University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER SIXTH.
THE FASHIONABLE LADY AND HER SON.

All the next day, being the Wednesday before
thanksgiving, was alive and busy with the various
preparations for the great festival, now held to be a
sacred holiday throughout this wide-spread union.
The lark had no sooner called morning in the meadow
than Mopsey, who seemed to regard herself as
having the entire weight of the occasion on her single
shoulders, slipped from bed, hurried to the garden,
and taking a last look at the great pumpkin as it lay
in all its golden glory, severed the vine at a stroke
and trundled it with her own arms, (she saw with a
smile of pity the poor brown mouse skulking off, like
a little pirate as he was, disappointed of his prize,) in
at the back-door. The Peabodys were gathering for
breakfast, and coming forward, stood at either side of
the entrance regarding the pumpkin with profound
interest. It fairly shook the house as it rolled in upon
the kitchen floor.

When little Sam, who had lingered in bed beyond
the others, with pleasant dreams, came down stairs,
he was met by young William Peabody.

“What do you think, Sam?” said Peabody Junior,
smiling.

“I suppose Aunt Carrack has come,” Sam answered.
“It's nothing to me if she has.”

“No, that isn't it.—Turkey's dead!”

Little Sam dropped a tear, and went away by himself
to walk in the garden. Little Sam took no
breakfast that morning.

Every window in the house was thrown wide open
to begin with; every chair walked out of its place;
the new broom which Miriam had gathered with a
song, was used for the first time freely on every floor,
in every nook and corner; then the new broom was
carried away, and locked in a closet like a conjuror
who had wrought his spell and need not appear again
till some other magic was to be performed. All the
chairs were set soberly and steadily against the wall,
the windows were closed, and a sacred shade thrown
over the house against the approaching festival. The
key was turned in the lock of the old parlor, which
was to have no company (save the tall old clock talking

all alone in the corner to himself) till to-morrow.

And so the day sailed on, like a dainty boat with
silent oar on a calm-flowing stream, to evening, when,
as though it had been a new-born meteor or great
will-o'-the-wisp, there appeared on the edge of the
twilight, along the distant horizon, a silvery glitter,
which, drawing nearer and nearer, presently disclosed
a servant in a shining band mounted on a great
coach, with horses in burnished harness; with champing
speed, which it seemed must have borne it far
beyond, it came to in a moment at the very gate of
the homestead, as at the striking of a clock. A gentleman
in bearded lip, in high polish of hat, chains
and boots, emerged, (the door being opened by a
stripling also in a banded hat, who leaped from behind,)
followed by a lady in a gown of glossy silk and
a yellow feather, waving in the partial darkness from
her hat. Such wonder and astonishment as seized on
the Peabodys, who looked on it from the balcony, no
man can describe.

Angles have descended before now and walked
upon the earth—giants have been at some time or
other seen strutting about—ghosts appear occasionally

in the neighborhood of old farm-houses, but neither
ghost, giant, nor angel had such a welcome of uplifted
hands and staring eyes as encountered Mrs.
Carrack and her son Tiffany, when they, in the body
entered in at the gate of the old Peabody mansion at
that time. There was but one person in the company,
old Sylvester perhaps excepted, who seemed to
have his wits about him, and that was the red rooster
who, sitting on the wall near the gate when Mr.
Tiffany Carrack pushed it open, cocked his eye smartly
on him, and darted sharply at his white hand, with
its glittering jewel as he laid it on the gate.

“Nancy,” said old Sylvester, addressing her with
extended grasp, and a pleasant smile of welcome on
his brow, “we had given up looking for you.”

Was there ever such a rash old man! “Nancy!”
as though she had been a common person he was
speaking to.

