“Dickon,” cried Mother Rigby, “a coal for my pipe!”
The pipe was in the old dame’s mouth when she said these words. She had
thrust it there after filling it with tobacco, but without stooping to
light it at the hearth, where indeed there was no appearance of a fire
having been kindled that morning. Forthwith, however, as soon as the
order was given, there was an intense red glow out of the bowl of the
pipe, and a whiff of smoke came from Mother Rigby’s lips. Whence the
coal came, and how brought thither by an invisible hand, I have never
been able to discover.
“Good!” quoth Mother Rigby, with a nod of her head. “Thank ye, Dickon!
And now for making this scarecrow. Be within call, Dickon, in case I
need you again.”
The good woman had risen thus early (for as yet it was scarcely
sunrise) in order to set about making a scarecrow, which she intended
to put in the middle of her corn-patch. It was now the latter week of
May, and the crows and blackbirds had already discovered the little,
green, rolledup leaf of the Indian corn just peeping out of the soil.
She was determined, therefore, to contrive as lifelike a scarecrow as
ever was seen, and to finish it immediately, from top to toe, so that
it should begin its sentinel’s duty that very morning. Now Mother Rigby
(as everybody must have heard) was one of the most cunning and potent
witches in New England, and might, with very little trouble, have made
a scarecrow ugly enough to frighten the minister himself. But on this
occasion, as she had awakened in an uncommonly pleasant humor, and was
further dulcified by her pipe tobacco, she resolved to produce
something fine, beautiful, and splendid, rather than hideous and
horrible.
“I don’t want to set up a hobgoblin in my own corn-patch, and almost at
my own doorstep,” said Mother Rigby to herself, puffing out a whiff of
smoke; “I could do it if I pleased, but I’m tired of doing marvellous
things, and so I’ll keep within the bounds of every-day business just
for variety’s sake. Besides, there is no use in scaring the little
children for a mile roundabout, though ’tis true I’m a witch.”
It was settled, therefore, in her own mind, that the scarecrow should
represent a fine gentleman of the period, so far as the materials at
hand would allow. Perhaps it may be as well to enumerate the chief of
the articles that went to the composition of this figure.
The most important item of all, probably, although it made so little
show, was a certain broomstick, on which Mother Rigby had taken many an
airy gallop at midnight, and which now served the scarecrow by way of a
spinal column, or, as the unlearned phrase it, a backbone. One of its
arms was a disabled flail which used to be wielded by Goodman Rigby,
before his spouse worried him out of this troublesome world; the other,
if I mistake not, was composed of the pudding stick and a broken rung
of a chair, tied loosely together at the elbow. As for its legs, the
right was a hoe handle, and the left an undistinguished and
miscellaneous stick from the woodpile. Its lungs, stomach, and other
affairs of that kind were nothing better than a meal bag stuffed with
straw. Thus we have made out the skeleton and entire corporosity of the
scarecrow, with the exception of its head; and this was admirably
supplied by a somewhat withered and shrivelled pumpkin, in which Mother
Rigby cut two holes for the eyes and a slit for the mouth, leaving a
bluish-colored knob in the middle to pass for a nose. It was really
quite a respectable face.
“I’ve seen worse ones on human shoulders, at any rate,” said Mother
Rigby. “And many a fine gentleman has a pumpkin head, as well as my
scarecrow.”
But the clothes, in this case, were to be the making of the man. So the
good old woman took down from a peg an ancient plum-colored coat of
London make, and with relics of embroidery on its seams, cuffs,
pocket-flaps, and button-holes, but lamentably worn and faded, patched
at the elbows, tattered at the skirts, and threadbare all over. On the
left breast was a round hole, whence either a star of nobility had been
rent away, or else the hot heart of some former wearer had scorched it
through and through. The neighbors said that this rich garment belonged
to the Black Man’s wardrobe, and that he kept it at Mother Rigby’s
cottage for the convenience of slipping it on whenever he wished to
make a grand appearance at the governor’s table. To match the coat
there was a velvet waistcoat of very ample size, and formerly
embroidered with foliage that had been as brightly golden as the maple
leaves in October, but which had now quite vanished out of the
substance of the velvet. Next came a pair of scarlet breeches, once
worn by the French governor of Louisbourg, and the knees of which had
touched the lower step of the throne of Louis le Grand. The Frenchman
had given these small-clothes to an Indian powwow, who parted with them
to the old witch for a gill of strong waters, at one of their dances in
the forest. Furthermore, Mother Rigby produced a pair of silk stockings
and put them on the figure’s legs, where they showed as unsubstantial
as a dream, with the wooden reality of the two sticks making itself
miserably apparent through the holes. Lastly, she put her dead
husband’s wig on the bare scalp of the pumpkin, and surmounted the
whole with a dusty three-cornered hat, in which was stuck the longest
tail feather of a rooster.
