 | The snow-image |  |
MAJOR MOLINEUX.
After the kings of Great Britain had assumed the
right of appointing the colonial governors, the measures
of the latter seldom met with the ready and general
approbation which had been paid to those of their
predecessors, under the original charters. The people
looked with most jealous scrutiny to the exercise of
power which did not emanate from themselves, and they
usually rewarded their rulers with slender gratitude for
the compliances by which, in softening their instructions
from beyond the sea, they had incurred the reprehension
of those who gave them. The annals of Massachusetts
Bay will inform us, that of six governors in the space
of about forty years from the surrender of the old charter,
under James II., two were imprisoned by a popular
insurrection; a third, as Hutchinson inclines to believe,
was driven from the province by the whizzing of a musketball;
a fourth, in the opinion of the same historian, was
hastened to his grave by continual bickerings with the
House of Representatives; and the remaining two, as
well as their successors, till the Revolution, were favored
with few and brief intervals of peaceful sway. The
inferior members of the court party, in times of high
political excitement, led scarcely a more desirable life.
These remarks may serve as a preface to the following
adventures, which chanced upon a summer night, not far
avoid a long and dry detail of colonial affairs, is
requested to dispense with an account of the train of
circumstances that had caused much temporary inflammation
of the popular mind.
It was near nine o'clock of a moonlight evening, when
a boat crossed the ferry with a single passenger, who had
obtained his conveyance at that unusual hour by the
promise of an extra fare. While he stood on the landing
place, searching in either pocket for the means of
fulfilling his agreement, the ferryman lifted a lantern, by
the aid of which, and the newly-risen moon, he took a
very accurate survey of the stranger's figure. He was a
youth of barely eighteen years, evidently country-bred,
and now, as it should seem, upon his first visit to town.
He was clad in a coarse gray coat, well worn, but in
excellent repair; his under garments were durably constructed
of leather, and fitted tight to a pair of serviceable
and well-shaped limbs; his stockings of blue yarn were
the incontrovertible work of a mother or a sister; and on
his head was a three-cornered hat, which in its better
days had perhaps sheltered the graver brow of the lad's
father. Under his left arm was a heavy cudgel, formed
of an oak sapling, and retaining a part of the hardened
root; and his equipment was completed by a wallet, not
so abundantly stocked as to incommode the vigorous
shoulders on which it hung. Brown, curly hair, well-shaped
features, and bright, cheerful eyes, were nature's
gifts, and worth all that art could have done for his
adornment.
The youth, one of whose names was Robin, finally
drew from his pocket the half of a little province bill of
currency, did but satisfy the ferryman's demand, with
the surplus of a sexangular piece of parchment, valued
at three pence. He then walked forward into the town,
with as light a step as if his day's journey had not
already exceeded thirty miles, and with as eager an eye
as if he were entering London city, instead of the little
metropolis of a New England colony. Before Robin had
proceeded far, however, it occurred to him that he knew
not whither to direct his steps; so he paused, and looked
up and down the narrow street, scrutinizing the small
and mean wooden buildings that were scattered on
either side.
“This low hovel cannot be my kinsman's dwelling,”
thought he, “nor yonder old house, where the moonlight
enters at the broken casement; and truly I see none
hereabouts that might be worthy of him. It would have
been wise to inquire my way of the ferryman, and
doubtless he would have gone with me, and earned a
shilling from the major for his pains. But the next man
I meet will do as well.”
He resumed his walk, and was glad to perceive that
the street now became wider, and the houses more
respectable in their appearance. He soon discerned a
figure moving on moderately in advance, and hastened
his steps to overtake it. As Robin drew nigh, he saw
that the passenger was a man in years, with a full periwig
of gray hair, a wide-skirted coat of dark cloth, and
silk stockings rolled above his knees. He carried a long
and polished cane, which he struck down perpendicularly
before him, at every step; and at regular intervals
he uttered two successive hems, of a peculiarly solemn
Robin laid hold of the skirt of the old man's coat,
just when the light from the open door and windows of
a barber's shop fell upon both their figures.
“Good-evening to you, honored sir,” said he, making
a low bow, and still retaining his hold of the skirt. “I
pray you tell me whereabouts is the dwelling of my
kinsman, Major Molineux.”
The youth's question was uttered very loudly; and
one of the barbers, whose razor was descending on a
well-soaped chin, and another who was dressing a Ramillies
wig, left their occupations, and came to the door.
The citizen, in the mean time, turned a long-favored
countenance upon Robin, and answered him in a tone of
excessive anger and annoyance. His two sepulchral
hems, however, broke into the very centre of his rebuke,
with most singular effect, like a thought of the cold grave
obtruding among wrathful passions.
