University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.

On the evening of the following day, in an old
building, situated at the corner of Strawberry and
Trotter's alleys, there sat two of our principal characters;
one at least worthy of considerable attention,
as he proved to be no other than the mysterious
personage, that has already been described as Fiery
Fitful, so called. He was seated at a little square
table, over which he leaned with his brow resting on
his hand; his face was more pale and haggard
than it had yet appeared; his eyes were deep sunken,
but had lost none of the lustre of their piercing
blackness; and he only raised them at intervals to
gaze at his companion, but his look was that of one
who carried a broken heart, and as he turned his
eyes away, the language of inward agony was
given in a deep sigh — a sigh near akin to a groan.
Could we at all times comprehend the burden of a
sigh, what mysteries would be unfolded, what sad
thoughts, what heart-rending sorrow, what awful
deeds, appealing to our sympathies, our tears, and
our prayers! But no; the heart is a strange book,
only intelligible to the wakeful eye of the spirit,
that hidden priest who ever chants the psalms of
joy or sorrow in the sanctuary of the breast. At

times, however, some response of that chant rises
to the lips, like the distant sound of an organ peal,
conveying the feeling though in a mysterious language;
and the features answer to its changes, as
the stream gives back the clear sky, or the rumbling
thunder-cloud.

Heaven alone heard the slow, solemn, and sorrowful
psalm of the poor spirit that ministered in
the breast of Fitful's companion. A pale female,
the remnant of a once beautiful woman, but now
prematurely shadowed with the veil of age, sat on
the opposite side of the small room. She was
dressed in one of those old-fashioned drab cloaks,
the plain hood answering the place of a bonnet.
Her hair that had once been of a flaxen color
touched with gold, was now sadly mixed with gray,
and hung carelessly over her brow and temples.
Her hands were clasped listlessly together on her
lap, and as she leant forward her pale blue eyes
gazed vacantly on the walls, and her whole face
was so entirely blank, you could not but think
that some blighting sorrow had chilled the senses,
and thus swept every vestige of expression from
her countenance. Such, indeed, had been her
sorrow, and such the result.

“Poor woman!” thought Fitful, as he heaved a
bitter sigh, “poor woman, God knows what she has
suffered! Of what a lovely thing is she the wreck!
O, it drives me mad to think of it — could she but
wake up from that horrible lethargy, if it were but

for the space of an hour, that I might tell her of
the fires that are consuming me, and would bear it
all, how calmly. But now, it is as though I had
cursed my mother and she had died, while yet the
words were in the air, leaving me unforgiven, with
the unnatural crime forever recoiling upon my own
head. Nothing in man's great book of calamities
could be more terrible, except what I now see
before me! But I must speak to her — Mary, —
Mary, I say —” “Did you speak?” said the poor
woman, turning upon Fitful the same expressionless
face. “Yes, Mary, I was about to tell you
that the boy has arrived in the city.”

“I had a boy once,” replied she. “I remember
him yet.” Ah, yes, what force of circumstances
ever compelled a mother to forget her
child? Through the heaviest mist that wraps the
dulled senses, or the blackest clouds of adversity,
the mother's remembrance of her child come star-like;
yes, amid all this,

“But I was agoing to tell you,” resumed the
man, “I was agoing to tell you, that Paul is in
town.”

“Paul, — Paul,” — said she, slowly, “yes, I like
that name — my father's name was Paul; he was
an old man; his hair was quite white — very like
my own — yes, I think sometimes, that I look like
him — look as he did when he was dead — very

pale; but I did n't see him then — no, no, I did n't
see him then.”

“Gracious heaven!” groaned Fitful, covering
his face in his hands; at last he started, as if impelled
by some irresistible power, and gazing
wildly around, he was about to give vent to words
that seemed struggling for utterance, when a slight
knocking was heard at the door; Fitful in a moment
recoiled within himself, and assumed his
usual composure, if, indeed, at any time he might
be said to be composed. The manner in which a
person demands entrance by the common mode of
rapping on the door with the knuckle or any similar
instrument, is as good an index perhaps to the
character of an individual as almost any of their
other external actions; not only may you judge of
their usual peculiarities, but more especially of the
present mood by which they are actuated. Such
was the case in the present instance. Fitful involuntarily
contracted his brows and gazed for a
moment angrily towards the door, his fierce black
eyes seemed to penetrate the panels, and to survey
the stranger with an unwelcome look of recognition.
The sly, crafty knock, if such an epithet may be
applied to a sound, was repeated, and the person
was admitted. Nathaniel Munson, (for such was
the name of the intruder,) was a little shrivelled-up
old man, dressed in Quaker garb; his very small
gray eyes twinkled very sharply from beneath
jagged eyebrows, and his thin Roman nose came

into close proximity with his peaked chin, which
was half buried in the thick loose folds of his
white neck handkerchief, the latter being the only
article about him that wore the appearance of
amplitude or freedom.

