[1] The Indian tradition, on which this somewhat extravagant tale
is founded, is both too wild and too beautiful to be adequately
wrought up in prose. Sullivan, in his History of Maine, written
since the Revolution, remarks, that even then the existence of
the Great Carbuncle was not entirely discredited.
At nightfall, once in the olden time, on the rugged side of one
of the Crystal Hills, a party of adventurers were refreshing
themselves, after a toilsome and fruitless quest for the Great
Carbuncle. They had come thither, not as friends nor partners in
the enterprise, but each, save one youthful pair, impelled by his
own selfish and solitary longing for this wondrous gem. Their
feeling of brotherhood, however, was strong enough to induce them
to contribute a mutual aid in building a rude hut of branches,
and kindling a great fire of shattered pines, that had drifted
down the headlong current of the Amonoosuck, on the lower bank of
which they were to pass the night. There was but one of their
number, perhaps, who had become so estranged from natural
sympathies, by the absorbing spell of the pursuit, as to
acknowledge no satisfaction at the sight of human faces, in the
remote and solitary region whither they had ascended. A vast
extent of wilderness lay between them and the nearest settlement,
while a scant mile above their heads was that black verge where
the hills throw off their shaggy mantle of forest trees, and
either robe themselves in clouds or tower naked into the sky. The
roar of the Amonoosuck would have been too awful for endurance if
only a solitary man had listened, while the mountain stream
talked with the wind.
The adventurers, therefore, exchanged hospitable greetings, and
welcomed one another to the hut, where each man was the host, and
all were the guests of the whole company. They spread their
individual supplies of food on the flat surface of a rock, and
partook of a general repast; at the close of which, a sentiment
of good fellowship was perceptible among the party, though
repressed by the idea, that the renewed search for the Great
Carbuncle must make them strangers again in the morning. Seven
men and one young woman, they warmed themselves together at the
fire, which extended its bright wall along the whole front of
their wigwam. As they observed the various and contrasted figures
that made up the assemblage, each man looking like a caricature
of himself, in the unsteady light that flickered over him, they
came mutually to the conclusion, that an odder society had never
met, in city or wilderness, on mountain or plain.
The eldest of the group, a tall, lean, weather-beaten man, some
sixty years of age, was clad in the skins of wild animals, whose
fashion of dress he did well to imitate, since the deer, the
wolf, and the bear, had long been his most intimate companions.
He was one of those ill-fated mortals, such as the Indians told
of, whom, in their early youth, the Great Carbuncle smote with a
peculiar madness, and became the passionate dream of their
existence. All who visited that region knew him as the Seeker,
and by no other name. As none could remember when he first took
up the search, there went a fable in the valley of the Saco, that
for his inordinate lust after the Great Carbuncle, he had been
condemned to wander among the mountains till the end of time,
still with the same feverish hopes at sunrise--the same despair
at eve. Near this miserable Seeker sat a little elderly
personage, wearing a high-crowned hat, shaped somewhat like a
crucible. He was from beyond the sea, a Doctor Cacaphodel, who
had wilted and dried himself into a mummy by continually stooping
over charcoal furnaces, and inhaling unwholesome fumes during his
researches in chemistry and alchemy. It was told of him, whether
truly or not, that at the commencement of his studies, he had
drained his body of all its richest blood, and wasted it, with
other inestimable ingredients, in an unsuccessful experiment--and
had never been a well man since. Another of the adventurers was
Master Ichabod Pigsnort, a weighty merchant and selectman of
Boston, and an elder of the famous Mr. Norton's church. His
enemies had a ridiculous story that Master Pigsnort was
accustomed to spend a whole hour after prayer time, every morning
and evening, in wallowing naked among an immense quantity of
pine-tree shillings, which were the earliest silver coinage of
Massachusetts. The fourth whom we shall notice had no name that
his companions knew of, and was chiefly distinguished by a sneer
that always contorted his thin visage, and by a prodigious pair
of spectacles, which were supposed to deform and discolor the
whole face of nature, to this gentleman's perception. The fifth
adventurer likewise lacked a name, which was the greater pity, as
he appeared to be a poet. He was a bright-eyed man, but wofully
pined away, which was no more than natural, if, as some people
affirmed, his ordinary diet was fog, morning mist, and a slice of
the densest cloud within his reach, sauced with moonshine,
whenever he could get it. Certain it is, that the poetry which
flowed from him had a smack of all these dainties The sixth of
the party was a young man of haughty mien, and sat somewhat apart
from the rest, wearing his plumed hat loftily among his elders,
while the fire glittered on the rich embroidery of his dress, and
gleamed intensely on the jewelled pommel of his sword. This was
the Lord de Vere, who, when at home, was said to spend much of
his time in the burial vault of his dead progenitors, rummaging
their mouldy coffins in search of all the earthly pride and
vainglory that was hidden among bones and dust; so that, besides
his own share, he had the collected haughtiness of his whole line
of ancestry.