Mrs. Carrack, who was a short woman, stiff and
stern, tossing her feather, gave the tips of her fingers
to the patriarch, and ordering in a huge leathern
trunk all over brass nails and capital C's, condescended
to enter into the house. In spite of all resolutions
and persuasions to the contrary the door of the best

parlor unlocked before her grandeur of demeanor, and
she took possession as though she had not the slightest
connection with the other members of the Peabody
family, nor the remotest interest in the common
sitting-room without. Mr. Tiffany Carrack, with
patent shanks to his boots which sprang him into the
air as he walked, corsets to brace his body in, new-fangled
straps to keep him down, a patent collar of a
peculiar invention, to hold his head aloft, moving as
it were under the convoy of a company of invisible
influences, deriving all his motions from the shoe-maker,
stay-maker, tailor and linen-draper, who originally
wound him up and set him a-going, for whose
sole convenience he lives, having withal, by way of
paint to his ashy countenance, a couple of little conch-shell
tufts, tawny-yellow, (that being the latest to be
had at the perfumer's,) on his upper lip; the representative
and embodiment of all the latest new improvements,
patents, and contrivances in apparel, Mr. Tiffany
Carrack followed his excellent mother.

“Why, Tiffany,” said old Sylvester, who notwithstanding
the immensity of these people, calmly pursued
his old course, “we all thought you were in
California.”

The family were gathered around and awaited Mr.
Tiffany Carrack's answer with a good deal of curiosity.

“That was all a delusion, sir,” he replied, plucking
at his little crop of yellow tufts,—“a horrible delusion.
I had some thought of that kind in my mind,
in fact I had got as far south as New Orleans, when
I met a seedy fellow who told me that the natives
had rebelled and wouldn't work any more; so I
found if I would get any of the precious, I must dig
with a shovel with my own dear digits; of course I
turned back in disgust, and here I am as good as
new—Jehoshaphat!”

It was well that Mr. Tiffany had a fashion of emphasizing
his discourse with a reference to this ancient
person, whom he supposed to have been an excuisite
of the first water, which happily furnished a
cover under which the entire Peabody family exploded
with laughter at Mr. Carrack's announcement of
the sudden termination of his grand expedition to the
Gold Region. Without an exception they all went
off in an enormous burst, the Captain, little Sam, and
Mopsey leading.

“Every word true, 'pon my honor,” repeated Mr.
Carrack.

The great burst was renewed.

“It was a capital idea, wasn't it?” he said again,
supposing he had made a great hit.

The explosion for the third time, but softened a
little by pity in the female section of the chorus.

Mrs. Carrack had sat stately and aloof, with an
inkling in her brain that all this mirthful tumult was
not entirely in the nature of a complimentary tribute
to her son.

“I think,” she said, with haughty severity of aspect,
“my son was perfectly right. It was a sinful
and a wicked adventure at the best, as the Reverend
Strawbery Hyson clearly showed from the fourth Revelations,
in his last annual discourse to the young
ladies of the church.”

“He did, so he did,” said Mr. Tiffany, stroking
his chin, “I remember perfectly: it was very prettily
stated by Hyson.”

“The Reverend Strawbery Hyson,” said Mrs. Carrack.
“Always give that excellent man his full title.
What would you say, my son, if he should appear in
the streets without his black coat and white cravat?
Would you have any confidence in his preaching
after that?”

“Next to myself,” answered Mr. Tiffany, “I think
our parson's the best-dressed man in Boston.”

“He should be, as an example,” said Mrs. Carrack.
“He has a very genteel congregation.”

Old Sylvester, who had on at that moment an old
brown coat and a frayed black ribbon for a neck-cloth,
ordered Mopsey to send the two best pies in the
house immediately to the negroes in the Hills. Mrs.
Carrack smiled loftily, and drew from her pocket an
elegant small silver vial of the pure otto of rose, and
applied it to her nostrils as though something disagreeable
had just struck upon the air and tainted it.

“By the way,” said Mr. Tiffany Carrack, adjusting
his shirt collar, “how is my little friend Miriam?”

“Melancholy!” was the only answer any one had
to make.

“So I thought,” pursued Mr. Carrack, rolling his
eyes and heaving an infant sigh from his bosom.
“Poor thing, no wonder, if she thought I was gone
away so far. She shall be comforted.”

Mopsey looking in at this moment, gave the summons
to tea, which was answered by Mr. Tiffany Carrack's
offering his arm, impressively, to his excellent
mother, and leading the way to the table.