“Let go my garment, fellow! I tell you, I know not
the man you speak of. What! I have authority, I
have — hem, hem — authority; and if this be the respect
you show for your betters, your feet shall be brought
acquainted with the stocks by daylight, to-morrow morning!”
Robin released the old man's skirt, and hastened
away, pursued by an ill-mannered roar of laughter from
the barber's shop. He was at first considerably surprised
by the result of his question, but, being a shrewd
youth, soon thought himself able to account for the
mystery.
“This is some country representative,” was his conclusion,
“who has never seen the inside of my kinsman's
The man is old, or verily — I might be tempted to turn
back and smite him on the nose. Ah, Robin, Robin!
even the barber's boys laugh at you for choosing such
a guide! You will be wiser in time, friend Robin.”
He now became entangled in a succession of crooked
and narrow streets, which crossed each other, and
meandered at no great distance from the water-side.
The smell of tar was obvious to his nostrils, the masts
of vessels pierced the moonlight above the tops of the
buildings, and the numerous signs, which Robin paused
to read, informed him that he was near the centre of
business. But the streets were empty, the shops were
closed, and lights were visible only in the second
stories of a few dwelling-houses. At length, on the
corner of a narrow lane, through which he was passing,
he beheld the broad countenance of a British hero
swinging before the door of an inn, whence proceeded
the voices of many guests. The casement of one of
the lower windows was thrown back, and a very thin
curtain permitted Robin to distinguish a party at supper,
round a well-furnished table. The fragrance of the
good cheer steamed forth into the outer air, and the
youth could not fail to recollect that the last remnant
of his travelling stock of provision had yielded to his
morning appetite, and that noon had found, and left him,
dinnerless.
“O, that a parchment three-penny might give me a
right to sit down at yonder table!” said Robin, with a
sigh. “But the major will make me welcome to the
best of his victuals; so I will even step boldly in, and
inquire my way to his dwelling.”
He entered the tavern, and was guided by the murmur
of voices, and the fumes of tobacco, to the public
room. It was a long and low apartment, with oaken
walls, grown dark in the continual smoke, and a floor,
which was thickly sanded, but of no immaculate purity.
A number of persons — the larger part of whom appeared
to be mariners, or in some way connected with the
sea — occupied the wooden benches, or leather-bottomed
chairs, conversing on various matters, and occasionally
lending their attention to some topic of general interest.
Three or four little groups were draining as many
bowls of punch, which the West India trade had long
since made a familiar drink in the colony. Others,
who had the appearance of men who lived by regular
and laborious handicraft, preferred the insulated bliss
of an unshared potation, and became more taciturn
under its influence. Nearly all, in short, evinced a
predilection for the Good Creature in some of its various
shapes, for this is a vice to which, as Fast-day
sermons of a hundred years ago will testify, we have
a long hereditary claim. The only guests to whom
Robin's sympathies inclined him were two or three
sheepish countrymen, who were using the inn somewhat
after the fashion of a Turkish caravansary; they
had gotten themselves into the darkest corner of the
room, and, heedless of the Nicotian atmosphere, were
supping on the bread of their own ovens, and the
bacon cured in their own chimney-smoke. But though
Robin felt a sort of brotherhood with these strangers,
his eyes were attracted from them to a person who
stood near the door, holding whispered conversation
with a group of ill-dressed associates. His features
the whole face left a deep impression on the memory.
The forehead bulged out into a double prominence, with
a vale between; the nose came boldly forth in an irregular
curve, and its bridge was of more than a finger's
breadth; the eyebrows were deep and shaggy, and the
eyes glowed beneath them like fire in a cave.
While Robin deliberated of whom to inquire respecting
his kinsman's dwelling, he was accosted by the
innkeeper, a little man in a stained white apron, who
had come to pay his professional welcome to the
stranger. Being in the second generation from a French
Protestant, he seemed to have inherited the courtesy of
his parent nation; but no variety of circumstances was
ever known to change his voice from the one shrill note
in which he now addressed Robin.
“From the country, I presume, sir?” said he, with a
profound bow. “Beg leave to congratulate you on your
arrival, and trust you intend a long stay with us. Fine
town here, sir, beautiful buildings, and much that may
interest a stranger. May I hope for the honor of your
commands in respect to supper?”
“The man sees a family likeness! the rogue has
guessed that I am related to the major!” thought
Robin, who had hitherto experienced little superfluous
civility.