Then the old dame stood the figure up in a corner of her cottage and
chuckled to behold its yellow semblance of a visage, with its nobby
little nose thrust into the air. It had a strangely self-satisfied
aspect, and seemed to say, “Come look at me!”
“And you are well worth looking at, that’s a fact!” quoth Mother Rigby,
in admiration at her own handiwork. “I’ve made many a puppet since I’ve
been a witch, but methinks this is the finest of them all. ’Tis almost
too good for a scarecrow. And, by the by, I’ll just fill a fresh pipe
of tobacco and then take him out to the corn-patch.”
While filling her pipe the old woman continued to gaze with almost
motherly affection at the figure in the corner. To say the truth,
whether it were chance, or skill, or downright witchcraft, there was
something wonderfully human in this ridiculous shape, bedizened with
its tattered finery; and as for the countenance, it appeared to shrivel
its yellow surface into a grin—a funny kind of expression betwixt scorn
and merriment, as if it understood itself to be a jest at mankind. The
more Mother Rigby looked the better she was pleased.
“Dickon,” cried she sharply, “another coal for my pipe!”
Hardly had she spoken, than, just as before, there was a red-glowing
coal on the top of the tobacco. She drew in a long whiff and puffed it
forth again into the bar of morning sunshine which struggled through
the one dusty pane of her cottage window. Mother Rigby always liked to
flavor her pipe with a coal of fire from the particular chimney corner
whence this had been brought. But where that chimney corner might be,
or who brought the coal from it,—further than that the invisible
messenger seemed to respond to the name of Dickon,—I cannot tell.
“That puppet yonder,” thought Mother Rigby, still with her eyes fixed
on the scarecrow, “is too good a piece of work to stand all summer in a
corn-patch, frightening away the crows and blackbirds. He’s capable of
better things. Why, I’ve danced with a worse one, when partners
happened to be scarce, at our witch meetings in the forest! What if I
should let him take his chance among the other men of straw and empty
fellows who go bustling about the world?”
The old witch took three or four more whiffs of her pipe and smiled.
“He’ll meet plenty of his brethren at every street corner!” continued
she. “Well; I didn’t mean to dabble in witchcraft to-day, further than
the lighting of my pipe, but a witch I am, and a witch I’m likely to
be, and there’s no use trying to shirk it. I’ll make a man of my
scarecrow, were it only for the joke’s sake!”
While muttering these words, Mother Rigby took the pipe from her own
mouth and thrust it into the crevice which represented the same feature
in the pumpkin visage of the scarecrow.
“Puff, darling, puff!” said she. “Puff away, my fine fellow! your life
depends on it!”
This was a strange exhortation, undoubtedly, to be addressed to a mere
thing of sticks, straw, and old clothes, with nothing better than a
shrivelled pumpkin for a head,—as we know to have been the scarecrow’s
case. Nevertheless, as we must carefully hold in remembrance, Mother
Rigby was a witch of singular power and dexterity; and, keeping this
fact duly before our minds, we shall see nothing beyond credibility in
the remarkable incidents of our story. Indeed, the great difficulty
will be at once got over, if we can only bring ourselves to believe
that, as soon as the old dame bade him puff, there came a whiff of
smoke from the scarecrow’s mouth. It was the very feeblest of whiffs,
to be sure; but it was followed by another and another, each more
decided than the preceding one.
“Puff away, my pet! puff away, my pretty one!” Mother Rigby kept
repeating, with her pleasantest smile. “It is the breath of life to ye;
and that you may take my word for.”
Beyond all question the pipe was bewitched. There must have been a
spell either in the tobacco or in the fiercely-glowing coal that so
mysteriously burned on top of it, or in the pungently-aromatic smoke
which exhaled from the kindled weed. The figure, after a few doubtful
attempts at length blew forth a volley of smoke extending all the way
from the obscure corner into the bar of sunshine. There it eddied and
melted away among the motes of dust. It seemed a convulsive effort; for
the two or three next whiffs were fainter, although the coal still
glowed and threw a gleam over the scarecrow’s visage. The old witch
clapped her skinny hands together, and smiled encouragingly upon her
handiwork. She saw that the charm worked well. The shrivelled, yellow
face, which heretofore had been no face at all, had already a thin,
fantastic haze, as it were of human likeness, shifting to and fro
across it; sometimes vanishing entirely, but growing more perceptible
than ever with the next whiff from the pipe. The whole figure, in like
manner, assumed a show of life, such as we impart to ill-defined shapes
among the clouds, and half deceive ourselves with the pastime of our
own fancy.
If we must needs pry closely into the matter, it may be doubted whether
there was any real change, after all, in the sordid, wornout worthless,
and ill-jointed substance of the scarecrow; but merely a spectral
illusion, and a cunning effect of light and shade so colored and
contrived as to delude the eyes of most men. The miracles of witchcraft
seem always to have had a very shallow subtlety; and, at least, if the
above explanation do not hit the truth of the process, I can suggest no
better.