Lastly, there was a handsome youth in rustic garb, and by his
side a blooming little person, in whom a delicate shade of maiden
reserve was just melting into the rich glow of a young wife's
affection. Her name was Hannah and her husband's Matthew; two
homely names, yet well enough adapted to the simple pair, who
seemed strangely out of place among the whimsical fraternity
whose wits had been set agog by the Great Carbuncle.
Beneath the shelter of one hut, in the bright blaze of the same
fire, sat this varied group of adventurers, all so intent upon a
single object, that, of whatever else they began to speak, their
closing words were sure to be illuminated with the Great
Carbuncle. Several related the circumstances that brought them
thither. One had listened to a traveller's tale of this
marvellous stone in his own distant country, and had immediately
been seized with such a thirst for beholding it as could only be
quenched in its intensest lustre. Another, so long ago as when
the famous Captain Smith visited these coasts, had seen it
blazing far at sea, and had felt no rest in all the intervening
years till now that he took up the search. A third, being
encamped on a hunting expedition full forty miles south of the
White Mountains, awoke at midnight, and beheld the Great
Carbuncle gleaming like a meteor, so that the shadows of the
trees fell backward from it. They spoke of the innumerable
attempts which had been made to reach the spot, and of the
singular fatality which had hitherto withheld success from all
adventurers, though it might seem so easy to follow to its source
a light that overpowered the moon, and almost matched the sun. It
was observable that each smiled scornfully at the madness of
every other in anticipating better fortune than the past, yet
nourished a scarcely hidden conviction that he would himself be
the favored one. As if to allay their too sanguine hopes, they
recurred to the Indian traditions that a spirit kept watch about
the gem, and bewildered those who sought it either by removing it
from peak to peak of the higher hills, or by calling up a mist
from the enchanted lake over which it hung. But these tales were
deemed unworthy of credit, all professing to believe that the
search had been baffled by want of sagacity or perseverance in
the adventurers, or such other causes as might naturally obstruct
the passage to any given point among the intricacies of forest,
valley, and mountain.
In a pause of the conversation the wearer of the prodigious
spectacles looked round upon the party, making each individual,
in turn, the object of the sneer which invariably dwelt upon his
countenance.
"So, fellow-pilgrims," said he, "here we are, seven wise men, and
one fair damsel--who, doubtless, is as wise as any graybeard of
the company: here we are, I say, all bound on the same goodly
enterprise. Methinks, now, it were not amiss that each of us
declare what he proposes to do with the Great Carbuncle, provided
he have the good hap to clutch it. What says our friend in the
bear skin? How mean you, good sir, to enjoy the prize which you
have been seeking, the Lord knows how long, among the Crystal
Hills?"
"How enjoy it!" exclaimed the aged Seeker, bitterly. "I hope for
no enjoyment from it; that folly has passed long ago! I keep up
the search for this accursed stone because the vain ambition of
my youth has become a fate upon me in old age. The pursuit alone
is my strength,--the energy of my soul,--the warmth of my
blood,--and the pith and marrow of my bones! Were I to turn my
back upon it I should fall down dead on the hither side of the
Notch, which is the gateway of this mountain region. Yet not to
have my wasted lifetime back again would I give up my hopes of
the Great Carbuncle! Having found it, I shall bear it to a
certain cavern that I wot of, and there, grasping it in my arms,
lie down and die, and keep it buried with me forever."
