meditative look, that you could not pass it without the idea that it
had secrets to keep, and an eventful history to moralize upon. In
front, just on the edge of the unpaved sidewalk, grew the Pyncheon-elm,
which, in reference to such trees as one usually meets with, might well
be termed gigantic. It had been planted by a great-grandson of the
first Pyncheon, and, though now fourscore years of age, or perhaps
nearer a hundred, was still in its strong and broad maturity, throwing
its shadow from side to side of the street, overtopping the seven
gables, and sweeping the whole black roof with its pendent foliage. It
gave beauty to the old edifice, and seemed to make it a part of nature.
The street having been widened about forty years ago, the front gable
was now precisely on a line with it. On either side extended a ruinous
wooden fence, of open lattice-work, through which could be seen a
grassy yard, and, especially in the angles of the building, an enormous
fertility of burdocks, with leaves, it is hardly an exaggeration to
say, two or three feet long. Behind the house there appeared to be a
garden, which undoubtedly had once been extensive, but was now
infringed upon by other enclosures, or shut in by habitations and
out-buildings that stood on another street. It would be an omission,
trifling indeed, but unpardonable, were we to forget the green moss
that had long since gathered over the projections of the windows, and
on the slopes of the roof; nor must we fail to direct the reader's eye
to a crop, not of weeds, but flower-shrubs, which were growing aloft in
the air, not a great way from the chimney, in the nook between two of
the gables. {142} They were called Alice's Posies. The tradition was,
that a certain Alice Pyncheon had flung up the seeds in sport, and that
the dust of the street and the decay of the roof gradually formed a
kind of soil for them, out of which they grew, when Alice had long been
in her grave. However the flowers might have come there, it was both
sad and sweet to observe how nature adopted to herself this desolate,
decaying, gusty, rusty old house of the Pyncheon family; and how the
ever-returning summer did her best to gladden it with tender beauty,
and grew melancholy in the effort.
There is one other feature, very essential to be noticed, but which, we
greatly fear, may damage any picturesque and romantic impression which
we have been willing to throw over our sketch of this respectable
edifice. In the front gable, under the impending brow of the second
story, and contiguous to the street, was a shop-door, divided
horizontally in the midst, and with a window for its upper segment,
such as is often seen in dwellings of a somewhat ancient date. This
same shop-door had been a subject of no slight mortification to the
present occupant of the august Pyncheon-house, as well as to some of
her predecessors. The matter is disagreeably delicate to handle; but,
since the reader must needs be let into the secret, he will please to
understand, that about a century ago, the head of the Pyncheons found
himself involved in serious financial difficulties. The fellow
(gentleman, as he styled himself) can hardly have been other than a
spurious interloper; for, instead of seeking office from the king or
the royal governor, or urging his hereditary claim to eastern lands, he
bethought {143} himself of no better avenue to wealth than by cutting a
shop-door through the side of his ancestral residence. It was the
custom of the time, indeed, for merchants to store their goods and
transact business in their own dwellings. But there was something
pitifully small in this old Pyncheon's mode of setting about his
commercial operations; it was whispered, that, with his own hands, all
be-ruffled as they were, he used to give change for a shilling, and
would turn a half-penny twice over, to make sure that it was a good
one. Beyond all question, he had the blood of a petty huckster in his
veins, through whatever channel it may have found its way there.
Immediately on his death, the shop-door had been locked, bolted, and
barred, and, down to the period of our story, had probably never once
been opened. The old counter, shelves, and other fixtures of the
little shop remained just as he had left them. It used to be affirmed,
that the dead shopkeeper, in a white wig, a faded velvet coat, an apron
at his waist, and his ruffles carefully turned back from his wrists,
might be seen through the chinks of the shutters, any night of the
year, ransacking his till, or poring over the dingy pages of his
day-book. From the look of unutterable woe upon his face, it appeared
to be his doom to spend eternity in a vain effort to make his accounts
balance.
And now--in a very humble way, as will be seen--we proceed to open our
narrative.
(_House of the Seven Gables_.)