All eyes were now turned on the country lad, standing
at the door, in his worn three-cornered hat, gray
coat, leather breeches, and blue yarn stockings, leaning
on an oaken cudgel, and bearing a wallet on his
back.
Robin replied to the courteous innkeeper, with such
relative. “My honest friend,” he said, “I shall make
it a point to patronize your house on some occasion,
when” — here he could not help lowering his voice —
“when I may have more than a parchment three-pence in
my pocket. My present business,” continued he, speaking
with lofty confidence, “is merely to inquire my way
to the dwelling of my kinsman, Major Molineux.”
There was a sudden and general movement in the
room, which Robin interpreted as expressing the eagerness
of each individual to become his guide. But the
innkeeper turned his eyes to a written paper on the wall,
which he read, or seemed to read, with occasional recurrences
to the young man's figure.
“What have we here?” said he, breaking his speech
into little dry fragments. “`Left the house of the
subscriber, bounden servant, Hezekiah Mudge, — had on,
when he went away, gray coat, leather breeches, master's
third-best hat. One pound currency reward to
whosoever shall lodge him in any jail of the province.'
Better trudge, boy, better trudge!”
Robin had begun to draw his hand towards the
lighter end of the oak cudgel, but a strange hostility in
every countenance induced him to relinquish his purpose
of breaking the courteous innkeeper's head. As he
turned to leave the room, he encountered a sneering
glance from the bold-featured personage whom he had
before noticed; and no sooner was he beyond the door,
than he heard a general laugh, in which the innkeeper's
voice might be distinguished, like the dropping of small
stones into a kettle.
“Now, is it not strange,” thought Robin, with his
of an empty pocket should outweigh the name of my
kinsman, Major Molineux? O, if I had one of those
grinning rascals in the woods, where I and my oak sapling
grew up together, I would teach him that my arm
is heavy, though my purse be light!”
On turning the corner of the narrow lane, Robin found
himself in a spacious street, with an unbroken line of
lofty houses on each side, and a steepled building at the
upper end, whence the ringing of a bell announced the
hour of nine. The light of the moon, and the lamps
from the numerous shop windows, discovered people
promenading on the pavement, and amongst them
Robin hoped to recognize his hitherto inscrutable relative.
The result of his former inquiries made him
unwilling to hazard another, in a scene of such publicity,
and he determined to walk slowly and silently up the
street, thrusting his face close to that of every elderly
gentleman, in search of the major's lineaments. In his
progress, Robin encountered many gay and gallant
figures. Embroidered garments of showy colors, enormous
periwigs, gold-laced hats, and silver-hilted swords,
glided past him, and dazzled his optics. Travelled
youths, imitators of the European fine gentlemen of the
period, trod jauntily along, half-dancing to the fashionable
tunes which they hummed, and making poor Robin
ashamed of his quiet and natural gait. At length, after
many pauses to examine the gorgeous display of goods
in the shop windows, and after suffering some rebukes
for the impertinence of his scrutiny into people's faces,
the major's kinsman found himself near the steepled
building, still unsuccessful in his search. As yet, however,
so Robin crossed, and continued the same sort of inquisition
down the opposite pavement, with stronger hopes
than the philosopher seeking an honest man, but with no
better fortune. He had arrived about midway towards
the lower end, from which his course began, when he
overheard the approach of some one, who struck down a
cane on the flag-stones at every step, uttering, at regular
intervals, two sepulchral hems.
“Mercy on us!” quoth Robin, recognizing the sound.
Turning a corner, which chanced to be close at his
right hand, he hastened to pursue his researches in some
other part of the town. His patience now was wearing
low, and he seemed to feel more fatigue from his rambles
since he crossed the ferry, than from his journey of
several days on the other side. Hunger also pleaded
loudly within him, and Robin began to balance the propriety
of demanding, violently, and with lifted cudgel,
the necessary guidance from the first solitary passenger
whom he should meet. While a resolution to this effect
was gaining strength, he entered a street of mean appearance,
on either side of which a row of ill-built houses
was straggling towards the harbor. The moonlight fell
upon no passenger along the whole extent, but in the
third domicile which Robin passed there was a half-opened
door, and his keen glance detected a woman's
garment within.
“My luck may be better here,” said he to himself.
Accordingly, he approached the door, and beheld it
shut closer as he did so; yet an open space remained,
sufficing for the fair occupant to observe the stranger,
without a corresponding display on her part. All that
the occasional sparkle of an eye, as if the moonbeams
were trembling on some bright thing.