“Well puffed, my pretty lad!” still cried old Mother Rigby. “Come,
another good stout whiff, and let it be with might and main. Puff for
thy life, I tell thee! Puff out of the very bottom of thy heart, if any
heart thou hast, or any bottom to it! Well done, again! Thou didst suck
in that mouthful as if for the pure love of it.”
And then the witch beckoned to the scarecrow, throwing so much magnetic
potency into her gesture that it seemed as if it must inevitably be
obeyed, like the mystic call of the loadstone when it summons the iron.
“Why lurkest thou in the corner, lazy one?” said she. “Step forth! Thou
hast the world before thee!”
Upon my word, if the legend were not one which I heard on my
grandmother’s knee, and which had established its place among things
credible before my childish judgment could analyze its probability, I
question whether I should have the face to tell it now.
In obedience to Mother Rigby’s word, and extending its arm as if to
reach her outstretched hand, the figure made a step forward—a kind of
hitch and jerk, however, rather than a step—then tottered and almost
lost its balance. What could the witch expect? It was nothing, after
all, but a scarecrow stuck upon two sticks. But the strong-willed old
beldam scowled, and beckoned, and flung the energy of her purpose so
forcibly at this poor combination of rotten wood, and musty straw, and
ragged garments, that it was compelled to show itself a man, in spite
of the reality of things. So it stepped into the bar of sunshine. There
it stood, poor devil of a contrivance that it was!—with only the
thinnest vesture of human similitude about it, through which was
evident the stiff, rickety, incongruous, faded, tattered,
good-for-nothing patchwork of its substance, ready to sink in a heap
upon the floor, as conscious of its own unworthiness to be erect. Shall
I confess the truth? At its present point of vivification, the
scarecrow reminds me of some of the lukewarm and abortive characters,
composed of heterogeneous materials, used for the thousandth time, and
never worth using, with which romance writers (and myself, no doubt,
among the rest) have so overpeopled the world of fiction.
But the fierce old hag began to get angry and show a glimpse of her
diabolic nature (like a snake’s head, peeping with a hiss out of her
bosom), at this pusillanimous behavior of the thing which she had taken
the trouble to put together.
“Puff away, wretch!” cried she, wrathfully. “Puff, puff, puff, thou
thing of straw and emptiness! thou rag or two! thou meal bag! thou
pumpkin head! thou nothing! Where shall I find a name vile enough to
call thee by? Puff, I say, and suck in thy fantastic life with the
smoke! else I snatch the pipe from thy mouth and hurl thee where that
red coal came from.”
Thus threatened, the unhappy scarecrow had nothing for it but to puff
away for dear life. As need was, therefore, it applied itself lustily
to the pipe, and sent forth such abundant volleys of tobacco smoke that
the small cottage kitchen became all vaporous. The one sunbeam
struggled mistily through, and could but imperfectly define the image
of the cracked and dusty window pane on the opposite wall. Mother
Rigby, meanwhile, with one brown arm akimbo and the other stretched
towards the figure, loomed grimly amid the obscurity with such port and
expression as when she was wont to heave a ponderous nightmare on her
victims and stand at the bedside to enjoy their agony. In fear and
trembling did this poor scarecrow puff. But its efforts, it must be
acknowledged, served an excellent purpose; for, with each successive
whiff, the figure lost more and more of its dizzy and perplexing
tenuity and seemed to take denser substance. Its very garments,
moreover, partook of the magical change, and shone with the gloss of
novelty and glistened with the skilfully embroidered gold that had long
ago been rent away. And, half revealed among the smoke, a yellow visage
bent its lustreless eyes on Mother Rigby.
At last the old witch clinched her fist and shook it at the figure. Not
that she was positively angry, but merely acting on the
principle—perhaps untrue, or not the only truth, though as high a one
as Mother Rigby could be expected to attain—that feeble and torpid
natures, being incapable of better inspiration, must be stirred up by
fear. But here was the crisis. Should she fail in what she now sought
to effect, it was her ruthless purpose to scatter the miserable
simulacre into its original elements.
“Thou hast a man’s aspect,” said she, sternly. “Have also the echo and
mockery of a voice! I bid thee speak!”
The scarecrow gasped, struggled, and at length emitted a murmur, which
was so incorporated with its smoky breath that you could scarcely tell
whether it were indeed a voice or only a whiff of tobacco. Some
narrators of this legend hold the opinion that Mother Rigby’s
conjurations and the fierceness of her will had compelled a familiar
spirit into the figure, and that the voice was his.
“Mother,” mumbled the poor stifled voice, “be not so awful with me! I
would fain speak; but being without wits, what can I say?”
“Thou canst speak, darling, canst thou?” cried Mother Rigby, relaxing
her grim countenance into a smile. “And what shalt thou say, quoth-a!