{144}
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 1811-1863
DENIS DUVAL'S FIRST JOURNEY TO LONDON
At Michaelmas, in the year 1776 (I promise you I remember the year), my
dear and kind friend, Doctor Barnard, having to go to London with his
rents, proposed to take me to London to see my other patron, Sir Peter
Denis, between whom and the Doctor there was a great friendship; and it
is to those dear friends that I owe the great good fortune which has
since befallen me in life. Indeed, when I think of what I might have
been, of what I have escaped, my heart is full of thankfulness for the
great mercies which have fallen to my share. Well, at this happy and
eventful Michaelmas of 1776, Doctor Barnard says to me, "Denis, my
child, if thy mother will grant leave, I have a mind to take thee to
see thy god-father, Sir Peter Denis, in London. I am going up with my
rents, my neighbour Weston will share the horses with me, and thou
shall see the Tower and Mr Salmon's wax-work before thou art a week
older."
You may suppose that this proposition made Master Denis Duval jump for
joy. Of course I had heard of London all my life, and talked with
people who had been there, but that I should go myself to Admiral Sir
Peter Denis's house, and see the play, St Paul's and Mr Salmon's, here
was a height of bliss I had never hoped to attain. I could not sleep
for thinking of my pleasure; I had {145} some money, and I promised to
buy as many toys for Agnes as the Chevalier used to bring her. My
mother said I should go like a gentleman, and turned me out in a red
waistcoat with plate buttons, a cock to my hat, and ruffles to my
shirts. How I counted the hours of the night before our departure! I
was up before the dawn, packing my little valise. I got my little
brass-barrelled pocket-pistol, and I loaded it with shot. I put it
away into my breast-pocket; and if we met with a highwayman I promised
myself he should have my charge of lead in his face. The Doctor's
postchaise was at his stables not very far from us. The stable
lanterns were alight, and Brown, the Doctor's man, cleaning the
carriage, when Mr Denis Duval comes up to the stable-door, lugging his
portmanteau after him through the twilight. Was ever daylight so long
a-coming? Ah! there comes the horses at last; the horses from the
"King's Head," and old Pascoe, the one-eyed postillion. How well I
remember the sound of their hoofs in that silent street! I can tell
everything that happened on that day; what we had for dinner--viz.,
veal cutlets and French beans, at Maidstone; where we changed horses,
and the colour of the horses. "Here, Brown! here's my portmanteau! I
say, where shall I stow it?" My portmanteau was about as large as a
good-sized apple-pie. I jump into the carriage and we drive up to the
rectory: and I think the Doctor will never come out. There he is at
last: with his mouth full of buttered toast, and I bob my head to him a
hundred times out of the chaise window. Then I must jump out,
forsooth. "Brown, shall I give you a hand with the luggage?" says I,
and I dare say they all laugh. Well, {146} I am so happy that anybody
may laugh who likes. The Doctor comes out, his precious box under his
arm. I see dear Mrs Barnard's great cap nodding at us out of the
parlour window as we drive away from the Rectory door to stop a hundred
yards further on at the Priory.
There at the parlour window stands my dear little Agnes, in a white
frock, in a great cap with a blue riband and bow, and curls clustering
over her face. I wish Sir Joshua Reynolds had painted thee in those
days, my dear: but thou wert the very image of one of his little
ladies, that one who became Duchess of Buccleuch afterwards. There is
my Agnes, and now presently comes out Mr Weston's man and luggage, and
it is fixed on the roof. Him, his master, Mr George Weston, follows.
This was the most good-natured of the two, and I shall never forget my
sensation of delight, when I saw him bring out two holster-pistols,
which he placed each in a pocket of the chaise. Is Tommy Chapman, the
apothecary's son of Westgate, alive yet, and does he remember my
wagging my head to him as our chaise whirled by? He was shaking a mat
at the door of his father's shop as my lordship accompanied by my noble
friends passed by.
First stage, Ham Street, "The Bear." A grey horse and a bay to change,
_I_ remember them. Second stage, Ashford. Third stage--I think I am
asleep about the third stage; and no wonder, a poor little wretch who
had been awake half the night before, and no doubt many nights
previous, thinking of this wonderful journey. Fourth stage, Maidstone,
"The Bell." "And here we will stop to dinner, master Shrimp-catcher,"
says the Doctor, and I jump down out of the carriage, nothing {147}
loth. The Doctor followed with his box, of which he never lost sight.