“Pretty mistress,” for I may call her so with a good
conscience, thought the shrewd youth, since I know
nothing to the contrary, — “my sweet pretty mistress,
will you be kind enough to tell me whereabouts I must
seek the dwelling of my kinsman, Major Molineux?”
Robin's voice was plaintive and winning, and the
female, seeing nothing to be shunned in the handsome
country youth, thrust open the door, and came forth into
the moonlight. She was a dainty little figure, with a
white neck, round arms, and a slender waist, at the
extremity of which her scarlet petticoat jutted out over a
hoop, as if she were standing in a balloon. Moreover,
her face was oval and pretty, her hair dark beneath the
little cap, and her bright eyes possessed a sly freedom,
which triumphed over those of Robin.
“Major Molineux dwells here,” said this fair woman.
Now, her voice was the sweetest Robin had heard that
night, the airy counterpart of a stream of melted silver;
yet he could not help doubting whether that sweet voice
spoke Gospel truth. He looked up and down the mean
street, and then surveyed the house before which they
stood. It was a small, dark edifice of two stories, the
second of which projected over the lower floor; and the
front apartment had the aspect of a shop for petty
commodities.
“Now truly I am in luck,” replied Robin, cunningly,
“and so indeed is my kinsman, the major, in having so
pretty a housekeeper. But I prithee trouble him to step
to the door; I will deliver him a message from his friends
inn.”
“Nay, the major has been a-bed this hour or more,”
said the lady of the scarlet petticoat; “and it would be
to little purpose to disturb him to-night, seeing his evening
draught was of the strongest. But he is a kind-hearted
man, and it would be as much as my life's
worth to let a kinsman of his turn away from the door.
You are the good old gentleman's very picture, and I
could swear that was his rainy-weather hat. Also he
has garments very much resembling those leather small-clothes.
But come in, I pray, for I bid you hearty welcome
in his name.”
So saying, the fair and hospitable dame took our hero
by the hand; and the touch was light, and the force was
gentleness, and though Robin read in her eyes what he
did not hear in her words, yet the slender-waisted
woman in the scarlet petticoat proved stronger than the
athletic country youth. She had drawn his half-willing
footsteps nearly to the threshold, when the opening of a
door in the neighborhood startled the major's house-keeper,
and, leaving the major's kinsman, she vanished
speedily into her own domicile. A heavy yawn preceded
the appearance of a man, who, like the Moonshine of
Pyramus and Thisbe, carried a lantern, needlessly aiding
his sister luminary in the heavens. As he walked
sleepily up the street, he turned his broad, dull face on
Robin, and displayed a long staff, spiked at the end.
“Home, vagabond, home!” said the watchman, in
accents that seemed to fall asleep as soon as they were
uttered. “Home, or we 'll set you in the stocks, by
peep of day!”
“This is the second hint of the kind,” thought Robin.
“I wish they would end my difficulties, by setting me
there to-night.”
Nevertheless, the youth felt an instinctive antipathy
towards the guardian of midnight order, which at first
prevented him from asking his usual question. But
just when the man was about to vanish behind the corner,
Robin resolved not to lose the opportunity, and
shouted lustily after him,—
“I say, friend! will you guide me to the house of my
kinsman, Major Molineux?”
The watchman made no reply, but turned the corner
and was gone; yet Robin seemed to hear the sound of
drowsy laughter stealing along the solitary street. At
that moment, also, a pleasant titter saluted him from the
open window above his head; he looked up, and caught
the sparkle of a saucy eye; a round arm beckoned to
him, and next he heard light footsteps descending the
staircase within. But Robin, being of the household of
a New England clergyman, was a good youth, as well
as a shrewd one; so he resisted temptation, and fled
away.
He now roamed desperately, and at random, through
the town, almost ready to believe that a spell was on
him, like that by which a wizard of his country had once
kept three pursuers wandering, a whole winter night,
within twenty paces of the cottage which they sought.
The streets lay before him, strange and desolate, and the
lights were extinguished in almost every house. Twice,
however, little parties of men, among whom Robin distinguished
individuals in outlandish attire, came hurrying
along; but though on both occasions they paused to
perplexity. They did but utter a few words in some
language of which Robin knew nothing, and perceiving
his inability to answer, bestowed a curse upon him in plain
English, and hastened away. Finally, the lad determined
to knock at the door of every mansion that might
appear worthy to be occupied by his kinsman, trusting
that perseverance would overcome the fatality that had
hitherto thwarted him. Firm in this resolve, he was
passing beneath the walls of a church, which formed the
corner of two streets, when, as he turned into the shade
of its steeple, he encountered a bulky stranger, muffled
in a cloak. The man was proceeding with the speed of
earnest business, but Robin planted himself full before
him, holding the oak cudgel with both hands across his
body, as a bar to further passage.
