Micro R&D 1/MicroRD-CD-ROM-Vol1-1994.iso/books/hawthorn/molineux

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                                      1832
                                TWICE-TOLD TALES
                           MY KINSMAN, MAJOR MOLINEUX
                             by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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

                        THE END