters
which had been consigned to him, lay scattered upon the sward.
The sight of these letters, gleaming on the sand in a wandering ray,
restored Jacopo to life and reason.
“I have a duty to perform. What human being has n't? If somebody
chooses to turn me into a post office, it is my duty—posterity expects it
—to see that I don't carry any thing that will do harm to even the humblest
member of the great family of man.”
And, Jacopo forgetting all his terrors, in the consciousness of duty
raised the letters, and began to examine them with a searching glance.
`To the King'—only wafered. `To the Duke'—ditto. To—Blank—
sealed, as I'm an honest man, and with a Coronet too, and the letters R. L.
What the mischief does R. L. mean? Can't be his name?”
For a moment Jacopo cogitated profoundly with the tip of his finger
applied to the tip of his nose.
“R. L.! Reginald Lyndulfe!” he cried, “And in the name of the
whole family of saints, what has this person to do with my young Lord
of Lyndulfe? Why the thing becomes mysterious!”
Satisfied that no time was to be lost, the Philosopher went to work in
a calm, business-like manner. There was method in his virtuous
curiosity. First he listened, turning his gaze from side to side. All was
still—the foliage of that forest cover shut him out from the world. Next,
moistening the wafers of the first and second letters, by applying them to
his lips, he very adroitly slipped the long nail of his forefinger underneath
each wafer, and ere a second had passed, his virtuous labor was rewarded
by the sight of certain lines written in a firm, round hand.
This is the first letter—
At twelve to-night. The place—the Block House of the Wissahikon.
You pursue this lane, cross the stream, and then turn to the right.
It is but little more than half a mile from the place where you will find
these words.
This epistle without date or signature, filled Jacopo with indescribable
wonderment.
“It appears to me,” the thought crossed the mind of the Philosopher,
“That those enigmatical words, constitute the dressing of some nice little
Plot, which known to me, might be honestly turned into coin.”
And, Jacopo sealed the letter again, and then with his nail removed the
wafer of the second epistle.
To the Duke—
The son of Gaspard Michael lives.
Jacopo read, and his small eyes projected from their sockets.
“`Gaspard-Michael!”' he echoed, turning the letter in his fingers, as
though he expected a nineteen-pounder to drop from its folds. “`To the
Duke!' Well, w-e-ll! Why is it always my fate to be mixed up in
the affairs of nations? Unhappy Jacopo! Sighing forever, for a nice
little cot under a hill, with a quiet little wife, three or four children, and
some pigs and chickens,—and always whirled away from this sweet
image of domesticity, into the great Maelstrom of circumstance!”
With this profound reflection, Jacopo resealed the second letter, and
turned his attention to the third.
“Sealed, and with coat of arms and cypher! Shall I break the seal?
Miserable position for a conscientious man! If I break the seal, I am
of the letter.”
The Philosopher was puzzled. Turning the epistle in various ways,
he endeavored to obtain a glimpse of its contents, but in vain.
“Shall I break the seal?”
Before him rose the vision of that pale visage, lighted by the intensely
brilliant eyes. Jacopo trembled, and the warm color vanished from his face.
Then he looked at the letter lovingly—with a sort of mingled desire
and fear—like an epicure surveying a delicious morsel, which his physician
tells him, it will be death to eat, or a vagrant cur observing a steak, which
is suspended just one inch beyond his reach.
`I will break it!” said Jacopo, and—
He sprang to his feet with a yell. Cold, trembling, seized once more
with abject fear, he grasped his hat and the letters, and, without looking
once behind him darted madly through the bushes.
For even as the words, `I will break it!' rose to his lips, he felt a cold,
hard hand laid upon his shoulder.
Afraid to look behind him, lest he might once more behold the pallid
face and burning eyes, he shrunk away from that hand, and was gone into
the thickest of the forest ere a second might be told.
He did not pause in his flight, until he stood at the forks of the road,
where the `township line' was crossed by the lane, leading from the Wissahikon
to the village of Germantown.
It was a silent and desolate spot, centred in the midst of thickets
backed by the forest.
The hot dust of the road was contrasted with the foliage of cedar and
the pine, scattered on either side. Toward the west, the lane descending,
a hill was lost in the mazes of the woods. But in the east it wound
among cultivated fields, now skirting some wood-crowded hill, now lingering
in the lap of some brook-watered valley, until it approached that
line of gardens and orchards, amid whose verdure and blossoms appeared
the dark gray tenements of Germantown.
Jacopo panting up the hill, beheld the cedar which stood alone at the
forks of the road, while in the shadow of its branches appeared the massy
granite rock.