“Halt, honest man, and answer me a question,” said
he, very resolutely. “Tell me, this instant, whereabouts
is the dwelling of my kinsman, Major Molineux!”
“Keep your tongue between your teeth, fool, and let
me pass!” said a deep, gruff voice, which Robin partly
remembered. “Let me pass, I say, or I 'll strike you to
the earth!”
“No, no, neighbor!” cried Robin, flourishing his
cudgel, and then thrusting its larger end close to the
man's muffled face. “No, no, I 'm not the fool you take
me for, nor do you pass till I have an answer to my
question. Whereabouts is the dwelling of my kinsman,
Major Molineux?”
The stranger, instead of attempting to force his passage,
stepped back into the moonlight, unmuffled his
face, and stared full into that of Robin.
“Watch here an hour, and Major Molineux will pass
by,” said he.
Robin gazed with dismay and astonishment on the
unprecedented physiognomy of the speaker. The forehead
with its double prominence, the broad hooked nose,
the shaggy eyebrows, and fiery eyes, were those which
he had noticed at the inn, but the man's complexion had
undergone a singular, or, more properly, a two-fold
change. One side of the face blazed an intense red,
while the other was black as midnight, the division line
being in the broad bridge of the nose; and a mouth which
seemed to extend from ear to ear was black or red, in
contrast to the color of the cheek. The effect was as
if two individual devils, a fiend of fire and a fiend of
darkness, had united themselves to form this infernal
visage. The stranger grinned in Robin's face, muffled
his parti-colored features, and was out of sight in a
moment.
“Strange things we travellers see!” ejaculated Robin.
He seated himself, however, upon the steps of the
church-door, resolving to wait the appointed time for his
kinsman. A few moments were consumed in philosophical
speculations upon the species of man who had just
left him; but having settled this point shrewdly, rationally,
and satisfactorily, he was compelled to look elsewhere
for his amusement. And first he threw his eyes
along the street. It was of more respectable appearance
than most of those into which he had wandered, and
the moon, creating, like the imaginative power, a beautiful
strangeness in familiar objects, gave something of
romance to a scene that might not have possessed it in
the light of day. The irregular and often quaint architecture
into numerous little peaks, while others ascended, steep
and narrow, into a single point, and others again were
square; the pure snow-white of some of their complexions,
the aged darkness of others, and the thousand sparklings,
reflected from bright substances in the walls of many;
these matters engaged Robin's attention for a while, and
then began to grow wearisome. Next he endeavored to
define the forms of distant objects, starting away, with
almost ghostly indistinctness, just as his eye appeared to
grasp them; and finally he took a minute survey of an
edifice which stood on the opposite side of the street,
directly in front of the church-door, where he was stationed.
It was a large, square mansion, distinguished
from its neighbors by a balcony, which rested on tall
pillars, and by an elaborate Gothic window, communicating
therewith.
“Perhaps this is the very house I have been seeking,”
thought Robin.
Then he strove to speed away the time, by listening
to a murmur which swept continually along the street,
yet was scarcely audible, except to an unaccustomed ear
like his; it was a low, dull, dreamy sound, compounded
of many noises, each of which was at too great a distance
to be separately heard. Robin marvelled at this
snore of a sleeping town, and marvelled more whenever
its continuity was broken by now and then a distant
shout, apparently loud where it originated. But altogether
it was a sleep-inspiring sound, and, to shake off
its drowsy influence, Robin arose, and climbed a window-frame,
that he might view the interior of the church.
There the moonbeams came trembling in, and fell down
aisles. A fainter yet more awful radiance was hovering
around the pulpit, and one solitary ray had dared
to rest upon the opened page of the great Bible. Had
nature, in that deep hour, become a worshipper in the
house which man had builded? Or was that heavenly
light the visible sanctity of the place, — visible because no
earthly and impure feet were within the walls? The
scene made Robin's heart shiver with a sensation of loneliness
stronger than he had ever felt in the remotest
depths of his native woods; so he turned away, and sat
down again before the door. There were graves around
the church, and now an uneasy thought obtruded into
Robin's breast. What if the object of his search, which
had been so often and so strangely thwarted, were all
the time mouldering in his shroud? What if his kinsman
should glide through yonder gate, and nod and
smile to him in dimly passing by?
“O that any breathing thing were here with me!”
said Robin.