The Doctor liked his ease in his inn, and took his sip of punch so
comfortably, that I, for my part, thought he never would be gone. I
was out in the stables and looking at the horses, and talking to the
ostler who was rubbing his nags down. I dare say I had a peep into the
kitchen, and at the pigeons in the inn-yard, and at all things which
were to be seen at "The Bell," while my two companions were still at
their interminable punch. It was an old-fashioned inn, with a gallery
round the court-yard. Heaven bless us! Falstaff and Bardolph may have
stopped there on the road to Gadshill. I was in the stable looking at
the nags, when Mr Weston comes out of the inn, looks round the court,
opens the door of the postchaise, takes out his pistols, looks at the
priming, and puts them back again. Then we are off again, and time
enough too. It seemed to me many hours since we had arrived at that
creaking old "Bell." And away we go through Addington, Eynesford, by
miles and miles of hop-gardens. I dare say I did not look at the
prospect much, beautiful though it might be, my young eyes being for
ever on the look-out for St Paul's and London.
For a great part of the way Doctor Barnard and his companion had a fine
controversy about their respective religions, for which each was alike
zealous. Nay: it may be the Rector invited Mr Weston to take a place
in his postchaise in order to have this battle, for he never tired of
arguing the question between the two churches. Towards the close of
the day Master Denis Duval fell {148} asleep on Doctor Barnard's
shoulder, and the good-natured clergyman did not disturb him.
I woke up with the sudden stoppage of the carriage. The evening was
falling. We were upon a lonely common, and a man on horseback was at
the window of the postchaise.
"Give us out that there box! and your money!" I heard him say in a very
gruff voice. O heavens! we were actually stopped by a highwayman! It
was delightful.
Mr Weston jumped at his pistols very quick. "Here's our money, you
scoundrel!" says he, and fired point-blank at the rogue's head.
Confusion! the pistol missed fire. He aimed the second, and again no
report followed!
"Some scoundrel has been tampering with these," says Mr Weston, aghast.
"Come," says Captain Macheath, "come, your--"
But the next word the fellow spoke was a frightful oath; for I took out
my little pistol, which was full of shot, and fired it into his face.
The man reeled, and I thought would have fallen out of his saddle. The
postillion, frightened, no doubt, clapped spurs to his horse, and began
to gallop. "Shan't we stop and take that rascal, sir?" said I to the
Doctor. On which Mr Weston gave a peevish kind of push at me, and
said, "No, no. It is getting quite dark. Let us push on." And,
indeed, the highwayman's horse had taken fright, and we could see him
galloping away across the common.
I was so elated to think that I, a little boy, had shot a live
highwayman, that I dare say I bragged outrageously of my action. We
set down Mr Weston at his {149} inn in the Borough, and crossed London
Bridge, and there I was in London at last. Yes, and that was the
Monument, and then we came to the Exchange, and yonder, yonder was St
Paul's. We went up Holborn, and so to Ormonde Street, where my patron
lived in a noble mansion; and where his wife, my lady Denis, received
me with a great deal of kindness. You may be sure the battle with the
highwayman was fought over again, and I got due credit from myself and
others for my gallantry.
(_Denis Duval_.)
CHARLES DICKENS 1812-1870
STORM
"Don't you think that," I asked the coachman, in the first stage out of
London, "a very remarkable sky? I don't remember to have seen one like
it."
"Nor I,--not equal to it," he replied. "That's wind, sir. There'll be
mischief done at sea, I expect, before long."
It was a murky confusion--here and there blotted with a colour like the
colour of the smoke from damp fuel--of flying clouds tossed up into
most remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in the clouds than
there were depths below them to the bottom of the deepest hollows in
the earth, through which the wild moon seemed to plunge headlong, as
if, in a dread disturbance of the laws of nature, she had lost her way
and were frightened. {150} There had been a wind all day; and it was
rising then, with an extraordinary great sound. In another hour it had
much increased, and the sky was more overcast, and it blew hard.
But, as the night advanced, the clouds closing in and densely
overspreading the whole sky, then very dark, it came on to blow, harder
and harder. It still increased, until our horses could scarcely face
the wind. Many times, in the dark part of the night (it was then late
in September, when the nights were not short), the leaders turned
about, or came to a dead stop; and we were often in serious
apprehension that the coach would be blown over. Sweeping gusts of
rain came up before this storm, like showers of steel; and, at those
times, when there was any shelter of trees or lee walls to be got, we
were fain to stop, in a sheer impossibility of continuing the struggle.