“Dev'lish odd post office” he said, grinning through his terror, as he
inserted the letter, in a crevice of this rock, and secured it by placing a
small stone upon its superscription: “Should like to see the individual
who is destined to pay the postage.”
He started—the sound of horse's hoofs struck his ear.
“It was a hand—I'll swear it, a hand of iron,” he cried as the memory
of his last fright returned in full force, and without a moment's delay, he
concealed himself from sight, under a clump of small cedars, near the
roadside.
He could hear, although he could not see.
Protected from all observation, by the thickly grown bushes, he listened,
while his heart mounted to his throat.
The echo of horse's hoofs grew more distinct, Jacopo crouching on
hands and feet endeavored to catch a glimpse of the unknown rider, but
in vain.
“He is coming near—nearer! From the direction of Germantown,
too,—ha! Here he is, and I cannot see him. Hello! The horse stops—
near the cedar—hark! The rider dismounts—O, for a glimpse, only a
glimpse! As I'm a human being he's meddling with my post office—
hey!”
It was true. The unknown horseman whom he could hear, although
he could not see him, dismounted near the cedar tree, and for a moment
a breathless silence ensued.
Jacopo moved; he was determined to obtain a glimpse of the stranger.
“Who's there!” said a deep clear voice.
Jacopo was stone. Gathering himself in the smallest possible compass,
he held his breath, and awaited the termination of this incident, in a spasm
of mortal terror.
“There's a bullet through my ribs—I foresee it plainly,” he thought,
but dared not speak, as he crouched in the shadows.
“Who's there?”—again the voice was heard.
You may take my word for it, that our Philosopher did not reply.
Suddenly the tramp of horse's feet was heard again; Jacopo's heart
bounded with joy. Those sounds grew faint and more distant; he dared
to dash the branches aside, and steal a glimpse after the unknown.
Far down the lane, where it lay in full sunlight, just before it was lost
among the woods toward the Wissahikin, Jacopo saw a grey horse, whose
rider's tall form was wrapped in a long and drooping military cloak. That
rider's face was turned away, and even as Jacopo gazed, from his retreat,
the grey horse turning a point of the road, disappeared in the shadows of
the forest.
“Rather warm for a military cloak, my respected friend,” said the Philosopher,
as he gathered up his spider-like limbs and crawled from his
retreat. “Let me see whether the sanctity of our post office has been
violated.”
Looking stealthily over his shoulder,—listening for the faintest echo of
a footstep—Jacopo drew near the rock, and crouching on hands and knees
examined the crevice. The small stone which had secured the letter, lay
on the sod; the crevice was empty, and of course the letter had disappeared.
Jacopo had been simply puzzled and frightened before this discovery;
now he was utterly confounded.
He did not even utter an ejaculation. Seating himself by the wood-side,
the mysterious events of the last hour.
“First, I find out, the guilt of the good old Peter of the white beard.
Then the Devil appears to me, and converts me into a perepatelic post
office. Urged by a simple impulse of duty, I am engaged in opening the
Devil's correspondence, when a hand is laid on my shoulder. Last of all,
a mysterious horseman, violates the sanctity of the rock, and steels the
devil's letter.”
These thoughts stirred the Philosopher's soul into speech:
“Such is the case. I will submit it to a committee of any three intelligent
gentlemen, whether any thing like this, was ever heard of afore, or
can be again, within the compass of three thousand nine hundred and
ninety-nine solar years.”
How far the Philosopher's reveries would have led him, had he been
suffered to pursue the subject, we cannot tell. His meditations were suddenly
brought to an end by a new object of arrangement.
A fragment of paper, looking for all the world,like a stray relic of some
forgotten letter, appeared right before the eyes of Jacopo, nestling in the
roadside dust. This you will say, was not very wonderful, but there was
a name written upon the fragment, which at once held Jacopo—dumb and
without motion—like the victim of a magician's spell.
The name was very simple—“George Washington.”
“I have heard of it afore,” said Jacopo, as a singular thought began to
take shape in his active brain, “And now for Germantown.”
Placing the fragment in a side pocket, and carefully grasping the remaining
letters, he stood ready for his journey.
He brushed the dust and leaves from his attire, arranged his white cravat
with an exactness truly ministerial, and then surveyed his shadow, as
it lay upon the roadside dust, in all its native elegance.
“That graceful rotundity supported by those slender yet graceful
columns, reminds one of the terrestrial Globe, resting upon the Pillars of
Hercules. Quite a geographical figure, I vow!”
Turning toward the south-western wood, he remembered the unknown
hand, with a shudder.
And yet at that moment, by the very rock, where the Philosopher had
felt the hand, crouched the figure of a blind Negro, with a knife in his
tremulous grasp.