It was observed, that in his progress to the tea-table,
Mr. Tiffany adopted a tottering and uncertain step,
indicating a dilapidated old age, only kept together
by the clothes he wore, which was altogether unintelligible
to the Peabody family, seeing that Mr.
Carrack was in the very prime of youth, till Mrs. Carrack
remarked, with an affectionate smile of motherly
pride:

“You remind me more and more every day, Tiff,
of that dear delightful old Baden-Baden.”

“I wish the glorious old fellow would come over to
me for a short lark,” rejoined Mr. Tiffany. “But he
couldn't live here long; there's nothing old here.”

“Who's Baden Baden?” asked Sylvester.

“Only a prince of my acquaintance on the other
side of the water, and a devilish clever fellow. But
he could'nt stand it here—I'm afraid—everything's
so new.”

“I'm rather old,” suggested Sylvester, smiling on
the young man.

“So you are, by Jove—But that aint the thing I
want exactly; I want an old castle or two, and a donjon-keep,
and that sort of thing.—You understand.”

“Something,” suggested the grandfather, “in the
style of the old revolutionary fort on Fort Hill?”

“No—no—you don't take exactly. I mean something
more in the antique—something or other, you
see”—here he began twirling his forefinger in the
air and sketching an amorphous phantom of some
sort, of an altogether unattainable character, “in a
word—Jehoshaphat!”

The moment the eye of Mrs. Carrack fell upon the
blue and white crockery, the pewter plates which had
been in use time out of mind in the family, and the
plain knives and forks of steel, she cast on her son a
significant glance of mingled surprise and contempt.
“Thomas,” she said, standing before the place assigned
to her, her son doing the same, “the napkins!”

The napkins were brought from a great basket
which had accompanied the leathern trunk.

“The other things!”

The other things, consisting of china plates, cups
and saucers, and knives and forks of silver for two,
were duly laid—Mrs. Carrack and her son having
kept the rest of the family waiting the saying of
grace by old Sylvester, were good enough to be seated
at the old farmer's (Mrs. Carrack's father's) board.

When old Sylvester unclosed his eyes from the
delivery of thanks, he discovered at the back of Mrs.
Carrack and her son's chairs, the two city servants in
livery, with their short cut hair and embroidered coats
of the fashion of those worn in English farces on the
stage, standing erect and without the motion of a
muscle. There is not a doubt but that old Sylvester
Peabody was a good deal astonished, although he
gave no utterance to his feelings. But when the two
young men in livery began to dive in here and there
about the table, snapping up the dishes in exclusive
service on Mrs. Carrack and Mr. Tiffany Carrack, he
could remain silent no longer.

“Boys,” he said, addressing himself to the two fine
personages in question, “you will oblige me by going
into the yard and chopping wood till we are done
supper. We shall need all you can split in an hour
to bake the pies with.”

Thunder struck, as though a bolt had smitten them
individually in the head, this direction, delivered in a
quiet voice of command not to be resisted, sent the
two servants forth at the back-door. They were
no sooner out of view than they addressed each other

almost at the same moment, “My eyes! did you ever
see such a queer old fellow as that!”

When Mrs. Carrack and her son turned, and
found that the two young gentlemen in livery had
actually vanished, the lady smiled a delicate smile of
gentle scorn, and Mr. Tiffany, regarding his aged
grandfather steadily, merely remarked, in a tone of
most friendly and familiar condescension, “Baden-Baden wouldn't have done such a thing!”

The overpowering grandeur of the fashionable lady
chilled the household, and there was little conversation
till she addressed the widow Margaret.

“Hadn't you a grown up son, Mrs. Peabody?”

The widow was silent. Presently Mr. Carrack renewed
the discourse.

“By the by,” he said, “I thought I saw that son
of yours—wasn't his name Elbridge, or something of
that sort?—in New Orleans.”

“Did you speak to him?” asked the Captain, flushing
a little in the face.

“I observed he was a good deal out at elbows,”
Mr. Carrack answered, “and it was broad day-light,
in one of the fashionable streets.”

“Is that all you have to tell us of your cousin?”
old Sylvester inquired.

“He is my cousin—much obliged for the information.
I had almost forgotten that! Why ye-es—I
couldn't help seeing that he went into a miserable
broken-down house in a by-street—but had to get
my moustache oiled for a Creole ball that evening,
and couldn't be reasonably expected to follow him,
could I?—Jehoshaphat!”