Say, indeed! Art thou of the brotherhood of the empty skull, and
demandest of me what thou shalt say? Thou shalt say a thousand things,
and saying them a thousand times over, thou shalt still have said
nothing! Be not afraid, I tell thee! When thou comest into the world
(whither I purpose sending thee forthwith) thou shalt not lack the
wherewithal to talk. Talk! Why, thou shall babble like a mill-stream,
if thou wilt. Thou hast brains enough for that, I trow!”
“At your service, mother,” responded the figure.
“And that was well said, my pretty one,” answered Mother Rigby. “Then
thou speakest like thyself, and meant nothing. Thou shalt have a
hundred such set phrases, and five hundred to the boot of them. And
now, darling, I have taken so much pains with thee and thou art so
beautiful, that, by my troth, I love thee better than any witch’s
puppet in the world; and I’ve made them of all sorts—clay, wax, straw,
sticks, night fog, morning mist, sea foam, and chimney smoke. But thou
art the very best. So give heed to what I say.”
“Yes, kind mother,” said the figure, “with all my heart!”
“With all thy heart!” cried the old witch, setting her hands to her
sides and laughing loudly. “Thou hast such a pretty way of speaking.
With all thy heart! And thou didst put thy hand to the left side of thy
waistcoat as if thou really hadst one!”
So now, in high good humor with this fantastic contrivance of hers,
Mother Rigby told the scarecrow that it must go and play its part in
the great world, where not one man in a hundred, she affirmed, was
gifted with more real substance than itself. And, that he might hold up
his head with the best of them, she endowed him, on the spot, with an
unreckonable amount of wealth. It consisted partly of a gold mine in
Eldorado, and of ten thousand shares in a broken bubble, and of half a
million acres of vineyard at the North Pole, and of a castle in the
air, and a chateau in Spain, together with all the rents and income
therefrom accruing. She further made over to him the cargo of a certain
ship, laden with salt of Cadiz, which she herself, by her necromantic
arts, had caused to founder, ten years before, in the deepest part of
mid-ocean. If the salt were not dissolved, and could be brought to
market, it would fetch a pretty penny among the fishermen. That he
might not lack ready money, she gave him a copper farthing of
Birmingham manufacture, being all the coin she had about her, and
likewise a great deal of brass, which she applied to his forehead, thus
making it yellower than ever.
“With that brass alone,” quoth Mother Rigby, “thou canst pay thy way
all over the earth. Kiss me, pretty darling! I have done my best for
thee.”
Furthermore, that the adventurer might lack no possible advantage
towards a fair start in life, this excellent old dame gave him a token
by which he was to introduce himself to a certain magistrate, member of
the council, merchant, and elder of the church (the four capacities
constituting but one man), who stood at the head of society in the
neighboring metropolis. The token was neither more nor less than a
single word, which Mother Rigby whispered to the scarecrow, and which
the scarecrow was to whisper to the merchant.
“Gouty as the old fellow is, he’ll run thy errands for thee, when once
thou hast given him that word in his ear,” said the old witch. “Mother
Rigby knows the worshipful Justice Gookin, and the worshipful Justice
knows Mother Rigby!”
Here the witch thrust her wrinkled face close to the puppet’s,
chuckling irrepressibly, and fidgeting all through her system, with
delight at the idea which she meant to communicate.
“The worshipful Master Gookin,” whispered she, “hath a comely maiden to
his daughter. And hark ye, my pet! Thou hast a fair outside, and a
pretty wit enough of thine own. Yea, a pretty wit enough! Thou wilt
think better of it when thou hast seen more of other people’s wits.
Now, with thy outside and thy inside, thou art the very man to win a
young girl’s heart. Never doubt it! I tell thee it shall be so. Put but
a bold face on the matter, sigh, smile, flourish thy hat, thrust forth
thy leg like a dancing-master, put thy right hand to the left side of
thy waistcoat, and pretty Polly Gookin is thine own!”
All this while the new creature had been sucking in and exhaling the
vapory fragrance of his pipe, and seemed now to continue this
occupation as much for the enjoyment it afforded as because it was an
essential condition of his existence. It was wonderful to see how
exceedingly like a human being it behaved. Its eyes (for it appeared to
possess a pair) were bent on Mother Rigby, and at suitable junctures it
nodded or shook its head. Neither did it lack words proper for the
occasion: “Really! Indeed! Pray tell me! Is it possible! Upon my word!
By no means! Oh! Ah! Hem!” and other such weighty utterances as imply
attention, inquiry, acquiescence, or dissent on the part of the
auditor. Even had you stood by and seen the scarecrow made, you could
scarcely have resisted the conviction that it perfectly understood the
cunning counsels which the old witch poured into its counterfeit of an
ear. The more earnestly it applied its lips to the pipe, the more
distinctly was its human likeness stamped among visible realities, the
more sagacious grew its expression, the more lifelike its gestures and
movements, and the more intelligibly audible its voice. Its garments,
too, glistened so much the brighter with an illusory magnificence. The
very pipe, in which burned the spell of all this wonderwork, ceased to
appear as a smoke-blackened earthen stump, and became a meerschaum,
with painted bowl and amber mouthpiece.
