Twice Told Tales

  THE AMBITIOUS GUEST.

  One September night a family had gathered round their hearth and piledit high with the driftwood of mountain-streams, the dry cones of thepine, and the splintered ruins of great trees that had come crashingdown the precipice. Up the chimney roared the fire, and brightened theroom with its broad blaze. The faces of the father and mother had asober gladness; the children laughed. The eldest daughter was theimage of Happiness at seventeen, and the aged grandmother, who satknitting in the warmest place, was the image of Happiness grown old.They had found the "herb heart's-ease" in the bleakest spot of all NewEngland. This family were situated in the Notch of the White Hills,where the wind was sharp throughout the year and pitilessly cold inthe winter, giving their cottage all its fresh inclemency before itdescended on the valley of the Saco. They dwelt in a cold spot and adangerous one, for a mountain towered above their heads so steep thatthe stones would often rumble down its sides and startle them atmidnight.

  The daughter had just uttered some simple jest that filled them allwith mirth, when the wind came through the Notch and seemed to pausebefore their cottage, rattling the door with a sound of wailing andlamentation before it passed into the valley. For a moment it saddenedthem, though there was nothing unusual in the tones. But the familywere glad again when they perceived that the latch was lifted by sometraveller whose footsteps had been unheard amid the dreary blast whichheralded his approach and wailed as he was entering and went moaningaway from the door.

  Though they dwelt in such a solitude, these people held daily conversewith the world. The romantic pass of the Notch is a great arterythrough which the life-blood of internal commerce is continuallythrobbing between Maine on one side and the Green Mountains and theshores of the St. Lawrence on the other. The stage-coach always drewup before the door of the cottage. The wayfarer with no companion buthis staff paused here to exchange a word, that the sense of lonelinessmight not utterly overcome him ere he could pass through the cleft ofthe mountain or reach the first house in the valley. And here theteamster on his way to Portland market would put up for the night,and, if a bachelor, might sit an hour beyond the usual bedtime andsteal a kiss from the mountain-maid at parting. It was one of thoseprimitive taverns where the traveller pays only for food and lodging,but meets with a homely kindness beyond all price. When the footstepswere heard, therefore, between the outer door and the inner one, thewhole family rose up, grandmother, children and all, as if about towelcome some one who belonged to them, and whose fate was linked withtheirs.

  The door was opened by a young man. His face at first wore themelancholy expression, almost despondency, of one who travels a wildand bleak road at nightfall and alone, but soon brightened up when hesaw the kindly warmth of his reception. He felt his heart springforward to meet them all, from the old woman who wiped a chair withher apron to the little child that held out its arms to him. Oneglance and smile placed the stranger on a footing of innocentfamiliarity with the eldest daughter.

  "Ah! this fire is the right thing," cried he, "especially when thereis such a pleasant circle round it. I am quite benumbed, for the Notchis just like the pipe of a great pair of bellows; it has blown aterrible blast in my face all the way from Bartlett."

  "Then you are going toward Vermont?" said the master of the house ashe helped to take a light knapsack off the young man's shoulders.

  "Yes, to Burlington, and far enough beyond," replied he. "I meant tohave been at Ethan Crawford's to-night, but a pedestrian lingers alongsuch a road as this. It is no matter; for when I saw this good fireand all your cheerful faces, I felt as if you had kindled it onpurpose for me and were waiting my arrival. So I shall sit down amongyou and make myself at home."

  The frank-hearted stranger had just drawn his chair to the fire whensomething like a heavy footstep was heard without, rushing down thesteep side of the mountain as with long and rapid strides, and takingsuch a leap in passing the cottage as to strike the oppositeprecipice. The family held their breath, because they knew the sound,and their guest held his by instinct.

  "The old mountain has thrown a stone at us for fear we should forgethim," said the landlord, recovering himself. "He sometimes nods hishead and threatens to come down, but we are old neighbors, and agreetogether pretty well, upon the whole. Besides, we have a sure place ofrefuge hard by if he should be coming in good earnest."

  Let us now suppose the stranger to have finished his supper of bear'smeat, and by his natural felicity of manner to have placed himself ona footing of kindness with the whole family; so that they talked asfreely together as if he belonged to their mountain-brood. He was of aproud yet gentle spirit, haughty and reserved among the rich andgreat, but ever ready to stoop his head to the lowly cottage door andbe like a brother or a son at the poor man's fireside. In thehousehold of the Notch he found warmth and simplicity of feeling, thepervading intelligence of New England, and a poetry of native growthwhich they had gathered when they little thought of it from themountain-peaks and chasms, and at the very threshold of their romanticand dangerous abode. He had travelled far and alone; his whole life,indeed, had been a solitary path, for, with the lofty caution of hisnature, he had kept himself apart from those who might otherwise havebeen his companions. The family, too, though so kind and hospitable,had that consciousness of unity among themselves and separation fromthe world at large which in every domestic circle should still keep aholy place where no stranger may intrude. But this evening a propheticsympathy impelled the refined and educated youth to pour out his heartbefore the simple mountaineers, and constrained them to answer himwith the same free confidence. And thus it should have been. Is notthe kindred of a common fate a closer tie than that of birth?