"O wretch, regardless of the interests of science!" cried Doctor
Cacaphodel, with philosophic indignation. "Thou art not worthy to
behold, even from afar off, the lustre of this most precious gem
that ever was concocted in the laboratory of Nature. Mine is the
sole purpose for which a wise man may desire the possession of
the Great Carbuncle. Immediately on obtaining it--for I have a
presentiment, good people that the prize is reserved to crown my
scientific reputation--I shall return to Europe, and employ my
remaining years in reducing it to its first elements. A portion
of the stone will I grind to impalpable powder; other parts shall
be dissolved in acids, or whatever solvents will act upon so
admirable a composition; and the remainder I design to melt in
the crucible, or set on fire with the blow-pipe. By these various
methods I shall gain an accurate analysis, and finally bestow the
result of my labors upon the world in a folio volume."
"Excellent!" quoth the man with the spectacles. "Nor need you
hesitate, learned sir, on account of the necessary destruction of
the gem; since the perusal of your folio may teach every mother's
son of us to concoct a Great Carbuncle of his own."
"But, verily," said Master Ichabod Pigsnort, "for mine own part I
object to the making of these counterfeits, as being calculated
to reduce the marketable value of the true gem. I tell ye
frankly, sirs, I have an interest in keeping up the price. Here
have I quitted my regular traffic, leaving my warehouse in the
care of my clerks, and putting my credit to great hazard, and,
furthermore, have put myself in peril of death or captivity by
the accursed heathen savages--and all this without daring to ask
the prayers of the congregation, because the quest for the Great
Carbuncle is deemed little better than a traffic with the Evil
One. Now think ye that I would have done this grievous wrong to
my soul, body, reputation, and estate, without a reasonable
chance of profit?"
"Not I, pious Master Pigsnort," said the man with the spectacles.
"I never laid such a great folly to thy charge."
"Truly, I hope not," said the merchant. "Now, as touching this
Great Carbuncle, I am free to own that I have never had a glimpse
of it; but be it only the hundredth part so bright as people
tell, it will surely outvalue the Great Mogul's best diamond,
which he holds at an incalculable sum. Wherefore, I am minded to
put the Great Carbuncle on shipboard, and voyage with it to
England, France, Spain, Italy, or into Heathendom, if Providence
should send me thither, and, in a word, dispose of the gem to the
best bidder among the potentates of the earth, that he may place
it among his crown jewels. If any of ye have a wiser plan, let
him expound it."
"That have I, thou sordid man!" exclaimed the poet. "Dost thou
desire nothing brighter than gold that thou wouldst transmute all
this ethereal lustre into such dross as thou wallowest in
already? For myself, hiding the jewel under my cloak, I shall hie
me back to my attic chamber, in one of the darksome alleys of
London. There, night and day, will I gaze upon it; my soul shall
drink its radiance; it shall be diffused throughout my
intellectual powers, and gleam brightly in every line of poesy
that I indite. Thus, long ages after I am gone, the splendor of
the Great Carbuncle will blaze around my name!"
"Well said, Master Poet!" cried he of the spectacles. "Hide it
under thy cloak, sayest thou? Why, it will gleam through the
holes, and make thee look like a jack-o'-lantern!"
"To think!" ejaculated the Lord de Vere, rather to himself than
his companions, the best of whom he held utterly unworthy of his
intercourse--"to think that a fellow in a tattered cloak should
talk of conveying the Great Carbuncle to a garret in Grub Street!
Have not I resolved within myself that the whole earth contains
no fitter ornament for the great hall of my ancestral castle?