It might be apprehended, however, that as the life of the illusion
seemed identical with the vapor of the pipe, it would terminate
simultaneously with the reduction of the tobacco to ashes. But the
beldam foresaw the difficulty.
“Hold thou the pipe, my precious one,” said she, “while I fill it for
thee again.”
It was sorrowful to behold how the fine gentleman began to fade back
into a scarecrow while Mother Rigby shook the ashes out of the pipe and
proceeded to replenish it from her tobacco-box.
“Dickon,” cried she, in her high, sharp tone, “another coal for this
pipe!”
No sooner said than the intensely red speck of fire was glowing within
the pipe-bowl; and the scarecrow, without waiting for the witch’s
bidding, applied the tube to his lips and drew in a few short,
convulsive whiffs, which soon, however, became regular and equable.
“Now, mine own heart’s darling,” quoth Mother Rigby, “whatever may
happen to thee, thou must stick to thy pipe. Thy life is in it; and
that, at least, thou knowest well, if thou knowest nought besides.
Stick to thy pipe, I say! Smoke, puff, blow thy cloud; and tell the
people, if any question be made, that it is for thy health, and that so
the physician orders thee to do. And, sweet one, when thou shalt find
thy pipe getting low, go apart into some corner, and (first filling
thyself with smoke) cry sharply, ‘Dickon, a fresh pipe of tobacco!’
and, ‘Dickon, another coal for my pipe!’ and have it into thy pretty
mouth as speedily as may be. Else, instead of a gallant gentleman in a
gold-laced coat, thou wilt be but a jumble of sticks and tattered
clothes, and a bag of straw, and a withered pumpkin! Now depart, my
treasure, and good luck go with thee!”
“Never fear, mother!” said the figure, in a stout voice, and sending
forth a courageous whiff of smoke, “I will thrive, if an honest man and
a gentleman may!”
“Oh, thou wilt be the death of me!” cried the old witch, convulsed with
laughter. “That was well said. If an honest man and a gentleman may!
Thou playest thy part to perfection. Get along with thee for a smart
fellow; and I will wager on thy head, as a man of pith and substance,
with a brain and what they call a heart, and all else that a man should
have, against any other thing on two legs. I hold myself a better witch
than yesterday, for thy sake. Did not I make thee? And I defy any witch
in New England to make such another! Here; take my staff along with
thee!”
The staff, though it was but a plain oaken stick, immediately took the
aspect of a gold-headed cane.
“That gold head has as much sense in it as thine own,” said Mother
Rigby, “and it will guide thee straight to worshipful Master Gookin’s
door. Get thee gone, my pretty pet, my darling, my precious one, my
treasure; and if any ask thy name, it is Feathertop. For thou hast a
feather in thy hat, and I have thrust a handful of feathers into the
hollow of thy head, and thy wig, too, is of the fashion they call
Feathertop,—so be Feathertop thy name!”
And, issuing from the cottage, Feathertop strode manfully towards town.
Mother Rigby stood at the threshold, well pleased to see how the
sunbeams glistened on him, as if all his magnificence were real, and
how diligently and lovingly he smoked his pipe, and how handsomely he
walked, in spite of a little stiffness of his legs. She watched him
until out of sight, and threw a witch benediction after her darling,
when a turn of the road snatched him from her view.
Betimes in the forenoon, when the principal street of the neighboring
town was just at its acme of life and bustle, a stranger of very
distinguished figure was seen on the sidewalk. His port as well as his
garments betokened nothing short of nobility. He wore a
richly-embroidered plum-colored coat, a waistcoat of costly velvet,
magnificently adorned with golden foliage, a pair of splendid scarlet
breeches, and the finest and glossiest of white silk stockings. His
head was covered with a peruke, so daintily powdered and adjusted that
it would have been sacrilege to disorder it with a hat; which,
therefore (and it was a gold-laced hat, set off with a snowy feather),
he carried beneath his arm. On the breast of his coat glistened a star.
He managed his gold-headed cane with an airy grace, peculiar to the
fine gentlemen of the period; and, to give the highest possible finish
to his equipment, he had lace ruffles at his wrist, of a most ethereal
delicacy, sufficiently avouching how idle and aristocratic must be the
hands which they half concealed.
It was a remarkable point in the accoutrement of this brilliant
personage that he held in his left hand a fantastic kind of a pipe,
with an exquisitely painted bowl and an amber mouthpiece. This he
applied to his lips as often as every five or six paces, and inhaled a
deep whiff of smoke, which, after being retained a moment in his lungs,
might be seen to eddy gracefully from his mouth and nostrils.
As may well be supposed, the street was all astir to find out the
stranger’s name.
“It is some great nobleman, beyond question,” said one of the
townspeople. “Do you see the star at his breast?”