When the day broke, it blew harder and harder. I had been in Yarmouth
when the seamen said it blew great guns, but I had never known the like
of this, or anything approaching to it. We came to Ipswich--very late,
having had to fight every inch of ground since we were ten miles out of
London; and found a cluster of people in the market-place, who had
risen from their beds in the night, fearful of falling chimneys. Some
of these, congregating about the inn-yard while we changed horses, told
us of great sheets of lead having been ripped off a high church-tower,
and flung into a bye-street, which they then blocked up. Others had to
tell of country people, coming in from neighbouring villages, who had
seen great trees lying torn out of the earth, and whole {151} ricks
scattered about the roads and fields. Still, there was no abatement in
the storm, but it blew harder.
As we struggled on, nearer and nearer to the sea, from which this
mighty wind was blowing dead on shore, its force became more and more
terrific. Long before we saw the sea, its spray was on our lips, and
showered salt rain upon us. The water was out, over miles and miles of
the flat country adjacent to Yarmouth; and every sheet and puddle
lashed its banks, and had its stress of little breakers setting heavily
towards us. When we came within sight of the sea, the waves on the
horizon, caught at intervals above the rolling abyss, were like
glimpses of another shore with towers and buildings. When at last we
got into the town, the people came out to their doors, all aslant, and
with streaming hair, making a wonder of the mail that had come through
such a night.
I put up at the old inn, and went down to look at the sea; staggering
along the street, which was strewn with sand and seaweed, and with
flying blotches of sea-foam; afraid of falling slates and tiles; and
holding by people I met, at angry corners. Coming near the beach, I
saw, not only the boatmen, but half the people of the town, lurking
behind buildings; some, now and then braving the fury of the storm to
look away to sea, and blown sheer out of their course in trying to get
zigzag back.
Joining these groups, I found bewailing women whose husbands were away
in herring or oyster boats, which there was too much reason to think
might have foundered before they could run in anywhere for safety.
Grizzled old sailors were among the people, shaking their heads, {152}
as they looked from water to sky, and muttering to one another;
ship-owners, excited and uneasy; children, huddling together, and
peering into older faces; even stout mariners, disturbed and anxious,
levelling their glasses at the sea from behind places of shelter, as if
they were surveying an enemy.
The tremendous sea itself, when I could find sufficient pause to look
at it, in the agitation of the blinding wind, the flying stones and
sand, and the awful noise, confounded me. As the high watery walls
came rolling in, and, at their highest, tumbled into surf, they looked
as if the least would engulf the town. As the receding wave swept back
with a hoarse roar, it seemed to scoop out deep caves in the beach, as
if its purpose were to undermine the earth. When some white-headed
billows thundered on, and dashed themselves to pieces before they
reached the land, every fragment of the late whole seemed possessed by
the full might of its wrath, rushing to be gathered to the composition
of another monster. Undulating hills were changed to valleys,
undulating valleys (with a solitary storm-bird sometimes skimming
through them) were lifted up to hills; masses of water shivered and
shook the beach with a booming sound; every shape tumultuously rolled
on, as soon as made, to change its shape and place, and beat another
shape and place away; the ideal shore on the horizon, with its towers
and buildings, rose and fell; the clouds flew fast and thick; I seemed
to see a rending and upheaving of all nature. . . .
I went back to the inn; and when I had washed and dressed, and tried to
sleep, but in vain, it was five o'clock in the afternoon. I had not
sat five minutes by the {153} coffee-room fire, when the waiter coming
to stir it, as an excuse for talking, told me that two colliers had
gone down, with all hands, a few miles away; and that some other ships
had been seen labouring hard in the Roads, and trying, in great
distress, to keep off shore. Mercy on them, and on all poor sailors,
said he, if we had another night like the last!
(_David Copperfield_.)
CHARLOTTE BRONTË 1816-1855
JANE EYRE AND MR ROCHESTER
"And now, what did you learn at Lowood? Can you play?"
"A little."