  The secret of the young man's character was a high and abstractedambition. He could have borne to live an undistinguished life, but notto be forgotten in the grave. Yearning desire had been transformed tohope, and hope, long cherished, had become like certainty that,obscurely as he journeyed now, a glory was to beam on all his pathway,though not, perhaps, while he was treading it. But when posterityshould gaze back into the gloom of what was now the present, theywould trace the brightness of his footsteps, brightening as meanerglories faded, and confess that a gifted one had passed from hiscradle to his tomb with none to recognize him.

  "As yet," cried the stranger, his cheek glowing and his eye flashingwith enthusiasm--"as yet I have done nothing. Were I to vanish fromthe earth to-morrow, none would know so much of me as you--that anameless youth came up at nightfall from the valley of the Saco, andopened his heart to you in the evening, and passed through the Notchby sunrise, and was seen no more. Not a soul would ask, 'Who was he?Whither did the wanderer go?' But I cannot die till I have achieved mydestiny. Then let Death come: I shall have built my monument."

  There was a continual flow of natural emotion gushing forth amidabstracted reverie which enabled the family to understand this youngman's sentiments, though so foreign from their own. With quicksensibility of the ludicrous, he blushed at the ardor into which hehad been betrayed.

  "You laugh at me," said he, taking the eldest daughter's hand andlaughing himself. "You think my ambition as nonsensical as if I wereto freeze myself to death on the top of Mount Washington only thatpeople might spy at me from the country roundabout. And truly thatwould be a noble pedestal for a man's statue."

  "It is better to sit here by this fire," answered the girl, blushing,"and be comfortable and contented, though nobody thinks about us."

  "I suppose," said her father, after a fit of musing, "there issomething natural in what the young man says; and if my mind had beenturned that way, I might have felt just the same.--It is strange,wife, how his talk has set my head running on things that are prettycertain never to come to pass."

  "Perhaps they may," observed the wife. "Is the man thinking what hewill do when he is a widower?"

  "No, no!" cried he, repelling the idea with reproachful kindness."When I think of your death, Esther, I think of mine too. But I waswis
hing we had a good farm in Bartlett or Bethlehem or Littleton, orsome other township round the White Mountains, but not where theycould tumble on our heads. I should want to stand well with myneighbors and be called squire and sent to General Court for a term ortwo; for a plain, honest man may do as much good there as a lawyer.And when I should be grown quite an old man, and you an old woman, soas not to be long apart, I might die happy enough in my bed, and leaveyou all crying around me. A slate gravestone would suit me as well asa marble one, with just my name and age, and a verse of a hymn, andsomething to let people know that I lived an honest man and died aChristian."

  "There, now!" exclaimed the stranger; "it is our nature to desire amonument, be it slate or marble, or a pillar of granite, or a gloriousmemory in the universal heart of man."

  "We're in a strange way to-night," said the wife, with tears in hereyes. "They say it's a sign of something when folks' minds goa-wandering so. Hark to the children!"

  They listened accordingly. The younger children had been put to bed inanother room, but with an open door between; so that they could beheard talking busily among themselves. One and all seemed to havecaught the infection from the fireside circle, and were outvying eachother in wild wishes and childish projects of what they would do whenthey came to be men and women. At length a little boy, instead ofaddressing his brothers and sisters, called out to his mother.

  "I'll tell you what I wish, mother," cried he: "I want you and fatherand grandma'm, and all of us, and the stranger too, to start rightaway and go and take a drink out of the basin of the Flume."

  Nobody could help laughing at the child's notion of leaving a warm bedand dragging them from a cheerful fire to visit the basin of theFlume--a brook which tumbles over the precipice deep within the Notch.

  The boy had hardly spoken, when a wagon rattled along the road andstopped a moment before the door. It appeared to contain two or threemen who were cheering their hearts with the rough chorus of a songwhich resounded in broken notes between the cliffs, while the singershesitated whether to continue their journey or put up here for thenight.

  "Father," said the girl, "they are calling you by name."

  But the good man doubted whether they had really called him, and wasunwilling to show himself too solicitous of gain by inviting people topatronize his house. He therefore did not hurry to the door, and, thelash being soon applied, the travellers plunged into the Notch, stillsinging and laughing, though their music and mirth came back drearilyfrom the heart of the mountain.

  "There, mother!" cried the boy, again; "they'd have given us a ride tothe Flume."

  Again they laughed at the child's pertinacious fancy for anight-ramble. But it happened that a light cloud passed over thedaughter's spirit; she looked gravely into the fire and drew a breaththat was almost a sigh. It forced its way, in spite of a littlestruggle to repress it. Then, starting and blushing, she lookedquickly around the circle, as if they had caught a glimpse into herbosom. The stranger asked what she had been thinking of.

  "Nothing," answered she, with a downcast smile; "only I felt lonesomejust then."