“It am de berry debbil and no mistake,” he soliloquized—“He pull
my hand, jist as I was a-gwain to stick de ole boy. Den I run into de
woods, and feel my way, and lay dis hand on de debbil's shoulder. Sorra
mighty gosh! Dese tings make an ole black colo'd man afeard!”
Little did Jacobo imagine,—as he stood wondering and trembling at the
forks of the road—that the unknown hand, laid upon his shoulder in the
called, Black Sam.
“Doubtless it was the Devil,” said Jacopo, and turned his steps toward
Germantown.
A pleasant walk it was, along the lane, which leading over hill and
valley,—among fields and pastures, dotted with cattle, or set off by massy
barns,—now down into this dell, where the brook was ever singing—now
up this hill, whose top covered with chesnut, oak and maple, was living
with the voices of the summer birds—made the heart dream of Eden, and
the lip murmur “Paradise!”
Even Jacopo philosophically hardened into baseness, and rich only in
memories of crime, was somewhat won by the summer loveliness of that
sequestered lane.
“Fresher than Italy!” he cried, as surmounting a hill, he saw the long
line of dark gray fabrics, peeping from a chaos of leaves and blossoms
Then down the hill, into a dell, the lane wandered with rustic walls of
stone,—crowned with wild flowers—on either hand, and the breeze blowing
freshly all the while, with its varied perfumes, stolen from the shrubs
by the water-side. There was a bridge across the brook which murmured
in the hollow of the dell; a bridge formed of a few rude planks,
with wild grass growing in every crevice.
Jacopo lingered there for a single instant.
A green meadow, watered by the brook, and rising gently until it was
lost in an apple orchard. Sunlight, very rich and hazy, upon the heighths,
and in the valley, shadows deep and solemn. The air full of bees, humming
their kimmer song, and the great sky, arching far above without a
cloud.
Something there was in this scene, that stole imperceptibly into Jacopo's
heart, as resting his arms upon the rude rail of the bridge, he drew in the
fragrance and music of the place, as you would drink a cup of rich old
wine. May be in that moment, some ember of a better nature, flamed up
within his heart, and by the sudden light he read, how base and cowardly
had been his life; how lost and sunken, from every manly purpose, his
prostituted soul. May be? Yes, it was even so. For although no tear
shone on his cheek, nor although no tremor of the lip altered a single
throb of sincere feeling, yet for an instant, the heart of the degraded Man,
went back to some dear nook of Childhood, and over the dreary wastes
of memory, he caught one golden gleam from other Days.
How shall we account for this gleam of purer feeling? Was it but a
ray from the ashes of his own soul, or was it, a wandering beam, from the
other World? Perchance, even in that moment, some pure Spirit—invisible
to the gross eyes of sense—came with sudden steps to his side, and
spoke to his sealed ear, a Word from God.
In saying that this Man felt purer, better, for a single moment, as the
pardon of those learned and pious people, who maintain, that Human
Nature is all Corrupt; born to be wicked; and destined to grow fat on
sin. Your forgiveness gentle folks. Total Depravity is a comfortable
digma, and we would not for a moment rob you of the holy consolation
which flows from the belief, that the Human Heart—even the heart of the
Babe, resting so smilingly upon its Mother's heart—is nothing but a Labaratory
of Crimes.
Forgive us, if we believe somewhat differently.
Even this wretch, who leaning upon the rail of the rustic bridge, surveys
the silent dell,—this wretch who embodies in his own person, all the
craft and cunning, the menial vice and livened baseness which forms the
very Religion of modern Civilization—appears to us, not altogether lost
and wicked; not altogether corrupt and depraved.
Search his heart, horrified as it is by the disease of selfishness, and you
will find a throb of purer feeling, beating even there,—even there, you will
discover the pulse of a holier,—yes—a God-like nature.
If there exists such a thing as Total Depravity on the face of the earth,
you will find it in the heart of the man, who has so brutalized his nature,
as to be able to believe the Dogma.
For while the Great Father of Us All, hold the stars in the hollow of
his hand, no man can assert, that He has created one being, totally depraved,—only
one—without having the Lie which he utters, flung back
into his face by every star that shines in the midnight sky, by every blossom
that floats in the summer air,—by the angel-eyes of childhood smiling
some glimpses of Heaven, even into the soul of Jesus.
Jacopo lingered there until the shadows began to grow longer, under the
orchard trees, and at last with something like a sigh went in silence up the
hill. The hill-top gained, the free sun and air upon his face once more,
the town in sight, its roofs framed in foliage, —he was himself again, and
all traces of better feeling, had passed away with the silence and shadow
of the grassy dell.
| CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD.
“THREE LETTERS!” Paul Ardenheim, the monk of Wissahikon | |