If the human countenance, by reason of its clouding
up in gusts of pitchy blackness acquired the
power, like darkening skies, of discharging thunder-bolts,
it would have been, I am sure, a hot and heavy
one which Mopsey, blackening and blazing, had delivered,
as she departed to the kitchen, lowering upon
Mr. Tiffany Carrack,—“`He thought he saw her son
Elbridge!' The vagabone has no more feeling nor
de bottom of a stone jug.”

The meal over, the evening wore on in friendly
chat of old Thanksgiving times—of neighbors and
early family histories; each one in turn launching,
so to speak, a little boat upon the current, freighted
deep with many precious stores of old-time remembrance;
Mrs. Carrack sitting alone as an iceberg in the

very midst of the waters, melting not once, nor contributing
a drop or trickle to the friendly flow. And
when bed-time came again, how clearly was it shown,
that there is nothing certain in this changeful world.
By some sudden and unforeseen interruption, nations
lose power, communities are shattered, households
well-constructed fall in pieces at a breath.

Her sudden appearance in their midst, compelled
another consultation to be taken as to the disposal
of the great Mrs. Carrack for the night. It would
never answer to put that grand person in any secondary
lodging; so all the old arrangements were of
necessity broken up; the best bed-room allotted to
her; and that her gentle nerves might not be afflicted,
the old clock, which adjoined her sleeping-chamber,
and which had occupied his corner and told the
time for the Peabodys for better than a hundred
years from the same spot, was instantly silenced, as
impertinent. The Captain's high-actioned white horse,
which had enjoyed the privilege of roaming unmolested
about the house, was led away like an unhappy
convict, and stabled in the barn; and to complete
the arrangements, the two servants in livery were put
on guard near her window, to drive off the geese,

turkeys, and other talkative birds of the night, that
she might sleep without the slightest disturbance
from that noisy old creature, Nature.

Mr. Tiffany Carrack, while these delicate preparations
were in progress, was evidently agitated with
some extraordinary design, in which Miriam Haven
was bearing a part; for, although he did not address
a word to that young maiden, he was as busy as his
imitation of the antiquity of Baden-Baden would allow
him, ogling, grimacing, and plucking his tawny
beard at her every minute in the most astonishing
manner, closely watched by Mopsey, the Captain,
and old Sylvester, who strongly suspected the young
man of being affected in his wits.

It was very clear that it was this same Mr. Tiffany
Carrack who had entered in at the door of the sleeping
chamber assigned to that gentleman, but who would
have ventured to assert that the figure, which, somewhere
about the middle of the night, emerged from
the window of the chamber in question, in yellow slippers,
red silk cloak trimmed with gold, fez cap, and
white muslin turban, and, with folded arms, began
pacing up and down under the casement of Miriam
Haven, after the manner of singers at the opera, preparatory

to beginning, was the same Tiffany? And
yet, when he returned again, and holding his face up
to the moon, which was shining at a convenient angle
over the edge of the house, the tawny tuft clearly
identified it as Tiffany and no one else. And yet, as if
to further confuse all recognition, what sound is
that which breaks from his throat, articulating:—

The summons passed for some time unanswered,
till Mopsey, from the little end-window of her lodgement,
presented her head in a flaming red and yellow
handkerchief, and rolled her eyes about to discover
the source of the tumult; scowling in the belief that
it must be no other than “one of dem Brundages come
to carry off in de dead of night de Peabody punkin.”

A gentle conviction was dawning in the brain of Mr.
Carrack that this was the fair Miriam happily responding
to his challenge in the appropriate character
and costume of a Moorish Princess; when, as he
began to roar again, still more violent and furious
in his chanting, the black head opened and demanded,
“what you want dere?” followed by an extraordinary

shower of gourd-shells, which, crashing
upon his sconce, with a distinct shatter for each shell,
could not, for a moment, be mistaken for flowers,
signet-rings, or any other ordinarily recognised love-tokens.