There shall it flame for ages, making a noonday of midnight,
glittering on the suits of armor, the banners, and escutcheons,
that hang around the wall, and keeping bright the memory of
heroes. Wherefore have all other adventurers sought the prize in
vain but that I might win it, and make it a symbol of the glories
of our lofty line? And never, on the diadem of the White
Mountains, did the Great Carbuncle hold a place half so honored
as is reserved for it in the hall of the De Veres!"
"It is a noble thought," said the Cynic, with an obsequious
sneer. "Yet, might I presume to say so, the gem would make a rare
sepulchral lamp, and would display the glories of your lordship's
progenitors more truly in the ancestral vault than in the castle
hall."
"Nay, forsooth," observed Matthew, the young rustic, who sat hand
in hand with his bride, "the gentleman has bethought himself of a
profitable use for this bright stone. Hannah here and I are
seeking it for a like purpose."
"How, fellow!" exclaimed his lordship, in surprise. "What castle
hall hast thou to hang it in?"
"No castle," replied Matthew, "but as neat a cottage as any
within sight of the Crystal Hills. Ye must know, friends, that
Hannah and I, being wedded the last week, have taken up the
search of the Great Carbuncle, because we shall need its light in
the long winter evenings; and it will be such a pretty thing to
show the neighbors when they visit us. It will shine through the
house so that we may pick up a pin in any corner and will set all
the windows aglowing as if there were a great fire of pine knots
in the chimney. And then how pleasant, when we awake in the
night, to be able to see one another's faces!"
There was a general smile among the adventurers at the simplicity
of the young couple's project in regard to this wondrous and
invaluable stone, with which the greatest monarch on earth might
have been proud to adorn his palace. Especially the man with
spectacles, who had sneered at all the company in turn, now
twisted his visage into such an expression of ill-natured mirth,
that Matthew asked him, rather peevishly, what he himself meant
to do with the Great Carbuncle.
"The Great Carbuncle!" answered the Cynic, with ineffable scorn.
"Why, you blockhead, there is no such thing in rerum natura. I
have come three thousand miles, and am resolved to set my foot on
every peak of these mountains, and poke my head into every chasm,
for the sole purpose of demonstrating to the satisfaction of any
man one whit less an ass than thyself that the Great Carbuncle is
all a humbug!"
Vain and foolish were the motives that had brought most of the
adventurers to the Crystal Hills; but none so vain, so foolish,
and so impious too, as that of the scoffer with the prodigious
spectacles. He was one of those wretched and evil men whose
yearnings are downward to the darkness, instead of heavenward,
and who, could they but extinguish the lights which God hath
kindled for us, would count the midnight gloom their chiefest
glory. As the Cynic spoke, several of the party were startled by
a gleam of red splendor, that showed the huge shapes of the
surrounding mountains and the rock-bestrewn bed of the turbulent
river with an illumination unlike that of their fire on the
trunks and black boughs of the forest trees. They listened for
the roll of thunder, but heard nothing, and were glad that the
tempest came not near them. The stars, those dial points of
heaven, now warned the adventurers to close their eyes on the
blazing logs, and open them, in dreams, to the glow of the Great
Carbuncle.
The young married couple had taken their lodgings in the farthest
corner of the wigwam, and were separated from the rest of the
party by a curtain of curiously-woven twigs, such as might have
hung, in deep festoons, around the bridal-bower of Eve. The
modest little wife had wrought this piece of tapestry while the
other guests were talking. She and her husband fell asleep with
hands tenderly clasped, and awoke from visions of unearthly
radiance to meet the more blessed light of one another's eyes.
They awoke at the same instant, and with one happy smile beaming
over their two faces, which grew brighter with their
consciousness of the reality of life and love. But no sooner did
she recollect where they were, than the bride peeped through the
interstices of the leafy curtain, and saw that the outer room of
the hut was deserted.
"Up, dear Matthew!" cried she, in haste. "The strange folk are
all gone! Up, this very minute, or we shall lose the Great
Carbuncle!"