Recalling his thoughts from this uncomfortable track,
he sent them over forest, hill, and stream, and attempted
to imagine how that evening of ambiguity and wearines
had been spent by his father's household. He
pictured them assembled at the door, beneath the tree,
the great old tree, which had been spared for its huge
twisted trunk, and venerable shade, when a thousand
leafy brethren fell. There, at the going down of the
summer sun, it was his father's custom to perform
domestic worship, that the neighbors might come and
join with him like brothers of the family, and that the
wayfaring man might pause to drink at that fountain,
home. Robin distinguished the seat of every individual
of the little audience; he saw the good man in the
midst, holding the Scriptures in the golden light that fell
from the western clouds; he beheld him close the book,
and all rise up to pray. He heard the old thanksgivings
for daily mercies, the old supplications for their continuance,
to which he had so often listened in weariness,
but which were now among his dear remembrances. He
perceived the slight inequality of his father's voice when
he came to speak of the absent one; he noted how his
mother turned her face to the broad and knotted trunk;
how his elder brother scorned, because the beard was
rough upon his upper lip, to permit his features to
be moved; how the younger sister drew down a low
hanging branch before her eyes; and how the little one
of all, whose sports had hitherto broken the decorum of
the scene, understood the prayer for her playmate, and
burst into clamorous grief. Then he saw them go in at
the door; and when Robin would have entered also, the
latch tinkled into its place, and he was excluded from
his home.
“Am I here, or there?” cried Robin, starting; for all
at once, when his thoughts had become visible and audible
in a dream, the long, wide, solitary street shone out
before him.
He aroused himself, and endeavored to fix his attention
steadily upon the large edifice which he had surveyed
before. But still his mind kept vibrating between fancy
and reality; by turns, the pillars of the balcony lengthened
into the tall, bare stems of pines, dwindled down to
human figures, settled again into their true shape and
For a single moment, when he deemed himself awake,
he could have sworn that a visage — one which he seemed
to remember, yet could not absolutely name as his kinsman's
— was looking towards him from the Gothic window.
A deeper sleep wrestled with and nearly overcame
him, but fled at the sound of footsteps along the opposite
pavement. Robin rubbed his eyes, discerned a man
passing at the foot of the balcony, and addressed him in
a loud, peevish, and lamentable cry.
“Hallo, friend! must I wait here all night for my
kinsman, Major Molineux?”
The sleeping echoes awoke, and answered the voice;
and the passenger, barely able to discern a figure sitting
in the oblique shade of the steeple, traversed the street
to obtain a nearer view. He was himself a gentleman
in his prime, of open, intelligent, cheerful, and altogether
prepossessing countenance. Perceiving a country youth,
apparently homeless and without friends, he accosted
him in a tone of real kindness, which had become strange
to Robin's ears.
“Well, my good lad, why are you sitting here?”
inquired he. “Can I be of service to you in any
way?”
“I am afraid not, sir,” replied Robin, despondingly;
“yet I shall take it kindly, if you 'll answer me a single
question. I 've been searching, half the night, for one
Major Molineux; now, sir, is there really such a person
in these parts, or am I dreaming?”
“Major Molineux! The name is not altogether
strange to me,” said the gentleman, smiling. “Have
with him?”
Then Robin briefly related that his father was a clergyman,
settled on a small salary, at a long distance back
in the country, and that he and Major Molineux were
brothers' children. The major, having inherited riches,
and acquired civil and military rank, had visited his
cousin, in great pomp, a year or two before; had manifested
much interest in Robin and an elder brother, and,
being childless himself, had thrown out hints respecting
the future establishment of one of them in life. The
elder brother was destined to succeed to the farm which
his father cultivated in the interval of sacred duties; it
was therefore determined that Robin should profit by his
kinsman's generous intentions, especially as he seemed
to be rather the favorite, and was thought to possess
other necessary endowments.
“For I have the name of being a shrewd youth,”
observed Robin, in this part of his story.
“I doubt not you deserve it,” replied his new friend,
good-naturedly; “but pray proceed.”
“Well, sir, being nearly eighteen years old, and well-grown,
as you see,” continued Robin, drawing himself
up to his full height, “I thought it high time to begin
the world. So my mother and sister put me in handsome
trim, and my father gave me half the remnant of
his last year's salary, and five days ago I started for this
place, to pay the major a visit. But, would you believe
it, sir! I crossed the ferry a little after dark, and have
yet found nobody that would show me the way to his
dwelling; — only, an hour or two since, I was told to
wait here, and Major Molineux would pass by.”
“Can you describe the man who told you this?”
inquired the gentleman.