It immediately occurred to Mr. Carrack, with the
suddenness of inspiration, that he had better return
to his chamber and go to bed; a design which was
checked, as he proceeded in that direction, by the
alarming apparition of a great body with a fire-lock
thrust out of the window of the apartment, next to his
own, occupied by the Captain, presented directly at
his head, with a cry “Avast, there!” and a movement
on the part of the body, to follow the gun out
at the window. Fearfully harassed in that quarter,
Mr. Carrack wheeled rapidly about, encountering as
he turned, the two servants in livery, still making the
circuit of the homestead—who in alarm of their
lives from this singular figure in the red cloak, fled into
the fields and lurked in an old out-house till daylight.
As these scampered away before him, Mr. Tiffany, to
relieve himself of the apparition of the gun, would
have turned the corner of the house; when Mopsey
appeared, wildly gesticulating, with a great brush-broom

reared aloft, and threatening instant ruin to
his person.

From this double peril, what but the happiest genius
could have suggested to Mr. Tiffany, an instant
and straightforward flight from the house; in which
he immediately engaged, making up the road—the
Captain with his musket, and Mopsey with her hearth-broom,
close at his heels. If Mr. Tiffany Carrack
had promptly employed his undoubted resources of
youth and activity, his escape from the necessity of
disclosure or surrender had been perhaps easy; but
it so happened that his progress was a good deal
baffled by the conflict constantly kept up in his brain,
between the desire to use his legs in the natural
manner, and to preserve that antique pace of tottering
gentility which he had acquired from that devilish
fine old fellow, the Prince of Baden-Baden, so that
at one moment he was in the very hands of the
enemy, and at the next, flying like an antelope in the
distance. The gun, constantly following him with a
loud threat, from the Captain, seemed, in the moon-light,
like a great finger perpetually pointing at his
head; till at last it became altogether too dreadful
to bear, and making up the road toward Brundage's,

which still further inflamed the pursuit, in sheer exhaustion
he rushed through an open gate into a
neighboring tan-yard, and took refuge in the old
bark-mill. There was but a moment's rest allowed
him even here, for Mopsey and the Captain, furiously
threatening all sorts of death and destruction, presently
rushed in at the door, and sent him scampering
about the ring like a distracted colt, in his first
day's service; a game of short duration, for the Captain
and Mopsey, closing in upon him from opposite directions
compelled him to retreat again into the open
air. How much longer the chase might have continued,
it were hard to tell, for as his pursuers made
after him, Mr. Tiffany Carrack suddenly disappeared,
like a melted snow-flake, from the surface of the
earth. In his confused state he had tumbled into a
vat, fortunately without the observation of the inexorable
enemy, although as he clung to the side the
Captain discharged his musket directly over his head.

“I guess that's done his business,” said the Captain.
“We'll come and look for the body in the
morning.”

Now it is strongly suspected that both Mopsey
and the Captain knew well enough all along that

this was Mr. Tiffany Carrack they had been pursuing,
and that as they watched him from the distance
emerge from the vat, return to the homestead, and
skulk, dripping in, like a rat of outlandish breed,
at his chamber-window, they were amply avenged:
the Captain, for the freedom with which the city-exquisite
had treated the Peabody family, especially
the good old grandfather, and Mopsey, for the
slighting manner in which he had referred to absent
young Mas'r Elbridge.

When all was peace again within the homestead,
there was one who still watched the night, and ignorant
of the nature of this strange tumult, trembled as at
the approach of a long-wished for happiness. It was
Miriam, the orphan dependent, who now sat by the
midnight casement. Oh, who of living men can tell
how that young heart yearned at the thought—the
hope—the thrilling momentary belief—that this was
her absent lover happily returning?

In the wide darkness of the lonesome night, which
was it shone brightest and with purest lustre, in view
of the all-seeing Mover of the Heavens—the stars
glittering far away in space, in all their lofty glory,
or the timid eyes of that simple maiden, wet with the

dew of youth, and bright with the pure hope of honest
love! When all was still again, and no Elbridge's
voice was heard, no form of absent Elbridge there to
cheer her, oh, who can tell how near to breaking, in its
silent agony, was that young heart, and with what
tremblings of solicitude and fear, the patient Miriam
waited for the friendly light to open the golden-gate
of dawn upon another morrow!