University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER SECOND.
ARRIVAL OF THE MERCHANT AND HIS PEOPLE.

“It is William and Hannah,” said the Patriarch,
towering above the household grouped about him,
and gaining an advantage in observation from his
commanding height, “I am glad the oldest is the
first to come!”

When the two comers reached the door-yard gate
the man entered in without rendering the least assistance
or paying the slightest heed to his companion,
who followed humbly in his track. He was some
sixty years of age, large-featured and inclining to
tallness; his dress was oldmanish and plain, consisting
of a long-furred beaver hat, a loose made coat,
and other apparel corresponding, with low cut shoes.
He smiled as he came upon the balcony, greeting
old Sylvester with a shake of the hand, but taking
no notice whatever either of the widow, little Sam,
or Mopsey. His wife, on the contrary, spoke to all,
but quietly and submissively, which was in truth,
her whole manner. She was spare and withered,
with a pinched, colorless face, constrained in a scared

and apprehensive look as though in constant dread
of an impending violence or injury. Over one eye
she wore a green patch, which greatly heightened
the pallor and strangeness of her features.

“Where's the Captain and Henrietta?” old Sylvester
asked when the greetings were over.

“They started from the city in a chay,” he was
answered by William Peabody, “some hours before
us,—the captain,—seaman—way of driving irreg'lar.
Nobody can tell what road he may have got into.
Should'nt be surprised if did'nt arrive till to-morrow
morning. Will always have high-actioned
horse.”

William Peabody had scarcely spoken when there
arose in the distance down the road, a violent cloud
of dust, from which there emerged a two-wheeled
vehicle at a thundering pace, and which, in less than
a minute's time, went whirling past the Homestead.
It was supposed to contain Captain Saltonstall and
wife; but what with the speed and dust, no eye
could have guessed with any accuracy who or what
they were. In less than a minute more it came
sweeping back with the great white horse, passing
the house again like an apparition, or the ghost of a

horse and gig. With another sally down the road
and return, with a long curve in the road before the
Homestead, it at last came to at the gate, and disclosed
in a high sweat and glowing all over his huge
person, the jovial Captain, and at his side his pretty
little cherry-faced girl of a wife, Henrietta Peabody,
daughter of William Peabody, who, be it known, is
old Sylvester's oldest son. There also emerged from
the one-horse gig, after the captain had made ground,
and jumped his little wife to the same landing in his
arms, a red-faced boy, who must have been closely
stowed somewhere, for he came out of the vehicle
highly colored, and looking very much as if he had
been sat upon for a couple of hours or more. The
Captain having freed his horse from the traces, and
at old Sylvester's suggestion, set him loose in the
door-yard to graze at his leisure, rushed forward upon
the balcony very much in the character of a good
natured tornado, saluted the widow Margaret with a
whirlwind kiss, threw little Sam high in the air and
caught him as he came within half an inch of the
ground, shook the old grandfather's readily extended
hand with a sturdy grasp, and wound up, for a moment,
with a great cuff on the side of the head with
a roll of stuff for a new gown for Mopsey, saying as
he delivered it, “Dere, what d'ye say to dat, Darkey!”

Darkey brightened into a sort of nocturnal illumination,
and shuffling away, in the loose shoes, to the
keeping of which on her feet the better half of the
best energies of her life were directed, gave out that
she must be looking after dinner.

It was but for a moment only that the Captain
paused, and in less than five minutes he had said and
done so many good-natured things, had shown himself
so free of heart withal, and so little considerate
of self or the figure he cut, that in spite of his great
clumsy person, and the gash in his face, and the
somewhat exorbitant character of his dress, his coat
being a bob as long and straight in the line across
the back, as the edge of a table, you could not help
regarding him as a decidedly well made, well dressed,
and quite handsome person; in fact the Captain
passed with the whole family for a fine-looking man.

“Where's my little girl Miriam?” asked the jovial
Captain, after a moment's rest in a seat by the side
of old Sylvester. “I must see my Dolphin, or she'll
think I'm growing old.”

Being advised that the young lady in question

was somewhere within, the Captain rushed into the
house, pursued by all the family in a body, save William
Peabody, who remained with old Sylvester, seated
and in silence.