"Of course, that is the established answer. Go into the library--I
mean, if you please.--(Excuse my tone of command; I am used to say, 'Do
this,' and it is done. I cannot alter my customary habits for one new
inmate.)--Go, then, into the library; take a candle with you; leave the
door open; sit down to the piano, and play a tune."
I departed, obeying his directions.
"Enough!" he called out in a few minutes. "You play a _little_, I see,
like any other English school-girl; perhaps rather better than some,
but not well."
I closed the piano, and returned. Mr Rochester continued--
{154} "Adèle showed me some sketches this morning, which, she said,
were yours. I don't know whether they were entirely of your doing:
probably a master aided you?"
"No, indeed!" I interjected.
"Ah! that pricks pride. Well, fetch me your portfolio, if you can
vouch for its contents being original; but don't pass your word unless
you are certain: I can recognise patchwork."
"Then I will say nothing, and you shall judge for yourself, sir."
I brought the portfolio from the library.
"Approach the table," said he; and I wheeled it to his couch. Adèle
and Mrs Fairfax drew near to see the pictures.
"No crowding," said Mr Rochester: "take the drawings from my hand as I
finish with them; but don't push your faces up to mine."
He deliberately scrutinised each sketch and painting. Three he laid
aside; the others, when he had examined them, he swept from him.
"Take them off to the other table, Mrs Fairfax," said he, "and look at
them with Adèle;--you" (glancing at me) "resume your seat, and answer
my questions. I perceive these pictures were done by one hand. Was
that hand yours?"
"Yes."
"And when did you find time to do them? They have taken much time, and
some thought."
"I did them in the last two vacations I spent at Lowood, when I had no
other occupation."
{155} "Where did you get your copies?"
"Out of my head."
"That head I see now on your shoulders?"
"Yes, sir."
"Has it other furniture of the same kind within?"
"I should think it may have. I should hope--better."
He spread the pictures before him, and again surveyed them alternately.
While he is so occupied, I will tell you, reader, what they are, and
first, I must premise that they are nothing wonderful. The subjects
had, indeed, risen vividly on my mind. As I saw them with the
spiritual eye, before I attempted to embody them, they were striking;
but my hand would not second my fancy, and, in each case, it had
wrought out but a pale portrait of the thing I had conceived.
These pictures were in water-colours. The first represented clouds low
and livid, rolling over a swollen sea: all the distance was in eclipse;
so, too, was the foreground; or, rather, the nearest billows, for there
was no land. One gleam of light lifted into relief a half-submerged
mast, on which sat a cormorant, dark and large, with wings flecked with
foam; its beak held a gold bracelet, set with gems, which I had touched
with as brilliant tints as my pencil could impart. Sinking below the
bird and mast, a drowned corpse glanced through the green water; a fair
arm was the only limb clearly visible, whence the bracelet had been
washed or torn.
The second picture contained for foreground only the dim peak of a
hill, with grass and some leaves slanting {156} as if by a breeze.
Beyond and above spread an expanse of sky, dark blue, as at twilight;
rising into the sky was a woman's shape to the bust, portrayed in tints
as dusk and soft as I could combine. The dim forehead was crowned with
a star; the lineaments below were seen as through the suffusion of
vapour; the eyes shone dark and wild; the hair streamed shadowy, like a
beamless cloud torn by storm or by electric travail. On the neck lay a
pale reflection like moonlight: the same faint lustre touched the train
of thin clouds from which rose and bowed this vision of the Evening
Star.
The third showed the pinnacle of an iceberg piercing a polar winter
sky: a muster of northern lights reared their dim lances, close
serried, along the horizon. Throwing these into distance, rose, in the
foreground, a head,--a colossal head, inclined towards the iceberg, and
resting against it. Two thin hands, joined under the forehead, and
supporting it, drew up before the lower features a sable veil; a brow
quite bloodless, white as bone, and an eye hollow and fixed, blank of
meaning but for the glassiness of despair, alone were visible. Above
the temples, amidst wreathed turban folds of black drapery, vague in
its character and consistency as cloud, gleamed a ring of white flame,
gemmed with sparkles of a more lurid tinge. This pale crescent was
"the likeness of a Kingly Crown"; what it diademed was "the shape which
shape had none."
(_Jane Eyre_.)
{157}
HENRY DAVID THOREAU 1817-1862
A HUT IN THE WOODS