“O, he was a very ill-favored fellow, sir,” replied
Robin, “with two great bumps on his forehead, a hook
nose, fiery eyes, — and, what struck me as the strangest,
his face was of two different colors. Do you happen to
know such a man, sir?”
“Not intimately,” answered the stranger, “but I
chanced to meet him a little time previous to your
stopping me. I believe you may trust his word, and
that the major will very shortly pass through this street.
In the mean time, as I have a singular curiosity to witness
your meeting, I will sit down here upon the steps,
and bear you company.”
He seated himself accordingly, and soon engaged his
companion in animated discourse. It was but of brief
continuance, however, for a noise of shouting, which had
long been remotely audible, drew so much nearer that
Robin inquired its cause.
“What may be the meaning of this uproar?” asked
he. “Truly, if your town be always as noisy, I shall
find little sleep, while I am an inhabitant.”
“Why, indeed, friend Robin, there do appear to be
three or four riotous fellows abroad to-night,” replied the
gentleman. “You must not expect all the stillness of
your native woods, here in our streets. But the watch
will shortly be at the heels of these lads, and —”
“Ay, and set them in the stocks by peep of day,”
interrupted Robin, recollecting his own encounter with
the drowsy lantern-bearer. “But, dear sir, if I may
trust my ears, an army of watchmen would never make
head against such a multitude of rioters. There were
shout.”
“May not a man have several voices, Robin, as well
as two complexions?” said his friend.
“Perhaps a man may; but Heaven forbid that a
woman should!” responded the shrewd youth, thinking
of the seductive tones of the major's housekeeper.
The sounds of a trumpet in some neighboring street
now became so evident and continual, that Robin's curiosity
was strongly excited. In addition to the shouts,
he heard frequent bursts from many instruments of
discord, and a wild and confused laughter filled up the
intervals. Robin rose from the steps, and looked wistfully
towards a point whither several people seemed to
be hastening.
“Surely some prodigious merry-making is going on,”
exclaimed he. “I have laughed very little since I left
home, sir, and should be sorry to lose an opportunity.
Shall we step round the corner by that darkish house,
and take our share of the fun?”
“Sit down again, sit down, good Robin,” replied the
gentleman, laying his hand on the skirt of the gray
coat. “You forget that we must wait here for your
kinsman; and there is reason to believe that he will
pass by, in the course of a very few moments.”
The near approach of the uproar had now disturbed
the neighborhood; windows flew open on all sides; and
many heads, in the attire of the pillow, and confused by
sleep suddenly broken, were protruded to the gaze of
whoever had leisure to observe them. Eager voices
hailed each other from house to house, all demanding
the explanation, which not a soul could give. Half-dressed
stumbling as they went over the stone steps, that thrust
themselves into the narrow foot-walk. The shouts, the
laughter, and the tuneless bray, the antipodes of music,
came onwards with increasing din, till scattered individuals,
and then denser bodies, began to appear round
a corner at the distance of a hundred yards.
“Will you recognize your kinsman, if he passes in
this crowd?” inquired the gentleman.
“Indeed, I can't warrant it, sir; but I 'll take my
stand here, and keep a bright look-out,” answered Robin,
descending to the outer edge of the pavement.
A mighty stream of people now emptied into the
street, and came rolling slowly towards the church. A
single horseman wheeled the corner in the midst of
them, and close behind him came a band of fearful
wind-instruments, sending forth a fresher discord, now
that no intervening buildings kept it from the ear. Then
a redder light disturbed the moonbeams, and a dense
multitude of torches shone along the street, concealing,
by their glare, whatever object they illuminated. The
single horseman, clad in a military dress, and bearing a
drawn sword, rode onward as the leader, and, by his
fierce and variegated countenance, appeared like war
personified: the red of one cheek was an emblem of fire
and sword; the blackness of the other betokened the
mourning that attends them. In his train were wild
figures in the Indian dress, and many fantastic shapes
without a model, giving the whole march a visionary
air, as if a dream had broken forth from some feverish
brain, and were sweeping visibly through the midnight
streets. A mass of people, inactive, except as applauding
women ran along the side-walk, piercing the confusion
of heavier sounds with their shrill voices of mirth or
terror.
`The double-faced fellow has his eye upon me,”
muttered Robin, with an indefinite but an uncomfortable
idea that he was himself to bear a part in the pageantry.