“How go matters in the city, William?” he said,
removing his hand from his brow, where it had rested
in contemplation for several minutes.

“After the old fashion, father,” William Peabody
answered, smiling with a fox-like glance at his father;
“added three new houses to my property since last
year.”

“Three new houses?”

Three, all of brick,—good streets—built in the
latest style. The city grows and I grow!”

“Three new houses, and all in the latest style—
and how does Margaret's little property pay?”

“Poorly, father, poorly. Elbridge made a bad
choice when he bought it—greatly out of repair—
rents come slowly.”

“In a word, the old story, the widow gets nothing
again from the city. I had hopes you would be able
to bring her some returns this time, for she needs it
sadly.”

“I do the best I can, but money's not to be got
out of stone walls.”

“And you have three new houses which pay well,”
old Sylvester continued, turning his calm blue eye
steadily upon his son.

“Capital—best in the city! Already worth twice
I gave for 'em. The city grows and I grow!”

“My son, do you never think of that other house
reserved for us all?”

William Peabody was about to answer, it was nonsense
for a man only sixty and in sound condition of
body and mind to think too much of that, when his
eye, ranging across the fields, espied in shadow as it
were, through the dim atmosphere, the mist clearing
away a little in that direction, an old sorrel horse—a
long settler with the family and well-known to all its
members—staggering about feebly in a distant orchard,
and in her wanderings stumbling against the
trees.—“Is old Sorrel blind?” he asked, shading his
own eyes from the light.

“She is, William,” old Sylvester replied; “her
sight went from her last New-Year's day.”

“My birth-day,” said the merchant, a sudden pallor
coming upon his countenance.

“Yes, you and old Sorrel are birth-mates, my son.”

“We are; she was foaled the day I was born,” said
William Peabody, and added, as to himself, musingly,
“Old Sorrel is blind! So we pass—so we pass—
young to-day—to-morrow old—limbs fail us—sight
is gone.”

They sat silently, contemplating the still morning
scene before them, and meditating, each in his own
particular way, on the history of the past.

To William, the merchant, it brought chiefly a recollection
how in his early manhood he had set out
from those quiet fields for a hard struggle with the
world, with a bare dollar in his pocket, and when
that was gone the whole world seemed to combine in
a desperate league against him to prevent his achieving
another. How at last, on the very edge of starvation
and despair, he had wrung from it the means
of beginning his fortunes; and how he had gone on
step by step, forgetting all the pleasant ties of his
youth, all recollections of nature and cheerful faces
of friends and kinsfolk, adding thousand to thousand,
house to house; building, unlike Jacob, a ladder, that
descended to the lower world, up which all harsh and
dark spirits perpetually thronged and joined to drag

him down; and yet he smiled grimly at the thought
of the power he possessed, and how many of his early
companions trembled before him because he was
grown to be a rich man.

Old Sylvester, on the other hand, in all his memory
had no thought of himself. His recollection ran back
to the old times when his neighbors sat down under a
king's sceptre in these colonies, how that chain had
been freed, the gloomy Indian had withdrawn his
face from their fields, how the darkness of the woods
had retired before the cheering sun of peace and
plenty; and how from a little people, his dear country,
for whose welfare his sword had been stained,
had grown into a great nation. Scattered up and
down the long line of memory were faces of friends
and kindred, which had passed long ago from the
earth. He called to mind many a pleasant fire-side
chat; many a funeral scene, and burying in sun-light
and in the cold rain; the young Elbridge too was in
his thoughts last of all; could he return to them with
a name untainted, the old man would cheerfully lie
down in his grave and be at peace with all the world.

In the meanwhile, within the house the Captain in
high favor was seated in a great cushioned arm-chair

with little Sam Peabody on his knee, and the women
of the house gathered about him, looking on as he
narrated the courses and adventures of his last voyage.
The widow listened with a sad interest. Mopsey
rolled her eyes and was mirthful in the most serious
and stormiest passages; while little Sam and the
Captain's wife rivalled each other in regarding the
Captain with innocent wonder and astonishment, as
though he were the most extraordinary man that
ever sailed the sea, or sat in a chair telling about it,
in the whole habitable globe. Miriam Haven alone
was distant from the scene, gliding to and fro past
the door, busied in household duties in a neighboring
apartment, and catching a word here and there as she
glanced by.