  "Oh, I have always had a gift of feeling what is in other people'shearts," said he, half seriously. "Shall I tell the secrets of yours?For I know what to think when a young girl shivers by a warm hearthand complains of lonesomeness at her mother's side. Shall I put thesefeelings into words?"

  "They would not be a girl's feelings any longer if they could be putinto words," replied the mountain-nymph, laughing, but avoiding hiseye.

  All this was said apart. Perhaps a germ of love was springing in theirhearts so pure that it might blossom in Paradise, since it could notbe matured on earth; for women worship such gentle dignity as his, andthe proud, contemplative, yet kindly, soul is oftenest captivated bysimplicity like hers. But while they spoke softly, and he was watchingthe happy sadness, the lightsome shadows, the shy yearnings, of amaiden's nature, the wind through the Notch took a deeper and dreariersound. It seemed, as the fanciful stranger said, like the choralstrain of the spirits of the blast who in old Indian times had theirdwelling among these mountains and made their heights and recesses asacred region. There was a wail along the road as if a funeral werepassing. To chase away the gloom, the family threw pine-branches ontheir fire till the dry leaves crackled and the flame arose,discovering once again a scene of peace and humble happiness. Thelight hovered about them fondly and caressed them all. There were thelittle faces of the children peeping from their bed apart, and herethe father's frame of strength, the mother's subdued and careful mien,the high-browed youth, the budding girl and the good old grandam,still knitting in the warmest place.

  The aged woman looked up from her task, and with fingers ever busy wasthe next to speak.

  "Old folks have their notions," said she, "as well as young ones.You've been wishing and planning and letting your heads run on onething and another till you've set my mind a-wandering too. Now, whatshould an old woman wish for, when she can go but a step or two beforeshe comes to her grave? Children, it will haunt me night and day tillI tell you."

  "What is it, mother?" cried the husband and wife at once.

  Then the old woman, with an air of mystery which drew the circlecloser round the fire, informed them that she had provided hergrave-clothes some years before--a nice linen shroud, a cap with amuslin ruff, and everything of a finer sort than she had worn sinceher wedding-day. But this evening an old superstition had strangelyrecurred to her. It used to be said in her younger days that ifanything were amiss with a corpse--if only the ruff were not smooth orthe cap did not set right--the corpse, in the coffin and beneath theclods, would strive to put up its cold hands and arrange it. The barethought made her nervous.

  "Don't talk so, grandmother," said the girl, shuddering.

  "Now," continued the old woman, with singular earnestness, yet smilingstrangely at her own folly, "I want one of you, my children, when yourmother is dressed and in the coffin,--I want one of you to hold alooking-glass over my face. Who knows but I may take a glimpse atmyself and see whether all's right?"

  "Old and young, we dream of graves and monuments," murmured thestranger-youth. "I wonder how mariners feel when the ship is sinkingand they, unknown and undistinguished, are to be buried together inthe ocean, that wide and nameless sepulchre?"

  For a moment the old woman's ghastly conception so engrossed the mindsof her hearers that a sound abroad in the night, rising like the roarof a blast, had grown broad, deep and terrible before the fated groupwere conscious of it. The house and all within it trembled; thefoundations of the earth seemed to be shaken, as if this awful soundwere the peal of the last trump. Young and old exchanged one wildglance and remained an instant pale, affrighted, without utterance orpower to move. Then the same shriek burst simultaneously from alltheir lips:

  "The slide! The slide!"

  The simplest words must intimate, but not portray, the unutterablehorror of the catastrophe. The victims rushed from their cottage andsought refuge in what they deemed a safer spot, where, incontemplation of such an emergency, a sort of barrier had been reared.Alas! they had quitted their security and fled right into the pathwayof destruction. Down came the whole side of the mountain in a cataractof ruin. Just before it reached the house the stream broke into twobranches, shivered not a window there, but overwhelmed the wholevicinity, blocked up the road and annihilated everything in itsdreadful course. Long ere the thunder of that great slide had ceasedto roar among the mountains the mortal agony had been endured and thevictims were at peace. Their bodies were never found.

  The next morning the light smoke was seen stealing from the cottagechimney up the mountain-side. Within, the fire was yet smouldering onthe hearth, and the chairs in a circle round it, as if the inhabitantshad but gone forth to view the devastation of the slide and wouldshortly return to thank Heaven for their miraculous escape. All hadleft separate tokens by which those who had known the family were madeto shed a tear for each. Who has not heard their name? The story hasbeen to
ld far and wide, and will for ever be a legend of thesemountains. Poets have sung their fate.

  There were circumstances which led some to suppose that a stranger hadbeen received into the cottage on this awful night, and had shared thecatastrophe of all its inmates; others denied that there weresufficient grounds for such a conjecture. Woe for the high-souledyouth with his dream of earthly immortality! His name and personutterly unknown, his history, his way of life, his plans, a mysterynever to be solved, his death and his existence equally adoubt,--whose was the agony of that death-moment?