In truth, so little did these poor young people deserve the
mighty prize which had lured them thither, that they had slept
peacefully all night, and till the summits of the hills were
glittering with sunshine; while the other adventurers had tossed
their limbs in feverish wakefulness, or dreamed of climbing
precipices, and set off to realize their dreams with the earliest
peep of dawn. But Matthew and Hannah, after their calm rest, were
as light as two young deer, and merely stopped to say their
prayers and wash themselves in a cold pool of the Amonoosuck, and
then to taste a morsel of food, ere they turned their faces to
the mountain-side. It was a sweet emblem of conjugal affection,
as they toiled up the difficult ascent, gathering strength from
the mutual aid which they afforded. After several little
accidents, such as a torn robe, a lost shoe, and the entanglement
of Hannah's hair in a bough, they reached the upper verge of the
forest, and were now to pursue a more adventurous course. The
innumerable trunks and heavy foliage of the trees had hitherto
shut in their thoughts, which now shrank affrighted from the
region of wind and cloud and naked rocks and desolate sunshine,
that rose immeasurably above them. They gazed back at the obscure
wilderness which they had traversed, and longed to be buried
again in its depths rather than trust themselves to so vast and
visible a solitude.
"Shall we go on?" said Matthew, throwing his arm round Hannah's
waist, both to protect her and to comfort his heart by drawing
her close to it.
But the little bride, simple as she was, had a woman's love of
jewels, and could not forego the hope of possessing the very
brightest in the world, in spite of the perils with which it must
be won.
"Let us climb a little higher," whispered she, yet tremulously,
as she turned her face upward to the lonely sky.
"Come, then," said Matthew, mustering his manly courage and
drawing her along with him, for she became timid again the moment
that he grew bold.
And upward, accordingly, went the pilgrims of the Great
Carbuncle, now treading upon the tops and thickly-interwoven
branches of dwarf pines, which, by the growth of centuries,
though mossy with age, had barely reached three feet in altitude.
Next, they came to masses and fragments of naked rock heaped
confusedly together, like a cairn reared by giants in memory of a
giant chief. In this bleak realm of upper air nothing breathed,
nothing grew; there was no life but what was concentrated in
their two hearts; they had climbed so high that Nature herself
seemed no longer to keep them company. She lingered beneath them,
within the verge of the forest trees, and sent a farewell glance
after her children as they strayed where her own green footprints
had never been. But soon they were to be hidden from her eye
Densely and dark the mists began to gather below, casting black
spots of shadow on the vast landscape, and sailing heavily to one
centre, as if the loftiest mountain peak had summoned a council
of its kindred clouds. Finally, the vapors welded themselves, as
it were, into a mass, presenting the appearance of a pavement
over which the wanderers might have trodden, but where they would
vainly have sought an avenue to the blessed earth which they had
lost. And the lovers yearned to behold that green earth again,
more intensely, alas! than, beneath a clouded sky, they had ever
desired a glimpse of heaven. They even felt it a relief to their
desolation when the mists, creeping gradually up the mountain,
concealed its lonely peak, and thus annihilated, at least for
them, the whole region of visible space. But they drew closer
together, with a fond and melancholy gaze, dreading lest the
universal cloud should snatch them from each other's sight.
Still, perhaps, they would have been resolute to climb as far and
as high, between earth and heaven, as they could find foothold,
if Hannah's strength had not begun to fail, and with that, her
courage also. Her breath grew short. She refused to burden her
husband with her weight, but often tottered against his side, and
recovered herself each time by a feebler effort. At last, she
sank down on one of the rocky steps of the acclivity.
"We are lost, dear Matthew," said she, mournfully. "We shall
never find our way to the earth again. And oh how happy we might
have been in our cottage!"
"Dear heart!--we will yet be happy there," answered Matthew.
"Look! In this direction, the sunshine penetrates the dismal
mist. By its aid, I can direct our course to the passage of the
Notch. Let us go back, love, and dream no more of the Great
Carbuncle!"
"The sun cannot be yonder," said Hannah, with despondence. "By
this time it must be noon. If there could ever be any sunshine
here, it would come from above our heads."