The leader turned himself in the saddle, and fixed his
glance full upon the country youth, as the steed went
slowly by. When Robin had freed his eyes from those
fiery ones, the musicians were passing before him, and
the torches were close at hand; but the unsteady brightness
of the latter formed a veil which he could not
penetrate. The rattling of wheels over the stones sometimes
found its way to his ear, and confused traces of a
human form appeared at intervals, and then melted into
the vivid light. A moment more, and the leader thundered
a command to halt: the trumpets vomited a
horrid breath, and then held their peace; the shouts and
laughter of the people died away, and there remained
only a universal hum, allied to silence. Right before
Robin's eyes was an uncovered cart. There the torches
blazed the brightest, there the moon shone out like day,
and there, in tar-and-feathery dignity, sat his kinsman,
Major Molineux!
He was an elderly man, of large and majestic person,
and strong, square features, betokening a steady soul; but
steady as it was, his enemies had found means to shake
it. His face was pale as death, and far more ghastly;
the broad forehead was contracted in his agony, so that
his eyebrows formed one grizzled line; his eyes were
red and wild, and the foam hung white upon his quivering
continual tremor, which his pride strove to quell, even
in those circumstances of overwhelming humiliation.
But perhaps the bitterest pang of all was when his eyes
met those of Robin; for he evidently knew him on the
instant, as the youth stood witnessing the foul disgrace
of a head grown gray in honor. They stared at each
other in silence, and Robin's knees shook, and his hair
bristled, with a mixture of pity and terror. Soon, however,
a bewildering excitement began to seize upon his
mind; the preceding adventures of the night, the unexpected
appearance of the crowd, the torches, the confused
din and the hush that followed, the spectre of his kinsman
reviled by that great multitude, — all this, and, more
than all, a perception of tremendous ridicule in the whole
scene, affected him with a sort of mental inebriety. At
that moment a voice of sluggish merriment saluted Robin's
ears; he turned instinctively, and just behind the corner
of the church stood the lantern-bearer, rubbing his eyes,
and drowsily enjoying the lad's amazement. Then he
heard a peal of laughter like the ringing of silvery bells;
a woman twitched his arm, a saucy eye met his, and
he saw the lady of the scarlet petticoat. A sharp, dry
cachinnation appealed to his memory, and, standing on
tiptoe in the crowd, with his white apron over his head,
he beheld the courteous little innkeeper. And lastly,
there sailed over the heads of the multitude a great,
broad laugh, broken in the midst by two sepulchral
hems; thus, “Haw, haw, haw, — hem, hem, — haw,
haw, haw, haw!”
The sound proceeded from the balcony of the opposite
edifice, and thither Robin turned his eyes. In front of
wide gown, his gray periwig exchanged for a night-cap,
which was thrust back from his forehead, and his silk
stockings hanging about his legs. He supported himself
on his polished cane in a fit of convulsive merriment,
which manifested itself on his solemn old features like
a funny inscription on a tomb-stone. Then Robin
seemed to hear the voices of the barbers, of the guests
of the inn, and of all who had made sport of him that
night. The contagion was spreading among the multitude,
when, all at once, it seized upon Robin, and he
sent forth a shout of laughter that echoed through the
street; — every man shook his sides, every man emptied
his lungs, but Robin's shout was the loudest there. The
cloud-spirits peeped from their silvery islands, as the
congregated mirth went roaring up the sky! The Man
in the Moon heard the far bellow; “Oho,” quoth he,
“the old earth is frolicksome to-night!”
When there was a momentary calm in that tempestuous
sea of sound, the leader gave the sign, the procession
resumed its march. On they went, like fiends that
throng in mockery around some dead potentate, mighty
no more, but majestic still in his agony. On they went,
in counterfeited pomp, in senseless uproar, in frenzied
merriment, trampling all on an old man's heart. On
swept the tumult, and left a silent street behind.
“Well, Robin, are you dreaming?” inquired the gentleman,
laying his hand on the youth's shoulder.
Robin started, and withdrew his arm from the stone
post to which he had instinctively clung, as the living
stream rolled by him. His cheek was somewhat pale,
the evening.
“Will you be kind enough to show me the way to the
ferry?” said he, after a moment's pause.
“You have, then, adopted a new subject of inquiry?”
observed his companion, with a smile.
“Why, yes, sir,” replied Robin, rather dryly. “Thanks
to you, and to my other friends, I have at last met my
kinsman, and he will scarce desire to see my face again.
I begin to grow weary of a town life, sir. Will you
show me the way to the ferry?”
“No, my good friend Robin, — not to-night, at least,”
said the gentleman. “Some few days hence, if you
wish it, I will speed you on your journey. Or, if you
prefer to remain with us, perhaps, as you are a shrewd
youth, you may rise in the world without the help of
your kinsman, Major Molineux.”
| The snow-image | |