“Nay; it is too bright to be seen,” said another. “Yes; he must needs
be a nobleman, as you say. But by what conveyance, think you, can his
lordship have voyaged or travelled hither? There has been no vessel
from the old country for a month past; and if he have arrived overland
from the southward, pray where are his attendants and equipage?”
“He needs no equipage to set off his rank,” remarked a third. “If he
came among us in rags, nobility would shine through a hole in his
elbow. I never saw such dignity of aspect. He has the old Norman blood
in his veins, I warrant him.”
“I rather take him to be a Dutchman, or one of your high Germans,” said
another citizen. “The men of those countries have always the pipe at
their mouths.”
“And so has a Turk,” answered his companion. “But, in my judgment, this
stranger hath been bred at the French court, and hath there learned
politeness and grace of manner, which none understand so well as the
nobility of France. That gait, now! A vulgar spectator might deem it
stiff—he might call it a hitch and jerk—but, to my eye, it hath an
unspeakable majesty, and must have been acquired by constant
observation of the deportment of the Grand Monarque. The stranger’s
character and office are evident enough. He is a French ambassador,
come to treat with our rulers about the cession of Canada.”
“More probably a Spaniard,” said another, “and hence his yellow
complexion; or, most likely, he is from the Havana, or from some port
on the Spanish main, and comes to make investigation about the piracies
which our government is thought to connive at. Those settlers in Peru
and Mexico have skins as yellow as the gold which they dig out of their
mines.”
“Yellow or not,” cried a lady, “he is a beautiful man!—so tall, so
slender! such a fine, noble face, with so well-shaped a nose, and all
that delicacy of expression about the mouth! And, bless me, how bright
his star is! It positively shoots out flames!”
“So do your eyes, fair lady,” said the stranger, with a bow and a
flourish of his pipe; for he was just passing at the instant. “Upon my
honor, they have quite dazzled me.”
“Was ever so original and exquisite a compliment?” murmured the lady,
in an ecstasy of delight.
Amid the general admiration excited by the stranger’s appearance, there
were only two dissenting voices. One was that of an impertinent cur,
which, after snuffing at the heels of the glistening figure, put its
tail between its legs and skulked into its master’s back yard,
vociferating an execrable howl. The other dissentient was a young
child, who squalled at the fullest stretch of his lungs, and babbled
some unintelligible nonsense about a pumpkin.
Feathertop meanwhile pursued his way along the street. Except for the
few complimentary words to the lady, and now and then a slight
inclination of the head in requital of the profound reverences of the
bystanders, he seemed wholly absorbed in his pipe. There needed no
other proof of his rank and consequence than the perfect equanimity
with which he comported himself, while the curiosity and admiration of
the town swelled almost into clamor around him. With a crowd gathering
behind his footsteps, he finally reached the mansion-house of the
worshipful Justice Gookin, entered the gate, ascended the steps of the
front door, and knocked. In the interim, before his summons was
answered, the stranger was observed to shake the ashes out of his pipe.
“What did he say in that sharp voice?” inquired one of the spectators.
“Nay, I know not,” answered his friend. “But the sun dazzles my eyes
strangely. How dim and faded his lordship looks all of a sudden! Bless
my wits, what is the matter with me?”
“The wonder is,” said the other, “that his pipe, which was out only an
instant ago, should be all alight again, and with the reddest coal I
ever saw. There is something mysterious about this stranger. What a
whiff of smoke was that! Dim and faded did you call him? Why, as he
turns about the star on his breast is all ablaze.”
“It is, indeed,” said his companion; “and it will go near to dazzle
pretty Polly Gookin, whom I see peeping at it out of the chamber
window.”
The door being now opened, Feathertop turned to the crowd, made a
stately bend of his body like a great man acknowledging the reverence
of the meaner sort, and vanished into the house. There was a mysterious
kind of a smile, if it might not better be called a grin or grimace,
upon his visage; but, of all the throng that beheld him, not an
individual appears to have possessed insight enough to detect the
illusive character of the stranger except a little child and a cur dog.
Our legend here loses somewhat of its continuity, and, passing over the
preliminary explanation between Feathertop and the merchant, goes in
quest of the pretty Polly Gookin. She was a damsel of a soft, round
figure, with light hair and blue eyes, and a fair, rosy face, which
seemed neither very shrewd nor very simple. This young lady had caught
a glimpse of the glistening stranger while standing on the threshold,
and had forthwith put on a laced cap, a string of beads, her finest
kerchief, and her stiffest damask petticoat in preparation for the
interview. Hurrying from her chamber to the parlor, she had ever since
been viewing herself in the large looking-glass and practising pretty
airs-now a smile, now a ceremonious dignity of aspect, and now a softer
smile than the former, kissing her hand likewise, tossing her head, and
managing her fan; while within the mirror an unsubstantial little maid
repeated every gesture and did all the foolish things that Polly did,
but without making her ashamed of them. In short, it was the fault of
pretty Polly’s ability rather than her will if she failed to be as
complete an artifice as the illustrious Feathertop himself; and, when
she thus tampered with her own simplicity, the witch’s phantom might
well hope to win her.