"But look!" repeated Matthew, in a somewhat altered tone. "It is
brightening every moment. If not sunshine, what can it be?"
Nor could the young bride any longer deny that a radiance was
breaking through the mist, and changing its dim hue to a dusky
red, which continually grew more vivid, as if brilliant particles
were interfused with the gloom. Now, also, the cloud began to
roll away from the mountain, while, as it heavily withdrew, one
object after another started out of its impenetrable obscurity
into sight, with precisely the effect of a new creation, before
the indistinctness of the old chaos had been completely swallowed
up. As the process went on, they saw the gleaming of water close
at their feet, and found themselves on the very border of a
mountain lake, deep, bright, clear, and calmly beautiful,
spreading from brim to brim of a basin that had been scooped out
of the solid rock. A ray of glory flashed across its surface. The
pilgrims looked whence it should proceed, but closed their eyes
with a thrill of awful admiration, to exclude the fervid splendor
that glowed from the brow of a cliff impending over the enchanted
lake. For the simple pair had reached that lake of mystery, and
found the longsought shrine of the Great Carbuncle!
They threw their arms around each other, and trembled at their
own success; for, as the legends of this wondrous gem rushed
thick upon their memory, they felt themselves marked out by
fate--and the consciousness was fearful. Often, from childhood
upward, they had seen it shining like a distant star. And now
that star was throwing its intensest lustre on their hearts. They
seemed changed to one another's eyes, in the red brilliancy that
flamed upon their cheeks, while it lent the same fire to the
lake, the rocks, and sky, and to the mists which had rolled back
before its power. But, with their next glance, they beheld an
object that drew their attention even from the mighty stone. At
the base of the cliff, directly beneath the Great Carbuncle,
appeared the figure of a man, with his arms extended in the act
of climbing, and his face turned upward, as if to drink the full
gush of splendor. But he stirred not, no more than if changed to
marble.
"It is the Seeker," whispered Hannah, convulsively grasping her
husband's arm. "Matthew, he is dead."
"The joy of success has killed him," replied Matthew, trembling
violently. "Or, perhaps, the very light of the Great Carbuncle
was death!"
"The Great Carbuncle," cried a peevish voice behind them. "The
Great Humbug! If you have found it, prithee point it out to me."
They turned their heads, and there was the Cynic, with his
prodigious spectacles set carefully on his nose, staring now at
the lake, now at the rocks, now at the distant masses of vapor,
now right at the Great Carbuncle itself, yet seemingly as
unconscious of its light as if all the scattered clouds were
condensed about his person. Though its radiance actually threw
the shadow of the unbeliever at his own feet, as he turned his
back upon the glorious jewel, he would not be convinced that
there was the least glimmer there.
"Where is your Great Humbug?" he repeated. "I challenge you to
make me see it!"
"There," said Matthew, incensed at such perverse blindness, and
turning the Cynic round towards the illuminated cliff. "Take off
those abominable spectacles, and you cannot help seeing it!"
Now these colored spectacles probably darkened the Cynic's sight,
in at least as great a degree as the smoked glasses through which
people gaze at an eclipse. With resolute bravado, however, he
snatched them from his nose, and fixed a bold stare full upon the
ruddy blaze of the Great Carbuncle. But scarcely had he
encountered it, when, with a deep, shuddering groan, he dropped
his head, and pressed both hands across his miserable eyes.
Thenceforth there was, in very truth, no light of the Great
Carbuncle, nor any other light on earth, nor light of heaven
itself, for the poor Cynic. So long accustomed to view all
objects through a medium that deprived them of every glimpse of
brightness, a single flash of so glorious a phenomenon, striking
upon his naked vision, had blinded him forever.
"Matthew," said Hannah, clinging to him, "let us go hence!"
Matthew saw that she was faint, and kneeling down, supported her
in his arms, while he threw some of the thrillingly cold water of
the enchanted lake upon her face and bosom. It revived her, but
could not renovate her courage.