It was a wonderful story, certainly, the Captain was
telling, and it seemed beyond all belief that it could
be true that one man could have seen the whales, the
icebergs, the floating islands, the ships in the air, the
sea-dogs, and grampuses, the flying-fish, the pirates,
and the thousand other wonders the Captain reported
to have crossed his path in a single trip across the
simple Atlantic and back. He also averred to have
distinctly seen the sea-serpent, and what was more,

to have had a conversation with a ship in the very
middle of the ocean. Was there anything wonderful
in that? it occurs every day—but listen to the
jovial Captain!—a ship—and he had news to tell
them of one they would like to hear about. They
pressed close to the Captain and listened breathlessly;
Miriam Haven pausing in her task, and stopping
stone-still like a statue, in the door, while her very
heart stayed its beating.

Go on—Captain—go on—go on!

“Well, what do you think; we were in latitude—
no matter, you don't care about that—we had just
come out of a great gale, which made the sea pitch-dark
about us; when the first beam of the sun
opened the clouds, we found ourselves along side a
ship with the old stars and stripes flying like a bird
at the mast-head. There was a sight, my hearties.
We hailed her, she hailed us, we threw her papers,
she threw us, and we parted forever.”

“Is that all?”

“Not half. One of these was a list of passengers;
I run my eye up, and I run my eye down, and there,
shining out like a star amongst them all, I find,
whose d'ye think—Elbridge Peabody—as large as life.”

Miriam Haven staggered against the door-post,
the widow fell upon her knees, “Thank God, my
boy is heard from.”

Little Sam Peabody darted from the Captain's
knee and rushed upon the balcony, crying at the top
of his lungs, “Grandfather, brother Elbridge is heard
from.”

“I don't believe it,” said William Peabody; the
poor old blind sorrel had disappeared from sight into
a piece of woods near the orchard, and the merchant
had quite recovered his usual way of speaking.
“Never will believe it. You hav'nt heard of that
youngster,—never will. Always knew he would run
away some day—never come back again.”

The Captain's story was rapidly explained by the
different members of the family, who had followed
little Sam, to repeat it to old Sylvester, each in her
own way. Miriam and Hannah Peabody, who at
sound of the commotion had come forth from an
inner chamber, whither she had been retired by herself,
joined the company of lookers on.

“What all amount to,” he continued, in his peculiar
clipped style of speech, “Expect to see him

again, do you. Mighty fine chance—where going
to?”

The Captain couldn't tell.

“One of the Captain's fine stories—no—no—if
that boy ever comes back again, I'll—”

There was a deep silence to hear what the hard
old merchant proposed.

“I'll hand over to him the management of his
late father's property, he was always hankering after,
and thought he could make so much more of than
his hard-fisted old uncle.”

This was a comfortable proposition, and little Sam
Peabody, as though it were a great pear or red pippin
that was spoken of, running to his mother, said,

“Mother, I'd take it.”

“I do,” said the widow, “and call you all to
witness.”

William Peabody smiled grimly on Margaret; his
countenance darkened suddenly, and he was, no
doubt, on the point of retracting his confident offer,
when his wife uttered in an under tone, half entreaty,
half authority, “William,” at the same time turning
on her husband the side of the countenance which
wore the green shade. He stifled what he intended

to utter, and shifting uneasily in his seat, he looked
toward the city and was silent. Whatever the reason,
it was clear that when they were seated at the
table, partaking of the meal, it was Captain Saltonstall
that had the best attention from every member
of the household, (and the best of the dish,) from
all save old Sylvester, who held himself erect, as
usual, and impartial in the matter.

“The ways of Providence are strange,” said old
Sylvester, “Out of darkness he brings marvellous
light, and from the frivolous acorn he spreads the
branches wide in the air, which are a shelter, and a
solace, and a shadowy play-ground to our youth and
old age. We must wait the issue, and whatever
comes, to Him must we give thanks.”

With this sentiment for a benediction, the patriarch
dismissed his family to their slumbers, which to
each one of the household brought its peculiar train
of speculation; to two, at least, Miriam and the
widow Margaret, they brought dreams which only
the strong light of day could disprove to be realities.