No sooner did Polly hear her father’s gouty footsteps approaching the
parlor door, accompanied with the stiff clatter of Feathertop’s
high-heeled shoes, than she seated herself bolt upright and innocently
began warbling a song.
“Polly! daughter Polly!” cried the old merchant. “Come hither, child.”
Master Gookin’s aspect, as he opened the door, was doubtful and
troubled.
“This gentleman,” continued he, presenting the stranger, “is the
Chevalier Feathertop,—nay, I beg his pardon, my Lord Feathertop,—who
hath brought me a token of remembrance from an ancient friend of mine.
Pay your duty to his lordship, child, and honor him as his quality
deserves.”
After these few words of introduction, the worshipful magistrate
immediately quitted the room. But, even in that brief moment, had the
fair Polly glanced aside at her father instead of devoting herself
wholly to the brilliant guest, she might have taken warning of some
mischief nigh at hand. The old man was nervous, fidgety, and very pale.
Purposing a smile of courtesy, he had deformed his face with a sort of
galvanic grin, which, when Feathertop’s back was turned, he exchanged
for a scowl, at the same time shaking his fist and stamping his gouty
foot—an incivility which brought its retribution along with it. The
truth appears to have been that Mother Rigby’s word of introduction,
whatever it might be, had operated far more on the rich merchant’s
fears than on his good will. Moreover, being a man of wonderfully acute
observation, he had noticed that these painted figures on the bowl of
Feathertop’s pipe were in motion. Looking more closely he became
convinced that these figures were a party of little demons, each duly
provided with horns and a tail, and dancing hand in hand, with gestures
of diabolical merriment, round the circumference of the pipe bowl. As
if to confirm his suspicions, while Master Gookin ushered his guest
along a dusky passage from his private room to the parlor, the star on
Feathertop’s breast had scintillated actual flames, and threw a
flickering gleam upon the wall, the ceiling, and the floor.
With such sinister prognostics manifesting themselves on all hands, it
is not to be marvelled at that the merchant should have felt that he
was committing his daughter to a very questionable acquaintance. He
cursed, in his secret soul, the insinuating elegance of Feathertop’s
manners, as this brilliant personage bowed, smiled, put his hand on his
heart, inhaled a long whiff from his pipe, and enriched the atmosphere
with the smoky vapor of a fragrant and visible sigh. Gladly would poor
Master Gookin have thrust his dangerous guest into the street; but
there was a constraint and terror within him. This respectable old
gentleman, we fear, at an earlier period of life, had given some pledge
or other to the evil principle, and perhaps was now to redeem it by the
sacrifice of his daughter.
It so happened that the parlor door was partly of glass, shaded by a
silken curtain, the folds of which hung a little awry. So strong was
the merchant’s interest in witnessing what was to ensue between the
fair Polly and the gallant Feathertop that, after quitting the room, he
could by no means refrain from peeping through the crevice of the
curtain.
But there was nothing very miraculous to be seen; nothing—except the
trifles previously noticed—to confirm the idea of a supernatural peril
environing the pretty Polly. The stranger it is true was evidently a
thorough and practised man of the world, systematic and self-possessed,
and therefore the sort of a person to whom a parent ought not to
confide a simple, young girl without due watchfulness for the result.
The worthy magistrate who had been conversant with all degrees and
qualities of mankind, could not but perceive every motion and gesture
of the distinguished Feathertop came in its proper place; nothing had
been left rude or native in him; a well-digested conventionalism had
incorporated itself thoroughly with his substance and transformed him
into a work of art. Perhaps it was this peculiarity that invested him
with a species of ghastliness and awe. It is the effect of anything
completely and consummately artificial, in human shape, that the person
impresses us as an unreality and as having hardly pith enough to cast a
shadow upon the floor. As regarded Feathertop, all this resulted in a
wild, extravagant, and fantastical impression, as if his life and being
were akin to the smoke that curled upward from his pipe.
But pretty Polly Gookin felt not thus. The pair were now promenading
the room: Feathertop with his dainty stride and no less dainty grimace,
the girl with a native maidenly grace, just touched, not spoiled, by a
slightly affected manner, which seemed caught from the perfect artifice
of her companion. The longer the interview continued, the more charmed
was pretty Polly, until, within the first quarter of an hour (as the
old magistrate noted by his watch), she was evidently beginning to be
in love. Nor need it have been witchcraft that subdued her in such a
hurry; the poor child’s heart, it may be, was so very fervent that it
melted her with its own warmth as reflected from the hollow semblance
of a lover. No matter what Feathertop said, his words found depth and
reverberation in her ear; no matter what he did, his action was heroic
to her eye. And by this time it is to be supposed there was a blush on
Polly’s cheek, a tender smile about her mouth and a liquid softness in
her glance; while the star kept coruscating on Feathertop’s breast, and
the little demons careered with more frantic merriment than ever about
the circumference of his pipe bowl. O pretty Polly Gookin, why should
these imps rejoice so madly that a silly maiden’s heart was about to be
given to a shadow! Is it so unusual a misfortune, so rare a triumph?