"Yes, dearest!" cried Matthew, pressing her tremulous form to his
breast,--"we will go hence, and return to our humble cottage. The
blessed sunshine and the quiet moonlight shall come through our
window. We will kindle the cheerful glow of our hearth, at
eventide, and be happy in its light. But never again will we
desire more light than all the world may share with us."
"No," said his bride, "for how could we live by day, or sleep by
night, in this awful blaze of the Great Carbuncle!"
Out of the hollow of their hands, they drank each a draught from
the lake, which presented them its waters uncontaminated by an
earthly lip. Then, lending their guidance to the blinded Cynic,
who uttered not a word, and even stifled his groans in his own
most wretched heart, they began to descend the mountain. Yet, as
they left the shore, till then untrodden, of the spirit's lake,
they threw a farewell glance towards the cliff, and beheld the
vapors gathering in dense volumes, through which the gem burned
duskily.
As touching the other pilgrims of the Great Carbuncle, the legend
goes on to tell, that the worshipful Master Ichabod Pigsnort soon
gave up the quest as a desperate speculation, and wisely resolved
to betake himself again to his warehouse, near the town dock, in
Boston. But, as he passed through the Notch of the mountains, a
war party of Indians captured our unlucky merchant, and carried
him to Montreal, there holding him in bondage, till, by the
payment of a heavy ransom, he had wofully subtracted from his
hoard of pine-tree shillings. By his long absence, moreover, his
affairs had become so disordered that, for the rest of his life,
instead of wallowing in silver, he had seldom a sixpence worth of
copper. Doctor Cacaphodel, the alchemist, returned to his
laboratory with a prodigious fragment of granite, which he ground
to powder, dissolved in acids, melted in the crucible, and burned
with the blow-pipe, and published the result of his experiments
in one of the heaviest folios of the day. And, for all these
purposes, the gem itself could not have answered better than the
granite. The poet, by a somewhat similar mistake, made prize of a
great piece of ice, which he found in a sunless chasm of the
mountains and swore that it corresponded, in all points, with his
idea of the Great Carbuncle. The critics say, that, if his poetry
lacked the splendor of the gem, it retained all the coldness of
the ice. The Lord de Vere went back to his ancestral hall, where
he contented himself with a wax-lighted chandelier, and filled,
in due course of time, another coffin in the ancestral vault. As
the funeral torches gleamed within that dark receptacle, there
was no need of the Great Carbuncle to show the vanity of earthly
pomp.
The Cynic, having cast aside his spectacles, wandered about the
world a miserable object, and was punished with an agonizing
desire of light, for the wilful blindness of his former life. The
whole night long, he would lift his splendor-blasted orbs to the
moon and stars; he turned his face eastward, at sunrise, as duly
as a Perisan idolater; he made a pilgrimage to Rome, to witness
the magnificent illumination of St. Peter's Church; and finally
perished in the great fire of London, into the midst of which he
had thrust himself, with the desperate idea of catching one
feeble ray from the blaze that was kindling earth and heaven.
Matthew and his bride spent many peaceful years, and were fond of
telling the legend of the Great Carbuncle. The tale, however,
towards the close of their lengthened lives, did not meet with
the full credence that had been accorded to it by those who
remembered the ancient lustre of the gem. For it is affirmed
that, from the hour when two mortals had shown themselves so
simply wise as to reject a jewel which would have dimmed all
earthly things, its splendor waned. When other pilgrims reached
the cliff, they found only an opaque stone, with particles of
mica glittering on its surface. There is also a tradition that,
as the youthful pair departed, the gem was loosened from the
forehead of the cliff, and fell into the enchanted lake, and
that, at noontide, the Seeker's form may still be seen to bend
over its quenchless gleam.
Some few believe that this inestimable stone is blazing as of
old, and say that they have caught its radiance, like a flash of
summer lightning, far down the valley of the Saco. And be it
owned that, many a mile from the Crystal Hills, I saw a wondrous
light around their summits, and was lured, by the faith of poesy,
to be the latest pilgrim of the GREAT CARBUNCLE.