“How does thee do, John?” exclaimed the
Quaker, rubbing his hard, bony hands together, as
if he enjoyed the feeling, since he knew that the
sharp knuckles and lank fingers betrayed no very
great extravagance in his mode of living. “Ah,”
thought he, as he hid a malicious grin by burying
his face deep in his neck-cloth, and gazed toward
the woman who was scarcely yet conscious of his
presence, “Ah, ha! she is here, eh! perhaps with
some complaint of ill usage, or something of that
sort, eh? Well, well, we 'll stop this communication
one of these days.” His thoughts, however,
were not deep enough to be concealed from the
searching gaze of Fitful, who read the Quaker's
mind in his countenance as easily as though it had
been a book. Munson quailed beneath the fiery
indignation of Fitful's eye, while the latter led the
woman to the door, and giving her to understand
that they must part for the present, bade her good
night. “Now, sir,” said he, turning to the old
man, who had betaken himself to a seat, “Now,
sir, may I be informed as to what circumstances I
am indebted for the honor of this call?”

“Law, bless me, John,” said the Quaker, smiling
sarcastically, “Law, thee is so polite!”

“Well, then,” answered the other, “to be less
polite and more to the purpose, what in the devil's
name brings your hideous skeleton here, to-night?”

Here Nathaniel Munson dropped his face
deeper than before into his neck-cloth, and gave
vent to a half-smothered “he, he.” “You well
know,” continued Fitful, “that I had rather see the
foulest ghost that ever troubled the perpetrator of
the blackest crime that man or demon could commit,
than stand for a moment in your loathsome
presence!” The Quaker made no other reply
to this speech than a mere nervous working of his
fingers, as if he were, in imagination, strangling
some hateful enemy.

“Like an evil vine, you wove your wily schemes
about me until my whole existence was poisoned
by them; and now you come to glut your odious
eyes upon me, blasted as I am in the very prime of
manhood!”

“It was your own willing act,” at last answered
Munson, emphatically, dropping the personal pronoun
“thee” for another more broad and expressive;
“you did it, and I have kept your secret.”

“Yes, you have kept the secret, and wisely,
since you know that the scaffold which the law
would build for me would be sufficiently ample to
accommodate two of us.”

“No, no, not my throat,” said the old man, as
he adjusted the handkerchief about his neck, “not
mine.”

Fitful smiled contemptuously, and seating himself
opposite to the Quaker, requested, very mildly,
that Nathaniel Munson would make known his
business without further delay; or, if his business
was of no particular importance, to at once take
his leave, and in future be careful and not cross his
(Fitful's) path too often.

“O, yes, I 'll take care of that,” replied Munson,
striving to appear very good-natured; and added,
again going back to the Quaker mode of expression,
which he invariably used when he engaged in
any dissimulation, “Thee seems somewhat vexed,
John; I trust thee is not angry with me?”

“Your business, I say, again,” answered Fitful,
impatiently.

“Very well, we will to business, then, if thee
will have it so,” replied the old man. “Thee
knows that thy strange behavior hath drawn many
eyes toward thee; many inquiries and unpleasant
conjectures are bandied from mouth to mouth even
now through the city; thee knows this, eh?”

“Well — well — go on.”

“Thee knows,” continued Munson, “that should
any clue be got to a certain transaction, thee knows
what foul disgrace would forever stigmatize certain
innocent persons nearly connected with thee, eh?”

“Yes, yes,” answered Fitful, “and I know, too,
that in that case certain persons who are not quite
so innocent would be placed in rather an unpleasant
situation; but go on.”

“Therefore it is desirous,” pursued the Quaker,

“that thy appearance here should no longer awake
the suspicions of these curious people.”

“And therefore it is desirous,” answered the
other, sneeringly, “that I should go and drown
myself.”

“O, no, by no means; thee mistakes my friendship,”
replied Munson, while a fiendish expression
of cunning played over his features. “Thee
knows, or ought to know, that I have always been
a friend to thee and thine.”

“Cease your hypocritical jargon,” said Fitful,
angrily, “but proceed with your business.”

“What I am about to propose,” continued the
other, “will in no way compromise thy own safety
or peace of mind, but rather add to it, and especially
secure the quietude of those so nearly connected
with thee; those whom thee cares most for,
I mean,” added he, as he saw a scowl gathering
over the face of his companion.

“A vessel of mine is in port, and will sail again
in three or four weeks, to make a voyage of a few
months; now I thought, perhaps, that thee might
like to take a trip in her, and, by so doing, thee
would be enabled to see new scenes in other countries
that would brighten thee up and make a new
man of thee, eh?”

“I 'll think of it,” answered Fitful, musingly;
“and, in the meantime, I desire to be left alone,
that is if you have finished your business; therefore
leave — no, stay; I forgot to say to you what I
know will give you great pleasure to hear — the

boy Paul is in town.” As Fitful said this, Munson
started as though he had suddenly encountered a
ghost; and then he contracted his brows heavily,
thrust his chin very deep into his neckcloth, and
stood gazing thoughtfully at the floor. At last he
murmured, half inaudibly, “He, then, is the first
incumbrance to be got rid of.”

“What are you muttering about?” exclaimed
Fitful.

“O, I was just thinking what employment we
could give him; we must do something for him,
thee knows.”

“Well, sir,” said the other, waving his hand for
Munson to leave, “I will send the boy to you,
to-morrow, since you are so solicituous about his
welfare. So, now that is settled for the present,
go!” As he said this, the door closed heavily at
the back of Nathaniel Munson, who pursued his
way moodily to his own dwelling.