By and by Feathertop paused, and throwing himself into an imposing
attitude, seemed to summon the fair girl to survey his figure and
resist him longer if she could. His star, his embroidery, his buckles
glowed at that instant with unutterable splendor; the picturesque hues
of his attire took a richer depth of coloring; there was a gleam and
polish over his whole presence betokening the perfect witchery of
well-ordered manners. The maiden raised her eyes and suffered them to
linger upon her companion with a bashful and admiring gaze. Then, as if
desirous of judging what value her own simple comeliness might have
side by side with so much brilliancy, she cast a glance towards the
full-length looking-glass in front of which they happened to be
standing. It was one of the truest plates in the world and incapable of
flattery. No sooner did the images therein reflected meet Polly’s eye
than she shrieked, shrank from the stranger’s side, gazed at him for a
moment in the wildest dismay, and sank insensible upon the floor.
Feathertop likewise had looked towards the mirror, and there beheld,
not the glittering mockery of his outside show, but a picture of the
sordid patchwork of his real composition stripped of all witchcraft.
The wretched simulacrum! We almost pity him. He threw up his arms with
an expression of despair that went further than any of his previous
manifestations towards vindicating his claims to be reckoned human, for
perchance the only time since this so often empty and deceptive life of
mortals began its course, an illusion had seen and fully recognized
itself.
Mother Rigby was seated by her kitchen hearth in the twilight of this
eventful day, and had just shaken the ashes out of a new pipe, when she
heard a hurried tramp along the road. Yet it did not seem so much the
tramp of human footsteps as the clatter of sticks or the rattling of
dry bones.
“Ha!” thought the old witch, “what step is that? Whose skeleton is out
of its grave now, I wonder?”
A figure burst headlong into the cottage door. It was Feathertop! His
pipe was still alight; the star still flamed upon his breast; the
embroidery still glowed upon his garments; nor had he lost, in any
degree or manner that could be estimated, the aspect that assimilated
him with our mortal brotherhood. But yet, in some indescribable way (as
is the case with all that has deluded us when once found out), the poor
reality was felt beneath the cunning artifice.
“What has gone wrong?” demanded the witch. “Did yonder sniffling
hypocrite thrust my darling from his door? The villain! I’ll set twenty
fiends to torment him till he offer thee his daughter on his bended
knees!”
“No, mother,” said Feathertop despondingly; “it was not that.”
“Did the girl scorn my precious one?” asked Mother Rigby, her fierce
eyes glowing like two coals of Tophet. “I’ll cover her face with
pimples! Her nose shall be as red as the coal in thy pipe! Her front
teeth shall drop out! In a week hence she shall not be worth thy
having!”
“Let her alone, mother,” answered poor Feathertop; “the girl was half
won; and methinks a kiss from her sweet lips might have made me
altogether human. But,” he added, after a brief pause and then a howl
of self-contempt, “I’ve seen myself, mother! I’ve seen myself for the
wretched, ragged, empty thing I am! I’ll exist no longer!”
Snatching the pipe from his mouth, he flung it with all his might
against the chimney, and at the same instant sank upon the floor, a
medley of straw and tattered garments, with some sticks protruding from
the heap, and a shrivelled pumpkin in the midst. The eyeholes were now
lustreless; but the rudely-carved gap, that just before had been a
mouth still seemed to twist itself into a despairing grin, and was so
far human.
“Poor fellow!” quoth Mother Rigby, with a rueful glance at the relics
of her ill-fated contrivance. “My poor, dear, pretty Feathertop! There
are thousands upon thousands of coxcombs and charlatans in the world,
made up of just such a jumble of wornout, forgotten, and
good-for-nothing trash as he was! Yet they live in fair repute, and
never see themselves for what they are. And why should my poor puppet
be the only one to know himself and perish for it?”
While thus muttering, the witch had filled a fresh pipe of tobacco, and
held the stem between her fingers, as doubtful whether to thrust it
into her own mouth or Feathertop’s.
“Poor Feathertop!” she continued. “I could easily give him another
chance and send him forth again tomorrow. But no; his feelings are too
tender, his sensibilities too deep. He seems to have too much heart to
bustle for his own advantage in such an empty and heartless world.
Well! well! I’ll make a scarecrow of him after all. ’Tis an innocent
and useful vocation, and will suit my darling well; and, if each of his
human brethren had as fit a one, ’twould be the better for mankind; and
as for this pipe of tobacco, I need it more than he.”
So saying Mother Rigby put the stem between her lips. “Dickon!” cried
she, in her high, sharp tone, “another coal for my pipe!”